“Are you bidding?” asked Sarah, bluntly.
Seáth Rider shook his head. “I’ve no interest in them myself, Mrs Bryce; although I know that you have.”
“And how do you know that?” She watched him as he lifted his champagne glass and took a small sip. There was a heavy silver ring on his finger, embossed with the design of a beast’s face. She couldn’t have sworn that it was identical to the ring worn by the man in The Russet Bull, but all the same, it was almost too much of a coincidence to be true.
“I’m always here and there, back and forth,” Seáth Rider told her. She liked the delicate Irish way he said tort’ instead of ‘forth’. “I know when people have their heart set upon something, and the lengths to which they’ll go to get it.”
“Do you have a shop?” Sarah asked him.
“Not a shop as such. But a sort of imaginary market, where you can buy whatever you want. Here,” he said, and handed her a business card. Seáth E. Rider, Acquisitor, Dublin & London. There was no address, only a mobile telephone number. “For instance, if you had urgent need of an eighteenth-century teapot, I could find you one and bring it to you within the blink of an eye. Or if you had urgent need of anything else for that matter.”
“Well, that’s very interesting, Mr Rider. Perhaps I can keep you in mind.”
Seáth Rider gave her the faintest hint of a smile. “I was hoping that you’d do that, Mrs Bryce.”
With that, he gave her a nod, and disappeared into the crowds of dealers, almost sliding rather than walking, like a character in a children’s cut-out theatre.
“Well, what do you make of him?” asked Raymond. “Rather louche, wasn’t he? And what’s an ‘Acquisitor’ when it’s at home? I don’t think there’s any such word.”
“I don’t know,” said Sarah, still trying to see where Seáth Rider had gone. “I thought he was quite attractive, in a shifty kind of way.”
“That’s the trouble with women,” Raymond retorted. “Give them a good, trustworthy man and they won’t look twice at him. But give them a rat, and they fall on their backs with their legs in the air.”
Sarah looked at him narrowly. “Do you know something, Raymond, I do believe that you thought he was attractive, too.”
That evening, after dinner, when the sun was sinking over the Kenmare estuary, Sarah went for a walk in the hotel gardens. There was a light breeze blowing from the south-west, but the air was warm and smelled of the sea, and gulls were still circling overhead. She walked through a succession of small, secret gardens, each surrounded by a high hedge. In each there were cast-iron Victorian chairs and tables, all empty now, some tipped over. She felt that she was walking through a garden from Alice Through The Looking Glass, or one of Edward Gorey’s drawings of Gashlycrumb Hall.
She thought how much her father would have loved this place. He had always adored a bit of grandeur, and she had never forgotten the first time he had taken her for dinner at the Savoy. He hadn’t been wealthy: in fact he had run a toyshop in a suburb of South London. But he had always been kind, and smartly-dressed, and gentlemanly, and Sarah had been devastated when he died last year, only sixty-one years old, of a massive heart attack.
As she walked between the dark, enclosed gardens, Sarah was sure that she could hear people talking; but every garden was empty, and growing darker, too, as the sun began to sink even lower. She could hear a girl’s voice, persistently arguing, and a man trying to reason with her. Yet she couldn’t work out where they were. Perhaps they were somewhere behind the hedges, and their voices were being carried on the breeze.
She came out onto the shoreline, where the tidal waters splashed clear and shallow against the rocks. There were two small islands offshore, which had been connected to the hotel grounds by a causeway built of planks. Each island was overgrown with trees, and was silhouetted now against the sky. There were probably less than twenty minutes of daylight left. The clouds above the mountains were already black, and a huge pillar of cumulus had risen in the west, threatening thundery rain. It looked like a demon, with horns and billowing wings, risen from out of the furnace of the setting sun.
Sarah had thought that she was alone. But as she walked along the causeway, she saw that somebody else was ahead of her, walking in the same direction. It was a tall, white-haired man in a navy-blue blazer and grey pants. He was walking quite quickly, but with an interrupted step, because of the gaps between the planks.
