The Grace in Older Women (35 page)

Geake. Ex-policeman of this parish. Chased a mirage, and killed
somebody in the process?

30

The hotel was in uproar. I was worried about the cost of so many
blokes. I didn't dare ask about Tinker's IOUs. They were all busy unloading,
shouting, carrying furniture, paintings, pots. Illicit labourers, unrecorded by
the Inland Revenue, are freely (not free-ly) available in East Anglia. In
Lincolnshire alone there's 20,000 known gangmasters. One call brings an army,
ready to slog for pay on the hoof.

In a second I was surrounded by dealers and vannies, all holding
out chits, chops, papers. I signed every one unread, to buy breath. Tinker was
a hundred yards off, waving they were all okay. In three seconds I paid out
more bribes than India's Redline bus contractors of New Delhi, and they hold
the galaxy record.

This is exciting, Lovejoy!' Miss Priscilla and Miss Philadora were
thrilled, actually applauding when they stepped out of the motor. 'And such a
worthy cause!'

The Americans were having tea on the lawn with Roberta and Ashley.
A lovely picture. Old Jim Andrews was watching. I hung back. The Dewhursts
fluttered ahead.

'You're Lovejoy. Anzacs, gunner, Western Desert, right?'

'No, Jim. Lovejoy, antique dealer.'

Today he looked old. I smelled whisky. 'Could have sworn,' he
muttered, then focused. 'See that end van? Not been unloaded properly. Wouldn't
last a day under fire. Rabble!'

Four pantechnicons stood nearby. One had its tail locked and
chained, ready to go. The others stood tail down, furniture, paintings, clocks,
packing cases, being unloaded.

'It has, Jim,' I explained. 'The driver's locked it.'

'Ignoramus.' He shook with vehemence. 'Should be put on a charge!
That's what's wrong with this country! Backsliders!'

We were far enough away for his senile quaver to be lost in the
open air. He pointed with his stick. I had to prop the daft old coot up.

'Measure a vehicle's capacity! There was one foot width times
height times length missing from its contents.'

‘They took out
less
than
its volume?' I was doubtful. If he really was barmy it meant nothing. If
correct, though, it asked what was huge in surface area, but thin. A big oil
painting?

‘Its interior is lopsided!' He pointed triumphantly. 'One wall's a
foot thicker!' He became sly. 'We'll create a diversion, set something on fire,
maybe the truck itself, during which - '

'Er, good idea, Jim.' I'd seen too many burning vehicles lately.
'Tell you what. I'll suss things out. You keep watch.'

He winked. 'Good, son. Recce before guns.'

God, I thought, agreeing to his lunacy and going to join the rest.
I'll soon be as daft as him. I was frantic about William Geake. Juliana was on
the steps, scurrying with her list. Chemise saw me, waved with a smile. Tinker
grinned from the verandah with a jug and glass, in clover, calling
instructions. Sundry aged folk wandered.

'All happening, Lovejoy!' Mahleen called loudly. Roberta winced,
raised a hand to her temple, reclining on her chaise. Ashley leapt with a
shawl. Teacups tinkled. Idyllic.

'What's the agenda?' I asked.

'Money,' Wilmore said, all happy. 'My home ground!'

Whoops, laughter. I found an iron garden chair, joined the circle.
Nadette darted a sharp smile from me to Mahleen, more gold than ever. Vernon
and Jerry tapped calculators.

'Anything you fancy, Lovejoy?' Nadette cooed sweetly. 'You've not
sampled
all
the antiques, have you,
dear?'

'Whose money?' I'm always worried by women's wars. Women's logic
is for losing track of.

'The Cause's, Lovejoy.' Vernon the Sincere. 'How much d'you reckon
the exhibition will make?'

Hilda cried, 'Thousands! Look at all those
fakes
."

it's too much,' Roberta said faintly. 'That Miss Witherspoon must
go instantly.'

‘I’ll do it, my dear.' Ashley rose to hurtle off.

'No. Roberta. I need Juliana.' I wasn't having it.

'Ashley!' Roberta whimpered.

'Roberta knows nothing, Ashley.' I didn't let him stare me down,
not with what I now knew. 'Your place, your exhibition. But if I leave, your
enterprise vanishes. I set it up. Juliana stays. No argument.'

