The Sin Within Her Smile Page 16

  The old lady didn’t move, so I positioned her hands. Arthur’s little belly parped a monotone. I got the teat into his mouth. He gave a grunt of relish. The Duchess actually altered her position, looked.

  ‘The plan, troops,’ I said. ‘In the bam, a porcelain’s being used as a plant-pot holder. Swansea porcelain never shows crazing, that fine cracking.’ I scanned the area for spies. ‘Know what pigskin’s like? Exactly like that bowl! Very, very rare! Confirm it by holding it up to the light, okay? If it’s a hazy yellow translucency, we’re in. I feel it’s a genuine antique. I’ll ask the farmer’s wife can I use the old barn crock for Arthur’s pudding. She’ll agree. We’ll buy our own mental hospital!’

  Arthur belched. I burped him by shouldering, then gave him back to the Duchess. She resumed feeding him. I was thrilled. ‘Babes are the best for old folk,’ I said. ‘We let you crones get away with being lazy, see? Now, a song!’

  In the deepening daylight I sang ‘My drink is water bright, from the crystal stream’. Arthur finished his bottle. I propped him up on the Duchess. We belted through the chorus, Arthur warbling milkily. I actually caught the old girl looking at and not through.

  ‘Now, lady and gentleman,’ I announced, ‘we sing the old temperance hymn “A Song for Water Bright”. One-two-three-four.’ We thundered it out.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ Luke, in the doorway like an avenging gunman.

  ‘We’re singing,’ I said airily. ‘Any requests?’

  He left, shaking his head. Arthur needed changing. I did the deed as we blessed the world with ‘The Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine’. Phillida came for Arthur at supper time. I winked at Duchess and went to wheedle the old pot. The lass was carolling away in her kitchen.

  ‘Was it you singing?’ she asked. ‘I’ve not heard them old Sacred Songs and Solos for many a year!’

  ‘Oh.’ I went bashful. ‘We sang them at home.’

  ‘Do you know “The Ship of Temperance”, bach! It’s lovely.’

  I cut her trill short. ‘Sorry, love. Can I borrow a couple of old pots from your barn? For the nappies and all.’

  ‘Indeed to goodness!’ she cried. ‘Take them and good riddance! My Bryn’s forever going to clear them out, but does he?’

  She beamed, then chilled my heart with her next words. ‘You might be lucky, too!’ she said. ‘One of the girls has just been. Found an old bowl in the barn. Tells me it’s valuable! When my Bryn comes back, I’ll make him have it valued.’

  ‘Marvellous!’ I said. Good old earwigging Meg. ‘Your husband away? Actually, I’m a registered valuer for, er, Sotheby’s.’

  She laughed. ‘Get away with you!’ I left via the barn, but it now felt empty. The Nantgarw porcelain piece had gone, Meg really protecting her heritage.

  After a grim meal - a coarse soup, potatoes, greens, soggy fish fingers -1 went to the farmhouse. Temperance singing works up a terrible thirst. The farmer’s wife welcomed me, and let me see the bowl. It was a delight. I told her the story of the South Wales potteries. She gave me some heady home brew, plus a couple of meals. I discovered that I liked Wales. I only realized it that night.

  Next morning the drizzle was worse. The horses were fresh, having had shelter in a real stable. A couple of farm lads who hove in at cockshout gave them some proper nosh. I was whistling as we got going. The farmer’s wife waved me off.

  ‘Bye, Pattie,’ I called. ‘See you on the way back.’

  ‘Bye, love,’ she called. ‘Do, if you’ve a mind.’

  Meg finally broke at mid-morning. ‘Lovejoy!’ Her hissing voice. ‘Did you sleep in that farmhouse?’

  ‘Me?’ I was indignant. ‘What on earth makes you ... ?’

  Pulse nodded on. She had to stride alongside. ‘I didn’t hear you leave, that’s what!’

  ‘Look, Meg. These endless accusations.’ I sighed a sincere sigh. ‘Just dole out your pills and leave me be. Okay?’

  ‘Did you wheedle the Nantgarw off her, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Meg,’ I said, broken, ‘I’ve never betrayed a lady’s confidence. As for that porcelain, think the worst.’

  ‘I’m warning you, Lovejoy,’ Was all she could manage before Luke called her back to her caravan. Preacher was in the lead today, giving us ‘Sweet By-and-By’. I joined in, thinking happily of the Nantgarw piece I’d slipped under little Arthur’s wicker cot. I sang really brilliantly, but Phillida ballocked me for making too much noise. Trying to be cheerful’s a mistake in some company.

