The Possessions of a Lady Read online

  The roars were deafening. The lass flirted past, spun to sustained cheers. I felt hate rise, stifled myself. As the riot diminished, I leant across Thekla. She made room, thinking I was going to be emphatic about what we'd just seen. She was right.

  'You did that, Rodney?' I asked the goon.

  'Yes.' He fluttered roguishly.

  'You want locking up, you frigging nerk,' I said. 'That carpet was worth you morons put together.'

  My feet didn't touch the ground. God knows who gave the signal. Two bruisers appeared from nowhere, hauled me upright, dragged me willynilly down the aisle. They slammed me out through the double doors, across the foyer, and literally hurled me into Sizewell Street. I didn't know which way was up, bounced, slithered to a stop.

  'Look!' a toddler bawled with that miniature foghorn voice they have. 'Lovejoy!'

  'Wotcher, Tel,' I said wearily, supine.

  'Want him!' boomed the infant.

  'Not now, dear,' Tel's mother said, hurrying the pushchair past and ignoring me with that glazed air women assume when hearing an unexpected belch. Once we'd twice made smiles, last Mothering Sunday to be precise.

  Rising, I checked myself for bruises. I felt like slaying Rodney. The carpet he'd hacked to death was a Turkish nineteenth century Kum Kapou. These are priceless—well, one costs more than a freehold house, 3 bdrms, 2 rcptns, gdn & grge. This carpet looked seven feet by five, from the snatch of design I'd glimpsed. Rodney must have simply thought, Hey, nice—and reached for his knife.

  See what's happened to justice? Some crazy fashioneer kills a beautiful antique, yet it's me gets ejected. Nobody in there gave a single thought to how that butchered Kum Kapou carpet felt. In life it had been gold, silver, with a dazzling prismatic sheen. The village is Armenian, near Istanbul, where the carpet sellers call its superbly fine knotting 'palace' quality. Look closely, its pattern depicts tiny animals among foliage. You can travel the world and never see a lovelier carpet. I was almost in tears. I vowed to remember Rodney, and get even.

  Nothing for it but to shed this monkey suit. One thing was certain, it was goodbye Thekla. I'd tried to be pleasant. It wasn't my fault if they were all deranged.

  No money, me looking a right prune, I went to wait for the bus in the Welcome Sailor at the town's east gate, hoping to scrounge a groat or three.

  Where, as tragedy would have it, I met Tinker and his Australian cousin's nephew. When you're sliding downhill it's difficult to stop.

  They were both sloshed as a maltster's wasp. I crossed to join them, coughing as my lungs tried the fug's carcinogens. Tinker actually doesn't smoke, having no time between ale intakes, but everybody else does except me. And Tinker's cousin's nephew, Roadie.

  'Smart arse,' the apparition said, eyeing me.

  'Eh?' I'd forgotten I was gorgeous. 'Sorry. This bird . . .'

  Normally my conversations are just the odd word, the rest being obvious. Roadie grappled in an ugly moment for Tinker's beer, lost on a pinfall, sulked.

  'What bird what?'

  Roadie communicates, or fails, most of the time. He's a sharp sixteen, attired in black leather with alchemic jewellery and barbaric slogans in lettering with so many serifs that you can't read it. Still, if my talk ends in dots he's every right to end his in spikes.

  'Son,' Tinker explained, 'Lovejoy's been dressed up by some lady. Pint?'

  'Sorry, Tinker.' He was asking me to pay, not offering. I went to the bar. Frothey was working the pump handle in an erotic manner. She fascinates me. Fair, fat and forty. I could eat her. Womanlike, she knew I'd come a-begging.

  'Hello, Lovejoy.' She judged the glass she was filling, and leant forward to exploit symbolism. 'No.'

  'Not even in my posh gear?' I smiled, exploiting forgiveness, tat for tit, so to speak. 'I'm at the fashion show.'

  'Fashion?' Almost everything came to a stop.

  I sighed. 'Dolled up, nobody to go with.'

  'The regional?' Her lovely eyes got rounder. 'You've got tickets?

  'Aye.' I sighed again, though I often find you can overdo acting. 'I'm late. Can you get off work?'

  She breathed, 'Those tickets are gold, Lovejoy!'

  'I've a relative. Er, Rappada . . .' I'd forgotten who I'd invented. 'Still, another time, eh, love?'

  Somebody called for service. She ignored him.

  'Wait, Lovejoy.' She was agog, working out how to defect. Women are past masters at ditching their tasks. I watched her mind crunch possibilities.

