“You hear this, Old Man,” he said. “You go and get that dog back, you hear? You go and rescue Freddie de la Hay.”
“I don’t know—” began William.
“You just go,” shouted Eddie. “You should be ashamed of yourself! You’re not fit to own a dog, you know!”
William said nothing. He feared that Eddie was right. He was not fit, and he felt miserable about it.
Chapter 67: In Farmer Brown's
Eddie stormed out, leaving his father profoundly shaken. For a few minutes after his son’s departure, Eddie’s final words of condemnation ringing in his ears, William stood quite still in the middle of his entrance hall, staring at the pattern on the rug beneath his feet. He had never expected that Eddie, his feckless and inconsiderate son, would berate him in quite such a way – and with such clear justification. Eddie was in general in no position to criticise anybody, but on this occasion William had to acknowledge that he was absolutely right. Yes, he had behaved with complete disregard for Freddie de la Hay’s feelings; yes, he had let the trusting dog down. He had handed him over without any enquiry as to provisions for his welfare, taking instead the vaguest of assurances as to how he would be looked after. And all the time his head had simply been turned by two female agents of MI6. What a fool he had been! Of course they would use women to deal with him – they must have known his susceptibility. And Tilly Curtain, who had seemed so attractive and interested in him, was probably laughing behind his back all along, thinking how easy it was for her to trap this middle-aged wine dealer (well, only just fifty, late forties really) into a harebrained scheme to listen in to the gossip of Russian gangsters in Notting Hill.
William turned round and went back into his sitting room. Eddie had brought a newspaper with him and he had left it lying on the floor – even as a visitor, thought William, he leaves the place untidy. He picked up the paper, and grimaced; it was just the sort of paper that Eddie would read – a salacious, hectoring mixture of indignation and populist diatribe. He glanced at a headline: “Espionage Boss found in River”. He read the few lines beneath the heading: the unfortunate espionage boss in question was French and had nothing to do with MI6, but still the story filled him with alarm. Was this the fate awaiting Freddie de la Hay, or was it the fate that had by now been doled out to him? Was Freddie already floating in the Thames somewhere, or possibly lying in the mud on the river bottom, a block of concrete tied to his collar? William closed his eyes. He could not bear the thought that it was he who was responsible for this. It was his fault.
He reached into his pocket, taking out the piece of paper on which he had jotted Tilly Curtain’s telephone number. They had parted on frosty terms, having barely managed to complete their dinner together. There had been no mention of a further meeting, and all the MI6 agent had promised to do was to telephone William if there was any news of Freddie de la Hay. Well, that was not good enough, he thought. If this is my fault – which it is – then I am going to be the one to do something about it.
He picked up the telephone and dialled the number. “I want to see you,” he said when she answered.
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. “I’m afraid I’ve got no further news.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said William. “I want to see you. I insist.”
She agreed – reluctantly – and suggested that they see one another
at Farmer Brown’s, a café on a small street off St Martin’s Lane. William knew the place; he had occasionally dropped in for a cup of coffee or for lunch. They agreed to meet in forty minutes and rang off.
Tilly was already there when he arrived. Although her manner on the telephone had been distant, it struck William as he sat down at the table with her that there was something different now – a sympathy, perhaps, that he had not witnessed at their last meeting.
“I’m very sorry about … about what happened at dinner,” she said. “And I’ve been thinking about it.”
William made a non-committal gesture. He was waiting to see what she would say.
“I was acting on instructions, you see,” she said, her voice lowered. “I was told that I was not to say anything to you. Or at least not to say anything significant.”
He leaned forward. “Oh?”
Tilly lowered her voice further, although there was nobody who could overhear them. The café was virtually empty, apart from a couple of stage designers from a nearby theatre sketching something out on a paper napkin.
“Yes,” said Tilly. “What I was not allowed to tell you is this: Freddie de la Hay is alive. And we know where he is.”
William’s heart gave a great leap. Instinctively he reached out and took her hand, clutching it tightly. “Oh, that’s marvellous, marvellous news. Where is he? And when will he be coming back?”
Tilly frowned. “Well, I don’t actually know. When I said we know I meant that the service knows. Ducky does – I’m sure of that. But I don’t know personally.” She paused. “And I shouldn’t really be telling you any of this.”
William looked puzzled. Ever since he had started having dealings with MI6, he had felt that he had wandered into a maze of some sort – a garden of twisting paths and passages, with no signs to show one the way and nobody to ask for directions. He was pleased that Freddie de la Hay was alive, but he wondered whether this was the same thing as being safe. One could be alive and yet at the same time very unsafe, and perhaps that was the position that Freddie was now in.
