Pearlhanger

by Jonathan Gash

  Mrs Vernon’s glance raked me briefly. ‘I get it, Lovejoy. Everybody else is always wrong, except you. That it? You’re great; the rest morons?’

  ‘You’re brighter than I thought.’ I was surprised. She was coming on.

  ‘What are you about, Lovejoy?’

  Time for the yap-and-guess interlude, evidently. ‘Me? Antiques.’

  ‘A person can’t only be about antiques.’

  I gave her one of my force eight glances so she’d know I meant it. ‘If I’d claimed to love money, rape or Olympic yachting you’d believe me. Or,’ I added drily, ‘ghosts.’

  She was too angry to contradict my misuse of the term. ‘You’re a put-down pig,’ she said, her face pale with fury.

  ‘Drop me at the next corner, please.’

  Interestedly I watched the fascinating inward struggle. Women are always like this to some degree, aching to belt you one yet simultaneously wanting to use you in their designs. I’d been clocked by better women than her, so that was nowt new. The real question was, what was her particular design? The plot thickened around us as she pulled in to the pavement opposite a toffee shop and cut the engine. Her breathing showed no sign of returning to normal. She finally started without it.

  ‘Lovejoy. You’re an anti-feminist pig. But I’m stuck with you.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ I was all reason.

  She commanded, ‘You listen. I’ve a husband to find. You’re hired to—’

  ‘Shhh, Donna.’ I talked on into her astonished rage. ‘Difficult for a woman to be a frigging bore, but you made it. Just look at you. Your coat’s imitation Shetland. Your buttons are imitation bone. Your cotton’s faked cotton. Your cardigan’s imitation lambs-wool. Your shoes are imitation leather. Ditto for your handbag, purse, that Aran of yesterday, knickers too I shouldn’t wonder. Your plastic bloody bangle’s even fake plastic.’ And would you believe she still didn’t throw me out? Her endurance fascinated me more and more. ‘The real question is what Donna Vernon’s about, isn’t it?’

  Her lips were a pale mauve set among white lines. One of those Venetian carnival masks, grotesque stasis but with a lot going on behind if you risk a look in the eyes. Her silent lips moved, presumably a command to explain. I’d made a right friend here. Yet again. ‘I can’t quite decide, Donna,’ I concluded with a winning smile. ‘You’re a scream. All that spiritualism gunge to convince me you were so unsure about hiring me. You’d decided on me long before you crossed Owd Maggie’s mit with silver. And.’

  ‘And?’ Furiously whispered, just audible.

  ‘And what’s the game, Donna? TTS? Treasure Tax Shelter?’ She looked puzzled. ‘A row with hubby hoovering up the antiques for himself? He nicked your favourite sports car? Taken the next-door blonde as foot-warmer? Which is it?’

  The Treasure Tax Shelter began in her own back yard. It’s usually based on investors clubbing together to finance Caribbean galleon hunters, but any old priceless treasure will do – as long as your own particular Inland Revenue Service agree on that elusive definition of ‘treasure’. It’s finders keepers. If your spade turns up nothing all year, your investment is written off as expenses. If you find a Mary Rose or Santa Margarita, then you decide what percentage of the bullion will be called ‘profit’, and gracefully allow that slender margin to be taxed. (Get it? The rest of the bullion you keep as ‘expenses’, heh-heh.) But what exactly is treasure? An Old Master painting in a pawnshop? A Hester Bateman silver table centre on open view at a London auction? A pair of tulip-wood wings for a 1911 French monoplane? Answer: yes to all. Since that magic day in 1980 in Key West where modern TTS came down from heaven, it’s been heap big monetary medicine.

  And Donna didn’t know what it was. Now, even our home-grown antique dealers, legendary scoopers of the Nobel for collective idiocy, have heard of it.

  Therefore she was no antique dealer.

  And collectors are merely antique dealers plus a limited amount of cerebral cortex. Therefore she was no collector.

  Therefore it was the next-door-blonde syndrome or the please-return-the-Jaguar-darling bit. Yet was Donna the sort to leave her car keys on any bloke’s key ring? Hardly. For my money she was the sort to help an erring hubby on his way by firing him and his blonde from a cannon.

  Therefore . . . ?

  I realized I’d run out of therefores when she lowered her eyes and lied, ‘You’re right, Lovejoy. That’s it. A treasure tax shelter scheme.’

  With difficulty I didn’t thrombose at her fib. I’d have to sort it out later. In the dark hours sometimes I wish I wasn’t so thick.

