A Conspiracy of Friends (11 page)

“Not quite, darling. My dad was keener on the outdoor life. He liked fresh air.”

“So what did he do? Was he a farmer?”

“Not really. He had business dealings with farmers, though. He loved horses, your granddad. He was a very good judge of horseflesh. He took a lot of them …” And there he had faltered.

Took a lot of horses
. What did
that
mean? The meaning was quite clear now, of course, and she felt foolish that she had not understood then. Nor had she understood the significance of her father’s remarks on his education. “I had terrifically good luck with my education,” he explained to her. “There was a bit of a mix-up, you see, and I was left by mistake under a hedge when I was three. And this terrifically kind man whose hedge it was found me and took me in. He sent me to a little school nearby and then on to an expensive boarding place. It was a really good education and I made the most of it. My parents would never have been able to afford it.”

“Did you see your parents again? Your real parents, that is.”

“Yes. The man who took me in had a good idea who they were, and he made a point of keeping in touch with them. So my father came to see me every so often, right up to the time he died.”

It seemed strange to her that a father might leave a son in a hedge and still be interested in him. “But he left you in a hedge,” she said.

“I like to think that he knew what he was doing,” said Gregory. “I like to think that he was very well aware that my stepfather would find me and look after me. I think of it as an act of generosity on his part. He wanted the best for me, and he knew that the way
to secure it was to abandon me. It was an act of self-sacrifice. A noble act.”

Barbara had lost interest and the matter was not pursued. Nor did her father make subsequent reference to his parents, and she picked up on the prickly feeling of discouragement that surrounded the subject. But it all made sense, all fitted so neatly into place, now that she knew.

Her first reaction, of course, was shock. But, sitting in her office, she reflected on the meaning of what had been revealed to her. There was nothing wrong in being a gypsy, anything more than there was anything wrong in living a settled life in a house made of bricks and mortar. We were all the same, were we not, when we came into this world: we were all equal in our vulnerability and our malleability. And we did not
ask
for the bed in which we were born: that was one of the things over which we had no control at all, just as we had no say as to whether we would be redheads, or tall or short or somewhere in between; or whether we were born Polish or Zambian, Catholic or Muslim or Jewish. We had no choice in all this. And it was this, precisely this, that made it so wrong to think the less of another for what he or she was. There was no moral obligation to
like
others, nor necessarily to enthuse over them, but we did have to recognise their equal worth.

Barbara stood up. On the wall beside her bookcase there was a mirror that she used to tidy up before a meeting. Now she saw herself reflected in it, and she leaned forward to peer more closely at her face.
“Gypsy,”
she muttered under her breath. And what looked back was the face of her ancestors: long-dead judges of horseflesh, occupants of colourful wooden caravans, the victims of all sorts of abuse and bad treatment. She reached out and touched the reflection. “Hello,” she whispered, as one who, for the first time, acknowledges some aspect of self long denied or unknown.
Hello
.

W
HAT DIFFERENCE
, B
ARBARA
considered as she made her way to the coffee bar, what earthly difference does it make who my grandfather was? Or my grandmother, for that matter. Rupert had not mentioned her, and neither had Gregory, now that she thought of it: her father had only spoken of his own father, and it had never occurred to her to ask him about his mother. Perhaps that was just another example of the fate of women in those days—to be eclipsed by men. Was her grandmother also a gypsy—or traveller? Should she be using the word “gypsy”—was it an act of discourtesy towards her own people? She rather liked the word, which she had never seen as offensive, but then that was before the … the revelation; for that is how she thought of it—a profound and overwhelming revelation.
I am now something special
, she thought.
I am Rom … I come from somewhere else, from outside all this
. This answered the question as to what difference the revelation represented: in a curious way it freed her.

The publisher whom she was due to meet was already in the coffee bar when she arrived, seated at one of the small tables near the window. As she entered, he looked pointedly at his watch.

“I was about to give up on you,” he said.

Barbara glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “Sorry, George. It’s only ten minutes. I had a meeting.”

