The Office of the Dead (17 page)

‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Anyway, thank you for lunch. I really ought to be going now.’

‘Don’t go yet. There’s no hurry.’

‘I want to go shopping before I catch the train back.’

‘Where?’

‘I thought I’d start in Piccadilly and walk up Bond Street and then down Oxford Street. And then I can catch a tube or a bus back to Liverpool Street.’

‘Sounds arduous. Can’t I come too? Carry the parcels? Fight off the footpads?’

‘No, Henry. In any case, you’d be bored.’

‘I’d like to buy you a present.’

‘I don’t want a present, thanks. I doubt if I’ll buy anything. You wouldn’t understand – I just want to look. Shopping in Rosington is like shopping in nineteen fifty-three.’

‘I tell you what. I’ll buy you some gloves.’ He picked up the pair on the table. ‘Look at those. Filthy. You
need
some more.’

‘All right.’ I smiled at him. If money was no object I might as well make the most of it. ‘In that case you can buy me a pair from the Regent Glove Company. But they won’t be cheap.’

‘I should hope not.’

Henry paid the bill and we walked up to the Strand. He wanted to hail a taxi but I had a fit of remorse and wouldn’t let him.

‘Listen, Henry, you’re taking taxis everywhere, you’ve just given me lunch at the Savoy, you’re about to buy me the most expensive pair of gloves I’ve ever had – the way you’re going, that money will be gone in a few months. And why do we need a taxi? There’s nothing wrong with a bus.’

‘I think Rosington must have given you ideas below your station.’ But he took my arm and we walked towards the bus stop. ‘After you’ve done your shopping, let’s have a drink before your train. Perhaps even dinner. Or what about a show?’

‘Stop it, Henry. Anyway, I won’t have time.’

‘We could just have a quick drink at Liverpool Street if you want.’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Why not?’

I stopped so sharply that a man behind us bumped into Henry and swore.

‘Henry, nothing’s changed. It’s over between us. I promised I’d see you for lunch but that’s all.’ I thought of the Hairy Widow and hardened my heart. ‘I’m not going to meet you for a drink.’

He stared at me, looking hurt and angry at the same time. ‘But Wendy –’

‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.’

I pulled my arm away from his and we walked the rest of the way to the bus stop in silence.

It was about a minute later I changed my mind. The bus came almost at once. It was a double-decker, and I led the way upstairs. I wanted to look out of the window at the streets of London, pretend to be a tourist and not have to talk to my husband.

Henry followed me up the stairs. He was closer than I liked. His nearness oppressed me. It made me nervous and also gave me a pleasure I didn’t want. I turned round, meaning to glare at him. As I turned, something caught my eye.

Passengers were still filing on to the platform of the bus. I was just in time to see a small, dark man in a raincoat moving towards a seat on the lower deck. He wasn’t wearing a hat. He was bald.

From my vantage point on the stairs, I saw quite clearly that the bald patch was roughly the shape of a map of Africa.

The western side of the Cathedral’s spire was coated with evening sunlight as heavy as honey. I walked up from the station, occasionally glancing down at my new gloves, which were fine black suede, lined with silk. It was almost a crime to wear them.

In one way it had been a mistake to see Henry, I knew, like scratching a scab until the blood welled up again. On the train I’d kept thinking of him bouncing on top of his Hairy Widow. Henry with his bare, wobbling bottom like a plump baby’s, and the widow waving her legs in the air and wearing those oh-so-desirable, dark-blue, high-heeled shoes. It was there in the photograph, captured for all eternity in black and white, in my bedside table at the Dark Hostelry.

I trudged slowly up the hill towards the Porta. I wasn’t drunk and I didn’t have a hangover, though this was a matter of luck rather than good judgement. But I wasn’t exactly sober either. It was more than alcohol. Emotions can intoxicate you as well, even sadness.

Part of the sadness, tied up with Henry in some inexplicable way, was the knowledge I was here in Rosington again. That was one reason why I was walking slowly. I felt as though I were thirteen years old and trying to postpone the moment when I had to go back to Hillgard House at the beginning of term.

The first person I saw when I went into the Close was Mr Gotobed. He was sitting on a bench beside the door of his house, reading the sports page of the
Rosington Observer
and stroking a large ginger cat. He was still in his cassock, which he wore when he was being a verger and conducting the clergy about the Cathedral. When he heard my footsteps, he glanced over the top of the paper.

‘Mrs Appleyard.’ He stood up quickly, dislodging the cat. ‘Lovely evening.’

‘Isn’t it?’ The cat rubbed itself against my leg so I bent down and stroked it. ‘This is a fine animal. Is he yours?’

‘My mother’s. He’s not bothering you, is he?’

‘Not at all.’ The cat purred like a distant aeroplane. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Percy.’ Gotobed was blushing. ‘My mother says it ought to be spelt with a U and an S.’

