The Judgement of Strangers

It was raining in Florence, too. Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t have cared if the city had been buried beneath a pall of snow.

We had dinner in a little restaurant. Vanessa was looking alluring in a dark dress which set off her hair. We talked more about Rosemary than ourselves. I found myself glancing surreptitiously at my watch. I did not eat much, though I drank more than my fair share of the wine.

While we talked, I allowed my imagination to run free for the first time in ten years. I felt like a schoolboy at the end of term, or a convict coming to the end of his sentence.

As the meal progressed, we talked less. An awkwardness settled between us. My thoughts scurried to and fro as though I were running a fever. Once or twice, Vanessa looked at me and seemed about to say something.

The waiter asked if we would like coffee. I wanted to go back to our room, but Vanessa ordered coffee, with brandies to go with it. When the drinks came, she drank half her brandy in a few seconds.

‘David, I have to admit I feel a bit nervous.’

I leaned forward to light her cigarette. ‘Why?’

‘About tonight.’

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

‘We’ll get used to it,’ I said. ‘I dare say we’ll both find it strange.’ The urgency was building up inside me. I touched Vanessa’s hand. ‘Dearest – you know, there’s no reason why it needn’t be enjoyable as well.’

She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. ‘Charles didn’t seem – he didn’t want it very much. I don’t know why. Of course, it happened quite a lot when we were first married, but then it tailed off.’

‘You don’t have to tell me this.’

‘I want to explain. Charles used to stay up reading until all hours and often I was asleep when he came to bed. There just never seemed to be much opportunity.’

‘Darling,’ I said, ‘don’t worry.’

Her mouth twitched. ‘It’ll be all right on the night, will it?’

‘It will be. And then it will get better and better. Shall I get the bill?’

We walked back – sedately, arm in arm – to our pensione. There was a part of me that wanted to make love to her there and then: to pull her into an alley, push her up against a wall and tear my way into her clothes; and all the while the rain would patter on our heads and shoulders, the lamplight would glitter in the puddles, and the snarls and honks of the traffic would make a savage, distant music.

At the pensione, we collected our key and went upstairs. I locked the door behind us. I turned to find her standing in the middle of the room with her arms by her side.

‘Vanessa.’ My voice sounded like a stranger’s. ‘You’re lovely.’

I took off my jacket and dropped it on a chair. I went to her, put my hands on her shoulders, stooped and kissed her gently on the lips. Her lips moved beneath mine. I took off her coat and let it fall to the floor. I nibbled the side of her neck. My fingers found the fastening of her dress. I peeled it away from her. She stood there in her underwear, revealed and vulnerable. Her arms tightened round my neck.

‘I’m cold. Can we get into bed?’

I was a little disappointed: I had looked forward for months to slowly removing her clothes, to touching as much of her body as I could with my mouth. But all that could wait. She allowed me to help her quickly out of the rest of her clothes. She scrambled into bed and watched me as I quickly undressed. My excitement was obvious.

‘My handbag. I’ve got a cap.’

‘I’ve got a condom.’ I dropped my wallet on the bedside table and slithered into bed beside her.

There was goose flesh on her arm. It was hard to move much because she was holding me so tightly. The restraint somehow increased my excitement. I kissed her hair frantically.

‘I want you,’ I muttered. ‘Let me come in.’

She released her hold. I rolled over and found the condom in my wallet. My fingers were twice as clumsy as usual. At last I extracted the condom from its foil wrapper and rolled it over my penis. Vanessa was lying on her back, her legs slightly apart, watching me. There was a noise like surf in my ears.

‘Now, darling,’ I said. ‘Now, now.’

I climbed on top of her, using my knees to spread her legs wider. I abandoned all attempts at subtlety. I wanted one thing and I wanted it now. Vanessa stared up at me and put her hands on my shoulders. Her face was very serious. I lowered myself and thrust hard into her. She gasped and tried to writhe away but now my hands were on her shoulders and she could not move. I cried out, a groan that had been building up inside me for ten years. And then, with embarrassing rapidity, it was all over.

Trembling, I lay like a dead weight on top of her. In a moment, my trembling turned to sobs.

Once again her arms tightened around me. ‘Hush now. It’s all right. It’s over.’

