The Possessions of a Lady

by Jonathan Gash

'Any brown sauce, love?' I asked for the list of antiques her hubby'd nicked.

  'Those I don't know, Lovejoy.'

  Up one minute, down the next. 'You don't know, you silly cow?' I raged, spluttering valuable calories on gusts of anger. 'Who's in charge of the list?' God Almighty, out of Briony's frying pan into Stella's fire.

  'Vulgar language,' she scolded automatically. T am, Lovejoy. We had no idea which were antiques. Folk just brought things in.'

  My quiescent temple artery woke with a start and began to pound my cortex. My plate blurred.

  'You didn't even write the antiques down?'

  'Of course not. They're only going to be sold.'

  'Not now they're not, love.' I moaned softly to myself.

  She decided to get on her high horse. 'You are decidedly unhelpful, Lovejoy. Terence was really quite good. He only stole one load.'

  See? Her bloke steals the whole shebang, and he's being 'really quite good'. If I'd nicked a light, the Plod would have me clinked. Selective thinking.

  'Aye, love,' I said bitterly. 'Captain Blood only wanted one sackful—of the Crown Jewels.' I cut in as she drew breath, 'Terence'll have nicked the most valuable. He'll not have grabbed a pencil and taken to the hills.'

  She said with asperity, 'You always were a grumbling child, Lovejoy. Grumble, grumble. The point is, the sale's tomorrow. Do something.'

  'Do what, exactly?' I was relieved I'd eaten. Doom loomed.

  'Bring Terence back, with the antiques he borrowed. And sell our antiques.' Terence, arch thief of her charity, had now only 'borrowed' the stuff, so I must solve her fiasco. She said it like I had to wash up.

  'That all?' I said, peeved. 'Got any cake, love?'

  'I have some parkin.' She fetched it, cut a wafer-thin slice. It's our local cake, mostly for Bonfire Plot, a real filler. I helped the next chunk to be bigger. It's oatmealy, sticky. 'Can I see the remaining antiques?'

  'Whenever you are ready, Lovejoy.'

  So we hit the road. Her motor was toy size. I sat, knees to my chin. Neither of us touched on one difficulty. Why had her husband Terence nicked the antiques? Gambling fever, or something worse? I didn't ask, and Stella was not for telling. Motive's crap anyway, only made for Dame Agatha and editors, not real life. The questions in antiques are who, how, and what. You can forget why. So I did.

  30

  Who said never go back?

  Scout Hey was still an old moorland chapel, sort rich visitors buy to turn into grand dwellings with cocktail cabinets where the pulpit once was, alarm boxes in the eaves. Me and Amy had robbed its great manse, now in ruins, much of the mansion's roofing reduced to a skeleton of charred beams.

  A housing estate had spread over the moors. The stunted hawthorns, wind stoopers all, were distant now. Civilisation had come. Prefabricated garden sheds, Japanese cherries blooming in the wrong season, one-eyed TV dishes trained on infinity.

  There's always a wind. I'd forgotten. Below, the coast road at Blackrod. You'd see the Isle of Man on a clear day. The town looked undressed without its pall of black smoke, oddly flattened without its chimneys.

  'Lovejoy? What's the matter?'

  Maybe a couple of dozen cars, lots of women with children about the rear entrance of Scout Hey chapel. Where me and Amy had come a-stealing was a sloping car park. Several vans stood by, marked with fashion college logos. Arty students in shawls, cowbells, clothes made of odd strings, chatted and smoked strange substances. Artistry had come. The chapel was apologetic, the way of all defrocked chapels. Its entrances were busy.

  'Who're they?' I wasn't prepared for a jamboree.

  Stella was puzzled at my reaction. 'Why, my helpers. Bringing antiques for sale, setting out. Those fashion students are planning their show.' She was exasperated. 'You'll do the auction. The fashion's afterwards.'

  'It's an odd place. Miles from anywhere.'

  She went all hurt. 'Fashion colleges do their displays here. The chapel costs nothing, not like hiring hotels.' She saw I was unconvinced. 'Seats hundreds. And it's secure.'

  Secure? When her husband nicked a lorry load?

  'Okay, then. Everything's money nowadays, agreed. Let's see what you have.'

  She was anxious, went ahead saying, 'Hello, Mary. Did we do those notices? Hello, Betty. We arranged the parking with the police?' Boss organiser stuff.

  We went into the chapel, a late Wesleyan boom building. Lovely, gallery symmetrical, pillars Mr. Wesley's church at Moorgate would be proud of. The volunteers greeted us shyly. I'd been given quite a build-up, earned applause just walking in.

