by Alan Judd
There was a long pause. He remained perfectly still, looking at me as if waiting for me to continue. Eventually, he said, ‘Take it and sell it for me? Take a cut?’
We shook on it, his hand as limp and clammy as before. ‘You have some nice bits and pieces here,’ I continued as we walked back into the drawing room. Mrs Coombs had disappeared.
He looked indifferently, almost morosely, at the Chesterfield sofa, the matching pair of high-backed chairs that looked like restored seventeenth-century pieces but may have been Victorian copies, the elegant Georgian sidetables, the two small occasional chairs, the ancestral portraits. ‘All from my father, keen on family stuff. Loved it. No good for most people these days, no good for us either, really. No family, can’t get rid of it, nowhere else to put it.’
‘Are all these your ancestors?’
He surveyed the portraits as if they were a mob of unwelcome visitors. ‘Military lot, as you can see. Army or law. Mostly lawyers, the earlier ones. Bloody lawyers. I was neither, of course.’
The ‘of course’ was interesting, though I wasn’t sure what it said about him. The subjects were mostly nineteenth-century figures in various martial poses, plus a few rather solemn married couples in eighteenth-century costumes and the stiffly posed single ladies I had noticed earlier. At the far end of the room was a smaller, darker painting of a man with long hair and plain brown clothes. ‘He looks like a preacher,’ I said.
‘Preacher or lawyer, maybe both, can’t remember. Civil War, anyway. They go back much earlier, the family. No older portraits, though. That’s the oldest. All from Warwickshire or Worcestershire.’
On the wall above the fireplace were three swords, hung horizontally. ‘Ancestral swords, too?’ I asked.
‘Ancestral everything. All ancestral here.’
The top and bottom ones looked like conventional nineteenth-century cavalry swords. The centre one was different, possibly a Civil War period mortuary sword, as they became known. I was tempted to examine it but didn’t want to appear too inquisitive and anyway he was moving towards the door. Then I noticed another. ‘That one too?’
There was a fourth sword lying in the hearth at my feet between two pokers and a small shovel, its hilt resting on the stone edge. It was older, longer and narrower than those hanging above, a rapier rather than a cut-and-thrust fighting weapon. It was also in much worse condition, dirty, the blade blackened by fire and smoke, the hilt and pommel bashed about. There was no shine and it was impossible to see any detailing.
Mr Coombs turned, his dark eyes reluctantly following my finger. ‘That? That’s my poker. Longer than the others, long enough for me to poke the fire without getting out of my chair. No good for anything else, too far gone to hang on the wall. Want a drink?’
He didn’t sound as if he wanted me to accept. ‘That’s very kind but you’re about to go out, aren’t you? Next time, perhaps, when we’ve sorted out the desks.’
He turned again and left the room. By the time I reached the hall he was already at the door and holding it open for me. ‘Let me know when it’s coming,’ he said. ‘Give you a cheque then.’
As I walked down the pebble path the door closed behind me and I heard him shout, ‘You ready?’
Chapter Two
I close the shop on Sundays. Most antique dealers stay open for the weekend tourist pilgrimage but my experience, perhaps because I’m at the more expensive end of the local market, is that Sunday window-shoppers are even less likely to open their wallets than their Saturday counterparts. On Mondays, when other dealers usually close, I occasionally get serious buyers.
Sunday mornings I spend at my desk in the shop, seeing to accounts and administration and scanning the on-screen market while Stephanie vacuums and cleans the flat upstairs. I don’t let her do it during the week because, as with most old buildings, there’s no soundproofing and the hoover sounds as if it’s coming through the floor. I say ‘let her’ because cleaning the flat is the highlight of her week. She has a routine I taught her after my wife left and I had rescued her from the sheltered housing she had been in since our parents died. She loves her routine, adhering scrupulously to it and taking great pleasure in walking me round afterwards to show me everything she’s done. She relishes inspection and approval. Afterwards we get in the car and drive off somewhere for a pub lunch followed by a walk. Her favourite is a walk by the sea, when she laughs out loud at the waves and clings to my arm like a toddler, though she’s older than me.
