A Conspiracy of Friends (27 page)

When the doctor had finished with Caroline, she escorted her to
where Ronald was waiting. “Here we are,” she said, smiling at him. “Here’s your girlfriend restored to you, as good as new, I hope.”

Ronald was effusive in his thanks, and the doctor smiled as she shook hands with Caroline. “Don’t overdo things just yet,” she said. “And take a painkiller tonight to get some sleep. We can give you something if you like.”

Caroline had some aspirin in the flat and said that she would take those. The doctor went off, leaving Caroline alone with Ronald. He leaned forward and kissed her. He did it naturally—as if they had been together for years; she returned the kiss.

He looked at his watch. “I’ll take you home and phone in to the office. I’ll tell them I’m not coming back to work.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said. “Not just for me.”

“No. I insist.”

He walked with her to his borrowed car, giving her his arm. She felt curiously elated; not only had she been relatively undamaged by the accident—and was conscious of her good fortune in that respect—but also she felt exhilarated by her discovery of Ronald. For that was what it was—a discovery, every bit as thrilling as if she had found treasure, or a long-sought-after bargain. And there was a sense of novelty too, of things that had only just begun but were now opening up to her.

They drove back to Corduroy Mansions, where Ronald dropped her off before taking the car back to its owner. He would be back, he said, within an hour or so, and then he would go to the shops to get ingredients for their dinner.

“Risotto,” he said.

She touched his cheek. “It’s lovely having somebody to cook risotto for one. It really is.” And then she burst out laughing. “How corny I sound.”

“But it’s true,” he said, smiling and laying his hand gently against her cheek: the reciprocated gesture. “There’s something very calming
about risotto. You can eat it very slowly, if you like, grain by grain, cherishing each one. That’s how we should approach life, I think. We should savour every little bit of it, every single grain.”

He went off, to return more or less when he said he would, only a few minutes late. She had been on the sofa in the sitting room when she heard his key in the door, but she rose to her feet, wincing slightly at the pain as she put weight on her damaged leg.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s a bit sore, that’s all. I’ll be fine.”

He went into the kitchen, and there was a small explosion. For a moment Caroline thought, quite absurdly,
He’s shot himself
. But of course he had not; it was a champagne cork.

He came back, holding the bottle of champagne, the vapour rising from its neck like the smoke of a tiny, languid volcano. He had two glasses in his other hand, and he set these on the table. Then he poured a liberal quantity of champagne into each.

The bubbles danced. She heard them, or thought she did.

B
ARBARA
R
AGG WAS
not sure whether Hugh had anything more to say. The story he had told had engaged her completely, and she had not questioned him on any aspect of it. But now she found herself desperate to know how the situation had resolved itself—
if
it had resolved itself: a novelist might tie up all remaining loose ends, but life did not necessarily do the same. The circumstances that came about often petered out in a lame way; characters who had been central to the narrative simply went away, sometimes without any explanation. They died at the wrong time, leaving things
unsaid, things undone. Great hopes came to nothing; the wrong people won; the ship that was due to come home so gloriously never even made it to port, or was empty when it arrived.

Such was real life; the novelist, however, did not always accept it, and as often as not pandered to the reader’s strong desire that things should work out in the end. Like William’s friend Maggie, Barbara had read her Iris Murdoch, and remembered that in one of her novels, after some sort of resolution has come to all but one of the characters, the remaining person in the tale—an
echt
psychopath—has yet to be dealt with. He has to change: he has to become good. But how is this to be achieved? Let incredulity be strained, even to breaking point: he sees a flying saucer and is utterly transformed morally.

Barbara looked at Hugh. “So,” she said. “So you had the chance to escape but didn’t take it?”

There was undisguised misery in his voice as he answered. “I’m afraid I didn’t.”

She considered this. “You needn’t reproach yourself, you know. It’s a well-known phenomenon, I believe. The captive begins to identify with the captors. The psychological strain is just too much for some people, and they give in and join what appears to be the more powerful side.”