“All right,” Tilly went on, her voice now barely a whisper. “Listen to me, William. Freddie de la Hay has been set up. They knew all along that the transmitter in his collar would be discovered. They knew it.”
William stared at her. “Why …”
He did not finish. She raised a finger to silence him. “Ducky wanted to find out where their other place was. He knew that they had somewhere else in London, but we could never find it. He thought that if they discovered Freddie was working for us, they would take him there. And so he fitted a small locating transmitter under Freddie’s skin. It’s been sending out homing signals loud and clear.”
William sat back in his chair, stunned by this disclosure. “We’ve got to find him,” he said weakly.
Tilly looked down at her cup of coffee. She’s ashamed, thought William. She’s every bit as ashamed as I am.
“You could try speaking to Ducky,” she said. “You could appeal to him. Try to get through to his better nature. Ask him to tell you where Freddie is and how to get him out of the cold.” She sighed. “I don’t think he will, of course. But you could try.”
Chapter 68: Going Home
“This is such fun,” said Jo, as she and Caroline settled themselves into their seats on the train from Paddington.
Caroline looked about her. She was so used to this train, which she thought of simply as the train home, that she never really took much notice of it. For most of the passengers, who were commuters, she imagined that this would hardly be fun either: it would be a journey to be endured, something that one did, Monday to Friday, in a state not far off suspended animation.
Or it could be, she thought, that Jo was referring to the fact that they were going to Cheltenham to spend a weekend with Caroline’s parents. Again, she would not have described that as fun, although Jo, of course, had yet to meet her host and hostess. Not that they were particularly bad, as parents went; it was just that, well, they were her parents, with all that this entailed. Parents were very rarely just right, no matter how fond one might be of them. For instance, her father, Rufus Jarvis, was extremely conservative in his outlook; she only hoped that the conversation would not stray on to politics. What would Jo think? Or was she used to it? After all, she had parents back in Western Australia, and they no doubt had views of their own.
“Yes,” she said, in delayed answer to Jo’s observation, “it is going to be fun.”
“It’s good of you to invite me,” Jo said, as the train began to pull out of the stati
on. She looked at Caroline quizzically. “Did you ever take James back to meet them?”
Caroline winced. “Not a success.”
Jo smiled at this. It was what she had expected. “Maybe James is not ideal material to take home,” she said.
Caroline said nothing. James was her friend. Kind, amusing, stimulating James was still her friend. And that was all, she thought ruefully. Jo was right: it was time for her to abandon her expectations for that relationship. It was to be friendship, and nothing more.
“What about you?” she asked. “Did you take anybody home?”
She realised immediately after asking the question that she might be venturing into awkward territory for Jo. Her flatmate had never been explicit about her private life and Caroline was as a result uncertain about where Jo’s real interests lay. She had talked in the past about a boyfriend, but Caroline had not been sure whether she meant a boyfriend in the sense in which she herself sometimes talked about girlfriends: a friend who was a boy. James was a boyfriend, but not her boyfriend …
And now, as she looked at Jo in the seat facing her, she thought: it’s the clothing that makes one speculate; the rather masculine-looking jacket. And the short hair. And the boots. But one should not jump to conclusions, she reminded herself, and it could be something to do with coming from a rather sporty family in Perth.
“Oh yes,” said Jo. “I took boys back. Quite a few, actually.”
Well, thought Caroline; that settles that.
“Not that I wanted to marry any of them, of course,” Jo went on.
And that unsettles that, Caroline decided.
The journey passed quickly. Jo dropped off to sleep, and Caroline read, and looked out of the window, and reflected on her life. Now that she had let go of the idea of James, it seemed to her that everything had become much less complicated. She had a job; she had somewhere to live; she had a home to go back to if London became too much – which it was unlikely to do. She could meet somebody now, somebody who would suit her rather better than James – poor James – did. Where was the problem? There was none. That was the answer. There was nothing holding her back.
They took a taxi from the station to the house. Rufus answered the door and embraced Caroline warmly. He smelled so familiar; he put bay rum on his face after shaving, and it lingered. It was one of the smells of childhood that she loved. He smelled of bay rum and newspapers, and sometimes of smoke, when he had been making bonfires in the garden, which he liked to do.
He shook hands with Jo. She saw his eyes flicker and move quickly to hers but she did not meet his glance. Then Frances, her mother, arrived, dusting her hands as she came out of the kitchen. Frances looked at Jo before she turned to her daughter, and then the same thing happened – a quick exchange of glances. Did Jo notice this, Caroline wondered. She guessed not; Jo was patting Patrick, the aged dog, who had come to sniff arthritically at her boots.
They went upstairs to put their bags in their rooms. The guest room had been prepared for Jo, and there were flowers in a vase near the window. A small tin of biscuits had been placed on the bedside table, and a bottle of mineral water. The comforts of home, thought Caroline. These little touches.
