The Grace in Older Women (23 page)

'Lily, help the mistress to her bedroom suite, would you?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And, Lily,' Roberta murmured feebly. 'I think I could manage some
gateau, a little of that trifle, with cream, some marzipan torte -you know the
one - and a dish of fruit salad.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'With some peeled grapes, not those thin dark ones; the fat white
Italian. And a selection of tartlets. Have you any from Gunton's? They agree
with me best.'

'Yes, ma'am.' Lily darted me a sideways glance as Roberta was
assisted to the lift. I know that all glances are supposed to be oblique by
definition, but there was something congratulatory about Lily's sideways look
that should have enlightened. But I'm thick at the best of times. At the worst,
I'm pathetic. The lift doors crashed, making Roberta whimper. It whirred away,
leaving Ashley.

'What you said, Lovejoy, was reprehensible!'

'I've seen too many scams, Ashley. If you wanted me out, you
shouldn't have dragged me in. But you set your hoodlums on me, force me in. So
take me, warts and all. I've kept up my side. Tell me what the scam is, who
we're conning out of what, and I'll do what I'm made to. Then I can get the
hell away from you and your winceyette woman. Where's my room?'

His cheeks glowed red, generating a scarlet fluorescence that
could have lit our village. For a fleeting instant I saw a silhouette against
the sheen of the children's boating pool, and knew it wasn't him that had
beaten Tryer to death in the park. His orders, though?

Third floor, Lovejoy. Knock at the blue suite before
entering." He said it like a penance. Jesus, I thought, what's in there? A
hit team, torturers?

'Look, Ashley,' I said showing the chicken in me. 'I meant no
harm. These causes, like your Bonnie Prince Charlie crap - er, project. I see
ten a week. They never, never ever, turn out the way you think they will. They
can't.' I heard the lift returning, to carry me to another battering.

'You do not know. Our Cause is the hope of mankind.'

'They always are, Ashley,' I said sadly. 'But mankind is hopeless.
He wants sin.'

God, he was stubborn. And nobody's more stubborn than when bent on
fraud. 'Truth got left at the starting line aeons ago. It's a folk memory, like
boggarts and fairies.'

'Cynicism is evil, Lovejoy. You will be punished for it.'

So it was to be a belting. I sighed. Escape was out of the
question. I tried to wheedle. 'It isn't cynicism, Ashley. It's experience. Of
antiques, of people who want a fortune for a clothes peg, of dreamers - that's
all of us - who claim that their bit of broken glass is the Hope Diamond.'

'You will do as you are told.'

'Right.' I eyed him, curious now. There was something I'd missed
here. 'But if you're running an antiques scam, Ashley, you're going about it
all wrong. If it's simply money you want, you'll fail.'

'You will stay here three days, Lovejoy,' he said, tight-lipped. I
swear he hadn't listened to one blinking word. 'Understood?'

'Aye.' The lift crashed gently. I went towards it.

Ashley barred my way, in a new fury. 'Only the mistress uses the
lift.
Stairs.

He stayed in the grand hall. As if I'd taken away his
toffee-apple. I wondered if all murderers were childish, or if it was an act.
No answer on the first flight of stairs, none on the second. There was one on
the third, of a sort.

20

The landing was almost threadbare. Blue suite, indeed. As I stood
at the door, scared to death it would be Big John Sheehan inside ready to chuck
me out of the window - his favourite ploy - Lily emerged wheeling a trolley. I
cleared my throat a couple of times. She looked delectable, bending forward,
curves moving.

'Er, all right in there?' I asked. My voice squeaked.

'You'll find out soon enough, Lovejoy.' Sideways, that glance
again. 'I hope you survive.’

Dear God. k Look, Lily. Pass on a message for me. To Tinker Dill.
Tell him -'

'Do your own dirty work, Lovejoy.' Hate, so soon?

'Er, ta.' I was desperate to leave some rock carving so future
astronauts would know I'd been this way. 'Give my regards to . . .' To the
world, anybody. 'Mr. Andrews,' I ended feebly.

'You know old Jim?' Direct look this time, no obliquity.

