A Conspiracy of Friends (16 page)

Berthea raised an eyebrow. “Strange that one would have to clean one’s teeth in the spirit world: I would have thought that one of the perks of being disembodied would be not to have to clean one’s teeth, not to use deodorant, perhaps. But still … What did you say to him, Terence?”

“I asked him whether he was happy in the other dimension.”

“And did he reply?” asked Berthea. “Did he complain about a shortage of whisky on the other side? Remember how he loved his favourite whisky—any whisky, indeed.”

Her levity clearly annoyed Terence. “It’s all very well for you to laugh, Berthy, but this is not an amusing subject at all. Just you wait until you cross over yourself. Would you want people making fun of you, just because you were a spirit?”

Berthea tried to look contrite. “I’m sorry. What did he say, Terence?”

“He was unable to comment on the precise arrangements on the other side,” said Terence, “because he dematerialised again—rather quickly. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone.”

“How unfortunate,” said Berthea. “And in general, don’t you agree it’s somewhat unfortunate that we have so little
quality time
with spirits. You’d imagine they might occasionally make themselves available for interview, perhaps, on the more hospitable television programmes. They need not agree to be interviewed by anybody aggressive, but it would be so helpful …”

Terence gave her a sideways look. “They’re very busy,” he said.
“You can’t expect them to spend their time with those of us on this side when they have all those things to do on the other side. It’s kind enough of them to give us the occasional glimpse, and we should be grateful for it.”

Berthea did not pursue the matter. “Oh well. Tell me, Terence, who was the friend who stayed here last week?”

“My friend Jasper,” said Terence. “I haven’t known him long, but we get on very well together.”

Berthea’s eyes narrowed. “And how did you meet him?”

Terence smiled. “In the car. I was driving over to Glastonbury to do some healing, and Jasper was standing by the side of the road, indicating that he wanted help in getting somewhere. So I stopped and asked him where he was going. And he said, ‘That depends on where you’re going, my friend—our journeys are converging, I think.’ Those were his exact words, Berthy, and I thought them very beautiful words indeed. So I opened the door for him, and he hopped in.”

“And?” said Berthea, through pursed lips.

“And I drove Jasper all the way to Glastonbury. We talked a lot on the way there, and he told me that he had been a coracle-maker in Wales—or apprenticed to one—when the call came.”

“What call?”

“It was a call to stop making coracles and to take up another project altogether.”

“Which was?”

“To map the ley lines of the west of England. Do you know, Berthy, there isn’t a full map of ley lines and other energy fields in England? People know about them, of course. I pointed one out to Monty Bismarck the other day; it ran straight through his father’s living room—not that Alfie Bismarck is at all sensitive to these things. Nor Monty, for that matter: all Monty asked was whether
it would interfere with the television reception. Honestly, Berthy, some people …”

Berthea was keen to find out more about Jasper. “So this new friend of yours, this Jasper, is working on a map?”

“Yes,” said Terence proudly. “And he’s asked me for advice on relevant features of the countryside round here. He wants to put in not only ley lines but sacred wells too.”

Berthea suddenly felt very tired. She had experienced this sensation before when talking to her brother, and so it was familiar enough. It sprang from despair; despair at not knowing how to penetrate the fog of magical thinking that seemed to envelop Terence Moongrove. It was how the parent of an estranged teenager might feel, struggling to find some way of penetrating a consciousness that would admit of no rational exchange.

“The bed,” said Terence suddenly. “I haven’t changed the sheets since Jasper was here. It’s a new policy I have to help protect the environment. And Jasper is perfectly clean, so there’s no reason why we should change them just yet.”

Berthea’s jaw dropped. “You mean, I’m to sleep between some … some
man’s
sheets?”

Terence nodded. “Why not? He only used them for three days.”

“But … but people like clean sheets,” protested Berthea. “There’ll be …” She struggled to find the right word. “There’ll be bits of skin on the sheets. We all shed bits of skin, you know. And oily deposits too.”

Terence looked puzzled. “Oily deposits? You know, Berthy, you do sound rather
fussy
.”

Berthea’s voice was now raised. “Fussy! That’s rich, Terence.”

