The Sin Within Her Smile Page 21

  Time was on my side for once. Whatever would happen, couldn’t yet. We had to reach Mynydd Mai first. There my rewards waited: Vana Farahar and the Romano-Celtic lanx. I’d accept them in any order. I settled to the Romany life.

  And watched passing hamlets, cottages, for antiques. Oddly, the most prolific source in the next few days was taverns. The first was a William Adams pottery serving jug, about 1790.1 almost fell into my ale seeing that unbelievably beautiful blue on pearl, displayed up there in a four-ale bar. I didn’t say a word, just pencilled a note in my - Liffy’s - notebook. The same incredible day, I bought for two quid a Swiss fob seal some bloke was wearing as a lapel badge - he’d never tried twisting it (gently!) and realized it was a cunning minuscule musical toy worth a mint.

  Two days later, I pencilled in a 'ring pillar’ in a teashop. An inverted hollow glass cone, on show among fancy modern dross. Trailing design, looking unbelievably clumsy up there on a shelf. But turn it the right way up - point down - and it becomes a beautiful sixth-century drinking vessel. Experts tell us these glasses are pathetic, that the early glassmakers had forgotten Rome’s trick of putting a flat foot on. Codswallop. Their misunderstood shape was deliberate - you can fill it with wine and stick it upright in a sand or clay tray. Ever hopeful, I made a note to offer up to a thousand quid, on IOU, of course. (If you collect these, incidentally, only buy when they have a genuine certificate of dating by infrared spectroscopy - they modify it by Faurier transform interferometry now. God knows how.)

  Pretty soon I’d a list of eleven antiques. Good old Wales. I didn’t tell Meg.

  We were now often passed by odd vehicles. They looked a ghastly

  retreat. Lorries converted to mobile homes, rusting buses, three- wheelers like magnified invalid carriages, and once - I swear - a houseboat swaying dangerously behind a thing like a forklifter. As they careered past in showers of gravel, you could see that children abounded, the females were lithe and straggly, and the blokes ... well. They were either skeletal, smoking, or were replicas of Baptation. Tin cans clattered from windows, pots were emptied as they ground past. Inside seemed a riot. Cheerful, though. Dogs flourished. Motor horns were constant. You could hear one of the vehicles coning three miles off. The way we were heading! I cheered u:

  We reached a nice village only to find Calvin Jones there with his camera-toting serf, Olwen. He was sickeningly ebullient, but now wary.

  ‘Photos, lined here,’ he announced. The villagers eyed us. ‘The mad doctor, too.’ He saw me. ‘We missed somebody last time. Lovejoy’s friend, a loony in a sou’wester.’

  I said amiably, ‘He’s called Boris. You’ll like him.’

  ‘And, Olwen. This grass lunatic can be eating the horses’ food, right? Will he do that to cue, somebody?’

  I came grinning. ‘You want the mad baby, too?’

  Luke arranged the caravans with the local bobby pointing. The village green was minute. Stalls already occupied most of it. Meg was at the reins of her caravan, Preacher likewise. It was a good opportunity.

  ‘Hey!’ Calvin laughed. ‘He’s not so crazy!’

  Olwen went frantic with lenses and camera boxes. I beckoned Calvin, grinning my idiot’s grin, and pointed to Pulse. ‘How about here, mister? I pulled the reins. ‘It’s funny. Can I be in the picture?’ What happened wasn’t my fault. Tudor was with me. On the road I’d taught him a sponge ball game. Flick it, and Tudor’d leap. He always yelped as the ball emerged. A dog without sheep’s bored. It was just bad luck that the sponge ball accidentally fell out of my pocket as Golden Boy Calvin came smiling by the near front wheel. It was even worse luck that it bounced against Pulse’s back left leg. Tudor barked, leapt excitedly forward on to Pulse.

  You couldn’t blame the nag. It must have been thinking it had done its job, dragged that lousy caravan over hill and dale. A few minutes’ rest, and a mad dog scrabbles at its haunch. Pulse veered, neighing, bounced up and lashed its back hoof, dragged the caravan so the wheel grazed my knee. It really stung. A split second, that was all.

  Calvin screeched, eardrums perforating everywhere. Pulse’s hoof cracked his leg in mid-thigh. I gaped, because a docile nag like Pulse, well, you don’t think, do you? But it did. Calvin hurtled past, his foot almost catching my ear, thoughtless sod. He might have brained me. What with Tudor wagging, the ball in his mouth, and the caravan jerking forward, Pulse plunging, my knee stinging, Calvin screeching like a party balloon, it was mayhem.

  Luke was there in a trice, shoving me aside and catching Pulse’s reins. I sat moaning, Tudor wriggling. My knee was almost nearly in real pain. Calvin was still sounding off, selfish burke. If I’d not moved smartish, I’d have caught it instead of him.

