Or was it Shadowpost? No, Shadowfax?
‘JANE! Would you please pay attention to me?’ Joe reached for her, and stumbled over Dan’s jacket and trousers. With deliberate care, Jane smoothed the garments and laid them across her vanity stool. She caught her own panicked expression reflected in Joe’s disbelieving gaze. It felt too much like Lorraine’s bitter rows with Jack, but Jane could no longer play the child escaping into a dreamlike trance. She didn’t want a full-blown row in front of Sammie, still so unstable, and God knows, Lorraine’s personal plumbing might not hold up through a violent scene. Joe had never struck her, ever. He’d never even spanked Sammie—not even that night she crayoned all over his shooting script, Drinking for Britain, Pregnant Mothers at Risk. For God’s sake, surely she was safe? Joe was Canadian.
Yet . . . Joe had never looked so mad—not peeved, not irritated—mad, I tell you, mad. Jane was about to shout, ‘Don’t Joe! Get out! How dare you?’
Baldwin’s voice came to her, ‘Stratagem Twenty-six can be used to discipline, control, or warn others whose status or position excludes them from direct confrontation.’
You wouldn’t want to confront someone who had grabbed the vanity stool and was about to throw it through the window. Joe was acting like Heathcliff on amphetamines, Frankenstein plugged into double voltage, Hannibal Lecter with indigestion. Jane knew that if she yelled at him, Joe would only drown her out with louder yelling, and then Sammie would stop singing and start bawling or screaming or grab a razor again, and Dan would rush in to defend Jane, at which point Joe just might shove that stool into Dan’s most sensitive parts.
No, Baldwin wouldn’t holler. The famous general Han Xin wouldn’t shout. The Duke of Huan never, ever raised his voice. Jane sank back down into the messy bedding in a position of complete submission. She folded her robe neatly across her knees and stared at the stool legs hovering inches from her nose.
‘You’re right, Joe. I made a terrible mistake.’
Time for Stratagem Twenty-four to Clear a Path to Guo, or at least to the safety of the bathroom . . . Attack the smaller state . . . ‘How could I know Sammie and you were coming over? Lorraine makes me furious—she just walks in and out of here without knocking. It’s time she realized I have my own life to live. I could brain her with that stool myself.’
Joe peered around the stool. ‘You’re blaming Lorraine?’
‘Of course.’
Now for some Twenty-six-style analogy. Jane plunged on. ‘Just marching into my flat day and night, night and day. It’s like being invaded. This must be how Georgia feels or those poor Tibetans. God! It’s like Poland waking up from a sound sleep to German soldiers ordering breakfast downstairs.’
‘You’re comparing me to a Nazi stormtrooper. Isn’t that overreacting?’
‘If the boot fits.’ Now, for some innuendo from both barrels. ‘I don’t think I’ll resort to the old pot-and-kettle defence, but no doubt it would have occurred to Camille Harper, if she’d ever found herself in the same situation . . . in reverse . . . if you see what I mean . . . ’
The stool lowered some inches. Jane had removed some of the wood under his fiery pot, thanks to Baldwin’s Number Nineteen.
‘Camille Harper?’ Joe’s breath whooshed out of him like a punctured balloon. Stratagem Twenty-six flashed in front of Joe’s expression like a rapier. ‘What does Camille Harper have to do with this?’
‘You do see what I mean. Sofas of yore and all that.’
Now Joe lowered the stool. ‘You know, Jane, you’ve always been a bit scatty, a bit vague. But now, you’re really losing it.’ His tone was now more protective than angry, almost tender. Guilt and love criss-crossed his face.
‘You’re right.’ She shook her head, all dismay and confusion. ‘I hardly know this man.’
‘From what Sammie says, he’s not the sort of person to stick around. I mean, doesn’t he live in New England?’ Was that love she saw on Joe’s face, or pity?
‘New York.’
‘He’s just using you, Jane.’
‘I know, I know.’ Jane hugged her knees with provoking satisfaction.
‘And now you’re babbling about Camille Harper.’
‘Am I?’
‘I found it!’ Sammie waved her Latin book from the living room with a kind of perverse triumph. ‘I had it all the time. Come on, Dad. I want to get to the street demo! Bella’s counting on me!’ She pranced down the stairs.
Joe yelled after her, ‘We’ll talk about this in the car.’
