The auction was still a full day away, so that Perenna and I had two nights together at Great Park Hall before driving across country to Birmingham. Keegan had given us copies of the catalogue, and I looked through it that evening. The first seventy-two lots were GBs, including some very good Seahorse issues and, of course, the block of four £5 orange. Lots 73–95 were collections of GB and Commonwealth stamps; then came the Carlos Holland ship label design collection, followed by the Solomons Seal sheet. There were estimates of what each lot was expected to fetch, but not against ours, the blank at the right of the page making them very conspicuous. Presuming the lots were disposed of at about the same rate as at Harmers or other London auction houses, Lots 96 and 97 would come up sometime around 3–3.30 p.m. It was sensible timing since the wealthier dealers, who might have come down specially for those two lots, would have plenty of time for lunch, and if the Carlos Holland collection fetched about £5,000, which is what Keegan had originally suggested, how much, I wondered, would the full sheet fetch?
We talked it over during the evening meal, finally settling for a figure of £10,000 for the two lots. Afterwards I showed Perenna my own collection. Keegan, knowing roughly its contents and quality, had said it could fetch somewhere between £2,500 and £3,000 in view of the high prices now being paid at auction for second-rate material. But sending it to auction meant a delay of three months at least, and the same was true probably of Perenna’s wood carvings. What we needed was cash, now.
Wednesday I spent a miserable day arranging the termination of my lease of the Hall and the sale of my boat, having first delivered Perenna to the nursing home near Colchester. When I picked her up in the evening, our moods were very different — where I was depressed, she was buoyant, bubbling over with the extraordinary progress Tim had made. ‘It’s unbelievable. And not at all gradual. It happened just like that, quite suddenly he was a different man. They can’t understand it. The matron even phoned the doctor so that I could have a word with him. He couldn’t explain it either.’
It had been one of those glorious, still October days, and I still had the hood down, so that we had to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. ‘So what do you think? That the curse was lifted?’
‘Yes, of course. But I couldn’t tell them that.’
‘When did he snap out of it?’
‘August fifth. You’re thinking of Hans, are you?’
I nodded, glancing at her quickly sitting there beside me with the red-orange hair blowing in the wind. I was remembering the log book and Jona’s neat entry recording his death and the burial of his ashes in the cove to the north of Madehas. The date had been July 30.
‘It wasn’t Hans who put that curse on Tim,’ she shouted into the wind. ‘It was Sapuru. Sapuru died on August fifth. Remember? And Tagup, remember what Tagup said that evening he came to say goodbye to us at the motel? He said Sapuru could have been killed by an old curse, one that his weakened vitality was no longer able to resist. Tim spent weeks fashioning things out of driftwood and all sorts of bits and pieces I scavenged for him off the seashore. He’d sit for hours staring at them, his lips moving. He knows all about sorcery.’ And she added, ‘Funny, isn’t it? Sapuru puts a curse on Tim after he’d discovered what the Co-operative was planning. But it wasn’t strong enough, and in the end it’s Tim’s curse that kills Sapuru.’ She laughed, not humorously, but a little wildly. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? But it’s true, I tell you. It fits. It must be true. The only possible explanation. Oh, my God — how little this civilised world remembers or understands.’ She put her hand on my arm, a quick, urgent gesture. ‘Forget it, will you? Please. You don’t have to believe it. I see you don’t, so forget it. And when you meet Tim, don’t ever let him know what I said. Please.’
That night we fell into bed still arguing about the future and whether we shouldn’t just give up, forget about the Holland Line and that battered old LCT. No point in destroying ourselves and losing everything we had for the sake of a ship. It was pride, too, of course. But I think both of us had by then come back down to earth and knew bloody well we couldn’t make a go of it on the sort of capital we could hope to raise. The cost of ship repairs alone was such that the first major breakdown would see us broke.
We fell asleep in the end through sheer exhaustion. The next morning we were up with the dawn and on our way by eight. The auction was being held in what appeared to be an old corn exchange. Two doves, left over from a Fur and Feather Exhibition, fluttered noisily through the ornamental iron roof girders. I was tired; I had had no lunch and had lost my way on the outskirts of Birmingham. We were asked whether we would be bidding, and when I said no, we were ushered to the stairs leading to a sort of gallery. But then Keegan saw us and waved us over to seats on the right of the auctioneer’s dais. ‘Reserved specially for you, dear lady,’ he said, taking Perenna by the arm. ‘You see, hardly a seat left except those we have reserved.’ He seized two glasses of champagne from a loaded tray on a nearby table and thrust them into our hands. ‘Drink that and don’t worry. We’ll be starting any minute now.’
There must have been about 150 to 200 seats in this partitioned-off section of the hall. All those who were bidding had been issued with a large numbered card and a drink. The murmur of conversation was already loud. We had only a few minutes to absorb the atmosphere of the place before the auction started, prompt on 1.30. Keegan was sitting a few feet from us. The auctioneer, a smiling, slightly florid man with a habit of pushing his glasses up into his thick greying hair, was seated on a tall chair with a desk in front of him on the dais. ‘Lot One, gentlemen please — ladies and gentlemen.’ He had a strong Midlands accent. ‘Lot Number One. I am bid eighty pounds — a hundred, a hundred and twenty, forty, sixty, two hundred — two-twenty? Going for two hundred.’
I began timing the bids: just over a minute for each lot. Prices seemed high, but then I hadn’t attended an auction for more than two years. By two o’clock every seat was taken and we had reached Lot 22. I was beginning to identify the more active dealers and the different nationalities — German, Japanese, French, Italian. Berners was there, sitting very still, not bidding. ‘I can’t follow it,’ Perenna whispered. ‘It’s so fast. And I can’t see who’s bidding half the time. A nod or a slight lift of the pen-’
‘Just concentrate on the final bid figure given by the auctioneer,’ I said, showing her my catalogue with the final bid entered on the right. In almost every case it was way above the estimate, in the case of a perfect block of six 1870 Three Halfpence over twice the estimate.
‘Why didn’t he put an estimate against our lots?’
‘He couldn’t. It wouldn’t have meant anything.’
One of Keegan’s staff, an elderly woman, was standing close beside the auctioneer. For most of the lots it was she who started the bidding. Keegan had a big mail order business. So probably had the Birmingham firm he had taken over. These were the postal bids. We reached the first of the Wyon embossed of 1847-54, an assistant displaying a single Die 2 of the 1s. deep green in mint condition. ‘Starting at four-fifty- five, five-fifty, six, six-fifty, seven — seven I’m bid, seven hundred, seven-twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty- seven-sixty. At seven-sixty.’ The little ivory knocker fell. I was waiting now for the £5 block. The estimate was £3,800. It made £5,500. ‘Lot Seventy-three-’ We had reached the collections. They went equally fast. At 3.27 the auctioneer announced, ‘Now we come to the Lot many of you have been waiting for — Lot Ninety-six …’ And he glanced across at Keegan, who jumped to his feet.