The Dog Who Came In From The Cold cm-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mr Marchbanks was used to strange questions from Terence Moongrove. He sighed. “Could be. Mind you, I’m not sure what an aura is. Cars certainly have emissions. Is an aura anything to do with that?”

  Terence thought for a moment. “The concepts are not altogether unrelated. An aura is a sort of emission – an emission of light. And I suppose that inanimate objects can have waves associated with them. Water has a memory, after all.”

  Mr Marchbanks stared at Terence. “Water has a memory, you say?”

  Terence was now on firm ground; he knew about these things. “Yes, it does! Jolly surprising, but it does. They’ve done amazing experiments, Mr Marchbanks. There’s a professor called Beneviste. He’s the one who discovered that water could remember things that happened to it – stuff you put into it. It remembers it all and reacts to the same stuff when it next has it put into it. Amazing.”

  Mr Marchbanks moved the top set of his false teeth out over his lower lip; it was a little mannerism of his that manifested itself when he was puzzled. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  “Indeed you will be,” Terence went on. “Of course there are bags of people – bags of them – who were ready to throw cold water on this idea …”

  “Cold water,” said Mr Marchbanks. He wondered whether the water would remember being thrown.

  “Yes. People with closed minds – people who aren’t prepared to accept any new ideas that don’t match their view of how things are. There are plenty of people like that, Mr Marchbanks.”

  The mechanic looked thoughtful. “So are you suggesting that cars have memories?”

  “They might have,” said Terence. “I wouldn’t state it as a fact – not categorically. But think of it – if inanimate objects can absorb vibrations, waves, energy, call it what you will, then it explains a lot, doesn’t it? Hauntings, for instance. Energy is absorbed by stones and then released. It explains why places have an atmosphere.”

  Mr Marchbank looked interested. “Yes, places do have an atmosphere, don’t they? My mother-in-law’s house, for instance. I’ve always said that there’s something rum about that place. My wife doesn’t agree, but I always pick up a very negative feeling when I go there.”

  Terence nodded encouragingly. “There you are, you see. Something negative has gone into the bricks and mortar. You’re just picking it up, Mr Marchbanks.”

  “But I’m not sure about cars. Houses are one thing, but cars …”

  Terence made a gesture of acceptance. “I didn’t say that cars necessarily have that ability, but they could do. My Porsche, for instance. I must admit I get a sort of … vibration when I drive it. I feel somehow … a bit … well, a bit younger.” He blushed. “A bit amorous even! Not that I would say that to anybody else, of course, but you’re a mechanic …”

  Mr Marchbanks was wide-eyed. “Amorous, Mr Moongrove? Well, bless me! They say that these cars do help a bit in that department.”

  “I always control myself,” said Terence quickly. “I’m sure that the Highway Code has something to say about amorousness and cars.” He paused, composing himself after the admission. “But I do find that people look at me with what I’m tempted to describe as respect. Very strange.”

  And now that respect had meant that a car that had been thinking of claiming his parking spot near the station yielded when the driver saw him coming. Terence slipped into the parking place and, with time on his hands, walked into the station to buy a newspaper before Berthea arrived. So spent, the time passed quickly and there she was, his sister, carrying her weekend bag and waving to him from the end of the platform. Dear Berthy, he thought. So many things change in the world, but she always looks the same: same funny old jumper and odd-looking skirt; same old weekend bag, a holdall that she had had for ages and ages and which Uncle Edgar bought to take to Madeira.

  And Berthea, for her part, looking down the platform, saw her brother walking towards her and thought: Dear Terence! What a disaster area he is! That defeated old cardigan and those shoes with the Velcro fastenings. And his ghastly glasses. Oh dear! He must be the only Porsche driver in the world – in the whole world – who wears shoes with Velcro fastenings. What a distinction to have in this life.

  “Berthy!” exclaimed Terence, looking at his watch. “Your train’s arrived on the dot – on the absolute dot. Just as Mussolini promised it would. Only he wasn’t talking about England, was he? And he made such a beastly mess of Italy, didn’t he?”

