The Dog Who Came In From The Cold cm-2

by Alexander McCall Smith

Or it could be, she thought, that Jo was referring to the fact that they were going to Cheltenham to spend a weekend with Caroline’s parents. Again, she would not have described that as fun, although Jo, of course, had yet to meet her host and hostess. Not that they were particularly bad, as parents went; it was just that, well, they were her parents, with all that this entailed. Parents were very rarely just right, no matter how fond one might be of them. For instance, her father, Rufus Jarvis, was extremely conservative in his outlook; she only hoped that the conversation would not stray on to politics. What would Jo think? Or was she used to it? After all, she had parents back in Western Australia, and they no doubt had views of their own.

  “Yes,” she said, in delayed answer to Jo’s observation, “it is going to be fun.”

  “It’s good of you to invite me,” Jo said, as the train began to pull out of the station. She looked at Caroline quizzically. “Did you ever take James back to meet them?”

  Caroline winced. “Not a success.”

  Jo smiled at this. It was what she had expected. “Maybe James is not ideal material to take home,” she said.

  Caroline said nothing. James was her friend. Kind, amusing, stimulating James was still her friend. And that was all, she thought ruefully. Jo was right: it was time for her to abandon her expectations for that relationship. It was to be friendship, and nothing more.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Did you take anybody home?”

  She realised immediately after asking the question that she might be venturing into awkward territory for Jo. Her flatmate had never been explicit about her private life and Caroline was as a result uncertain about where Jo’s real interests lay. She had talked in the past about a boyfriend, but Caroline had not been sure whether she meant a boyfriend in the sense in which she herself sometimes talked about girlfriends: a friend who was a boy. James was a boyfriend, but not her boyfriend …

  And now, as she looked at Jo in the seat facing her, she thought: it’s the clothing that makes one speculate; the rather masculine-looking jacket. And the short hair. And the boots. But one should not jump to conclusions, she reminded herself, and it could be something to do with coming from a rather sporty family in Perth.

  “Oh yes,” said Jo. “I took boys back. Quite a few, actually.”

  Well, thought Caroline; that settles that.

  “Not that I wanted to marry any of them, of course,” Jo went on.

  And that unsettles that, Caroline decided.

  The journey passed quickly. Jo dropped off to sleep, and Caroline read, and looked out of the window, and reflected on her life. Now that she had let go of the idea of James, it seemed to her that everything had become much less complicated. She had a job; she had somewhere to live; she had a home to go back to if London became too much – which it was unlikely to do. She could meet somebody now, somebody who would suit her rather better than James – poor James – did. Where was the problem? There was none. That was the answer. There was nothing holding her back.

  They took a taxi from the station to the house. Rufus answered the door and embraced Caroline warmly. He smelled so familiar; he put bay rum on his face after shaving, and it lingered. It was one of the smells of childhood that she loved. He smelled of bay rum and newspapers, and sometimes of smoke, when he had been making bonfires in the garden, which he liked to do.

  He shook hands with Jo. She saw his eyes flicker and move quickly to hers but she did not meet his glance. Then Frances, her mother, arrived, dusting her hands as she came out of the kitchen. Frances looked at Jo before she turned to her daughter, and then the same thing happened – a quick exchange of glances. Did Jo notice this, Caroline wondered. She guessed not; Jo was patting Patrick, the aged dog, who had come to sniff arthritically at her boots.

  They went upstairs to put their bags in their rooms. The guest room had been prepared for Jo, and there were flowers in a vase near the window. A small tin of biscuits had been placed on the bedside table, and a bottle of mineral water. The comforts of home, thought Caroline. These little touches.

  Jo turned to her and said, “It makes me want to cry.”

  Caroline was alarmed. So she had noticed. She had seen the expressions on her parents’ faces, and she had been wounded. Of course she would be; this was what people had to put up with, day in, day out. If they did not conform, if they were different, they had to put up with these glances, these expressions, this unspoken passing of judgement.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is England …” It was all she could think of to say, and it was not very well put.

