Gold By Gemini

CHAPTER V

Contents - Prev/Next

NEXT MORNING Janie was waiting, illegally parked, pretending to look at the cutler's wares in Head Street. I'd caught her by phone just as she was going out for a hair-do.

We agreed to make up over coffee. She took one look at my face.

'Oh, dear.'

We went to a place near Gimbert's auction rooms on East Hill. I could see them unloading the antique furniture from the window table. Janie paid, pretending to do it absent-mindedly so I wouldn't take it bad.

I told her the tale of Patrick's wonderful find, the Korean vase. She said I should have tried to learn where he'd got it, but that's something dealers never do. She listened about Bexon, Popplewell, the Roman golds. I told her that Dandy Jack had got hold of the remnants of old Bexon's belongings.

'What's the mystery?'

'There never was a Roman Province of the Isle of Man, Janie. Caesar never bothered.'

'Then where did the coins come from?'

'Exactly.' I stirred uncomfortably. The nasty feeling was still there. Earlier I'd found Mary's surname from the register and telephoned. Her husband had been golfing since dawn, obviously a nutter. 'Take me to the golf club, Janie.'

'My God, Lovejoy! How can I?' She shook her head. 'My neighbour's a golfer. I'd better drop you beyond the station bridge. Can I come round later if I can get away?'

'No,' I said too quickly. 'Er, I've a deal on.' I do a special job at home some afternoons which Janie doesn't know about. Tell you about it in a minute.

'If I find you haven't, Lovejoy,' she said sweetly, I'll murder you. I hope you understand that.'

'Don't start,' I pleaded, but she put her lips thin the way they do and wouldn't answer.

Women never trust people. Ever noticed that? Sometimes I wish they would. It'd make my arrangements so much easier.

Janie ran me to the railway, periodically telling me to take my hand off her knee when she was driving, but it was honestly accidental. It's a mile uphill from the station bridge.

The golf club stands back from the narrow road among trees, quite a fetching low building. You never pass it without seeing a score of cars.

I asked for Peter Chape in the bar. He was out on the course. I waited, watching golfers from the bar window. I have no interest. To me golf's a good walk spoiled.

Behind me people entered the bar, had a drink, smoked. I listened to the talk of birdies, eagles, five irons and rough chipping. It was another language to me, like Swahili. The great thing, it seems, is to ask everybody else what their handicap is. Mine's women.

I was being pointed out to a tall newcomer by the barman. He started across the room.

Peter, Mary's husband.

Peter Chape was a thin, rather casual man, disappointed that I wasn't a golfer. I explained I was a dealer searching for Bexon's paintings and told innocently how I had been directed to his house earlier in the week by some anonymous wellwisher. He confirmed what Mary had said about old Mr. Bexon. They worked as engineers together only for a short period before the old chap retired.

'He lived with his two girls,' he said. 'Nieces by adoption, really. Kept house and so on.

A quiet, clever old chap.'

'I believe they're easy to get along with,' I fished cleverly. 'Maybe I should call around.'

'Well… Nichole, yes. Katie… maybe not so easy.' Clearly the gentlemanly sort. I thanked him and went.

It's a long walk out to the village. Not one antique shop for ten miles in any direction. A short cut runs across fields into our village but I never take it. There's too much countryside about already without going looking for the rotten stuff. As I walked I kept wondering if mashie niblick was in the dictionary.

It was coming on to rain as I trudged eventually into my lane. A familiar motor-cycle was propped against the cottage. I groaned. I'd forgotten Algernon, a trainee would-be dealer lumbered on me by a kindly crucifixioneer. I was struggling to educate him in antiques. Talk about a sow's ear.

It was becoming one of those days again.

'Lovejoy!' He was beaming at me through his goggles coming round the garden.

Toothy, specs, motor-cycle leathers. He's mad on bikes.

'Hiyer, Algernon. You'll frighten the budgies in that gear.'

I've read it.' He dragged from among his leathers a book and held it up, proud as a peacock. 'Like you said.'

'Not in the rain, Algernon.' I took the precious volume and put it inside my jacket.

'Fascinating! Such an amazing group of people!'

I squinted at him. The burke was serious. If I ever strangled him I'd have to get Janie for an alibi. He was wagging like a gleeful dog fetching its stick.

