The Judgement of Strangers (2 page)

The Trasks lived in a rambling Victorian rectory cheek by jowl with a rambling Victorian church. I knew from past visits that both the church and the house were warm and welcoming. Ronald did a very good job. His congregations were considerably larger than average.

I parked on the gravelled forecourt in front of the house. Two other cars were already there: an Austin Cambridge and a dark-green Daimler. The front door opened before I had reached it. Ronald beamed at me. I was wearing my clerical suit and a dog collar, but he was in mufti – rather a good dark suit, which made him look slimmer than he was, and a striped tie. He was shorter than me but much broader, and he gave the impression of never walking when he could trot. This evening, everything about him sparkled, from his black shoes to his fair hair. Aftershave wafted out to meet me.

‘David!’ He clapped me on the shoulder and drew me into the house. ‘Good to see you. Come and meet the others.’

The hall was full of flowers and smelled strongly of polish. Ronald led me into the drawing room, which was at the back of the house. It was a warm evening. The French windows were open and a knot of people was standing on the terrace beyond.

Cynthia Trask came forward to greet me. She was square and trim, like her brother, and she wore a severe blue dress like a uniform. While Ronald fetched me a glass of sherry, she steered me towards the other guests.

I knew one of the couples – Victor and Mary Thurston. Thurston had made a great deal of money selling cabin cruisers for use on the river, and now he and his wife ‘served the community’ as they liked to put it, which meant sitting on a variety of committees; she preferred philanthropic causes and he concentrated on political ones. Thurston was a councillor and, now he was on the Planning Committee, wielded considerable power.

I had not met the other couple before – they turned out to be the headmaster of one of the local grammar schools and his wife; she was one of Ronald’s churchwardens.

The first thing I noticed about the fifth guest was her hair, which was curly and the colour of glossy chestnuts. As she turned towards me, the evening sun swung behind her, giving her head a nimbus of flame. She was wearing a long dress of thin cotton, with full sleeves and a ruffled neck. For an instant, the setting sun made her dress almost transparent. Her body darkened. I saw the inside of her legs up to her crotch. The dress might as well have been invisible.

‘Here we are, David.’ Ronald was at my elbow with a glass of sherry. ‘Vanessa, I don’t think you know David Byfield. David, this is Vanessa Forde.’

We shook hands. I was momentarily unnerved by the sudden lust I felt. This was a familiar problem. Over the years I had learned to ride the feeling as a surfer rides a wave, until its force diminished. One way to avoid wallowing in sensation was to concentrate on observation. In a few seconds I had noticed that Vanessa had a pleasant face, attractive rather than beautiful, with a high colour and curving nose.

‘Let me get you another drink.’ Ronald snatched the empty glass from Vanessa’s hand. ‘Gin and lemon?’

She nodded, smiling. Ronald darted towards the drinks trolley, which was just inside the drawing room. There was something very boyish about him that evening. At times I glimpsed the adolescent he must once have been; and if I am honest, I should add that I preferred what I glimpsed to the senior churchman he had now become.

I offered Vanessa a cigarette. She accepted, bending forward to receive a light. I saw that she wore a wedding ring. For an instant, I smelt her perfume. It reminded me of one my wife used to wear. We spoke simultaneously, diving into the conversation like swimmers at the start of a race.

‘Do you live locally?’

‘Do you have a parish –?’

We smiled at each other and any awkwardness dissolved.

‘After you, Mrs Forde.’

‘Vanessa, please. To answer your question, I live in Richmond.’

I noticed that she had said I rather than we. ‘And to answer yours, I’m the vicar of Roth.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Do you know Roth, then?’

‘A little.’ She stared up at me and smiled. ‘Does that surprise you?’

I smiled back. ‘Its identity tends to get swamped by its neighbours. A lot of people think the name is familiar but have no idea where it is.’

‘I went there a few years ago to see the church. Rather an interesting one. You’ve got that medieval panel painting over the chancel, haven’t you? The Last Judgement?’

‘That’s right. With scenes from the life of Christ underneath.’

‘One gin and lemon coming up,’ said Ronald, materializing at Vanessa’s elbow and handing her the glass with a flourish. He had a similar glass in his own hand, which he raised. ‘Chin-chin.’ He beamed at me. ‘David, I know Cynthia wanted to have a word with you about Rosemary.’

‘My daughter,’ I explained to Vanessa.

‘Our niece dropped in last week,’ Ronald went on. ‘She left school at the end of last term and she brought over a trunk of stuff for us to dispose of. Clothes, I suppose. I think there’s a lacrosse stick, too. Cynthia wondered if anything might come in useful for Rosemary.’

I smiled and thanked him. There was a time when I would have objected to being on the receiving end of the Trasks’ philanthropy. Now I knew better. Pride is a luxury and children become increasingly expensive as they grow older. At this moment Cynthia reached us, bearing bowls of peanuts and olives.

‘Did I hear Rosemary’s name?’ she asked. ‘Such a delightful girl. How’s she liking school now?’

‘Much better, I think.’ I turned to Vanessa. ‘When Rosemary first went away, she disliked it very much.’ In fact, she had twice tried to run away. ‘But she seems to have settled down in the last year.’

‘She will be taking her A levels next summer,’ said Cynthia, with a hint of interrogation in her voice, indicating that this was an inspired guess rather than a statement of fact.