In his misery, Hugh appeared not to have absorbed her message. “I should have taken the opportunity,” he said. “There would have been no danger. I should have—”

She leaned forward. “Listen, Hugh. Just listen to me. You never blame somebody for what they do in conditions of constraint. You just don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

She thought at first that he wanted to believe her—and would. He seemed to wrestle with the idea for a few moments, and then for a brief while to cheer up. But the downcast, abnegating look returned, the expression which seemed to deny the possibility of release that an excuse might entail; the look of guilt which she found
strangely unattractive. Guilt does not endear; it may provoke sympathy, but it does not endear.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work, Barbara.”

“What doesn’t work?”

“The idea that I let myself off the hook because I was not free to do otherwise. I was free.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, you weren’t. You weren’t, Hugh.” She marshalled her thoughts. “Look, if somebody does something because he is in a certain position, then the fact that he is in that position at all becomes relevant.” She paused. “Do I make myself clear?”

He answered quickly. “No.”

She tried again. “Take the case of a soldier—a conscript. He has no choice about going into the army—if he refuses, let’s say he’ll be put into prison or shot or whatever. Now, once he’s in the army, he’s not exactly a free agent, is he? He has to obey orders, and he knows that if he doesn’t he’ll be punished severely—maybe even put in front of a firing squad. Can we blame him for what he does in those circumstances?”

Hugh frowned. “But we do, don’t we? A soldier has no defence if he obeys a manifestly illegal order. Wasn’t that what Nuremberg was all about?”

Barbara thought about this. Hugh was right: soldiers were generally not allowed to claim a defence of superior orders when they had carried out an atrocity. But did that apply to the rest of us?

“I suppose we do blame soldiers,” she said. “But I must admit I feel rather uncomfortable about it. Blame the men at the top—the colonels, the generals, or whatever—but not the men lower down.”

“You can’t do that. The whole point of the principle is that it deters people. If the men at the bottom won’t do the dirty work, then the dirty work won’t be done.”

Barbara felt frustrated. She wanted to give Hugh some psychological
absolution, and he was resolutely arguing his way out of it. Did he
want
to feel guilty? Some people, she reminded herself, need guilt. It was a form of masochism, perhaps; feeling guilty also made one feel more important, it defined one.

“Hugh,” she began again, “you really mustn’t blame yourself. This whole discussion about soldiers is off the point. There are reasons why we hold soldiers responsible—it’s different with ordinary people. The world isn’t going to change one iota if we say that somebody who becomes a gigolo because he’s kidnapped has no choice. It’s absurd to blame yourself for something you didn’t start.”

“A gigolo,” he said morosely. “I was a gigolo.”

Barbara’s irritation now showed. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Hugh, get a grip.”

He looked at her reproachfully. “Get a grip? Get a grip? Is that how you think one deals with something like this? Is it, Barbara? Because if it is, I think you’re being seriously unsympathetic.”

“Oh shut up, Hugh. This is getting ridiculous. You’re wallowing in self-pity, and I’m afraid I don’t find it very attractive. Especially in a man.”

He stiffened. “Especially in a man? So you think there’s one rule for men and another for women? We have to be all tough and self-controlled. We’re not allowed to cry. We’re not allowed to dwell on our hurt. Is that what you think, Barbara?”

“Well, since you mention it, I think men shouldn’t use expressions like ‘dwell on our hurt.’ Men shouldn’t say things like that. Sorry, but that’s my view.”

He became silent, and she thought, with utter clarity:
I’ve lost him
.

B
ARBARA SET OFF
for the Ragg Porter Literary Agency the next day in a state of confusion. Her argument with Hugh the previous evening appeared to have changed everything in their relationship. They had parted without saying goodbye, he standing up and walking out, she tight-lipped but inwardly aghast at the fact that she had, in one or two sentences, destroyed all tender feeling between them. Could words be so powerful? It seemed that they could.

