Faces in the Pool

by Jonathan Gash

  Mehala Bay showed signs of life. People clustered about a caff that glowed with purloined electric power, a scent of cooking drifting with the breeze. I headed for it, saying hello, and shaking my head when asked if I was seeking some lost herb, missing planet, or apparition. ‘Sorry, no,’ I said, ‘but good luck with your, er, Maya codes.’ England is eccentric, they say. Who was I to argue?

  Tansy was serving stew. Without a word I stood to and began washing up. She can never get enough help. If I sound like a crawler, I make no pretence. I am. Tansy has a husband who long since spotted that he’d married a saint, to his profound disappointment. Edburgh runs a booking agency for overseas groups. A workaholic. Talk to Edburgh, you lose the will to live as he explains the ins and outs of tourist bookings. The only problem is that Tansy sees her task – to feed the world’s eccentrics – as heaven-appointed; Edburgh regards her drifters as deadlegs. I’m not knocking Tansy. She does more good than all the priests, politicians, doctors and social workers on earth. Not difficult? OK, fair point, but Tansy’ll get to heaven and the rest of us aren’t exactly odds-on.

  She had her stew recipe tacked on the wall, from Mrs Beeton’s All About Cookery (revd edn): Soup for Benevolent Purposes. Ingredients: an ox-cheek, any trimmings of beef, which may be bought v cheap (say 4 lbs), a few bones, et gruesome cetera.

  I rolled up my sleeves, chopping and peeling whatever seemed sufficiently bulbous to need a whittle. The rush came, eventually subsiding about seven o’clock. I was knackered. Tansy came over smiling, brushing her hair from her forehead with her wrist the way women do, pleased.

  ‘Phew, Lovejoy!’ she said. ‘Was I glad to see you! I’m done for. Have you ever seen so many thinkers?’

  To Tansy, her thinkers will all turn out to be Newton, Saint Alban, George Boole reincarnate, and maybe a Shakespeare or two given encouragement.

  ‘Got a bit of grub left over, love?’

  ‘What am I thinking of!’

  She rushed about. We shared a meal. I asked after Edburgh. She gave me glowing reports. I said I was pleased. We drank. I asked if I could stay. We left the door open so geniuses could help themselves. Tansy and I made smiles the previous year, so I made the same assumption this time. Before retiring, we made a dozen breakfast starters for early risers. Tansy wrote out a notice telling visitors how to switch on the oven. I’d no idea how complicated a kitchen can be. No, truly. Cooking could wear you out.

  The weather improved during the night. We were roused by dawn drifters starting a communal breakfast. I was tired, so dozed to the sound of waves and phrases exchanged by far-out mystics. I needed essential facts from Edburgh. Tansy could be wheedled.

  * * *

  By three o’clock, we’d fed the lambs and fed the sheep and stopped for our own nosh. The last thinker was a bird who always sat facing the wall. Daniella had been coming ever since Tansy began her mission. She always wore a shapeless marquee and dark glasses, had her meal, then froze, nose inches from the shredding plaster. I said hello. She only mumbled.

  I began ferreting. ‘Why does Edburgh never come, Tans?’

  Her eyes narrowed, instantly suspicious. ‘What’re you after?’

  ‘Nothing.’ When all else fails, go for honesty. Tansy would get it out of me in a trice anyway. I try to be a wheedler and become the wheedlee. ‘I’m in a mess, love.’

  ‘I heard. Those foreigners, Lovejoy.’ She took my hand. ‘Finish your nut cutlet. It’s good for you.’

  ‘Right. It’s, er, really splendid, Tans.’

  It wasn’t. I forgot to mention that Tansy was the world’s direst cook. Enthusiasm and a heart of gold, but grim. She once sighed, ‘I can’t boil an avocado, Lovejoy.’ Various scholiasts usually took over once the season got under way, producing enough kilojoules to keep body and soul together. Our midday nosh had been cooked courtesy of a lass working on a thesis proving Jane Eyre was actually ancient Assyrian. A patriarch who studied Arthurian legend and who one day would locate Excalibur, to cosmic rapture, was the comi chef. The meal was crap, the kitchen a shambles. I would clean it up.

  ‘What a mess.’ Tansy’s lovely features smoothed in sudden understanding. ‘Lovejoy, you’re not the antiques dealer they’ve co-opted?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Those antiques? Lost tribes and all that?’ She reached for my hand. ‘Lovejoy. We’ve been, ah, well, er…’

  ‘Friends?’ I offered helpfully.

