‘You said that last week,’ I said. ‘And I wasted a two hour drive getting down here for nothing.’ The dust in the place was swirling through the air, playing havoc with my sinuses. It added to my sense of irritation.
‘Well, we’ve done a couple of houses since then, and an auction over Dorchester way. Picked up a few choice pieces.’
Billy McQueen, like his father before him, specialised in house clearances – buying furniture and other household items for a pittance and selling them on at a high mark-up. They dealt mostly with the antique trade and, over the years, had built up a thriving business. Some of the finest pieces of furniture that graced the halls and rooms of some of the grandest houses in the local area had all sat gathering dust in the McQueen warehouse at some time or another. For antique dealers, and for interior designers like myself, the place was a treasure trove; but to let McQueen know this would do serious damage to our wallets.
We reached the end of an aisle and turned right, into another, this one featuring mainly bedroom furniture.
‘Now what do you think of this?’ McQueen had stopped beside an art-deco dressing table – a nice piece, classic deco style, finished in a swirling walnut veneer.
‘Very nice,’ I said. ‘Can you move those?’ I said, pointing to the wardrobes that leaned against each other in lack lustre support behind the dressing table.
Without hesitation McQueen put his shoulder to one of the obscuring pieces of furniture and pushed it aside. It looked as if my suspicions were about to be confirmed and I felt a tingle in my fingertips. It was a familiar feeling; one I always got when I came across a piece of furniture that was exactly right for my purposes. They need not be valuable pieces, or rare, not even antique, so long as they were right.
The second wardrobe squealed and grinded its way across the concrete floor and the hidden gem was revealed in all its glory.
‘Victorian pot dresser, ‘ McQueen said. ‘Bought it in on Wednesday.’
A thick layer of dust covered its richly polished oak, and spiders’ webs hung from the intricate carvings of corn dollies. The centre piece, an elaborately carved effigy of a Green Man, was coated with grime, years of wax polish and dust mingling to form a crust which obscured the finer details and flattened the wrinkles and lines, giving it a bland, almost featureless appearance. There were three drawers, decorated with engraved German silver escutcheons, depicting rural scenes. These held the handles, fashioned from the same metal and worked to represent twisted stalks of wheat.
A half-eaten sandwich sat on the dresser in its plastic container, the ham looking decidedly green, the bread showing signs of extreme distress. ‘Don’t you ever clean this place?’ I said critically.
‘Pile it high and never dust.’ That’s what the old man used to say. The punters like it like this. Makes them feel they’re getting a bargain, no matter how much they pay over the odds for it. Now what do you think of the dresser?’ He didn’t mention that he had stretched his father’s concepts a little with a website for the business, and sales done over the Internet, as well.
What I thought was that it was exactly right for the kitchen of the house I was currently working on. However, there was no chance I was going to let McQueen know it. ‘It’s okay.’ I strived for enigmatic nonchalance.
‘Six hundred,’ he said.
I started to walk away, back down the aisle, returning my interest to the art-deco dressing table. As diversionary tactics go it wasn’t that original. I doubt McQueen was fooled for a moment, but he would expect me to play the game. Victorian pot dressers don’t come up on the market that often. Over the years they have been used for all manner of purposes in people’s houses, but they were originally designed and built to store and display pots. Which was precisely why it’s place in the kitchen I was currently creating was important to me.
‘Five fifty. That’s my bottom line.’ Suddenly he looked distracted, and turned his head to one side and cupped a hand to his ear. ‘Can you hear music? Sounds like someone playing an organ.’
I ignored him for a moment, then, with a frown, turned back to him. ‘It’s not original,’ I said. ‘And no I can’t hear a thing.’
McQueen looked affronted. ‘Now, Colin, don’t try pulling that one. Of course it’s an original. It’s got a maker’s label, and the original bill of sale is in one of those drawers. So don’t give me the old, ‘it’s a fake’ cobblers.’
He pulled at one of the drawers, grasped a piece of paper lying within, and then swore heartedly. The hand he held in the air for my inspection dripped blood from a ragged gash on the knuckles. Blood smeared the dusty surface of the dresser.
