The Grail Tree

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Stop mauling Aunt Martha’s porcelains,’ Dolly snapped. I replaced the lovely Belleek jug with a wrench.

  ‘Are you always so rude, Lovejoy?’ Dolly was still bristling as old Henry entered our merry scene, floating discreetly in like a dandelion seed.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered to shut her up. ‘Hello, Henry.’

  ‘Ah, Lovejoy!’ he beamed. ‘The inherent benevolence of Man triumphs again over the onslaughts of the insensitive!’

  ‘Before we begin,’ Martha interposed firmly, ‘let’s be seated. Conversation over lunch is preferable to all this hovering with empty glasses.’

  We hadn’t been exactly stuck for words but clearly she was expert at scuppering Henry’s theological chat. We trooped into the dining room. I never know what to do with my glass. Other people usually manage to get rid of theirs somehow. Breeding, I suppose.

  The meal was pleasant, served by two friendly women. I tried not to eat like a horse but you can’t help being a born opportunist. Finally, I threw elegance to the wind and ate anything they put in front of me. Old Henry and Martha spun their grub out to keep me company, talking of incidentals. Dolly sat determinedly trying to disconcert me, elbows on the table and pointedly glancing at her watch. I’d made a hit there, I thought. Henry prattled about his undergraduate days at Cambridge and Martha prompted him if he tended to ramble. I tried to feel along underneath the tablecloth’s hem without anyone noticing what I was doing. It was obviously a two-pedestal table, but a genuine eighteenth-century pedestal-based dining table will have no inlays. Also, simply count the number of pedestals the table’s got. Subtract one. That gives you the number of leaves the genuine table ought to have. I was quivering with eagerness to get underneath and see if the legs were reeded. I ate pressed hard against the table. If the table rim is reeded its four slender legs must be reeded. My bell was donging desperately, but the polite natter would have faltered if I’d dived underneath and fondled all available legs, so I ploughed on through the meal and kept my lust secret.

  ‘Your visitor’s a pleasure to feed,’ Martha’s principal serf said, all fond.

  ‘Marvellous,’ the other chipped in. ‘Instead of your two wee appetites.’

  ‘We do our best,’ Henry said, pulling a face.

  This really puzzles me. Why aren’t women wild because all their work in making grub’s gone up in smoke? I’d cleared the lot. Logically, you’d think they’d be annoyed.

  ‘We shall have to make your visit a regular occasion,’ Henry beamed. He looked like a happy pipe-cleaner. He’d only had a mouthful or two, without enthusiasm. No wonder he never filled out.

  ‘Of course we shall,’ Martha said. ‘It’s a standing invitation and you must ensure that it’s frequently accepted, Lovejoy. See to it. But to work. I have a plan,’ she announced. ‘Henry and Lovejoy shall discuss our – er – business walking in the garden. Dolly and I shall keep out of your way.’

  ‘How ridiculous!’ Dolly snapped. ‘That’s . . . antiquated.’

  ‘It’s perfectly sensible, dear,’ Martha corrected blandly. ‘Seeing that I made a perfect mess of last night’s discussion, and that you take after me on your mother’s side. Besides,’ she added, rising, ‘you’re always in such a temper these days. A quiet think will do you good.’

  ‘Aunt Martha!’

  ‘This is our signal,’ Henry confided to me in a whisper, as if Martha had given the obliquest of hints. ‘I’ll show you my barge.’

  ‘Is that thing yours?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sounded so proud of it. ‘Come down.’

  We strolled down towards the river. A few serious anglers were spaced along the opposite river bank. Some sort of fishing competition, judging by the white wooden stakes driven into the bank to show limits. In the distance a pub and a bridge with a few Tudor houses and a thatched cottage or two. You’ve never seen such moribund boredom. Henry seemed amused at my reaction.

  We reached the barge by balancing across the plank. Henry led down to the single log cabin. He had it arranged quite neatly, a folding bed, and a small unlit galley stove. He lit a candle stub, apologizing.

  ‘I keep meaning to get one of those gas bottles,’ he told me, ‘but they always need filling. We must celebrate first.’ He poured a drink for us in enormous tumblers, rum and orange. ‘Martha understands my need for solitude.’ We sat opposite each other and listened to the river sounds entering the cabin. I glanced out at the anglers but none had moved. They sat there like troglodytes, watching their strings and the still water, a real ball. Riveting.

