The Office of the Dead

by Taylor, Andrew

  I sipped my tea and then picked up the envelope. The handwriting was familiar but I couldn’t put a name to it. I slit the envelope with the handle of a spoon, pulled out the letter and glanced at the signature. It was from Peter Hudson.

  My dear Wendy

  I imagine you’re both very busy, on the verge of the new term. I am writing partly so June and I can wish you and Henry the best of luck with your new venture.

  The cataloguing of the Cathedral Library has at last been finished! James Heber (a friend of Mrs Forbury’s nephew) spent the summer finishing what you so ably began. He has just completed the History Tripos at Cambridge and is going on to do his MA at Durham. He found no more surprises, thank heaven! No decision has yet been made about what we shall do with the books, nor with those in the Theological College Library.

  The dean’s exhibition in the Chapter House has been a success, you will be glad to hear – so much so that there are plans to expand it and make it permanent. So the dean asked young Heber to have a look at the Rosington Archive in Cambridge University Library to see if there was anything worth including. It’s a collection of records and other material, some monastic but most Post-Reformation, relating to the Cathedral and the diocese. It was lodged in the University Library by Canon Youlgreave. Someone catalogued it in a rather perfunctory way in the 1920s, but only in part.

  Heber turned up several possible exhibits. He also came across a reference in the Sacrist’s Accounts for 1402 to the cost of fuel and other expenses relating to the burning of heretics. There was some debate about who should be ultimately responsible for meeting these expenses – the Abbey felt it was the King’s responsibility, not theirs. The interesting point is that those burned were named – two of them came from the village of Mudgley, and one of those was called Isabella. So perhaps that poem of Youlgreave’s had some foundation in fact after all. Unfortunately there was no mention of the precise charges.

  There’s one other thing. I had a letter last week, addressed to me as Cathedral Librarian, from a man named Simon Martlesham. He said he had been trying to get in touch with you at the Dark Hostelry, had found out you had moved, and wondered if I had a forwarding address. He said you knew how to contact him so I’ve dropped him a line saying that I’ve passed his request on to you.

  We hope to see David and Rosie in October if all goes well. I know you have been in touch too. Remember us to them when you see them.

  June sends her affectionate good wishes to you both, as do I,

  Peter

  I passed the letter to Henry and watched him read it as I finished my tea. I saw the frown shooting up between his eyebrows as he neared the end.

  ‘I think we should call it a day,’ he said after he’d finished.

  ‘Call what a day?’

  ‘All this Youlgreave-Martlesham stuff. You’re not going to get in touch with Martlesham, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s all in the past. You have to put it behind you.’

  Some things I would never put behind me, among them Janet and the Hairy Widow. ‘I’ll see,’ I said.

  ‘Let it be,’ Henry advised. ‘Please.’

  ‘Is there anything more to know?’ I peered into my cup, looking for my fortune among the leaves. ‘And is there any more tea in the pot?’

  48

  Three days later, on Thursday, I met David, Rosie and Angel under the clock at Waterloo Station. Henry had offered to come with me, but I persuaded him to stay at school. I didn’t want a fractious husband in tow. Henry didn’t enjoy buying clothes, even for himself.

  ‘You won’t overdo it,’ he had said when he drove me to the station. ‘Promise.’

  ‘I promise.’

  David looked relieved to see me. He had a briefcase under his arm and dark smudges under bloodshot eyes. I wondered whether his God was being much help to him now. Rosie was wearing another dress I recognized, navy-blue needlecord dotted with pale pink horses, with puffed sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. It was the one Janet had given her for her fifth birthday. Someone had plaited her hair rather badly. In one hand she carried Angel. In the other she clutched a miniature handbag made of plastic and intended to look like patent leather.

  ‘Are you sure this won’t be too much trouble?’ David asked.

  ‘Not at all. I shall enjoy it.’

  ‘You must let me pay for your lunch as well.’ He took out a worn wallet. ‘And you’ll need something for taxis. How much do you think one should budget for the clothes? About ten pounds?’

