“But it is harmful,” William interjected. “It makes a terrible mess. That’s why Lee Kwan Yew objected to it. That and failing to flush the lavatory. That’s an offence too in Singapore.”
Marcia looked astonished. “Your own loo?”
“No,” said William. “Just public ones. And why not prohibit it? It harms people.”
Marcia shook her head. “Hardly. Offends them, maybe. Doesn’t really harm them.”
William was not going to let Marcia get away with that. “But it does harm them. Public health. Same with spitting. Spitting should be illegal because it spreads disease, and that harms other people – it harms us all.” He paused. “And anyway, I still think chewing gum is awful. It’s on a par with eating with one’s mouth open in public. It’s just … “ He tailed off; he and Marcia would never agree over some matters – rather a lot of matters, in fact – and that was one of the reasons why it was not to be … There could be no romantic attachment to somebody who might at any moment take out a stick of chewing gum and start to chew like a cow.
But their difference of opinion on that matter did not prevent him from deciding, as he walked back across the park, that he would discuss the meeting with Marcia when he saw her that evening. She had told him that she would drop in on her way back from a catering engagement for the Romanian embassy.
“They’re having a cocktail party,” she had explained. “But it’ll be over by seven – poor dears, they can only rise to two canapés per guest and one and a half glasses of wine. But I’ll throw in a few bottles free, just to give them a slightly better party. And some free sandwiches, which will be only slightly second-hand – leftovers from a lunchtime reception for a firm of solicitors. They never eat very much – they’re far too driven – and there are bound to be bags of sandwiches left over that can be diverted to the poor old Romanians.”
“Quite right,” said William. “One would not want to waste sandwiches. Particularly in these straitened times.”
Marcia nodded in agreement. “And very few sandwiches are wasted,” she said. “Did you know the Prime Minister passes on his extra sandwiches to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for use at his receptions? Did you know that? That’s why you never get any egg mayonnaise sandwiches at the Chancellor’s parties –because the egg sandwiches always go before the cucumber and the cheese ones. It always happens that way.”
William smiled at the thought. It was the cascade system – the same system that allocated older rolling stock to less prosperous railway regions. It was exactly the same, it seemed, with sandwiches.
Marcia was smiling too. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this,” she said, “but I heard the most wonderful story. It’s been going round catering circles for the last few weeks, but everybody who tells it to you asks you to keep it under your hat.”
“Then you shouldn’t tell me,” said William firmly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Marcia. “I know how discreet you are, William. You won’t pass it on.”
William said nothing; he was wondering what sensitive stories there could possibly be about sandwiches.
Marcia lowered her voice to a whisper. “There are plenty of receptions in the House of Commons, you know. Members of Parliament are always giving parties in honour of this, that and the next thing. The Commons Antarctic Treaty Group, the Joint Committee on South American Relations and so on. Every evening without fail.”
William made a gesture, the gesture of one who knows that things are going on, but knows too that he is never invited. The parties of others – or those that one doesn’t attend – are always so self-indulgent. For most of us, the knowledge that somebody, somewhere, is enjoying himself more than we are is strangely disturbing. A common human response is to disapprove, and to try to stop the enjoyment; that has been the well-established response of the prude in all ages. William was not like that, but he did feel the occasional pang at the thought that London was full of parties and yet when he contemplated his own social diary, it was virtually empty. Very occasionally he received an invitation to dinner somewhere, and there were always the occasions when Marcia dropped in. And of course there was his club – the Savile – where the conversation sparkled at the members’ table, but the members all seemed so much better informed than he was, and he felt too shy to push himself forward in conversations where he was at a disadvantage.
“Well,” continued Marcia, “I heard from a catering friend that MPs have developed a racket in wine. There’s a group of them who call themselves the Parliamentary Committee on Sustainable Receptions and go round at the end of these occasions, pour all the dregs from the glasses into large containers and then rebottle it. Yes! They pour it back into bottles and re-cork the bottles. Then, when it comes to the next reception, they serve the dregs and take the full, untouched bottles for themselves.”
William was appalled. “I thought we’d heard the end of all that,” he said. “What if the Telegraph got hold of this?”
Marcia shook her head. “This story will never end up in the Telegraph.”
“But that’s dreadful!” William exploded. “And it’s not just because I’m a wine dealer. Think of all the bits and pieces – the crumbs, the lipstick … It’s disgusting. It’s … it’s beyond belief.”
“Precisely,” said Marcia. “And do you know something? They’re all members of one party.”
William frowned. An all-party scandal was one thing, a single party scandal quite another. “Which one?”
Marcia waved a hand in the air. “Oh, I can’t remember, I’m afraid. They all seem so alike these days.”