She detached me from Vanessa and Ronald and talked to me for a moment or two about Rosemary. We decided – or rather Cynthia decided – that she would send Ronald over with the trunk during the next week or so. Anything we did not want for Rosemary could go to our next jumble sale. Having settled the matter, she steered me away from Vanessa and Ronald, who were talking together at the far end of the terrace, and skilfully inserted me into a conversation between Victor Thurston and the headmaster’s wife.

I did not get another opportunity to talk to Vanessa for some time. While we were on the terrace I glanced once or twice in the direction of her and Ronald, still talking, their faces intent. At one point I noticed her shaking her head.

Eventually we went through to the dining room, and Cynthia steered us to our places at the round table. Vanessa was diametrically opposite me. There was a substantial flower arrangement in the middle of the table, so I caught only the occasional glimpse of her. I was sitting between Cynthia and the headmaster’s wife.

Ronald said grace. The meal which followed was uncharacteristically elaborate. Melon with Parma ham gave way to
coq au vin
. Ronald, usually the most careful of hosts, kept refilling our glasses with an unfortunate Portuguese rosé. The headmaster’s wife tried delicately to interrogate me about Ronald. It soon became clear that she knew the Trasks rather better than I did. At last she gave up and spoke across me to Cynthia.

‘My dear, this is wonderful. How on earth do you manage to prepare a meal like this and go out to work?’

‘I only work in the mornings. I find there’s ample time if one is sufficiently organized.’

‘I didn’t know you had a job,’ I said.

‘I work for Vanessa. I’m her secretary, really. Jolly interesting.’

I wondered whether that explained the special effort the Trasks were making. Was Cynthia hoping for promotion?

‘I suppose you spend most of your time dealing with authors and so on,’ said the headmaster’s wife. ‘It must be marvellous. Do you have lots of bestsellers?’

Cynthia shook her head. ‘We tend to do fairly specialized non-fiction titles. Actually, I think Royston and Forde’s out-and-out bestseller was something called
Great Engines of the 1920s
.’

Ronald and Thurston talked to Vanessa for much of the meal. When we left the table, Mary Thurston seized her husband’s arm as if to re-establish her claim to him. Ronald went to the kitchen to make coffee.

‘Ronald bought a machine when he was in Italy last year,’ Cynthia explained to the rest of us. ‘He does like to use it when we have guests. Too complicated for me, I’m afraid.’ She added as an afterthought, ‘Super coffee.’

We went back to the drawing room to wait for it. Vanessa came over to me.

‘I don’t suppose you could give me another cigarette, could you? I’ve mislaid mine. So silly.’ She smiled up at me. Even then I think I knew that Vanessa was never silly. She was many things, but not that. She sat down on the sofa and waved to me to join her.

‘Are you in Ronald’s – whatever it is? – area?’

‘He’s my archdeacon, yes. So in a sense he’s my immediate boss.’

I did not want to talk about Ronald. He and I did not get on badly – not then – but we had little in common, and both of us knew it.

‘Cynthia tells me you’re a publisher.’

She squeezed her eyes together for an instant, as though smoke had irritated them. ‘By default.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It was my husband’s firm.’ She stared down at her cigarette. ‘He founded it with a friend from Oxford. It never made much money for either of them, but he loved it.’

‘I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.’

‘I – I assumed Ronald might have mentioned it to you. No reason why you should know. Charles died three years ago. A brain tumour. One of those ghastly things that come out of a clear blue sky. I’ve taken over his part in the business. Needs must, really. I needed a job.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

She nodded. ‘I’d always helped Charles on the editorial side. Now I’m learning a great deal about production.’ She smiled towards Cynthia, who was embroiled with the headmaster’s wife. ‘Cynthia keeps me in order.’

‘At dinner Cynthia said she thought
Great Engines of the 1920s
was your bestselling book.’

‘She’s perfectly right. Though I have my hopes of
The English Cottage Garden
. It’s been selling very steadily since it came out last year.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘In fact, our real bestseller in terms of copies sold is probably one of our town guides. The Oxford one. We do quite a lot of that sort of thing – that’s where the bread and butter comes from.’

At that moment, Ronald appeared in the doorway bearing a large silver tray. ‘Coffee, everybody,’ he announced in a voice like a fanfare. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ He advanced into the room, his eyes searching for Vanessa.

‘One of my parishioners has written a book,’ I said to her.

Vanessa looked warily at me. ‘What sort of book?’

‘It’s a history of the parish. Not really a book. I’d say it’s about ten thousand words.’

‘How interesting.’

She glanced at me again, and I think a spark of shared amusement passed between us. She knew how to say one thing and mean another.

‘She’s looking for a publisher.’

‘Sugar, Vanessa?’ boomed Ronald. ‘Cream?’

‘In my experience, most authors are.’ She smiled up at Ronald. ‘Just a dash of cream, please, Ronnie.’

Ronnie?

‘She believes it might appeal to readers all over the country,’ I continued. ‘Not just to those who know Roth.’

‘The happy few?’

I smiled. It was a novelty to have someone talk to me as a person rather than as a priest. ‘Could you recommend a publisher she could send it to?’ I stared at the curve of her arm and noticed the almost invisible golden hairs that grew on the skin. ‘Someone who would have a look at the book and give a professional opinion. I imagine you haven’t got the time to look at stray typescripts yourself.’

‘Vanessa’s always looking at stray typescripts,’ Ronald said, and laughed. ‘Or looking
for
them.’

‘I might be able to spare five minutes,’ she said to me, her voice deadpan.

Once again, she glanced at me, and once again the spark of amusement danced between us.