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

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 …”

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.”

“I think these leaves suit me,” said Lennie, from behind the greenery. “Careful. Not too much glue.”

“Such an interesting figure,” said Berthea, applying a splash of glue to Lennie’s chin before sticking a large laurel leaf on it. “We had all sorts of pagan gods in this country, you know. Not that the Green Man was a god – more of a spirit, I suppose. A bit like Pan.”

Lennie was now largely bedecked with leaves, and Berthea stood back to admire her handiwork.

“Convincing?” asked Lennie.

Berthea stroked her chin. “I think so. Say something in your Green Man voice.”

Lennie lapsed into an exaggerated West Country burr. “Green Man here,” he said. “I come from the forests.” Click .

“Very nice, very nice,” said Berthea warmly. Then she hesitated. “Except …” She was not sure how to put it. People with mannerisms often did not know that they were doing whatever they did, and she thought it unlikely that Lennie Marchbanks ever noticed the unscheduled movement of his false teeth. Yet if Terence heard the familiar clicking sound he would almost immediately realise who was hidden behind the leafy disguise.

“Do you think …” she began. “Do you think … I’ve had an idea, Mr Marchbanks. If you were to remove your teeth, then your voice would be even more disguised. I hope you don’t mind my suggesting that.”

Lennie did not mind at all. Reaching into his mouth, he extracted his teeth and handed them to Berthea. “Good idea,” he mumbled. “Here.”

Berthea tried not to show her distaste as she took hold of the false teeth. They were of course moist, and she quickly popped them into a pocket of her coat before wiping her hands discreetly. “There you are,” she said. “You already sound much more like a real Green Man.”

Lennie was pleased with the compliment. “I’ll tell the morris dancers,” he said. “I used to dance a bit with them in my younger days. Maybe they need a Green Man.”

Berthea thought it highly likely that they did. Even as she expressed her agreement, she was mulling over in her mind the possibility of a paper for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis . It would be an exploration of our need for Pan-like figures – a need that seemed to survive our loss of Arcadia – and an explanation of the role such figures play. The Green Man, she thought, was a reminder of our suppressed knowledge that ultimately we all relied on the growth of plants; no matter how assiduously we covered our world with concrete, we knew at heart that without grass and leaves we would simply not survive. The Green Man, then, was a figure of reassurance: we might have made his life difficult by destroying his habitat but he was still there, lurking in the inmost recesses of our consciousness.

She looked at Lennie Marchbanks. Here was a man whose life was one of machinery, and yet he had reverted so quickly and easily to a man of the woods and hedgerows. The entire Age of Machines had been rendered as naught by the simple application of dabs of glue and a few laurel leaves.

Berthea brought herself back to the business in hand. “Right,” she said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, you go and hang about in the rhododendron bushes, and I shall bring Terence out for a walk.”

“Will do,” mumbled Lennie. “Do we need to synchronise our watches?”

Berthea laughed. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Mr Marchbanks. But please remember one thing: I won’t see you. So don’t look at me, and I won’t look at you. Just look at Terence.”

Lennie Marchbanks nodded, causing a leaf to fall off the end of his nose. Berthea retrieved it from the ground and stuck it back on. “Premature autumn,” she remarked. “A well-known hazard for green men.”

They made their way back to the garden. While Lennie Marchbanks burrowed into the thick foliage of the rhododendrons, Berthea returned to the house, where she found Terence still meditating in the conservatory.

“Terence,” she said. “It’s lovely outside. I think we should have a little walk together.”

“Perhaps later, Berthy,” said Terence. “I’ve just reached a jolly high level of inner calm.”

“An ideal state in which to commune with nature,” she said briskly, taking his arm in encouragement.

They went outside. “Let’s look at those beds first,” said Berthea. “What lovely pinks. And freesias, too. I’ve always loved freesias. Such a delicate smell, and such beautiful colours too. And look at those lilies over there, Terence.”

“Lilies are so contented,” said Terence. “They neither spin, nor do they toil, yet Solomon in all his glory …”

“Indeed,” said Berthea. “Mind you, I’ve always imagined that Solomon wore rather dull clothes. I’m not surprised the lilies eclipsed him. But enough of flowers, let’s go down there, Terence. Over by the rhodies.”