Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [8]
‘I like the idea of the new one,’ said Harold, after a longish pause. ‘Although I have to tell you that the romantic market is beginning to change. It’s sex for the young woman executive now, the Cosmopolitan reader, the girl with the executive briefcase.’
Receiving no response, he made play with the tiny fan of fretted carrot placed on a side plate and, having dealt with that, returned to the attack.
‘What does she take with her on that business trip to Brussels?’
‘Glasgow,’ emended Edith.
‘What? Oh, well, probably. But anyway, she wants something to reassure her that being liberated is fun. She wants something to flatter her ego when she’s spending a lonely night in an hotel. She wants something to reflect her lifestyle.’
‘Harold,’ said Edith, ‘I simply do not know anyone who has a lifestyle. What does it mean? It implies that everything you own was bought at exactly the same time, about five years ago, at the most. And anyway, if she’s all that liberated, why doesn’t she go down to the bar and pick someone up? I’m sure it’s entirely possible. It’s just that most women don’t do it. And why don’t they do it?’ she asked, with a sudden return of assurance. ‘It’s because they prefer the old myths, when it comes to the crunch. They want to believe that they are going to be discovered, looking their best, behind closed doors, just when they thought that all was lost, by a man who has battled across continents, abandoning whatever he may have had in his in-tray, to reclaim them. Ah! If only it were true,’ she said, breathing hard, and spearing a slice of kiwi fruit which remained suspended on her fork as she bent her head and thought this one out. She really does look remarkably Bloomsburian, thought Harold, viewing the hollowed cheeks and the pursed lips.
‘Well, my dear, you know best,’ he said, not wishing to upset her more than she had already been upset by that other business. ‘I just thought that …’
‘And what is the most potent myth of all?’ she went on, in the slightly ringing tones that caused him to make a discreet sign to the waiter for the bill. ‘The tortoise and the hare,’ she pronounced. ‘People love this one, especially women. Now you will notice, Harold, that in my books it is the mouse-like unassuming girl who gets the hero, while the scornful temptress with whom he has had a stormy affair retreats baffled from the fray, never to return. The tortoise wins every time. This is a lie, of course,’ she said, pleasantly, but with authority, the kiwi fruit slipping back unnoticed onto her plate. ‘In real life, of course, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Axiomatically,’ she cried, her voice rising with enthusiasm. ‘Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game. The propaganda goes all the other way, but only because it is the tortoise who is in need of consolation. Like the meek who are going to inherit the earth,’ she added, with a brief smile. After a pause, she addressed herself to what was left on her plate, ate it in one dismissive mouthful, and leaned back, still lost in her argument.
He reflected that she was not a professor’s daughter for nothing, but that she could be relied upon to get back to work fairly soon, and that, after a break, she would probably come up with yet another modest but substantial seller.
‘Of course,’ said Edith, ladling chips of sugar coloured liked bath salts into