The Lies of Fair Ladies (14 page)

"Very well, Lovejoy. It will be a change from that oaf
Drinkwater, though his friend Cradhead—"

Quickly sussing, I put in, "Troubling you?"

"I mean, I don't even
know
Spoolie. He's
far
too plain!"
Oscar Wilde's line. "I shall pretend your tart's a customer." He
tittered. "Lovejoy. I want to thank you for sending her. A perfectly
marvelous opportunity to
shine
."

Click, burr. "Sandy's, er, mannered, Luna," I said.
"Sort of eccentric. Tell me everything he says. Especially names."

We went to the motor. I dropped her off at East Hill, then drove
to the Ghool Spool.

Antiques are funny, meaning you never know where they begin and
end. Some antiques are rightly seen as national treasures—like the famous
Badminton Cabinet. Made in Florence in 1726, it was recently up for sale to an
American heiress. Then political outrage set in, and people started bawling the
usual old lies, selling our antiques is unpatriotic, all that old rubbish. It's
what you mean by "treasures" and "antiques" that matters.

"Antiques" once meant only things from the ancient
world— Greece or Rome (but especially the latter, because the Romans never had
any consumer-protection laws. The Greeks had). Then, modern times,
"antiques'' meant pre-1837. Gradually it crept nearer and nearer.
"Collectibles'' arrived then, and "Groupables." Finally,
"Tomorrow's Antiques," the ultimate in fraudulence.

And the word began to spread its meaning, as well as its
precisions. Anciently it meant only statuary. It then became jewelry,
paintings, any artifact, and finally (fanfare, please) any marketable rubbish.

Which brings us to films, theater ephemera. The Ghool Spool.

Of course, everybody's fascinated by the knickknacks of the
famous. Bits off an emperor's gown, letters from Dickens to Harrison Ainsworth,
pages of a Beethoven manuscript, anything that lends a name. They're only
valuable, these googaws, because we the public make them so. Whether it's a
bass guitar from the Beatles, or a Leonard Bernstein baton, age doesn't matter
so much as the fame on the tag. But remember that in the shifting sands of
ephemera, authenticity rules. You've got to be able to prove that doodle of
crochets on an old omnibus ticket really was done by Delius.

Spoolie's not really called that. It's his nickname.

"Lovejoy, I've got nothing," he said sadly as I entered
under his clanging doorbell. "Everything's less than a hundred
years."

"Just passing, Spoolie. Suppose I had a customer?"

As Spoolie launched into his spiel, I wandered round his little
shop. It stands on the outskirts of Mistley, on an uphill road between two
leaning pubs. I honestly can't understand the fascination of emphemera. Yet it
powers mighty collectors. I know a bloke who mortgaged his house just to bid
for old Ealing Studios furniture.

"That's honestly probably almost virtually nearly positively
genuine, that shoe," Spoolie waxed eloquently. "Carmen Miranda—
remember her? She used to keep drugs in the huge heels of her dancing shoes.
Did you know she danced without any knickers on?"

"Mmmh, great, Spoolie."

The shop was hung about with bike wheels, once ridden on by some
movie cyclist. Clothes dangled from the ceiling. A rocking horse, once used on
the stage. A dress, reputedly worn by Ava Gardner. (Spoolie: "Ava said she
got sold like a prize hog in that.")

"I'd love a pack of Bogart's cigarettes," Spoolie wound
on. He never sells videos, scorning secondary sources. "I've written to
the mayor of Hollywood. I'm opening negotiations for that big capital H in the
Hollywood sign. You know the one? Just think, Lovejoy. Peg Entwistle chucked
herself off it to her death in 1929. RKO wouldn't renew her contract. Can't you
just see it? This place would become a Mecca for ephemerists."

"Mmmh, great, Spoolie.”

"Signatures are rare,” he told me mournfully. "I'm down
to autographs of cameramen, soundists' diaries, hankies with Orson Welles's
initials. Vivien Leigh, though. I've two autographs of hers, but post-Olivier.
A Marilyn Monroe costs me half a wage. Ronald Reagan's frigging
mother
signed all his postcards."

