The Tartan Ringers

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘A fluke,’ I agreed.

  ‘You deserved it, Lovejoy,’ she said, smiling. ‘For giving Archie that grand tricycle.’

  ‘It isn’t his fault his legs can’t reach the car throttle.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Still smiling, she put her fingers to my face. We were suddenly close.

  My hopes of examining the true worth of Farmer Bob’s black opal engagement ring were dashed when Jo found her hand on a pair of Ellen’s stockings. They’d treacherously crept out from behind a cushion. She was up and vehement in a flash.

  ‘Lovejoy! And to think that I was about to . . . oh!’

  ‘Honestly, Jo. They’re my sister’s . . .’ Trala trala. Good night, nurse, with Jo storming out in a ferocious temper and me shouting invented explanations after her.

  Women really get me down sometimes. They’re so unreasonable. You’d think they’d learn sense, having nothing else to do all day. I watched her car burn off up the lane, then went in disconsolately.

  The sight of her unfinished grub cheered me up and I sat down to finish it. My spirits began soaring. Where one valuable antique came from there was bound to be more, right? And if the sender was dim enough to send a pricey article thinking it a mock-up, I was in for a windfall.

  Give Jo a day to come round, wheedle Shona’s address off her, then hit the high road. Or the low road. I’m not proud.

  Between mouthfuls I burst into song.

  Chapter 4

  JILL WAS AT Gimbert’s infamous auction rooms. This emporium of wonderment and infamy is lodged between a row of ancient cottages, a ruined priory, two pubs and a church. She was inspecting the assorted junk in her time-honoured way, which is carrying a microscopic poodle and trailing a knackered seaman. Jill’s tastes are catholic, as they say. She wears furs, grotesque hats, rings, brooches, pearls, the lot. I like her. She saw me pushing through the dross and screamed.

  ‘Lovejoy darling!’ She drenched my face with a kiss. Quickly I pulled away. Her embrace is a dead risk. Either the poodle gnaws your earhole or you stink like a boutique. ‘How clever to escape from jail! Meet . . . the name, lover?’

  ‘Dave,’ the young sailor said.

  ‘Dave,’ Jill repeated, trying to lock the name in. She always forgets. ‘Dave’s just into port, aren’t you, honey?’ In or out is her only criterion.

  ‘Yes.’ Dave was bemused, like all Jill’s Jolly Jacks. Coastal ships docking at our town’s minuscule port take turns lending Jill nautical manpower. The names change, to protect the innocents. I’ve never met the same one twice. Tinker says they don’t dare land again.

  ‘Hello, er, Dave,’ I said heartily. ‘Jill. You sometimes commission Tipper Noone?’

  ‘Not lately, Lovejoy. I’ve been absolutely rushed off my feet!’ Big Frank from Suffolk, silver dealer among the Regency ware, snickered at the unfortunate turn of phrase. A couple of other dealers up-ending furniture politely disguised their guffaws as coughs. ‘Dobson gave him a twinner, Patrick said.’

  Tinker’s tale was beginning to sound true, despite Dobson’s reticence.

  ‘Ta, Jill. Tell him to bell me, eh?’

  I evaded another soak, gnaw, and scenting by eeling among heavy suites of 1910 furniture to where Patrick stood. He always looks crazy to me – crocodile handbag, silken bishop sleeves and enough mascara to black your boots – but he’s a hard-line dealer. I was swiftly getting narked. This bloody drudgery’s Tinker’s job.

  ‘Hiyer, Pat. Where’s Lily?’ Lily’s a married woman who loves Patrick while her husband’s away and sometimes when he isn’t. I’d say more but it’s too complicated and I’d get it wrong.

  ‘Patrick,’ he corrected. ‘That stupid bitch brought the wrong chequebook, Lovejoy! Can you imagine?’ He swore extravagantly in falsetto. ‘I made her go right home!’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Pat. Look. Where’s Tipper Noone?’

  ‘To each his own, dear heart. You won’t find him in my boudoir.’ He boomed – well, trilled – a gay laugh.

  ‘Don’t help, then,’ I said evenly. ‘See if I care.’

  Other dealers sieving through the gunge on display paused at the implied threat. Even Patrick abated somewhat.

  I may not be much to look at, but among antique dealers I’m special. Very few dealers know anything about antiques. In fact most are simply Oscar-minus actors highly skilled at concealing their monumental ignorance. Try one out, if you don’t believe me. Offer an antique dealer a Rembrandt – he’ll hum and ha and won’t offer you more than eighty quid. It isn’t because he’s miserly. It’s because he can’t tell an Old Master from an oil slick, which is why you can still pick up fortunes hidden among loads of old tat.

