A Conspiracy of Friends (20 page)

“After a few moments, he spoke again. ‘Let me make it quite clear,’ he said. ‘You are on this ship to perform certain duties. If you refuse to do these, or if you show any sign of distress to the passengers, then we shall simply dispose of you and bury you at sea. Do you understand? You will be watched on this ship and dealt with if you try anything untoward. Understand?’

“I had very little alternative, at least for the moment, and so I reluctantly nodded. ‘And what are these duties?’

“He relaxed. ‘Social, purely social. You are, if I may say so without being misunderstood, a very handsome young man. We have a few such young men on board to entertain our many lady guests. To dance with them. To talk to them. Many of these ladies are widows, and they very much appreciate the attentions of handsome young men—that will be confirmed by many widows to whom you speak. So you, my young friend, shall be given a badge which says
Official Gentleman
. You shall wear this at all times, and you shall make yourself available at each afternoon tea dance and in the evenings for the dinner dances. Understand?’

“I asked him if that was all, and he smiled enigmatically. ‘There may be other things,’ he said. ‘But we do not need to talk about those. You’ll find out soon enough.’

“I asked him whether I was expected to remain in the cabin, and he replied that this would be necessary only for the next half hour or so. ‘By that time we will have put out to sea,’ he said. ‘Naturally, we expect you to attempt to escape. That would be futile in harbour, but on the high seas it would be even more so.’

“He left, and the door was locked from the other side. Just as he promised, half an hour or so later, he returned and invited me to see the ship. He explained that I would receive instructions from the officer in charge of the social programme, and he would introduce me to this person in the course of our tour of the vessel.

“I discovered that the ship was sizeable but not as large as many of the cruise ships I had seen off Barranquilla or Cartagena. The passengers, I think, were a cut above the average: there were very few loud, Hawaiian-print shirts and pant-suits—the passengers here were dressed more soberly and expensively. And they were international too: French, British—with a smattering of Argentinians and Brazilians. Most of them, I observed, were women.

“After I had been shown round I was left to my own devices. For a while I was unsure what to do: the ship was now some distance off the coast, but there was a fishing boat not too far away, and I toyed with the idea of jumping off and attracting their attention. Fortunately, I did not. The drop from the deck to the sea was considerable, and there was no certainty that the crew of the fishing boat would see me.

“The officer in charge of the social programme, a thin Venezuelan with a Zapata moustache, came to find me on deck. He was a man of few words, who communicated largely through quick, dismissive gestures. I made it clear to him that I was fluent in Spanish, but he simply responded that in that case I should save my breath to speak to the passengers. ‘That’s why you’re here,’ he said, handing me a badge. ‘You dance every day—OK? A lady says
“You dance with me,” you dance with big smile on your face—OK? You do what the lady want—OK?’ At this point he made a dramatic, puzzling gesture, the meaning of which I was unable to fathom.

“The first dance was that evening. They brought me a dinner suit and a pair of black patent leather shoes. I put these on and went to stand in front of the mirror. But I couldn’t look into that mirror, Barbara—I was far too ashamed.”

T
HE WOMAN WHO
picked up Freddie de la Hay on that quiet Suffolk road was called Jane. She was, as chance would have it, a dog lover: as a girl she had been the owner of a matched pair of Jack Russells, and she had later owned, in succession, a short-lived bull terrier, who had died—valiantly, in a fight with another dog—and a yellow mongrel whom she had loved with all her heart but who had one day disappeared without trace. Jane’s husband, a graphic designer, was largely indifferent to dogs but indulged his wife’s need for canine company. They were a childless couple: two ectopic pregnancies had closed one door for them, and attempts to adopt had been frustrated by strains inflicted upon them by social workers. Jane found questioning by these people difficult to take and reacted testily. This raised suspicions in the minds of the social workers, and a spiral of distrust had been created. The final insult had come when one social worker had suggested that her husband, Phillip, lose weight before the question of adoption could be taken any further.

