Saturday morning progressed through into Saturday afternoon, and Charlie began readying himself for bed. He had already pencilled in a big brocante just east of Lille as a starter, and another just north of Lille to follow through. He would be asleep by half past four, maybe five at the latest, and set his alarm for half past eleven. He had already booked a three o’clock crossing through the Net, and could drive from Fulmer to Dover in just under two hours – it was a standard journey time, never varying from weekend to weekend. Both British and French weather services were predicting another hot Sunday, and hopefully pickings would be good.
He looked around for Jennifer, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished in mid-morning after leaving him a cold lunch, and doubtless gone off to sulk at the shop. Not his problem. He pictured Bella in his mind, and he knew his future. He would drive with her to France, and never return. Jennifer could fend for herself.
The telephone rang and he frowned. He was near the bottom of his bottle of Bordeaux, a prime soporific, and he could do without being bothered. He would have another slice of home-baked bread, a bit more lettuce, and another slice of cheese, and slide gently into slumberland. The telephone stopped and then began again. He refilled his glass, swearing under his breath, and lurched his way into the drawingroom. Someone wanted to pull him back from doziness, and he wanted shot of them.
He picked the telephone up grumpily, and a woman spoke to him. It was Bella.
‘Can you talk to me?’
Charlie tried desperately to regroup, swaying a little. ‘I think so.’ He knew he was listening to a dream. But he was also conscious that he was slurring his words, would slur his words, and he was hanging out on the very rim of reality. It was a good Bordeaux, and he had drunk a couple of large scotches before it. Loneliness was a very dry prison.
‘Your wife isn’t there?’
‘I’m about to polish off a bottle of Bordeaux.’
‘Poor Charlie, are you all on your own?’
‘Just me and the Bordeaux.’
He could hear Bella laugh. ‘Poor Charlie, I should be there to hold your hand.’
Charlie’s mind filled momentarily with a totally different encounter. He wished himself in a house with a green-tiled roof, but he was too far gone to drive, and he needed to sleep the drink out of his system.
‘Come and have lunch with me next Wednesday week.’
Charlie felt a thrill of excitement pierce his fogginess. ‘Can I come for breakfast?’
‘You can come here after breakfast and stay for lunch.’ Bella’s voice was firm. ‘I spoke to Christies immediately after you left – I told them I called in a local dealer to give me a snap valuation. They got rather excited, and said they’d send a big van to collect my things. They think they might put them in their next sale.’
Charlie twitched. He was being put on ice for ten days, and it was too much to bear. ‘Oh, Bella. I can’t wait that long.’
‘Do you want to see me that badly?’ Now her voice was caressing.
‘I want to go to France with you.’
‘But you’ll be there tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be there without you.’ Charlie could hear the pain in his voice through the Bordeaux and the whisky, and he knew that it was wholly real.
‘You can dream about me.’
Charlie heard a door open, and realised that Jennifer had come home. He raced to establish himself. ‘Can I come on Tuesday?’
‘Tuesday coming?’ Bella sounded doubtful.
‘I must. Jennifer’s back.’ Charlie could hear Jennifer rummaging in the kitchen, and he was dancing with danger.
‘All right.’ It was a consent. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
Charlie tried to replace the telephone quietly. But he knew without turning that Jennifer had entered the room, and was standing watching him.
‘Who was that?’ Her voice was icy.
Charlie was silent.
‘You were talking to your girlfriend.’ Jennifer’s anger was tempered by her conversation with Freddie, and his kiss, and their subsequent lunch, and an assignation they had planned for the week ahead, leaving Leticia to mind the shop. But it was anger nonetheless.
Charlie turned, and stared at her, and his face was blank. Silence is a strong defence, the strongest possible defence. He would finish his glass, and sleep.
He picked up his glass to drain it defiantly, and Jennifer’s face was carved in hard granite. She watched him empty the glass and turned on her heel with an exclamation that sounded remarkably like a very rude word. She knew that she had no power over him when he was drowning himself, and it was not worth her while to bother. He could sleep, and snore, and she would sleep in the spare room, with an alarm of her own – just to be on the safe side – and tough luck to him if he woke with a hangover.
Charlie woke again just ahead of his alarm. He stretched, testing his head, and realised that he was alone. Jennifer’s half of their bed was empty, and he guessed she must have migrated into the spare room. He toyed for a moment with the idea of sneaking out of the house and off to France on his own, but he knew that Jennifer was a light sleeper with sharp ears, and that any attempt to clean his teeth, wash, dress, make himself a cup of coffee, and start the Volvo would only engender bitterness. He had fought with her in the past, and tried leaving on his own once, to see her follow him silently to the Volvo in her nightdress, and take the passenger seat. He had tried sending her back to the house, and she had wept. They had missed their destined ferry, caught one an hour later, and missed the opening moments of a prime event, the cream time.