'Old pal,' I said, grasping at straws. 'From way back.' It sounded
Lone Ranger. I amended eagerly, 'My dad's war pal.'

'I'll tell him.' She paused. 'Be yourself in there, Lovejoy.' And
went. There was a service lift on the landing.

Be myself? I prayed to be somebody else for a millisec, thought,
oh get on with it, and went in.

A sitting room, furnished in warehouse gunge. And blue! A
television muttered, somebody groaning? Music of the
egg-and-beans-for-table-three sort droned.

'Hello?' I called, I'm here.'

Nothing. At the far end a door stood ajar, the pale TV screenlight
reflected through. A window, curtained, gave me an instant's mad hope but I
knew from experience that goons would be prowling outside. Dejectedly I edged
forwards. Bedroom? Chamber of horrors? Both?

'Hello?' I said, louder.

The door gave onto a bedroom, eggshell blue. Roberta was in a
round, white, frothy bed, eating from a tray. It was modern pressed plastic
painted to resemble silver. Honest to God, a mansion this size, servants, and
she dines off a chunk of stamped compound. I swallowed, realized I was hungry.

The television showed some woman, groaning in the throes. A corn
porn video, eight ninety-nine from Hamblesons in Wyre Street. This was the only
torture.

'Er, am I right, missus?' I didn't want Ashley to come charging
out of the wardrobe with his psychotic mob.

'Shhhh.' She shushed me. The mound of grub was enormous. Lily's
knowing glance came back to me. Roberta's eyes didn't leave the screen.

What to do? I stood like a spare tool. The lady selected some
little sweet things, that they give out at posh parties. I watched her.
Delicately her mouth opened, the morsel went in with no unnecessary expenditure
of energy, then that lovely smooth hand returned to waver, decide, dip, select
out one more tasty titbit for that luscious paradisical mouth. And one more
time.

The cake was a huge gateau. My mouth watered. I tried to smile at
her, but it felt cardboard instead of silent endearment. She tilted her head
slightly. I edged aside, partly in the way, and the groans from the television
came faster. I tore my gaze from the grub to look. The woman, rolling her eyes.
Close-up of the bloke on her starting to thresh. Pan to their conjoined bodies,
limbs writhing. The woman shoving her breasts at him, rolling over on a sandy
seashore, to straddle him. Him crying out as he curved his body up to thrust
into her, she laughing, head back, riding him like a bucking beast . . .

God, but the grub was tantalizing. I couldn't keep my eyes off it.
Roberta cut herself a slice of some chocolate-covered thing. How didn't she
turn into a giant squab? I heard myself moan with lust. Roberta, I noticed, as
she started on the new slice, was slowly shedding her nightdress, one of those
white satin garments with foamy collarettes.

Her breast appeared. She ate on, baring her shoulders. The
nightdress's skirt was out over the satiny quilt. Her eyes closed, ecstatic at
the taste. Her tongue flicked her lips.

The groans had become yelps out there as the waves beat on the
seashore. Close-ups of hands, buttocks, limbs going.

'Can I pass anything, missus?' I was desperate to get nearer the
grub.

'Shhhh.'

How she said it with her mouth filled I don't know. I watched her
press a chocolate marzipan in. It was marvellous to watch her eat, except the
word eat sounds too indelicate for the way which the morsels were chosen,
inspected, and elegantly assimilated into that beautiful mouth. To think it
actually became part of her, a total act of union. Like watching osmosis to
music.

The grunts became yelps, screams. The screen's flicker was
swifter, electrons straining to keep up. Roberta beckoned. I advanced
hopefully. Food? Moi? My belly rumbled. I tightened it to shut it up, passing
the message that I was doing my best, before this selfish bitch swallowed the
universe. There was flan left, a dozen of those little cakes, some buttered
scones, a quarter of that chocolate sponge, a gateau, and a swirly thing in a
tall glass. Three plates stood empty, with two glasses showing they'd had their
swirl tastefully excised. I was astonished at the pace.

