Love and the Art of War

by Dinah Lee Küng

  She bundled Dan off with a kiss and sped to the library for an emergency morning meeting of the Bookworms. The gloom of the noose hung over their desultory treatment of Julian Barnes. At last, Rupert touched on the dreaded subject: ‘The problem is that we don’t count. We’re invisible. We’re old.’

  Ruth Wilting said, ‘The newspapers always discuss what the young are reading. We’re like guests that overstayed—’

  ‘The aunties nobody wants at the wedding reception,’ nodded Alma.

  Jane cut off their droning. ‘In my Chinese philosophy class we’ve been studying a strategy, reverse the position of guest with host. Supposing . . . ’

  Rupert rose a little from his seat: ‘We don’t stay readers on the sidelines? We become arbiters of taste instead?’

  ‘As if anyone listens to me,’ Carla said.

  Rupert persisted: ‘Carla, you poopoo’ed us out of reading the Bad Sex list, but that contest got oodles of publicity.’

  ‘Sorry, Rupert, I don’t quite follow.’ Jane glanced at her watch. Less than two hours before lunch with Bella.

  ‘Is Rupert babbling about sex again?’ Catherine looked up from a doze.

  ‘Yes,’ Alma crooned.

  ‘Turn your hearing aid back on!’ Carla belted into Catherine’s ear.

  ‘Jane, you said the Bookworms needed to show they were worth preserving.’ Rupert looked around. ‘Suppose we sponsor a contest for senior writers?’

  ‘To write about sex?’ Alma scattered biscuit crumbs all over The Sense of an Ending.

  ‘He means old people writing short stories about arthritis and Alzheimer’s,’ Carla scoffed.

  “To write about life with wisdom.’ Jane followed Rupert’s drift.

  ‘Rem acu tetigisti as Jeeves would say. You hit the proverbial nail.’

  ‘Jane will judge the entries?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘No, you’ll judge,’ Jane insisted. ‘That way, you’ll stop being library consumers competing with teen-agers for budget money. You become library promoters, hosts instead of guests. Rupert, could you be the contest’s public face?’

  Alma nodded. ‘Such a nice face.’

  Carla looked crestfallen.

  Jane would alert the Camden authorities and Rupert would produce a press release.

  Jane’s suddenly realized, ‘It won’t work, Rupert. The budget meeting is in two weeks. There’s no time to get the word out, draw in submissions, just not nearly enough time to run a competition.’

  Alma said, “We’d need a pile of entries in front of us right this very minute so we could announce the prize by next week.’

  They sat in doleful silence. A couple of motorbikes gunned their engines outside.

  ‘But we have a pile of entries!’ Jane bolted to the back of the stockroom. ‘Yes, here they are! Short stories from last year’s workshop, “Pensioners’ Prose.” Chris said everybody there was an absolute Methuselah! We can start with these. Next year, we’ll have time for proper submissions.’

  She riffled through the sheets, counting, ‘We’ve got at least eight here.’

  ‘Our instant shortlist!’ Rupert took them from Jane. ‘We’ll pass them around as we finish. You’re sure these people are still alive? My goodness, “by Leon Trotsky”?’

  ‘Well, Chris insisted on pen names to make the critiquing less painful,’ Jane explained. ‘Everybody knew who Trotsky was.’ The cantankerous Mr Slobotsky had stormed out the door when Chris deemed the work of L. Trotsky ‘Derivative Isaac Singer.’

  ‘We’ve forgotten the prize,’ Ruth said, her hands trembling. ‘Will there be a prize?’

  ‘A date with Rupert?’ Alma tittered.

  Rupert was almost as quick: ‘No! Dinner for the winner, with all of us, of course, and Mariella Frostrup, and . . . an author. An old author. Could we get P.D. James?’

  ‘John Mortimer!’ Alma sighed. ‘Oh, sorry. Too late.’

  ‘All right.’ Rupert cleared his throat, ‘I propose Jane locate a famous old author who’s still with us, and Carla, you invite Ms Frostrup? I’ll work up some publicity and pay for the meal.’

  ‘Claridges?’ Ruth rhapsodized.

  ‘No, Mrs Wilting,’ Rupert said. ‘The Ivy. After all, we want to be seen.’

  Alma twitched her head like a robin. ‘What’ll we call our prize?’

  If you can bear to be a little un-British, why not the Robert Frost Prize?’ Jane suggested. ‘He kept going ‘til ninety or thereabouts.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Rupert crowed. ‘My dear ladies, we are about to award the world’s newest literary plum, The FROSTY!’

