A Conspiracy of Friends

  ‘I don’t think she would,’ said William. ‘I saw a documentary about her once. I remember that, even if I don’t remember the novels very well. She was sitting there, with rather short hair, and her eyes were moving as she spoke, darting about in a tremendously intelligent way. But I thought she seemed very down-to-earth, very matter-of-fact. She wouldn’t disapprove of people who gave up philosophy or literary theory to do ordinary things.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ mused Maggie. ‘If we eat pies, then we should never, not for one moment, look down on the making of them.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said William. ‘I never have.’

  Chapter 20: Rupert’s Disclosure

  Barbara Ragg sat at her desk and looked at the open double page of her diary before her.

  It was not a busy day, the morning’s only noted commitment being a brief meeting with a publisher at ten-thirty, over a cappuccino in one of the coffee bars which that part of Soho still allowed to flourish among the dubious bars and over-priced restaurants. Barbara was a member of the Ivy Club, some fifteen minutes away in West Street, and the publisher, who was notoriously mean, had angled for an invitation to lunch there, knowing that with a club lunch the member always paid.

  ‘It would be nice to meet for lunch,’ he had said. ‘I’d take you to my club but it’s closed for renovations. Any suggestions?’

  She had smiled. The publisher’s club must have been renovated several times in the course of her dealings with him; perhaps it was like the Forth Bridge, which, until the invention of miracle paints, had needed to be tackled all over again by the time the painting crews reached the far side.

  ‘Your poor club,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t it being renovated earlier this year?’

  There had been a pause while the question was assessed. ‘That was the basement. A new … ‘

  She waited. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Set of bedrooms.’

  She frowned. ‘That’s strange. It can’t be much fun staying in the basement. Not much natural light, I would have thought. So what are they working on now?’

  ‘Oh, heaven knows. But we can’t go there, I’m afraid.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Then let’s have coffee. Ten-thirty?’

  So there was that, and then at two o’clock she was expecting a visit from one of her authors who had telephoned to say that he had had an idea. This was all that was in the diary, and neither of these appointments would be remotely stressful. But unrecorded was a further and infinitely more worrying duty: a session with Rupert.

  It could be put off, but she realised that it would then only pray on her mind. So she closed her eyes, mentally counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty; prevarication enough, she thought, and rose to her feet.

  Rupert’s office was down the corridor. While Barbara kept her door open so that any member of the agency’s staff might drop in with a query or for a chat, Rupert’s door policy was distinctly less encouraging. Not only was his door always closed, but there were occasions when, although everybody knew that he was within, he resolutely refused to answer a knock. ‘If people want to speak to me,’ he once observed, ‘then they can speak to me about speaking to me. This casual, everybody’s welcome approach is an utter waste of time. Believe me.’ This comment was accompanied by a look in Barbara’s direction - a look that she intercepted and met with a challenging stare.

  ‘Saying “believe me” all the time is a sign of insecurity,’ Barbara had observed to one of her colleagues. ‘You say it because you doubt that anybody’s going to believe you. And why should nobody believe you?’

  ‘Because you tell so many lies,’ said the colleague.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ said Barbara, and laughed, adding, ‘Believe me.’

  Now, standing in front of Rupert’s door, she drew a deep breath and knocked firmly. There was no reply, and so she knocked once more. Again there was no answer.

  She took another deep breath and tested the handle. The door was not locked. She pushed it open.

  Rupert was sitting back in his chair, his feet on his desk. He was reading a manuscript, which he barely lowered as Barbara came in.

  ‘I wish you’d knock, Barbara,’ he said from behind the manuscript. ‘It doesn’t take much effort, you know.’

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘Twice.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear you. I could have been on the phone, you know. It might not have been convenient.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t,’ she said briskly. ‘Which was most fortunate, as I need to have a word with you, Rupert.’

  Rupert lowered the manuscript and took his feet off the desk. ‘Fine,’ he drawled. ‘My door is always open. Metaphorically, of course. What can I do for you, dear R … Barbara?’