So he reluctantly made two cups of coffee, carried one upstairs, and then shaved, and showered, and had a shit. He was going to France for the day, and he was going to enjoy himself, and he would trail Jennifer along behind him, and she could like it or lump it.
They drove to Dover in silence. Charlie jumped the Volvo radio between Radio 3, Classic FM, and Zagreb Radio on medium wave – the Croat station broadcast folk music early every Sunday morning – and Jennifer slept. She did not always share his musical tastes, but had learnt not to argue.
They sat waiting to board in silence. Charlie filled his mind with a vision of Bella, and Jennifer pondered on the possible hazards of a future with Freddie, for she was not wholly persuaded that he would become totally immune to the charms of other men. Silence linked both husband and wife in a community of hope and uncertainty.
Their silence continued on the boat, and as they roared into a French dawn. Charlie slept the moment his head touched his pillow on the ferry, and Jennifer slept across France: it was a convenience that exempted them from talking. Charlie was heading for Willems, a small town between Lille and the Belgian border, and they parked just as marshals began erecting barriers to close Willems off. It was barely seven in the morning, but the pavements on either side of the road ahead of them were already lined with pasting tables, and potential buyers were already browsing. It was time for action. Charlie filled his pockets with euros, checked that he had a notebook and pencil, locked the Volvo, and prepared to hunt for treasure. Jennifer presented no problems: she was dressed in a canary yellow shirt and a pale yellow skirt that made her identifiable from afar, and could sulk as much as she pleased. He would have a good day, and enjoy himself.
Willems started unevenly. They found an ornate stove less than a hundred metres from the Volvo, and Charlie judged it potentially rewarding. But it was large, and very heavy, and Jennifer was doubtful. She sniffed. ‘We can look at it on the way back.’
They browsed on, passing a couple of small chandeliers, but Jennifer turned up her nose again, dismissing them as too modern.
Suddenly there was a commotion. An elderly woman slipped on the pavement outside a café and fell heavily. Surrounding browsers and sellers rushed to help, buying and selling immediately forgotten. A man dashed into a nearby café to reappear with a chair, whilst his companion fetched a glass and a jug of water. Women gathered round solicitously, and there was much fluttering and concern, and collective discussion of the hazards and perils of old age as the circle of people around the elderly woman watched her sip at the water, and shakily pronounce herself unharmed.
Charlie experienced a sudden upsurge of emotion. It was a coming together of people, a union of solidarity that might well not occur in Britain, and for a moment France was a truly magic country.
But Jennifer looked bored. ‘Let’s get on.’ She was impatient, because other people were finding bargains whilst all this crowd milled around. She spoke no French, but she knew very well that the French liked to stand around gossipping for hours, and gossip wasted valuable hunting time.
Charlie followed her reluctantly. At times Jennifer could be hard beyond understanding. But then he thought of Bella, and a time when all would be better, in a future holding a world of promise, and he smiled to himself.
However now there was furniture ahead, and Jennifer made for it with the pent-in air of an antique dealer on heat. She quivered, beckoning to Charlie impatiently, for she had found a small armchair and was inspecting it with great interest. It was a pretty piece, with a balloon back, upholstered in a many-coloured embossed velours, and sat almost as low as a nursing chair.
The vendor smiled affably. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
Charlie shrugged. Beauty is a function of price as well as appeal. The chair would be a lot more beautiful if it were less expensive. He cocked an enquiring eyebrow.
‘A hundred and twenty, monsieur.’
Charlie frowned. The vendor was middle-aged, perhaps about the same age as himself, a round and comfortable looking man in a check shirt and baggy beige chinos. But he also looked quite shrewd. His mind whirled, attempting to gauge the man, and the price to which he might descend. Jennifer had begun twitching impatiently at his side, and it was plain that she had both understood, and was in agreement. He tries just one bid. ‘Ninety?’
‘No, monsieur.’ The vendor shook his head, and looked slightly wide of Charlie, and he realised that another man was waiting beside him. This was a time for decision, not bargaining, and he tugged out his wallet. ‘I’ll take it.’
The man at his side drifted away as he counted out banknotes, and the vendor beamed. ‘There was competition.’
Charlies beamed back at him, beam for beam. ‘But I have it.’
‘So you do.’
‘Will you put it by for me?’
The vendor nodded. ‘I will move it back.’ He gestured over his shoulder. ‘I will be here until we all go home.’