  Berthea leaned forward and kissed him lightly on his left cheek. “I have stopped noticing when trains arrive or do not arrive,” she said. “My life is quite full enough without that to exercise me.”

  “Time is relative,” said Terence, reaching to take her holdall from her. “It’s a tyranny we invent for ourselves.”

  “Mmm,” said Berthea.

  “And anyway,” said Terence, “Like you, I find myself far too busy to think about time.”

  Berthea threw him a sideways glance. Her brother, as far as she knew, had absolutely nothing to do – apart from his ridiculous sacred dancing and the occasional meetings of the various lunatic societies to which he belonged. How could he possibly be busy?

  They made their way to the car. “I’ve got a nice surprise for you,” said Terence as he opened the passenger door for her.

  “I’ve already seen this car,” said Berthea. “And I must say …”

  He cut her short. “No, not the car. It’s nothing to do with the car. It’s a surprise for you at the house.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. I’ve got some people staying there. Roger and Claire. They’re terribly nice people. You’ll like them, I know it. They’re writing a book together, and they’re staying with me while they do it.” He laughed modestly. “I suppose that makes me a sort of patron of literature. Like those people who had salons. Madame de Staël, and people like that.”

  Berthea said nothing. She was not going to like Roger and Claire – she knew it.

  “Their book is very important,” said Terence. “It’s going to change the way we think about so much.”

  Berthea looked out of the window. “How long is it going to take for them to write this magnum opus?” she asked.

  “Four years,” said Terence. Then he added. “That’s for volume one, of course.” He paused. “And, listen, Berthy, it’s very unkind of you to call it a magnum opus in that sarcastic tone. Naughty, naughty! I’ve read about salons, you know, and there was a very strict etiquette, which included not saying anything nasty about the books of those present. Which in this case means Rog and Claire.”

  Berthea sighed. Madame de Staël. Rog and Claire. Five minutes in my brother’s company and I’m already wading in a morass of intellectual treacle.

  Chapter 26: Pantoufles

  But the conversation soon moved on, as it always did with Terence. Flight of ideas, thought Berthea – but not quite. It was true that Terence could talk at great length – and frequently did – but there was usually a reasonable connection between the topics he rambled on about. A true example of flight of ideas would go from this to that at the bat of an eyelid, and that would, of course, be indicative of bipolar disorder or attention deficit disorder, or even schizophrenia. No, Terence was afflicted with none of those things – Berthea’s trained eye could spot that well enough. His problem, she thought, was more one of magical thinking. He had spoken to her – as well as to Mr Marchbanks – about the memory of water, and that was a good example of the problem. He wanted the world to be otherwise than it really was; he wanted to see causality and connection where none really existed. He wanted to believe that pure thought could change the world.

  She paused. Who doesn’t? she asked herself. As children we try to create the world along the lines we want it to be. We wish an imagined world into existence through play – castles and kingdoms, fairies and elves, imaginary friends – but at some point we have to let go of it. Santa Claus dies; for all of us a personally felt demise that brings down one of
the great pillars of that self-created world. From then on, although reality asserts itself for most of us, for some the memory of that power to create, the memory of that universe of the imagining, persists. It is this that tempts us still to believe that the world actually functions in ways other than those that we understand through our senses. How sad, she thought, and she was reminded of those patients of hers who were stuck in some earlier stage of their development, for example the city trader who sat in her consulting room once a month and repetitively recited, in loving, nostalgic detail, the events of his eighth year, when the world was innocent and fresh and he was happy. And then wept – not every session, but often enough – for everything that he had lost. Slowly she was leading him to an understanding of why he mourned, laying bare his unhappiness.

  Or how about the woman who would talk only of her mother, and of what mother had thought about things. Everything triggered a maternal memory; Berthea had given her a cup of tea, and she had launched into a long description of the china her mother had once possessed but which had been broken by the removal men. Removal men, Berthea had written in her notes, and underlined the words. Removal men were such a powerful metaphor for brutal change, for dispossession, for the shattering of the security of the domestic universe. They came and put our life into boxes and took it away. Boxes, wrote Berthea, and underlined that too.

  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 think 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!�
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  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 to 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.