The Possessions of a Lady

by Jonathan Gash

  The main carriageways had changed so I had to keep an eye on the signs. Salford, then Central Manchester. Daft to have Salford in another city. Salford City, c/o Manchester City sounds barmy.

  The hospital had free parking.

  ‘I'm here to see Viktor Vasho.' I tried to put on a camp air, but the receptionist smiled.

  'Viktor V. Vasho? The second visitor!' She clattered her keyboard. 'Relative?'

  My feeble artiness was sussed. 'From his firm.'

  'Name?' She entered my fictions, phoned. 'You can go up, Mr. Mantle.'

  'Ta, love.' I hesitated. 'Who else came?'

  'Confidential,' she said, glad to refuse.

  'Ta, love.' I followed the baffling signs. No wonder hospital visitors all get lost.

  Hospitals are horrible. It's their preoccupation, nurses rushing while you blunder, the pong of disinfectant telling you more about mortality than any number of gruesome diagrams.

  The intensive care unit was set aside. The gloomy dungeonlike nook was crammed with scary instrumentation, screens made only for cartoons trailing lines, bleeps threatening imminent silence and termination. Tubes drip, corrugated cylinders gasp and collapse, things inflate with a ghastly sucking. And the object of these glowing lights and miniature tides lies somnolent in a plastic capsule, face wedged in a transparent cup. It comes to us all, this last wretchedness. My frightened heart went out to this Viktor V. Vasho I'd never known. I stood there, one foot to the other.

  'Er, hello, Viktor?' When I'm being stupid, whatever I say comes out a question, though he wasn't going to say much. Can you talk with a mask on your phizog? Where would the words go? His corrugated tube led to a glittering machine. I went closer, nervous of somebody who looked a goner. I didn't know if he was, but he wasn't going to marathon for us in the Olympics.

  'Viktor?' I found myself whispering, began again louder. 'I'm Lovejoy. Just a . . .' How to describe myself to a famed fashioneer? 'A layabout, really,' I said, rueful. 'Antiques.'

  My hopeful pause got no response. I ahemed, watched his eyelids. Shut. Was he registering? Can you hear, if you're cocooned like that? Doctors tell you nothing. Why wasn't there a notice saying, It's hopeless trying to chat with the bloke in this thing, instead of those daft warnings about cleaning babies' belly buttons and renewing deaf aids?

  Disheartened, I forged on. 'See, Viktor, I was shacked up with Thekla.' Nothing. 'I met these loonies . . . er, I went to a fashion show. Thekla ditched me because I didn't understand.' I was thirsty, dripping with sweat. Hospitals are hellish hot.

  Two nurses zoomed past, neither looking in. Fine, I thought bitterly. What if this poor sod croaked while they swanned off to their coffee?

  No response, Viktor still as a board.

  'Viktor? I'm searching for a missing girl. Vyna. I thought she was nothing to do with fashion, see?'

  Christ, but it was stifling. The special unit was more of an alcove, no doors. The sister's desk was obliquely across, nurses checking drugs. I looked away. Whatever they're doing can't be good for you, can it? Ampoules put the fear of God in me.

  Was it worth saying any more? Was he secretly listening? He might be all glad in there, first chat for days. I felt such a prat.

  'It's dawned on me that I've been led,' I told him. 'You know why I was asked to chase her? Because I didn't take the bait. An auction in my home town, coupled with a fashion show. I got a pal to help. Spoolie. He got topped.'

  Viktor Vasho didn't stir. Could I lift the edge of the plastic tent? You never know what's right in a hospital. Anything could be vital.

  ‘I don't know what's going on,' I told the still figure. 'An old girlfriend's running a fashion show. You know her, Amy. I'm hosting the auction. A double thing.'

  Maybe he was thirsty? How could he ask, when he couldn't move?

  'Look. Are you okay? Want some tea?' I went across to the nurse's desk.

  'Excuse me, sister. About Viktor Vasho.' Even his name sounded on the blink. 'Might he want something? Only, he's lying, er, stillish. Not saying much.'

  'He won't,' she said crisply. She rose, starched apron rattling, streaked in to dart a practised glance through the gloom, emerged. 'He's fine.'

  'I mean, can he hear me if I talk? Will he get better?'

  'We don't know.' She looked at me, then into the greenish aquarium gloaming. 'It's day to day.'

  I exhaled and went back in. Viktor Vasho was a weird centerpiece in a pool of faint luminescence.