  ‘Er – look – Henry,’ I began. Somebody had to get it over and done with. ‘This Grail thing.’ I launched into a summary of the endless rumours, the wasted searches, the endless time expended on red herrings. ‘It isn’t just the Grail,’ I finished. ‘It’s a million other precious things.’

  ‘I know all that, Lovejoy,’ he said. He refilled our tumblers. ‘And I’m grateful for your frankness.’

  Funny, but the old chap didn’t seem abashed.

  ‘The chances of anybody ever finding an object like the Grail are . . .’

  ‘About the same,’ he put in, smiling, ‘as finding the Cross?’

  ‘Well, St Helena rather pushed her luck,’ I said. That gave him one more grin.

  ‘I know what you must be thinking, Lovejoy.’ He leaned back reflectively. ‘That age or mental instability has deranged me. But I do have it. The Grail, I mean. It is real. Actual. Material.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Henry!’ I rose and paced the narrow cabin. ‘This relic game’s overdone. All right – I give you there must have been some object, a pottery cup or glass –’

  ‘Pewter,’ Henry corrected gravely. ‘It looks like pewter.’

  ‘Right. Pewter, then.’ I rounded on him. ‘Whatever. But relics were an industry. Do you know how many places have been founded on the faintest hints of hearsay? Even –’

  ‘I know, Lovejoy.’ He sat watching me and sipping his rum. ‘Everything from Christ’s milk teeth to hair and foreskin. The Centurion’s spear, Magdalene’s linen cloth, Peter’s sandals –’

  ‘Do you know,’ I said rudely, ‘that owning a relic – real or otherwise – was such an attraction that . . . that when Francis was dying at Assisi, they even had to put an armed guard on the poor bugger so he wasn’t torn to pieces of premature relic? It was a game, Henry,’ I ended wearily. ‘A sad demented game.’ My glass was empty. ‘And nowadays the game’s over.’

  He filled my glass to the brim, chirpy as ever. ‘I’ve been looking for somebody like you for some years, merely to inspect the object. Confirm what it is.’

  I thought about that. ‘What if I say it’s junk?’

  ‘Supposing,’ he said, ‘an object, worthless in itself, was the focus of veneration for millions of people. Would that be – indeed, could it be – merely junk? Ever?’ He shook his head with certainty. ‘There is such a thing as sanctification by use, by belief. Loving,’ he added, ‘is the practice of love. Love is loving. There are no half measures, no staging-posts to love. It’s not a noun, Lovejoy. It’s an active participle.’

  ‘Henry,’ I said resignedly, ‘you’re beginning to sound like me. All right, I surrender. Where’s your crummy old tin cup?’

  He insisted on pouring still more for us both. I was having a hard time keeping up with the old blighter. ‘I’ll show you. Not today, but I promise.’ He jerked his Adam’s apple up and down under the tilted bottle.

  I don’t remember how long we stayed there. I vaguely recall some angler banging on the cabin roof shouting we were ruining the fishing match, but both Henry and I were sloshed and singing by then. We only yelled abuse back. Eventually we ran out of rum.

  ‘The swine have sold us an empty bottle,’ the Reverend Henry accused. ‘Let’s report them.’

  We fell about at his witticism and reeled back up the lawn to the house. Everything seemed hilarious. Martha had tea ready on the terrace. Such elegance. Two new visitors were there.

>   ‘Have you been hiding that foul concoction down in that dreadful boat?’ she blazed. This made us laugh so much I had to pick Henry up.

  ‘Shhh,’ we both told her simultaneously.

  ‘This is Lovejoy,’ Martha was saying, which was odd because I already knew I was Lovejoy. I roared with laughter.

  ‘I already know I’m Lovejoy,’ I said. Henry fell about at this, because he knew it too.

  ‘How do you do?’ this woman said. ‘I’m Sarah Devonish.’ I noticed the specs, amber beads and aggressive handshake full of rings. ‘Hello, Henry.’

  ‘Ah, Sarah, my dear.’ Henry gave an elegant bow and tumbled over.

  ‘Have you been tippling again, Henry?’ It sounded a threat the way she said it.

  ‘Certainly not,’ Henry said with dignity from the paving.

  ‘That will do.’ Sarah yanked him to his feet, full of anger and hating me, why I don’t know. ‘Thomas, give me a hand.’