  Ignorance being endemic, it follows that antique dealers need somebody to help them, not only with reading and writing, but also with knowing antiques. I don’t mean somebody who’s simply read the right books. I mean somebody whose inner sense tells if that fifteenth-century Book of Hours is a brilliant sequence of illumination from the unsullied monks of Lindisfarne, or a newspaper and starch. Easy? Yes, for somebody like me, who quivers and trembles when that Roman oil lamp radiates its honest ancient little soul’s vibes out into the universe, or when that antique Chinese jewelled fingernail cover emanates gleams under the auctioneer’s naked bulb.

  The people distributed in Gimbert’s showrooms had paused with alert interest because I’m the only divvie for many long leagues. I’m gormless with money and women, which is why I’m always broke, but I’m the only one of us who isn’t gormless with antiques.

  Patrick’s venom is legendary. But if I called his antiques fakes he too would be broke. Mostly I’m honest because special gifts aren’t for monkeying about with. So, wisely, he turned sulky and pulled his mauve silk lace gloves on.

  ‘Don’t be nasty, Lovejoy. I positively sweated blood arranging for Tipper to give me an estimate for mending a Chippendale fret. He didn’t turn up, did he, Lily?’ Patrick’s admirer had just breathlessly returned proudly bearing her chequebook.

  ‘Tipper? Yes. Here you are, darling.’

  Patrick dropped the chequebook, demanding icily, ‘Do I have to carry everything, silly bitch?’

  Lily was picking it up, saying, ‘Sorry, sweetheart . . .’ as I left. They’re both on a loser, but neither thinks so. It’s hard proving people are wrong when they’re doing what they want.

  There on the pavement stood Antioch. He’s a slim, quiet bloke. A friend, thank God. (You’ll see later why I’m glad on that point.) He waits motionless, never lolls. He’s the contact man for the night wagoneers. As I hesitated, he nodded hello.

  ‘How do, Antioch,’ I said, nervous. ‘Look. That driver.’

  ‘You’re asking around, Lovejoy?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Aye. No luck so far.’

  ‘You find out who did for him, don’t do anything. Understand?’

  ‘You know me, Antioch,’ I said heartily. ‘Scared of my own shadow.’

  He looked into me. ‘Just tell me who, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Right, right.’ I watched him go, my nape chilled.

  Then I phoned Jo, trying to sound urgent. ‘The police, Jo.’ There was a background din. Some school. ‘They pulled me in for questioning but I didn’t let on about your involvement, love.’

  ‘My involvement?’ she said faintly.

  ‘I’m just reassuring you, in case you were anxious. I’ve said nothing.’ Pause, for her to say nice of me. Not a word. I’d have to be even nicer. ‘And I’m sorry the jumble sale stuff made you mad. I’ve not had a minute to clear up since—’

  ‘What jumble sale stuff?’

  ‘Those women’s clothes lying about. Old Kate brings them. I collect for the, er, hospital charity. Next time you come it’ll be tidy. Honest.’

  ‘Oh.’ Uncertainty at last. Belief might not be far behind.

  I gasped indignantly. ‘Jo! You didn’t think those underclothes were . . .’

  We agreed on the Tudor Halt restaurant, six o’clock. A bit
posh for me, but I’d scrape the gelt together somehow. And Jo might give me a lift home afterwards, during which dot dot dot to the sound of the waves upon the shore, with any luck.

  I don’t blackwash people, because what’s the use? All reputation is just whitewash carefully applied. So for me gossip, the sole means of communication among antique dealers, is valueless unless it’s filtered by an expert.

  Tinker, my only employee, is that all-time gossip-filtering expert. He was hard at work becoming paralytic in the Ship tavern when I arrived. I wheedled Sandra the barmaid into letting me slate his next few pints. She blames me for having stood her up once, and makes me earn my badges back every now and then. Women never forget what you owe. On the other hand they’re great at forgetting repayments. Swings and roundabouts.

  ‘Ta, Sand,’ I said. ‘Don’t give him more than six.’

  Tinker cackled. I leant away as his alcoholic fetor wafted past and moved him away from the bar. He was with a group of barkers boozily trading rumour. I kept my voice low. The barkers had shut up and were oh-so-casually inclining their ears at an eavesdropping angle.

