The meal arrived, and Bill had to admit it was good. Not the largest helpings he had ever been subject to in his time, but large enough. It was the size of the Yorkshire puddings that started a conversation centring around Bill’s mother, May, kicking off with ‘they don’t make Yorkshire puddings like they used to’.
Anecdotes about his mother were demanded by Gloria, who was fascinated by Bill’s rich past and the vanished clan he belonged to. Philip sat back and listened to the familiar stories of his grandmother. He remembered his paternal grandmother well; she really had been the stuff of legends and a very wise old bird. His mother’s side of the family were all as dull as ditchwater and he had seen little of them growing up.
As they waited for the puddings to arrive, Bill turned to Gloria and said, ‘She would have liked you, lass, she really would. Not one for airs and graces, but she knew people and could sniff out a wrong ’un. She had been in service, see, before the war and saw all the goings-on and goings-wrong of the county set in the twenties and thirties. She was born in a workhouse in 1908 and died owning her own home in 1978.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘Dad was a plumber, he died when I was eleven. That’s when mum went back to her sister in Illminster, but they didn’t get on, so we rented a dreadful little cottage on a farm for a while. She had a tough life, she did, but so did most of that generation what with the wars and all that.’
Gloria said nothing, but thought of her own buttoned-up, middle-class parents who had spent more effort on planning their annual holiday than they had on raising their children. She had never really got on with them. The she smiled to herself, suddenly remembering the time she had turned up to her father’s masonic lodge’s Ladies’ Night wearing a punk outfit with extra safety pins in various interesting places.
Philip was explaining to his father the plans he had for the future and how he was almost ready to branch out on his own. Bill listened and wished he could lay his hand on a few grand to help his son out. He couldn’t, of course, but his house would be worth a bit; there was no mortgage and prices were always on the up for property in his neck of the woods.
Bill said to his son, ‘Look, lad, if I sold the house and workshop, that would make a bit, especially if there was planning permission to build where the barns and sheds are…’
But before Bill had time to say more, he saw Skates walk into the restaurant. He was wearing a cream linen jacket and a smug expression as he led the way with two Sloane Rangers in tow. Talking loudly and showing off like spoiled children, they made their way to a table on the other side of the room. The place was crowded with diners and staff, so Bill kept his head down and hoped the meal would finish quickly and he could bugger off without being seen.
No such luck. Skates was walking towards the lavatories now, which were on Bill’s side of the room. Seeing Bill and taking in the situation at a glance, Skates made a quick detour and fetched up behind Jack’s chair. He stood a moment not saying anything, his hands resting on the top of the chair back, close, so very close, to Jack’s head. Philip and Gloria looked up at him, friendly but puzzled.
‘Please don’t let me disturb your meal. I’m a friend of Bill’s,’ said Skates. ‘You must be his son,’ he said, extending his hand to Philip, who rose and shook it.
‘Yes,’ said Philip, ‘and this is my wife, Gloria, and our son, Jack.’ Skates nodded at them. ‘Yes, I saw you when I visited Bill recently. You were driving away as I drove in. I’m Darren Skates.’ Skates always said his name as though he expected it to be greeted with gasps of recognition and gratification, but there was only silence around the table. Bill kept his face neutral, but inside he was boiling and would have given much to be able to take up his spoon and gouge the smug bastard’s eyes out.
Gloria, sensing that something was wrong, filled the awkward gap by asking Skates how he knew her father-in-law and was he in the same line of business?
He gave a short laugh with absolutely no humour in it. ‘Well, no, not really, I’m more of a collector. A collector of considerable trifles, eh, Bill?’
Bill grunted and then, because of the tension that had built up within him, launched into a dreadful coughing fit. Philip patted him on the back; Gloria passed him a glass of water. Skates just stood there, hands on the back of Jack’s chair, his lips stretched in a smile as false as a politician’s promise, as Bill struggled to get his breath back.