  That morning, three old buses filled with travellers overtook us. I’d counted sixteen so far, all heading in the same direction. Were things looking up?

  A tranquil caravan holiday in pretty countryside is a waste. I’ll keep to the vital bits.

  Noon nosh was a complicated shambles. See a gypsy camp, it’s a sea of tranquillity. A little kiddie running about, a dog rooting, a woman putting a pot on, the bloke whittling. Generally dozy. An hour later, it’s the same. Sessility, the mundane. Us? We were like a Dickens slum, and barmy.

  We’d stopped at a tranquil hamlet. Its main feature was an old gallows, to cheer us up. I looked at us thinking, God.

  For a start there was Boris. Fit as a flea, hiding from the world, arranging things - bits of paper he kept refolding. Like, he’d touch the window, every inch, dot, dot. Then he’d lift his heels in a rhythmic beat until I found myself doing the bloody thing myself. He didn’t speak.

  Humphrey of the hangdog smile sat mournfully watching the bacon and eggs fry. He’d got it going on some ramshackle gas stove. Thoughts of explosions alerted my mind. Humphrey spoke. ‘Bread fried or toasted?’ He made grub sound like the De Profundis, but I almost wrung his hand at such civilized words.

  ‘Both, please. We enough to go round?’

  Luke gave me a look. ‘Humphrey is head cook and bottle washer today, Lovejoy. You tomorrow. Hello, ladies.’ Rita entered. I gaped, then composed my features. Phillida came trotting up and shoved Arthur at me. I turned him the right way up. He glared at me, winded. I almost apologized before I caught myself. Why is everything my frigging fault? He blew a gale of flatus in reprimand, grunting satisfaction.

  ‘Have one on me,’ I said.

  That set him rolling in the aisles until he choked, which earned me universal blame. His chin was soaking wet. I’m convinced that doctors haven’t got their priorities right. Why don’t they find out why

  cherubs’ grot spreads so? I’d only just got Arthur and already we were soaked from his dribble.

  The caravan’s interior was magic. It expanded. Bunks folded, benches appeared. Hammocks stowed, tables sprouted. A sink, I swear, emerged from a small side table. We even had ornaments, little brass vases, one with some small blue flowers. But the showiest item was Rita.

  She was garish. Now, I like makeup. Women never use enough, dunno why. They don’t understand, they can never put enough on. If one ounce equals beauty, then twelve ounces equals twelve times more, right? But women are very sparing. This noon halt, Rita had plastered her emerald green eyeshadow on. Rouge on white on moisturiser covered her cheeks. Her eyelashes raked the air. Her lipstick made huge crescentic scarlet rims. She could hardly raise her cup for the false mandarin fingernails that projected. They sparkled gold and silver spangles. You needed eyeshades just to pass the sauce.

  'Do you like my new skin toner?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘Terrific,’ I said approvingly. ‘Glad some women know how to use cosmetics.’

  ‘I never use too much, Lovejoy!’ Phillida said frostily.

  Much you know, then, I said to myself. Arthur was crooning, kicking me in the groin. His drenching grot had the disturbing knack of flowing up against gravity so I got soaked whichever way up I held him. I fed him my fried bread until Humphrey roused to rebuke me. ‘No, Lovejoy. Arthur has his own food.’

  Phillida was mixing some gruesome powder. It stank. Arthur eye- balled it with loathing. ‘He loves this.’

  The meal wasn’t bad, but I sensed we were all ti
red, or wary, or doubting the whole enterprise. After nosh I changed Arthur’s nappy, washed his bum.

  ‘He’s like an eel,’ Phillida said, watching me. She had a bag of gear, including cream and talc. I carried Arthur to her caravan.

  ‘He’s not. An eel wraps itself round your arm.’

  ‘You’re good, Lovejoy.’ She was working things out, arms folded.

  ‘He’s good with me,’ I corrected, wrapping the nappy’s sticky end round tight. I buttoned his grow-bag about him. I don’t reckon they’re well designed, cause gangrene quick as look.

  ‘We link with the reporter soon, Lovejoy. We’ll be famous. A daily special. A spectacle!’ She sounded thrilled, silly cow. ‘I’m really looking forward to meeting them.’ Photographs? No wonder we’d all been on edge.

  Luke was harnessing the horses. For so few straps, it seemed a complicated business. Antique horse harness has recently had quite a vogue, but our nags’ gear was a disappointment.

