THE

ANTIQUE TEA-LEAF

by Dierdre, in England

Cicelia said I had imagined it all, but then she only knew part of it, and I did not want to spoil any more beautiful relationships by explaining how I seemed to be in two places at once, and one of those "beyond the Pale". She was a fine figure of a woman, in- clined to green and brown clothes with decorations of little belts and buckles, but always sure she understood a situation better than the man on the spot.

This evening she was looking better than ever, after a meal and inspection of the television news she was now trying to find out my recent travels with a skill that would make satellites redun- dant in no time. I try to keep ahead of the taxation system by dealing in antiques, obtained on my visits to towns and villages in the United Kingdom (this is the area of the British Isles that in- cludes England, Scotland, Wales and the North of Ireland but not the southern part of Ireland, though this is a wonderful piace for a holiday and there are op- portunities for some business, as you have to be a collector at heart to put up with all the moving about necessary to find good stock, and then you have to make a profit if you are going to be able to fund the next step

up the ladder to greater rewards (and risks). I have been watching the antique world since before I was ten years old, and I have made some satisfying deals, so I now have a home, the nearest village sheltered from view, but within easy motoring distance of many towns and auctions. It was here I had just told Cicelia of the missing painting. I had visited a house of a recently widowed woman where an auction had been arranged, and noticed a small Wilson oil that I felt would be a good painting to cover the cost of returning for the actual auction, but it was not visible at the sale and not mentioned in the catalogue (or noted by widow as sold before the auc- tion). It did not seem very im- portant, but then I had noticed this type of loss before. I had not told anyone but I had taken some steps to try and track down the culprit (single or more) This is not as easy as might be expected as many dealers know one or are aware of one's particu- lar field worth lifting would have been noted, and worse still might be traceable back to them, with painful results. There was a very good reason why this had not happened in my case, but perhaps I had better enlarge on

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my routine, such as it is; in the early part of each week I go out checking possible deals and often these trips are solitary sweeps through the country, setting out early rarely meeting a soul and returning in the dusk, or moon- light. This all helped in a little deception, safer in Great Britain than the North of Ireland where there is more data fed into the computers by spot checks at road blocks, as my car was a common type of estate and I am not a very large or striking figure of a man at the best of times (in the vertical, anyway). I have always believed in full per- sonal expression and if the second self was confusing it still seemed better expressed, even though in my teens I had been worried, guilty and very very careful, but in those days I could have been read by anybody, nowadays I doubt if my own mother would notice the quietly dressed red head walking round the preview of some auction, and although I try to be well out of my own territory to avoid people who know the other half, I have ocassionally seen and been seen, but not recognised. There are sufficient hotels to allow me to stay out over night and portable electric razors make my light