A Conspiracy of Friends: A Corduroy Mansions Novel

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “But I am a fat man,” said Phillip, who was always disarmingly honest. “That is what I am. I cannot help what I am. And, frankly, what has it got to do with you? What bearing has it on our wish to adopt?”

  The social worker smiled. “You can help what you are, Phillip. If you didn’t eat too much, you would not be overweight. And it does matter that you are carrying too much weight around. It will affect your health, and an adopted child has a right to a healthy parent.”

  This was followed by silence. Then Phillip replied. He spoke slowly, aware as he did so that every word would count against him in some assessment; every word he uttered would diminish their chances. But he could take it no more.

  “A right to a healthy parent, you say? A right to a healthy parent? When exactly did you invent that right, may I ask? Children have parents given to them by chance. You may be lucky and get a great set of parents, or you may get people who don’t love you, or who drink, or who end up in prison. But they are your parents and you have no right to anybody else. You just have parents. That’s what parents are—they’re the people you get.”

  The social worker merely smiled—a thin, tolerant smile of the sort one gives to those who say something naive or ridiculous. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I have to disagree.” And she added: “Phillip.”

  This irritated Phillip even more. He had never invited her to use his first name; he was, as far as she was concerned, Mr. Stevens. He addressed her as Ms. Hebden, but she had gone straight to Phillip.

  “You disagree, do you?” he said. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  She sighed. “It doesn’t help either of us to resort to aggressive language, Phillip. I’m only trying to help you.”

  “That surprises me,” he said. “I would have said quite the opposite.”

  “Well, you’re wrong, Phillip.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I understand that you have to make sure that people are serious about adoption. I understand that you can’t give a child to people who are going to change their minds two weeks later. I understand that. But you should accept that we know what we’re doing. You should make precisely the same assumption that society makes about people who produce children themselves. They’re left to get on with it, by and large—unless they run into people like you.”

  The social worker sighed again. “We have a duty, Phillip. We have a duty to ensure that things go well—and remember, when something goes wrong, we get the blame, don’t we? Oh, don’t look away, Phillip: you will have seen those reports in the newspapers where social workers are crucified because somebody failed to spot a violent parent, or the risk assessment wasn’t carried out properly. They blame us—and they blame us with all the certainty of hindsight. Of course it should have been spotted. Of course it was possible to see that the brute of a father was going to do what he did. And so on. Us. They blame us. So turn on me, Phillip, and accuse me of being too intrusive.”

  They had stared at one another in silence, and then the social worker had remembered an appointment and taken her leave. Jane, who had listened to the exchange but not participated, went to her husband and put her arms about him to comfort him. “It doesn’t matter, dear. It really doesn’t. I’m happy enough—I’ve got you, and you’re the nicest, gentlest person in the world.”

  “No,” he said. “That’s you.”

  This took place only a few months after the yellow dog had gone missing. “Perhaps somebody will send us a dog,” Jane remarked a little later.

  “What an odd thing to say! You aren’t sent dogs, Jane dearest. You buy them, or you get them from the pound.”

  “Some dogs are sent,” said Jane. “They are sent in the way in which prophets are sent. They are …”

  He smiled, and kissed her. “Gentlest, most imaginative one. Yes, perhaps, we shall be sent a dog.”

  And here was Freddie de la Hay, sitting in the front seat of Jane’s car, conducting himself with all his usual courtesy and consideration.

  Freddie felt quite pleased with himself. The adventure down the rabbit hole had been traumatic, and he would not repeat it in future. It had produced, though, at least one good outcome, which was that he had retained some very interesting scents; these he was now savouring. The wetness on a dog’s nose has a purpose beyond that of leaving imprints on windows or surprising a human leg under a table with an unexpected cold nuzzle: to this moist bulb small particles attach, allowing smells to be conducted to a dog’s olfactory centres further up the snout. Freddie’s excursion into the rabbit burrow had resulted in a whole library of scents being deposited on his nose, and he was now enjoying these, recognising some, interrogating others, filing them all away for future use. He was quite happy for this drive to continue indefinitely: he was warm and comfortable; he had all those scents; this woman who was driving him seemed kind and, most importantly, smelled good to dogs. Freddie saw no reason to be anxious.