Jennifer had already moved on. Charlie noted his purchase and trotted after her. She looked at him sideways as he caught up. ‘You nearly blew it.’
Charlie bridled. ‘I bought it.’
‘You faffed around. There was another man just waiting to take it.’
Charlie was tempted to box her ears, but kept a tight hold on himself. He might have replied that Frenchmen never tried overbidding, once someone had begun bargaining, but he had no wish to wrangle. Buying and selling in France had its own code. A prospective buyer remained a sole buyer until he withdrew, and others waited their turn.
They walked on, circling around a small square in front of the village church. Jennifer admired an art deco clock, pretty in gilded metal, on a cream and black marble base, and complete with matching marble side pieces. The vendors – an elderly married couple – were most keen to sell. The price slid as Charlie talked to them, and the husband offered to make him a very special price because his nephew had just come back from a spell working in England. But the clock was not working, and there was something a little shifty about the man’s charm when Charlie enquired whether it could easily be put right. By now the price had slid from a hundred euros to seventy, and Charlie again had a man at his side.
Jennifer twitched. ‘Offer him fifty.’
‘You wish to pay fifty?’ The elderly man caught her words and beamed at Charlie. But Charlie was still not sure.
He shrugged, and looks at the man at his side out of the corner of his eye. ‘I give way to this gentleman at my side.’
Jennifer heard, and swore under her breath, and stalked off in a huff.
The man next to Charlie was quick, and efficient. He lifted the clock, examining the back, and put it down. ‘It needs a lot of work.’
The elderly man hesitated. It was plain the newcomer knew all about clocks. ‘But fifty euros is a good price.’
‘The whole of the inside is rusty. It’s going to need a major overhaul.’
‘But it’s a period piece.’
‘Worth thirty at best. Maybe less. I’ll give you twenty-five.’
The elderly man stared at Charlie appealingly, but Charlie shook his head slightly. He had heard enough, and he had learned a lesson. He drifted off a little, waiting for the man to pay, and then caught up with him as he walked off.
‘Excuse me, monsieur, but are clocks complicated?’
The man shrugged. He had no time to waste on nosy foreigners, especially when they sought to paddle in unknown waters. He looked at Charlie, and his eyes made clear what he felt. ‘They are complex, monsieur. But nobody should ever buy blind.’
Then he was gone. Charlie caught up with Jennifer.
‘You blew that one.’ Her manner was aggressive, and her voice hard.
‘It was bust.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The man who bought it said all the inside was buggered.’
‘He was beating the price down.’
‘He paid twenty-five.’
Jennifer stopped short, staring at Charlie, and for a moment it seemed as though she might explode. ‘You could have bought it for that. It was very cheap.’
Charlie’s eyes were hard. ‘It was buggered.’
‘It looked good.’ But her anger ebbed, because she knew that Charlie made the right decision. Busted clocks might look seductive, but they were also bad purchases. Good dealers buy to made money. However she burned nevertheless with a simmering resentment, because she was sure that Charlie could have done better. He was being a pain, and he had found himself a girlfriend, and she was sure that the day would deteriorate progressively. So she stalked along ahead, and wished she had a better man with her, someone more sympathetic and understanding, someone like Freddie, and she felt thoroughly and comprehensively badly done by.
However disaster is not for always. A few moments later she spied an interesting looking standard lamp, something again from the Thirties, and Charlie picked it up for an attractive sixty euros, which restored a little of her faith in him, and then he found a good stove in dark brown enamel, which added another hundred euros, and overall they were suddenly doing pretty well. Both light and stove were some way from the car, close to a barrier at the far end of the village, so she let Charlie pay for them and leave them where they were. He could pick up the small armchair as they made their way back to the Volvo, and then circle round Willems to pick up the stove. Then she found some interesting little ornaments going cheap. The chandeliers and the heavy stove were gone, but it did not matter much, because now they had bought well without them, and she helped Charlie load the chair onto his shoulders, and led him back to the car, leading him bent beneath its weight as though carrying a cross to a crucifixion, and the thought filled her with a certain kind of bitter satisfaction, because whilst Jennifer was not a religious woman, she had a strong clear sense of justice. She packed the chair neatly, because so far they had picked up three sizeable items, and more might lie ahead, and they were on their way.
Fortunately Willems proved a small, compact community of little red brick houses huddled together, and they soon reached the barrier close to the light and stove. The stove was a pig of a weight, and a bit of a struggle to move, not helped by applause from a couple of waiters watching from a café, who singularly ignored her pleading looks for helop. Jennifer was minded to upbraid them for standing by idly, but her French was much too basic, so she ignored them.
