Part 11 (2/2)

Gloria fished about in her bag. ”Here they are. Rupert, I wonder ...”

”No,” said Rupert. ”We mustn't change our minds. Remember: we're ent.i.tled to this place. La Ragg is really not much more than a squatter.”

”But Watergate ...”

”Nonsense!” He smiled. ”Notting Hillgate, if you must.”

There was an awkward moment as Rupert fitted the key into its keyhole. It was slightly stiff, and he had to withdraw it twice before it slotted into place. It occurred to him that his lack of familiarity with the key could alert any observer, but there was n.o.body watching, and he succeeded in opening the front door on the third attempt.

They moved through the common entrance hall and took the stairs up to Barbara's landing. They opened the door to the flat and went into Barbara's entrance hall. Rupert found a light switch and flicked it on. He pointed to a picture hanging on the far wall. ”Ghastly,” he said. ”She goes in for that sort of stuff in the office. Look at it.”

”Pretty awful,” said Gloria. ”Let's look at her kitchen.”

Rupert was more interested in the drawing room, a room he had always particularly liked, but he wanted Gloria to have some fun too, so he followed her through to the kitchen.

”She's got one of those cheap blenders,” said Gloria. ”And look at this crockery. That's what happens when you put non-dishwasher-proof plates in the dishwasher. See here. And here. It takes off all the decoration.” She paused, examining a plate more closely. ”Mind you, some decoration is best removed, I suppose.”

”It's such a lovely flat, though,” said Rupert. ”If you threw out all this stuff you could make something really nice of it.”

”A criminal waste,” agreed Gloria.

”And Pa would have loved the thought of our living here,” continued Rupert. ”That's what he wanted. But he trusted Gregory bad mistake.”

It was at this point that they heard the sound of a door opening somewhere in the flat. Rupert froze.

”She's in Scotland,” he whispered. ”I'm sure ...”

He did not finish his sentence. A man had appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was wearing a blue dressing gown over a pair of extravagantly striped pyjamas.

”Teddy?” the man said. ”Barbara said that you two might be coming to stay while she was away.”

Rupert was a quick thinker. ”Yes. Sorry to have woken you up.”

The man smiled. ”No problem. I'm a light sleeper. Errol Greatorex, by the way. I'm one of Barbara's authors.”

Again Rupert thought quickly. ”The yeti man? The Autobiography of a Yeti?”

Errol Greatorex looked surprised. ”Barbara's told you about that?”

Rupert exchanged a quick glance with Gloria; he hoped that she would have worked out that this was their only option. He was Teddy and she was ...

”She mentioned it,” he said.

”I'm almost done,” said Errol. ”Finis.h.i.+ng touches. He's in London, you know.”

”Who?”

”The yeti. He's dictating the last chapter.”

Rupert was silent.

”Yes,” said Errol, gesturing behind him in the direction of the bedrooms. ”He'd sleep through an earthquake, though, so we won't have woken him up.”

This is absurd, thought Rupert. Utterly absurd. This man is completely deluded, and I'm stuck here, masquerading as somebody called Teddy, with Gloria, who doesn't even know what her name is meant to be. I shouldn't have done this. Don't go there, as the expression has it. Well, I did, and now I'm there.

Chapter 36: Our Obligations to Animals.

Freddie de la Hay Pimlico Terrier, cohabitee of William French and now a temporary member of MI6's establishment had been baffled when William suddenly handed him over to a completely unknown woman in St James's Park. Such a thing had never happened to him before, or at least not that he could remember. Dogs remember places and people, and scents; they have no sense of the sequence in which these are experienced, nor of the time that separates the present from the past. Heathrow Airport, where Freddie had once been employed as a sniffer dog, was there somewhere in his memory a place of noise and movement and strange smells but it was vague and unlocated, not much different from a half-remembered dream. Then there had been exile to his first domestic home in north London, a period of coldness and fear, as he was groomed for his role as an eco-dog: the carrot snacks rather than bones; the biodegradable dog blanket; the arbitrary, harshly enforced prohibition on chasing cats and squirrels. It had been rather like being Stalin's dog, not that Freddie would have made the a.n.a.logy or any a.n.a.logy at all for that matter.

Since then, there was William, who had brought colour and fun back into Freddie's life, and had been rewarded with the dog's total and unconditional affection. But now William was abruptly no longer there, and already Freddie missed him as a Finnish sun-wors.h.i.+pper must miss the sun in winter; a warm presence had become a cold absence, and he did not understand why it should be so. Had he done something? Had he misbehaved in such a way as to merit this exclusion, this casting into darkness?

Freddie's relations.h.i.+p with William was, in traditional terms, that of dog and master. In traditional terms ...

”You shouldn't call yourself Freddie's master, old man,” William's twenty-eight-year-old son Eddie had once remarked. ”Master is very yesterday.”

William stared. He wanted to tell Eddie that the term ”old man” was itself very yesterday, but he was not sure that it was. Pejorative names for parents were, he thought, very today. He had heard parents being described as wrinklies, olds and 'rents, all of which he thought unflattering at the very least.

”Owner?” he wondered.

Eddie shook a finger. ”Nope. Owner's very yesterday too. It implies that you own him.”

”Which I do,” William pointed out mildly.

Eddie laughed. ”You're not very switched on, Dad. Lots of people don't like that.”

William had been puzzled. Why could he not own a dog? If he could sell Freddie de la Hay (which of course he would never do, but it was possible) then surely he must own him. When he next took Freddie to the vet for injections, he had asked her about it.

”Can I call myself Freddie's owner?”

The vet sighed. ”It's a bit of a minefield,” she said. ”We get people coming in here who insist on being called their dog's companion. Sometimes they call themselves the animal's guardian or carer. There are quite a lot of dog carers in certain parts of London. Islington, for example. I don't mind, really. The idea is that the pet oops, can't say that that the animal has rights, has its own existence that humans shouldn't seek to control.” She paused, slipping the needle of the syringe under Freddie's skin. ”I have no problems with that. I think that we should respect an animal's right to have a decent life.”

”It used to be called kindness,” said William. He agreed with what the vet said; there was so much suffering in the world a great sea of it and it washed around the feet of animals as much as it did around humans. We should not add to it.

The vet withdrew the needle and patted Freddie on the head. ”Exactly. Everyone should be kind to animals. I can't disagree on that score. There you are, Freddie. That's you.”

As William walked back to Corduroy Mansions with Freddie de la Hay after the visit to the vet, he reflected on their conversation. He did not see why he should not call himself Freddie's owner, and would continue to use the term, whatever Eddie had to say on the subject. Eddie was not one to preach on this issue anyway; he had been prepared to involve Freddie in a dogfight of all things, and he had no experience of keeping an animal. And William was not so sure that those who described themselves as the companions of dogs were necessarily kinder towards their animals than those who described themselves as a dog's master.

A dog's master ... What about cats? Of course n.o.body could tell a cat what to do, and so the term master was inappropriate. Cats have staff, as the saying went. Perhaps cats kept us, and it was they who should be described as the masters.

At home, over a cup of tea with Marcia, who had dropped in on her way back from an engagement serving sandwiches to the British Egyptian Board of Commerce, William raised the question of cats and owners.h.i.+p.

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