  'Viktor, mate.' I hunched down, avoiding his tubes. 'I think this is all one scam, see? I came to ask why you got ki— er . . .' Something less final, perhaps, for tact's sake? 'Attacked,' I capped, proud of my word power. 'What's it all for? They could have simply hired me, if they'd needed a divvy.'

  My whisper trailed away. I hadn't come when they'd asked. That Stella Entwistle had tried to entice me with antiques, when I was broke. So the real essential ingredient was me.

  'My own barker—can you believe it?—is in on it too.' Maybe it was worth asking. 'Is there anything you can tell me? I even got accused of Hamming you.' That didn't sound right. 'Damaging your frocks, I mean that spring collection.' Wasn't that what they call it? 'If—er, when —you get better, would you mind telling them, please?'

  He said nothing. A green screen gave an ominous bleep. I looked anxiously at the sister's table. Her head raised, lowered.

  'And there's a right miserable bitch called Faye who believes the same. Please give her a bell, put her straight. And some Orla bird, a suspicious hoary old crow. Tell her too. If you make it.' Harder still. 'If you get a minute.'

  You never know how to say so-long to someone in that state. I flapped a hand.

  'Cheers, Viktor.' I hesitated. 'Get better, eh?'

  And left the poor sod alone. I felt ill. Somebody did that to him, for sewing frocks?

  'Yes? What is it?' the sister demanded. They always glance at your middle, possibly checking something isn't going to fall out of you onto the table.

  'Viktor Vasho,' I said when her eyes returned to mine. 'Do you know much about him?'

  'Famous fashion designer. Do you mean his family? But you must know that, Mr. Mantle, being his staff.'

  'Course I do, sister. Ta, then.'

  That was all. Nothing. The canteen had shut. There were only those machines that keep your money and give you the wrong drink. I returned to the car, narked.

  No sooner was I in when this lass got in beside me.

  'Sorry, love. Ask for a taxi at reception.' I couldn't see her face in the dark.

  'Drive on, Lovejoy.' She didn't look at me.

  'Faye?' I yelped, scrambled out.

  'Yes, Lovejoy. The right miserable bitch.'

  'Er, look, Faye. If you're going to scream . . .'

  'I'll behave, Lovejoy.'

  Safe? I got back in. The motor took ages to start. I drove out of Manchester heading for the Man and Scythe, lay my aching head. The Earl of Derby had slept there the night before we executed him after the Great Civil War. Travellers actually ask for the same bedroom. God, but we're a horrible species. As we went I found Faye's knees catching the light. Horrible species, Faye excepted.

  ‘I was sitting in the ICU while you talked to Viktor, Lovejoy.'

  'Sly cow.'

  I actually saw her smile, as the lamps nicked. Was she proud of being devious?

  'As you seem the only honest one among us, Lovejoy, I've decided to trust you.'

  To my dismay I said, 'Don't, Faye. I'm lost.'

  27

  As I drove, I asked Faye about being a fashion journalist, but didn't really listen to her answer.

  Fashion's odd. Why do we follow it, when it's only deviating from a norm to get shrieked at? It's too changeable. Birds who hie into my cottage are all at it. One, a married woman who ought to've known better, actually chucked my clothes out and had the nerve to be indignant when, naked as a neonate, I reproached her. 'They were rubbish, Lovejoy,' she shot back and added, 'Move with the times, Lovejoy.'
I'd said, 'Why?' but only got, 'Don't be ridiculous . . .' I'd have already solved this mystery in nanosecs but for fashion— Spoolie's death, the missing lass, this looming auction-cum-fashion jamboree.

  Concentrating on not gaping at Faye, older failures came to mind. Nostalgia tricks you. That Berkley frame was still owed me. And I'd never got a tin token out of Aureole for inventing the chain date.

  'Who's a rotten cow, Lovejoy?' Faye asked. 'Aureole who?'

  'Sorry. I thought I was thinking.'

  She smiled in the neon-black-neon light sequence. 'A what horse?'

  'An antique sex aid. Now, people don't need them.'

  'Will you be running this auction, Lovejoy?'

  'Suppose so. Dunno. Why are you here?'

  'I came to see Viktor. We trained together, same college. And the fashion show.' Reasonable enough. 'The fash thrash has an historic theme this year.'

  'Amy Somebody's doing that,' I said, guarded. 'The Last Victorians.'

  'How long have you been here, Lovejoy?' I didn't reply.

  She said, 'A day? Two?' I let her blag that one also. She spun in her seat. 'Why are we stopping?'

