“Well, I’m very sorry to say it, Rupert, but that meal was not terribly good.”
Rupert Porter looked at his wife, reproachfully at first, but then he too shook his head in disapproval. “You’re right, Gloria,” he agreed. “It was ghastly. And on your birthday, too! I’m so sorry, my dear.”
Gloria reached out across the table and took his hand. “Don’t even think about it, darling. It’s not your fault. The important thing is that you took me out to dinner.”
He was placated, but not entirely. “It really annoys me, you know. What if we were Americans, for instance, or a fortiori French? What would we think of London, paying what we just have for a meal like that?”
“If we were French,” said Gloria, “we would take the view that our prejudices are confirmed. Les rosbifs know nothing about food.”
Rupert smiled wryly. “Perhaps we should have ordered le rosbif rather than the Dublin Bay prawns.” He paused. “When do you think those Dublin Bay prawns last saw Dublin Bay?”
“A long time ago. A month or two perhaps.”
Rupert nodded his agreement. “Months in the freezer.”
They rose from their table. As they did so, a man sitting in the corner of the restaurant looked in their direction. Gloria noticed his stare, and returned it. How rude, she thought. But the man did not look away. After a moment, she averted her gaze.
“Rupert, that man,” she whispered. “Over there.”
Rupert was struggling with his coat, a rather smart camel hair that he had bought in Jermyn Street. He was proud of this coat, with its velvet collar, which gave him, he thought, a rather raffish look. Prosperous and raffish. “Mr Ten Per Cent,” Barbara Ragg had muttered when she had first seen him wearing it. He had seen her lips move but had not caught what she said.
“What?”
“I said, what a fetching coat.”
He had preened. “Rather smart, isn’t it. Camel hair, you know.”
“It makes you look … quite the man about town.”
Now, the coat having been donned, he glanced in the direction indicated by Gloria. At first he noticed nothing unusual, but then he intercepted the man’s stare. Quickly he turned away.
“Do you know him?” whispered Gloria.
Rupert made a hurried gesture. “Later,” he muttered. “We can talk later.”
Outside the restaurant Rupert looked at his watch. “The night is still young … Do you know, I’ve had a wonderful idea.”
Gloria took his arm. “All your ideas are wonderful, Rupert.”
“Have you got those keys on you?”
“Which keys?”
“The ones I gave you. The keys to La Ragg’s flat. Or rather, the keys to the flat that she occupies.” He gave Gloria a sideways look, and she understood the meaning immediately. This was a reference to his claim to Barbara’s flat – a claim that might have had no substance in law (in the strictest sense) but had a moral backing which he felt only the deliberately perverse could deny. So he spoke about the flat in the same tones as an irredentist might speak about some ancient and painful territorial claim, or as they might speak in certain quarters about the Spratly Islands or some remote corners of South America – and with equal passion, too.
Gloria glanced in her handbag. “They’re there,” she said. “But, look, that man back there. Did you know him?”
Rupert looked evasive. “Perhaps.”
“What do you mean perhaps? Either you knew him or you didn’t. And he certainly seemed to know us – he was boring a hole in my back with his stare.”
“He’s a chap called Ratty Mason,” muttered Rupert. “I knew him at school.”
Gloria stopped in her tracks, almost causing Rupert to stumble into her. “Ratty Mason? That’s Ratty Mason?”
Rupert tugged at her arm, encouraging her to walk on. “I think so. I could be wrong, though. It was dark in there.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed Gloria. “At long last I’ve caught sight of Ratty Mason. How long is it since you saw him?”
“Ages,” said Rupert. “Not since I was at Uppingham. A long time ago, as you know.”
Gloria was not going to let matters rest at that. She had tried before to get Rupert to talk about Ratty Mason, whose name had come up in some context that she did not recall. Rupert had refused, changing the subject rather quickly. She was determined to find out now, though, and she pressed him again. “Why was he called Ratty?”
“He just was,” said Rupert. “That’s what we called him in those days. Everybody had a nickname.”
“Was he ratty?”
“Not especially. Sometimes the nicknames were chosen at random. There was a boy called Octopus Watkins. I have no idea how he got that name. He didn’t have eight arms and legs, as I recall. Did you have nicknames at your school?”
Gloria could spot an attempt to change the subject. “Ratty,” she persisted, “suggests that he was, well, rat-like. Or that he turned people in to the authorities. One rats on people, doesn’t one?”
“Maybe.”
She stopped him again. “Come on, Rupert, you can’t fool me. There’s something fishy here. Why this reticence about Ratty Mason?”
He turned to her, his eyes narrowed. “Just leave Ratty Mason out of it, will you? I don’t want to talk about him. He’s history.”
“Were you very friendly with him?”
Rupert snorted. “Me? Friendly with Ratty Mason? Don’t make me laugh.”
“So there was a problem then. What happened? Did he … betray you?”