Chapter 22: Codes and Things
Of course William knew what Marcia would say about his meeting with MI6; she had already said it. He owed these people nothing; they had no right to make any demands of him. They were playing games, these espionage people – that’s what they did, and there was no difference, no difference at all between what they did and what boys, mere boys, did when they played in the playground. William knew that, didn’t he? He had been a boy, hadn’t he? (Absurdly distant prospect.) It was ridiculous, all this cloak and dagger business in the middle of London in broad daylight!
But as he walked back to Corduroy Mansions, he tried to put Marcia’s voice out of his mind. You are not my mother, he muttered. And Marcia, or the idea of Marcia, looked askance at him, as if to disclaim any such notion. “Why on earth should you imagine that I think of myself as your mother?” He shook his head; it was too complex even to begin to explain, but every son knew instinctively what the problem with mother was. It was mother who fussed; who told you what you could or could not do; it was mother who was always there … providing love, and security, and solace; who was prepared to stand up for you whatever you did. He sighed. That was the problem: mother provided all that, but at the same time a boy wanted to be free of his mother, wanted to go out into the world and do things on his own account, to lead his own life. Mother and freedom, then, stood in contradiction to one another.
“I’m sorry, Marcia,” he said to himself. “I’m very sorry, but this is something that I’m going to decide myself.”
The virtual Marcia smiled in a rather self-satisfied way. “Then why ask me in the first place?”
“Because I need to talk to somebody. And I like talking to you.”
“Some consolation! You like talking to me, but you don’t want to listen to my advice, do you?”
This internal conversation might have continued for some time, had William not been distracted by Freddie de la Hay, who, having picked up the scent of a squirrel, was straining at his lead. William checked Freddie, and as he did so he came to his decision. He would say yes. He would telephone Sebastian Duck immediately and tell him that he was prepared to go along with what had been suggested and lend Freddie de la Hay to them.
He reached into his pocket and took out the card that Duck had given him. He scrutinised it for a moment, as if the number itself might reveal something. It was one of those ver
y easily remembered mobile numbers, unlike one’s own: a sequence of 123 and 666 at the end – 666, whose number was that? The Devil’s, of course. William laughed. What nonsense! He would be imagining the smell of sulphur next.
William dialled, and Sebastian Duck answered immediately.. “Duck,” he said
“It’s William French.”
“Of course. Well, I enjoyed our meeting. Such a nice day. And you’re still in the park, making the most of it.”
“Yes. I thought that my dog might enjoy …” William stopped. How did Duck know that he was still in the park? The question presented itself, but was quickly dismissed; Duck and his colleagues might be paranoid, but he would not be.
“I’ve given the matter a bit of thought,” said William. “And the answer is yes. I’ll do what you people want.”
Sebastian Duck’s pleasure showed in his voice. “Well, that’s very good indeed. Thank you. Should we make the arrangements right now?”
William asked what there was to arrange. Did he have to sign something? The Official Secrets Act, if that was what they still called it?
“No, nothing so formal. A waiver form – that’s all. Standard procedure.”
“All right.”
“Then we’ll take him right now, if you don’t mind. And I might add that he’ll be terribly well-looked after. We use the Met’s dog-handler people. One of them will be specially assigned to this case. They’re very experienced.”
William looked about him. “Right now? When I get back to the flat?”
“No. Here and now. In the park, if you don’t mind. One of our people is not far from you, you see. She’ll take Freddie.” Duck paused. “Or F as we’ll call him for the purposes of this operation.”
William spun round. A short distance away there was a young couple, obviously immersed in one another, walking arm in arm; another man with a dog, walking in the opposite direction; a teenager carrying a skateboard under his arm; and … He became aware of a woman approaching him along the path.
“Somebody’s coming,” said William. “Is this …”
“That’s her,” said Duck. “When she comes up to you, she’ll engage you in conversation. She’ll say, ‘Nice weather,’ and you’ll say, ‘Of course, but it could change.’ Got that?”
William wanted to laugh out loud. This was a comedy, and a weak one at that. Would his next set of instructions be tucked away in a hollow tree? he wondered.
The woman, who was somewhere in her late thirties, was attractive and she smiled brightly at William as she reached him on the path. “Nice day, Mr French.”
William found himself momentarily confused by the deviation from the agreed code. Did it matter? And what had he been meant to say? Could change?
“Yes,” he said. “I mean, nice weather. Er.”
The woman’s smile broadened. “Oh, don’t worry about all that. Ducky is a little … how shall we put it? Melodramatic. He’s read too many John le Carré novels, I think. This is Freddie?”
She bent down and stroked Freddie gently behind the head. The dog looked up at her with undisguised affection.
“He loves that,” said William.