‘Talk about what? Bye, Mum,’ she called from the lower landing. ‘Don’t forget to watch me cook on TV! Free Tibet! Free Tibet!’
Her parents looked at each other in disbelief. Sammie hadn’t heard or seen Dan. Jane smiled her most gracious good-bye. ‘You can go now. Don’t forget to take your indignation with you.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘This isn’t the same as with Bella.’
‘Oh, how true. I’m happy with the family I have. I have a child already. But I’ll be careful not to make any mistakes.’
‘Jane, are you taking mood-altering medication?’
‘Tranquilizers? Or birth control pills? I know. Fifty per cent of births in England these days are out of wedlock. Good to keep that in mind, Joe.’ If Baldwin’s advice was to attack the mulberry to abuse the acacia, Jane wasn’t sure she’d employed the stratagem very well, since she’d pretty much cast herself as the mulberry.
Joe shook his head, pointing and fumbling his way backwards, ‘Jane, you should see somebody.’
‘Sammie’s waiting.’
‘Promise me. You’ll talk to someone.’
‘Well, I expect I’ll spend the morning talking to Dan.’
Joe slammed the front door, shaking Number 19 to its very foundations.
***
Bella waved and cooed to a handful of onlookers clutching their jackets and scarves against a brisk wind. ‘I’m here today in Notting Hill Gate at the ‘Save Tibet!’ Demonstration and what a crowd of enthusiastic supporters behind me. Hellooooo there!’
‘Hey, darling, can you do it in ten minutes like that Telegraph babe?’ a yob taunted from the kerb. ‘Yeah, we’re hungry, sweetheart!’ his pals joined in.
‘I’m absolutely honoured to introduce our chef, just flown in from Dharamsala, am I pronouncing that right?’ Bella steadied her makeshift kitchen table wobbling in the wind.
She read off a Post-It stuck to the bottom of her rice vinegar cruet, ‘So, welcome, Mr Phuntsog! Mr Phuntsog is going to demonstrate a traditional vegetarian dish from Kirti monastery in Southwestern Sichuan.’ Bella extended her microphone to a wizened brown monk in maroon cotton standing next to her. He bowed his shaven head towards the crowd behind them.
‘The camera’s over there, Mr Phuntsog. Now what can you tell us about our delicious demo dish?’
The monk embarked on his own script, ‘The Chinese government says they allow religious freedom and improve living standards in Tibet. But our monks are immolating themselves because they have reduced our monastery to a prison, torture us and make living impossible for us—’
‘Yes, Mr Phuntsog, can you tell us about the dish you’re going to cook for us today?’
‘ . . . They say that I’m a terrorist and that explosives were found in my room. Those are nothing but lies, LIES!’ The monk pounded his fist on the cooking table and a bag of rice fell on the pavement. ‘I was forced to flee.’
Tying a Travelling Kitchen apron around the monk’s waist, Bella strangled his flow with a tight knot and stepped on his cue, ‘And of course, on the road, nothing is more delicious than an easy stir-fry, right?’
Suddenly from behind Bella, Sammie’s freckled face popped into view. Watching from the safety of Number 19’s kitchen, Jane saw her daughter was already wearing her Travelling Kitchen apron, but the child had scrawled across Bella’s imprinted image, ‘Free Sammie!’
Sammie set out small bowls of condiments and mixed spices as Bella continued, ‘Now, Mr Phunts
og, we have our oil, our garlic, our ginger, all cut up—’
‘Your ginger? Your garlic? Personal possession of material things is ephemeral. Owning even the smallest grain of salt is an illusion.’
‘Yes, sorry, the oil, the garlic and the ginger were whizzed up in the food processor,’ Bella fell back on her girlish simper, ‘I so hope that doesn’t ruin my karma.’ The monk gazed at Bella with like a bodhisattva examining a reincarnation that had misfired. Bella lit the portable gas ring. It sputtered in the wind and went out. She tried another match and finally a pocket lighter. She shook condiments into the oil.
‘Well, uh, Mr Phuntsog, could you tell us a bit more about this dish?’
The monk was silent. Jane could feel Bella’s panic rising as the camera roved across the ingredients and back to her anxious, pleading expression.
The wok started to smoke. An ominous plume of grey fumes rose into the frame and circled Bella’s shoulders.
‘Mr Phuntsog, Can you tell us anything about this dish? Please?’
