Every Last Cent

3

WHEN I WOKE on the bus Mortimer gave me three home-made vegetarian sandwiches and a bottle of water, I had them, mourning my ravaged portrait.

The greatest portrait ever painted is that of a beautiful lady, Portrait of the Artist's Wife by Gainsborough. Some folk think that one woman's face is just like another. After all, what is a phizzog? Couple of eyes, mouth, eyelashes, whatever.

Untrue. For years I've been painting that same portrait over and over. I'm still at it. I'm the one who knows.

Go and see her. The painting just hangs there like all the rest in London's Courtauld.

You may think, 'Hey, she's ordinary!' Disappointment! If so, you're looking wrong.

I admit she isn't young. She certainly isn't sprawled naked in a tangle of erotic satins.

Her breast is modestly covered. She has a double chin at that, quite plain, holds back a mantilla in an awkward pose. Dullsville, no big deal. (I'm being honest here.) Except you're looking at the most beautiful portrait painted since the world began.

Others are fine, sure. Tell me that Rembrandt is superb, I'll go we-e-ell, ye-e-es. And I'll give you points if you're the indignant Hon Sec of the Michelangelo Appreciation Society. But are their works the greatest? Sorry and all that, but no. Not by a mile.

Because out in front, winner by a street, is the lovely plain face of Mary Gainsborough.

Confront her. Let other viewers walk on. Imagine you are the artist himself, holding her gaze. Then wonder what sort of bloke was this Gainsborough?

Frankly, Tom G was a bad lad. If you say to local folk hereabouts, 'I'll pop over to Sudbury today,' something odd happens. They smile knowingly and reply, 'Lot of artists in Sudbury!' Sounds innocent, right? It isn't. They mean that Tom Gainsborough was wicked for the ladies. They still nickname a footpath Tom's Walk because there it was that young lusty Tom – and, in time, middle-aged lusty Tom –used to frolic with maids, matrons, wives. Anything in skirts. Plenty of unexpected little babes grew up to be astonishingly talented artists thereabouts . . .

He was the same in his London studio, when fame struck. He ordered his servants to keep gentlemen out. But if the next customer was a pretty lady, well...

Now look at Mary Gainsborough's blue eyes. She's not smiling, yet she is. For in her serene gaze there's genuine love for her randy husband, plus understanding too. But for me it's the glorious trace of humour that takes the biscuit. The entire masterpiece wouldn't cover your smallest window, yet that patch of daubed canvas defines what love really is. Her lovely smile is saying to Thomas, 'I know you, you devil. And about the ladies. And our milkmaid. And the grocer's wife . ..' And the love in her exquisite eyes dazzles so your vision blurs. She's just so beautiful. Okay, a portrait's only a blot on a rag, but even Sir Joshua Reynolds – no slouch – couldn't quite see how the brilliant Gainsborough had done it.

Is it any doubt that she had him for ever? He didn't paint any of his luscious tarts with anything like the passion that he lavished on that small portrait of his Mary.

It's genius. It was for yet more attempts on Mary's portrait that I needed the old panels. I use the same paints, same methods. And fail every time.

By the time we alighted at Saffron Fields I was well narked. Some schoolgirls on the bus kept giggling, daring each other to call come-hithers at Mortimer. The lad was only fifteen, God's sake. I tried glaring but they did that raised-eyebrows-lip-droop that means get knotted, you boring prat. Mortimer paid no attention. The schoolgirls bent heads to whisper. I could have pasted the lot of them.

Now, I'm no angel. I learned at an early age that there was more to gender than an apple in a garden. I was reaped in my early teens by a married woman who gave me a flintlock pistol (note that symbolism). It was my first real antique possession (I mean the flintlock). Her true gift, though, was excitement. Males and females, I saw in that first glorious thrill, came together, so to speak. Of course I didn't know what was going on. I only knew that life had arrived.

But Mortimer? Only fifteen, barely out of the egg. Surely he was too young to bother with the opposite sex? I'd never felt like this before. The schoolgirls alighted at Wickerham Lanes. They str-o-o-olled off the bus, then stood on the grass verge calling offers of what I can only term cohabitation. I fumed. They needed a good hiding, brazen young tarts. No discipline these days. I blame the parents – what was I saying?

I caught myself, aghast. In shock. I glanced at Mortimer.

'Don't worry, Lovejoy. They know no better.'

'I'm not worried!' I blazed, then because heads turned at my vehemence whispered,

'Makes no difference to me. Get that in your head.'

We got off at Saffron Fields. The bus left us by the huge ornate gateway.

