Corduroy Mansions cm-1

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘Oh, it’s not your fault that Eddie’s like he is,’ Marcia soothed. ‘It’s the . . . It’s the . . .’ She searched for the right object of blame. ‘It’s the Government’s fault. They’ve done nothing to stop the rot. They’ve undermined the authority of teachers. They’ve—’

  ‘Yes,’ said William. He had heard Marcia on the subject before; it was all very familiar.

  Marcia crossed the room to the desk, which Eddie had positioned under the window. A number of unopened letters lay on the top.

  ‘A red bill,’ she said, picking up one of the envelopes. ‘And this one is for jury service - you can tell.’

  ‘I don’t think Eddie would be a particularly good juror,’ William said.

  ‘Well, I’ll pack all these up for him,’ said Marcia, moving the letters into a pile. She bent down and opened the top drawer of the desk. Old chocolate wrappers had been stuffed inside and now cascaded out.

  ‘Eddie always had a sweet tooth,’ said William.

  Marcia pursed her lips. ‘I see.’

  While Marcia had been busying herself with the desk, Freddie de la Hay had moved across to the wardrobe at the other end of the room and seated himself in front of it. Then, turning towards William, he gave him an intense stare.

  ‘He’s found something,’ said Marcia. ‘Look.’

  William sighed. He did not want Freddie to find something. Life was complicated enough without having to think about Eddie’s possible use of drugs.

  ‘They all do it,’ he muttered. ‘But perhaps he doesn’t inhale . . .’

  Freddie was now scratching at the wardrobe door and whining.

  ‘We can’t ignore him,’ Marcia said firmly. ‘I’m going to have a look.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ muttered William. ‘It’s Eddie’s wardrobe, you know. We should respect his privacy.’

  But Marcia was not listening; she was now at Freddie de la Hay’s side. The dog looked up at her briefly and then glanced over at William, as if to confirm Marcia’s authority. William nodded.

  The catch on the wardrobe was stiff and it took Marcia a minute or so to twist it in such a way that the door would open. William came and stood behind her, craning his neck to see what the wardrobe would contain. Chocolate wrappers? A cache of dirty laundry? Or would it, as he feared, contain something considerably worse?

  53. Freddie de la Hay Points to Something

  William and Marcia found themselves staring into Eddie’s wardrobe, each noticing something different about the clothes hanging from the rail. In contrast to the rest of Eddie’s room, the inside of the wardrobe was at least a corner of order, with jackets at one end of the rail and trousers, belts and ties at the other. Marcia’s eyes were fixed on a tie: ghastly, she thought, but just right for Eddie. For his part, William spotted several garments that he recognised but had not seen for a long time, including a suede jacket fringed in the cowboy style. This had been a favourite of the teenage Eddie - his mother had bought it for him for his fourteenth birthday and he had cherished it. And here it was, still loved, perhaps a reminder to Eddie of the mother he had lost, or of his earlier years, when he had been happier. William swallowed and looked away. Eddie had been an affectionate boy, enthusiastic, friendly in a puppyish way; William had been so proud of him, had loved him, and then something had gone wrong. Eddie had changed, had grown surly and distant. At first he had thought that it was the normal teenage change - that mutation which transforms likeable children into odious beings. But the teenage years had passed and the old (young) Eddie had not returned, and it seemed to William that he never would. But should he be throwing him out now - because that was what Marcia had somehow engineered? Was that what a father should do?

  ‘I wonder . . .’ began William, but he did not finish. Marcia had seized his arm and was pointing down at Freddie de la Hay. The hairs on the back of Freddie’s neck seemed to be standing up and he was pointing with his left paw towards a small pile of sweaters on the floor of the wardrobe.

  ‘He’s seen something,’ whispered Marcia. ‘Look. Freddie’s seen something.’

  His heart cold within him, William bent down and felt around under the pile of sweaters. As he did so, Freddie de la Hay growled softly.

  ‘That’s all right, Freddie boy,’ William muttered. ‘I’ll handle this.’

  But Freddie de la Hay remained on duty as he had been taught to do at Heathrow Airport, and when William extracted the item that had been concealed under the sweaters, he gave an eager bark and pointed more energetically at the object in William’s hand.

