forward, and he took it from her so that she had both hands free to climb with. ‘Fascinating,’ he went on. ‘You don’t think it was a put-up job?’
‘We’re not in Ireland, Professor.’
‘No. Of course not. But I was thinking of Augustan Rome and those funerals they still have in Japan sometimes, where they let out a flight of birds to represent the departed soul.’
‘Possibly. It’s not very us but then the Bishop is still very new here. I was thinking more of Claudia of Knightcote.’ She wheeled the steps back to their place and returned to her desk.
‘You’ve got me there.’
‘Marvellous story. Hang on.’ She twisted to a small shelf beside her. ‘ Keller and Baynton vol. three,’ she said, thawing as she pulled out the book. ‘My favourite.’ And she read him the story of how Claudia of Knightcote’s corpse was replaced in the turning of a handmaid’s back, into a bedful of fluttering doves. She then shamed his ignorance further, but with charm, by pointing out a reference in his own early work, The Visionary Tradition , St Marty of Rabastens who drove pillaging soldiers off his tomb in the guise of three enraged cob swans. Evan didn’t remember that bit and thought he must have plagiarized it.
Miss Dixon proved herself the soul of discreet helpfuless and her library was indeed breathtaking. Evan was already familiar with its contents, having pored over the catalogue often enough in the British Library and back in Harvard, but there was nothing to compare with the happy sensation of feeling the precious manuscripts on a desk before him. He frittered away much of the morning devouring Barrow 341 for no better reason than the perfection of its illumination. When the huge bells in the spires behind her sounded the lunch hour, Miss Dixon apologized that she had to turn him out for forty minutes while she went home to walk her terrier. Out in the Close again, she directed him to the Tracer’s Arms in Tower Place. He enjoyed an excellent lunch of the local herb-flecked sausages and an incautious pint of Old Stoat, the local bitter, before he was led further astray by the siren lure of the Cathedral where he wandered happily for half an hour or more. It had one of those cunning rooves which seem so much higher on the inside than they appear to be from without, but for him the chief attraction was the scattering of fine memorials, whose epitaphs it had long been his bad habit to study. Already there were hordes of tourists searching for small white birds and bothering the Scottish Masons for photographs. The west end tympanum bore a crude representation of the Last Judgement watched over by various saints including a towering Saint Boniface of Barrow, carrying a lantern whose spiky beams represented the ball of fire that had converted him. Tourists were lining up to take photographs of each other in front of him. The rising souls of the blessed on whom he cast his approving, if sightless, gaze seemed to be paddling through water. Ambrosia perhaps, or badly carved clouds.
Evan’s afternoon was spent in genuine work, translating the relevant chunks of Memling’s Gravitas and taking notes for the photograph collectors. As she shut the doors again at five o’clock, Miss Dixon warned him that Tuesdays always saw the place overrun with school parties and a lecture on bookbinding. On her advice, he telephoned Dr Cresswell – the Lord of Tatham’s – and arranged to spend Tuesday there instead.
11
‘No. Don’t jump on there. No! You’ll leave pawprints. Beast! Go on. Pssh. Get down! ’ Emma shouted.
The cat, an immensely fat ginger tom, regarded her with his habitual expression which could convey either hauteur or cretinism, depending on Emma’s mood. A damp cloth in hand, to wipe away the pawprints he had indeed left on the kitchen table, she scooped him gently up and carried him out to the stairs. He sat where she left him, sending a gooseberry glare through the banisters as she returned
‘We’re not in Ireland, Professor.’
‘No. Of course not. But I was thinking of Augustan Rome and those funerals they still have in Japan sometimes, where they let out a flight of birds to represent the departed soul.’
‘Possibly. It’s not very us but then the Bishop is still very new here. I was thinking more of Claudia of Knightcote.’ She wheeled the steps back to their place and returned to her desk.
‘You’ve got me there.’
‘Marvellous story. Hang on.’ She twisted to a small shelf beside her. ‘ Keller and Baynton vol. three,’ she said, thawing as she pulled out the book. ‘My favourite.’ And she read him the story of how Claudia of Knightcote’s corpse was replaced in the turning of a handmaid’s back, into a bedful of fluttering doves. She then shamed his ignorance further, but with charm, by pointing out a reference in his own early work, The Visionary Tradition , St Marty of Rabastens who drove pillaging soldiers off his tomb in the guise of three enraged cob swans. Evan didn’t remember that bit and thought he must have plagiarized it.
Miss Dixon proved herself the soul of discreet helpfuless and her library was indeed breathtaking. Evan was already familiar with its contents, having pored over the catalogue often enough in the British Library and back in Harvard, but there was nothing to compare with the happy sensation of feeling the precious manuscripts on a desk before him. He frittered away much of the morning devouring Barrow 341 for no better reason than the perfection of its illumination. When the huge bells in the spires behind her sounded the lunch hour, Miss Dixon apologized that she had to turn him out for forty minutes while she went home to walk her terrier. Out in the Close again, she directed him to the Tracer’s Arms in Tower Place. He enjoyed an excellent lunch of the local herb-flecked sausages and an incautious pint of Old Stoat, the local bitter, before he was led further astray by the siren lure of the Cathedral where he wandered happily for half an hour or more. It had one of those cunning rooves which seem so much higher on the inside than they appear to be from without, but for him the chief attraction was the scattering of fine memorials, whose epitaphs it had long been his bad habit to study. Already there were hordes of tourists searching for small white birds and bothering the Scottish Masons for photographs. The west end tympanum bore a crude representation of the Last Judgement watched over by various saints including a towering Saint Boniface of Barrow, carrying a lantern whose spiky beams represented the ball of fire that had converted him. Tourists were lining up to take photographs of each other in front of him. The rising souls of the blessed on whom he cast his approving, if sightless, gaze seemed to be paddling through water. Ambrosia perhaps, or badly carved clouds.
Evan’s afternoon was spent in genuine work, translating the relevant chunks of Memling’s Gravitas and taking notes for the photograph collectors. As she shut the doors again at five o’clock, Miss Dixon warned him that Tuesdays always saw the place overrun with school parties and a lecture on bookbinding. On her advice, he telephoned Dr Cresswell – the Lord of Tatham’s – and arranged to spend Tuesday there instead.
11
‘No. Don’t jump on there. No! You’ll leave pawprints. Beast! Go on. Pssh. Get down! ’ Emma shouted.
The cat, an immensely fat ginger tom, regarded her with his habitual expression which could convey either hauteur or cretinism, depending on Emma’s mood. A damp cloth in hand, to wipe away the pawprints he had indeed left on the kitchen table, she scooped him gently up and carried him out to the stairs. He sat where she left him, sending a gooseberry glare through the banisters as she returned
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