Corduroy Mansions cm-1

by Alexander McCall Smith

  It was then that Berthea chose to reveal her project.

  ‘I’m writing a book,’ she said with a flourish. ‘I feel you should know.’

  ‘What a good idea,’ said Terence. ‘Writing a book is a very good way of getting to know oneself.’

  ‘That is not the reason why I’m doing it,’ said Berthea. ‘This book is not being written as some sort of self-analysis. This book is being written as a form of public service.’

  Terence snipped at a bunch of chives. ‘Do tell,’ he said. ‘Terence is very interested.’

  He had an occasional habit of referring to himself in the third person - a habit which Berthea disliked intensely, but she said nothing about it now. Terence had to know about her book because he could be called upon to help.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that Terence takes that view,’ she said. ‘Yes. I have decided to write a biography of my son, and indeed I have already embarked on the task.’

  Terence put down the chives and turned to his sister. ‘Oedipus?’

  ‘He is, I believe, the only son I have,’ said Berthea drily. ‘Yes. The biography of Oedipus Snark, MP.’

  Terence exhaled, a long drawn-out sound that was half-way between a whistle and a sigh. ‘By his mother,’ he said. And then added, ‘Sensational!’

  Berthea raised an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t overstate its impact,’ she said. ‘I might not call it sensational myself, but I expect there will be a certain level of interest in it. After all, Oedipus is reasonably well known these days.’

  ‘I read about him in the paper recently,’ said Terence. ‘He had been somewhere and made some speech or other. About something. ’

  Berthea smiled. ‘That’s the sort of detail that I need,’ she said.

  Terence showed no sign of having understood the barb. ‘I’m sure that you’ll do him justice,’ he said.

  Berthea nodded. ‘It would be useful to have your perspective,’ she said. ‘After all, you are his uncle, and he did spend a lot of time with you as a schoolboy when he was on his summer holidays. Remember? You were very good to him.’

  Terence sighed. ‘Berthea, dear, we’re both adults, aren’t we? Which means that I really should be able to speak to you frankly.’

  ‘I would expect nothing less,’ said Berthea.

  ‘In that case, dear sister, I really must confess to you that I’ve always had problems with Oedipus. I’ve tried to like him, I really have - he has an immortal soul like the rest of us. But, I don’t know, my dear. The truth of the matter is . . . Well, to put it bluntly, I really can’t stand him.’

  ‘But, my dear,’ whispered Berthea. ‘Neither can I. And that’s why I’m writing his biography. I want the world to know what my son is like. This is an act of expiation on my part. In writing this book, I am atoning for Oedipus. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ said Terence. ‘And now let’s have some of this lovely leek pie. Smell it. Beautiful. Pure.’

  Berthea sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Fit for the Beings of Light themselves?’

  ‘They love it!’ said Terence.

  30. Rye

  Berthea Snark was not the only person to head out of London that weekend in search of the peace that the English countryside, and at least some of the towns that nestle in its folding hills, can bring. Oedipus Snark MP, the son whose distinctly non-hagiographical biography Berthea had begun to pen, was also in the country, although at a different end of it, in his case, in Rye.

  The idea of going to Rye for the weekend had not been his, but had been suggested by his lover, Barbara Ragg, the literary agent and author of the moderately successful Ragg’s Guide to the Year’s Best Reads.

  ‘Rye,’ she had said, a few weeks earlier. ‘If the weather holds, it could be gorgeous.’

  Oedipus Snark, who disliked being trapped with Barbara for a whole weekend, searched his mind quickly for an excuse. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a constituency do, see? A long-term commitment, I’m afraid. You go by yourself. Send me a postcard.’

  Barbara was prepared for this. ‘But I checked with Jenny,’ she said. ‘She confirmed that both Saturday and Sunday are completely clear. She looked in both of your diaries and there’s nothing. Friday night too. We could go down late on Friday afternoon.’

  He frowned. That girl. She had no business telling any person who asked whether or not he had anything on. She was getting above herself. Going on about the LSE and the books she had read. Glorified secretary. She would need taking down a peg or two. Maybe a written warning; one had to be so careful with employment tribunals now. Best to give a written warning or two before you show somebody the door.

