when Victoria was a girl. Opening drawers to
reveal trays of rare coins, stamp collections neatly hinged in albums, jewellery pouched in velvet bags, faceted crystal
wrapped in tissue, good silver and fine linen of a sort found only in old houses. His sister must be the last of the line, crippled by taxes or on the lam. She was selling the heirlooms too fast, too cheap. It should have smelt wrong but my senses were overwhelmed. I kept right on going, as pleased as
Aladdin when he first rubbed that lamp and discovered his
Genie.
Still, impressed as I was, I did notice an absence. Usually you get a feel for the person who used to live in the house you’re clearing - little things, style, a mode of living. You find
photographs, souvenirs and keepsakes. Their books reveal
interests, and inside their books are clues: tickets for a train taken every day; cinema stubs; theatre programmes; letters.
I’ve found pressed flowers, leaflets from Alcoholics Anonymous, birthday cards, the bottle behind the wardrobe, love
notes, cruel letters from the bank, baby’s curls, the leash of a dog long dead, neglected urns, whips, library books years overdue, size-twelve stilettos in a bachelor’s apartment. Of Mr McKindless I was no wiser by the end of the day than I’d been at the beginning. There was a sterility to the collection, an almost self-conscious expense about the dead man’s possessions.
Everything said: I am a very rich man; nothing more. I
found one crimp-edged photograph. A black-and-white image
of a stern, ba’-faced man. His eyes looked out at me piercing, frozen. I shivered. Well, I didn’t take that good a photograph myself. The inscription on the back read Roderick, 1947. I put the photograph absently in my pocket, then left the crew
under the tutelage of my head porter, Jimmy James, and
made my way back to Bowery Auctions.
It was dusk. Not five o’clock yet, but the light was fading, streets lamps glowing into life, small squares of shop windows illuminated. I crept the van along the Great Western Road, an inch behind the car in front. In the window of Zum Zum
Fabrics three high-quiffed dummies cut dance poses, sheathed in silks and brocade. A couple had rung the bell of the
jeweller’s next door and now stood rapt over trays of dowry
gold. African drumming gone funky drifted from Solly’s Fruit & Fine Veg. The traffic eased onto the bridge and me with it.
Beneath the orange U of the underground hot air turned to
steam. Commuters disappeared into the sudden mist, some
reappearing on the other side, others taking the glowing
caterpillar tunnel that leads beneath the river and disappearing from view. The cab radio drifted from music to news…
Things were still bad in Ireland, they were still fighting in Palestine, and Tories and Labour still disagreed. A boy had
been stabbed outside a football ground, a toddler lost, a
prostitute murdered.
I looked across the bridge and into the darkening afternoon.
The last shades of light were fading into grey, night beginning to veil the park-land. I thought of my boyhood when chemicals
foamed the Clyde and every sunset had been a tainted, pyrotechnic blaze. Bowery Auctions stood outlined against the sky
like the hull of a mammoth upturned ship, four red-brick storeys swelling into the curved flank of tiled roof. The third floor was lit. Rose Bowery would be waiting for me.
It had started to rain; water dripped into the well at the
bottom of the ancient elevator shaft. I hailed the lift and
listened to the clamber of clattering chains as it descended.
The tired grille creaked as a hand from within concertinaed it back.
They were the perfect couple, a rare balance of fat and thin which weighed together would equal two right-sized men.
Their worn complexions, dirt-grained collars and creased
jumble-sale suits spoke of late-hour, long-drinking nights and blank stumbles into unmade beds. Fats carried a sheaf of
papers stuffed carelessly
reveal trays of rare coins, stamp collections neatly hinged in albums, jewellery pouched in velvet bags, faceted crystal
wrapped in tissue, good silver and fine linen of a sort found only in old houses. His sister must be the last of the line, crippled by taxes or on the lam. She was selling the heirlooms too fast, too cheap. It should have smelt wrong but my senses were overwhelmed. I kept right on going, as pleased as
Aladdin when he first rubbed that lamp and discovered his
Genie.
Still, impressed as I was, I did notice an absence. Usually you get a feel for the person who used to live in the house you’re clearing - little things, style, a mode of living. You find
photographs, souvenirs and keepsakes. Their books reveal
interests, and inside their books are clues: tickets for a train taken every day; cinema stubs; theatre programmes; letters.
I’ve found pressed flowers, leaflets from Alcoholics Anonymous, birthday cards, the bottle behind the wardrobe, love
notes, cruel letters from the bank, baby’s curls, the leash of a dog long dead, neglected urns, whips, library books years overdue, size-twelve stilettos in a bachelor’s apartment. Of Mr McKindless I was no wiser by the end of the day than I’d been at the beginning. There was a sterility to the collection, an almost self-conscious expense about the dead man’s possessions.
Everything said: I am a very rich man; nothing more. I
found one crimp-edged photograph. A black-and-white image
of a stern, ba’-faced man. His eyes looked out at me piercing, frozen. I shivered. Well, I didn’t take that good a photograph myself. The inscription on the back read Roderick, 1947. I put the photograph absently in my pocket, then left the crew
under the tutelage of my head porter, Jimmy James, and
made my way back to Bowery Auctions.
It was dusk. Not five o’clock yet, but the light was fading, streets lamps glowing into life, small squares of shop windows illuminated. I crept the van along the Great Western Road, an inch behind the car in front. In the window of Zum Zum
Fabrics three high-quiffed dummies cut dance poses, sheathed in silks and brocade. A couple had rung the bell of the
jeweller’s next door and now stood rapt over trays of dowry
gold. African drumming gone funky drifted from Solly’s Fruit & Fine Veg. The traffic eased onto the bridge and me with it.
Beneath the orange U of the underground hot air turned to
steam. Commuters disappeared into the sudden mist, some
reappearing on the other side, others taking the glowing
caterpillar tunnel that leads beneath the river and disappearing from view. The cab radio drifted from music to news…
Things were still bad in Ireland, they were still fighting in Palestine, and Tories and Labour still disagreed. A boy had
been stabbed outside a football ground, a toddler lost, a
prostitute murdered.
I looked across the bridge and into the darkening afternoon.
The last shades of light were fading into grey, night beginning to veil the park-land. I thought of my boyhood when chemicals
foamed the Clyde and every sunset had been a tainted, pyrotechnic blaze. Bowery Auctions stood outlined against the sky
like the hull of a mammoth upturned ship, four red-brick storeys swelling into the curved flank of tiled roof. The third floor was lit. Rose Bowery would be waiting for me.
It had started to rain; water dripped into the well at the
bottom of the ancient elevator shaft. I hailed the lift and
listened to the clamber of clattering chains as it descended.
The tired grille creaked as a hand from within concertinaed it back.
They were the perfect couple, a rare balance of fat and thin which weighed together would equal two right-sized men.
Their worn complexions, dirt-grained collars and creased
jumble-sale suits spoke of late-hour, long-drinking nights and blank stumbles into unmade beds. Fats carried a sheaf of
papers stuffed carelessly
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