The Grace in Older Women (36 page)

At first I put it down to getting myself all unglued while driving
Priscilla's old Morris banger, but kept finding myself walking along one wall.
It was plenty tall enough. And there were marks on the floor. Not exactly
grooves, but shiny scored marks - smooth wheels running in an arc?

The wall held a stack of shelves. I took down a dusty book on
painting, Mayer on artist materials. Old edition, long superseded. I looked at
a pot. The solvent had evaporated, leaving a crust. Dust, dust. In a studio so
excrutiatingly tidy?

'In other words,' I said aloud, 'you are Juliana's place. The wall
is someone else's.'

'Whose?' a voice said.

'Not yours, Reverend.' I was cool, safe. Chemise was out there
still. He was tall, lean, looked fast on his pins. And hungrier than usual.
Except I didn't know his usual.

He moved quietly in, closing the door. It didn't swing open. I
must have picked it well, no damage.

'Then whose?' He shrugged, helpless, but I'm too canny to be taken
in by tricks, and moved away. Casual, but casting about for a heavy object.
'You see, Lovejoy, I badly need to know precisely what you know.'

'Where is Juliana?' I asked, throat drying fast. He was athletic,
strong. Every damned thing I'm not.

'She had a journey.' He seemed surprised I'd asked.

'I came to see when you'd meet with Mr. Geake, Juliana, Dame
Millicent, get the village going again. I've a couple of new schemes.'

His was the sorrow of a grimly penitential monk. Except he didn't
seem monkish, not celibate. I felt he was nearly as interested in women as me.
I wondered if he knew about the painting Juliana had hidden behind the wall.
Maybe he'd helped her set the hiding place up. But I'd better not ask outright,
I warned myself, but with horror heard myself say, 'Did you make Juliana do the
fake?'

He imitated even more surprise. 'Fake? You mean the little
painting Miss Witherspoon discovered in church? No.' He smiled, and for a
second I thought things were going to be all right, that my thumping chest was
wasting its time. 'I heard about your coming forgeries exhibition, Lovejoy. And
the wealth it will bring the great Cause.'

The Cause?' I grinned, a skull peeling layers. 'Barmy sods,
begging pardon.'

He held an axe.
He carried
an axe
. You don't get priests with axes. Him standing there, under the one
electric globe, in this remote dying village in the marshes, that low mist
stealing up. Dusk had turned solid, no street lights. I realized I couldn't
hear Chemise's motor. He hefted the axe like he wanted to show it off.

'Chemise!' I croaked. No answer. 'Chemise!'

She didn't come.

The question is, Lovejoy, if you know, please tell me. I,' he said
with his confessor's grin, 'shall judge if you speak truly. I have experience
in these matters.'

He stepped closer. I grabbed a paintbrush, frantically wondering
if I could chuck a bottle of turpentine in his face, make a dash to where
Chemise had obviously nodded off, the disloyal mare.

Backing, I fell over an easel, scrambled upright, scared now. He
stopped, judging me with dispassion. I knew how the victims of the Inquisition
must have felt.

'Why are the Americans here, Lovejoy? What is their Cause?
Truthfully, now. I know falsehood.'

I ahemed gravel from my throat, found I'd backed away against the
wall. No door or windows, only two canvases, no guns, weapons of any
description.

'They've joined the Battishalls, I think,' I cried in panic, not
wanting to be misunderstood, to reveal all.

He stepped closer. If I moved a pace forward, he'd be within a
swing of an axe. His axe, my head. He must have been a boxer at his
non-existent seminary.

'The bishop said you'd made enquires, Lovejoy. As had your lady
friend.' His grin faded away, his axe lifting an inch. I'd no chance to move. ‘I
learned by telephone.’

'Look, Reverend,' I shrilled, sweat stinging my eyes. 'So what,
you didn't take holy orders? Neither did I!' I laughed, a squeak. 'Plenty of
people pretend.’

His eyes bored, murderous. 'Pretend what they're not?'

I drew ten lungfuls in one go, bawled, 'Chemise, love!'

Laconic now. It would take one smash. 'I'm afraid I had to ask her
to leave urgently.'

