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

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 thank 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.

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!”

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.