Corduroy Mansions

79. Marcia Understands

‘Coquilles St Jacques,’ Marcia called from the kitchen. ‘How about that? And then . . .’

‘Perfect,’ William replied from the living room. ‘I love anything with cheese.’

‘Sometimes I think that cheese doesn’t help,’ Marcia said. ‘I use it if I think that whatever I’m cooking is maybe just a little bit past its best. You can get away with a lot when you use cheese.’

This elicited only silence from the living room.

‘Not that these scallops aren’t fresh,’ Marcia added hurriedly. ‘I think that they’re all right, but when you consider the distance they have to travel to reach us in London . . . Quite a journey.’

William was about to say something about seafood and the case of prawns that had been discovered to have been flown out to Malaysia, frozen there, and then flown back to London. That was a criminal waste of precious fuel, he thought, but once one started to think of the wastage of fuel, where would one stop? How many of the journeys we made were necessary? Twenty per cent? Possibly less. We did not need to go to Florida for our holidays, let alone Thailand. If there was something unnatural about transporting our food halfway round the world, the same might be said about transporting ourselves. And yet, if the means existed to do something, we would do it; the most cursory glance at human history confirmed that. Here and there, brave souls questioned this and were often howled down for their pains. Or people agreed with them, nodded sagely, and then did nothing. Very few people were prepared to take the first step, to deny themselves - on principle - something that was readily available.

William sighed. He would have to go and talk to Marcia, and he would have to do it before dinner. He rose to his feet, watched by Freddie de la Hay, who had settled himself on his favourite rug and was beginning to doze off, but still kept an eye half open, just in case something should happen in the inexplicable world of humans.

She was standing in front of the cooker, attending to the scallops. There was a cheese grater on the worktop beside her and a square of cheese rind.

‘Marcia,’ he began, ‘there’s something that I need to talk to you about.’

She did not turn round. ‘I know,’ she said.

He was momentarily taken by surprise. What did she know? That he wanted to talk - or what he wanted to say? Marcia had many talents, and perhaps prescience was one of them.

Now she turned round and he saw that there were tears in her eyes. He gasped, and took a step forward, instinctively ready to comfort her. ‘Oh, my dear . . .’

She held up a hand. ‘No, William. I’m all right. I’m all right.’

‘You’re crying.’

She put down the spoon she had been holding and wiped at her eyes. ‘Not really. Not really crying.’

‘But why?’

She looked at him. ‘I know, you see. You don’t even have to talk to me about it. You don’t have to say a thing - not a thing. The whole idea of my moving in here was a mistake. I should never have done it.’

William looked down at the floor. If he had imagined at one time that he might be alone in feeling that things were not right - that he alone might have picked up on the unspoken - now he was being reminded that when an atmosphere exists, it is usually not just one person who detects it. He felt bad about Marcia; he should have been firmer, he should have made his position clearer, rather than allowing her to make unwarranted assumptions.

‘Marcia,’ he began, ‘I . . .’

‘No. You don’t need to spell it out. It was all my fault - my own silly fault.’

‘It was not. It was not.’

She shook her head. ‘And now you’re being kind to me - which is just like you. But you don’t need to be.’

He drew in his breath. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I like you a great deal. It’s just that I don’t know whether it should go further. That’s not to say that I don’t . . . that I don’t find you attractive. It’s just that . . .’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘You really don’t have to say anything more.’

He swallowed hard. ‘But I want to. Look, why don’t you stay on for a while? We could be simply flatmates, like the girls downstairs. How about that?’

‘Is that what you’d like?’

He nodded. It was. And when Marcia accepted, tentatively at first, but with greater warmth when after a few moments she realised he meant the invitation, he felt a surge of relief. The encounter with Diesel’s owner had left him feeling raw, as can happen when one comes up against hatred, or evil, or just sheer rudeness. It was a form of moral shock and it made one yearn for reassurance. Having Marcia in the flat for a while longer would provide just that. And he was not doing it under any false pretence; she would stay there as a friend, free to come and go as she pleased, with neither of them reading anything more into the situation.

He stepped forward and took her hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This has all been my fault.’

She put a finger to her lips. ‘I have to do the scallops.’

‘I can’t wait. Coquilles St Jacques. Do you know why they’re called that?’

She shook her head. ‘St Jacques?’

‘St James. The scallop was his symbol. I’m not sure why. It was something to do with his having saved somebody from scallops, I think.’

Marcia laughed. ‘Are they dangerous?’

‘Get your fingers in a live scallop shell and see,’ he said. ‘And they swim around in shoals, you know. They’re quite energetic little things. They propel themselves by sucking water in and out. So I suppose if you had a whole shoal of them latching onto you . . .’

Marcia frowned. It was hard to envisage, but it was, she feared, something else to worry about. There seemed to be so much already - and now scallops.

But there were other, more pressing matters. ‘That painting,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do?’

William thought for a moment. ‘Show it to somebody,’ he said. ‘Caroline downstairs is doing some sort of course at Sotheby’s. Shall we show it to her?’

Marcia turned to stir the white wine sauce she had been preparing. ‘Can she keep her mouth shut?’

William wondered why this would be necessary. Did Marcia know - or suspect - something that he did not? Or did she have some plan that she had not yet disclosed?

He was thinking about this when Freddie de la Hay came into the room with something in his mouth. It was something that he had been chewing - a piece of old leather perhaps. William bent down to examine the plaything and Freddie dropped his tail between his legs. It was a metaphor for guilt, and it was guilt itself.

‘What have you got hold of, Freddie?’ William asked, taking the piece of leather from the dog’s mouth.

Freddie looked up at William with his large, liquid eyes. William froze.

A Belgian Shoe - or what remained of it.