Guilty Pleasures

Since Griff wouldn’t be back till late, I called my father to say I’d drop in on the way home. With the impressive name of Lord Elham, he lived at the equally impressive address of Bossingham Hall. If you approached via the front it was very impressive indeed – a lovely Palladian house, perfectly symmetrical. However, my father had been relegated to just one wing, which he sometimes loudly resented. Since the trustees who now owned the place let him live rent free, I didn’t think he had much to grumble about.

It had taken me ages to realize I couldn’t stop him being an alcoholic, but these days I supplemented his diet of Pot Noodles with home cooking and fresh fruit and vegetables and insisted he got through at least four cups of green tea a day. At least, he did when I was there to brew them, which wasn’t as often as he thought it should be.

‘But that’s the whole point of church fêtes – losing your money for a good cause.’ He plainly didn’t follow the concept, so I patted the bottle. ‘I shall have to buy you some. Is there anything else you’re short of?’ I drifted us both into the kitchen to see what he needed.

The shopping list was getting quite long, which showed how much his diet had improved – who’d have thought of my father mentioning fruit, let alone eating it? – when he said, ‘We’ll need something to pay for all this with, won’t we? Are you going to do your divvy act?’

‘Tell you what, we’ll have a cup of tea and I’ll see what I can find. Divvy or no divvy.’ Actually, I’d have killed for a glass of champagne, but I was driving. So green tea it was, on the grounds that it was good for him. He didn’t like it, but didn’t moan too much so long as it was jasmine-flavoured. Pity I hadn’t managed to lay my hands on one of the fête’s gorgeous cakes, or had the sense to keep back one of Griff’s. Of course, he had donated them to the fête, not to my father.

Any other daughter might have asked her father what he’d been up to, but the answer would be either watching daytime TV, which I wasn’t really qualified to talk about, or working for Titus Oates, which I certainly didn’t want to discuss. Titus was a sort of mate of mine, though Griff disliked him intensely. But it’s one thing having friends on the shady side of the law, and quite another to know your father is a master forger. So I told him about my day – not that he showed much interest in what I was up to until I mentioned Robin Levitt.

‘That Bible-basher? Drops in to see me from time to time, but only brings bottom-end cava? Oh, he’s a decent sort, but he’s not good enough for my precious daughter, whatever that old queer of yours thinks. Griff. Sorry.’

I regarded him over the rim of the tea cup. How on earth did he think that the bastard daughter of a promiscuous lord – a lord, moreover, who’d been so careless in the matter of contraception that the precious daughter had thirty brothers and sisters out there, all equally illegitimate – might be a marital asset? But somewhere in that booze-dimmed brain was enough cunning to have got me out of at least one serious scrape.

To change the subject I told him about the attempted theft, which drew a tut of sympathy from him, as he appeared to notice my plasters and bandages for the first time. I even dug in my pocket where I’d transferred the little snuffbox and showed it to him.

Good question. I’d made a bit of a name for Tripp and Townend with my restoration work, but that was china and occasionally glass. ‘I’ve never tried fixing silver,’ I admitted. ‘And after that business with the Hungarian dish, I’ve not managed to get very fond of it.’

‘Hmm. You’ve always struck me as being capable of doing anything you turned your mind to,’ he said, surprising me. Then he returned to his priority. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find something to sell.’ He removed the cup and saucer from my grasp. ‘Come on. There’s a new quiz show starting in twenty minutes, and I wouldn’t want us to miss it.’ Delete the us and you’ll get his meaning. And perhaps go on would have been more accurate than come on.

Although my father had very little to do all day, illegal activities apart, he didn’t think of filling the hours tidying or cleaning his wing of the house, though I have to admit that these days I no longer feared a visit to his kitchen might cause instant food-poisoning. Perhaps he was right to confine himself to polishing the sink and swabbing the tiles. All the other rooms were crammed with a weird assortment of objects. Some would have made a Sotheby’s auctioneer reach sweaty-palmed for his gavel, some I’d have consigned to the tip as happily as I’d have disposed of this afternoon’s leavings. It wasn’t hard to tell one from another. In the rooms I hadn’t already reorganized for him, it was more a question of reaching what I wanted without causing an avalanche of assorted plates, books and pictures, many, despite my efforts, still stacked willy-nilly on top of each other.

What I liked to do was stand in one of the corridors, or on a flight of stairs, and wait to be called. If my father was in a hurry, I’d just have to barge into a room at random and pick something. Then I’d clean whatever it was, sell it, taking ten per cent, and use the proceeds to buy him food, clothes or whatever. Champagne, mostly, though in the past I’d organized a fridge-freezer, a washing machine and tumble dryer. I kept a very strict account of what I’d taken and how much it had made. I even made him initial the transaction, just in case a half-brother or sister ever turned up claiming what they hoped was a fat inheritance and alleging I’d robbed him. Sometimes, like when I held a rather poor oil painting of a family group like the one I was looking at now, I rather hoped a sibling would turn up. A sister would be nice, since there were plenty of assorted men in my life.

The oil painting was far too primitive to attract a collector. I should imagine it was the result of one of my female ancestors finding some genteel occupation. Perhaps it ought to be back in the main part of the Hall, but it would give my father apoplexy if I suggested it. Maybe I could smuggle it in one day. I knew a couple of unauthorized entry-points and could easily slip through while my father was glued to the TV.

