The Lies of Fair Ladies Read online

  Antiques are funny, meaning you never know where they begin and end. Some antiques are rightly seen as national treasures—like the famous Badminton Cabinet. Made in Florence in 1726, it was recently up for sale to an American heiress. Then political outrage set in, and people started bawling the usual old lies, selling our antiques is unpatriotic, all that old rubbish. It's what you mean by "treasures" and "antiques" that matters.

  "Antiques" once meant only things from the ancient world— Greece or Rome (but especially the latter, because the Romans never had any consumer-protection laws. The Greeks had). Then, modern times, "antiques'' meant pre-1837. Gradually it crept nearer and nearer. "Collectibles'' arrived then, and "Groupables." Finally, "Tomorrow's Antiques," the ultimate in fraudulence.

  And the word began to spread its meaning, as well as its precisions. Anciently it meant only statuary. It then became jewelry, paintings, any artifact, and finally (fanfare, please) any marketable rubbish.

  Which brings us to films, theater ephemera. The Ghool Spool.

  Of course, everybody's fascinated by the knickknacks of the famous. Bits off an emperor's gown, letters from Dickens to Harrison Ainsworth, pages of a Beethoven manuscript, anything that lends a name. They're only valuable, these googaws, because we the public make them so. Whether it's a bass guitar from the Beatles, or a Leonard Bernstein baton, age doesn't matter so much as the fame on the tag. But remember that in the shifting sands of ephemera, authenticity rules. You've got to be able to prove that doodle of crochets on an old omnibus ticket really was done by Delius.

  Spoolie's not really called that. It's his nickname.

  "Lovejoy, I've got nothing," he said sadly as I entered under his clanging doorbell. "Everything's less than a hundred years."

  "Just passing, Spoolie. Suppose I had a customer?"

  As Spoolie launched into his spiel, I wandered round his little shop. It stands on the outskirts of Mistley, on an uphill road between two leaning pubs. I honestly can't understand the fascination of emphemera. Yet it powers mighty collectors. I know a bloke who mortgaged his house just to bid for old Ealing Studios furniture.

  "That's honestly probably almost virtually nearly positively genuine, that shoe," Spoolie waxed eloquently. "Carmen Miranda— remember her? She used to keep drugs in the huge heels of her dancing shoes. Did you know she danced without any knickers on?"

  "Mmmh, great, Spoolie."

  The shop was hung about with bike wheels, once ridden on by some movie cyclist. Clothes dangled from the ceiling. A rocking horse, once used on the stage. A dress, reputedly worn by Ava Gardner. (Spoolie: "Ava said she got sold like a prize hog in that.")

  "I'd love a pack of Bogart's cigarettes," Spoolie wound on. He never sells videos, scorning secondary sources. "I've written to the mayor of Hollywood. I'm opening negotiations for that big capital H in the Hollywood sign. You know the one? Just think, Lovejoy. Peg Entwistle chucked herself off it to her death in 1929. RKO wouldn't renew her contract. Can't you just see it? This place would become a Mecca for ephemerists."

  "Mmmh, great, Spoolie.”

  "Signatures are rare,” he told me mournfully. "I'm down to autographs of cameramen, soundists' diaries, hankies with Orson Welles's initials. Vivien Leigh, though. I've two autographs of hers, but post-Olivier. A Marilyn Monroe costs me half a wage. Ronald Reagan's frigging mother signed all his postcards."

  "Mmmmh, great."

  "It's my ambition to do the Grave Rave Tour, Lovejoy. Hollywood. They finish. Life is no rehearsal. Pure magic!"

  He had postcards, signed books, placemats and coasters, a guitar once played by youthful hopefuls long since insignificant. His shop was a hang-up trying to enter dreamscape.

  "I'd kill for a photo of Mary Martin's ghost. Did you know she keeps appearing in Weatherford, Texas? Here, Lovejoy. You're always broke. D'you think I'm doing the right thing? When I came out of nick—"

  "You been inside, Spoolie?" This was why I'd come.

  "Oh, a few months. I was fitted up. You know the Plod. A drainer, not even in my manor."

  A cat-burgling, outside his area. "What got stolen?"

  He shrugged. "Money. And some letters. I thought ... I mean," he corrected quickly, while I affected not to notice, "I'll bet the burglar thought they were from somebody famous. They were a professor's, to some political tart."

  I gauged him. "Know anything about stamps, Spoolie?"

