The doorbell rang. Sammie yelled from the landing below, ‘Hey, Mum, it’s us. I need my wellies!’
Clever child to alert her. Sure enough, Joe waited below, a careful distance from Jane’s front door—waiting to be invited in.
‘I thought I’d bring her back myself, instead of a taxi. We talked a little. It wasn’t the best weekend in the world.’
‘Well, it was an exception because I had a date.’ Jane didn’t ask him in.
‘Um, would it be totally lame for me to apologize?’
‘For ruining our lives? No problem,’ she tossed off with surprising élan.
‘I mean for making a fool of myself Friday night.’
‘You’re making fools of us both all the time.’ She made to close the door. He reached out to stop her.
‘Not of you Jane. Nobody ever took you for a fool. Except maybe once.’
Jane couldn’t help, ‘When was that?’
‘The night Sammie was born and I proposed. And Lorraine pranced in on us with a couple of her cronies. I think you wanted to say yes, but then you saw Lorraine, and all you could think was her string of divorces.’
‘I ignored your proposal for fear of becoming Lorraine?’
‘Half of everything you do is a reaction to Lorraine—not that I’m not fond of the old bird.’
Jane resented Joe’s doorstep psychotherapy. ‘Good-bye, Joe. I’m going back upstairs to give Lorraine her medicine.’
‘How is she?’
‘In fine fettle, thanks to an engagement as a royal ribbon-cutter at some factory for the blind. The only critics to worry about will be Seeing Eye dogs.’
She sounded better than she felt.
***
Monday Sammie reported to Dr Landis in the late afternoon—she hadn’t gained any weight, but at least there weren’t any more slashes on her arms—and after a late tea, she headed back to Bella’s flat with a determined tread.
Jane met Dan for an after-dinner drink that night in the Sir Richard Steele. It was so relaxing to chat idly about unimportant things after Joe’s jealous crisis and Bella’s even deadlier, if stealthy aggression.
They were leaving the pub when she asked Dan how the bookstore stakeout was going.
‘Oddly enough, it’s like Stratagem Twenty-one,’ he shrugged. ‘Gilbert’s afraid he’s been tagged as a ringer. For his sake, we can’t risk any more contact. For all intents and purposes he’s dead to us. He does nothing, sees nobody and doesn’t make a move. The cicada skin, just lying there. There’s no way we can find out what’s going on in there.’
‘But Twenty-one says that while you’re leaving your shell untouched, you’re actually regrouping your forces.’
‘Yes, but against what? Against what?’
They walked back as far as the centre of the square where the two red benches stood empty. The warmth of the coffee and Grand Marnier weren’t quite enough to offset the frigid air brushing the plane trees. She rubbed her hands together in the chilly evening and Dan put his arm around her shoulders. It was cold enough for her to accept his warmth without protest, but the square was centre stage of a public space that had entertained the neighbours’ curiosity for all the decades she’d lived there. To Dan it was just a small park in a foreign city. The English half of her hoped he wasn’t going to make an exhibition and the American Jane longed for a passionate kiss.
‘Just remember when you’re on surveillance, you’re under surveillance,’ he teased. Together they sat in silence. Jane realized that Dan’s sights were just as much focussed on the darkened storefront as on her features polished by moonlight.
‘As you said, regrouping, but for what, Dan?’
‘There are no explosives, no contact with our neighbourhood bomb maker, no incendiary cells meeting to get their blood up with horror tapes. I have a feeling that some plan is brewing, but not what we expect. Maybe, while our Gilbert is lying low, leaving his cicada shell unmoved, so are they. We’re watching them. They’re watching us.’
‘It’s pretty cold, Dan,’ she shrugged a little to loosen his embrace, ‘And I still have to finish a book for tomorrow night’s Bookworm meeting. Another 9/11 masterpiece.’
‘Not before you help me out a little more with this stakeout.’
‘Meaning?’ By the lamplight she caught a spark of mischief in his dark eyes.
‘Make it look like we’re doing nothing more than a little romance out here. We could make it a lot more convincing.’ Dan enclosed her in the thick folds of his coat and started kissing her goodnight with a lot more skill than that first kiss She felt her body leaping up right out of its weathered old cicada shell—but whether it was with unfamiliar lust or merely girlish alarm that Sir Bernard’s wife might be amused by this unusual view of ‘ol Jane from her bedroom window overlooking the square—that was hard to say.
