E
ARLY AFTERNOON
. I was in Margaret’s shop in the Arcade. She and I had been good friends when Janie’d happened, which was a bit tough. There were a score of customers drifting along the covered pavement, a few in and out of Margaret’s. I jokingly accuse her of showing herself off to get customers in. Like all women she has attraction, but I like Margaret especially. No bitterness and a lot of compassion. She could teach a million things to a lot of younger women.
Margaret had picked up a job lot of eighteenth-century household stuff I’d promised to price. We sat in her glass-fronted area as I sorted through. It was interesting enough but low grade. Best was a collection of Regency pipe stubbers in the form of gloved hands, erotic figurines, tiny pipe racks, people, tennis racquets, rings, shapely legs, wine bottles. You get them in silver, brass, ivory, pewter, even hardwood and glass. She’d got twenty, by some miracle. Incidentally, always go for collections rather than items. I also liked a box of braided matches, R. Bell & Co., the elegant braid still on every single match – quaint Victorian elegance if you like, but fascinating.
‘Not bad, Margaret.’
‘I was lucky.’ She eyed me. ‘Anything you like?’
‘Everything.’ I couldn’t keep the bitterness out.
Her hand touched my arm.
‘It’s a spell of bad luck, that’s all, Lovejoy.’ She paused. ‘Anything I can do?’
I pulled a scarey face to show I couldn’t care less. Women who offer help need watching. Just then Patrick hurtled in with a fit of vapours and flung himself down on a William IV diamond seat, a nice pale oak with very few markings.
‘Lovejoy!’ he screamed, holding out his handbag to me.
‘Yes?’ I gazed apprehensively at his gilt plastic accessory.
‘Well?’ he screeched. ‘Get my smelling salts out, you great fool!’
‘No. You.’ I never go along with his hysterics. Tantrums are personal things.
‘Whatever’s the matter, Patrick?’ Margaret did it and set about restoring him.
‘Not too close with the little bottle, dear,’ he snapped. ‘I need reviving, not gassing.’
‘What is it?’
‘Dandy Jack.’ Patrick swooned backwards. ‘He’s been run oyer. Outside. I just can’t
tell
you.’ But he did, emphasizing his own reactions most of all. It seemed Dandy was sprinting to the Red Lion as usual when he was knocked down by a car. It didn’t stop.
‘Am I pale as absolute death?’ Patrick asked fearfully of all and sundry. He peeped into his handbag mirror.
‘You
are
pale, dear,’ from Margaret.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘I’m positively
drained
to my ankle-straps.’
‘Did somebody take the number?’
‘Hardly, dear.’ Patrick patted his cheeks, ‘We were fainting like flitted flies.’
‘Bloody idiot,’ I said.
He glared. ‘Shut your face, you great oaf, Lovejoy,’ he spat. ‘If you’d been through what I’ve just undergone –’
‘You only watched,’ I pointed out. ‘Dandy got done.’
‘How do you
bear
him?’ Patrick cooed to Margaret. ‘Uncouth ape.’
Lily came trotting after, as always typical of sacrificial desire. Hope beats eternal in the human breast but I honestly wonder what the hell for sometimes. She was more precise than Patrick had been.
‘They’ve taken Dandy to hospital,’ she said breathlessly, ‘He looked really awful, blood everywhere.’
‘Don’t!’ Patrick moaned, doing his swoon.
‘Are you all right, lovie?’ Lily rallied round him frantically.
‘Sod him,’ I said. ‘The point is will Dandy be all right?’
‘Charming!’ Patrick instantly recovered enough to glare daggers at me.
‘I don’t know, Lovejoy.’ Lily dabbed anxiously with a tissue at Patrick, who irritably jerked away.
‘Mind my mascara!’ he screeched. ‘Silly cow!’
‘Sorry, dear,’ Lily was saying when I pecked Margaret’s cheek and moved off.
‘If Patrick wants to do the entire scene,’ I said, ‘lend him an asp.’
‘May your ceramics turn to sand, Lovejoy!’ he screeched spitefully after me.
‘Shush, lovie! Try to rest!’ from Lily.
‘Why does everybody
hate
me so?’ he was wailing as I left the Arcade. I suppose it takes all sorts.