Chemise, my lifeline. Gone? The faithless bitch. I'd kill the
stupid mare, leaving me alone with a maniac who'd topped Tryer and was now
going to top me.

'Gone?' I tried to say. My lips felt blue.

To Dame Millicent's. Not far, just far enough.'

‘For what? I've told you everything. They're into genealogy,
lunatic stuff about the zodiac' A true friend of the Misses Dewhurst, I had to
keep them out of it for their own safety. Except they'd want to be sacrificed,
surely, to save me? The Dewhurst sisters put everybody up to it. Nothing to do
with me.'

He turned, the prelude to assault with weapon. I'd seen the stance
in pub fights. I drew breath to plead, beg, whine, but stayed transfixed,
rabbit and stoat.

The law . . .' I got out.

'Law is a joke, the lawcourt its clown.'

‘Please. I'll not tell you killed anyone, honest.'

To this day I don't know if I got the words out or if I only
thought them. He seemed to make a judgement, and lifted his hand.

And then something beautiful happened. Geake, ex-policeman,
churchwarden, stepped through the door, foot slurring, and said evenly, 'Father
Jay? An intruder, I think?'

'Yes!' I yelped, leapt forward, wrists out for manacles. 'I
surrender!' I babbled this until William Geake, rescuer, told me in resurrected
Plod tones to shut up.

'Done any damage, has he?' Geake said, looking.

'Nothing. I think, Mr. Geake. I heard noises. Lovejoy had this
axe. I relieved him of it. I was about to call you.'

This wasn't true. I gaped. He'd brought the bloody axe.

'Very well, Father Jay. I'll see to him.' Geake tilted his head. I
moved thankfully out of the door. No car, no Chemise. Geake followed, gestured
to a motor across the road. 'Miss Witherspoon's, Lovejoy. She'll be along any
second, give you a lift, unless you want to wait for that ugly lass.'

'No, ta, sir.' I fawned, grovelled, grinned, wrung his hand. Thank
you, sir. Any time I can do anything, sir, Lovejoy's the name, antiques the
game. Any auction, I'm your man. Okay?'

'Lovejoy,' he said wearily, 'you wear me out, y'hear? Now sod off
out of Fenstone, and never ever return.'

'Sure, sure! Willco, Inspector!'

Sweating now with sheer relief, I went and sat in the motor. I was
shaking at the escape, my bloody teeth actually chattering. Lovejoy the Cool,
trembling. The keys were in the ignition, but the thought honestly never
crossed my mind. The mist had closed in, darkness impenetrable.

Across the road, I could barely see the studio glim, making true
opaque fog. No wonder the young folk had decided to leg it out, civilization
here we come, leave Fenstone to its sombre mists and loony priest. I thought,
uneasy for reasons I couldn't fathom, what if there's a frigging bomb in this
motor? Planted by Juliana, off her rocker from love of this priest . . .

A dark figure loomed. I screamed, scrabbled for the door, fell
from the car, scraping my elbows - to be raised by this female, her high heels
scraping.

'Lovejoy? Are you all right?'

Second time in an hour I'd been rescued, by somebody I'd
suspected. I almost wept from relief. 'Oh, there you are, Jul!' I said gruffly.
'Mr. Geake said you'd give me a lift.'

'It's dreadfully inconvenient. I've things to do.'

'That fake, eh?' I sat while my heart slowed.

'Fake?' She didn't switch on.

'That thing you found in church, remember?' I wagged a finger as
if I'd meant that one all the time. 'We've been using French
vernis a vieiller
, haven't we? And with
the Daler Bristlewhite 8 round brush. Tut tut. Just because that stuff ages
patina within twelve hours doesn't mean it's right, love. Impasto takes on an
umber hue that's a dead giveaway, like a tart's face whose mascara's run - '

'Lovejoy.' She alighted angrily, taking her keys.
'Walk!'

'No, love. I've sussed the bloke you're crazy about.'

