'Forelegs straight and close together, sign of a born stayer. Ever seen anything so beautiful, Lovejoy?'
‘I was just thinking that, John. Lovely.'
'Do you know,' he said, swivelling to look up, 'the eejit owner wouldn't sell? Not even for a fair price?'
Nearby goons growled. I growled along, chameleon colouring.
'But he did eventually?' I surmised, shrewd.
'He did that, Lovejoy.' His hoods relaxed with satisfaction. 'Why is everybody too thick to see the obvious? Every single time there's trouble I've to send my lads to sort it. Not good enough, Lovejoy.'
‘It certainly isn't, John,' I said fervently.
‘It's a decline in moral standards, Lovejoy.' He heaved a sigh. 'There's a stallion right now at stud. Cost chickenfeed, £5,000. But its rogeny are raking it in. So where's the money?' He eyed me, delight in his eyes, in the stud fees, that's where! Hundred grand a stand. Take your mare along, get her serviced by the stallion. Shags ten mares a week when he's on the go. Can you imagine?'
I could, and moaned softly to prove it. 'Will this one?'
'Earn that? When he's won his races, Lovejoy. I'm arranging the details now. I don't care about the odds.' A magnanimous forgiving tone.
That was good of him. Time to strike. 'Oh, John. Glad I bumped into you.' Like, I normally go strolling across the barren wastes to admire dank foliage every day. 'Er, you remember my wanting a hold on the Whistlejack snitch?'
'I do, Lovejoy.' He shouted to one of the photographers, 'Further over!' He tutted, sipped. 'I don't want the competition put off their stride until three furlongs out. Not sensible.'
'No, I can see that.' I let him settle. 'Well, Mr. Battishall in Dragonsdale said you let him have a go.'
'Mmmmh? Mmmmh. He paid up, Lovejoy. You didn't.'
I drew breath. The stallion was walking about, the serfs holding its string. I drew breath: But you promised me, John.
'That's right, John,' I said. 'Sorry.'
'Not at all, Lovejoy. Anything I can do?' I'd helped him once over his two sons. His tone was condign, really friendly. I was glad things were working out for him.
'No, ta, John. Good luck with the horse.'
'Luck's no good. Lovejoy,' he said. 'Odds too long.'
'How true, John.' Well, I'd tried. I said so long to his nerks and walked to the Morris. Ask a silly question.
Passing the railway station, I bought a newspaper. It announced that, during the night, a famous painting had been filched from an old priory down the coast. Believed to be a Stubbs horse portrait once exhibited in the Tate Gallery. A spokesman announced . . .
Which would have worried me, except with Big John around I suspected that I would be a superfluous worrier. He'd given the Battishalls permission. Their look out from now on, right?
The priest was strolling his churchyard among the graves, reading his breviary. He wore a biretta, a black cassock, almost other-worldly. The wind had risen, whipped the weeds and trees about. An elderly lady rose from tending a grave, slowly rocked her way through the lych gate. He moved with even paces, pausing, turned, walked back. The
church door was ajar. More confident than other churches these days, or fewer treasures? I sat on a tombstone, legs dangling. Nature reigned in Fenstone churchyard. A squirrel raced, froze, raced. Birds knocked about. You could see several cottages. The chimney of one smoked, and it was a cold fresh-wind day. Whoever wrote The Deserted Village must have been local.
'Morning, Reverend.'
'Lovejoy. Time for a cup of tea?'
Coffee time, but I was gasping. Ta. Not interrupting?'
'Of course not. My Latin's appalling. Comparatives I found simplicity itself. The conditionals are a dreadful risk.'
'I often think that.'
'Oratio obliqua caused me nightmares.' He chuckled softly as we fell in step. 'Prohibitions expressed by the subjunctive! Subjunctive tenses following the rules for sequence! Ugh!'
'One long hassle,' I agreed. You have to sympathize. Yet who would care a jot, if he forgot his Latin, chucked his breviary and gambled his church on Big John's nag? The Almighty, maybe? Fair enough. But Juliana would gallop off rejoicing into the sunset with him.
We went into the vestry and he brewed up. He saw me look about for heat. 'Sorry, Lovejoy. We can't afford warmth. Miss Juliana is marvellous, and Mr. Geake finds funds from somewhere for Sundays so the heaters can go on for mass. That's it, I'm afraid.'
I smiled to show I was basking in his church's tropical clime. 'I came to ask your help, Reverend.'
'Anything I can do, Lovejoy?'
Big John had asked that. I didn't want Sheehan to know I associated with papists. 'Fenstone has a problem.'