  Nor was he anxious when they reached their destination, a house set back from a village lane—a house with a small studio in its grounds in which Phillip worked.

  Jane led Freddie into the studio. Phillip was working over the weekend because he had a job to finish by lunchtime on Monday.

  “A dog,” he remarked, barely looking up from his drawing board.

  “Sent to us,” said Jane.

  43. Loving What You Can’t Have

  FREDDIE WAS PLEASED with his new surroundings. After their brief visit to the studio, during which he was patted and spoken to kindly by a man at a desk, Freddie accompanied Jane into the kitchen in the main house. There, he immediately walked round the room, sniffing at corners and investigating under tables and chairs. He smelled food: crumbs and fragments on the floor; a smear of something interesting on the hanging edge of a tablecloth (Marmite, he realised, which made him remember, even if only briefly, William, who liked to eat it at breakfast); a mélange of scents from scraps inside a metal bin. It was a good room, Freddie thought; a room that would keep one’s nose twitching.

  This initial exploration complete, Freddie then trotted down the corridor that led from the kitchen into the downstairs living room. From the olfactory point of view this room was less interesting than the kitchen, but there were still challenging scents to be identified—the smell of a pile of old newspapers used to light fires; a slightly fusty odour from a vase of wilting flowers; a sharp tang from a patch of carpet on which traces of mud had been deposited by somebody’s shoes. There was enough here to keep Freddie busy for several minutes before he pushed open a door that led from this room to a narrow, sharply ascending staircase.

  “All in good time,” said a voice from behind him. “Time for a snack, I think, Freddie.”

  Jane took Freddie by the collar and guided him back towards the kitchen. He looked up at her slightly reproachfully; he did not need to be dragged in this way—all that was required was a clear indication of where to go and he would go there. But he did not hold it against her, and he noted, with satisfaction, that the pressure around his neck eased as they entered the kitchen.

  There was a plate of food on the floor, and Freddie set upon it with enthusiasm. The food was delicious—a warmed-up helping of stew extracted from the fridge—and Freddie glanced up gratefully as he wolfed it down. He had forgotten how hungry he was after his exertions in the rabbit burrow, but now his stomach felt comfortably full.

  “You were ravenous, weren’t you, Freddie de la Hay?”

  Freddie looked up at Jane. He was not sure what she wanted of him; people always wanted something of a dog, and dogs by and large were prepared to give it. But now, feeling pleasantly drowsy after his meal, Freddie was uncertain what was expected of him. He lay down. The kitchen was warm and he was safe. He closed his eyes.

  Phillip came in. “He seems to have settled in rather quickly,” he said, looking down at Freddie.

  “He’s a lovely dog,” said Jane. “Look at him.”

  “What breed do you think he is?”

  Jane shrugged.
“They have all these new breeds,” she said. “Maybe he’s one of those. You know, those crosses between Labradors and poodles and so on.”

  “Labradoodles? He’s not one of those. No poodle in there. No Lab either, I’d say.”

  “No,” mused Jane. “Maybe not. What was that ridiculous dog those people had? The people we met in the village the other day?”

  “It was a cross between a chihuahua and a poodle. Wasn’t it called a Poowawa?”

  Jane nodded. “Something of the sort.”

  Phillip sat down at the table. “We can’t keep him,” he said gently. “You know that?”

  Jane moved over to the window and gazed out into the night. “I know.” She paused. “But what if …”

  “Don’t clutch at straws, darling. He won’t have strayed far. Somebody will be looking for him.”

  She turned round. “But it was in the middle of nowhere, Phil. There weren’t any houses in sight. It was right out at the edge of Hog’s Farm. There’s nothing there. He could have come from miles away.”

