The Lies of Fair Ladies (29 page)

"In Scotland," I told her firmly. I’d never get shut.
She was whittling through a loaf. And reaching for my last bit of quince jelly,
I saw with rage. I snatched it away with a second to spare, thieving old bitch.
I ought to put a lock on my kitchen alcove. I will, when I get a minute from
genealogy. "In Scotland, they've the Register of Sasines. Land's feudal,
held ultimately of the Crown. A good system. Only one channel for ownership,
see? Their Register of Sasines is from 1617. If your Scotch ancestors had land.
Some's in Latin."

She cried through a mouthful of my bramble jelly, "My
great-great-great-grandfather had a croft in Fife!"

I caught her reaching for my fried bread, got it back with a
polite wrestle. "Deeds start about 1554—contracts, selling something
important. If your ancestor died without heirs, search the Ultimus Haeres
records, Scottish Record Office. The Crown, the final heir, took charge."
I looked for the fortune hunter's gleam but saw only unbridled enthusiasm. So
she was simply what she seemed, a loony coot hoping Grampa was Henry the Fifth.

Wearily I sided up while she rabbited on and I rabbited back. Yes,
for Wales go to Chancery Lane—hatchings, matchings and dispatchings in
Non-Conformist registers from 1700 to 1858. "Court of Great Sessions in
Cardiff," I told her, snatching her plate in case she wolfed crockery too.
Christ, she'd scoffed more than me. I was astonished she could still move. "And
Saint Cat's House, of course."

"
Wales
,
Lovejoy," she said patiently. Like I'd never heard of it.

"Best combined records of all, has Wales. The one thing Wales
lacks is surnames.” I paused, suddenly hopeful. ''Philips? Morgan? Evans?"

"All those!" she cried, clapping her gnarled old hands.
"How did you guess! And Jones!"

I brightened. Once she started excavating that lot, she'd vanish
into some dusty file and never be found. Genealogy searchers make a surcharge
for Welsh ancestors. Not quite fair, because combine Public Record Office and
GRO files and you're back to 1837 in an afternoon. I was so happy that I handed
her a note as we finally left. I marched her up the lane.

"Sorry, love. I'd have liked a longer chat. Don't forget
about Regimental Registers of Births, for ancestors born into regiments from
1761—abroad from 1790. Okay? Your U.S.-born Britons are harder—the PRO's
earliest are Texas, I think. They're only 1838."

I made the top of the lane by the chapel, and heard the bus
coming. Farewells are quite pleasant, sometimes. She was trying to scribble
everything down.

"I think the bloody government should let you see family
wills free. I mean, whose wills were they, for God's sake? Your own grampa's.
The Record Office charges, stingy swine."

I would have gone on—it's one of my grouses—but the bus hove up
and I had to run. Which meant cunning old Lovejoy escaped, old biddies being a
mite slow.

"No, Percy," I said. "She's only out for a
walk."

"Thought she was waving, Lovejoy," the driver said.

An odd thing. As I'd paid, a bonny girl was alighting. She changed
her mind, came round and got on again. Percy charged her another fare, mean
sod. Maybe he'd worked for the PRO in some earlier incarnation. He pulled us
away. We left Miss Turner wheezing.

"Lovejoy?" The girl came and sat by me. She was
brilliant with youth, loveliness. "Laura. My only name. All surnames are
remnants of feudalistic paternalisms."

Dilemma time. Should I have exchanged Miss Turner for this?
"Lovejoy," I admitted. But it only takes ten minutes to town, then
I'd be shut of her. "It's all I have."

She toyed with the idea, found it gratifying. "You're against
pseudo-religious degeneracies."

Time to change my seat. I couldn't stand one minute of this, let
alone ten. Is there any ism worth a thought? We were the only passengers on the
lower deck. Plenty of space.

"Excuse me, love, but I—"

"Money, Lovejoy. To invest. No strings."

She smiled. I froze. I’d admired her comeliness, her pure adorable
style, of course. But now I looked deeper, I saw the mystic loveliness in her,
the brilliantly dazzling glory of her nature. I’d been a fool.