'Problem?' He carried the tea over. I perched on the modern -hence sham - vestry chest. 'Miss Juliana said you can solve any problem there is.'
We chuckled. I subsided first. He was as wary as I was. Maybe priests have to be like that? My village has had a succession of guitar-playing roisterers in sandals and ponchos. Maybe God makes episcopalians folksy, harmonicas part of the gear.
‘Dame Millicent, Jox, Juliana, you and Geake. The famous five, Reverend. The remaining villagers are batting out time or leaving. Isn't that Fenstone?'
'Probably, Lovejoy.' He came and sat on the other end of the chest. 'We have hardly been blessed with good fortune. I suppose Dame Millicent told you about her guanacos? Then Jox's schemes. They all failed. He had a wonderful little restaurant near the tavern.'
'I've never seen the pub open.'
'Didn't you hear? The licence has been withdrawn.'
Pubs are licensed to sell alcohol, by magistrates. Anybody can speak out, for or against.
'Tough luck.'
'They're an old couple, the Creeds. They'll go to their daughter's at Walton-on-the-Naze, a small hotel there.'
One more? 'It's odd that everything in Fenstone seems to atrophy, necrose, implode.'
His expression was one of absolute rue. 'Isn't it the way of life nowadays, Lovejoy? The old order changeth, giving place to new. Young folks want cities, towns, action.' I'd said all that. He snarled the word, in humour. I laughed politely, wondering what had suddenly gone wrong since I'd sat down with the hot mug. Something had. 'We've lost our post office - uneconomical. Once a village's population fritters, it reaches stalling speed.'
'The same in the old Wild West, I suppose.'
'And Australia's gold mining towns when the gold ran out.'
Except I couldn't see there'd been much gold, or any local equivalent, in Fenstone. 'I proposed a meeting to Dame Millicent, Reverend.'
'Of who?'
'Those struggling to resuscitate Fenstone.' I explained. 'Look, Reverend. Once a place dwindles to sod all - sorry, to nil - then the county council withdraws all services, road maintenance, buses. You're down to one detour bus twice a week. Then it'll be water supplies, the mobile library. Soon, it'll be gas, electricity , . .'
'If you insist, Lovejoy. But I really do think it hopeless. We need young vigorous families, get the school back, interests, a growing community. Meetings? We've had them all.'
His tea was horrible. 'How did you come, Reverend?'
'What?' He was startled.
Wasn't it mere chitchat? 'Where from, what parish?'
'Oh. The Midlands.' He smiled. 'Busy, every problem you wished for. Or not!'
That made me chuckle. Oh, such a chuckle. 'How long were you there?' I helped his silence. 'Do they move you around, parish to parish? I mean, from the Black Country's thousands to a fading handful.'
'The bishop sends you an "obedience". Sort of posting order. You may have a discussion, to give you an opportunity to refuse if you don't want to come.'
I smiled. 'Fenstone might have got some irrascible old coot!'
He too smiled. 'Maybe they have - in disguise!'
'Ta for tea.' I got up. 'What happened to the painting?' It had gone from the vestry wall. 'It was quite good.'
He wasn't intereste
d. 'Miss Juliana is trying to sell it.'
'Send it across. I might be able to get a bit on it.'
'Thank you. I appreciate your interest, Lovejoy.'
He saw me out, closed the church door. I drove to see Priscilla Dewhurst and her twindle, start the forgery scam.
Antiques at last - well, fakes. Time I returned to decency.
'Listen, Maurice.' Maurice was in the Arcade looking after Tramway's stall. The Arcade is merely a narrow covered way between two walls that look off a bomb site. Dingy alcoves are equipped as 'shops' - a plank, stool, maybe a lamp. Each dealer rents a space, hoping to con some tourists out of honest coin for sundry grot. Our antiques trade.
'What?' He takes orders for non-existent animals that, sadly, always die on mysterious voyages. They are dumped overboard, 'to escape Customs and Excise', he tells the animal collectors who, of course, lose their deposits. These non-animal animals are rare species of parrots, tortoises, things like marmosets. His real love, though, is antiques.
'Money, Maurice, money.'
Antique dealers dropped from the rafters at the word.
'Whose, Lovejoy?' He's been bald ever since his wife flitted with an Aldgate silver merchant, leaving Maurice three children. I babysat for them until his sister joined forces. 'Commission?'
'Aye, oh Hairless Shrewd One. Except you pay me the commission, see? Unless your antiques are cheap. Then I'll buy.'
'An exhibition, Lovejoy?' He started to smile.
'Free to all comers. Pass the word, eh?'