  'Everyone!' Stella called, voice quavery. 'This is Love-joy. Some of you remember him. He'll do our auction tomorrow!'

  'How do,' I said, time and again. Smiles were everywhere. East Anglians don't smile.

  Some came forward for a word. I was pleased, recognised several, one third cousin. It was difficult being friendly, because I could see only tons of dross nearby.

  'We know you'll be pleased, Lovejoy,' one bashful lady told me. 'We've been collecting for ages.' Risking all, adding, 'I knew your gran.'

  'Hello, Mary. I knew yours.' I bussed her. She'd been born four doors from me. I eyed the heaps of gunge, managed, 'You've done wonders, love.'

  Trestle tables were set out, women busy at them. Blokes were hauling in more. Furniture, discarded clothes, mirrors, paintings you wouldn't shake a stick at, trinkets on a stand, a reproduction screen, rusting garden implements.

  The whole lot was crud. I was broken.

  'Well, Lovejoy?' Stella clasped her hands. What had she told her teams about Terence's vanished vanload?

  'Can I have a wander, love?' I said brightly, not bursting into wracking sobs, for the sake of morale.

  'Of course! People, listen! Lovejoy is going to examine our antiques!'

  'And somebody brew up,' I added. 'I've not had a decent cup since I were a lad.'

  Amid cheery calls, I ambled. There was volume, but no substance. Piles of old newspapers—but they have to be in pristine condition to sell. The clothes no collector would give a second glance. The furniture was soiled wartime, with sliced part-circle Utility emblems. Firewood. Electrical fittings, old boilers, decrepit bicycles—the entire sorry mass was unsellable. Great in a thousand years, for some Third Millennium Ph.D.s to write a How They Lived Back Then. But now? I feigned enthusiasm, paused for people's reminiscences. Pretended excitement at the throwout rubbish while furtively planning escape. The quicker I did a Terence the better. Maybe what he'd taken was also duff? And did it matter, if he was already in Monte Carlo?

  They'd made a pleasing archway with great double doors. The chapel was one great space.

  'Lovejoy!' Amy greeted me, flushed with exertion. She was marking the wooden flooring with yellow sticky tape. Students lounged in artistic attitudes. One lass tried to look pre-Raphaelite, wasn't even close. 'Here to see the antiques?'

  'Hello, love. Is this where your show happens?'

  'Yes. They're setting the lighting. We'll soon do an Italian run—that's a fast test rehearsal. The models drill early tomorrow. We go after your sale.'

  Minus me, I thought. 'Do you need a rehearsal?'

  'Of course!' She trilled a he's-not-real laugh.

  Rehearsal? To walk about in different frocks? I kept silent. Three blokes carried in enormous wooden pallets. The students looked tired.

  'Oh, good,' I said. 'Glad it'll be, er . . .'

  'Meet the mayor, Lovejoy.' Amy pulled me to be introduced. He was an affable, smiling bloke, thick-set. I'd seen his WH-1 registration limo outside. 'This is our Lovejoy,' she said proudly. I felt sham.

  We made polite noises. Mayor Enderton said how pleased he was, etc., and I said etc. likewise.

  'We haven't money, son,' he said gravely. 'If things you auction sell well, we can make this a permanent centre. I donated my grandad's paintings to it.'

  'Oh?' I said, bored. 'Your gramp painted?'

  'No,' he puzzled me by saying. 'His three pictures were M
r. Lodge's, his old friend. Only birds, but nice detail. Odd shine, they had, like dried cream.'

  Dementia woke me. Mayor Enderton had just given a word picture of the great George Edward Lodge's birds-rocks-moss-bark natural history works. This genius died in 1954, but was in his eighties before he did his renowned bird series of 385 paintings for David Bannerman's twelve-volume book. His life shows why some artists soar and others don't. Aging fast, arthritic octagenarian George Lodge, a true hero, realised he needed detail in his pictures, against the fashion— note that please—of the times. Only one medium would do, the ancient and virtually extinct method of egg tempera painting. So he learned to separate fresh egg yolk, rub in pigments, and painted. It's lovely to paint with. You use fine brushes, line by line, over and over, on parchment or sheet copper. And you can actually buff up the painting with a cloth to a radiant gleam. Think of cream. Mediaeval monks used egg tempera to illuminate their parchments. Go to see the Lindisfarne Gospels, and you'll never forget. Odd shine, detail, Lodge. Fortune.

