Ten Word Game (29 page)

“I lost over seven hundred!”

“Give up, love. You’re worse than Holly.”

“Holly Sago won last night, the bitch,” Lady Vee said, with all the caring compassion of a gambler who hears her friend has won.

“She’s better than you,” I said.

“Right!” Lady Vee shrieked, causing heads to turn in the lounge. “I’ll challenge her! Tonight!”

“Go on, waste your money, silly cow,” I said,
off-hand
. “Serve you right.”

“It’s my reputation…” etc, etc.

She kept on. We were assembling to disembark. I got a small bottle of water. My gear caused smiles. Les Renown and Amy were whispering at the far end, looking at me. Les, always a scream, pulled his lapels to show he found my worn jacket a laugh.

Ivy entered with that Victor bloke. I felt jealous. She sat without a glance, reading some catalogue. I saw with relief she had the same colour of sticker on as we, for the Yusupov Palace tour. The tickets were handed me by Lady Vee’s maid as I wheeled Diamond Lil to the Atrium. In one sock I had extra dollars. My mouth was dry. I felt full of panic, curt with the world, but ready to go.

“You’re not usually surly, Lovejoy,” her ladyship said.

“I put up with you, so I’m a frigging saint.”

She fell quiet, waiting for the exodus. Half of me wanted to leap to the quayside and sprint to the
airport
, assuming there was one. I had Ivy’s little fold of money and photocopies in my trouser pocket. The other half of me was curious to see what the scam really was. Bannerman and Cynthia were just getting their stickers. He gave me a wink. Cynthia’s stare was
compelling but I glanced away.

Millicent and Jim waved at us as they joined Billy and Kevin who arrived together, surprise surprise. Delia Oakley came over and said hello. Her pal Fern was going to a palace fifteen miles away, she told us.

“Fern hates all that Rasputin business.”

“He was assassinated in the Yusupov Palace,” Lady Vee announced with glee. “Will we see the
bloodstains
?”

“Can I help with the wheelchair, Lovejoy?” Delia offered.

“Ta.”

Tour B2 was called. We shuffled down the corridor and through the security bleeps. I felt a pang when passing the Ghurka checkpoint, as if it was farewell. They were slick with Lady Vee’s chair, slotting it into some lifting device on the coach’s side.

“Pass this note to Holly, Lovejoy,” Lady Vee said with sly malice, “seeing you’re silly about her.”

“Shut your teeth, you owd crab.”

Delia looked sideways at that. Maybe it was my tone. Ivy and Victor Lustig boarded last, just as I was getting worried. I had the passengers pass the note along. Holly read it and beamed at Lady Vee, thumbs up. The gambling challenge was on. I noticed Natasha – lo and behold, our courier for the day, summery in a daffodil-yellow suit – pause and read the note,
laughing
with Holly. Nothing escaped Natasha’s notice.

I couldn’t help asking, “What’s the bet?”

“All debts. Shops, casino, incidental expenses.”

“Don’t come crying to me.”

“You’re our antiques man, Lovejoy.” She plucked my sleeve. “Will you get me Hoyle’s famous book?”

“Edmund Hoyle’s
A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist
came out in 1742, love, and is as rare as unicorn horn. It’ll cost you a world cruise.”

“That’s ridiculous! It’s so small! I saw one in a library.” And on she whinged, the grumble of a
collector
wanting priceless antiques for a farthing.

Natasha meanwhile was deafening us through her microphone about Rasputin and his baleful influence on the Tzar and the Tzarina. I didn’t want to hear about killing today, ta very much, so I just looked out at beautiful St Petersburg, where the giant Peter the Great ran naked along the banks of the Neva through the snows after his banya. I was still smarting from my own banya. Perhaps that was the idea, but I’d rather have the toxins.

“The Yusupov Palace,” Natasha thundered through her echoey microphone, “was where Prince Yusupov, the husband of the Tzar’s niece, killed Rasputin. A Flagellant monk, Rasputin taught that holiness comes only through sexual exhaustion. His name means
He-who
-is-debauched…”

Eventually we passed a market, the next street the Moskovsky. Even I could make that out by saying the letters over to myself. It was at a wide junction with shops on every corner, a smart part of town.