  He smiled, shifty. "So you know. Bought big into antique stamps before I went in. Left them with a dolloper."

  Valuable news. "You jugged with anybody local?"

  Spoolie's face closed. "No. Drinkwater asked me. Some bloke called Godbolt. Never heard of him."

  "Lovely shop you got, Spoolie." I said so-long and left, the door playing that scratchy introduction from Flash Gordon serials. Blank. Which only left me Therla the schoolteacher and her non-story of the non-drowning, and Luna's escapade with Jenny. Calamy's not a local name, but it was bothering me. I decided to look names up.

  On the way I noticed that Rye Benedict's plant showrooms were up for sale. A decent crowd queued at his mill. Maybe he was going full-time into history, and leaving Nature alone. I was all for it. A shop opposite Therla Brewer's school had a headline about a savage local murder. It made me stop until I could go on, but I didn't buy a paper.

  Twelve

  Schools dismay me. It's their air of assumption. Ever since learning that Dickens had to tone down the ghastly events at the real Dotheboys Hall, to achieve realism, they've given me the willies. I sense chains, cross the road even yet. I parked the car in the school, though, to avoid prying ploddite eyes. It was in this vehicle that Luna had taken me to suss out Prammie's hut. The countryside might have whispered.

  Therla was in the common room being merry with a dozen somnolents. Children, all taller than children used to be, milled about the corridors, looking bored. I wish it had been boredom in my day. I can only remember worry. She came and we walked to her classroom, empty except for two snogging youngsters who marched out, the lad glaring, the girl giving Therla an impudent challenging stare. Therla sighed apology.

  "I do my best, Lovejoy. You can see they're horrors." The girl was pretty. I could easily dislike the boy. "That accident, love. The boy in the river." "Andrew? He climbed once too often. It was in the Stour. I think I said? An old man on a strange little boat fished him out. He had the oddest way of propulsion, some sort of—"

  It's odd how a few words can send you really strange. "You said he was rescued by an ocean-going barge."

  "Yes. Beside a great barge . . . What's the matter?"

  "You stupid cow. You meant nearby?"

  "Of course. I told you." She was exasperated. Teachers are trained in it. "It was fastened to it. For heaven's sake, Lovejoy. I don't understand how ships tie themselves to each other, do I?"

  "Ta, Therl."

  "Lovejoy. Don't you think you owe me some explanation? You come here as if your life depended ..."

  It had been Prammie Joe himself. In the Stour? But Prammie's hut lies deep in the tributary marshes of the next river north, the Deben. I’d assumed wrong. I’d been mesmerized by Cornish Place.

  "His dinghy was tied to the barge?"

  "Yes." Her forehead wrinkled prettily. "Under the back, so to speak. Most odd. There were ropes, loading things onto two punts he had. Andrew was very lucky. I honestly do try, Lovejoy," she sighed. "Field trips are a nightmare. Next year I take forty-eight teenagers to the Urals. Can you imagine?"

  No, I couldn't. "Did the old man say anything?"

  "No. In fact, he was most offensive. He hadn't the slightest intention of making Andrew feel forgiven. Just bundled him ashore—only a few yards, really."

  I said, "Honestly, some people. What barge, Therl?"

  "Therla, please. One of those slow sailing ones. They race them. It was all ready. Here." She pointed.

  A watercolor on a wall. Three Thames barges. "Big? Like that?"

  "Yes. They're quite pretty moving.
Ugly just lying still."

  "D'you still teach history? Or has it died of education? There's something on my mind."

  She was pleased at my interest. "Josh Moss."

  I kept getting these dim flashes in my mind's eye, those names. Oddly, written in an old court hand. I was sure I'd seen at least two, maybe three, on parchment somewhere.

  Josh Moss was fetched from the gaiety of the common room. He seemed relieved to escape. I parted amicably from Therla. She does evening classes in poetry, keeps wanting me to enroll. I promised. I remember hardly anything of school poetry, just dim drums throbbing, and only that because we made rude rhymes of Lepanto. But Therla's really pleasant. You could get to like even poetry.

  "It's a silly thing. Josh," I said. Instinctively I adopted my old tactic before the teacher, looking downcast and sorry-I'm-such-trouble. "Some names keep going through my head. I've a, er, a bet on. A mate at the pub. He says they're footballers. I think something historical."

  "Names?'' He was a fresh-faced bloke, looking about fourteen. He didn't like my joining Therla's poetry class.

