The Possessions of a Lady

by Jonathan Gash

  When the Chauvet-Hillair caves were discovered, I scoured every report about Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, spoke to every expert. They all sang the same dirge. 'Just think,' they sobbed, 'how many undiscovered caves, whole city-equivalents, cathedral-equivalents, are lost! Basic sea level, back in Upper Palaeolithic times some 12,000 to 70,000 years gone, were three hundred feet lower than now. The great polar ice caps were enormously vaster.' One archaeologist had been to Cosquer in France to see the cave paintings—but chickened out, because you can only reach them now by swimming underwater.

  Other experts try 'recreating' the Cro-Magnon art. Know the best way? It isn't with brushes, but by taking the colour into your mouth and spitting it onto the cave walls. Sadly, it's where fakery begins. Waiting by my arch, I didn't want to think of faking, until the world put its daylight head on. Dark sinister caves are horrible, like those magicalised paintings in red ochre, and dangerous manganese oxide black. This latter stuff can send you insane. But it wasn't that. The Cro-Magnons who painted at Vallon-Pont-d'Arc were probably our true ancestors. They came drifting, brawling, out of Africa, overrunning Europe some 35,000 years ago. That wouldn't be so bad, if they hadn't simply replaced the Neanderthals of Europe. No peaceful coexistence. Ice Age Europe said survive or die. The Cro-Magnons had the knack of trading, and got organised in houses for up to fifty folk. They hunted mammoths. Fine, eh? Not if you're Neanderthal it's not.

  The town hall clock struck four-thirty. The cat had given up, gone.

  Worse, why did those Cro-Magnon cave artists leave an animal's skull on a rock, a few piles of pigment, a fragment or two of bone, and nothing else? Whose caves were they, one over 200 feet long? Priests keeping the shrine sacred? Most of the animals depicted were terrors, not food, not domesticated. So why go to the trouble of protecting the Combe d'Arc caves, teaching young Cro-Magnons your ceremonies?

  The frightening question is always there, waiting for when you've examined every antique ever made. It can only be asked when you're alone and cold and wondering what frigging cosmos and God are doing and why some innocent bloke's lying perilously linked to life by a thousand tubes in a hospital. It's this: if what you were doing was so vital, so life-enhancing, so beautiful, why stop?

  Because some new tribe rubbed you out?

  Once, I knew this bird. She was exquisite, titled, wealthy, young, had everything. Her husband was handsome, ditto, and had everything else. She used to visit me when he was away, then, worryingly, when he wasn't. Well, I was really proud of this lady. I tried to borrow money, have the electricity switched on, pay my water rates so she wouldn't have to carry water from my well. I honestly tried to haul my cottage into the light of civilisation's bright beacon. Know what? She went berserk, threatened, 'If you do, Lovejoy, I'll never see you again.' This, note, from a noblewoman used to satin, central heating, grapes in aspic, ten maids per hankie. She'd never known anything except luxury and subservience from adoring regimental officers.

  Baffled, I asked, 'What's got into you? I thought you'd be pleased'. She lay there shivering in my damp cold cottage, no light, no grub, no cooking thing, no hot bath. Beside her I must have looked like some, well, Cro-Magnon. She said, 'Don't ever stop being stupid, Lovejoy. Promise?' She actually made me do that cross-my-heart. I did it, to shut her up. Immediately she was right as rain.

  Twenty minutes to five.

  Fakery only compounds this problem. There was a similar cave found in the Basque country. It had everything, paintings, extinct animals, red ochre, the blacks, renderings of our ancestors. A mistrustful researcher discovered small fragments of manmade sponges underneath the cave drawings—sponges on sale at modern supermarkets. The whole thing was sham. I often see slices of limestone sold from cars, allegedly from 'cave paintings in southern France', three feet by four, mounted on fibreglass. I've never seen a genuine one yet.

  I looked down the arch's narrow ginnel. A few paces. Can you trust anything, like messages from lifetime friends? The bobbies of my youth smoked their secret cigarettes in this recess before plodding on. Down there, the ghost of the murdered man lived. I could feel him. The wind was blowing colder, mizzle enough to soak. A sensible bloke’d shelter down there and wait for Tinker, stay dry. Not me, and I don't believe in ghosts. What was Tinker doing, saying to meet here? He'd know I'd be scared. Almost as if he wanted me not to be here. Barmy old soak had probably been sloshed.