It was on that Sunday evening when Stephanie was watching snooker on television – she loves that too, without understanding it, I think because of the very green sward and the moving coloured balls – that the connection suddenly coalesced in my mind. I had been thinking off and on of Mrs Coombs, assuming she led a wretched life with her husband and idly imagining how it would be transformed if she lived with someone presentable and reasonable, as I then believed myself to be. Not that I had any intention of bringing about such a state of affairs.
At the same time my unconscious must have been working towards a hypothetical conclusion that my conscious mind, when presented with it, was only too willing to accept as fact. Or possible fact. From the moment it occurred the thought preoccupied me day and night. It still does, albeit no longer in its original purity and interwoven now with unforeseen consequences. Gerald Coombs’s emphasis on the spelling of his name – double-o, no e, he insisted – must have germinated in the yeast of my unconscious until it became what it always had the potential to be. Also in that yeast must have been fragments of a recent television programme about Shakespeare’s life and the memory of a phrase from his will I had once read in a biography. It was late in the evening when the mixture fermented. For some moments after it struck me I remained in my armchair, book in hand, asking myself whether I remembered or imagined the wording of the will. Then I went back downstairs to the shop and opened up the computer (I’ve still not got round to a laptop and tend to use my phone only as a phone). And there it was, in black and white in Shakespeare’s will, among the lesser bequests: ‘To Mr Thomas Combe my Sword.’
That phrase, Gerald Coombs’s name, his accumulation of ancestral possessions, his seventeenth-century family, their Warwickshire origins, that blackened and battered old sword in the hearth – it could all be coincidence. Things are, more often than not. But was it possible, just possible, that Gerald Coombs’s poker could – just possibly could – be Shakespeare’s sword?
Professional deformity – more kindly termed interest – meant that the bequests in Shakespeare’s will that stuck in my mind were those concerning items of furniture or adornment. Most famously, of course, he left his wife the ‘second best bed with the furniture’ and his daughter Judith ‘my broad silver gilt bole’. The bulk of his bequests were property and money which went to his favoured daughter Susanna and her husband, along with frustratingly unspecified ‘goodes, chattels leases plate jewels & household stuff whatsoever’.
But the image of the sword had always stood out for me, shimmering across the darkening fields of memory. I know a little about swords, though I’m no authority, and I often used to wonder what sort it was, why he had it, where he got it, why Thomas Combe and, above all, what happened to it. Could it still exist, unrecognised in some attic or indifferently displayed with a few Elizabethan daggers in some museum? Or used as a poker by a man who couldn’t be bothered to get out of his chair?
The key was to establish whether Thomas Combe could be an ancestor of Gerald Coombs. No double-o, of course, and Thomas did have an e, but spelling varies with times and places and Gerald had mentioned ancestors of roughly the right period and location. If any of them were Stratford men, and Thomas was a Stratford man, that would greatly increase the likelihood.
I researched far into the night. Gratifyingly, others had done the hard slog before me. Thomas Combe was indeed a Stratford man and a lawyer. He was younger than Shakespeare – twenty-seven when Shakespeare died in 1616 aged fifty-two – and had
a brother and great-uncle who were also lawyers. ‘Mostly lawyers . . . bloody lawyers,’ Gerald had said. Shakespeare had bought land from them – 107 acres, no small amount – and there seem to have been property dealings between Thomas’s father and Shakespeare’s father. Clearly, they all knew each other, certainly through business and possibly friendship. Leaving the sword – expensive and often treasured items – to young Thomas must surely have been a mark of friendship or gratitude.