  “Of course it’s England,” said Jo. “That’s what makes it so nice.”

  Caroline realised that she had misunderstood. “I thought …”

  “The flowers and the biscuits,” said Jo. “And look at the towels laid out at the end of the bed. It’s home, Caroline, it’s home. That’s what makes me want to cry.”

  And she did, and Caroline instinctively went up to her and put her arms around her. “Dear Jo. Dear Jo.”

  She knew why her friend was crying. She was crying because she was far from home, and who among us has never wanted to do that? There need be no other reason; just that. We cry for home, and for flowers on tables, and biscuits in little tins, and for mother; and we feel embarrassed, and foolish too, that we should be crying for such things; but we should not feel that way because all of us, in a sense, have strayed from home, and wish to return.

  Chapter 69: Preparing Canapés with Frances

  Caroline’s mother, Frances, was preparing canapés in the kitchen. Caroline was helping her but only desultorily, as she was more interested in paging through a large recipe book that she had found lying on the kitchen table.

  “I’m so pleased that you managed to come down this weekend rather than next,” said Frances. “We’ve been meaning to hold this drinks party for ages and it’s lovely to have you with us.” She paused. “And your friend, Jo, of course.”

  Caroline turned a page of the cookery book. “Delia,” she said. “The blessed Delia. You call her that, don’t you? And everybody uses her book. Everybody, as far as I can see. How does she do it?”

  “She’s a real cook,” said Frances. “She actually knows how to do it. And she rescued English cooking more or less singlehanded. Back when she was training everybody used French recipes. Delia went into the British Museum one day and looked through the seventeenth-century cookbooks – English cookbooks – wrote out the recipes and published her own versions.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yes, and then she went on and showed everybody how to cook proper roast potatoes. And the whole nation started to eat crispy roast potatoes after that.” She clicked her fingers. “Pass me the pepper please, Caroline. It’s over there.”

  Caroline handed the pepper grinder to her mother.

  “Are you unhappy, darling?” her mother said rather absent-mindedly, as she sprinkled pepper on a small side of smoked salmon.

  Caroline stared at the recipe book. “A bit.”

  Frances started to cut the salmon into squares. “You’ll get over it,” she said. “I remember being unhappy at your age. The whole world seems so complicated. Nobody seems to understand you. And so on. Then things sort themselves out. You don’t believe it now, but they’ll sort themselves out.”

  She turned and looked at her daughter. “You do know, darling, that Daddy and I will always be behind you. You know that, don’t you? No matter what you choose to do, we’ll always be there to support you. And I do like Jo – or what I’ve seen of her. You mustn’t worry …”

  “About what? Worry about what?”

  “About … about … You know what I’m talking about.”

  Caroline shook her head. “Actually, I don’t.”

  Her mother sighed. “Well, darling, let me let you in on a little secret. You know that I married Daddy because, well, I supposed it was the thing to do. I’m sure you must have gathered that. And sometimes when you do that you don’t act
ually know what you’re doing, or what you’re really about. Daddy is a lovely man, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But he’s not exactly the most romantic figure in the county, is he?”

  Caroline shrugged. It had never occurred to her to wonder how her father rated in romantic terms. “Daddy’s quite good-looking,” she said. “I imagine that …”

  It was as if Frances had not heard her. “So if you’re wondering what I think about Jo, then let me assure you that I understand.”

  Caroline was now beginning to see where the conversation was going. She realised that she would need to correct her mother, but before she had the opportunity to do so, Frances went on, “So many of us are, well, a little bit that way, including me. I had a tremendous passion for somebody, you know. Not that I had the chance to do anything about it. She was—”

  Caroline’s jaw sagged. “Mummy! Please!”

  Frances looked at her, smiling. “But darling, I only want you to know that if you’re wondering where it comes from, obviously it comes from me!”

  Caroline put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Mummy, I wish you hadn’t started to talk about all this. There’s nothing between Jo and me. And I don’t think Jo would want it anyway. So she wears boots. She’s Australian. From Perth. You need boots there. She’s just my flatmate – that’s all.”

