A Conspiracy of Friends (26 page)

“But dogs are always wandering off,” said Marcia. “Cats too. My sister Holly’s Burmese cat went off for ten days last year and then suddenly turned up as if nothing had happened. There’s every chance that Freddie will come back.”

“Where?” asked William. “Here? London?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. I meant back to your friends’ place.”

William was silent. When he was a young boy, he had read a book called
Ginger’s Adventures
about a dog that had fled his pampered life in London to return to a satisfactory existence in the country. William had been greatly influenced by this story, particularly Ginger’s triumphant and adventurous journey through an idyllic English countryside of steam trains and duck ponds. He imagined Freddie attempting the journey now through a landscape of motorways and urban sprawl. As for the chances of his returning to Geoffrey and Maggie’s house, it would have been more likely had Freddie spent any significant time there—which he had not. No, Freddie was lost, and William might as well accept the fact.

He stared bleakly at Marcia, who stroked his arm soothingly. “I know,” she said. “I know how hard it must be.”

William sighed. “But it’s not just that. It’s …” He hesitated, but knew that now was the moment to unburden himself.

“Yes?” said Marcia, pressing him to take another sardine canapé.

William swallowed. “My friends, Geoffrey and Maggie—I’ve spoken to you about them, haven’t I?”

Marcia frowned. “I think so. They’re the ones who had the garden centre?”

“Yes. And various other businesses. Now they have a pig farm.”

“I love pigs,” mused Marcia. “British Saddleback pigs in particular. They look so contented in their stripyness. Does Geoffrey have any Saddlebacks, do you know?”

William brushed aside her question. It was no time to be talking about rare-breed pigs. “I don’t know, Marcia,” he said peevishly. “And I really don’t think it’s important.”

She could tell that he was upset, so said nothing and waited for him to continue.

“As you know, Geoffrey and I have been friends for ages,” said William. “I suppose you could call him my oldest friend.”

“No substitute for old friends,” said Marcia, not knowing that this, indeed, was part of William’s problem. “Do you know, I read in the paper recently that one quarter of the people in this country remain in touch with their best friend from primary school. One quarter! Can you imagine that? Do you still keep up with anybody from primary school?”

Again, the question was inadvertently tactless. “Yes,” said William. “Geoffrey. We were in an organisation called the Woodcraft Folk. I was made to join it by my father.”

“I’ve heard of them,” said Marcia. “Didn’t you dance around in the forests? Wear green and so on?”

“That’s not the point, Marcia,” said William. “And I do wish you’d stop interrupting me.”

She bit her lip. “You can be rather abrupt at times, William,” she said. “I’m just trying to help, you know.”

He looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I’m under stress.”

“I know.”

“You see, Maggie is also an old friend. Both of them are.”

Marcia nodded. “Yes, I know that.”

“But now Maggie’s suddenly come out and told me that she’s in love with me,” William blurted out. “Just like that. We were on a walk together, and she suddenly told me that she’s been in love with me for years. You can imagine how I felt.”

Marcia was silenced by this disclosure, and for a few minutes neither spoke. Then Marcia said, “And?”

“And I didn’t do anything to bring it on,” said William miserably. “Nothing at all. She’s the wife of my oldest friend, for heaven’s sake.”

Marcia shook her head gravely, like a tradesman surveying a do-it-yourself disaster. “Oh dear,” she said. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

“Indeed,” said William. “Now what do I do? She’s written to me and announced—announced, mind you, not asked—that she’s coming to see me on Friday so that we can go out for dinner. What on earth can I do—tell her not to come? Not open the door to her?”

“No, you can hardly do that,” said Marcia. “Just picture this … this
harridan
pounding on the front door of Corduroy Mansions. Think of the
gossip
.”

“She’s no harridan,” said William. “She’s an extremely attractive woman. She’s not a harridan at all.”

“Trollop, then,” said Marcia.

William looked incensed. “And she’s not that either!”

“Well,” countered Marcia, “here she is, a married woman, trying
to start an affair. How do you know that she hasn’t tried it with any number of men?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped William. “She’s an expert on Iris Murdoch.”

Marcia made a placatory gesture. “All right. But anyhow, you couldn’t just refuse to let her in.”

