The Tartan Ringers (8 page)

Her so-grey gaze returned to the mirror for a quizzical second, then she nodded slightly. ‘If the beholder says so, Lovejoy.’

That was the start of what Sidoli meant. From then on I, well, lived in Joan’s caravan. Francie still scraped the queue from my Christys and Sothebies Great Official Genuine Antique Roadshow, and Joan still banked it. But henceforth Joan also banked me as well. I owned up to little Betty that, yes, Joan and me were family.

* * *

The night before we hit Edinburgh was the week working up to the festival. The city was already bubbling, teeming with actors spilling over into street theatre. We pitched a mile or so south of the centre. All the world and his wife had turned up. Bands, orchestras, dancers, artists, poets, jugglers, the lot. You had to have your wits about you or you found yourself frantically hip-hopping among bedecked Morris teams. Sidoli was beside himself with glee. ‘Bissolotti is late!’ he exulted, frantically exhorting us to greater speed as we threw the fair into one glittering noisy mass.

By now Sidoli’s advance agent – a near-legendary figure called Romeo who got ballocked every time our cavalcade rested long enough for Sidoli to reach a telephone – had learned of my roadshow, and was papering the towns for me two days before we hove in. This made life much easier.

Tinker did his part of the antiques scam, fixing sales, and organizing transport through Antioch. He was getting a regular screw through money drafts – essential, because he can’t even remember his name when he sobers up. Get him sloshed and instantly he’s the Memory Man. It was my plan to jump ship at Edinburgh, preferably before Bissolotti’s ‘animals’ cruised in and wanted their rightful share of the festival crowds. Also, Maslow would be very, very cross indeed if I blackened his district’s reputation up here among the dour Provosts of jolly old Edinburgh. Sidoli had as good as admitted that he himself would take any blame, but from vast experience I knew only too well who’d carry the can.

So my plan was to do a moonlight as soon as I’d done one night’s pitch, then head off north to net Shona McGunn. In any case, this was as far north as the fair would travel. For me it had outlived its usefulness.

I found a phone in a pub near the little green and reached Tinker contentedly imbibing his daily swill in the White Hart. He sounded mournful.

‘Lovejoy? Here, where the bleedin’ ’ell are you?’

‘Mind your own business.’ I was a bit sharp with him. The White Hart’s never without a mob of dealers. All along I’d been ultra careful, not wanting neffie people following me with unkindness in their hearts. I wanted no baddies lurking to catch me when I leapt from the fairground. ‘Ready? Here’s the list of stuff I’m sending during the night. Most to Brum and London; a few bits and pieces to you.’

‘Yeh, Lovejoy, but—’

‘Shut it and listen.’ Patiently I read him my list, adding which dealers to try and minimum prices to accept. ‘Right?’

‘No, Lovejoy.’ The old berk sounded really down. It’s Three-Wheel. Remember?’

For a second I had to rack my brains. Of course. I’d told Tinker to phone me Archie’s message. It seemed so long ago. Days, weeks even. I felt a hand close on my chest.

‘They did his motor, Lovejoy.’

‘Oh, Jesus.’

‘Smashed it to smithereens. Windows, bodywork, set fire to the inside. Some boat geezer down the estuary saw the smoke and wirelessed the fire brigade.’ Long pause, me mechanically feeding the slot coins. ‘Lovejoy?’

‘How’s Archie?’

‘Knocked down on his trike hurrying home. He wuz at the auction when they brung the news. But he’s only a little bleeder. He rolled clear, scooted through the hedge. Says he saw nothing. Not bad hurt.’

‘Did the Old Bill have any luck?’

He snorted. ‘Them idle sods. Archie’s trike’s a writeoff, Lovejoy. Sorry, like. Archie says now he never had any message for you at all.’

‘Any chance of finding out what his news was?’

‘You think I’m not trying?’ He was very aggrieved. ‘You’re a grumpy swine, Lovejoy. I’m sweating my balls off while you’re . . .’

We slang-matched abuse for another costly minute before going over the payment – part into Sidoli’s numbered account, part into Joan’s with my commission. I told him to pass the word to Jo somehow that I’d be trying to reach her during the early hours.

‘She won’t talk with you, Lovejoy,’ he was warning me as I rang off. I’d had enough of people explaining why everybody else was even more narked than me. I felt it was time I began to be justifiably narked instead, and decided to work out a scheme.

My scheme was temporarily interrupted by World War Three. The Bissolotti convoys arrived that night.

Joan’s Ghost Train wasn’t due to open until the following noon, as was usual with the bigger rides. They drank too much electricity, needed extravagant cabling up. And Joan, being nominally without a feller, so to speak, depended on the main fairground: she paid her percentage to the fairmaster and received help with striking and pitching from Sidoli’s mob, hefty blokes. All except Big Chas, and Ern, his toothy walnut-faced mate, seemed to be Sidoli’s nephews, and dined at Mrs Sidoli’s tent.