'But who'll select?' He plucked my sleeve. 'You?'
'That's it. How're the kiddies?'
Tine, ta. What's to stop us shelling in forgeries?'
'Nothing.' With my best smile, it's called Forgery and Fame.'
'What's it mean?' he called. Other dealers started asking, scribbling notes, the Stock Exchange on Friday. 'And when?'
'God knows,' I called back. 'And any day now.'
'Put me down for six, Lovejoy.' Big Frank from Suffolk loomed up, dusking the daylight.
'Nothing illegal Frank, eh?' I've been his best man at some of his bigamous weddings. He's our silver dealer, knows nothing else, and precious little about that.
He fell about laughing, almost shredding two alcoves.
'Can I do your advertising, Lovejoy?' from Cyril. Keyveen glowered in the background. Maybe it was a new sulk.
'Advertising?' I wished I had my sunglasses. He glittered in a gold lame sheath frock coat adorned with winking Christmas tree lights. Mahleen would be dead jealous. 'How will you advertise?'
'Oh, simply stand there, darling.' He admired his purple fingernails while everybody laughed. 'Who'd need more?'
'Don't be stup . . .' I coughed as Keyveen stepped menacingly close. 'Of course, Cyril!' I said quickly. 'Who else would I ask? That's why I came. Tonietta said you were this way.'
Actually, I would need adverts. I couldn't just rely on word of mouth, saying that a forgeries exhibition was at a hotel belonging to our town's chief magistrate, a loon.
'Me, too.' Addie Allardyce slipped me a note. 'You promised, Lovejoy.' Said with meaning. I pondered, remembered nothing.
'Addie. Tell Tonietta she's got three slots, okay?'
'Me six, Lovejoy.' Harry Bateman from his ailing shop in Bury St Edmunds, trying to keep up with his errant wife. Antiques plays havoc with marriage. I've heard.
'Right. Send Tinker a note.' I've a soft spot for Harry.
'Forgeries okay, Lovejoy?' Inge boomed, popping lightbulbs.
I winced. Subtlety isn't Inge's strong point, though she'd say it was, and I would instantly agree.
'You got any? I warn you. I need hundreds, love."
'Eight or nine, Lovejoy. Furniture mostly, some jewellery."
‘Okay. I'll be auditioning.’ Groans all round at that.
'Coins and medals, Lovejoy?' Igglesworth, a devout train spotter who prayed, actually hands and knees, for engines with meaningful numbers to hurtle through our station.
'One slot, Iggie.'
They started coming thick and fast then as word spread. Edwardian bureaux, precious stones with dubious settings, some Tom Keating Old Masters done a few years since, Victorian furniture, household ware, treen, armour, weapons (weapon collectors are among the most knowledgeable maniacs in captivity), costume (biggest crowd-puller, but the least gelt after books), toys, stamps (never to be touched at any price), hats, locks and clocks, farm implements, tools, rare pens, Victorian kitchen utensils . . .
'Tinker!' I cried at last, as the stinking old devil shuffled up in his shabby old greatcoat. 'Where the hell've you been? Been trying to find you.' Not true, but what can you say to a friend you'd forgotten?
'In nick,' he gravelled out. The crowd edged back, giving his stink room. 'They did me for that flute you sold some Tewkesbury bird.'
'Eh? Oh. Tough, Tinker. How'd you get out?'
'No fingerprints, were there? Silly cow'd cleaned it."
We'd passed off a silver-plated flute, modern Japanese steel, as genuine silver. Somebody - no name, no pack drill, as they say - had imposed a silversmith's mark, illegally. I breathed relief, but Tinker never bears grudges.
'Tinker. Take deposits, slots in an exhibition. I'm calling an audition for forgeries, fakes, naffs. Anywhere, soon.'
'How much a slot, Lovejoy? And where do I see you?'
'Misses Dewhurst's Lorelei Tearooms.' I whispered, 'Charge plenty. Sting everybody. Hold IOUs one day only.'
'Right, Lovejoy. Here. She wants to see you.'
'Who?' Even Beth's Bilstons were in a queue.
'Chemise.'
A sudden silence. People shuffled uncomfortably, nudging each other, remembering Tryer in the Castle Meadow.
'At your cottage. I said she could go in, Lovejoy.'
'Oh, great,' I said heartily. 'Good. I'll, er, call in.' I took him aside for a chat, learned quickly about Farouk.
As I eeled out a girl tagged me, saying nothing. Puzzled, I went a hundred yards among the shoppers, then stopped. I couldn't for the life of me remember ever having seen her before. Blonde, not more than sixteen.
'Miss. Why are you walking with me?'
