The Sin Within Her Smile

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘It’s okay. I’m a village baby-sitter.’ I backed to avoid Arthur’s niff. He really did pong.

  ‘Mr. Lloyd,’ Nurse Lin said. An old bloke, bank-clerkish in attire, didn’t respond. Nor did an elderly lady shaking and dozing, ‘Old Sarah,’ I was told. She looked like a duchess. ‘Senile, I’m afraid. And our hypomanic, Corinda.’

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy!’ Corinda was laughing, clapping, tapping to a radio. She looked from a music hall, spangles, low-cut blouse. Nurse Lin gave me a warning glance.

  ‘This is Boris. He’s shy.’ A young man sat at the back, face in a book, thick bottle specs. He didn’t look. Well, I didn’t want to meet Boris either.

  Some seemed not all that barmy. Nurse Lin made me shake hands with a slow country bloke. Heavy boots, corduroys, bowler, inverted pipe smoking, Thinnish overcoat far too long, muffler round his throat. I smiled. ‘Lovejoy.’

  He gave the curtest nod. ‘Luke. I’m in charge.’ That was that. A true countryman. I crossed him off my potential list of oddities. I went out for the big farewell.

  ‘Dear?’ Dolly stood primly there, handbag in both hands. ‘How very proud I am! Such a noble cause.’

  ‘Now, Dolly.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘It’s my duty to help the less fortunate.’ I was almost in tears myself.

  ‘I know, dear.’ She braved herself. ‘Promise, Lovejoy.’ She took in the distance between us and rain-soaked humanity. It was safe. She whispered, ‘Darling.’

  ‘Not here, Dolly.’ I can’t resist becoming primmer.

  She nodded, collected herself. ‘Quite right, Lovejoy. Behaviour. Telephone, and I shall bring you home. Take care. Mr. Luke seems most capable. And control your temper. Your bag I’ve packed for you, with ... ’ she blushed ‘... clean underpants and socks. Six pairs. Plasters for cuts, toilet rolls in the flap pocket.’

  A great Rolls cruised up. Mrs. Arden alighted, advanced like a queen donating her presence. Carl carried an umbrella over her. Nobody applauded, but we came close.

  ‘Lovejoy! Ready to leave, I see!’

  Our grovelling welcomed her gushing condescension. ‘Thank you for your support, Mrs. Arden,’ Doc said.

  ‘My pleasure to help, Doctor! The great quest! Isn’t it exciting? In fact,’ she added, her eyes giving mine a swift flick, ‘I might pay a brief visit myself! Renewing the experience!’

  My throat, dry from anger, now dried from the oldest craving of all. I saw Carl stiffen. They have a million sayings for a woman scorned, but none about blokes. Carl the cuckold, hated me, even with Deirdre as compensation.'

  A morose photographer spoke. ‘I want a shot.’ Rain dripped off his beard.

  His girl spoke from behind her specs. ‘We want a shot.’

  Even the loonies - sorry, passengers - might be better company than this lot. I sighed, made to buss Dolly a so long but she leapt away at my frank display of lust.

  Luke was driving. I went inside with my case. I wasn’t going to be around long enough to take this departure seriously. The photographer’s camera flashed. Drenched spectators waved. We drove off, to Wales. I settled back. I’d hop off this rotten bus in ten minutes, and it could go where the hell it wanted, without me.

  In the excitement of the warm bus I nodded off. I remember us swinging along the A604, and hearing little Arthur yelling, causing Corinda to screech like a, well, maniac. Sorry. Old Mr. Lloyd was static, staring. The old duchess was dozing. Boris was furtive.

  The bus stopped. I awoke. Blearily I looked out at a country bus stop. Suffolk still. I recognized the Boar’s Head at Vallancey. Luke shut the engine off, got down to talk and sign a district nurse’s clipboard. A gentleman dressed like a verger boarded with prayer book raised aloft. He paused and burst into ‘All the Way My Saviour Leads Me’. Then somebody else. Meg the red-headed harridan who hated me and whose boyfriend, Simon, burnt Liffy to death because he’d nicked a motor.

  She flounced grumpily into a seat. Was she our guiding spirit? Lovejoy the Ingrate, I went to sit beside her.

  ‘Lovely Wales,’ I sighed like I loved the thought.

  She eyed me, saw I was sincere, and nearly smiled. It would have been her first. ‘You feel the fondness?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ My eyes filled. ‘That longing.’

  ‘Hiraeth,’ she put in mistily. She shone. ‘Longing.’

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, thrilled I’d penetrated her antagonism. I knew the word from the song. ‘Heer-aye. I’ve longed for valuable striped Welsh ware for years.’

