Lucy returned and that made things a little better. Dylan had sent his kind regards, a cake, and one of his wholesome organic loaves. The cake was delicious and they shared it by way of supper. The bread, well, there was only so much goodness a bloke could take, Bill said. He would face that another day. Perhaps.
Chapter 26
MONDAY–TUESDAY, 1–2 OCTOBER
First thing Monday morning there was a call from his doctor’s surgery telling him to come in the next day. Wonderful, thought Bill, with only mild sarcasm. At least Dr Hall could be counted on to speak plainly.
After that a call, quite polite, from Skates enquiring how things were going, please. Bill made no mention of his condition but said he would be getting the panels to the carver this week, probably on Wednesday. Otherwise all was going according to plan, and he would contact Skates if he needed to. Skates muttered something indistinct and hung up. Bill smiled but was glad it had been he and not Lucy who had picked the phone up. That underlined the care they still had to take. No bad lesson, that.
So it was the doctor’s on Tuesday, and then he would have to get his arse over to Chard and see Eric on the Wednesday. He was not looking forward to either encounter, but Eric’s would probably be the more challenging (and nauseating).
Lucy said she was up for either or both trips if Bill didn’t feel like driving. He said he’d prefer to go to the doctor’s alone, but admitted it would be a great help if she could drive him most of the way to Eric’s. They would find a place close by where he could drop her off and continue on his own. As he said, Eric was a notorious gossip, and it just wouldn’t be safe to let him see her with Bill, but it was really much more than that.
‘The fact is, lass, Eric is not a nice man. Not a nice man at all. It’s well known that he’s done time, and in the ‘fraternity’ it’s assumed his conviction had something to do with his being a carver of quality forgeries, but I know different. I know the mother of the young girl he interfered with.’
Lucy’s face paled, and she put down her mug of tea with a deep, disgusted sigh.
‘Aye. But he did pay for that crime. Prison is not easy on his sort. It took months for his groin to heal from the boiling water with which the inmates of Chelmsford jail baptised his crotch.’
‘Well done, the inmates of Chelmsford jail,’ said Lucy. ‘But that doesn’t really help the young girl, does it?’
‘No, but it might prevent some other young girl from being hurt the same way. Or not. Anyway, as you can imagine, none of that served to curtail Eric’s drinking habits, and when he gets drunk he talks. Always at the wrong time and always to the wrong people, going on and on about what jobs he’s done and sometimes even for whom. Naturally, this has resulted in fewer and fewer jobs over the years, certainly from the more lucrative and sensitive end of the antiques trade. And the bugger of it all is that he’s good. Really good, with a feel for wood better than most and an uncanny eye for what’s right.’
This cut no ice with Lucy, but if Bill said he was the only person capable of doing the job they needed, then they’d just have to cope. After fortifying himself with another mug of tea, Bill was finally able to bring himself to phone Eric. ‘I see you’re doing well enough to pay your phone bill, at least,’ was his opening remark.
This was answered only by a damp sniff.
Bill told him in as few words as possible that he had a carving job for him and he’d be bringing it over on Wednesday morning. ‘And if anyone else is due to visit that day, put them off. No fucking about. This is a nice, juicy job but it’ll go elsewhere if I get buggered about, right?’
‘Right (sniff),’ said Eric.
When Bill put the phone down he called to Lucy, who was in the pantry doing something domestic.
‘Have we got any disinfectant wipes?’
‘What for?’ she called back.
‘I want to clean the phone. Been talking to Eric. Always makes my ears feel soiled when I’ve done that.’
The final call of the day was to Sid, who said he would be able to come set up the pole lathe late the following week. That was good enough for Bill as he had plenty of cutting out and other work to do before anything would need turning. He also reminded Sid about ‘that little box of fireworks’ they had discussed last time they met. Sid said no, he had not forgotten and, yes, he would bring them with him.