‘Here take this,’ he thrust the paper into my hand, ‘I’m going to find a sticking plaster.’
I walked back over to the dresser and studied it again. It was tall, over six feet high. ‘I didn’t say it was a fake. I just said it wasn’t original. Victorian pot dressers were made without a back to the shelves. This one has a back, and if you look closely you can see that there is still sap seeping from one of the knots. Ergo, it’s not original. Two hundred.’
I was concerned the blood would mark the wood, so I put the paper into my jacket pocket and took out a handkerchief and leaned over to wipe the dresser clean. But the surface of the wood was untouched. It was still covered in dust, still as grimy as before, but the blood had gone, without leaving a mark, as if it had soaked into the wood.
‘Five hundred, and that’s my last word.’ McQueen was back.
The bargaining went on for another ten minutes until we agreed on a price that suited me. With an agreement to have the dresser delivered the next day, I left McQueen grumbling into his beard. I had no sympathy for him, as both he and I knew that he would make a healthy profit from the deal. As I climbed into my car he was standing in the doorway of his warehouse, head to one side again, hand again cupping his ear. Then he shook his head and disappeared back into the gloom.
Sally Roberts lived in a fashionable part of Islington; in a large, three storeys Edwardian house in a quiet mews, which she shared with her husband, Milos, a Czech émigré theatre director, and two Irish wolfhounds called Gielgud and Richardson. It was she who had commissioned me to design her a new kitchen and dining room. I arrived at the house early the next morning so I could prepare the kitchen for the arrival of the dresser. Sally greeted me at the door with Richardson, who nuzzled the pocket of my jacket, sniffing out the roll of mints, the titbits I had been feeding the dogs throughout the duration of my work at the house.
Sally, as always, looked freshly scrubbed; her English rose complexion flawless and beautiful, all this without a hint of make-up and at seven thirty in the morning. It was a face that had made her the darling of the tabloid press and society magazines during her brief but sensational career as a fashion model. She had retired from the catwalk at thirty when she met and fell in love with Milos, but five years on she would have no trouble launching a comeback. Not that she had any desire to. She loved domestic life and was more than happy to play the devoted wife to the man who had stolen her heart
I followed Sally through to the kitchen. In my absence the day before the electrician had been to finish wiring the lights, and to fit the industrial sized cooker – chosen by Milos in order to indulge his culinary enthusiasms. The kitchen, as I had designed it, was an eclectic mixture of old and new, thus an antique pine refectory table with matching settles occupied a place in the centre of the quarry-tiled floor, setting off the sleek, modern designs of the cooker, the fridge and other appliances.
I had learned a long time ago that the key to good interior design was sympathetic lighting. I held my breath as I flicked the switch down, praying that my plans for the lights in the kitchen would live up to expectations. I was not disappointed. There were no harsh, flickering fluorescent tubes, no glaring tungsten bulbs, just soft, concealed halogen lights that infused the kitchen with a glowing ambience. The cooking area was brighter, more practical, but the overall effect was calmi
ng and restful. I was delighted, as was Sally, which was the main thing.
‘We tried it all out last night, after the electrician had gone. Milos cooked me a Czech dish with lamb and rice – it’s got a name but I can’t pronounce it. You should have seen him, Colin. Like a child with a new toy.’ She went across to the kettle and switched it on. She moved with an almost feline grace, an economy of movement that made her appear to glide over the quarry-tiles. ‘Tell me about the dresser. I can’t wait to see it,’ she said. ‘You sounded very excited when you phoned me yesterday.’ As she stood by the kitchen window, the early morning sun kissed the top of her head, making her short blond hair glow like a halo. Milos was a very lucky man, and I needed to be careful if my feelings were to remain cloaked.
The gloomy interior of the study obscured the corners of the room, but didn’t shield the girl’s perception that there were other people in the room. She could see her father standing behind his desk, and seated at it, in front of her father, was the Squire.