Charlie drove back towards Lille. He knew of a decent brocante at La Madeleine, just north-east of the city, and a big Champion supermarket on the way. They could stock up with food and wine, and then do some more buying. But he thought only of Bella as he drove. Jennifer had begun to grow more and more of a pain with each passing day, and he wanted only to leave her and live in France.
La Madeleine’s brocantes are always rewarding, stretching for perhaps a couple of miles along the Rue du General de Gaulle, a wide street, lined on both sides with vendors, and bustling. Charlie parked in the shade of a building barely a stone’s throw from a barrier, and they were ready to go. The shade was good, because the Volvo had now added several cases of wine, and a good week’s supply of cheese and delicatessen, plus bread and salad for a picnic lunch. All things that could quickly cook in a blazing sun.
They ambled along, with the sun rising high. Jennifer stopped to inspect a couple of chandeliers, but pronounced them small and ordinary, and some bits and pieces of furniture, but mostly all needing a lot of work, and lots and lots of junk. The she slowed, tempted by a big tapestry, perhaps five feet by five, a good reproduction of a Gobelin Venus and Adonis in pastel colours.
The woman selling it wanted two hundred euros, but Charlie managed to coax her down to a hundred. But she looked sad as she took his money. ‘I paid more than three thousand francs, five hundred euros, monsieur. It was a real work of art.’
Charlie nodded sympathetically. He believed her, and he knew that he had bought a bargain.
The tapestry made a hefty roll, and he hoisted it over his shoulder. It was a way of signalling that he does not want to be burdened with any lesser purchades. They ambled on, and Jennifer stopped. She was staring at a a rather elderly blue van, with a couple of chandeliers lying on the pavement. Both were good, big pieces, festooned with crystal drops, and she could see more chandeliers inside the van.
She blinked, because the chandeliers really looked very nice, and appeared not to have been sold. For a moment she wondered whether she was dreaming: it was a bit like like finding a well in the middle of a desert, or perhaps an Aladdin’s Cave in the middle of a French suburban High Street.
A young North African appeared from behind the van to beam at her. ‘Madame interests herself? These are beauties, are they not?’
Jennifer shook her head in bewilderment. She wished at times that the whole world would speak nothing but English: it would make life so much easier.
She looked at Charlie. ‘Find out how much he wants.’ Her voice was a mere undertone, because she knew that many of these people could understand English, even if they would not speak it.
‘Which ones?’ Charlie was equally sotto voce.
‘The lot.’
Charlie did some quick mental sums. ‘You’ll clean us out.’
‘I don’t care. I want them.’ Jennifer set her chin hard. The two chandeliers on the pavement were trophy pieces, worth a good eight hundred pounds apiece in the shop, and she suspects that therewere more of the same quality in the van. She would buy, and buy, and buy, if they were cheap enough, and Charlie had money enough, and she would clean up.
Charlie shrugged and carefully lowered his rolled up tapestry onto the pavement. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The young North African watched this exchange with interest. These people were not French, they spoke another language. Perhaps they were Netherlanders. Netherlanders were always fond of big chandeliers, even if they were also rather tight with their wallets.
The two men eyed each other. This was the encounter zone, when men met to gauge each other and exchange courtesies. Neither must be too precipitate, because that was not the way of courteous trading. Good business must always be rooted in good manners.
Charlie let his eyes rest longingly on the chandeliers, one after the other, and sighed. ‘I would very much like…’ He let his voice die away a little dolefully.
‘You like them, monsieur?’ The North African smiled encouragingly.
‘It’s my wife. She restores them.’
The North African narrowed his eyes. This man’s words meant that he was talking to dealers, and expert dealers into the bargain. He immediately shaved the prices he had in his mind. Dealers were mean, but dealers also carried plenty of cash. He had now been at La Madeleine for more than five hours, and had not taken a great deal, maybe a couple of hundred euros overall. It was hot, and he was bored, and he wanted to go home to his wife and children in Roubaix. But Abdulrahman, his father, had told him to bring home at least five hundred, and Abdulrahman could be a hard man.
‘I make you a price.’
Charlie wrinkled his nose. ‘For what?’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘What do you have?’
The North African caught his breath. This man was either playing games, or else they were shaping up to do some serious business. He had a whole vanload of chandeliers, if the man wanted chandeliers. ‘I have these two, monsieur, you see them in front of you, and I have others in the van.’
‘What do you want for these two?’
The two men stared at each other. Now was the time for buying and selling.
‘Two hundred for the bigger one, a hundred and fifty for the other.’