The Yanks went quiet. The Dewhursts coloured. Miss Priscilla,
peacemaker, put in gently, 'Lovejoy does know forgeries, Roberta. And his
obverse - '

'That's right, Priscilla. I'm the obverse, okay? My guess is,
it'll all go. Fakes,' I added drily, 'often go faster than genuine antiques.
Honest folk know why.'

'But the expense, Lovejoy?' from good old Wilmore.

'Antique dealers operate on thirties. Thirty per cent's the least
possible profit. One third's the most they'll pay. Three times the buying price
is what they ask.'

'But that's terrible!' If Priscilla had been wearing her apron
she'd have thrown it over her head in horror. She does it at calamity.

'Sounds right.' Vernon and Jerry were nodding.

'How much, then, Lovejoy?' Wilmore asked.

'I'll estimate the total once the exhibition's set up. We'll take
sixes - that's two-thirds. The rest goes to the owners.'

'My hotel's expenses!' Ashley threatened, but he didn't worry me
now. All I saw was him blubbering beside his car begging young Holly for a
shag, offering fistfuls of notes.

'Any more questions?' I looked round.

'That
ugly
girl ruins
the ambience,' Roberta said.

'More than ambience'll be ruined.' I'd had enough malingering.
'Chemise is worth any ten. She stays.'

Wilmore spoke up. 'Lovejoy. I want to ask you a serious personal
question.' For a second my heart stopped, thinking of his golden missus. 'Can
we make this exhibition an elastic commodity? Keep the income flowing after?'

'Yes.' I cleared my throat. 'I've to find a safe centre to operate
from. I've found one.'

'How do we finance it?' Vernon, from the heart. 'Loans?'

'No banks, for Christ's sake.' The Misses Dewhurst cried out at my
language. I said sorry, forgot myself. 'We make the dealers raise the bread. We
provide the market.'

They were doubtful.' What safe centre? Will it cost?'

'Not much more than your holiday, Jerry.'

They spoke a little while I collared some cakes, minuscule
one-calorie toothfillers. Wilmore was elected spokesman.

'Can't be done, Lovejoy, on no overheads.'

'Really?' I rose, scooping the last plateful into my pocket for
the journey. 'Wilmore, don't ever go into antiques. Borrow your motor,
Priscilla? I'll be ten minutes.’

Chemise followed my beckoning. 'Know what?' she said. 'Juliana's
resigned. Couldn't face it.'

Couldn't face seeing her painting forgery auctioned off as the
real thing, more like. We got in the motor. Chemise asked to go back for her
coat, the weather was turning chilly.

'What made her chuck it?' I asked. 'She was okay when I arrived.'

'That old man with the walking stick interrupted her. She burst
into tears and left.' She shivered. 'I'm freezing.'

Women always are. Never known one with warm feet, and I've
searched, I've searched.

'We're going the wrong way, Lovejoy,' she said after a bit. 'This
is to Fenstone.' She was looking at me in a way she never had. 'Left, Lovejoy.'

I yelled, 'Don't you ever frigging well shut
up
?’

‘I'm sorry, darling.’

You can't tell them. They never listen.
Darling?

During the journey, I reflected on how things had turned out.
Maybe some dealer did for Tryer? Antiques is a game of snakes and ladders,
millions of snakes and hardly any ladders. But something I'd said lately kept
coming to mind: money's the only thing without value. Psychotics, politicians,
and accountants don't know this. Somehow I'd entered a world where all money
schemes were undermined, ruined. Jox, Tryer, Dame Millicent, the lot. Therefore
the weirdo was as sane as you. So I'd to look among the normals for the nutter.
Except, why did I?

Chemise was watching me. I thought she'd been asleep. 'You don't
have to. Lovejoy.'

'Sorry. I talked my thoughts?'

'Some.’ She stared out. It was coming on to rain, i miss Tryer,
Lovejoy. He didn't take me seriously, not like you. But he treated me grand.'
She smiled the woman's non-smile. 'Me so ugly!' I had more sense than try to
talk her out of her self-prejudice. ‘He already had a wife.'

