Moonspender

by Jonathan Gash

  13

  Women have a knack of all being stupid in exactly the same way. Ever noticed? This somehow frees them from original sin, so they can display infinite variance in everything else. On the other hand, we blokes go total in daftness; our emotional energies are dissipated by being so barmy in so many absorbing patterns that we've nothing left for anything else. Message: Birds are brilliant at the practicalities of life and love, whereas we males haven't a clue.

  So you'll imagine my surprise to discover that Margaret Dainty had shelved blame onto me for good old Raymond's failed fiddle. She and I are marvelous friends, in the best way possible. She has that luster in her face you only see in eighteenth-century porcelain. That very luster, the "poor man's silver," which produced that dazzling luminescence, was actually solid platinum—the only metal that truly ensilvers in the kiln (silver itself goes a straw color). Margaret is exactly that lovely. What I don't like is that she protects me against myself, instead of against everybody else.

  "Margaret," I said, pleased to have arrived at the Arcade just as she was starting her midday bite—two triangular crispbreads with a millionth of a sardine on each. Plenty of customers were around, taking their time. Always a good sign. In antiques two slow customers are worth ten harriers.

  "Kevin," she called. "Get four pasties and some tea." Kevin's the tea lad.

  The Arcade's a gauntlet of antique shops. Some are reasonable: Hal Freeman, silversmith; Gillian Ryder, a pretty alleged innocent dealer in Regency furniture; Lily of the woeful countenance and multiple lost lovers; Mannie the clock dealer, who lives on lentils and meals charitably provided by police when he gets done for fiddling social security. And Margaret.

  "That's kind, love," I said, sitting on a patchwork dumpty. "Got much genuine stock in?" I was thinking of Suzanne's restaurant.

  "Have I, Lovejoy?" she asked.

  The chimes were moderate but sincere. I closed my eyes in bliss. "Pity about that secretaire." I nodded to the grand piece that dominated her nook, with its brass and tortoiseshell inlay, parquetry areas on the panels, and a heroic bust on each comer pillar. It looked right, but emitted not a single chime. "Fraud. Somebody been reading up their French ebeniste work, eh?"

  She grimaced. "I wish you'd been around when I bought it."

  Kevin came with the hot pasties. I fell on them, not a pretty sight, but soon I was going to bum through the Eastern Hundreds like a rocket, and there'd be no time for grub. Margaret watched approvingly. Real women get as much satisfaction seeing you eat as you do yourself. I can't understand why. I knew a bird once who lived on tastes, ate hardly enough to keep a sparrow feathered, yet used to work out menus like Watson and Crick planning molecules. Then she'd order, and quietly nick forkfuls, frowning and telling the waiters off while I got on the right side of every plateful. I used to ask her why she never had a proper meal. She just said don't be stupid. Chefs loved her, used to come out and spend ages arguing what kind of sauces with the veal and that. Where was I?

  "It's signed JH Riesener, Lovejoy," Margaret protested.

  "Spelled right, is it?"

  My joke. (Fakers often misspell that most famous name, so always check.) Jean-Henri Riesener was no boring old eighteenth-century cabinetmaker. I'm really fond of him. His master was the great Oeben, a German of wonderful skill who became ebeniste to the French king and made maître without an apprenticeship. The scandal occurred when Oeben died. Jean-Henri and another workman scrapped over the attractive widow. Riesener won workshop, widow, and the guild mastership.

  But a good scandal never really lies down. To this day spite snipes in the world of antiques about Riesener. Rumor says that the delectable furniture he made for Marie Antoinette was really Oeben's work; that Riesener's superb mounts were made by Gouthiere; that he and Mrs. Oeben were more than good friends; that Oeben was murdered . . .

  "Come back, Lovejoy."

  "Eh? Oh, aye. Why did you bubble me over Raymond?"

  "So they'd arrest you, Lovejoy."

  Half a pasty of contemplation later I asked, "Can an erstwhile lover request reasons?"

  "So you'd be tried and found guilty, Lovejoy."

  Well, consistency's reliable stuff, but this was no joke. She was looking at the floor. "Any particular logic, sunbeam? Be careful how you answer. I might not let you rape me anymore."

  "So they'd put you in jail, Lovejoy."

  That did it. "Of all the frigging nerve!"

