The Possessions of a Lady (40 page)

God plays tricks like this. Gifts are sometimes snatched back. As the
pounding beat marched the aigrette girl off and brought on another, I
remembered a forgery. I must have painted seven, eight, of the famous lost Van
Gogh
Vase with Cornflowers and Poppies
,
guessing the colours, copying the layout from black-and-white book
illustrations. Then calamity struck. Somebody actually found the original, sold
it for a fortune in a New York international fair. I'd plunged into poverty
that very day, and had to go on the knocker, touting door-to-door.

The fashion show was brilliantly exciting. There were sixteen
pieces of pinko jewellery, two yellows, and one, possibly two, with blues I
wasn't close enough to see well. I was in a fever. Good old Australia. I
realised I worshipped fashion after all.

'And now,' Faye announced as the music sank to a mere million
decibels, 'Modern days! The Northern Fashion Durbar is . . .
here!
’

Thump, thump, went the drums. Searchlights swung. Dancers emerged,
the audience clapped. It was so thrilling that I upped and left, making a plea
in mime to Faye that I was thirsty, would be back. I was almost tempted. She
wore lemon yellow, a colour I particularly like, very simple, better than the
creatures in their big moment.

Outside, I was surprised to see it was dusk. The noise receded as
I went to sit on the drystone wall. The fair was packing up. The ice cream vans
were gone. The stalls and side shows were already trundling out. A cold wind
blew.

In the distance I could see the road's orange neon lights strung
seawards, a reflection of the Irish Sea where the Ribble estuary cuts land
away. Christ's Croft, these lands were called in the old days, Windmill Land
beyond, once crammed with whirling giants. Now, no busy ports were left, the
canals silent stretches where anglers counted themselves lucky to bring out a
single fish.

'Lovejoy? I'm ready to do it.'

'Wotcher, Tinker. Give them time to get the old dresses back into
Amy's purple caravan, then go.'

A fortune here, a fortune there, sooner or later they added up to
real money. What could I do?

'Where're the Plods, Tinker?' No sign of the police on the
dwindling fairground.

'Them?' He spat with scorn. 'They've swarmed inside to see the
lassies, randy sods.' He grew censorious. 'Is that why we pay our taxes?'

You have to cut Tinker short when he's indignant, or he goes on
all day. 'They're guarding the fashioneers' designs. In case they get stolen,
like the Emanuels’.’

I listened. Rodney was compering. Lights flickered from inside the
chapel, darkening the night sky further. Faye must be reporting in to her
newspapers, Wanda and Bertie totting up. 'Did Manchester send guards of their
own?' I didn't want any commissionaires baulking me at the last minute.

'Nary a sign, Lovejoy. I looked.'

'Give that Rodney ten minutes, then do it.'

'Him.' Tinker hawked up more contempt. 'A right screamer. Ought to
be locked up.'

'Tinker,' I said wearily. I felt heartbroken at the night-laden
countryside, and didn't know why. 'Shut it. Last time of telling. Did you leave
the Braithwaite where I said?'

'Aye. On the moorside by the saint's well.'

'Okay. Check you've got the trailer properly hitched when the
Victoriana's inside.'

'Awreet, Lovejoy,' he said. 'Keep your hair on.'

Sometimes friends make me sick. As bad as enemies.

'You not coming in the lorry, Lovejoy?' he asked.

'Drive it on your own. Meet me at Brannan Hey.'

Wanda had done well for Briony. She deserved a good slice. It
would be enough for Briony to settle her sister's debts and buy her emporium. I
sighed. It could have been worse. Soon, Wanda would come demanding my services
as her private divvy. At least I'd saved the charity auction from being a
penniless fiasco. I would come out of this with Mayor Tom's antiques, that I
hadn't yet seen but which were safely sealed in Tinker's lorry. Fair's fair.
Charity at last being its own reward.

'Why're you not coming, Lovejoy?' Tinker asked.

'I'll follow in a sec. Go now.'