  ‘There’s no need,’ I said. ‘This is my treat.’

  ‘I can’t allow that.’

  Rosie stared up at us, her eyes moving from David’s face to mine. Her expression was intent, as though the fate of the world rested upon the result of the conversation. The fingers holding the handbag strap whitened. For a moment I said nothing because there was no need for me to say the words aloud.

  Let me do this for Janet’s sake.

  ‘Where and when would you like to meet?’ David asked.

  He had capitulated and we both knew it. As soon as we had arranged a rendezvous, he couldn’t wait to get away. He was going to have a day of unbridled fun working on his book on Thomas Aquinas in a library. I think he was so relieved to escape from Granny Byfield that he would have enjoyed anything, even shopping for clothes with Rosie and me.

  Later, when David had left and Rosie and I were queuing for a taxi, she slipped her hand into mine, which wasn’t something she often did voluntarily. She tugged my arm as though pulling a bellrope for service in an old-fashioned hotel.

  She turned her perfect face up to mine. ‘Auntie Wendy? Do you think I could have a dress with a belt?’

  ‘I should think so.’

  We went to Oxford Street and spent most of the morning shopping. I spent a small fortune – I was reasonably confident that neither David nor his mother would have an accurate idea of the cost of children’s clothes in the West End. Angel was never far from Rosie, and before we bought anything Rosie went through the ritual of asking the doll’s opinion.

  After Selfridge’s, we were both exhausted so we found a restaurant and had lunch.

  ‘It looks as if Angel could do with a few new clothes as well,’ I said as we were waiting for our pudding. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Yes, please. Angel would love that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Mama!’ squawked the doll, because Rosie had pushed her chest.

  I studied Angel. The fabric of her dress had shrunk and in places the pink had run.

  ‘Granny washed her clothes,’ Rosie said. ‘It didn’t do much good.’

  ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

  She nodded and bestowed a small, prim smile on me. She was a well-brought-up child, and had done this whenever I had offered to buy her something. I would have preferred it if she’d thrown her arms around me and kissed me. Or better still, said she loved me, though in my heart of hearts I knew even then it could only be cupboard love. But Rosie was such a pretty little girl, and my best friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear her say she loved me. I wanted to believe it, too, and I still hoped that one day she might mean it.

  I realize now that Rosie disliked me. No, it was worse than that, much worse, though it hurts me to admit it. She hated me. They’d been a happy little family at the Dark Hostelry until I turned up, or Rosie thought they had. Then I’d taken her mother away from her for ever and ever, and there was nothing anyone could do to bring her back. So here I was, trying to make up for an absence, trying to compete with a ghost.

  ‘We can go to Hamley’s after we’ve finished here,’ I said, still playing the game I was doomed to lose. ‘Have you been there before?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s a very big toy shop. I’m sure they’ll have something.’

  ‘I want some more angel clothes for her. The dress you made got messed up.’

  ‘That’s a pity. But never mind. Perhaps we’ll find something bet
ter.’

  Limpid eyes stared across the table. ‘Mummy soaked it in cold water but it was no use.’

  Then the waitress arrived with our ice-creams coated with chocolate sauce and decorated with two wafers in the shape of fans. Rosie picked up her spoon and dug it into the ice-cream. I sat there staring across the table at her. I searched my memory, trying to remember what Angel had been wearing, and when. Especially when.

  ‘Rosie, what was on the angel dress? What made it messy?’

  She had just put a spoonful of ice-cream in her mouth. She ate it very slowly, looking at me all the while through her lashes. She was not the sort of child who talked with her mouth full. Finally she dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

  ‘Mummy said it was a secret.’

  A stain you soak in cold water?

  ‘Mummy’s not here now,’ I said, suddenly ruthless. ‘Only you and me.’

  Rosie considered this for a moment. ‘But Mummy said.’