Almost immediately our coach turned off into
gardens
with a small lake dotted with islands. It looked rural. My spirits rose. The canal beyond was within running distance, say for a fleeing man. From the busy square to the Yusupov Palace on the canal was no more than a couple of hundred paces. I could do that.

And no Amy on our coach, no Purser Mangot, no Les Renown with his tiresome ten-liners. We alighted, my spirits wondering if it was safe now to peer out. I got hold of Lady Vee’s wheelchair, all but shoving Delia Oakley away in my eagerness. Gallant to the last, I realised I could use Lady Vee as a shield if somebody tried to gun me down.

The Palace was exquisite. I wondered about Ivy, but
I couldn’t see her or Victor. I couldn’t swallow, my throat gone dry. I tried to gulp a little water.

“Are you all right, Lovejoy?” Holly said, closing in to arrange tonight’s gambling match.

“Yes, ta. Just admiring the, er, gargoyles and that.”

“He’s in a temper because I tell him home truths,” Lady Vee said.

“What about?”

“He’s crazy for you, that’s what.”

Holly Sago laughed. “Better not tell Kevin that,” she said evenly. I wondered what was going on, and between whom.

“Let me, Lovejoy,” Delia said, taking the old lady over. She was good at coming to my rescue. She’d done it when Josh Bannerman went berserk over those pearls. I really liked her. “You’re probably tired from all your exertions,” she added sweetly.

See what I mean about women? I couldn’t stand her. She meant she believed Lady Vee about me and Holly. Here was I in danger of death, and they concentrate on pecking order, when there can’t be any such thing among women, who are all as brilliant as each other. I hung close as we were mustered by Natasha. We trailed after her bright umbrella into the Yusupov Palace. My heart was going like a Maxim. I found it difficult to inhale. No clamminess, though, so it was plain fear and nothing to do with antiques.

The place was tranquil. No Russians about, except for two ladies at a stall near the hallway selling tourist trinkets and brochures. Nice amber, mostly the white amber so favoured in the Baltic States. For a moment I delayed, wondering if some small antique on the stall had caused me to dawdle. The lady became quite
animated
, offering me this and that. I smiled weakly, said my thanks and hurried after the B2 passengers. We looked a right motley throng. I’ve been in better
retreats. Still, I felt safer in a crowd, so I eeled to the middle and trudged along as Natasha explained about the restoration of the Palace.

“The steps are very narrow!” she cried through her microphone. “We proceed one by one.”

Here it comes, I thought, checking the exits. No sign of Purser Mangot, nor his aides. Where was June Milestone? With her boyfriend Mangot, that’s where, drinking white Ukranian wine on the lawns of the Summer Palace, knowing I was for it anyway.

“No turning back!” Natasha screeched. My ears rang. “In sequence please!”

The rooms we entered looked as if they were
deliberately
left in a state of dinginess. It was a series of tableaux. Wax figures in authentic costume were
disposed
about behind glass. Prince Yusupov was there with the gun, and Rasputin seated, legs asplay, at the table where he was actually shot.

It was a bungled affair, Delia explained as I edged along down the narrow wooden stairs, peering in the weak light.

“They poisoned him first. He didn’t die. So Prince Yusupov – this is his palace – shot him. He still didn’t die. So they dragged him out across the snow and shoved him into the river where he drowned. Rumour says he
still
didn’t die, crawled out of the river and back up these very stairs … are you all right?”

“Fine!” I said, perversely determined to appear the opposite of what I felt. Maybe it was a dim memory of what Henry Semper told me, to tell everybody wrong. I’d not done it so far. I’d been as honest as I could be. From now on, I would appear and say the opposite of everything I felt and thought. “I’m choking laughing.” They sounded nearly as efficient as me.

We emerged into an open hall with a grand sweep of staircase. One thing, you have to give it to St
Petersburg. When they set out to restore a place, they do a perfect job. The stairs, carpets, gilt chairs,
banisters
, walls, mirrors, chandeliers, everything was
spectacular
. It was hard to imagine the place shelled to
rubble
, or whatever happened to it in the Great Blockade. If this was an instance of Russian restoration, they are masters of the art.

“Now to the Yusupov Theatre!” Natasha boomed. We were standing next to her. I think she saw herself as stage performer aiming for Number One in the video charts. I wondered if there was a way to fuse her microphone to shut her up.

“Did you see the blood?” Lady Vee hadn’t been able to manage the narrow stairs, pretending in her
wheelchair
.

