Free A Conspiracy of Friends by Alexander McCall Smith

owned by Barbara. “Pop would never have sold it,” he complained, “if he had known that Gregory was going to pass it on to her. He wanted to help Gregory out, not his daughter. Morally, that flat’s mine.”
    Barbara ignored the snide remarks that Rupert regularly madeabout her ownership of her flat. She paid no attention when Rupert let drop the fact that he and his wife had expected to have a little bit more living room, and would have had it, had things worked out “as we expected.”
    Then came the engagement to Hugh, and her offer to sell the flat to Rupert. The plan had been perfectly sensible: she could just as easily work at a distance if she had access to a broadband connection, and all she would need in London was a
pied-à-terre
to use when she came down for meetings.
    Rupert had been overwhelmed by the offer and appeared to put all resentment behind him.
    “That is astonishingly good of you,” he said. “I know that in the past I might have brought up certain issues, but …”
    “Water under the bridge,” she said. “Don’t let’s even think about all that.”
    “It’s really kind of you,” he said. “When shall we …?”
    “Would you mind giving me a bit of time? I need to sort everything out.”
    He had readily agreed. “Take as long as you like. This is a major life-change. You need to sort everything out, especially if you’re going to be working away from the office. We need to get the modalities of that all worked out.”
    Rupert liked the word “modalities” and made frequent use of it. Barbara imagined that even his shopping list contained modalities.
Soap powder. Milk. Bread. Kitchen modalities …
    “You don’t see any difficulty with my working up there? These days, with broadband conferencing and pdfs and so on, one doesn’t really have to be in the office.”
    “No problem,” said Rupert. “None at all. You get the authors to submit in electronic format. Press the print button. Have a glance at the dreary, introspective rubbish. Send the rejection letter back that day by email.”
    “Very funny!”
    “But on the nose. Have you noticed how many unpublishable memoirs of awful experiences we’re getting these days? Three a day. Four sometimes.”
    Barbara thought he was being unsympathetic. Rupert was a man, and men, in her experience, did not like to read about the misfortunes of others. Women, by contrast, loved to do just that, drawing on the vast wells of feeling built up over the generations. “But lots of people have dreadful things happen to them,” she objected. “In their childhood, for instance. All sorts of cruelty and insecurity.”
    “True. But lots don’t. How about some memoirs from them for a change?”
    She wondered whether Rupert had ever suffered. He was so self-assured, so apparently pleased to be Rupert Porter …
    “Nothing nasty ever happen to you, Rupert?” she asked. “When you were a boy?”
    Rupert shook his head. “Not really.”
    “Never bullied?”
    “Not that I remember. The odd fight in the playground, of course, but who didn’t have that sort of thing? Part of growing up.”
    He paused, and for a moment she thought that he was going to say more. He did not, but he was remembering something now: how his father, Fatty, had once punished him for some transgression. His father had sat on him, forcing the wind out of him under that great, crushing weight. “Do it one more time,” Fatty had warned, “and I’ll sit on you again!”
    The moment passed, and the suppressed memory of darkness and a struggle for breath faded.

16. Her Own Decision
    B ARBARA HAD NOT told Hugh immediately that the buyer she had in mind for her flat was Rupert. When she did eventually reveal this to him, though, he frowned and looked doubtful.
    “Why him?” he asked.
    “Because he’s wanted it for years,” she explained. “He has this bizarre notion that it’s his by right because his father sold it to my father. He thinks about it all the time