  "You'd be safe in prison, dear," she pleaded. "And after it was all over I could make Raymond own up so they'd let you go."

  See what I mean? Women land you in it, but it's for your own bloody good. "After what's over, for God's sake?"

  She'd gone quite pale. I'd have clouted her with the pasty but I was starving.

  "Everybody knows it's bad, Lovejoy. Sykes is at the George with his hoodlums. Major Bentham and that horrible Candice have their teeth into you. People dead. Police everywhere . . ."

  Then an odd thing. I was so preoccupied I didn't notice the significance of it then. The gray-eyed Enid walked past down the Arcade. And Podge Howarth strolled past simultaneously. He definitely saw her, but they exchanged no sign of affection. Strange, that, because ex-lovers swap glances in a very definite way. In fact I'd swear they barely recognized each other.

  "You're best out of it," Margaret was saying. "It's something horrid, darting." She only calls me that when she goes deadly serious, like now. "Evil, rotten. Out there in the woods. Poor George found that out. Then poor Ben Cox. And now Boothie. I want you to keep away."

  Would-be helpers slay me. "Seriously?" I asked, going into my doubtful act.

  "Seriously, darling. Please."

  "Well," I said, doing my very purest persuaded-against-my-will gaze. "If you really think so, love. Only, Sykie and Sir John are—"

  "Explain to them," she urged earnestly. "They'll understand."

  "Right, love. I'll do what you say." I took her hand.

  "Thank you, Lovejoy." Her eyes were brimming. "I'm so certain it's the right thing. I'll tell Big Frank to tell Mr. Ledger we made a mistake."

  "Margaret, love," I said, all soulful. "You won't get into trouble?"

  "No, darling." She dabbed her eyes. "I'm just so thankful. Bless you."

  I struck. "You couldn't run to another pasty, could you, love? Only, I'm a bit peckish."

  Ten minutes later I'd sprung from all that dangerous help and into vengeance. I finally raised the question of Lammas with someone who'd know.

  "Lammas, Lovejoy?"

  Reverend Woking's not a bad vicar, especially for a struggling parish like ours, but he is unnecessarily learned, a real scholiast, when we need somebody homely. For me, I don't mind him. Well, the only priests without faults are saints, and asking the bishop for one of those would be lengthening the odds somewhat, so our village blunders on turning ritual into habit, church observances into folklore. Nobody cares either way.

  "Yes, reverend. What's Lammas actually mean?" I already knew, but had to get round to Lize's newspaper cutting somehow.

  "Lammas? One of the old festival days. Quite pagan." He has all the hallmarks of the learned pedant: sherry for theology, tea for disputatious parishioners, fruitcake for little literary socials. "The gule of August, from gwyl. Old British language. Means a festival."

  "What went on?"

  "Oh, quite innocent celebrations." He hesitated with decanter poised, an Edwardian pressed-glass affair I hate. Some ecstatic auntie's ordination present, silly old crab. Why couldn't she have bought him a decent antique?

  "Nothing sinister, then?"

  "Certainly not." He chuckled, the very idea. "There are certain odd . . . coincidences about the day. Like the sacrificial lamb at York Minster. Folk assume all sorts—lamb-mass, you see, but quite wrong. 'Loafmass’, really. A special little harvest celebration. Think Pancake Tuesday and you have it."

  "About Saint Michael's," I said innocently.

  "Saint Michael's?" he queried, just as innocently.
The trouble with interrogating a priest is they've had millennia to learn clever replies. His glass refilled. Mine didn't. Some agitation was going on.

  "Beyond the stile at Chapel Lane End," I said firmly, to keep him cornered.

  "Oh, those old ruins? Good heavens, yes. I'd forgotten about those." He rose, paced, a really amateur send-up of a rector thinking hard. "Saint Michael's church is long since deconsecrated. Quite ploughed under now, I believe."

  "The newspaper said somebody started a fire there."

  "Tut-tut." He shook his head gravely. "Foolish prank, Lovejoy. All those valuable crops."

  "Isn't it," I said. "It was on last Lammas eve."

  He gave me quite a good gaze, not at all bad for a lying theologist. "Good heavens."

  "And there was another fire. Same ruins. On May Day eve."

  "More sherry, Lovejoy?"

  "And the day before Candlemas."

  "February—let me see—the first, is it?"