  I decided to see what the old place opposite had turned into. It had once been the Queens cinema, all velvet seats and thick guide ropes. I crossed over. A single motor came slowly from Manchester, accelerated gently at the traffic lights' promise.

  Suddenly tired, I leant against the old cinema's wall. I used to queue here for the cheap seats, hoping for a snog with some sceptical lass. The cat purred round me. I stooped to stroke it.

  'Bloody moggie.' I stroked it. 'Chiseller.'

  The building now seemed to be some sort of supermarket. You can never tell these days . . .

  A whoomph almost knocked me over, more light than blast. I tumbled back, not trying to save myself. I slid a yard, glass shards scratching and raining onto the wall.

  'Christ!' I remember yelling, looking round.

  The motor car had no lights I remembered, now it was no use noticing anything. It accelerated off along Bradshawgate. From there, Halliwell and the moors quick as a wink, or Blackburn. I lay still, the cat lying on my feet, scared out of its wits, poor little sod.

  A purplish blue light was flickering from across the street. From the ghost's arch. I strove to recall, but couldn't get things in order. Had there been a crash of glass, just before that ominous whoomph? I vaguely thought so. But the flames died quickly even as I watched, and I knew. A bottle filled with petrol, a rag down the neck. Light it, and chuck. Crash goes the glass, splash goes the petrol, and whoomph goes the Molotov cocktail. And the person gets crisped, screams, burns to death.

  No cars about. I reached to stroke the moggie, felt it sticky on my fingers, yelped, looked in the street light of Station Brough, and spewed on the cat's entrails and my blood-soaked trousers. I screamed, shuffled myself feverishly along the pavement away from the dreadful thing. A large shard of glass had penetrated its soft form, slicing and slitting as it went. I found myself staggering away from the dying flames, seeing Spoolie all over again, and began walking steadily, steadily, as if I had somewhere to go.

  Between spells of reeling in and out of terror, my mind demanded, Who'd want me crisped when I'd done nothing? The act of a madman. Madmen? Madwomen? Aureole, Carmel, Faye, Lydia, Sheehan, Roger, Tubb the bodybuilder? Not poor Viktor Vasho. Not poor Spoolie. That moggie had only wanted to be friends. Death comes to my pals.

  Tinker had known where I'd be. Tinker knew the ghost's arch. He'd asked me to be there.

  Ta, Tinker, I said fervently. Ta, for having saved my life. I owe you, my one trustworthy ally, thank God. More than I could say for anyone else. Get defilthed, then to Manchester. The show at Scout Hey was tomorrow now, coming too quick for tricks.

  29

  The Manchester train was only half the size it used to be. Two coaches, no engine to speak of, cramped as hell. I envied the Pack Horse's morning burden, Faye waking there. And Lydia, frosty. Maybe there'll be sex in heaven, or have I said that? I needed speed.

  The textile museum didn't open until ten. I seethed in a nearby nosh bar. What in God's name do curators do, until they can be bothered? Museums are a bobby's job. I wandered to the delivery entrance.

  'What's want fert see, mate?' a friendly old uniformed bloke asked. He was on the soot-blackened gate while a massive lorry finished loading. Two blokes in overalls were wheeling out the last case on a trolley.

  'Is there a special display?'

  'Theh't a day late, lad.' He was quite jovial. I stared in alarm. 'This is it, just going.'

  'Late?' I pulled myself together. 'Can I see?' One of the loaders undid a latch of the canvas covering. It was a glass display case. Inside, a life-sized dummy, weari
ng an 1880s dress, complete with trinkets, hairdo, that scary smile dummies wear, maybe come alive when you're not looking. I stared trying to remember every detail to tell Florsston, the shawl, the browny silk, the pink glass brooch, the jet necklet.

  'Ta, mate,' I said dully. They fastened it, racked the case onto the pantechnicon.

  'The Victoriana.' The old man wore soldier's ribbons. 'The Empire's Textile Wonders. Rotten name, eh? I remember my dad . . .'

  'What was it, exactly? All like that one?'

  'Oh, long frocks, special materials. On dummies—they were Victorian, too, heavy as lead. Wools, cottons, made overseas in them days, shipped home in windjammers for fettling in Lancashire.' He beamed, proud.

  'Where's it going?'

