Alexander McCall Smith - The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

Rupert was enjoying himself. “I went into her office to get something or other, and there was La Ragg sitting at her desk, white as a sheet. Drained. So I said, ‘What ails thee, dear Ragg?’ or something to that effect, and she looked up and said, ‘I fear that I’ve made a small mistake.’”

“Small mistake!” expostulated Gloria. “La Ragg certainly believes in understatement.”

“Indeed,” went on Rupert. “She told me about sending the letter to the wrong author. So I said, ‘How could you do that, Barbara?’ And my question, I assure you, was an apposite one. I just didn’t see how one could possibly write to one author in the belief that he’s another.”

Gloria shook her head in disbelief. This was such fun. “Absolutely,” she said. “And her answer?”

“Answer came there none,” said Rupert. “At least to begin with. For some time she said nothing at all, and then she opened her bovine mouth and said something about the two authors having very similar names. ‘In what respect?’ enquire I. ‘Oh, they’re both Welsh,’ La Ragg responds. I ask you! Both Welsh! So Neil Kinnock is Welsh and …” He waved his hand about airily, trying to think of another name. “And that other chap’s Welsh, but would we confuse the two of them, just because they come from—”

“Wales,” said Gloria. “There are loads of Welsh people. Loads of them. I don’t see how one can confuse people on the grounds of their nationality. I just don’t.”

Rupert rolled his eyes upwards. “Well, she did. But wait – here’s the denouement. She then told me that this poor chap – the one who thought that his book had been sold – had gone out and spent the advance.”

Gloria was very pleased to hear this; the story was getting better and better, just as Rupert had promised. She enjoyed her husband’s stories of office affairs – stories in which he came out rather well, as was to be expected, but Barbara Ragg and various other members of staff were shown to have fairly major failings – again, as one might expect. “No!” she exclaimed.

Rupert nodded with satisfaction. “Apparently he went out and bought a new car. Cleaned out his bank account in the expectation that he would soon be getting the money for the book.”

“Poor man,” said Gloria. “But I suppose he’ll be able to take it back.”

Rupert beamed. “Not so fast. Apparently he had spent the entire day driving up and down Wales and clocked up an awful mileage. You can’t take a new car back if you’ve put several hundred miles on it. It’s not a new car any more. The value drops very quickly and dramatically the moment you drive out of the showroom, and even more so when you put a few miles on the thingometer.”

“Odometer,” said Gloria.

Rupert raised a finger. There was even more to come. “La Ragg then says to me, and I quote verbatim – ipse dixit – she says, ‘I do hope that the agency will refund him the difference between what he paid and what the garage gives him when he takes the car back. In fact, I hope you don’t mind – I’ve written him a letter to that effect.’”

Gloria’s eyes glinted. “Outrageous!” she said.

Rupert reassured her. “Oh, I nipped that in the bud all right,” he said. “I told her that I did mind and that if she chose to rectify this mistake it was to be from her drawings on the firm and not from anywhere else. Those who make mistakes should pay for them, I said. And not with other people’s money.”

“That taught her, no doubt,” said Gloria.

“She sulked,” said Rupert. “She’s a terrible sulker, is La Ragg. Went all moody. You know how women get from time to time.”

Gloria looked at him sternly. “Some women,” she corrected him. “Not all.”

“Of course,” said Rupert. “Of course, mon chou. That’s what I meant.”

Caroline put down the receiver. She had finished the telephone call she had been making to James, and had ended by blowing a kiss down the line. When, she asked herself, did I last do something like that? As a teenager, perhaps, when she had enjoyed those long conversations with her first boyfriend, Will Brown, and had found it so hard to hang up, although they really had so little to say to one another beyond half-whispered declarations of undying love. And then Will Brown had gone to university in Cardiff and broken his promise to phone her every day. So much for men, she thought; they promise things and then don’t deliver. It was ever thus.

James was different. He always did what he said he was going to do, even if it made him just a tiny bit predictable. No matter. They had arranged to meet later that evening, when James would come round to the flat. They would cook a simple meal and watch a film together, making it the sort of evening that both she and James preferred. James had offered to cook if Caroline would go and buy Arborio rice – he had a special risotto recipe that he wanted to try – as well as a carton of crème fraiche and a punnet of raspberries. He would bring Parmesan cheese and asparagus for the risotto, and a bottle of wine that some friends had given him for looking after their cat while they went to Norwich for the weekend.

Caroline decided to go out to the shops immediately. None of her flatmates was in, and so she double-locked the door behind her and made her way out into the street. A short walk later, as she turned the corner onto Ebury Street, she found herself faced with a woman who had dropped her shopping bag and was bending down to recover a scattering of Brussels sprouts from the pavement. The woman looked up at her apologetically.

“I’m very sorry,” she said. “I’m sure that you didn’t expect to find your way blocked by Brussels sprouts, of all things.”

Caroline laughed, and bent down to help her retrieve the last of the vegetables. The woman looked vaguely familiar; Caroline had obviously seen her in the area before, but had not met her. There were plenty of people like that; they were the neighbours – in a loose sense – but one had no idea who they were.

“London pavements are perhaps not as clean as they ought be,” the woman remarked. “But boiling will get rid of most things, I’d have thought.”

“Of course it will,” said Caroline. She sounded very authoritative, she realised, although she had no reason to profess expertise in the matter. “My boyfriend wouldn’t approve, though.”

She had not called James her boyfriend before, but it came quite naturally. And it was true: James would be appalled by the idea of eating Brussels sprouts that had been on the pavement. She could just hear him: “They should be put down, Caroline, not eaten!”

The woman straightened up. She seemed interested in Caroline’s remark. “Oh really? He’d disapprove? Why’s that?”

Caroline felt vaguely disloyal in talking about James in this way, but she could hardly leave the matter up in the air now. “He worries a bit about germs,” she said. “In fact he worries a lot about them.”

The woman tucked the last of the Brussels sprouts back into her shopping bag. “I’ve seen you before, I think,” she said. “We haven’t met, of course, but we’ve seen one another, haven’t we?”

Caroline nodded. “I live back there,” she said, nodding in the direction of Corduroy Mansions.

The woman extended a hand. “I’m Berthea Snark. I think I’m just behind you. You know the little mews?”

“Of course. I sometimes walk past those houses and think how nice they are. I’ve often wondered what they’re like inside.”

Berthea Snark smiled. “They’re very comfortable. Gemütlich , even.” She paused. “But why don’t you come in for a cup of tea? I was going to put the kettle on when I got back. You could satisfy your curiosity – mine is a typical mews house.”