The Dog Who Came in from the Cold (14 page)

“Hold on,” James stuttered. “Just hold on, Caroline.
You
were the one who didn’t turn up. Yes, you.”

“Me!”
Caroline half screamed. “Me?”

“Yes, you. I came to the flat. And where were you? You’d forgotten.” He paused. “Thank you for thinking me so
interesting
that you can’t even be bothered to remember that we were having dinner together. And I was going to make that new risotto that I’d read about in the Ottolenghi book. And you weren’t even …”

“I wasn’t …” She paused. She had gone to the party downstairs and perhaps she had been a little late—but no more than fifteen minutes. Well, half an hour perhaps. But then James should have waited. She felt herself calming down. Perhaps this had been a mere misunderstanding. “Look, I was downstairs. I came right up but maybe I was a little later than I had intended. I can see how maybe you felt that—”

“I did,” snapped James. “I did feel that.”

Caroline was now ready to apologise. “I’m sorry, James,” she said.
“You must have felt that I had forgotten all about it. I can see why. I’m really sorry.”

James was relieved. He had never had a full-blown fight with Caroline before and he had no desire to do so. He took a deep breath. “I’m glad that it was just a silly mistake. I’m really glad. Shall we have dinner tonight? I’ll cook.”

She accepted with alacrity; there was no further need to be distant. “What time?”

They agreed a time, and he said, “I’ll write that down in my diary. Large letters!”

She laughed. “I’ll put a note on the fridge. That always works. By the way, what did you do last night? Did you go home and think of what you were going to say to me?”

James hesitated before he gave his reply. “No, I went out for dinner. On the spur of the moment. Nothing planned.”

“Where?”

“The Poule au Pot.”

She was surprised. They had walked past the restaurant together many times, but James had always said that it was too expensive for them. “When we’re rich,” he would say.

“The Poule au Pot,” exclaimed Caroline. “Did somebody else pay?”

“No, I paid. Me.”

Caroline’s tone changed as a note of suspicion crept into her voice. “Just by yourself? You treated yourself?”

James was truthful. “I went with Dee.”

Caroline needed a few moments to take this in. Dee? Her flatmate. “Dee?” she asked. “Her?”

James defended himself. “Well, she was there. She had nothing to do, and I was there, and she said that … Or maybe I said that I would take her—”

“You said?” Caroline interjected. “You invited her?”

“Possibly.”

“Liar,” said Caroline.

“What?” James protested. “Me? A liar?”

“No. Her. Dee. She said, you see, that she went out to dinner by herself. And all the time she went with you. You.”

James said nothing. Why would Dee have lied to Caroline about what was an entirely innocent dinner outing? Unless, of course, it was not altogether innocent in her mind? No, surely not. Not her. He liked Dee, but he could never contemplate being attracted to her in any romantic sense. Did Caroline really think that he could be interested in Dee? With all her vitamins and echinacea and acai berries? The problem, of course, was an intellectual one. He and Caroline could discuss things at the same level—or they were at least interested in the same things. With Dee it was different: easy company though she might be, talking to her was like talking to somebody who did not quite share one’s world and its references, as happens, sometimes, in one of those casual conversations when one realises that there is simply insufficient common ground to get beyond banalities. Dee was not stupid—far from it; she just
saw
things differently. And she had never even seen a Poussin, and indeed when he had mentioned Poussin—over dinner at the Poule au Pot—she had thought that he was talking about a recipe for chicken. How could Caroline imagine that he and Dee could become involved with each other? It was unthinkable.

But he did not have time to make that clear. “I’m going to talk to her,” said Caroline abruptly. “I’ll see you some time. Goodbye.”

James was about to protest against the finality of this, but Caroline had rung off. He dialled her number several times but on each occasion he was told that she was unavailable; she had switched the phone off. He sighed. Caroline was his first proper girlfriend. He had heard, of course, from his contemporaries how difficult women could be, and had smiled at their descriptions of moody, capricious behaviour.
Not for me
, he had told himself, and yet here he was
encountering it, and feeling every bit as perplexed and at a loss as his friends felt. Would it be simpler to bring things to an end with Caroline? James did not
need
her, when it came down to it. Or did he? I do, he thought. I can’t bear being shut out emotionally, I can’t bear it.

