The Possessions of a Lady (6 page)

I didn't manage any reply to that. One thing East Anglia has a
permanent supply of is entrepreneurs (dunno what the feminine word is for it,
but we've tons of those as well). They all drive sleek customised motors of
giddy horsepower, have several addresses. They can buy and/or sell serfs on a
whim, especially if the serf in question is broke.

'Thekla'll exact vengeance, Lovejoy, so watch it.'

They also hear scandals before the first blood splashes.

'Think I should scarper?' I asked uneasily.

'You're good at evasion, Lovejoy.' He belled us up to ninety on
the town road, passing the policeman on point duty with a cheery wave, the
bobby, Old George, saluting respectfully. If I'd done forty George would have
clinked me up for a week. 'But for Christ's sake run like hell if she does the
other thing.'

'What other thing?' I was mystified.

'Apologises, you pillock.'

The car's acceleration lulled me. What was he saying, that an
apology is the final insult, evidence of preceding cruelty?

There were these two women I'd got to know in our village. Maxine
was middle-aged, comely, buxom, married with two-point-nine children at
university, rich husband commuting like mad. Her neighbour, the older Mrs. Prowell,
shared her husband's wary tenant farmer's eyes. Nothing remarkable, except Mrs.
Prowell hated Maxine. 'For no reason, Lovejoy,' Maxine told me one day when
scouting the terrain before letting me out. Thirty years, no reason? We'd
become close when I'd called to sell her a seventeenth-century William and Mary
period door lock, solid brass, complete with key and keeper key escutcheon. (I
still smart, because Maxine's gleeful welcomes those warm sunny afternoons made
me feel I'd be a cad to ask for the money, which I never got.)

Came one autumn morning, Maxine pruning the daffodils, whatever,
when here comes Mr. Prowell. Please, he begs, my wife's grievously ill, the
Grim Reaper tiptoeing in Mrs. Prowell's gate. She's not long to live, wants to
say sorry, dear Maxine. Won't you forgive and forget? Anguish reigned.

'Tell her no,' says Maxine sweetly. 'Your wife has hated me for
thirty years with such
evident
enjoyment that I couldn't possibly deprive her of that pleasure in her last
hours.' And demurely continues snipping. With her secateurs and trug, Maxine
was a picture any tourist would recognise, the charming English garden scene.

This is true, every word. I was concealed hard by, having dived into
the shrubbery when I'd heard Maxine's gate go. Aghast, when the sorrowing man'd
left, I asked Maxine how she could be so vicious. She'd smiled with beatific
Saint Theresa rapture, and said as we'd gone upstairs, 'Thinks she can twist
the knife one last time, after what she's put me through? Bitch, I hope her
cancer does it on a cold wet night. Get undressed, Lovejoy.'

And she'd followed this Christian charity with hours o{ passion
wilder than I'd known for days. Until Roger's remark, I'd thought it something
exclusively female. I sighed, bucketing along the town road in a downpour on
squealing tyres. I always catch up after everybody's moved on.

'Here, Rodge,' I said, suddenly. 'Do you really know Thekla well?'

'Everybody knows Thekla, Lovejoy.' He laughed. 'Ambition, she. You
want my tip? Never do anything to further your own ambition when it's suggested
by others. Women know this by instinct. We blokes never learn. Oh, Carmel's
looking for you. An antiques job.'

'Thanks, Rodge,' I said gratefully.

'Anything for a pal. Think over my offer.'

He dropped me at the ironmonger's on North Hill in lessening rain.
I cut through the Dutch Quarter—Flemish weavers lived there when fleeing
persecution centuries back. A place of refuge.

Tinker was outside The Ship, by St James the Less. He looked even
shabbier than usual. He avoided my eye, which is odd. He was with Roadie,
watching the parade to the war memorial. Roadie still looked every inch the
yob. I wished he'd close his mouth now and then. He prides himself on his
belch, thinks them the soul of wit. He was calling embarrassing sex slogans at
the girl drummers prancing by in their shimmery yellows and blues.

'What's up, Tinker?'