‘That is mustard oil. It is burning too fast. You should use peanut.’
Bella glared at Sammie and grabbed the smoking wok to swab out the scorching oil.
The monk faced the camera squarely: ‘My father is a carpenter and my mother is a market trader. We are poor, but we had enough to eat—’
‘Yes, and you ate—?’ Bella pulled him back on topic but the monk had chosen his own course.
‘Ever since I was a child, I wanted to become a monk. I entered the Kirti Monastery in Aba when I was twelve and was admitted as a monk at twenty years of age. When my abbot there could not teach me anything more, he sent me to Lhasa—’
‘So, there’s our peanut oil, heating up nicely.’ Bella scanned Sammie’s row of little bowls. ‘And now we add our, sorry, the spices . . . turmeric, clove, salt, cinnamon, ground red pepper, five-spice, a touch of Sichuan black pepper and—’ Bella’s nose reared back, ‘My! That smells original,’ she grimaced. ‘But of course, thrillingly Tibetan!’
The Venerable One sniffed the billows of dark spicy smoke circling his shaved head.
‘Smells like burning detergent to me,’ he observed. ‘The Kirti Monastery has been under tight surveillance since the protests of 2008. Our movements are restricted. Our home has become a prison. The people agree with the monks, something must change in Tibet. We are waiting for the right moment—’
‘And this is the right moment for bok choy!’ a desperate Bella screeched at the audience. ‘Sammie!? Bok choy, please?’ Sammie’s little fist shot out from behind Bella’s capacious torso and tossed a bunch of greens into the sizzling wok.
‘That is not bok choy,’ Phuntsog said. Bella’s eyes widened as a clump of iceberg wilted into brown slime. She grinned like a crazed clown. The dwindling crowd behind her mumbled and shook their heads. ‘Well, substitutions make for creative cooking. I always say, don’t be afraid to make it your own.’ She caught the monk’s withering gaze and hurried to add, ‘But not in any possessive material sense, of course.’
The spirit of Mr Robin was working to save Bella’s neck. ‘So what’s the next step, Venerable, uh Guest?’
Mouth open, Jane watched the screen. Sammie was following their agreed strategy to change the beams, but they hadn’t bargained on this delicious double surprise—a jet-lagged Tibetan dissident monk stealing Stratagem Twenty-six to broadcast his own freedom message as a substitute for cooking on Bella’s airtime.
‘Our country is in a great crisis, Bella Crawford. The people are starving.’
‘And what could be better than a side of curried vegetables, RIGHT?’
‘Horrible human rights violations are taking place under the military dictatorship. Tibetan religion and culture are under such unthinkable repression that we have reached a point of desperation! People would choose to die rather than go on living. This is why we demonstrate until we win. We will not give up.’
‘And we aren’t giving up on this stir-fry! After the greens, we add a drop of stock, Sammie? SAMMIE? THE CORNFLOUR TO THICKEN THE SAUCE, PLEASE?’
Arms flailing between her bowls like a fairground spiv playing a desperate shell game, Bella seized the bowl of white starch from Sammie’s fingers and tossed the contents into the wok.
The blackening sauce began to pop and rise in a bubbling mass.
Phuntsong stared intently at the camera, ‘Each monk folds his robe precisely according to the rules of the clergy, like this. Which enables us to immediately recognize government spies pretending to be monks—’
‘Yes, Mr P.’ Bella snapped. ‘And now, some rice vinegar—’ Sammie threw a cup of vinegar into the wok, and with that, the whole bubbling mess erupted like a volcano, spewing foam all over the table and sending a river of bilious lava streaming on to the pavement. The audience shrieked with delight.
In her kitchen, Jane hooted as she, along with mothers everywhere, recognized the playroom delight of mixing bicarbonate of soda with vinegar.
The crowd surrounding the demo table applauded wildly. Covered with foam, Bella sputtered in fury.
The monk lifted his maroon hem with delicacy to clear his sandaled feet from the waves of hot goo. He rounded the table and stepped carefully towards the camera. He leaned closer and closer to the lens until his smooth wide cheeks filled the screen. He shook his shaven pate and said, ‘I would like to make it clear to you watching today that this is not what we eat in Tibet. When we eat at all.’