'An absolutely marvellous read,' he was saying when his voice cut out. That was on account of my hand scrunging his windpipe. I pinned him against the wall.

'Goon!'

He was puce. I took my hand away and watched the cyanosis go.

'But, Lovejoy!' he gasped. 'What's wrong?'

Algernon is a typical member of the public. That is to say, piteously ignorant of practically everything, but mainly and most painful of all entirely ignorant of antiques.

Trying to teach a twenty-two-year-old Neanderthal the trade was the result of my habit of going broke. Algernon was steadily breaking my heart.

'What book,' I asked gently, 'did I give you?'

Algernon backed away. He was beginning to realize all was not well.

'Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters'

'By?'

'William Beckford. 1780.'

'And you took it seriously?' I yelled.

'B… b… but you said study it.' He fell over his bike, backing off.

I leaned over him. They say Beckett put his face to the wall when asked about his plays. Sometimes I know exactly how he felt.

'Algernon,' I said. 'Beckford's showing us the stupidity of the fashionable artistic judgement of his times.' I watched light dawn in his thin, spotty countenance. 'Are you receiving me, Algernon?'

'I see! A literary joke!' He scrambled to his feet, all excited. 'How clever!' I just don't believe in people like Algernon. I've stood him next to a Turner oil and he's not even trembled in ecstasy. I'll read it again!' he exclaimed. 'I will keep that new satirical aspect uppermost in mind!' He really talks like this, the Piltdowner. No wonder he's thick.

'Tomorrow, Algernon,' I said slowly, carefully not battering his brain to pulp, 'you come here—'

'Thank you, Lovejoy! I accept your kind invitation -'

I struggled to keep control, my voice level gravel. 'By tomorrow make sure you've read Wills on Victorian glass and Baines on brass instruments.'

'But tomorrow's only a day away,' he said brightly.

'It always is, Algernon,' I cut in. 'But it's still the deadline. And you'll get your next test on miscellaneous antiques.'

'Yes, Lovejoy.' His face fell. He hates tests. I gave him the Beckford again and stood in the porch to wave him off. He fired his bike and boomed away, waving and grinning through the hedge's thin bits.

'You're too hard on Algernon,' Janie's always saying, but she's wrong. I just worry about him. As a dealer Algernon wouldn't last a month. Where I come from he'd starve.

I switched the alarm key and went in.

I made some soup from one of those crinkly packets, three sandwiches - fish-paste and tomato - and brewed up. No sugar in case it made me feel guilty. I had one egg left which I was saving because Henry was due at teatime. He's ten months old and my second visible means of support. Henry's the special job I mentioned earlier. Well, it's not my fault.

When you're broke a number of quite interesting things happen. You see at first a whole new set of people you otherwise would have missed, milkmen, children, housewives, shopkeepers. You get to recognize bus conductors because you've no car.

Cyclists come and ride talkatively alongside as you bike into town. The second thing's that old demon gelt - one clink and you prick up your ears like a warhorse at a bugle.

The money problem intrudes. It gets everywhere, like soot. Everything reminds you of it - women, the garden, posting a letter, wondering if you can afford a newspaper. You become a sort of accountant. It's really rather unpleasing. The third thing is that people start agreeing with what you say and even with what you think. It's very odd. Like if you buy a lettuce and you're thinking, that's a hell of a lot of money just for one measly lettuce, ten to one a horde of other shoppers will be at your elbow in a flash, all saying,

'It is a lot, love. For one lettuce! Isn't it terrible?' and things like that. The point is, nobody would have said a thing before you got broke. See what I mean?

I'd been destitute some three weeks before the local village housewives understood.

Gradually they began pausing at the gate if they were down my lane. We started exchanging the odd word in our one street. It was pretty pleasant. There are even hidden fringe benefits but I'd better not go into that because people gossip so. I kept up a front for a week or two ('Well, I've a lot of work to do at home, so I've not gone in today…') but it was only politeness. They realized. After that I found myself winkled into their problems, women being born winklers. Before long I was going errands into town for medicines and then doing the shopping for them. From there I was walking dogs and holding keys to let the oil people deliver. They paid me in change, odd tips. My final graduation in social acceptance was Henry.

