CHINTZ
Anne found the Chintz at Kemmel. Chintz is the name of a British
ceramic pattern much favoured in the first half of the twentieth century, a
mass of multi-coloured petal shapes derived from tapestry patterns blossoming
across the whole surface of a china dinner, tea or coffee service. Patterns
have varied from maker to maker, but Chintz is invariably bright, and busy,
sometimes very heartwarming, and often very valuable.
Kemmel is a village in Belgium that hosts a massive antique and
junk fair every year on the first Sunday of September. Anne went with Tom, a
friend. It was to be a test, for she knew that Tom was interested in her, and
Kemmel promised a good way of putting him to proof.
‘It means leaving very early’, she had told him, one Monday
lunchtime when he had come to talk to her at her antique stall in London’s
Covent Garden market. ‘Very early.’
She had stressed the word, because many nice men dropped by to
talk to her, and she felt she could afford to set some conditions. She was a
widow, with her own house in a pleasant tree-lined street in Fulham, and a
decent pension. She dabbled in antiques because she liked living amongst pretty
things, and because dabbling filled her days. But Tom had started showing signs
of a more than passing interest, and she needed to know him better.
‘We’ll talk about it over dinner,’ he had beamed at her, and
Anne knew that he was hoping for dinner to stretch out into post prandial
coffee, and possibly more: for she was a woman who could look at herself in a
mirror, dressed in just her bra and panties, and know that she was still
pleasing to men, even in her mid-fifties.
However tests are tests, and they dined in a restaurant close to
Kew Bridge. She knew little about Tom, but he had told her that he worked for a
bank, which suggested dependability, and was divorced some ten years, which
suggested availability and perhaps need. They chatted happily together, and she
nibbled at a huge slab of French onion tart.
‘We have to be there at six,’ she began tentatively, and saw a
light gleam in his eyes. It was plain that Tom possessed a sharp, fast-moving
brain, and was doing his sums. Six in Belgium must mean leaving London
somewhere well before the crack of dawn, possibly not long after midnight.
Midnight? She could almost see little wheels spinning in his mind. Dinner to
open, and then some bliss. Perhaps. She smiled at him indulgently.
‘We’ll have to be bright and bushy-tailed.’
Tom’s face fell in the evaporation of his expectancy, and she
reached out to touch his hand. ‘We might want to celebrate after we get back …
if we have a good day.’
Tom stared at her, seeking to probe her intentions, but she
merely smiled. She knew she was making a wholly meaningless promise, because
she was not a woman to give hostages to fortune. The future must always govern
the future, and future actions may only be shaped by future circumstances
Tom arrived at Anne’s house a little before the witching hour
that drifts Saturday into Sunday, and she met him on her doorstep, because she
did not want him creating any kind of delay. She noted with approval that he
owned a big Volvo estate, a twin to her own beloved Turbo Diesel, and the best
car in the world for hunting, because of the roominess. He had also cleared out
his back seats, and Anne knew then that he would prove a treasure, because
stripping out back seats signals expectation.
He drove fast on the motorway towards Dover, and Anne slept, for
he showed skill on negotating his way out of London, and she trusted him. The
trip took them about an hour and a half, and they they were picking up their
ferry ticket. Anne used her P&O loyalty card, and they queued for a while
before boarding, though only a handful of cars and vans were waiting. She made
the trip frequently: her husband had been devoted to France, and revisiting French
brocantes was both a statement of loyalty and an opportunity. She looked for
interesting small things, light fittings and chandeliers, potty tables and
other small furniture, together with china and jewellery. She took the china
and jewellery, and any little metal things, to Covent Garden, whilst she piled
her bulkier purchases into her unit in Wimbledon. The unit was part of a shop,
a joint venture between half a dozen women, most of them prosperously bored
wives. They felt sorry for Anne, in her widowhood, and thought her a good sort,
because she was not a predator.