  ‘Antiques?’ She rounded on me so savagely I almost fell off. ‘You barbarian! I’m talking of the Principality’s soul!’ She lapsed into Welsh, cursing.

  When I’d settled down - her still muttering -1 wondered what I’d done wrong. Look at the opportunity of picking up some Welsh antiques. It was logical, for heaven’s sake.

  ‘Listen, love.’ I chose my words. ‘Think of a caveman. He found he could shape clay into a cup, that it got hard when baked. Then he

  learned that a glaze made it watertight!’ I honestly couldn’t see why she sat glowering. ‘He’d invented technology! Then he tried slip- ware, using clays that burnt to a white-grey colour for decoration on the russet pot.’ I tried, but it was uphill work. ‘About the Civil War time, they used powdered lead glazes. Maybe from the old Roman silver mines in Wales, eh?’ She suddenly turned and stared right into me. ‘Think yellowish, think striped, and you can buy your own caravan!’

  ‘Lovejoy,’ she said, voice tight.

  ‘No, love,’ I said magnanimously. ‘No need to apologize. We’ll maybe find one together. Think! Welsh ware looks so amateurish, you can pick it up in junk shops. A single plate worth a car!’

  ‘Lovejoy,’ she said. ‘If you loot the Principality, I’ll see you gaoled. Understand?’

  Her eyes were live coals. I swallowed. ‘Yes,’ I said meekly. Except I didn’t. I’d been tactfully praising her country folk, for God’s sake. Some people never recognize tact. I left her.

  For a second I sat, then slithered down. I was by the emergency door, side rear. I’d already swivelled the handle experimentally. Now I swung it, fell out, as the bus started. I managed to close it, stepped behind the bus shelter and listened in rapture as the charabanc left. Its noise receded. I was a dozen miles from home. I’d walk. I gave them a minute, then stepped lively. Free!

  There was a small country garage about a mile from the Boar’s Head. I might be able to phone, rustle up a lift.

  Walking in the countryside is rubbish. I strongly advise against it. You put one foot in front of the other, then do the other leg. Slowly, the scenery changes. East Anglia has no pavements except in towns. Motors squeal to a stop, the driver staring in fury. Horseback riders

  Jesus, there are shoals - trot over you, the nags too stupid to watch their feet. You’re forever leaping into the bloody hedges (thorny hawthorn, thorny dog rose, et thorny cetera).

  But to escape Meg’s merry band it would be worth it. I was tempted to rest at a bridge over a brook, but decided no. Best to pike on.

  It’s hereabouts that you get the treasure hunters. Find a patch of ground. Buy an archeological map. Get a pal with a metal detector, and you’re off. Make sure you’ve got a quick getaway. The farmers hereabouts hate poachers. The law hates night marauders. And the constabulary, being failed criminals, hate everybody. The trouble is our crazy eleventh-century Treasure Trove law. The coroner’s jury must decide if the original old Romano-British owner, way back then, lost the treasure or hid it. Ever heard anything so loony? Like wondering why your ancestors in ad 200 don’t write any more.

  I’ve been done myself under the Theft Act, for walking on somebody’s farmland with a metal detector in the candle hours. ‘Equipped to steal’, the law decides. I ducked into the hedge while an enraged motorist fumed past. Excavating treasure goes in spurts. Like the Hoxne Treasure, a sensational Suffolk hoard. It’s superb, numbering thousands of separate items, coins, necklaces, cutlery, bracelets. Naturally, everybody reads of this
wonder, and starts digging that very morning. Metal detector sales boom.

  It’s down to money. I don’t understand the stuff, not really. But if you crave it, why not sell pop stars’ sweat? They say it’s fifteen pounds a bottle; the fashion started in the USA. Sales are soaring. Or sell forgeries, or fakes on commission. It’s often done, and you’re in the clear. Money mesmerizes. Folk don’t merely want to sell granny’s old mangle (value equal to a second-hand car). They want an Old Master painting, the chateaux, casino, and girls that go with it. It’s greed.

  Which raises the question of why so many folk seemed desperate to keep me on this deranged scheme, wandering the leafy lanes with idiots. It was odd. It was a syndicate. The Ardens, Simon Doussy, his diamond sightholder Gee Omen, Raddie, Jessina Mosston. Doc Lancaster, too? But why me? Why Wales?