I stared blankly at him for a moment. His blush deepened. Then I realized that Gotobed had made a joke. ‘Oh, I see! Pursy. Because of his purring. Very good.’

‘She’s ninety-three, my mother,’ confided Gotobed. ‘But she’s still got her sense of humour and she’s as bright as a button. Which reminds me. I told her about that pigeon. You remember?’

‘It’s not something you’re likely to forget in a hurry.’

‘Sorry – maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

‘No, I’m interested. What did your mother say?’

‘She said perhaps there’s a loony on the loose in the Close. Like there was last time.’

‘Last time?’

‘Fifty or sixty years ago. Someone started doing things to animals and things. Not at all nice.’

‘What exactly happened?’

He clasped his hands in front of him and his nose twitched. He looked so unhappy I would have liked to stroke him rather than Pursy.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to worry about shocking me. It just can’t be done.’

He gave me a tentative smile. ‘If you’re sure you want … Well, they found a rat without any legs outside Bleeders Hall one morning. And there was a headless cat in the north porch. Mother wasn’t sure, but she thought there might have been a bird without any wings as well.’

‘And did they ever find out who was doing it?’

‘Turned out to be one of the canons. He’d gone queer in the head, poor chap.’ Gotobed was staring at me now, his eyes clear and intelligent. ‘You wouldn’t have thought many people would remember it now. It’s a long time ago. But if someone did, they might be trying to play games with us, don’t you think? Like pretending to be a ghost.’

‘Do you believe in ghosts, Mr Gotobed?’

‘Not me, Mrs Appleyard.’ He slapped his hand against his thigh, and there was a
crack
that bounced off the wall of the Porta. ‘I only believe in what I can see and touch.’

I made a rapid calculation. If Mrs Gotobed was now ninety-three, she must have been about forty when Francis had left Rosington. ‘Was your mother living in the Close then?’

‘I don’t rightly know. It must have been around then she married Dad. But the way she talked about it, everyone knew what was going on.’

‘She must remember a lot about the old days.’

‘She remembers more about what happened when she was a girl than what happened yesterday. You know what these old folks are like.’ Gotobed beamed like a proud parent. ‘Of course, she gets a bit muddled. Thinks I’m Dad sometimes.’

‘Do you think she might let me talk to her?’ I added hastily, ‘I’m interested in the old days because of the Cathedral Library and the dean’s exhibition.’

‘I could ask her. Mind you, she doesn’t see many people now.’

I told him it didn’t matter and said good night.

The Cathedral clock struck half past eight. The swallows and martins were doing their evening acrobatics around the Octagon. I walked slowly, aware of my tiredness. In London, I’d found it hard to concentrate on the shops. I suppose the alcohol hadn’t helped. And meeting Henry had made me weary too, and so in another way had that business with Simon Martlesham and the little man on the bus.

No doubt tiredness was the reason why I felt someone was watching me. The feeling increased as I neared the door to the cloisters. It was almost as if Francis were pursuing me rather than the other way round. Which was absurd. Ghosts were no more plausible than gods and the idea that either of them, should they exist, should be interested in the living was equally silly. I remembered the lavender in my bag and wondered why I’d been fool enough to buy it.

Better to concentrate on the questions belonging to the here and now. What was Simon Martlesham up to? Was the little bald man the one who had borrowed the library book and stolen cuttings from the 1904 backfile of the
Rosington Observer
? And was he also the man Mr Treevor had seen in and outside the Dark Hostelry, the little dark man who looked like a ghost?

Now the Cathedral was between me and the sun. The path round the east end was in shadow. I walked more quickly. I was within fifty yards of the door to the garden of the Dark Hostelry when I heard the wings.

At first I thought one of the swallows had swooped down to hawk for insects near the ground, and that it had passed close to my ear. But the wing beats were slower and deeper than a swallow’s could ever be and I swear I felt the air move. On the other hand, I was in a suggestible mood and everyone knew that the acoustics of the Close were almost as strange as the acoustics of the Cathedral itself. The Close was a network of stone canyons with a battery of idiosyncratic sound effects. David said there was a spot outside the north door where a whisper could be heard clear as a bell at the Sacristan’s Gate.

All this galloped through my mind in not much more than a second. I looked up, half expecting to see a bird darting away. There was nothing. A trick of the mind, I told myself; I was tired.

I pushed open the gate of the Dark Hostelry. The sun was on the upper windows of the house and they gleamed like slabs of polished brass. The garden was in shadow. I noticed, as I had on that first day three months ago, how impossibly neat and tidy it was. The Byfields couldn’t afford a gardener, and it was all Janet’s work. How did she manage, especially now she was pregnant? And why did she bother? She had always been neat, in her possessions as well as in her person. At Hillgard House, her locker in the fourth-form common room had been displayed to all of us as a model of what a locker should be.