  ‘No,’ Luke was saying. ‘It’s fine. All in hand.’ .

  He was talking to Boris, reporting in, you might say. Boris had appeared, but now ducked back. I heard Luke address Meg, who was shouting as usual. Preacher sang ‘Lead Kindly Light’.

  Things settled. I was a picture of agony. Rita emerged, Corinda jubilantly applauded with laughter, Arthur started bawling for minions to fawn, and old Mr. Lloyd started taking every second item from a haberdasher’s. Duchess keened.

  ‘Ambulance!’ somebody called.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I told Rita. ‘I don’t need an ambulance.’

  ‘Let me look, Lovejoy.’ She slit my trouser leg with scissors, real skill. Humphrey knelt by Calvin Jones who was retching, making a real meal of it while I was practically dying.

  ‘A graze, Lovejoy,’ Rita said. ‘The skin’s not broken.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ I shot back, narked. ‘Should I have had my leg off then?’ People are really hard-hearted. Luke was standing there. ‘I know. All my fault. Go on, start.’

  ‘That dog,’ Luke said. Tudor hadn’t got rid of the ball, stupid mongrel. A dog’s supposed to be man’s friend. I decided to blame Tudor, because people like dogs.

  ‘Tudor was playing. I didn’t see what happened.’ I peered about. ‘Did anybody see what happened?’

  ‘That crazy bastard made the horse kick me,’ Calvin cut in. Everybody was paying him attention. ‘Deliberate.’

  Well, that did it. I erupted. ‘I saved your life, you stupid sod! He poked Pulse. You can’t blame the horse. It was him, the stupid - ’ Humphrey was binding a walking stick to Calvin’s leg.

  ‘Lovejoy. A word.’ Luke stepped away.

  ‘Help me up, somebody.’ I gave a realistic groan but nobody offered. It just shows. Weep loudest for sympathy. Save a bloke’s life, you get disdain. Even Rita had gone to help Humphrey, unsympathetic cow.

  ‘Broken,’ Humphrey announced. ‘Hospital.’

  ‘Here, Doc,’ I offered helpfully. ‘Doesn’t that stick go higher up? A first-aid lady once told me - ’

  ‘Lovejoy,’ Luke said. I hobbled over. Meg came up, her features contorted with rage. I felt really down. There’s no pleasing some people.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ she began.

  ‘Excuse me, Meg.’ I was determined not to be scapegoat for the nth time. ‘Calvin deliberately - ’

  Meg’s idea of tact was to shriek louder. ‘I resign here and now! I will not tolerate ...’

  Take the rest as said. Righteous endeavour (a.k.a. Meg) against crass stupidity (a.k.a. me). She flounced off to the phone to call an air strike.

  ‘Quite honestly, Luke,’ I admitted, ‘I’m not sorry to see her go. She’ll never change if she lives a million years - ’

  ‘Lovejoy.’ I swear the bloke hadn’t taken a blind bit of notice. I hate people who can’t be persuaded. ‘No more doing things off your own bat.’

  ‘Me?’ I was frankly amazed. ‘All I did was - ’

  ‘Secondly, leave Boris alone, Humphrey, Rita, Phillida.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great!’ I said quiet, because I get narked too. ‘Your naval officer is incognito because of some stable love with Her Royal - ’

  Suddenly I was on the grass, and him saying in a calm voice, ‘It’s his epilepsy, Constable. Stan
d well back, please, no fuss ,..’ And the world was black with dots because he had hold of my neck, the frigging maniac. I patted the grass twice, wrestler’s submission. Slowly air wheezed into me. I coughed, came dizzily to. Tudor barked happily. He thought it some new game and crouched, tongue out.

  ‘He’ll have a headache presently,’ Luke was assuring some elderly dame keen to put an umbrella handle under my tongue. ‘Lovejoy’s seizures are short,’ Luke assured her, ‘but thank you.’

  He waited until the ambulance hiked Calvin Jones off. Olwen would get ballocked for not getting it on celluloid, sure as eggs. She went weeping and scattering equipment. I saw one little lad walking off examining an enormous camera. I felt my neck. People’s intolerance.

  Luke crouched by me. ‘Boris was aide to a certain royal family.’ I listened. Luke was starting to scare me. A ‘certain’, though? How many had we got? ‘Boris acquired notoriety from certain allegations. You don’t repeat tabloid guesses. Follow?’

  ‘One maintains a certain silence.’ He did not smile, which was okay. He didn’t relax, which wasn’t.

  ‘No more fun.’ I shook my head. The bloke was off his frigging trolley. ‘You saved Humphrey at the chapel. You twice saved Boris from reaching the front pages, by thieving cameras and breaking Jones’ leg. And you got Rita from under. But no more interference will be tolerated.’ He sounded like a headmaster, dry, omnipotent.