  Thomas turned out to be a pleasant embarrassed bloke about Henry’s age, a bumbler. He made a mess of trying to introduce himself while struggling to prop old Henry into a chair. Somebody – Martha probably – called him Dr Haverro, but he’s the sort who stumbles over your feet every second breath and never gets to his verbs.

  ‘Wait!’ our sloshed hero cried. ‘I want to tell Lovejoy –’

  ‘You’ve probably said far too much,’ Sarah said severely. ‘Martha. Try to sober him up somehow. Thomas and I don’t want a totally wasted journey.’

  It was interesting to see Martha subdued in the presence of this formidable younger woman. I tried to tell her that her amber beads, all opaque and neffie, badly needed cleaning. It’s a fearsome risk to dip them in solvents or cleaning agents.

  ‘Most people use rectified turps and alcohol,’ I explained cheerfully, ‘but for heaven’s sake, see that you feed amber afterwards. The beads will come lovely and deep, transparent as ever like a beautiful deep gold sea. Use dammar. Be careful to see that your beeswax –’

  ‘Please!’ Sarah snapped, so I shut up while they tried to bring Henry down through the superstrata. He crooned a light air from The Mikado. I could see she was a tough nut. Her amber beads deserved better.

  ‘So sorry about this,’ Thomas said to me apologetically in an undertone. ‘First acquaintance and all that.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said, thinking how reasonable he seemed compared to the bossy Sarah. She was an attractive middle age, but if you’re savage and utterly merciless about amber, you can be as bad about people can’t you?’

  ‘Don’t mind Thomas,’ Henry said. ‘We three are guardians of the most precious –’

  ‘Do shut up, you old fool,’ Sarah said furiously. Henry chuckled.

  ‘Come, come, people,’ Martha admonished. ‘Let’s all keep calm. It’s just as well Dolly’s companions came for her,’ she went on reprovingly, ‘or she would have disapproved even more than I about this, Henry.’

  Henry and I sang a song about Dolly while they helped me into the Ruby. The gardener swung the starting handle, still grinning and shaking his head.

  ‘I did my courting in one of these,’ he told me. ‘Before you were born.’

  ‘Will you be all right, Lovejoy?’ Martha asked anxiously. ‘Perhaps it isn’t really very wise for you to –’

  ‘It knows the way,’ I answered. Henry and I rolled in the aisles at that. His laugh sounded like a scratchy pen nib. ‘Chocks away, mate.’

  They stood aside as I rolled down the road. I thought I drove quite well. In fact I was still thinking that when I reached the outskirts of our village. Then George, our ever vigilant bobby, caught me up on his trusty bike and booked me for drunken driving.

  I went in the tavern for a drink. Driving’s thirsty work.

  Chapter 6

  I WOKE UP in a foul mood with a headache. My usual health-giving breakfast seemed even lousier than usual so I abandoned it and fried everything I could lay hands on. Tomatoes, celery chunks, carrots, cheese and two eggs. It was a grisly business but after that I tottered to the phone.

  I had to get to town and catch Jed and Marion during this morning’s summit conference in Woody’s. If I couldn’t unload Liz Sandwell’s antique glass I’d be selling matches by the weekend. I dared not risk the Ruby now Constable Jilks had his teeth into me.

  Margaret was frosty. I tried to put a cheerful grin in my voice. ‘We must introduce ourselves some time,’ she said.

  ‘Er, look, love,’ I croaked. ‘Any chance of seeing you?’

  ‘You haven’t seen me for days, Lovejoy. And not a word of explanation.’

  ‘Well, love, it was like this –’

  ‘I know for a fact you were in the Arcade yesterday.’ She has a booth there. I tried to cut in but she wouldn’t let me. ‘What do you want this time, Lovejoy?’

  That really hurt. As if I’d only ring a fellow dealer – with whom I am on very friendly terms, I might add – when I wanted something. Women can be very cruel.

  ‘Er, any chance of a lift?’

  ‘If you think I’m going to leave my shop just to cart you about after the way you’ve ignored me lately –’

  ‘But, sweetheart –’

  Click. Burr. Another social triumph. There’s a typical woman for you. Why they can’t be calm and friendly all the time I just don’t know. I phoned Marion’s number, then everybody else I could think of. Jean Evans was in but just on her way to the day institute to teach sculpture. She sweetly suggested I ring Betty (‘You could, shall we say, ride together, Lovejoy’). before banging the phone down. I even toyed with the idea of ringing Honkworth, but there’s a limit. I was stuck, marooned. And I’d used up all my chances of rescue.

