‘And you paint these … antique paintings … to order, for Dennis, who sells them as genuine, in his shop … to customers who think they’re buying an antique?’
‘Not always,’ he answered unrepentantly. ‘He sells some to other traders as well.’
‘And they know where they’ve come from?’
‘No. They don’t know where they’ve come from,’ he told me firmly, ‘but they know they’re not genuine antiques.’
His cheerful dishonesty shocked me. I must have looked flabbergasted.
Paul laughed. ‘Look, Juno, I’m not a forger. I don’t put real signatures on those paintings, I just make them up.’ He shrugged. ‘And if it makes you feel any better, my criminal career can’t go on much longer, anyway.’
‘Why not?’
‘Darkolene is getting very difficult to come by. I buy up old tins of it wherever I can find them but one day the supply will run out. And modern polyurethane varnishes are no good at all. They don’t have the same effect.’
‘I see.’ I didn’t know what to say, really. I suppose I’ve led a sheltered life.
‘I’m not the only one who makes their own antiques,’ he told me. ‘Did you notice a stall selling Victorian panoramas?’
‘Oh, yes I did!’ I remembered a display of glass-fronted boxes, each a little larger than a shoebox and painted inside like the room in a doll’s house, with peg dolls and tiny teddy bears sitting on miniature furniture; charming – if you like that kind of thing.
‘That’s Carol. I bet you she’ll be round later, asking if we’ve got any taxidermy.’
‘Taxidermy?’
‘Stuffed animals come in glass cases.’
I suddenly thought of Nick’s shop, of the glaring owl. The light began to dawn.
‘Old glass cases,’ Paul nodded, seeing I was catching on. ‘Carol’s very careful. She paints the backgrounds in watercolour, uses vintage fabrics to dress her dolls, and she never puts too many of her panoramas’ – he made quote marks in the air with his fingers − ‘on display at once.’
‘I must go back and have a closer look,’ I said.
‘If anyone asks, she’ll be perfectly honest about the fact she makes the things. But very few people do ask …’
‘And they’re happy to pay a high price because they think they’re buying something old,’ I completed for him. ‘And stuffed animals are unfashionable, so I suppose she can pick up the cases cheaply?’
‘That’s right.’
Clever Carol, I had to admire her ingenuity.
Our conversation had to stop then, because a couple came up to look at Nick’s balloon-back chairs. Whilst they were examining them in minute detail and Paul was filling them in on their history, I had my second customer of the day.
‘How much for the celery glass?’ a pleasant lady asked me, holding up a wide-necked vessel with a pedestal base.
For a moment I stared like an idiot. I hadn’t realised it was a celery glass.
I’d thought it was just a vase. I recovered my wits and named my price. She made a slightly lower offer, which I accepted, and the money changed hands. I wrote down my second sale in my notebook. Celery glass. I had a lot to learn.
The fair filled up – a record attendance, apparently. I sold several brooches and a ribbon plate. I was hardly going to make my fortune, but I found selling was fun. I also sold a pink glass dressing-table set, glad I’d revised the price upwards after I’d seen another for sale. Paul, meanwhile, offloaded a small Edwardian dressing table and a wooden campaign chest.
But it was a long day. In between customers we filled our time with chatting and taking it in turns to fetch refreshments. After chips from one van, and custard doughnuts and hot chocolate from another, we decided that the eating had to stop and Paul went off to look around the fair, leaving me in charge, with a list of rock-bottom prices on his stock, below which I was not allowed to stray, if anyone asked.
I learnt quite a lot about Paul in the gaps between customers. As the crow flies, he lived only a short distance from my front door. In fact, I could reach his place in two minutes if I scrambled through a hedge and across a field; although a more civilised route would have been to carry on past Maisie’s cottage and down Brook Lane. This would bring me directly to his gate.