Then she reached out, fumbled to find my belt one-handed. Her eyes
were still on the screen. She tutted once, some finer point of technique I
suppose. I started to undo the belt myself. She resumed her nosh. Her alacrity
was mind-bending. Not even in Woody's or China's had I seen food disappear this
fast. Yet she ingested - and even that's not elegant enough -gently, seemingly
hardly bothering to eat at all. It was dining with balletic grace, the
consumption Olympics. The nosh drew me, then her mouth, then she was pulling it
and tutting at my shirt.

The screen showed several couples were watching from rocks.
Excited by the coupling, they all started to make love. I groaned, because the
gateau went the way of all flesh with a movement that can only be called a
caress. It was beautiful to watch the selfish bitch eat while I starved to
frigging death. Then the covers parted slowly to admit me.

There wasn't a single
crumb in the bed!
Unbelievable. I've only to have a slice of stale bread and my
cottage is a mass of crumbs. I keep finding them days later. Roberta had
cleared the best part of a vicarage nosh and her fingers, the sheets, pillows
were untainted. She reached over me, which accidentally brought us closer, as
the television started up multiple passionate cries.

Roberta finally slowed her repast, turning her attention to me
with, at first, casual acceptance rather than interest. Then she waved, and the
TV went silent. Another stretch, and the lights dimmed, images of fountains and
flowers appearing on the ceiling. No music.

By then I was in no fit state to notice anything environmental,
and found myself a new Roberta, one who exclaimed and exhorted. It was not elegant.
She became savage, demanding savagery back. It was wonderful, even though I
still didn't know quite what was going on. It was ecstasy, because it always
is. I abandoned all other appetites in appeasement of the greatest human
hunger. She was superb, everything a goddess could be. Craving, worse almost
than me, working with passionate abandon. I knew I would love her for ever and
ever, do anything she wanted. I was hers, no two ways.

Eventually we slept. Dunno why, but women are always cold, going
to bed. Even in summer with a head start, they're perishing. They amaze me. How
can you make your feet so freezing? Even their bottoms are frigid, and a
bottom's at the very centre of things, so to speak. Icy knees too, and I've
never met a hot breast yet. In the morning, they're warm.

And they snore, in two episodes. One's half an hour after they
drop off, lasts forty minutes. The other's at four-thirty, and is a long
chuntering hour. Dunno why that, either. I woke in darkness. The magic romantic
pictures on the ceiling had faded. I reached, found a plate of something,
scoffed the lot. I found another - small sweet things - and engulfed those, put
the plate carefully under the bed. Got a third and gnawed through a thick
marzipan cake. Then a flan. Crumbs, I thought. These sheets would need washing,
because I'm hopeless. Chocolate spreads so.

About then, she gave a stretchy kind of groan, and her hand called
me to attention, as it were.

She was twenty times better than any of the television. Within
seconds I was babbling undying devotion, and I meant every endearment most
sincerely. Lily's remarks came to me between passions, though, and that odd
complicity of Ashley. I was now on their strength, a devoted member.

Came dawn, I found the side table cleared of grub and the gorgeous
Mrs. Battishall gone. It was shoving back the curtains to see the countryside
staring in - I quickly drew them again - that I realized that, if Ashley had
ordered Tryer dead, then Roberta must have agreed. Or worse, for she was boss.

Bath, shave, dress, then tell Ashley how antiques could raise
money the right - i.e. wrong - way. Outside, I heard activity on the gravel. I
peered out. To see Stubbs's brilliant portrait of Whistlejack being carried in.
Real? I couldn't feel the vibes at this distance.

Things were too fast. I had to see what Mahleen's whispered
promise ('Antiques! Money!') meant, see what Ashley was playing at, find
Chemise. And gather the five Fenstone survivors at Dame Millicent's. And see
Big John Sheehan, ask could the rules be moulded. Then to Farouk, maybe, ask
him if he needed help to burgle Dame Millicent's. Then Corinth, maybe, if I
could reach her. Sabrina would have to wait. And so would my own non-existent
antiques dealing.

For once I felt an ache. Roberta was marvellous. I wondered if
that was all, a see-what-I-can-give carrot ahead of the donkey (me). I scented
food, hurried into the day.