FIVE
No one remembers you at all.
Mick Imlah, ‘In Memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson’
1
The woman sitting next to him said, ‘I don’t know if Julian’s coming, do you?’
‘I don’t, I’m afraid…’ said Rob.
‘I believe they were great friends. I’m not sure I’d recognize him now.’ She craned round. Her black hat had an inch of veil at the front, and a mauve silk flower over her right ear. No wedding-ring, but several other fine old rings, heirlooms perhaps, on other fingers. Her clothes were soft crumpled velvet and silk, black and deep red, stylish but not exactly fashionable. She smiled at him again, and he wasn’t sure if she thought she knew him, or thought quite naturally that she didn’t need to know him to speak to him. Her firm, clipped voice had a hint of mischief. ‘I fear a number of these people are going to have to stand.’ She looked round with satisfaction at the embarrassed struggles of the latest arrivals, as they clambered along the rows, or sat down abruptly and as if they didn’t mind on some impossible ledge or radiator; one old man had perched like a tennis umpire at the top of the library steps. It was still only ten to two, but events like this brought out a strange zeal in people. Rob had been lucky to find this seat, at the end of a row, but near the front. ‘Did you go to the funeral?’
‘I didn’t, I’m afraid,’ he said.
‘Nor did I. Not a fan.’
‘Oh…’
‘Of funerals, I mean. I’ve reached the age where one finds, with sore dismay, that one goes to more funerals than parties.’
‘I suppose you could say this was somewhere between the two…’ He opened the folded order of events, on which nine readers and speakers were listed. Inevitably, out of emotion, inexperience or sheer self-importance, almost all of them would go on too long, and the glinting wineglasses and shrouded buffet just visible at the far end of the library would not be reached till about four o’clock. The library itself was funereally splendid – Rob gazed at the tiers of leather-bound books with the sceptical, secretive eye of a professional. A broad arc of chairs filled the space and a low podium had been set up, with a lectern and a microphone. The servants, in their black jackets, were growing flustered, more chairs were brought in. An event like this must be a challenge to the routine of a club, the automatic deference due to a deceased member stretched a little thinner over this very mixed crowd. A couple of youngsters had been made to put on ties, but one group of men in leather were too far outside the dress-code for any such remedial action and had been let in unchallenged. The only other man without a tie was a lilac-vested bishop.
From his seat Rob had a view along the front row in profile, unmistakably members of the family, as well as people who were due to speak: he recognized Sarah Barfoot, Nigel Dupont and Desmond, Peter’s husband. Rob had had a fling with Desmond himself, ten or twelve years ago, and looked at him now with that eerie awareness of the unforeseen that lurks beneath the reassurances of any reunion. The other readers could be identified perhaps from the list. Dr James Brooke he didn’t know at all. At the far end was a man of about sixty, with a long nose and glasses on a string, looking over the typed sheets he was going to read from. He seemed somehow outside the nervous but supportive mood of the rest of the team, his own nerves perhaps concealed behind his frown and the sudden impatient glare he turned on the audience behind him; then he saw someone he knew, and gave a curt but humorous nod. Rob thought this must be Paul Bryant, the biographer.
Rob’s neighbour said, ‘How old was he?’ getting out her reading glasses.
He looked at the front of the card with its small black-and-white photo and the words ‘PETER ROWE – 9 OCTOBER 1945-8 JUNE 2008 – A CELEBRATION’. ‘Um – sixty-two.’ The photo was more typical than flattering, Peter at a party, making a point, with a glass of wine in his hand. At these memorials great fondness was often shown for the foibles of the deceased. Rob found it brought back immediately the sound of Peter’s voice, plummy, funny, carrying – a sound which Peter himself had been very fond of.
‘You probably knew him well.’
‘Not really, I’m afraid. I mean, I grew up on his TV series, but I only got to know him much later.’
‘I loved those, didn’t you.’
‘We did a lot of business with him… Sorry, I should say, I’m a book-dealer,’ and here Rob reached in his suit pocket for the little translucent case and presented her with his business card:
‘Aha! very good…’ She peered at it.
‘He had a great art library.’
‘I imagine so. Is that your field?’
‘We’re mainly post-1880 – literature, art and design.’
She tucked the card in her handbag. ‘You don’t do French books, I suppose?’
‘We can search for specific things, if you need them.’ He shrugged pleasantly. ‘We can find you anything you want.’
‘Mm, I may well have to call on you.’
‘Now that all information is retrievable…’
‘Quite a thought, isn’t it,’ she said, and here she fished out her own card, rubbed at the corners, and with a private phone-number inked in:
‘Oh…’ said Rob, ‘yes, indeed… Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, I think?’
‘How clever of you.’
‘I’ve sold several copies of your book.’
‘Ah,’ she said, delighted but dry – ‘which one?’
But here a horrible lancing whine was heard from the speakers, as the tall figure of Nigel Dupont approached and ducked grinningly away from the microphone. Then he approached again, and had said no more than ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ when again the savage noise leapt into the room and echoed off the walls and ceiling. Though it wasn’t his fault, it made him look a bit of a fool, which he plainly wasn’t used to. He swept his strikingly blond forelock back with a distracted hand. When the problem had been more or less sorted out, all he said, squinting at a text on his iPhone, was, ‘I’m sure you’ll understand, there will be a slight delay, Peter’s sister’s held up by traffic.’
‘The famous Dupont, I presume,’ said Jennifer, quite loudly, as talk resumed. ‘We are honoured.’
‘I know…’ said Rob. Dupont had a long unseasonally suntanned face with almost invisible rimless glasses, and a suit that in itself conveyed the sheer superiority of a well-endowed chair at a Southern Californian university.
‘And do you know by any chance the name of the man at the far end – with the, um, green tie?’ said Jennifer, picking his least personal identifying feature.
‘Well, I think,’ said Rob, ‘it must be Paul Bryant, mustn’t it, who writes all those biographies – there was that one that caused all the fuss about the Bishop of Durham.’
