The Lover's Children

Chapter 42 – The Idylls of March #14

JAMES

The square is a pleasant setting, if a trifle immature. There’s a reason for that. It wasn’t here until

recently. The stonework is clean and unweathered. The trees lining the walkways are mere saplings,

full of promise for future years, future generations. In the March sunshine, their burgeoning leaves are

a brilliant green, the petals a pink trying to be white. Given time, they’ll help merge the square and the

adjacent park into a harmonious whole.

To one side, City traffic rumbles, buses wheeze and rattle into the station. And from beyond that comes

the distant click-clack of trains.

But here, the sounds are of the chatter of customers taking tables at the bars and eateries which

alternate with art galleries, a small cinema, and the library.

A busker, his cap set on the ground, plucks at a guitar, crooning out some melody I know comes from a

movie, but can’t quite place. Close by, a girl on hands and knees chalks onto the flags. She’s good;

very good; working freehand to produce comically cruel caricatures of politicians, pop stars and

wannabe celebrities.

A clown has the next pitch. Wearing a wig of wild orange spirals, his painted-on smile stretches halfway

to his ears. Surrounded by ogle-eyed children, he juggles an unwieldy collection of eggs, apples, and

melons, then as his piece de resistance, tennis balls and footballs.

“Ah, there you are, James.” Richard, in a light suit and mirrored sunglasses, pulls out a chair. “Did you

get your sketches done?” Klempner sits opposite.

“I did, yes.” I gesture to the sketchpad on my table. “Strolled the park. Got the feel for how it’s all

coming together. Sketched out some ideas. I have enough to use as a basis for the design drawings.

Klempner sniffs. “I’d have thought you’d use CAD software for something like that.”

“For the engineering and working drawings, I do. But I prefer to work by hand first. Stroll the ground.

Nothing substitutes for seeing the landscape for real, getting an idea of how it might all fit together.”

“So, what’s this for?” Klempner seems genuinely interested.

“The park’s quite old. It’s part of the original plan of the City. Nothing’s been done for years on the

infrastructure. There’re some good basics there; the lawns, mature trees and such. But the facilities are

laughable. The tearooms are falling apart. Some of the walkways are collapsing and the lavatories

are… let’s say unpleasant. I’m assembling some ideas that Richard will put in front of the Mayor. We’ll

take it from there.”

A waiter whisks over the table with a tray of beers, wine, nuts and olives. He sets Richard’s red wine

down by him. “Will there be anything else?”

A polite glance. “Not right now. Come back in a few minutes, please. We’re waiting for the rest of our

party.”

“Very good, sir.” The waiter nods and makes as though to leave, then pauses, looking Richard in the

face. “I’m sorry, sir, but should I know you?”

Richard lifts a wine glass to his mouth, bland behind his mirrored shades. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Your face seems familiar.” The waiter tilts his head, brow wrinkling. “Perhaps you’ve been on the TV?”

Richard sips at the wine, clucks and smacks his lips. “I’m on the radio occasionally, usually on Finance Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

World or City News.”

“Ah, yes...” A knowing nod… “That’s where I recognise you from.” He trots away.

Klempner snorts a laugh. “Go figure. You get a lot of that?”

Richard grimaces. “It happens. I prefer to avoid celebrity status where I can. If I were too widely

recognised, I’d not be able to do this...” He waves vaguely around the square then sips at his wine. “…

or I’d have to be hip deep in bodyguards instead of just having Ross keep an open eye.” Then at an

approaching flash of red hair, “Ah, here come the women.”

Richard stands, pulls out a chair for Beth, then as she sits, another for Mitch. Ross, tramps in from the

rear, laden with bags in green and gold sporting designer labels and department store logos. Red-

faced, he flags down the waiter, taking a table some distance away, but with a clear view of our table

and party, and I’d say close enough to hear, if not the conversation, at least the tone of it.

Mitch casts around the table. “Where's Jenny?”

Klempner shrugs. “I thought she was with you.” He sucks at his beer.

“No, we’ve not seen her.”

Beth eye-rolls sidelong. Backs it up with a jerked thumb. “Library.”

Mitch matches her eye-roll, this time upward, then turns on Klempner. “You let Jenny escape into a

library.”

Asperity in his voice, “I told you, we’ve not seen her. I’ve not seen her.”

Mitch taps a foot. “I've bought her something.”

“So…” He holds out palms… “… Go find her in the library.”

Mitch glares.

Klempner sets his beer glass down on the table. “I’ll go find her, shall I.”

“Thank you, Larry.” Her tone could etch glass.

“Have fun,” I murmur.

Klempner shoots me a sharp glance.

Do I know something he doesn’t?

But I’m laughing inside.