  ‘She sometimes misses things,’ he said. ‘She’s far from papal in her infallibility. Hah!’

  ‘Not this time,’ said Barbara. ‘I asked her to double-check. She said that there had been something in the diary for Saturday - something to do with a development charity - but you had begged off. So, she said, it was quite free.’

  Oedipus Snark fiddled with his tie. It was, his mother had once pointed out, a displacement activity, an Übersprungbewegung, and it occurred when he felt cornered.

  ‘Why Rye?’ he asked peevishly. ‘What’s so special about Rye?’

  ‘There’s a lovely old hotel there,’ said Barbara. ‘The Mermaid Inn. On Mermaid Street, not surprisingly. I went there years ago and loved it. Low ceilings and four-poster beds, and tremendously ancient into the bargain.’

  ‘Well, we can’t sit in the hotel all day,’ said Oedipus, ‘however ancient it may be.’

  ‘We won’t have to. There’s a lot to see. There’s Henry James’s house, which was also lived in by E. F. Benson - you know, the Mapp and Lucia man - and they’re having a concert in one of the churches. A young Canadian pianist. We could go to that.’ She fixed Oedipus with a steely look. ‘There’s plenty to do.’

  Oedipus had been out-manoeuvred by the combined forces of Jenny and Barbara Ragg and had no choice but to agree. So it was that they checked in to the Mermaid Inn shortly before dinner on Friday evening, having driven down in Barbara’s open-topped MG in British Racing Green. The evening was warm, one of long shadows and no breeze to speak of. The air was heavy, and had that quality to it that comes at the end of the day - a comfortable, used quality.

  Oedipus, who had been grumpy at the beginning of the journey, was positively ebullient by the time they arrived at the Mermaid Inn and immediately ordered them large gin and tonics in the bar.

  ‘Not a bad choice,’ he said, looking about appreciatively.

  He paid her so few compliments that for a few moments Barbara was quite taken aback. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to stop rushing around and looking anxious, and instead have some time for her, to talk about her day, her concerns - just now and then. She wanted to marry Oedipus Snark and make him happy, not just over the occasional weekend, but for years. That is what Barbara Ragg wanted.

  She was realistic, of course. One did not get where she had got in a difficult and competitive field without being astute. And she knew full well that Oedipus had no intention of settling down - at least not for the time being. That meant that she could either try to trap him into matrimony, by getting him to believe, for example, that it would help his political career to get married, a conclusion that often strikes politicians when they are just on the verge of achieving high office. Or she could simply enjoy what she already had: a relationship of convenience (for him) where they spent some time together, but not very much, and where certain subjects of conversation (marriage, children, joint establishments and so on) were no-go areas, fenced about with electricity and warning bells.

  Her friends, hostile almost without exception to Oedipus and, in the case of one or two of them, even given to shuddering involuntarily when his name was mentioned, spoke with one voice on the subject, even if their exact words varied.

  ‘Give him up.’

  ‘Show him the door.’

  ‘Find a decent man, for heaven�
�s sake.’

  All of this was sage advice, intended to be helpful, and Barbara might have acted upon it if she felt that there was the slightest chance of getting somebody to replace her unsatisfactory political lover. But there was not. For some reason, possibly one connected with her manner, which was somewhat overpowering from the male point of view, men steered well clear of her. She was one of those women who inhibited men because of what some people described as her briskness. And she knew this. She knew it because she had once heard the nickname that some spiteful person had pinned on her and which had acquired wide currency. The Head Prefect.

  I am not like that, she said to herself. I am not.

  But in the eyes of others, she must have been. And when she attempted to be more feminine and to eschew any sign of high-handedness, it did not help at all. Then somebody made matters worse by coining a new nickname, again one which stuck, and travelled. Mrs Thatcher.

  Who among us wants anything more than to be appreciated by some and loved, we hope, by a few? Why is the world so constructed that some find this modest goal easy to achieve and others find that it for ever eludes them? The essential unfairness of the world? Yes. Its heartlessness? Yes. Its unkindness to a certain sort of brisk and competent woman? Yes again.