Chapter Twenty-two, Guan Men Zhuo Zei
(Shut the Door to Catch the Thief)
While Jane waited for the Bookworms to arrive, she worried about paying bills, sorting out Christmas only two weeks away, and scheduling urology tests for Lorraine. Rupert arrived first. Jane watched him extract silverware from his old Fortnum’s hamper. His mottled hands worked quickly and he transformed the same table destined for the rougher treatment of Mr Gumble’s moving men.
The aroma of lemon cake wafted across the pages of Khaled Hosseini’s latest novel up for the evening’s discussion.
Jane hadn’t finished Hosseini, but no matter, Carla would hold forth all evening, quoting from The Times Literary Review and The Telegraph. Any Bookworm who ventured an opinion still risked Carla’s wrecking ball: Ruth had been steamrolled, Alma blitzed, and Catherine pulverized. Thanks to his secret preparations, Rupert was still standing, just.
‘You know,’ Rupert said, ‘I finally located that website Carla loves, The Dustjacket. It took forever. It looks like nobody connects over to it, or from it, or quotes it, except, of course, dear Carla herself.’ He thumbed through the curling pages of his morocco leather notebook to show Jane the web address. ‘It has long been my impression that The Dustjacket’s bloggist—’
‘Blogger—’
‘Is not just contrarian, but downright dismissive of any views but his own.’
‘Some book blogs are pretty widely read, The Shelf Life or Reading Matters—’
Rupert’s eyes twinkled. ‘There’s a tally box on The Dustjacket’s front page—’
‘Home page—’
‘Yes. Now, I wouldn’t want to dent Carla’s enthusiasm in front of the others, but The Dustjacket hasn’t attracted many strikers.’
‘Hits, Rupert, not strikers—’
‘Only twenty-seven.’ Rupert glanced over his wireless rims. ‘That’s not very many, is it?’
‘Lonelier than a sundeck on Pluto.’
‘Still, I can see why Carla puts great faith in him. They always agree. Jane, a mean suspicion has snuck up on me. I fought it off, but, here it is; I think Dustjacket is Carla herself. That’s why Dustjacket backs her up on every book. She’s not getting insights from him, she’s claiming her views are more credible because she plants them in this blog!’
‘Posts them. Anyway, that would make her the most insecure person in the group!’
‘So often true of bullies.’ Rupert was five foot, three inches in his Lobb handmade shoes.
He finished excavating his hamper, while Jane studied the second of her two stratagems for this week: Shut the Door to Catch the Thief, and its variation, Shut the Door and Beat the Dog. Force the small enemy into a quagmire if you calculate you can handle him alone. She imagined herself a sturdy Chinese woman tilling her rice, without a worry beyond putting dinner on the table—no book clubs, bulimia, or Bellas to wrinkle her sunburnt brow. Better to swing a handheld scythe through the paddies than to be caged up all day in a prefab pod. On Rupert’s return from the men’s room, the image faded. She was only a student of Chinese wisdom. There was no escape.
‘Still in that Chinese evening
class?’
Jane slid her notes across the table to Rupert.
‘Skilful questions can drive an opponent into a corner,’ he read. ‘In negotiation, nail down your opposite number to a position. Hmmm. That’s how I got my little Matisse sketch. I offered cash on the condition we settle the sale hours before the auction because I had a medical appointment. I refused to deposit a bid and leave it to chance: I gave them my offer, and took out my wallet, and kept fussing with the folds of my umbrella and checking the skies. It threatened to be a stormy day and I asked them how bad weather and the looming transport strike might affect the sale.’
‘You scared them about low attendance.’
‘We shook on the price. By two, the sun was shining, the strike was averted and the gallery was full. But the Matisse was mine.’
‘Yes, Rupert, but every stratagem has a risk. Read on.’
‘The cat forced into a corner may turn into a tiger, or the hunted dog may jump over the wall.’
‘And these days, I am the hunted dog. I’ve got bad news. You remember the big cuts affecting everybody?’