  ‘All right, Freddie,’ said William. ‘You’ve made your point. You can sit down now.’

  Freddie immediately sat back and looked up at William, an expression of satisfaction on his face.

  William straightened up. He had in his hands a rectangular parcel about twelve inches by eight, wrapped neatly in brown paper and tied about with waxed string.

  ‘A book?’ Marcia suggested. ‘Or . . .’

  William waited for her to make an alternative suggestion, but none came.

  ‘I wonder why Freddie was so interested?’ he mused. ‘This doesn’t look like anything . . . anything illegal.’

  ‘Then open it,’ said Marcia. ‘Or give it to me. I’ll unwrap it.’

  William frowned. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘This is Eddie’s property. I don’t know whether we should be . . .’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Marcia. ‘It’s your flat and you can look at anything you like in your flat.’ She reached out and snatched the parcel from William’s hands.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ William said. ‘When I was Eddie’s age, I don’t think I would have liked my father to open my private parcels.’

  Marcia was dismissive. That was the trouble with William: he was frightened of Eddie. Eddie! That complete waste of space! William needed stiffening up - needed more backbone. Or bottom. That’s what people said, was it not, when they talked about courage? Bottom. He needed more bottom.

  ‘Come on, William,’ she said. ‘Bottom. More bottom.’

  William looked at her in astonishment. He blushed. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he stuttered.

  ‘In the sense of courage,’ Marcia said coolly. ‘“Bottom” means courage.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marcia, beginning to unwrap the parcel. ‘You have a perfect right to see what’s in here. What if it’s something . . . ?’

  She did not finish. Released from its string binding, the brown paper wrapping fell away to reveal a small, exquisitely executed painting.

  Now Marcia finished her sentence. ‘Stolen,’ she half whispered. ‘What if it’s stolen . . .’

  It was more of a statement than a question. And when William took the painting from her and began to examine it, he knew that what Marcia feared was surely correct. Eddie had never expressed any interest in art and it was inconceivable that he would have bought a painting, especially a painting so beautiful and so obviously expensive as this.

  ‘Oh no,’ he groaned, staring at the tiny scene depicted in the painting: the expulsion from Paradise. God, stern as a righteous magistrate, pointed the way; Adam and Eve, chastened and aware now of their nudity, looked back over their shoulders at what they were leaving behind them. It looked a little like the private gardens near a friend’s house in Notting Hill, thought William, but without the signs telling you what the committee decreed you should not do. And we were all expelled, he thought, from something.

  ‘It must be stolen,’ said Marcia. ‘Why else would Eddie hide it under a pile of sweaters in his wardrobe? And why else would Freddie de la Hay . . . ?’

  The tension that had been building up within William now came flooding out. ‘Oh don’t be ridiculous, Marcia,’ he snapped. ‘How could Freddie know that a painting was stolen? He’s only a dog, for heaven’s sake!’

  Marcia was not one to be put down in this way. ‘Oh yes?’ she challenged. ‘Then why did he point to it? You saw him - he pointed to it.�
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  ‘He must have smelled something,’ said William. ‘Maybe there’s something on one of those sweaters. Eddie spends time with a young man called Stevie. I’m sure that Stevie smokes all sorts of things. In fact, I’d be highly surprised if he didn’t.’

  Marcia’s response to this was to bend down and pick up the pile of sweaters. Separating them, she passed each in turn under Freddie de la Hay’s nose. Each time, the dog sniffed briefly at the wool and then, after appearing to think for a moment, shook his head.

  ‘There!’ said Marcia triumphantly. ‘You see? Freddie has given the sweaters a clean bill of health.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said William. ‘Absurd.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Marcia. And with that, she snatched the painting from William and bent down again to hold it in front of Freddie de la Hay’s snout. Almost immediately, the dog stiffened and began to growl. Finally he lifted a paw and pointed at the painting.

  ‘There!’ said Marcia. ‘That proves it.’

