The Tartan Ringers (24 page)

‘Very well,’ Trembler said, smiling. ‘Mrs Michelle will issue your numbers. From now you’ll wear them. And remember one vital truth: it’s Tachnadray versus all comers. Everybody understand?’ He had to insist on a reply before they sheepishly concurred. He gave a warm smile as they shuffled out. ‘The game starts now.’

I called, ‘Mrs Buchan has coffee and baps for everybody downstairs.’ She fled with a squawk, driving two girls before. I hadn’t warned her. ‘Then back here for Mr Yale to allocate your groups.’

Tinker woke at the third rough shake. We were a tired quartet, but we started a quick tour of the house.

‘It’s not bad, Lovejoy,’ Trembler said. The furniture was parcelled, as auctioneers say, meaning arranged in categories.

‘It’s bleedin’ great,’ Tinker corrected indignantly. They were both seeking my approval. I said nothing, though I sympathized. It’s always a difficult time when the scammer, he who arranges the entire ploy, does the appraisal. ‘We wus runnin’ about like blue-arced flies. I give more bleedin’ scrip out than the friggin’ Budget. Christ, in one afternoon—’

‘Shut it, Tinker.’ I walked quickly, the three of them in my wake.

Trembler had opted for the ground floor. Ropes were tied across each staircase and crude notices forbade entry. We’d have more imposing barriers by View Day. Heavy furniture stood along one wall of every corridor. Light stuff and assorted massive beds were in the larger drawing rooms with musical instruments. The library was half full of books; books are most trouble when rigging an auction because booksellers want the highest mark-ups. That’s why country house sales always lack books. It isn’t because squires don’t read.

‘Frigging booksellers.’ Tinker hawked phlegm. I raised a finger. He went to the window and spat out.

Porcelain, cutlery, decorative ceramics were in the east wing. We clumped, steps echoing, the length of the corridor and worked backwards to the Great Hall. Fireplaces, fire tigers, gasoliers, pole screens, in one room. Conservatory furniture and garden items in another. The big east drawing room, once a light bathhouse green, was now hung with sixty or more paintings.

‘Thought that was in France,’ I remarked in surprise. A Victorian lady in a pale lavender dress admiring a flower.

‘Should’ve been,’ Tinker grumbled. ‘More frigging trouble than a square dick.’ Barkers are addicted to pessimism for the same reasons as Opposition politicians: there’s more mileage in it.

Farm implements, machinery, carts, outside in the bay between the densely overgrown rose beds and the east windows. ‘Good old Antioch,’ I praised. They were arranged in a kind of Boer lager. The presence of a steam ploughing engine explained the bulky carrier in mid-convoy.

‘Fair old lot, that, lads,’ I said.

‘Ta, Lovejoy.’ Tinker smirking’s a horrible sight, but the old soak deserved praise.

The jewellery was in one strip, a grotesque higgledy-piggledy array spread as it had arrived, in bags, trays, boxes, on wobbly trestle tables. Tinker grumbled at the trouble the roomful had caused him. He hates jewellery. ‘Fiddly little buggers.’

‘Shouldn’t we be examining each piece?’ Michelle exclaimed.

‘Please, missus,’ Trembler said.

‘Aye,’ Tinker added, ‘gabby cow.’

The glass was in the east wing’s smoking room. The smaller withdrawing room held the first miscellany.

‘You described the laird as “that well-known collector”,’ Trembler said. ‘So you’d want the collectibles separated?’ ‘Right.’

A room of bronzes, statuettes, sculptures. Two of silver. One of arms and armour. I left them chatting in the Great Hall as the retainers returned. Michelle seemed rather put out, par for the course, as I went outside and sat on the steps.

When preparing for a divvying job, I can never keep track of time. It must have been nearly an hour when Trembler emptied the whole house of people, Elaine and all. They came out in twos and threes, giving quizzing glances my way, one or two talking softly. Robert carried Elaine. She waved. Tinker stood waiting behind me, gruffly shutting Michelle up when she started to speak. Some things must be done in quiet. Women never learn. He knows this sort of thing can’t be hurried. Trembler strolled past with a ‘All yours, Tinker,’ and got a wheezed, ‘Fanks fer noffin’.’ Silence. The great crammed house paused.

Afternoon moor light plays oddly on the rims of high fells. I’d often noticed it as a kid. For quite a while I’d been watching the hues discolour and blend. According to the map, some Pictish houses stood over to the south beyond the loch. I’d love a visit in peacetime. Miles north-westerly, Joseph languished alone. Behind me a bottle clinked. A gurgle, wheeze, a retching cough. Michelle tutted. A cloud slightly darkened the moor, fawns umbered, ochres into russet.