I asked Eleanor - his mother, twenty-five, wife of a publisher - what to do with him but got no straight answers. She said Henry eats most things, by which she meant everything, including light furniture and curtains. He never seems to do much, just lies about and mutters. Once you actually get to know him he's a ball of fire. At first I was worried when it was his hometime because Eleanor never used to check him over. I wanted to show her he wasn't at death's dark door on return of goods, even thinking of making her sign a receipt in case he was sick in the night and I got blamed. He lasted out the first week though and after that I stopped bothering. I was daft to worry because Henry's as hard as nails. Eleanor gives me tips for helping her, a quid here and there. I know it's not very dignified, in case that's what you're thinking, but it keeps me in the antiques game during these bad patches. That's what matters.

I finished my grub, chucked the remains to the robin and thought about the old genius with his two ratty nieces. I was getting a permanent feeling about it, but maybe it was the fish-paste.

I've got to tell you about Henry's revolting habits here, because without them I'd never have got any further with the Bexon problem. In fact, in a way Henry lit on my first clue.

Eleanor came racing up the lane five minutes early, out of breath as usual. Henry was strapped in his push-chair, jerking as she ran.

'I'm late, Lovejoy!' she gasped. She always says this. 'Hurry!'

'I don't have to,' I pointed out. 'I'm staying here. It's you that's going somewhere.'

'And I'm late! Goodbye, Henry darling. Be good!' We go through this rigmarole every time, saying the same things.

I don't mind, though it's unproductive.

She streaks off to collect her two children from our village school, which is why I lodge Henry.

I wheeled Henry in and unfixed him. He got ready to laugh. We have this joke. I opened his coat and peered.

'Nope. Still no hairs on your chest yet, Henry,' I said sadly. He roared at that, his favourite and most hilarious quip. He was still falling about when I carried him to the divan. They never look heavy, do they? Henry's a crippling welterweight.

'Let's see what she's put in for you today, sunbeam.' I opened his bag. It comes fastened on his pram thing. We looked at his teatime offering distastefully. 'Fancy it?' A tin of baby food, a really neffie powdery stuff. We'd tried it a couple of times at first but I think I made it wrong He went off it after one spoonful. Two rusks and a little tin of some tarry stuff were the rest of his ration, which he eyed with hatred. You can't blame him because his food looks so utterly boring. 'Then there's nothing for it, Cisco,' I told him. 'Chips, sardines and… an egg! I held it up to excited applause.

I carry Henry about while I make his tea. It's not easy. Women have hips and can simply hold spherical offspring on their ledge. They've also got the fascinating knack of somehow walking slanted. Men, being basically cylindrical, have no ledge to speak of.

It's tough, needing continuous muscular effort. I natter about my day's work while I get going.

'Another list of dazzling failures, Henry,' I told him. 'No luck. But I saw a picture…' I explained what a clever forgery Bexon had made. 'Some old geezer from Great Hawkham.' Henry watched me open the tin of sardines, a drool of saliva bouncing from his chin. 'What do you reckon?' He said nothing, just pistoned his legs and ogled the grub. 'If I'd done a lovely forgery job like that I'd have found some swine like Beck and sold it to him.'

Henry chuckled, clearly pleased at the idea of doing a trawlie like Beck in the eye.

Maybe he had an antique dealer's chromosomes surging about in his little marrow. I peeled two spuds and hotted the oil.

'Instead,' I went on, 'he paints in a wrong colour. Giveaway. And don't try telling me - '

I shook the peeler at Henry warningly -'that it was a simple mistake. It was deliberate.'

Saying it straight out made it seem even weirder. I gave him the whole tale. At least Henry listens. Algernon's not got half his sense. 'The more you think about it, Henry,' I said seriously, 'the odder it becomes. Odderer and odderer. Right?'

I put him down and gave him a ruler to chew while I fried up. I told him about the golds. He tends to follow you round the room with his eyes. I leave the kitchen alcove uncurtained while I cook so I can keep an eye on my one and only ruler. They're expensive.

I was prattling on, saying how I was hoping to pick up the rest of Bexon's stuff from Dandy Jack, when the bell rang. It's an old puller, 1814. (Incidentally, household wrought-ironwork of even late Victorian vintage is one of the few kinds of desirables you can still afford. It's becoming a serious collectors' field. Decorative industrial ironwork will be the next most sought-after. Don't say I haven't warned you.) I wiped my hands and went into the hall. Janie's silhouette at the frosted glass. Great. All I needed.

