Andrew Taylor - The Judgement of Strangers

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.’

She smiled. ‘Not exactly. If the author wants to see it in print, she’ll probably have to pay for the privilege.’

‘I thought you might say that.’

‘She’ll probably blame my lack of acumen,’ Vanessa went on cheerfully. ‘A lot of authors appear to believe that there are no bad books, only bad publishers.’

‘So what would you advise?’

‘There’s no point in raising her hopes. Just say that I don’t think it’s a commercial proposition, and that I advised investigating the cost of having it privately printed. She could sell it in the church, in local shops. Perhaps there’s a local history society which would contribute towards the costs.’

‘Is there a printer you could recommend?’

‘You could try us, if you like. We have our own printing works. We could certainly give you a quotation.’

‘Really? That would be very kind.’

Simultaneously we turned to look at one another. At that moment there was a sudden movement at the window. Both our heads jerked towards it as if tugged by invisible strings, as if we were both conscious of having done something wrong. I felt a spurt of anger against the intruder who had broken in on our privacy. Audrey’s cat was on the sill, butting his nose against the glass.

Vanessa said, ‘Is that – is that yours?’

‘No – he belongs to Audrey, in fact – the person who wrote the book.’

‘Oh.’ She looked relieved. ‘My mother was afraid of cats. She was always going on about how insanitary they were. How they brought germs into the house, as well as the things they caught.’ She glanced sideways at me. ‘Do you think these things can be hereditary?’

‘Phobias?’

‘Oh, it’s not a phobia. I just don’t particularly like them. In fact, that one’s rather dapper. It looks as though he’s wearing evening dress.’

She was right. The cat was black, except for a triangular patch of white at the throat and more white on the paws. As we watched, he opened his mouth, a pink-and-white cavern, and miaowed, the sound reaching us through the open fanlight of the window.

‘He’s called Lord Peter,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘As in Dorothy L. Sayers. Audrey reads a lot of detective stories. His predecessor was called Poirot. And before him, there were two others – before my time: one was called Brown after Father Brown, and the first of the line was Sherlock.’

‘I can’t say I have much time for detective stories.’

‘Nor do I.’

I repressed the uncharitable memory of the time that Audrey had lent me Sayers’s The Nine Tailors, on the grounds that it was not only great literature but also contained a wonderfully convincing portrait of a vicar. I stood up, went to the window and waved at Lord Peter, trying to shoo him away. I did not dislike cats in general, but I disliked this one. His constant intrusions irritated me, and I blamed him for the strong feline stench in my garage. Ignoring my wave, he miaowed once more. It occurred to me that I felt about Lord Peter as I often felt about Audrey: that she was ceaselessly trying to encroach on our privacy at the Vicarage.