  Phillip thought about this. He was a compassionate person and he wanted his wife to be happy. She loved dogs, and this dog seemed to like her well enough. But one could not pursue one’s own happiness at the cost of that of another. Somewhere out there in the night, this dog’s owner would be fretting about getting him back; they could not ignore that.

  He was about to point this out when Jane spoke. “But you’re right. Of course, you’re right.” She looked at him. “What do we do? Go to the police?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They’ll know what to do. Presumably there’s a pound somewhere. They must have somewhere to take strays.”

  “They put them down,” said Jane.

  “Not immediately. They must try to find their owners.”

  Jane looked doubtful. “And how do they do that?”

  Phillip did not know how. “They must have ways. Advertisements, maybe.”

  Jane did not think this likely. “I’ve never seen any advertisements like that.”

  “Well … well, look, darling, you really can’t. You really can’t take somebody else’s dog, just like that. It’s … well, it’s stealing. You might as well go out in the street and snatch a dog. Same thing.”

  She turned away. “I know. You’re right. Of course you’re right … It’s just that there’s something special about this dog. Look at him. He communicates. It’s like having a person in the room with you.”

  Like a child, thought Phillip, bitterly. It’s like having a child. He knew how his wife felt, and he would have given anything to rid her of that pain, that sense of having lost something. Those ectopic pregnancies had not gone far, but they were the children they had lost, and nothing he could do or say seemed capable of easing the pain within her.

  “My darling, we’ll get another dog. We’ll contact the breeder your mother told us about. We’ll book a puppy. I promise.”

  Jane stared at the floor. “Yes. Thanks. Yes, we’ll do that.” She looked over at Freddie. “And this little chap?”

  “The pound, I suppose.”

  They had dinner—a mushroom quiche which Jane had made earlier that day. Freddie, half asleep on the floor, smelled the mushrooms and looked up with interest. He had found something like that, he remembered, when he had been in the woods somewhere. He had found mushrooms and tried to eat them. But he had not liked the taste, and spat them out.

  He watched. The people were eating those things and not spitting them out. Strange.

  “Look at him,” said Jane. “Just look at his eyes.”

  “Darling …”

  “Oh, I know. But how can we? How can we just hand him over to the police? They won’t love him. We do. We love him.”

  He sighed. “There’s no point in loving what you can’t have.”

  She responded with spirit. “Isn’t there?” she asked. “Isn’t that exactly what we do? All of us do it all the time, don’t we?”

  44. The Dreams of Freddie de la Hay

  THAT NIGHT THE three of them slept in the same room—Jane, Phillip and, at the foot of the bed in an old cardboard box, Freddie de la Hay; Freddie, who had been trapped underground, where he had faced slow death by asphyxiation. The bedroom, which was under the eaves of the house, had a combed ceiling that lent a welcoming snugness to it. Floral wallpaper and ancient oak furniture—a Charles II trunk and a Dutch dresser of the same period—gave the room that air of understated comfort that some English bedrooms so effortlessly command. On the dresser, amid bottles of perfume and a silver-backed brush set, photographs of family further added to the homeliness of the room.

  Phillip had been uncertain about having Freddie de la Hay in the bedroom. “We know nothing about him,” he said. “We don’t even know if he’s house-trained. And what if he whines during the night?”

  “Of course he’s house-trained,” said Jane. “You can tell by looking at him. He’s an intelligent dog.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am.”

  He hesitated. “And, Jane … he’s not going to stay. You know that, don’t you? There’s no point in your getting attached to him.”

  She nodded.

  For his part, Freddie felt content to be in the room with these two people who had suddenly come into his life. He did not ask himself what he was doing there, nor why his stay was being prolonged; if he was to stay here it must be, he thought, because some higher power wished it so. So once he was settled in the box, he drifted into the sleep he had begun in the kitchen but which had been interrupted by the arrival of Phillip.

