The Grace in Older Women Read Online Free PDF Page A

price of frames is frigging criminal, though.
You lawyers should check the framers on East Hill.'
    They shut me up, dunno why, demanded times, dates, where I'd seen
Packo Orange selling his own forgeries - he did a nice one of a John Constable, Landscape Noon , but from the opposite
view. I waxed eloquent, telling them Packo was straight as a die, but the Law
had it in for him whatever anybody said.
    Out, after four wasted hours. I left the back way, so avoiding Den
and so, I believed, keeping out of the way of that magistrate, him and his
frigging furled brolly. I'd had enough law to last me for one day, if not two.
    Addie caught me up as I reached the Arcade, and told me in
breathless excitement that she'd almost practically virtually nearly managed to
buy the colander but been outbid by some idiot in a bowler hat.
    'Did you get the name, Addie?' I knew she took everything down at
auctions, who bid for what, prices.
    'Yes.' She eyed me with smiling calculation. 'Lovejoy! You want
something I have!'
    'I can always ask one of the whifflers,' I told her airily.
    'What will you do for me, darling?' she said, coming all
little-girl winsome.
    'Forget it,' I said, narked. Then realized my voice hadn't managed
to say anything at all. 'Forget it.'
    She ran the tips of her fingers along my shredding lapel, looking
up. 'You don't really mean that, do you, darling?'
    A motor horn sounded three peremptory blasts. Hubby, revving
angrily across by the other kerb. God, he'd a glare that would melt glaciers.
    'Give it me, Addie.' Any woman can pull any bloke, whatever they
pretend. And a woman with valuable information about antiques could pull me any
time she wanted.
    'The priory, Lovejoy. Eight, tomorrow,' she said softly, then
sprang back. Wearily I waited while she did the purity scenario. 'Certainly
not, Lovejoy!' she cried, stamping for her hubby's benefit. 'A partnership? Out
of the question, and that is final!'
    She marched to the car and embarked. It pulled away, him smirking
as they glided past the war memorial.
    Eight, the priory. I joined Tinker at the tavern ten minutes
later. He handed me a letter. Familiar handwriting, Juliana Witherspoon (Miss)
had struck again. I was about to chuck it away when Tinker restrained me.
    'Best look, son,' he croaked. 'It's threats.'
    He'd read it without opening the envelope. I wish I knew how he
does it.
              Dear Lovejoy,
                       Kindly
respond, or I shall take grievous action. Your                                                 assignations with a lady are known to
me. I shall expose your                        perfidious nature to her relatives.
Six o'clock, please, at the                           town
library, tomorrow.
                       I remain,
                       Yours
faithfully,
                       Juliana
Witherspoon (Miss)
    Threats and please? So
courtesy was hanging on by a thread even yet. Well, Beth's Bilston enamels
still beckoned, and she'd kill me if I let J. W. (Miss) run amok with her glad
tidings.
     
    4
    Tonietta, when I finally found her, was pushing her cart through
the shopping precinct and ready for a fight. Mind you, I've never seen Tonietta
tranquil. She's always girding for Armageddon. This time she was readying to
scream the town down over somebody pinching her pitch.
    ‘You fucking frigging shitting bastards I'll marmalize the lot of
you. . . !' et Tonietta cetera. From there, her invective goes downhill. Take
it on trust: Tonietta is dynamite, abusive, and usually wrong about everything
except tortoise-shell. She hates her two sisters, both carnivores, and I have
teethmarks to prove it. She doesn't speak to her mother. On rare occasions,
she'll communicate with the world through her dad, a pleasant patient man who
tries to cobble his family together using birthdays as