The Grace in Older Women (18 page)

'Course,' I prattled on, Tom Chippendale loved these glazing bars.
Mahogany'd come in by then. It's tough enough to cut into thin rods, sometimes
overhanging the actual glasspointed it out. That was an innovation.'

Beckoning them close, I lowered my voice. 'See, Tom loved the
ladies. He intended his cabinets for their dressing or with-drawing rooms. He
went on a bit about japanned softwoods - it shows the oriental influence better
- but the softwood's not lasted like mahogany.'

‘It looks frail, Lovejoy,' from Nadette's husband, Jerry.

Thank you, Jerry. 'It'll outlast us all.' Which gave rise to a
splurge of gallows humour. I was asked to price everything we saw, from the
lovely carpet woven by Lord Rockingham's mum to Joshua Reynolds' portrait of
Rockingham - he owned the nag. 'The real find would be . . .' they fell silent '.
. . a Chippendale cabinet not mounted on a stand. There's only one such of his
known.'

'What would that be worth?' Vernon, the golf hawk.

'Don't do it, Vern,' I begged. 'You're thinking: Buy a real
Chippendale cabinet on a stand, then cut its legs off and make it priceless.'

Which set them all off, whooping and laughing.

'What's wrong with sharing a fortune?' Mahleen demanded.

'Look, pals.' I had to tell them. 'Some antiques are actually
unique.
The Last Supper
, or the
Koh-i-Noor in its present 106-carat form. A unique is too well known to fake,
unless you've got a buyer. And your price has to be a mint.'

'Seems good to me,' Wilmore said.

Everybody roared, but I was suddenly desperate to convince. I
could see their eyes gleaming, avarice in overdrive. They'd be out in the
junkshops faking any minute. We're a breed of greed.

'No. Honest. Listen.' I had to talk them back to sanity, in
antiques, rarity is inversely proportional to fallability. See?' They went
agog. 'Once upon a time, there was a great ship. Biggest warship of mediaeval
days, Henry Vs. Struck by lightning, sank, was lost in the waters. That's an
antique worth finding, right?'

'Sell us a treasure map, Lovejoy!' Wilmore, irrepressible.

'No need.' My punch line. 'Everybody's known all along where the
Grace Dieu
is. Since that terrible day,
in AD 1439, she's lain in the River Hamble. Everybody knows that 3,906 trees
were used to build her. Okay,' I said into their quiet, 'tales varied about the
enormous ship that occasionally showed at freak low water. Her supposed
identity wavered as centuries passed. Locals pillaged, nails, weapons, iron
fixtures. Many cottages have her wooden beams in their roofs. But she's there.
Carbon dating, historians, records, everything says so.'

'What's your point, Lovejoy?'

'If an antique - any antique - is unique, then even if it's lost
like the
Grace Dieu
, the Holy Grail,
Michelangelo's
Sleeping Cupid
sculpture - then it become virtually unfakable. See?'

'You mean, forge common antiques, not rare?'

'That's it, Vernon.' I was relieved. Tension lifted.

'Like you do?'

No answer to that except some crack about occasional exceptions,
which got us all joking and moving on. I noticed that Vernon was hanging back
talking intently to Nadetta's husband Jerry, but put it down to idle chat.

By the time we'd finished our tea-and-wad we were worn out but
exhilarated. We stopped at the Gunners Arms in Whychwe Fleet, a low estuary
clogged with river craft, exchanging songs and getting sloshed, the driver with
us. We had a kitty, Mahleen standing me my sub, and had pastie, beans, chips,
followed by spotted dick - the merry jokes on
that
- and custard.

But why was I sick to my soul? What had I done wrong?

It was about tennish by the time we reached the George - yes,
breakfast, I'd be along, half-eight precisely, more ribaldry, that sort of good
night - and then spoke from the pavement to the driver.

'Where's your garage, mate?'

'Sudbury. You want me to drop you off on the way?'

'Aye, please.' I climbed in.

The town was quiet. The main thoroughfares are High Street and
Head Street, always brightly lit. It's not remarkable despite its antiquity.
Town Hall, banks, shopping centre hanging fire at night time, a car swishing
through as tired as its driver, a lone bobby bored by the traffic lights, a
couple coming late from the pictures unlocking their parked car.