  Barbara knew that he referred to her as Ragg, or la Ragg, but it rarely slipped out in her presence. She drew up the chair beside his desk and sat down.

  ‘It’s about the flat.’

  His manner changed immediately: he was now all solicitude. ‘Of course. Have you decided on a date? You know that we’ll be happy to do anything to help you. I’m even prepared to shift furniture, you know - an alternative to going to the gym. Really. Yes, I really am.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, there’s not going to be a date, Rupert. I’ve decided to keep the flat after all. I’m so sorry to have raised your hopes but I know that you’ll understand.’

  For a moment Rupert said nothing. She watched his face, though, and saw the colour rise. Rupert had always been like a piece of litmus paper, she thought, his complexion revealing his emotional state with immediate and striking clarity.

  ‘So,’ he said at last. ‘You’re going to break your promise to me. Just like that. Pouf! Promise gone.’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a promise, Rupert,’ said Barbara mildly. ‘As I recall, all I said was that I had decided to sell the flat and you could buy it. Your ability to buy it was dependent on my initial decision to sell, and relied on that. When my decision changed, your interest fell away.’

  Rupert’s eyes opened wide. ‘Don’t you come the hair-splitting scholastic theologian with me, Ragg,’ he shouted. ‘You promised, and you’re now going to break your promise. Fine. That shows me what sort of partner I’ve got. My father was right. He warned me that no Ragg could be trusted. That’s what he said, you know. He said you were as unreliable as gypsies.’

  ‘That’s a shocking thing to say, Rupert. Are you saying that gypsies are unreliable? Is that what you’re suggesting?’

  ‘I didn’t say they were unreliable, I said that you Raggs were unreliable.’

  ‘You didn’t. I heard you, Rupert. You said that gypsies were unreliable. You can’t say things like that these days, you know. It’s insulting.’

  He stared at her venomously. ‘What do you know about gypsies, Barbara? Nothing, that’s what!’

  ‘So you’re the big expert on gypsies, Rupert? Like so many other things.’

  He looked away. ‘I’m going to get even with you, Barbara, I promise you. And just you remember: I, unlike some I could name, keep my promises.’ He paused. ‘There’s something you should perhaps know, Barbara. You interested? Well, since you started this, I might tell you. My father knew more about your father than you do. Yes, it’s true. And you know what? He told me that your grandfather was a gypsy. He never told you that, did he? Well, he told Pop, and Pop told me. So you should go away and think about that little bit of information, Barbara!’

  Chapter 21: On Who We Really Are

  Barbara Ragg managed to meet the publisher for coffee at ten-thirty as planned, but only just. She had thought all along that her conversation with Rupert would not be easy, but she had not imagined that it would be quite as uncomfortable as this, and she had certainly not anticipated that Rupert would make a disclosure as to the identity of her grandfather. She left his office reeling. Outside, she turned first one way, then the other. She looked up. There was the office accountant, staring at her anxiously.

  The accountant,
a thin woman with a permanently worried expression, reached out to touch Barbara’s arm. ‘Is everything all right, Barbara? You look a bit upset.’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just that I’ve exchanged a few words with Rupert and … ‘

  ‘Oh, I know what it’s like talking to him. Impossible.’ Her hand shot to her mouth. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean that.’

  Barbara reassured her, but her manner was distracted. ‘No, don’t apologise. Rupert is … Well, we all have our ways.’

  The accountant gave a weak smile. ‘We need to gang together,’ she whispered. ‘We women need to stand up to him. It’s the only way with bullies.’

  Barbara nodded. ‘Do you think it felt like this during the Battle of Britain?’

  ‘Of course it did,’ said the accountant. ‘It must have been like this every minute of the day. And they stood up to the bullies, didn’t they? Those young men - half of them barely out of short trousers; they stood up against the bullies.’

  The accountant patted Barbara’s arm and went on her way. Barbara, still dazed, returned to her room and sat down heavily in her chair. I have gypsy blood, she thought. Rom. Traveller. Whatever it’s called these days - that’s me. That’s me.

