I don’t like living on my own.’
‘I see. Won’t you sit down?’
I was not sure whether she was talking to me as a man or as a priest – a not uncommon problem in the Anglican Church. When we sat down, somehow we both chose the sofa. This had a low seat – uncomfortably low for me. It caused Vanessa’s skirt to ride up several inches above the knees. The sight was distracting. She snapped open her handbag and produced a packet of cigarettes, which she offered to me. I found some matches in my pocket. Lighting the cigarettes brought us very close together. There was now no doubt about it: as far as I was concerned, the man was well in ascendancy over the priest.
‘Ronnie hoped to announce our engagement on Friday evening,’ she continued. ‘I think that’s why he wanted the dinner party – to show me off. I didn’t want that.’ She blew out a plume of smoke like an angry dragon. ‘I didn’t like it, either. It made me feel like a trophy or something. And then this morning, Cynthia told me she’d been to see you, told me what she’d said. I was furious. I’m not engaged to Ronnie. In any case, it’s nothing to do with her.’
‘No doubt she meant well,’ I said, automatically clinging to the saving grace of good intentions.
‘We all mean well,’ Vanessa snapped back. ‘Sometimes that’s not enough.’
We smoked in silence for a moment. I glanced at her stockinged legs, dark and gleaming, and quickly looked away. She fiddled with her cigarette, rolling it between finger and thumb.
‘The book,’ I said, my voice a little hoarse. ‘What did you think of it?’
‘Yes.’ She seized the envelope as if it were a life belt. ‘There’s a good deal of interesting material in it. Particularly if you know Roth well. But I’m afraid it’s not really suitable for us.’
‘Is it worth our trying elsewhere?’
‘Frankly, no. I don’t think any trade publisher would want it. It’s not a book for the general market.’
‘Too short,’ I said slowly, ‘and too specialized. And not exactly scholarly, either.’
She smiled. ‘Not exactly. If the author wants to see it in print, she’ll probably have to pay for the privilege.’
‘I thought you might say that.’
‘She’ll probably blame my lack of acumen,’ Vanessa went on cheerfully. ‘A lot of authors appear to believe that there are no bad books, only bad publishers.’
‘So what would you advise?’
‘There’s no point in raising her hopes. Just say that I don’t think it’s a commercial proposition, and that I advised investigating the cost of having it privately printed. She could sell it in the church, in local shops. Perhaps there’s a local history society which would contribute towards the costs.’
‘Is there a printer you could recommend?’
‘You could try us, if you like. We have our own printing works. We could certainly give you a quotation.’
‘Really? That would be very kind.’
Simultaneously we turned to look at one another. At that moment there was a sudden movement at the window. Both our heads jerked towards it as if tugged by invisible strings, as if we were both conscious of having done something wrong. I felt a spurt of anger against the intruder who had broken in on our privacy. Audrey’s cat was on the sill, butting his nose against the glass.
Vanessa said, ‘Is that – is that yours?’
‘No – he belongs to Audrey, in fact – the person who wrote the book.’
‘Oh.’ She looked relieved. ‘My mother was afraid of cats. She was always going on about how insanitary they were. How they brought germs into the house, as well as the things they caught.’ She glanced sideways at me. ‘Do you think these things can be hereditary?’
‘Phobias?’
‘Oh, it’s not a phobia. I just don’t particularly like them. In fact, that one’s rather dapper. It looks as though he’s wearing evening dress.’
She was right. The cat was black, except for a triangular patch of white at the throat and more white on the paws. As we watched, he opened his mouth, a pink-and-white cavern, and miaowed, the sound reaching us through the open fanlight of the window.
‘He’s called Lord Peter,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘As in Dorothy L. Sayers. Audrey reads a lot of detective stories. His predecessor was called Poirot. And before him, there were two others – before my time: one was called Brown after Father Brown, and the first of the line was Sherlock.’
‘I can’t say I have much time for detective stories.’
‘Nor do I.’
I repressed the uncharitable memory of the time that Audrey had lent me Sayers’s The Nine Tailors, on the grounds that it was not only great literature but also contained a wonderfully convincing portrait of a vicar. I stood up, went to the window and waved at Lord Peter, trying to shoo him away. I did not dislike cats in general, but I disliked this one. His constant intrusions irritated me, and I blamed him for the strong feline stench in my garage. Ignoring my wave, he miaowed once more. It occurred to me that I felt about Lord Peter as I often felt about Audrey: that she was ceaselessly trying to encroach on our privacy at the Vicarage.
‘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