He stood his ground. “Yes, fussy. How do you know that Jasper has oily deposits? Yes, go on, how do you know? You tell me!”

D
INNER WAS A
trying occasion for Berthea. Terence was in a talkative mood and insisted on giving her long and detailed accounts of issues dividing his sacred dance group.

“Most of the members are easy enough to get on with,” he said. “Very easy. They’re not interested in political intrigue. They just …”

“Just want to get on with the dancing,” prompted Berthea.

“Exactly,” said Terence. “But there are
always
some people who see committees as a way of advancing themselves. You know the type, Berthy? They plot and scheme. They use all sorts of devices to get themselves into positions of power. I’ve no time for people like that, Berthy—no time at all.”

Berthea suppressed a yawn. She wondered what issues could arise in a sacred dance group: personality clashes, perhaps? The issue of unconventional steps? It was possible that there were even theological divisions between those who stuck to that Bulgarian mystic—what was his name?—and those who were open to other influences. People had an insatiable appetite for disagreement, she felt; whenever two or more were gathered together it seemed inevitable that they would find something to differ about. And there was always politics—even, it seemed, in the sphere of sacred dance.

Berthea toyed with her soup. Terence had put far too much salt in it, making it virtually undrinkable. She took a sip, and spat it back into the spoon. “What are these issues, Terence?” she asked.

Terence appeared to be having no difficulty with the salty broth. “Good question, Berthy. There are quite a few, as it happens, but the thing that has really set the cat among the pigeons is morris
dancing. That’s made things jolly difficult for everyone, Berthy, I’m telling you.”

Berthea stared morosely at her soup. The salt made it impossible to divine exactly what sort it was, but she was beginning to suspect it was based on tripe. Tripe soup was unheard of, surely, but then anything was possible with her brother.

“Yes,” Terence continued. “There are some on the committee—that horrid Jones woman being the ringleader—who want us to accept an invitation to dance with a group of morris dancers who perform outside the Lamb and Flag every other weekend. That Jones woman had a letter of invitation from the leader of the morris men and she’s frightfully keen that we accept.”

Berthea shrugged. “Well, it would be nice, wouldn’t it? You’re all interested in roughly the same thing—and you all wear similar white outfits, don’t you?”

Terence put down his spoon. “Berthy!” he exclaimed. “You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried! Morris men are
pagan—
their dances are all about fertility and things like that. We’re above all that. Far above it.”

Berthea inched her untouched plate of soup away from her. “Nobody is above reproduction, Terence,” she said quietly. “Even you and me. We are the result of reproductive passions. We need to remind ourselves of that.”

Terence would have none of it. “Beings of Light do not come about in the same way as ordinary people,” he pronounced. “Our dances are pure. There is no trace of the bodily side. That is the whole point of sacred dance, Berthy, and I thought somebody like you would understand that.”

The conversation drifted on along these lines, and then Terence suddenly said, “You should eat your soup, Berthy. It’s jolly rude not to eat it when your host has spent hours making it for you. Jolly rude indeed.”

“One can’t drink soup that has far too much salt in it, Terence. I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible.”

Terence glowered at her. “You don’t drink soup, Berthy, you
eat
it. Remember how we were told that when we were really small? Aunty Bee, who knew all about manners. Remember? It’s the same as not saying serviette for table napkin.”

“Nonsense,” said Berthea. “Liquids are drunk, not eaten. You don’t say ‘Eat your coffee,’ do you? You say, ‘Drink your coffee.’ ”

Terence responded hotly, “Oh you think you know better, do you, Berthy? You think you know better than everybody, don’t you? Better than Mummy knew, better than Daddy or Aunty Bee; better even than the Queen, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Oh Terence,” sighed Berthea, “I do wish you’d grow up.”

There was silence. Then Terence muttered, “You’re jolly rude, you know. It’s all very well for you. You live in London and have hundreds of friends. I’m stuck here and I haven’t really anything much. You’d think that …”

The words trailed away, and in a sudden awful moment Berthea realised that she had reduced her brother to tears.

“Oh Terence,” she said, rising to put an arm about her brother. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Come, come.”

The volume of the sobs rose. “I know I haven’t done much with my life, Berthy. Other chaps have done much more. But I’m doing my best, Berthy, I promise you I am.”