It wasn’t over, not for either of us, and it wasn’t all right. Two hours later, I wanted her again. We were still awake, talking about the future. Vanessa agreed with me that it would obviously take time before we were sexually in tune with each other. That was to be expected. The second time everything happened more slowly. She lay there while I explored the hollows and curves of her body with my mouth. She let me do whatever I wanted, and I did.

‘Dearest David,’ she murmured, not once but many times.

After I had come again, I asked if there was anything I could do for her, and she said no, not this time. She went into the little bathroom. I lit a cigarette and listened to the rustle of running water. When she came back, she was wearing her nightdress and her face was pink and scrubbed. Soon we turned out the light and settled down for sleep. I rested my arm over her. I felt her hand take mine.

‘How was it?’ I asked. ‘Was it very painful?’

‘I’m a little sore.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have –’

‘It doesn’t matter. I want to make you happy.’

‘You do.’

We were in Florence for seven days. We looked at pictures, listened to music and sat in cafés. And we made love. Each night she lay there and allowed me to do whatever I wanted; and I did. On the seventh night I found her crying in the bathroom.

‘Darling, what’s wrong?’

She lifted her tear-stained face to me, a sight which I found curiously erotic. ‘It’s nothing. I’m tired, that’s all.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s a little painful. Sore.’

I smiled. ‘So am I, as a matter of fact. Not used to the exercise. I dare say we’ll soon toughen up. It’s like walking without shoes. One needs practice.’

She tried to smile, but it didn’t quite come off. ‘And my breasts are rather painful too. I think my period is due.’

‘We needn’t do anything tonight,’ I said, my disappointment temporarily swamped by my desire to be kind.

We sat in bed reading. She was the first to turn out the light. The evening felt incomplete. I lay on my back and stared up into the darkness.

‘Vanessa?’ I said softly. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you feel about making love when you have a period?’ It had suddenly occurred to me that it might be several days before we had an opportunity to do it again. ‘I should say that I don’t mind it, myself.’

‘Actually, it’s very painful for me. I have heavy periods. I’m sorry.’

‘Not to worry,’ I said; I turned and put my arm around her. ‘It doesn’t matter. Sleep well. God bless.’

As usual, her hand gripped mine. I lay there, my penis as erect as a guardsman on parade, listening to the sound of her breathing.

10

After our return from Italy, Vanessa and I slipped into the new routine of our shared lives. We were even happy, in a fragmentary fashion, as humans are happy. Though what was in store was rooted in ourselves – in our personalities and our histories – we had no inkling of what was coming. As humans do, we kept secrets from ourselves, and from each other.

Towards the end of May, Peter and June Hudson came to supper. They were our first real guests. The meal was something of a celebration. Peter had been offered preferment. Though there had been no official announcement, he was to be the next Bishop of Rosington.

‘It’s a terrifying prospect,’ June said placidly. ‘No more lurking in the background for me. No more communing with the kitchen sink. I shall have to be a proper Mrs Bishop and shake hands with the County.’

‘You could be a Mrs Proudie,’ Vanessa suggested. ‘Rule your husband’s diocese with a rod of iron.’

‘It sounds quite attractive.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘I’m sure Peter wouldn’t mind. It would give the little woman something to do.’

The news unsettled me. I was not jealous of Peter’s preferment, though in the past I might have been. But inevitably the prospect of his going to Rosington awakened memories.

After the meal, June and Vanessa took their coffee into the sitting room while Peter and I washed up.

‘When will you go to Rosington?’ I asked.

‘In the autumn. October, probably. I shall take a month off in August and try to prepare myself.’

I squirted a Z of washing-up liquid into a baking dish. ‘I’ll miss you. And June.’

‘You and Vanessa must come and visit. At least there’ll be plenty of space.’

‘I don’t know. Going back isn’t always such a good idea.’

‘Sometimes staying away is a worse one.’

‘Damn it, Peter. You don’t make it easy, do you?’

He dried a glass with the precision he brought to everything. We worked in silence for a moment. It was a muggy evening and suddenly I felt desperate for air. I opened the back door to put out the rubbish. Lord Peter streaked into the kitchen.

Had I been by myself, I would have shouted at him. But I did not want Peter – my friend, not the cat – to think me more unbalanced than he already did. When I returned from the dustbin, I found that the two Peters had formed a mutual admiration society.