  ‘Right, Luke.’

  ‘Henceforward, you ask. Every time, every yard. You return within a stipulated time. You report every word, every person encountered.’

  ‘Yes, Luke.’

  ‘Lovejoy?’ I looked up slowly so my neck didn’t fall off. ‘You have been warned.’

  Disconsolately I rubbed my leg. Everybody would come out of this okay except me. At first I’d assumed Luke was along to keep Boris out of the press’s excoriating eyes while the royal scandal cooled and Her Highness got her Brownie pack badges back. If he was in with the Arden-Farahar-Mrs. Divine pack I was sunk. Who’d notice one Lovejoy less?

  Answer: Tinker, Dolly, the landlord of the Tudor Arms, a crooked golf club committee who happened to be working a shuff - as we call clandestine swap-and-drop theft. And, for perhaps one millisec, Bap’s travelling tribe.

  And me. Mustn’t forget me.

  When the fuss died down, I wandered about lost. Phillida’d taken Arthur to Humphrey. The little turncoat glimpsed me and cackled. A few people came to stare. I had my menagerie feeling, would have scratched under my arms but Luke’d have got mad. Meg swept off in a taxi. A travellers’ bus creaked its way through.

  Children were grouped about a small booth. I went to see. A puppeteer, real genuine limewood marionettes, too, none of your hideous plastic replicas. They looked aged.

  Dunno about you, but Punch and Judy shows give me the willies. I mean, the baby, crocodile, hanging Jack Ketch, the policeman truncheoning hell out of everyone. It’s not a laugh a minute, though the children fall about. And the voices are enough to turn your stomach, that evil-sounding thing these puppeteers use.

  Before I go on, I wasn’t sulking. I don’t. I’m a realist, out for myself. It was my job, for God’s sake. Nobody owed me a living. As I stood there watching Punch and Judy, it came to me that maybe I should cut and run. Meg had, because her publicity scheme had suffered a setback. Luke had let her go. That was quite odd. Superfluous old me was chained, yet essential Meg sweeps out unhindered? Even more stranger.

  Looking back, I waved to the caravans. Luke appeared in a flash. I wrote a great question mark in the air. He nodded. I could attend a children’s booth, then, nothing too subversive. I stayed in sight, only forty yards off, and watched the show, wincing as the noose jerked Jack Ketch’s body. The children howled with laughter. I closed my eyes as the crocodile’s jaws opened ... I walked, shutting the screams of laughter out. Jesus, but comedy has a lot to answer for.

  The collection was taken by a girl. I put in, last of the dissolving crowd.

  ‘Liked your show,’ I said. ‘Your bloke got time for a word?’

  ‘Thanks.’ She waited until the children had gone. ‘Da?’

  The old bloke came out. I shook his hand. ‘Lovejoy, antiques. Masterpiece. Real limewood, eh? Brilliant!’ I talked of acts about East Anglia.

  He was pleased, shoved back his thin grey hair. ‘Kind, bach. Getting long in the tooth.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m on the lookout for somebody to take it on. Too much telly, computer games.’ He nodded at the lass. ‘Ceinwen’s not the voice - women haven’t, see. And children aren’t children more than a few minutes.’ ‘You’re right there.’ I explained how I was accompanying inmates from a psychiatric unit. ‘We need people like you.’

  ‘Bless you, bach,’ he said, laughing. ‘Hear that, Ceinwen? We’re the only indigenous people for miles!’

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘Always have. I do the villages, field days.’

  ‘Now, Da.’ Ceinwen’s money was paltry. ‘We do all right.’ ‘Lovely place,’ I said admiringly, thinking the opposite.

  ‘Wales is a man’s dream,’ he said. Dylan Williams, going on eighty, and Ceinwen, his granddaughter, who pulled a face as the old gent waxed lyrical. They lived on a smallholding. ‘Dolwar Fach’s been my home for all but a few war years, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Near Mynydd Mai?’ I’d never heard of Dolwar Fach, couldn’t pronounce it if I had. ‘The travelling folk are gathering.’ Feelers, always feelers, when desperate.

  His face clouded, Ceinwen snorted in anger. ‘Lovejoy, bach, who’d want to roam, to prove yourself aimless?’

  Ceinwen shot at her granddad, ‘Ruining Wales, ruining the kingdom! Despoiling fields! All take, no give! Drawing unemployment money! They descend like Philistines . .Her diatribe was a Sunday fire-and-brimstone. I switched off, but kept nodding, while old Dylan tried to mollify her. Their ancient controversy.

  ‘Ceinwen has to cope. Things go missing.’