  'Don't tek on, lad. Catalogues at yon kiosk, full of pictures.' He pointed to the museum building. 'You can still catch it. They're doing a special show at some old church not many miles north. Scout Hey. Never heard of it myself

  He waved the huge vehicle outside, locked the gates and beckoned me in via the rear entrance. It was exactly ten o'clock. A party of schoolchildren arrived, noisy starlings in the foyer. Two other adults came in. One was a middle-aged woman, headed upstairs, knew where to go. The other was a lovely lass, schoolmarmish among the children, hair dragged back into a bun behind formidable hornrims. Wish they'd had teachers like her in my day. But no Vyna. The commissionaire chuckled.

  'That lorry driver was an interesting chap. His dad used to play football for Accrington Stanley. See these little bairns? Half’ll lose themselves unless . . .'

  'Ta.' I left him, bought a catalogue for a king's ransom. No use—what catalogue is?—but it was psychotherapy. I felt the chiming malaise from the museum's antiques, but resisted. I had a journey to make. The image of what I'd seen in the display case burned in my mind's eye.

  Scout Hey I knew. I had to discover Stella Entwistle, suss out her auction. I'd evaded all my helpers. Now I had to decide where Amy's fashion show began and La Entwistle's antiques sale ended. I stuck the glossy under my arm and went out into Manchester's rain.

  'Lift, Lovejoy?' Tubb called from a car.

  'How come you don't get fined, parking here, Tubb?' I was narked. I get wheel-clamped if I slow down.

  He grinned. He was gripping palm springers, Popeye forearms flexing. 'An auspicious day, Lovejoy. I couldn't get a parking ticket if I tried. Nothing can go wrong. I've done runes, tarot, the lot.' Confidence oozed out of him. 'You're a swine to find. I've spent a mint on phones.'

  'Lift where to?' I asked cautiously.

  'Where you're going.' His grin widened. 'Don't tell me. Bet I put you down at the door.'

  'I've a bird to meet.' His face clouded, so I supplied an extra lie. 'Off the London train.'

  His grin returned. 'Hop in.' He cut into the traffic, missing a lorry by a whisker. 'Who's the girl?'

  'Nobody you know, Tubb,' I said, cool. Nobody I knew either. She was imagination. I could escape once I was past the station ticket office. 'Rotten motor you've got, Tubb.'

  'This?' He tried to seem narked, like any owner. 'Bought it six months back. Sixty m.p.h. on the sniff of an oily rag.' It was hired, its licence-holder said.

  Tubb dropped me at the kerb. I stro-o-olled in among passengers. I'd have casually looked at my watch, if I'd had one, the waiting-for-a-passenger image. Once out of sight, I darted past where they never have your luggage when you've paid them to mind it, and peered. Tubb had coolly parked where it says you shouldn't. He stood to watch the exit. I went and caught a train, alighted in my town in no time.

  Stella Entwistle's address was in Halliwell. This suburb is named after St Margaret's Holy Well, now godlessly built over. I found the stone cottage. The old square still had its old gas lamps. Once a village, it became immersed in Victorian mills. I knew it well, before the chapels became electrical shops and the great mills were sliced into printing firms.

  The door opened. I turned with a fraudster's smile.

  'Stella Entwistle? I'm Bran Mantle . . . er.' Something was wrong. Her face.

  'Lovejoy, isn't it?' She stood there smiling.

  Did everybody know my every move? She shook an old-time finger.

  'I'm sorry.' My words trailed away. 'Miss . . . ?'

  'Miss Renson was the name, Lovejoy.' Dimples just as I remembered them. But, grey hair? 'Mrs. Stella Entwistle, now. Parish fundraiser.'

  Last encountered clipping my ear for misbehaviour in class, my ex-teacher. I gaped. Women change more than men, though we sling our hooks sooner.

  'Laughter lines, Lovejoy,' she said, wry. 'Except life isn't that funny. Do come in.'

  She went ahead to a living room looking out at the Falcon mill. I'd played football on its cinder pitch. I felt in church. Teachers always scare. I once knew an elderly professor, collector of octagonal chairs, who once got sloshed and wept over how he'd been told off in school, aged twelve. I watched her warily, not wanting my ear clipped.

  'You gave me a dud name,' I accused.

  'Snap, Lovejoy! Marriage is my explanation. Yours is merely your natural criminal bent.' She gestured me to a seat. 'I thought it was you on the phone. Who's Bran Mantle?'

  'Washington State in America puts a risk warning on its marriage lines,' I said nastily. 'So watch it.'

  Teachers look younger than numerical age suggests. Or do women teachers hold their youth? I'd give it serious thought.

  'The Americas are noted for marital violence.'