At the mention of betrayal, Rupert sighed again. “I really don’t want to stand here in the middle of the pavement talking about somebody like Ratty Mason. I had a really very good idea and now you’ve gone and spoiled it.”
Gloria thought for a moment. Ratty Mason could wait; there would be another opportunity. “All right, what’s your idea?”
“We go to Barbara’s flat and have a look round,” he said. “You’ve got the keys.”
Rupert was holding Gloria’s arm as he spoke, and he felt a jolt of excitement running through her.
“Rupert!”
“Pourquoi non? We have La Ragg’s authority to go and let in those boiler people, so does it make any difference if we merely exercise that right of access a bit early? I don’t think it does. Not in the slightest, if you ask me.”
“You make it sound so simple. But what would we do once we’re in?”
“As I said, look around. We could see how she’s using the place to which we are morally entitled. It’ll be like a UN inspection. That sort of thing.”
Gloria looked about her, as if to see whether anybody might be capable of overhearing this dangerous suggestion. “All right,” she said. “I can just imagine what it’ll be like.”
“So can I,” said Rupert, chuckling. “Frightful taste, I bet. Flying ducks on the wall?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Gloria. “We must brace ourselves.”
Chapter 35: Don't Go There
Barbara Ragg’s flat was on a street that ran off Kensington Park Road. It was not the most expensive part of Notting Hill – there were more fashionable and sought-after addresses – but it was, by any standards, comfortable and secure. From Barbara’s point of view, it was ideal. The flat faced south-west and benefited from the late afternoon sun; the neighbours were quiet and inoffensive, but sufficiently attentive to any unusual occurrences to amount to an informal neighbourhood watch; the roof was in good order; and there were never any unseemly arguments with landlords or residents about the cost of painting the railings that gave onto the street or any of the other shared parts of the building. Barbara found it difficult to imagine herself living in any other area of London, and if she looked at the property pages of the newspapers it was only to reflect on her good fortune in being where she was, in having what she had.
The features of the flat which appealed to Barbara were, as it happened, exactly the same ones that gave rise to an intense and burning jealousy on the part of Rupert Porter.
The flat he occupied with Gloria faced in the wrong direction and got very little light at any time of the day. It was also far pokier, having been built at a time when the Victorian confidence that inspired the architects of Barbara’s flat had somehow flagged; perhaps there had been a defeat somewhere in that rambling empire, or a financial downturn, sufficient to make Rupert’s windows and ceilings meaner, his public rooms less commodious.
Everyone knows, of course, that there are people who live in better accommodation than we do ourselves. Even the wealthy, in their well-appointed mansions, know that there are even wealthier people occupying even better appointed homes. At work, too, inequalities abound. Civil servants, as is well known, measure the size of their carpets to establish where they are in the pecking order; ministerial cars are carefully graded by engine capacity to suit the seniority of the person to whom they are allocated; in airports there are lounges for every grade of traveller, and for the lowest grade, no lounge at all. We all know these things and accept that some people have things which we do not – unless we feel that they do not deserve what they have, in which case we look forward to their dispossession. Rupert generally did not resent the residential good fortune of others; he did not scowl as he walked past people standing on the doorsteps of houses that were clearly more desirable than his. That was not the issue. The issue was Barbara’s occupancy of the flat that had once belonged to his father, Fatty Porter, and out of which he, Rupert, and any future Porters, had been cheated. Or so he believed; the fact that the flat had been quite properly sold to Barbara’s father was not the point. Behind some contracts there is a hinterland of interpretation, and in Rupert’s view the Raggs had quite simply tricked the Porters by ignoring what everybody involved plainly understood.
That was the history. And that was what Rupert was thinking about as he and Gloria made their way to the front door of Sydney Villa. There Rupert glanced quickly at the nameplate next to Barbara’s doorbell – Ragg. He flushed with anger. Porter, it should have read.
“The keys,” he said, his voice lowered.
Gloria fished about in her bag. “Here they are. Rupert, I wonder …”
“No,” said Rupert. “We mustn’t change our minds. Remember: we’re entitled to this place. La Ragg is really not much more than a squatter.”
“But Watergate …”
“Nonsense!” He smiled. “Notting Hillgate, if you must.”
There was an awkward moment as Rupert fitted the key into its keyhole. It was slightly stiff, and he had to withdraw it twice before it slotted into place. It occurred to him that his lack of familiarity with the key could alert any observer, but there was nobody watching, and he succeeded in opening the front door on the third attempt.
They moved through the common entrance hall and took the stairs up to Barbara’s landing. They opened the door to the flat and went into Barbara’s entrance hall. Rupert found a light switch and flicked it on. He pointed to a picture hanging on the far wall. “Ghastly,” he said. “She goes in for that sort of stuff in the office. Look at it.”
“Pretty awful,” said Gloria. “Let’s look at her kitchen.”
Rupert was more interested in the drawing room, a room he had always particularly liked, but he wanted Gloria to have some fun too, so he followed her through to the kitchen.