“No, maybe not,” said William.

“So we must do something a little more subtle.”

Marcia’s use of
we
sometimes irritated William, especially when she claimed to be speaking for both of them. But now he welcomed it, as it suggested that she either already had or would shortly invent a plan.

“I take it that you told her it’s not on?” Marcia asked.

“Not quite,” said William, adding quickly: “But I didn’t encourage her in any way.”

“And do you think she’ll take no for an answer?”

William thought for a moment before replying. “No,” he said. “I don’t think she will. Once she gets an idea, Maggie can be quite difficult to deflect. She’s a bit like an ocean liner that takes some time to change course.”

“Then we need to
show
her it’s hopeless,” said Marcia.

“And how do I do that?”

Marcia pointed to the third finger on her left hand. “You get me a ring,” she said. “No, don’t worry—just for a limited time. An engagement ring.” She paused. “And you leave the rest to me.”

F
REDDIE DE LA
H
AY
spent an untroubled night in his new home. When morning came, Jane took him out for a brief walk while Phillip prepared breakfast for the three of them: Freddie was to get a couple of lamb chops in gravy—a luxury, of course, but there was no dog food in the household. When Freddie came back in, his nose twitched with pleasure at the smell of the chops.

“I’ll pick up some tins of dog food later this morning,” said Jane. “They have it in the village shop—big tins of it.”

Phillip shook his head. “Darling, we’re not going to need dog food, are we? Freddie can’t stay—and he’ll be fed once he’s in the pound.”

She looked down at the floor. “But, dearest, we can’t take him there—they’ll put him down. That’s what they do if a dog isn’t claimed after a certain amount of time.”

“We can’t keep him, darling. He belongs to somebody.”

She was ready with her retort. “To somebody who can’t be bothered to look after him properly, you mean. Look, Phil, we’re doing Freddie a favour here—and probably also the person who dumped him.”

“How do you know he was dumped? What if Freddie was taking a walk with his owner, and just got carried away and got lost? How do you know that there isn’t a person somewhere who’s missing his companion, who’s weeping for the loss of his dog? What’s our duty to that person, whoever he is?”

Jane glanced away sullenly. “They should have chipped him then.”

Phillip looked down at Freddie, who wagged his tail encouragingly. “Where do you find the chip?” he asked.

“Round about the neck, I think,” said Jane. “Or that’s where my aunt’s dog had his chip. It turned septic and he had to have an operation to have the wound drained.”

Bending down, Phillip felt gently around Freddie’s neck. “There’s a lump,” he said. “Feel—just here, on the side.”

Jane felt Freddie’s neck. Phillip was right, though she was loath to admit it. “Yes, there is something. Perhaps it’s just a scar. Or a wart maybe.”

Phillip did not think so. “No, it feels square, or rectangular, perhaps. It’s a chip if you ask me, and that means we can take him to the vet and have it read. Vets all keep the scanner thingy that enables them to read the animal’s address.”

Jane was downcast. “I suppose so,” she said. She did not feel enthusiastic.

They discussed who would take Freddie to the vet, and it fell to Jane because Phillip had a deadline to meet on some artwork for an advertising agency. “Nice coincidence,” he said. “It’s a national ad for dog food. A very straightforward message in a very straightforward ad: ‘Happy Dogs Eat Beefies Dog Food.’ Not a sophisticated pitch, but it’s urgent apparently because the campaign launches in a couple of days.”

“They don’t give you much notice,” said Jane. “They’re always expecting you to produce work the day before yesterday.”

“Nature of the business,” said Phillip. “And as I said, it’s a very simple ad—just the message and a picture of a dog who—” He broke off; he was looking down at Freddie with renewed interest. “A picture of a dog. Hmm.”

“Use Freddie,” suggested Jane. “I’ll take a nice shot of him and you can see what you might do with it.”

“Why not?” said Phillip. “I was going to get an image from an image bank. But they can charge hundreds of pounds for a single
licence. If we had our own photograph, it would be our copyright. No fees. Clients love that.”

