‘Good afternoon, Cynthia. How are you?’
She put her face close to mine. Her cheeks had flushed a dark red. ‘I think what you did was despicable. Taking advantage.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘I hope you pay for it.’
She turned away and, head down, ploughed into a crowd of commuters and vanished from my sight. I told myself that she was being unreasonable: that the fact of the matter was that Vanessa had chosen to marry me of her own free will; and there was no element of deception about it.
The round of parish work continued. Normally I would have welcomed much of this. Week by week, the rhythm of the church services made a familiar context for my life, a public counterpart to my private prayers. Weddings, baptisms and funerals punctuated the pattern.
There was satisfaction in the sense that one was carrying on a tradition that had developed over nearly two thousand years; that, through the rituals of the church, one was building a bridge between now and eternity. Less satisfying was the pastoral side of parish work – the schools and old people’s homes, visiting the sick, sitting on the innumerable committees that a parish priest cannot avoid.
At that time Roth Park, once the big house of the village, was still an old people’s home. The Bramleys, who owned it, were running it down, which meant that their guests were growing older, fewer and more decrepit. Their policy had an indirect effect on me. There was a run of deaths at Roth Park in those winter months of 1969–70, which became cumulatively depressing. Sometimes, when I walked or drove up to the house, I felt as though I were being sucked towards a dark vacuum, a sort of spiritual black hole.
Rosemary came back from school for the Christmas holidays. She had changed once again. Boarding school had that effect: each time she came home she was a stranger. I was biased, of course, but to me it seemed that she was becoming increasingly good-looking, developing into one of those classic English beauties, with fair hair, blue eyes, a high brow and regular features.
On her first evening home, I told her about Vanessa while we were washing up after supper. While I was speaking I could not see her face because her head was bent over the cutlery drawer. Afterwards she said nothing. She stacked the spoons neatly in the drawer, one inside the other.
‘Well?’ I said.
‘I hope …’ She paused. ‘I hope you’ll be happy.’
‘Thank you, my dear.’
Her words were formal, even stilted, but they were better than I had feared.
‘When will you get married?’
‘After Easter. Before you go back to school. Talking of which, Vanessa and I were wondering if you would like to transfer to somewhere nearer for your last year in the sixth form. So you could be a day girl.’
‘No.’
‘It’s entirely up to you. You may well feel it would be less upheaval to stay where you are. Where you are used to your teachers, among your own friends, and so on.’
Rosemary gathered a pile of plates and crouched beside a cupboard. One by one, with metronomic regularity, she put them away. I still could not see her face.
‘Rosie,’ I said. ‘I know this isn’t easy for you. It’s been just the two of us for a very long time, hasn’t it?’
She said nothing.
‘But Vanessa’s not going to be some sort of wicked stepmother. Nothing’s going to change between you and me. Really, darling.’
Still she did not speak. I crouched beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘So?’ I prompted. ‘What do you think?’
At last she looked at me. To my horror, I saw that her eyes had filled with tears. Her face was red. For a moment she was ugly. The tea towel slipped from her hands and fell to the floor.
‘What does it matter?’ she said. ‘We’ll end up doing what you want. We always do.’
Christmas came and went. Vanessa and I announced our engagement, causing a flurry of smiles and whispers among my congregation. We also agreed a date for our wedding – the first Saturday after Easter, shortly before Rosemary would be due to return to school for the summer term.
‘Couldn’t we make it sooner?’ I said to Vanessa when we were discussing the timing.
‘I think we’re rushing things as it is.’
I ran my eyes over her. Desire can produce a sensation like hunger, an emptiness that cries out to be filled. ‘I wish we didn’t have to wait. I’d like to feast on you. Does that sound absurd?’
She smiled at me and touched my hand. ‘By the way, I had a chat with Rosemary. It was fine – she seemed very pleased for us.’
‘I’m so glad.’
‘“I do hope you and Father will be very happy.” That’s what she said.’ Vanessa frowned. ‘Does she always call you “Father”? It sounds so formal.’
‘Her choice, as far as I remember. She always did, right from the start.’
‘Is it because you’re a priest? She’s very interested in the trappings of religion, isn’t she?’
‘It must be because of growing up in the odour of sanctity.’
Vanessa laughed. ‘I thought clergymen weren’t meant to make jokes about religion.’
‘Why not? God gave us a sense of humour.’
‘To go back to Rosemary: she’s agreed to be maid of honour.’
The wedding was going to be in Richmond, and Peter Hudson had agreed to officiate. The only other people we invited were two of Vanessa’s Oxford friends and a couple called the Appleyards, whom I had known since my days at Rosington. Early in the New Year, Vanessa and I spent a day with the Appleyards.
‘They seemed quite normal,’ she said to me as I drove her back to Richmond. ‘Not a dog collar in sight. Have you known them long?’
‘For years. Henry rented a room from us when we were living in Rosington.’
‘So they knew Janet?’
‘Yes.’
We drove in silence for a moment. I had told Vanessa about Janet, my first wife. Not everything, of course, but everything that mattered to Vanessa and me.
‘Michael’s nice,’ she went on. ‘How old is he?’
‘Coming up to eleven, I think.’
‘You’re fond of him, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ After a pause I added, ‘He’s my godson,’ though that did not explain why I liked him. Michael and I rarely had much to say to each other, but we had been comfortable in each other’s company ever since he was a toddler.
‘Do they ever come to Roth?’
‘Occasionally.’
‘We must ask them to stay.’
I glanced at her and smiled. ‘I’d like that.’
She smiled back. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s not just us getting married. It’s our friends and relations as well.’
In January, Rosemary went back to school. Vanessa spent the following Saturday with me. Now we had the house to ourselves, we wanted to plan what changes would have to be made when Vanessa moved in; we had thought it would be tactless to do this while Rosemary was there. After lunch, the doorbell rang. I was not surprised to find Audrey Oliphant on the doorstep.