"Mmmmh, great."

"It's my ambition to do the Grave Rave Tour, Lovejoy.
Hollywood. They finish.
Life is no
rehearsal
. Pure magic!"

He had postcards, signed books, placemats and coasters, a guitar
once played by youthful hopefuls long since insignificant. His shop was a
hang-up trying to enter dreamscape.

"I'd kill for a photo of Mary Martin's ghost. Did you know
she keeps appearing in Weatherford, Texas? Here, Lovejoy. You're always broke.
D'you think I'm doing the right thing? When I came out of nick—"

"You been inside, Spoolie?" This was why I'd come.

"Oh, a few months. I was fitted up. You know the Plod. A
drainer, not even in my manor."

A cat-burgling, outside his area. "What got stolen?"

He shrugged. "Money. And some letters. I thought ... I
mean," he corrected quickly, while I affected not to notice, "I'll
bet the burglar thought they were from somebody famous. They were a
professor's, to some political tart."

I gauged him. "Know anything about stamps, Spoolie?"

He smiled, shifty. "So you know. Bought big into antique
stamps before I went in. Left them with a dolloper."

Valuable news. "You jugged with anybody local?"

Spoolie's face closed. "No. Drinkwater asked me. Some bloke
called Godbolt. Never heard of him."

"Lovely shop you got, Spoolie." I said so-long and left,
the door playing that scratchy introduction from Flash Gordon serials. Blank.
Which only left me Therla the schoolteacher and her non-story of the
non-drowning, and Luna's escapade with Jenny. Calamy's not a local name, but it
was bothering me. I decided to look names up.

On the way I noticed that Rye Benedict's plant showrooms were up
for sale. A decent crowd queued at his mill. Maybe he was going full-time into
history, and leaving Nature alone. I was all for it. A shop opposite Therla
Brewer's school had a headline about a savage local murder. It made me stop
until I could go on, but I didn't buy a paper.

Twelve

Schools dismay me. It's their air of assumption. Ever since
learning that Dickens had to tone
down
the ghastly events at the real Dotheboys Hall, to achieve realism, they've
given me the willies. I sense chains, cross the road even yet. I parked the car
in the school, though, to avoid prying ploddite eyes. It was in this vehicle
that Luna had taken me to suss out Prammie's hut. The countryside might have
whispered.

Therla was in the common room being merry with a dozen somnolents.
Children, all taller than children used to be, milled about the corridors,
looking bored. I wish it had been boredom in my day. I can only remember worry.
She came and we walked to her classroom, empty except for two snogging
youngsters who marched out, the lad glaring, the girl giving Therla an impudent
challenging stare. Therla sighed apology.

"I do my best, Lovejoy. You can see they're horrors." The
girl was pretty. I could easily dislike the boy. "That accident, love. The
boy in the river." "Andrew? He climbed once too often. It was in the
Stour. I think I said? An old man on a strange little boat fished him out. He
had the oddest way of propulsion, some sort of—"

It's odd how a few words can send you really strange. "You
said he was rescued by an ocean-going barge."

"Yes. Beside a great barge . . . What's the matter?"

"You stupid cow. You meant
nearby
?"

"Of course. I told you." She was exasperated. Teachers
are trained in it. "It was fastened to it. For heaven's sake, Lovejoy. I
don't understand how ships tie themselves to each other, do I?"

"Ta, Therl."

"Lovejoy. Don't you think you owe me some explanation? You
come here as if your life depended ..."

It had been Prammie Joe himself. In the Stour? But Prammie's hut
lies deep in the tributary marshes of the next river north, the Deben. I’d
assumed wrong. I’d been mesmerized by Cornish Place.

"His dinghy was tied to the barge?"

"Yes." Her forehead wrinkled prettily. "Under the
back, so to speak. Most odd. There were ropes, loading things onto two punts he
had. Andrew was very lucky. I honestly do try, Lovejoy," she sighed.
"Field trips are a nightmare. Next year I take forty-eight teenagers to
the Urals. Can you imagine?"

No, I couldn't. "Did the old man say anything?"

