Corduroy Mansions cm-1

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Gloria nodded. ‘We were bullies, I suppose. We broke our promises. We stole people’s land on an epic scale. But so did everybody else.’

  ‘We were bullies?’ repeated Rupert. ‘We jolly well were. And have we said sorry?’

  Gloria thought for a moment. ‘On one or two occasions,’ she said. ‘Mr Blair said sorry to Ireland, but he was the first British leader to find it possible to do that. Nobody else bothered. Mr Clinton also said sorry to quite a few people. And remember when that German Chancellor - it was Willy Brandt, I think - went to Warsaw and fell to his knees, and people were so moved by his contrition? That was a very profound moment, a moment of utter apology. Yet it’s strange how hard it is to say sorry.’

  Rupert agreed. ‘Sometimes politicians dress it up in the language of regret. They say that they regret what happened.’

  ‘That’s not the same as saying sorry,’ said Gloria. ‘Look at Mr Nixon. What did he say? He said that mistakes had been made. That’s very different from admitting that you have done something terrible.’

  ‘That’s not always easy,’ said Rupert. ‘What you can do, though, is do things that make up for the past. That’s maybe even more important. You can show that you mean business. You can do things.’

  For a moment they were both silent as they contemplated historical injustice. Then Gloria said, ‘There comes a point at which one has to forgive. One has to forgive others - and also forgive oneself.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  Gloria’s reply was emphatic. ‘Yes. Because if we continue to think about historical wrongs, then nobody can get on with life. The memory of old wrongs poisons relations - freezes them too. Those people are our enemies because of something that they did fifty, one hundred years ago - that sort of thinking is fatal. It clutters everything up. We can’t get on with life if we allow all sorts of unfinished business to distort our dealings with others. So we draw a line and say, “That’s the past. The past is dead.”’

  ‘Except that the past is never dead,’ Rupert said quietly.

  ‘Are you thinking about that flat again?’

  Rupert looked away, ashamed. He was.

  ‘Listen, Rupert,’ said Gloria, ‘you really have to do something about this. You need to sort yourself out. No, don’t make that face. You’re going to have to listen to me. And what I want to say to you is this: you live far too much in the past. No, listen to me - don’t look like that. Listen. You need to get your past sorted out. You need to tackle all the baggage you carry with you. Barbara Ragg’s flat, for instance. No, I called it that deliberately. It’s her flat. It’s her flat, Rupert! We’ve got a perfectly good flat of our own. What? You think it’s smelly. Don’t be so ridiculous. Our flat doesn’t smell. Where? Nonsense! And the other thing you have to sort out is Uppingham - you really do. Uppingham is in the past, Rupert. You’re thirty-six. You left Uppingham eighteen years ago. I know that it’s a wonderful school. I know that you were very happy there. But it’s past business, Rupert. You haven’t got a housemaster any more. We have a bedroom, Rupert, not a dorm. And I am not your housemistress.’ She paused. ‘Who was Ratty Mason, Rupert? Let’s start there.’

  Rupert looked at her sullenly. ‘Ratty Mason is also in the past, Gloria. He’s gone.’

  Gloria was not one to allow herself to be hoist with her own petard. ‘Well, maybe that’s one of the things you need to look at. Some of the past is still inside us. You need to talk to somebody about all that.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘There’s a therapist I’ve heard of. Apparently she’s really good.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She’s called Berthea Snark.’ She paused, and then added, ‘I think.’

  Rupert frowned. ‘Snark? Do you think she’s related to Oedipus?’

  ‘Must be. His mother maybe?’

  Rupert nodded. His manner seemed distant; he was pondering something. Schooldays. Oedipus Snark. Ratty Mason. It was all coming back.

