Andrew Taylor - The Judgement of Strangers

‘David?’

I turned back to Vanessa, ripe and lovely, looking up at me from the sofa. ‘What is it?’

‘To go back to – to Ronnie. It’s just – it’s just that I’m not sure I’m the right person to marry a clergyman.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not a regular churchgoer. I don’t even know if I believe in God.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, knowing that it did, though not perhaps in the way she thought. ‘In any case, belief in God comes in many forms.’

‘But his parish, the bishop –’

‘I am sure Ronald thought of all that. I don’t mean to pry, but surely it came up when he asked you to marry him?’

She nodded. ‘He said that God would find a way.’

There was a silence. Lord Peter rubbed his furry body against the glass and I wanted to throw the ashtray at him. I felt a rush of anger towards Ronald, joining the other emotions which were swirling round the sitting room. If I stayed here, they would suck me down.

I moved to the door. ‘I’ll make the coffee. I won’t be a moment.’

I slipped out of the room without giving her time to answer. In the hall I discovered that my forehead was damp with sweat. The house seemed airless, a redbrick coffin with too few windows. I went into the kitchen and opened the back door. While I was waiting for the kettle to boil I stared at my shrunken garden.

It was then that the idea slithered like a snake into my mind, showing itself openly for the first time: if anyone was going to marry Vanessa Forde, why shouldn’t it be me?

Vanessa did not linger over coffee. It was as if she were suddenly desperate to leave. We made no arrangement to see each other again. During the afternoon, I called at Tudor Cottage and relayed her opinion of The History of Roth to its author. Audrey’s reaction surprised me.

‘But what do you think, David?’

‘I think Vanessa’s opinion is worth taking seriously. After all, it’s her job. And it’s true that The History of Roth is rather short for a book.’

‘Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps it would be simpler to have it privately printed. And then we wouldn’t have to share the profits with the publisher. I wonder how much it would cost?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Would you mind asking Mrs Forde on my behalf? I’d feel a little awkward doing it myself. I haven’t even met her.’

Audrey continued to play the unwitting Cupid. After discussing the pros and cons exhaustively with me, she entrusted Royston and Forde with the job of printing The History of Roth. Audrey asked me to – in her words – ‘see it through the press’ for her. The typescript provided a reason for Vanessa and me to see each other without commitment on the one hand or guilt on the other; she was doing her job and I was helping a friend. We spent several evenings editing the book, and several more proofreading it. Usually we worked at her flat.

Vanessa cooked me meals on two occasions. Once I took her out to a restaurant in Richmond to repay her hospitality. I remember a candle in a wax-covered Chianti bottle, its flame doubled and dancing in her eyes, a red-and-white checked tablecloth and plates of gently steaming spaghetti bolognese.

‘It’s a shame there’s not more material about Francis Youlgreave,’ she said on that evening. ‘And why’s Audrey so keen to avoid giving offence?’

Because she’s a prude and a snob. I said, ‘When she was growing up, the Youlgreaves were the local grandees.’

‘So you had to treat even their black sheep with respect? That may have been true once, but does she need to be so coy now?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s her book, I suppose.’

‘I’ve been rereading Francis’s poems. He’d be an interesting subject for a PhD. Or even a biography. Now that would be commercial.’

‘Warts and all?’

Vanessa grinned across the table. ‘If you took away the warts, you wouldn’t have much left. Nothing interesting, anyway.’

There was no element of deception about our meetings. Vanessa never mentioned Ronald, and nor did I. I assumed that an engagement was no longer on the cards. The Trasks knew that Vanessa and I were working together on The History of Roth. What Cynthia thought about it, I did not know; but Ronald took it in his stride.

‘And how’s the book coming along?’ he asked me at one of the committee meetings he so frequently convened. He smiled, and his white teeth twinkled at me. ‘Vanessa’s told me all about it. I’m grateful, actually. She’s seeing another clergyman in a secular context, as it were. It’s so easy for lay people to assume we’re all dog collars and pious sentiments.’

When two people work together towards a shared goal, it can create a powerful sense of intimacy. Vanessa and I did not hurry, and at least the little book benefited from the attention we lavished on it. It was a happy time because we discovered that many of our tastes coincided – books, paintings, humour. Being a parish priest can be a lonely job, and her friendship became precious to me. Two months later, by the middle of November 1969, I decided to ask Vanessa to marry me.

It was not a decision I reached hastily, or rashly. It seemed to me that there was a host of reasons in favour. Vanessa was an intelligent and cultivated woman, a pleasure to be with. I was lonely. Rosemary would benefit from having an older woman in the family. The Vicarage needed the warmth Vanessa could bring to it. The wife of a parish priest can act as her husband’s eyes and ears. Last but not least, I urgently wanted to go to bed with Vanessa.

I was very calm. How things had altered, I thought smugly, since I had last considered marriage. Before proposing to Vanessa, I discussed my intentions with my spiritual director, Peter Hudson. He was an old friend who had helped me cope in those dark days after I left Rosington.

Peter was a few years older than I and was now a suffragan bishop in the neighbouring diocese of Oxford. At that time, he lived in Reading, which meant I could easily drive over and see him.

The Hudsons had a modern house on an estate. Peter’s wife June welcomed me with a kiss, gave each of us a cup of coffee and shooed us upstairs to his little study. The atmosphere was foggy with pipe smoke.

‘You’re looking well,’ he said to me. ‘Better than I’ve seen you for some time.’

‘I’m feeling better.’

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘I’m thinking of getting married again.’

Peter was in the act of lighting his pipe. He cocked an eye at me through the smoke. ‘I see.’

‘Her name’s Vanessa Forde. She’s a widow, and a partner in a small publishing company in Richmond. She’s thirty-nine.’

Smoke billowed from the pipe, but Peter said nothing. He was a small, sturdily built man who carried too much surplus fat. His plump face was soft-skinned and relatively unlined, with heavy eyebrows sprouting anarchically like twin tangles of barbed wire. He was the only person in the world who knew how ill suited I was to celibacy.

‘Tell me more.’

I told him how I had met Vanessa and how working on The History of Roth had brought us together. I outlined my reasons for asking her to marry me.

‘I realize it must seem selfish of me,’ I said, ‘but I know she doesn’t want to marry Ronald. And I honestly think I could make her happy. And she could make me happy, for that matter.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Of course I do. I’m not pretending it’s a grand passion – I’m middle-aged, for heaven’s sake. But there’s love, nonetheless, and liking, shared interests, affection –’

‘And sexual attraction, at least on your side.’

‘Yes – and why not? Surely that’s one of the purposes of marriage?’