He went, grumbling. I'd no illusions. If Cradhead's men were watching,
they'd arrest Tinker, not me. There was still the threat of Derry and Bonch.
Sheehan's malignant troops wouldn't leave with a job half done. When the
fashion show ended I'd lose my last chance of escape. This way, with Tinker
leaving apparently alone, they'd assume I was hiding in the purple trailer and
follow Tinker. Maybe they'd crash Tinker and his lorry over some handy cliff.
There were plenty about. It'd be the usual story, drunken old driver mishandles
his wagon off some lonely Pennine road.

If all went well, though, I could get to Brannan Hey, thank you
very much. Much safer than in Tinker's lorry pulling its gaudy least
unnoticeable trailer in the known world. It was the sort of decoy a coward like
me wanted. When the going gets tough, this tough gets out.

Whistling noisily, I strolled towards the chapel, now a glittering
galaxy of noise and lights. Between motors, I ducked and ran for it.

37

The well, and the big motor, were a mile up on the moors above the
chapel. I sat on a stone in the dark, watching the gleams of the stallholders'
departing trucks, the unwieldy carousel lorry manoeuvering on the Blackburn
road. The fashion riot was oddly reduced to something warming, beckoning even,
instead of maddening. I imagined I could hear Lydia, and pretty Faye boosting
the fashion parade. I kept looking about at the black moors.

The moors frightened me. I once got lost in a June snowfall with
my cousin Arn, children out marauding. A chance bus came along a chance road.
The conductor wouldn't let us on, not enough money. An hour later, same road,
an elderly lady demanded explanations. She trudged us through the snow, put us
on another bus, had a shrieking war with the conductor. We'd had enough coppers
all the time. I've never forgotten the two vital lessons: always remember the
possibility of chance malice from a jack-a'back. And, countryside might promise
a warm June day, but it's secretly planning a blizzard.

A stone skittered. I froze. Remembering childhood always scares you.
Something flew past my face. I hunched, arms wrapped round my head. Something
screeched, another creature whimpered. I stifled a moan. Countryside is sheer
unprovoked carnage. I was sweating cobs from fear. I'd been forced into this,
all for, how had I started the auction, 'The possessions of a lady.' Though all
antiques, all mankind, me, are the possessions of some lady somewhere.

Down below the music bumped. I longed to be back there, among
enemies. At least foes are human.

'Come on, Tinker, you drunken old sod.'

It was high time he left. I could see light reflected on the roof
of the purple caravan—moving! The thicker black rectangle between it and the
other vehicles shifted slowly. Tinker was doing it. I couldn't hear the engine.
Some show event caused a momentary uproar, obliterating it. Rockets shot
skywards of a sudden. I ducked, foolish in the glare. Tinker's lorry stilled.
Sensible.

The coloured light dimmed. I heard his engine thrumming. Good old
Tinker started up in the explosions. The music resumed. Time to go.

The old motor was on a slope. I could leave the moor along the
track, emerge in Rivington. I got the motor going, drove carefully. Nothing for
it but to use the headlamps. Who'd notice me, with all the excitement down
there?

One faint niggle. Had there been a light inside the purple
caravan? I'd thought for one second that maybe . . . But there were still some
two hundred cars there reflecting gleams. Inevitable, with rockets overhead and
sudden strobe lights shafting the darkness. It must have been my inbuilt terror
making for panic.

Quarter of an hour later, I put the great car down the metalled
road that left the moorland near a small lake. Let night anglers wonder. I
rolled serenely towards the town. With growing confidence I turned up the side
road to Brannan Hey. There, I'd finally ditch the Braithwaite, whip the pinkos
off the Victorian dresses, have a quick shufti at Mayor Tom's antiques in
Tinker's lorry—fingers crossed. Undo the purple trailer. Anything else?

'Yes, Lovejoy,' somebody whispered in my ear.

With a sharp howl, I swerved almost into a stone wall, slithered
to a halt, stalling the engine. I gibbered, recoiling from the apparition
behind me.

'Sorry, darling. Did I startle you?'

'You stupid fucking cow!' I put my face into my hands and gasped,
panted, inhaled life back.

'Well you
did
ask,
Lovejoy! You've been talking . . .'

