Love Is a Thief (3 page)

‘I know,’ Federico said as he scurried to the other side of the room to try on what looked like a man’s dark blue blazer. ‘It’s like she’s taken it to the local preschool and asked a group of mentally challenged under-5s to create her important business proposal for her. Did you do that, Kat-kins, did you?’

‘I thought I’d brought you up better than this, Kate.’ Grandma tutted, holding the presentation in my face. Personally I think it’s hard to quantify whether Grandma brought me up better than a colourful A3 presentation. Certainly she brought me up better than my parents, but they are
really
odd and thankfully almost constantly away. They call themselves
Peaceful Extreme Non-Violent Dangerous Environmental Activists (PENDEAs)
but I know that they are not non-violent and last week I saw images of them on
Channel 4 News. They were wielding machetes on the deck of a recently impounded aid ship entering the Gaza Strip. Dad had face paint on, Rambo-style. I don’t know you well enough to tell you what my mother was doing, but let’s just say that occasionally she feels exposing her breasts is the best way to evoke peace. So my upbringing was better than hanging about with them, but better than a colourful A3 presentation? I wasn’t 100% sure.

‘Well, Kate, there is only one way you can save your job,’ Grandma said as she threw my presentation in the fireplace and lit a match, the felt-tip-covered page burning with a greeny-orange flame. ‘You must find something impressive to write about so that Chad doesn’t want you to leave.’

‘By tomorrow?’ I guffawed. ‘I’ve got more chance of inventing a time machine and catapulting myself back into the past.’

‘Well, she could write about that lovely Delaware,’ Beatrice suggested. ‘People always like to hear news about her.’

‘Delaware!’ Grandma nodded before punching the air victoriously. ‘You must speak to Delaware O’Hunt!’

‘Why would Kate be able to interview Delaware O’Hunt?’ Federico said, grabbing hold of Beatrice’s shoulders. ‘Why, I ask you? Why?’ He was trying to stay calm but he was shaking her quite violently.

‘Because she lives next door,’ Grandma said, walking out to her terrace and peering over the fence, ‘and normally she pops in for vino before her jazz fusion rock dance class.’

‘How did we not know about this, Kat-kins?’ Federico shout-whispered. ‘The most media-shy actress from the golden age of film living here, next door to Grandma, and
you let me come here, drink Margaritas, eat lovely sushi wraps, of which there doesn’t appear to be any today,’ he said, looking about the place, ‘and we never knew about Delaware? This is slapdash, Kat-kins! Totally slapdash!’ He placed his forehead against the window overlooking the next-door villa. ‘I love her,’ he quietly wailed to himself as his breath created misty patches on the glass. ‘I completely love her.’

You see, Delaware O’Hunt wasn’t just an actress. She’s a screen idol of the 1950s. She made more movies than any other actress, starred with all the greats, made plays, musicals, films, won an Oscar, got married, then divorced. She had a tumultuous love life and wore the most incredible clothes. In fact there is nothing in Delaware O’Hunt’s current wardrobe that I wouldn’t run over hot coals to wear even now she is a proper pensioner. But I can’t for a second imagine how love negatively affected the gorgeous Delaware. Love was all around her; love chased her down the street; love made posters of her; documentaries about her; sang about her. She was a world-famous actress, one of the greatest of the greats. It didn’t look as if love stole anything at all.

‘Darling, she doesn’t seem to be in so why don’t you pop back at the weekend and I’ll arrange for you to have a chat? Federico, if you come early we can go rock climbing together.’

‘Thank you, Josephine, thank you.’ He was speaking like a 1940s actor. ‘I’ll be back at the weekend, first thing, first thing I tell you.’ He punched the air with Delaware-inspired enthusiasm. ‘Oh, and Josephine,’ he said, extracting himself from the dark blue blazer that looked in my opinion to
be from Hugo Boss Menswear, ‘I L.O.V.E. the jacket. It’s so on point. Try it, Kat-kins, try it,’ he said, passing it to me. ‘Girl in Boy is black to last season’s pattern on print.’