The hospital is a few streets away. You cut alongside
the ancient steps through the remains of the Roman wall. As I hurried among the crowds I couldn’t help thinking that too many things were happening too quickly all of a sudden. In spite of my hurry I couldn’t help pausing at Dig Mason’s, the poshest of the Arcade’s antiques windows. Pride of place was given to a delightful veneered drop-sided portmanteau. It contained an entire set of dining cutlery, china service, glass tableware down to cruets and serviette rings. Everything was slightly smaller sized than normal. My heart melted. Perfect. Dig beamed out at me through the window miming an invitation to make an offer. I gave him the thumbs down and hurried away. He’d labelled it
LADY’S TRAVELLING DINING CASE. COMPLETE. VICTORIAN
. All wrong. I’d have labelled it
OFFICER’S MESS DINING PORTMANTEAU. COMPLETE.
1914–15.
WORLD WAR I
’ and been correct. The poor sods were made to provide complete mess gear and often their own china and cutlery in the Royal Flying Corps. As I hurried along I prayed Dig wouldn’t realize his mistake before I got some money from somewhere. He’d under-priced it a whole hundred per cent.
I looked among the cars but there was no sign of Janie. She must have decided to stay away in a temper. Typical. Just as you need women they get aggro. They make me mad. They lack organization.
Helen was at the hospital. She came over as soon as I entered the foyer. Funny what impressions hospitals leave. All I can remember is a lot of prams, some children and an afternoon footballer being wheeled along with his leg in plaster.
‘He’s not too good, Lovejoy,’ Helen said.
‘I’m glad you came.’
She shot a look at me and together we climbed to the second floor. I never know who’s boss nurse any more. Once it was easy – dark blue were sisters, pale blue stripes nurses and doctors in white. Now they seem as lost as the rest of us. Helen accosted a matron who turned out to be a washer-up. We made three mistakes before we stood at the foot of Dandy Jack’s bed.
He appeared drained, newly and spectacularly clean and utterly defenceless. Drips dripped. Tubes tubed into and out of more orifices than God ever made. Bottles collected Or dispensed automatically. It seemed nothing more than one colossal act, a tableau without purpose or message. Dandy Jack was never a divvie, but even boozy dealers deserve to live.
‘Did you see the accident?’ a tired young house doctor asked. I said no.
‘I did. From a distance.’ Helen linked her arm with mine. I think we both felt under scrutiny, somehow allowed in under sufferance.
‘Did he go unconscious instantly?’
‘Yes. The car pushed him along quite several yards,’ Helen told him. ‘It wasn’t going all that fast.’
‘Did Dandy see it?’ I asked her. She shook her head.
The doctor moved us out of the ward with a head wag.
‘Are you next of kin?’
We stared, hesitated before answering.
‘Well, he has none, Doctor,’ Helen said at last. ‘As far as we know.’
‘He’s . . . seriously injured, you see.’ He asked us to leave a phone number.
We finished up giving Margaret’s. Helen meant, but didn’t say, that she’d know to reach me through Janie
somehow. On the way back to High Street we carefully disengaged arms just in case. Helen told me the car was a big old Rover.
‘I could have sworn, Lovejoy . . .’ Helen paused. ‘I had an idea the driver might have been . . . that chap you were talking to outside Dandy’s.’
‘The one with the blonde?’ Rink.
‘Yes, but a different car.’
‘Well,’ I said carefully, ‘one doesn’t use one’s very best for dealing with the vulgar mob, does one?’
‘I could be wrong, I suppose.’
‘You could.’ I left it at that.
‘I’ll tell Margaret we gave her home number,’ Helen said. She paused as we made to part. ‘Lovejoy.’
‘What?’
‘Ring me.’ She met my eyes. ‘Whenever.’
‘If I come into money,’ I quipped.
‘Have you eaten?’ she examined my face. ‘You’re gaunt.’
‘It’s the ascetic life I lead.’ We looked at each other another moment. ‘See you, Helen.’
‘Yes.’
I was wondering, can a duckegg like Rink be so savage? Then I thought, aren’t we all?
T
HAT AFTERNOON
I’
D
never been so famished. Hunger’s all right but bad for morale. I combed the cottage for provisions and ended up with a quarter-full tin of powdered milk, a tiny piece of cheese I’d overlooked, one small cooking apple, some limp celery, a bottle of sauce and five grotty teabags. Hardly nosh on the Elizabethan scale. Just as well Henry wasn’t due today. He’d have started on the divan. I glanced at my non-edible walnut carriage clock and decided to call on Squaddie. He’s always good for a calorie.
First, I would cerebrate for a minute or two. This Bexon business was starting to niggle. I strolled into the garden. On the face of it, you couldn’t call it much of a problem. I sat on the garden steps near the budgies’ flight, whistling to think better.