Finally, he said, ‘Enjoy your family, Bill. I’ll be in touch soon and we can get that little job we discussed under way, okay?’
Bill grunted, neither a yes or a no, just a ‘piss off ’ without words. Skates continued on his journey to the loos. When he was gone, Jack said, ‘I didn’t like him. He smelled like perfume.’
‘That’s not nice,’ Gloria told Jack. ‘I’m sure he’s a very… nice… man.’ She looked at Bill, her eyes saying something else entirely.
Philip put his hand on his father’s arm. ‘You in trouble, Dad?’
‘No,’ said Bill. ‘He’s just some joker who wants a job done in a hurry. I shan’t take the job. Not my bag any more.’
The puddings arrived, and the conversation around the table returned to all the inconsequential things that make gatherings amongst family such a pleasure. For Bill, however, the meal had been spoiled; sullied somehow by that bastard turning up and making more veiled threats.
They did not hang about after the meal as they ordinarily would have done. Bill made some excuse about getting back to let Bess out, and as they parted there were more things unsaid than said. His son would not let him pay for the meal, and for once Bill was too preoccupied to make any fuss, just thanked him, gave him a hug, kissed Gloria, and held his grandson close before getting into his van and driving home.
Once there, he called Bess from her bed by the stove and received a sincere, if slightly subdued, greeting. She was too old now to leap up, grasp her lead off the back of Bill’s chair, and drop it at his feet as she used to do. Instead, she just nuzzled him as he gently stroked the soft fur of her head and looked up at him adoringly.
‘Come on, girl,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk this problem off.’
They set off from the yard at a gentle pace on their normal route round the fields that lay at the back of the house. Bill had his pipe clenched in his jaws out of habit, but it wasn’t lit. Bess wandered a little this way and that, smelling the world about her, but never very far from Bill. They walked slowly and companionably as dusk fell around them, turning the landscape into a watercolour painting, the colours so transparent that the trees and the hedges seemed to be ghosts of themselves. If Bill had been a whimsical man he might have imagined he and Bess were walking through the twilight lands between the living and the dead. As it was, he only knew that something bad was brewing and hoped to all the gods he would have the strength and the wit to weather it.
Chapter 12
SATURDAY–SUNDAY, 1–2 SEPTEMBER
The next morning Bill was in his workshop with the big doors open, letting in the sun, dust motes dancing in the bright light. There were always jobs to be done, especially if you were someone who earned a living making things that other people would pay good money to possess. Bill had no need to tout for work now; dealers and collectors came to him, and although he declared to all who would listen that he was ‘winding down’, if some old friend dropped a piece off and it was a job he liked to do, then Bill would take it on. Always under the condition that it would be done when it was done, and that would be when he got round to doing it.
But now, in the dark recesses of his workshop, sat three chairs. Three chairs that, despite their beauty, brought the threat of an Elizabethan tragedy into this mild, 21st-century Somerset summer. At about one o’clock Bill took Bess out for a pee and a wander, then made himself a cup of tea. Not a dunk of a teabag into a stained mug, but tea immersed in freshly boiled water in his mother’s ‘just for best and snotty visitors’ bit of old Spode. Her pride and joy and the one thing he himself cherishe
d. It always cheered him up, this tea ceremony. The visit to the doctor and the pile of medications he now took every day brought home to Bill the whole bloody getting old game. Mortality was a right bugger, and you could only opt out, never in.
He sat inhis kitchen surrounded with ‘things’ and ‘stuff ’. He drank his tea, relishing the taste that only a properly brewed pot can give, and then stood up. Slowly, he turned around and around, like a radar antenna, taking in every object his eyes lit upon, seeing as a stranger might the room he stood in and all its contents.
All the cooking paraphernalia, copper pots and pans, innumerable books on shelves that, whether they had ornate cast iron brackets or simple wooden ones, were all coated in generations of paint. Chinese tea jars, kettles, crockery, and all the old furniture he had acquired over the years filled every surface and corner. The antiques trade was the worst profession any hoarder could have. That which didn’t sell – or needed repairing before it could be sold – followed you home and never left.