‘I didn’t know you liked cats.’

‘Oh yes. Is this one yours?’

‘It belongs to one of my parishioners.’

The cat purred. Peter, who was crouching beside it with a pipe in his mouth, glanced up at me. ‘You don’t like either of them very much?’

‘She’s a good woman. A churchwarden.’

‘Is that an answer?’

‘It’s all you’re going to get.’

‘I shall miss our regular meetings.’

‘So shall I.’

‘When I go to Rosington, you’ll need a new spiritual director.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘A change will do you good.’ Peter’s voice was suddenly stern, and the cat wriggled away from him. ‘Perhaps we know each other too well. A new spiritual director may be more useful to you.’

‘I’d rather continue with you.’

‘It just wouldn’t be practical. We shall be too far away from each other. You need to see someone regularly. Don’t you agree?’

‘Yes. If you say so.’ My voice sounded sullen, almost petulant.

‘I do say so. Like one of those high-performance engines, you need constant tuning.’ He smiled at me. ‘Otherwise you break down.’

11

If it hadn’t been for sex, or rather the lack of it, Vanessa and I would probably still be married. There was real friendship between us, and much tenderness. We filled some of the empty corners in each other’s lives. A semi-detached marriage? Perhaps. If so, the arrangement suited us both. Vanessa had her job, I had mine.

One of the things I loved most was her sense of humour, which was so dry that at times I barely noticed it. On one occasion she almost reduced Audrey to tears – of rage – by suggesting that we invited the pop group that played on Saturday nights at the Queen’s Head to perform at Evensong. ‘It would encourage young people to come to church, don’t you think?’

On another occasion, one afternoon early in August, Vanessa and I were in our little library on the green. Vanessa took her books to the issue desk, to be stamped by Mrs Finch, the librarian. Audrey was hovering like a buzzard poised to strike in front of the section devoted to detective stories.

‘I’d also like to make a reservation for a book that’s coming out in the autumn,’ Vanessa said in a clear, carrying voice. ‘The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer.’

I glanced up in time to see a look of outrage flash between Mrs Finch and Audrey.

Mrs Finch closed the last of Vanessa’s library books, placed it on top of the others and pushed the pile across the issue desk. She jabbed the book cards into the tickets; the cardboard buckled and creased under the strain. She directed her venom at inanimate objects because by and large she was too timid to direct it at people.

While Vanessa was filling in the reservation card, I joined her at the issue desk to have my own books stamped. Audrey swooped on us; today her colour was high, perhaps because of the heat. ‘So glad I caught you,’ she said, her eyes flicking from me to Vanessa. ‘I wanted a word about the fete.’

I did not dare look at Vanessa. The annual church fete was a delicate subject. It was held in my garden on the last Saturday in August. Audrey had organized it for the past nine years. Although she would almost certainly have resisted any attempt to relieve her of the responsibility, she felt organizing the church fete was properly the job of the vicar’s wife. She had made this quite clear to both Vanessa and me in a number of indirect ways in the past few weeks.

Vanessa, on the other hand, was determined not to act as my unpaid curate in this capacity or in any other, and I respected her for the decision. We had agreed this before our marriage. She had a demanding and full-time job of her own, and had little enough spare time as it was: I could not expect her suddenly to take on more work, even if she had wanted to.

This year we had another problem to deal with. This was the suburbs, so many of our patrons came in cars. In recent years, the Bramleys had allowed us to use their paddock, a field which lay immediately behind the church and the Vicarage, as a car park. Unfortunately, they had suddenly left Roth Park at the beginning of June. They had sold the house and grounds without telling anyone. Bills had not been paid. There were rumours – relayed by Audrey – that litigation was pending.

The new owner of Roth Park had not yet moved in, so we had not been able to ask whether we could have the paddock. It would not be easy to find an alternative.

‘Time’s beginning to gallop,’ Audrey told us. ‘We really must put our thinking caps on.’

‘Perhaps they could park in Manor Farm Lane,’ I suggested.

‘But they’d have to walk miles. Besides, it’s not a very safe place to leave cars. We have to face it: without the paddock, we’re hamstrung. I even rang the estate agents. But they were most unhelpful.’

‘We’ve still got several weeks. And if the worst comes to the worst, perhaps we can do without a car park.’