'Them social services, Lovejoy.' He hawked, spat at a waste bin,
didn't make it. The phlegm slid down, sending me green. We're a god-awful
species.

'No help?' I'd sent him.

'Chucked me out for being grottie.'

My vision dissolved. In a scarlet cloud I hauled him through the
crowd, stormed with him down Head Street to the plush offices of the Department
of Social Services—every word of that title a cause for infinite merriment. I
marched in, ignoring the uniformed goons who guard affluent bureaucracy against
us who finance their upkeep. I disturbed two Social Support And Care
Experts—more hilarity—who were filing their untroubled nails. They looked up,
yawning. I switched their telly off. They were outraged.

'You've no right to come in here,' one said.

'It's that filthy old man back,' said the other.

'And me.' I shoved Tinker into a chair, gestured Roadie to another
while my vision cleared. 'This gentleman's relative is missing. Help him.'

The girls worked out hate priorities. One whined, 'I've an urgent
interview soon, Lovejoy.'

'No, Dawn.' I spoke loudly as a security man entered. 'You're
booked in at Hayre Fayre, tint and rinse.' I gave her a moment not to choke.
'Barbie? You've logged a Child Support Agency visit, so your hubby won't know
you're meeting Joggo near the brewery lay-by.' Lay-by is correct.

They looked at each other in alarm, glum social workers forced to
act. Silence fell. I waited. The security man withdrew under my gaze. Joggo's a
repossession man known for violence. He'd repossessed my furniture twice. I
hadn't argued.

Tinker wheezed, 'Look, Lovejoy

He went mute when I raised a warning finger. Barbie, conscious of
Joggo's sexy impatience, spoke at last, eyeing the clock, a modern Garant
quartz, perfect time for ever, but who'd want to give it a glance?

'Look, Lovejoy,' she tried. 'We do vital social work. The police
do missing persons.'

'They sent us here,' I lied. More silence.

'Who is the child?' Dawn glared at her dusty forms, indignant at
having to fill one in.

'Vyna Dill, from Australia.'

They brightened. 'The Australian High Commission

'Sent us here.' I could get quite good at lies.

They sank into misery. 'How did she come here?'

Tinker stirred when my nudge nearly toppled him. For somebody
desperate to find a relative he was singularly reluctant.

'Er, her parents sent her. To study.'

They brightened. 'The education authorities . . .'

'Sent us here,' I capped. But, study?

'Studying what?' Barbie growled. A growling woman is a frustrated
beast to be avoided. But I had my own rage and didn't care.

'Technical stuff,' Tinker said. 'Dunno.'

'Where is she enrolled?' growled Dawn and Barbie together, sensing
a way back to inertia.

'Dunno.'

'Her age?' Dawn chirruped, now blowing her nails.

'Seventeen,' Tinker said. I looked at Roadie, doing his leer at
Barbie's breasts. It was a revolting sight—the leer, I mean.

Relief lit their countenances, scorn rethroned.

'Nothing to do with the DSS, Lovejoy,' they said together. 'Get
out . . .' etc., etc.

Out on the pavement I really went for Tinker.

'How come you don't know what she's studying, or where?'

Roadie sniggered, seeing the bands wheeling in. After his triumph
seducing Barbie, he would apply his snotty leer to our marchers. God, but we're
a horrible species, or have I said that?

'It's children, Lovejoy,' Tinker said, crestfallen. 'Who knows
what they're up to?'

'Roadie.' I made him face me. His leer was nauseating. 'Wipe your
nose. Where is Vyna likely to be?'

He giggled, a high-pitched staccato that actually made me step
back. The bands came nearer, lads bugling, girls' drums pounding. Pipes skirled
and banners flapped. He tried to turn. I held him, wondering how the hell I'd
got into this.

'Dunno.' The grace of a social worker on the skive.

'Awreet, Tinker,' I said, unhappy. Tinker was looking at the
approaching girls.

