worst. “It’s impounded. Court order. Once a useless scruff, Lovejoy, always a pillock.”
He rolled in the aisles all the way up the lane.
By nine o’clock it was all done. My old Austin Ruby had been towed away, though a mechanic kindly lent me a tool for a minute when I explained that my dog had been accidentally boarded up in the cottage. “Honest,” I said. “Poor thing. You’d think the bloody bailiffs would have realized…”
Half a minute later I was indoors and the garage blokes gone. I stood there in the empty place feeling ashamed, as if the cottage were blaming me. At least I still had the phone. This was actually Big Mistake Number One, but at the time it seemed a lifeline.
Daft as ever, I dialed Janie, Mistake Number Two. I decided to be the manager of Harrods.
“Good morning,” I intoned gravely to the bloke who answered. “Little Hawkham Manor?”
“Yes. Markham speaking.”
“Harrods of Knightsbridge. My apologies for this early hour, but may I speak to Mrs.
Jane Markham? Her special order of, er, cloth has arrived, and—”
“Hang on, please.” I heard him mutter and the receiver clatter. They must be having breakfast, selfish swine. No thought for us starving homeless.
“Hello?” She sounded wary. “I’m afraid there’s some—”
“It’s me. I’m at the cottage. Get over here.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed brightly. “That material! Good heavens. I’d quite forgotten! You’ve taken such a time —”
“Well, I’m sorry,” I blurted, instinctively defensive. “But deliveries are…” Then I caught myself. I wasn’t really the manager of Harrods at all; there was no material. Women’d have me apologizing for the bloody weather. No wonder you lose your rag.
“Your representative will be at The George by ten?” she prattled on. “Very well, Mr.
Henderson. I’ll try to call.” She was hiding a laugh as she rang off. Typical of a woman, being amused at a bloke’s plight. Now, Charles Dickens would have made me the hero of a sob story—
A motorbike came into the drive coughing and scuffing gravel. Algernon, my untrainable trainee, making his space reentry on his lumbering old roadster.
“Good morning, Lovejoy,” the apparition boomed. It took its head off and Algernon grinned fresh-faced into the world. He lives for engines. His old Uncle Squaddie, a blind ex-antique dealer who believes Algernon will one day be the world’s greatest antiques expert, pays me good money to enact the pointless ritual of trying to teach the nerk.
Another instance of dangerous help.
“Wotcher, Algernon. Notice anything?”
His expression clouded. He came nearer, glancing about like a soldier in a minefield.
“You’re wearing a Victorian shirt? Antique shoes?”
For months I’ve been springing quizzes on him about antiques. Three days ago he’d told me a Chippendale bureau was a Woolworth’s, or vice versa; he makes little distinction between crud and the loveliest masterpieces on earth.
“Wrong, Hawkeyes. Does anything tip you off that the firm of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., is bankrupt and defunct?”
He brightened and trod about, jubilantly trying to seem downhearted. I sat on my half-finished kitchen wall, where he found me a minute later. “Your furniture’s gone. And your Ruby.” He nodded under the stress of linking neurons. “They’ve stripped your workshop.” He trudged off and read the “For Sale” notice. “And,” he said, returning to perch nearby, “your ‘Lovejoy Antiques’ notice has been—”
“Algernon,” I said, broken. “Shut up, there’s a good lad. And sod off. Okay?”
Archaeologists reckon we’re only 150 generations since Mesolithic Man. Algernon’s proof.
He shook his head, his face set in mulish determination. “Desert you, Lovejoy? Never!
Loyalty is seriously undervalued. It behooves me to remain faithful—”
“Stop behooving and listen.” I scuffed my foot. It was perishing without my jacket.
“Your apprentice contract’s canceled. Tell Squaddie I’m a bit of a low ebb.”
“We should leap beyond idiolectic confines, Lovejoy,” he declaimed, ready for one of his soulful spiels. He talks like this. I honestly don’t think even he thinks he knows what he means, if you see what I mean.
“I said shut it.” He fretted agitatedly behind his specs. Pretty soon he’d think up some madcap scheme to do with engines to restore our fortunes. You can tell he’s barmy because his other hobby’s nature study, wildflowers and that. A nutter. I felt really down. “Algernon, you’re an antiques cretin. You’re the worst apprentice the trade’s ever had. Go rejoicing. This is the parting of our ways.”
“My friend needs another motor-body welder—”
Told you he’d have a scheme, the nerk. “Algernon,” I said patiently. “Ever seen me do anything else except antiques?”
He went prim. “Robberies, forging, fakes—”
“No details. Yes or no?”
“No, Lovejoy.”