I rushed about hiding Henry's stuff and cursing under my breath. The bloody push-chair wouldn't fold so I dragged it into the main room and rammed it behind a curtain.

'This is all your fault,' I hissed at Henry. He was rolling in the aisles again, thinking it another game. 'Look.' I pushed my fist threateningly at his face. 'One sound out of you, that's all. Just one sound.' It didn't do much good. He was convulsed, cackling and kicking. I told him bitterly he was no help but anything I say only sends him off into belly laughs. He never believes I'm serious. Nothing else for it. I went to the door.

'Hello, love.' My casual Lovejoy-at-ease image. A mild but pleased surprise lit my countenance at seeing Janie again so soon.

'You've been an age answering.' Janie gave me a kiss and tried to push past. I stood my ground. She halted, her smile dying. 'What's the matter, Lovejoy?'

'Matter? Nothing,' I said, debonair. I leant casually on the doorjamb all ready for a friendly chat.

Her eyes hardened. 'Have I called at the wrong time?' There was that sugary voice again.

'Er, no. Of course not.'

She stared stonily over my shoulder. 'Who've you got in there, Lovejoy?'

'In…?' I managed a gay light-hearted chuckle. 'Why, nobody. What on earth makes you think -?'

'I go to all this trouble to get this box of rubbish from that filthy old man,' she blazed.

'And all the time you're -'

'Jack?' I yelped. 'Dandy Jack?'

'You horrid -'

'You found Dandy?' She was carrying an old cardboard shoe box. I took it reverently and carried it into the hall. I didn't notice Janie storm past.

I removed the lid carefully. There was the inevitable jam-jarful of old buttons (why the hell do people store buttons? Everybody's at it), a rusty tin of assorted campaign medals - expression of an entire nation's undying gratitude for four years of shelling in blood-soaked trenches - and a loose pack of old photographs held together by a rubber band. At the bottom were two worn but modern exercise books, cheap and pathetic. It really did look rubbish as Tinker Dill said. My heart plunged.

'Is that all, Janie?'

She was standing in the hall behind me, desperately trying to hold back a smile.

'I trust,' she said with pretended iciness, 'you've some perfectly reasonable explanation for your little friend in there?'

'I asked if this is everything,' I said sharply. Now she'd rumbled Henry it had to be first things first.

'There's a sketch,' she said. 'Dandy wouldn't sell it me. What's he called?'

'What did it look like?' I led her into the room. She picked Henry up to fawn on him. He gazed dispassionately back, probably wondering if the changed arrangements meant less grub all round.

'He wouldn't show me.'

I put the box down dejectedly. Disappointments come in waves. While I went back to doing Henry's tea she told me how she'd phoned Tinker Dill at the White Hart. He'd found where Dandy Jack was by then, somewhere over Ipswich way. She'd scooted along the main A12 coast road and cornered Dandy at a little antiques fair - the sort I had the money to go to. Once.

'I thought you'd got some woman in here,' she said.

'I see.' I went all hurt, obviously cut to the quick at such mistrust.

'Don't be offended, Lovejoy.' She came over and put her arms round me. 'I know I shouldn't be so suspicious.'

One up, I relented and explained about Henry. She thought he was delightful but was up in arms about his food.

'You're not giving him that!'

'What's wrong with it?' It looked all right to me. I poured the sardine oil on the egg to save waste.

'I thought it was yours, Lovejoy!'

'I've had mine.' I shook sauce on. Henry was all on the go.

'Dear God!' she exclaimed faintly. 'Does his mother know?'

'Well, actually,' I confessed, 'I chuck his powder away so she won't worry.' In fact I sometimes eat it to fill odd corners. Well, Henry's a gannet. I can't afford to feed us both properly and his own food tastes horrible. He's not so dumb.

Janie watched in horror as I fed him. All this mystique about feeding babies is rubbish.

It's not difficult. You prop them up in some convenient spot and push bits towards their mouth. It opens. Slide it in lengthwise but remember to snatch your fingers back for further use. The inside looks soft and gummy but it works like a car cruncher. You have to concentrate. I mean, for example, it's not the sort of thing you can do while reading.

'His face gets some too,' I told Janie.