  She went red. ‘It’s scandalous. You either live in a country or you don’t.’

  ‘True, true.’ What the hell was she on about? ‘Except, two old friends of mine got topped. It’s irritating, Tans.’

  ‘Mr Smethirst? He was originally their boss, Lovejoy.’ She looked at the kitchen debris. ‘My flock eat at six. Time we started.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Them forgotten tribes. He was a leader.’

  ‘He can’t have been,’ I argued. ‘He got knocked off.’

  ‘Why do you think they killed him? He saw how lunatic they were.’

  ‘How do you know, Tans?’

  ‘Edburgh himself books in the important groups.’ She smiled a bleak smile. ‘Don’t tell Edburgh, Lovejoy, or he’ll know I blabbed.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘He had a time finding Somnell House. They were so picky.’

  ‘Did Smethie and Edburgh argue?’

  ‘Mr Smethirst turned against the whole thing, and opted out. Others from the Old Raj took over. Edburgh had six – six! – meetings. ’Course, he doubled the price.’

  ‘Well, why not?’ I sounded all indignant as if I really understood. I got curious. ‘What did Smethie do, Tans?’ East Anglia sometimes functions like a village.

  ‘He so loved tradition, antiques, Lovejoy. Nostalgia, see?’ She gave a winsome smile. ‘Like here, Lovejoy. My children.’

  Yes, I told myself miserably, Tansy loved them as individuals and children. That’s saints for you, I suppose.

  ‘Did you ever meet him?’

  ‘Mr Smethirst came to our house to sign the lease for Somnell House. Edburgh wanted proof their syndicate had the money. They paid on the nail.’ She looked away. ‘I didn’t like them. I thought them weird.’ From Tansy it was formidable testimony.

  We got up and I cleared away while Tansy went for a lie-down. I did my best sorting vegetables but can’t bear touching raw dead things. Oddly, Daniella, without a word, began preparing the stew. Had she overheard? Face obscured by enormous spectacles, enveloped in her marquee, she was Miss Frump. I went to help Tansy to rest. I’m charitable that way.

  When I came to, Tansy had gone to the wharf where a fishing boat was docking its catch. I put cutlery out for the evening rush. Suddenly Daniella was beside me, nobody else there. She just stood, amorphous and goggle-eyed, looking at the floor. The silence lengthened.

  ‘Oh, er, ta, Daniella. All done, eh?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Er, how’s the…?’ What the heck was her dream/theory/ plan?

  ‘James Joyce.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘He didn’t exist, you know.’ Her eyes filled, to my alarm. ‘They want to ruin Irish town design. I just heard they won’t publish my book.’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ I remembered. She’d once told me this lunacy in mind-bending detail. I thought her barking. Her magnum opus was a mere 4,500 pages. ‘I’m sorry, love. It was really…interesting, Daniella.’

  ‘You believed, Lovejoy. So I’m going to help you.’

  ‘Oh, ta, love.’ If her reward was a copy of her giant tome, I’d wait for the film. ‘Er, are you Irish?’ Not another of the lost clans?

  ‘No. They conceal the proof in a secret Dublin office.’

  ‘And you spotted it!’ I thought, What the hell am I saying?

  ‘Lovejoy, Somnell House is full of armed people.’ She looked at me through bottle lenses. I recalled her droning on about James Joyce.

  For a second it didn’t sink in, then I yelped. ‘Armed? Guns?’

  ‘They practise with
them. Lancashire, the Fylde. They own a Blackpool hotel.’ She looked downcast. ‘Don’t get in their way, Lovejoy. They might oppose my theory.’

  ‘Thank you, Daniella. Don’t give up hope for…for your thing.’

  ‘Thank you, Lovejoy.’ She bussed me. ‘You’re a dear.’

  ‘Ta.’ Lasses like Daniella make you go red. She said shyly, ‘Please give my regards to Dr Castell.’ And when I looked surprised, ‘He was my Cambridge University supervisor. He didn’t believe me, either.’

  ‘Silly old him.’

  That was it. I stayed another day. More barmy drifters ambled in. One or two had antiques. Only one mattered, a carved ivory figure of Shakespeare, Victorian but none the worse for that. It would keep Tansy’s entire colony in fuel for the winter. I phoned the sale through Stoker Prod in Sudbury, who sells such thefts. I refused a fake Edward Hopper painting (labelled Paris, 1899) of a figure in a theatre. Wrong date. Good forgeries are fine, but dud fakes are truly naff. Ever since London Tate Modern held their badly run Hopper exhibition, fakes abound. It narks me. If you’re going to fake, for God’s sake fake right.

