The Office of the Dead by Taylor Andrew

Author:Taylor, Andrew [Taylor, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 0312203489
Google: TGAangEACAAJ
Amazon: 1401322638
Goodreads: 1964614
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 1999-08-11T05:00:00+00:00

30

‘You’re a big girl,’ Mrs Gotobed observed. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Mother!’ Mr Gotobed set down the tea tray on a brass table between my chair and his. ‘She doesn’t always realize what she’s saying,’ he murmured to me.

‘Like me,’ Mrs Gotobed continued. ‘Wilfred’s father used to say I was built like a queen.’

‘How lovely.’ Nobody had ever told me I was built like a queen but I wished they had.

Mrs Gotobed nodded. She was sitting in a wing armchair with her feet up almost on top of the little coal fire that smouldered in the grate. Her legs were covered with a crocheted blanket. She was wearing what looked like a tweed coat. Her face was long and bony, with pale, dusty skin like tissue paper.

‘Milk, Mrs Appleyard? Sugar?’

Watched by Pursy, who was lying in a patch of sunlight on the window ledge, Mr Gotobed blundered around the over-furnished little room. He was wearing an apron over a dark suit made of stiff, shiny material that looked as if it would stand up by itself if its owner suddenly evaporated. The tea service was bone china speckled with little pink roses. We had lovingly laundered napkins, so old that their ironed creases were now permanent, apostle teaspoons, two sorts of sandwiches and two sorts of cake.

‘You’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble,’ I said as I accepted a fishpaste sandwich.

‘It’s no trouble,’ Mrs Gotobed replied. ‘Wilfred enjoys it. I always say he’ll make someone a lovely wife.’

‘Mother!’

For the moment we devoted ourselves to eating and drinking. The Gotobeds’ house was next to the Porta. Through Pursy’s window I saw the Theological College across the green. Rain fell steadily from a sky the colour of the slates of the college’s roof. As I watched, two familiar figures emerged from the driveway, the one sheltering under an umbrella held over him by the other.

‘There’s the bishop,’ I said.

Mrs Gotobed looked up. ‘And Mr Haselbury-Finch. The dean and Canon Hudson went in a little earlier.’

‘Mother knows everything that’s going on,’ said Mr Gotobed proudly. ‘Inside or outside the Close.’

Directly opposite Pursy’s window was another which overlooked the chestnuts, the entrance to Canons’ Meadow and the road up to the cloisters and the south door.

‘So you live in the Dark Hostelry with Mr and Mrs Byfield?’

‘That’s right.’

‘They’re a handsome couple. And that little girl of theirs is a beauty. I saw you and her the other day talking to His Lordship and Canon Hudson.’

‘Mrs Appleyard is working in the Cathedral Library for Canon Hudson,’ Mr Gotobed said in a loud voice, speaking in the vocal equivalent of capital letters.

‘I know that, dear. I’m not stupid.’

‘No, Mother. Try a slice of this fruit cake, Mrs Appleyard. It was made by one of the Mothers’ Union ladies.’

‘Just a small slice,’ I said. ‘I mustn’t spoil my supper.’

Mr Gotobed cut three substantial slices and handed them round. Once again silence descended. It was clear that in this household eating and talking were not combined.

‘Not bad,’ Mrs Gotobed said, wiping her fingers on her napkin, ‘though not as good as the ones I used to make.

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