Meanwhile, I must hunt for something else. What about that pile of plates under a hideous split plastic planter? Four of them. Oh, ho! This might be my lucky day with birds. First the Meissen, and now what I was sure were Joseph Crawhall plates. Each had a bird with foliage on the front. And – yes – the reverse of each plate had a thumbnail head and shoulders self-portrait and was signed and dated. A set like that should keep my father in champagne for a while and would allow me to pop some in the emergency account we’d set up for him during one of our occasional forays together into Canterbury. I stowed them carefully in the planter, which I could bin at home.

By now he was well into his new programme, accusing it of being rubbish – who was I to argue? – and waving a casual hand in farewell. But then he actually got to his feet and zapped the TV. ‘Nice evening. See you out,’ he said. I was so surprised I nearly dropped the planter.

He made it as far as the top of his steps, which were nowhere near as grand as the approach to the house itself, but imposing enough in their way. Then he thought there might be some cricket on Five – not that he liked it, but he hated Griff to outscore him on sport, which was easy, seeing that we had Sky and there was nowhere to pop a dish on his part of this Grade One listed pile. Not officially. I was sure he’d find a place for one soon, however. We waved each other a casual goodbye, no more, and I set off.

It really was a nice evening, still warm with some low-flying birds scaring me half to death as they dived in front of the van. What if Robin had finished with his hospice call and fancied some company? I pulled over and reached for my mobile. But knowing him, even if his parishioner had died, he’d stay with the family until he thought he’d done all he could to ease their grief.

‘Not tea at this time of night. The caffeine . . . Something nice and cold and very alcoholic in the garden, so we can watch the swallows. My news,’ he added dramatically, casting his panama hat on to the sofa, ‘is that Miles has turned teetotal! Can you believe it? And he’d got it into the cotton-wool ball that passes in his case for a brain that we were to spend the afternoon shopping for a new outfit for him. It seems he’s decided to make an honest woman of that vile Caro. And nothing more than tea to sustain us through a trawl of department stores, since he’s too mean to go to Savile Row and Jermyn Street. Not too mean to buy a huge vulgar car, however, or to pay through the nose for parking. Not to mention the congestion charge. Remind me to send him something truly revolting for his wedding gift.’

‘He and Caro must have everything by now, surely,’ I said. ‘So why not think out of the box, as they say, and buy him something quite different? A couple of goats, for instance. No. A loo! For somewhere in Africa, of course.’

His face changed from disbelief to amusement. ‘A loo . . . A communal loo . . . Point me to the website, my sweet. But only when we’ve had our drink. A pitcher of Pimm’s, I should think . . .’ He caught my eye. ‘Very well, just a glass. But make it nice and strong, loved one.’

I blinked. Griff had always dinned into me that one didn’t diddle friends. I put the parrot into his hands first. On the other hand, he was always inclined be tetchy if he thought my father had seen something before he did.

He pulled a face. ‘It’s charming, but you’ll need to find a collector to get back what you paid. Or a bird lover. Ah, this is what you suffered for, poor little thing.’ He could have been referring to me or the snuffbox. A look at his face said he didn’t think much of it, though he ran his finger carefully over the lid.

‘Hard to tell – is this embossed work a hunting scene? But if you only paid a few pounds, even if you make a loss, it won’t break us. And somehow I don’t think, as your face suggests you fear, that you’ve mislaid your divvy gift. Both of these items will repay investigation, and I’m sure that Mrs Walker will know just the customer to take that parrot off your hands. A thirty-pound mark up would be fine. Yes, an extra thirty pounds for Robin, if you insist. As for this little box, let us go on the principle that if someone wants it enough to steal it, it must be worth having. A little homework is called for, isn’t it?’ He topped up my glass. ‘You said you’d shown the snuffbox to your father. You didn’t show him the folio? I thought not. And I think I can guess the reason. You’re afraid it’s one of his forgeries, aren’t you?’ He took my hand, shaking it gently. ‘My dear one, your father specializes in single pages, or pamphlets at most.’

‘Exactly. Just the sort of thing he’d copy!’ I blurted. ‘Tear pages out of a book like this and ruin it – not that there’s much to ruin here, I admit – and then punt forgeries about the place via Titus.’

‘Quite. I know you keep your ears resolutely shut when there’s gossip concerning the discovery of a rare item everyone assumed was lost, but that’s what he does. He sees it as a little part-time job.’ He added with a teasing smile, ‘He’s happy enough to talk about it to me when you go off on one of your divvying expeditions, leaving us alone to while away the hours.’

I nodded. My father would probably have filled me in on every last forged full-stop. It was just that I didn’t want to know. I’m not sure why. ‘He knew something about the snuffbox,’ I whispered. ‘He didn’t say anything, though.’

‘He was probably afraid you’d snap his head off. But there’s no harm in your asking him, I’m sure. Any more than there is in asking him about this folio, though he’s no expert on furniture.’ He flicked through the smelly pages. ‘Not Chippendale or Sheraton, I’d have thought – the lines aren’t good enough, are they? Heavens, look at this strange Chinaman, with his moustache coming from the side of his nostrils. You know, I’ve a feeling I’ve seen some of this man’s work . . . No, it’s gone. As for the box, I’ll pick a few brains and read a few books. I suspect the Internet is more your thing.’

‘I only have one regret about giving up smoking,’ he murmured, slapping his arm. ‘A cigarette deals so efficiently with the little blighters who do so ruin a late evening garden. Come on, dear one, before they nibble your dear flesh into horrid red weals. The customers would be too worried about you to buy.’