I made a resolution that in future I should at least mow the lawn. I walked up the path. I had missed supper but I didn’t mind that. It was a long time since lunch at the Savoy but I wasn’t hungry.

As usual the door was unlocked. I stepped into the hall. The house was silent. There was definitely an unpleasant smell now. Perhaps it was the drains or a rat had died under a floorboard. But there were no floorboards in the hall, only stone flags. David would have to talk to the chapter clerk.

For a moment I was seized with a dread that history was about to repeat itself, that soon there would be a child’s scream from upstairs. The doors to the sitting room, the dining room and the study were all open. I left my hat on the hall table and went down to the kitchen to show Janet my new suede gloves.

She was sitting at the table with the tradesmen’s account books in front of her. The books were closed and she was smoking a cigarette. She looked very pale.

‘Hello. How did it go?’

‘Glad it’s over.’

She started to get up. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Don’t bother.’ I sat down beside her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Tired. I thought I’d take the weight off my feet.’

‘You ought to be in bed.’

‘I’ll perk up in a moment.’

‘Where’s David?’

‘There’s a meeting at the Theo. Coll.’ She pushed the cigarettes and matches towards me. ‘But tell me, how was Henry?’

‘He bought me some very nice gloves.’

Janet stroked them. ‘They’re beautiful. I won’t ask how much they cost.’

‘And he also gave me this.’

I took the envelope from my handbag and passed it to Janet. I watched her opening it, watched her eyes widening.

‘Wendy, is this a joke?’

‘I don’t think so.’ I explained about Louis Goldman and about Henry going to South Africa. ‘Anyway, if I pay it in I’ll soon find out.’

‘If?’

I concentrated on lighting a cigarette. Then I said, ‘He wants to buy a share in a prep school, Veedon Hall, the one he used to teach in before he came here. He asked if I’d come back, if we could start again.’

‘And will you?’

‘I don’t know.’ I blew out smoke. ‘Half of me thinks, what’s the point? You can’t take away the past. I’m not even sure I want to.’

Janet said nothing.

‘You think I should go back to him, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Suddenly her face began to crumple like a sheet of paper. ‘I don’t know what I think about anything.’

‘It’ll be all right. Don’t worry.’

She sniffed and a tear fell on the table, just missing Henry’s cheque. ‘It’s probably because I’m pregnant. It’s as if all your emotions suddenly belong to someone else.’

I leant across the table and put my arm round her. Her shoulders were shaking.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘sorry. I’m not really like this, but I think I must have been bottling it up until you came back. I don’t want to bother David with it at present, he’s so busy.’

‘It’s not your fault. Blame the baby. My mother had a craving to eat grass when she was pregnant with me.’

She clung to me for a moment and then relaxed. How could David leave her in this state?

‘You’ve been doing too much,’ I said harshly.

‘Don’t be cross.’

‘I’m not cross with you. I’m cross with me.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She pulled away and looked at me. ‘What is it? Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Was it seeing Henry?’

‘I thought it was over. I thought I was past the worst.’ I stubbed out my cigarette, wishing the ashtray was the Hairy Widow’s face. ‘But on the train coming back I kept thinking about – about that woman. At least David doesn’t …’

‘David’s got God instead.’ She smiled at me to show the words were meant as a joke.

‘I’d like to kill the wretched woman,’ I said. ‘And torture Henry for a very long time.’

‘Of course you would.’

‘I must be going round the bend. When I was walking through the Close this evening I had the strangest feeling. I heard wings. It was as if a bird swooped down behind me. Not a swallow or anything like that. Something much larger.’

‘It’s the acoustics. And you’re tired.’

‘That’s what I told myself.’ I looked at her. ‘And to be honest I had too much to drink in London. I don’t suppose that helped.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s a difficult time.’

‘But it’s always difficult.’

‘You need an early bed. We all do.’

Neither of us spoke for a moment. It was the first time I’d mentioned the drinking, though she must have known about it. But Janet never tried to change me. She always took me as I was. She let me believe I was the strong one.

After a moment she looked at her watch. ‘I must go and check on Rosie. I promised I’d go up in ten minutes after I settled her down, and that was ages ago.’

‘I’ll go.’ I stood up, eager to show that I wasn’t a complete failure. ‘I bought a couple of postcards for her, and if she’s awake she can have them now. I need to take my things up anyway.’

I went slowly upstairs, back to that faint but definitely increasing smell in the hall. The sun was completely behind the Cathedral now and the whole house was in shadow. On the next flight, I heard Rosie giggling, an unusual sound – she was not a child that laughed much, partly because she had too much sense of her own dignity. I walked along the landing to the open door of her room. The curtains were still open and through the window I saw the Octagon and the spire, dark against a darkening sky. Rosie giggled again.