“Of course you are,” said Berthea. “Of course you are. And I’m really proud of you—I hope you know that. We may have our little disagreements, but I’m so proud of you, Terence.”

He looked up at her, wiping at his eyes with a large blue handkerchief, threadbare and unironed, which he had removed from the pocket of his jacket, where it had been tucked in an attempt at raffishness. “Are you proud of me, Berthy? Are you really?”

“Of course I am,” she said. “You’re my brother, and I’m proud of you.”

He produced a second handkerchief from another pocket and blew his nose. “Well, I’ll make you even prouder, Berthy. Once I start my racing, I’ll make you really proud. Our Frazer Nash is going to be jolly fast.”

“I wonder whether that’s such a good idea, Terence,” said Berthea, her tone at once tentative and tactful.

“It’s too late,” said Terence.

“Oh?”

“We’ve already bought the Frazer Nash. I gave Monty the cheque this afternoon, and he’s going over to see Richard Latcham tomorrow.”

“Who is this Richard Latcham?”

“He’s the man we’ve bought it from,” said Terence. “He’s restored it very well, and he’s promised me that nothing will go wrong with this car.”

He looked at Berthea, his eyes now bright again. “And I’m going to make you proud, Berthy, by winning my first race. You just watch. You just watch.”

W
HEN
F
REDDIE DE LA
H
AY
first picked up the scent of rabbit, he stood motionless, his nose into the wind, his whole body quivering in anticipation. He remembered, of course, that he was not meant to wander; that he must stay within the general curtilage of the house to which William had brought him. He knew that
if he interpreted too broadly the permission that William had implicitly given him to investigate the lawn and shrubs around the house, then there would be recriminations. There would be raised voices and other signs of displeasure, and for a dog like Freddie, in whom a conscience, even a merely Pavlovian one, had been instilled, the displeasure of the humans he loved was like a great cloud of thunder: dark, forbidding and centred directly above one’s head.

But this was not an ordinary situation—there were rabbits here; not merely lingering traces of ancient rabbits, but real living and breathing rabbits. Only the best-trained dogs, those disciplined to stay at their owners’ sides whatever the circumstances—experienced gun-dogs, for example—can resist the temptation of readily available prey. Freddie de la Hay was not untrained, but his education, such as it was, had encouraged him to go after significant smells. As a sniffer dog at Heathrow, he had been rewarded for running after a tempting suitcase as it was carried along a conveyor belt; that was the whole point of his being there. So now that he smelled the rabbits, although he knew that he should not go too far, there was also a strong and ultimately irresistible urge to ferret out these annoying creatures and deal with them in the way he felt they deserved.

It did not take long, then, for his indecision to be overcome. Uttering a yelp of excitement, Freddie ran straight towards the first of the rabbit holes. This was not very large, and he managed to get his snout into the entrance, but there was not much more he could do. Besides, once he had sniffed the earth at the entrance to the hole, he found that the scent he had picked up so strongly was fainter here. Rabbits had passed this way—there was no doubt about it—but they had done so some time ago.

He sniffed at the breeze, picking up the stronger scent that wafted over from a further point of the field. Giving another yelp,
he rushed off in that direction, and soon found exactly what he was hoping for: a commodious, inviting entrance into the main rabbit warren. This hole clearly served a whole colony of rabbits and was easily large enough for even a medium-sized dog such as Freddie de la Hay to penetrate.

In the darkness of the hole, Freddie sniffed at the dank air: there was so much to take in—the smell of earth, of roots, the whiff of other creatures—moles—whose tunnels intersected the rabbit highway. He pushed himself forwards, scrabbling his way past a curtain of hanging roots. These bore the evidence of recent rabbit passage, and the scent served only to urge Freddie on to more frantic burrowing. Had he paused to consider the consequences of his actions—something beyond the intellectual competence of most dogs—he would have realised that the only way he could retreat from the tunnel, which was growing rapidly narrower, would be by going backwards; that is unless he found a chamber of some sort in which he could turn round. But he did not think of this, his mind being completely occupied with the task of getting closer to the source of this rabbit smell—the rabbits themselves, who had to be in there somewhere, taunting him with their proximity.