"No. In fact, he was most offensive. He hadn't the slightest
intention of making Andrew feel forgiven. Just bundled him ashore—only a few
yards, really."

I said, "Honestly, some people. What barge, Therl?"

"Therla, please. One of those slow sailing ones. They race
them. It was all ready. Here." She pointed.

A watercolor on a wall. Three Thames barges. "Big? Like
that?"

"Yes. They're quite pretty moving. Ugly just lying
still."

"D'you still teach history? Or has it died of education?
There's something on my mind."

She was pleased at my interest. "Josh Moss."

I kept getting these dim flashes in my mind's eye, those names.
Oddly, written in an old court hand. I was sure I'd seen at least two, maybe
three, on parchment somewhere.

Josh Moss was fetched from the gaiety of the common room. He
seemed relieved to escape. I parted amicably from Therla. She does evening
classes in poetry, keeps wanting me to enroll. I promised. I remember hardly
anything of school poetry, just dim drums throbbing, and only that because we
made rude rhymes of Lepanto. But Therla's really pleasant. You could get to
like even poetry.

"It's a silly thing. Josh," I said. Instinctively I
adopted my old tactic before the teacher, looking downcast and
sorry-I'm-such-trouble. "Some names keep going through my head. I've a,
er, a bet on. A mate at the pub. He says they're footballers. I think something
historical."

"Names?'' He was a fresh-faced bloke, looking about fourteen.
He didn't like my joining Therla's poetry class.

"Godbolt. Calamy. Clark. Hopkins. And one blurred."

"Easy, Lovejoy," he said, grinning. "You're missing
Fair-clough."

"That's it!" I cried. Fairclough? "Who are
they?"

"Were, Lovejoy. John Godbolt. Edmund Calamy. And last but
certainly not the least, Elizabeth Clark."

Still I waited, thick as a post. "Yes?"

Josh sighed. "See, Lovejoy? You too. Local history's ignored
these days. It provides such useful insights. Matthew Hopkins not ring a bell?
The Witch-Finder General. He was born hereabouts. Wenham, I think."

"Wenham?" I stared. Who was from Wenham?

"A bad time. Elizabeth Clark was a witch." He shrugged,
smiling. "So they said, the day they hanged her. It's not far. Take the
main A12 from the roundabout. Be careful of the signs from—"

"Thanks, Josh. Great."

"Lovejoy," he called after me. "D'you win? Your
bet."

"Er, no. But ta."

From a street phone—one of the six was accidentally unvandalized—I
reached Wittwoode's, and Luna. She seemed thrilled. I said come to the school,
stat. She said she'd no motor because I had it. I told her to do as she was
told. I'd had enough of being buggered about. What are apprentices for, for
God's sake? I honestly think women give me lip just to annoy. I can't come
because you've got my motor. Gormless.

Coincidences are coincidences, right? But four flukes in a row?
Names don't mean much these days, do they? It was all possibly imagination or
something.

The point was, it wasn't. Sourly I watched Luna's taxi draw up.
"What's your name?" I signaled her taxi to wait.

"Lovejoy. Whatever's the matter? You look white as—"

"Don't keep saying that. Stop frigging about."

She stared at me, a sheaf of papers in her hand, ready for a whole
Wittwoode saga. "You
know
who I
am, Lovejoy. Mrs. Luna Florence Carstairs. Is it a game?"

"Before you were married, stupid." I'd actually
recoiled.

"Macintosh." She followed along the pavement. A valeta.

My griping belly muscles relaxed. "Prove it."

"Prove . . . ?" She delved into her handbag, hauled out
a photograph of a beautiful girl. "That's me."

Words on the reverse eased me more.
Everybody says Lola's "a ringer for Luna Macintosh" when you
were nineteen! Love, Dad.

"Lola?''

"My daughter, Lovejoy. Are you ill?"

Drawing breath, I demanded her mother's name. Her mother's
mother's name. Her great-granddad's . . . The family came from Fort William. I
should have detected her accent. Fright had done my cortex in. I put my arms
round her, bussed her in relief. She backed away, murmuring she was the
mayoress, for heaven's sake, and in public. I gave her car keys.