  He dreamed. It was not a linear dream, but one that consisted of vague moments of excitement and fear. He was somewhere in a field, and the scent of rabbits was strong in his nostrils. He turned his head; the scent led to a thicket of trees bisected by a path. Freddie lifted his head up and quickly, effortlessly, he was at the edge of the thicket. This was a rabbit place: there could be no doubt about that. He dived into the undergrowth—it was easy in the dream: there was nothing to detain him, no thorns or obstructive branches, just soft leaves underfoot. It was dark, though, and it was hard to tell where the rabbits were, even if he knew they were nearby.

  Then he found them, in the middle of the thicket, and they were not rabbits but ducks of the sort he had seen in London. He was momentarily nonplussed. The ducks looked at him with disdain; as well they might, for each time that he lunged at them, they rose up in a flutter of impunity, hovered briefly above his head, and then settled down again, just out of reach.

  Suddenly the ducks were gone, and Freddie de la Hay turned round. His mouth, it seemed, was full of feathers, though he had not managed to catch any of the birds. Now, as he sought to clear the feathery obstruction, he found himself faced by the rabbits themselves. They were immense, a whole tribe of them, giant rabbits several times the size of Freddie and equipped, every one of them, with powerful legs and claws. One of them appeared to be the leader, and it was he who looked at Freddie most sternly. There was punishment in this rabbit’s eyes; punishment and revenge.

  Freddie de la Hay turned tail to run away, but his legs would not obey him. He whimpered; he looked back over his shoulder at the advancing Nemesis. He was sorry for what he had done to the rabbits. He was abject. He begged. And then, quite suddenly, he was awake, and he was in the bedroom with the two sleeping people. There were no ducks, no rabbits. They had been there, he was sure of it, but now they were no longer. He relaxed and lay down again; fear had driven him to his feet.

  Jane was conscious that Freddie had woken up. Slipping out of bed, she knelt beside his sleeping-box.

  “A bad dream?” she whispered.

  Freddie looked up at her; grateful for the calming hand on his flank. He turned his head and licked her gently. She felt the rasp of his tongue, but let him continue.

  “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “You won’t have to go, if you don’t want to. And you don’t, do you?”

  Freddie de la Hay made a snuffling so
und, which Jane took as assent.

  “Well, that’s settled then.”

  She patted him and returned to bed. Freddie de la Hay drifted off to sleep again, as did Jane. Freddie’s sleep now was dreamless, but Jane dreamed that she was in the village, with Freddie de la Hay. He was walking beside her, yet walking on two legs, like a child, and she was aware of the fact that he could talk. She was not sure what he was saying, but she felt proud of him and was keen for others to hear what he had to tell them.

  And suddenly she was pushing a pram, and Freddie was in the pram, wrapped in a brightly coloured quilt. A woman came up to her—the woman from the post office, she thought—and shook a finger at her. “That’s a wolf you have in there. You shouldn’t have a wolf in a pram.”

  She reacted with indignation. “Not a wolf!” she shouted. “He’s not a wolf, he’s a baby.”

  The woman laughed, and called other women to join her. “That’s definitely a wolf,” somebody yelled. “Watch out, Red Riding Hood!”

  She felt hot and ashamed. She began to run. “Not a wolf,” she called out. “It’s not a wolf.”

  She felt herself being shaken and the dream came to an abrupt end.

  “My darling, my darling.” It was Phillip’s voice, and his hand upon her shoulder. “A bad dream. You were calling out.”

  She lay quite still. “Calling out?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was I calling out?”

  He hesitated. “Nothing important.”

  She pressed him. “Please tell me.”

  He hesitated still, but then he said, “You shouted, ‘Not a baby, it’s not a baby.’ ”

  45. More Risotto

  CAROLINE SLEPT MUCH more soundly that night. She usually remembered very few dreams—a couple of scenes, at the most, hopelessly jumbled up, were all that she could summon in the mornings, and even these recollected scraps soon faded. This was fortunate, perhaps, because it meant that in none of her dreams was she the subject of reproach, as well she might have been had she dreamed that night of James, her friend to whom she had lied about not going out and whom she had then encountered in the Greek restaurant. His look of betrayal had haunted her—for at least half an hour, until Ronald’s conversation and charismatic presence made her forget her perfidy.