  ‘Their harness is too new for you, Lovejoy,’ Luke said. He was getting on my nerves.

  ‘It never crossed my mind!’ I gave back indignantly.

  ‘Like at the stocks, the gallows on the green?’

  ‘Look,’ I told the evil-minded burke, ‘can’t I take a look without you jumping to conclusions?’ I didn’t realize he’d seen me looking.

  The stocks were modem. They’d probably moved the originals into their town museum to stop tourists from locking themselves in. The gallows felt original. I shivered. Odd that the guillotine in contrast was regarded as totally humane. Everybody has such opinions on capital punishment. I’ve heard pub rows where opponents, telling how Sanson’s assistant guillotiner in 1795, eager to show the severed head of a victim in France, tumbled and was himself ironically killed by the fall. I’ve even heard Scotch folk go proudly on about how the Scottish Maiden, a seventeenth-century precursor, was so much more efficient. Dr Guillotine’s name only got stuck to it because he made a speech in France about how kind it was. Some collectors are desperate for ‘grimmies’, and offer fortunes for anything connected with horror. I’ve been asked outright to nick the Scottish Maiden from Edinburgh Castle. Like I say, nowt as queer as folk.

  ‘You all right, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Aye.’ I was narked. I didn’t need solicitude from the likes of Luke. ‘Allergic to horses, that’s all.’

  He was a dab hand, backing the nags into the shafts and stringing them in. We were on the road in an hour. I kept a weather eye out for Mrs. Arden or Vana Farahar. Did women always return to the scenes of their seductions? I wanted Dolly’s pleasant, worried face. I wondered who would come, friend or foe. I wanted a phone box. I wanted out.

  With faith in my plodding nag’s ability to follow the caravan in

  front, I let go of the reins and jumped down. I walked along, looking up at Luke, said after a bit, ‘I’m not really into all this.’ I indicated the countryside. ‘It’s a frigging desert. Not a house for miles.’ ‘Two farms, two hay carts, six labourers,’ he corrected. He hadn’t needed to look, just knew by osmosis. I wished he’d smoke or swear or something. Humphrey dropped down beside me and jogged off ahead, wearing a tracksuit.

  ‘I mean, why can’t we just go there by train?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be news. Or calming.’

  ‘Can I make a phone call?’ There was a public telephone ahead by the side of the road. A car overtook, the man leaning out of the window to shout anger at hobos.

  ‘Why not, Lovejoy? Tether Ash to my caravan first.’

  Delighted, I ran on, got through to the White Hart and left a message for Tinker, telling him to find Dolly and get her to Sunderhill. I rang Doc Lancaster, but he was out. I told Nurse Siu Lin to tell him I was looking after his loonies and sick of it. She said good. Useless.

  . off this green,’ the tweedy bloke was shouting.

  People always set me wondering. Some can shout without raising their voice. Hardly a decibel, and they’re foghorns. Makes you wonder how some whisper to a bird along the pillow. Beds like a parade ground.

  ‘We’re doing no harm,’ Luke was saying as I walked up. Our caravans stood in a crescentic laager on a greensward. Sunderhill was a rich village one street long. A nearby clubhouse boasted with a massive green sign. Six shops, one tavern, and chintzy, chintzy cheeriness. Luke clearly saw it as Rorke’s Drift, waiting for the impi to attack.

  ‘Keep moving.’ A policeman strolled up. ‘No disturbances.’

  Corinda emerged in a voluptuous nightdress, and paraded enticingly. Meg rushed about on the spot, if you can. ‘These patients are socially disadvantaged individuals oppressed by condemnatory counter-evaluative community imbalances ...’ I think I’m making it up, but am not sure. Maybe she meant what Luke said.

  ‘Listen to me!’ the bristly bloke bellowed. ‘I’m Major Destry, club secretary. I will not have idiots on my territory! Do you understand?’

  ‘We’re doing no harm, sir.’ Luke, patient.

  ‘That’s enough!’ the peeler decided. ‘Clear off. You’ve got five minutes to up sticks.’

  ‘Lovejoy!’ Meg tore about flourishing limbs like a windmill. ‘Lovejoy! This is an oppressionistically motivated subjugation of ...’ et sociological cetera. She was an urban brawl. I appeared to listen.

  ‘Lovejoy?’ Destry howled. ‘You the leader? I categorically demand that you remove this outrageous - ’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ I said, my voice subservient.

  ‘What, what?’ he barked. He shot a look at the constable.

