Alexander McCall Smith: Corduroy Mansions

Where a mother writes her son’s biography, this notion of becoming one with the subject has, of course, an additional, striking resonance. She and Oedipus had indeed been one, when she had nurtured the Liberal Democrat politician in utero . Not that a pregnant woman thinks of the baby she is carrying as being political: a mother may wish for a Liberal Democrat baby, but may not think of the matter as determined. And there is always the possibility that the child will grow in a political direction not contemplated, or approved of, by the parent; how many parents have seen their children espouse views radically different from their own?

Berthea Snark did not disapprove of her son’s political party, which struck her as being largely benign, perhaps even a touch too well-meaning, but only a touch. Nor did she disapprove of the parties to which he was in opposition. She quite liked the Labour Party for some of its policies and the Conservatives for some of theirs. It all depends, she said. Why should everybody embrace the herd instinct which required one to regard one set of politicians as being always in the right while demonising another set? But what she did disapprove of was her son’s hypocrisy. He might be a Liberal Democrat on the surface, but he was not, she believed, a liberal democrat inside. And that was a most serious matter. Authenticity, in Berthea’s view, was all.

As Oedipus Snark discussed with his assistant, Jenny, the breaking of his undertaking of eight months’ standing to open a conference, Berthea Snark was preparing herself a cup of coffee in her house in a small street not far from Corduroy Mansions. This street, a cobbled mews which meandered briefly before ending in a modest row of garages, had become fashionable only recently. Berthea and her husband, Hubert Snark, had not had to pay present-day inflated prices for their home; they had acquired it for a song thirty years ago, when Oedipus was six. The mews house had been his childhood home and the place in which he first dreamed of reaching that promised land only a short distance away - Westminster. For just as small American boys may, in their log cabins, dream of the White House, so may small British boys, in their mews houses, dream of the House of Commons.

Berthea’s husband had been a largely absent father. When Oedipus was at primary school at the French Lycée in Kensington, Hubert had begun an affair with Jane Sharplie, an Oxford philosophy don and a Fellow of Somerville College, and had drifted away from the marriage. Berthea had been aware of the affair from the beginning; she was, in fact, a colleague and friend of the other woman, and had reviewed one of her books - favourably - in Mind .

‘I know what’s going on,’ she announced to Jane. They were sitting in the Friends’ Room at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly, having met to view a well-received exhibition of French painting.

‘Then you are fortunate,’ said Jane, sipping at her coffee. ‘There are few of my philosopher colleagues at Oxford who can say the same thing. I, for one, must admit quite frankly that I don’t know what’s going on. I am working on the question, but cannot truthfully say that I have yet found an answer.’

Berthea smiled. ‘As a philosopher,’ she said, ‘it’s your privilege to misinterpret what I say. But when I said I knew what was going on, I did not mean that I had achieved any insight into the meaning of things; I simply meant that I know what’s going on between you and Hubert.’

Jane put down her coffee cup. ‘Oh that,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘I thought that you meant . . .’

Berthea smiled again, more sweetly this time. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I meant the other thing.’

There was a silence. A fussy-looking man seated at a neighbouring table glanced at the two women before returning to his copy of the Burlington Magazine .

‘I don’t want you to think that I’m angry,’ said Berthea. ‘Many women would be, but in my case . . . Well, frankly, Jane, you’re welcome to him.’

Jane looked at her friend. ‘I didn’t start it,’ she said.

Berthea nodded. ‘Of course not. I’ve never taken the view that the tango requires two. Such an old-fashioned attitude to dancing.’

There was a further silence as this comment was digested.

‘So there we are,’ said Jane. She added, ‘Would you mind terribly if he moved to Oxford? He could always come back to Pimlico for . . . for the occasional weekend.’

‘Not in the slightest,’ replied Berthea. ‘But I wouldn’t want him to keep a room in town. We don’t have all that much space and I would like to use his study as a waiting room for my patients. I consult in the house, you know.’

Jane was quick to agree. She looked at Berthea appreciatively. ‘You’re being very mature about this,’ she said.

Berthea’s coffee was getting cold. She lifted the cup to her lips and drained it. ‘But that’s why he’s leaving me,’ she said. ‘Because I’m mature.’

They returned to the exhibition, still having a couple of rooms to visit. In the final gallery, where they found themselves faced with Vuillard and other post-Impressionists, Jane suddenly realised what Berthea’s remark might mean. If Hubert was leaving Berthea because she was mature, did that mean that he was coming to her because she - Jane - was immature? Or that Hubert himself was not sufficiently mature for Berthea? Either way, she was not sure that she emerged with a great deal of credit - at least in Berthea’s eyes.

They peered together at a Vuillard interior. For a brief moment they turned and glanced at one another, and smiled. What was a man, a mere man, to come between two women friends who went back a long time? Nothing , thought Berthea.

They moved on. Another interior, a Montparnasse bedroom.

‘I take it you’ve discovered that he snores,’ Berthea remarked.

Marcia left William in a thoughtful state. Her visits usually gave him something to reflect upon - Marcia brimmed with ideas, not all of them useful - but on this occasion he felt that what she had said was well worth considering. He had prepared himself for a show-down with Eddie over moving out, and had decided that the best tactic to adopt was to insist - and he would have to insist - that Eddie pay rent out of the small fund his grandmother had left for his benefit, but which, crucially, was entirely controlled by William. This rent would be an economic one, thus forcing Eddie to choose between a cheap rent elsewhere or an expensive rent at home. Eddie did not like to spend money - if it was his own, the money of others being a different matter - and might just prefer the cheaper option. It was a long shot, perhaps, but worth trying.

The time was ripe. A few days earlier, William had overheard the alternative offer being made over the telephone when he had picked up the receiver in his bedroom at precisely the moment Eddie had lifted it in the kitchen.

‘That you, Ed?’

He recognised the voice of Eddie’s friend, Stevie.

‘Yup.’

And it’s me too, thought William, because I live here . He was just about to put the receiver down and leave Eddie to get on with his telephone call when he heard himself mentioned. Nobody could resist that, especially when it was on his own phone in his own house.

Stevie’s nasal voice continued. ‘Your old man.’

‘Yup. What about him?’

‘Pretty fed up with him, aren’t you?’

William held his breath. And what about me? he thought.

‘Yup.’

William clenched his teeth.

‘Mine gets on my nerves too. Blah, blah, blah. On and on about getting a job and a mortgage and so on. Blah, blah, blah.’

‘Yup. Blah, blah, blah. Old-speak.’