'I was talking to
myself
,
you silly mare!'

Nicola was quite put out. 'There's no need for abuse, Lovejoy. If we're
to live together . . .'

I leaned back, eyes closed. What the hell was she on about? I
hardly knew the bloody woman. She was talking like we'd wed. I groped for lies.

'You're right,' I said. Start with a winner. 'Doowerlink. Will you
do something?'

'Of course, darling!' she cried.

'Wait by the farm gate, please. Tinker will be along. We don't
want him driving past, do we?'

'His lorry, that big caravan? Have you ever seen such a horrid
purple? What is Amy
thinking
about?'

'Thanks, doowerlink.' I bussed her. 'He'll see you in his beams.
Okay?'

'Very well, sweetheart. Will it be safe?'

'That's a promise,' I lied magnanimously.

'Right, darling. A kiss, please?'

We snogged. Just when you're desperate for something else instead
of the one thing that matters, you get the one thing that matters. I ripped my
lips away.

'Goodness!' I cried. 'We'll never get away if we keep on!'

The engine started, I bowled into the farmyard, looking for
Tinker's lorry. We'd arranged that he'd wait with his lights off.

No Tinker. No lorry. I brought the Braithwaite to a halt. Its
engine panted, rocking the chassis. I switched off. Silence. The headlights
seemed suddenly too dim. I wanted light, a searchlight tattoo.

The farm buildings felt derelict, empty. Nothing on the exterior staircase
that led to the upper floor. No comforting red flicker of a fire sinking to
embers.

The grey Pennine stone merged with the darkness. Not even a
lantern. Had I told Tinker to leave the outside one lit? If I had, he should
have, the drunken sot. If I hadn't, he should have used his hooch-addled brain
and left a lamp burning. I get narked at folks' lack of enterprise. And Nicola
should have come with me instead of waiting at the gate, selfish cow.

Then I talked myself into sense, sitting in the motor, the wind
moaning, rain now tapping the bonnet.

Who saw me leave? I demanded. Nobody. I'd sloped off quietly.
Everybody else was at the show hoping to get their faces on telly. Therefore I
was safe, because I was here alone.

Maybe I'd actually seen the last of Wanda? I fervently hoped so.
Wanda might be so grateful at the profit she'd made, that she'd let me go. If
Briony's antiques bought my freedom, it was a small price for her to pay. If
Briony didn't agree, she shouldn't be selfish.

My feet plopped on the farmyard mud as I got down. I hesitated.
Why not wait until Tinker bowled up? Two's company, one's at risk. It's
headachery. But things are predictable. Lonely farms are never haunted. Those
squeaks, like one I'd just heard, are always bats. They're famous for squeaking
all night long. Nothing in real life is mysterious, either. Every six weeks,
sure as eggs, some holy statue'll cry its blood-soaked eyes out, like in
Civitavecchia or Eire's Grangecou, or shed blood from its ribs as in Salerno's
pottery mural of Padre Pio. Not blasphemous, I persuaded myself, feeling my
heart beat a little faster than it had. Real life shirks fable. Aesop of fable
fame learned the hard way that real life is different, when a tortoise fell on
his head and killed him. It was the only irony he'd never written a fable
about. Real life's different, no mystery.

A car swished past on the wet moorland road. It didn't turn in.
Where was Tinker? Surely he wouldn't have stopped off at a pub?

No noise. Unless you counted that creak. It was a sort of old
floorboard creak, a slow sort of creak. The creak you get in farmhouses.

It came from the barn to my right. Probably a fox. Did I want to
go and investigate? Not likely. I stepped across, started up the non-creaking
exterior staircase. I could have gone in through the front door, but didn't.
This doesn't prove that I was scared, because I don't get spooked. Not even if
it's something really scary, like a midnight film. I just carry that sort of
fear off light-heartedly, the very idea.

I don't watch scary films.

Going slowly up the stairs to the landing where the door I forced
a grin. Me, worried? The things I've been through?

Tinker would be along any minute. I realised I was getting soaked,
standing with my hand on the latch. I must have been there several minutes.
Less"- I was wet through, rain outside, sweat within.