“Buckets,” I told her. “Blood everywhere.”

“And poison?”

“Buckets of it.”

“I wish I’d seen it,” she said wistfully.

“I’ll buy you the film. It’s gory.”

“Is it?” Her eyes shone.

“This is the Yusupov Theatre!” Natasha bellowed. Gold and white doors were flung open onto the most stunning auditorium I’d ever seen.

The walls were spectacular. Velvet seats, all bearing the Prince Yusupov crest, were arranged for an
audience
. The carpet was plush and deep. Overcome, we tiptoed in and meekly took seats in turn along the front row. Natasha had the usual slanging match with some cuboidal lady guardian who insisted on counting us over and over. The whole theatre was brilliantly restored. We needed these Russian workmen to do our Tate Modern, the new gallery Londoners call The Tat Modern.

“This theatre was the scene of many performances by Russian performers for the Prince’s invited audiences.”

She signalled, and the splendid curtains swished back to reveal the stage. Instantly I felt rough, yet the scenery was only crude modern village mock-ups, the sort you’d see in any amateur drama company’s
pantomime
season for Christmas revelries. They’re what am-dram folk thespians call flats, daubed canvas and hardboard on plain wooden supports, with scenery poster-painted on. I’d done scores myself, for our
village’s
mid-winter pantomimes. This scenery was Jack-And-The-Beanstalk tat. The glue and size has to be poured on hot, and stinks to high heaven. I could detect the aroma from where I sat gaping up at the proscenium.

It was hell of a size, the stage having two royal boxes, all gilt, gold leaf and yellow and white and red decoration around the “fourth wall”, as actors all call the proscenium arch opening.

“This practice scenery is for students from ballet and acting schools for rehearsals,” Natasha yelled. “Of course, to be thrown away when the actual
performances
begin later this week. A minister of culture will attend!”

She paused. We looked at her. Did she expect applause? She resumed.

“This theatre is restored in every particular. It is an example of Russian skill, and is admired by everyone from overseas.”

“It looks great, Miss Natasha,” I chipped in.

“Yes!” she said evenly.

“Is that it?” somebody grumbled in the seats behind me. I think Tour B2 expected some sort of show, perhaps the Bolshoi to come on doing
Swan Lake.

“How long did it take?” I asked, trying to look calm and interested. My head was already pounding. I felt the theatre swimming round me. Giddiness
started, but I stuck to my resolution. Sweat trickled, and the terrible muscle ache began. Gamely I started an enthusiastic beam.

“Four years, three months and two days,” Natasha said. “Now we have admired the expertise of restoring skills, we move to the lovely courtyard where a glass of Russian champagne which is better than that of France is offered to you our kind guests, with St Petersburg cake which is tastier than that of the Dutch…”

“That’s more like it,” said Josh Bannerman.

I could hardly move. My hands were clammy but I forced myself to stretch and yawn as our courier led the way to the exit.

“Come on, Lovejoy,” Lady Vee groused. “We’ll miss everything.”

“Go on, then,” I said, giving myself time to get moving. “I’ll race you.”

“He’s a case,” Lady Vee said, less than happy at my tardiness.

I wasn’t the last to leave, but nearly. I saw how I’d been hoodwinked, and why I was so necessary for the scam. I also saw what the scam was. I’d known all along, just been too thick to see. I must have the brains of a pot dog. I’d been mesmerised by the wine, women, shows, manipulated every single minute of the voyage. I’ve always known I’m stupid. This was my dimmest achievement.

“I do scenery like that for our village,” I said,
grinning
and looking full of enjoyment, trundling Lady Vee into the garden. I should have said, “The robbery is nothing to do with the Impressionists, is it? Nothing even to do with the Hermitage, either.” Except I didn’t. I was too scared, still waiting for somebody to come and arrest me.

The gardens were so perfect they were distressingly
neat. Not a blade of grass out of place, not a plant on show but was blooming vigorously. People exclaimed, while they got their mouths round the cake and gulped the champagne.

I could see the lake, the small artificial islands
studded
with blossom. It was a glimpse of paradise. Natasha boomed information about this garden designer, that architect.

“Marvellous, wasn’t it, Lovejoy?”

“No,” I answered Kevin. “A bit dull, after the Hermitage.” Billy offered me a glass of the wine.