George looked at his watch again. “I have to be away in twenty minutes, I’m afraid.”

She ordered coffee for both of them and returned to the table.

“You’re Australian, aren’t you, George?”

He looked at her with surprise. “Of course I am. You know that. We did the Melbourne book with that author of yours. Remember—
we took him out to lunch, and we discovered that he and I had been at the same school.”

She remembered. She had paid the bill on that occasion too, and now she felt like saying:
I
took him out to lunch actually.

“You always knew you were Australian, of course.”

He looked at her sideways. “Always knew I was Australian? Of course I did. How could I think otherwise …?” He paused, and frowned. “Oh, I see what you’re driving at. Cultural identity—that sort of thing. Yes, well, I suppose in my case I grew up just after Whitlam and Australia was beginning to ask itself that sort of question. But I never thought of myself as British, as my parents did. They were both born there and yet they thought of themselves as British, at least for the first part of their lives. Then suddenly all that stopped and we thought of ourselves as Australian and nothing else. We grew up. End of the cultural cringe and all that. Finito.”

She listened. “And now?”

He smiled at her. “What is this? The cricket-support test? Whom do I cheer when I watch England versus Australia?”

“No, not that. It’s just … well, I’ve had a bit of a shock this morning. I’ve discovered something about myself.”

The proprietor brought their coffee to the table. George lifted his spoon and dipped it into the top layer of foamed milk. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “We publishers have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.” He grinned.

“Nothing to do with that.”

He lifted his cup to his lips. “So you’ve discovered you’re Australian? Is that it?”

She hesitated. It was the first time she was mentioning her new knowledge to anybody, and she might have chosen somebody other than George—Hugh, ideally—but George was in this place at this time and she had to speak about it.

“What do you think about gypsies?” she asked.

He lowered his cup. “Have you been drinking, Barbara?”

“What?”

“It’s just that you’ve made very little sense since you came in here. Asking me whether I always knew I was Australian. Then you mention a personal discovery of some sort. Then suddenly you ask me my view of gypsies, of all people.”

Barbara had to admit that it sounded strange. But it all made sense, she explained, because … “Well, you see, I’ve just discovered that I’m at least one quarter gypsy. Just this morning. An hour or so ago.”

George shrugged. “So are lots of people, I imagine.”

“But it’s important …”

He shrugged again. “Not really. Gypsies look pretty much like anybody else to me. Two arms, two legs, a nose.” He paused, looking at her in a way which made it seem as if he were assessing her. “Of course, people are pretty hung up on these things in this country, aren’t they? In Australia it makes not the slightest bit of difference. Half the population can trace their roots back to some poor cattle thief, and so we don’t put much store by such things. And what’s wrong with being a gypsy, anyway? Rather colourful life, I would have thought. Free as air. No taxes. They don’t pay income tax, do they?”

Barbara said that she was not sure whether they paid taxes. “I wasn’t saying there’s anything wrong. It’s just that it makes me
feel
different, somehow. It gives me a sense of being, well, a bit of an outsider.”

George laughed. “Imagination. You’re no different from what you were when you got up this morning. Don’t fantasise about gypsies or circuses or whatever. If you want that sort of stuff, go and read Enid Blyton.” He looked at her severely. “And now we have to get down to business, Barbara, as we can’t sit here indefinitely talking about you. That manuscript you sent me, the Errol Greatorex
one. We want him to finish it as soon as possible, and we’re going to do something big with it. But first we need to know: Is it fiction or non-fiction? By which I mean, is there really a yeti and did he really dictate his memoirs to this Greatorex character?”

Barbara took a sip of her coffee. “George, I’ll be absolutely straight with you. It’s non-fiction. And yes, the yeti exists.” She put down her cup, and added, “He really does. Would you like to meet him?”

“Of course.” He looked at her and smiled. “You know something, Barbara? I really don’t believe I’m having this conversation. How strange is that?”

“Very,” she said.