Sarah stopped and shaded her eyes. She was sure she recognized him. There was something so familiar about his slightly-stooped shoulders, and the way he flapped up his hand to beat away the midges. There was something so familiar about his hair. She always remembered her father saying that you can disguise your face but you can never disguise the way you look from the back.
“Dad?” she whispered, too frightened to say it out loud. Then, when he kept on walking, “Dad!”
He had reached the end of the first stretch of causeway, and was crossing a small rocky point where the hotel had built bathing huts and benches for guests to sit on while their children swam. Now he was turning toward the woods.
Shocked, thrilled, frightened, Sarah shouted, “Dad! It’s me, Sarah! Dad!”
She snatched off her shoes and started to run along the causeway barefoot. The man had almost reached the shadow of the woods, but she shouted at him again. “Dad! Just wait a minute! Wait for me!”
Even as she ran, she knew that it couldn’t be him. He was dead, how could it be him? But it was him. It looked so much like him. She couldn’t believe that there could be two people on God’s earth with the same hair and the same stooping walk and the same irritable way of flapping his hand at insects.
She reached the bathing huts and balanced herself against one of the benches while she put her shoes back on. She could still see the man, walking away from her along the tree-shadowed path that led to the islands. About a hundred feet away, he paused for a moment, and looked around, and although she couldn’t see his face clearly she was even more convinced that it was her father.
“Dad! Stop!” she cried out, and ran toward him. Her feet pelted through last autumn’s leaves. But whether he heard her or whether he didn’t, he turned into the woods and vanished behind the trees.
Sarah came to the turning in the path and stopped. From here, she could see all the way down a narrow, root-entangled path that led to an inlet between the islands. The water gleamed between the trees, but there was no sign of the white-haired man. She listened, but all she could hear was the shushing of the waves on the rocky beach, and the chirping of insects in the woods. Quite close to her, a single leaf quivered excitedly on a branch, making a soft whirring sound, but that was all.
She stayed where she was for almost two minutes, still listening, but it was obvious that there was nobody here. It had all seemed so real, but she must have imagined it. Maybe she was tired, after traveling across the mountains, and spending the whole afternoon talking antiques. She had drunk half a bottle of Chablis with her dinner, and that might have induced an hallucination, or a mirage, or a memory, or whatever it was.
She put her hand up to her face and found that tears were sliding down her cheeks. She had wanted so much to see her father one more time. She had wanted so much for him not to be dead. It had taken her more than six months to come to terms with the fact that he had gone, and even now she found herself unexpectedly crying when she heard one of his favourite songs, or smelled pipe-tobacco, or heard a man tunelessly whistling in the street.
She turned around, and literally jumped. Standing less than ten feet away from her was Seáth Rider, his hands in his pockets, watching her.
“God you scared me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I saw you marching off to the islands and wondered if you wanted some company.”
“I don’t think so, thank you. Besides, I’m going back now. It’s getting too late.”
“Well, that’s a shame. It’s a charming walk and it won’t take us
more than fifteen minutes.”
“I’m cold,” she said, and tried to push past him; but he took hold of her arm; not roughly; but very insistently.
“You’ve been piping your eye.”
“It’s nothing. Hay fever, that’s all.”
“And you want me to believe that?”
“Quite frankly, I don’t care what you believe.”
“Oh, come on, now,” he said, in that soothing, cat’s fur voice. “There’s no need to be offish about it, is there? I’m only trying to be sociable. I know what it’s like when you’ve lost somebody dear to you. Everybody thinks that you can get over it, but you never can.”
She stared at him, face to face. “How did you know?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry. How did I know what?”
“How did you know why I was crying?”
He gave her a look like no man had ever looked at her before. It was a mixture of desire and teasing and something that was close to greed. She had the disturbing feeling that he had an erection. “I’m always here and there,” he said. “You know. Back and forth.”