Maybe it was an omen. I rose and dusted my knees off for nothing. My big moment. Just me and antiques. Probably all I’m good for, showing off to nobody.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

T
HE TAPESTRY WAS
hung beside the stair foot. I’d heard Tinker say to Michelle, ‘Shut it, missus. Just friggin’ scribble,’ but I was no longer listening.

Sometimes the best plan is its absence. Like, I never know how I’m going to divvy. Setting about examining an antique is as individual as making love. Even people who know a little (which excludes all known experts, museum curators, and antique dealers) approach the task differently. There’s a geezer in Manchester who goes through a whole superstitious ritual, knocking wood, hex signs, the lot. Another, a Kendal bird good with amber, always sits on the floor even if she’s in public. Me, I just touch and listen. No particular order, no magic incantation.

Single antiques are easy, in a way, because meeting any one is like meeting a woman. The love quantum is immediately apparent. Encounter two together and immediately there’s difficulty. They react on each other so a man’s bemused. The only way he can recognize that inner essence is by concentrating on one, to the utter exclusion of the other. Society calls it rudeness. In divvying antiques it’s essential. The trouble is the process is so seductively pleasing that it sucks time from the day. I mean, here was I with hundreds, maybe thousands, of alleged antiques to divvy, and I couldn’t resist touching this tapestry, the first thing I’d clapped eyes on stepping through the porch.

‘Hello, Jean,’ I said to it, mist blurring the figures. Jean Berain, Frenchman, once turned fashion upside down. He and his son struck eighteenth-century nerves by depicting naked courtesans reclining provocatively wearing the haunches and legs of a lion. You see Sèvres porcelain with similar figures. It became quite the thing for a famous beauty to have herself erotically depicted thus, like Peg Woffington the famous actress, for example. ‘Long time no see.’ I touched the lovely tapestry’s texture. Warm. The feeling was heat, an exalting swirl of energy to the chime of melodious bells. I found myself starting to move, slowly at first, then quicker, quicker still, all else forgotten in a wondrous hedonistic spree. Distantly, Tinker’s emphysematous croak was there, ‘Hundred ern free, no; eight six nine, yeah,’ but only for a while.

Battles do it. Orgies do it. Mysticism is said to do it. And women. Maybe it’s true. The experience of beauty leads to a temporary death from recognizing its unattainability. I’ve never been in a trance as far as I know. I often wonder if it’s the same as recovering from these other things. If so, I don’t envy mediums. Certainly, coming out of one of these divvying sessions is appalling.

There was light intruding everywhere. My head was splitting. People talking in murmurs. A long leathery cough. A bottle, glugging. Somebody spluttered, murmured, ‘Gawd.’ A woman’s voice thin as a reed pipe played out on the water. She was asking about something with numbers. I must have slept.

Headaches are a woman’s best friend. They’re not mine. The kitchen, shimmering. Mrs Buchan peeling something, one of her scullions doing mysteries on a cake’s top. Another minion teasing about hair done different.

This end of the long table was fenced with beer and bottles. The talk was going on, that cough, her still counting. I drew breath.

‘Help us up, Tinker.’

Hands hauled, propped. The place swam for a few seconds. I swigged the tea and stared at my hands until the world tidied itself up. Tinker scornfully refuted the women’s suggested medications, clove inhalations, feet up, sal volatile. ‘He needs a coupler pints, obstinate bleeder,’ Tinker said.

‘Shut it,’ I got out, and winced at his cackling laugh.

‘He’s back. Wotcher, Lovejoy.’

‘All right?’

‘Aye, great. Missus, brew up. He’ll be dry as a bone any mo.’

Michelle was there, weary. I told her she looked like I felt and got a wan smile. Trembler reached across to pat my shoulder.

‘Beautiful, beautiful. A few questions when you’re ready.’

That cheered me up. Auctioneers lust in percentages. Trembler was thinking ahead. As I recovered coherence, he began slowly introducing particular antiques into the conversation.

‘That bronze cat, Lovejoy. What’ve you got, lady?’

‘One Five Oh Seven.’ Michelle’s papers rustled as she worked her clipboard. ‘It’s one of six from Boy Tony, Winchester. Six reproduction metal sculptures, 1850, Birmingham.’

‘As one’s genuine Egyptian, we should delete it, Lovejoy.’

‘And?’ I prompted. Exquisite tea, strong enough to plough.

Trembler shrugged. ‘I incline to Phillips, London.’