  ‘All right.’ I went all cherubic. ‘Now I know, I’ll help you to trail your lord and master.’

  ‘You arrogant sexist chauvinist pig.’

  This sort of reaction puzzles me. People always want me to behave like a video game. ‘Isn’t everybody?’ I was honestly asking her but she didn’t speak again until we were bowling down the A12 bypass.

  ‘Will that possessive bitch back there in your shit-awful cottage fix all those deals?’

  That narked me still further. ‘And twelve others. By weekend.’ She would, too.

  My employer was smiling unpleasantly. ‘Let’s hope she gets the right sketch, Lovejoy. The unique one sold at Gimbert’s yesterday was a sketch of The Haywain, Constable’s most famous painting with the wagon crossing the pool. You even said its name wrong.’

  It’s one of life’s greatest tragedies that antique dealing, handling and caring for the loveliest creations of man, lies in the hands of cretinoids who can’t tell the difference between a Brabant rose-cut diamond and a light bulb. There’s not a neurone among the lot.

  ‘You’re brainy, missus. Too brainy to know that John Constable called his painting Landscape Noon. The wagon you mentioned is properly called a scarf. And it isn’t crossing the pool. Look at the painting. You’ll see there’s no road. The wagoneer’s driven into the pool to soak the wheels. And the oil sketch isn’t unique. Constable himself did at least five. Round these parts rumour says his son John also did maybe seven more. Shall I go on?’ I settled down. ‘Wake me when you stop for coffee, missus.’ I gave a theatrical snore. This relationship was going downhill. Driving ten minutes and already on our third row. Even marriages last longer.

  ‘You just boobed, Lovejoy.’ She was smiling-not-smiling, teeth bared at the windscreen. ‘You just threw your day’s pay out the window.’

  ‘Like this?’ I reached across, waggled the steering wheel to free the ignition key, and lobbed the key out. The motor whined with horrible shrillness. We careered obliquely across the carriageway. Donna struggled to correct us, screaming. I cowered in my seat as we slammed the crash barrier.

  Horns blared. I’d no idea there were so many sorts. No wonder they’re a big collecting item. We bumped against the grass verge, rocked to stillness. Silence.

  I was out in a flash, darting among the traffic. The Old Bill would come wah-wahing along any minute. I climbed the crash barrier and began to walk briskly back towards town. Other cars had stopped, the motorists standing out looking, nosey sods.

  It was typical of Donna Vernon’s whole daft escapade that the one vehicle to stop wasn’t some kindly wagon driver.

  ‘Coo-ee, cherub!’ My heart froze. ‘Lovejoy!’

  I thought: Oh God, no, please. Not now. Not me. But there the grotesque giant car stood in all its glitter-glare glory with Sandy waving from its window. In a panic I scanned the road searching for somewhere to hide, forests, a barn, anywhere. Nothing. Miserably I walked off the verge cursing my luck.

  ‘Times hard, Lovejoy?’ Sandy trilled. ‘I know exactly how you feel! I’ve spent positive aeons trolling this bypass, dear!’

  ‘Wotcher, lads. Erm . . .’ The enormous Rover was a right spectacle. Not a garish colour missing. Silver leaves twined round scarlet zigzags, green sunbursts, glittering fluorescent blues and yellows. Even the tyres were sparkling, gold dots on purple. A long tasselled fringe fibrillated its primrose lure
x round the roof. Sequins shimmered over the bonnet.

  Mel was sitting in the passenger seat, arms folded. My heart sank further. They’d had another row. An approaching car slowed, Donna Vernon at the wheel. Quickly I opened the Rover’s door and got in. ‘Ta, Sandy.’ I peered nervously over my shoulder as I sank into the interior’s magenta leather.

  ‘Oooh!’ Sandy squealed delightedly. ‘Lovejoy’s escaping again!’ He turned into the oncoming traffic, serenely acknowledging the furious cacophony by a regal wave of his mink-gloved hand. He was wearing a sequined smock and a magnolia bertha. ‘Don’t blame you, dearie,’ Sandy said. ‘She looked a right mare. Has naughty Lovejoy been dipping his little wick where he oughtn’t?’

  I went red. You can see why they embarrass even an impoverished hitch-hiker. ‘Nothing like that,’ I said. ‘She wants me to do a job, that’s all.’

  ‘You mean you’re not for hire, Lovejoy?’ He was tittering. ‘A record!’ I swear he loves trouble.