‘Oh, that’s not Josephine’s jacket,’ giggled Beatrice. ‘He thinks it’s your jacket! No, that’s Peter’s jacket, isn’t it? He left it here when he came for lunch. I remember because I thought it brought out the colour of his eyes. Well, it did, didn’t it?’ she said to Grandma, who looked uncharacteristically startled.

‘Peter who?’ I asked Grandma. Beatrice seldom feels the need to contextualise.

‘Peter Parker is his full name,’ Beatrice continued. ‘Isn’t that right, Josephine? I’m sure it was Peter Parker because I very much enjoyed the alliteration.’

‘Peter Parker as in Spiderman?’ Federico asked with reignited interest in the jacket I now held.

‘No, silly,’ Beatrice chortled, ‘although he was terribly serious. No, Peter Parker is Kate’s childhood friend.’

‘Peter Parker!’ I turned to Grandma. ‘Peter Parker!!!’ I was getting a bit shouty. ‘You had lunch with
my
Peter Parker? How? When? How?’

‘It was a lunch, darling. Can’t I have a lunch? Everyone has to eat.’

‘Grandma!’

‘He got back in touch recently, darling, which has been very nice, if I’m honest. Well, aren’t people allowed to contact me any more? And he’s been very supportive of me regarding my move to Pepperpots. It was a huge decision to give up the family home, such an upheaval. And I hope I have been equally supportive of Peter regarding his divorce.
It’s so hard to maintain a long-term relationship in this current socio-economic climate. I said to him, I said, “Peter, if you are looking for stability in the post-post-modern modernist age you’ll struggle.”’

‘Peter Parker got married?
My
Peter Parker got married? I mean, divorced, I mean, Peter Parker is single?’ I really didn’t know what I meant.

‘I suppose technically I’m all three,’ said Peter Parker from behind me.

It was the first time I had heard his voice in over 15 long years.

²
You can’t really call
Pepperpots
an old people’s home. It’s more like a luxury retirement theme park set over 570 acres with its own spa, floating restaurant, dance studio and rock-climbing centre—the final stop-off for the brightest, wisest and most physically capable minds of yesteryear.

³
Parkour
- or ‘free running’ - is a sport in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles using only their bodies. Skills such as jumping, climbing, vaulting, rolling, swinging and wall scaling are employed. Parkour is most commonly practised in urban areas. It is not commonly practised by pensioners.

—AN ADVERTISEMENT FROM
TRUE LOVE
MAGAZINE—

W
HAT DID YOU MISS OUT ON BECAUSE YOU FELL IN LOVE?

Dear
True Love
Readers,

This year, as the clock struck 30 years old, I found myself jobless, homeless and abandoned in France by my French fiancé. I had given up everything in a fight for love, and I’d lost, knocked out in the 7th round, sucker-punched.

With absolutely nothing to my name, no home, no money and no job, I had well and truly missed my own love boat. If I had been younger I would have soothed my broken heart through the tried and tested method of boyfriend replacement and/or alcohol consumption. But this time I couldn’t. This time the pain in my heart was too great, the love lost was too huge. For many dark months all I could manage, in between fits of sobbing, was to ponder upon the following:

What on earth do I do next?

Because my One
True Love
had already been and gone; as had all our future plans, our dreams, our as yet unrealised wedding anniversaries, our as yet unborn children. That part of my life was over before it had even begun. So with no guarantee that love would ever show up again I needed to find out what would make me happy in the absence of love. What could I do with my time until love showed up, if love ever shows up at all.
And this is where you come in.

You see, I have started to make a list of all the things I didn’t get to do
because I fell in love;
a list of all the hobbies, ambitions and secret dreams that were put on the back burner the day I fell in love. And I am going to go out and do all those things. I am going to go out, like a pirate on the giant sea of life, and
I am going to take back what love stole.
And here at
True Love
we want to know
what you gave up for love.
Is there something you always wanted to do but
stopped pursuing it when you fell in love? A hobby or dream? What negative effects did falling in love have on your life? What love advice do you have for me? Perhaps some of you are interested in going on your own Love Quests, taking back what love has stolen.

It doesn’t matter if you are in love, out of love, searching for love, avoiding love, married, divorced, gay or straight.
True Love
wants to hear from you.