  Jane rushed back home to change. After five long months, she braced herself to face that estrogen-peachy complexion, those silicone-coated curls and famously boosted bosom. The warrior librarian arrayed her weaponry on the still-rumpled bed—a cross-your-heart silken T-shirt, trendy trousers and a handbag so studded and bolted and nailed, so bloated with evil power, it looked like something Lady Macbeth stuffed with her used daggers.

  Jane rinsed out her grey roots in twenty gooey minutes and then fired up Sammie’s mysterious hair appliance. After a few false starts, the contraption coaxed Jane’s mop into a sleek and shining curtain. That left only minutes for make-up, a slash of blood-red lips that looked ready to sink her teeth into Bella’s neck. She pulled on new boots with heels as high as an unabridged Roget’s Thesaurus.

  In the full-length mirror, there stood a mini-Amazon. The preposterous platform soles raised her more than three inches and the trousers draped like a dream. She must have lost weight. With Sammie gone half the week, she was living mostly on Lorraine’s menu of Ritz crackers and Cheesewhip.

  The cab moved almost too fast southwards and she found herself, as gorgeous and composed as the forty-three-year-old Jane would ever be, seated on Harvey Nichols’ white upholstery. She braced herself for Bella’s grand entrance, the mwa, mwa on both cheeks, before a full house.

  But oddly Bella was not tardy. Jane watched the familiar hourglass figure hover and weave around the entrance, quickly check the bar, her sunglasses moving from side to side as she scanned the social lawn for potholes. She couldn’t locate Jane at first. From behind her Jackie O Bug-Frames, her glance skimmed right over Jane’s head, like one of those Nazi camp searchlights that just misses the hero digging under the barbed wire. A perplexed frown struggled to register on the Botox-ed brow. The horrible possibility penetrated her Celebrity Lizard brain that she, Bella Crawford, might have to wait, in public, for someone else.

  Jane saved her with a royal wave. Bella hurtled across the room: ‘Why, Jane, I didn’t quite recognize you. It must be the hair or—’

  ‘Relax, Bella. It’s my birthday and I’m the one who’s ageing, not you!’

  Actually, Bella looked like she’d swallowed a sponge. Was it the reported flu bug or the translucent blue-lit ceiling casting her complexion into such puffy paleness?

  ‘Just saw my skin man. I’ll be a bit swollen for a few days.’ They got through the air kissing, the soft press of the PETA-approved-fur biker-jacket, ‘I think he might have injected too much. I have a searing headache and I feel a bit faint. I skipped breakfast because of this awful flu.’

  ‘Bella, please relax. Everyone’s staring at us. I’d forgotten what it was like, eating with you. Here’s a menu to hide behind.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Bella received these unexpectedly kind words with a wary half-smile.

  ‘I’ve ordered some bubbly. We’ll just flush away the whole last year. And I’m going to have the snails in garlic butter and then the spinach soufflé. I just can’t seem to keep the weight on.’

  Bella blanched.

  ‘I know, the camera adds a stone. Try the diet specials, down there.’

  ‘I can’t read this. I’m so dizzy. Maybe I am a little feverish. There’s a norovirus going around.’ Bella decided on bouillon and the Slimmer Salad. ‘Oh, Jane, you’re a darling to meet me like this to really talk. I have so many feelings I’ve wanted to express, but you know
how I am about putting things on paper—’

  ‘Totally dyslexic.’

  ‘Well, it’s just so hard to put things into words, and I know it’s feeble to say this—such a cliché, really—but I never wanted to hurt you.’

  ‘I know. To me,’ Jane raised her glass and took a sip. She sank contentedly into the deep chair.

  ‘Oh, yes, to you. Happy Birthday.’ Bella downed the entire flute and coughed. She peered from under her sunglasses for a moment and said, ‘I must say, you are looking slim.’

  ‘Let’s talk about Sammie.’ Jane refilled Bella’s wine glass.

  ‘Oh, yes, let’s. It’s been hard for her, but I do think her doctor’s helping. No more—’ The suggestion made Bella gulp.

  ‘And she’s been difficult.’ Jane sighed, ‘I’m really sorry about the street fair. If you will put her on camera, be prepared for her to steal the scene. Girls that age just crave attention and she does take after Lorraine. Centre stage, etc, etc. Ready to order?’