“But I am a fat man,” said Phillip, who was always disarmingly honest. “That is what I am. I cannot help what I am. And, frankly,
what has it got to do with you? What bearing has it on our wish to adopt?”

The social worker smiled. “You
can
help what you are, Phillip. If you didn’t eat too much, you would not be overweight. And it
does
matter that you are carrying too much weight around. It will affect your health, and an adopted child has a right to a healthy parent.”

This was followed by silence. Then Phillip replied. He spoke slowly, aware as he did so that every word would count against him in some assessment; every word he uttered would diminish their chances. But he could take it no more.

“A right to a healthy parent, you say? A
right
to a healthy parent? When exactly did you invent that right, may I ask? Children have parents given to them by chance. You may be lucky and get a great set of parents, or you may get people who don’t love you, or who drink, or who end up in prison. But they are your parents and you have no right to anybody else. You just
have
parents. That’s what parents are—they’re the people you
get
.”

The social worker merely smiled—a thin, tolerant smile of the sort one gives to those who say something naive or ridiculous. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I have to disagree.” And she added: “Phillip.”

This irritated Phillip even more. He had never invited her to use his first name; he was, as far as she was concerned, Mr. Stevens. He addressed her as Ms. Hebden, but she had gone straight to Phillip.

“You disagree, do you?” he said. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

She sighed. “It doesn’t help either of us to resort to aggressive language, Phillip. I’m only trying to help you.”

“That surprises me,” he said. “I would have said quite the opposite.”

“Well, you’re wrong, Phillip.”

“Listen,” he said. “I understand that you have to make sure that
people are serious about adoption. I understand that you can’t give a child to people who are going to change their minds two weeks later. I understand that. But you should accept that we know what we’re doing. You should make precisely the same assumption that society makes about people who produce children themselves. They’re left to get on with it, by and large—unless they run into people like you.”

The social worker sighed again. “We have a duty, Phillip. We have a duty to ensure that things go well—and remember, when something goes wrong,
we
get the blame, don’t we? Oh, don’t look away, Phillip: you will have seen those reports in the newspapers where social workers are crucified because somebody failed to spot a violent parent, or the risk assessment wasn’t carried out properly. They blame us—and they blame us with all the certainty of hindsight. Of course it should have been spotted. Of course it was possible to see that the brute of a father was going to do what he did. And so on. Us. They blame us. So turn on me, Phillip, and accuse me of being too intrusive.”

They had stared at one another in silence, and then the social worker had remembered an appointment and taken her leave. Jane, who had listened to the exchange but not participated, went to her husband and put her arms about him to comfort him. “It doesn’t matter, dear. It really doesn’t. I’m happy enough—I’ve got you, and you’re the nicest, gentlest person in the world.”

“No,” he said. “That’s you.”

This took place only a few months after the yellow dog had gone missing. “Perhaps somebody will send us a dog,” Jane remarked a little later.

“What an odd thing to say! You aren’t sent dogs, Jane dearest. You buy them, or you get them from the pound.”

“Some dogs are sent,” said Jane. “They are sent in the way in which prophets are sent. They are …”

He smiled, and kissed her. “Gentlest, most imaginative one. Yes, perhaps, we shall be sent a dog.”

And here was Freddie de la Hay, sitting in the front seat of Jane’s car, conducting himself with all his usual courtesy and consideration.

Freddie felt quite pleased with himself. The adventure down the rabbit hole had been traumatic, and he would not repeat it in future. It had produced, though, at least one good outcome, which was that he had retained some very interesting scents; these he was now savouring. The wetness on a dog’s nose has a purpose beyond that of leaving imprints on windows or surprising a human leg under a table with an unexpected cold nuzzle: to this moist bulb small particles attach, allowing smells to be conducted to a dog’s olfactory centres further up the snout. Freddie’s excursion into the rabbit burrow had resulted in a whole library of scents being deposited on his nose, and he was now enjoying these, recognising some, interrogating others, filing them all away for future use. He was quite happy for this drive to continue indefinitely: he was warm and comfortable; he had all those scents; this woman who was driving him seemed kind and, most importantly, smelled good to dogs. Freddie saw no reason to be anxious.