“And I’ve got a feeling you’re going to offer to tell my fortune. Or sell me a bunch of lucky heather.”

Barbara wagged a finger at him. “Don’t think in stereotypes,” she said. “But I may ask you for the price of a cup of coffee.”

T
HE EVENING SUN
was warm on the pink-washed walls of the Suffolk farmhouse in which William stood chatting with Maggie, his hostess and the wife of his childhood friend, Geoffrey.

“Where’s Geoff?” he asked as Maggie washed her hands in the large Belfast sink.

“Looking at the pigs, I think,” she said. “He usually checks up on them at this time of the evening. Our pig-keeper, Wally, goes off for his tea round about now, so Geoff takes the opportunity to spend a bit of quality time with the pigs.” She reached for a towel and dried her hands energetically. “Geoff’s trying some Gloucester
Old Spot and Tamworth crosses at the moment. Nice-looking pigs. He’ll be back soon.”

“Geoff’s a happy man, isn’t he? He’s got his pigs, this place, his stamp collection …”

Maggie, who had removed her glasses in the final stage of preparing her pie, now replaced them. “Yes, I think he’s happy. Although sometimes he wonders whether he isn’t getting in a rut with the farming thing and shouldn’t do something different with his life while he’s still got the energy for new projects.”

“The worst question to ask oneself,” said William. “Therein lies regret after regret.”

Maggie nodded. “Yes. The only point in asking that question is to sharpen up how one approaches the rest of one’s time. Having the odd regret might warn us against wasting our chances.” She paused, moving across the kitchen to gaze out of the window. The sun was on her face now, creating a halo effect through her slightly disordered hair. “I’ve often thought that the worst regret must be to think that one’s spent one’s life with the wrong person. It must be terrible, truly terrible.”

William agreed. “And yet many people must feel that, mustn’t they?”

“Yes. They must. Though these days, most of them can get out of their relationship—and do.”

William thought about this. He had friends who acknowledged that they were staying together for the sake of their children. He thought it noble. Maggie, though, seemed uncertain. “Noble? I suppose that any form of sacrifice has a certain nobility to it. And yet foolish may be an equally good way of describing it. Throwing away twenty years of your life, or however long, could be viewed as downright silly rather than noble.”

“Except it’s not throwing away twenty years—it’s setting them aside for a higher cause.”

No, she was even more unsure about that. “What did Horace say?
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
. It’s sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. Is it really? Or is it just bad luck?”

“I’m uncomfortable about that, Maggie. Really uncomfortable. Giving your life for something can be a magnificent thing to do, heroic …”

She was silent for a moment. “Yes, you’re right,” she conceded. “That was going too far. It depends on the cause, though. What if your country’s fighting an unjust war, or even a useless one? What then?”

“It may still be the right thing to do.”

This brought a sideways look from Maggie. “Maybe … But look, shall we go for a walk? By the time we come back Geoff will have returned from the pigs, and the two of you can have a whisky together before our guests arrive. We’ve invited a few people over for supper. Freddie de la Hay would like a walk, wouldn’t he? Where is he by the way?”

He had not seen Freddie since he came into the house. The dog had gone off to sniff about the garden, and William knew that he was unlikely to go far: Freddie de la Hay was no wanderer. “If he wants to come, he’ll turn up,” he said. “Otherwise he’ll be perfectly happy investigating your garden. You don’t mind, do you?”

Maggie did not. She fetched an old Barbour jacket—“Such a cliché,” she said, “but so comfortable and practical. Please don’t judge.”

“I have one myself,” said William. “And green wellingtons too.”

“Good. Then we’ll both sink into our stereotypes.”

They went outside. The summer solstice was six weeks in the past, as the slant of the evening sun revealed, but the air was still warm and heavy. Maggie had planted lavender in profusion and its scent was all about them, mingling with that of recently cut grass. William sniffed at it as he would at a good Médoc, savouring the
fragrance. The olfactory treat made him think of Freddie, and he called the dog several times.

“Nowhere to be seen?” asked Maggie.