The ferry was almost empty and she slept again, stretched out on
a bench seat in the ship’s Horizon Lounge. She possessed an ability to sleep at
will: she only had to close her eyes. Elinor, her usual companion, was a more
restive woman. Elinor shared her stall at Covent Garden, and could talk the
hind legs off a donkey. Sometimes Anne had to escape, and Tom had provided a
good excuse, because Elinor, who was very predatory, and divorced, understood
the impracticability of threesomes on hunting trips. Well, she would have well
liked to hook herself in with Anne and Tom on a trip to Kemmel, but Anne knew
her too well. Taking Elinor along might well have presented her with Tom on a
plate, and Anne was not quite so kind-hearted.
Tom woke her as they ferry docked at Calais. He had set a couple
of coffees out on a table, and she smiled up at him a little blearily. ‘Did you
sleep as well?’
He nodded, and for a moment she was minded to kiss him. He was a
nice man, with a wide, kindly smile, and blue eyes that sparkled at her. She
could feel herself warming to him, and she knew instinctively within herself
that she might well allow him, after a day or two of tactical delaying, to look
at her, dressed only in her bra and panties, were Kemmel to prove sufficiently
rewarding.
They reached Kemmel just after six, at a time when the rolling
Flemish hills were still darkened with the last shreds of night. Anne directed
Tom along a back road skirting the village, and they found a parking spot not
far from the village square, focal point for treasure hunters. Many sellers had
already set out their wares, in small neat arrays across plastic sheeting, and
some traders were unloading elaborate chandeliers and heavy furniture from
their vans. Anne scouted like a hunting dog in its seeking, bending from time
to time, touching things, firing occasional questions in French or English.
Tom followed, contenting himself with a back-up role: casting
around to find possible treasures, helping Anne beat down prices, carrying
plastic bags for her. He was impressed by her knowledge and ability, and he
found her eminently desirable. He liked Elinor as well, and judged Elinor very
much the easier of the pair. But Anne looked to be a challenge, and he was a
man who relished challenges – provided they could be quickly and deftly
overcome. He thought he might spend the day playing a gallant knight, and then
collect a reward on their return to London. Elinor could come later, once he
had explored Anne’s joys. He was not sure he wanted any real relationship with
either of them: he judged women antique dealers too mannish, too businesslike.
Successful single men with comfortable homes are never short of women, and he
planned to play the field for a while yet. One day, when he was a little older,
he might want to settle down, but then he would look for devotion: a woman to
wait on his every need. Meanwhile he was collecting.
The morning went well. Anne found a number of things to interest
her, both large and small, and bought a pair of matched chandeliers for just
over half what the seller was asking.
She showed them to Tom a little apologetically. ‘They’re modern,
you know, nothing very interesting. But Wimbledon will love them.’
Tom hunched bankerly shoulders. ‘Will you do well on them?’
Anne thought for a moment. ‘I’ll more than double my money.’
He bought a pair of cinder-grilled hotdogs in crisp rolls and
strong black coffee to celebrate, laughing at her enthusiasm. The day was going
well, and he knew his chances were improving.
Then they found the Chintz. It was set out on a stall, a set of
six china sandwich plates and a sandwich tray, and they both homed in on it
together. The colours were bright and cheering, and the set was perfect, not a
chip, not a scratch. The seller was a middle-aged Belgian, who said it had been
in his family for a number of years. Anne asked the price, and Tom looked
doubtful – he knew it was his part to disapprove, and talk against purchases,
so that Anne might ease prices lower.
Eventually, after a good deal of haggling, and a convoluted
discussion on whether Britain might soon join the euro, they were hers for
thirtyfive pounds, and she smiled at Tom in a most promising way. Kemmel was a
breeze after that, and Anne pretty much filled the Volvo. By midday they were
ready to leave, and they surveyed their accumulation of chandeliers, a couple
of flat-folded wrought iron cots, any number of small lights and candlesticks,
a couple of bedside tables, some interesting bits of assorted bric-a-brac and
an interesting castiron stove, with great pride.
‘Lunch in Dunkirk?’ Tom felt expansive.
‘Let’s go to Watou.’ Anne was supremely knowledgeable.
