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

May contain nuts … The same might be said of Terence’s house, with these odd friends of his. The last time she visited, there had been the sacred dance people and their Beings of Light; now there were these two resident gurus, Roger and Claire, who had insinuated themselves for the purpose of writing their magnum opus. And for the purpose of eating too, no doubt, and drinking Terence’s martinis. Unless, of course, they did not indulge – shortly she would see whether it was carrot juice or gin they drank, and that would tell her a lot about whether they were genuine.

She left her room, and then, on impulse, went back in to collect her handbag. It contained her purse and her credit cards, and for some reason she felt uneasy about leaving them in her room. If Roger and Claire were capable of leeching off poor Terence then might they not be equally capable of removing a few banknotes or a card from a guest? The thought came to her quite powerfully, but she immediately felt guilty; how could she think such a thing about fellow guests whom she had not yet even met – apart from a brief sighting of Roger in the garden. I must not allow myself to be distrustful, she told herself firmly, but nevertheless she kept hold of her bag. It would not do to tempt Providence, at least not once Providence had been alerted to a possibility.

She made her way down the corridor. There was a door off to the left, to a room that she knew to be another spare bedroom; Uncle Edgar had stayed there when his wife had found it all too much to bear. She paused. The door was slightly ajar, just a tad, but enough for her to hear voices within – a man’s voice and then a woman’s. She was not one to eavesdrop, and the old adage that those who did heard ill of themselves was very true, as so many of those irritating old adages were. But she could not resist; she crept closer to the door.

A squeaky floorboard protested loudly. Berthea froze. The murmur of voices ceased, but then resumed. She breathed a sigh of relief, and strained to hear what was being said.

Polonius had an arras behind which to hide – not that it did him much good. Berthea Snark had no such cover as she stood on the first-floor landing of her brother Terence Moongrove’s Queen Anne House near Cheltenham. The unfortunate Polonius brought Hamlet’s wrath upon him through an ill-timed call for help; Berthea would make no such mistake. She stood motionless, and unless she were to sneeze – which she had no plans to do –the only threat lay in the squeaky floorboard she had just trodden upon. That was silent now, and if the owners of the voices murmuring within the room off the landing had been momentarily disturbed they were no longer on the alert, as their conversation had resumed.

If there is one thing which one can always make out in an otherwise indistinctly heard conversation it is one’s name. Being professionally interested in such phenomena, Berthea had been fascinated to read in the psychological literature of how people in certain stages of sleep may not react to stimulus but upon hearing their name being called may wake up quite quickly. She had experienced this herself while sleeping through a meeting of a committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; she had awoken at precisely the moment the chairman mentioned her name, and fortunately had been able to respond to his question quite satisfactorily. Sleeping in meetings, of course, was nothing to reproach oneself for, even though it could be occasionally embarrassing; many meetings were unnecessarily long, or indeed completely uncalled for, and if they provided an opportunity to catch up on much-needed sleep, that at least gave them some purpose. Berthea had once been at a meeting where everybody was asleep except her and the chairman, and the two of them alone had dispatched a great deal of business in a very efficient and appropriate manner. That same chairman, one of the great chairmen of his generation, was himself an accomplished napper, famous for being able to sleep through an entire meeting, only waking at the end, whereupon he would provide an excellent summary of everything that had happened during the meeting. Various explanations had been suggested, one being that he had a rare and useful ability to hear while he was asleep; another, more plausible explanation, was that he knew the members of the many committees very well, and knew that they were unlikely to come up with any novel remarks, and therefore he had no difficulty at all imagining what they had said.

Berthea was aware that inside the bedroom off the landing, presumably preparing to go downstairs for their seven o’clock martinis mixed by Terence, were the two other guests in the house, Roger and Claire. She had seen Roger as she arrived at the house earlier that day, hanging about in the rhododendron bushes near the drive, and had on the spot identified him as a charlatan. What, she wondered, was he doing in the rhododendron bushes? But, more pertinently, what was he doing exploiting poor, innocent Terence’s generosity by coming to stay for an indefinite period of time – possibly years, according to Terence – while writing some mystical magnum opus that was undoubtedly risible in the extreme. She was yet to see Claire, whose voice she now heard from within the room and who was, in fact, the one who was mentioning Berthea’s name. Like a sleeper in stage three non-REM sleep, Berthea homed in on what was being said.

“ … that woman. What’s her name – Bertha?”

“Berthea. Berthea Snark," Terence said. "His sister. She’s the mother of that Lib Dem MP, Oedipus Snark. We’ve seen him on the box – going on about something or other.”

Claire laughed. “They do go on, don’t they?”

“Nice job,” said Roger. “You get paid to go on and on about things. I’ve often thought I’d like to be an MP.”

Claire took a moment or two to reply to this. “You? You must be joking. And your talents, Rog. Think of your talents. If you were an MP you couldn’t set up the centre. All our plans …”

Berthea drew in her breath. Centre?

“True,” said Rog. “Of course we can’t treat anything as being in the bag. Not just yet.”

Claire appeared to agree. “Naturally. What do they say? It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

“It’s not over until Terence is kind enough to sign. Which he will.”

There now came from within the room the sound of a cupboard or drawer being closed. Berthea tensed. If Roger and Claire intended to be punctual for martinis, then they might emerge at any moment. She would have to move.

She shifted her weight. Within the room, the voices resumed.

“Will she prove awkward – Berthea Stark or whatever she calls herself? I must say I didn’t much like the look of her. I caught a glimpse when Terence drove her back from the station. Hostile-looking woman.”

“Well, if she’s anything like him, she’ll be no trouble.”

“Good. Oh, look at the time, shouldn’t we …”

Berthea took a step backwards. The floorboard squeaked. She froze. It was difficult to decide what to do. She could not stay where she was, but if she took another step she could alert them to her presence right outside their door, and that would be hard to explain. She moved again, very slightly. The floorboard protested.

There was only one thing to do. She knocked loudly on the slightly ajar door.

Roger opened it. He was smartly dressed now, a handkerchief protruding from his blazer pocket in a rather jaunty way.

“Oh …”

“Sorry to give you a fright,” said Berthea. “I wasn’t sure if anybody was in. I was looking for …” She thought quickly. “A hairdryer. There isn’t one in my room, you see.” She was pleased with the line: saying that she was not sure that anybody was in indicated that she had not heard their conversation. Assuming Roger was listening to what she was saying, of course.