  The hovering waiter stared down at Bella, which made it all right for Jane to stare too. One of Bella’s eyelids hung slack under a welter of inflamed needle pricks.

  ‘Now, Bella, this favour I want to ask of you—’

  ‘Yes, of course, what can I do, darling? You can ask me anything, anything.’

  ‘I was wondering, could Joe and you take Sammie for the summer?’

  Bella’s working eyelid fluttered. ‘June or July?’

  ‘No, no, I can’t be that selfish. The entire summer. June to, let’s say, mid-October?’

  ‘That’s the favour?’

  ‘Um, um,’ Jane dug out a glistening snail and slurped up the garlic butter. She cut off Bella’s panicked protests with exaggerated relief, ‘Thanks, I’m so very grateful. I must get away. It would be so much better for all of us, don’t you think? Especially Joe, given his feelings.’

  ‘What feelings?’

  ‘And for my project for Camille Harper—you’ve heard about that from Joe I expect? Oh, maybe not. I have to interview the big libraries in the States, Silicon Valley, Bill Gates up in Seattle—’

  ‘You’ll be gone for so long? Does Sammie go to summer camp? Or anything?’

  Jane nodded, ‘No, she’ll holiday with you two, of course. What can I do, but turn to you? Lorraine isn’t well enough to cope full-time. Someone has to supervise Sammie’s revision for the exams she has to retake and Joe is hopeless at homework. You know what he learned in high school—hockey, beaver-skinning, maple-tapping—but you went through the British system—so no problem!’ Jane confided, ‘And I need time off.’ She placed her plump hand on Bella’s manicured claws. ‘Woman to woman, I know you understand.’

  ‘The whole summer?’ Bella grimaced.

  ‘It’ll give you time to make up to Sammie for all this upset. Sorry, would you like a snail?’

  ‘God, no.’ Bella turned puce underneath her Jo Malone face powder. Perhaps the flu wasn’t a fib. ‘Jane, I know it’s none of my business, but is there any other reason you might be leaving London?’

  ‘Who’s leaving London? It’s only a long recce.’

  ‘I mean, I know it’s been hard for you, what with Joe and me, but is there any other reason?’ Bella’s hands shook.

  ‘Oh, you mean Dan?’ Jane curled her shoulders up to her earrings with the frisson of just thinking about Dan. She closed her eyes and sighed. She sucked on another snail. Bella leaned forward, her moulded tablespoon of cottage cheese untouched in its monastic nest of wilting lamb’s lettuce.

  Jane experimented with a lusty wink, although it wasn’t very practiced. ‘Really, Bella, I ought to thank you.’ At the sight of Jane’s greasy gastropodes, Bella swayed a little and closed her eyes but Jane wouldn’t let up. Thank you, Professor Baldwin. She felt her attack gaining ground, her simulation leading to confusion, her disclosures and feints to the East and West working away at the overconfident star. Bella had assumed she would play hostess to Jane’s submission but she found herself the guest at Jane’s celebration.

  ‘Let’s drink to Dan.’ Jane refilled Bella’s wineglass. ‘Wow, Dan . . . Bella, you have no idea.’

  ‘I suppose I haven’t,’ Bella managed through her puffed-up duck lips.

  ‘Things are so different with Dan but,’ Jane turned demure, ‘It’s hard to explain. Anyway, Bella, don’t worry about me.’

  The snails lasted long enough to put Bella in the frame, so to speak, the portrait of Dan being a paragon of manly mind, muscle, and meaningful massages. Jane found this easy going since Joe’s roaring jealousy had laid the ground, smoothed the tarmac, and readied the runway. She hinted at Dan’s physical courage, his selfless generosity, and without going into details, well, Bella could guess the rest. Oh, yes, he always put the toilet seat down, never failed to load the dishwasher with the glasses standing the right way, and never, ever took a mobile call during a meal only to leave Jane staring off into the distance, waiting for him to finish—three of Joe’s frequent venial sins.

  Bella bore the stoic smile of someone suddenly stuck with librarian Jane’s romantic leftovers.

  Jane’s soufflé landed on the table next, a vivid Martian green reeking of spinach, Parmagiano, and truffle oil. Bella was turning a strange green herself.

  ‘Now, bring me up to date. I don’t hear a word. How’s the show’s chef line-up? Lots of new cuisines? Still planning to save the world?’

  Bella stabbed at her low-fat curd, but missed. ‘Tibet fell through for reasons obvious. And as far as diseases go, it appears that even spleens in Sussex can do without me.’ She gulped her champagne. She looked hot and dehydrated.

