Indian Antique for Sale

            St. Giles is a street in Norwich on a rise which, in Norfolk, could be called a hill. It is a gentle walk up from the flinty Guild Hall, past the ancient church fringed with wisteria to the great Roman Catholic cathedral from whose upper works can be seen the sea. Or so they say; I have never been up there so I cannot confirm this. I can confirm that halfway up St. Giles there are substantial Victorian buildings one of which was once an antique shop owned by a Mr. Tatling. It had been owned by the Tatlings and used for the same purpose for a generation or two. I had heard there were cellars there, full of inestimable antiques.

            Mr. Tatling was a middle-aged man of impeccable character, sober habits and a sound constitution or so I thought. He often had Chinese or Japanese things for sale at honest prices. I had found the occasional netsuke there to add to my collection and a nice pair of Ming vases. So I went in there hopefully one day to see what was new or rather what was newly arrived, old, Eastern and attractive.

            Norfolk folk are not excitable as a rule so I was surprised to find Mr. Tatling in an animated, almost bouncy mood with a large smile on his face. Before I could greet him with the usual enquiries he started telling me about his latest acquisition. I had to listen patiently for some time.

            That very morning, an hour ago, he had taken possession of what he described as an Indian statue, an Eastern, god-like thing. It was almost life-sized and very heavy. Two strong men were required to lift it into the premises. It was jointed so the limbs could move. It was partly enamelled, partly gilded or possibly, his expert eye told him, it was of gold. The most remarkable thing about it, he told me, was its condition: perfectly undamaged. This was indeed surprising, considering the rest of his account.

            He described how someone he had never met before, a local farmer, had come in a day earlier and asked if he ever bought Indian statues.

            'I'll buy anything that's a genuine piece,' Tatling replied 'Why don't you bring it in and show it me?'

            'It weighs a lot, ' said the farmer 'I would have to bring two of my chaps and a trolley to move it from the car.'

            'You can unload from the road outside so long as you are quick.'

            'You would want to see it first I suppose?'

            'Oh yes.'

            You could come out to my place and see it?'

            'When?'

            'Tonight?'

            Tatling shook his head 'Not tonight I can't.'

            'I've got to come into town tomorrow. If I bring it with me could you come over and look at it?' He mentioned a car park several hundred yards away.

            'Yes, I can shut the shop for ten minutes and come over. Give me a call when you are ready.'

            The reason for the farmer's visit next day was to pick up his new car, a Rover of the type some famers can carry pigs in. He had two men with him plus the Indian antique in his immaculate new vehicle when he got to the car park. His phone battery was flat so he had to walk the three hundred yards to St. Giles.

            'I locked the front door and we went out the back way to see it' said Tatling 'And when we got to the car park there was a crowd round this brand new Rover. A truck had run into it. The truck driver had gone through the windshield with fatal consequences. Naturally the farmer was anxious about his boys. Luckily they were not in the Rover when the truck veered into the park.'

            Having found there was no more to be done than arrange a breakdown truck to carry the Rover back to where he had collected it that morning the farmer surprised Tatling by wrenching open a twisted door and signalling him to come and take a look inside.

            I thought it was a bit odd,' said Tatling 'Most people would have forgotten about antique dealing in the midst of such a mess. He was so anxious for me to see what it was like; whether I wanted it. Anyway there it was! I had a chance to examine it closely and…'

            'Something else was odd?'

            'There was not a scratch on it.'

            'That is strange,' I said.

            'He asked me what it was worth and I said I didn't know.'

            'Of course.'

            'Well I didn't..'

            'Naturally.'

            'So he said ''Make me an offer'' and I did. A very small one.'

            'Of course.

            'And he grabbed i.'

            'No bargaining?'

            'No!'

            'Unusual for a Norfolk farmer.'

            'You are right there.'

            'Although they are rich.'

            'Mostly! So we shook hands on it. Then do you know what he said to me?'

            'No?'

            'He said ''If you had offered me a fiver I would have taken it''. So I had paid out a lot more cash there and then than I needed to.'

            I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with this story but Tatling wanted me to hear the whole of it.

            'That damn thing,' said the farmer according to Tatling 'Has cut a swathe of destruction through my family. It has gone through a long trail of relations starting with the most distant cousins.'

            By nature Tatling was always more of a listener than a talker.