  'Well . . .' I'd have looked at my watch if I'd got one.

  She pulled a pint to keep me there. 'Five minutes in the car park, okay?' She was whispering.

  'Right,' I whispered. 'Can Tinker have one?'

  'Yes. Be sharp!'

  Women are beautiful, unless they're wearing fashion. Life's really weird. Here Frothey was, gorgeous in her black dress and phony pearls, actually wanting to see other women garbed like space aliens. And she would honestly envy those models' overpriced tatters, their showy anorexia.

  Not only that, but she was urging me to get a move on, when I was the one ready to scoot. It's something to do with their certainties. For a bloke like me, everything is simply unknowable. To Frothey, everything is obvious.

  'When you're ready, doowerlink.'

  She rushed off. I carried the beer to Tinker. Neglected boozers clamoured like angry infants.

  'Ta, Lovejoy. No news.'

  'There's another pint, if you're quick.' That made him chuckle. Like urging a ski racer to hurry. 'News?'

  Roadie's missing sister Vyna was the reason he was here.

  'Oh, aye.' She was seventeen, had slipped her cable three months. Her parents were frantic. Roadie wasn't. His grudges got in the way of practically everything. 'You try what I suggested?'

  'He's an idle git, Lovejoy,' Tinker explained. He hawked up a gob of phlegm into his empty glass, a man with a hint. 'Does nowt but sponge and sup all day. Pillock, see?'

  'Aye, well.' Clearly a family trait. I'd best be off, seeing Frothey would be down soon. I lied, 'Tell Frothey I'm waiting outside, Tinker.'

  'Right.' He was already shuffling to the bar for his pint. There'd be an argument with the bartender, seeing I'd not arranged anything. 'Lovejoy? That bloody fish. Been shuffed from the auction.'

  'Eh?' I was aghast. Not again? 'What's going on, Tinker?'

  'Dunno, mate. You're the wally.'

  A wally is trade slang, an antique dealer, in theory the moneyed gaffer who knows. Some theory.

  'Lovejoy,' he said. 'What if Vyna's kidnapped?'

  Roadie sniggered. I gave him a look. 'Okay, Tinker,' I said at last. I’ll help.'

  'Ta, Lovejoy.'

  The bar curtain that closed off the stairs fluttered, Frothey coming. I escaped by a whisker, and darted down the alley, the most baffled antique dealer in East Anglia. Everything was awry, starvation stalking my land. I ought to decide on swift action and leap to it. Instead, I hide. But now things had become ultra odd. I had to do something urgently, or face extinction.

  As I trotted through the town, I reflected. Life comes down to one question: 'What did you do in the Great War, daddy?' Like in that haunting World War I poster, the gaunt man, his little girl. Even if you only ask it of yourself. The kernel is that terrible what. Not when, or how, or why. 'Why' is motive, and is eternally unknowable—making love, hates, decisions to move home, gamble on divorce—so why bother asking 'why'? 'How' is only prestidigitation, the way you leave her, which bus you catch, incidental stuff. 'When' is only colouring in bits of life's picture. No, everything about everything is what. I was driven to act.

  3

  ‘That fish,' Tinker'd said, was shuffed. Translation: stuffed fish—don't laugh; it'd buy a new car—at Threadle's junk auction in Long Melford. I'd told Tinker to bribe it out of its legitimate place (sorry, pun not intended), whereupon I'd frolic in several thousands profit, a pastime that usually entails me scuttling clear of creditors until I'd managed to spend some.

  And somebo
dy else had bought it before Tinker could do the dirty deed. Eeling down Short Wyre Alley I thought, what is this? Who but a stuffed fish collector collects stuffed fish?

  The name is J. Cooper, floreat about 1925. Buy one of his little gudgeon in a labelled glass pot, you're in clover, for he's supposed to have done only four. You can still find them, at the odd boot sale. A huge Cooper-stuffed pike will pay for a prolonged Caribbean cruise. An arrangement of dace, or a mixture of fishes, will net you much, much, more. So keep looking. They're out there.

  This can happen in antiques. It's below the I-found-a-Rembrandt sensation, being down at subsistence level, among the scavengers and debris feeders where I just about break even year by year. Predators are a problem. I usually am quicker than most, because I'm a divvy and nobody else is.

  Yet now I was being out-guessed. It had been going on for some weeks. I was reduced to living on nowt. Hence I'd had to accept Thekla's affluent presence. Only temporarily. I'd intended to repay her when my ship came in, honest. I don't scrounge off women without making a nearly almost definite promise to refund every penny, and I mean that most sincerely.