Jane fetched her camera and an old hairbrush. A good brushing, much enjoyed by Freddie, who liked the sensation of the bristles upon his skin, made him look much more presentable. After that, Jane dropped to her knees and started to take eye-level photographs of Freddie, clicking her fingers loudly to attract his attention at the appropriate time. Several of her shots were very good—one exceptionally so.

“That’s the dog!” exclaimed Phillip, when she showed him the results. “All we need is one photo: here we’ve got three or four that would do perfectly. Well done!”

He went out to his studio, Jane’s camera in his hand, and downloaded the photographs. Then, selecting one, he pasted it into his design for the advertisement and began the task of cropping and enhancing it. Freddie de la Hay, it transpired, took a very good photograph, and his image was soon neatly framed within the text of the proud claims of Beefies. “Beefies: invented by dogs
for
dogs,” the advertisement boasted.

He showed it to Jane, who agreed that it was both charming and direct. “Who’ll be able to resist Freddie de la Hay?” she said.

“Dogs, I expect,” said Phillip. “But the ad isn’t directed at them.” He paused. “Anyway, darling, you take him off to the vet and get that chip read. Then we can reunite him with his poor owner.”

Jane led Freddie de la Hay to the car parked outside the house—the same car in which he had been rescued only the evening before. Freddie, who enjoyed any car journey, jumped into the passenger seat and fastened himself into his seatbelt, much to Jane’s amused delight.

“You really are a wonderful creature, Freddie de la Hay,” she said as she drove off. She was going to the local vet’s surgery, which
was a ten-minute drive away, between two nearby villages. But she interrupted her journey, pulling in to the side of the road and extracting from her pocket a large U-shaped magnet. Leaning over towards Freddie, she applied the magnet to the loose skin around his neck, rubbing it backwards and forwards over one area in particular. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards.

T
HE DOCTOR WHO
examined Caroline’s damaged leg was reassuring. “No fracture, I’m happy to say,” she said. “Or none that I can see from the scans. It looks fine to me. So we’ll just give you a tetanus injection and put a dressing on, and you’ll be free to go. Can your boyfriend take you home all right?”

Boyfriend! Caroline nodded. “He’s so good,” she said. “He came straight here.”

The doctor smiled. “Lucky girl,” she said. “Hold on to him. I wish …” She hesitated, and bit her lip.

Caroline looked at her. “You wish what?”

The doctor sighed. “I shouldn’t burden you with my troubles. It’s not right … It’s just that I’ve been seeing somebody who … well, who wouldn’t do for me what your boyfriend has done for you. Men can be selfish, I’m afraid.”

Caroline reached out and touched the doctor gently on the sleeve of her jacket. “People can change,” she said. “It happens.” It was a trite thing to say, and she realised just how trite it was even as she spoke. But what else could she say?

“I hope so,” said the doctor, dabbing carefully at the laceration
on Caroline’s leg. “Why do we fall in love with the wrong sort of men? What makes us do it?”

Caroline looked up at the ceiling. Had she ever fallen in love with James, or had she felt only friendship for him? They were two very different things, she thought.

“We go for looks sometimes,” she said. “And looks, I think, are the weakest grounds for falling for anybody. And yet …”

The doctor looked up. “Yet what?”

“Yet we fall in love with beauty,” Caroline went on. “I studied art history, you know, and we learned a lot about that. We had a whole series of lectures on the importance of beauty and how it moved us. There’s an American professor of aesthetics called Elaine Scarry—have you heard of her? She wrote a book called
On Beauty and Being Just
, which is all about how beauty is tied up with our notions of the just. We love beauty because we love justice.”

The doctor said, “This might hurt a bit,” and it did, but only for a moment.

“I would have loved to study art,” the doctor went on to say, extracting a dressing from a sterile packet. “I love going to the National Gallery and just wandering round. I used to do that when I was a student—when medicine and everything connected with it became too much. I wandered round the gallery. The Tate too, but not all of it. I don’t go in for these installations, do you?”

Caroline was counting the tiles on the ceiling. “No, I don’t like them. They’re banal—completely banal.”

“The Turner Prize,” said the doctor. “The ultimate in banality.”

“Banality beyond measure,” agreed Caroline. She would never have believed it that morning if somebody had said to her: you’ll be discussing the Turner Prize this evening on a hospital trolley. But she was.