A Conspiracy of Friends (21 page)

“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?”

T
HAT 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 sound, 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.’ ”

C
AROLINE 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.

When she awoke, her first thought was of Ronald. He had slept in Jo’s room, which had a made-up bed. She wondered what time he would have to be at work, and whether he would want any breakfast.

She got up, donned a dressing gown and went into the kitchen. Ronald was sitting at the table, a bowl of cereal before him.

“Hi,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind: I helped myself to muesli.”

Caroline said she did not mind. “It’s Jenny’s, actually. But we all help ourselves to it. As long as we replace it from time to time.”

“Would you like me to cook for you tonight?” asked Ronald.

Caroline smiled. “You don’t have to.”

“I know, but I want to.”

“All right,” she said. “What will you make?”

Ronald thought for a moment. “Risotto?”

She could not help herself smiling. “Oh …”

He looked concerned. “You don’t like it? I can do something else if you want. I can make pizza—as long as I buy the base somewhere, I’ll do the topping.”

She assured him that risotto would be fine. “I had a friend who made risotto for me,” she explained. She blushed as she realised that she had said she
had
a friend. She had lost James because she lied.

“I can pick up everything on the way back from the office,” he said. “You could show me where things are in the kitchen.”

Ronald went off to work, and Caroline followed shortly afterwards. Throughout the early part of the day, though, she found herself thinking of him, glancing at her watch to see what time it was and how long it would be before they met again. It was a familiar feeling, even if she had not experienced it for some time. It was, she realised, the feeling that attends falling for somebody; not just becoming mildly interested in somebody, but falling for him completely.

She tried to take command of the situation. I barely know him, she told herself; I have no idea what he’s like. It would be rational to get to know him better before becoming involved; after all, one never knew whether closer acquaintanceship would lead to a dislike
of a person’s mannerisms, or their views for that matter. She would find out about Ronald in due course, and it would be so much more
sensible
if she were to wait a while. But then that was not how these things worked. Love came upon one; one did not plan its arrival. It arrived in its own time and with an agenda all of its own devising.

Caroline’s employer, Tim Something, noticed that she was distracted.

“Something biting you?” he asked, as they made their way in his car to a late-morning photo shoot.

She was deliberately disingenuous. “What do you mean,
biting me
?”

He lit a cigarette, holding the wheel with one hand while he did so.

Caroline said, “I wish you’d be more careful. You shouldn’t light a cigarette while you drive.”

He sent a cloud of smoke up to the roof of the car; her nose tickled and she felt the urge to sneeze.

“Oh, listen to you,” said Tim Something. “Little Miss Health and Safety.”

“You may laugh,” she said. “But accidents are caused that way. You can’t drive and do other things. It’s irresponsible.”

“Oh yeah?” sneered Tim Something. “You may not be able to multitask, darling, but some of us can.”

She sighed and looked away.

“Big date?” asked Tim Something. “That what’s on your mind?”

It was none of his business, she thought. “Maybe,” she said.

He sniggered. “Who is he?”

“A rather nice architect,” she said. “You won’t know him.”

“Try me,” said Tim Something.

“I don’t know why you’re being so poisonous today,” said Caroline. There was something worrying her employer; normally he was perfectly civil. He liked her, she thought, or at least he gave every
outward sign of being well disposed; she could not understand why he appeared to have turned against her. Unless … unless he was jealous.

The shoot was in Richmond. The traffic was slow and they were moving at a snail’s pace when Tim Something opened his window to toss out the butt of his cigarette.

“Don’t throw it out,” said Caroline. “There’s an ashtray.”

“Oh, yes,” said Tim Something. “Well, this is my car, as I recall, and I can do what—”

He did not finish the sentence. A van turned out of a side road and swung a wide arc across two lanes. Although Tim Something was not driving fast, the car’s speed was enough for a considerable impact. Caroline screamed as the other vehicle thudded into them, and she screamed again as she saw Tim Something, who was not wearing a seatbelt, pushed forwards into the windscreen as if by a giant hand. There was the sound of shattering glass and rending metal. Then, in the silence that followed, the hiss of steam as liquid of some sort fell on a warm engine block.

Caroline, who had been wearing a belt, felt a sharp restraining tug and then, in her left leg, a searing pain. For a moment or two she was confused; everything happened so fast and with such attendant noise that it was difficult for her to take it all in. But then, as she slumped back in her seat, her mind became perfectly clear. They had collided with another vehicle, and Tim Something had been propelled through the windscreen. He was somewhere outside, and she was inside the crumpled shell of the car.

She stretched to feel the painful leg. It was wet to the touch, and she realised that what she felt was blood. She closed her eyes. She was alive. But what had become of Tim?

Her belt was not stuck and a quick movement released it. She leaned sideways and used her shoulder to push at the door of
the car. Some obstruction seemed to be preventing it from opening, but with a further bit of pressure, it swung open.