“I need you, Caroline,” he muttered. “But how can I
show
it?”

I
F RELATIONS
between James and Caroline were not all that they might have been, then the same was certainly not true of relations between Barbara Ragg and Hugh Macpherson, the young man whom she had picked up in Rye. And she had picked him up, in the most literal sense, because he had asked her in the car park of the Mermaid Inn whether she would be able to drive him back to London. On the way back there had been a terrible incident when the scarf Hugh was wearing had become entangled in a wheel of her small open-top sports car, threatening to bring about an Isadora Duncan moment. That had been averted—fortunately—and they had continued their journey to London, where, quite suddenly and, Barbara thought, miraculously, they had fallen in love. It was as simple as that.

Now they were engaged, and if people like Rupert Porter were sniggering about it behind her back—and she knew that he was doing this—then let them; it would make no difference to the happiness she was experiencing. There was a history there, she reminded herself. Her father, Gregory, had worked for many years with Rupert’s father, Fatty Porter, and they had been friends as well as business partners. But, as with any close partnership, there had been occasional stresses in the arrangement, and Barbara had not forgotten
the discussion her father had had with her shortly before his death. He had been confined to his bed, and was weakening.

“I know that you and Rupert will keep the business going,” he said. “And that makes me very happy. It’s a wonderful thing, you know, for a parent to feel assured that something he or she started is being carried on by the family. It’s difficult to describe the feeling exactly, but it’s something like the conferment of immortality. Yes, that’s what it’s like: it’s like being given a small measure of immortality …

“Rupert’s a nice enough young man,” Gregory went on. “But I do hope you won’t end up marrying him.”

Barbara had laughed. “I give you my word I won’t do that.”

Her father smiled. “Good. I don’t think it would work, frankly.”

“It certainly wouldn’t,” agreed Barbara. “And I’ve never seen him … in that way. So don’t worry.”

Gregory rested for a moment. Speaking was becoming difficult and he was trying to conserve his strength. “The problem is that as much as I get on with Fatty, and as much as we are close friends, there’s a side to him that I just don’t trust. It’s difficult to put your finger on it, but I get the feeling that at the end of the day, Fatty might just let you down. He’d always do the thing that was in his best interests.” He paused. “Do you know what I mean? Looking after number one?”

Barbara nodded. “Yes. But then, don’t all of us do that? Don’t we all look after number one when it comes down to it?”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Gregory. “I suppose there’s a sense in which we are all our number one priority, but there are plenty of people who actually do seem to think of others first. Or at least spend more time on others than they do on themselves.” He hesitated. “Did I say plenty?”

“You did.”

“Well, maybe not plenty. Some, rather. Some people are strikingly altruistic.”

“And Fatty’s not one of those?”

Gregory grinned. “Heavens, no. Nor will his son be. Watch him. Because … Well, you know my views on heredity. It shows. It always shows. If you want to know what somebody is going to be like, look at the parents. There’s your answer.”

And now, sitting in her office, tidying up on the last afternoon before she was due to begin a ten-day holiday with Hugh—their first holiday together—Barbara remembered this warning from her father. She had heeded his advice, of course, and over the years she had seen little instances of Rupert’s selfishness that had confirmed her father’s judgement of him. But now she wondered whether she had done something that flew in the face of the paternal warning. I have, she thought; and it’s too late to undo it.

Rupert had come into her office that morning to discuss a rather difficult client who was proposing to change agencies. He was torn; on the one hand it would simplify life if this demanding client were to make his unreasonable demands on another agency altogether, but …

“On the other hand,” said Barbara, “if he goes then he may eventually take another five or six people with him. We know for a fact that he’s very friendly with Molly and Pete …”

“And George,” added Rupert. “He and George are very close. And if George went that would be a big blow.”

“Precisely.”

“So I try to persuade him to stay?”

“Yes,” said Barbara. “Definitely.”