  ‘How would it be if I just made a suggestion? You could nod your head. Or shake it. So you wouldn’t be actually saying anything.’ Another spoonful of ice-cream. Then she swallowed and nodded her head.

  I ignored the faint clamour of my conscience, pushed the bowl away and reached for my cigarettes. ‘Was it something like – like tomato ketchup?’

  Another nod.

  ‘I wonder if it was Grandpa’s?’

  A third nod.

  I shook a cigarette out of the packet. My hand trembled as I put it in my mouth and at first I couldn’t make the lighter work. I was conscious of Rosie watching me, of her continuing to eat ice-cream. I felt simultaneously hot and cold and in dire need of a dry martini. I inhaled fiercely, and the smoke scorched my lungs.

  ‘How did it get on the dress?’

  She swallowed. ‘Angel fell into it. But Mummy said I mustn’t tell. Never ever.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘She cut up the dress and put it down the lav.’

  ‘And Grandpa?’

  ‘Grandpa? It’s what he wanted.’

  Her spoon scraped round the bowl, greedy for the last crumb of wafer, the last smear of cream and sauce. What was implied was important, not what was said. I remembered Mr Treevor wishing he was dead, the last words I heard him say, and Rosie had heard him too. And afterwards she’d asked me about dying. I’d confirmed that dead people go to heaven, and that heaven was very nice.

  ‘You knew where he kept the knife?’

  Rosie nodded. ‘It was one of our secrets.’ She wriggled in her chair, a flirt’s twitch. ‘We hid it at the back of the fireplace in his room. He was going to get me some more wings for Angel. Can I have your ice-cream if you don’t want it?’

  I pushed the bowl across the table to her. ‘Mummy found you? Afterwards?’

  ‘She came in just after I’d done it. He moved when I put it in and he knocked Angel out of my hand. Angel was all messy.’

  ‘What did Mummy do?’

  ‘She tried to wake Grandpa but he was asleep. Then she said we’d have to tidy ourselves up.’ Suddenly the face crumpled – the beauty vanished and all I could see was a frightened child. ‘I wish Mummy was here.’

  ‘So do I, darling.’

  At last it made sense. First Janet hoped that the death of her father would be taken as suicide. When that had failed, she valued herself so little that taking the blame on herself seemed the best thing to do from everyone’s point of view. Perhaps she’d welcomed the chance. I don’t think she wanted to live any more. She must have thought that by killing herself, and by taking the blame for her father’s death, she was sparing David something even worse. She was preventing Rosie being labelled as a murderer for the rest of her life.

  Later on I found in a bookshop one of those formidable blue Pelican paperbacks that used to march across the shelves in David’s study at the Dark Hostelry. This one was about criminal law. As I turned to the chapter about juveniles, my fingers left damp smudges on the pages. The author quoted the precise wording of Section 50 of the Children and Young Persons Act of 1933.

  It shall be conclusively presumed that no child under the age of eight years can be guilty of any offence.

  ‘The presumption,’ Mr Giles commented, ‘is irrebuttable.’

  In other words Rosie could never have been tried because by law she could not commit a crime. So she could not have been labelled as a murderer. Had Janet known that? Even if she had known, would it have mattered? Janet must have wanted to do what was best, or rather least bad, for Rosie and David. If she had told the truth to David and me, to Dr Flaxman and Inspector Humphries, the law would have said Rosie could not commit a crime – but people weren’t so scrupulous.

  You can never hide from malicious curiosity. Even if the Byfields had changed their names and gone to live in Australia, someone would have found out.

  I don’t know. Perhaps I’m making it too complicated. Sometimes things are heart-breakingly simple and not at all rational. Perhaps Janet didn’t want to live very much. Perhaps she was looking for death and her daughter showed her how to find it.

  I said to Rosie, ‘Have you told anyone else?’

  She shook her head and spooned the last of my ice-cream from the bowl.

  ‘If I were you, Rosie, I wouldn’t. Will you promise?’

  She touched her mouth with the napkin. ‘All right.’