  73. Free at Last!

  Still outside her flat, Barbara Ragg now put all thoughts of yetis and their amanuenses out of her mind. She had been thinking about Errol Greatorex and his manuscript and about the damage that would have been done had the story found its way into the press prematurely. It was Oedipus who had alerted The Times, she was sure of it; he would have done it out of spite or even for gain. In fact, the more she dwelled on it the more convinced she became that money was his motivation. Oedipus was greedy: in spite of all his political rhetoric about sharing, he meant sharing only after he had helped himself to his own, somewhat larger share. I am finally free of him, she thought; I am free. And freedom had been so easy - as it often is. The step is taken, the resolution made, and the shackles fall away.

  In her case, all that was required was for her to assert herself, to tell him what she thought of him, and he was deprived of all his power over her, as a muttered prayer or spell breaks the hold of some ghastly demon. No need for garlic or a sword of ice; merely a few words and Oedipus was . . . She asked herself what Oedipus was. History. That was it: Oedipus was history. The cliché, so easily uttered, nonetheless seemed to fit so perfectly, even if describing somebody as history was a very unkind thing to do. Well, he was unkind to me, thought Barbara, and if I have to be unkind to him in order to free myself, then so be it.

  But this was no time to be thinking of Oedipus Snark because within the flat, she reminded herself as the key slipped into the lock, was a young man sent from heaven. She could still hardly believe what had happened. Never would she have imagined that she, Barbara Ragg, would do something quite as precipitate as pick up a young man in a car park - ‘A handbag!’ - and then, piling Pelion upon Ossa, take him back to her flat and allow him to move in. This last development almost took her breath away. Perhaps it was true that we all had an impulsive twin lurking beneath the surface and this twin occasionally manifested himself - or herself, in this case - and did something utterly outrageous. Perhaps her twin had done all this.

  And yet why shouldn’t two people decide that they were suited to one another and embark, perhaps rather quickly, on a relationship? There were many occasions in this life, she thought, when the impulsive decision proved to be exactly the right one. Too much hemming and hawing could result in the missing of an opportunity. It would be too late. Had Robert Graves not written about this? she asked herself. Yes, he had. She had read a poem of his, ‘Dream Bird’, in which he said that once one had the dream bird in one’s grasp one should close one’s fist about it and hold it tightly - one should never let it go. She had done no more than follow this advice - to grasp at something that had presented itself suddenly and without warning, a romance with a young man who seemed as smitten by her as she was by him. Why wait? Why let the dream bird fly away? Graves certainly said you should not.

  She closed the front door behind her. The light in her hall was on and there were sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen. She noticed that the mail had been retrieved from downstairs and neatly stacked on the hall table, bills to one side and personal letters to the other. Junk mail - those desperate Technicolor exhortations to avail oneself of take-out restaurants or invitations to send away photographs for printing - had been put at the back, neatly rolled and secured by an elastic band, ready for disposal. And a vase of flowers, which had not been there that morning, had been placed on the low shelf above the table: a small arrangement of roses and delicate supporting fern. For a moment she stood still and stared at the roses. Oedipus had bought her flowers on how many occasions? None. Not once.

  She smiled. Further sounds emanated from the kitchen: running water, the sound of a knife on a chopping board. She made her way across the hall and pushed open the kitchen door.

  Hugh had his back to her, but heard her come in and spun round in surprise. ‘You said that you were going to be late.’

  ‘Well, actually it is quite late,’ she said. ‘I’m normally back shortly after six.’

  He picked up a tea towel, wiped his hands an
d then looked at his watch. ‘Oh, it’s seven already.’

  ‘You’ve obviously been busy,’ said Barbara, looking around. ‘You lose track of time when you’ve got lots to do.’

  He tossed the towel down on the kitchen table. Then he crossed the room and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She felt herself blushing.

  ‘I wanted to surprise you with a meal that was already prepared,’ he said. ‘There’s a bottle of Chablis in the fridge and I thought we’d sit down and have a glass before we eat.’

  ‘We can still do that.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we can. It’s just that I’ve still got some stuff to do. I have to clean some mussels.’