They lunched on shrimp pate, followed by duck breasts and huge
slices of an open cherry tart, in a pretty restaurant looking out over another
Flemish village square, washing it down with sweet Flemish beer, and the world
lay at their feet. They filled themselves, and emerged feeling contented and a
little lightheaded, trading memories of small victories as they strolled around
the square, and Anne thought in her lightheadedness that she might kiss this
nice man as they returned to Tom’s Volvo, and put her arms gently around his
neck. She meant the kiss as a mark of gratitude. But Tom pressed hard against
her, attempting to force his tongue between her lips, manifest in his desire,
and she stepped quickly back and away from him. She was smiling up at him, but
her smile held a warning edge. He was trying to move too fast, and his wanting was too demanding. She might allow
him to view her in her bra and panties, and perhaps even allow him to remove
them, in due good time, but it would not be on their first day together. She
knew that she would be tired and ready to drop by the time she arrived home,
and passion would be the last thing in her mind. Tom must wait, and then she
would reward him fully for his waiting.
Tom drove back to Calais in well-fed silence, thinking about the
good things that lay ahead. Anne was silent as well. She felt the expectation
in his silence, and began to find it a little irksome. She was an independent
woman, with a duty to none. Men might stare, and men might hope, but the right
man would need patience, and respect for her wishes.
She dozed on the boat, and again on the motorway back to London.
She could sense that Tom was happy in his expectations, and it was not for her
to dissuade him. But she tensed herself as they pulled into her tree-lined
street, because she had a feeling that his wanting was mounting, and that he
was readying himself for an onslaught.
She was right. He waited for her to get out of the car, and
helped her ferry all the Kemmel purchases into her garage. Then he pushed the
garage door half shut behind him, and moved close to her. Anne could see the
desire in his eyes, and stared at him, measure for measure, but her coolness
did not deter him. He tried to take her in his arms, attempting to pinion her,
but she pulled away, and now she was angry.
‘I think you better go.’ Her voice was not far short of icy.
He came at her again, arms stretching out like an octopus, and
she knew it was time to be firm.
‘No, Tom.’ Her refusal brooked no argument. ‘We’ve had a lovely
day, and I’m dog tired. I don’t want to spoil it. Come and see me at Covent
Garden tomorrow, and we can go on from there.’
He left, his shoulders hunched in his defeat, and in his retreat
he looked like a beaten dog. He turned for a moment, as he stepped out into the
street, and seemed to be seeking words, but then changed his mind, and a moment
later he was gone.
Anne heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment, just the very
briefest of moments, she had felt a twinge of fear ice her spine. Men, and
their needs, had never bothered her: she knew how to manage them. But it had
been her first day out with Tom, and for a moment she had been uncertain. She
smiled to herself. She would make it up to him, when the right time came, and
revel in his gratitude.
Monday dawned bright, and she thought she might show off a
little. She told Elinor about the Chintz, and the price she had paid, and could
see envy and greed shining in her fellow stallholder’s eyes.
‘Do you want to part with it?’ Elinor shone with open lust. She
knew a little about Chintz, and knew that it was much sought after, for she was
a woman of the wide world, as well as a stallholder at Covent Garden, with a
small specialist business selling collectable china by mail order across the
world, and she had customers in America and Japan who might well be expected to
pay the earth.
‘I don’t know,’ Anne was judicious. She enjoyed toying with
Elinor: it was one of the reasons they shared a stall.
‘How much do you want for it?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Anne
shrugged.
‘I’ll give you double what you paid for it.’
Elinor was now pushing hard, and Anne felt it was time to shake
her head. She needed to consult a reference book or two, and ask around – she
suspected that Elinor might be several fences ahead of her. ‘I’ll think about
it.’
She meant that she would mull the idea over at a cosy little
light lunch with Tom when he showed, because she was already feeling a little
guilty. Men could hardly be blamed for being men, and being led by base urges.
Tom was a good man at heart, she was sure of it, and she would make it up to
him for her reluctance the previous evening.