‘No.’ I’m never sad vetoing a deal between auctioneers. Once you’ve decided that money’s the name of the game, all is clarity. ‘No. Make out an addendum list. Have Hamish print it, free issue on the door. Say that One Five Oh Seven’s now only five repro bronzes, that one’s been withdrawn. Bronze cat, Egyptian, resembling Säite period 644–525 BC. And tell Boy we’ll split the mark-up one to two.’

‘But why take it out of the auction?’ Michelle asked.

Trembler answered for me. ‘If six cheap reproductions are listed, and one is specially withdrawn, it’s as good as announcing that somebody’s realized it is genuine. From ten quid it leaps to maybe ten, twenty thousand. Lovejoy says we ask for a third of that difference. The addendum sheet’s the first thing dealers look at. Bronze collectors will pay on the nail.’

‘Will Mr Boy, er, Tony agree to share?’

‘Lady,’ Trembler said gently. ‘He sent off six grubby old doorstops hoping for a few quid. And gets a fortune. Wouldn’t you agree to fork out the expenses?’

‘Sod the explanations,’ I interrupted. ‘How far’d I get?’

‘Did it all, mate.’ Tinker was pouring himself another pint of beer. From the tomato sauce on his mittens he must have had a meal or two while waiting for me to rouse. ‘Lady here hardly kept up.’

‘I got all of it,’ Michelle said, glaring at Tinker.

‘Kiss, then,’ I ordered. ‘Chance of a bite, Mrs Buchan?’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Michelle exclaimed indignantly, then quietened when she saw Trembler and Tinker marking an X on each of her pages. I did the same. God, I felt stiff. Something happens to your muscles. I saw her staring and smiled.

‘A St Andrew’s cross used to be put at the bottom of legal documents as a sign of honesty. That’s why it’s still a valid mark from people who can’t write. It degenerated over the centuries into a love kiss. We use it in its original sense.’

‘Truth and honesty!’ Tinker laughed so much one of the girls had to bang his back to stop him choking to death.

‘The dolls, Lovejoy.’

‘For heaven’s sake split them into single lots, Trembler. Who the hell boxed them into one?’

‘Bleedin’ toys,’ Tinker grumbled. My answer.

‘That tall French bride doll’s the one to milk on the day, Trembler, but there are some good German bisques. Incidentally, d’you reckon that mohair wig character doll’s by Marque? One went at Theriault’s for over twenty thousand . . .’ We chatted as my grub came. Tinker was by then really enjoying himself. The girls pretended to refuse his request for another jug of Mrs Buchan’s home brew, liking the scruffy old devil. The divvying had been a real success for him, because the stuff was exactly what I’d asked for. By dusk he’d be justifiably drunk in celebration.

Trembler and me went on, Tinker spraying us all with mouthfuls as he put in an occasional word and Michelle making notes. The set of wooden decoy ducks, retain as likely in this area. The collection of twenty-six fans, accept. The sixty pieces of lace, retain but split into different-sized lots. And the William Morris furniture lookalikes, put into one motif room. The alleged early Viennese meerschaum pipe was a fake, but leave in because some collector might be daft enough . . .

Late that same night Michelle came across me in the conservatory.

‘What are you reading?’

‘A real cliffhanger.’ I held out the book.
‘Dame Wiggins and Her Seven Wonderful Cats
. I like Kate Greenaway. Can’t help wondering if she had an affair with George Weatherby. Co-authors and all that.’ She sat opposite me, composed, hands clasped.

‘Yonks ago—’ she used the slang self-consciously – ‘I’d have said you looked ridiculous sitting in that old bath chair. Now it seems so natural, you reading an old book by candlelight when there are comfortable chairs, new books, electric light, television.’

‘It’s pleasanter, love.’

‘Is it always like that?’ She meant divvying.

‘Not long back I divvied a few things for a fairground. Took it in my stride. This was a bit of a marathon.’

‘And payment, Lovejoy?’ First time she’d used my name.

‘Money? You fixed the percentage.’ I shrugged. ‘It never sticks to my fingers. A woman I knew says it’s because deep down I hate the stuff. Pay me in Roman denarii, love.’

She showed no inclination to go. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I said, ‘You must be very proud of Elaine. Sad that James Wheeler didn’t live to see how she turned out.’

Women who delay a reply are usually opting for truth. It’s unnerving, like all rarities. Michelle’s face was pale when finally it lifted.

‘I suspected you’d guessed, Lovejoy.’ She looked away for the crunch. ‘He took his . . . wife to the Continent. I went as a companion.’