'Hang on.'

Something was nagging. For one thing, I wasn't as kaylied as I
ought to have been. The driver was merrier than I was, and he'd been pretty
abstemious. In fact, I was cold sober. The incident at Jox's UFO scam kept
coming to mind. It was exactly what happened to Tryer's enterprise, what was
it, some holy well he's dreamt up with his brother from Breakstone. The parish.
Tryer had said something ... I struggled to remember, befuddled.

'Lovejoy,' the driver prompted, 'when you're ready?'

'Half a sec.'

Tryer had said something like,
He
didn't exactly say it was blasphemous, but he come near
... An outright
accusation of blasphemy would have hit the nation's headlines. But an
administrative correction wouldn't rate a single breath. I'd mentioned Tryer,
when speaking up for Jox and Hugo. And I'd been pretty free talking of Tryer
somewhere else - where was it?

'Can you go down the bypass?'

'Aye.' He pulled away, changing gears smoothly. 'But that Leisure
place will be closed. Except for the nosh bar, burgers.'

I leant over. 'Get a move on, mate. It's urgent.'

'Traffic lights, Lovejoy,' he said, pointing as we slowed near the
war memorial. 'My gaffer'd skin me if I got booked.'

'It's late. Who's to see?' I was agitated, frantic now to see
Tryer was all right. 'For Christ's sake, I'd bloody get out and run.' One mile,
maybe ten furlongs, was all it was.

'You've been tarting about, Lovejoy! It was you stood gaping, not
me. We could've been there.'

The lights changed. I stood, swaying, holding the passenger pole,
staring out of the sightscreen. When I'm useless, I'm infallibly dud. There's
this theory, isn't there, that everything that happens in your life is a fluke,
that plans and decisions aren't worth a bent groat? It's all chance. Then
there's the opposite theory, that your life is the direct result of your
decisions, conscious or subconscious. Both theories can't be right, and they're
dead opposites. But at that moment, barrelling down East Hill to the bypass, I
know which one I believed. I think I'd been up to no good. Secretly, with
sinister intent, I'd chucked straws into the wind to test it. And now I was
scared it had become a gale, while I'd dawdled. I just hoped to God it hadn't
blown anyone away.

The driver, infected by my anxiety, began hurrying, cutting
corners, overtaking on the forbidden inside lane near the river bridge, putting
his hazard lights on at the roundabout. He had us swinging left into the
Leisure place beyond the fire station faster than I could have run, give him
that.

They were at it when we got there.

'Here, here!' I squawked. 'Stop there!' I'd glimpsed, in the swish
of headlights, a figure lope across the boating pond's reflected sheen. No
illumination, just the skyglow, glaring the wrong way of course. I could see
the palish blur of Tryer's trailer.

'What the fuck?' the driver said bemused. He cut his engine. I was
out in a rush, shouting him to come and help.

We were a hundreds yards off. I heard somebody bleat. A man's
voice, a woman's? Was it a voice at all? There are ducks about, and you never
can tell.

'Stop that!' I bawled, out of breath when I'd not done anything
except rabbit at the driver. 'Stop! In the name of the law!' I yelled, really
pathetic. Running like hell I threw my voice deeper, to sound not scared.

'What's going on there?' somebody shouted, thin and miles away.
Always at a distance when you want them.

'Help! Police!' from me, just as useless. 'Stop!'

The shout - voice, unvoice - came from the left, a distance from
the trailer. For a mad moment I thought of starting Tryer's engine for its
headlights. It was facing that way. But what if it was locked? Precious
seconds. I sprinted past the trailer, still bawling my head off, police, help,
stop thief, heaven knows what, and heard Chemise calling in fright.

'What is it? Tryer?'

Opened her door, blinding me in the bloody bargain.

'Close that light off, for God's sake!' I hurtled past. She ran
out, the door blinding us further.

'Lovejoy? What's the matter? Where's Tryer?'

'Arrest that man!' I howled, outstripping her. By then I was
beside the boating pool, reeds whipping my knees. I heard a terrible throaty
sound in the gloaming and a faint splash. Something floundered, bleated one
last time, and went a terrible
thunk
.