He lived in a field, or rather, in a caravan in a field. He’d bought an acre of land with the idea of building his own house. He wanted to create an off-grid, eco-dwelling, constructed of straw bales and cob. He was really enthusiastic about the whole project. I’d never heard anyone talk about ground-source heat pumps and wind turbines with such energy and passion. The question I really wanted to ask, of course, was whether anyone else lived there with him, but I couldn’t think of a way of phrasing the question that didn’t sound embarrassingly obvious and inept. He hadn’t mentioned a partner, but it would be strange if such an attractive man didn’t already have someone in his life. If I didn’t want to make a clot of myself, I had better proceed with caution.
Three years after buying the land, he told me, he was still wrestling with the council over planning permission. ‘If I wanted to put up a conventional modern house it would be fine.’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘I’m trying to build something that will make a far less destructive impact on the environment and the bloody fools won’t let me do it.’
‘But they allowed you permission for the caravan?’ I asked.
‘That was already there when I bought the land and there was already a barn on-site. I use it as a workshop. I put a tank in there for dipping and stripping.’
‘Dipping and stripping?’
‘I’ve got a friend who owns an architectural salvage business. Most of my bread and butter comes from stripping doors and stuff for him. The good stuff I do by hand, but large items, like the doors, have to go in the tank.’ His dark eyes smiled. ‘You must come over one day and have a look.’
He returned from his wander around the fair, looking pleased, even though I had no further sales to report. He was gripping something in his fist. ‘The problem with places like this is that if you’re not very disciplined, you can end up buying as much as you sell.’ He opened his fingers to reveal a small, pale object squatting on his palm. It was a little toad, an ugly creature with bulging eyes, its tongue sticking out. It had a hole in its head running through to its tail.
I picked it up. ‘Is it Chinese?’
‘Japanese. It’s a netsuke, probably nineteenth century. The Japanese used to wear them tied on their sashes. That’s what this hole is for, for threading it on.’
‘Is it valuable?’
‘Not this one. They can be expensive, depending on what they’re carved from – ivory or jade – and who carved them; this one’s just wooden.’ He shrugged. ‘But it’s a nice addition to my collection.’
‘You collect them?’
‘My private passion.’ He winked as he slipped the thing into his coat pocket.
‘How many have you got?’ I asked.
He frowned thoughtfully, ‘About twenty.’
‘Have you got them on display?’ I asked mockingly.
He gave a crack of wry laughter. ‘In the caravan? No. They’re stuffed in a cardboard box.’
Netsuke. I tasted the word on my tongue: another thing I was going to look up on the Internet when I got home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I decided I would stay away from Paul in future. I fancied him too much. And after what happened at the end of the fair there was obviously no future in that.
We were busy packing away. It was almost time for the fair to close, the customers were drifting off home and all the stallholders were packing up around us.
A woman approached. I’d seen her on one of the stalls inside the hangar. I remembered her startling green eyes. She’d been engaged in a lively discussion with a customer over a cloisonné vase and her accent was French. She didn’t look like a market trader, certainly didn’t look like a woman who had spent the day out in the weathe
r, as I looked, windswept and bedraggled. She looked glossy, well groomed and elegant. ‘Ah, Paul!’ she cried, as she hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks.
Paul introduced her as Sandrine. Her gaze swept me up and down and returned to my face. She gave me what I can only describe as the look of filth.
‘So, Paul,’ she asked, still maintaining eye contact with me, ‘where is your lovely wife?’
I turned away and carried on stowing away my unsold stock, wrapping things in newspaper and putting them in boxes, keeping my head down, apparently not listening in to their conversation, my ears on stalks. There was a moment of silence before Paul replied. Did he glance in my direction?
‘Carrie’s staying up in Nottingham,’ he told her, ‘with her mother.’
‘And Josh too?’ she purred sweetly. ‘How old is he now? Two?’
‘Nearly three.’
‘Ah,’ Sandrine babbled on, ‘the time, how it flies!’
