The Grace in Older Women

by Jonathan Gash

  There's no point in replying to policy statements. They've all got them, from social workers to the Fraud Squad. All they translate into is: we're in authority, and do what we frigging well like. Which is why the UN is utterly useless, the Olympics corrupt, the EU bureaucrats rich beyond the greediest imagination. I read somewhere that declarations of war simply weren't, and that most wars just start without any gentlemanly preliminaries like polite exchanges of notes. Wilberforce was just another psycho in office.

  'No answer, Lovejoy?' Flecks of spittle spattered the air. I wondered if he had a wife somewhere, children.

  'What was the question?’

  'Willy,' somebody called just as he drew back to take a swing. He didn't relax, but didn't clout me. A uniformed Plod was standing on the steps looking down. 'You're wanted.'

  We all looked up. Maudie Laud was at a window. Quite a tableau. I gave her a nod and departed that place. All nicks have steps. Noticed that? Sometimes, I speculate on the reasons. Nothing architectural, I'll bet.

  There's a book called Spotlight. It pictures all actors, gives names, sometimes a little statement of their perfections. It took me forty long minutes flicking through before I came across Hugo Hopestone. He looked better than in real life, with more hair, good teeth. Sneakily I wondered if photographers touch the prints up. I phoned his agent, a woman sounding a toxic chainsmoker, and lied I had another job for Hugo. He was miraculously available to meet.

  With relief, I went for breakfast with my tourists, but they'd gone to some cosmic séance with a lady called Beatrice I once made smiles with down the estuary. Her mate is Barnacle Bill, a nautical salt of enormous stature and paranoid suspicion. I was really narked, because I'd only had one measly plate of bacon, egg, fried tomatoes and beans in the nick. I hadn't complained when they'd shortchanged me on the toast because I'd expected a proper breakfast with Hilda, Mahleen and Nadette while the others provided a merry backdrop. Bitterly, I got the old Morris and drove out to Fenstone to see Juliana Witherspoon. It's coming to something when you have to visit a churchwarden instead of having a breakfast you've been promised twice. It's not fair.

  Looked at in the cold light of drizzle, Fenstone appeared stuporous. Maybe it once bustled in the Middle Ages, been a thriving centre of mediaeval commerce. Now it seemed on its last legs. Usually, an East Anglian village has farm carts, impatient motors, prams, old folk working out how long before the children must be met, a shop with football notices, cricket matches, the whole humdrum swirl.

  This was like the bomb had dropped. Some farm tractor had gone through, deposited a stetch of clay on the road. It had remained undisturbed. The one old lady walking a dog actually turned to look as I drove in, giving me a quizzical What, a motor car? sort of gander. It had not burgeoned during my enforced absence. The FOR SALE signs still bristled, posters still bleached, weather-torn. I managed to find a parking space (joke) in the main street. There was one other motor, its front tyre flat. A notice stuck on its windscreen announced POLICE AWARE. It's how the Plod take dynamic action on abandoned cars The Bull pub was having another lie-in. The church looked as lively as its churchyard. It was all happening in Fenstone. I had Miss Witherspoon's address - not that it would have caused me any difficulty if I hadn't.

  Juliana's cottage was set back at right angles from the main road near the tavern, with a once-paved space showing where farm carts had pulled in before the adjacent barn. A light was on. Some vandal had imposed fanlights in the lovely old treble tiling. I almost shivered, something I don't often do because I'm a warm mortal, but the mist was already clinging. Any self-respecting East Anglian mist should have cleared off by now.

  'Wotcher, Juliana. Did it get nicked, then?'

  'No.' She didn't even bother to look round.

  'Why not? Seemed a pretty good painting.'

  She was seated before an easel, working hard on the fine detail of a small painting. I went in, stood looking. Normally I'd have dithered at the door and asked. But she'd established different rules for us. I couldn't help staring at her nape. There's hardly anything more interesting than a woman's nape, with its wisps of hair trying to get loose, looser. The place was larger than she needed. Partly completed canvases stood against the walls. Wattle and daub, I noticed, with ancient beams above, maybe fifteenth century.

  'August Macke, love? That original in Berlin, eh?'

  'Juliana Witherspoon,' she said with cold ferocity.

  Artists feel like this, even excellent forgers. Most, including Packo Orange, who would die if they thought for one minute that their forged paintings would for ever be thought legitimate. They need fame, like all artists, and hope that one day they'll be unmasked and admired. But the art establishment sees them as fraudsters, and wants them dead - the only state that guarantees nil productivity plus profit.