They had agreed on a strategy of persuasion and then Rupert had raised the issue of Barbara’s impending holiday. “Lucky you. I’m stuck in town for another two months.”

She thought, He’s trying to make me feel guilty. He always does. She smiled up at him from her desk; Rupert never sat down when he talked to her—he liked the advantage of extra height.

“I’m looking forward to it immensely. We’re going to Scotland.”

“We?” asked Rupert, and then, quickly, “Of course, you and Hugh. Of course. How nice.”

Then Barbara had mentioned her boiler. “It’s rather awkward, though. I’ve got somebody coming to install a new central heating system in the flat. They insist on doing it next week, but I don’t want to hand over the keys to people I don’t know. I was hoping to get a friend to supervise—to let them in and see that everything was in order. But I haven’t yet …” She stopped herself, realising what was coming next.

“But let us help,” said Rupert effusively. “We’re just round the corner, as you know, and since Gloria went freelance she’s very flexible. Miss Flexibility herself, in fact. She could pop in and supervise things.”

“I don’t want to …”

“Look, it’s not the slightest imposition. Gloria would love to help. Just give me a key and all will be fixed.”

Barbara knew that she should have resisted, but it was too late. She could hardly refuse this offer without appearing churlish and distrusting, and yet even as she handed over the spare set of keys she understood what a profound mistake it was. Rupert had wanted her flat for years, and felt that he had a moral claim to it. And here she was handing over her keys to him when it might have been better to prevaricate, or make an excuse. Could anything be more foolish? Or weak?

After he had left the room, she looked down at her desk and took a deep breath. It was absurd to worry unnecessarily; there was nothing that Rupert could do. After all, one couldn’t steal a flat—could one?

B
ARBARA MADE A CONSCIOUS EFFORT
to stop thinking about Rupert and his wheedling ways. She had only another three hours in the office before she could leave for the next ten days, putting all thoughts of Rupert and the Ragg Porter Literary Agency out of her mind. These ten days would be spent in the company of Hugh Macpherson, her fiancé, in the wilds of Argyll, staying on his father’s farm. It was a blissful thought, and Barbara allowed her mind to dwell on the delights that lay ahead. She would have Hugh all to herself; her companion, her plaything. She felt a frisson of anticipatory pleasure as she allowed herself to imagine moments of intimacy together; Hugh was attentive, the ideal lover, and made Oedipus Snark, with his hurried, insensitive ways, seem like a bad dream. Oedipus had not really
felt
anything for her, she now realised; he had stayed with her for several years simply because his vanity required that he have a partner. He had not loved her, and if she had persuaded herself that she loved him, then it was no more than wishful thinking and self-delusion.

She closed her eyes, allowing herself one final image of Hugh lying beside her, with the window open to the Highlands sky that in the summer was light even at eleven at night, and the scent of the sea loch that Hugh had explained lay just a short distance from the house; and she pictured herself getting up and looking down at Hugh, still asleep, and then crossing to the window and seeing the deer going down to the
machair
, that strip of grass between the sea and the land proper. She imagined all that, and then opened her eyes again and frowned, and began to dictate the final few letters that she had to give to her secretary before she left for this idyll with Hugh. She glanced at her watch: it was three o’clock. In seven hours
they would be boarding the Fort William sleeper for the trip north; just seven short hours.

There was a letter to Errol Greatorex, the amanuensis who claimed to have written the autobiography of a yeti. Rupert had initially been scathing about this project, and was still somewhat dubious about Greatorex’s credentials. “Firstly,” he had said on one occasion, in that insufferably pedantic voice that he used when he wanted to explain what he thought was very obvious. “Firstly, the very existence of yetis is doubtful. It’s all very well producing photographs of giant footprints, but if these creatures existed, then surely we would have found skeletons, at the very least. Unless they’re immortal, of course. There’s always that possibility, I suppose. If they’re like Zeus et al. and the Himalayas are like Mount Olympus, then I suppose that we wouldn’t find skeletons, would we, they having no mortal coil to cast off—
d’accord
?”