“But you knew why I was crying.”
“Well … don’t think anything of it. It’s only intuition. You know what the Irish are like. Tribal, touchy, maudlin, over-sentimental, quick as a flash to take offence and preternaturally slow to forget it. Magical, too; though not in the way that tourists think. None of your little people and your leprechauns’ crossings, your Blarney stone and all that tosh. Different magic, that’s what.”
Sarah waited for a while to see if he was going to explain himself further; but he didn’t; and so she drew her arm away. “I’m tired,” she said. “I think I’m going back.”
“You’re missing something, believe me.”
“I expect I am. But then we can’t always have what we want, can we?”
His eyes glittered in the twilight. He was tall and dark and crowned with midges. “Oh, you’re wrong there,” he told her. “We can always have what we want.”
Sarah hesitated for a moment longer, she didn’t know why; but then she made her way back toward the bathing huts.
The estuary was lilac when she got there; lilac and grey; and the waters still persistently lapping. She glanced back once, but she couldn’t see Seáth Rider at all, because the shadows were so deep, or perhaps he had carried on walking. She didn’t understand what had happened. She didn’t understand how she could have imagined seeing her father, and how he had vanished so completely. She didn’t understand how Seáth Rider could have such an acute sense of what she was feeling. Here and there, back and forth, what the hell did that mean?
She walked back through the gardens. This time she heard no voices; only the sound of laughter from the hotel lobby and car doors slamming. She went back inside, where it was noisy and lively, and went to the bar to see if she could have a nightcap with anyone she knew.
On the whole, the auction was disappointing. Some of the best lots had been withdrawn, including paintings by Jack Butler Yeats and Sir John Lavery, and a set of pen-and-ink sketches by William Orpen. A large breakfront bookcase had been taken out, too, much to Ian Caldecott’s fury, because he had been specially commissioned to bid for it by a wealthy rock musician who wanted it for his library.
Oddly, Sarah found that she was pleased that so many paintings and so many articles of furniture were staying in Ireland. She kept thinking of what Seáth Rider had said about “taking people’s lives to pieces, so to speak.” But she still wanted her Daniel Marot chairs. She had inspected them this morning, in daylight, and they were perfect. High-backed, exquisitely carved, with curved legs and curved stretchers; and their original upholstery, in faded rose-pink, with fringes. They had been cared for so well that they could have been nearly new. She had run her hands over the carvings, and they had felt almost as if they were flesh, rather than wood, because they were so warm and smooth.
She was sitting at the back of the conference room where the auction was being held. There must have been two or three hundred dealers there, illuminated by the sunshine that came through the windows like parishioners in church, a bald head over here shining through it last traces of carefully combed hair; and over there a large pair of ears glowing red. There, some smeary thumbprinted spectacles and here, too close for comfort, a black jacket liberally sprinkled with dandruff.
The auctioneer was bald and pink and smooth as a billiard-ball, with wiry half-glasses and a formal suit. His accent was Kerry-trying-to-be-Posh, and since Kerry is incomprehensible anyway, even to Irishmen from other counties, and Posh meant saying “fornitchewer” and “harty facts”, it was difficult for most of the dealers to follow what was going on, and Ian Caldecott became even more enraged when he missed an important Regency writing-table.
At the very end, the Daniel Marot chairs were brought in, and set up on the rostrum. Ian Caldecott glanced back at Sarah and she knew then that she was in trouble. He wanted these badly, almost as badly as she did, and since he still had plenty of money to spend, the chances were that he was going to push her as high as he could.
“Well then lot 167a two upright chairs to the design of Daniel Marot and attributed to Josiah Shearley of London circa 1705. Can we start at three thousand pounds the pair?”
Sarah waved her prospectus and at the same time Ian Caldecott lifted a single finger. This time he didn’t look back at her.
“Three thousand five hundred do I hear you now.”