After fixing the antiques shipments with Tinker I went to Joan’s caravan. She had some stew thing frying or whatever it does. She was a good cook. Once, some days previously, I’d asked her what was worrying her. She’d smiled beatifically and said seriously, ‘Would you hate lentil soup?’ which made me realize you can be somebody’s lover for a million years and never really know her.

‘Wotcher, love,’ I said, coming in. ‘Sid’s ordered no break tonight. We’re to open at eight in the morning.’

‘Big Chas and Ern will be on the Caterpillar in an hour, Lovejoy.’

‘Eh? That’s back to front.’ We normally got the Little Giant Wheel and the generators centred first after the sideshows.

‘Sid’s ordered.’ She placed an aromatic dish for me and sat watching as I made to dine. I waited a bit. She was alongside me, elbows on the table, grey eyes and soft skin shining in the candlelight, like the first time I’d . . .

‘Here, love. Are you not having any?’

‘Not yet.’ She sprinkled pepper on my grub, watching me nosh. This was typical Joan, guessing condiments for you.

‘And you’re not in your working clothes,’ I observed, mouth full. ‘You seem . . .’

‘Ready for bed,’ she completed. She was smiling but not in a way I liked.

‘What’s up, chuck?’ I said.

She gave that curt nod at my hands. It was a gesture I recognized and had come to love. It meant: Carry on, my reply will be along in a minute. Obediently I did, but sussing out the caravan. Joan’s home. It was her place. Where the outside wheels had stopped for the night didn’t matter. Inside, the candlelight, the soft furnishings, the old photos of her parents who’d started the Ghost Train, the romance books she read in quiet times . . . I stilled, waited. This feeling is one I mistrust. In antiques there are enough terrible risks without heartache.

‘You’re leaving tonight, Lovejoy, aren’t you?’

How women do it beats me. I’d not said a word. ‘Maybe, love. I’ve a job on.’

That abrupt nod. ‘On the door mantel,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve guessed how much you’re due. Not wanting to ask Francie direct.’

There was an envelope on the shelf over the speer. ‘Look, Joan, love,’ I tried uncomfortably, but she shushed me with her other characteristic gesture, a tiny handshake with a blink.

‘Don’t, Lovejoy.’ Her eyes climbed from the table to mine. ‘I’ve no illusions. Life is a lone business, isn’t it. Nobody’s permanent. We’re like places.’

Places? ‘Will you tell Sidoli?’ That’d stop my flight for certain.

‘There’s no way of keeping a . . . partner if he’s going anyway. Even the best affair is only half a film. You get the movie up to the interval.’

I could have clouted her for making me feel bad. Women always blame me. Why should I be the one who ends up with this rotten bloody sense of being ashamed? She put her hand on mind gingerly.

‘Don’t feel like that, darling. It’s nobody’s fault.’

I pulled my hand away. ‘I wasn’t feeling like anything,’ I said bluntly. ‘Silly cow.’

She smiled properly then. Her eyes were wet. ‘No, Lovejoy. Of course not.’ She rose, took my hand, pulled me to the curtained alcove.

‘Look, love,’ I said weakly. ‘There won’t be time . . .’

She slipped a breast into my hand, then slowly raised her arms to shed her gown. ‘Yes there is, Lovejoy,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s tomorrow there won’t be time.’

Past one o’clock on a cold frosty morning, fed, loved, and enriched in material ways, I left Joan’s caravan and started work with Big Chas and Ern hauling the cables for the generators.

‘You’re late, Lovejoy,’ Ern said, grinning. We worked by paraffin lamps until the electric’s set. ‘I worried you’d miss the scrap.’

‘Scrap?’ I ragged up my hands, took hold of the cable.

Big Chas sang piously astride the generator,
‘Mighty are your enemies, Hard the battle ye must fight
.’

Over the other side of the green strange wagons were pulling in. Even the vehicles looked sullen, hateful, as their engines revved and their headlights swathed us.

‘Bissolotti?’ I croaked nervously, thinking: Hell fire. The new convoy was forming a crescent. The green was on a slope, and we were below them. Even as I paused to look, another set of headlights rummaged the darkness to our right. ‘Hell, there’s a lot of them.’

‘Big mob, Bissolotti’s,’ Chas agreed cheerfully. ‘What weapons do you usually use in a rumble, Lovejoy?’

My legs, mainly, I thought shakily. Or a Jaguar. I’m not proud.

‘I heard he’s a gun man,’ Ern said.