  ‘Look. Can you give me a lift to Beatrice’s?’

  ‘No,’ Mel said sullenly, fuming about something. ‘I hate her. Phoney.’

  ‘Of course we will, cherub.’ Sandy giggled, darted a malevolent glance at his partner. ‘Having your little pinkie read, dear? Beatrice is frightfully good. She did me – and I do mean my horoscope. Promised ever so many naughty things.’ He gave a roguish wink over his shoulder and said innocently, ‘Didn’t she, Mel? Said I was going to meet a tall dark stranger. He’s not turned up yet, but I live in hope.’

  ‘Will you stop chattering?’ from Mel.

  Sandy trilled, ‘Mel’s in a mood, Lovejoy. He ordered yellow ochre curtains for our dear little motor. Can you imagine? I had to change them. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Er,’ I said, looking at the frills that adorned each car window. ‘Well, er, I’ve never seen plum-striped orange lace before . . .’

  That started them bickering all the way down the river estuary.

  ‘We’ve been to a wedding, Lovejoy,’ Sandy cooed, darting Mel a malicious look. ‘One of Mel’s old friends.’

  ‘You were hateful,’ stonily from Mel.

  ‘It was divine, Lovejoy! The bride (her friends kept calling her that) wore a bullet-proof Laura Ashley long tight sleeves I mean lace – lace! – on seersucker how original to be so wrong and white too . . .’ Tittering, he maintained the flow of spite while Mel fumed.

  I’m never sure about this weird pair. Mel is glass, porcelain and art up to Art Deco. Sandy prefers Eastern antiques and household wares up to Ted the Seventh, though Sandy always says he can be bought off with candy. They live in our village, with an open-floored barn for antiques behind their house. Their whole parade is silly, yet they drive the hardest antique bargains in East Anglia. Sandy says they’re two sheep in wolf’s clothing.

  Ten-thirty and they dropped me at the wharfside cottage where Beatrice lives. I was on tenterhooks.

  ‘You can pay for the lift,’ Sandy said as I stepped out among the lobster pots and nets. ‘Divvie a Palissy for Mel. Promise?’

  ‘It’s genuine,’ Mel said, sulking.

  ‘Right,’ I agreed, wavering hungrily. A Palissy is a coloured lead-glazed earthenware piece, rare and valuable but gruesome as only a sixteenth-century Frenchman can make it. Each piece that Bernard Palissy made is decorated with snakes, lizards, dead fish and God-knows-what. Naturally, art turned swiftly to roguery, and cack-handed copies were made for at least three centuries. We’d had a number of the worst – Portuguese – turn up lately. I felt sure Mel had got one of these gungey items in a job lot. The Mafra family in Caldas rattled them off till 1887.

  A few wharfsiders and fishermen were goggling at the monstrous motor and its exotic occupants in disbelief as I disembarked.

  ‘Ta, lads,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope Beatrice is in.’

  ‘Always is, cherub,’ Sandy trilled loudly. ‘The question’s in what.’

  Mel joined in the fray with relish. ‘And do say her red porch light’s gone out, Lovejoy. She’ll lose business.’

  I heard Sandy’s falsetto giggle all the way over the cobbles. My mind was reeling from the car’s colours and their ridiculous talk. But my luck had changed. Beatrice was in, up, sober, conscious, alone, and momentarily celibate. An all-time first.

  Wrong again, Cardew, I told him mentally as the door buzzed and I climbed Beatrice’s stairs. I’d not gone with Donna Vernon, and I wasn’t going either. If anything, I’d go after her hubby and his antiques on my own.

  Chapter 4

  AN HOUR LATER Beatrice and I were shakily brewing up. Beatrice’s antique shop is on the wharf of our tiny port, and mostly does ancient dolls and toys, now big money. Lately, her quarterly list had included items dealing with fortune telling, tarot cards, ouija boards and whatnot. She calls herself an occultist. Other people, especially Mel and Sandy, don’t. Beatrice always wears a ton of thick make-up plastered all over her face, really lovely. The kitchen’s so full of those funny bottles women like that we had a hard time finding the teabags. She was slightly tipsy by then, and swayed more than ever at the ghastly notion of a non-alcoholic drink. The tea caddy had a layer of dust.

