'Thought you'd be along, Lovejoy, soon as I heard.'
'I'm that famous, eh?'
She glanced around. The nosh place was in an arched doorway leading to a hall crammed with antique stalls. By the wide wooden stairs a couple or three dealers had managed to slot in archaic church furnishings, glass trinket-filled cabinets, display boards festooned with jewellery. Throngs of tourists mingled. Like dining on a shrinking ice floe.
'You, down-hearted?' I stared, partly because I can't help it, but mostly in disbelief.
'You're beautiful, got your own shop. God's sake, your car goes!' I couldn't imagine greater wealth.
She smiled a bitter smile, her mouth fluttering. It tortured me just looking. Yet anguish communicates, doesn't it? I felt the same shame as I had moments ago watching that struggling crone. Reminded me of someone, dunno who.
'Typical, Lovejoy. But bless you for coming.' She stubbed out her fag end, the symbolism momentarily stopping my synapses. 'I began to wonder if you'd got my message.'
Had I? I'm not good with messages. 'What's the problem, love?' A little hope crept into me, because a dazzling beauty's gratitude might mean that ecstasy followed close behind.
'Dang took a drop last week. I wanted you to prevent it.' She touched my hand in tearful forgiveness. 'I'm not blaming you, Lovejoy. I know you'd have come earlier if you'd been able.'
'Better late than never, eh?' I thought, what the hell? I'd come to her for help, and she thought I was her rescuer.
Dang I vaguely knew. He lived over her antique shop in Islington. I'd met this muscle mountain when I'd delivered a rare 1786 vase-shaped mustard pot there. He'd dismissed me with a terse ta-goodnight, which could only mean heavenly choirs as soon as the riff-raff, namely moi, departed. He'd grabbed the mustard pot so hard I'd told him to be careful. Billia had emerged. I explained to him that 'wet' mustard pots came after Queen Anne. Until about 1730 or so, diners mixed mustard powder as they dined along. He'd just gaped at me with complete incomprehension. Bodybuilder, boxer, Dang and Billia later did an antiques stall in St Edmundsbury market, him toting her barge and lifting her bales with massive dedication.
'I'm scared, Lovejoy.'
Glam, rich, delectable, all these are superlatives. But scared was a definite grounder. It was also impossible. Women, having it all, cannot possibly have any reason to be scared. Lovejoy logic was called.
'You can't be, love. You've got everything.'
'You're just thick, Lovejoy.' She said it listlessly.
Folk bullied into the hall clamouring arguments about clock hands they'd failed to re-blue properly. If I'd not been mesmerized by Billia's kaleidoscope mouth I'd have gone after them to explain. The temptation is to do it on a naked flame, but that's wrong.
You do it in a crucible of brass filings, on a gas ring. It calls for split-second timing.
Watch for the colour change from a grubby brown to deep slate, then soon as you see a pretty steely blue whip the hands into an oil bath. Leave them to cool. The blue's exactly that on flintlock gun barrels. Incidentally, take care not to set your place on fire.
Had she just said hospital? 'Hospital?'
'You're not listening, are you?' Bitterness reigned. 'I saw you lusting after that fat cow Mimi. And that dim whore Moiya. You're just weak, Lovejoy.'
I said indignantly, 'I heard every word.'
'Dang's so gullible, Lovejoy.'
'He didn't look it to me.' Hospital, though?
'Far too trusting. Now it's too late.'
I cleared my throat. 'Who's in hospital?'
'The other boxer. They hurt him badly because he didn't lie down in the sixth round.'
Took a drop, she'd said. She meant throwing a fight.
'You know who did it?'
'The money men sent their friends.'
'Lovejoy? Suss these, wack. Brilliant, eh?' I stared at the stack of greeting cards plonked in front of me. Ballcock's a shifty madman who travels on a bicycle. It has butcher-boy paniers, so he can carry his fakes.
I riffled through them. 'They all Father's Day, Ballcock?'
'All dated, 1868 to 1903, genuine Victoria.' He was so proud.
'Great, Ballcock.' Sometimes I don't have the heart. Everybody from Camden Passage to Petticoat Lane knows that Ballcock fakes and decorates these greeting cards himself.
He went into it four years ago to meet alimony payments. Mrs John Bruce Dodd of Spokane, Washington, USA, would have been surprised, for it was that sentimental lady who in 1910 (note that) petitioned the US president Mr Woodrow Wilson to designate a special day for remembering dads. Her own widower father raised his six children unassisted, did a grand job. June's third Sunday got elected as the modern Father's Day, joy of retailers everywhere. Now here came Ballcock with cards dated 1868. And he'd sell most by dusk. I just said, 'Great, Ballcock,' and he departed rejoicing. Caveat emptor.
That little incident made me notice how other dealers were behaving. Usually, antique dealers are one big bustle, yapping worse than any wine party. They shout, catcall about deals gone wrong, Leonardo paintings missed by a whisker, amazing antiques found in some old lady's cupboard. Fables, lies, and crises are the soul of the antiques game. Yet since I'd joined Billia - usually as popular as fish and chips - not a soul had said a word to me, except for Ballcock, a known crazo. Something was wrong. To test, I deliberately grinned as Legs Leslie clumped past - he lost both feet in a motor race years agone. I got cut dead. Legs pretended not to see me. This, note, from a bloke who I'd got a job for at Pasty's oil-fired pottery kiln in Long Melford.