  'Anything else, Mr. Mayor?' Three Lodge paintings? Unrecorded? Sell those, he'd have his centre.

  'Oh, couple of old mirrors.' He gave a sad chuckle. 'My grandad loved them. Silly; you could hardly see your face. They'd gone sugary. Nice carving, like faded gold.' He added, ‘It were only wood. A bit was chipped.'

  'Frame spread over the mirror?'

  'Aye. Hardly room for your reflection. One was crumbling bad, dry rot.' He eyed me. 'Any value?'

  'Don't sound so,' I lied. 'Look, Tom . . .'

  He startled me by suddenly perking up. Stella joined us. He began to babble incoherently about his hopes for developing Scout Hey. I couldn't help looking from him to Stella, and from Stella to him.

  They were astonishingly alive, in a way that can only mean what I think. 'Oh, good,' I kept saying. He'd fetched architects' drawings. I was shown them, peered without comprehension, did my Oh, good. They were on a loser. They'd not raise enough for the nails, let alone total rebuilding, from auctioning the garbage here. But his mirrors and Lodge funny-shine paintings . . .

  'Stella,' I said, startling her back from gazing into Mayor Enderton. 'Who's boss? I mean, when does the auction end? Do the dealers get chucked out and the fashioneers brought in for the frock show?'

  The mayor answered for her. 'The auction's yours. The textile show goes later.'

  'Oh, good.' The affinity between Stella and Mayor Tom was charring the air. I asked to be let go. He said he appreciated my help. I said I was really glad. Sickening.

  The mounds of debris had meanwhile risen. Old—read modern worthless—books, none with a single vibe, were being stacked amid exclamations of pleasure. Other loads of clag were approaching. I crouched for a sprint to freedom out of this hell. Could I use Tinker to nail Terence Entwistle, then scarper with Mayor Enderton's few antiques? I'd get away scotage free. Terence couldn't very well report me for his theft. Not without exposing himself as the ultimate rogue. It was beautiful.

  'That you, love?' an old lady asked. I looked down. She only came up to my shoulder.

  That was another thing. I'm exactly average, but I'd noticed that I was a bit taller than most. It felt odd, because I'm not.

  'Aye, it's me, love.' I stared, and melted. 'Miss Dewhurst?'

  'Yes, love.' She beamed with shy pride at the women nearby. 'See? I lived next door, didn't I, son?'

  'Yes.' I hugged her. She only weighed a couple of ounces.

  Old Alice, as we called her, had a wind-up gramophone and taught me music. Beethoven, Italian arias, folk songs, the lot. She had cats. She alone had managed to grow some trees—okay, two stunted, sooty privets that never got higher than the slate-slab yard walls—but still a miracle of gardening. She'd worked as a cotton piecer, still wore her ankle clogs. I could swear they were the same ones. She'd knock sometimes, just to show me pictures, pretty women, handsome men, landscapes painted long ago. She lived in a fantasy world of romance and colour, when our world was grey.

  'You'll help us, luv?' she said.

  Once, I'd been reading. I was seven. We'd just lit the gas mantle, pulling its chain to make it pop into light when you held the match to it. Old Alice knocked with her clothes prop. Neighbours summoned each other like this, reaching the prop up next door's steps.

  'Come and look!' she'd cried. 'Front steps! Quick!'

  We rushed to see, Gran puffing, and peered out, wondering. There was Old Alice in the street.

  'See?' She was exultant. 'The sunset!'

  Curious, I'd looked. The sky was a mass of scarlets, golds, rose hues on deep cerulean blue. I stared, too polite to ask. The sky often did change. Alice was looking at it, tears in her shining eyes.

  'Isn't it the most beautiful sky anybody's ever seen?' she said longingly. Gran instantly went back in.

  'Aye, Miss Dewhurst,' I said. I didn't mean it. But, standing there, a sense of seeing what she saw slowly grew. I went down the steps to stand beside her, to test if it looked different from the pavement. All was as I saw. It was just that Old Alice saw beauty above, where I'd seen only a flat plank. I stood an hour with her, watching the colours, learning more then than in all my schooling.

  'Help?' I asked, uneasy, remembering escape.

  'They're trying to buy this chapel, luv,' she explained. 'There might be music! And a place folk can stop for their tea on the way to the Lake District! Maybe dances!' Her old eyes shone. 'A pool for childer! Flowers, paths for young folk to walk hand in hand!' She turned to me. 'Oh, son! It'll be beautiful, won't it?' But her old cracked voice, with that absurd lisp she always did have, didn't hold conviction. Nothing ever did, for wistful old ladies like Alice. But her dream would be lovely while it lasted, a hope. And hope was the thing. When that hope came to nothing, then Old Alice would somehow discover a new one, and keep on.