Again Sarah waved her prospectus and Ian Caldecott lifted his finger.
“Four thousand is it now.”
Sarah had guessed that the two chairs could probably be retailed at £3,750 each, but even that was stretching it. To make any kind of profit, she would have to stop bidding at £6,000. If she went above that, she wouldn’t even be able to cover her air fare and her hotel bill and the hire of her emerald-green ear.
But she did want those chairs. They were historic, and they were simply beautiful. They represented the moment when English furniture first came truly alive.
“Four thousand five hundred is that what I’m hearing.”
Sarah waved her prospectus. Ian Caldecott lifted his finger.
“Is it five thousand now.”
A low murmuring went through the auction-room. It was obvious that the price of the chairs had almost reached their premium trade value, and that the bidding was becoming a personal contest between Sarah and Ian Caldecott, the experienced connoisseur and his assertive young pupil.
“Five thousand five,” said the auctioneer. There was a pause, and he raised his gavel. “Any takers at five thousand five,”
Ian Caldecott hesitated for a moment, then bid. Sarah bid too.
“Six is it then. Six thousand pounds.”
Ian Caldecott bid, but this time Sarah hesitated. This was the very limit of what she could spend. Then again, she thought, she could always raise the extra money from a few quick sales. She had a Welsh dresser that she had just bought in Lymington which would probably fetch £650, even thought it was unrestored, and she had two Thompson Hobbs paintings that she had been intending to have cleaned but which would raise another £400–£500.
“Going for six thousand,” said the auctioneer; but Sarah waved her prospectus again.
For the first time, Ian Caldecott turned around to look at her. She tried to smile at him, but the expression on his face was so furious that her smile died at birth.
“Six thousand five. Seven. Seven thousand five.”
Now Sarah knew that she was beyond her budget. If she bid more than £7,500 she would never get her money back, and she wouldn’t be able to buy anything else here at Parknasilla in the hope of cutting her losses. All the same, she waved her prospectus one more time.
“Seven thousand five. Is it any more than seven thousand five. Going to Mrs Bryce then for seven thousand five.” They’re mine, thought Sarah, with a surge of triumph. I’ve done it!
Ian Caldecott lifted his finger.
“Eight,�
�� said the auctioneer. Everybody turned in their seats to look at Sarah, and right at that moment she could have burst into tears. She had already taken far too much of a risk, and even though she was absolutely desperate to show Ian Caldecott that she could beat him at his own game, she knew that she couldn’t commit financial suicide for the sake of two chairs.
“Going for eight thousand to Mr Caldecott; gone.”
Sarah got up from her seat and left the auction-room without looking back. She went outside, where the sun was shining on the water and the yuccas were rustling. For the first time in seven years she felt like a cigarette. For the first time in three years she wished that Ken were here, so that she could talk to him. For all of his faults, for all of his tantrums, he had always cheered her up when she was disappointed, and made her laugh.
She leaned against the rail overlooking the estuary, her hair blowing in her face. She heard quiet footsteps, and saw a shadow on the flagstone, and then Seàth Rider came up and leaned on the rail beside her, black-suited as always.
“Another fine day,” he remarked. “There’s a story that you could see the lost city of Atlantis from here, under certain weather conditions, reflected in the sky.”
Sarah said nothing but brushed back her hair with her hand.
“You’re looking glum,” said Seàth Rider. “You lost the chairs I’ll bet.”
“Yes, Mr Rider, I lost the bloody chairs. They went for eight thousand and I just couldn’t match it.”
“That’s a terrible pity. They’re fine chairs, the both of them.”
“God knows how Ian’s going to get his money back. They’re scarcely worth six.”
“Maybe he wasn’t looking to get his money back. Maybe he just didn’t want you to have them. You know what some of these dealers are like: dogs in the manger. Especially when it comes to women. They’re very sensitive about women, and a whole lot of old queens, most of them.”
Faces of Fear Page 16