Thomas himself was admitted to Middle Temple in 1608 when he must have been about nineteen. After that he returned to practise in Stratford, was made Recorder in 1648 and remained in that post until his death in 1657, aged sixty-eight. A good age for those days, meaning he lived through the Civil War. I assumed he was a Cromwellian since Warwickshire was strongly Puritan – even in Shakespeare’s lifetime the corporation of Stratford forbade plays in the Guildhall – and his cousin was granted land seized from the Royalist Bishop of Worcester. He helped organise and control repairs to the Stratford parish church. His step-sister, Bridget, married a future Governor of Connecticut but Thomas appears never to have married and died without issue, leaving the bulk of his estate to Warwickshire cousins. The sword is not mentioned in his will but, assuming he still had it, it would have gone to his cousin William Combe of nearby Alvechurch, to whom he left all his goods and chattels. And so it disappears from history.
As does Thomas. Were it not for those six words in Shakespeare’s will we should have known nothing of him or the sword. He would have been swallowed by the great maw of time and the world would very soon be as if he had never been, once the temporary ripple among family and friends had subsided. Of course, he would never have guessed that he would be a subject of interest four hundred years on; if he had it would have felt like a kind of immortality, spurious but still desirable.
These might seem morbid reflections for a middle-aged man alone at night in his shop, illuminated by desk lamp and screen, surrounded by dead people’s possessions. But I felt far from morbid. Things outlive us, which is partly why I like them. The pen I was using to take notes, a 1920s Conway Stewart, was made long before I was born and will function for someone long after I have disappeared. Things speak to us of lives past, evidence not of immortality but of the fact that not everything is as transient as ourselves. That’s why the thought of Shakespeare’s sword cheered and excited me, filling me with energy. If it could be plucked out of the great maw it would bring us, in a very small way, closer to Shakespeare, to Thomas Combe and to all those other forgotten Combes who had owned and handled it, all the way down to Gerald. The Combes – or Coombses – would end with him, I guessed. But the sword would go on. It could also be worth a lot of money.
On the Monday morning I rang the chaps who do the heavy lifting for me, a couple of lads with a van – or rather, a succession of vans since none seems to last long. They’re a scruffy pair and a good example of how you can’t always judge by appearances since they’re punctual and polite and take care not to damage things. That’s why I pay them a bit over the odds for our part of the world. They live on a caravan site along the coast at Camber where they seem to be involved in multifarious enterprises of, I suspect, uncertain legality.
I then rang the Coombses. Eventually, as I was holding my breath to leave a message, Gerald answered. That is, there was a sigh he made no attempt to conceal and then the single, tired word, ‘Well?’ It appeared that any intrusion from the outside world was not only unwelcome but not worth bothering with. However, a trace of animation entered his voice when I said I was ringing to see whether that afternoon was a good time for my chaps to deliver the desk.
‘Can’t see anything wrong with it,’ he said cautiously, as if inspecting an intricate piece of machinery. ‘Nothing much wrong with that. Shan’t be here myself but Charlotte will let them in.’
‘They’ll take your old desk straight to the auction rooms at Lewes. It may be in time for the next auction, depending how much they’ve got.’ There was no response. I decided to construe silence as consent and took a chance. ‘Nothing else I can take for you, I suppose? While my chaps are there. Any old bits and pieces you no longer want?’
The silence continued, long enough for me to fear I’d offended him. Then he said, ‘Clear the bloody house for all I care.’
I affected a laugh, unreciprocated. ‘Would three o’clock be all right for Mrs Coombs?’ But it was too late; he had put the phone down.
I closed the shop after lunch. Stephanie knew the heavy lifters and could be trusted to let them in and show them which desk, though I left a note on it in case anything unexpected threw her. I drove over to Winchelsea about half an hour before the lifters were due. Charlotte raised her eyebrows when she saw it was me, I hoped with pleasurable surprise though it might have been quizzical. ‘Thought I’d better see that my chaps get it right,’ I said. ‘Not that they don’t normally.’
‘That’s very kind of you. May I get you some tea or coffee?’
‘Tea would be very nice.’
She was wearing jeans with the jumper she had worn in the shop on Saturday. I stood watching her in the kitchen as she made the tea. Her movements were precise and considered, almost as if she were performing surgery. Or as if, conscious of her oversized hands, she felt she had to make a point of delicacy.