  Which left me wearing Thekla's husband's posh suit, plodding among our town's mediaeval alleyways as inconspicuous as a rattling rainbow. I headed for the Antiques Centre, instinct guiding me wrong as usual. As proof, Aureole.

  'Not one word.' I entered, raising a threatening digit as dealers drew breath to howl derision.

  One or two cackled. Most wisely subsided.

  A few customers drifted among the stalls. Business looked moribund, but that's antiques for you. Antiques is like war, one per cent terror, the rest boredom. The Centre was in stupor mode.

  'Funeral or feast, darling?' Aureole cooed sweetly. 'Big Frank marrying again?'

  People snickered. I scented grub and gave a moan. The Antiques Centre's a church hall that our ancient priory, rapaciously swapping holy precepts for filthy lucre, sold off to the biggest syndicate of crooks, namely us. (Us minus me; I was short of funds when the hat came round.)

  'Or some other catastrophe?' Aureole went on.

  She's a beautiful lass, the Centre's prime mover, coordinating the local dealers. It's got a dozen booths and stalls, central heating for cold days, and a tea bar.

  'What you got, Lovejoy?' from Basil-the-Donkey, a bloke like a garden gnome, jutting beard and popping waistcoat. His nickname's the only one I can think of that's longer than a given, and about it I'll say nothing more. He's furniture mad, an obsessional keeper of data, photos, auction prices, who-saw-what rumours. He sells news to other dealers.

  The others stilled to hear my answer. I did my shrug, tutted in disgust.

  'Everything's handies these days. Makes me sick.'

  Basil-the-Donkey lost interest. Handies are pocket-sized antiques. Ladies' chatelaines, theatre glasses, jewellery, miniature enamels, anything you can lift unnoticed. Aureole and others became alert. I strolled about.

  'What sort of handies, Lovejoy?'

  Somebody had just had a toasted tea-cake, the selfish swine. Its aroma teased the air. I went giddy from hunger. I breathed through my mouth, trying not to scent other people's calories, that cruellest of all perfumes.

  'Eh?' I was near Alf’s Alcove. 'Oh, some crappy Bowie knife.'

  More of the dealers went back to their nefarious chitchat. A lady was being captivated by a mid-Victorian hourglass on Tick's 'Tockery For All Antiques' stall. Everybody was taking bets by signs on whether she'd buy it. I knew she wouldn't, because she was aligned at forty-five degrees to the stall, her head on the tilt. Women never buy when they stand like that. I spoke softly.

  'Bet you she doesn't, Alf.'

  He signalled across to Gumbo—'African Ethnic Genuines To The Trade'; Gumbo blacks up like a black-and-white music hall minstrel. My heart sank. Alf’d just bet Gumbo that the customer wouldn't, on my tip. 'Bowie knife you say, Lovejoy?'

  'No good, Alf. Made in Sheffield, looks too new.'

  And off I wandered—to be hauled back by a suddenly frantic Alf. I looked at him coldly. I'd teach him to win bets on my say-so, and me famished.

  'Get off my new suit.' I shook myself free. 'It cost a fortune.'

  'Sorry, Lovejoy.' He gave his most ingratiating smile. It was ghastly, as bad as watching Tinker eat. 'Only,' he added casually, 'I've been looking for a, er, fake Bowie knife. In good nick?'

  History's joke is that the old Wild West's Bowie knives were mostly made in Sheffield. Alf was jumping to the conclusion that I didn't know this. In antiques whole fortunes are founded on improbables that suddenly become front racers.

  'Mint,' I grumbled. 'Rum inscription, though.' I glanced at the clock. 'I'll be late.'

  'Got time for a cuppa, Lovejoy?' He did the gruesome trust-me grin that hallmarks the antiques crook. 'Only, I've not seen you lately, wanted a chat . . .' He strove to think up something he wanted to chat about. ' . . . er, Tinker's missing lass.'

  'Okay, but I've not long.' We went to the tea bar and sat at a table. Fake iron gardenware, not antique and therefore superfluous to civilisation. 'You take the blame if Thekla comes hollerin' her head off.'

  'Right!' He got some teas.

  Aureole came across to make sure that he put money in the till and took none out. When the Centre opened, dealers nicked the gelt, so Aureole took it on, paying herself a fifth of the takings. There was a row, of course, with Katherine—Stall No. 12, Edwardian jewellery, writes haiku poetry that gets nowhere, hates Aureole for a number of things I'll mention if I get a minute. I like Katherine. I want Aureole too, of course, but that's not the same thing as liking, is it? Aureole rules.

