Life must be so easy for women. I mean, if they've to meet some bloke, they simply get glitzed up knowing they'll be in supercontrol. Whatever happens. Whoever the bloke might be. Women rule.
But for the man it's so-o-o-o different. If he's to meet some woman he's on edge, worried sick. What'll she think? Will she cost more than the few pence he possesses?
What'll he talk about, for God's sake? Will she see that he's a wimp who doesn't pump iron? That he hasn't a degree in astrophysics? That he once had trouble with his credit card, hasn't got a Rolls Royce? What has he got to offer?
There's a reason for this.
It's beauty.
Beauty is power, total and immutable power. And every woman has her own beauty.
Old, young, fat, thin, lame or wick as a flea, spectacled or with the limpid eyes of Cleopatra, she's on the box seat and the man is a mere supplicant down there in the splashy mud begging a lift.
That's my Law of Gender in a nutshell. It's the reason that a woman – any woman –
can have any man any time, any place. She wants some rich, handsome polyglot devil?
He's hers for the taking.
Not so the other way round. No man can get a woman without inordinate luck, astronomical wealth, stunning teeth, immense physique, the patience of a saint, the morals of a crook, the charm of the devil, the brains of Newton, total fame, global influence, and perennial youth. And if he does succeed? It's temporary. She'll depart on a whim –and women have whims like grass grows worms.
(Sorry if this seems cynical, but I've studied these conclusions a lifetime. And I've tried, I've tried.)
It follows that a man can never escape a woman who sets her cap. He's trapped.
Permanent. A man can't leave until she gets rid. Until that day – and it will come, whatever poets and drink and optimism might say – you're in thrall to her for life. No good moaning, because it's natural. A bloke has to make the best of it.
The only thing we've got going for us is that women don't believe this.
For some reason, they think beauty is in expensive lotions, the designer label, costly garments and the breathtaking charges of fashionable hairdressers. Why they're hooked on trendy colours, silly styles or daft shoes I honestly don't know. They believe the myth that these cunning devices are necessary. Wrong, wrong. If they went out uncombed and shoddy, women would have exactly the same success rate, and that is total, hundred per cent. Failure rate: nil, zero. If they once tried it, they'd end the entire fashion industry in an afternoon.
To summarize: any woman can get any man. A man can't leave a woman unless she says get lost.
On the hour-long bus journey out of town, I reconsidered these inflexible laws. And alighted, ready for the Countess.
Some folk have the knack of resuming conversations exactly where they left off months, maybe years, before. I'd last seen her on Braggot Sunday, the old mid-Lent day when you give ladies a present of honey-brewed spiced ale. We were pretty close, until a horrid moment when she'd had two of her whifflers drive me from her door by the simple technique of pointing a digit. No reason, no logic. And God knows I'd slogged to gain her a fortune in antiques. Okay, so I'd reportedly been seen in the motor car belonging to Hepsibah Smith, our church's choir mistress, on the Coggeshall bypass, but was that my fault? Women aren't fair. When I please one woman, the rest get narked. What is it with them?
When the fatal sly note-of-hand was dropped in front of the Countess by some kind friend she'd opened it, read slowly, then raised her eyes. With a snap of her imperial fingers she'd had me bundled out into the path of a farm tractor. At the time the Countess had been reminiscing about Russian nobility over Lipton's tea. She had been one of them in a former incarnation. Now, she was phoney like the rest of us, becoming somewhat bloated (like the rest of us) and indolent and guessy (LTROU).
You'll have got my drift. In life, female stands for everything that matters, whereas in antiques wealth means everything. Now think of a dealer who is a titled lady and has untold wealth: that's the Countess. We'd been close once, or have I already said that? I think I've gone on about her a shade too long to convince me that I didn't care any longer.
Countesses don't have simple antique shops. They own Antiques Emporianas and Antiqueries A La Modes. This joint had a workshop making Special Customizations (read fakes) at the rear, and others on her two balconies that did varnishing and assembly work. Porcelains were being fired outside. Metalwork was done in a forge with two small foundries tacked on to the side of her building. It was more a small industrial town.
In the centre seated on a regal chaise-longue under a tester embroidered with gold reclined the Countess. She always feasts on grapes, fruits you never know the names of, and is wafted and cooled – if not warmed – by two youths dressed as blackamoors straight from some Manet painting.
The place was crammed with antique furniture. Most of it was fake, though I felt the vibrations of several authentic pieces. On the balconies I could see the silhouettes of her artisans labouring at lathes and workbenches, hear boots crunching wood shavings.
The scent of varnish was pure aroma, stirring my heart as much as the woman I had come to see.
'Lovejoy,' she said, bored. 'Out.'
'Out,' a nerk the size of Wolverhampton repeated, chucking me into the road. A motor screeched. The driver got out, badly disturbed, and asked if I was all right. I told him yes, ta. He drove off shaking his head.
This made me think. I rummaged in a nearby dustbin for a newspaper, and borrowed a passing postman's ballpoint. On the paper I wrote, 'BANKRUPT YET?' and propped it against the window.
The hulk let me in. I walked towards the Countess, not genuflecting in spite of the impulse. She was lovely. Okay, plump and florid, hair piled up into a Carolean landscape and features a thick mask of cosmetics. I could see where the layers began. I'd never seen so much blue caked round a woman's eyes since I'd met Dame Barbara Cartland, God rest her. Lipstick thickened her mouth to a tubular pout. Earrings spread over her shoulders like epaulettes. She wore a dozen necklaces of heavy gold links, each with assorted pendants. Her toes shone with
