The Dog Who Came In From The Cold cm-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Rupert spotted the yeti. The shambling figure had moved speedily in the direction of Piccadilly Circus and then, so quickly that had Rupert not been sharp-eyed he might not have noticed, he went through the front door of Hatchards book shop. The sight cheered Rupert: Hatchards, where he was a regular customer, was home ground. Rupert knew the staff there, as he would often accompany one of his authors to do a lunchtime signing. This meant that not only was he familiar with the layout of the shop – which would give him an advantage over the yeti, who presumably did not know the place – but also he knew that there was only one way out, for the customers at least. If he waited by the front door, just inside the shop, then the yeti would not be able to leave without walking past him. And that would be the moment when he would see his face for the first time, and would even be able to accost him and find out whether he really was a yeti – which he certainly would not be – or whether he was an impostor – which he certainly would be. That would put la Ragg’s gas at a peep! “Your so-called yeti,” he would say. “I met him, you know. In Hatchards, no less. Himalayan section, of course, looking at the mountaineering books.” Ha! That would be funny. And la Ragg, who blushed easily, would look furtive, and Rupert would go on to say, “You really need to be more careful, Barbara. Representing this autobiography stands to make us look very foolish indeed.”

  And Barbara Ragg would be chastened, which is how Rupert liked her to feel. It was all very well getting possession of that flat which had been intended for him, but where was the satisfaction in having a comfortable – although ill-gotten flat – when you were such a rotten failure at work, a soft touch for every crank and charlatan with a dubious manuscript about a yeti, of all things? Where was the satisfaction in that? Nowhere, though Rupert. Nowhere.

  He went into Hatchards. Roger Katz, the legendary bibliophile, was standing just inside the door. He had just finished talking to a customer, and he smiled when he recognised Rupert. “Ah, Rupert,” he said. “I’ve got just the book for you.”

  Rupert looked over Roger’s shoulder into the shop beyond. Where had the yeti gone?

  “Did you see anybody?” Rupert blurted out. “A very tall chap. This tall.” He raised a hand to well above head height.

  Roger nodded. “Yes, I did, actually. He went upstairs, I think. Strange-looking fellow.”

  “I have to find him,” said Rupert. “Will you come with me?”

  Roger shrugged. “Yes, of course. One can usually locate a person quite easily.” He paused, and gave Rupert an enquiring look. “Who is he? A friend?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Rupert. “More complicated than you can imagine.”

  Chapter 63: Meeting Stephanie

  Had Hugh’s mother had a brood of other children, her relationship with Hugh might have been an easier one. But he was an only child and an only son, and for a mother in such a position it is not always easy to accept that another woman will eventually enter her son’s life and, if all goes according to plan – the plan being that of the other woman – take him away. This common conflict, so understandable and so poignant, is played out time and time again, and almost always with the same painful result: mother loses. It is so, of course, if mother is overt in her attempt to put off the almost inevitable; if she is covert, then she stands a chance, admittedly a remote one, of introducing into her son’s mind a germ of doubt that the woman he has chosen might not be the right one for him. That takes skill, and boundless patience, but is a course fraught with dangers for the relationship between mother and future daughter-in-law, let alone for that between mother and son.

  Stephanie, of course, adored Hugh – what mother could not? Her adoration was founded on precisely those qualities that Barbara had discerned in him and that had drawn her to him – his gentleness, his kindness, his masculine vulnerability. Stephanie knew that she should let go of him, should welcome other women into his life, but she found it almost impossible to do. If only she could like his girlfriends; but how, she wondered, do you like people whom you quite simply do not like?

  She had been dreading this meeting with Barbara; on a number of earlier occasions Hugh had brought girlfriends home to whom she had found herself taking an almost immediate dislike – a dislike that she had great difficulty in concealing. This had been picked up on by her husband, as for all his apparent equanimity and farmerly appearance Sorley had an astute sense of atmosphere. “You judge these poor girls too quickly,” he had said of one of them, a sound engineer from Glasgow. “How can you tell? You really must give her a chance.”

  “But she has a piercing in her nose,” Stephanie said. “You must have noticed. And her tongue too. Did you see the stud right in the middle of it?”

  Sorley shrugged. “The world’s changing,” he said. “Aesthetic standards change. What’s unattractive to us may be just the thing for Hugh and his generation – we have to remind ourselves of that, you know.”

  “But her tongue,” Stephanie persisted. “What’s the point? And presumably it traps particles of food.” Or could trap her son, she thought – with horror. What if they were kissing and the stud got caught between a gap in Hugh’s teeth? What then?

  Again Sorley had urged her to be tolerant. “But does it really matter if our son’s girlfriend traps particles of food?” He smiled as he spoke. Who among us has never trapped particles of food? Indeed, that was part, surely, of being human; an inevitable concomitant of our imperfection.

