The Grail Tree (7 page)

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

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 Ruby. ‘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.

‘Marion’s, please.’

‘Mel and I had the most fearsome row,’ Sandy said. We revved into the lane and took off.

‘And for once, Lovejoy, it was
not
my fault,’ Mel rounded in his seat. ‘I’ve got this lovely clock by Tompion,
honestly
quite superbly divine, I
mean.
And this – this naughty little rascal here –’

‘Oh,
language
!’ from Sandy.

‘ – enters it into the next sale up in the Smoke. Honestly.’

‘Well,’ I said nervously. Some of their fights last weeks.

‘Don’t you dare agree with either of us, Lovejoy!’ Sandy cried. ‘Or I’ll smack your wrist. This conflict is only
apparently
about a clock. It’s actually about sepia upholstery. We aren’t speaking.’

‘Like me and George,’ I said. We halted at the chapel, Sandy happily grinding the gears.

‘Yes, we heard all about your drunken el butcho spree.’ He drew alongside George. ‘Hello, sweetiepie.’

‘Any of that and I’ll do you –’ George tried threatening.

‘Not here, love, surely?’ Sandy reached out a languid hand. George backed away. ‘Prosecute Lovejoy and I’ll park outside your house all night.’

‘And your mascara’s just wrong, George.’ Mel came alive long enough to add to George’s discomfiture.

‘Drive on, or I’ll book you for obstruction.’

‘No, George. Be serious.’ Sandy fluttered his eyelids. ‘Would
you
change our motor’s fringe back to gold? Isn’t silver on cerise and blue a
fearful
risk?’

George eyed the car with hatred. ‘It’s a bloody disgrace.’

‘Fasten your flies, George – no advertising, dear.’
Sandy adjusted the driving mirror to see himself better and accelerated away across the front of the arriving post van, causing an ugly squeal of rubber.

‘Marion’ll wear one of those maddening brown waistcoats that positively
drain
colours from every possible wall, Lovejoy,’ Sandy predicted. ‘The cow really is too much . . .’

I closed my eyes and leaned back, thinking: this bloody antiques game. I sometimes wish I had a dull, easy job, somewhere peaceful like on an oil rig out in the North Sea.

Marion’s place is past the Castle along South Hill. When she’s absorbed all that Jed can teach her about prints he’ll be shown the door. So far she’s become quite expert in about eight branches of antiques. Hard work.

‘Isn’t it the female tarantula which eats its mate?’ Sandy was saying innocently as we pulled in. ‘Mel, dear,’ he crooned, ‘do we stay out here in the noisy, smelly traffic, or encounter dearest Marion?’ Mel glowered silently. ‘He means no, Lovejoy,’ Sandy continued.

I shrugged and went inside. Marion was pricing two vinaigrettes, one a Willmore silver gilt fob-watch shape and the other an Empire-style gold oval of about 1810. Joseph Willmore loved the fob-watch style. Life in the good old days being sordid, dirty and full of the most obvious of human stenches, people wanted to disguise the terrible pongs of the cities. So you carried a bottle of perfumed vinegar, hence the name. Men carried them as well as women up to about 1840. You get them all shapes, even as ‘vinegar sticks’, where the container is cleverly made into the handle of a sword or walking stick. Women tended to have them as lockets
or on chatelaines. The commonest you find nowadays is a box shape.

I told Marion why I was late. We fenced quite casually, drawing blood over every groat the way friends will. The purchaser has of course only a few quid in hand and ten thousand starving children to support. The vendor has paid a fortune and wants at least a groat or two profit. You know the sort of thing. We settled finally, when our heartstrings could vibrate no more.

‘I’ll drop the stuff in tomorrow afternoon, Marion.’

‘Great. Oh, Lovejoy. That creep Leyde was asking around after you this morning. Dealing with him nowadays?’

Bill Leyde. I’d heard the name. Of course. Honkworth’s pal, the sleek sourface who travelled about with Dolly and the blowsy blonde in Honkworth’s car. Leyde, collector of antique gold – ‘geltie’ in our parlance.

