it without a word of gratitude.
'What am I?' I demanded. 'In your song.'
Elizabeth snorted. 'Untidy.'
Little Marie said, 'You're hopeless. My mum says.'
They went off up the lane trailing their skipping ropes. Little Marie walked backwards to shout, 'You're not in the song, Lovejoy, coz you're poor.'
'Charming,' I called bitterly. I like them, the pests.
'There's a new auntie hiding in your cottage, Lovejoy.'
Elizabeth too had a parting shot. 'She's got horrible shoes. And her frock's crap.'
Was this a godsend of an alibi? I went in, stiff as a plank. The woman was seated on my stool, handbag on her knees, prim and primed for action.
'Wotcher, missus.'
'How do you do?'
Her frock didn't look that bad, and I quite liked her shoes. Gloves, neat skirt, the right side of forty. Mind you, women can't have a wrong side of forty.
'The children said you were my auntie.' I wanted her to shift over so I could sprawl on my divan and sleep. I've only one mug, so tea was out.
'It's what I told them, Lovejoy.' She sounded schoolmarmish, no-nonsense-from-you.
'Infants harbour wrong conclusions.'
'Indeed.' I hoped they hadn't blabbed about Mrs Vullamy's aerial legs.
'I called to ask you how I can conceal an object.' She avoided an exchange of glances, addressing the middle distance. 'I want antique dealers not to see it.'
'I don't understand.'
The way women present themselves to the world is admirable. Blokes aren't worth looking at. Not exactly poor, she'd get a mention in Elizabeth's skipping song any day.
Weighty wedding ring, earrings pricey, but some jeweller had made a terrible mistake with her pendant, a blue topaz set in oval gold. Still, it wasn't pale lavender, which would have been dearer but worse.
'It's a painting of a lady,' she explained. 'Done by Geoffreye Parlayne.' She took my aghast silence for awe and smiled. 'It is rare and valuable.'
'Oh, good,' I bleated faintly. 'Can I lie down, please? I've had a hard night.'
'Please don't dissemble, Lovejoy. I heard what the children said about you and Darla Vullamy.'
'Never heard of the lady,' I gave back, sagging onto my divan.
People have a right to anonymity. I know I'm in the minority in thinking this. Nowadays, every model having a one-nighter with some film star thinks it the height of propriety to hurtle for tomorrow's headlines and tell, sell every gasp of pillow passion. I regard it as a modern ailment, like Value Added Tax and vile clergy, and hope it might pass.
'She's my neighbour,' the lady said, doing the thin lips.
'I trust I might meet her one day,' I returned politely, thinking what frigging painting by Geoffreye Parlayne? Because that renowned Cromwellian soldier-cum-artist, 1599 to 1658, is actually me. He didn't exist. Still doesn't. I'm the forger who coined the name and stuck it on a dreadful daub I did one drunken month. I called it A Portrait of Lady Parlayne. The picture, almost a spillage, was astonishingly bought at Selpman and Coater's auction by a London dealer. I dined out, and in, until I got with Eve, who runs a fingernail shop (honest, there is such a thing. Eve sells gruesomely false fingernails).
After a week of Eve I was broke. When I'm desperate I forge yet another version of his Lady Parlayne. I've done four. The point is there's no such geezer as Geoffreye Parlayne, Cromwell's warrior artist. It's only me in a bad spell. My career can be logged by troughs and depressions, the nadir marked by portraits of Lady Hypatia Parlayne.
Never, never ever, buy art by Parlayne. He's the Dauber Who Never Was. All his paintings are forgeries done by me and skilfully aged to look Old Mastery.
Which is why I gazed at her bonny features and pondered.
You think folk are honest? Think again.
True story, to convince skeptics. Once upon a time, a bloke died. The eccentric millionaire Mr Digweed, sad to relate, passed away in a tent erected in his living room.
He actually left his fortune to Jesus Christ. A proper will, legal to the hilt. Hearing this, we might just smile and think what a charming old geezer. After all, the English are known eccentrics. Nary a ripple on the pond of life, right?
Not a bit of it.
Claims flooded in – from Jesus Christ! Within days, the Home Office was knee deep in letters claiming Digweed's gelt. Letters from whom? From JC, no less, duly signed and witnessed. They poured in by recorded delivery, with Address of Sender solemnly filled in, giving bank accounts where the money should be forwarded. The HO is still wondering what on earth.
I don't read the Church Times or the Vatican's daily newspaper, so maybe a Second Coming has occurred and I missed it.
My point is, logically there could be only one truthsayer, maximum. And most bookmakers would give odds on all those Jesus Christs being duds. (Incidentally, if you're the real genuine Claimant, the correct Home Office form of application is 319(0), and good luck. But I suppose you'd already know that.) Stark truth? We're all on the make,