  The garage hove into view. I plodded up, spoke to the girl. She was reading a glossy, chewing gum, listening to a deafening trannie. Irate at being interrupted, her only transport was an old motorbike. I said excellent; perhaps one that actually went... ? She said she’d phone a friend. I waited outside. The countryside, I assure you, didn’t change. Thirty minutes later a great vehicle glided on to the forecourt like a stately galleon. A swish lady spoke.

  ‘Now don’t be stoopid, Lovejoy,’ she said. ‘Mrs. Farahar.’ I looked accusingly at the garage girl. ‘Her people work on my husband’s land. Get in.’ ‘Does this constitute an offer?’ Luke must have a car phone.

  She smiled. ‘Yes!’

  Which took me aback so much I got in. It was like being inside St Paul’s, but plush. We were moving. ‘Colonel Farahar is inspecting another farm we’ve just bought.’

  ‘Quite a spread, then?’

  ‘Some acres.’ She wore that TV smile American women always wear. There was a big Land Rover following us.

  ‘Who’s your mate?’ I asked. ‘Bodyguard?’

  ‘We’ve had a few incidents lately. Childish pranks, not serious.’ ‘Mmmmh,’ I said. ‘That’s countryside. Danger everywhere.’

  ‘I expect you to be on our side, Lovejoy. My husband demands loyal service. Understand?’

  ‘Listen, lady. I’ve toted a gillion loonies for a thousand miles - ’ ‘Fourteen miles, Lovejoy, from your cottage.’

  ‘That where we’re going?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No. We will visit my home. Your presence on the trip is essential.’

  ‘Will I learn why?’

  She considered that, brilliantly smart in a leaf-green suit. Her knees were edible. I had to stare away. Temptation’s always too much. Guilt’s easier. She said at last, ‘Yes. But not yet.’

  Notice anything about wealth? It gives a holy feeling in the abstract. But think of the people wealth owns, suddenly you’re on lunar landscape. Money creates that mysticism when seeing the huge Pearl River or Derwentwater - you’re witnessing the transcendental. You’re emotionally lost. That’s why people who win unbelievable lotteries or the football pools go mental. They’re bewildered. I knew this woman, a pleasant lady, lived next to my Auntie Agnes, and she won the pools. Over half a million pounds. Happiness? Hardly. I was in my auntie’s kitchen (she stored a forged Russell Flint painting I’d just finished) when the newly rich lady came steaming in. ‘Why didn’t you say hello, Agnes? You walked on by!’ And my auntie said sorrowfully, ‘Sorry, love. I didn’t want to seem after your money.'

  See? Money causes problems. The lady went to Spain, spent like a drunken sailor, was flat broke in a twelvemonth, her phalanx of new laughing lovers leaving her stranded. It’s the natural history of flood money.

  So we ordinary people invent a kind of hate for the rich. And why? Because we sense something deep down about real wealth. We couldn’t cope. The point of all this is, we kulaks worship abstract wealth, and hate people with real money. Can I prove it? Instantly. You get on a train. On the seat are two magazines. One concerns the problems besetting the Exchequer, charts of fiscal policies. The other shows a superb girl dripping with precious gems and carries the headline RICH GIRL IN MONEY BLITZ AS HURRICANE RIPS HOTEL. Which do you pick up? You ought to choose the former. But you don’t. Nobody does. You want to read how the spoiled bitch got her comeuppance. See? Worship and spite.

  There’s a survey in Paris, on the very, very rich. It covers fewer than a thousand European homes, to see how they live, what they buy.

  ‘Missus,’ I said as the motor swanned up to the grandest mansion house I’d ever seen, ‘do you make a clean sweep of hotel rooms for shampoos, bath salts? The super-rich do.’ The Paris survey.

  ‘One doesn’t use hotels, Lovejoy.’ A serf opened her door. ‘One has one’s own town houses.’

  Silly me. The helot looked narked. I’d opened my door unaided.

  The house was majestic, a true Queen Anne manor that hadn’t been mucked about. It felt friendly, regal. Lawns that writers call sweeping, drives curving between fountains. A lake glinted, an ornate summerhouse, a red brick wall with espalier shrubs. Fields showed a farm with a curl of smoke. Monarchs of all they surveyed, these Farahars. It always irks me that mansions get their blossoms earlier, as if God’s keeping in with the moneyed class. A heraldic shield bragged over the main door. A heraldic flag flapped disdainfully from a mast. Rich rich.

  The rich rich ignore fur coats and sports cars, I remembered. And it’s not enough to be blue of blood to be topsters. The Farahars might have scooped the pool, decided to repossess the old mansion. Such things do happen. Wasn’t the once American President George Bush supposed to’ve hailed from Messing, way back when?

