She glanced at Terence beside her, at the wheel of his Porsche. Then she looked at the speedometer. Twenty-eight miles per hour, and they were out of the speed limit zone, as Terence’s house was just into the country on the very fringes of Cheltenham. Poor Terence, with his magical thinking, and his Porsche …
“I do like this little car of yours, Terence,” said Berthea. “But you must miss that old Morris of yours.”
“Morris is gone,” said Terence firmly. “Mr Marchbanks took him away.”
Berthea smiled. Morris is gone. The title of a novel, perhaps. Or a song, like that haunting one she had heard the other day, “Tortoise Regrets Hare”. Terence regrets Morris. Morris gone.
“Yes, maybe he’s gone,” Berthea said. “But don’t you miss familiar objects, once they break or are replaced or whatever? I do. I had to throw out an old pair of slippers the other day. You know, those sheepskin ones – I used to bring them down here for the weekend and pad about your house in them. Frightfully comfortable.”
Terence nodded. “Pantoufles,” he said. “I called them your pantoufles.”
“So you did. Such a good name for them. The French are often better at naming things than we are, don’t you think? We come up with such prosaic names.”
Terence was silent for a moment. “Where do you think they are now? Do you thank that they might have been picked up by some old tramp, who’s wearing him in his … wherever tramps live, and feeling rather proud of them? Do you think?”
“I doubt it,” said Berthea. “But it’s possible. And it’s rather nice to think that our things have an afterlife, as it were.”
“Yes,” said Terence. “I got this cardigan from a charity shop, would you believe? It belonged to somebody else, you know. Some other chap. Then it belonged to me, and I’ve had it for eight years now.”
“So I’ve noticed,” said Berthea. “Have you thought of getting …”
“No,” said Terence firmly. “I don’t need new things yet, Berthy. These outer things are of no real significance, you know. What counts is the spiritual state. Peter Deunov …”
But there was no time for Deunov, as they had reached the driveway of Terence’s house, and Berthea, anxious to avoid further explorations of the Bulgarian mystic, was commenting on the profusion of rhododendrons at the garden’s entrance. “Such thick foliage,” she said. “I’ve always loved rhododendrons. I remember when those went in, you know. We were very small, so they’ve lasted an awful long time.”
“Like us,” said Terence. “We’ve lasted a long time, haven’t we, Berthy? And we’ve …” He did not finish. A figure had stepped out from behind one of the rhododendron bushes , causingTerence to brake sharply. Berthea, who had been gazing at the bushes, gave a start.
“Who …”
Terence answered her question. “Rog,” he said. “He loves walking about the garden. He says that the energy of the plants is conducive to his creative processes. He spends a lot of time in the garden.”
The man who had appeared so suddenly was staring at Berthea through the window of the Porsche. He was a tall man, dressed in white – as many of Terence’s friends seemed permanently to be. His face was craggy, with high cheekbones, a slightly patrician face, the face of a boarding-school headmaster, or a senior army officer. This was not what she had expected. A Rog, Berthea had thought – shuddering at the abbreviation – ought to have a weak face, the face of one who did not quite know what was going on and was writing a book about it. This Rog, she decided, knew exactly what he was about.
She looked away, unwilling to meet the scrutinising gaze of the stranger. But then she turned back, and held the man’s gaze. Charlatan, she thought.
Chapter 27: Dee is Exposed as a Liar
Caroline almost put the phone down. (Metaphorically, of course: mobile telephones have spoiled that gesture. What could one do – throw the phone to the floor? The abrupt movement of the thumb onto the End Call button lacked the dramatic force of the slamming down of the receiver.) But she resisted the temptation and did not push the button; she listened coldly to the voice at the other end. James.
It was the morning afterwards – as it so often seems to be. “Caroline? It’s me.”
Silence ensued.
“Caroline?”
And then, faintly, like the sound of ice creaking at the edge of an ice-field, and as cold, “Yes. What do you want?”
Now the silence came from the other end of the line, from James. Caroline swallowed hard. “James, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here. It’s you I was wondering about. Is there something wrong with your phone?”
She closed her eyes. “Wrong with my phone? Wrong with my phone? It’s you who’s wrong …” She was almost incoherent. “Last night. You said that you were coming round and … I waited and then …” She stopped herself; she sounded like a parody of the wronged woman, and that was not what she wanted. She wanted to appear composed and distant, indifferent to James’s failure to keep to their arrangement. Dinner? What dinner? Oh, you were coming round – sorry, I’d forgotten. No, I didn’t notice really …
“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 not more than fifteen minutes. Well, half an hour perhaps. But then James should have waited. She felt herself calming down. Perhaps this had been no more than 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 felt ready now 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 felt relief. He had never had a real 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.”
It took Caroline 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 t
o 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 had 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?
Chapter 28: Barbara Regrets Giving her Key to Rupert
If 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 don’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 key 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 to him when it would have been so easy 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 be worry unnecessarily; there was nothing that Rupert could do. After all, one couldn’t steal a flat – could one?