'So I noticed.' She looked stunned.

'It's all right. There's no waste. I scrape it off and put it in afterwards. It's his big finish.'

'My God. I feel ill.'

I was rather put out by Janie's reaction. Secretly I'd expected her to be full of admiration at my domestic skills. Admittedly he was beginning to get a bit smudged but that always happens. 'Try it. You can tell when he's finished,' I added. 'He starts spitting out.'

'What a mess. How does the poor little mite survive, Lovejoy?'

I ignored this. No meal's ever pretty, is it?

'Mind your manners.' Women are great critics, mainly when they see other people doing all right. It's mostly jealousy. 'I think he's full.' He was bulging but still moving impatiently. 'Time for pudding.'

'There's more?'

I'd got Henry two pieces of nougat, which would have to do for today's afters. I was embarrassed, Janie being there to see it wasn't done as properly as it should be.

Puddings should be on a plate and everything with custard.

'Here. Unwrap it.' She took the nougat carefully. 'Hold it by one end and push a corner in his mouth,' I told her. 'Blot the dribbles as you go.'

Once she got going I took Bexon's pathetic belongings and began to rummage.

'Dandy said he'd give you the sketch if you'd scan for him,' Janie said, intent on Henry.

We were all sprawled on the divan.

'Dandy would,' I said bitterly. Scanning means examining supposed antiques to separate genius items from the junk. I hate doing it for others. It's something I never do normally, only when I'm broke. Dealers are always on at me to scan for them because I'm a divvie.

'Where does this infant put it all, for heaven's sake?' Janie exclaimed. She glanced across and saw I was flicking through one of the exercise books. 'You're wasting your time with that rubbish. I've looked.'

'Keep your mind on your job,' I said. I hate being interrupted.

It was rubbish. The old exercise books were just scribbled boredom, perhaps some fragments of a diary of the sort one always means to start but never quite gets round to. Dejected, I decided on the spur of the moment to teach Henry to read, which of course made Janie split her sides. I've tried before but Henry ate the highly-educational alphabetic book I got him. I showed him a line and said to concentrate. He seemed to be amused, but obligingly gaped at the pages while he noshed the nougat.

'I then caught the train back to Groundle Glen,' I intoned, pointing to the words as I read.

'They start learning on single letters, Lovejoy,' Janie criticized.

I reached obligingly for the other booklet. Maybe there was a set of capitals.

'I then caught the train back…' caught my eye. 'Hello. What have we here?' It was the ninth page about halfway down. 'That's the same sentence.'

I flipped the pages over. The sentence was identical, ninth page about halfway down.

'What is it, Lovejoy?'

'They say the same things.' And they did, both dogeared exercise books. 'One's a copy of the other.'

The pages were ruled, obviously for school use. About twelve pages were filled with meticulous writing, ballpoint. I examined both books swiftly. The words were identical, word by word. Even the blot on page ten was carefully copied into the other book's tenth page. Each written sheet was signed 'James R. Bexon.' I picked a page at random. Page six. The other book's page six was identical, sentence for sentence, down to the last comma. Crazy.

If you ask me he's a madman,' Janie said. 'Who writes a diary, then copies it out all over again?'

Maybe the old man was a maniac. The Restoration forgery and its clever give-away leapt into my mind. Then again, I thought carefully, maybe he wasn't.

'Bexon was no nutter. I've seen a painting he did.' I checked Henry over. 'He'll need changing in a few minutes.'

While Henry whittled his way through the rest of his nougat I read one of Bexon's exercise books. Absent replies from me kept Janie going while she prattled away, how she'd buy a town house for us and I could keep the cottage on if I really wished. I was absorbed.

The diary was twelve pages, each page one day. A simple sentimental old chap's account of how he had a holiday on the Isle of Man. The dates were those of a couple of years previously. It was all pretty dreary stuff. Well, almost all.

He'd rented a bungalow, walked about, visited places he'd known once years before.

He'd gone to the cinema and hadn't thought much of it. Pub on a few occasions at night. He complained about prices. Chats with taxi-drivers, boats arriving and the harbour scenes. He'd gone about, seen a few Viking tumuli and Celtic-British remains, watched the sea, ridden on an excursion. Television shows, weather. It was dead average and inordinately dull. Home on the Liverpool ferryboat. Argument with a man over a suitcase. Train to London, then bus out to Great Hawkham. That was it.