  At least Barbara Ragg had no piercings. That was noted with relief by Stephanie, who cast a quick glance at the other woman’s tongue when she first spoke to her. Barbara noticed her future mother-in-law looking into her mouth, and was momentarily concerned. What was this – a dental examination? Or was it the way country people, many of whom were incorrigibly horsey, looked at prospective members of the family, examining the mouth in the same way that they might look into the mouth of a horse being considered for purchase. Surely not?

  She, in return, ran a quick eye over Stephanie. Hugh’s mother was in her mid-fifties, she decided, but had weathered well. She was dressed more or less as Barbara would expect somebody like her to dress, sporting as she did an olive-green tweed skirt with a navy blue cashmere top – the sort of outfit worn by legions of country women in comfortable circumstances. Had she stepped out of a station at a point-to-point she would, Barbara thought, have raised no eyebrows. And yet there was something slightly exotic about her, a quality that Barbara perceived immediately, a hint of greater depths than such women usually showed.

  This impression was strengthened as Stephanie showed Barbara to her room. “We call this the Cadell room,” she said, pointing to a pair of pictures above the fireplace. “My grandfather knew Bunty Cadell rather well. He gave him these paintings. They used to be in my parents’ drawing room in Montevideo, when we were there.”

  Barbara looked at the paintings. One was a small study of a woman in an extravagant hat; the other a picture of a yacht moored in a Mediterranean harbour.

  “You lived in Uruguay?” said Barbara with interest. “Hugh didn’t tell me.”

  Stephanie stared out of the window. “Hugh doesn’t speak much about South America. Ever since …”

  She did not finish the sentence, but moved across the room to open the door of the wardrobe. “I’ve cleared this out for you,” she said briskly. “One gets so much clutter, and guests are a good reason to sort it out.” She smiled brightly at Barbara. Clearly there was to be no more discussion of South America.

  Barbara found herself wondering about Stephanie’s accent. She had assumed that she was Scottish, but there was something else there, a suggestion of French, perhaps; just a hint. Now she remembered something that Hugh had said about his mother – a chance remark that she had not paid much attention to, but now came back. She had been educated in Switzerland, he had said. There had been a school outside Geneva.

  But what had happened to Hugh in Colombia? Stephanie had said that he did not like to talk about it, but he had cert
ainly talked to Barbara, although not at great length. She decided that there might not be another opportunity to raise the matter, and so she would ask.

  “Did something bad happen to Hugh in Colombia? He once told me—”

  Stephanie moved quickly to her side. “Did he?” she asked with urgency. “Did he tell you?”

  “Well, he started to,” said Barbara. “He began a story about being on that ranch near Barranquilla. But then …”

  “What exactly did he say?” Stephanie was staring at her imploringly. Barbara noticed her eyes. They were a very faint green, like those of a Tonkinese cat. They were innocent eyes, and they now begged for information, their gaze as eloquent as any words.

  “He didn’t tell me much,” Barbara said.

  Stephanie seemed relieved, and Barbara realised that her relief came from learning that Barbara did not know what had happened. That, she thought, suggested that Stephanie herself knew, but would not tell.

  “You know, don’t you?” she asked. “Did he tell you?”

  Stephanie turned away. “You must excuse me,” she said distantly. “I have to check on something in the kitchen. I should not like to serve burnt offerings on your very first day here.”

  Chapter 64: Inconclusive Conversation

  Dinner was served at seven o’clock.

  “We like to eat early in the summer months,” Stephanie said to Barbara. “The evenings here are so lovely – so long drawn out. It gives us a chance to get things done after the meal.”

  “Such as going for a walk,” said Hugh. He looked at Barbara invitingly. “Would you like that?”

  “Of course.”

  He was accompanying her into the dining room, and took her arm as they went through the door. She nestled against him briefly, fondly, almost conspiratorially; she sensed that he was aware of her slight feeling of awkwardness – this was his family, his home, and she was the outsider. No matter how warm and welcoming a family may be, there is always a period of restraint, of mutual examination and testing, before a new member is taken to heart; no amount of social confidence could change that.

  Barbara took her place at the dinner table under the stern gaze of a Highland ghillie, caught in paint, gaffing a salmon and, it seemed, looking directly at her as he did so. Was this Hugh’s taste in art, she asked herself – wounded stags at bay, Perthshire hillsides with indolent Highland cattle, impossibly gloomy glens with mists descending? She realised that this was yet another thing she did not yet know about him. They had never discussed art, never been to a gallery together. You’re marrying a stranger, she thought; and for a moment she wondered whether it would be wisest to call the whole thing off. Not immediately, of course; she would wait until the end of the weekend and see how she felt then. No, she could never do that. Never.

  The hour or so at the table moved slowly. She was conscious that Hugh was watching her, as if he were trying to ascertain her reaction to his parents. When she caught his eye, he appeared to want to convey something to her – an unspoken apology, it seemed. Please understand, he said. Please understand that these are my parents, but none of us chooses our parents, and I am not the same as them. It was such a common message, one that almost everybody, at one time or another, sends to friends. And the reply that comes back is usually one of sympathy and understanding. “Yes, I see what you mean,” it says. “But they’re really not all that bad, and you should see mine!”