  There was no doubt in her mind that what Rupert had said was correct. Her grandfather on her father’s side had died some years before her birth, as had his wife, her grandmother. It was not until she was about eight that she had started to ask her father about his parents - questions brought on by the conversation of coevals at school who saw their grandparents regularly.

  ‘What happened to your parents?’ she asked directly. ‘They’re my grandparents, aren’t they?’

  Gregory Ragg had looked away. ‘They died, darling. Terribly sad, but there we are. Went to heaven.’

  He did not seem to wish to continue the conversation, but she persisted. ‘Where did they live?’

  He had sounded a bit vague. ‘Here and there. They moved about a bit.’

  Now, remembering this exchange all these years later, her father’s words came back to her. They moved about a bit. Of course they did: that’s what travellers did - they travelled.

  ‘So what did granddad do for a living? Was he a literary agent, like you?’

  ‘Not quite, darling. My dad was keener on the outdoor life. He liked fresh air.’

  ‘So what did he do? Was he a farmer?’

  ‘Not really. He had business dealings with farmers, though. He loved horses, your granddad. He was a very good judge of horseflesh. He took a lot of them … ‘ And there he had faltered.

  Took a lot of horses. What did that mean? The meaning was quite clear now, of course, and she felt foolish that she had not understood then. Nor had she understood the significance of her father’s remarks on his education. ‘I had terrifically good luck with my education,’ he explained to her. ‘There was a bit of a mix-up, you see, and I was left by mistake under a hedge when I was three. And this terrifically kind man whose hedge it was found me and took me in. He sent me to a little school nearby and then on to an expensive boarding place. It was a really good education and I made the most of it. My parents would never have been able to afford it.’

  ‘Did you see your parents again? Your real parents, that is.’

  ‘Yes. The man who took me in had a good idea who they were and he made a point of keeping in touch with them. So my father came to see me every so often, right up to the time he died.’

  It seemed strange to her that a father might leave a son in a hedge and still be interested in him. ‘But he left you in a hedge,’ she said.

  ‘I like to think that he knew what he was doing,’ said Gregory. ‘I like to think that he was very well aware that my stepfather would find me and look after me. I think of it as an act of generosity on his part. He wanted the best for me, and he knew that the way to secure it was to abandon me. It was an act of self-sacrifice. A noble act.’

  Barbara had lost interest and the matter was not pursued. Nor did her father make subsequent reference to his parents, and she picked up on the prickly feeling of discouragement that surrounded the subject. But it all made sense, all fitted so neatly into place, now that she knew.

  Her first reaction, of course, was shock. But, sitting in her office, she reflected on the meaning of what had been revealed to her. There was nothing wrong in being a gypsy, anything more than there was anything wrong in living a settled life in a house made of bricks and mortar. We were all the same, were we not, when we came into this world: we were all equal in our vulnerability and our malleability. And we did not ask for the bed in which we were born: that was one of the things over which we had no control at all, just as we had no say as to whether we would be redheads, or tall or short or somewhere in between; or whether we were born Polish or Zambian, Catholic or Muslim or Jewish. We had no choice in all this. And it was this, precisely this, that made it so wrong to think the less of another for what he or she was. There was no moral obligation to like others, nor necessarily to enthuse over them, but we did have to recognise their equal worth.

  Barbara stood up. On the wall beside her bookcase there was a mirror that she used to tidy up before a meeting. Now she saw herself reflected in it, and she leaned forward to peer more closely at her face. Gypsy, she muttered under her breath. And what looked back was the face of her ancestors: long-dead judges of horseflesh, occupants of colourful wooden caravans, the victims of all sorts of abuse and bad treatment. She reached out and touched the reflection. Hello, she whispered, as one who, for the first time, acknowledges some aspect of self long denied or unknown. Hello.