  August Macke was a German Expressionist. Brave lad, he volunteered for the Great War, and lasted only a few weeks. His paintings are small, evocative of that lost era of long frocks and hat boxes. I think them beautiful. Juliana was doing his tiny oil, The Woman in the Green Jacket. (Tip: Fake Expressionist paintings, currently almost unknown, will become epidemic in three years' time, so buy soon.)

  'You're terrific, love.’

  'Thank you, Lovejoy.' Cold. Her hand did not waver as she put her small sable to the foreground. 'Praise indeed, coming straight from a police cell.'

  Rumour still got through to Fenstone then. But I was narked. 'I was cleared. Which means,' I added, 'that I'm declared innocent, unlike you.'

  She dropped her brush, retrieved it. 'What do you mean?' She reached for the turpentine. I wish I could afford sable brushes. They cost the earth. She had a dozen, tips under inverted plastic freezer bags. Same trick I use.

  'Meaning you can't criticize Miss Witherspoon.'

  'Lovejoy,' she said wearily. 'Why are you here?'

  'To ask what other paintings you've done, love.'

  'Why should I tell you?' I cleaned her sable, gave it back for her to thin the point.

  'Don't you clean with petrol? I do, unless it's a forgery. Then I use turpentine or white spirit. Are you okay, love?'

  She was suddenly droopy, as if it was as all too much. 'You can look.'

  I wandered about the improvized studio. She sat on her stool staring at her unfinished Macke. I searched among the ones leaning against the wall. The light wasn't good. Most artists in East Anglia swear by a 'good northern light', which is why they knock holes in lovely old buildings. The two fanlights were the best Juliana could afford. God knows what she'd have done to this lovely old barn if she'd been rich. Maybe not forged at all?

  No doubt about it, Juliana Witherspoon was of exceptionally high standard. In fact, the one she was doing now I'd have paid for, knowing it a forgery, at a sale.

  'Where did you train?'

  'Italy, mostly. I wouldn't have minded Russia.'

  'You use good canvases?' I saw she didn't understand the trade lingo. i mean genuinely old canvases.' I'd seen at least one that still gave vibes, but it had been drastically cleaned of its original antique painting.

  'Some.' That listlessness again. I tried to cheer her up.

  'Look, love. This isn't signed yet. It's straight Eliose Harriet Stannard. Date it 1864, sign it with her name. You're allowed, by law, as long as you don't sell it as a genuine Stannard. Wasn't she Alfred Stannard's daughter, Norwich School? Know what I'd do? I'd pencil in - use Borrowdale graphite, though - Alfred's name, and some sentiment like, 'Excellent, my dear!' That'll remind buyers she attended her dad's art classes. It'll go like a bomb.' She looked at me. I faltered. They were not happy eyes. 'That is, if I was a forger and wanted money. Put a saver on it, your name in flake white under a coat of emulsion on the reverse. Forgers escape prison that way.' Me too, I thought, but did not say.

  'I can't make you out, Lovejoy.'

  Hard to smile under the circumstances. 'I'm transparent, love.'

  'Now you've seen my art, what will you do?'

&n
bsp; 'Keep a weather eye on auctions, love.' I crossed to look at the Macke - well, the Witherspoon. 'Not going to give me a list of your forgeries?'

  'I've only done these, Lovejoy. And the one - '

  ‘In the vestry?' I nodded. Motive, never much use, was clear here. She wanted to help her priest. I could understand that; she was head over heels. Means? Well, she was a talented artist. 'You wanted me to say it was a genuine, then you'd have nicked it, claimed on the insurance?'

  Her shoulders drooped further, it seemed so sensible. He's paid out a fortune to insurers, Lovejoy. Surely he is entitled to some return?'

  She didn't mean the Deity. I felt sympathy.

  'You've not done another lately, for somebody local?'

  'Here, Love joy?' She gave a laugh worse than any groan. 'If you know a customer, let me know. You're the first caller I've had in a fortnight.' 'Isn't there some farm lady interested in antiques?' It was a shot at hazard. 'A farm labourer told me she raised wool, some new animals . . .' 'Dame Millicent. Quite barmy, all weird speculations.' Brightening, I knew I'd done right to come. Time to visit Cockcroft

  Manor, chat up the loony old crone. I thanked Juliana, said if there was ever anything I could ever do . . . Then I remembered I was nutritionally compromised, and hesitated. 'Juliana. Have you anything to eat? I was up early in the nick.' An hour later I made Cockcroft Manor, but not until I'd had a worrying chat with Hugo.