'Here? The customer's here?' It was his mansion.

He nodded. We started up the drive.

'Why's he staying here?' Now I was really out of my depth.

'They, Lovejoy. I leased the mansion and the estate.'

Mortimer, I should explain, for all that he's only a sprog, owns the entire place. That is to say, the manor house with its vast medieval acreage known as Saffron Fields, shooting rights, fens where anglers spend fortunes to drown worms in Mortimer's river, sundry canals, wharfage, estuaries, not to mention a marina near the Blackwater.

Locals defer to him because he has one of these ancient titles nobody cares about these days. He likes living in a shed by the river. Which might beg the question how come Mortimer was mighty throughout the land when I, alleged kin, was penniless and totting for a piece of old wood so I could earn a crust. Explanation: I knew his mum once. That's all I'll say. She is elsewhere; always was elsewhere.

Distant gardeners doffed caps. To my disappointment we went round to the servants'

entrance. (See? Even I'm a secret snob.) An elegant woman was standing among rows of lettuces talking to a sandy-haired homely geezer.

Mortimer went all diffident. 'I fetched Lovejoy, missus.'

'I'm Mrs Susanne Eggers,' she told me irritably. 'You're late.'

'How do,' I said, narked at Mortimer's subservience, clocking her as American, bonny, dark of hair, and sharp.

'Come in. Not you,' she said tartly to Mortimer.

'Very good, ma'am,' said the lord of the manor, not quite tugging his forelock. I drew breath to tell her to go to hell but Mortimer's quick look warned me.

'You stay outside, Taylor,' she commanded the other bloke.

She swept in. Meekly I followed.

This terse lady was just into her thirties, given to flinging out Churchillian imperatives.

I'd seen her the previous night emerging from my cottage.

'I don't suffer fools lightly, Lovejoy. Understand?'

I just said, 'Mmmh, mmmh.' Oscar Wilde's crack came to mind: America was discovered often before Columbus, but they hushed it up.

Tea was already served in the withdrawing room. She plunked herself down and gestured me to a seat.

'Tell me what you do,' she commanded.

In a way you have to admire Yanks. No wonder they're all millionaires and have ranches big as Berkshire. Okay, so other nations knock America. It's only envy. If we didn't have the USA we'd have to go around pretending there really was such a stupendous country. It's the nearest we shabbier nations get to paradise. Don't try telling me there's a lot wrong with America because I won't listen. Other countries live on dollar support. And we're all jealous of America's devil-may-care movies.

Humbly trying not to wobble my teacup and saucer, I sat and tried to please the lovely legs opposite.

'Not much, lady. I just like antiques.'

'Define a divvy.'

My tea nearly spilled. I can't drink anything hot, but tried a scalding sip.

'Er, I recognize antiques. I'm maybe just lucky.'

She nodded slowly, sipped her hellishly hot tea without a scream, but women can do that. Her eyes didn't even water.

'Is there such a thing as luck in antiques?' she countered.

'Folk say so.' I was lost. Mortimer hadn't told me a thing. Weren't children supposed to do as they were told? I'd clip the uncommunicative little sod's ear. Except, was I allowed or was that fascist nowadays? I could remember getting thrashed and being told it did me good.

'The idiot boy from the estate,' she said, replacing her empty cup. 'Who brought you.

Lives in some hovel by the river. They say he's ...' she looked askance a moment, '...

fey? That your word for luck?'

It took a minute before I realized she was speaking of Mortimer. I almost belted her one: Hey, missus, that's my son you're talking of, you ignorant cow. But I remembered Mortimer's reproving glance and kept mum. I'd played the village idiot times out of number. What was Mortimer up to? With women I always feel pig-in-the-middle, that children's game.

'People hereabouts treat him like he is special,' she told me evenly.

'If you've got him, what d'you need me for? Two lucks are overdoing it.'

'Don't be flippant! A moron is no use to me. The land agent who rented me this place –

some feudal cretin owns it; is travelling abroad – says the idiot boy finds antiques. He can distinguish forged antiques from genuine. I need such a person.'

She lit a cigarette, staring unblinkingly through the smoke, and eyed me. Not often you see eyes that hard outside a Stieff doll. Shapely, just the sort a bloke can't help wanting. A woman can entice more with a cigarette than virtually anything, but she was beginning to scare me witless. I mean, women are supposed to smile, right? And be charming or something. She seemed robotic.

'You have this divvy trick, Lovejoy.'

Want made me shrug, to show I could easily be bribed.

'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.