  Mrs. Farahar preceded me. I followed, a lapdog. The place was sumptuous. Something covered with a beige cloth was on the coffee table. I staggerd as its unseen radiance beat into me.

  ‘Wotcher, Raddie.’

  He didn’t rise, simply drooped his wrist. ‘Lovejoy. Consorting with riffraff, Vana dear?’ He wore a turban, bright silver lam£, with an ostrich plume dyed emerald green. He wore a nose ring, the emerald glittering. His suit was a match for Vana Farahar’s, rusty pink and blue stripes, cossack pantaloons and Turkish slippers of yellow fur. He looked, a prat.

  The covered piece lay there.

  ‘That will do, Raddie. Behave!’ But she said it friskily, loving his reprimand. ‘Lovejoy’s come to be persuaded.’

  ‘Can I see it, please? I don’t often get to see something genuine and original.’

  She was taken aback. ‘That fast?’ she said, marvelling.

  The beige was easily lifted. A piece of silver, flat, the comer only of an original tray, properly called a lanx. It looked oddly similar to the famous one excavated in the 1720s in Risley Park in Derbyshire. There were pagan scenes, beasts, a rider on some animal. I held it by the cloth. On the reverse was EXUPER. EPISC. The fragment ended in a rip. ‘Spade through it?’ I asked. There’d been a Bishop Expurius who’d owned such lanxes, in the pagan fourth century when Christianity was just coming. I had to blot my eyes for sudden wetness. I’d never seen anything so lovely.

  Vana Farahar was staring. ‘My God,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s Chuck, Raddie?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m cross with Chuck. He brought the wrong liqueur. I’ve sentenced him to three songs outside.’ Raddie makes Chuck sing melodies as punishment. I can’t understand their relationship.

  ‘Do sit down, Lovejoy.’ Mrs. Farahar had that lovely contoured grace women have. It tore me to give the lanx up. A manservant came for orders. I said orange juice, please. Raddie giggled, tssss- tssss, into vodka. ‘That piece?’ She pointed to a fragment alone on a plant stand. I went to look.

  The silver carving was superbly aged. I lost interest. ‘Gunge, lady.’

  ‘Coffee, Wilson.’ Vana Farahar swept her hair back. It’s a lovely gesture, always fascinates me. Even twenty-month girls can do it. I gape to see a woman taking her hat off. ‘It’s high time you were less of a problem, Lovejoy.’ ‘Me?’ I was honestly startled. ‘Others cause problems.’

  Raddie did his tssss-tssss.
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  ‘You promised to join the trip. You escaped. That’s trouble.’

  I rose, enraged. ‘Listen to me, you posh bitch.’ I was yelling. ‘Frigging charity games belong to you and your playmates.’ I grabbed the phoney silver lanx, shook it in her face. ‘And you have the gall to think I’ll be mesmerized and I’ll do as you say? Honest to God.’ I flung it across the room.

  ‘Oooh, reeee-yull! Raddie squeaked, applauding.

  ‘Miraculous,’ Mrs. Farahar breathed. ‘He really does.'

  Raddie sipped his vodka. ‘I told you, Vana, silly cow. He’s a divvy. They’re basically weird.’

  Which from him ... ‘Look, missus.’ I was weary. ‘I want out. Force me back to that mental zoo, I’ll skip.’

  ‘He really did it!’ she was still saying. ‘Not even to look.’ ‘Where’d you get the original Romano-Celtic lanx?’ I asked. ‘Some market overt?’ She looked blank. ‘Any old street market is a market overt - meaning you can’t get arrested for buying something stolen there. Scotland’s different. So is - ’

  ‘Wales.’ A military man strode in. Stout, fiftyish, decisive, laundered. Colonal Farahar? He took a frosted glass from a manservant. ‘A market overt is any street gathering of vendors. Buy something in good faith, you’re in the legal clear.’

  He sat, eyed Raddie with loathing, me with distrust.

  ‘The City of London’s a market overt each weekday,’ I added. ‘Buy a stolen Old Master, you’re safe. They can’t ask for it back.’ ‘Is that right, honey?’ Mrs. Farahar said. I looked, wondered why she hated him.

  Colonel Farahar saw my glance, recognized it for what it was. ‘Boot sales, Lovejoy?’ It was a prompt.

  ‘Boot sales aren’t market overts. Nor garage sales for charity.’ I added that last bit just so he’d know. ‘I was just leaving, Colonel. Hope your scheme goes okay.’

  I was out when Raddie spoke. ‘You can have the lanx, Lovejoy. Though why you deserve a priceless slice of Romano-Celtic history, I can’t imagine!’