Corduroy Mansions

3. Dee is Rude about Others

As William locked his front door behind him that morning, he heard the sound of somebody fiddling with keys on the landing downstairs. This was nothing unusual: the girls, as he called them, had a difficult lock, and unless one inserted the key at precisely the right angle and then exerted a gentle upward pressure, it would not work. It was not unusual, he had noted, for the locking-up process to take five or ten minutes; on one occasion he had gone out to buy a newspaper and returned to discover one of the young women still struggling with the recalcitrant lock.

As he made his way downstairs, he saw that it was Dee on the landing below.

‘Having trouble with the key?’ he asked jauntily.

She looked up. ‘No more than usual. I thought I’d got the hang of it and then . . .’

‘Keys are like that,’ said William. ‘They never fit exactly. I remember an aunt of mine who used the wrong key for years. She was determined that it would work and she managed to force the lock of her front door every time. But it took a lot of force. She had lost the right key and was in fact using the back door key. The triumph of determination over . . . well, locks, I suppose.’

Dee stood back and allowed William to fiddle with the key. After a few twists the lock moved and he was able to withdraw the key. ‘There we are. Locked.’

They started downstairs together. There were four floors in Corduroy Mansions, if one included the basement. William owned the top flat, the girls were on the first floor, and in the ground-floor flat lived Mr Wickramsinghe, a mild, rather pre-occupied accountant whom nobody saw very much, but who kept fresh flowers in a vase in the common entrance hall.

‘The others have all left for work?’ asked William.

‘Some of them. Jo’s away for a couple of days. I’ve actually got the morning off, so I’m doing a bit of shopping before I go in at lunchtime. Caroline and Jenny are at work, if you can call it that.’

William raised an eyebrow. ‘From that, I take it that you don’t.’

Dee sniffed. ‘Well, look at Caroline. She’s doing that Master’s course at Sotheby’s. Fine Art. She goes to lectures and drifts around the salerooms. Very taxing.’

‘Very pleasant,’ said William. ‘But she’ll have essays to write, won’t she? “The Early Giotto” and that sort of thing. And articles to read? The Burlington Magazine, I suppose.’

Dee was not convinced. She worked in a health-food shop, the Pimlico Vitamin and Supplement Agency; she knew what hard work was.

‘And Jenny?’ William asked.

‘Her job consists of going to lunch, as far as I can tell,’ said Dee.

‘There must be more to it than that,’ said William. ‘Being a PA to an MP must involve something. All those letters from constituents. All those complaints about drains and hospital wards. Surely those must take up a lot of time?’

‘Oh yes, I suppose they do. But still she seems to have a lot of time for lunches.’

William smiled. ‘Have you met her boss? The MP.’

‘Oedipus Snark? Yes, I met him once. He came round to the flat to deliver some papers to Jenny.’ She shuddered involuntarily.

‘He didn’t make a good impression?’

‘Certainly not. A horrible man. Creepy.’

They had now come out of the front door and continued to walk together along the street. William walked to work; Dee was heading for the tube.

‘His name hardly helps,’ said William. ‘Oedipus Snark. It’s very unfortunate. Somewhat redolent of Trollope, I would have thought. What was the name of Trollope’s villain? Slope, wasn’t it? Snark and Slope are obviously birds of a feather.’

‘Creep.’

‘Yes,’ said William. ‘That would be another good name for a villain. Creep. Of course that’s a name with political associations already. You won’t remember CREEP, but I do. Just. Watergate. Remember Watergate?’ He realised that of course she would not. Just as she would know nothing about Winston Churchill or Mussolini; or Kenneth Williams or Liberace, for that matter. ‘CREEP was the name of the committee that President Nixon - he was a president of the United States, you know - had working for his re-election. The Committee to Re-elect the President. CREEP was the acronym.’ Dee seemed to be paying very little attention to him, but William was used to that. He was terribly old by her standards. She was twenty-eight and he was in his late forties (well, early fifties if one was going to be pedantic). He was old enough to be her father, a thought which depressed him. He did not want to be a father-figure to the young women who lived in the flat below. He wanted them to look upon him as a . . . friend. But it was too late for that. Being realistic, there were just not enough shared references in their respective worlds to allow for much of a friendship. The most he could hope for was a reasonably neighbourly relationship in which they did not condescend to him too much.

‘How does Jenny get on with Snark?’ asked William. ‘Does she share your low opinion of him?’

Dee became animated. ‘Yes. She really does. She hates him. She thinks he’s gross.’

‘I see.’

‘But then everybody hates him,’ Dee continued. ‘Even his mother.’

William laughed. ‘Surely not. Mothers rarely hate their sons. It’s a very non-maternal thing to do. Particularly if one’s son is called Oedipus.’

He waited for her to react. But nothing came.

‘Oedipus—’ he began.

‘But this one does,’ interrupted Dee. ‘Jenny told me all about it. She can’t conceal it. She hates him intensely.’

‘How does Jenny know all this?’

‘His mother has spoken to her about it. She said, “I wish I didn’t dislike my son so much, but I do. I can’t help it.”’ She paused. ‘And she’s plotting against him.’

William was silent. Mothers should not plot against their sons . . . and nor should fathers. And yet was that not exactly what he was doing? He was plotting against Eddie in that he was making plans for Eddie’s exclusion from the flat. But that was different: he was not working for Eddie’s downfall, merely for his moving out. It was a different sort of plot, but nevertheless he felt a degree of shame about it. And yet at the same time, he felt a certain satisfaction at the sheer cunning of his idea. Eddie could not abide dogs and was petrified of even the smallest and most unthreatening breeds. It would not be necessary, then, for William to buy himself an Alsatian or a Rottweiler; a mere terrier would do the trick. If a dog moved into the house, then Eddie would have to move out. It was a very simple and really rather clever plan.

William smiled.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Dee.

‘Nothing much,’ said William. ‘Just an idea I’ve had.’