  Without saying goodbye to anybody, Tansy and Daniella included, I stole away. Goodbyes are a nuisance. They can stop you running if you aren’t careful.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  bunce: bundle of money (Romany slang)

  Isn’t money strange?

  Sitting looking at the bunce Miss Farnacott gave me in Ted Moon’s derelict shop changed my mood. Money is just paper rectangles (actually cotton) yet we’ll kill for the wretched stuff. Look at the 50 million zlotniks nicked by that gang in Kent – they risked everything in that snowy February of 2006. Dreams.

  We also gamble. Like Laura, lottery winner and addicted gambler. Our National Lottery is confidential. NHS records, love affairs, bank accounts, are all freely available. A woman who sleeps with the rich and famous hurtles to sell her story to the TV for gelt. People promising confidentiality are lying. Nothing is secret. Our vaunted ‘secret elections’ are a laugh. A bloke near my village sells personal voting records within hours of a General Election. I’m not making this up. (It isn’t me.)

  The clever city of Lydia in Asia Minor invented money. Rome took hold of the notion. Pecus, meaning cattle, gave us ‘pecuniary’, coins being stamped with goats and whatnot. Everything has circulated as cash – shells, paper, massive stone discs, tobacco, teeth, bags of salt, gold and silver. The goddess Juno Moneta is talked up as the pretty moon goddess who guards children and females, but Juno had a really horrid side. She married Zeus, the big banana on Olympus, without telling her parents. OK by me, but ancient chroniclers wrote her down. She had a ferocious strop on her, and hated the children Zeus fathered. Zeus was a ladies’ man and put it about. Juno became a goddess of thunder.

  Women have enormous faith in it – Goddess Juno Moneta’s influence? I don’t know. Just listen, though, to studio audiences, seventy-nine per cent females, note. Not all money is spent with decency. Forty-one lavatory blocks in the European Parliament Building, Brussels, show cocaine usage. UNESCO has built a costly Japanese garden in Paris – for themselves, of course, not the likes of us taxpayers. All politicians snort in the money troughs.

  Miss Farnacott shelled out this wadge without a quibble. For revenge? Poor choice, though a bereaved daughter might want heads to roll. I once knew a lady who harboured hatred. We were dining in the George, when Michael, the manager, stopped at our table. He said, ‘How is Hannah?’ And explained, ‘The crash?’ The following ensued:

  Marianna (my food provider, pro tem): ‘Crash? Hannah?’

  Michael (hostelry owner): ‘Haven’t you heard? She has terrible facial injuries. Scarred for life. My chef, Jem, saw it happen.’

  Marianna (sweeter): ‘Will she live?’

  Michael: ‘Yes, thank goodness. Sorry.’ (He meant bringing bad news.)

  Marianna: ‘Please don’t apologise, darling. How fabulous!’

  Michael (not getting it): ‘We were all so relieved.’

  Marianna (brightly): ‘Yes! Champagne, darling!’

  Michael (still not getting it): ‘Yes, m’lady. That’s exactly the attitude! Celebrate Hannah’s survival!’

  As he wafted on, I said, ‘You bitch, Marianna. You’re glad.’

  Marianna (fluttering yard-long eyelashes): ‘You’re so innocent, darling, you’re positively refreshing!’

  And she drank the whole bottle. I couldn’t touch a drop. Their dispute arose when Hannah, Marianna’s bosom friend, said she didn’t think Marianna’s dress should have had sleeves quite that shape. The war began. Is vendetta rational? I don’t think so. Marianna was furious I didn’t join in her glee. Marianna eventually bribed estate agents, so Hannah lost heavily selling her bungalow. The bribes cost Marianna a mint. She thought it worth every penny.

  Money, I thought, deciding to find Quemoy at the Dog & Duck, is supposed to have its own emotions. Wrong. My law is: Money feels nothing. That’s another rule I wish I’d remembered, when life got harder and my troubles worse.

  It was the following day.

  The Dog & Duck had no sign of Quemoy. I got a pasty and a swig in the taproom, earning nods of recognition. I didn’t ask for him. Rumour in East Anglia acts like pheromones to the Great White.

