The Office of the Dead. Andrew TaylorЧитать онлайн книгу.
collar was faintly grubby, but in this city collars grew dirty very quickly.
Once the dry martinis had been ordered he didn’t beat about the bush. ‘I expect you’ve heard my news from Janet?’
‘That you’ve – you’ve left the Choir School?’
‘They gave me the push, Wendy. Without a reference. You heard why?’
I nodded and stared at my hands, not wanting to see the shame in his eyes.
‘The irony was, the damn horse won.’ He threw back his head and laughed. ‘I knew it would. I could have repaid them five times over. Still, I shouldn’t have done it. You live and learn, eh?’
‘But what will you do now?’
‘Well, teaching’s out. No references, you see, the headmaster made that very clear. It’s a shame, actually – I like teaching. The Choir School was a bit stuffy, of course. But I used to teach at a place in Hampshire that was great fun – a prep school called Veedon Hall. It’s owned by a couple called Cuthbertson who actually like little boys.’ For an instant the laughter vanished and wistfulness passed like a shadow over his face. Then he grinned across the table. ‘Still, one must look at this as an opportunity. I think I might go into business.’
‘What sort?’
‘Investments, perhaps. Stockbroking. There’s a lot of openings. But don’t let’s talk about that now. It’s too boring. I want to talk about you.’
So that’s what we did, on and off, for the next four months. Not just about me. Henry wooed my mother as well and persuaded her to talk to him. We both received the flowers and the boxes of chocolates. I don’t know whether my mother had loved my father, but certainly she missed him when he was no longer there. She also missed what he had done around the house and garden. Here was an opportunity for Henry.
He had the knack of giving the impression he was helping without in fact doing very much. ‘Let me,’ he’d say, but in fact you’d end up doing the job yourself or else it wouldn’t get done at all. Not that you minded, because you somehow felt that Henry had taken the burden from your shoulders. I think he genuinely felt he was helping.
Even now it makes me feel slightly queasy to remember the details of our courtship. I wanted romance and Henry gave it to me. Meanwhile he must have discovered – while helping my mother with her papers – that my father’s estate, including the house and the shop, was worth almost fifty thousand pounds. It was left in trust to my mother for her lifetime and would afterwards come to me.
All this makes me sound naive and stupid, and Henry calculating and mercenary. Both are true. But they are not the whole truth or anything like it. I don’t think you can pin down a person with a handful of adjectives.
Why bother with the details? My father’s executor distrusted Henry but he couldn’t stop us marrying. All he could do was prevent Henry from getting his hands on the capital my father left until after my mother’s death when it became mine absolutely.
We were married in a registry office on Wednesday the 4th of May, 1953. Janet and David sent us a coffee set of white bone china but were unable to come in person because Janet was heavily pregnant with Rosie.
At first we lived in Bradford, which was not a success. After my mother died we sold the house and went briefly to London and then to South Africa in pursuit of the good life. We found it for a while. Henry formed a sort of partnership with a persuasive businessman named Grady. But Grady went bankrupt and we returned to England poorer and perhaps wiser. Nevertheless, it would be easy to forget that Henry and I had good times. When he was enjoying life then so did you.
All things considered, the money lasted surprisingly well. Henry worked as a sort of stockbroker, sometimes by himself, sometimes with partners. If it hadn’t been for Grady he might still be doing it. He once told me it was like going to the races with other people’s money. He was in fact rather good at persuading people to give him their money to invest. Occasionally he even made them a decent profit.
‘Swings and roundabouts, I’m afraid,’ I heard him say dozens of times to disappointed clients. ‘What goes up, must come down.’
So why did his clients trust him? Because he made them laugh, I think, and because he so evidently believed he was going to make their fortunes.
So why did I stay with him for so long?
It was partly because I came to like many of the things he did. Still do, actually. You soon get a taste for big hotels, fast cars and parties. I liked the touch of fur against my skin and the way diamonds sparkled by candlelight. I liked dancing and flirting and taking one or two risks. I occasionally helped Henry attract potential clients, and even that could be fun. ‘Let’s have some old widow,’ he’d say when things were going well for us, and suddenly there would be another bottle of Veuve Clicquot and another toast to us, to the future.
When Henry met me I was a shy, gawky girl. He rescued me from Harewood Drive and gave me confidence in myself. I think I stayed with him partly because I was afraid that without him I would lose all I had gained.
Most of all, though, I stayed because I liked Henry. I suppose I loved him, though I’m not sure what that means. But when things were going well between us, it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Even better than dry martinis and the old widow.
Letters continued to travel between Janet and me. They were proper ones – long and chatty. I didn’t say much about Henry and she didn’t say much about David. A common theme was our plans to meet. Once or twice we managed to snatch a day in London together. But we never went to stay with each other. Somehow there were always reasons why visits had to be delayed.
We were always on the move. Henry never liked settling in one place for any length of time. When he was feeling wealthy we rented flats or stayed in hotels. When money was tight, we went into furnished rooms.
But I was going to spend a few days with Janet and David in Rosington after Easter 1957. Just me, of course – Henry had to go away on what he called a business trip, and in any case he didn’t want to go back to Rosington. Too many people knew why he’d left.
I’d even done my packing. Then the day before I was due to go, a telegram arrived. Mrs Treevor had had a massive heart attack. Once again the visit was postponed. She died three days later. Then there was the funeral, and then the business of settling Mr Treevor into a flat in Cambridge. Janet wrote that her father was finding it hard to cope since her mother’s death.
So we continued to write letters instead. Despite her mother’s death, it seemed to me that Janet had found her fairy tale. She sent me photographs of Rosie, as a baby and then as a little girl. Rosie had her mother’s colouring and her father’s features. It was obvious that she too was perfect, just like David and the Dark Hostelry.
Life’s so bloody unsubtle sometimes. It was all too easy to contrast Janet’s existence with mine. But you carry on, don’t you, even when your life is more like one long hangover than one long party. You think, what else is there to do?
But there was something else. There had to be, as I found out on a beach one sunny day early in October 1957. Henry and I were staying at a hotel in the West Country. We weren’t on holiday – a potential client lived in the neighbourhood, a wealthy widow.
It was a fine afternoon, warm as summer, and I went out after lunch while Henry went off to a meeting. I wandered aimlessly along the beach, a Box Brownie swinging from my hand, trying to walk off an incipient hangover. I rounded the corner of a little rocky headland and there they were, Henry and the widow, lying on a rug.
She was an ugly woman with a moustache and fat legs. I had a very good view of the legs because her dress was up around her thighs and Henry was bouncing around on top of her. His bottom was bare and for a moment I watched the fatty pear-shaped cheeks trembling. The widow was still wearing her shoes, which were navy-blue and high-heeled, surprisingly dainty. I wouldn’t have minded a pair of shoes like that. I remember wondering how she could have walked across the sand in such high heels, and