The rest of the day was spent in slowly dismantling the old chest and getting the top ready to take to Eric for carving. Bill found it very useful to have Lucy working alongside him. She was quick to learn, and when he felt tired or a coughing fit got too bad, he could sit down and she would carry on.
~~~
The next morning Bill had his appointment with Dr Hall. No fireside chats about antiques this time; he was seen in the doctor’s surgery with the letter from the oncologist and all of his test results ready to hand. Dr Hall had a very practical approach to telling people the news he had to give. With some patients you had to dress it up, to wrap the inevitable in layers of hope, like coating a nasty-tasting pill with sugar. But with a man like Bill you told him exactly how things stood and what options, if any, were worth considering.
So Dr Hall described all the possible ways Bill’s cancer could impact his life and what medical science could do to mitigate some of them. Bill listened and took in as much of it as he could. The one thing he was really concerned about was how long Dr Hall thought he could keep working.
‘I can’t really answer that, Bill. There are so many factors involved, not the least of which is willpower. And pain control is always a balancing act. You’ll have morphine-based painkillers to deaden the pain, but they’ll also make you feel sleepy and slow. So that’s what you’ll have to learn to balance: how much pain you can tolerate before you can’t function efficiently, and how much drug you can take before you’re too zonked out to care.’
Then Dr Hall said something that shook Bill more than anything else he had been told that morning.
‘When things get really bad, Bill, and you know the game is nearly over, I can get you into a hospice. Because you live alone you’re warranted a place.’
Picking up a glossy brochure like something from a holiday company, he handed it to Bill and suggested he make a visit to talk things through with their medical admission counsellor. Bill couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just folded up the brochure and put it in his pocket. Then he went home.
The sun was out, the day was as crisp as a new apple, and Bill refused to be smothered by the information he now had lodged in his brain.
Driving into the farmyard, he saw his daughter-in-law’s parked car. The kitchen door was open, and at the table sat Lucy and Gloria, mugs of tea in front of them, close in conversation. Bloody hell, he thought, those two look as thick as thieves. As he sat down at the table with them, Lucy got up and poured him a large mug.
‘Just been made,’ she said.
‘So what have you two dreadful viragos been discussing?’ he asked as he sipped his tea.
‘You,’ was the instant and unanimous reply.
Of course they wanted to know what the doctor had said, and as he was starting to tell them he remembered the brochure he had been given. Even folded, it was a little large for his pocket and it came out with a jerk, hit the sugar bowl, and landed half open in a drift of white crystals. Gloria picked it up and looked at it briefly, then without a word handed it to Lucy and walked out into the yard.
Bill looked at Lucy, shocked and ashamed of himself. He had had no intention of being so cavalier about it all. Lucy reached over and squeezed his hand quickly, then got up and followed Gloria. Through the window he saw the two women embracing each other, comforting and being comforted in return. The sight, though sad, was nevertheless a consolation to him. If these two were becoming such good friends, it would make his leaving them easier.
Coming back inside with the bravest grin she could manage, Gloria put her arm around his shoulders. She said she and Phillip would find out about
the hospice, and when Bill felt able, they would take him to look the place over. He nodded, but said nothing.
As Gloria prepared to go, Bill looked in vain for some visible sign of pregnancy through her oversized jumper. She noticed him looking and said, ‘If it’s a boy we’re going to call him William, you know.’
Bill pretended to grimace, but most of it was a smile. ‘And if it’s a girl?’ he asked.
Gloria appeared to think for a while, then brightly and with some malice aforethought said, ‘Wilhelmina.’ She laughed as her father-in-law nearly choked on his tea.
When Gloria had driven away and Bill had locked the gate behind her, he felt completely wiped out and in a lot of pain.
His chest, his back, and really his whole body was giving him grief. In addition to the tablets next to his bed, he now had a big brown bottle of some gunk that was serious stuff according to the label. He chose not to think about it, however, and fell asleep in his armchair trying to let the warmth from the stove relieve some of his discomfort.