Ah, the heart, how it sinks! Now I had the answer to my question. My face felt hot, I was blushing like an idiotic schoolgirl. And why, I asked myself? Paul and I weren’t on a date. During the day he had asked me if I’d be interested in working some other fairs and markets with him, which I’d taken as a sign that things might be moving in an interesting direction, but I’d no reason to feel embarrassed. It just seemed very strange that he’d told me all his plans for his new home and the kind of life he wanted to live there, and said nothing about a wife and child. Surely they would be mentioned, hinted at somehow? I felt irrationally irritated with him, and even crosser with myself.
Glossy Sandrine made her departure with, ‘Do give my love to Carrie when you see her!’ and drifted away. I carried on packing and tried to smother the desire to strangle her with my bare hands. After all, she’d done me a favour.
Paul’s attention was taken by a woman interested in a little table of his, and so we were saved the awkwardness of conversation for a while. I didn’t know what to say anyway. Better to shut up and leave it to him to raise the subject.
Which he did, but not until we’d packed everything, loaded it in the van, folded away the tarpaulin, and were sitting in a queue, trying to exit the airfield with all the other traders, after the fair had closed.
‘You OK, Juno?’ he asked, glancing at me because I was silent.
‘Fine,’ I assured him. Less said the better, I felt.
‘You enjoyed today?’
‘It was great, thanks.’
There was a brief pause before he spoke again. ‘I didn’t mention Carrie before because … well, it’s a bit painful at the moment. Truth is, she’s left me …’
‘She doesn’t understand you?’ I suggested sarcastically. I regretted it immediately, could have bitten off my tongue.
He grunted. ‘I suppose I deserve that.’ He was silent a moment. ‘It was our dream, you see, building our own place and raising our kids in a natural environment. At first, Carrie was just as passionate about it as I was. But then she got pregnant with Josh – well, it’s not easy, coping with a small baby in a tiny caravan. Last winter was really hard, we were broke … and the weather …’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘It was freezing cold, never seemed to stop raining. The caravan was damp. The mud was awful. Well, when we found Carrie was expecting again …’
Ah! I thought, something the glossy Sandrine didn’t seem to know …
‘She said she couldn’t go through it again, not unless we were living in a proper house. She decided to go back to her mum for the duration of the pregnancy.’
‘But she’ll come back, won’t she?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted hopelessly. ‘I suggested we modify our plans to build a more conventional house. The council might let us get on with it. But even that could take a year to build, longer if we get delays. She wants us to abandon the whole idea, sell up and buy a new property.’
‘And you’re not prepared to do that?’ I was feeling sorry for him by now, just trying not to show it.
‘Of course I will, if I have to. But I’m just hoping, once the baby’s born, if I can persuade Carrie to come back down here again, she might change her mind.’
‘I’m sure she will,’ I said, although I didn’t know if I would if I were in her position: having children changes things, changes people. Not that I know anything about it. In fact, I don’t seem to know much about love and relationships in general. It must be the Capricorn in me, perhaps I’ll get better at it when I’m younger.
‘So, we’re still friends?’ Paul asked. We’d deposited all my boxes outside my front door and I’d assured him I could manage them from there.
‘Of course we are.’
‘Give us a hug, then.’ He opened his arms wide and I let him envelop me in a big friendly embrace. And that was stupid, because, as he planted a brotherly kiss on my cheek, I felt the warmth and strength of his body, like an electrical charge. I had to resist the desire to melt my body against his, to brush my lips against that warm, tanned neck.
I decided then I would maintain a distance as much as possible. He was a married man. I’d been down that road before and I wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. So, I wouldn’t do any more markets with him and I wouldn’t go round to see his place as he suggested. I would maintain a polite distance, stay away.
I watched him drive off. And I wouldn’t have gone near him ever again, if it hadn’t been for what happened the day after.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I called around to see Nick the morning after the fair, keen to tell him about my day. Considering the amount of money he’d made with the bonheur du jour at auction, I thought he might be disappointed with our paltry pickings, but not at all. He seemed pleased. ‘I’ve brought back the rest of the stock,’ I told him. ‘It’s in my van.’
‘No, no. You keep, Juno,’ he told me. ‘You keep it till next time.’