  'You want, Lovejoy?'

  My throat cleared itself. Aureole's double meanings are famous. And my chest suddenly bonged like a Mandarin's gong from something on her stall.

  'Some tea-cakes and a slice of that, please.'

  'Nothing more?' She started on the grub behind the little counter. She has a woman's knack of being able to cut rolls and butter scones without looking at what she's doing. My Gran could do it, even when telling me off. They're born with the knack.

  'A couple of jam butties, please.'

  She strolled about, set the toaster going. Aureole does a lot of strolling. It's just a means of showing off, not going anywhere.

  The hidden agenda, as folk say these days, is that Aureole runs a chain-dating service. It's our town scandal, the sort nobody's supposed to know but everybody does. It's notorious, as is Aureole. She'd not done a single deal with any female dealer in living memory. The trouble is that sin pays, like crime. Aureole's worth a fortune. She just likes the heady excitement of antiques, scoring against odds. About antiques, she hasn't a clue. About people, she's cannier than most.

  In case you've not heard of it, chain-dating's the rage. Law—that retard in scholastic clothing—is unsure whether to declare it illegal. Moralists fume and councillors rage. The town's two grottie news rags thunder, and reject Aureole's advertisements. Aureole? She swans on, indifferent, making a mint.

  In chain-dating you simply register with Aureole. A fee changes hands, from you to her. Then, on dates you've specified, you are contacted by Aureole's assistants. Everything's clandestine, contact by pigeon post if need be.

  You turn up, meet the lady (or gentleman, mutatis mutandis —also one of Aureole's clients) and enjoy your evening. Everyone rejoices. Okay?

  Yes, because a week later, the same thing. Except this time the partner is different, for Aureole's chain has moved down a link. Every encounter counts one link. It's the miracle of chain-dating: you never, never ever, meet the same lady again. And no lady ever meets the same gentleman. Everyone slips, link by link, along the dating chain. See the consequences? Novelty is all. It's the modern way, disposable dating. In fact it's so frigging modern it's redundant. Me? I think they're off their heads.

  East Anglia can't decide whether Aureole's a whore, a madam, or a social service ministering to the emotionally disadvantaged.

  'Alf?
The till, please,' Aureole called.

  'I put in!' Alf gave back indignantly.

  'Two teas, when I'm doing Lovejoy all our supplies?'

  ‘I’ll get it.' Alf went, grousing.

  Aureole strolled over with some apple pie. I started to wolf it. She laughed, ruffled my thatch.

  'Never not hungry, are you, Lovejoy?'

  It's all right for Aureole, who doesn't eat much. I can never work out why they admire appetites so. My Gran used to admire me eating, like I was some carnival. She used to say, 'Better than a repast, watching him go at it.'

  Aureole checked Alf s progress as he scoured his stall for usable coins.

  'You want in yet, Lovejoy?' she asked quietly.

  ‘In?' I was guarded. I'd finished the grub and she'd not yet brought the rest. You can't be too careful.

  'You heard. In my chain.'

  That again. 'No, ta.'

  'Why not?' She spoke softly, enticing. 'You invented the whole system. Remember? Plant the orchard, you deserve some fruit.'

  She wasn't far out. I'd been telling her, a year or so back, how some Birmingham tea-lady had been injured in a set-up car crash for stepping out of line. (A tea-lady's a dealer, either gender, who works for pin/beer money on the side.) Our town has a couple of tea-ladies, who dispense sexual favours to make up their lack of cash when buying antiques. It's fraught, dangerous, but you can't warn folk who don't heed.

  Foolishly, I'd been explaining the tea-ladies' scheme to Aureole.

  'Say a customer wants an Ince corner cupboard,' I'd said, making it simple. Aureole listened, wide of eye. 'The woman dealer hasn't got one to sell. A Brighton dealer, however, has. No deal, right? Now, she guesses that the Brighton dealer, who has the lovely [nee furniture, fancies her. So she meets him one dark night.'

  'What happens?' Aureole's eyes were like saucers.

  'The Brighton dealer sells her the valuable Ince cupboard, cheap. Because . . .'

  'Because she's given him sex!' Aureole cried, ecstatically inventing the wheel.

  'Correct. The lady sells the exquisite pale heartwood Ince cupboard to her customer, and the world wassails. Everybody wants sex, see?'