we run from contact. Talk loudly enough of love, and you conceal from yourself the terrible fact that you’ve forgotten the human act of loving.
That wondrous joy of loving is everything, everything…
Headache. God, it was terrible. The interior was suffocating, the watery sun blinding. I felt old, drained, weary. There were three objects left on the table. The caravan’s floor was littered with junk. Francie was sitting with her little girl watching me.
“You talk to yourself,” the little girl said.
“Shut your teeth and brew up.” I didn’t need criticism from a neonate.
“Are those genuine, Lovejoy?” Francie asked.
“Yes.” Pulling myself together, I priced them. “This tatty watercolor’s not much to look at, Francie, but it’s worth a bit.” No known artist, admittedly, and a crudely drawn row of Georgian shops. “Mid-eighteenth century. He’s painted the three balls on the pawnbroker’s sign blue. They didn’t change to brassy gold until modern times.”
The little girl said, “Mam said you’ll mend my doggie bell.”
I tried to sip the tea but it was scalding. Francie remembered, quickly rose to cool it by pouring it into a bowl.
The doggie bell was a bell-shaped silver fox’s head. “It’s a cup, sweetheart. Posh people drink from them before, er, going riding.” Ritual drinks are still taken when the unspeakable pursue the inedible. These marvelously embellished cups are the best thing that ever came from fox-hunting. “Don’t let anybody stick a clapper in it, for Gawd’s sake.” The AB and GB initials were probably the Burrows, a rare husband-and-wife team of silversmiths in Old London. Francie would have the sense to look them up.
The trouble is that nowadays people make them into “nice” things. I’ve seen a silver beagle-head stirrup cup, 1780 or so, made—with great skill—into an egg timer. Clever-daft, my old granny used to call such folk. Leave beauty alone, I always say.
Sometimes.
“Is the dolly’s house yours too?” It was a white porcelain cottage, two stories. Colored porcelain flowers adorned it. Antique dealers the world over call them Rockingham, but you never see these little white cottages marked.
“No. Daddy found it. Mam’ll sell it.”
Daddy is Dan, nice bloke if you like swarthy and tough. He does a motorbike act, Wall of Death.
“Tell Daddy to ask a lot of money, love. It’s a pastille burner.” I showed her the recess that led to the cottage’s hexagonal chimney. “You put a perfume cone underneath, and the chimney smokes a lovely scent all day long. Mam will light it for you. People called them Staffordshire fumiers. This is a lovely one, 1830.”
“Is Staffordshire near Penrith, or Edinburgh?”
“Er, that way on, love.”
“We’re going there.”
Those were the three. Betty and I chatted while Francie sorted the crud. A few good collectibles lay among the discards—fairly recent wooden household implements people call treen (cheap but soaring); a few Edwardian photos but none of the most highly sought kind (military, industrial, fashion, and streets); a recently made pair of miniature wainscot chairs six inches tall (very fashionable to collect these small repros).
“You did well, Francie. Got any grub?”
She made me some nosh, then walked me to the war memorial with Betty. She’d worked out ten percent of my estimates and insisted on giving me a part of it.
“I’ll post the rest, Lovejoy. Buy an overcoat.”
“Er, good idea.” It was coming on to rain. I left them there, crossing among the traffic.
They stood side by side. Betty had a little yellow umbrella up. I acted the goat a bit, turning and waving umpteen times till she was laughing. It was fooling about that saved me.
The traffic had become a sullen and glistening queue like it always does in drizzle. I was moving across the traffic lights, on red, when I did another half-step back, turned to wave. It happened all in a second. The nearest car’s engine boomed. Its side edged my calves and tipped me over. I heard Francie yelp. My trouser leg tore. Its tires squealing, the bloody saloon streaked across against the red light and swung down East Hill.
“Here,” I yelled indignantly. “See that silly sod?”
The lights changed to green. The traffic moved. Witnesses dispersed in the worsening weather. I grinned back at Francie. “I’m all right, love,” I called cheerily. “Lucky, eh?”
If I hadn’t been fooling about to make Betty laugh I’d have been… Keeping up a brave smile for Francie’s benefit, I made the opposite pavement and walked on before looking across the road to where Francie and Betty stood by the war memorial. I waved once, then the museum cut them off from sight. Only then did I start the shakes and lose my idiot grin. Luck’s great stuff, but it’s not stuff you can depend on.
« ^ »
—— 6 ——
Everybody lusts, but differently. And it seems to me that lust’s main function is the pursuit of what you haven’t got. So nuns in their lonesome beds may not all crave similarly. Likewise, me and Jo were panting after different prey when we met at the Tudor Halt. I was superconsciously nervous about having luckily stayed alive. Tonight I’d be the perfect lady’s man.
She was especially pretty, wearing a dark silk shawl and a late Victorian Neapolitan mosaic brooch, neat and minute. Her hair was ringlety, her face oval. Her lovely eyes had dark lashes ten feet long. She glanced about, amused.
