Corduroy Mansions

15. An Experiment

‘This way,’ said Manfred James. ‘We’ll go into my study, I think.’

William looked at Manfred. The columnist was a tall man somewhere in his forties, wearing a small pair of unframed glasses and with a slightly distracted, scholarly air to him. The disdain that William had picked up on the telephone was present in the flesh, he thought; his host’s aquiline nose was carried at such an angle as to look down on his guest, as if slightly displeased - if noses can express such things. He had welcomed William at the front door and led him into a book-lined room off the small entrance hall. As William stood there, glancing at the bookshelves, the barking that had greeted his arrival abated. That would be Freddie de la Hay, shut away in some room at the back. Dogs barked, of course; he had not thought of the implications of that for Corduroy Mansions. Would Freddie de la Hay’s barking carry to the flat downstairs and disturb the girls? Eddie would not like it, but then that was the whole point of the exercise. The more Freddie de la Hay and Eddie got on each other’s nerves, the better.

‘Tea?’ asked Manfred.

William accepted, and Manfred went out of the room, gesturing casually for his guest to sit on the small leather sofa backed up against a wall of shelves. As he sat down, William glanced at the books behind him. They seemed to be arranged in no particular order: Poland’s Past rubbed shoulders on one side with Schopenhauer Delineated and on the other with a small book on the history of rope-making in Bridport. Then came Garner’s Modern American Usage and a line of vintage Graham Greenes, as tatty and desolate as the territory they described.

A few minutes later Manfred came in with two mugs of tea. ‘You may conclude only one thing from my shelves,’ he said, noticing the direction of his guest’s gaze, ‘and that is that I have not bothered to organise the books according to any of the accepted patterns.’

William accepted the mug of tea offered him. ‘It’s difficult. I find that—’

Manfred, lowering himself into a chair opposite the sofa, cut him short. ‘Alphabetical arrangement is not the only option,’ he said. ‘And I’m always slightly suspicious of people whose books are arranged alphabetically. OCD issues. One isn’t a bookshop, you know. Nor a library.’

William shrugged. ‘It must be helpful, though. I find that when—’

‘The late Alistair Cooke had a wonderful scheme,’ Manfred continued, ‘whereby he placed books on the United States in such a position on his wall of shelves as to reflect their geographical situation. Books on Montana were at the top and those on Florida were down in the bottom right-hand corner.’

William smiled. ‘I once read about how the Victorians—’

‘Yes,’ said Manfred, ‘shelved books by male authors separately from those by female authors, out of a sense of propriety. Frightfully funny.’ He took a sip of his tea, staring intently at William over the top of the mug. ‘Now then, Freddie de la Hay. It’s an extraordinary coincidence that Maria—’

‘Marcia,’ interrupted William.

Manfred looked slightly annoyed. ‘Of course. Marcia. That Marcia should have discovered that we wanted to share our dog. And then discovered that you would be quite keen on an arrangement of that sort. Isn’t London extraordinary? There will be a consensus ad idem somewhere for every matter under the sun. And this applies to selling things too. If there is one person wishing to sell a collection of the stamps of Fiji, there will be some other person anxious to buy just such a thing. London, I think, is the perfect market. Ideas. Things. People. Every vendor will find a purchaser.’

‘I’m a wine merchant,’ offered William. ‘I sometimes go to the wine auctions and you find that even the most obscure—’

‘Yes, of course,’ interjected Manfred. ‘Now, Freddie de la Hay. He’s a remarkable dog, you know. We found him down in Kent, in a little place called Sutton Valence. Charming spot. A friend had put us in touch with a breeder down there and we chose him from a litter of four. He was by far the most intelligent-looking of the lot. I can’t stand an unintelligent dog, can you?’

‘It depends on the personality,’ said William. ‘You find that some dogs who are a bit dim are very affectionate, and then—’

‘Of course,’ interrupted Manfred. ‘That’s to be expected. But we wanted to carry out a little experiment with our dog and so we wanted one that was up to the challenge.’

William frowned. ‘Experiment?’ He decided that the best way to conduct a conversation with the columnist would be to use sentences of only one word. In this way, a contribution could be made before Manfred had time to interject.

‘Yes. An experiment. We wanted to see whether one could raise a dog for the twenty-first century.’

William stared at him. ‘Oh?’

The columnist adjusted his glasses; behind the lenses, the eyes were large. The aquiline nose tilted higher. ‘Do you realise the damage that dogs cause to the environment?’

William thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Well, I can give you the figures. Or rather, I could look them up, I have them somewhere. If you work out how many cattle dogs get through with that disgusting dog food of theirs, you can extrapolate how many acres of rain forest are felled for pasture to feed those cattle. Quod erat—’

‘Demonstrandum,’ supplied William.

The nose tilted again. ‘Exactly. So we have tried to bring up Freddie de la Hay to be a responsible world citizen. This has two dimensions to it. One is behavioural, and the other is dietary.’

‘Dietary,’ muttered William.

‘Yes. Freddie de la Hay, you see, is a vegetarian.’ Then he added, ‘For starters.’