‘Quite impossible,’ Audrey snapped. ‘If people can’t park their cars, they simply won’t come.’

It wasn’t what she said – it was the way in which she said it. Her tone was almost vindictive. In the silence, Audrey looked from Vanessa to me. Audrey’s face was moist and pink. Mrs Finch studied us all from her ringside seat from behind the issue desk. The library was very quiet. A wasp with a long yellow-and-black tail flew through the open doors into the library and settled on the edge of the metal rubbish bin. Lorries ground their way down the main road. The heat was oppressive.

Audrey snorted, making a sound like steam squirting from a valve, relieving the pressure of her invisible boiler. She turned and dropped the novels she was carrying on to the trolley for returned books.

‘I’ve got a headache,’ she said. ‘Not that any of you need concern yourselves about it. I shall go home and rest.’

Mrs Finch and Vanessa began to speak at once.

‘My mother always said that a cold flannel and a darkened room …’ began Mrs Finch.

Vanessa said, ‘I’m so sorry. Is there anything we …?’

Both women stopped talking in mid-sentence because Audrey clearly wasn’t listening, and had no intention of listening. She walked very quickly out of the library. I noticed that her dress was stained with sweat under the armpits. In a moment, the doorway was empty. I stared through it at the green beyond, at the main road, the tower of the church and the oaks of Roth Park. I heard the faint but unmistakable sound of a wolf whistle. I wondered if one of the youths were baiting Audrey as she scurried round the green to the sanctuary of Tudor Cottage.

‘That’ll be one shilling, Mrs Byfield.’ Mrs Finch held out her hand for the reservation card. ‘Five pence. We’ll do our best, of course, but I can’t guarantee anything. The stock editor decides which books we buy. He may not think this is suitable.’

Vanessa smiled at Mrs Finch and gallantly resisted the temptation to reply. A moment later, she and I walked back along the south side of the green towards the Vicarage.

‘Is Audrey often like that?’ she asked.

‘She gets very involved with the fete.’ I felt I had to explain Audrey to Vanessa, even to apologize for her. ‘It’s the high point of the year for her.’

‘I wonder why.’ Vanessa glanced up at me. ‘Tell me, is she normally so irritable?’

I felt uncomfortable. ‘She did seem a little tetchy.’

‘I wonder how old she is. Getting on for fifty? Do you think she might be going through the menopause?’

‘I suppose it’s possible. Why?’

‘It would explain a great deal.’

‘Yes.’ I was in fact unclear what the change of life could mean for a woman. I put on speed, as if trying to walk away from this faintly unsavoury topic. ‘But was she really acting so unusually? She did say she had a headache.’

‘David.’ Vanessa put a hand on my arm, forcing me to stop and look at her. ‘You’ve known Audrey for so long that I don’t think you realize how odd she is.’

‘Surely not.’

We moved on to the main road. We waited for a gap in the traffic.

‘I’d better look in on her this evening,’ I said. ‘See how she is.’

‘I wouldn’t. Fuel to feed the flame.’

‘Flame? Don’t be silly.’

In silence, we crossed the road and went into the drive of the Vicarage.

‘It’s not that I want to see her this evening,’ I went on, wondering if Vanessa might conceivably be jealous. ‘People like Audrey are part of my job.’

Vanessa thrust her key into the lock of the front door. ‘You sometimes sound such a prig.’

I stared at her. This was the nearest we had ever come to a quarrel. It was the first time that either of us had spoken critically to the other.

Vanessa pushed open the door. The telephone was ringing in the study. When I picked up the receiver, the news I heard pushed both Audrey’s problems and my squabble with Vanessa into the background.

12

When I was a child I had a jigsaw with nearly a thousand pieces, intricately shaped. Some of them had been cut into the shapes of objects which were entirely unrelated to the subject of the picture.

I remember a cocktail glass lying on its side in the blue of the sky, and a stork standing upside down in the foliage of an oak tree. A rifle with a telescopic sight was concealed in a door. Not that I knew that it was a door at the outset, or that the stork was in an oak tree. The point about the jigsaw was that a picture had not been supplied with it. Only by assembling the pieces could one discover what the subject was. Since much of the picture consisted of sky, trees, grass and road, it was not until a relatively late stage in the assembly that you realized that the jigsaw showed a Pickwickian stagecoach drawing up outside a country inn with a thatched roof.