            'For us the story started in the Second World War. One of my mother's remote relations was serving in the army as a major general. Out in India. Somehow he acquired, ''liberated' was the appropriate expression at the time, this ancient relic and decided to have it boxed up and shipped home. On the way the ship was torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life but the crated idol somehow survived.'

            'Odd,' said Tatling.

            'Quite so,' said the farmer 'To cut a long story short, it eventually came to me or rather to my wife who, it seems, had somehow become the unfortunate heir to the estate of somebody she hadn't seen for years.'

            'It happens.'

            'Quite so! The day that idol crossed our threshold the disasters began. Foot and mouth wiped out the cattle herd, fowl pest got the chickens and my wife slipped over in the kitchen and broke her thigh.'

            'And now your new Rover!' suggested Tatling.

            'Quite so!'

            'And the poor truck driver!'

            'Yes but he was only one of many. My wife was lying in hospital the night before last and she began to think. She put two and two together and wrote it all down. She traced that idol through a string of relations with dates and everything…'

            Clever woman!'

            'She is. And the moment I came to her bed in visiting hours she said ''Simon! Get rid of that wicked idol immediately if not sooner'' and I went to see you the next day.'

            'Well I never!'

            'She had the family history and the doings of that damned idol all worked out. Every arrival of it presaged death and disaster.'

            When Tatling finished this account I looked about the shop, its polished counter, its carefully arranged antiques, its works of art and curios, with a feeling of foreboding.

            'Would you like to see it?' Tatling asked but I had read Rudyard Kipling's yarns about artefacts from India and declined as politely as I could with a glance at my watch.

            'No! Thank you. I have things I should be doing. Aren’t you a bit scared of something like that?'

            'Scared? Not me!' he said confidantly 'I buy and sell all sorts of things.'

            'What will you do with it?'

            'Oh I've already sold it, he said 'For a good price too.'

            That sounded more like the Tatling I knew.

            I said goodbye and left. I remember wondering at the whiteness of my knuckles as they gripped and turned the big brass knob on the door that led into St. Giles.

            For the next week I was out of town but before I left I had related this yarn to a friend in Norwich who was also an acquaintance of Tatling's. A week and a few days had passed when I met my friend again.

            'You remember that story you told me about Tatling?' he asked meaningfully.

            'I certainly do,' I said with a laugh.

            'He died last week.'

            'Died! Of what?'

            'Dunno! He just dropped dead it seems.'

            Coincidence of course! A few months later I noticed an article in a legal column of The Times newspaper concerning a dispute over a venerable work of art allegedly stolen from a temple in a remote corner of India. Its sale in a London auction house was put on hold. I never heard any more of it.

In the Sauna

            I had done my forty minutes in the gym and decided to take a few more in the sauna. There was only one other person there, a woman. She was, I guess, forty years old or so.  Life is enriched by chance conversations. I made some suitable remark and she answered in a distinct accent.

            'Are you Polish?' I enquired.

            She made a face.

            'No, Russian!'

            In the dim light her blonde hair had darkened. So had her green eyes which, in the light of a single electric bulb, seemed to glitter blackly. In her slim face I saw strength and lively expression. She spoke with an assertive, no-nonsense vitality.

            'I like the accent' I said 'but I know very little about Russia'.

            'What would you like to know?' she asked.

            This was difficult; I really had no interest in Russia. Then I remembered something.

            'I like Russian literature' I said.

            'What have you read?'

            'War and Peace of course.'

            'What did you think of it?'

            'Great! Then there is Dostoevsky and Turgenev.'

            'Ah Turgenev!'

            'Actually I owe Turgenev some money. A few hundred pounds.'

            'You owe Ivan Turgenev money? How could that possibly be? He died in eighteen eighty-three.'

            'I read a passage in a book of Turgenev's called A Hunter's Album.'

            'Ah, you mean Zapiski Ohotnika. It's a lovely book, full of prose poetry.'

            'So it is. One bit that particularly appealed to me was about a grove of aspen trees.'

            'That is a famous passage. He is walking with his dog, otherwise alone in the vast estate he owns and he describes his impression of the trees.'

            'That's right. He describes the aspen as a quivering fan of round, slovenly leaves. He confesses to no great liking for it.'

            'Except in the reddening beams of the setting sun.'

            'And except on a clear, windy day when it is all rippling, rustling, and whispering to the blue sky.'

            'What then?'

            'I wove Turgenev's prose into verse which I submitted to a poetry competition.'