‘What a lovely light kitchen.’ My flat was small-windowed and dark, like most old houses. This led to a discussion of the house and eventually a tour. It was one of the relatively few detached houses in Winchelsea, larger inside than it looked from without. From the two rear bedrooms we could see the sea. ‘That’s what’s frustrating about my flat,’ I told her. ‘So near the sea but we can’t see it because it’s blocked by the other side of the street. They have a good view of it from the back but we get no benefit at all. We get the gulls, though. Wretched creatures.’
Her expression was extravagantly sympathetic, as if I’d announced an amputation rather than an inconvenience. ‘Oh dear, how awful for you. We get them too, they make such a dreadful racket especially first thing in the morning. But probably not as badly as you. They sound louder in towns, with all the reverberation.’
Upstairs was as crammed with old paintings and furniture as downstairs. It wasn’t a treasure trove – there were some nice pieces but most of it was simply old, as if an undiscriminating dealer had retired without clearing his stock. But on the landing was a long-case clock which I knew to be both rare and not worth much. The polished oak case had probably once housed a finer clock; the face, plain enamel with Arabic numerals, was friendly rather than smart, showing hours, minutes and dates, the latter through a downturned mouth. There was some faded floral decoration, green, yellow and gold, in the corners. It was stopped at ten to four and was interesting only because it was a local clock, by H. Bourn of Rye. I knew a little about Mr Bourn. His dates were 1801–38 and he ceased trading in 1837. He may have begun as a blacksmith who graduated to clock-making. There were two other examples of his work, one owned by a lady in Tenterden and another by a former mayor of Rye who used to keep it in the mayoral office and removed it when he left. They were simple clocks, weight-driven with thirty-hour movements and anchor escapements, but they worked. They were of no value to horologists or to the trade in general; their appeal was strictly local, and to only a few at that.
She noticed me looking at it. ‘It was working only he – Gerald – stopped winding it because the chimes kept him awake. He doesn’t sleep as well as he used to.’
‘Did they keep you awake too?’
‘Of course they did, for years. But I didn’t feel I could say anything.’ She smiled.
‘Tell him it’s no trouble to disconnect the chime, if he wants. It would go for longer without winding then. I could do it in a couple of minutes.’
‘Could you, could you really?’ Her eyes widened as if I’d announced the discovery of a miracle cure. ‘That would be wonderful. So very kind of you. I’ll tell him, I’ll certainly tell him, yes.�
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We stood facing each other. She had one thing in common with her husband: pauses that were disconcertingly long, making it hard to know whether she was collecting her thoughts, or politely allowing time for a response, or was simply unaware. Because they made me feel awkward, it soon became my practice to fill them. That was a mistake, a sign of weakness. ‘You sound as if you don’t expect him to do anything about it.’ I imagined Mr Coombs grunting acknowledgement of my offer and leaving it at that.
‘Exactly, quite right, how perceptive of you. This was his parents’ house, you see. He was brought up here. These – all this furniture – were all their things that came down through the family on his father’s side. There’s practically nothing of his mother’s. He complains about it all the time, says we’re too cluttered, which we are, and that we live under the dead hand of the past, which we do, but he won’t do anything about it. Nothing must be changed. It’s a burden to – to both of us, really. We just go on.’
‘But he’s getting rid of his father’s desk downstairs and buying a new one.’
She clasped her hands, pressing them against her stomach. ‘That’s so unusual, yes, took me completely by surprise. I didn’t say anything because – well, I don’t want to discourage change.’ She laughed. ‘But I’m surprised he’s gone through with it. Maybe it doesn’t count in his eyes because it hasn’t been handed down through the centuries, it was just something his father bought for his office and brought home with him. Do you see what I mean? Do you see?’
Her eyes were almost violet in that light and her appeal gratuitously urgent. I nodded, which felt like an inadequate response. Then, after another pause, she turned and headed downstairs. Throughout our conversation the image of the sword in the hearth hovered in my mind like an alcoholic’s knowledge of a hidden bottle. I was considering how to mention it when the doorbell rang.