Nor was he anxious when they reached their destination, a house set back from a village lane—a house with a small studio in its grounds in which Phillip worked.

Jane led Freddie into the studio. Phillip was working over the weekend because he had a job to finish by lunchtime on Monday.

“A dog,” he remarked, barely looking up from his drawing board.

“Sent to us,” said Jane.

F
REDDIE WAS PLEASED
with his new surroundings. After their brief visit to the studio, during which he was patted and spoken to kindly by a man at a desk, Freddie accompanied Jane into the kitchen in the main house. There, he immediately walked round the room, sniffing at corners and investigating under tables and chairs. He smelled food: crumbs and fragments on the floor; a smear of something interesting on the hanging edge of a tablecloth (Marmite, he realised, which made him remember, even if only briefly, William, who liked to eat it at breakfast); a mélange of scents from scraps inside a metal bin. It was a good room, Freddie thought; a room that would keep one’s nose twitching.

This initial exploration complete, Freddie then trotted down the corridor that led from the kitchen into the downstairs living room. From the olfactory point of view this room was less interesting than the kitchen, but there were still challenging scents to be identified—the smell of a pile of old newspapers used to light fires; a slightly fusty odour from a vase of wilting flowers; a sharp tang from a patch of carpet on which traces of mud had been deposited by somebody’s shoes. There was enough here to keep Freddie busy for several minutes before he pushed open a door that led from this room to a narrow, sharply ascending staircase.

“All in good time,” said a voice from behind him. “Time for a snack, I think, Freddie.”

Jane took Freddie by the collar and guided him back towards the kitchen. He looked up at her slightly reproachfully; he did not need to be dragged in this way—all that was required was a clear indication of where to go and he would go there. But he did not
hold it against her, and he noted, with satisfaction, that the pressure around his neck eased as they entered the kitchen.

There was a plate of food on the floor, and Freddie set upon it with enthusiasm. The food was delicious—a warmed-up helping of stew extracted from the fridge—and Freddie glanced up gratefully as he wolfed it down. He had forgotten how hungry he was after his exertions in the rabbit burrow, but now his stomach felt comfortably full.

“You were ravenous, weren’t you, Freddie de la Hay?”

Freddie looked up at Jane. He was not sure what she wanted of him; people always wanted something of a dog, and dogs by and large were prepared to give it. But now, feeling pleasantly drowsy after his meal, Freddie was uncertain what was expected of him. He lay down. The kitchen was warm and he was safe. He closed his eyes.

Phillip came in. “He seems to have settled in rather quickly,” he said, looking down at Freddie.

“He’s a lovely dog,” said Jane. “Look at him.”

“What breed do you think he is?”

Jane shrugged. “They have all these new breeds,” she said. “Maybe he’s one of those. You know, those crosses between Labradors and poodles and so on.”

“Labradoodles? He’s not one of those. No poodle in there. No Lab either, I’d say.”

“No,” mused Jane. “Maybe not. What was that ridiculous dog those people had? The people we met in the village the other day?”

“It was a cross between a chihuahua and a poodle. Wasn’t it called a Poowawa?”

Jane nodded. “Something of the sort.”

Phillip sat down at the table. “We can’t keep him,” he said gently. “You know that?”

Jane moved over to the window and gazed out into the night. “I know.” She paused. “But what if …”

“Don’t clutch at straws, darling. He won’t have strayed far. Somebody will be looking for him.”

She turned round. “But it was in the middle of nowhere, Phil. There weren’t any houses in sight. It was right out at the edge of Hog’s Farm. There’s nothing there. He could have come from miles away.”

Phillip thought about this. He was a compassionate person and he wanted his wife to be happy. She loved dogs, and this dog seemed to like her well enough. But one could not pursue one’s own happiness at the cost of that of another. Somewhere out there in the night, this dog’s owner would be fretting about getting him back; they could not ignore that.

He was about to point this out when Jane spoke. “But you’re right. Of course, you’re right.” She looked at him. “What do we do? Go to the police?”