On his own now, Rupert began to make his way up the spiralling staircase that led to the first floor. As he reached the landing, he looked along the gallery ahead of him. There were one or two people browsing – an elderly woman, a young man. There was no sign of the yeti.
Rupert approached the archway that led off to his left. The trouble with Hatchards, he thought, is that it has so many rooms. Unlike many modern bookshops, which could double as aircraft hangars should the need arise, Hatchards was a rabbit-warren of charming rooms. But the very quality that made it such a fine bookshop also made it a difficult place to pursue somebody who was determined to elude you. The yeti might have left the staircase at the first floor, or he might have gone up to the second floor, or beyond. It was impossible to tell.
Rupert had to make a choice, though, and he chose to look on the first floor. Walking very slowly, he made his way into the further reaches of the first floor. He stopped. There were three people in the first gallery – two women standing together, paging through a book they had extracted from a shelf, and one man. He was a tall man, and he was wearing exactly the colour of coat that Rupert had seen in Fortnum & Mason. It was the yeti; he was sure of it.
Rupert advanced very slowly. The yeti was facing away from him, apparently absorbed in a book. Rupert took a deep breath; there was a strong fishy smell rising from his shoes, and he hoped that the two women, whom he was now passing, would not notice it. They did not.
He was now only a couple of yards from the yeti. He noticed odd details: the hem of the green coat had been inexpertly stitched and was hanging down; the yeti’s shoes were brogues, but in need of a clean, and his hair, which was dark in colour, almost pitch black, was neatly combed in what seemed, from the back, to be a centre-parting.
Rupert cleared his throat. “Mr …” he began. “Mr Yeti?”
The effect of his words was electric. Without turning round, the yeti dropped the book he was reading and launched himself towards a door at the back of the gallery.
“Excuse me!” shouted Rupert. “I only want to have a word …”
The yeti did not slow down. Ignoring the shouts of his pursuer, he pushed open the door and slipped through it. Not once did Rupert see his face.
Rupert reached the door and tried the handle. It was now locked from the other side. For a moment he wondered whether he should run up to the floor above and try the equivalent door there, assuming it led onto another staircase, but he suddenly felt very weary. The yeti had eluded him – again – and there was no point. He was not a yeti anyway; he was a deluded charlatan who was spinning some ridiculous story to a gullible author and agent. There was no reason to waste any more time on him.
Rupert went downstairs. He noticed, as he did so, that he had left a trail of anchovy paste on the carpet. It’s not my fault, he thought. None of it has been my fault. It’s la Ragg. She’s the one who has caused all this. She’s the one.
He returned to the office, where he wiped his shoes clean. There was still the smell of the Patum Peperium, but it was not so strong now. By the time he went home perhaps the last vestiges of anchovy paste would have dried completely.
He listened to his voicemail. There was only one message. “Rupert. Barbara here. We’re having a lovely time up in Argyll, and I need to talk to you. Essentially it’s this: I want to move up here for three weeks out of four. One week in London and the rest up here.”
Rupert pressed the pause button. No, he said to himself. La Ragg is not going to have her cake and eat it. Never.
He pressed play and allowed the message to continue. “I can work perfectly well in Scotland, you know. So it shouldn’t make any difference. Of course, I won’t need the flat in London as I can stay with a friend who has a spare room. Would you like to buy my flat? You’ve always liked it, I believe, and I’ll be very happy to let you have it at a very favourable price. Talk to you later.”
Rupert sat quite still. You kind, good woman, he thought. You generous soul.
Cold Chapter 78: No Man is so Lonely
William stood by the window of his flat in Corduroy Mansions, the washed-out London sky before him. He could hardly believe that he had done all this – got himself mixed up with MI6, climbed onto the roof of a mews house, broken a window, and freed Freddie de la Hay. It was not that he regretted any of it: in retrospect the whole thing had been the most extraordinary adventure, and he was at the stage of life where any adventure was welcome. But he was pleased that it was over, and that he – and Freddie de la Hay – had emerged more or less unscathed. Once was enough, he decided, and if MI6 were ever to come to him again and ask for his cooperation he would simply say “no thank you”; as far as he and Freddie de la Hay were concerned, from now on they were civilians, unambiguously so. The tides of history might wash about them, but not carry them off.