  Meg went primaeval. ‘Lovejoy! That is condonation-wise anti- communal ... ’ I took her fury. Luke looked quizzical. The Plod looked glad, Destry inflated.

  ‘Five minutes!’ he thundered. ‘See them off, Linzell!’

  ‘Right, Major!’ the bobby said. He looked apologetic as authority receded. ‘You heard the man.’

  Meg was in tears. ‘Why is community disapproval.,.

  ‘Meg,’ I said evenly, ‘shut your frigging mouth.’ She gaped. ‘Constable, I’ll handle things.’

  ‘Right.’ He left, righteous swagger in his saunter.

  ‘Luke,’ I said, ‘brew up, eh? And see if anybody’s got some grub. I’ve not had a mouthful for three days. I’ll not last.’

  Meg was drawing breath for wordage. I ignored her, went to watch little Arthur. As peaceful a domestic scene as you could wish for. Meg pulled me round, screaming abuse.

  ‘That was the most despicable submission to self-serving com- mandatorialistic dictatorialism I have ever ... !’ She slapped my face. I caught Arthur’s eye. He was sucking on his bottle thinking, Oh well.

  ‘Not in front of the children.’ I drew her round the other side of the caravan. A car hummed past, faces regarding the colourful gypsy encampment. I waited until it had gone. I stalled her with a forehander that made her head spin. I spoke quietly.

  ‘Listen, Meg. This shambles is the last thing on earth I want to be with. You’re the least pleasant bird. I dislike you, this trip, and your lunatics. Understand?’

  She gazed at me. I had her coat gripped about her throat. ‘You’re useless, Meg. Your mind’s full of claptrap. You’re also why we’re pushed from pillar to post, treated like dirt.’ I shook her. Her eyes rolled wildly. I could see she was thinking, this isn’t happening, not to me with my sociology. ‘Now, Meg. I am willing to stay. But you must make an effort on these poor bastards’ behalf. Which means occasionally thinking.’

  Not a peep. I let her go. ‘Give us a shout when tea’s up, love.’ I followed the major into the club grounds.

  It’s an interesting fact that we’re all convinced by preconceptions. Often it’s not our fault, but sometimes it is. Like, Henry VIII gets a rotten press. I can’t honestly see why. His love letters are beautiful. All right, so his passion got deflected, but that’s passion’s fault, not his. He did wonders for government. He had 381 musical instruments - and could play them all. But mention him, you get sly grins as if at a lewd joke. So we assume that churc
h people are holy, bankers friendly, politicians truthful, nobles noble, that professors actually do profess. It’s all codswallop. Everything’s fraud. I’m as bad, except when I’m pushed, like now.

  The sports club had a large car park. I walked the entire spread, line after line. Satisfied, I went through. Several tennis courts, all on the go in that most boring of all games. White flannels, bonny skirts. The clubhouse people were taking drinks on a terrace of manky modern furniture. Golfers were at the second most boring game. I watched, mystified. Major Destry was hectoring some seated club members already into their third cocktail. There was much laughter. He saw me, swelled a few cubic feet, and marched across.

  ‘I thought I told you - ’

  ‘How many, Major?’ Group activities always mystify me. Team spirit has a lot to answer for.

  ‘Members?’ He hesitated, trapped by administration. ‘Four-nine- two, waiting list one-sixty.’ Pomp refuelled, he resumed command. ‘Lovejoy, I want your mad gypsies out!’

  I smiled with diffidence. ‘Might I ask a question, sir?’

  ‘Very well!’ I reeled from the decibels. Members smiled; a scruff getting his deserts.

  ‘Have you any more?’ He frowned. ‘Antiques, Major.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  My furtive stoop wasn’t good. ‘Silver, trophies, that painting.’

  A steely glint showed in his eye. ‘Into the committee rooms.’

  I followed him up steps and along a corridor lined by display cases filled with trophies, golfing memorabilia. I wanted to examine a couple, but he kept firing ominous looks my way.

  ‘Wait here. I’ll be back.’ He shoved me into a room.

  ‘Very well, sir.’ He’d gone to phone the police. Idly I roamed the room. A set of old golf clubs was in a glass case by the window. You could see waiters to-ing and fro-ing, ladies reclining, gentlemen chatting. Such quaffing and regaling made me realize I was faint with hunger.

  Major Destry reappeared. ‘Lovejoy!’ he exclaimed, as if startled to discover me exactly where he’d left me. ‘A friend’s coming shortly. Don’t mind waiting, I suppose?’ Clearly, he’d phoned the Plod, exactly as I’d planned.