The Office of the Dead. Andrew Taylor
College. They didn’t waste time – they were engaged within a month. A few weeks later, David landed the job of vice-principal at the Theological College. They were delighted, Janet wrote, and the prospects were good. The principal was old and would leave a good deal of responsibility to David. David had also been asked to be a minor canon of the Cathedral, which would help financially. The bishop, who was chairman of the Theological College’s trustees, had taken quite a shine to him. Best of all, Janet said, was the house that came with the job. It was in the Cathedral Close, and it was called the Dark Hostelry. Parts of it were medieval. Such a romantic name, she said, like something out of Ivanhoe. It was rather large for them, but they planned to take a lodger.
The wedding was in the chapel of Jerusalem, David’s old college. Janet and David made a lovely couple, something from a fairy tale. If I was in a fairy tale, I told myself, I’d be the Ugly Duckling. What made everything worse was my father’s death – not so much because I’d loved him but because there was now no longer any possibility of his loving me.
Then I saw Henry standing on the other side of the chapel. In those days he was thickset rather than plump. He was wearing a morning suit that was too small for him. We were singing a hymn and he glanced at me. He had wiry hair in need of a cut and straight, strongly marked eyebrows that went up at a sharp angle from the bridge of his nose. He grinned at me and I looked away.
I’ve still got a photograph of Janet’s wedding. It was taken in the front court of Jerusalem. In the centre, with the Wren chapel behind them, are David and Janet looking as if they’ve strayed from the closing scene of a romantic film. David looks like a young Laurence Olivier – all chiselled features and flaring nostrils, a blend of sensitivity and arrogance. He has Janet on one arm and is smiling down at her. Old Granny Byfield hangs grimly on to his other arm.
Henry and I are away to the left, separated from the happy couple by a clump of dour relations, including Mr and Mrs Treevor. Henry is trying half-heartedly to conceal the cigarette in his hand. His belly strains against the buttons of his waistcoat. The hem of my dress is uneven and I am wearing a silly little hat with a half-veil. I remember paying a small fortune for it in the belief that it would make me look sophisticated. That was before I learned that sophistication wasn’t for sale in Bradford.
John Treevor looks very odd. It must have been a trick of the light – perhaps he was standing in a shaft of sunshine. Anyway, in the photograph his face is bleached white, a tall narrow mask with two black holes for eyes and a black slit for the mouth. It’s as if they had taken a dummy from a shop window and draped it in a morning coat and striped trousers.
A moment later, just after the last photograph had been taken, Henry spoke to me for the first time. ‘I like the hat.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, once I’d glanced over my shoulder to make sure he was talking to me and not someone else.
‘I’m Henry Appleyard, by the way.’ He held out his hand. ‘A friend of David’s from Rosington.’
‘How do you do. I’m Wendy Fleetwood. Janet and I were at school together.’
‘I know. She asked me to keep an eye out for you.’ He gave me a swift but unmistakable wink. ‘But I’d have noticed you anywhere.’
I didn’t know what to say to this, so I said nothing.
‘Come on.’ He took my elbow and guided me towards a doorway. ‘There’s no time to lose.’
‘Why?’
The photographer was packing up his tripod. The wedding party was beginning to disintegrate.
‘Because I happen to know there’s only four bottles of champagne. First come first served.’
The reception was austere and dull. For most of the time I stood by the wall and pretended I didn’t mind not having anyone to talk to. Instead, I nibbled a sandwich and looked at the paintings. After Janet and David left for their honeymoon, Henry appeared at my side again, rather to my relief.
‘What you need,’ he said, ‘is a dry martini.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. Nothing like it.’
I later learned that Henry was something of an expert on dry martinis – how to make them, how to drink them, how to recover as soon as possible from the aftereffects the following morning.
‘Are you sure no one will mind?’
‘Why should they? Anyway, Janet asked me to look after you. Let’s go down to the University Arms.’
As we were leaving the college I said, ‘Are you at the Theological College too?’
He burst out laughing. ‘God, no. I teach at the Choir School in the Close. David’s my landlord.’
‘So you’re the lodger?’
He nodded. ‘And resident jester. I stop David taking himself too seriously.’
For the next two hours, he made me feel protected, as I had made Janet feel protected all those years ago. I wanted to believe I was normal – and also unobtrusively intelligent, witty and beautiful. So Henry hinted that I was all these things. It was wonderful. It was also some compensation for a) Janet getting married, b) managing to do it before I did, and c) to someone as dashing as David (even though he was a clergyman).
While Henry was being nice to me, he found out a great deal. He learned about my family, my father’s death, the shop, and what I did. Meanwhile, I felt the alcohol pushing me up and up as if in a lift. I liked the idea of myself drinking dry martinis in the bar of a smart hotel. I liked catching sight of my reflection in the big mirror on the wall. I looked slimmer than usual, more mysterious, more chic. I liked the fact I wasn’t feeling nervous any more. Above all I liked being with Henry.
He took his time. After two martinis he bought me dinner at the hotel. Then he insisted on taking me back in a taxi to my hotel, a small place Janet had found for me on the Huntingdon Road. On the way the closest he came to intimacy was when we stopped outside the hotel. He touched my hand and asked if he might possibly see me again.
I said yes. Then I tried to stop him paying for the taxi.
‘No need.’ He waved away the change and smiled at me. ‘Janet gave me the money for everything.’
In those days, in the 1950s, people still wrote letters. Janet and I had settled into a rhythm of writing to each other perhaps once a month, and this continued after her marriage. That’s how I learned she was pregnant, and that Henry had been sacked.
Janet and David went to a hotel in the Lake District for their honeymoon. He must have made her pregnant there, or soon after their return to Rosington. It was a tricky pregnancy, with a lot of bleeding in the early months. But she had a good doctor, a young man named Flaxman, who made her rest as much as possible. As soon as things had settled down, Janet wrote, I must come and visit them.
I envied her the pregnancy just as I envied her having David. I wanted a baby very badly. I told myself it was because I wanted to correct all the mistakes my parents had made with me. With hindsight I think I wanted someone to love. I needed someone to look after and most of all someone to give me a reason for living.
Henry was sacked in October. Not exactly sacked, Janet said in her letter. The official story was that he had resigned for family reasons. She was furious with him, and I knew her well enough to suspect that this was because she had become fond of him. Apparently one of Henry’s responsibilities was administering the Choir School ‘bank’ – the money the boys were given as pocket money at the start of every term. He had to dole it out on Friday afternoon. It seemed he had borrowed five pounds from the cash box that housed the bank and put it on a horse. Unfortunately he was ill the following Friday. The headmaster had taken his place and had discovered that money was missing.
At this time I was very busy. My