To celebrate the safe return of Freddie de la Hay, William had decided to hold a spontaneous party. He had issued the invitations in the form of a short note, urging his neighbours to join him for a glass of wine and “such food as may be available”. The shortness of the notice had precluded more than a handful of acceptances, but that was exactly what William hoped for: he did not like parties at which crowds prevented anything but shouted conversation, if that. So the guest list in the end was Marcia, Caroline and Jo from the flat below (with Caroline bringing a friend), Basil Wickramsinghe, and Berthea Snark, whom William knew slightly and whom he had encountered by chance in the street a few hours earlier. Eddie had been invited, but had a prior engagement he could not cancel. He had been pleased to be invited, though, and had congratulated his father on getting Freddie de la Hay back. “Don’t do it again, though, Dad,” he said. “You’re far too old for that sort of thing, know what I mean? Take up bowling or something.”
Marcia was the first to arrive, bearing food – the surplus from a finger supper she had catered at the Australian High Commission. “Such generous hosts,” she said, gesturing to several large bags she had brought with her. “They always have masses of leftovers.”
William took plates from the cupboard and Marcia began to arrange the food on them. He watched her, thinking how a man would be so perfectly and comfortably looked after by Marcia; but how would such a man feel? What would they talk about in the darkness at night? What communion of souls could there be between him and her? No, it could not be. Nor had any of those MI6 women been any more suitable; he had been foolish in allowing his feelings for them to develop. Tilly Curtain was too young and lived in too different a world; that would never work either. He must find somebody more suitable, and he would. He had a very good feeling about it; he would find somebody.
Shortly after Marcia had finished setting out the Australian leftovers, Caroline arrived with Anthony. They were holding hands, William noticed as he opened the door to them, and he felt a momentary pang. Young love; he remembered what it was like – vaguely. He watched Caroline as she introduced Anthony to him; he saw her expression of pride. Later he said to her, “What happened to James?” And she replied, “He’s busy being James, and doing it rather well.”
William reflected on that. We should all busy ourselves in being who we are, although many of us do not and spend so much time and energy being something else. We try to be what others want us to be, or what we ourselves want to be. And then we suddenly realise that our lives have shot past and we have not got round to being who we really are.
He reflected on this, and then noticed that at the end of the room Marcia was engaged in deep conversation with Basil Wickramsinghe. They appeared to be getting on rather well, as they had the last time they met, and William thought, “Why not?” Basil seemed to be such a lonely man, and so thin too. Marcia would fatten him up. He smiled at the idea, but then he saw her passing him a chicken drumstick and he realised that his intuition had been right.
And he looked down at Freddie de la Hay, who was lying in a corner, one eye open, watching the human comedy, or that small part of it that was playing itsel
f out in the room. Dear Freddie, loyal Freddie; for whom there were no great existential questions because he knew at all times, and in all places, what he had to do – which was to do William’s bidding and make him happy. That was Freddie’s world-view, his Weltanschauung, and it was as good as any world-view, thought William. We had to love somebody, and we had to want the best for that person. Freddie knew as much because it was in his nature so to do.
William moved away from his guests. He went back to the window at which he had been standing before the guests arrived. He knew the view so well because he had lived with it so long; it was London, and it was his place. For all its difficulties and its drawbacks, for all its frustrations and failings, it was his place, his beloved place.
We create, he said to himself, in the places where we live,
A nest of meaning. And how big or small it is,
Is neither here nor there; a banker
May live in a mansion, a tramp in a cardboard box,
Each is as much a human home, each equally valuable
To its owner; I know a man who sleeps beneath a bridge,
But at night it is his bridge, it is his alone.
No man is so poor that he can have no home,
No man so lonely that there is none at all
To love him, to listen to his heart,
To hold him, cherish him, and make him whole.
End of Volume Two
Alexander McCall Smith, The Dog Who Came in From the Cold
(Series: # )
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