  The conversation was mainly between Hugh and his father, with occasional interventions from Stephanie, who made an effort to include Barbara in their exchanges.

  “I’m so interested to hear you’re a literary agent,” she said. “I’ve been writing—”

  Hugh did not allow her to finish. “Barbara is not that sort of agent, Mother,” he interjected. “She deals with a very different sort of book.”

  Stephanie tried again. “But I thought that—”

  Again Hugh interrupted. “For example, she has the most interesting autobiography at the moment. It seems that—”

  Stephanie stared at her son. “My own book—”

  Sorley cleared his throat. “I’ve been reading the most entertaining—”

  And Hugh again: “Please pass the salt.”

  Barbara said, “Does Ardnamurchan get a lot of rain?”

  At the end of the meal Barbara and Hugh left for their walk. The sun was still quite high above the hills to the west; although it was shortly after eight, at these latitudes, and in high summer, it would be a good two hours before it sank below the Hebridean Sea. “We’ve got time to get to the waterfall.” Hugh said. “Would you like that?”

  Barbara looked up at the hillside behind the house. There was a small expanse of cleared grazing and then, beyond that, rough land: heather, bracken, outcrops of granite.

  “There’s a path,” said Hugh, taking off his jersey and tying it around his waist. “It’s mild, isn’t it?”

  It was. Earlier in the evening there had been a breeze and this had now abated, leaving the air languid, warm on the skin. On impulse, Barbara moved to his side and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’m so happy,” she said. And then, embarrassed at her sudden show of emotion, “I just am. I normally don’t go round telling people that I’m happy, like some Pollyanna, but I just am.”

  “And I’m happy too,” said Hugh. But then he frowned. “Why shouldn’t you tell people you’re happy? Why do people expect you to be miserable?’

  “Do they?” she asked.

  “Yes, I think they do.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “Sometimes it seems as if people think that misery is the natural human condition. Misery and conflict.”

  “For some it is,” said Barbara. “For a lot of people, in fact.”

  Hugh’s expression was one of disappointment. “You really feel that?”

  Yes, she did; and she explained, “I’m not saying that we have to feel miserable – obviously we don’t. But we can’t ignore the real misery of the world. We’d have to bury our heads in the sand, wouldn’t we?”

  Hugh defended his stance. He did not ignore the misery of the world, he said, but it did not dominate his thinking. Why should it? What was the point? “You can know all about suffering,” he said, “and you can still smile, and see the beauty of the world, and experience … experience joy, I suppose.”

  She touched his forearm. “Of course. Of course, you’re right. And I’m not ashamed by happiness.” She paused. “You’ve made me happy. It’s you. Meeting you.” Which was true. Before she met Hugh she had been unhappy; she had been plain old Barbara Ragg – which was how she thought of herself – tagging after a man who had little time for her, living in fear of his rejection. And now everything was different. It was Hugh who had brought about this metamorphosis in her life.

  All this at the start of the walk, before they set foot on the path that followed the course of the burn and then turned off into the fold of the hills; now Hugh took her arm and led her towards the path, matching his step to hers. “Fine,” he said. “That’s fine, because I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Ever. I’m not exaggerating.”

  She began to say something, but he stopped her, placing a finger against her lips. “We need to start,” he said. “If we’re going to swim, we need to get up there before the sun goes down.”

  She shivered. They were going to swim under a waterfall. She looked up at the sky; it was a vast echoing vault of blue, empty apart from a sudden dart of swifts, dipping and swinging on some exultant mission of their own.

  Chapter 65: Under the Waterfall

  They followed the path along the side of the burn, stepping cautiously over exposed rocks and the tangled roots of gorse. The tumbling water was the colour of whisky – from peat, explained Hugh. “We could drink it if we wanted to,” he said. “I always used to, when I was a boy. I lay down and drank it when I’d been walking across the hills. Lay down and drank like a …”

  “Like a snake,” suggested Barbara.

  He was surprised. “Why
? Why like a snake?”

  “Because that’s the image that springs to mind. From Lawrence’s poem. You know the one: where a snake comes to his water trough and sips at the water. You lying on the ground makes me think of his snake.”

  He recalled the poem, but only vaguely. “I like Lawrence,” he said. “I like the novels, although I must say that his characters seem to speak so formally.”

  He smiled. “Do you think that in real life people have the sort of conversation we’re having? Or do they only talk like this in books?”

  She thought for a moment. “No, this is real. This is really how people speak.” She looked at him and returned his smile. “We’re talking like this, aren’t we?”

  “We are.”

  “Then there you are.”

  The path now diverted from the course of the burn, climbing away to the west, crossing a steep stretch of hillside. The way was rougher there, not much more than a track scoured out by the hoofs of animals. “Sheep use this?” asked Barbara.

  “No. Deer. We don’t have sheep any more. Just a few cattle. The deer are more important.”