  'A mo.' I let the motor drift to a halt, the old Farnworth road. Daylight, you'd see St John's spire. My great-gramp and great-gran were in its churchyard. I sat. What an odd thought, but for fashion, I'd have had this solved in nanoseconds. I looked at Faye.

  'Not here, Lovejoy,' she said, misunderstanding. 'I'm exhausted. And I've work tomorrow.'

  Chance'd be a fine thing. A police car was parked nearby to watch for illicit copulators.

  'Do you know Aureole?' I asked. She expostulated, for heaven's sakes and that. I put a fist under her nose. 'Stick to the script, love. You say you trust me, but the question is, do I trust you. Aureole, yes or no?'

  'Never heard of her,' she said sulkily. 'It's a stupid name.'

  'Thekla?'

  'Thekla?' She hooted derision. 'That prune? I met you at her show! The fashion mags ran a competition for Thekla's most apt nickname. Spittoon, moo, itch-bitch. She's paid people to find you, Lovejoy, to get you back.'

  'Naheen? Dovie?' I strove to think who'd brought me into this. That pill who'd massacred the antique carpet. 'Rodney? Carmel? Tubb the body-builder?'

  'That's Carmel's a cow. And her friend Jessica.'

  Struck oil. 'Why?' I still didn't drive on.

  'Once a doler, always a doler.'

  Had I misheard? 'A dollar?'

  'Dole-er. A bitch who steals designs, markets them as her own. You know?'

  'Really,' I said, polite. 'Does it matter?'

  'Does it what?’ She stared at this extraterrestrial beside her. 'Are you off your zonk, Lovejoy? Fashion is multi-mega-billion business.'

  'No, love. Look.' I pointed through the windscreen to houses, factories, a school. 'They take no notice of it, except to laugh.'

  Faye's face could have dowsed fire. 'You're stupid. Those people may buy only one coat a year, two skirts, a few blouses. But they choose the colours fashioneers decide. They buy styles that fashioneers create. Tot it up, Lovejoy. Jewellery, cosmetics, textiles, logos, toys. Add record sales. Add holidays, hordes round the globe. Add exports, advertising. Got the picture? Throw in the motor trade, the wedding industry . . .'

  She went on for about three hours, or maybe minutes. I listened, for the first time thinking, Jessica of the cloying scents, whose eyelashes raked your bare skin in bed?

  'Which Jessica?' I asked when she paused for breath.

  Faye said, 'Lives with her drifter son-in-law. Got religion. Once worked for Viktor Vasho. Wicked witch of the east.'

  My Jessica, then. Worked for Viktor Vasho?

  'Carmel?' I asked.

  'Jessica and Carmel backed Thekla's last show. Such good friends.' Said with vitriol. I ought to have come to Faye first, but how do you know which path leads anywhere?

  'Tubb was her driver but wouldn't travel on Fridays, touch-wood, green for danger.'

  'I know Tubb.'

  'Has second sight. It's all put on, a joke. Believing him ruined Carmel. She used to be a big backer. Lost everything on investments, taking Tubb's psychic advice. That's why she's desperate.'

  'So everybody's in fashion?' My head was spinning. I felt I'd been speaking the wrong lingo.

  'Of course! It's why there are whole fortunes up for grabs.'

  Frocks? Vital? Though I could see that getting dressed can be important. Fashion and antiques were to meet at Scout Hey. I had a bad feeling, the sort that's never wrong.

  'Spoolie?' I said the name with care.

  'Spoolie? I don't know any Spoolie. Unless she's that Bristol designer into tree bark?' Not bad, as negatives go. I relaxed.

  'Let's find you a place to stay, Faye.' I drove on.

  Cavalier, I put her down at the Pack Horse. The most desolate feeling on earth is seeing a gorgeous bird leaving. I went to Man and Scythe, whose publican told me a Mrs. Thekla Somebody'd left umpteen desperate messages, all saying Ring, Do nothing, Please wait until I arrive . . .

  Plus one other, a scrawl in an embossed Pack Horse envelope:

  Lovejoy,

  Be in the ghost's arch, 5 o'clock a.m.

  Cheers. Tinker.

  They sent me up a good nosh. I wolfed it, and slept for some seconds. Then I rose, had a bath, shaved blearily, collared a few addresses, and made my way to the scene of an ancient crime so old that time's almost forgotten it.

  Which bought me a few moments to consider antiques, which is where I really belong. Why did I keep forgetting that? Other people I suppose.

