The Lies of Fair Ladies Read online

  "You two conspirators done?" Eleanor came swishing in, carrying a tray. I think she hears everything, and pretends not to.

  "Yes, Ellie." Jeff smiled, as if she could see him. Did she feel smiles? "Lovejoy's come to warn us. No unwise investments.''

  I felt rather than saw her hesitation, speaking of feelings. She said evenly, “Thank you, Lovejoy."

  And the chat turned from antiques to innocence, which is never worth reporting. Over and out.

  The Great Marvella and her talking snake is (you'll see why the singular in a sec) an institution. We've had our wizards, sure. But TGM and HTS hit us like a typhoon. Nobody quite believed her, until they actually clapped eyes on. Then, worryingly, some people did. And she was made.

  Jeff dropped me at the door, by St. Botolph's Priory, one of the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit. I could see torchlights among the gravestones—a local amateur drama, rehearsing towards catastrophe. I bumped into Acker Kirwin. He's an affluent buyer from Nine Arches, village of specialists in tax evasion. He carried something that pulled my bellrope. My chest went boiiiing.

  "Acker!" I cried, shoving him into the lamplight to see. "Great to see you! Musical box? Nicole Freres?"

  "Shhh, Lovejoy, you burke!" Acker's the only dealer who always sounds furtive. He wore an alpaca overcoat, lined by camel velvet. Done up like a dog's dinner. Women say he's a handsome devil, with his Errol Flynn tash. To add insult to injury, he deals money in your hand. I don't like him. He has connections among the grim, same as others.

  "Is it mint?" A musical box in mint condition's worth four times the amount you'd get if it has a tooth missing from its comb—the metal bit that plucks the tune from prongs on the revolving drum.

  This box was just over two feet long, the right size. Get one with a fat cylinder, with the names of classical pieces on the lid's escutcheon, and you've found a genuine long-playing "overture" box. Top value. They are wound by a simple key.

  "Yours for a year's wages, Lovejoy."

  "Eh?" I gaped at the price. We talk in fractions of the nation's average annual wage—monetary values being the shifting sands they are. I mean. King William III—of William and Mary fame— bought all Kensington Palace for fourteen thousand quid. See what I mean? "That's robbery!"

  Acker sniggered. "You know it's a steal, Lovejoy." Acker means a.k.a., "also known as." He uses aliases.

  If he wasn't going to sell me the Nicole Freres box for a song I'd annoy him back.

  "Marvella in? Had a chat with her snake?''

  "Not seen her, Lovejoy,” Acker said, and strolled off.

  Odd. The only doorway with a light on was The Great Marvella's. I'd seen him emerge from it. I'd never heard so many lies in one day before. A record even for the antiques game.

  A buzz on the door's voice box got an aloof "Who?"

  "Never mind who's out here. Veil," I rasped back. "Who've you got in there?"

  The grille laughed fit to burst. "Geronimo's caged, Lovejoy. Promise."

  "Okay," I said, peeved. All very well for the silly cow to laugh, but a snake's a snake. "Good evening, Marvella," I began again, politely. "It's Lovejoy. May I come in?"

  Five

  Stairs are the most boring structures on earth. You can't do a thing except go up or down. Sometimes what's at the top is less than pleasant. I mean Geronimo, not The Great Marvella.

  Her upstairs flat is over a florist's, facing the chip shop. (Fantle's chippie. Not bad, but it's gone curry-with-pasta and other uncontrollables. Plastic spoons are the end of civilization.) It was still open. I'd no money. The aroma wafted in after me and clung. A pause is always wise at a top step.

  "Hello?" I knocked. I'm pathetic, but snakes are definitely not my scene. Although I remember an auction duel over a stuffed cobra that brought the house down. "Come in. Coward."

  Her voice is unnaturally whispery, a come-on, maybe past trauma. You don't ask.

  Slo-o-o-wly I entered. There she was, sixty inches of female, flowing dark hair, dressed only in a man's buttonless jacket. That's only. Not even shoes. She was reading elegantly on a sofa. She pointed to the table.

  Geronimo's cage, Geronimo coiled inside. I sweated relief. "Look, Veil. Can't you put him away?"

  She raised her eyebrows. "What are you suggesting?"

  Cages look secure. But snakes can wriggle, can't they? And climb. Ugh.

  ''Don't muck about. Lock him away. Veil."

  She asked, "What d'you think, Geronimo?"