But there was this odd paragraph about the coffin. The same in both books, in Bexon's careful handwriting:

I eventually decided to leave them all in the lead coffin, exactly where I would remember best. I can't face the publicity at my age - TV interviewers are such barbarians. That is to say, some three hundred yards from where I first dug down on to the mosaic terracing. I may give a mixed few to the Castle. Let the blighters guess.

Both diaries continued with chitchat, how the streets of Douglas had altered after all these years and what changes Millicent would have noticed. That was his wife.

Apparently they'd honeymooned on the Isle years before.

'It sounds so normal there,' Janie said into my ear. 'Even sensible.' She'd been reading over my shoulder. Careless old Lovejoy.

'Very normal,' I agreed. Then why did it feel so odd?

'What do you think he gave to the Castle?' she asked. Henry gave a flute-like belch about C-sharp.

'Heaven knows,' I said as casually as possible. Popplewell's face floated back. The cracked glass, the cards in disarray under the cloth. 'It could have been anything. Henry needs changing. The clean nappy's in his sponge-bag.'

I half filled a plastic bucket with water and undid him. It's easy as long as you stick to the routine. Unpin him on a newspaper, wash off what you can in the lavatory, chuck the dirty nappy in the bucket and wash him in a bowl. Then dry and dust. Five minutes.

'Eleanor takes the dirty one,' I explained.

I set about making some coffee. I keep meaning to buy filter-papers and a pot thing but so far I've never managed to get beyond that instant stuff.

'Lovejoy. Mine's different after all.' She'd been showing Henry how the pages turned.

'At the back.'

I came over.

'There's a drawing of a lady in mine. Yours hasn't.'

On the inside cover Bexon - or somebody - had painstakingly drawn a snotty crinolined lady riding in a crazy one-wheeled carriage, splashing mud and water as it went. A carriage with one wheel? It looked mad, quite crazy. The drawing was entitled 'Lady Isabella.' Pencil, Bexon's hand.

'There's no horse pulling it,' Janie pointed out. 'And only one wheel, silly old man.'

'Unless… Janie.' I fetched coffee over. Henry likes his strong. 'You said Dandy Jack has a separate sketch?'

'Yes. He said he'll see you tomorrow.'

We all thought hard.

'So if there's a message,' I reasoned aloud, 'it's in the words, not the sketch. The drawing's only a guide.'

'Oh, Lovejoy!' This made her collapse laughing. 'You're like a child! Are you sure it isn't a coded message from the Black Hand Gang?'

'Cut that out,' I said coldly, but she was helpless laughing.

'Anyway, who in their right minds would make a coffin out of lead?' she gasped.

'You're right.' I gave in sheepishly and we were friends again.

But the Romans did.

You know, sometimes events gang up on you. Even if you decide against doing a thing, circumstances can force you to do it in the end. Ever had that sensation? The last time I'd had the same feeling somebody'd got themselves killed and the blood had splashed on me. For the rest of Henry's time we played on the divan. I'd invented this game where I make my hands into hollow shapes and Henry tries to find the way in.

I shivered. Janie looked at me a bit oddly. She switched the fire on, saying it was getting chilly. Henry began to snore, about an octave deeper than his belches.

'He sleeps for an hour now, till Eleanor comes,' I said. 'You'd better go just before she calls.' I didn't want my women customers believing the cottage was a den of vice.

I lay back and watched the ceiling.

I've been assuming up to now you know the facts, but maybe I'd better slip them in here. If you're a bag of nerves you should skip this bit. It gives me nightmares even yet, and I read it first as a lad at school.

Once upon a time our peaceful old land was still and quiet. All was tranquil. Farmers farmed. Cattle hung about the way they do. Folk didn't fight much. Fields, little towns, neat forests and houses, Thursday markets. Your actual average peace. Then one day an anchor splashed in the Medway, to the surprise of all.

The Romans had landed.

The legions, with Claudius the God Emperor bored stiff on his best war elephant, paraded down our High Street after dusting over the Trinovantes, boss tribe in those days. Our town was called Colonia, capital of the new colony of Britain under Governor-General Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.

It would have all gone smoothly, if only the Druids had not got up his Roman nose.