  31. Dinner at the Mermaid

  At dinner at the Mermaid Inn, Oedipus Snark chose scallops as his first course. The waiter who took his order, a young man with neatly barbered hair who had just completed a degree in English at the University of Sussex, asked, ‘Scallops, sir?’ Oedipus nodded, and Barbara Ragg, looking up from her scrutiny of the menu, said, ‘Oh, scallops. Yes, I’ll have those too.’

  The waiter scribbled on his notepad. ‘And for your main course, sir?’

  ‘Lamb cutlets, please.’

  ‘Such a wise choice,’ said the waiter, before turning to Barbara. ‘And your main course, madam?’

  ‘I’ll take lamb cutlets too,’ replied Barbara Ragg. She looked up at the young man with ill-concealed irritation. She did not think there was any need for a waiter to compliment one on one’s choice of food, and yet so many of them did. They should be neutral, equally impassive in the face of good and bad choices, as impressed by Mr Sprat’s opting for lean as by his wife’s preference for fat. But there was more: he had taken Oedipus’s order first, she noticed. Were waiters no longer trained to take the woman’s order first, or did they now feel they had to give the man precedence, purely to make the point that they had risen above the old sexist courtesies? For a few moments she mused on the implications of social change for the strict rules of etiquette. What, for example, was the position when dealing with same-sex couples? If two women in such a relationship were dining together, and if the waiter normally observed the rule of asking women first, should he then take the order of the more feminine partner before that of the more masculine one - if such a distinction were obvious? And would such a policy be welcome or would it provoke hostility? People could be touchy, and it might not be a good idea to do anything but leave it to chance. But if the waiter turned first to an overtly masculine-looking partner, he might be suspected of doing so solely in order to avoid being thought to attend to the feminine partner first. And that would reveal that he had secretly made a judgement of roles. So only one course of action remained - for the waiter to look at neither diner while he said, dispassionately staring into the air above their heads, ‘Now which of you two is first?’ That would perhaps be the most tactful way of addressing the matter. Perhaps.

  Oedipus Snark also looked irritated. He had no objection to the waiter’s taking his order first - indeed he rather expected it, being an MP and being in the public eye. What he objected to was Barbara’s choosing exactly the same courses as he had. Had she no imagination? Or was she trying to be like him? That really annoyed him. He could understand, of course, why somebody should wish to imitate him, but he did not like it to be so obvious. I shall have to get rid of her, he thought; she’s going to have to go.

  ‘I read something interesting about scallops the other day,’ Barbara remarked. ‘Did you know that the best scallops are those that are hand-picked by divers? Apparently the other ones are sucked up by great vacuum cleaners and that bruises the scallop - ruins it, they say.’

  Oedipus nodded. He was thinking of a new research assistant he had met in the House of Commons library. She had certainly been hand-picked, he thought, as opposed to being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. She was currently working for another MP but that little difficulty could be dealt with easily enough. And if she came to work for him, then he could get rid of Jenny and Barbara at one stroke, neatly inserting this new girl into the roles occupied by both of them. It would be a perfect solution - not only more convenient and entertaining, but cheaper too.

  ‘I think perhaps we should ask them where they get their scallops from,’ Barbara said.

  Oedipus waved a hand in the air. ‘The fishmonger, I expect.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re not turning into one of these people who bang on about food miles, are you?’

  Barbara frowned. ‘I don’t bang on about anything, Oedipus. But there is some point to the food miles argument. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the fresh beans in our local supermarket should come from East Africa?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Farmers there have to sell their produce. And if we didn’t buy it, then we’d be taking the food out of their mouths rather than putting it into ours. If you see what I mean.’

  ‘I’m all for free trade,’ said Barbara. ‘But think of the fuel it takes to airlift a sack of beans from Kenya to London.’

  Oedipus shrugged. ‘Everything’s wrong,’ he said. ‘The whole way we order our affairs is wrong.’