  ‘Tinker. Where the hell’s Tipper Noone? Gimbert’s viewing today and he’s not showed.’

  ‘Not been in the arcade more’n a week.’ He drained his glass. I sprinted for a refill.

  ‘Listen. Here’s what I think, Tinker. That bureau we had shipped down was nicked. The driver protested, and got done. They owffed it to the hangars. It changed hands a few times as usual. Then—’

  ‘—Dutchie got Tipper Noone to twin it, shipped it out.’ Tinker nodded. ‘Benjie bought it, then Nacker Hardie, then Alison Verney, but nobody remembers how it first come.’

  He’d done well to find all that out. ‘Tipper’s a home bird,’ I reminded.

  He said nothing, stared at his empty glass. Sprint, smile at Sandra, refill. Resume. ‘Aye. Never goes anywhere, doesn’t Tipper. But he’s not in the Eastern Hundreds any more.’ This was making me uneasy.

  Tinker suddenly looked sober, a novel but alarming sight. ‘It’s bad news.’ His rheumy old eyes were on me. ‘Are we in trouble, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maslow said, sitting down beside me. There was a faint stir in the taproom smog. I looked across. The mob of barkers had vanished as if by magic.

  ‘Another false arrest, Maslow?’

  He grinned from behind his pipe. The match tufted flame so bright I turned away. ‘False arrest isn’t trouble, Lovejoy. Trouble’s the body of a man washed ashore off the estuary.’

  I drew breath to ask the question but Tinker was clobbering my arm with his glass. I took the clumsy hint and rose for another refill.

  ‘Some boating accident?’ I said sympathetically, returning after telling myself to watch my big mouth. Sometimes Tinker’s worth his weight in gold.

  ‘Possibly, Lovejoy.’ Distastefully Maslow watched Tinker slurp the ale. ‘You know, you repel me, Dill. A dosshouse fusilier. I’m sick of the sight of tramps like you.’

  Tinker said humbly, ‘Yes, Mr Maslow.’

  ‘Tinker’s the best barker in the business,’ I said. Maslow narks me.

  ‘And you, Lovejoy. Pillock. You could have made something of yourself. Instead you haunt junk shops, shag your way through women’s handbags. You’re pathetic, you know that? You’re too cuntstruck, Lovejoy.’ He was really motoring now, glaring and practically yelling. ‘You two berks—’

  ‘Get stuffed, Maslow.’ I can bawl as good as him. ‘You frigging peelers should be out there finding who drowned poor bloody Tipper Noone instead of . . .’ I paused, aghast.

  Tinker groaned, head in his hands. Maslow smiled.

  ‘How did you know the body was Tipper Noone, Lovejoy?’ he asked gently. ‘Fancy a ride to the station?’

  Chapter 5

  THEY LET ME go, shaken but not stirred, about four that afternoon. I’d seen poor Tipper’s horrendous mortal remains. A fishing line had entangled his legs. His head was stove in, but Maslow said the pathologists never learn anything from drowners. Tipper must have been in the water some days. His drifting dinghy was found a couple of miles out to sea. I’d been in clink at the time, a fact I mentioned every chance I got.

  ‘You see, Lovejoy,’ Maslow said staring morosely at the traffic from the police steps. ‘This isn’t a game, is it? And you’re deep in because as soon as you’re sprung from one problem you’re asking after a furniture-restorer who lo and behold comes bobbing in without a boat.’ He added his pipe’s carcinogens to the lead-soaked traffic pollution. ‘You’re no killer, Lovejoy, not really. You fancy yourself, but you’re brim full of cowardice, cant and crap. O’ course you didn’t do for Tipper. Never believed you did. Any more than I believe that Tipper accidentally drowned.’

  He wouldn’t let me reply, just reamed his pipe like they do. Pipe smoking’s a job.

  ‘I’m telling you all this by way of warning, Lovejoy. Witnesses are a public’s protection of innocence. Consequently they’re at risk. They tend to get eliminated. Now you’re tied in with the wagoneer’s death and Tipper’s. So stay in the company of friends, close to that Customs officer’s pretty wife, or Mrs Dainty, or yon Scotch lass, or—’

  ‘Here,’ I said defensively. I didn’t know he knew.

  ‘And stay off the bypass. Stop contrabranding old wardrobes till I clear this up. Okay?’

  Which is why I spent an anxious hour in the library with a gazetteer, and the next hour divvying for Francie to earn some money to feed Jo to get Shona’s address to leave the district. A process of elimination was going on, and I wanted out.