‘At Woody’s. Got quite agitated.’ She eyed me evenly. ‘Jed and me got the feeling he was waiting for you.’

And me late into town because of George, the berk.

‘Did he say why?’

‘No. Jed had to shoot off to Gimbert’s.’ Our local auction warehouse near St Jude’s derelict church.

‘Thanks, love,’ I said casually.

She waved to me from the doorway as I stepped into Sandy’s car. I’d been over an hour.

‘Marion, dearie,’ Sandy called in syrupy tones. ‘Don’t stand about in the street. People are
so
quick to misunderstand.’

He drove off with a squeal of tyres into the traffic before she could reply.

‘Did you see that absolutely fearful russet bolero she was
welded
into, the stupid hag?’ Mel hissed malevolently.

‘Couldn’t look past those crocodile shoes, dearie,’ Sandy said blithely. ‘If only she had some friends willing to tell her, poor cow.’

‘I thought she looked nice,’ I offered.

‘Lovejoy,’ Mel said over his shoulder with feeling, ‘you were so
brave
.’

‘Liz Sandwell’s, please, lads,’ I said.

‘That purulent green wallpaper!’ Sandy shrieked.

They both groaned.

I had a lot to think about during the journey. Martha said Dolly had gone with ‘her friends’ when old Henry and I tottered up the garden yesterday, sloshed on his vitriolic rum. Presumably that included Leyde. Now here he was practically champing on his reins wanting to see me.

‘Marion said Leyde was zipping about,’ I said, too casually.

‘A real el butcho,’ Mel said. ‘Consorts with your buddie Honkworth.’ They tittered, knowing we didn’t get on.

‘Gelt man,’ Sandy added. He gave a serene regal wave to a demented gatekeeper at the level crossing towards the by-pass. I opened my eyes as the Norwich express thundered past inches from me. Sandy sounded his horn at it, irritated. ‘Pestered the life out of us for some lovely Belgian niello and gold pendants, didn’t he, Mel?’

I scraped my memory for details of Leyde but could find very little. I’d heard he seemed to deal mostly in London and the Midlands.

By the time we reached Liz Sandwell’s place, I was so uneasy I wasn’t able to keep up with Sandy’s racy comments on his side of the trade. Mel pretended I was lovelorn. Great jokes at my expense. The pubs were open as we pulled in to the kerb at Liz’s shop.

‘You will forgive us, Lovejoy,’ Sandy said. ‘But we need something to settle our little tummies. We’ll come back for you elevenish.’

‘She asked us to have a bite with her,’ I said, but I know they sometimes go to this tavern for supper in Dragonsdale. They tittered, nudging.

‘Bouillabaisse,’ Sandy warned me. ‘It’s all she can do, poor cow.
Wrong
seasoning.’

‘Do take care, dear boy,’ Mel said. ‘Avoid her horsehair sofa at all costs. Gallant lads have been known never to return.’

They blew extravagant kisses at Liz’s window as they pulled away.

‘They send their apologies,’ I said apologetically to Liz. She laughed. ‘I quite understand, Lovejoy.’

‘Leyde,’ I found myself saying as we went inside. ‘Any news of him lately?’

‘Bill Leyde?’ Liz sounded surprised. ‘The geltie? Not for weeks. He got a gold-mounted George the Second scent flask from Margaret in the Arcade, last I heard. Why?’

‘Nothing.’ That sort of small purchase is a typical purchase for the dedicated geltie. ‘May be a deal on, that’s all.’

It lingered in my mind, but I chatted about this and that. It was bouillabaisse, Liz told me, whatever that is. I said fine and did the wine. I’m all thumbs at things like that but Liz only laughed at the shredded floating cork. She said we could spoon the bits out.
We spent some moments on her horsehair sofa after supper.

It was a chance remark she made much later that connected oddly in my mind and fetched me back to earth.

‘You’ve torn my blouse again, Lovejoy.’

‘Oh, er, sorry.’

She smiled and said not to worry, rubbed her forehead on my face. The clock said eleven. ‘Everything you touch gets changed, doesn’t it?’ she said, still smiling but looking into me. I pulled my eyes away and went for the antiques.