  ‘Well what do we need spleens for, except to vent them? I’m sure some disease will turn up. Have you tried flesh-eating bacteria? MRSA? That obesity virus’s very trendy. Wuff, I’m so hungry, it’s like I’m eating for two. I think I’ll have some of that treacle tart.’ She waved for the dessert trolley. ‘Want to share?’

  Bella glanced at her salad and said, ‘No, I’m a bit off my feed.’

  ‘And to think I had such a huge breakfast,’ Jane smiled, ‘But then Dan is a very energetic man. He needs a big meal to start the day. I do want to see how he lives at home. I expect we’ll spend some time together while I’m in the States.’

  There was a long pause. Bella’s eyes drifted from side to side. She rested both hands on her temples to steady herself.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll come back?’

  Jane refilled Bella’s glass and said, ‘Oh, well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.’

  ‘Would you leave Sammie with Joe? I mean, with us? I thought he was worried that you might not let him see Sammie at all? Or he had to adopt her, or something, or, or . . . I’m really confused, Jane—’ Bella choked on a carrot slice. Jane gave Bella a helpful thump on the back as the sad little salad was escorted off in disgrace by two waiters, their heads bent in horrified consultation.

  ‘Well, it’s good to get things straight, first. The flats, for one thing. Years ago we transferred the two floors to Lorraine’s name when she guaranteed the mortgage. Not that there’s anything wrong with Joe’s finances,’ Jane admitted, and then glanced with solicitous worry at Bella’s reddening face. ‘Unless you’re expecting too much? I wouldn’t expect too much from him in any way. Oh, by the way, tell Joe his doctor’s assistant rang—he missed his last check-up. He really shouldn’t miss those.’

  Bella gagged.

  ‘I mean, I don’t know what you’re expecting. Don’t press Joe on the subject of children—I mean it’s obvious he doesn’t want to lose you. And you’ll always have Sammie. Although,’ Jane noisily scraped up the remaining bits of soufflé with zest, ‘I might take Sammie to the States, if I decide to move for good. But then Joe wouldn’t see her at all. That isn’t fair to you two, is it, considering—?’

  Bella’s eyes flickered, ‘I don’t quite follow—’

  ‘I know!’ Jane exclaimed, ‘You take Sammie through the whole school year too, so she
doesn’t miss out. I’ll be so busy from now on, don’t you think that’s for the best?’

  Bella looked desperate for an oxygen mask. ‘For the best?’

  Jane shook her head with tremendous sympathy, ‘Your only chance at motherhood, Bella. How could I deny you?’

  ‘What do you mean? Has Joe had an operation or something I don’t know about—?’

  ‘Well, Sammie was a bit of an accident but such a lucky one, in retrospect. Gosh, you look faint. Waiter, a glass of water, please? Here Bella, drink this,’ and Jane forced Bella’s purple face back against the booth and poured half a litre of ice water down her gullet.

  Bella started choking. Jane walloped her again, with the affection of a prison matron.

  Warrior Jane was fast running out of thrusts to aim at Bella’s bosom but her luck held. Just then a waiter sallied forth from the kitchen, booming out ‘Happy Birthday’ in his best audition baritone. He plunked a thickly iced chocolate cake in front of Bella. Diners across the room rose to their feet and belted out, ‘Happy Birthday, To You.’

  Bella shrieked, ‘No, NO,’ but Jane laughed off the error and laid the sputtering pink candle, melting wax, chocolate icing and all, on Bella’s lambskin clutch. She picked up the check.

  ‘No, no,’ Bella gasped, ‘It’s your birthday. Really—I—’

  ‘No, no, I ate twice as much! You’re my guest, darling!’ Jane shouted over the song.

  Bella swatted at the candle scorching her bag. Jane grabbed her arm in a confiding gesture. ‘You know, it’s possible that this year, all my wishes might come true.’

  Bella’s nodding had turned into an alarming roll of the head, now a dip, and a deep gulp for breath. She was losing her struggle waged through a Botox migraine, a soaring temperature, garlic butter fumes, and cocktail of ice water mixed with spumante.

  The crowd ascended to, ‘Hap-py Birth-day Dear BEL-LA!’ Her eyes rolled upwards to globes of white. Jane moved her new boots delicately out of Bella’s way, for with a desperate swoop away from the table, London’s most famous mistress of the soup pot returned her cottage cheese to Harvey Nichols in one ignominious go.