They skulked over to Anglesey, off the coast of Wales, almost as if Rome could be ignored. Well, you can imagine. Suetonius was peeved and set off after them, leaving (here it comes) Britain in the hands of tax gatherers. Usual, but unwise, because Claudius was a real big spender and had left millions for the tribal kings as a gesture of goodwill. The politicians showed up and pinched the money. Sound familiar? They had a ball - especially the night they raped the daughters of a certain lady called Boadicea.

Now Boadicea was no local barmaid. She happened to be the Queen of the Iceni, a tough mob. Breasts seethed in the Iceni kingdom. And, remember, Suetonius was away in Anglesey with his legions, a detail the arrogant conquerors forgot.

It was all suddenly too much for the bewildered British tribes. One dark day the terrible Iceni rose. The whole of eastern England smouldered as the Roman settlements were annihilated crunch by savage crunch. The famous Ninth Legion strolled out from Lincoln innocently intending to chastise the local rabble, a shovel to stop an avalanche. The thousands of legionaries died in a macabre lunatic battle in the dank forests. St Albans was obliterated in a single evening's holocaust. The outposts and the river stations were snuffed as Boadicea's grim blue-painted hordes churned southwards, until only the brand new Roman city of Colonia was left. Catus the Procurator skipped to Gaul in a flash, promising legions which never came. Politicians.

There was nothing left but the smouldering forests, the waiting city, and silence. Then the spooks began. The statue of Victory tumbling to the ground and swivelling its sightless stone eyes ominously away from Rome. Omens multiplied. Rivers ran red. Air burned. Statues wailed in temples. I won't go on if you don't mind. You get the picture.

Finally, one gruesome dark wet dawn Boadicea's warmen erupted from the forests, coming at a low fast run in their tens of thousands. The Temple of Jupiter, with the Roman populace crammed inside, was burned. The rest were slaughtered in the streets.

The city was razed. Boadicea jauntily crucified seventy thousand people, Roman and Briton alike, and nobody survived. It's called patriotism.

In the nick of time Suetonius miraculously returned to evacuate London, shoving everybody south of the Thames while Boadicea burned London and everywhere else she could think of. See what I mean, about women never giving up. Naturally, Rome being Rome, Suetonius made a comeback and the British Queen took poison after her great defeat, woman to the last.

I'd always accepted the story at its face value, but now I couldn't help wondering about something which had never struck me before.

Hadn't Suetonius been a long time coming back?

Nowadays our locals say to newcomers, 'Don't dig below the ash, will you? The ash is so good for the roses. And there's bits of bone, too. Calcium and phosphorus. We're quite famous for our roses hereabouts.' It's such good advice to gardeners.

I don't do any gardening.

Janie went in the nick of time. Eleanor collected Henry, now awake and singing with his foot in his mouth. I'm really proud of that trick, but Janie said they all do it. I waved from the front door.

I cleared up and got the map. The Isle of Anglesey is about half a mile from the Welsh coast. Thomas Telford even flung a bridge over the narrow Menai Straits. (Incidentally, Telford's engraved designs are worth far more nowadays than the paper they're printed on. They're hardly impressionistic but give me first choice of any you get.) One old historian, Polydore Vergil, always said Suetonius invaded the Isle of Man, but he was an erratic Italian everybody said was a nut anyway. There is even a belief that Suetonius had with him the famous Gemini Legion, but that must be wrong as well.

Augustus Caesar once received a delegation from a far country and is reputed to have whispered behind his hand to an aide: 'Are they worth conquering?' The country happened to be Ceylon, Sri Lanka, which for size could dwarf Rome any day of the week. The point is that the ancient Romans were distinctly cool. And one of the coolest was Suetonius, that dour, unsmiling, decisive and superb soldier whose tactical judgement, however grim, was unswervingly accurate.

As the evening drew on I tried to light a fire but the bloody wood was wet. I switched on the electric again instead. The birds outside had shut up. Only the robin was left on a low apple branch. My hedgehogs were milling about for nothing, rolling from side to side like fat brown shoppers.

Had the might of Rome been paralysed by a stretch of water you can spit over? Was Suetonius held up by a few Druids booing on the other side? History says yes. This old chap Bexon was telling me no.

I gazed at the garden till it was too dark to see.