The analogy may seem laboured, but something very similar happened in Roth during 1970. One by one, the pieces dropped into place. My marriage to Vanessa, for example. The History of Roth. The preparations for the fete. The sudden departure of the Bramleys from Roth Park. Peter Hudson’s preferment. Lord Peter’s inability to stay away from the Vicarage. Lady Youlgreave’s belated interest in her husband’s relations. Vanessa’s long-standing interest in the poetry of Francis Youlgreave.

All these and more. Slowly the picture – or rather its components – came together. And one of the pieces was my godson Michael.

The telephone call on that August afternoon was from Henry Appleyard. He had been offered the chance of a lucrative four-week lecture tour in the United States, filling in for a speaker who had cancelled at the last moment.

‘I’m flying out the day after tomorrow, from Heathrow,’ he said. ‘I wondered if I could look in for lunch?’

‘Of course you can. When’s your flight?’

‘In the evening.’

‘Are all of you coming?’

‘Just me, I’m afraid.’

The organizers had offered to pay his wife’s travel expenses as well, I gathered, but she had to stay to look after Michael.

‘Can’t you leave him with someone?’

‘It’s such short notice. His schoolfriends are all on holiday, too.’

‘He could stay with us. If he wouldn’t find us too dull.’

‘It’s too much of an imposition.’

‘Why? He’s my godson. But would he be lonely?’

‘I wouldn’t worry about that. He’s quite a self-contained boy.’

‘Rosemary will be home in a few days, so at least he’d have someone nearer his own age. And our doctor has a boy of eleven.’

‘It still seems too much to ask.’

‘Why don’t I have a word with Vanessa and phone you back?’

Henry agreed. I put down the phone and went into the kitchen to talk to Vanessa. She listened in silence, but when I had finished she smiled.

‘That’s a wonderful idea.’

‘I’m glad you like it. But why the enthusiasm?’

‘It’ll make it easier when Rosemary comes home. For her as well as me.’ She touched my arm, and I knew our squabble was over. ‘Besides, you’d like it, wouldn’t you?’

Two days later the Appleyards arrived for lunch.

‘I’m sorry this is such short notice,’ Henry said as we were smoking a cigarette in the drive.

‘It doesn’t matter. Michael’s welcome. I’m glad Vanessa’s here. For his sake, I mean.’

Henry started to say something but stopped, because the front door opened and Michael himself came out to join us. The boy was now eleven years old, fair-haired and slim. He stood close to Henry. They didn’t know what to say to each other.

At that moment a dark-blue car drove slowly down the main road towards the bridge over the Rowan. It had a long bonnet and a small cockpit. It looked more like a spacecraft than a car. The windows were of tinted glass and I could make out only the vague shape of two people inside. It slowed, signalled right and turned into the drive of Roth Park.

‘Cor,’ said Michael, his face showing animation for the first time since he had arrived. ‘An E-type Jaguar.’

Another piece of the jigsaw had arrived.

That evening I telephoned Audrey to see if she was all right. I had not seen her since her outburst in the library. When she answered the phone, her voice sounded weak.

‘Just a headache,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine in a day or two. Rest is the best medicine. That’s what Dr Vintner said.’

‘You’ve been to see him?’

‘He came to me, actually. I wasn’t up to going out.’

I felt guilty, as perhaps she had intended me to feel. ‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘No. I’ll be fine. Well, actually there is one thing. Apparently the new people have moved into Roth Park. You could go and ask them about the paddock. I’d feel so much happier if that were settled. It’d be a weight off my mind.’

I remembered the Jaguar. ‘When did they move in?’

‘Today at some point. Mr Malik told Charlene when he brought the groceries round this afternoon. They’ve opened an account with him. Their name is Clifford.’

‘Are they a family?’

‘Mr Malik’s only met a young man so far. Perhaps he’s the son.’

I promised I would go to see them in the morning. A moment later, I rang off and went to join the others in the sitting room. Michael had lost that frozen look his face had worn since his parents left. He was talking to Vanessa about his school. They both looked up as I came in. I allowed myself to be drawn into a game of Hearts with them. I hadn’t played cards for years. To my surprise I enjoyed it.