Andrew Taylor - The Office of the Dead

I entered the Close by the Boneyard Gate from the High Street and ducked into the north door of the Cathedral to get out of the rain. Actually, it wouldn’t have taken me much longer to stay in the open and reach the Dark Hostelry. But Janet was there and I wanted a moment or two by myself to catch my breath and decide what I was going to say to her.

Walking into the Cathedral was like walking into an aquarium, as if you were moving from one medium to another. Here the air was still, cool and grey. Gotobed, the assistant verger, gave me a quick, shy smile and scurried into the vestry. The building smelled faintly of smoke, a combination of incense and the fumes from the stoves that fired the central heating. I remember these stoves far better than anything else in the Cathedral. They were dotted about the aisles like cast-iron birdcages. The stoves were circular, domed, about the height of a man but much wider. Perched on top of each one was a cast-iron crown which would have fitted a very small child.

The choir was rehearsing behind the screen dividing the space beneath the Octagon from the east end. I couldn’t see them but the sound of their voices welled into the crossing and poured into transepts and nave. Gotobed came out of the vestry, but this time he didn’t look at me because he was on duty, carrying his silver-tipped wand of office and conducting Mr Forbury in a procession of one back to the Deanery.

I sat down on a chair, wiped the rain from my face and tried to think. Instead I listened to the sound of the voices spiralling up into the Octagon below the spire. The nearest I came to thinking was when I found myself wondering what Henry was doing at this moment, and where, and with whom. He must have found another woman by now, someone else willing to make a fool of herself because he flattered and amused her.

Then I noticed Canon Hudson coming out of the vestry. To my annoyance he came over towards me. That was one of the problems of Rosington. I had been used to the anonymity of cities.

‘Hello, Mrs Appleyard. Enjoying the singing?’

‘I don’t know what it is but it’s very restful.’

‘We’re rather proud of our music here. If you’re here over Easter, you should –’

‘I don’t think I will be,’ I said roughly, the decision suddenly made.

‘You’re leaving us?’

‘I need to find a job. There’s nothing down here. Or rather, nothing that appeals.’

He sat down beside me and folded his hands on his lap. ‘And what exactly are you looking for, Mrs Appleyard?’

‘I don’t really know. But my husband’s left me so I’m going to have to make my own living now.’ I wished I could take the words back. My private life was none of his business. Janet had told other people that my husband was ‘away’. I glanced at my watch and pantomimed surprise. ‘Oh! Is that the time?’

‘Difficult for you,’ he said, ignoring my attempt to wind up the conversation. ‘Am I right in thinking you’d prefer to stay in Rosington for the time being?’

‘Well, it’s a possibility.’

‘You say you have no qualifications.’

‘Apart from School Certificate.’

‘And have you ever worked?’

‘Only in my father’s shop for a few years before I married. He was a jeweller.’

‘What did that entail?’

I nearly told him to mind his own business, but he was such a gentle little man that being unkind to him seemed as wantonly cruel as treading on a worm. ‘It varied. Sometimes I served in the shop, sometimes I helped with the accounts. I did most of the inventory when we sold the business.’

The music spiralled round and round above our heads. Just like me, it was trying to get out.

‘How interesting,’ Hudson said. ‘Well, if you really are looking for something local, in fact I know of a temporary part-time job which might fit the bill. It’s actually in the Close and to some extent you could choose the hours you work. But I don’t know whether it would suit you. Or indeed whether you would suit it.’ He smiled at me, taking the sting from the words. ‘I want someone to catalogue the Cathedral Library.’

I stared blankly at him. Still smiling, he stared back.

‘But I wouldn’t know where to start,’ I said. ‘Surely you’d need a librarian or a scholar or someone like that? It’s not the sort of thing I could do.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s obvious.’

‘Mrs Appleyard, what’s obvious to me is that it could suit us both if you were able to help. So it’s worth investigating, don’t you think?’

I shrugged, ungracious to the last.

‘Why don’t you have a look at the library now? It won’t take a moment.’

He was a persistent little man and in the end it was easier to do what he wanted than to refuse. He fetched a key from the vestry and then took me over to a door at the west end of the south choir aisle. He unlocked it and we stepped into a long vaulted room.

Suddenly it was much lighter. On the east wall, high above my head, were two great Norman windows filled with plain glass. A faded Turkish runner ran from the door along the length of the room’s long axis towards a pair of tables at the far end. On either side of the runner were wooden bookcases, seven feet high, dividing the room into bays. The temperature wasn’t much warmer than in the Cathedral itself, which meant it felt chilly even to someone inured to the draughts of the Dark Hostelry.

‘Originally the room would have been two chapels opening out of the south transept,’ Peter Hudson said. ‘It was converted into a library for the Cathedral in the eighteen-seventies. No one knows for sure, but we think there must be at least nine or ten thousand books here, possibly more.’

We walked the length of the room. I looked at the rank after rank of spines, most vertical, a few horizontal, bound in leather, bound in cloth. The air smelled of dust and dead paper. I already knew I didn’t have the training to do a job like this and probably not the aptitude either. But what I saw now was the sheer physical immensity of it.

One night at Hillgard House, Janet and I had sneaked out of our dormitory, slipped down the stairs and out of a side door. The sky was clear. We were in the middle of the country and in any case there was a blackout because it was wartime. We lay on our backs on the lawn, feeling the dew soaking through our nightdresses, and stared up at the summer sky.

‘How many stars are there?’ Janet murmured.

And I’d said, ‘You could never count them.’

Terror had risen in me, a sort of awe. Facing all those books in the Cathedral Library I felt the same awe, only once removed from panic. Like the night sky, the library was too big. It contained too many things. I just wasn’t on the right scale for it.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t think this will work.’

‘Let’s sit down and talk about it,’ Hudson suggested.

At the end of the room were two large tables and an ill-assorted collection of what looked like retired dining chairs. Behind the tables was a cupboard built along the length of the wall. Hudson pulled out one of the chairs and dusted it with his handkerchief. I sat down.

‘It’s such a big job, and anyway I wouldn’t know how to do it. I expect a lot of the books are valuable. I could damage them.’

He dusted another chair and sat down with a sigh of relief. Clasping his hands on the table, he smiled at me. ‘Let me tell you what the job would entail before you make up your mind.’

‘Aren’t there medieval manuscripts? I wouldn’t have the first idea how to read them.’

‘The Cathedral does possess a few medieval manuscripts and early printed books. But they’re not here. They’re either under lock and key in the Treasury or they’re on loan to Cambridge University Library or the British Museum. Nothing to worry about there.’