  "Aye." Him forgetting Candlemas is like Tinker forgetting Derby Day.

  "Terrible, terrible. Irresponsible." He did the whole pantomime; the sigh, the dolorous headshake. "It's probably nothing more than young louts, too much time on their hands."

  "Only, aren't there the old, er, bad, days? There was something in the newspaper. Witches, the rural tradition . . ."

  He laughed merrily. "Lovejoy, you deserve a medal for imaginings! The idea!"

  I chuckled along. "Nothing in that Whalley Abbey business, then?"

  He tried to look blank. "Whalley Abbey? Isn't that in the north. . . ?"

  "Last year's official conference on witchcraft and black magic."

  "Oh, that, " he countered airily. "A few folklorists."

  "A hundred parsons, plus the bishop's exorcist."

  "And you suggest that here in dull old East Anglia. . . ? No, Lovejoy." His veteran's gaze met my innocent one. We both went tut-

  tut. "Mere fanciful foolery. If there was anything serious hereabouts I'd have heard, Lovejoy."

  We talked a bit about music for All Saints, then he waved me off. Sir John's car was at the end of my lane as I drove in and Winstanley flagged me down. Sir John was reading the Financial Times or some other comic.

  "Lovejoy," he announced, "this is irksome."

  We agreed for once. I bawled over my clattering engine. "Another pricey visit, Sir John?"

  "Don't think it isn't in your account, Lovejoy."

  "Well, no news so far about any bronzes."

  "I want a written report of your progress tomorrow noon at the latest, Lovejoy."

  "Right." I'm cheerful when lying. It's the only time everything's predictable. I made to drive on, knowing he couldn't possibly resist asking.

  "Oh, Lovejoy." Such studied casualness.

  "Sir John?" I was poisonously hearty.

  "That fake." He looked down at me from his monster vehicle, and I swear he actually tried to smile a winning smile. Like a prune with bellywark. "It's my Rembrandt print, isn't it?"

  "Is it?"

  He swallowed. I was close to being exterminated for insolence. Winstanley dithered in the road. I saw the chauffeur's eyes framed in the mirror. "I've had experts in, Lovejoy."

  "Sack them. They're wrong. Your print's great." I gunned my revs to a slow drift. "One antique confirmed every visit. Sir John. At this rate you'll have to live to six hundred and eight to find the dud. Cheers."

  "Tomorrow, Lovejoy!" As I chugged off he was leaning out of the window outraged and purple, yelling after me with Winstanley frantically trying to calm him down.

  Mrs. Ryan was waiting at the cottage, in a worse fury still. I thought, what the hell, and went forward to give her a hug.

  "Darling," I said, exhibiting sincere delight. "I heard you were here and hurried after you. Come on. I don't want to be late."

  "Heard? Late?" she said, rage suspended.

  "Come on, my doowerlink," I urged. "Today's the day I start as your estate manager, isn't it?"

  "You mean you're actually. . . ?"

  "Of course! I've been looking for you all morning, slow coach." I leapt gaily back into the Ruby. "Race you."

  "Wait, Lovejoy. There's something I must explain—"

  "See you there, doowerlink." I swept the Ruby round and out. I wondered what an estate manager's pay was. Anything would be an improvement. With Sir John charging me for breathing I didn't know if I could afford one boss, let alone two. Still, I was quite happy, and sang Tallis's "Dies Irae" all the way over to Manor Farm.

  Bad choice.

  14

  ". . . All staff to give our new estate manager all possible assistance," Mrs. Ryan ended. We were in the yard, an acre of loaved cobble rimmed by barns.

  The assembled mob managed not to break into rapt applause. I got a few nods, and a sly inspection from the females as they dispersed. One was luscious, a dark beauty given to giggles. It's difficult to imagine a woman in working clobber that isn't enticing, aprons, headscarves at the bakery, waitresses, nurses. There's a current vogue for collecting early photographs of working women. In fact photographers in 1875 got so hooked on girl coalface workers in Midland mining villages that . . . Hello, I thought, here's trouble. A young stalwart swaggered out. I'd noticed him hating me while Mrs. Ryan spoke her piece. Obviously displaced lover and/or promotion hopeful.

  The diaspora stopped, except for Mrs. Ryan whose nag clopped away with her.

  "The new boss, eh?" said Handsome Jack. "Know much about drainage, stetches, tree grafting, insecticides?"