My voice wouldn't get going for a second. "How wise, er,
Laura. And I agree about, er, names. They really are degeneracy things."

She told me the sum she had in mind. It was enough to lift a small
country firm called Lovejoy Antiques, Inc. from a titch to a biggie. I listened
admiringly to her lecture on totalitarianisms all the way into town. I agreed
totally, every word.

We went to a bank. I wrote out a receipt, specifying how the
spoils would be divided. Laura fell about at this. I grinned amiably along. I
quite like mirth at these moments—not that I’ve had many such. Signed, sealed,
and, most important, delivered. The manager wrung my hand. He gave me a checkbook,
pen, briefcase and a set of stationery. He'd have blessed me, if he'd known
how.

"One point, Lovejoy." She waited by the bank door,
looking into the busy thoroughfare.

My heart sank. "Yes?" Too good to be true?

"I insist on absolute confidentiality. Understand?"

Only ethics. Phew. "Confidentiality's my other name!"

I was so jolly with this delectable angel. "What if I run
short, Laura?"

Then she really took my breath away.

"I'll give you more, Lovejoy."

She swung off into Head Street, leaving me standing. I wondered if
she was unmarried, and would take a bloke like me. I’d get my hair cut, maybe
even buy a new jacket. Yet I'd done all right with Lovely Laura just as I was.
Never change a winning team. A faint superstition nudged my mind: maybe my heartfelt
charity to old Miss Turner brought me luck. You know, the leprechaun gambit? I
was rich. Bulging. Loaded. Word would get around. And I would fly into a heaven
of antiques, antiques.

For the first time I felt I was winning. I tore round by the post
office in search of Luna. I was exhilarated. The checkbook felt the size of a
ledger.

I was going to spend, spend, as in splurge. My heart was filled
almost to bursting, with true happiness, that only money can buy.

Twenty-Five

We drifted into Woody's caff like thistledown, me and Luna. Tip:
If you’ve money—I mean serious gelt, not your piggy bank raped by a nail file
—
don't advertise. Not
in antiques. Because antiques are different. Luna didn't understand.

"It stands to reason, Lovejoy." She grimaced delicately,
swiftly controlled, and put aside her chipped mug. Woody's tea was in fine
fettle, a slimy sea of liquid grot. "With money—"

"Shhhhh!"

She bent to whisper. The dealers leaned in, ears on the wag.

"Why not simply tell everybody? Then they will come to us.
Think of the petrol we’ll save!"

I managed not to groan. Women are better money managers than us.
Where they fall down's on little things. I once knew a lovely middle-aged bird,
Doris, who missed buying that Rembrandt nicked from Dulwich because she paused
to have a row with a shop girl about the price of envelopes. Honest to God.

"They’ll up their prices, love."

Her expression changed. "They would do that, Lovejoy?"
She glared round Woody's caff through the blue fog of fat fumes. The lads
looked away. "But they're your friends! It's scandalous!" There was
more of this. I pinched her tea, sucking through the film of scummy leaves,
waited for her storm to blow over.

''Lovejoy.” Eyes downcast now. Still, a little guilt does a woman
good. "I tried with Oliver. He's had second thoughts. I’m so sorry."

My heart dived. "He's backing out?" It really had been
too good to be true.

"No. But he's cut his offer."

"It was already inadequate." I thought I’d explained all
that. "A seam's titch or grand, love. To go up-market—"

"I'll make up the difference, Lovejoy." She
misinterpreted my gape, and said quickly, "His quarter, I mean. So we only
need the other half."

Oliver a quarter, Luna a quarter.
And Laura half!
I didn't tell Luna about Laura. She'd get the wrong
idea. I just had enough money. The point being that only one great dollop of
antiques would lead to the dollop broker. Logic.

"Here, Woody. A couple of pasties."

Woody's rotund belly shook with mirth. The cholesterol king is the
only spherical bloke I know. His clothes gave up years ago, and now split
majestically. Modesty was satisfied by an apron stiff with decades of solid
grease.

"Come into money, Lovejoy?"