  17

  ‘I felt a right prat,' Hugo said.

  He didn't look very well, or even very bright. Shabby, resigned, like he mustn't be late for some impending defeat. We'd met in China Miles's yard near the Welcome Sailor. It's a new nosh bar, founded on everybody else's credit. I was running up a slate there because I'd once done China a favour by spotting that he'd bought a twiffler - a flatware piece, basically a pudding plate. (They were handmade before the 1870s, when machinery took over and killed passion. Because people don't look properly, they're missed times it of number. I've seen four this year in car boot sales, going for a warble.) ‘You did well, Hugo.'

  'Pretending I'd been groped by some UFO alien?'

  Well, I thought, dedicated actor and all that.

  He waxed. 'See, Lovejoy, the stage is famine or feast.' He stooped to his plate and scooped the pie and mash I'd bought him. I watched with fascination, knowing I'd try it at home. He put his mouth on the plate's rim and shovelled the grub horizontally into his open gob. Horrible, but you have to admire dexterity.

  He spoke with a full mouth, much more horriblerer still. Queasy, I resolved not to try it after all.

  'Jox told me to flannel the tourists. Lent me a book on UFOs.'

  ‘If I had a job, Hugo,' I spoke with care, not wanting to prevent public demand dragging him off to Stratford, 'private, country house stuff, family situation, nothing illegal. . . ?'

  His eager grin was one of baked beans, sausage, dangles of bacon. Jesus, but we're an ugly species.

  'Like, Agatha Christie? That murder-in-a-vicarage game? I'd do it like a shot!' He babbled on, me dodging the shards as he spoke. 'My friend did one! Earned plenty!'

  'Yes, but with special rules.' I hadn't anything planned, but wasn't going to ditch a possible ally. 'China?'

  China emerged. His caffs literally a converted scrap-metal dealer's yard. China isn't Chinese or anything, just runs a credit scam with his wife's cousin, who is and lives in the Far East sitting by her facsimile machine. The seam's easy, a product of the Age of Communication, and is the very best argument against owning a credit card on earth.

  'How're you going to pay, Love joy? Credit card?'

  Which gave me a laugh. China earned the yard and kitchen from credit-card frauds. He was a waiter in an Aldgate restaurant. When diners paid by plastic, he would photocopy the credit card, facsimile it to the Hong Kong cousin, who would instantly 'swipe' - the term - the details onto a blank. China would return the card to the customer in seconds, with a grovelling coat-at-the-door farewell. Before the diners had reached home, their replicated credit card would have been used to buy jewellery, gold, withdraw money. Nobody is any the wiser - until the monthly statement comes through. But by then China was in the clear. A humble waiter, busy restaurant, what was a dispute between some bank and some diner to him? It works well. The 'plazzie', as it's known, has become a contender, from pennies to quarter of a billion in three years. I'm glad I'm not credit-worthy.

  'Lady asked, Lovejoy. Said don't forget the biggin.' China made prominences of his cupped hands. 'Lovely eyes on her.'

  Sabrina wanting action for her auction scam. 'Ta, China.' We parted amicably. Outside, I asked Hugo, 'One thing. That stout bloke, whatsisname. Put the spoke in.'

  Hugo looked edgy. 'Don't ask me, Lovejoy.' He looked definitely deal's off. 'I want no stick trade, nothing heavy.'

  Heavy? I looked blankly at him. What the hell was he on about? 'I was only wondering if he was some neighbour of Jox's.'

  His brow cleared. 'Thank Christ, Lovejoy. Didn't think you were GBH. William Geake. He was round earlier when Jox was rehearsing us, browbeating. He's got it in for Jox. Big peeler. Retired. Jox told me he'd top the bastard if he could.'

  With Jox's record, he'd be daft trying. Thoughtfully I watched Hugo plod off. Was Jox capable of doing somebody like Tryer in, though? Forget why, just think possibilities. And anybody can do anything. For a second I dithered whether to call in on the Misses

  Dewhurst and demand explanations, but finally decided to drive out to Dame Millicent, that crone of increasing significance.

