The Lover's Children novel Chapter 42

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 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.”