The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

Chapter 49: In the Waiting Room

The offices of the Ragg Porter Literary Agency occupied one third of a comfortable-looking building overlooking a leafy square in Soho. It was convenient for both the agency’s members of staff and for their clients, as it was a stone’s throw or, as Rupert’s father, Fatty Porter, used so wittily to put it, a manuscript’s throw from Piccadilly Circus. He used the expression to describe to new authors how to find the offices, and they usually laughed, little realising that Fatty did, in fact, throw manuscripts out of the window if he considered them dull or they otherwise annoyed him. Behaviour was different in those days, and a literary agent who threw manuscripts out of the window was considered merely eccentric, or colourful, rather than an over-educated litter-lout. The sense of entitlement, now so deeply embedded in consumerism, that would have regarded such behaviour as insensitive and arrogant was then quite unheard of. In those days people took what they got from a literary agent, just as they did from doctors, teachers, policemen and virtually all other figures of authority. That this was grossly unfair – and intimidating – is surely beyond debate, especially in an age when the tables have been so completely reversed as to require doctors, teachers, policemen and other figures of authority to take what they get from members of the public, and to take it in a spirit of meekness and complete self-abasement.

The office occupied the top storey of the building, the two floors below being having been let for as long as anyone could remember to a film-editing company and a dealer in Greco-Roman antiquities. The dealer in antiquities, Ernest Bartlett, was himself of great antiquity, and there was occasionally some debate as to whether he could technically still be alive. However lights still went on and off in his office, and sometimes on the stairs one might hear drifting from behind his door snatches of sound from the ancient device that Gregory Ragg had christened “Bartlett’s steam radio”. This radio was permanently tuned to a radio station of the sort everybody thought had stopped broadcasting. It played light classical music and big bands, but played them in a quiet, rather distant way, as if from a far corner of the ether. The effect was haunting.

Ernest Bartlett was always invited to the Ragg Porter Christmas party, and would normally attend. He would arrive wearing a very old silver-grey double-breasted suit and a Garrick Club tie, and bearing an armful of carefully wrapped gifts. In conversation with the staff, he would refer to Rupert as “Fatty Porter’s much-admired son”, and to Barbara as “Gregory Ragg’s distinguished daughter”. He drank bitter lemon at these parties and rarely ate more than one or two small biscuits, which he described as “egregiously Bacchanalian behaviour on my part”.

As Rupert made up his way up the stairs that morning, he caught the faint sound of Ernest Bartlett’s steam radio. Vera Lynn, he thought, and smiled. It was a good omen for a day that had not, he admitted to himself, had a brilliant beginning, what with that uncomfortable froideur from Gloria, now happily laid to rest with the paying of mutually satisfactory compliments.

He pressed the buzzer on the office door. He had a key somewhere, but he could see Andrea, the agency’s receptionist, through the glass. She looked up at him, waved and triggered the mechanism to open the door.

“Nice and early this morning, Rupert.”

“Raring to go, Andrea. Unlike some.” It was a vague, slightly snide reference to Barbara, who was still away on her romantic trip to the Highlands. Andrea understood, but said nothing. She nodded her head in the direction of the small waiting room behind her. “You have somebody waiting to see you,” she said.

Rupert frowned. He had been under the impression that his morning was free until at least eleven o’clock, when he was due to meet a publisher to discuss a manuscript that was four years late. He had already marshalled his arguments: the author had been busy; the topic was more complicated than he had at first assumed; he was a perfectionist, indeed he was a manuscript-retentive. There were so many reasons.

“An appointment?”

Andrea shook her head. “No. Actually it’s one of Barbara’s authors. The American—”

She did not finish. The door of the waiting room swung open and Errol Greatorex appeared in the doorway.

Rupert did not move. He had been bending forward slightly to hear what Andrea had to say, and he stayed as he was, as if caught by a sudden attack of back pain. For his part, Errol Greatorex also froze, arrested by surprise rather than, as in Rupert’s case, by mortifying embarrassment.

Errol Greatorex glanced briefly at Andrea. Then he looked at Rupert and frowned. “Teddy?”

Rupert closed his eyes briefly. He drew himself up. “What?”

It bought him time, but not much.

“Teddy? Last night.”

Rupert shook his head. Andrea watched. How could she make any sense of this? Teddy. Last night. How could one possibly interpret a situation where a man who is not called Teddy is recognised as Teddy by another person who then says, “last night”? To say “last night” is potentially explosive, as it implies that last night … And to say it to somebody who must have been using a false name … And Teddy is so patently false. Well, what on earth was one to think?

“I beg your pardon?” said Rupert.

Americans do not mince their words – it is one of their great qualities, and indeed one of the great causes of misunderstanding between the United States and the United Kingdom, where words are regularly minced so finely as to be virtually unintelligible. So Errol Greatorex went straight to the point. “But we met last night in Barbara’s flat. Remember?”

Andrea looked at Rupert with interest. She knew that Barbara was in Scotland with her fiancé. What was Rupert doing in Barbara’s flat with Errol Greatorex?

“I’m sorry,” said Rupert. “I think you’re mixing me up with somebody else.”

It sounded lame. He could hear it himself. But what else could he say?

“I don’t think so,” said Errol. “You were wearing the same tie, anyway. That stripy thing.”

Rupert looked down at his tie, as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh, that! It’s a very common tie, you know. Half the men in London wear this tie.”

Errol Greatorex looked confused. “Strange,” he said. “Very strange.”

“London is a large city,” said Rupert airily. “One’s bound to have a double. Several doubles, in fact. We are not unique – much as we might like to be.”

Errol was still staring at him.

“You wanted to see me?” said Rupert. “I’m Rupert Porter, by the way. Barbara’s co-director.” He reached out to Errol Greatorex, who took his hand and gave it a perfunctory shake. His stare was still fixed on Rupert, and his tie.

“Strange,” he muttered again.

“Well, be that as it may,” said Rupert, now adopting a businesslike manner, “if you’d care to come with me, we can have a chat over a cup of coffee. Andrea, would you be a real darling and make Mr Greatorex a cup of coffee? If he wants one, that is. We don’t like to force our authors to do anything.” He gave a nervous laugh.

Errol Greatorex nodded to Andrea. “No milk,” he said. “But have you got any ghee? That’s what the yeti drinks. Tea or coffee with ghee in it. Melted butter.”