*****

KLEMPNER

I amble in, expecting to find Jenny perhaps browsing the Fantasy or Science-Fiction sections. She’s

not there, so I try the Science, then the Engineering departments…

No sign of her.

Hmmm…

Skulking…

Eventually, I locate her in an obscure corner, beyond the shelves sign-posted Dewy Decimal 140,

Philosophy, Philosophical schools of thought, and lodged between the shadowed junction of 147 -

Pantheism and related systems and doctrines, and 148 - Dogmatism, eclecticism, liberalism,

syncretism, and traditionalism.

Reading, she sits cross-legged on the carpet, under a windowsill. While quite hidden from the general

passer-by, sunlight slants across her pages.

“You know how to lurk, I see.”

She doesn’t look up. “I wasn't lurking.”

“Yes, you were, and rather well. But if you think you can out-lurk me, dream on.”

Squinting up from ‘The Children of Húrin’, she scowls. “Learned it from the best, didn’t I.”

“I’ve given up eating kittens for breakfast.”

“Yes?”

Resisting the urge to deliver the first answer that occurs, “Jenny, Mitch wants you out there.”

“I'll be out in a while.”

“She wants you now.”

Her eyes narrow to green slits. “You mean she's bought something to wear and I'm supposed to go out

and be a clothes horse.”

I suck at my teeth. “Something like that.”

“I'm comfortable here.” Her chin juts.

“We're both here to please your mother. Why don't you just put a brave face on it for a couple of

hours?”

“She's not trying to dress you up like a rag doll.”

“You think?”

“You too?” Half a smile flickers across her face then evaporates.

“Yes, me too.”

She looks me up and down. “What's wrong with how you're dressed?”

“That was my question too. Are you coming?”

“Like I said, I’ll be there in a while.”

“Jenny, please come outside. For God's sake, rescue me from small talk.” Her lips twitch, but she

shows no sign of moving. “Come out with me, sit at the table, wear whatever it is your mother wants to

hang on you, and I'll pay for that first edition Tolkien I saw you mooning over.”

Her eyes widen, then slit once more. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Done.” She snaps her book closed, rising from her crossed legs like a ballerina. “I’ll see you out there.

Just putting this where it belongs.” And without a backward look, she strides off toward the Fiction

Department.

*****

When I return to the table, Jenny hasn’t appeared. Mitch shoots thunderbolts my way.

“She said she was coming. What do you expect me to do? Box her up and deliver her by courier?”

Haswell’s driver, Ross, now with a beer, a newspaper and what could be a ham sandwich, grins behind

his paper, then hastily straightens his face. As he sees me watching, he raises his glass, tilts it toward

me and takes a swallow.

Bastard.

But as the arm lifts and moves, I pick up the lie and drape of his jacket: something underneath,

concealed.

He’s carrying?

Haswell follows my gaze, smiles slightly as I question him with a look. “Ross is, among other things,

Elizabeth’s security guard.” He inhales, lets it out again. “I can’t be with her all the time, and she has

been…” … Acid enters his voice… “… as you know, abducted twice.” James inspects his fingernails.

Mitch and Beth exchange mutters over some object in green lace they dangle between them, not

appearing to have heard the remark.

“I wasn’t responsible for the first occasion.”

“Nonetheless…” Haswell stiffens…

I jerk my thumb toward the driver. “He any good?” But before Haswell can reply, Jenny appears.

*****

RICHARD

Charlotte stalks from the library like the Grim Reaper missing his scythe. Mitch rises, already opening

her purse, producing a small velvet bag. “Ah, there you are, Jenny…”

Charlotte glares at Mitch’s advance and the glint of silver and green emerging from the bag. Klempner

watches, slit-eyed, at the mother and daughter performance. He angles towards James, speaking

behind his hand. “Has Jenny always been like this?”

James sucks in a smile. “As long as I’ve known her. Utterly uninterested in what she’s wearing. For a

woman who went to such lengths to raise money, she’s completely non-materialistic.”

“She's happy enough to spend my money.”

“I'd say her early years made Charlotte… careful… with resources.”

Klempner sparks sidelong at him, eyes widening.

I break in… “To answer your question: is Ross a good bodyguard?” … I nod to where the glowering

Charlotte, now wearing a necklace of pale green-glass gems and matching earrings, sits hunched by

Mitch and Beth. “… There was someone better.”

Klempner laughs, derisive and sour. “Jenny?” A bodyguard?”

My own unbidden rage takes me by surprise. I blurt out the words. “She spirited Elizabeth out of your

clutches.”

I didn’t mean to do it, to say it. James inclines his head, forehead creasing.

Klempner’s expression is a study in surprise, then anger, before finally, chagrin shuffles aside to make

room for pride. “So she did.” He sucks at his cheeks…