'I've come to help your antiques, Lovejoy,' she explained as I stood there like a lemon.
'Who are you?'
'I'm Holly. Can I move in?'
That stopped even me. I thought I'd heard everything. 'You'll have me shot. No. Anyway, I've got an apprentice.'
'She's away,' Holly said. 'I'm younger and prettier.'
'Well, I'm staying somewhere else,' I said weakly.
'You'll hate it, Lovejoy. That hotel's a cesspit.'
Muttering, I hurried on. Coming to something when you're ravished in the High Street by tiddlers. I made the Lorelei Tearooms at rush hour. There were five people in, my tourist friends. All I could .think was, what do I tell Chemise?
23
The Lorelei Sweetmeat Delicatessen and Tearooms offered varied welcomes.
'Lovejoy! Honnnnnee!' from golden dazzler Mahleen.
'Good morning, Lovejoy, dear.' Philadora and Priscilla.
'Hey, ma man,' from Jerry. Thet husband find you?'
Amid jocularity, Miss Priscilla tutted at Jerry's words.
Take no notice, Lovejoy. It was only some tiresome auctioneer gentleman. Mr. Mulrose, he said. Some message about a salver.' Everything ornamental, old, and/or silver is a salver to the Dewhurst sisters. Gulp, though, because Mulrose is the surname of Sabrina, she of the rapacious Sundays.
'She attractive as Roberta, Lovejoy?' needled Hilda.
That's the trouble with reputations. They never fade. Like the 4th Earl of Sandwich, inventor of the sandwich. He invariably gets the world's worst press except for Judas, just as unfairly. Reference books tell of Sandwich's useless Admiralty career, his repulsive neanderthal appearance, his occult sex orgies, depravity, gambling, disloyalty. Every schoolkid knows these. But Sandwich's 'casual mistress', Martha, shot dead by a killer's flintlock outside Covent G
arden, was Sandwich's true love for over sixteen dedicated years. He was parsimonious because he started off- and finished up - poor, after a lifetime's dedicated patriotic work. True, he was ugly, but so am I. And he did join in the sex orgies at Medmenham - wouldn't we, if we could have?
Against the tide of supposition there's always a neglected truth. Like, the endless recycling of General Gordon's Mysterious Death at Khartoum. Wasn't it truthfully depicted in Charlton Heston's film . . . ? Well, no. MursalHamuda, one of the'Mad'Mahdi's black riflemen, did it quite unintentionally in the turmoil. But the image of G. W. Joy's painting of the brave soldier facing the delirious enemy is so admirable it's what we want to believe. Like a woman's reputation (pick any). Once people slag her off, she's marked for life.
‘Mrs. Battishall?' These Yanks were red hot at gossip.
'We saw the glint in her eye, Lovejoy!' Nadette said.
'Want to see an exhibition of antique forgeries?' I asked, eyeing the Misses Dewhurst hurrying food.
'Sure do! Where? When?'
'Chance of finding any genuine antiques there, Lovejoy?'
'Sure is.' I caught myself. Americanisms infect. 'Possibly.’
'Will you divvy for us, Lovejoy?' from Wilmore. I'd begun to like Wilmore. Now I wasn't quite so sure.
'Certainly. And I promise to give you first offer.’ I smiled, an honest smile being the essential accomplishment for falsehood. These were my friends. 'It's at Dragonsdale, the Battishalls' hotel.'
'Will we be here?' They started discussing dates, could Gwena alter a visit here, a trip there.
Priscilla brought over some toast, eleventh hour.
'Here you are, Lovejoy, to start you off. Lovejoy,’ she announced proudly, 'is our partner. Libra, with a tilt -'
'Please, love,' I begged through a mouthful. 'Not that zodiac thing. I can't stand -'
'Oh, don't, Lovejoy!' from a soulful Mahleen. 'We had a fascinating session with Roberta. No amount of criticism can alter the Obverse Zodiac
Switching off, I heard their non-reason reasons for believing dross. They seemed really into the Barmy Battishalls' society. Hereabouts, we have the Richard the Third Society, which argues that Dick was innocent, never murdered the Princes in the Tower. I let them get on with their stories. (Mahleen: i saw instantly the bitch was a Scorpio, and you know them, right?') My mind drifted. I would have to make sure that Corinth and Montgomery Mainwaring, Litterbin, Bog Frew the thespian, all knew about the exhibition. And Farouk. One thing nagged: if Dame Millicent was so poor, why didn't she simply sell the one genuine antique Farouk wanted, that valuable piece of Danish furniture?
The Grace in Older Women Page 18