  'Aye, love,' I said lapsing. 'I'll help.'

  Signalling to Stella, I smiled and chatted my sorry way outside into the macadam car park. I walked onto the one remaining patch of bare moorland grass towards the ruined mansion.

  'Where are we going, Lovejoy?' Stella asked.

  'Out of earshot, love.'

  We entered the stone-walled garden, derelict and overgrown. The roses had reverted to wild, to stay alive, a lesson for us all. For a moment I felt a familiar strangeness come into me, stared about, looked up at the gaunt ruin. The sills were fragmenting, the walls bellying out. It was all crumbling doorways and sagging brickwork, and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. But the feeling made me narked. I rounded on her.

  'It's all crap, Stella.' I could hardly see from fury. 'Your Terence nicked the only genuine antiques.'

  She recoiled. 'He took a few paintings, a pair of old twisted mirrors, Lovejoy. What Mayor Tom donated. That's all.'

  'He's owffed the only valuable items.' I got angrier. 'What have you told the helpers?'

  'I said Terence had removed them for safe keeping,' she said miserably. 'To a secret location.'

  'The rest wouldn't sell at a jumble.'

  'That's impossible, Lovejoy.' She'd gone white. 'We're depending

  'An auction tomorrow's out of the question.'

  'It can't be!' She filled up. 'Oh, Lovejoy, they've worked so hard. And people've given everything. They hope Scout Hey will bring jobs . . .'

  'Aye.' I interrupted rudely. 'So you let Terence steal anything valuable. If the dealers that you've invited even see that shambles, they'll torch the bloody place.'

  'But

  My hand on her mouth, I went on, 'Do you know what you're dealing with? Dealers are maniacs. If they think they've been had, they'll assume that you've been paid to decoy them here—so they won't go somewhere else where the real money's being spent! See?'

  'No, Lovejoy.' She spoke in a whisper, ashen.

  'Listen, Stella.' I leant against the bonnet of a motor, hands in my pockets. I felt done for. 'A bloke I knew accidentally got the date wrong for his field auction. He'd sent out cards, got it together. Dealers came on the date
printed on their invitations.'

  'What happened, Lovejoy?' I felt like a stoat dancing round a rabbit, but she had to learn. That's why I'd chosen a true story, always the worst.

  'They put all his belongings into his garage, car and all.

  Made him set it ablaze. His antiques they stole, auctioned off among themselves. Then they set his house afire. He was left naked, not even shoes to stand up in.'

  'But the police, Lovejoy!'

  'Stella,' I said wearily. 'For God's sake shut up.'

  Well, she'd said it to me often enough.

  'But it's too late to cancel now, Lovejoy.' She flapped a hand towards the chapel. 'You can't leave us in the lurch.'

  Why not, exactly? Then I surrendered, habit of a lifetime.

  'Give me a lift up the Scout moor, love.'

  I started towards her motor, adding over my shoulder as she gasped in alarm, 'Don't worry. I'll not escape.'

  31

  Part way up the hill we call Scout there is an ancient hall, the sort newspapers call baronial. Town buses turn back there. There's a phone box. I told Stella to hang on a sec, phoned, then we carried on to the empty moor.

  'Are you sure, Lovejoy?' She didn't want me unsupervised.

  'Sure, ta.' I perched on a drystone wall. 'I used to come here, stare at the town.'

  'Fishing in the lodge, more like,' she said cryptically, indicating the small upland lake. Shows how wrong teachers are. I'd been taken fishing when I was six, and caught a gudgeon. First time, last time, never, as the girls chanted skipping. That poor gudgeon's reproachful gaze. Bad as a cat's any day.

  'Who'd you phone, Lovejoy?' She couldn't drive off without knowing.

  'My auntie,' I lied. 'Narked I don't visit.'

  'Mmmh.' She drove off, looking in her mirror.

  Twenty minutes I sat. The wind was rising, but no rain yet. Motors went past. One would be Stella, checking. The town's boundaries were defined to the eye. There shone flashes of water even. Nearer, moorland rising. Left, the road ran along the precipitous Whimberry Hill, sic, where whinberries (also sic) grew. Girls gathered them for the best pies on earth. Right, the road went to Blackpool's gaudy seaside.