  Fifteen minutes later, he slid onto the next stool, then noticed me with a theatrical start.

  ‘Goodness gracious,’ he declared, rep theatre on a bad day. ‘If it isn’t Lovejoy!’

  ‘Wotcher.’ Yet more dated talk.

  ‘You have a sufficiency of imbibation?’

  Did he mean a drink? The uncomfortable thought came that maybe he too was one of these disgruntled tribes.

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘Indeed I am, Lovejoy. Keeping the old mitts in, what?’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I asked if he would suss out another location.

  ‘You’re sure there will be no comeback?’ He smiled.

  Maybe I was agreeing too often with too many people. When they come from the Nationalist Kuomintang islands, and have criminal connections… Still, his English was hell of a sight better than mine. Why quibble?

  ‘Have you the address?’

  The babble in the Dog & Duck is always at max decibels. We couldn’t be overheard.

  ‘Somnell House. Is it in the Fylde?’

  His face did not change. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘How soon? And how much?’

  Quemoy is a creature of habit, and normally only asks the fee. His ‘How soon?’ surprised me – he’d never asked before. We talked, he agreed. He said expansively, ‘Hey, Lovejoy, what are friends for?’

  We were such good friends. Or even spiffing chums. He promised me the Somnell House data in two days’ time, collect from the Dog & Duck. Usually he took three hours – another warning bell. I kept up a light banter and got him laughing like a drain. I left at seven o’clock for the town bus. I needed to find Daniella from Mehala Bay, to interrogate her anew about Dr Castell, then about Somnell House, Lancashire.

  The bus was on time, so not all omens were quarky. Now I’d finally got started I felt content. Bollocking Mortimer could wait.

  Somebody sat beside me, silent until the bus turned at Leavenheath.

  ‘You found Quemoy, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Nosey little sod. Why ask if you already know?’

  ‘Language, please, in public.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, narked, ‘why do you pay no bus fare?’

  Mortimer looked surprised. ‘The bus company operates through my manor, Lovejoy. The driver is embarrassed when I offer to pay.’

  ‘Then why do they charge me, you chiselling sod?’

  ‘Because you are irrelevant, Lovejoy.’

  He remained mute. Once in town, I headed for the Minories, an ancient house full of paintings where genteel vegetarian suppers are served by parish ladies. He came along, and eyed the wadge I flourished.

  ‘Please tell me what transpired, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Harken unto my words,’ I said, then w
ished I hadn’t been sarcastic because he went red and one of the ladies tut-tutted at my rudeness. ‘Sorry.’ More apologies. I told him everything, including Miss Farnacott’s donation. I offered to let him count it. Politely he declined.

  ‘What with that Ellen Jaynor stalking me, you, Lydia, Laura, Sandy, Tasker, that incompetent Hennell, an impending marriage, and Miss Farnacott talking tickety-boo Edwardian threats, I’ll be finished before I start on those forgotten white tribes.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mortimer said. He didn’t even glance up, yet one of the serving ladies sprinted across. ‘Do you have cane sugar, please?’ he asked.

  ‘Silly me!’ the lady gushed. ‘I’ll forget my head next.’ And sprinted for some.

  ‘Thank you.’ He gave her a shy smile. She simpered and went to brag of her triumph to her mates.

  I asked wearily, ‘What does “Ah” mean this time?’

  ‘Dad was one, Lovejoy. Of the forgotten white tribes.’

  That shut me up. Now, Arthur Goldhorn wasn’t forgotten or lost at all. I knew where he’d lived, where he was buried. And where Arthur’s missus lived in riotous profligacy among gilded youths. In short, I knew everything about Arthur.

  ‘Dad was born here, in Saffron Fields. Grannie was a Baster. They formed the republic in what is now Namibia. Recognised by the League of Nations. Grannie left all kinds of mementoes. I have them.’

  ‘Antiques?’

  ‘Not for you, Lovejoy. Dad guarded them. Even when you…’

  ‘Look,’ I said, narked. ‘Don’t bring that up. Some murderers die by accident. It isn’t always me.’

  ‘If you say so,’ he said politely. ‘Which is the reason you must serve Mrs Ellen Jaynor loyally. She is a Burgher of Ceylon.’

  My brain felt it was floating free in a neap tide. ‘Whose side are we on? Knowing might help me to survive.’

  ‘We must find Ted Moon. Which is why you must go to the Formula One in Sunderland before going to Lincoln Cathedral.’