  Barbara reached for a piece of bread. ‘At least you can do something about it,’ she said. ‘You’re in Parliament.’

  Oedipus erupted into sudden laughter. ‘Parliament? What’s Parliament got to do with it?’

  ‘Everything, I would have thought.’

  ‘Oh, Barbara, my dear,’ said Oedipus Snark. ‘Parliament decides nothing. I have no illusions about that. We’re voting fodder - a sort of press conference audience for the Prime Minister at Question Time. We’re more or less instructed to boo or shout. Parliament controls nobody. We’re thrown a few scraps of symbolic power from time to time, but the Government, in the shape of the Prime Minister and his close allies, decides everything. Look at the way our constitution has been changed. Just like that - no real consultation. Nothing.’

  ‘I thought—’ began Barbara.

  ‘And then there’s Brussels,’ Oedipus went on. ‘Brussels decides our fate to a very large extent. But do we actually vote for the people who make the decisions over there? Answer: no. And are they accountable to us? Again the answer is no.’

  Barbara absorbed all this. ‘So why are you in politics if you can’t do anything?’

  Oedipus fingered his tie. ‘It’s an agreeable career,’ he said. ‘And it gives most of the people in it a sense of belonging, and purpose too, I suppose. But let’s not delude ourselves as to what one person can do. Even somebody like me.’

  Barbara decided to change the subject. ‘I’ve had a very trying week,’ she said. ‘A lot of stress.’

  Oedipus smiled blandly. He did not really care very much what sort of week Barbara had had; in fact, he did not care at all. But if she wanted to talk, then he supposed that he could at least provide an ear for her to pour her troubles into. Silly woman.

  ‘Do tell me,’ he said. ‘Difficult colleagues again? Unreasonable publishers refusing to publish your pet authors?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing like that. Rather the opposite, in fact. You see, I’ve had somebody come to see me with a sure-fire, copper-bottomed bestseller. Fabulous story. Great pace. A tour de force if ever there was one.’

  She saw a flicker of interest cross Oedipus’s face. At least he sees me now, she thought.

  ‘And?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know what to do with it
,’ said Barbara. ‘The author is difficult - but then so are all authors, without exception. He has his notions and he only wants to place it with the publisher of his choice. Our author is determined to try to get this particular publisher - he seems to care nothing for the suggestions I’ve made. He wants to go for this completely unsuitable high-end literary publisher.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Oedipus.

  ‘I’m going to have to sit tight for six months,’ said Barbara. ‘The author is off on retreat somewhere and doesn’t want me to do anything until he comes back. So I sit on this fabulous idea and watch it gather dust.’

  Oedipus watched her; he was thinking. ‘Tell me about this idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know whether it’ll run the way you say it will.’

  32. The Yeti Writes

  ‘Well, it’s what you might call a biographical thriller,’ said Barbara Ragg. ‘It’s a new category. But it’s going to be big. As big as The Da Vinci Code was. Ever since The Da Vinci Code was so successful, publishers have been looking out for something that will do the same thing. Code books. The uncovering of secrets. Masons. Rosicrucians. And so on.’

  ‘No accounting for taste,’ said Oedipus Snark.

  ‘You read The Da Vinci Code?’

  He shook his head. ‘Far too busy,’ he said, and then added, ‘constituency business, you see.’

  Barbara Ragg broke off a piece of her bread roll and buttered it carefully. ‘I’m not saying that it was great literature. But it kept enough people riveted. And from our point of view as agents - not that we were the agents in question - it did the trick. It made millions of pounds. Millions. Even for the agents.’

  ‘I can understand why you’re looking for the next thing,’ said Oedipus Snark. Millions of pounds: what would I do with millions of pounds? he wondered. Well, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here in the Mermaid Inn in Rye talking to poor old Barbara Ragg. Paris perhaps. An agreeable little pied-à-terre on the Île de la Cité, perhaps, or near the Parc Monceau. Or an apartment in Manhattan, upper seventies, perhaps, East Side. Friends to match. Live in London, of course, but hop over to New York once a month for a few days. See what’s on at the Met. Take a few friends. Perfect.