Lucy looked at him. He was more loose-skinned than when she had first known him. His shirts hung on him and the collars were too big for his neck. The incident with the hospice pamphlet had brought home to her how little time they might have left together. She decided to let him sleep for a while and went to lock up the workshop for the night. Later on she woke him and fed him what little supper he could eat, his appetite being completely eroded by pain. Like a small boy, he allowed her to help him up to bed, where she administered a spoonful of sweet syrup from the big brown bottle, after which he slept a deep, narcotic-fuelled sleep full of dreams that cascaded in coloured confusion through his mind.
Chapter 27
WEDNESDAY, 3 OCTOBER
Awaking much later than his normal six in the morning, Bill made his slightly muzzy way down to breakfast. Lucy was up and about and had already been in the workshop putting the old chest lid in a box and carefully wrapping the piece to be copied.
Bill’s contribution to getting underway was to take £500 out of the Skates pile and put it in an envelope. Whatever the final price for the job might be, he figured half a ton would be enough to get Eric started.
While Bill did the best he could with a piece of toast and some really strong coffee, Lucy walked up to Miss Templeton’s and asked her to keep a particularly good watch on the place as they would both be out for a large part of the day. Then they set off on the small roads that interlace like green veins all over this part of the county. The land was now turning perceptibly towards autumn. The light was different, clearer somehow, if not as strong. The morning dew took a long time to disappear, and there was a moist edge to everything.
For Bill, it was strange to be out in his van and not driving it. Lucy handled it well, not crunching the ravaged gearbox too often and, more importantly, not trying to overtake anything faster than a cyclist. Clive panted behind Bill’s right ear, wishing he could get his head out of the window.
There was a large supermarket with a café on a trading estate just outside Chard; this is where they decided Lucy and Clive would wait for Bill. He assured her he was feeling much better now, much stronger. He was in some pain but not enough to slow him up. As he said to Lucy, ‘It gives me an edge.’
He drove along small lanes that got even smaller until he saw a turning he recognised at the top of a hill, then drove onto a track that led to a gate in a tall chain-link fence. The gate had a crude handmade sign that read ‘Keep Out’ and another on which ‘Beware of the Dogs’ had been scrawled. Bill knew that both signs meant what they said. Two, sometimes three great savage dogs were allowed to run free at night and were usually tethered on long chains even when Eric was in his workshop. They knew their business and would happily tear your arm off just to see how you tasted.
Bill sounded his horn and waited. Eric knew he was coming, so the dogs would be chained up (he hoped). Eric came out and opened the gate, and as Bill drove through, he looked around. The high chain-link fence was topped with razor wire and formed a large square. On every corner of the high fence was mounted a large halogen light with a motion sensor. Bill thought all this gave the place the look of a gulag; definitely more prison than fortress, anyway. On one side of the square was the dilapidated caravan in which Eric lived, its original colour now lost beneath encrustations of old leaves and filth. On another was his workshop, a large wooden building with a wide door and a window on the front. The rest of the square was paved. It was also littered with dog bowls, dog chains, dog shit, the stench of rotten meat, and, to Bill’s surprise, one small yellow rubber duck, much chewed.
What he didn’t see were any actual dogs, but he could hear them all right. They were in the caravan, which rocked slightly as they bounded from window to window, barking, snarling, and scratching to get out and maul this stranger who dared to enter their yard.
Bill placed his bundles on the bench that took up the centre of the Eric’s shop. The bench itself was a work of art, copied from an 18th-century joiners manual. With vices of all types fixed to it and peg holes for clamps, it was beautiful and could replicate every work mark you might expect to see on a piece of antique carving. On the bench was a craftsman’s cabinet of the sort apprentices used to make as examination pieces, its lid carved in an intricate foliate design. Bill recognised the handiwork and sighed inwardly.
Eric might be a complete shit of a human being, but he was a superb carver by anyone’s standards.