That I knew. 'What do you think of this lot, love?'

The Americans?'

'And the Battishalls, the Cause.' I was surprised about the
Dewhursts, but astrology makes people do daft things. I said as much.

'It's not so crazy, Lovejoy. A cause can turn massacres to
musicals, Vietnam for
The White Horse Inn
.'

'If you say so,' but I was uncomfortable. We passed Fletchinghurst,
where Easter festivals hark back to sacrificial days, even children's skipping
rhymes sounding sinister. It got me thinking.

There was a report once, dated 23 February 1809. Manuscript only.
You still find copies in bookshops: Napoleon in America. It stated that one
French frigate with 150 men could 'capture Pensacola' from the mouth of the
Mississippi, having taken Spanish Florida and Louisiana. I'd had to look up
Pensacola. Once head of the USA, Bonaparte would be 'possessed' - the
manuscripts always spell that wrong - of Canada, Mexico, all North America.

Royalty's funny stuff. You don't need voting in, for a start. And,
if you're voted out or executed, you're the dragon's teeth - somebody else
takes your place. Execute Charles I, there's always a Charles II et seq. For
the Cause, the eighty-ninth cousin umpteen times removed will do. And you don't
need a multi-megabuck Human Genome Diversity Project to prove it, like the
Italians have in Turin to prove that the pre-Roman Etruscans are still around.
You can mislay the heir to a throne, but you can't eradicate royalty.

As I write, the King of All the Gypsies is being crowned. Okay,
it's Romania, there's a rival somewhere, but so? Par for royalty's course. A
crown of jewels and over three dozen gold coins, bestowed outside - sic - the
Orthodox cathedral in Sibiu is a powerful symbol, even if the King's a
coppersmith. The point is it's now, not in the Dark Ages. It's the same in
Buganda, which crowns its thirty-sixth King. Gremlins, however, might decide that
by the time anybody reads this . . . Naturally, constitutions change. No
country stays the same. Hence Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea change the face
on their postage stamps. Fine by me. It's what countries do. Politics is mutation
by decree. So kings may come and queens may go, but royalty lives, even if its
earthly representatives don't linger.

Like take Russia's 'Nicholas the Simple', as acid-tongued writers
call Nicholas II. Now, I simply don't know whether the last Czar of All the
Russias was right to assume personal command of his entire army in 1915. Or why
he believed his friendship with Rasputin, that Siberian holy nutter, would
bring the House of Romanov closer to the Czar's beloved narod, his people. But
read the Czar's love letters to his Czarina Alexandra - they wrote daily - your
heart almost breaks. And she was only 12 when they fell in love, at her
sister's wedding. Take away the conventional silliness of lovers ('My darling,
Sunny . . .') and you well up. Leave aside Anastasia - was she, wasn't she -
and you still question who the Pretender Czar actually is/was. Conventional
history, that old fibber, depicts Czar Nicholas standing with his baby son
Alexei in his arms to face the execution squad. Terrible, sure, and there are
witnesses. But who exactly was that quiet laboratory technician who passed away
only last year in St Petersburg, whose colleagues knew was little Alexei
himself, the last Romanov Czar of All the Russians, whose tiny bones were never
found in the excavations of the disused mineshaft at Ekaterinburg . . . ?

‘I’ll drive, Lovejoy.' Chemise switched off the ignition.

Struggling with the wheel, I exploded. 'You silly cow! You'll have
us in the bloody hedge!'

She was maddeningly calm. 'You're muttering and demented. Get from
behind that wheel, for Christ's sake. Twice you've nearly collided.'

My hands were damp and shaking, sweat running down my armpits.
What on earth had I been thinking about? Worse, the arrogant bitch turned out
to be a superb driver, double declutching and all.

We arrived at Juliana's studio in Fenstone as dusk fell. No sign
of life. I told Chemise to keep the engine running, and walked about a bit to
recover. The wattle-and-daub wall would have been simple to cut through, but I
picked the lock because I'm a conservationist at heart. Inside, just her plain
studio, neat, clean, things put away. When I'm painting, tidiness goes. I found
the painting she'd shown me that Sunday morning. It still felt unconvincing.
Yet I felt queer.