'And I'm late! Goodbye, Henry darling. Be good!' We go through this rigmarole every time, saying the same things.
I don't mind, though it's unproductive.
She streaks off to collect her two children from our village school, which is why I lodge Henry.
I wheeled Henry in and unfixed him. He got ready to laugh. We have this joke. I opened his coat and peered.
'Nope. Still no hairs on your chest yet, Henry,' I said sadly. He roared at that, his favourite and most hilarious quip. He was still falling about when I carried him to the divan. They never look heavy, do they? Henry's a crippling welterweight.
'Let's see what she's put in for you today, sunbeam.' I opened his bag. It comes fastened on his pram thing. We looked at his teatime offering distastefully. 'Fancy it?' A tin of baby food, a really neffie powdery stuff. We'd tried it a couple of times at first but I think I made it wrong He went off it after one spoonful. Two rusks and a little tin of some tarry stuff were the rest of his ration, which he eyed with hatred. You can't blame him because his food looks so utterly boring. 'Then there's nothing for it, Cisco,' I told him. 'Chips, sardines and… an egg! I held it up to excited applause.
I carry Henry about while I make his tea. It's not easy. Women have hips and can simply hold spherical offspring on their ledge. They've also got the fascinating knack of somehow walking slanted. Men, being basically cylindrical, have no ledge to speak of.
It's tough, needing continuous muscular effort. I natter about my day's work while I get going.
'Another list of dazzling failures, Henry,' I told him. 'No luck. But I saw a picture…' I explained what a clever forgery Bexon had made. 'Some old geezer from Great Hawkham.' Henry watched me open the tin of sardines, a drool of saliva bouncing from his chin. 'What do you reckon?' He said nothing, just pistoned his legs and ogled the grub. 'If I'd done a lovely forgery job like that I'd have found some swine like Beck and sold it to him.'
Henry chuckled, clearly pleased at the idea of doing a trawlie like Beck in the eye.
Maybe he had an antique dealer's chromosomes surging about in his little marrow. I peeled two spuds and hotted the oil.
'Instead,' I went on, 'he paints in a wrong colour. Giveaway. And don't try telling me - '
I shook the peeler at Henry warningly -'that it was a simple mistake. It was deliberate.'
Saying it straight out made it seem even weirder. I gave him the whole tale. At least Henry listens. Algernon's not got half his sense. 'The more you think about it, Henry,' I said seriously, 'the odder it becomes. Odderer and odderer. Right?'
I put him down and gave him a ruler to chew while I fried up. I told him about the golds. He tends to follow you round the room with his eyes. I leave the kitchen alcove uncurtained while I cook so I can keep an eye on my one and only ruler. They're expensive.
I was prattling on, saying how I was hoping to pick up the rest of Bexon's stuff from Dandy Jack, when the bell rang. It's an old puller, 1814. (Incidentally, household wrought-ironwork of even late Victorian vintage is one of the few kinds of desirables you can still afford. It's becoming a serious collectors' field. Decorative industrial ironwork will be the next most sought-after. Don't say I haven't warned you.) I wiped my hands and went into the hall. Janie's silhouette at the frosted glass. Great. All I needed.
I rushed about hiding Henry's stuff and cursing under my breath. The bloody push-chair wouldn't fold so I dragged it into the main room and rammed it behind a curtain.
'This is all your fault,' I hissed at Henry. He was rolling in the aisles again, thinking it another game. 'Look.' I pushed my fist threateningly at his face. 'One sound out of you, that's all. Just one sound.' It didn't do much good. He was convulsed, cackling and kicking. I told him bitterly he was no help but anything I say only sends him off into belly laughs. He never believes I'm serious. Nothing else for it. I went to the door.
'Hello, love.' My casual Lovejoy-at-ease image. A mild but pleased surprise lit my countenance at seeing Janie again so soon.
'You've been an age answering.' Janie gave me a kiss and tried to push past. I stood my ground. She halted, her smile dying. 'What's the matter, Lovejoy?'
'Matter? Nothing,' I said, debonair. I leant casually on the doorjamb all ready for a friendly chat.
Her eyes hardened. 'Have I called at the wrong time?' There was that sugary voice again.
'Er, no. Of course not.'
She stared stonily over my shoulder. 'Who've you got in there, Lovejoy?'
'In…?' I managed a gay light-hearted chuckle. 'Why, nobody. What on earth makes you think -?'
'I go to all this trouble to get this box of rubbish from that filthy old man,' she blazed.
'And all the time you're -'
'Jack?' I yelped. 'Dandy Jack?'
'You horrid -'
'You found Dandy?' She was carrying an old cardboard shoe box. I took it reverently and carried it into the hall. I didn't notice Janie storm past.
I removed the lid carefully. There was the inevitable jam-jarful of old buttons (why the hell do people store buttons? Everybody's at it), a rusty tin of assorted campaign medals - expression of an entire nation's undying gratitude for four years of shelling in blood-soaked trenches - and a loose pack of old photographs held together by a rubber band. At the bottom were two worn but modern exercise books, cheap and pathetic. It really did look rubbish as Tinker Dill said. My heart plunged.
'Is that all, Janie?'
She was standing in the hall behind me, desperately trying to hold back a smile.