  'Toosh-ay, Miss. I'd forgotten that teachers of your vintage can read.'

  'Still dreaming, Lovejoy? You've never grown up.' Not a smile, so she'd invited me for grim reasons. 'Would you care for some tea?'

  'Please,' I said politely. 'This antiques sale for the old parish. It's above board?'

  'Scrambled eggs, toast and marmalade?' She went to the kitchen. A cat strolled through in disdain. I looked away, guilty. 'Mixed cereals?'

  'And fried bread, please, Miss.' I looked at the furnishings. Not too bad, for disgusting modern gunge. There were photographs. Her, younger, beside a bloke with a tash and lank hair in a porch. Our church. 'Where's Mr. Entwistle?'

  She rattled pans. I'm sure women make an unholy din just to punish us for making them snap into action. 'He's not here.'

  'Oh?' I brightened. I'd never got close to an ex-teacher. She might clout me for suggesting that my education was incomplete.

  When I cook I'm really quiet. She sounded like Agincourt. 'I'm afraid he's missing, Lovejoy.'

  'Missing where?' Stupid people always say that. Tell me you've lost your purse, I'll go, 'Where?'

  ‘I don't know, Lovejoy.' She was weeping, busying herself at the grub. T wish you could find him.'

  From one missing-person triumph, hunting Tinker's lass Vyna, to another. The aroma made my belly rumble, so I moved to ogle the photographs.

  Finding things isn't me. Last year, a Surbiton dealer bought a Georgian mahogany fall-front bureau, only forty-two inches wide. The Farnham piece was lovely. It was even lovelier when an investment bond was discovered in a secret drawer— these drawers were quite usual, for hiding passionate letters. The bond was worth a mint, plus interest since Adam dressed, well over four times the bureau's price. It's always somebody else. I'm the expert at losing, not finding.

  The cat eyed me reproachfully as I tiptoed out. 'Shut your face,' I told it. Gently, silently, I reached round the speer, opened the door.

  Tubb stood there. 'You're a bugger, Lovejoy. Any more of this, I'll take out insurance.'

  'Look, mate,' I said, whispery. 'Get lost. I'm in with a chance here.'

  'Who is it, Lovejoy?' my old teacher called amid kitchen war sounds.

  'Salesman,' I yelled over my shoulder.

  'They'll be narked, Lovejoy,' Tubb said. His runes had let him down.

  For just an instant I almost sensed what the game was. I stared at Tubb like he'd landed from Andromeda. He was threatening me. I caught myself. He'd said 'they'. They who? Carmel? Abrasive, true, but no
physical threat as such. And she was a lone operative, except in the fashion world.

  'They who?' I asked.

  He became shifty. 'This is once too often. Best do as you're told, or it's curtains.'

  'They who?' He was behaving really lifelike, unprecedented. Even ordering a pint Tubb has to divine some tarot, work luck out. Just for that one fleeting instant he'd been himself.

  'Please yourself, Lovejoy. I've warned you.'

  And he went, shoulders humped, a tough with a faulty oracle. I watched him drive away in his hired non-hired motor. I shut the door, went to the photographs. One or two really interested me. I thought, Aha. Terence Entwhistle at a card table. Terence on holiday, on his tie dumb-bells, acorns, leaves, hearts—German playing-card emblems. Terence in some club spinning a Victorian 'random clock'. It's a collector's item nowadays, picks out any digits from one to ten. Was Terence that all-time loser, the gambling addict?

  She finally called. I went, fell on the grub.

  'First I've had for two days, Miss Renson.'

  She managed a smile. 'Stella, Lovejoy. I'll not tell you again.'

  'Teachers never had first names.' I'd feel like when I went round a palace and saw the Queen's loo.

  She watched me scoff. 'Terence has vanished, Lovejoy. But not alone.'

  Which froze me. 'Who with?' For one terrible instant I dreaded she was going to say Vyna.

  'Some of the antiques we're—you—will sell for us.'

  Well, I laughed until I choked. Tears streamed down my face. She stared, thunderstruck. It took five minutes to come to.

  'What is funny, Lovejoy?' That metronomic staccato teacher-speak has chilled and stilled children down the ages.

  'Is that all, love?' I was cheery for once. T thought you meant he'd howffed it with some bird. Antiques, I can do something about. What were they, and how many? I'll pin him by teatime."

  'You will?' She was so relieved. 'Oh, thank you, Lovejoy. Terence is not the most worldly person. He tries to be commercial.'