LET THEM EAT CAKE

He hated being called ‘Klomp’. His name was Henri de Klompenmaker, but with typical linguistic laziness the London publishing world had decided that this was too much of a mouthful. Klomp grumpily hailed a taxi as he emerged from the terminal building at Bermuda International Airport. His mood belied the fact that he had been well entertained on the flight. The film, ‘John Major, Man of Destiny’, the life story of the grey man who had risen without trace to become Prime Minister of Great Britain, had been most inspiring. Like John Major, Henri de Klompenmaker’s academic achievements were modest; like John Major, he had recently received a spectacular and unexpected promotion; like John Major, great things were now expected of him.  In fact the whole flight had gone well until he had been held back to allow the First Class passengers to disembark. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Marlene Pym in First Class! Of course he should have known that she would be flying to Bermuda for the Annual Retreat of the Newtonian Academy of Scholarly Publishing. He had been in London long enough to realise that no gathering of scholarly publishers was complete without Marlene Pym, marketing director of Albany Press, his own company’s arch-rival. But First Class travel? That was too much! Nobody at Standard lnternational travelled first class, not even The Chairman – it was SI company policy. He looked the other way, but he could still hear her animated chatter as she moved in his direction. It got worse.

‘Mon dieu!’ she exclaimed in the affected French that was her linguistic signature.

‘Mon dieu, chaps, c’est Klomp!’ Not only had she seen him, but she was  obviously not alone. He turned, and found that Marlene and her companions had  pretty well taken over the entire First Class compartment. Thus was Klomp’s first flight in BA Club Class entirely ruined. Escorted by a fawning purser they walked past him. ‘Bonjour, Klomp’, purred Marlene, with a mischievous flash of her dark  eyes. ‘Hello Klomp’, said each of the six Englishmen who followed in her wake. He knew every one of them.

* * *

It was a warm, sunny day at Elysium, the palatial Montecito home of Mrs Franklin J Todd IV, who for once was looking forward to welcoming her three dearest friends to her regular Thursday luncheon party, followed by bridge. She had a sensational revelation to make that would lend a proper sense of proportion to the vulgar publicity that the Borman Clinic, the pet charity of one of her luncheon guests, had been receiving recently. One month ago, during her visit to the Todd Institute for Moleculetics, she had hidden two jars of Compound X in her capacious Kelly handbag. One of these she had secreted in her medicine cupboard, which nobody, not even Mitch, her devoted personal maid, was allowed to open. The other she had given to Mitch, with instructions to feed a carefully prescribed amount daily to Missy, her husband’s portly pet labrador. During the past few weeks, Prunella Drake had, with considerable satisfaction, observed Missy grow steadily thinner; a fact confirmed by the results of the weekly weigh-in that Mitch reported. She had also noted that Missy retained her famously sunny personality and gave every appearance of being a healthy, well-balanced dog. In other words, Compound X worked, seemed to have no side-effects, and the next phase of Prunella Todd’s clinical trial, on herself, could now begin.

Her original plan had been to wait until her own weight loss became noticeable before telling her bridge companions about Compound X, but Shelley Borman had been so insufferable about the coverage of the Borman Clinic for Substance Abuse on CBS’s weekly news magazine, ‘60 Minutes’, that the time had come to make them aware of the sensational research going on at the Todd. That would take the shine off Shelley’s recent interview with Barbara Walters. ‘We’ve all heard quite enough about that’, Prunella thought. ‘And I know just how to change the subject’. Shelley Borman was naturally dumpy, ate far too much, and had failed with every diet known to medicine.