  Francie’s rarely around, but always is, if you follow. She travels with her husband and sixty-seven others. They’re a fairground, the sort with roundabouts, roll-a-pennies, sideshows and a Giant Caterpillar that whirls round and covers you over for a quick snog. They’ve even a Galactic Wheel and a Ghost Train. It’s marvellous, lights and action and people. I like fairgrounds, always have. Francie collects antiques on the side, eroding the whole enterprise’s meagre profits year after year. I used to make smiles with Francie before she went a-gypsy-roving.

  The place they land is Castle Heath, a greensward where centuries ago some baddies shot some heroes to death, or the other way round. They come like night-thieving Arabs, suddenly there in full swing. It’s one of the most exciting scenes to see an early-morning fairground with wagons and tents and fanciful structures. I love their colours, for the same reason I love them on canal boats; they are the brilliance of an earlier century showing through modern grot.

  Francie welcomed me as always as I shouted at the steps and climbed into her caravan, which is to say with hardly a glance. In her tribe it’s an insult to dawdle at the door. She immediately put the kettle on.

  ‘How do, love.’ I bussed her and quickly sat down uninvited, another must. ‘How’s it among the oppressed nomads?’

  ‘How is it among the static fascists, darling?’

  ‘Bloody grim. Better for seeing thee, though.’

  ‘So you got off.’ That always makes me blink. The fair only arrived a day ago, but here she was knowing everything.

  An infant came in, looking vaguely familiar, fetched a toffee out of the fridge.

  ‘Is this good for your teeth?’ I demanded, obediently unwrapping it for her.

  ‘Ta.’ The kiddie left to join six others milling about outside. Fairground children are always so businesslike.

  ‘Yours, Francie?’

  She didn’t look up. ‘Mmmmh. And you got off today from Tipper Noone’s accident, Lovejoy. Two out of two.’

  That explained the familiar feeling I’d got from looking at the little girl. Family likeness. ‘Eh? Oh, aye. I’m a master of escapology.’ She came and sat on the bunk seat, facing me so our eyeballs practically touched. Odd that I’d never seen her kiddie before, though I’d been to her caravan a few times. Shy, I suppose.

  ‘Still trying to fit two days into one, Lovejoy? Still hopeless with women, with money?’

  ‘Don’
t talk daft.’ The kettle was whistling. She rose to see to it. Women are always narked when they find somebody who understands them better than they know themselves. And as for being useless, they should bloody well talk. ‘You got much to divvie?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  These caravans are modern trailers, windows and bunks in tiers, a kitchen at one end. Francie’s is small, but mirrors cunningly exaggerate the space she has. Tables fold out of walls, all that. She saw me looking.

  ‘Fancy the life yet, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Among the wraggle-taggle gypsies O? When the Mounties are after me, happen I will.’

  She was bringing out the stuff while we spoke.

  ‘Over there,’ I told her, nodding at the table across from where I sat. A reasonable light falling semi-obliquely across my field of view. Francie knows the drill.

  ‘Yes, love,’ she said. ‘I’ll be quiet.’

  Eyes closed, I relaxed and waited until she told me, ‘Right, Lovejoy.’ I faced the heap of items and began reaching, touching, stroking, listening, feeling.

  It seems daft to say things actually speak, doesn’t it, but they do, they do. Correction: antiques speak, and do it with a resonance that tremors through your very being. Gunge – and I do mean everything modern – is inert, lifeless. It deserves to remain so. The explanation is that you can’t trick Nature. Humanity gets back exactly what it puts in. Passionate learning plus artistic creativity are what made little Tintoretto a bobby-dazzler instead of simply a paint-mixer for his dad. Look at a great oil painting, and then at the front cover of a magazine. Just as many colours, maybe the same size and even the same subject. But there’s a difference.

  The caravan’s interior was hot. I lifted objects, peered, sniffed, fondled, laid them aside and went on to the next.

  Feeling – I mean touch – is the great modern omission. People dance apart. Even old lovers merely wave hello. It was different when I was little. You got a thick ear for not remembering to kiss even your most wrinkled auntie. Folk embraced, patted, impinged. Human contact was in. Nowadays everybody intones catchphrases proving we’re hooked on togetherness, yet we run from contact. Talk loudly enough of love, and you conceal from yourself the terrible fact that you’ve forgotten the human act of loving. That wondrous joy of loving is everything, everything . . .