  Chapter 22: Coffee with George

  What difference, Barbara considered as she made her way to the coffee bar, what earthly difference does it make who my grandfather was? Or my grandmother, for that matter. Rupert had not mentioned her, and nor had Gregory, now that she thought of it: her father had only spoken of his own father and it had never occurred to her to ask him about his mother. Perhaps that was just another example of the fate of women in those days - to be eclipsed by men. Was her grandmother also a gypsy - or traveller? Should she be using the word gypsy - was it an act of discourtesy towards her own people? She rather liked the word, which she had never seen as offensive, but then that was before the … the revelation; for that is how she thought of it - a profound and overwhelming revelation. I am now something special, she thought. I am Rom … I come from somewhere else, from outside all this. This answered the question as to what difference the revelation represented: in a curious way it freed her.

  The publisher whom she was due to meet was already in the coffee bar when she arrived, seated at one of the small tables near the window. As she entered, he looked pointedly at his watch.

  ‘I was about to give up on you,’ he said.

  Barbara glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter. ‘Sorry, George. It’s only ten minutes. I had a meeting.’

  George looked at his watch again. ‘I have to be away in twenty minutes, I’m afraid.’

  She ordered coffee for both of them and returned to the table.

  ‘You’re Australian, aren’t you, George?’

  He looked at her with surprise. ‘Of course I am. You know that. We did the Melbourne book with that author of yours. Remember - we took him out to lunch and we discovered that we’d both been at the same school.’

  She remembered. She had paid the bill on that occasion too, and now she felt like saying: I took him out to lunch actually.

  ‘You always knew you were Australian, of course.’

  He looked at her sideways. ‘Always knew I was Australian? Of course I did. How could I think otherwise … ?’ He paused, and frowned. ‘Oh, I see what you’re driving at. Cultural identity - that sort of thing. Yes, well, I suppose in my case I grew up just after Whitlam and Australia was beginning to ask itself that sort of question. But I never thought of myself as British, as my parents did. They were both born there and yet they thought of themselves as British, at least for the fi
rst part of their lives. Then suddenly all that stopped and we thought of ourselves as Australian and nothing else. We grew up. End of the cultural cringe and all that. Finito.’

  She listened. ‘And now?’

  He smiled at her. ‘What is this? The cricket-support test? Whom do I cheer when I watch England versus Australia?’

  ‘No, not that. It’s just… Well, I’ve had a bit of a shock this morning. I’ve discovered something about myself.’

  The proprietor brought their coffee to the table. George lifted his spoon and dipped it into the top layer of foamed milk. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he said. ‘We publishers have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.’ He grinned.

  ‘Nothing to do with that.’

  He lifted his cup to his lips. ‘So you’ve discovered you’re Australian? Is that it?’

  She hesitated. It was the first time she was mentioning her new knowledge to anybody and she might have chosen somebody other than George - Hugh, ideally - but George was in this place at this time and she had to speak about it.

  ‘What do you think about gypsies?’ she asked.

  He lowered his cup. ‘Have you been drinking, Barbara?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just that you’ve made very little sense since you came in here. Asking me whether I always knew I was Australian. Then you mention a personal discovery of some sort. Then suddenly you ask me my view of gypsies, of all people.’

  Barbara had to admit that it sounded strange. But it all made sense, she explained, because … ‘Well, you see, I’ve just discovered that I’m at least one quarter gypsy. Just this morning. An hour or so ago.’

  George shrugged. ‘So are lots of people, I imagine.’

  ‘But it’s important … ‘

  He shrugged again. ‘Not really. Gypsies look pretty much like anybody else to me. Two arms, two legs, a nose.’ He paused, looking at her in a way which made it seem as if he were assessing her. ‘Of course, people are pretty hung up on these things in this country, aren’t they? In Australia it makes not the slightest bit of difference. Half the population can trace their roots back to some poor cattle thief and so we don’t put much store by such things. And what’s wrong with being a gypsy, anyway? Rather colourful life, I would have thought. Free as air. No taxes. They don’t pay income tax, do they?’