Those lunatics were actually pleased at the notion of an all-out battle with Bissolotti’s. I felt sick. This wasn’t my scene. A peaceful fairground, yes. But a military column tearing to a private El Alamein, a thousand times no. Soon I’d go for say a pee, and vanish.

For about an hour we worked on. Every few minutes I sussed out the growing arc of lights about the green. Bissolotti’s wagons began to pitch. We were only a hundred yards apart.

‘They’re pitching,’ I said apprehensively to Ern.

‘Aye, Lovejoy,’ he called laconically.

‘Will we share the pitch?’ I was hopeful.

Big Chas roared with laughter from somewhere under the Caterpillar’s railed wheels. ‘Lovejoy’s worried there’ll be no rumble,’ the idiot bellowed.

‘Don’t worry, Lovejoy,’ Ern said consolingly and carolled, ‘
Ye that are men now serve him, Against unnumbered foes
. . .’ Big Chas joined in the hymn. I worked on, sane in a world of lunatics.

They hadn’t finished that particular hymn when negotiations began between the two fairmasters. Bissolotti with ten blokes met Sidoli near where we worked. Our fairmaster also had ten nephews. They stood in two cagey crescents, the bosses talking vehemently for quite a time before our lot returned, chatting animatedly.

‘Ready, Lovejoy?’ Sidoli called. Ray-dee, Luff-yoyee? He’d caught a glimpse of me on the Caterpillar bolting the hub’s canopy roof. ‘You get your wish!’

‘Great,’ I called back. That one wobbly word took three swallows.

‘Come on, then,’ Big Chas said.
‘Fight the good fight
.’

Men were gathering into small groups from our wagons. The pitch was falling silent as the hammering and clattering ceased. Our people were talking. Groups formed. Tactics were being discussed. It was eerily happy, and here was I frightened out of my skin. Madness. Sidoli was among a cluster of paraffin lanterns lecturing strategy. Heads nodded. Some maniac was dishing out steel rods. I thought: For God’s
sake
.

‘Just finish this, Chas.’

‘Won’t let a scrap interrupt work, eh?’

He and Ern left to join the nearest group, laughing and shaking their heads. ‘He’s a cool bugger,’ Ern said admiringly.

‘Good night, lads,’ I muttered. I checked the scene once more, then slid off the wood on the dark side, nearest the enemy camp. ‘And good luck with the war.’

Across the damp grass the Bissolotti mob’s lanterns were wavering as their men assembled. Behind, our own lamps showed where clusters of blokes were being positioned. I crouched indecisively near a pile of wooden façades from the Caterpillar. What were the rules for a rumble? From what little I’d learned, fairs were pretty orderly along time-honoured lines. Maybe they were as set in their ways when it came to all-out warfare. Apprehensively I darted a few yards towards the Bissolotti vehicles, then hesitated. Surely the thing was to avoid both gangs, never mind the wagons?

Our own pitch was a circular layout on the green’s down slope. Ahead and above stood the Bissolotti crescent, all flickering lamps and din. A wall, terraced houses and some sort of iron railing formed the perimeter where streets began. There were three exits for vehicles, but for an enterprising slum-trained coward spiked railings were hardly an obstacle.

Suddenly the lights in the Bissolotti camp vanished.

In ours, there arose a subdued murmur, then somebody called a nervous order and the glims dowsed here and there until Sidoli’s pitch was black. I heard Sidoli yell. A hubble of voices responded, one panicky shout stilled by a threat. We’d been caught napping. Only a sort of air-pallor from the nearby street let you see a damned thing. I went clammy, cursing myself for not having escaped sooner. If it hadn’t been for Joan’s loving farewell I’d be miles away by now. Bloody women. No wonder I’m always in a mess.

Somebody shouted, ‘Fan out, lads,’ and somebody else shouted, ‘No. Two lots. Over there . . .’ Then a third, ‘Bunch up. Get in line . . .’ So much for Sidoli’s confidence. His men were a shambles. I began to move instinctively to my right. I’d once been in a real army and recognized only too well the authentic hallmarks of disorder. Time Lovejoy was gone.

I froze in mid-slink. Nearby there was a steady touch of movement. The night air somehow pressed on my face. A hoary old sergeant – a survivor – once told me, ‘Never effing mind what you frigging see,’ he’d said. ‘Survivors feel.’ So I felt, lay down with my head towards the Bissolotti camp, and stayed still.

A line of men crept past and over me. One boot squelched an inch from my hand. I swear it. The guilty thought came that a true friend would behave like a Roman goose and cackle the alarm. Not me. As soon as the silent line of assaulters had passed I rose and moved tangentially right. No more than forty slunk paces and I came against a giant wagon. I felt my way along its flank. My heart was throbbing. I’d not breathed for a week.