‘I read The British Library is considering charging reading fees! Shocking!’
‘I’ve tried to keep this group together, even if it meant fighting to keep Carla inside the fence but now, my job might go and with it, the Bookworms.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Rupert adjusted his glasses, as if to correct the bad news.
‘The library supervisor warned me that if it comes to more cuts, she’d keep the Rhyme-Timers as they meet during Chris’s hours. That was a boulder-sized hint that my own hours won’t matter much longer.’
‘Well, I’m afraid I must report a distressing development myself.’ He glanced over his shoulder, in case someone lurked between the shadowy book stacks. ‘Carla is trying to organise a new reading group, with a visiting book reviewer each week to guide us—there being in Carla’s universe only informed opinion.’
‘I don’t believe it. Yes, I believe it.’
Rupert whispered, ‘The idea is, we’d put questions to the reviewer—’
‘Questions vetted by Carla for depth and sobriety.’
Rupert nodded. ‘She asked me about renting little chairs and, Jane, imagine,’ his face paled, ‘A lectern.’
‘That’s not a reading group!’
‘So far, she has only suggested defection to me, probably just for my cakes. I refused out of loyalty to the Bookworms, but Jane, she’ll seize any opening. Can’t we ask this supervisor for an extension?’
‘On the basis of what?’
‘You’re right. Better to make a clean cut.’ Rupert slashed into his cake. ‘I’d rather take Ruth Wilting out to tea once a week and hear what she’s enjoying, than attend Carla’s salon, listening to the latest thing her reviewer hated.’ His hands shook. He’d leaked Carla’s plans with good intentions, but it was more in his nature to calm things down than stir them up.
The group tackled Hosseini in predictable fashion. Alma and Catherine enthused about ‘being right there in Kabul, bombs going off,’ while Ruth Wilting analysed the author’s style with erudition, but so little confidence, (waiting to be interrupted by Carla at every breath,) that Catherine turned up her hearing aid up until it whined.
Carla seemed unusually relaxed, ‘being Mother,’ and suspiciously solicitous of Ruth, making sure the elderly lady was first to have napkin, fork, and teacup. She even gave Ruth extra sugar, so there was no need to shout at Catherine to pass the bowl. As the librarian in charge, Jane would step in only when Carla’s bullying charged too far into outright blitzkrieg, but oddly, Carla even let Ruth mispronounce Mr Hosse-eenie’s name.
Catherine tried to parry Carla’s game this week. She’d not only finished Hosseini, she’d also read another of his novels, and imitating Rupert’s example, brought a Times interview.
‘Well, done!’ Rupert shouted into Catherine’s better ear. This put Alma out of sorts until Rupert mentioned he’d spotted his first robin on the heath. He suggested that Alma walk with him over Primrose Hill to see if they could spot more. Alma blushed magenta at the idea of strolling in the open air at Rupert’s stooped but dapper side.
The Bookworms moved through Hosseini’s narrative of two Afghani women to negotiations of the Rawalpindi Agreement in 1919 in which Alma’s great-uncle had played a pivotal role to the weave of Afghani versus Persian rugs—
Still no call-to-order from Carla? No demolition gambits? No thrusting of her capacious bosom towards Alma, just then deploring the unreliability of sell-by dates on shrink-wrapped pork chops?
Carla’s complacent posture alerted Jane there was no time to lose. The others dithered like fat gazelles lapping at a pond while a hyena smirked behind a bush. My God, Carla was regrouping behind a capacious shell just like Baldwin’s proverbial cicada. She would declare herself already gone any day now—with or without Rupert’s cakes. Alma, Catherine and poor Ruth would have no welcoming shelter for their literary pursuits.
Leave the door open to lure the thief . . .
‘It’s getting late,’ Jane yawned. ‘Before we leave, I’d like to ask Carla, who’s done such a marvellous job of vetting that demanding list of books I gave her, whether she’d like to take on another little assignment for me?’
‘No, no, Jane, not another list of tomes like that! It was a labour of love, I can tell you! And I hope you all like the final choices I’ve brought back from that mission!’ Carla chuckled at Alma, still ploughing through Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her?