  William was perplexed. Freddie de la Hay had certainly reacted to the painting, but what could that mean? Perhaps he had had another job before he had been posted to the sniffer-dog unit at Heathrow airport - perhaps he had worked with the Metropolitan Police’s art squad. Anything, he mused, was possible.

  ‘I need to think,’ he said. ‘This is getting very confusing. I really need to think.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Marcia soothingly. ‘Of course you do, darling.’

  William looked down at Freddie, who gazed back up at him with unambiguous affection. The possibility occurred to him that Freddie de la Hay was merely trying to please; after all, that was what dogs did, and it really was the only possible explanation for Freddie’s behaviour. He turned to Marcia and suggested this, but she discounted it out of hand.

  ‘Highly unlikely,’ she said.

  William said nothing, but thought, what does Marcia know about dogs? The answer, of course, was that Marcia knew nothing. And now she was going to be living with him.

  I have a criminal son. I have lost my assistant. My domestic arrangements have been turned upside down. My future, he thought, is markedly crepuscular.

  54. Polar Bears and Vitamin A

  Dee’s Saturday was busy, even if it was not as hectic as William’s single-handed ordeal at the wine shop. The Pimlico Vitamin and Supplement Agency always took a close interest in the latest vitamin stories to appear in the press, since the effect of these was inevitably felt during the week following publication. That Thursday had seen the announcement of the results of a study into vitamin D deprivation in Scotland and she knew that it would result in a run on vitamin D in Pimlico.

  This proved to be correct.

  ‘Three bottles of cod liver oil capsules left,’ said Martin. ‘Everybody wants it now.’

  ‘So they should,’ said Dee. ‘But I do wish they’d send us a circular before they made these announcements. Then we could meet demand.’ She paused. ‘Are you taking it yourself?’

  Martin shook his head. ‘Should I be?’

  Dee looked at him. ‘Your skin’s quite pale,’ she said. ‘Pallid, even. Are you getting enough sunlight?’

  ‘I thought we shouldn’t,’ said Martin. ‘My dad plays golf with a dermatologist. He says that people shouldn’t be going to Spain and sitting in the sun.’

  ‘That’s true, but you need some sunlight to manufacture vitamin D. That’s the trouble with people in Scotland. They don’t get enough sunlight what with all that mist. And their diet’s awful too. Look at Glasgow.’

  Martin nodded. He was uncertain about Glasgow. The previous week he had been on a train with some Glaswegian football supporters on their way to a friendly. Perhaps their problem had been vitamin D deficiency.

  ‘Of course, you can get too many vitamins,’ Dee went on. ‘Do you know that if you ate a polar bear’s liver you would die? Did you know that, Martin?’ She made the statement with the air of one giving a warning.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Their livers contain lethal doses of vitamin A. They’re very efficient at making it, polar bears are. They need to be, up there. Poor things. Their ice floes are melting.’

  ‘And people shoot them,’ Martin observed.

  Dee was puzzled. ‘Do they? Or do they just shoot grizzly bears?’

  Martin adjusted the position of one of the remaining bottles of cod liver oil on the shelf. ‘I don’t know. But could you sleep at night, if you were a bear, in the knowledge that people were out there, prowling around, hoping to shoot you?’

  ‘Why do they do it?’ Dee mused. ‘Why does anybody shoot anything for pleasure, Martin? Do you understand it? You, being a man, does it make more sense to you?’

  It did not. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘But it’s not just men, Dee. There are some women who shoot too. They approve of shooting creatures to death. Ending their lives, which is all they’ve got. Even if they’re just bears, their lives are all they’ve got.’

  It was a defence of men that Martin felt he needed to make. Many of the shop’s customers assumed that men did not understand, and Martin resented this. He understood.

  Dee did too. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you’re right. Women can be as bad as men, I suppose. Not normally, of course, but sometimes. They have fewer toxins than men, you know. That makes a big difference to behaviour.’

  Martin shifted on his feet. He was not sure that he wanted the conversation to drift onto toxins, but now it was too late. Dee was looking at him with renewed interest.

  ‘On the subject,’ she said, ‘have you thought about what I said yesterday? About colonic irrigation?’