“Don’t we all?” she said, as she stood up.
William looked into her eyes. For a moment he entertained a wild, impossible hope; that this attractive, vivacious woman might be just the person he was looking for. There had been stranger meetings, after all; people who met their life partners in lifts or in the queue for tickets to the Tutankhamun exhibit, or on jury service in a murder trial. There was no end to the strangeness of the circumstances in which we encounter those whom we love and who love us, so why should he not meet somebody like this in a place like this, on an errand as absurd and ridiculous as this? Why not?
Chapter 23: Dee Lies to Caroline
Saturday was Caroline’s day for a long lie-in, but not that Saturday. She had not slept well the previous night, having gone to bed in a state of intense anger. Never let the sun set on your wrath – that was the motto in one of those preachy needlework samplers that her mother liked so much. Dignified with an ornate Victorian frame, it had hung in her room at home until, at the age of sixteen, she had hidden it in a cupboard and denied all knowledge of its whereabouts. Well, on Friday night, she had certainly forgotten the adage, or at least left it mentally sequestered in its cupboard, as she switched out her light in a state of unambiguous wrath, all of it directed against James.
How could he have forgotten their arrangement to have dinner together? It was not as if it had been made weeks, or even days, earlier; it had been concluded a few hours before it was due to take place. One did not forget obligations as freshly minted as that; one simply did not.
What had happened? Had he simply decided that he had something better to do? James would never behave with such discourtesy, and yet, when she tried to telephone him, she found that his mobile phone was turned off. The only time he did that, she knew, was when he did not want to hear from her. It had happened once or twice before, after a minor row or misunderstanding, and he had even admitted it.
“I can’t bear conflict, Caroline,” he explained. “I simply can’t. There are some people, you know, who like to fight with others – I’m not one of them. I’m really not.”
“But you can’t just turn off your phone,” she said. “That’s running away.”
“I’d never run away from you,” he said soothingly.
“You’d simply turn me off?”
He smiled. “Not you! But I must admit there are some people who really need an on–off switch. I can think of at least three. Maybe even more.”
The fact, then, that he had not answered his phone on Friday night pointed to only one conclusion – he had been avoiding her because he knew that he was standing her up. And even if the phone was off because the battery had run down, or he had simply forgotten, still he stood accused of thoughtlessness at the very least.
Unless something had happened. It was this thought that, more than anything else, ruined her sleep. There were many dangers in London. A traffic accident, for example – James was so unworldly and she had often had to grab his arm to prevent him from walking out into the traffic expecting it to stop. There was that, of course. She imagined herself standing in the police station while the police ran through a list of traffic incidents involving pedestrians. “An art historian, you say, Miss? Well, we did have a young man knocked down near the Courtauld …”
And there were other dangers. People simply disappeared in London. One moment they are on their way to a meeting with a friend and the next they are nowhere to be seen. What happened to these people, she wondered. They were abducted, she had read, but where to? And how did their abductors keep them once they had them? It would be difficult, surely, to imprison somebody in central London; there simply wasn’t the space.
James had no enemies – or none that Caroline knew of. He had not even written a critical review. It would be understandable if he had written something scathing about an installation artist, for instance; such a critic might suddenly find himself put into a tank of formaldehyde or something like that by the artist’s supporters. But James had never had anything published, not even a review.
Anger turned to anxiety, and then back to anger as yet another possibility suggested itself. James might have gone off with somebody else: while Caroline was waiting for him in Corduroy Mansions, he might have been in some entirely other part of London cavorting with somebody else. She tried to imagine James cavorting; she tried to imagine anybody cavorting. It was difficult. And if James had already expressed an antipathy to kissing others for fear of germs, then surely he would be highly unlikely to cavort. Cavorting, even if it was difficult to picture, was surely even more likely to pose a risk of contamination by germs. For a moment she pictured James in the arms of another woman, preparing to cavort … She put the thought out of her mind, only to have it replaced by a still more unsettling one. What if James had decided to go off for dinner with one of th
ose rather foppish young men who hung about the auction houses? There was one who she was quite convinced was interested in James; she had seen him looking at him, in that way. James had said, “Oh, him, he’s not at all my type,” and laughed, but now the exchange came back in a most unsettling way.
She decided to get out of bed and make herself a reviving cup of coffee. She would not phone James, she thought; she would wait for him to phone her. And then she would be cool – no matter what effort it cost her. She could even pretend to have forgotten the engagement herself, which would be very satisfactory revenge – if he phoned to apologise and she asked him what he was talking about.
She went into the kitchen. Dee, who drank green tea first thing in the morning, was standing by the window, nursing a mug in her two hands.
“Go out last night?” asked Caroline.
The Dog Who Came in From the Cold Page 9