So we drove off. Ten minutes later, we encountered Chemise in the
lanes, driving Dame Millicent. Even Juliana couldn't mistake an old Morris in
the mists. I told her to beam them down, and explained to Chemise that there'd
been a mistake. I left Juliana, having done all the asking I wanted to do. We
took the old dame home. She gave us some of her home-brewed pear wine, and a
merry evening was had by all.

On the way home I was too weary to upbraid Chemise as she deserved.
I just told her how I'd nearly met my doom by the mad axeman of Fenstone, been
saved by Geake, my hero. She said nothing.

Worried, about midnight I phoned Maudie Laud. She treated me like
dirt when I told her Father Jay killed Tryer, that he'd almost done for me too.

‘As soon as you arrest him I'll make a statement - '

'Lovejoy. Mr. Geake just came to make a statement.’

'And you've let that lunatic go free?'

'Lovejoy, Father Jay's also here. I'm perfectly satisfied there
was no wrong-doing, except for your illicit trespass . . .'

That night Chemise and I made smiles, to her utter astonishment
and my paradisical bliss. I felt calmer and more relieved than I had for weeks.
It was now all straightforward.

Day dawned on my riotous exhibition, about which I was glad. It
also dawned on Ashley's illicit auction, which was really bad news.

31

We lay there in my divan bed. Chemise was astounded I still
smarted at Maudie Laud's dismissal of my story.

'See?' I complained bitterly. 'Who do they believe when the chips
are down? An axe maniac, or a decent law-abider?'

'Maybe she's got a plan, Lovejoy.'

Boiled eggs chopped up in a teacup with pepper's the only way to
eat eggs, except for fried both sides, eight slices of bread and butter, with
hot tea. She'd done well, but I was still narked.

'Plan? They were in her office, laughing. What the hell's Geake
playing at?'

'His friend.' Chemise shrugged. She didn't eat much, dry toast
like they all do. 'Maybe Geake can keep him under control.'

'Like he did befo . . .' I ahemed, pretended some egg had gone
down the wrong way.

'Something's wrong, Lovejoy.' She was still. She had no
nightdress, wore my tatty dressing gown. I was naked. It's no good dressing up
to go to bed, I always think; you only have to take it off. 'If Father Jay was
really going to . . . you know, then why didn't he eliminate me too?'

'Eh?' I paused in mid nosh. I hate logical women.

'He would have had to, wouldn't he? Otherwise, what could he say
when I got back? Instead, he sent me to bring another witness, Dame Millicent.
He'd have had to murder three instead of just you. See?'

'Oh, that's frigging charming, that is!' I yelled. I almost
chucked my breakfast at her in rage, but they don't come my way often enough to
waste. 'Look, you daft sod, It was me in there with that axe killer.' I almost
fainted, remembering.

'That's the point, Lovejoy,' said this soul of reason. 'He was
simply trying to frighten you.'

'A loon with a hatchet succeeds.' I resumed eating, then stopped.
'Why?'

'He kept asking what the Americans wanted. You told him?'

‘Aye. Wouldn't you have?'

She made me recount the conversation in excrutiating detail, word
for word while she fried more bread. She refused my tea sugar this time. I'm
surrounded by psychotics.

Then you didn't,' she concluded, coming close. I budged over to
keep her place's warmth. 'You didn't tell him they want to establish a
Pretender to the USA.'

We contested like children, I did, you didn't, I did, until I had
to concede, because I hadn't.

'But that means I'm wrong about Father Jay doing . . .'

'And you can't be wrong, Lovejoy. Is that it?'

'He's innocent because he's a holy priest, right?'

'Nothing at all to do with it, Lovejoy.'

And she meant it. Each of us has different ideas. But I remembered
my law: everybody's salvation meets at gold.

She sat in silence while I finished my grub, and slid down beneath
the duvet.

'Admit it, Lovejoy.' She smiled, her features radiant. 'You're (
wrong about Father Jay. I'm wrong sometimes. Like thinking you'd not look at me
twice, me being ugly.'

'That's because you're thick,' I explained reasonably. 'Women have
smaller brains. Women and men are . . .'

But she was working me by then, growing in confidence. I decided
to postpone my explanation, having forgotten it.