  ‘Not really,’ he mumbled. This was not true, however; he had thought about it a great deal and had even looked the matter up on the Internet, where he had found numerous descriptions of the process, complete with diagrams.

  ‘Well, you should think very seriously about it,’ said Dee. ‘In fact, why don’t I do it tomorrow?’

  Martin suppressed a shudder. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Give you colonic irrigation,’ said Dee. ‘You really need it, you know. When I gave you the iridological analysis it was sticking out a mile. You really need it. All those toxins . . .’

  ‘I don’t think I’m particularly toxic,’ Martin said.

  ‘But you are, Martin! You are!’ She reached out and took his arm. ‘Listen, Martin. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Come round to my place. Come round to Corduroy Mansions tomorrow morning. Eleven o’clock, maybe. Round about then. And I’ll do it for you. I’ve got all the stuff there. All right?’

  He looked about him wildly. ‘I don’t know—’

  Dee cut him off. ‘You’re in denial, you know, Martin.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘There you are - denying.’

  ‘I’m denying that I’m in denial. That’s not denial.’

  ‘Well, if it isn’t denial, then what is it?’ asked Dee. She did not wait for an answer. ‘So that’s settled then. Eleven tomorrow. Sunday’s a very good day to do it.’

  Martin seemed defeated. He found it difficult to stand up to Dee and this, in spite of the intimacy of the subject, was no exception. Even if he did need colonic irrigation - and he had nothing against it in principle - he was not sure that it was something that one should have at the hands of somebody one knew.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dee,’ he said. ‘I know that I might need it but why don’t I go and get it from . . . from a colonic irrigation place? From somebody I don’t know.’

  She stared at him. ‘And pay for it? Why? Why pay for it? I’m helping you to save money. You didn’t think I was going to charge you, did you?’ She laughed at the sheer absurdity of charging a friend or, in this case, an employee, for colonic irrigation. Colonic irrigation could be a gift between friends; surely he knew that?

  ‘It’s not the money,’ Martin protested. ‘Money’s got nothing to do with it.’

  Dee seemed puzzled. ‘Well, what is it then?’ She paused, searching his
expression for some clue. ‘You aren’t embarrassed, are you, Martin? Surely you aren’t embarrassed?’ She smiled playfully. ‘It’s that, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Oh come on,’ she said. ‘You won’t find it in the slightest bit embarrassing. Not after we start. I promise you. So don’t think twice about it. Really, don’t.’ She looked at him. ‘Feeling better about it? Good. Tomorrow then. Eleven.’

  55. The Late Isadora Duncan

  As this conversation was taking place between Dee and a reluctant and embarrassed Martin, Barbara Ragg’s thoughts could not have been further removed from vitamin D, polar bears, or indeed colonic irrigation. She was driving at the time, sweeping along the winding road from Rye in her British Racing Green sports car, with a young man in the passenger seat beside her. A cynic, standing by the roadside, contemplating the passing traffic, would have had no difficulty in describing the situation. He would have said, with all the snide innuendo that cynics so effortlessly muster, that here was a woman in her early thirties, prosperous - driving the fruit of last year’s bonus - accompanied by a trophy man a good few years younger. And the cynic would have observed that Barbara was driving, which underlined the status of the young man, who was nonetheless enjoying the trip greatly, a scarf trailing from his neck.

  At the beginning of their journey, noticing the scarf, Barbara had warned him of the fate of Isadora Duncan.

  ‘Remember Isadora Duncan,’ she said as they drove out of the Mermaid Inn’s car park.

  He looked at her blankly. ‘No, I don’t know her, I’m afraid.’

  The car started down the cobbled street. ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Barbara. ‘She died in 1927. In tragic circumstances that are brought to mind, I’m afraid, by your scarf.’

  The young man frowned. ‘You’ve lost me,’ he said.

  Barbara explained. ‘The reason I know all about this is because I represented an author who wrote about Gertrude Stein. I’m a literary agent, you see. Anyway, Gertrude Stein, who was an American with a literary and artistic salon in Paris, said “affectations can be dangerous”. She said it when she heard about the death of Isadora Duncan, who was a famous dancer and femme fatale.’