An old geezer dies leaving behind a scrawled tale telling how he’d had a holiday and found some ruins or other. A mosaic. And a gold or two, Lovejoy. Don’t forget them. Then he leaves his story in duplicate. Well, big deal. Two nieces explained that. Clearly one booklet each and a funny drawing of Lady Isabella chucked in for luck. From the way Nichole’s henchman Rink had behaved none of us knew any
more than that. I chuckled at the memory of his absurd threat, making Manton and Wilkinson look round irritably at my whistling’s sudden halt. Then I thought of Dandy Jack.
‘Sorry, lads,’ I told them. ‘Just thinking.’
We all resumed, me sitting on the cold stones and the birds trilling on their enclosed branches. Singing makes their chests bulge so they rock about. Ever noticed that? It’s a miracle they don’t fall off. I expect their feet keep tighter hold on the twigs than you’d think from a casual look. The problem lay of course in what we were all busy guessing. Nichole’s wealthy hero obviously guessed an enormous crock of gold somewhere. Greedy sod. He was already at least a two-Rolls man. Janie guessed I was wasting my time again when I should have been seducing her away from her posh hubby. Dandy Jack was guessing that his Burne-Jones drawing would settle his boozing bills for some time to come, and he was right. Always assuming he got better and those bouncy nurses let him loose.
‘Manton.’ He looked at me in silence. ‘What,’ I asked, ‘am I guessing? That’s the real problem, isn’t it?’
They glanced at each other, then back at me. We all thought hard.
‘You’re right,’ I said, got out my rusty old bike and hit the road. I had to pump its front tyre up first, this being the space age.
About three miles from my cottage tidal creeks begin. Low-lying estuaries, woods, sloping green fields, orchards and beautiful undulating countryside blending with the mighty blue ocean and getting on my wick, though not everybody sees sense like I do. Even though
it was quite early a couple of anglers were ruminating on the Infinite along the Goldhammer inlet, and some nut was trying to get the total boredom of the scene on canvas – tomorrow’s antique. Or even today’s? I pedalled past with a cheery greeting. The artist was pleased and shouted a good day, but the anglers were mad because a bicycle bell warns the fish away. I gave it a couple of extra rings.
Cheered by my day’s good turn, I rode out on to the strood. That’s a road sticking out from the shore across a short reach of sea to an island. You can easily pass over when the sea’s out but have to wade chest-deep when the tide’s in. People who live on these low windswept islands have the times of the tides written out and stuck inside their car doors. Always assuming you have a car, I thought nastily. There’s a lifebelt hung on the wooden railing so you get the message. The North Sea’s no pond.
This particular strood’s about half a mile long. Three or four boats lay sprawled close to the roadway on the exposed mudflats among reed wisps. A couple of fishing ketches were standing out to sea in the cold light. But the boat I was heading for would never sail again. It came into view halfway across, a blue lifeboat converted for houseboat living and sensibly rammed as far as possible on the highest inlet out of the sea marshes.
Squaddie was in and cooking. I could tell from the grey smoke pouring from the iron stack. I whistled through my fingers. He likes a good warning.
‘After some grub, Lovejoy?’ his voice quavered from the weatherbeaten cabin. He’s getting on.
‘Yes. Get it ready,’ I yelled back and slung my bicycle among the hawthorns.
He has a double plank with railings sloping from the old towpath to his deck. How lucky I’d called at mealtime. Frying bacon and eggs. He gives me that and some of those malt flakes and powdered milk, my usual once a week.
‘Hiyer, Squaddie.’
‘Hello, Lovejoy.’
An old geezer can get about a lot even if he’s blind. Squaddie used to be our best antiques dealer (me excepted) till his eyes gave in. A curious old chap, wise enough for more than me to use as an oracle.
‘You’re a day early.’
‘Not brewed up yet, Squaddie? I’m gasping.’
Squaddie scratched his stubble and listened acutely to the momentary silence between us. His sightless rheumy eyes could still move. It was a bit disconcerting in the small cabin, to catch a sudden flash of white sclera from a face sightless five years and more. I slewed across the tilted floor and sat where I could see to seaward.
‘You on to something, Lovejoy?’
I shrugged evasively, remembered in time he couldn’t see shrugs and said I wasn’t sure.
‘Good or bad?’
‘Neither.’
He cackled at that and mixed powdered milk.
‘It’s got to be one or the other,’ he corrected, shuffling dextrously from galley to table and laying for me as well. ‘Antiques are either lovely and real or imitation and useless.’