“She’s got one of those cheap blenders,” said Gloria. “And look at this crockery. That’s what happens when you put non-dishwasher-proof plates in the dishwasher. See here. And here. It takes off all the decoration.” She paused, examining a plate more closely. “Mind you, some decoration is best removed, I suppose.”
“It’s such a lovely flat, though,” said Rupert. “If you threw out all this stuff you could make something really nice of it.”
“A criminal waste,” agreed Gloria.
“And Pa would have loved the thought of our living here,” continued Rupert. “That’s what he wanted. But he trusted Gregory – bad mistake.”
It was at this point that they heard the sound of a door opening somewhere in the flat. Rupert froze.
“She’s in Scotland,” he whispered. “I’m sure …”
He did not finish his sentence. A man had appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was wearing a blue dressing gown over a pair of extravagantly striped pyjamas.
“Teddy?” the man said. “Barbara said that you two might be coming to stay while she was away.”
Rupert was a quick thinker. “Yes. Sorry to have woken you up.”
The man smiled. “No problem. I’m a light sleeper. Errol Greatorex, by the way. I’m one of Barbara’s authors.”
Again Rupert thought quickly. “The yeti man? The Autobiography of a Yeti?”
Errol Greatorex looked surprised. “Barbara’s told you about that?”
Rupert exchanged a quick glance with Gloria; he hoped that she would have worked out that this was their only option. He was Teddy and she was …
“She mentioned it,” he said.
“I’m almost done,” said Errol. “Finishing touches. He’s in London, you know.”
“Who?”
“The yeti. He’s dictating the last chapter.”
Rupert was silent.
“Yes,” said Errol, gesturing behind him in the direction of the bedrooms. “He’d sleep through an earthquake, though, so we won’t have woken him up.”
This is absurd, thought Rupert. Utterly absurd. This man is completely deluded, and I’m stuck here, masquerading as somebody called Teddy, with Gloria, who doesn’t even know what her name is meant to be. I shouldn’t have done this. Don’t go there, as the expression has it. Well, I did, and now I’m there.
Chapter 36: Our Obligations to Animals
Freddie de la Hay – Pimlico Terrier, cohabitee of William French and now a temporary member of MI6’s establishment – had been baffled when William suddenly handed him over to a completely unknown woman in St James’s Park. Such a thing had never happened to him before, or at least not that he could remember. Dogs remember places and people, and scents; they have no sense of the sequence in which these are experienced, nor of the time that separates the present from the past. Heathrow Airport, where Freddie had once been employed as a sniffer dog, was there somewhere in his memory – a place of noise and movement and strange smells – but it was vague and unlocated, not much different from a half-remembered dream. Then there had been exile to his first domestic home in north London, a period of coldness and fear, as he was groomed for his role as an eco-dog: the carrot snacks rather than bones; the biodegradable dog blanket; the arbitrary, harshly enforced prohibition on chasing cats and squirrels. It had been rather like being Stalin’s dog, not that Freddie would have made the analogy – or any analogy at all for that matter.
Since then, there was William, who had brought colour and fun back into Freddie’s life, and had been rewarded with the dog’s total and unconditional affection. But now William was abruptly no longer there, and already Freddie missed him as a Finnish sun-worshipper must miss the sun in winter; a warm presence had become a cold absence, and he did not understand why it should be so. Had he done something? Had he misbehaved in such a way as to merit this exclusion, this casting into darkness?
Freddie’s relationship with William was, in traditional terms, that of dog and master. In traditional terms …
“You shouldn’t call yourself Freddie’s master, old man,” William’s twenty-eight-year-old son Eddie had once remarked. “Master is very yesterday.”
William stared. He wanted to tell Eddie that the term “old man” was itself very yesterday, but he was not sure that it was. Pejorative names for parents were, he thought, very today. He had heard parents being described as wrinklies, olds and ’rents, all of which he thought unflattering at the very least.
“Owner?” he wondered.
Eddie shook a finger. “Nope. Owner’s very yesterday too. It implies that you own him.”
“Which I do,” William pointed out mildly.
Eddie laughed. ?
??You’re not very switched on, Dad. Lots of people don’t like that.”
William had been puzzled. Why could he not own a dog? If he could sell Freddie de la Hay (which of course he would never do, but it was possible) then surely he must own him. When he next took Freddie to the vet for injections, he had asked her about it.
“Can I call myself Freddie’s owner?”
The vet sighed. “It’s a bit of a minefield,” she said. “We get people coming in here who insist on being called their dog’s companion. Sometimes they call themselves the animal’s guardian or carer. There are quite a lot of dog carers in certain parts of London. Islington, for example. I don’t mind, really. The idea is that the pet – oops, can’t say that – that the animal has rights, has its own existence that humans shouldn’t seek to control.” She paused, slipping the needle of the syringe under Freddie’s skin. “I have no problems with that. I think that we should respect an animal’s right to have a decent life.”