            'You are a poet?'

            'I thought so at the time. That poem won the first prize: £500! Then I got to feeling I was a mere plagiarist.'

            'Can you recite your poem?'

            I had to think it through. After a long pause in the conversation  I thought I could.

            'I'd love to hear it' she said.

            I cleared my throat and went right through without a single hesitation.

'I cannot like the aspen grove,
the grey-green leaves, the trunks of mauve,
the peacock branches held a span
too high, to quiver like a fan,
untidy leaves, absurdly round,
their long thin stalks far off the ground
and summer evenings are too rare
when, in the sun's last crimson glare,
the aspens, rising over brush,
in isolation seem to blush
from tops to roots, to tremble, gleam,
and in the ebb of sunlight seem
to glow with gold or purple light
as lamp-lit amber glows at night.
Or on a clear and windy day
its leaves, intent to blow away,
like noisy, flapping streamers try
to rush into the distant sky
like paper bunting tearing free;
I cannot like the aspen tree.'

            There was silence and then she asked:

            'Do you always write about nature?'

            'No. My favourite subject is love but I did once write about a bear I saw in the mountains of Romania. That was the  closest I ever got to Russia; back when the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.'

            'You have never been to Russia?'

            'No.'

            'Tell me about the bear.'

            I had to think that through too.

'Those misbegotten dogs! O how they howl,
ears up and tense,
at darker darkness on the midnight's edge,
at blacker shadows, at a deeper growl,
beside the forest fence
where Bruin, ragged as a winter hedge,
came through the palings with a casual crash
and now is ripping up the litter bins
for peelings, mouldered cheese and kitchen trash;
for bones, rich-smelling rinds and open tins.
Beyond the barking dogs I know he's there.
They turn to me encouraged, push too close,
fly back, droop-tailed, so leaving me to dare
the infamous, the mighty and morose,
ill-natured, riled and hungry forest bear
but he has slipped away, the burly lout,
the bins all wrecked and all the waste thrown out.'

          'We have many bears in Russia. Also wolves, wolverines and the Siberian Tiger.' She looked wistful. She made me feel ashamed of the entirely safe nature of Britain's fauna.          

          'England has nothing in the way of dangerous wild animals but we have some wonderful myths and legends about the woods and forests. There's the Green Man for instance or Wodwo as we call him in Norfolk.'

            'Tell me about him.'

            'It's another poem I'm afraid.'

            'Go on then.'

'Such things are shy and hard to see but sometimes,
like a nymph caught washing her hair,
he forgets to look over his shoulder
and fails to see you, frozen, standing there.
In shaded summer beneath weighty boughs,
he sees you standing and returns your stare,
across his carpet of dog's mercury,
or else star-scattered wood anemones
or yellow celandines or bright bluebells,
or ramsons with their untamed garlic smells.
The vision fades into the summer green,
the autumn russet, winter's bony trees...
You strain your eyes to fix what you have seen
for eyes can trick with anything they please.
There's only shadows and a twisted bough.
It's nothing. Yet the wood feels empty now.'

          'What do you write of love?' she asked.

          'I no longer write of love.'

            'Why not?'

            'Listen,' I said.

Yes, I remember bluebells; in the month of May.
Leaves overhead, unbudding, were still thin.
The lane was mired in puddles on soft clay,
reflecting sky and swallows, cumulous,
clouds white as choir boys and us.
A timid sun lit up the haze of blue
beneath the sycamores. A covert wood,
hemmed in by ditches long, so long, ago,
was all the cover we were bedded in.
It was the season that brooks no delay:
when every flower is pressing into bud
and life is urgent to mix blood with blood.
So like a doting dog came love, full tilt,
and sent us sprawling on this bluebell quilt.

I dared to visit Bluebell wood

though you, my love, were  missing.

Wind cooled my lips; it tasted good,

as if your lips were kissing.

The scent of bluebells was your breath;

yet this was only seeming;

there's nothing so complete as death

and all the rest is dreaming.

Once, once upon a time it seemed

that you were here beside me

but can it be I only  dreamed?

For now, O woe betide me,

I cannot think that it was true

so far beyond all dreams are you.

            She shivered, looked at her watch and rose from the wooden bench she sat on.  'I'm late for an appointment. Goodbye, poet.' she said, opened the door and left with a blast of cold air. I have looked out for her often I but have never seen her since.