I wasn’t so sure there was going to be a next time. And I didn’t want to keep the boxes. I didn’t have room in my flat to store them and I couldn’t leave them in the van because I needed the space for the Tribe every morning. But I wanted to ask him a favour, so I mentally resigned myself to lugging the wretched things back home.
‘You know that nasty, ratty-looking stuffed weasel you’ve got down in the shop? It’s not likely to sell, is it?’
‘You want?’ Nick frowned at me, puzzled. ‘You want weasel?’
‘I don’t want weasel, but I would like the case.’
‘What for you want case?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘It’s just an idea I have, something I want to mess around with. I’ll pay you for it.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s yours. Take it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Go, fetch,’ he said, as if I was a dog. ‘Juno,’ he called out as I started off down the stairs. ‘You take weasel. You no take case and leave me with weasel.’
‘OK!’ I called back, wondering if the council refuse collectors would take away a stuffed rodent if I left it in a bin.
The weasel was up on the top shelf in the shop, which meant climbing up a dangerously rickety wooden stepladder. Whilst I was wobbling about on the top step amongst the dust and cobwebs, I examined some other taxidermy items. The glaring owl and its case were much too big for my purposes, but there was a badly stuffed, furious little creature, which might once have been a red squirrel, baring its teeth at me. Its case was about the right size.
So engrossed was I in the consideration of objects that I don’t normally get a chance to see up close, that I didn’t hear the sick rattle of the doorbell, or Nick going down to answer it, until it was too late. Voices sounded in the hallway, speaking in a foreign language: one was Nick’s, but the other I was certain belonged to Vlad. There was also a new voice, much deeper. I reckoned Nick wouldn’t want Vlad to know I was there, and I wasn’t keen on encountering him again myself, so I kept very still whilst I heard heavy footsteps climbing the stairs. I listened until they reached Nick’s liv
ing room, their footsteps directly over my head.
Then I sneaked quietly down the ladder. I could slip out of the front door without being noticed but I’d left my bag in Nick’s kitchen. My keys were inside so I couldn’t get into the van, and if I walked home, I couldn’t get into the house. I slid my hand into my jacket pocket. My fingers found my mobile phone, but nothing else.
I stayed put for a minute, listening to the voices upstairs. A lively discussion was rapidly escalating into a heated argument. I crept to the door and peered out into the corridor. A voice suddenly raised in anger – Vlad’s voice, aggressively loud, bullying, accompanied by a series of thumps: his gloved fist pounding on a table, or something worse? Then came a tremendous crash, like a piece of furniture being thrown over, and the unmistakeable sound of a slap. I heard Nick cry out.
I raced up the stairs, slipping my phone from my pocket, and held it against my ear. ‘Police!’ I yelled, rushing into the room. I held the phone out at arm’s length. ‘I’ve called the police!’ I hadn’t of course. No signal. I just hoped Vlad and his companion didn’t realise that.
I had the advantage of surprise. They had no idea I was in the building and for a moment they stared, speechless with shock. Then Vlad let out an oath. His companion, solid as a church door, black hair crinkling over a low brow – let’s call him Igor – stood still and gaped at me. He was gripping a bunch of Nick’s shirt front in one massive fist, the other raised in preparation for a blow.
‘Get out!’ I screamed at him, pointing the way down the stairs. I tried to control my voice but it was shaking and way off the scale. ‘Go!’ I waved the phone at them, screeching like a harpy. ‘Police! I’ve called the police!’
They might not know much English, but they understood ‘police’ all right. Igor slowly released his hold on Nick.
For one heart-stopping moment I thought that Vlad was going to call my bluff. A derisive smile slowly spread across his face and he took a step towards me. If his icy stare was bad, his smile was worse, like the grin on the face of a wolf that has spotted a limping lamb. But at that moment, somewhere out on East Street, a siren wailed. I could tell it was only an ambulance, but it was enough to spook the Brothers Grim. They exchanged glances, decided that discretion was the better part of valour and beat a retreat down the stairs, Vlad making vile and hateful mutterings on the way.
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