Like everyone in the village she had heard the stories about the strange things that were said to happen at The Grange, the Squire’s house. The children gossiped in hushed tones about the bright lights seen hovering above it at certain times of the month; about the music and the chanting that were sometimes heard; about the misshapen creatures that were said to stalk the grounds after dark, and which were said to dwell in the vast cellars beneath the house.
‘Martha,’ Her father said, quietly. ‘A special day has arrived for you. A day when you can fulfil your destiny.’
The girl had received little in the way of education and had scant knowledge of what destiny was. What she did know though, was that the shadows in the corners of the room were pulsating now, and moving closer.
The Squire stood and put his hand on a red brocade cloth that was draped over a large object to one side of the desk. With a practised flourish he pulled the drapes away to reveal a pot dresser; not a plain ordinary one such as she had seen before, but an ornately carved one, with a huge Green Man at the top, and other large, blasphemous creatures crawling over the rest of it, as though trying desperately to prise themselves away.
Martha became aware of organ music playing, and she saw her father was softly playing a tuneless dirge on the instrument he kept by the window.
The dogs heard the van arrive outside even before we did, and began barking furiously.
‘Gielgud, Richardson, that’s enough!’ Sally shouted as she went through to open the door. Before doing so she grabbed both of the dogs by the collar and pulled them into the study, shutting the door behind them.
McQueen’s sparkling, new Mercedes van was parked at the curb. McQueen and a young lad disembarked and opened the van’s rear doors. I watched from the doorway as they removed the top section of the dresser and set it down in the road. The bottom half, which contained the drawers, was taken out next and McQueen and the lad made heavy weather of carrying it through the front garden and up the concrete steps to the house. ‘Don’t strain yourself, Colin, will you,’ McQueen muttered as he carried the piece past me. Sally had gone ahead of them, opening doors, and moving objects that might be in the way. She kept glancing back at the lower half of the dresser, a delighted smile on her face.
By the time the top half was carried through, McQueen was sweating profusely, but the lad had taken off his shirt and was proudly displaying his muscles, occasionally glancing at Sally to see if she had noticed. I went into the kitchen to supervise the positioning, and Sally put the kettle on. When we were satisfied it was exactly where we wanted it, the lad went to lock the van up, Sally took the tea and biscuits through to the lounge, and McQueen and I went into the garden for a smoke.
A cry of pain and a loud volley of expletives shattered the tranquillity of the morning.
In the kitchen we found McQueen’s lad, Tom, sitting on the floor, doubled over, his hand pressed to his shoulder. Blood was trickling out from between his fingers.
‘What on earth happened here?’ McQueen said to the boy.
‘Bloody thing scratched me,’ Tom said, jerking his thumb at the dresser. When he moved his hand we could see the extent of the damage to his shoulder. There were four parallel scratches running from the top of his arm to the shoulder blade. They were quite deep and dribbling blood.
‘It looks nasty,’ Sally said. ‘I’ll get the first aid kit from the bathroom.’
McQueen was looking at the dresser, rubbing his chin and running his fingers over the smooth wood. ‘What do you mean, it scratched you?’ The scepticism in his voice was a sham as the sticking plaster on his hand bore witness.
Tom looked up at him, his face still creased with pain. ‘I was giving it a polish, cleaning it up. I was crouched under there…’ He pointed to the space between the drawers and the base. ‘Next thing I know, something scratches me. Felt like I’d been bitten at first, then I saw the blood.’
Sally returned to the kitchen and, crouching down next to the lad, opened the small first aid kit. ‘I’ll just clean it up,’ she said to him, pouring some anti-septic onto a ball of cotton wool.
As the anti-septic was applied and the boy swore again, I joined McQueen in his examination of the dresser. ‘There’s nothing sharp here,’ he said, running his fingers along the wood beneath the drawers. ‘Nothing, certainly that could make marks like that.’
McQueen went back to the hall, picked up the boy’s shirt and tossed it to him. ‘Come on, get dressed. We’ve got a long drive back.’
