The Possessions of a Lady (29 page)

'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.