And this was just one room. One room! Christ, he thought, who is going to want this and all the other rubbish I have accumulated over the years? Some of it was good and worth a bit; other objects, like this teapot, only had value to someone who could remember where they came from and who had loved them in their time.
He decided to start getting rid of the real rubbish. He knew a bloke who did house clearances and would get him over to do a deal. This was a man he had done some valuations for and, in one case, a bit of addition and subtraction on a nice antique wardrobe. Thus, in the loose freemasonry that was the antiques game, Bill was owed a favour.
His hands held the old teapot. There was a sugar bowl and milk jug somewhere, too. For some reason he thought of Lucy and smiled. Perhaps he would wrap it up carefully and send it to her. No note, no letter, just a tea set. He liked that thought. Well, that was one bit of ‘stuff ’ he could find a new home for. It was a start. He wasn’t hungry, so he just fed Bess her usual portion of overpriced dog food and for the umpteenth time said to her, ‘What’s wrong with tripe then, eh? You used to like it well enough.
Too much the grand old lady, now, are you?’
Later, as they walked towards the workshop, he said to her, ‘All said and done, it’s only stuff, eh, girl? What’s real is what’s warm in your heart and warm to your hand.’
That thought stayed with him as he opened the door, put on the lights, and, in defiance of doctor’s orders and his own sore chest, lit his pipe. It was wonderful.
~~~
That evening he and Bess went for their traditional ramble round the fields and enjoyed the soft air and silence of the countryside. Harvest would be beginning soon, and that meant a bit of rabbit shooting. The land was farmed by two brothers, Hugh and Alan Dawlish. They had inherited the farm from their father, who had inherited it from his, and so on back as far as anyone could remember. Hugh was the real farmer, though; Alan was more of a businessman who only wore tweeds at the weekend, but they both enjoyed a bit of ‘rough shooting’ and even raised a few game birds for more formal shoots. One of the bonuses of living in a home that had been occupied by the same family for countless generations was a gunroom full of old shotguns. Bill himself had never owned one, but Hugh would always loan him some ancient piece of artillery with which he would blast away more in hope than expectation.
Bill liked the times he spent with men like that. Honest and hardworking, but with just a dash of villainy that made their company great fun. Whenever he happened to hear The Archers on the radio, the posturing of its so-called ‘country folk’ was so far removed from the real sons of the soil he knew personally as to be a joke.
That thought stayed with him after he and Bess got back home, and by way of proving it to the universe, he put on his radio just as The Archers theme tune fired up. At the same time, he heard a car drive into the yard. His heart sank. It had to be Skates; no one else would call on him so late. Oh, well, he thought, let’s get it over and done with. As The Archers began their usual inanities, he walked out into the yard to meet them. Later, much later, whenever he heard that theme music, he would rush to turn off the radio, or throw it across the room, depending which way the mood took him.
The Range Rover parked up near Bill’s back door and Skates and Warren walked towards him. Skates looked as dapper and sleek as ever; sleek like a shark with a wide grin and stone cold eyes. Warren was just half a pace behind him, his movements somehow predatory, as if anticipating opportunities for mayhem.
Skates spoke, making a lazy effort to sound friendly. ‘Bill, old chap, we were just driving by and thought we would pop in and see what you thought about those chairs of mine.’
Bill effected a harmless look, the sort you give to policemen or dogs you think might bite.
‘I’m glad you came. I’ve been giving them the once-over and I was going to ring you tomorrow to discuss them with you. Come into the workshop and I can show you the problems.’
He headed towards the barn. Bess, who had followed him outside, stayed close to him all the way. Opening the shop, Bill led Skates to the chairs and put one of them under a spotlight.