  Yet Beatrice isn’t the slattern I suppose I’m making her sound. She’s honest and friendly, which goes a long way in my book. She fell for a coastal pilot and simply moved to where she would be the first thing he stepped on when coming ashore. We call him Barney because he’s called Bill (get it? Barnacle Bill). Unkind friends claim she has telescopes at every window, but I say leave her alone. If loving was the worst thing we all did, the world wouldn’t be such a bloody shambles.

  In the post-loving doze my mind went awry. All that spooky lunacy at the seance, I suppose. It brought back that odd verse in Owd Maggie’s gravelly voice. Stupid, because the only thing you find of any value between the salt water and the sea sand is pearls, not missing husbands. They say dreaming is dangerously close to madness. My slumbering brain jumbled signs of the zodiac, magical emblems and crystal balls, all into a great swirl, finally settling them into a distorted pattern with one giant pearl hanging there. Bea frightened me into palpitating wakefulness by tottering out, pulling on a silk dressing gown full of zodiacal signs. A clue. Four of her rings, modern gunge alas, were also emblematic of unfathomable mystery.

  ‘Here, Bea,’ I called. I’d shot back to bed because her patch was warmer than mine. As well, from there you can see the small boats moving in the harbour. I wanted no sudden nauticals swaggering unexpectedly round the old bollards while I was engaged in psychic exploration. ‘You in thick with Owd Maggie?’

  ‘Madame Blavatsky? We’re eight-in-the-ring sometimes. Why?’

  Eight what? ‘All true, is it?’

  ‘Certainly. But some are more honest than others, some more gifted. You want milk in this brew, Lovejoy?’ She gave a tiny distressful groan as the kettle whistled.

  ‘Zodiacs, spiritualism, ghost hunting, that Cardew gig. Is it all the same?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Then come and educate me.’

  She swayed in with a tray holding a teapot, two cups, some gin and eight tonics. I showed her Donna Vernon’s list of places.

  ‘What are these places, love? Mini Stonehenges? Druidical haunts? Ley lines?’

  ‘They’re simply places, Lovejoy.’

  Just when I thought I’d cracked it. ‘Nothing specially supernatural?’

  ‘About Nottingham?’ She smiled at that, lovely and fresh. ‘My third husband came from Nottingham.’ She looked at her tray, and down at me. ‘What do you want first, Lovejoy? A drink, education about the supernatural, or . . . ?’

  Spiritualism is different from astrology, I learned to my surprise. Futurism and ghost hunting have little in common. And not only that. Beatrice went on to explain that a seance was a very special entity. It has definite purposes, set rituals. You just can’t get a table, pull the blinds and start. Only ignoramuses assumed that all these were vaguely one and the same thing. She told me it a
ll so matter-of-factly, as if it was jam-packed full of self-evident truths, that I became quite narked and told her to knock it off.

  ‘People often react like you, Lovejoy,’ she told me. ‘You don’t want it to be true. And you’re scared.’

  ‘Scared? Me?’ That really got me rolling in the aisles. I laughed loud and long.

  ‘You, Lovejoy.’ She poured a tumbler of gin and supported my head so we could both watch the harbour for Barnacle Bill’s bobbing barque. ‘It’s perfectly natural to be apprehensive.’

  ‘Look, Bea. The only thing I’m scared of is Barney catching me here, and a deranged female called Mrs Vernon catching me anywhere.’

  ‘Oh, Donna Vernon’ll find you all right.’

  ‘Like hell.’ I’d said the words, smiling out at the grey sea and the Martello tower, before the penny dropped. ‘Here. How did you know her first name?’

  ‘Met her. Night before last. She came here asking where she could get a divvie.’

  I shoved her away to sit up and look more directly. This was news. ‘And you told her me?’

  ‘Of course. I saw your face in conjunction with Mrs Vernon’s. Simple. I gave her your address.’

  ‘So she took me to Owd Maggie’s to check.’ Out there a small boat was passing the bar. It looked familiar. Nervously I said, ‘That your bloke’s boat, Bea?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s early.’ She toasted the distant craft delightedly with a tilt of her glass.

  Ever since these bloody women had started on this fortune-telling lark I’d been in a continual state of alarm. I scrabbled for my clothes effing and blinding. ‘Couldn’t you have warned me, you silly cow?’

  ‘The unexpected’s always at hand, Lovejoy. It’s in ourselves we must look.’

  ‘Tell Barnacle Bill that,’ I said fervently. He’d done over a Wivenhoe bloke once for snogging with Bea in her car. It hadn’t been a pretty sight.

  ‘Don’t you want to know your prediction, Lovejoy?’ she asked in all innocence while I threw my clothes on.