  "Not much, no."

  "Lovejoy," he said, doing his smirk, "you're an ignorant bugger."

  "Correct."

  An old gaffer muttered a warning but Handsome Jack wanted a scrap. "He admits it!" The nerk must read the Boys' Own. and him a grown feller. He shoved me so I stepped back. He teased laughs from the girls, winking to show there was more subtle wit on the way. "At least old Munting wasn't an idiot." He crunched his knuckles. "I'm Sid Taft, B.Sc. in estate management." The punch line was coming. "Better qualifications than you, Lovejoy—shagging your way to the top."

  "You're fired, Taft," I said, and asked the old farmhand who'd tried to make peace, "What was this cretin's job, dad?"

  Then I hit Taft in the belly. He doubled with a whoosh, eyes goggling in disbelief. Reluctantly, because I knew it would hurt me, I bashed my fist into his left biceps. He used his next proper breath for a moan as the terrible ache spread through him. Then, with my hand smarting, into his right biceps. He'd be armless for a fortnight.

  Nobody else moved so I pulled the antique giant knuckle-duster off my hand, going, "Ouch." They made very few of these heavy Victorian brass objects. It's wide, with a solid brass cylinder thick as a roll of coins. A knife projects four inches from the hypothenar side, but mercifully I hadn't needed that. They're valuable collector's items, especially when stamped with the name of a London ward like this, Cripplegate. It's hellish heavy, stings like hell. Taft was retching, on his knees.

  I said, "You've made my hand really sting, pillock. Out. Now." I told two older blokes to get him home.

  "What's your name, please, old 'un?"

  "Robie, they call me." The wise old man had enjoyed it.

  "Set everybody about their proper graft, then find me. I'll be in there having a cuppa, if yonder gossips know how to brew up."

  Two elderly women watching from the doorstep of a whitewashed building tutted inside as I left everybody to it and went to soak my hand. I felt really narked. I'd come to help Manor Farm. You try to show kindness, and what thanks do you get? I'm a martyr to generosity.

  St. Michael's church ruins at Chapel Lane stood a yard proud from the field's contour. I climbed into the rectangular recess where the nave had been. Robie waited in biblical silhouette against the watery sun.

  There's something really horrible about ruins. I don't mean the ruins themselves. They're splendid things, evidence of man's creativity. No, I mean what happens after a building has tumbled. Rain works ste
adily into cracks. Frost splits the stones. Moss slithers with hideous stealth over lovely stonework, and worms undermine. Soon, oblivion. All that remains is a paler shadow cast from the setting sun, a taller ring of standing wheat, an obscure legend. It isn't that lovely time-enrichment that ages women. With ruins it's sinister. I looked about.

  "This on our farm, Robie?"

  "Yes. Angel Field, it's called. Used to be good grazing land afore government subsidies."

  "Who was Angel?"

  He spat in derision. "Them as fly, you silly sod."

  I'd not seen many hereabouts. "Why did the church finish?"

  He nodded at remembered history. "My grandfather's day. Folk didn't Like it. Still don't."

  There was a black smudge against the old altar stones. East? I glanced around, trying to work out the way of the world. I'm no good at directions. They change too often for my Liking. Now, you can't bum stone. And if they'd wanted to bum the crops they'd have started their fire outside the recess, right? Stupid vandals, or practiced nonvandals? I peered over at the field. Chapel Lane's copses and hedgerows were dark against the sky. Beyond lay the village, my cottage's fawn thatch one of the distant cluster.

  "Does Manor Farm get a lot of trouble from vandals, Robie?"

  "Not much. There's ramblers. Them nature folk. Them . . ." He'd been about to jerk his head left toward the wood, but had stopped himself "Poachers," he said.

  He'd been going to say somebody else. Ta, Robie.

  Up out of the ruins and we started for the edge of the field. This side, the estate boundary followed the river. On the far right the countryside descended in pallor toward the sea. Left, the trees shuffled close and became Pittsbury Wood.

  "Wasn't it there some nerk saw a UFO?"

  Robie chuckled. "Aye. Spaceship from Mars. They'm barmy."

  "But nice countryside, eh, Robie?" I said.

  "Some say," he answered. Silently I completed the old soldier's cynical rejoinder for him: And others tell the truth.