  ‘Mussels!’

  ‘Yes. And then we’re having . . . Well, I want it to be a surprise.’

  Barbara beamed with pleasure. When had Oedipus last surprised her? ‘You’re terrific,’ she said.

  ‘Not really. I just like cooking.’

  She moved over to the sink and looked at the mussels. They were large and succulent-looking. ‘I love mussels,’ she said. ‘I love all seafood.’

  ‘I know a place where one can get the most wonderful seafood,’ Hugh said. ‘Absolutely fresh. Clams. Lobsters. Octopi.’

  ‘Octopodes,’ muttered Barbara.

  She regretted it the moment she said it.

  ‘Octopodes?’

  She had to explain. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be pedantic. Octopi as a plural form suggests a Latin origin. But the word octopus is Greek and the plural should not be the Latin -i form but octopodes. I didn’t mean . . .’

  He had turned round and resumed his work at the sink. Oh, she thought, and then, again, oh. I’ve hurt his feelings. Already.

  ‘Why don’t you go and have a bath?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Then dinner will be ready when you are.’

  She went into the bathroom. I must be so careful, she thought.

  Then she saw the box of bath oils, tiny flasks in a row, placed beside the taps. He had somehow found out her favourite and had bought it: Jo Malone. And next to that, Clinique’s Sparkle Skin - another favourite. How did he know? How would any man know?

  74. Sparkle Skin

  It’s very strange, thought Barbara Ragg, how we can be transformed by the small luxuries of life. A new item of clothing, an impractical but glamorous pair of shoes, a well-made pen with a gold nib - any of these things is capable of making us feel so much better about ourselves. Now, stepping out of her bath with its pampering Jo Malone bath oil, exfoliated by Sparkle Skin, she felt herself filled with energy, lit by an exhilarating glow.

  It was just the right feeling to accompany the glass of chilled Chablis that Hugh presented her with when she returned to the kitchen. Taking the glass, she raised it to him in a toast. ‘You’re spoiling me,’ she said. ‘What a lovely surprise through there . . .’ She gave a toss of the head in the direction of the bathroom.

  He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Oh that. Just a couple of little presents.’

  ‘But how did you know?’

  ‘How did I know that you liked those particular things?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Intuition.’

  She stared at him in disbelief. Surely it would be impossible to find out a person’s tastes purely on intuition. ‘I don’t believe . . .’ She stopped herself. She should not contradict him. She had already corrected him over the plural of octopus; it would not do to disagree with him again. So she said instead, ‘You’re very clever.’

  He laughed modestly. ‘Not really.’

  ‘What else can you tell about me on the basis of intuition?’ she asked.

  ‘That you like France.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’ But everybody liked France.

  ‘And Jane Austen.’

  He was right once more but then, again, everyone liked Jane Austen. ‘What else?’

  ‘That your favourite colour is a sort of russet brown.’

  That was a little bit more impressive, but then it occurred to her that he had enjoyed the run of the flat and must have seen all the russet brown in the rugs and elsewhere. And he must have seen the volumes of Jane Austen on the bookshelves too. And the empty tube of Clinique Sparkle Skin in her bedroom drawer . . . If he had looked in the drawer, that is.

  She took a sip of wine. A cold hand had touched her, somewhere inside, and she imagined him prowling around the flat while she was at work. She did not like the thought of his looking into things; he could examine things on the walls and on the shelves but he should not poke about in drawers.

  She tried to sound light-hearted. ‘You seem to know a lot about me,’ she said, giving a short, nervous laugh. ‘But what do I know about you?’

  He looked at her over the top of his wine glass, his expression one of bemusement. ‘You’d have to tell me that yourself.’

  She thought for a moment. What did she know about him? That he was called Hugh. That he had been in a relationship but was out of it now. That he . . .

  ‘I really don’t know much about you, Hugh,’ she confessed. ‘I suppose you told me a little. But it wasn’t very much.’