With a groan Tom pushed himself to his feet, thanked Sally, and walked back to the van. With a promise to call me the moment anything interesting came in, McQueen joined the boy in the cab and set off.
When I went back to the kitchen Sally was standing, staring up at the dresser. She had let the dogs out and they were sniffing the piece curiously.
‘Well?’ I said. ‘What do you think of it?’
She was silent for a moment, her hand reaching down and stroking Gielgud’s ruff. Then she turned to me. ‘It’s perfect, Colin, absolutely perfect. Milos is going to love it.’ She pulled open the centre drawer, running her fingers across the bottom of it, and bringing them up thick with dust. ‘Young Tom was right. It needs a clean and polish.’ She stared up at the face carved in the top panel. ‘I’m not too sure about him though.’
‘It’s a Green Man,’ I said. ‘It’s meant to be lucky. And the corn dollies are a symbol of …’ My display of knowledge about the myths and legends was interrupted.
‘Fertility. Yes, I know. I don’t think I’ll tell Milos that. It might give him ideas.’
I heard the front door close, followed by Milos’s booming voice calling ‘hello’.
‘In the kitchen,’ Sally called back.
Milos bounced into the kitchen followed by a raven-haired young girl in her early teens. Milos embraced his wife, planting a kiss on her cheek, then stuck out his hand to me. ‘Colin, good to see you,’ he said, pumping my hand enthusiastically. ‘You haven’t met my daughter, Martina.’ To the girl he said, ‘Martina, this is Colin Gould, the genius who has designed this wonderful kitchen.’
The girl was crouching down, petting the dogs that were responding by nuzzling her and licking her hands. ‘Hello,’ she said to me brightly. Unlike her father, her voice was pure Home Counties with no trace of an accent, a product of the expensive boarding school she attended. I remembered Sally telling me that Milos had brought his daughter to England after the death of his first wife, the girl’s mother, some ten years ago.
‘Martina’s on holiday from school and is staying with us for a few days,’ Sally said, and I noticed immediately that something was wrong. There was a flatness to her voice that told me she didn’t approve of this change to their domestic arrangements.
‘We’ll have a good time together, yes?’ Milos boomed, but his enthusiasm seemed overstated, perhaps to make up for Sally’s obvious lack of it.
‘Martina, don’t let the dogs lick your face,’ Sally said.
>
Martina giggled and said something in fluent Czech to her father, who laughed and replied in the same language. The girl looked up at Sally, saying nothing, but the expression on her face was a challenge.
I looked at my watch. I had an appointment to discuss a new commission with a prospective client in Stanmore, and I didn’t want to be late. I said to Milos, ‘Before I go tell me, what do you think of the dresser?’
He came over and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. ‘Colin, it is a beautiful piece. Very…macho, yes? Perfect.’
Martina was looking up at the carvings on the dresser. ‘It’s ugly,’ she said. ‘And he’s evil. Pure evil.’ She pointed at the Green Man.
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Sally snapped at the girl. ‘You always have to dramatise everything.’
The girl smiled to herself. Satisfied at having finally provoked a reaction from her stepmother, she sipped her water and wandered into the lounge.
Sally watched her go, shaking her head slightly, then turned to me. ‘I’ll see you out, Colin.’
She walked me to the door. ‘I’m sorry about Martina,’ she said when she was out of earshot. ‘Fifteen years old and sometimes she can be so incredibly childish.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ I said. ‘She was trying to goad you, not me.’
‘Damn it, I know. She used to be so sweet. A year ago we were getting on so well, then suddenly, she changed into this nascent super-bitch.’
‘Hormones,’ I said. ‘And I think she sees you as a rival for her father’s affections. My two girls went though the same thing not long after Jackie and I divorced. Gave her hell for eighteen months, then suddenly switched their loyalties and started to give me a hard time. They’re twenty one now, and thankfully they’ve grown out of it.’ I rarely spoke about the twins and their mother to my clients, but over the weeks I’d been working on her house, I had become very fond of Sally. We had a very easy-going and fairly candid relationship.
Falling Into Heaven Page 5
