Every Last Cent

'Except you're unemployable, and I need an alternative to that idiot boy.' She snorted a laugh. 'So find me some better.'

Did she think divvies grew on trees? I was the only divvy I knew, but for Mortimer who was showing disturbing signs of having inherited the trait. One and one only make two.

'Bring me several divvies so I can choose. What is your fee?'

For the unattainable? I could start eating, maybe get a jar of Gunton's marmalade. And Lancashire cheese! My belly rumbled. When this happens I press my elbows into my sides. It never works. I stooped into a hire-me grovel.

'Er, what does m'lady think adequate?' I croaked.

'I'll give you what I paid for that Cotman watercolour,' she said imperiously.

The plain little antique painting hung on the wall in a mahogany frame. Businesswoman that she was, she named half of what she'd bought it for. I knew she'd got it off Mirrorman Tate in St Botolph's Antiques Arcade. Incidentally, Cotman was the greatest at laying a sky wash. God knows how he did it, but it's always beautifully even, right down to the edges of clouds. It galls me. In fact, I'd taken four weeks to do this very fake, a sailing boat becalmed. I'd given in at the finish, worn out, and done an acrylic wash in despair, like most modern forgers. The old greats – Cotman, Turner, Sandby –

mixed their own watercolours with gum arabic. Nowadays modern paints have so much gelatin in the gum arabic that overpainting, however lightly you do it, tends to leach out the colours underneath. It's one way of spotting the careless forger of old watercolours.

The Calm by Miles Cotman is famous. It's used by water-colour teachers the world over.

One day, I'm going to steal the original from Oldham's Art Gallery and stare at it for life.

'Thank you,' I said humbly, half a loaf being better than no bread.

'Leave your phone number and address, Lovejoy. Bring the best six divvies.'

'Very well, m'lady.' I gave her a mythical number knowing the phone company had cut me off for poverty.

Only by a stupendous effort of will did I manage not to back out, like they did from the tsarina. She was clearly off her trolley. The only other true divvy apart from myself and Mortimer had been one elderly French bloke who died years since. Apart from that, zilch. And here was this mad woman commanding me to round up an assorted half-dozen.

Mortimer joined me as I walked past an ornamental grove of evergreens. He wasn't there one minute then suddenly was.

'Stop appearing like that, you little burke,' I said. 'Why didn't you tell me she was crazy?'

'She's come to find a portrait. Somebody dead, she thinks. The cook overheard her say it.'

'Can't she get a private eye?' I'm never quite sure what the term means, but it sounds trendy American.

'Her second husband – you met Taylor Eggers – is an American ex-policeman. Into antiques.'

I have a special headache that can spot trouble a mile off. It saves itself for big occasions, like now. Every step I took jolted it up a notch. In silence we reached the main gate. It was coming on to rain.

'It's an opportunity, Lovejoy.' Mortimer left a space for me to speak, then did it for me.

'Bring actors. They can pretend to be divvies.'

I bleated feebly, 'I don't know any actors.'

'You painted the portrait, Lovejoy.'

'I painted a frigging ghost?'

The bus came. He helped me, a broken man, on board and paid my fare. I would have waved but the vehicle jerked noisily forward, so I just surrendered to the blinding agony. I'd had enough of fatherhood. Escape called.

4

OUTSIDE THE PUBLIC library Paul Blondel stands. He's Jenny Blondel's husband. I watched him. He grows hunting birds, uses them to collect money for the St Helena Hospice on shopping afternoons. Saint Helena, incidentally, is supposed to hail from our town but didn't. They say she found the True Cross, but didn't. Paul Blondel, however, is one of the few genuine individuals in this make-believe mad world. He knows all about Aspirin, his wife's secret lover, but is a gentleman and pretends he doesn't.

A crowd of admiring shoppers congregated about Paul's wooden perches. He wears a huge leather gauntlet. Drop money into his bucket, you're allowed to hold one of his wicked-eyed hunting birds. People actually queue to do it. Unbelievable.

'Yes, you can stroke her.' Paul was smiling at some infant.

Today's brands included a pretty owl-looking thing with a white downy chest. The child reached up and patted the creature.

'Keep your fingers away from her face,' Paul warned. 'She has her eyes closed, but she can sense something approaching and tends to snap.'

A large bird dozed on another perch, occasionally moving its feet so its bell clonked. It was hell of a size. God gets almost everything wrong in my book, but these two birds were exquisite, God on a good day.

'What do you feed them on?' some old dear wittered.

'Mice,' Paul said, pleased. 'And baby chicks. I tie a chick on a cotton and drag it along the ground.'

'How sweet!' sundry maniacs cooed.

'The hawk sulks,' Paul went on. 'I take him rabbiting and won't let him eat the little rabbits. I keep some for his supper. Gets really angry!'

Everybody laughed, a merry scene from English rural life. I felt dizzy and went to sit on Holy Trinity church wall, my forehead clammy. Nausea enveloped me. I came to moments later. A woman was dabbing my forehead with a damp tissue while her infant appraised me with scorn.

'Stay still, Lovejoy,' she kept saying. 'I get it too, all down my side.'

'He's scared of the birds,' the infant jeered.

'Shut up.' I tried to say it like Mrs Eggers, but it came out a bleat.

'Told you!' said the titch triumphantly. 'Cos they eat chicks.'

Paul came over with an owl. 'Sorry, Lovejoy. Didn't notice you, or I'd not have mentioned it.'

'They eat the eyes first,' the little psychopath remarked, swinging her foot. 'Paul shows us, don't you, Paul?'

'Miriam!' her mother scolded. 'Quiet, miss, or it's early bed. D'you hear?'

'Jenny told me about your trouble, Lovejoy,' Paul said. 'They're gunning for you. When did you eat last?'

'Just on my way to Woody's nosh bar,' I lied, making to rise but the infant carnivore's mother restrained me. Other shoppers stopped to watch, contentedly reminiscing about other dramatic faints they had known.

Paul brought out a note. 'Order me some chips, okay? I'll follow on.'

'Right,' I said, letting him stuff the money in my pocket. I don't know about other folk, but shame figures largely in my life. Here was me, a grown man, cadging grub money off a bloke who was giving his all to collect money for the Hospice for the Dying. I'm pathetic.

'Stay still a minute more,' the woman advised.

Another of life's mysteries: a woman can give you a bit of advice and make it sound like Newton's Laws. If I merely suggest something nobody listens, not even children and animals. I looked up.

'Do I know you, missus?'

'I'm a friend of Eleanor's. We used to live next door to her in your lane.'

Oops. Eleanor is little Henry's mum. I babysit for him some afternoons. Uneasily I wondered if she knew that me and Eleanor used to make smiles. I remembered her now.

'Satina? Sorry, love. I got giddy.' Her husband Luke is a customs officer of singularly sour disposition, while Satina was always happy as a lark.

'This is my little Miriam, she of the sunny attitude.'

Genetics work, then, I thought, assessing Miriam's candid gaze. Got it from her neurotic father, no doubt. Luke sees smugglers under every bed.

Satina hefted the pushchair round. 'Don't say I told you, Lovejoy, but Luke starts a special antiques investigation soon.'

Which explained why the town's antique dealers were gorilla about Mortimer.

'Lovejoy's scared about the chicks, Mummy.'

'No, darling. Lovejoy's just got a headache.' I watched her go. Smart, attractive.

Customs officers get all the luck. Warily I rose, testing my balance while Paul's hunting birds eyed me hopefully. I set off, trying to seem casual yet strong.