Normally, Tinker would be going on about their scanty attire,
saying, 'Their parents should get locked up, they'll catch their death of
cold'. It's his litany. The importance of this? He never misses a chance to prattle
against modern shirkers or scanties. Yet he was avoiding my eye, not a word
when our town's youth were Going To The Dogs and Catching Pneumonia before his
very eyes. It was weird.

'Them birds're all right,' Roadie snivelled into his sleeve. I
could. . .’

'Awreet, Tinker,' I decided. 'We'll do what we can to find your
lass. Get her picture photocopied. Send word, Big Frank from Suffolk, Little
Dorrit, Aureole, Margaret Dainty, Beetroot on the Priory Church corner, Sadie.
Paper the rest.'

'The photo place'll be shut, Lovejoy.'

'Do it, Tinker.' I'd had enough. There was something wrong here
and I really wanted no part of it. I had a fake violin to finish before the
week was out, or else. Vyna was probably fine anyway. I'd done what I could. I
moved off, saying, 'Roadie, wipe your nose.' He was already calling out coarse
offers to the first ranks of girls.

That old joke: when your memory goes, forget it; that's what I was
doing. I hadn't any right to, but things were pressing. Tinker was a pal, but
this Roadie was objectionable.

Other people, I told myself, are as you find them, not as they
merely seem. Wasn't it our sensitive gentle poet Shelley who fastened his cat
to his kite and flew it in a storm among the thunder and lightning? People are
what they do, not what they say. That includes women, acquaintances, people you
meet. And friends, even ones as reliable as me. Completely absolved, I headed
down the side street for the treacherous world of sex plus antiques. Somebody
ought to invent a word mixing the two. Sexanques? Anquex? It's a serious lack,
for the two together are the perfect excuse for everything on earth.

God, but we're a.h.s.

I knocked at Carmel's tiny terraced dwelling, gazing wistfully at
its fourteenth century architecture. These cottages form a cluster, all
genuinely old. Course, they've been 'improved' by our town council, a band of
overweight spoilers laying all waste before, happily, the atherosclerosis
resulting from their gargantuan expense-account meals ends their game. The
structure, though, is still original. Carmel was in.

'Hello, Lovejoy.' She almost wore a silk floral gown. 'Sod off.
I'm busy.'

'No you're not, Carmel. You never are.'

She slammed the door.

This is average. I waited, without taking offence. She's always
starting up new enterprises, but has one constant sin. It's the ephemeral world
of creativity, a posh word for cadging, 'dealing'. She's made for it. I've
heard her use over a dozen accents in a single evening, and that was in
seclusion on her boat moored at the marina. Carmel lives for telephones, rings
on her fingers and bells on her toes, to coin a song. Carmel never stops.

The door slammed open, if doors can do such a thing. She stood
glaring.

'What
is
it?'
She
'd sent for
me
, note.

'Work, Carmel?'

Two lads howled by on a motor bike, whistling lust. Absently she
made a rude gesture, kept her anger for me.

'You always interrupt, Lovejoy. I'm sick of you. You're never away
from my door.'

Translation: How broke are you, Lovejoy? I pondered on how to
reach her clinking clanking heart's locked coffers.

'We've not met for months, Carmel,' I said reasonably.

'So why this urgency? Because your cottage's repossessed, and your
whorish fashioneer's ditched you?'

'Eh?' Being homeless was news. Visiting Carmel always paid.

She saw how startled I was. I could see her mind change.

'Come in. You've a minute, Lovejoy.'

Carmel's minutes are famous for their elasticity. Even I've
managed to stretch one to a full day with minimal inventiveness, and I'm not up
to much. Think how a tycoon like, say, her pal Roger Boxgrove'd do.

Two phones were ringing, one inside her gown. She answered it in
French, pointing a finger to the living room door. Obediently I went through
and shut the door. It went whoosh, soundproofed. I like Carmel. She and I met
when she asked me for help stealing a filing cabinet from the solicitors
Parlpley and Donnash's in St Edmundsbury. Her car had conked out and mine was
miraculously functioning. She actually flagged me down on the A47. We loaded
the stolen files piecemeal. Ungraciously, she'd played hell because I'd no car
phone.