With enormous dignity, given the howling hostess and the heckling crowd, Phuntsog brought his hands together in prayer for his people’s liberation and calmly exited the shot, stage right.
From behind Bella’s frozen stare, a gleeful Sammie waved both hands in the air, her fingers making a ‘V’ for Jane’s unalloyed pleasure. Her daughter hadn’t smiled that joyously in months.
Chapter Twenty-seven, Jia Chi Bu Dian
(Feign Madness But Keep Your Balance)
‘I have never enjoyed an episode of The Travelling Kitchen so much,’ Lorraine sighed. ‘If we eat at all. What a punch line! What an exit! Don’t call them, Bella honey, they’ll call you. If they call at all!’
‘I think we can safely say Bella’s calling to free Tibet is off.’
Lorraine chortled, ‘Mission Unaccomplished!’
‘Another good thing came out of the weekend,’ Jane added. She set her mother’s tea tray by the pillow. Lorraine spent more and more time in bed these days. Jane knew it was age, but agreed Lorraine should rest up for her solo as Princess Alexandra.
‘You know, Lorraine, that constant pain in my chest is subsiding, that feeling that I get through each day with one arm in a sling, but nobody can see it? Spending the night with Dan wiped all that out.’
‘Well, you look a hell of a lot better. Are you in love with this Dan or do you still love Joe? You forgot the pepper shaker.’ Lorraine loved Jane’s scrambled eggs, the dish that settled pre-curtain jitters.
‘Here it is, in my pocket. Well, it’s crazy. Dan’s nice, but when I saw Joe’s wild expression, I loved him more than ever. And I saw that he still cares.’
Lorraine shook her head. ‘Don’t get your hopes up. It was a territorial reflex, sweetie. Not-in-my-cave Syndrome.’
‘You’re probably right.’ Jane didn’t confide that with Sammie’s help, Joe had snuck a Christmas present under her pillow, a scarf from Scotland wrapped around a pair of emerald earrings.
‘Joe suggested that I’m losing my mind.’
‘Well, if he isn’t to blame, who is?’ Lorraine spread cream cheese on her Triscuit. ‘Tell him not to worry. You’ll find your mind sooner or later,’ Lorraine brushed crumbs off her nightie with a showy flair. ‘Just stay centred, Jane. No matter what happens offstage, the show goes on. After a while, darling, you realize that life onstage matters more than offstage. Leave the complications in the wings.’
‘Like me, for one.’ Jane’s sudden accusation landed, scattershot, like the cracker crumbs. Even she was appalled at
her outburst but it was true and it had to be said sooner or later.
Lorraine tried playing deaf. ‘Well, here we are, together and cosy. Isn’t it a beautiful afternoon? So cold and clear.’
Jane wasn’t willing to let Lorraine glide out of her sights. She waited. And waited.
‘Oh, darling, that was so long ago,’ was the best Lorraine could manage.
‘I just don’t want Sammie to feel like that. Shoved to one side.’
The third week of January arrived as clear as the frozen sky. Jane’s horizon had lengthened. No doubt Mr Robin would have called this her ‘paradigm shift.’ To Jane, it felt like a Star Wars card game Sammie played with a pimply admirer. You turned a card and lo! You’d landed on a friendly hunk of asteroid safe from menace for one more round. Jane headed off to the library under a limitless azure sky all of six degrees Centigrade, but the wind on her cheeks felt like a reviving slap, a reminder that sooner or later, we’re all dead. Just get on with it, bend with the winter gales so you won’t break and stop fretting.
Monday evening’s Bookworms meeting made little progress in the battle for survival, no one having sorted out the question of new space or expanding membership. If anything, the group seemed plumb tuckered out, as Lorraine would say. When their book discussion sputtered to a standstill, Mrs Wilting suggested they adjourn an hour early.
Tuesday Jane discovered from a florist’s call that an armload of pink roses sent by Dan had landed by accident in the safekeeping of Number 15.
The old Jane would have suffered this error in polite resignation. The new Jane went to her neighbour’s and found her flowers were already culled, clipped, and arranged in a priceless antique vase. Dan’s card had ‘got lost.’ She hoisted the Ming into her arms and marched the gargantuan spray back home. Her neighbour was disarmed by her proprietary effrontery, but this week, what with the Feigning Madness strategy, Jane was learning the hidden strength in not giving a damn how crazy she acted.
Love and the Art of War Page 28