  The snake replied, "If he'll come in with me, Marvella."

  "Geronimo agrees, Lovejoy. On one condition—"

  "I heard, I heard." It's only Veil's voice-throwing act. She says she was on the professional stage, really quite famous. We don't believe her. Ventriloquists aren't, are they? I mean, you can always see their lips move. They're embarrassing. The audience all want the act to end.

  "Going to stand there all evening, Lovejoy?"

  There's nowhere to sit. A straight chair, opposite her couch. Perching on the table was definitely out. She has a bedroom and a kitchen, sumptuous by comparison. But this was her intro room for clients. She tells paranormal fortunes in her inner sanctum, the Marvella Revivification Clinic. She revivifies by massage and asking Geronimo what next, and other symbolically penetrating questions. Unbelievably, people actually pay money. They bring real problems— about Auntie's cancer, should the daughter get the cottage, is he sincere, the wide world's moans. The snake diagnoses. Veil interprets, to satisfying massage.

  Many antique dealers, Connie among them, have regular appointments. My reason for risking Geronimo.

  "No, Veil. I'm just going." I shuffled uncomfortably. She was all but naked, the big jacket hopelessly inadequate. "Heard of any big antique scam, love?"

  "My clients' disclosures are confidential, Lovejoy."

  That old one. Everybody—insurance companies, charities, governments—claims your secrets are "confidential." They mean they stick your precious secrets into files clerks read for a laugh when the office is slack.

  "Did Acker Kirwin say owt?"

  Puzzlement on her brow. Quite good acting. Maybe she had been on the stage after all.

  "Come to bed and I'll tell you, Lovejoy."

  "Er, ta. Veil. But I'm . . ."

  "Running for a train?" Getting mad. Not my fault. I'm the one should be narked, not her.

  It was from a time she and I nearly made smiles. We'd met at an auction. I'd actually sold her a lovely circular supper canterbury, 1810, beautiful mahogany though not Sheraton. I'd mended the railing round the top myself. Four legs, and very rare, with two drawers in the railed drum layer between the legs. Castors original. She'd got in my way when I carried it into Wittwoode's. I got narked. She made slighting remarks back. She and I swiftly became polarized as well as passionate—until I knocked over a cage on her bed table, reached down to pick it up. And found myself staring into the stony eyes of Geronimo while his tongue flicked in and out. I was off like a cork from a bottle. I’d babbled, hurtling out of the bedroom door, that I was running for a train. Veil's hated me ever since.

  "Sorry, Veil." I backed out, eyes on Geronimo.

  "Don't be stupid, Lovejoy." She rose, her bottom dragging my eyes. She strolled indolently to a wall hutch—modern crud, veneered chipboard—and poured some wine. "I thought it was only me scared you."

  "I’m not scared." I declined the wine. "Got anything to eat? Snake and onions?"

  "Cut that out, Lovejoy," the snake said. Veil's throat moved, her lips stiff. I wish she wouldn't do it.

  "The chippie's open," Veil said. "Nip out and get some. We can chat."

  "No. I won't bother."

  Her eyes shrewded up. "Broke, Lovejoy?"

  Women nark me. Nothing but criticism. Like when you're ill. It's a real excuse for them to go to town bullying you back to health.

  "No, I'm not." Her accusation stung.

  "No," she agreed quickly. "I know you're not broke. I meant you'd forgotten your wallet. Look
." She brightened. "I've not had anything yet. I'm peckish. Would you slip over to Fantle's? Fish and chips twice."

  I shot out with her gelt. This was lucky. If she hadn't been starving ... I ran across the rain-glistening black road, and wolfed two lots of chips, brown sauce, before returning sedately with a scalding hot newspaper parcel for us both. Geronimo watched as I dined regally from the fat-soaked paper. Veil luckily had lost her appetite, so I had hers as well. Anyway, women never eat much.

  Veil watched me nosh with that patient detachment women bring to observe appetites. She was kneeling revealingly.

  "Geronimo has to go away, Lovejoy. For a day or two."

  I paused. This was worth thought. "Got relatives?"

  "His medical's due." She was smiling. God, but women are cruel. I mean, it's basically unfair for a gorgeous bird undressed only in a jacket to sit near when you're full.

  "I thought he looked peaky."

  "Nerve," Geronimo said, through Veil's tight lips.

  Even tight lips aren't fair in these circumstances. I mean, tight lips make you think of loosening them, and what with.