Jo turned to her and said, “It makes me want to cry.”
Caroline was alarmed. So she had noticed. She had seen the expressions on her parents’ faces, and she had been wounded. Of course she would be; this was what people had to put up with, day in, day out. If they did not conform, if they were different, they had to put up with these glances, these expressions, this unspoken passing of judgement.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is England …” It was all she could think of to say, and it was not very well put.
“Of course it’s England,” said Jo. “That’s what makes it so nice.”
Caroline realised that she had misunderstood. “I thought …”
“The flowers and the biscuits,” said Jo. “And look at the towels laid out at the end of the bed. It’s home, Caroline, it’s home. That’s what makes me want to cry.”
And she did, and Caroline instinctively went up to her and put her arms around her. “Dear Jo. Dear Jo.”
She knew why her friend was crying. She was crying because she was far from home, and who among us has never wanted to do that? There need be no other reason; just that. We cry for home, and for flowers on tables, and biscuits in little tins, and for mother; and we feel embarrassed, and foolish too, that we should be crying for such things; but we should not feel that way because all of us, in a sense, have strayed from home, and wish to return.
Chapter 69: Preparing Canapés with Frances
Caroline’s mother, Frances, was preparing canapés in the kitchen. Caroline was helping her but only desultorily, as she was more interested in paging through a large recipe book that she had found lying on the kitchen table.
“I’m so pleased that you managed to come down this weekend rather than next,” said Frances. “We’ve been meaning to hold this drinks party for ages and it’s lovely to have you with us.” She paused. “And your friend, Jo, of course.”
Caroline turned a page of the cookery book. “Delia,” she said. “The blessed Delia. You call her that, don’t you? And everybody uses her book. Everybody, as far as I can see. How does she do it?”
“She’s a real cook,” said Frances. “She actually knows how to do it. And she rescued English cooking more or less singlehanded. Back when she was training everybody used French recipes. Delia went into the British Museum one day and looked through the seventeenth-century cookbooks – English cookbooks – wrote out the recipes and published her own versions.”
“Nice.”
“Yes, and then she went on and showed everybody how to cook proper roast potatoes. And the whole nation started to eat crispy roast potatoes after that.” She clicked her fingers. “Pass me the pepper please, Caroline. It’s over there.”
Caroline handed the pepper grinder to her mother.
“Are you unhappy, darling?” her mother said rather absent-mindedly, as she sprinkled pepper on a small side of smoked salmon.
Caroline stared at the recipe book. “A bit.”
Frances started to cut the salmon into squares. “You’ll get over it,” she said. “I remember being unhappy at your age. The whole world seems so complicated. Nobody seems to understand you. And so on. Then things sort themselves out. You don’t believe it now, but they’ll sort themselves out.”
She turned and looked at her daughter. “You do know, darling, that Daddy and I will always be behind you. You know that, don’t you? No matter what you choose to do, we’ll always be there to support you. And I do like Jo – or what I’ve seen of her. You mustn’t worry …”
“About what? Worry about what?”
“About … about … You know what I’m talking about.”
Caroline shook her head. “Actually, I don’t.”
Her mother sighed. “Well, darling, let me let you in on a little secret. You know that I married Daddy because, well, I supposed it was the thing to do. I’m sure you must have gathered that. And sometimes when you do that you don’t actually know what you’re doing, or what you’re really about. Daddy is a lovely man, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But he’s not exactly the most romantic figure in the county, is he?”
Caroline shrugged. It had never occurred to her to wonder how her father rated in romantic terms. “Daddy’s quite good-looking,” she said. “I imagine that …”
It was as if Frances had not heard her. “So if you’re wondering what I think about Jo, then let me assure you that I understand.”
Caroline was now beginning to see where the conversation was going. She realised that she would need to correct her mother, but before she had the opportunity to do so, Frances went on, “So many of us are, well, a little bit that way, including me. I had a tremendous passion for somebody, you know. Not that I had the chance to do anything about it. She was—”
Caroline’s jaw sagged. “Mummy! Ple
ase!”
Frances looked at her, smiling. “But darling, I only want you to know that if you’re wondering where it comes from, obviously it comes from me!”
Caroline put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Mummy, I wish you hadn’t started to talk about all this. There’s nothing between Jo and me. And I don’t think Jo would want it anyway. So she wears boots. She’s Australian. From Perth. You need boots there. She’s just my flatmate – that’s all.”
Frances collected herself quickly. “Mummy’s little joke,” she said. “Not at all serious. I was just having a little fun.”
“Of course.”
“So, let’s get on with the canapés,” Frances went on briskly. “Tell me what Delia says I have to do after I’ve cut the puff pastry.”