Paid and Loving Eyes

I sighed, made my excuses to Diana. The foyer was only a step. The painting was beautiful, a Turner watercolour of Venice. Scratched, rubbed, the paper’s surface scarified just right. The colours were exactly his, the dark-tinted paper brilliant.

“Lovely.” You can’t help admiring class. I felt smiling.

Prendergast blossomed, beaming. “There, sir! Thank you! I knew that you would authenticate—”

“No, Mr Prendergast. It’s nice but naughty. Fake. But done clever. She used the right watercolours, see? She had the paper made specially—”

“Fake?” He reeled. Minions rushed to support him, but I was fed up and moved away. What do folk want, for Christ’s sake? He’d thought the painting miraculous—all in a second it’s ugly? Like everybody else these days, blinded by money. Disgusting. I felt sick.

“Come on, love.” I grabbed Diana’s arm and hustled her through the departing bride and groom’s mob. Confetti snowed from balconies. People screeched and hollered. Delight was everywhere. It can really get you down.

Somebody had glee-painted my van and tied balloons all over it. Didn’t Tarried—Just Got Married!!! in pink clung to grammar and my van’s sides. Joy abounding’s pretty depressing stuff. Sometimes I wish it would bound off somewhere else. I rammed Diana into the cabin, climbed after.

“Budge up, love.” I fired the engine and we moved off to a clatter of tins tipsy nerks had tied to the rear bumper.

“Who’s this she, Lovejoy?” And when I looked at her blankly in the dashboard glow, “You said she.”

“The faker? Oh, aye. Looks like Fanny’s work. Runs a children’s society. Husband’s a parson. She’s a friend.”

Her lips went thin. “Friend? And you betrayed her, for a night’s free stay in a tavern?”

Women are born judges—of everyone else, never themselves. Ever noticed that?

“It was either her, or Turner.”

We drove in silence for a few miles, during which I got wetter still by pausing to remove the tins. I got us on to the trunk road. I was dying to get shut of Diana.

“You didn’t look at the painting, Lovejoy.” Women never let things drop, do they? “When we arrived, you just pushed into the lounge.”

“I never said I did look. In fact, I said the opposite.”

She was getting me narked. I should have returned her and the van hours ago. The evening was becoming supportive psychotherapy.

“You betray friends, yet you won’t betray Turner, who’s dead?”

“Dead?” That did it. Deliberately I slowed the van. I always start going faster in a temper and police radars skulk everywhere after nine o’clock. “Ever seen a Turner painting, love?”

“Several. A friend of mine has at least two —”

“You’ve seen the greatest paintings in the history of the universe, and have the frigging nerve to say Turner’s dead?” I should have chucked her out there and then, fifty miles an hour. If I’d any sense, I would have. “You silly ignorant bitch.”

“What did you —?”

I closed my mind to her. I was too tired. “Tell Gazza, love. And your influential friends. And your famous Jervis bloke. But let me be.”

Fame is shame. I suddenly realized I’d recognized her paramour, the mighty Jervis. He’d triggered off that sense of something shameful, so he must be famous. Fame really is shame. Aren’t the most famous football teams simply the ones who’ve kicked everything over the grass, season after season? Aren’t Olympic champions merely the ones on the biggest dose of corticosteroids? The most famous politicians the crookedest? Except in antiques, where fame measures beauty and true human love, fame is shame.

Now, here’s the really odd thing about that night. She didn’t mention the argument to Gazza Gaunt at all. Not a word. I reached the bypass, pulled in, transferred her to the waiting limo, and saw her off without a single cross look.

More amazing still, I reached Gazza’s depot and signed off about ten-thirty with no trouble. He was pleased, because cleaning ladies come to repair love’s ravages in his Tryste vehicles, eleven to midnight. And I got a bonus.

“Bonus?” They’re usually what other folk extort from me. An incoming bonus was a novelty. “For me? You sure?”

Gazza laughed, slapped my back. He’s a great back-slapper, is Gazza. He has a brother who clubs non-payers and uncooperative workers, so I didn’t mind this sign of approval.

“Double bunce, Lovejoy. You really created an impression on that lady.”

Here was the odd thing. Gentleman Jervis had been very definitely miffed at my harbour detour. And the bird Diana had taken the hump when I was rude. So a bonus? Really weird. Gazza’s never given a bonus in his life. Extracted a few, yes.

Doubtfully I inspected the notes. Strangerer and strangerer. I must have done something right, but what? Like a nerk, I forgot this vital question, pocketed the wodge and went on my way tiredly rejoicing.

This particular night, rejoicing meant Almira. She has a grand manor house in Birch near the church, and this quiet little cottage by the sea inlet. Mansion for august familial propriety, nook for nooky so to speak. Says her husband runs a chartered bank’s investment company or some such.

Dinner was planned for seven-thirty, then passion till dawn. Arrangements don’t have the accuracy they used to, I sometimes find. I think it’s mainly because women don’t get their act together. I was starving, could have eaten a horse. I got the bus down the estuary to Burnhanger, and walked into a flak storm. Luckily, Almira accepted