  “That rich bitch Mrs. Vervain left your scene, Lovejoy?''

  ''Who?'' I never blab. It's the road to dusty death.

  Veil nodded slowly, her smile returning. I screwed up the empty newspapers. Actually, this was another fluke. Because if Veil wouldn't disclose what Acker Kirwin was up to, maybe she would if I stayed a while? But I could only come, so to speak, when Geronimo wasn't here.

  "When do you go?" Like a fool, I asked the snake.

  It flicked its reptilian tongue, dead eyes swiveling my way. Said, "Soon. What's on your mind?"

  "Nothing," I told it quickly, and smiled weakly at Veil, who smiled back and handed me the wine, which I took.

  The rest of the evening was uneventful. I got nothing out of Veil about Acker or Connie, though I tried. I left, backing round the wall as if pinned in a searchlight, to keep clear of Geronimo. Veil waved bye-bye, her breasts making me groan with lust as I hopped it. I'd promised to come next evening for supper. We'd be alone.

  Outside in the cool drizzle, the shoe-black night sheened on the town like polish. I drew breath. A motor swished past, spraying my legs. Fantle's was shut. The florist's was lit by a single fluorescent strip. Farther down, the night was lit by an orange sky glow from the town's ring road.

  The bus station's a couple of hundred yards, through a narrow gateway in the Roman wall. I went along the alley that passes the priory ruins.

  "Is that you, Lovejoy?"

  "Martha?" I couldn't see a damned thing. They've cut streetlights for efficiency, so we can all break our legs after dusk. "How's the show?"

  She's a pleasant lass. Acts with the St. Hilda Players. A pleasant lot on the whole, though each'd kill to get the lead part. Summer performances in the ruins with floodlights. She has a boutique out in the villages, and a husband.

  "Fine, thanks. We're doing Titus Andronicus."

  "Comedy? I'll come."

  She put her arm through mine. We walked along. "Why do you, Lovejoy? Pretend you're thick. I've seen you, creeping in."

  "I can't afford a ticket. Who can?"

  "Our prices are cheap!" The actress's dictum: It's proper, charging people to admire me.

  "You're rolling, love. I’ve heard about your new benefactress. Cassandra Clark, isn't it? You should make the plays free.''

  And suddenly it fell into place. Acker hadn't been coming out of The Great Marvella's doorway. He'd been ducking in, hoping not to be seen, when Jeff's car had dropped me off. He hadn't come from the shuttered pawnshop, Fantle's chippie, the florist's. The only other place was the priory ruins. And the rehearsal.

  "Just because we've found somebody public-spirited in this God-forsaken town, Lovejoy! People are unwilling to pay to see a wonderful show. Yet they watch endless grot on telly—" Et yawnsome cetera.

  “I agree, love," I said.

  Astonishment stopped her tirade. "You do? I knew you approved of us, really."

  "Cassandra Clark there tonight, was she? Only, I saw Acker Kirwin take an antique ..."

  "Came briefly." Martha's tones had the reverence actresses reserve for people who put up money. "Cassandra's wonderful. She never interferes with the artistic side. A true philanthropist."

  We entered the bus station to the sound of heavenly violins, Martha waxing eloquent about philanthropy and me thinking there's no such thing. Waiting for the last bus out to our respective villages, I got a rundown of those present at rehearsal, and the loan of the fare home. Martha didn't explain why a lovely rich lady would pour money into shamateur drama in an ancient ruined priory.

  Bits were adding up. I wished Prammie Joe was on the phone, or that message bottles flowed from my river directly into his. But it was late. Countryside frightens me at the best of times, let alone when bats do fly and trees start watching you. So I didn't go to Prammie's marsh. Wrong again.

  Six

  The day dawned with brilliance. One of those that makes you understand why some folk actually like countryside. I've even heard some take country holidays. A white frost, hard as iron, the grass stiff with the spittle of a full moon, sky blue as childhood, air still. The birds were nodding the ground as usual. A squirrel fooling about, dashing along branches. I yawned at the window, perished with cold.

  Telephones are counterproductive. Their absence is the same. I considered this philosophy while cooking my breakfast. The swine had cut me off, non-payment of debts to robbers. The gas and electricity were temporarily off—a disagreement about fiscal policy with energy barons. I used my homemade stove. A tin bowl half filled with sand. Put in a little oil or petrol, drop in a match. It woomphs into flame. Perch on it your pan, containing margarine, sliced tomatoes. Bread, and dine like a king.