Charlie scowls. A hundred and fifty and a hundred would still be expensive at the price. He shook his head firmly. ‘No, you are much too far ahead of me.’
‘Three hundred for the two, monsieur?’
‘Show me what else you’ve got.’
The North African opened the rear doors of his van wide. He had six or seven more chandeliers crammed on top of each other – it was hard to tell exactly how many, because they were all jumbled very tightly together.
Now it was Jennifer’s turn, and she inspected them thoughtfully, doing her sums in her head. She eyed Charlie. ‘I don’t want to pay more than five for the lot.’
‘You want the lot?’
‘I want them.’ Jennifer had the same hard set to her chin as before.
Charlie knew his wife well. She was tempted, but she would kick seven different kinds of shit out of him if he made any mistakes, if he bought any mistakes. He inspected the van’s contents slowly. It was impossible to assess the chandeliers’ condition without unpacking them all, but unpacking might attract wholly unwanted attention.
He looked at the North African, and two men were endeavouring each to read the other.
‘I’ll give you six hundred for the lot.’
‘For everything, monsieur?’ The North African quivered. This was a man trying to squeeze blood from a stone. He shook his head with determination. ‘No, monsieur. They belong to my father. He would kill me if I sold them for so little.’
Charlie’s antennae twitched. ‘Does he have more?’
‘More? Oh, monsieur, he has filled two big sheds with them.’ The North African scowled. Abdulrahman had bought and bought and bought, counting on chandeliers returning one day to the front rank of fashion. He had spent the whole family’s savings on chandeliers, and now they were gathering unprofitable dust. Nobody wanted shedfuls of chandeliers, and they were good money wasted.
Charlie thought of the man with the Mercedes Sprinter. ‘Good. Make me a really nice price for this lot, and we’ll come back with a van.’
Silence stood between the two men. Then the North African wavered.
‘There are nine chandeliers, monsieur. There are some that are bigger, and some that are smaller. My father would count on me for nine hundred at least.’
‘Six hundred.’ Charlie’s words were chips of granite.
‘Eight hundred, monsieur. My father will send me to the scaffold.’
‘Six hundred.’
‘Seven hundred and fifty, monsieur.’ The North African was now sweating a little. ‘He will be very hard on me, but I will take seven hundred and fifty, because I count on you for other purchases.’
Charlie hesitated. This was the moment of maximum pressure, and he must press hard. ‘Six-fifty, and I’m being generous.’
‘Seven-fifty, m’sieur. I can’t do any better.’
Charlie tugged at his wallet. ‘I’ll see how much I’ve got.’
This was a bit of a deceit, because he knew that he still had about six hundred in his wallet, plus maybe another hundred in coins, and perhaps another two hundred hidden in the Volvo as an emergency reserve. But secrets must always stay secret. He made a great show of counting, before speaking again.
‘I’ll give you seven. It’s all that I have.’
The North African thought for a moment. He could feel Abdulrahman breathing down his neck, and it was a breath of cold fire. But seven hundred euros was seven hundred euros. He nodded reluctantly.
‘I will do it, m’sieur, even though I think my father will be very angry. He considers them treasures.’
Charlie sighed. He would have liked to have paid six hundred, because it would have put Jennifer in her place. But he would be seeing Bella in just two days’ time, and he could afford to be generous. ‘Ok. I’ll take them.’
The North African stared at him, almost as though he could not believe his ears. ‘You will take them, monsieur?’
Charlie was already counting out banknotes from his wallet. ‘I will take them.’
‘Oh, monsieur, but you are a real milord.’ The North African was suddenly wreathed in smiles. He took the money and pumped Charlie’s hand, then gestured at a side street behind him. ‘If you can just come to there, in that street, I will help you to load them.’ He eyed the rolled up tapestry. ‘Leave that here as well, I will guard it for you.’
Jennifer walked at Charlie’s side as they headed back towards the car, moving quickly through the ambling crowd, because he was no longer burdened. ‘What was all that about?’
‘I bought the lot for seven hundred, about four-fifty sterling. We’ll go down and collect the Volvo, bring it up to him, and he’ll help us load. Then we’ll fix a return trip. He says his father has two big sheds filled with more chandeliers.’
Jennifer skipped like a small girl in her joy. She had bought well, and she would clean up in style. ‘Can we buy them?’
Charlie beamed. ‘I’ll get his address, and call the man with the Mercedes Sprinter. We’ll make a special trip.’
Jennifer beamed back. Sometimes Charlie came in really quite handy, even if he was generally a pain.
But Charlie was already daydreaming about a woman with green eyes.