  As she waited for his response, she thought how foolish she would look if he did something terrible. People would say, ‘She picked him up in Rye and brought him home, just like that.’ And others would shake their heads and say, ‘Well, what did she expect?’

  Hugh put down his wine glass. ‘Would you like me to tell you?’

  ‘Yes. We should know a bit about each other, don’t you think? I mean, rather more than what our favourite colours are and so on. About who we are. About where we come from. About what we do. That sort of thing.’

  It was as if her answer had disappointed him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But it’s a pity, isn’t it, that we can’t just be . . . well, just ourselves to each other? Not the social self, the self that other people have created for us, but the real inner soul, stripped of all the trappings of social identity. I think that’s a pity.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘But I’d still like to know.’

  Hugh reached for the bottle of Chablis and topped up her glass. ‘You know the Hugh part of my name,’ he began. ‘The second part is Macpherson.’

  ‘You’re Scottish?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Scottish. And don’t say, “But you don’t sound Scottish.” I really hate that. Not everyone in Scotland sounds like Rob Roy.’

  She defended herself. ‘I wasn’t going to say that. I know that there are plenty of . . .’ She was about to say posh people in Scotland, but she stopped herself in time. ‘I know that there are plenty of people in Scotland who . . .’

  He saved her. ‘Who went to school in England, as I did. I was sent off to school at twelve. I went to a boarding school in Norfolk. Not a very well-known one - in fact, hardly anybody’s ever heard of it.’

  ‘Unlike Uppingham.’

  He looked surprised. ‘Yes, unlike Uppingham. How do you know about Uppingham, by the way?’

  ‘Rupert Porter, my partner - my business partner, as one has to say these days - went there. He still talks about it. I think he was a prefect and has never grown out of it. I once gave him a prefect’s badge that I found on a stall on the Portobello Road. I told him that if he was going to dictate to me then he might as well have a prefect’s badge. He didn’t find it funny.’

  ‘Well, the place I was at was distinctly downmarket of that. But it wasn’t too bad, I suppose.’

  Barbara had never been able to understand why anybody would send their child to a boarding school. Why have children in the first place unless you wanted them to spend their childhood with you? She asked Hugh why he was sent away, and he thought for a few moments before answering. ‘It was complicated,’ he said. ‘We had a farm in Argyll and I would have had to go away to school anyway, or travel for hours every day to get to Fort William. It was a very remote place. And my mother, you see, was English and she wanted me to have a bit of both cultures - my father’s and hers - of
Scotland and England. So they decided to send me to boarding school in England. The place I went to was quite cheap and that suited them too. We did not have all that much money.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then what did you do?’

  He looked up at the ceiling. ‘I had a gap year. Sixteen months in fact.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘South America, for the most part.’

  ‘Whereabouts in South America?’

  It was not, she thought, an intrusive question and she was quite unprepared for his reaction - which was to start to weep.

  75. Terence Moongrove Confesses

  Over in Cheltenham, that particular day had proved an eventful one for Terence Moongrove and his sister, Berthea Snark. Berthea had decided to extend her stay in Cheltenham by a few weeks, and had spent several hours on the telephone cancelling and rearranging her patients. (She refused to call them clients. ‘They are under my care,’ she explained. ‘If somebody is under your care, then they are the patient, in the old-fashioned sense of being one to whom something is done. A client is not under your care. That is a totally different transaction. You do not care for clients in the same way that you care for patients.’)

  It happened that her diary over the following month was not particularly full, so it was not too difficult to find alternative appointments for everybody. Had her patients not been loquacious, the task of arranging these appointments would have been the work of half an hour at the most. But many of her patients were given to long-windedness and took the opportunity of the telephone call to unburden themselves of doubts and anxieties that they had felt since they last saw Berthea. They knew, too, that telephone time was free - at least to them - and anything they said to her on the telephone was therefore very much cheaper than what they said to her in their hour-long sessions in her consulting room.