  ‘Things don’t go missing, Da,’ Ceinwen corrected, stung. ‘Stolen is the word!’ She gave him a mouthful of Welsh.

  ‘Your farm must be lovely,’ I said wistfully. ‘My granddad farmed, Lancashire fells.’

  ‘You’ll be near us, Lovejoy,’ Old Dylan said, bless his heart. A real trouper. ‘A fellow Tudor! You would be welcome - not that we have any antiques. Mynydd Mai is the next valley.’

  ‘Thanks, Dylan.’ I stifled my joy. ‘I shall.’

  Ceinwen was less delighted. She started to talk him out of it, the woman’s gambit, remembering the million things they had to do.

  Hastily I interrupted. ‘Your show has opportunities. I’ve a couple of ideas. Talent’s always underpaid.’

  That shut her up. She’d sussed me out as a chiseller and fly-by- night. Now, she hesitated long enough for Dylan to give me directions.

  I helped my new friends load the booth into their old Austin, and waved them off. Then reported to Luke. I bored him witless with the structure of marionettes, puppets, the preparation of limewood, the prices in recent sales. He broke after ten minutes, told me to get gone. I asked could I phone a lady. He said he’d listen. The swine actually did.

  With effort, I got Ted to take a message for Dolly. I actually went red dictating it. ‘Write it exact, Ted,’ I grumbled, ‘in case Tinker’s sloshed.’ It was simple: ‘Sorry, but please come if you can with love.’ It set Ted laughing. I said I’d kill him if he told the lads. I asked Luke could I let her know where to come. He said no.

  Ted asked me, ‘What if her husband answers, Lovejoy?’ A compassionate soul. ‘No Welsh girls, then?’

  You can’t telephone a sneer. I hung up, stumped off hoping I’d got the acting right for once.

  Luke seemed satisfied. We hit the road, after pausing fifteen minutes while a column of crumbling vehicles reeled through. And two tinkers’ donkey carts, I was pleasead to see.

  ‘Tomorrow’s the last lap,’ Phillida told me. Rita nursed Arthur, the lucky little swine warbling on her lap. ‘Will it be as nice
as they say?’

  ‘Hope so,’ I said. Humphrey had gone to drive Meg’s waggon. ‘Look, love. Why don’t you get Gwyn to come?’

  ‘Oh, Lovejoy,’ she said, hopeless, ‘don’t you think I haven’t tried? I’ve begged.’

  I timed the suggestion. ‘Maybe you haven’t offered the right.. .’ I coughed delicately. They don’t like the word bait except in fun, and this was no laughing matter, God’s truth.

  ‘How, Lovejoy?’ She turned her helpless stare on me.

  ‘Well,’ I said, my voice down. Rita was indoors, Arthur screaming with laughter. ‘Gwyn’s an antique dealer.’

  ‘Yes!’ She was all eager. ‘He’s really quite expert.’

  I winced. If Gwyn was ‘expert’, I knew budgerigars that would qualify. ‘Say there’s an antique here that’s priceless. Tell him you’ve got it.’

  ‘I’ll phone, Lovejoy!’ she cried, filling with hope. ‘Once he’s away from that cow of a wife, I’ll keep him.’

  ‘No, love.’ I looked grim. Such weighty matters. ‘Phone a message through some intermediary. Then he’ll come, see?’

  We hit on the right phraseology. I explained that Luke had placed me under restriction. She was thrilled, but I was a bit downcast. Phillida was just my type, and here I was bringing her other bloke in. Doing everybody else good turns. I’m what saints are made of.

  If God was fair, he’d bring Dolly stuttering to my rescue. I needed her now more than ever, and it wasn’t only lust. An hour later Phillida phoned a message on Gwyn’s machine, carefully reading out what I’d written. It was pretty good. Luke gave his imprimatur.

  That night we camped by a watermill, drawing up the caravans in the mill yard. It rained heavily. The old waterwheel tried to make a go of it, but failed as it obviously had for a century. Everybody slept soundly except me. I listened to the water tumbling over the paddles, the rotting wood striving to get free. The scene was so pretty - a millwheel like they sing about on music halls. But me and the old mill knew what it felt like.

  Next morning Corinda surprised me. Any other dawn she’d have abandoned her clothes, if any, and done a fandango in the mill- stream. Boris was his reticent self. Humphrey seemed jaded. Little Arthur bawled with gusto, of course, but Phillida snapped at Rita who wept alone and shunned breakfast. Preacher prayed on his knees, a figure of the past. Mr. Lloyd was fetched out, sat staring, his face a-dribble. Duchess had fouled herself, and took some cleaning up. Phillida snappishly gave help. I warmed enough water to see Duchess was washed and dressed. Luke made eggs, bread, cereals, milk, said little. Exactly as camping in God’s clean air usually is.