  The trick's dangerous, so I do it between two bricks in the garden—a wilderness of fecund greenery engulfing my cottage. The birds stay away.

  I washed—standing at the sink on a towel to protect the valuable Wilton carpet (joke), toweled myself dry, gasping at the cold. Cold permeates like nothing else. Odd, that. Warmth doesn't, so why should cold? The bare flags set me shivering. My underpants were dry, thank God. Socks were barely damp, though frigid with that cunning old cold. I was down to my last tea bag. An apple—plenty of those—and I was off to my daily slog singing that Tallis Sanctus everybody else gets wrong.

  My garage is deep in the foliage near my back door. It functions without any modern aid—the only way to fake antiques. The greatest workshop of the Western world, sez I.

  It was a relief, getting back to real life. Joan Vervain had taken it out of me. Drinkwater was worrying, though the Cornish Place robbery was more recycling than theft. I mean, our local councilors don't own the buildings, do they? They only look after them for us people. If they can't be bothered, they must take the consequences.

  This train of thought narked me, as I set up the lathe. I’d make an issue out of it next local election, and vote against everybody.

  My lathe's a dentist's old treadle drill. I use a Singer strap, gears from a machine spindle. I've given up sitting on a stool when turning wood. You have to move about. I was repairing/restoring/ faking a small tripod table. Not the most profitable antique, because small genuine antique tables are still cheap. It's a question of the things that can be done in the way they were done that matters. A decent fake has dignity. It's trying to be as superb as Hepplewhite.

  This tripod table had been shattered during its theft from a Lowestoft antique dealer's. Not by me, I hasten to add. There was only the top and tripod feet left. The single pillar was broken to smithereens as the lads hoofed it. A tripod table's so simple it sounds cheap, but don't be fooled. No antique is easy.

  A woman was watching me. I didn't look, kept going.

  Tripod tables—actually split three ways between me, Desdemona Sands from Rowhedge, and her cousin Luke Brennon the thief—are simple. Flat circular top, stem, three small feet radiating
out. It sounds as easy, doesn't it? Dealers still speak of a "claw foot" table, as in the eighteenth century. Nowadays you don't hear that term. The public gets confused. (The feet are usually plain, turned in, smooth, or merely bulbous. They just resemble a bird's claw.) Mahogany's the wood. My job was to make a new pillar, to be its single leg. It would look 1780, give or take a yard. I'd got a piece of mahogany, brand-new, uncured. Which needn't stop you nowadays. The woman still didn't speak.

  There's this stuff called P.E.G. Means polyethyleneglycol. Fakers call it peg. You put granules into water. Drop in your new wood, and forget about it—two days to six weeks; depends on thickness. Mop it with a dishcloth and start work. Simple. The new wood becomes easy to work, hardly ever flakes, and planes like a dream. Normally you need eight years of careful curing in the open air. Monks used to pee on new timber in lined pits, but they didn't have P.E.G. to speed things along. I'd pegged this mahogany piece, and it was ready.

  Odd feeling, to be lathe-turning new wood when it feels old. Slippery, too smooth, yet the chuck bites as if the wood . . .

  "No tongue, missus?" I hate creeping people.

  "Lovejoy, isn't it?"

  Cassandra Clark, as ever was. I sighed to a stop, elbows on the work. I approve of lovely women. They bring a glow to, well, a drossy workshop. Hair lustrous, skin blooming, eyes to dazzle. Clothes that make other women swivel with that up-down rake of instant envy. Which raised an all-important question.

  "To whom might I have the pleasure of addressing of?"

  She smiled. "Where are they, Lovejoy?"

  Stumped, first go. I thought hard. The place was bare except for tools. Maybe she wanted a fake, I thought hopefully.

  "They're here, love." It was true. Whatever I had was here.

  "Your antiques, Lovejoy. The ones you make. Fake?" She smiled, not hard to watch. "Create?"

  That was more like it. "It's this tripod table."

  She inspected my crude lathe. "Ordinary mahogany, Lovejoy?"

  This ignorance is typical. Untrained, unlearned, unread. Hoodlums have more sense.

  "There's no such thing. Mahogany's more than sixty different kinds. Matching them up is a pig. Three genera are mahogany proper. Others say only Swietenia is the true stuff—Cuba, Honduras, Guatemala. It's unbelievably rare."