The world stilled in reverence at the mention of the great god M,
the way congregations stop coughing at the consecration.

"Aye. I've found Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn
manuscript." There was a general laugh of
relief-regret. Another version of this find had lately hit the antiquarian
scene. It happens in America once a year, give or take. "On the slate.
Woody. Hang the expense."

The world relaxed, Lovejoy still the indigent quirk.

"Can you afford it, Luna?"

Worried, I gazed at the lovely woman opposite. Luna had been more
on my mind this past couple of days than she had a right. I mean, what did my
old Gran say about women? "A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair."
Affection doesn't come alone. It brings obligations. And who has time for
those? But a bonny bird bringing money is a goddess of unsurpassing beauty. I
ought really to tell her the risks. I mean, if you own a favorite Royal Doulton
piece, then you're at risk from roaming dolts, burglars, dealers on the knock,
plumbers coming to mend your bathtaps, visiting priests. Aunt Jessie. But
that's simply opportunistic theft, done on the spur. Titch antique, titchy
risk.

But there's something else. Something far more serious. Big
league. It's the ominous death-dealing malevolence that lurks in the world of
the grand scam. It's dollop broker country. There's only a dozen genuine dollop
brokers in the entire kingdom—I mean those operating well outside the law. All
honest, God-fearing hoods and crooks in the known universe keep shtum about
them. For the dollop broker is sacrosanct, the Machiavellian figure behind the
biggest of the grand scams. Local, national, and international.

There are a million stories, mostly true. Of the English noble who
did a humble Italian to doom for failing to deliver his promised tomb-robbings
in Tuscany. And to whom is attributed the appalling statement, "A promise
paid for, is marriage; infidelity justifies fatality.'' Needless to say, the
antiques trade thinks this the height of logic, and praises the nobleman's
propriety. And of the Yorkshire blokes, dealers all, who sank their three friends'
boat in the North Sea by simply cutting it in half with a larger vessel one
dark and stormy night, having transferred the smuggled antiques. (It saved
having to pay, a tiresome chore.) Word is that a Dutchman survived, and broods
vengeance. He's expected in Newcastle later this year. I'll let you know what
happens, if I hear. And of the Turkish lady whose very special girlfriend took
this Egyptian antique dealer under her wing. She caught them in flagrante, but
was very good about it, and said never mind these things happen don't they. And
then framed them for the attempted robbery of a French museum and murder of a
Levantine security bloke doing a job for that Munich-Swiss combine—

"Lovejoy." Luna took my hand. I withdrew it sharply. The
dealers were sniggering, nudging. "Please accept."

"Eh?" Who'd refuse an offer like this? The pasties were
gone. I hoped I'd had hers as well. "If you insist, Lune."

She went misty, smiled. "Thank you, Lovejoy."

The favors I was doing! Laura's thanks, Luna's gratitude. I felt
peeved about Oliver. I was trying to do the selfish pillock a favor, and not a
bleep of gratitude.

"Think nothing of it, Lune," I said magnanimously.

We left then, after a sordid verbal skirmish with Woody over when
I'd settle his wretched slate. Luna had a fit of conscience on the pavement,
wanting to discuss the problem of world debt. I simply walked on, round to the
auction rooms by the Beehive tavern. I mean. Woody had a thriving business,
right? So why continually try to exploit poor travelers like me? It's just not
fair.

"That's the wrong way of looking at it, Lovejoy," Luna
countered, trotting alongside. "We should pay. It was the same with that
registration. The girl proved most impertinent. I had to speak very firmly to
the manager, I can tell you."

"Love," I said wearily, halting. She bumped into me.
"I'm crazy about you. Making love was the peak of ecstasy. But for
Christ's sake button your frigging mouth. We're bidding this afternoon. Sod
ethics."

"You're . . . ?" She searched my eyes. A woman's gaze is
never still, is it? Switches side to side, thousand times a minute. Even baby
girls do it. Boy babes simply look, steady and level. Sometimes I wonder why.

But not for long. Priorities established, we zoomed to Wittwoode's
Auction Temple. Viewing ten to one o'clock, auction at two precisely.