Corduroy Mansions

9. Marcia’s Idea

Although Marcia had a habit of parking her van half-way over the pavement, she had never been given a parking ticket.

‘The wardens are sweeties,’ she once said to William. ‘Or at least the male wardens are - in my experience. If you talk to them reasonably, they understand that you don’t mean any harm. It’s the female ones who are the problem. They’re ruthless. Fortunately, I’ve never had any dealings with them, but my goodness, they’re a bunch of frumps. Amazons. And they take out all their sexual frustrations on drivers - all because they can’t get a man. Not one of them, I believe, has a man. Can you credit it?’

William had smiled. He was used to Marcia sounding off about all sorts of matters, and used to discounting most of what she said. She was full of prejudices, but in spite of that he found her entertaining. Nothing she said was really nasty; untrue, perhaps, and extreme, but not downright nasty.

That afternoon, she parked her car immediately in front of the wine shop, in a spot where the council might once have considered establishing a paid parking place but in the end decided not to. It was just right, Marcia thought; it was a car-shaped space that needed a car, or, as in this case, a modest-sized van, and she was doing no harm in leaving the van protruding just slightly over the pavement.

‘There you are,’ she said, as she walked into William’s office at the back of the shop. ‘Was that the coffee you were putting on?’

‘No, not exactly. But I can if you wish.’

She lowered herself into the chair on the other side of William’s desk. ‘There’s a dear. Thank you. As I said on the phone—’

‘You have some important news to impart to me.’

‘Yes, I do.’

William busied himself with the coffee as Marcia began to talk. ‘Eddie,’ she said.

William stiffened slightly. ‘Eddie?’

‘Yes, Eddie.’ She paused, and looked at him across the room. ‘You were telling me that you were keen to get Eddie into his own place.’

William unscrewed the top of the coffee canister and sniffed at the contents. Smells. He was very sensitive to smell, and coffee grounds were one of his olfactory favourites.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Eddie is twenty-four now and I have been thinking about helping him to move on. There was that place in Kentish Town . . .’

‘You told me about that,’ said Marcia. ‘The one that had no kitchen and a front door at a forty-five-degree angle.’

‘Yes. Not the best of places. But he could have made something of it.’

‘But didn’t.’

William sighed. ‘No. He didn’t.’ He turned and met Marcia’s stare. ‘Look, Marcia, Eddie may have his little failings but he is my flesh and blood, you know . . .’

She held up a hand. ‘Of course he is. Of course. And as his father you love him dearly. I know that.’

William turned back to the coffee. Did he love Eddie dearly? Would it be possible for anybody to love Eddie dearly? William’s late wife had done so, but that was because she was his mother. Every mother loves her son dearly - or should. Even after the son has done something egregiously terrible - tried to shoot the Pope, or something equally awful - the mother would still love him. There had been that man, of course, who had shot the Pope; what must his mother have thought? Perhaps it would depend on whether the mother was Catholic or not, thought William. A Catholic mother might find her maternal affection stretched if her son did something like that. But then again, she would have remained his mother and might have argued, ‘Well, dear, you must have had your reasons . . .’

The thought occurred to him that Marcia had found a flat for Eddie. That would be all very well, but the problem lay not so much in the finding of flats - there were plenty of those - but in getting Eddie to move into one of them.

‘You’ve found somewhere suitable for him?’ he asked. ‘He’s difficult, you know. He’s very fussy when it comes to flats. Corduroy Mansions seems to suit him rather too well.’

Marcia shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t found him a flat. But I’ve found a way of encouraging him to move out. It’s something you and I have already discussed.’

William poured two shots of espresso into a cup and brought it over to Marcia.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Strong.’

She looked at him appreciatively. ‘Remember you said you’d had the idea of getting a dog. You said that Eddie can’t stand dogs and that if you got one, then he would probably be inclined to move out. Remember?’

William laughed. ‘Yes, I do. I had planned that but the problem, you see, is that I can’t envisage keeping a dog for ever. What would happen once Eddie had taken the hint? You can’t take dogs back to the . . .’ - he waved a hand in the air - ‘to the dog place.’

‘But—’

William was emphatic. ‘No, you can’t.’

‘I know that,’ said Marcia, rather crossly. ‘But the point is that you could have a temporary dog.’ She paused, taking a sip of her espresso. William made such delicious coffee, and yet there he was single; such a waste . . . ‘Let me explain. I was catering for a dinner party in Highgate the other night. Quite a do, and some fairly well-known faces there. The host is a newspaper columnist. Not that I read him. But somebody must, I suppose. Always preaching to people, telling them what to do; holier than thou. Anyway, when I took things round before the guests arrived I got talking to him. They have this dog, you see. Odd sort of creature. A mongrel, I’d say, but he said it was a Pimlico Terrier. Now there’s a coincidence - you living in Pimlico. Have you ever heard of Pimlico Terriers? No? Neither have I.’

She took another sip of her coffee. ‘Anyway, he said that they liked this dog but they wished they had some sort of dog-sharing arrangement. He said that they had friends who had a set-up like that - the dog was shared by two households. If one set of people had to go away, the dog went to the other. It divided its time.’

William nodded. ‘A useful arrangement. People sometimes have that sort of thing for their elderly relatives.’

‘Exactly. So it occurred to me: why don’t you talk to them about sharing this Pimlico Terrier with them? You need a dog, but not a full-time dog. They have a full-time dog that they would like to convert into a part-time dog. If job-sharing is all the rage, then why not dog-sharing?’