  28

  If in doubt about going somewhere—go anyway. Four in the morning—and I don't mean five—I went to the ghost's arch.

  The town looked somnolent. Square and Roman, of course, the town centre, like everywhere, but now dwellings sprawled out to those chilling empty—now not so empty— moors.

  Lights more or less on, one motor droning somewhere to somewhere else, nobody about. Bobbies don't patrol beats any longer. They're above all that, have their illicit fags and chips in parked limos and snooker halls.

  We'd played a game, us mill children. God, I thought, hesitating by the ghost's archway, was it years since? A year when you're little seems a lifetime. When you're grown, a year multiplies to several in a blink. I honestly believe that Time gets it wrong. Time should go like clockwork, but never does. As I stood, it was blowing dank off the moors. I can never bother with overcoats and scarves, not having either, but now I wished I had. The bit of night before dawn is chiller.

  Our game was to creep into the archway, escaping just before the ghost got you. The darker it was, the riskier. My cousin Glenice, always brave, went farthest in before running out squealing, which really narked me because she was female. And therefore, that now-vanished world instructed, less brave and likely to end up subnormal to boot. She currently owns a chain of hotels. I felt that old fear, stared at the ghost's arch.

  A long time since, a poor bloke was murdered there. It's solid stone, leads nowhere. Carved in the keystone is 1826 under a carved barrel, MCD above. The great iron hinges are still there for nothing now.

  The town hall clock struck quarter past four. Stupidly, we throw our archaeology away. I honestly don't know if that Greek lass who's lately excavated some unique limestone tablets at the Siwa Oasis really has found Alexander the Great's burial place. She was guided by 'a sort of feeling . . .' Sure, her site's near the Temple of Zeus-Amun. Sure, too, Big A wanted to be buried at Siwa, home of the Oracle. When he died, he was encased in a golden Alexander-shaped sarcophagus in a temple on wheels, no less, and then wheeled ... to where? He was finally entombed inside an alabaster sarcophagus which, carved thin, you can see through. But other places lay claim to the Great One, as many as claim St Patrick in Eire. So even the world's most famous archaeology can get lost. We shouldn't discard what we have left.

  Standing in the early morning, the universe asleep, unnerving thoughts come, like images of past loves.


  My feet were cold. I shifted about. That distant sky glow must be Manchester. Behind, north and west, blackness of the moors. I walked to look at the railway. Why move the station clock? Silly sods. I strolled back. This, the ghost arch, was where Tinker divided the money, Fagin-like, among us young rapscallions who shifted his purloined antiques. There'd been three of us, me the only divvy.

  You've to be careful, thinking. Lost archaeologies frighten me. TV programmes about the cosmos also scare me, trillions of galaxies with, likely enough, umpteen gillions of long dead civilisations floating in black space . . .

  'Aaaargh!' I went, my screech echoing down the empty streets as something stroked my leg. I'd leapt a league, but it was only a cat, tail up, purring.

  Bending, I growled, 'Stupid moth-eaten moggie. Do that again and I'll marmalise you.' It came for a fondle. I stroked it in despair. That's me all over. I can't even bollock a cat without giving in, even when I'm the injured party. I was waiting here secret as a moon in a mine, not even the sense to bring a flashlight. But would I need one? The street lights were enough. The archway was recessed a few gloamy paces. Its single gaslight, placed there 150 years ago, was a gnarled relic. I felt so lonely. I thought of Wanda. She'd be doing Briony Finch's auction soon. Knowing Wanda's shrewdness, she'd hold it somewhere other than Thornelthwaite Manor, another symbol of lost greatness.

  Just as some things get sickeningly lost, some can be found. A French official lately discovered some caves near Avignon. Why does it never happen to me? This lucky bloke delved into a Palaeolithic cave. Saying it means hardly anything, because most caves are Palaeolithic or that way on. But this contained staggering paintings of Ice Age animals. Naturally, the world went crazy. Well, 20,000 years, or more. Bears, reindeer, the woolly rhino, owls, leopard and ibex, even a bloke's hand outlined in red, 300 Cro-Magnon animal pictures wondrously preserved. But not every cave is honest. The Avignon find might turn out to be brilliantly authentic, like Spain's Altamira find, and France's Lascaux of 1940. There are supposed to be nigh on seventeen dozen Stone Age caves with authentic paintings in the bottom bit of Europe alone, and over a thousand dozen Australian aboriginal rock art sites on the Arnhem Land plateau, some a cool 40,000 years old.