But Tom did not show at Covent Garden on Monday. He stayed in
his office, eating a sandwich, feeling sorry for himself. He had a distinct
feeling that Anne had made a fool of him, and it was not a warming thought. He
thought of Elinor, and her easy-going familiarity that appeared to promise
much, and decided that he had made a bad choice.
He found Elinor the following Saturday at her stall in the
Portobello Road. She eyed him a little warily as he smiled at her, because she
knew about his trip to Kemmel, and was certain that Anne had kept him at arm’s
length. Anne was that kind of girl: she needed to feel her men out, when other
women acted on instinct. She was too cold, too calculating.
Then Elinor realised that Tom was laying charm on with a trowel.
She smiled back, and she could sense that he was sending her signals. Soon they
were almost as close as lovers. But a black seed of chagrin still stabbed at
her mind, because he had helped Anne buy the Chintz, and the thought greatly
pained her.
‘I wish I had been there,’ she cooed, a thought forming deep in
her mind.
‘It was really pretty,’ he agreed, because he could feel their
bodies closing, in spirit if not in fact.
‘I’d do almost anything to get it.’ She looked up into his blue
eyes, and she could see his ambition. ‘I really would like to have it.’
‘Really?’
She nodded. Now they understood each other perfectly, and both
could see a path ahead to deliverance. ‘Would you?’
‘I could try.’
‘I’d be really grateful.’
‘Ever so grateful?’ Tom arched an eyebrow. He had been stung
once, and he was not for another stinging.
‘I’ll pay a really good price for it.’
‘And dinner?’
Elinor paused. ‘You won’t regret it.’
Tom waited for a week before making his way back to Covent
Garden, and made a few enquiries about Chintz meanwhile. Elinor knew the times
that he passed, during his lunch hour, and he guessed that she would absent
herself tactfully, to open him a window of opportunity.
So it was. He found Anne on her own, looking distinctly bored.
He scanned her stall, but could see the Chintz nowhere.
He beamed. ‘Where is it?’
She smiled back at him, because she felt a little guilty. He had
made no attempt to contact her for a full week, and she wondered whether she
might have offended him. ‘I left it at home.’
Tom raised an enquiring eyebrow.
‘Elinor is after it, she’s been pestering the life out of me.’
Tom drew in his breath. ‘Why not let me have it?’
He saw the doubt, even suspicion in Anne’s eyes, and finessed
them silkily. ‘I told some of the people at work about the Chintz. One of them
is an American, and his wife is mad about it. He has offered me a hundred and
fifty.’
He could see Anne hesitate, and smiled to himself as she
yielded. He promised to collect it from her home, and picked it up that night,
behaving like a perfect gentleman, excusing himself when she asked whether he
might like to stay to supper on the grounds that he was on his way to Heathrow
to collect an important client.
Anne wondered
for a moment, as he drove off, whether Tom might have misled her in some
underhand sort of way. It is not often that a man goes so quickly from attack
to wholly gentlemanly respect, though she had often seen men move at speed in
the other direction, changing from polite admirers to pawing assailants in the
blink of a glass or two of champagne. But she dismissed the thought as unkind.
She had been cool to Tom after Kemmel, and had plainly bruised his pride. He
would need time to recover.
The following Monday found her again at Covent Garden, wreathed
in renewed hopes. Tom had again not called during the week, but it was to be expected. She would unbend a little
today, and invite him again, and let the mood of their meeting carry her with
it.
She had to look after the stall on her own, because Elinor had
fallen prey to a bad cold. But an old friend stopped by, and Anne smiled on her
fondly.
They talked of this and that, and the friend leaned closer, a
woman intent on imparting a most juicy bit of gossip.
‘Have you heard about Elinor’s Chintz?’
Anne’s heart stopped.
‘She got her new man to buy it for her from another dealer. She
told me she paid one-fifty and sold it for four and a half.’
The friend stopped short, for Anne had begun to cry silently,
great salt tears cutting through her mascara. We live in a world where friends
and partners are people you can count on; people you can trust. But sometimes
they can betray you most cruelly.