  "Godbolt. Calamy. Clark. Hopkins. And one blurred."

  "Easy, Lovejoy," he said, grinning. "You're missing Fair-clough."

  "That's it!" I cried. Fairclough? "Who are they?"

  "Were, Lovejoy. John Godbolt. Edmund Calamy. And last but certainly not the least, Elizabeth Clark."

  Still I waited, thick as a post. "Yes?"

  Josh sighed. "See, Lovejoy? You too. Local history's ignored these days. It provides such useful insights. Matthew Hopkins not ring a bell? The Witch-Finder General. He was born hereabouts. Wenham, I think."

  "Wenham?" I stared. Who was from Wenham?

  "A bad time. Elizabeth Clark was a witch." He shrugged, smiling. "So they said, the day they hanged her. It's not far. Take the main A12 from the roundabout. Be careful of the signs from—"

  "Thanks, Josh. Great."

  "Lovejoy," he called after me. "D'you win? Your bet."

  "Er, no. But ta."

  From a street phone—one of the six was accidentally unvandalized—I reached Wittwoode's, and Luna. She seemed thrilled. I said come to the school, stat. She said she'd no motor because I had it. I told her to do as she was told. I'd had enough of being buggered about. What are apprentices for, for God's sake? I honestly think women give me lip just to annoy. I can't come because you've got my motor. Gormless.

  Coincidences are coincidences, right? But four flukes in a row? Names don't mean much these days, do they? It was all possibly imagination or something.

  The point was, it wasn't. Sourly I watched Luna's taxi draw up. "What's your name?" I signaled her taxi to wait.

  "Lovejoy. Whatever's the matter? You look white as—"

  "Don't keep saying that. Stop frigging about."

  She stared at me, a sheaf of papers in her hand, ready for a whole Wittwoode saga. "You know who I am, Lovejoy. Mrs. Luna Florence Carstairs. Is it a game?"

  "Before you were married, stupid." I'd actually recoiled.

  "Macintosh." She followed along the pavement. A valeta.

  My griping belly muscles relaxed. "Prove it."

  "Prove . . . ?" She delved into her handbag, hauled out a photograph of a beautiful girl. "That's me."

  Words on the reverse eased me more. Everybody says Lola's "a ringer for Luna Macintosh" when you were nineteen! Love, Dad.

  "Lola?''

  "My daughter, Lovejoy. Are you ill?"

  Drawing breath, I demanded her mother's name. Her mother's mother's name. Her great-granddad's . . . The family came from Fort William. I should have detected her accent. Fright had done my cortex in. I put my arms round her, bussed her in relief. She backed away, murmuring she was the mayoress, for heaven's sake, and in public. I gave her car keys.

  "Right, pal. Ditch that motor, for good. Okay?"

  "Is it making that clattering noise again? I thought they'd mended it." She unlocked her car door. "That garage is becoming so unreliable."

  "Meet me at the town library. Don't be late."

  I borrowed the taxi fare, and left. Talk to some birds, you might as well talk to the wall.

  Thirteen

  Our town library's a non-library. A theory of a library, it's run by Scotchman, a skeletal prat whose sole function is thwarting. To him it's a good day when he's successfully obstacled the whole public from borrowing books.

  "I need a book, please, Scotchy."

  "Sorry, Lovejoy, but—"

  "Allow me." I captured a young loafer. "Look, pal. I don't know how to work their computer here ..."

  The pimply youth's eyes ignited. He shot round the desk, shoved Scotchman up and away, activated the computer. "Wotcher want, mate?"

  "Anything on Matthew Hopkins. Old-timer, three hundred and fifty years since."

  Tap tap tap. I'm computer illiterate. These infants aren't. They live for them. But writing by any other name.

  "Witch-Finder General?" The youth gazed admiringly at me. "A pop group? This library's no books. There's one at Grays, Thurrock. Plenty in London." The security guard was being fetched.

  "What is it?" Miss Campbell was beside us, assistant librarian, intent on social justice for the disadvantaged.

  "This lad is showing me your technologistics, communication-wise. Miss Campbell." I said it in one breath.

  She dithered, righteous anger foiled by jargon. ''Well, if—''

  "Here, mate." The computer wizard handed me a printout. I said ta. He slouched off to be bored again.