Of course, there were lovers’ tiffs. People argued with one another and most arguments were more prolonged and intense than theirs had been. Neither had thrown anything at the other. Neither had said anything completely unforgivable. What had Barbara done? She had simply said that men shouldn’t use certain expressions. That was not particularly significant. Or was it? If you said to a man that he was using an expression that men shouldn’t use, were you casting aspersions on his masculinity? Possibly. But should a man be sensitive about something like that? Probably not. Though many were.

Taking her normal route across the park gave her time to order her thoughts. She had fallen out with Hugh over his revelation of having been a gigolo. When she first heard the story, she took the view that it had not been his fault, and she argued the case for that. But now, as she followed a diagonal path across an awakening park, she started to wonder whether Hugh’s self-blame might have substance. He was right: he could have run away and yet he had stayed and enjoyed being a kept man on the cruise liner; he had shared the bed of that South American aircraft manufacturer’s wife not because anybody was forcing him to do so, but because he wanted to. If he had remained with her as a willing lover, then surely that
made him no longer a gigolo? Does a slave cease to be a slave when he stops serving because he is forced to and instead serves out of love for his master or mistress?

She wrestled with this and other thoughts as to the moral implications of the situation, but they all seemed to lead her back to the question of her feelings for Hugh. Had they changed at all? Did she still love him? She stopped walking and stood still where she was on the path. It was a moment of insight—one of those mystical experiences that people have at unexpected times, vouchsafing a vision of what really is. She did not truly love Hugh, she realised; she only thought she loved him because he made her feel better about herself. He was something that had
happened to her
. He was not a person whom she cherished for himself. That was different; quite different.

The realisation that she had had such a narrow escape from making the wrong decision made her feel quite heady. She looked up at the sky. Dizzy. But don’t worry, Barbara. You’ve survived. You’re free again. You’re yourself. Don’t worry.

She continued her journey. Now she felt guilty too. She had misled Hugh; she had made him think he was loved, and yet she had been unable to give him that love. She looked about her at the people walking through the park. She saw a woman throw a stick for a dog to catch. She saw a young man and woman walking hand in hand. She saw a man immobile in a t’ai chi pose. All of these people were pursuing their self-interest in whatever way seemed right for them. She was no different. She was no ogress, who had devoured Hugh and then spat him out. She had really believed that she loved him; she had acted in good faith. But still she felt guilty.

By the time she arrived at work, she was in a better frame of mind. She felt raw, as one always does after an argument, but at least she would be able to work, and the mundane tasks of the day
would take her mind off her personal circumstances, would take the edge off her discomfort.

“Mr. Porter was hoping to see you,” said the receptionist.

“Oh yes? ”

“I think it’s important.”

She shrugged, and made her way down the corridor to her office. Rupert Porter could not summon her to his office like some employee; they were fellow directors of the company and of equal status. In fact, if Barbara wanted to argue the point, she could draw attention to the fact that Ragg came before Porter in the name of the firm. This reflected the undeniable historical truth that her father was the senior partner to Fatty Porter when the firm had been a partnership rather than a company. In so far as she had stepped into her father’s shoes, and Rupert had stepped into Fatty’s, that made her the senior director.

Her secretary had opened the mail and laid the letters out on a tray on her desk. There was nothing of any great significance, she noted, though there were several attractive offers which she would take pleasure in passing on to her clients later that morning. One was for a manuscript that had proved virtually unsaleable: a novel about a medieval monk who discovers that the abbot is possessed. A ridiculous notion, but the manuscript had now found a publisher who said he believed in it. The author, a rather dusty man who lived in an old rectory in Rutland, would be pleased, no doubt.

There was a perfunctory knock on the door, followed by the appearance of Rupert.

“Barbara, I need to talk to you.”

She looked up. “Certainly. Take a seat, Rupert.”

He shook his head. “No need to prolong this. It’s about Errol Greatorex—the autobiography of the yeti.”