You can tell a lot about a craftsman from his workshop, Bill explained to Lucy later. Eric’s was surprisingly clean for a start. Eric was a smoker, but there were no ashtrays here and no dog ends on the floor, nor was there much in the way of wood shavings. There were a few woodworking machines, the sort anyone would have in his trade. A large bandsaw stood against one wall, and there was a very nice wood-turning lathe, well lit and with as large a selection of turning chisels as Bill had ever seen outside a catalogue. On one wall was a row of G-clamps. Huge bracket clamps hung on pegboard, some of them obviously new, as was a rack of carving chisels of such quality that Bill almost drooled.
Overall, a lot had changed since Bill’s last visit. A large amount of money had been spent on enlarging the shop, as well as on new tools and equipment. Bill saw no work in progress, however, nor even any signs of recent work having been done. This meant one of two things: either Eric was out of work and would take any job offered him right now, or what he was doing was so bent he had hidden it before Bill got there. Either way, it was interesting.
Eric himself had not changed. He was still wearing the same greasy flat-cloth cap and he still had the same unhealthy complexion. His face was ferrety, lined, and bore the stubble of someone who habitually shaved in the dark. Thin lips hid a few brown, tombstone-like teeth in a scowling mouth that produced a constant whine. He returned Bill’s look through glasses filmed with nicotine. Short and emaciated, he lived on tinned fish and cheap gin. And he stank. Bill kept as far away from him as he could. No one ever got close to Eric Howler by choice.
Bill carefully unwrapped the old chair panel and laid it on the bench. Eric moved closer and picked up the carving, holding it up to the light and moving it slightly as if reading the story the shadows told. Putting it down gently, he drew his fingers across the carved surface with the delicacy of a blind man reading a braille love letter. He turned to Bill and a sly look crossed his face. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
‘I’m not paying you to think,’ said Bill firmly. ‘I’m paying you to carve, and carve well. This is to be a museum-quality reproduction and I’ve brought you the wood I want used. Follow the pattern of the sample, but make it unique, with all the right chisel marks and only a cursory rub down. Finish with fine sand on chamois leather, not wire wool, and no polish, got that?’
Eric nodded without comment. Bill asked to see the tools that would be used. There could be no new steel tools on this job. The gouges and flat-end chisels had to be handmade and tempered so the cut marks, even when aged
and polished, would show the authenticity that only came with genuine antiques (or the cleverest copies).
Eric opened the lovely tool chest on the bench. There inside, set in a velvet-lined rack, was a collection of gouges, swan-necked scrapers, and chisels Bill would have killed for at one time. They were beautiful: some old, with cutlers marks on the polished steel that Bill recognised as being 18th century; others newer, but so well made they had the same feel as their antique companions.
Bill was impressed. He had heard about Eric’s private collection but never been privileged to see it. They made his own assortment of antique tools seem meagre by comparison.
Next, Eric examined the chest lid closely. Eventually he said it might need a bit of smoothing on the back but that was about it. Yes, it could be done. Now as to price…
Bill had in mind between £1000 and £1500. Cash, half up front, the rest on delivery; all the usual terms and conditions for this sort of job. But he hadn’t liked the look on Eric’s his face when he had first examined the carving. It was like seeing a rat smile. Consequently, when he pitched at a thousand and Eric agreed without squirming or even much of a whine, he knew something was lurking at the back of that shifty bastard’s mind. However, he put the envelope down on the bench, and within seconds a scrawny hand had it open, counting the cash.
‘Five hundred,’ said Bill.
‘Five hundred,’ agreed Eric, then sneered, ‘Do you want a receipt?’
Bill said nothing about receipts, but enquired as casually as he could how business had been lately. He admired the workshop improvements and examined the new machinery, all the while congratulating the little man. Eric tittered nervously but explained nothing. For a person who loved to gossip, that was very strange. When the talk turned to mutual acquaintances in the trade, Eric was his usual chattering self, imparting all manner of scurrilous rumours and bitchy innuendo: who had overbid on what and who had been turned over by whom. But of his own doings, nothing. An enigma wrapped in a bad smell, thought Bill, and he left it at that.
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