  Tryer came to mind. I'd tried not to think, wonder how Chemise was doing. That's not because I'm a hard-hearted swine. It was because, once you start dwelling on some terrible event, you give in, go to pieces. During the hours that had passed since I'd splashed into the boating pool, I'd concentrated on being angry at the police, I'd composed bitter letters to my Member of Parliament about unlaw, made imaginary speeches on telly crime programmes and roused the nation to indignation. Childhood gunge, but it stops you breaking down. With luck, I could keep myself from ever remembering. I was busy, and memory's a luxury anyway.

  Cockcroft Manor Farm was a tenth the grandeur of its name. You'd take it for an ordinary farmhouse, as you whizzed by on the A45. It seemed uncertain what to be in the modern world. Probably was a useful farm in its heyday, churning out produce, keeping folk in employ, a rural epicentre. Now it seemed prepared to sell its soul. A trestle table stood at the gate with boxes of apples, cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, and a notice: 'Please serve yourself!!! Money in the tin!!! Thank you!!!' Commerce had arrived at Cockcroft.

  Except the three beehives on the uncut grass were empty. The pastures held a couple of tired horses. The stables looked nigh derelict, door reaching slantwise for the ground. A tractor rusted patiently. Some other implement petrified awry, corroding on the skyline. The manor house itself could have done with paint, some tiles, yards of cladding, panes of glass, a skilled chimney straightener, and a pargeter to restore the lovely old pargeting flaking in chunks off the gable ends. The farm covered forty acres, give or take, which isn't much. Forest extended across the rising distance. A river worked abstractedly to form an oxbow lake; a millennium should see it through. As I stood daring the drive, a red-coated horseman emerged from the woods with a scatter of hounds like wafted oats in front. He stared, rode across my field of view and vanished into the stand of young deciduous trees. Neither of us waved. Geake again.

  'You there!' an imperious lady shouted from the farmhouse. I cupped a hand. Tut - money - in - tin!'

  'No,' I bawled.

  'Bounder!' she called.

  'Snotface!' I bawled.

  She froze, then laughed, wagged her stick, rocked her way inside. I drove in, parked.

  'Dame Millicent Hallsworthy,' I said into the gloom.

  'In here, you vulgar brute.'

  Advancing gingerly, I bumped against something huge. It growled and moved aside, came padding along. I swallowed and wondered if I should be here.
Trying to be pleasant to a dog the size of a lioness is impossible. I had a bird who was addicted to dogs. She had three pinschers I hated. I lasted one day. Feeding time was carnage incarnate, so to speak. This hound was a mournful thing with trailing ears. A door was open.

  'Lovejoy.' The words just reached into the room. I followed.

  Long, practically bare, a log fire keeping the stone-flagged flooring free of ice. I'm not often cold, and when I am it's mainly emotional, but this place was ridiculous. Damp walls, fungus the size of tumorose saucers on the pelmets, cardboard and plywood plugging several windows. One sprung sofa. The dog had followed, growing larger meanwhile, staring in sorrow.

  'You're the antiques man with the gift,' she said. 'Late!'

  Her face was lined, not pale, her smile full of blackened teeth. She wore a beret. A moth-eaten (literally) fox fur dangled round her neck, glassy of eye, limbs pendulating. It looked warm, but chilled me further. Nowhere to sit except on the metal springs leaping in still life from her sofa, so I stood with the dog, at least as dejected.

  Gift? It was her dog, so I agreed. 'Yes, Dame Millicent.'

  She eyed me perkily. 'You're wondering why a titled lady lives in squalor, Lovejoy.'

  'No.' The dog sighed in threat. 'Yes,' I amended.

  'Don't be afraid of Malapert. He's harmless. Come closer. Let me look at you.' I stepped cautiously. Malapert came, too. The word means saucy, blunt of manner. She eyed me. 'I'd have eaten you, Lovejoy, a few years ago. Now . . .' She shrugged, winced. She was bent with arthritis. Her hands were gnarled, looked crushed from some accident, except the accident was only accumulated life. She clutched a metal ball. Her knees were bulbs, calves mere spindles down to deformed ankles. 'I can't get up in the morning without my electric blanket.’ She sighed. Malapert sighed. So I sighed. Crawler.

  'Anything I can do for you, Dame Millicent?'

  She smiled. It was beautiful, the gaunt room instantly warmer. 'I do so love you people,' she said. 'You will have noticed my accent? Balkan, of course. I shall leave you guessing. Foreigners call me Dame Hallsworthy. They called Sir Ralph - wrongly - Sir Keeler, Mister Sir, any combination! This island never falters, though!'