  The nearest tome on Hopkins was in St. Edmundsbury. I'd no motor, so it would be bus. I made do with various dictionaries, got the names, deeds, trial details. Reference libraries have been turned into Local Studies Resource Centers. The baffled serving the baffled. Children on school projects take a folder, copy it out for teacher, and move on to their next feat of intellect. I made the bus home, but had to walk from the village outskirts because some nerk insisted on the correct fare.

  Luna's origin wasn't local. Bless her. I warmed to the woman, my one trusty ally. I had a few scribbled notes on the ghoulish doings of yore. I brewed up, sat out in a cold rising wind, chucked the birds some cheese, and reflected on what I now knew.

  Once upon a time, our fair land was going about its humdrum business. Good Queen Bess had faded from memory. Came James, a spectacular anti-witch nut. Thanks to him, anti-witch mania was burgeoned.

  Piecemeal bits garnered in the non-library worried me worse as I began to read my scrawl. There's a lot of balderdash talk about witches nowadays. People think of them, if at all, as cranks having a bit of spare nooky in the woods at summer solstices, or encouraging Mother Earth to produce leaves.

  Except there's more.

  Like, seventeen people were burnt at St. Osyths, near here, in 1676. As late as 1863, a poor elderly French bloke was dragged from his home in Castle Hedingham, ducked to see if he was a wizard, and died from the experience. King George II had some sense, thank God, and repealed our ancient witchcraft laws in 1736. Isolated incidents occurred, though. Like the burning of poor Bridget Cleary at Balty-vadhen in Tipperary in 1895 by her husband and his five mates. Fine, okay, it's history. But read it, suddenly it edges close. Suddenly it's not so long ago. And suddenly the evenings draw in.

  The terrible feeling comes that the people who did those horrible frightening things were here, on this very ground. They lived here. This village, that seaport. They walked our streets, maybe drank from the very bowl you see in the antique shop. Get the point? They laughed and joked here. Then they burnt, hanged, imprisoned, jailed, drowned the innocent. In the name of holiness.

  And nobody did this dreadfulness like the ghastly Witch-Finder General.

  His dad was a Puritan minister of Wenham. Matthew Hopkins became an Ipswich lawyer, chiseling contentedly at whatever could be chiseled. It was back around the Great Civil War (Cromwell versus Charlie I, on whether Divine Right of Kingship should rule instead of Parliament. People won, making us the modern world's
first ever republic).

  Lawyer Hopkins suddenly went ape. Off his own bat he decided he was gifted. His gifts lay in a particular direction.

  Abruptly, he began to "find'' witches. He started with a mere handful, at Manningtree, where he lived. Soon, witches were here, there, everywhere. Politicians use the same trick. You know the ploy: There's a witch/treason/conspiracy/plot/whatever. The cry goes up. Good heavens! All will be lost if everybody doesn't support the prosecutors! And all that jazz. Don't mock the Puritans of Salem, New England, of 1692. Or the people in Scotland who burnt thousands. James I, a loon of sorts, even prosecuted a whole assize for acquitting some poor soul. Or the witch-persecutors of Pennsylvania. Of Kalisk in Poland. You don't need to look far even today. Especially today.

  Lawyer Hopkins appointed himself the Witch-Finder General. And rode out on his anti-witch crusade. He demanded twenty silver shillings a time, a whole pound. (Get it? The more witches he spotted, the richer he got.) This odious reptile rampaged through East Anglia, intoxicated with the power of life or death—and, terribly, it was always death. Exulting, the maniac invented a modification of an ancient "test" for "finding" witches. It went:

  First identify your witch (that is, pick anybody). Bind her/him. Lob her into a pond. If she floats, why, she's guilty—for the Lord's pure water has rejected her. So she must be hanged. If she sinks, why, she's innocent. You see the problem. Either way, you're dead.

  The evil spread through East Anglia like wildfire. Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. The horror scourged hamlets, villages, towns, cities, and finally whole counties. Bedfordshire, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, all suffered. Folk lived in fright. Some women, knowing their innocence, actually volunteered to come to trial to get it over with. And, Hopkins blithely reported, were hanged for their pains. The witch hunts went on. And on. Anything was a sign of being a witch—a neighbor's roses wilting, a friend catching a cold, some skin blemish. It was wholesale utter madness. One elderly one-legged Manningtree woman was brought to trial for having a cat she called pet names. She was "swum"—that is, tied up and ducked, Hopkins's famous test. She failed to drown. So she was hanged.