‘Now, there is no doubt in my mind that this and the other complete chair are ‘right’,’ he said. ‘I’ve examined them closely and there seems to be no sign of repair or renewal. They’re kosher, all right, and in remarkably good nick for their age.’
Talking about his subject with these lovely examples in front of him, Bill almost forgot his listeners were two such shits.
‘The carving on the back panels was done after the chairs were made, maybe a year or two after, but that’s impossible to know for certain. What is for certain is that it would be criminal to break them up for a mix-and-match job.’
Skates said nothing. Taking the damaged chair and putting it under the light so the full state of the piece could be clearly seen, Bill carried on.
‘The third chair is a wreck. It could be repaired, but it would need a lot of work and you might even have to make an entirely new back because this one has split, as you can see. You can also see that this chair has had a good dose of the worm. My guess is that it was kept in a barn or shed for a good few years. Perhaps someone was going to get round to mending it or just couldn’t bear to chuck it out, but in any case it’s in very bad shape.’
‘But it is repairable,’ said Skates.
‘Yes, it’s repairable, but it’s a big job and wouldn’t be cheap’
‘Well,’ said Skates, ‘I agree it would be a shame to break up these good chairs.’ He bent forward and examined one of the chairs, his hand stroking the top rail. ‘And it would probably be less work to restore the broken chair and make a completely new fourth one.’
‘Make a new one!’ said Bill in astonishment. ‘Christ, that’s a whole new ball game, that is.’
‘But if anyone can do it, Bill, you can,’ said Skates, smiling greasily.
‘But it’s a huge job. It would take months and really soak up the money.’
‘Don’t worry your pretty head about money,’ said Skates. ‘That’s my problem, not yours.’
Skates walked over to the seats in front of the stove where Bill had ‘entertained’ him the first time he had come here. He sat down and stretched out his legs. His polished handmade shoes were speckled with wood dust. After fastidiously wiping them with his handkerchief, he indicated to Bill that he should sit down opposite him. Warren moved to stand behind his master’s chair.
‘What you don’t seem to understand, Bill,’ said Skates as if he were explaining something to a child, ‘is that this is probably the most important job you will ever do.’
‘Why’s that, then?’ asked Bill, resigned to hearing the man out before turning him down.
‘Because it’s for me.’
Bill started to say something, but Skates put his hand up to signal he was not finished.
‘I don’t know what you found out about me in London and I don’t care. What I do care about is getting what I wa
nt. And I want these lovely chairs worked on by you, because you may be a stubborn old fool, but you’re the best.’
This statement, which would have been a compliment if made by anyone else, sounded like an accusation coming from Skates.
‘Yours not to reason why, Bill. Yours but to do and…’ there was a deliberate pause before Skates continued, ‘get paid.’
But he might just as well have finished the quotation. That much Bill understood and it chilled him to the bone, but it also made him very angry. What right did these two arseholes have to come into his workshop and try to bully him into taking a job he really didn’t want? A job that would take a vast amount of time and effort and, truth to tell, a job that was now virtually impossible for him to accomplish.
He leaned towards Skates, who just sat there, implacable, his mind so obviously made up to have what he wanted, and said, ‘Now look here, Mr Skates. I don’t give a flying fuck how important these chairs are to you. I can’t and I won’t take this job on. Not now, not ever, get it?’
If Skates noticed Bill’s anger, it made no impression on him. He just lounged there and looked at Bill as if he were a toddler having a tantrum.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Tell me why.’
Bill thought he saw his way out. ‘I’m ill, okay? I’m being tested for all sorts of shit, but whatever the reason, I’m just not as strong as I was. And besides, this job would need some skills I don’t have.’
‘Such as?’
‘The back carving for a start. It’s a real specialised job to carve those designs in such a way they will fool an expert. And it’s not just the carving, it’s the tools to carve with. You can’t use modern chisels for the final cuts, it would look all wrong. You have to have a good set of old steels that will leave the same work marks the real chairs have. I don’t have those.’
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