  Frances collected herself quickly. “Mummy’s little joke,” she said. “Not at all serious. I was just having a little fun.”

  “Of course.”

  “So, let’s get on with the canapés,” Frances went on briskly. “Tell me what Delia says I have to do after I’ve cut the puff pastry.”

  They began to work in silence, each remembering and reconstructing the conversation that had gone before. When they were finished, they each went to change and get ready for the arrival of the guests. Caroline thought: Our parents are not always what we think they are. And Frances could have had the same thought about her daughter, but had decided not to think about it at all. She had her duty as hostess before her, and she always attended first to her duty, no matter what.

  The guests arrived. They were mostly neighbours or Rufus’s colleagues. But a newly arrived retired couple was there – people who had recently moved to Cheltenham from Ely – and they had with them their son, Anthony. He was a year or two older than Caroline, and he was brought across the room by Frances to be introduced.

  Caroline looked at him as he spoke to her. He had grey eyes, she noticed, and a pearl-grey jersey. He matched. She looked down at his shoes: he was wearing ankle boots. They somehow matched his trousers. His hair was blonde and swept back to reveal a strong forehead. His hair seemed just right too. He asked her where she lived in London. His voice matched … matched him.

  “I live in Pimlico,” she said. “In a block of flats called Corduroy Mansions.”

  He laughed. His laugh matched his voice. “Hey, I know that place,” he said. “I live quite close by. Three streets away, in fact.”

  She could think of nothing to say but, “Oh.” There was so much else she could say; so much else that she wanted to tell him.

  “Would you like to have dinner?” he asked. “After this? After this party?”

  She did not hesitate for a moment. Why hesitate when you were so sure, so utterly sure? “Of course. That would be great.” Jo would entertain herself; she was good at that.

  “Italian?”

  “Perfect.”

  Anything would have been perfect. Italian, French, Indian, Chinese, Thai. Anything. She remembered Delia. Even English.

  Chapter 70: A Developing Crisis

  Terence Moongrove was only very vaguely known to Rufus and Frances Jarvis, as he moved in different circles from them. He had his sacred dance association, peopled by sundry adherents of the Bulgarian mystic, Peter Deunov; Rufus and Frances had their golf club. Between the sacred dance association and the golf club there was very little, indeed no shared ground, even if the members might recognise one another in the street, as happened when Rufus and Frances had seen Terence Moongrove in the supermarket car park, bundling his shopping into the rear seat of his Porsche.

  “What an extraordinary sight,” Rufus had said. “That Moonshine character seems to have acquired the tart cart that used to belong to Alfie Bismarck’s boy. Look at that!”

  “Moonwater,” corrected Frances. “Is it really his? Mind you, he’s getting into the driving seat, so it must be. My goodness. Whatever next!”

  “I’ll be keeping well out of Moonwater’s way,” said Rufus. “He’ll be lethal in that machine. Why is it that middle-aged men buy themselves these totally unsuitable cars?”

  “Precisely because they’re middle-aged men,” said Frances. “A car like that compensates for a lot, you know.”

  “Poor Moonwater,” said Rufus.

  “Indeed.”

  This slight acquaintanceship – if one could call it that – meant that it was very unlikely that Terence would be one of the guests at the Jarvises’ drinks party. And indeed while the Jarvises were shopping that day for their evening entertainment, Terence was sitting in his conservatory, meditating, while his sister, Berthea, rifled through his papers in his chaotically untidy study. Berthea had a very specific objective – to find the telephone number of Lennie Marchbanks, the garagiste who had sold Terence the Porsche. She had looked for the number in the telephone directory and failed to find it because unbeknown to her Lennie Marchbanks traded not under his name but that of Stellar Motors. At last, however, she found a receipt bearing the garage name and his signature – a crumpled, slightly greasy document – and was able to dial his number.

  “Mr Marchbanks?”

