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

He turned to her, his eyes narrowed. “Just leave Ratty Mason out of it, will you? I don’t want to talk about him. He’s history.”

“Were you very friendly with him?”

Rupert snorted. “Me? Friendly with Ratty Mason? Don’t make me laugh.”

“So there was a problem then. What happened? Did he … betray you?”

At the mention of betrayal, Rupert sighed again. “I really don’t want to stand here in the middle of the pavement talking about somebody like Ratty Mason. I had a really very good idea and now you’ve gone and spoiled it.”

Gloria thought for a moment. Ratty Mason could wait; there would be another opportunity. “All right, what’s your idea?”

“We go to Barbara’s flat and have a look round,” he said. “You’ve got the keys.”

Rupert was holding Gloria’s arm as he spoke, and he felt a jolt of excitement running through her.

“Rupert!”

“Pourquoi non? We have La Ragg’s authority to go and let in those boiler people, so does it make any difference if we merely exercise that right of access a bit early? I don’t think it does. Not in the slightest, if you ask me.”

“You make it sound so simple. But what would we do once we’re in?”

“As I said, look around. We could see how she’s using the place to which we are morally entitled. It’ll be like a UN inspection. That sort of thing.”

Gloria looked about her, as if to see whether anybody might be capable of overhearing this dangerous suggestion. “All right,” she said. “I can just imagine what it’ll be like.”

“So can I,” said Rupert, chuckling. “Frightful taste, I bet. Flying ducks on the wall?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Gloria. “We must brace ourselves.”

Barbara Ragg’s flat was on a street that ran off Kensington Park Road. It was not the most expensive part of Notting Hill – there were more fashionable and sought-after addresses – but it was, by any standards, comfortable and secure. From Barbara’s point of view, it was ideal. The flat faced south-west and benefited from the late afternoon sun; the neighbours were quiet and inoffensive, but sufficiently attentive to any unusual occurrences to amount to an informal neighbourhood watch; the roof was in good order; and there were never any unseemly arguments with landlords or residents about the cost of painting the railings that gave onto the street or any of the other shared parts of the building. Barbara found it difficult to imagine herself living in any other area of London, and if she looked at the property pages of the newspapers it was only to reflect on her good fortune in being where she was, in having what she had.

The features of the flat which appealed to Barbara were, as it happened, exactly the same ones that gave rise to an intense and burning jealousy on the part of Rupert Porter. The flat he occupied with Gloria faced in the wrong direction and got very little light at any time of the day. It was also far pokier, having been built at a time when the Victorian confidence that inspired the architects of Barbara’s flat had somehow flagged; perhaps there had been a defeat somewhere in that rambling empire, or a financial downturn, sufficient to make Rupert’s windows and ceilings meaner, his public rooms less commodious.

Everyone knows, of course, that there are people who live in better accommodation than we do ourselves. Even the wealthy, in their well-appointed mansions, know that there are even wealthier people occupying even better appointed homes. At work, too, inequalities abound. Civil servants, as is well known, measure the size of their carpets to establish where they are in the pecking order; ministerial cars are carefully graded by engine capacity to suit the seniority of the person to whom they are allocated; in airports there are lounges for every grade of traveller, and for the lowest grade, no lounge at all. We all know these things and accept that some people have things which we do not – unless we feel that they do not deserve what they have, in which case we look forward to their dispossession. Rupert generally did not resent the residential good fortune of others; he did not scowl as he walked past people standing on the doorsteps of houses that were clearly more desirable than his. That was not the issue. The issue was Barbara’s occupancy of the flat that had once belonged to his father, Fatty Porter, and out of which he, Rupert, and any future Porters, had been cheated. Or so he believed; the fact that the flat had been quite properly sold to Barbara’s father was not the point. Behind some contracts there is a hinterland of interpretation, and in Rupert’s view the Raggs had quite simply tricked the Porters by ignoring what everybody involved plainly understood.

That was the history. And that was what Rupert was thinking about as he and Gloria made their way to the front door of Sydney Villa. There Rupert glanced quickly at the nameplate next to Barbara’s doorbell – Ragg. He flushed with anger. Porter, it should have read.

“The keys,” he said, his voice lowered.

Gloria fished about in her bag. “Here they are. Rupert, I wonder …”

“No,” said Rupert. “We mustn’t change our minds. Remember: we’re entitled to this place. La Ragg is really not much more than a squatter.”

“But Watergate …”

“Nonsense!” He smiled. “Notting Hillgate, if you must.”

There was an awkward moment as Rupert fitted the key into its keyhole. It was slightly stiff, and he had to withdraw it twice before it slotted into place. It occurred to him that his lack of familiarity with the key could alert any observer, but there was nobody watching, and he succeeded in opening the front door on the third attempt.

They moved through the common entrance hall and took the stairs up to Barbara’s landing. They opened the door to the flat and went into Barbara’s entrance hall. Rupert found a light switch and flicked it on. He pointed to a picture hanging on the far wall. “Ghastly,” he said. “She goes in for that sort of stuff in the office. Look at it.”

“Pretty awful,” said Gloria. “Let’s look at her kitchen.”

Rupert was more interested in the drawing room, a room he had always particularly liked, but he wanted Gloria to have some fun too, so he followed her through to the kitchen.

“She’s got one of those cheap blenders,” said Gloria. “And look at this crockery. That’s what happens when you put non-dishwasher-proof plates in the dishwasher. See here. And here. It takes off all the decoration.” She paused, examining a plate more closely. “Mind you, some decoration is best removed, I suppose.”

“It’s such a lovely flat, though,” said Rupert. “If you threw out all this stuff you could make something really nice of it.”

“A criminal waste,” agreed Gloria.

“And Pa would have loved the thought of our living here,” continued Rupert. “That’s what he wanted. But he trusted Gregory – bad mistake.”

It was at this point that they heard the sound of a door opening somewhere in the flat. Rupert froze.

“She’s in Scotland,” he whispered. “I’m sure …”

He did not finish his sentence. A man had appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was wearing a blue dressing gown over a pair of extravagantly striped pyjamas.

“Teddy?” the man said. “Barbara said that you two might be coming to stay while she was away.”

Rupert was a quick thinker. “Yes. Sorry to have woken you up.”

The man smiled. “No problem. I’m a light sleeper. Errol Greatorex, by the way. I’m one of Barbara’s authors.”

Again Rupert thought quickly. “The yeti man? The Autobiography of a Yeti?”

Errol Greatorex looked surprised. “Barbara’s told you about that?”