Alexander McCall Smith - Corduroy Mansions

‘We’re all going to be like our mothers,’ said Dee. ‘And we’re going to say the same things, too.’

Jo shook her head. ‘Never.’

‘We’ll see.’

Now, almost a year later, Dee found herself in the kitchen making herself a pot of green tea when Jo came into the room, already dressed in the grey tracksuit that she donned for her regular morning runs.

Jo looked out of the window. ‘Nice day,’ she said. ‘I’m on duty at the wine bar this evening, worse luck. But the day’s free. I’m going to do ten miles this morning. Then I think I’ll have a picnic with some friends. One of the parks.’

Dee thought that this was a good idea. She approved of exercise and took it herself, in theory at least. But exercise without a good diet was not enough. What was the use of pounding the pavements if one was deficient in selenium, or magnesium for that matter?

She poured green tea into her cup. ‘I’m working,’ she said. ‘Saturday morning’s always busy for us.’ They would be so busy that she would not have very much time to talk to Martin. But she hoped that she would be able to sit him down after lunch and discuss his colonic irrigation. She had planted the seed in his mind, and she wanted to get back to it because she thought that he was on the point of agreeing to it. If he did agree, then she was going to suggest that they did it the following day. Doing it on a Sunday would give him time to take the salts in advance and it could be done in a leisurely way. Their flat would be best - she did not fancy going all the way out to Martin’s house in Wimbledon or wherever it was that he lived with his parents, carrying all the necessary equipment. And what would his parents think? People were sensitive about colonic irrigation, largely because they had no idea, Dee thought, about what it involved and what the benefits were. If only they knew, if only they could see what could be flushed out of the system. She had heard recently of a man who had swallowed a marble as a child and had only now, at the age of thirty, had it flushed out of his system. Imagine having a marble in one’s digestive tract for over twenty years! She would have to tell Martin about that. Perhaps it would persuade him.

She was thinking about this when she suddenly heard an unfamiliar sound on the landing outside. ‘Is that a dog barking?’ she said to Jo.

Jo frowned. ‘Sounded like it. But inside?’

There was another bark - louder this time.

‘I’m going to take a look,’ said Dee. ‘Perhaps a stray has come in. Eddie often doesn’t shut the front door. I’ve asked him. But he doesn’t care.’

She left the kitchen and went into the hall to open the front door. When she looked outside, it was to see William beginning to descend the final flight of stairs. At his side, attached to a leash, was Freddie de la Hay.

William, hearing the door open, looked over his shoulder.

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘Meet your new neighbour, Freddie de la Hay.’

Dee stared at Freddie. How very strange. A dog with a surname. But it was Pimlico, after all, and one might expect anything to happen in Pimlico.

‘How do you do?’ she said.

Freddie looked at her. Was this woman addressing him? Perhaps he should sit, just to be on the safe side. People were always asking dogs to sit, even when there was clearly no need to. Freddie sighed, and sat. Life was complicated. And he had just picked up an interesting scent, too. It came from downstairs. Very interesting.

Down in Rye, Barbara Ragg sat with Oedipus Snark awaiting breakfast in the dining room of the Mermaid Inn. They were at the same table at which they had eaten dinner the previous night. That had hardly been the romantic evening she had been looking forward to; she rather regretted, in fact, mentioning the Greatorex manuscript at all, as Oedipus had harped on about it for the entire meal, eager for every detail she could provide. It was an extraordinary story, she agreed, but not that extraordinary, particularly since she had a very strong suspicion that Greatorex had made the whole thing up. Of course there was no yeti, even if there were some puzzling unexplained sightings of creatures that could be the yeti. But there was always a rational explanation for these things: a trick of light, an error of the human brain, a misinterpreted shadow.

She found it strange that she should have argued for the existence of the yeti when faced with Oedipus’s scepticism; normally she would be the first to agree that we need evidence for our beliefs; she had no time for paranormal speculation, for wishful thinking. But in the face of his doubting - even if his doubt had rapidly turned to interest - she had defended Greatorex. Why? Because he was her author and that was what an agent should do? No, it was more than simple knee-jerk loyalty. It was something to do with the carapace of certainty that Oedipus Snark had about him. He was just so right , especially in his own eyes, and she wanted to puncture that. She had had enough.

The word enough can be potent. It can begin as a statement of dissatisfaction and rapidly become a call to arms. In the minds, or the mouths, of the oppressed it becomes the trigger of resistance, the rallying cry which signals the turning of the worm. Henry VI , Part 3, Barbara Ragg’s thoughts now turned to: ‘The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on / And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.’ Well, she thought, I have had enough.

She looked over the table at Oedipus Snark, who was reading the newspaper. Then she glanced at other tables where other couples, husband and wife, lover and lover, friend and friend, were sitting over their own Saturday morning breakfasts. None of them had a newspaper, but sat facing one another, talking. In one corner, near the window, a couple actually laughed at something one of them had said, their eyes bright with mirth.

Enough.

She made the observation casually. ‘Something interesting in the paper?’

Oedipus shrugged. ‘Not really.’

Barbara felt her heart beating faster. She was fully aware of what she was doing. Her relationship with Oedipus Snark had lasted for two years. She had hoped for something out of it. She had hoped that he would give some indication that he was at least thinking of something permanent, something publicly acknowledged. She had hoped that they might get invitations headed ‘Oedipus and Barbara’. She had hoped that he might remember her birthday without being prodded; she had hoped for a few signs that she was important to him. But I am not, she thought. I am a casual companion, that is all; an incidental adjunct.

She drew in her breath. ‘Do you know that game that children play? Where they say, would you rather be eaten by a lion or a shark? Or would you rather . . .’

Oedipus did not glance up from the paper. ‘What?’

‘I said that there’s a game that children play,’ she said quietly. ‘My nephew played it when he was ten. He kept asking me which of two options I would like.’

‘Your nephew? The one who liked cricket?’

At least he remembered, she thought. Louis liked cricket, and Oedipus had talked to him about it. He had promised to take him to Lords one day because he knew somebody there and the boy’s eyes had lit up. Of course he had never taken him.

‘Yes. Louis. Remember?’

‘I remember him. Lewis.’

‘Louis.’

‘That’s what I said.’

There was a short silence. Then Barbara continued. ‘So,’ she said, ‘would you rather be with me or in the House of Commons? Do you prefer me or the House of Commons? Or how about this: would you rather be on a slow boat to China with me or be elected leader of the Liberal Democrats? Or . . .’