‘I hadn’t realized that the bishop was on the scene so fast,’ he said.
‘I didn’t say he was,’ she said, flustered.
‘That’s not what I said. Or questioned,’ said Bognor.
He supposed he had better have another, perhaps more formal, word with the bishop.
‘Does he still have your husband’s notes for the sermon?’ he asked.
Another silence, and then she nodded. ‘I can’t think he hasn’t,’ she said, ‘but you’d better ask. I simply don’t know.’
‘I will,’ he said. And he would.
TWENTY-ONE
Monica and the Fludds had been listening to a talk by Martin Allgood. Bognor was working while they played. This was irritating because he had been looking forward to hearing authors speak. On the other hand, it gave him a moral upper hand. That was the theory. Unfortunately, authors, often the least likely, had a habit of getting in the way and saying stuff that was more germane to the puzzle than routine enquiries. That was the reality.
Thus, Allgood.
‘Did you know that the Reverend Sebastian had written a book?’ asked Sir Branwell. ‘Dark horse, Sebby. Provisional title: The Vicar’s Wife. Taken, I rather fancy, by Trollope minima.’
‘Wrong on a number of counts,’ said Monica, predictably and crisply. ‘Joanna Trollope’s book was The Rector’s Wife, and was inspired by her clerical upbringing in the Cotswolds. And Allgood didn’t say Sebastian had written a book. He was being hypothetical.’
‘Oh, come on, Monica.’ Bognor recognized Branwell’s combine-harvester mood, devouring all before him and scattering vegetation and wildlife before him, without serious discrimination. When he took on this guise, he was unstoppable and destroyed everything in his path. ‘Little Allgood doesn’t do hypothetical. His oeuvre is one long roman-a-clef, a hymn of self-congratulation.’
‘That’s unfair,’ said Monica, ‘and not true, either.’ But Sir Branwell was unstoppable. Bognor tried silently warning his wife, flashing his eyes and kicking her under the table. Nothing worked. She stood like an obstinate stook in his path, grass about to be cast to the wind and rendered into featureless chaff. Except that it was unwise to mess with Monica. She was just the sort of rogue blade who would clog otherwise irresistible machinery.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Sir Branwell, with all the braggadocio which had once earned him a congratulatory fourth. ‘Little Allgood’s never written an original word in his life. It’s all faction at best, plagiarism at worst. Everything comes from somewhere else. He just takes real life and makes it boring.’
‘Please explain,’ said Bognor to all three. ‘I am not understanding.’
Camilla Fludd, who had remained silent and seemed to have less of an axe to grind, spoke.
‘Allgood spent his entire talk saying what it was like having a novel turned down.’
‘Then he can’t have been drawing on real life,’ said Bognor. ‘Allgood’s never had a rejection in his life. That’s part of his problem.’
‘Just because he personally hasn’t been turned down,’ said Sir Branwell, ‘doesn’t mean to say that he doesn’t know people who have.’ He sounded triumphant, like a truculent undergraduate confronted by a particularly dim examiner. ‘Don’t tell me little Allgood doesn’t know all about slush piles and unsolicited manuscripts. Just because it hasn’t happened to him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Bognor, aware that he was sounding petulant, ‘but nobody has told me what he actually said. All I know is that you all agree that it was good. Branwell said it was based on fact; Monica says it wasn’t. But what exactly was it?’
‘He said,’ said Camilla, ‘that rejection was enough to drive someone to drink. Or suicide. Or worse.’
‘What could be worse than suicide?’ he asked. ‘I mean, that’s as bad as it gets.’
‘Killing someone else is worse than killing oneself. At least, it is in fiction. It may be different in real life, but Allgood is about novels. It’s what he does.’ This was Camilla again. The other two glowered and said nothing.
‘So where did the vicar come in?’
‘Allgood brought him in,’ said Camilla.
‘He didn’t have to,’ said Branwell. ‘I’m afraid Sebastian brought himself in. Evidently, he had written a novel and he couldn’t take the constant rejection. Being Sebastian, he went about it all in completely the wrong way and naturally failed to see it, which is why he strung himself up. So, ergo, I was right all the time. He strung himself up. Admittedly, I failed to guess the reason for his topping himself, but I’m afraid that’s not the point. He was responsible and he alone. All jolly sad. But no need for any more fuss than deep regret and a proper funeral. New padre needed, but that’s another matter. Allgood hit the nail on the head, I’m afraid.’
‘With respect,’ said Monica, ‘that’s not what he said. Everything was prefixed with doubt and speculation. He kept saying “if?” and “let us suppose”. He may have been putting a prosecution case, but that’s all. He certainly wasn’t putting forward facts. There was absolutely nothing he said which would stand up in court.’
‘But had the vicar written a book?’ asked Bognor.
‘Yes,’ said Sir Branwell.
‘No,’ said Bognor’s wife.
‘We can’t be sure,’ said Camilla.
‘One speech,’ said Bognor, ‘an audience of three and three completely different interpretations. I’m afraid that, in my experience, that’s entirely usual. It doesn’t matter how many witnesses you have. It doesn’t matter if each one has qualifications to pass themselves off as a trained observer, you are likely to have three completely different versions of what actually happened. That’s one reason truth is so difficult to ascertain. Basically, there’s no such thing. One man’s fact, is another man’s fiction; one man’s truths are another man’s lies. And so it goes on. That’s why there is no such thing as real history, why it’s possible to have a Marxist interpretation and a Christian one, why it is possible to be Arthur Bryant and tell our island history entirely in terms of kings and queens, or be Christopher Hill and tell the same story as if the only real people involved were diggers and levellers. There is no such thing as objectivity. Never was, never will be. Fact of life.’
‘That’s what they taught you at Apocrypha?’ asked Monica, not really expecting a straight answer and not receiving one.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said her husband. ‘Case rests.’
‘I don’t see that what we were taught at university makes a blind bit of difference,’ said Sir Branwell. ‘The fact of the matter is that the vicar wrote a novel, had it turned down by a number of publishers, and killed himself as a result. Little Allgood says it happens all the time.’
‘Just because it happens all the time,’ said Bognor, ‘doesn’t mean it happened here. What was the vicar supposed to have written?’
‘Doesn’t make a blind bit of difference,’ said Branwell. ‘Could have been Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy and Jane Austen rolled in one, for all the industry cared, and for all the difference it made to the poor fellow’s disillusion and suicide. He went about it completely the wrong way: didn’t have an agent, probably submitted a photograph of himself in a dog collar, which said middle-class, middle-aged, Caucasian male failure. Wouldn’t be surprised to find he sent a picture of himself with a beard. I’m not a celebrity get me out of here. Except that, he was never even in it. Wherever “it” is.’
‘What if the book was any good?’ asked Bognor innocently.
‘You don’t suppose anyone actually read it?’ Sir Branwell was incredulous. ‘Never had a lot of time for little Allgood, but he talked a lot of sense today. The vicar’s book would have gone straight into the slush pile and stayed there until someone sent him a rejection slip. No one would have read it. They don’t read books nowadays. Probably can’t. That’s what Allgood said. You can learn a thing or two at a good literary festival like ours. Beats reading any day.’
‘Everything seems to beat reading these days,’ said Monica. She was obviously spoiling for a fight. ‘Including so-called literary festivals. You’ve heard the author plugging his latest book, so you don’t have to bother reading it. Dead vicar at end of rope in own church; don’t read all about it; just listen to Martin Allgood being speculative. Honestly.’ She was very angry.