‘No, actually, I’d like to delegate you, Carla,’ Jane glanced at Rupert before continuing, ‘to . . . reorganize our reading group.’
Rupert’s slender hands covered the ‘O’ of his mouth. Carla shot him the expression Brutus might have worn hearing that Cassius had dropped by Caesar’s on March 14 to say, ‘Keep an eye peeled for sharp objects.’
Jane pressed on, ‘You see, the district has moved again on reducing our branch services. If there are to be further cuts, it’s just as I feared, at the expense of the Bookworms rather than the Rhyme-Timers.’
Foolish deaf Catherine nodded, pretending she’d heard. Even Ruth—who’d heard the bad news perfectly well—capitulated: ‘Well, it’s very important that the next generation learns to love the written word. I know only too well at times of grief or loneliness, how nice it was to have a book.’
Carla blustered, ‘A new group, Jane? Or reforming the Bookworms under some new sponsorship?’
‘At least a bigger group, recruiting new members as quickly as possible, to persuade the district that the demand from senior borrowers is growing, not shrinking. Feel free to use the library’s bulletin board. And knowing they’re likely to say we can’t open the library expressively for evening meetings in future, I also deputize you to find us a new, convenient location. I can think of no one else so energetic and capable as you.’
Carla glared.
‘The new location must be within walking distance, especially for Ruth. What with walking frames and fixed budgets, using hire-cars or taxis every week is out. If they do shut down the Bookworms as an official reading group here at Chalkwood, we’ll meet at my flat, but that’s already four extra blocks for Ruth, and in the really poor weather—’
‘Oh, we can’t disturb your family, Jane! Your mother! Your daughter’s exams!’ Rupert glanced wildly at the gossipy women, but to no avail.
‘And not with all your personal problems!’ Alma jumped in. A pained look shadowed Rupert’s brow. A Bookworm had breached the code of omertà on Jane’s sorrows.
‘I’ve told everyone to boycott that woman’s show,’ Alma said.
‘I threw away her garlic press,’ Catherine added. ‘And I had some choice ideas of what to do with her mortar and pestle.’
‘That’s quite all right, Catherine. Joe didn’t leave me for a pestle.’
‘Just a pest,’ Alma chirped and everybody laughed.
Jane continued, ‘All right. Rupert’s house is too far, and Alma�
��s studio too tiny. Catherine, I know your daughter-in-law would never agree to us—’
Step by step, Jane backed Carla into a corner. If the Bookworms were shut out of the branch, the next-best location was none other than the spacious and elegant den in which Carla dreamed of seating literary lionesses feeding hungrily on Rupert’s cakes and a guest appearance by James Naughtie from Radio Four.
Without any prompting, Ruth squeaked, ‘Don’t you live in the mews around the corner, Carla? I could manage that.’
Rupert was polishing one of his knives with a clean handkerchief to evade Carla’s accusatory look. Had the librarian caught the thief and slammed the door? Carla sat undecided whether to bolt or play the game out. Jane hadn’t cornered Carla completely, and it would be some days before she detected whether the conspirator could escape. Pulling up her head matron’s torso with a deep breath, Carla shouldered her heavy satchel and promised, ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ before marching out the door and into the night.
The dangers of Stratagem Twenty-two lay nestling in Jane’s lap: If you have the chance to completely capture the enemy then you should do so, thereby bringing the battle or war to a quick and lasting conclusion. To allow your enemy to escape plants the seeds for future conflict.
On her walk home, Jane checked Joop’s Painted Angel. Lights were on in the dormer window, but the Angel’s windows on the first floor were dark. Joop had outlined his wings with gold paint, so that they seemed to shine alone, hovering like a bodiless carapace, promising flight or escape, once the future was better illuminated.
She crossed the square, her footsteps weighed down with unanswered questions: Would Sammie pass her A-levels? Would the Mr Gumbles of government turn Chalkwood Library into a disco?
Her dark living room beckoned like a welcoming womb. She dropped her bag full of library correspondence on the sofa. Only the beams of the street lamp and a half-moon bathed the room in soft light. She closed her eyes.
The pounding of someone’s fist—insistent and ferocious—started up right behind her.
‘Anybody there?’ A voice came from the bathroom.
Love and the Art of War Page 22