  I did it for Janet, I swear. It spared David even more pain, and Granny Byfield and Rosie herself. Would it have helped anyone if I’d told David the truth, if I’d rung up Inspector Humphries and informed him that my best friend had pulled the wool over his eyes and mine? Above all I wonder, would it have saved other lives later?

  If I shut my eyes I see Rosie with the knife in one hand and Angel in the other. I see Janet bending over her father and the blood pulsing slowly out of his neck. But you can never know what would have happened if you’d made another choice. I hold on to that.

  The waitress was hovering and I asked for the bill.

  ‘Will we ride in a taxi to Hamley’s?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘It’s not very far.’ I saw her face fall. ‘Would you like to?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The taxi question was a welcome diversion. We had enough parcels to justify the extravagance to myself, and Henry would be pleased because I would be taking his advice and not overdoing it. A short journey meant a small fare. I wanted to give Rosie a treat. It sounds odd that I was thinking of things like that when my world had been shaken so violently to its foundations. But I did. We are odd, all of us. We distract ourselves with details. It’s a way of coping.

  At Hamley’s we struck lucky, or rather Rosie did. We found an assistant who was willing to take the question of dolls’ clothing very seriously indeed. After much discussion we bought two outfits for Angel. The first was a short multi-coloured cocktail dress in synthetic taffeta with a wide off-the-shoulder wrapover neckline and a fitted bodice. The skirt was bell-shaped and had a special petticoat to go under it. The outfit included a pair of high-heeled shoes.

  ‘She’ll look so lovely at parties,’ the assistant said. ‘Won’t she?’

  Rosie pressed Angel’s chest. ‘Mama,’ the doll said.

  Fifteen minutes later, we decided on the second outfit. Angel could now dress casually in a sleeveless cream blouse with a low square neckline, and a pair of fitted navy-blue linen shorts. The assistant persuaded us that Angel would be underdressed on holidays without a pair of blue leather mules and a straw hat with a ribbon round the brim.

  ‘After all,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t want her to wear high-heeled shoes when she’s yachting or on the beach. She’d look silly.’

  Finally, we managed to find a plain white nightdress which fitted. It was trimmed with lace at the neck and cuffs and perhaps rather low-cut for an angel, but Rosie did not mind.

  While the assistant was wrapping our purchases, Rosie wandered round the department examining other dolls, their clothes, their houses and the
ir furniture. She sidled over to me as I was writing the cheque.

  ‘Auntie Wendy?’

  ‘Yes?’ I tore out the cheque and looked down at Rosie. Despite everything, I found myself envying her. She was so beautiful, you see, then and later, and so self-contained, which armoured her against suffering.

  She towed me over to a display of baby dolls and the equipment which went with them. ‘Do angels have babies?’

  ‘No, dear. I don’t think they do. They don’t bother with that sort of thing.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Pretty sure. You can ask Daddy, though.’

  ‘Angels don’t have babies,’ Rosie said, ‘because angels don’t need babies.’

  Her tone of voice made it clear she was advancing this as a possibility rather than stating it as fact.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ I didn’t want to have to buy a baby doll as well, and of course a baby doll would need a pram and a cot and a complete wardrobe. ‘But Daddy will know.’

  She nodded. ‘I don’t want to have babies.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re too much trouble. They make too much mess. I expect that’s why angels don’t have them.’

  She slipped away from me and went to smile at the assistant, who was all too ready to be smiled at. I sat down heavily on a chair in front of a counter.

  Babies are too much trouble. They make too much mess …

  Rosie’s words went round and round in my mind, speeding up like a merry-go-round, and the faster they went the worse I felt. I remembered something that Simon Martlesham had said and linked it for the first time to one of Mrs Gotobed’s remarks, or rather to its implication.

  All the dolls on the displays were staring at me, their painted faces masks of horror, their perfect eyebrows arched in shocked surprise like Lady Youlgreave’s. I needed someone to say it wasn’t true, I’d made a mistake.