Can’t think of anything? Then let’s turn this on its head. Ask yourself the following questions:

‘If you knew you were going to spend the rest of your life alone, you would never fall in love, never settle down, never have children, what would you want to do? What would make you happy? What would fill up your time, your heart, your soul for the rest of your days?’ The answers to these questions are the dreams we need to get back.

I have missed my own love boat. I am loveless and boatless with a whole lifetime to fill. I’m going on a quest,
a Love-Stolen Dreams
quest, to take back what love stole. So, are you with me? Do you want to join my ship?

Pirate Kate x x

PIRATE KATE

Please send all response letters to: Pirate Kate; PO Box Love-Stolen Dreams, c/o the
True Love
London Office

NEXT WEEK IN TRUE LOVE: MR PURRR-FECT

—how a feline companion can take the pain out of living alone

BOTOX OR NOTOX

—should you plump and fill for your special day?
AND HOW TO CREATE YOUR PERFECT WEDDING DRESS FOR LESS THAN
£69.98

paper towers of paper souls

big red | true love office | london

J
enny Sullivan doesn’t work in a wee pod. That’s how I knew she was important when I first joined
True Love
magazine; that and the fact that I’d already seen her on a million different billboards, a thousand different TV adverts, a hundred different talk shows. But in terms of my working day, the reason I knew she was important was because she didn’t work in a pod. You see, the offices of
True Love
magazine take up the entire top floor of a converted warehouse. They are completely open-plan with one large glass room in the middle, the boardroom, then one corner office for Chad and another for Jenny Sullivan. The rest of the office is dotted with enormous brightly coloured pods each standing eight foot tall with a desk inside and a small arch to get in. They resemble giant dinosaur eggs and make the office look like an incubation chamber in an ethically questionable science laboratory—one growing human clones with above-average writing skills and the ability to sell
full-page advertising space. And while there is no scientific evidence that working in giant eggs improves productivity Chad did produce a historical document claiming the Incas had done so. His historical document looked suspiciously like a normal piece of A4 paper stained with tea. And the ‘facts’ were un-referenceable on
Google
. Nevertheless all the staff at
True Love
were made to work in
Work Evolving Egg Pods
, or
wee pods;
everyone, that is, except Jenny. And I had been hiding inside my
wee pod
, affectionately named
Big Red
, since 09:15 this morning listening to them fight in
True Love
’s boardroom.

‘Chad, I’m just saying, Chad, this idea, it doesn’t sound very “us”, does it?’ Jenny said, manically twisting her gigantic wedding ring around her finger, ‘because people here are into love, Chad.’ Jenny drew a heart in the air with her index finger. ‘This magazine is into love, Chad.’ She did it again. She could have just pointed at the boardroom table. ‘That’s why we are called
True Love
magazine, Chad.’

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yet, but Jenny Sullivan likes to overuse people’s first names. It’s a technique she read about in a book called
‘Own it—Take Life by the Bollocks’
. She once said my name so many times I disconnected from it entirely.

‘Chad, I’m just thinking of you, Chad.’ You see. ‘Because we can’t
suddenly
start writing about how shit love is, become love pirates, steal love ships and go on bloody love missions. What will our poor stupid readers think?’ She looked from Chad to Federico, who was standing like a statue in the corner of the room. Chad, on the other hand, was pacing up and down the boardroom, throwing handfuls
of
Haribo
in his gob. ‘Because I have other things I can do if this magazine folds, Chad. I’d just carry on with my modelling career,’ she said, smoothing out imaginary creases in her clothes. ‘Not a day goes by that I’m not asked to endorse some beauty product or fashion brand. It’s such a bore,’ she said to Federico, as if he’d understand such a burden, even though the only thing Federico’s ever been asked to endorse is mouthwash at Paddington Station, and that was more of a general customer satisfaction survey than a traditional
celebrity
endorsement. ‘And that’s before we take into account my writing career, Chad. My publisher is
constantly
on the phone demanding I write another bestseller. Or I could just take some time out, spend more time being a good wife, fuss over my wonderful husband and—’