'Bring a light!' I shrieked, bawled, but my throat caught. I stumbled
forward in that daft posture we use when groping forward in the dark for
something we don't know, crouched, chin projecting, hands swimming the dark
before me. 'Help! Over here!’

'What's going on?' That imperious thin voice. Authority, demanding
attention but doing sod all.

'Bring the fucking police, you pillock!' I yelled, resumed my
ridiculous groping, wading in the reeds.

'Lovejoy? Where's Tryer?' Chemise, behind me. She splashed, took a
breath, squelched to the grass. 'He came to meet somebody.'

There was a dreadful pungent stink. It wasn't anything rural,
nothing human. It wafted after me, after us. I heard a small disturbance,
reached out, grabbed nothing. Now, the children's boating pool is only a foot
deep.

'Maybe he fell in, Chem,' I said, trying to stop my voice
quavering. I’ll go and see. Stop here.'

And waded in, to the place I'd guessed that bleat and blow came
from. Maybe I was wrong. I used my hands, stepping slowly, trying to look
sideways, hoping to catch a glow from somewhere. Then I heard the driver gun
the engine, the rotten swine cutting and leaving, the evil pig.

His headlights cut the night. I heard him shout left or right,
Lovejoy, the vehicle chugging nearer. What a nice bloke, I thought.

Just as I put my hand on a face and screamed, screeched, howled
and flailed like a desperate duck out of the reeds and away from it. And stood
sodden like the coward I am.

'Over here!' I shouted, trying to pretend I hadn't been panicked
out of my skin. 'This way!'

Tryer!' Chemise shrieked. 'It's Tryer! Get him, Lovejoy!'

'I am, for Christ's sake!' I waded back in, hesitating, feeling. I
couldn't see the pale blob that had been something's face, kept going, feeling,
ghost swimming, crouching . . . Bump.

He wasn't floating. His arms must have been touching the bottom,
so shallow was it. My foot crunched glass, our yobbos' idea of a joke, to chuck
broken bottles in.

'Gotcher, Tryer,' I said, grabbing his collar and pulling, but
hopeless, already knowing he was gone. That's me, causing this, then trying to
cheer Chemise up by extending her hope that my dramatic non-rescue non-dash,
was in time.

'Here, Lovejoy.' The driver was with me, us tugging Tryer's body,
Gullivers with Lilliput's navy.

We hauled him up the grass, turned him over. Chemise fell on him,
stroking and crying. His skull was stove in near the temple. One eye protruded.

'He's going to be all right, Lovejoy, isn't he?' she wailed.
Tryer? Tryer, darling.'

When the explosion came it almost flattened us all. In slow motion
I saw Chemise bend under the blast. I was flung backwards, over and over. The
driver's elbow caught me on the face as he was catapulted into the water. I was
stunned, came to with the sky lit like on Bonfire Plot, but no fireworks, only
a steady roaring whitish fire leaping where Tryer's Sex Museum and his
erstwhile fortune had stood. I tried, but couldn't get up. My arm was twisted
under me. The driver was near me on the grass, his face black as if scorched in
some sooty fire.

Then people, desperate first-aiders, an ambulance, a doctor, a
fire engine - how the hell had they taken years to reach us? The fire station
was only three hundred yards away, for God's sake. Playing billiards all frigging
night instead of getting to the starting line. And finally, at a headlong
stroll, the police, who started work by placing me under arrest. Several
witnesses had seen me struggling in the boating pool with the deceased. A good
witness, especially to constabulary, was the park keeper, who had seen me force
Tryer's head under water and kick him to death. Like I say, luck or design, who
knows? Actually, I believe those two theories are identical, one and the same.
When it's luck, we reckon we've planned it. When it seems like we've worked it
all out, it's us conning ourselves. Everything's luck.

Or, I realized, coming to in a police cell, lack of it.

16

They questioned me in their time-honoured way, namely and to wit,
telling me what they wanted me to say and to sign their blank sheets. This is
so they could all go back to their subsidized boozer in the crypt until their
respective tours of duty ended. I said I hadn't a clue, no idea, what on earth
were they talking about. I thought of swinging the lead, forgetting my own name
and all that. But I'd done it once before. It hadn't worked then either.