  I stood up and shook the tablecloth for the robin. He cackled angrily for some cheese so I went and got the bit I’d saved. A right dogsbody.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ I told him bitterly. ‘That old couple really had me yesterday.’

  The trouble is I’m too soft. If I’d just told Martha to get lost and kept her money as a deposit I’d not have got sloshed with old Henry in his crummy barge.

  Nothing for it. I kicked the Ruby’s tyres and went in. I dialled miserably.

  ‘Well, well, well!’ Sandy shrilled. ‘Do I detect Lovejoy’s dulcet tones?’

  ‘Cut it, Sandy. Can you give me a lift today?’

  ‘For you, dear,’ Sandy gushed, ‘no. Unless,’ he added firmly. We listened to the silence. I gave in.

  ‘Unless?’

  ‘Wait, cherub.’ His receiver clattered noisily. I heard Sandy call in the distance. Mel must be upstairs. They have an open-floored barn behind their house, which stands back from the road at the other end of our village. Mel is modern art, glass and porcelain as far forward as Art Deco. Sandy is Eastern items, and Continental household ware up to Edwardian days. They share Victoriana because Sandy says they have to meet somewhere. Despite their oddity they’re a formidable pair of antiques dealers. ‘Mel, dear. It’s that hunk Lovejoy, positively squirming with embarrassment.’

  ‘What’s he want?’ Mel’s voice.

  ‘A lift. What shall we do?’

  ‘Exploit him to the uttermost.’ There was some low-voiced – well, high-voiced – muttering.

  ‘Hellow, Lovejoy dear?’ Sandy cooed. ‘Mel says he’s all for charity, but it will cost you. Your peculiar little knack with some of the rubbish we’ve got here.’

  Typical. Sandy and Mel were saying they’d reached their limit of knowledge with their supposed antiques and wanted me to divvie their stuff.

  ‘No,’ I told him. I get sick of wasting my time working for others.

  ‘Then goodbye, sweetie.’

  Click. Burr. I counted ten and milled about the garden a minute or two. I locked the cottage and strolled casually up the lane to the chapel. Maybe our supervigilant constable had forgotten.

  ‘Morning, George.’

  ‘Morning, Lovejoy.’ As I’d guessed he was standing by the crossroads waiting for me to appear in the R
uby. ‘Just let me see you in that old crate, Lovejoy, that’s all.’ He gets depressed if I smile so I smiled like a politician and strolled back, fuming. I rang Sandy again.

  ‘I’ll scan for you, Sandy, after you give me a lift.’

  ‘You darling boy,’ he gushed. ‘Where to?’

  ‘To Marion’s. Then maybe Liz Sandwell’s.’

  ‘Oh, pus and spit.’ He sounded even more resigned than I did. ‘As long as you don’t expect me to come in too and positively gape at La Sandwell’s ghastly wallpaper.’ I said I didn’t. ‘And no offering that whore Marion lifts in our beautiful motor. If she comes with us she comes running behind chained to the mudguard.’ He tittered. ‘Mel just can’t stand her stinky perfumes.’ I said okay. ‘Promise,’ he demanded. ‘Say, cross my heart.’ I promised wearily. Even a phone call’s a right pantomime with Mel and Sandy.

  They couldn’t come for me until five that afternoon, which was later than I wanted to be, but they were my only chance. I spent the day reading about Glastonbury and the various Grail legends. It was a wasted day. The whole story was as mystic and remote as ever. I was depressed by the numbers of experts who had broken their hearts trying to find the answer.

  By the time they arrived I’d decided Henry was deranged. Their Rover had started out a royal blue saloon. It was now covered in a dazzling array of painted flowers, stripes, zigzags and twining greenery. A silvery fringe fibrillated all the way round the outside, above the windows. It was a mess. You can see why I’d left them till last.

  Mel was sulking in the passenger seat.

  ‘Mel’s in a mood, Lovejoy,’ Sandy called, reversing in. ‘Caveat emptor. But don’t worry, dear. I can sulk better than him.’

  ‘Hello, Sandy. Mel.’ I got in the back. It felt like a hovercraft after mine.

  ‘I’d shake hands but I’m not to be trusted.’ Sandy gave me a roguish wink.