Every Last Cent

1

AN ANTIQUE is an antique is an antique, but only sometimes. A woman is a woman for ever. When the two come together life is dangerous. Always remember my law of antiques: it's not the money, it's the price.

Have you ever been so cold that your feet simply aren't there, and the warm light in your middle threatens to go out? Standing in the undergrowth, two o'clock on a frosty morning, listening to a gorgeous woman making love to some other undeserving slob in my – my – thatched cottage, I felt even colder.

The frost worsened towards midnight. It crunched underfoot as I tried to get warm. I could see the log fire – my fireplace, my logs, their warmth – reflecting a reddish sheen along the windowsill. A couple of times I tried to peer in but the woman had pinned my threadbare curtains over the grotty panes. That's trust for you, I thought bitterly. One good thing: in the morning she'd pay. I'd be able to eat.

Her mewling and gasping got me down. When they reached ecstasy I got truly fed up and walked out of my moonlit garden and down the lane. Nowhere to go. Eleanor's husband was back from the oil rig this week. There was a new raving maniac of a guard dog at the White Hart pub so I couldn't doss there. Another hour to last out.

When you hire out your cottage to Borace those are the terms. Ten o'clock in the evening to three next morning. Life is unfair.

A while since, I used to drive one of Horace's love wagons. These were great pantechnicons, changed from their mundane furniture-removal functions into mobile bedrooms. This was the arrangement: suppose you're a bored housewife fed up with the usual grind (no pun intended). Let's say you meet Handsome Jack in a bus queue.

But what then? You can't take him home on account of nosy neighbours. You can't snog in the park because of strolling families. The cinema's out these days. What do you do? Answer: you phone Borace. One of his mobile passion wagons trundles you to some quiet venue. As unsuspecting traffic roars past, you frolic and wassail with Handsome Jack in secrecy.

Borace supplies a luxury hamper, champagne, lobsters, and those little eats that never fill a tooth. Every mod con is provided, from televisions to smutty films and, rumour has it, a third person if required.

The vans had silly logos on their sides – WE MOVE YOU TO HEAVEN and suchlike – to protect the innocents (well, the illicit fornicators) within. Trouble was, a scandal rose.

Some jealous geezer reported a pantechnicon one dark night. The plod arrived at the moment of the lovers' fulfilment. They broke into the wagon and caught our town mayor with the deputy mayor's missus in what newspapers used to call Certain Circumstances. I got blamed, arrested, fined, and beaten up, because I was the unlucky driver that night.

Passion wagons have vanished since then. Borace has been reduced to what he calls Home For Abroad (for a broad, get it?), and now hires houses from anybody who can let their drum for surreptitious lust. In case this sounds like easy gelt, be careful. The rules are ominously strict. Stick to them or else. And that doesn't only mean you don't get paid. It means your legs get broken, and your house inexplicably catches fire at three-thirty the following afternoon.

Lust doesn't come cheap in East Anglia. In fact, it can make a cottage's legitimate resident wander the icy lanes and hedgerows all night instead of getting a decent kip.

Like me.

As I plodded down the lane – it goes nowhere except to a river and a farm – I almost bumped into a huge motor parked in the moonshadows. A bloke's gruff voice exclaimed. The car's courtesy light came on. I saw a man's face. He'd been dozing in warmth and comfort, the swine.

The window whirred down. 'What you doing?'

'Nothing, wack. Just, er, walking.'

I scarpered. He was probably in the service of the two who'd come to my cottage.

Borace's rule is that you don't see them, not even if you do. Keep out of their way.

The motor was one of these squarish-looking giants, all 1940s, like the car makers forgot to round their vehicles off. Rolls and Bentleys, I mean, with little mascots that collectors pay me for nicking. It made me hopeful, though the thought didn't even cross my mind.

One thing: if their driver was lurking in my lane, then they'd be off the nest fairly soon.

I trudged round Spring Lane and quietly stole into the rear of my overgrown garden. I nearly stood on Crispin, my hedgehog. He grumbled. Hate to think what the little pest eats, rummaging about all night. I feed him cat food when I'm in funds, but because cats eat those unspeakable tins of meat I get little Abigail from down the lane to dish it out for him. It's a nasty business. She says I'm being silly, but she's seven and knows everything.

So it was that I was trying not to freeze by marching silently on the spot near my derelict workshop in the brambles when the beautiful woman and her feller finally emerged. I saw them clearly in the light of my porch. They must have had a mobile phone because the motor came gliding up. They got in. The motor drove off with hardly a sound except for the crackling of gravel under the tyres.

Which left me astounded, thinking well, well, well. Who'd have imagined it was him?

The American consul. I'd seen his photo at the Oyster Feast.

It's one thing to think that you've helped a stranger to an episode of transcendental bliss, but it's another to realize that you've just sanctioned a love tryst for the likes of him. The woman looked gorgeous.

Shivering, I went inside and sat on the edge of my crumpled divan bed. I've only this one room, with a curtained alcove as a kitchen, and a bathroom with a loo. They'd left the lantern burning, and the embers still glowed. I took off my shoes and extracted the soggy cardboard. The soles were both holed. My wet socks peeled off. I'd mend their toes when I could afford some wool. My feet looked like albino prunes, the toes wrinkled and wet.

Then I noticed my forgery had been moved.

Normally I keep my fakes in one place. You shouldn't move a painting to catch a good north light, especially a portrait of an exquisite woman who'd died centuries agone.

Artists call it 'chasing light'. I never do it, because it leads to terrible mistakes that show your forgery up for the miserable travesty that it is. Paint exactly as the Old Master did, and you might, just might, get away with it.

For a long time I stood staring at my forgery.

Definitely out of true. Somebody, and I knew exactly who, had moved it about the cottage to see it in different kinds of light. I could even see the scratch marks on the slab floor. They'd thought I wouldn't notice.

The bedclothes were tumbled. I was dropping from weariness, but stripped off the sheets. Eleanor would collect them in the morning. I'd borrowed them from her the previous afternoon, having to endure her suspicious questions and irritating jibes.

My belly rumbled as I scented food. I scavenged. The wine was all gone. I shoved the empty bottles into the hamper. I found a roll, some cheese, and some cakey stuff with virtually no substance. I can't see the point of baking cakes that vanish when you take a bite. I fell on the grub.

Some meat on a plate looked red raw, so I left that. I also ditched some smoked salmon strips because I never know if that means it's been cooked. They'd swigged all the coffee, but I put the dregs aside in my mug, hoping maybe they'd make a decent cuppa in the morning if I got some hot water. Six miniature spirit bottles rolled about the place, empty of course, testifying to the caring compassion with which my guests had frolicked with complete indifference to my welfare. I laid my wet socks and shoes on the flagstones near the warm grate.

My blanket was unsullied. I haven't got proper pillows, so I stripped, shoved my cushion into place, scenting the perfume of the woman whose body had voluptuously reclined there, promised myself a good long spell of hatred of the American consul in the morning, and slept.