Эндрю Тэйлор – The Judgement of Strangers (страница 6)

‘No. Stop. Please stop.’

I was on my feet. The paralysis had dissolved. I stumbled down the church. The sound followed me. I put my hands over my ears but I could not block it out. The church was no longer a place of peace. I had turned it into a mockery of its former self. Defiled. I had defiled the church even as I had defiled myself.

I struggled with the latch of the south door. I was in such a state that it seemed to me that someone on the other side was holding it down. At last I wrenched it up and pulled at the door. I almost fell into the porch beyond.

Something moved on my right. Audrey’s cat, I thought for a split second, her wretched, bloody cat. Then I realized that I was wrong: that a person was sitting on the bench in the corner by the church notice board. I had a confused impression of pale clothing and a golden blur like a halo at the head. Then the figure stood up.

‘Hello, Father,’ said my daughter Rosemary. Her voice changed, filling with concern. ‘What’s wrong?’

5

At half past nine the following morning there was a ring on the doorbell. I was alone in the house. Rosemary had caught the bus to Staines to go shopping. I had managed to shave, but the only breakfast I had been able to face was a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

I found Audrey hovering on the doorstep, her body poised as if ready to dart into the hall at the slightest encouragement. I kept my hand on the door and tried to twist my mouth into a smile.

‘Sorry to disturb you, David. I just wondered what the verdict was.’

‘What verdict?’

‘You’re teasing me,’ she said in an arch voice. ‘The verdict on the book, of course.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Indeed I was, though not for the reasons Audrey assumed. ‘I’ve not been able to talk to Mrs Forde about it yet.’

She stuck out her lower lip, which was already pinched and protuberant, and increased her resemblance to a disappointed child. ‘I thought you were going to phone her yesterday evening.’

‘Yes, I’d hoped to, but – but there was a difficulty.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘I’ll try to talk to her today.’ I smiled, trying to soften the effect of my words. ‘I’ll phone you as soon as I hear something, shall I?’

‘Yes, please.’ She turned to go. She had taken only a couple of steps towards the road when she stopped and turned back to me. ‘David?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you for all you’re doing.’

My conscience twisted uncomfortably. Audrey smiled and walked away. I went back to my study and stared at the papers on my desk. Concentration demanded too much effort. I had slept badly, with dreams that hovered near the frontier of nightmare but did not actually cross it. One of them had been set in a version of Rosington, where Rosemary and I had lived before we came to Roth – when my wife Janet was still alive. I had not dreamed of Rosington for years. Vanessa had unsettled me, breached the defences I had built up so laboriously. (And I had been all too willing to have them breached.)

Audrey’s visit reminded me that I still had the problem of contacting Vanessa. I should have phoned her, as arranged, the previous evening, but I had spent much longer in the church than I had intended. By the time I had returned to the Vicarage the last thing I had wanted to do was talk to anyone, let alone Vanessa. I had persuaded myself without much trouble that it was too late to phone.

On the other hand, I could not run away from Vanessa for ever, or at least not until I had sorted out the business of Audrey’s wretched book. I did not want to phone her at the office, however, because that would mean having to run the gauntlet of Cynthia. I remembered that Cynthia worked only in the mornings. In that case, I thought, I would phone Vanessa this afternoon.

Now that I had made the decision, I felt slightly happier. I returned to the accounts I had abandoned the previous evening. But I had not got very far when there was another ring at the doorbell. I swore under my breath as I went into the hall. I opened the door. There was Vanessa herself.

I stared at her, fighting a rising tide of disbelief. She was wearing her dark suit and she had the envelope containing Audrey’s typescript clamped to her chest.

‘Hello, David.’

‘Vanessa – do come in.’

‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’

‘Only the accounts. And I was about to make some coffee, in any case. But I hope you haven’t come all this way to bring me back the book?’

She shook her head. ‘I had to visit a bookshop in Staines this morning. I’m on my way back.’

She followed me into the hall, and I led her through to the sitting room.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t phone yesterday evening.’

‘That’s all right.’ She looked out of the window, not at me. ‘I didn’t expect you to phone me back so late.’

‘I’m sorry?’

She turned from the window and looked at me. ‘Didn’t you get my message?’

‘What message?’

‘I phoned last night. I had another phone call, and I – I thought you might not have been able to get through. I left a message saying I’d phoned.’

‘I didn’t receive it.’ I thought of Rosemary waiting for me in the porch of the church. ‘You must have spoken to my daughter. I expect it slipped her mind.’

She smiled. ‘Young people have more important things to think about than relaying phone messages.’

‘Yes.’ I did not know what to say next. I knew I should make the coffee, but I did not want to leave Vanessa. I cleared my throat. ‘I saw Cynthia yesterday afternoon. She brought those things round for Rosemary.’

‘I know. She told me … I think she may have misled you about something.’

I stared at her. We were still standing in the middle of the room.

Vanessa picked at a piece of fluff on her sleeve. ‘I believe she gave you to understand that Ronnie and I are engaged.’

I nodded.

‘Well, that’s not true. Not exactly.’

I patted the pockets of my jacket, looking for the cigarettes I had left in the study. ‘There’s no need to tell me this. It’s none of my business.’

‘Cynthia and Ronnie were very good to me when Charles died.’

‘I’m sure they were.’

‘You don’t understand. When something like that happens you feel empty. And you can become very dependent on those who help you. Emotionally, I mean.’

‘I do understand,’ I said. ‘Only too well.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘Ronnie told me about your wife.’

‘It’s all right. It was a long time ago.’

‘One gets so wrapped up in oneself.’

‘I know.’

‘Listen, two weeks ago, Ronnie asked me to marry him. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no, either. I said I needed time. But he thought I was eventually going to say yes. To be perfectly honest, I thought I was going to say yes. In a way I felt that he deserved it. And I’m fond of him … Besides, I don’t like living on my own.’

‘I see. Won’t you sit down?’

I was not sure whether she was talking to me as a man or as a priest – a not uncommon problem in the Anglican Church. When we sat down, somehow we both chose the sofa. This had a low seat – uncomfortably low for me. It caused Vanessa’s skirt to ride up several inches above the knees. The sight was distracting. She snapped open her handbag and produced a packet of cigarettes, which she offered to me. I found some matches in my pocket. Lighting the cigarettes brought us very close together. There was now no doubt about it: as far as I was concerned, the man was well in ascendancy over the priest.

‘Ronnie hoped to announce our engagement on Friday evening,’ she continued. ‘I think that’s why he wanted the dinner party – to show me off. I didn’t want that.’ She blew out a plume of smoke like an angry dragon. ‘I didn’t like it, either. It made me feel like a trophy or something. And then this morning, Cynthia told me she’d been to see you, told me what she’d said. I was furious. I’m not engaged to Ronnie. In any case, it’s nothing to do with her.’

‘No doubt she meant well,’ I said, automatically clinging to the saving grace of good intentions.

‘We all mean well,’ Vanessa snapped back. ‘Sometimes that’s not enough.’

We smoked in silence for a moment. I glanced at her stockinged legs, dark and gleaming, and quickly looked away. She fiddled with her cigarette, rolling it between finger and thumb.

‘The book,’ I said, my voice a little hoarse. ‘What did you think of it?’

‘Yes.’ She seized the envelope as if it were a life belt. ‘There’s a good deal of interesting material in it. Particularly if you know Roth well. But I’m afraid it’s not really suitable for us.’

‘Is it worth our trying elsewhere?’

‘Frankly, no. I don’t think any trade publisher would want it. It’s not a book for the general market.’

‘Too short,’ I said slowly, ‘and too specialized. And not exactly scholarly, either.’