Read Online The Office of the Dead by Andrew Taylor - Free Book Online
Authors: Andrew Taylor
Ads: Link
nibbled away at its rights and privileges. The Close was an ecclesiastical domain, older than the secular one surrounding it, and conducted according to different laws. Its gates were locked at night by an assistant verger named Gotobed who lived beside the Porta with his mother and her cats.
Rosington wasn’t like Bradford or Hillgard House or Durban or any of the other places I’d lived in. The past was more obvious here. If you glanced up at the ceiling while you were sitting in Janet’s kitchen you saw the clumsy barrel of a Norman vault. The Cathedral dock rang the hours and the quarters. The Close and its inhabitants were governed by the rhythm of the daily services, just as they had been for more than a thousand years. I had never lived among religious people before and this was unsettling too. It was as though I were the one person capable of seeing colours, as if everyone else lived in a monochrome world. Or possibly it was the other way round. Either way I was in a minority of one.
When we were at school Janet and I used to laugh at those who were religious. Now I knew she went to church regularly, though it was not something we had talked about in our letters.
On my first Sunday morning in Rosington I stayed at home. Janet and Rosie were going to matins at ten thirty. The pair of them looked so sweet dressed up for God in their Sunday finery.
‘If you don’t mind I won’t come to church,’ I said to David at breakfast. I’d already made this dear to Janet but I wanted to say it to him as well. I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings.
He smiled. ‘It’s entirely up to you.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not particularly godly. I’d rather do the vegetables.’
‘That’s very kind of you. But are you sure it isn’t too much trouble?’
I don’t know how, but he made me feel like the prodigal daughter a long way from home.
‘I suppose you have to go to church,’ I said to Janet as we were washing up after lunch. ‘Part of your wifely duties.’
She nodded but added, ‘I like it too. No one makes any demands on you in church. You can just be quiet for once.’
I was stupid enough to ignore what she was really saying. ‘Yes, but do you believe in God?’
I didn’t want Janet to believe in God. It was as if by doing so she would believe a little less in me.
‘I don’t know.’ She bent over the sink and began to scour the roasting tin. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what I believe, does it?’
During my first fortnight in Rosington the five of us settled into a routine. Given how different we were, you would have expected more friction than there was. But David was out most of the time – either at the Theological College or in the Cathedral. Rosie was at school during the week – she was in her second term at St Tumwulf’s Infant School on the edge of the town. Old Mr Treevor – I thought of him as old, though he was younger than I am now – spent much time in his bedroom, either huddled over a small electric fire or in bed As far as I could see his chief interests were food, the contents of The Times and the evacuation of his bowels.
The house itself made co-existence easier. The Dark Hostelry was not so much large as complicated. Most of the rooms were small and there were a great many of them. David said the building had been in continuous occupation for seven or eight hundred years. Each generation seemed to have added its own eccentricity. It was a place of many staircases, some of which led nowhere in particular, small, crooked rooms with sloping floors and thick walls. The kitchen was in a semi-basement, and as you washed up you could watch the legs of the passers-by in the High Street, which followed the northern boundary of the Cathedral Close.
Although the Dark Hostelry was good for keeping people apart, it was not an easy house to run. A charwoman came in three mornings a week to ‘do the rough’. Otherwise Janet had to do the work herself. And there
Rosington wasn’t like Bradford or Hillgard House or Durban or any of the other places I’d lived in. The past was more obvious here. If you glanced up at the ceiling while you were sitting in Janet’s kitchen you saw the clumsy barrel of a Norman vault. The Cathedral dock rang the hours and the quarters. The Close and its inhabitants were governed by the rhythm of the daily services, just as they had been for more than a thousand years. I had never lived among religious people before and this was unsettling too. It was as though I were the one person capable of seeing colours, as if everyone else lived in a monochrome world. Or possibly it was the other way round. Either way I was in a minority of one.
When we were at school Janet and I used to laugh at those who were religious. Now I knew she went to church regularly, though it was not something we had talked about in our letters.
On my first Sunday morning in Rosington I stayed at home. Janet and Rosie were going to matins at ten thirty. The pair of them looked so sweet dressed up for God in their Sunday finery.
‘If you don’t mind I won’t come to church,’ I said to David at breakfast. I’d already made this dear to Janet but I wanted to say it to him as well. I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings.
He smiled. ‘It’s entirely up to you.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not particularly godly. I’d rather do the vegetables.’
‘That’s very kind of you. But are you sure it isn’t too much trouble?’
I don’t know how, but he made me feel like the prodigal daughter a long way from home.
‘I suppose you have to go to church,’ I said to Janet as we were washing up after lunch. ‘Part of your wifely duties.’
She nodded but added, ‘I like it too. No one makes any demands on you in church. You can just be quiet for once.’
I was stupid enough to ignore what she was really saying. ‘Yes, but do you believe in God?’
I didn’t want Janet to believe in God. It was as if by doing so she would believe a little less in me.
‘I don’t know.’ She bent over the sink and began to scour the roasting tin. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what I believe, does it?’
During my first fortnight in Rosington the five of us settled into a routine. Given how different we were, you would have expected more friction than there was. But David was out most of the time – either at the Theological College or in the Cathedral. Rosie was at school during the week – she was in her second term at St Tumwulf’s Infant School on the edge of the town. Old Mr Treevor – I thought of him as old, though he was younger than I am now – spent much time in his bedroom, either huddled over a small electric fire or in bed As far as I could see his chief interests were food, the contents of The Times and the evacuation of his bowels.
The house itself made co-existence easier. The Dark Hostelry was not so much large as complicated. Most of the rooms were small and there were a great many of them. David said the building had been in continuous occupation for seven or eight hundred years. Each generation seemed to have added its own eccentricity. It was a place of many staircases, some of which led nowhere in particular, small, crooked rooms with sloping floors and thick walls. The kitchen was in a semi-basement, and as you washed up you could watch the legs of the passers-by in the High Street, which followed the northern boundary of the Cathedral Close.
Although the Dark Hostelry was good for keeping people apart, it was not an easy house to run. A charwoman came in three mornings a week to ‘do the rough’. Otherwise Janet had to do the work herself. And there
Similar Books