  “Yes. Lennie speaking.” There was a curious clicking sound as he spoke, and she remembered that he had an ill-fitting pair of false teeth that often protruded awkwardly.

  She gave him her name and asked whether she could possibly see him on a matter of great urgency. It was, she explained, in connection with Terence, who was in the gravest danger.

  “Lordie!” exclaimed Lennie Marchbanks. “Has he had an accident or something? The Porsche? I’ve told him a hundred times not to drive fast.” Click. “I told him, so I did.”

  Berthea assured him that it was nothing to do with the Porsche. “Financial danger,” she said.

  Click. Click.

  “Yes. But it’s difficult to explain over the phone. Can you please meet me in the lane outside the house in half an hour? I can tell you all about it then.”

  Lennie agreed. He was fond of Terence, and had always recognised his vulnerability. He would be there, he said, and he would do whatever he could to help. And he was as good as his word, arriving exactly thirty minutes later in the appointed spot, where he found Berthea waiting for him.

  The two had met before and Berthea did not bother with preliminaries. She told Lennie about Roger and Claire, and explained their plan to divest Terence of his house and, she suspected, his money too. Lennie Marchbanks listened, wide-eyed. “He’s not the most worldly of men,” he said in a concerned tone. “In fact, I must say I’ve always regarded your brother as an accident waiting to happen. Sorry to have to say it, but that’s what I think.”

  Berthea shook her head. “You don’t have to apologise for thinking that,” she said. “I’ve thought as much for years. Ever since he was a little boy. But he’s a good man, at heart, even if he is a little bit ...”

  “Weak in the head,” supplied Lennie Marchbanks helpfully.

  “Yes. Perhaps.”

  “But, as you say, he’s a kind man and we need to protect him.” Lennie Marchbanks paused. “Do you want me to say something to these people? Do you want me to tell them to clear off?”

  This would not work, said Berthea. She explained that Terence had a tendency to become very determined when told not to do something, and that the only way of dealing with the situation, in her view, was to get him to come to the realisation himself that Roger and Claire were a threat.

  “And how do we do that?” asked
Lennie Marchbanks. Click.

  Berthea found her eyes drawn inexorably to the mechanic’s false teeth, the top row of which had slipped forward over the bottom of the set. He sucked them back into place as she answered his question.

  “Terence believes in all sorts of things,” she said. “And at the moment he seems to be interested in the Green Man. Have you heard of—”

  “There’s a pub down the way called that,” said Lennie Marchbanks. “The Green Man. Does a nice pint of mild.”

  Berthea nodded. “I’m sure it does. There are an awful lot of pubs of that name, of course. The Green Man is a mythical figure who still occurs in the collective imagination. He pops up in all sorts of places … In fact, if he were to pop up in the rhododendron bushes in Terence’s garden and issue some sort of warning to my brother …”

  Lennie Marchbanks was not a slow man, and it took him very little time to guess what Berthea was about to ask of him. “I see,” he said. “Now that’s an interesting idea.”

  “Yes,” said Berthea. “You dress up as the Green Man. We can stick leaves all over your face – you’ll have seen drawings and carvings of him. Then I get Terence to go for a walk in the garden – the rest is over to you.”

  “I jump out of the bushes and say, ‘Beware Roger and Claire,’ or something like that? Then I vanish?”

  “More or less. But I think you should say something like, ‘There are people in the house who are planning to harm you.’ Something like that. He’s quite capable of putting two and two together – sometimes.”

  Lennie Marchbanks rubbed his hands together. “That’ll sort them.”

  “But then there’s part two of the plan,” said Berthea. “Let me tell you about that …”

  Chapter 71: The Green Man Cometh

  Berthea rather enjoyed covering Lennie Marchbanks with foliage. They did this on a piece of vacant land behind the house, using leaves from nearby laurel bushes.

  “The last time I dressed somebody up like this was when I was a child and we were making Guy Fawkes,” she said. “Terence and I used to have tremendous fun dressing him up in one of our father’s old shirts.”