Amorous Goods: Seen in Sepia

A lifelong collector of goods and objects from far and wide has passed and left the entire collection and the business built around them to the only remaining relative, a niece on a career path of her own. Vikki has taken on the task of administering the estate and liquidating the business and collection. However, she has come to find out that many of the goods have been cursed or enchanted with amorous powers that affect those who encounter them. These are the stories of some of those encounters with objects found at "Amorous Goods.

Over time a canon has been built up by talented authors locating Amorous Goods in North America. I must apologise for not following this canon. This story is inspired by the thriving UK anthology industry of the 1960s and 70s, produced in particular by Hammer House and Amicus, and on television under the title Tales of the Unexpected. Sometimes based on the works of Roald Dahl and R Chetwynd-Hayes, these films, television shows and short stories are, of course, horror rather than erotic. However, they do a far better job than I of creating an atmosphere, and I highly recommend them.

For those readers who still wish to press on, please to enjoy. All characters are over the age of 18.

***

Stasis. How long had the interior been sleeping? Possibly forever, an excitable agglomeration awaiting that moment when the door swung inwards, banging against the tiny bell on its flexible bracket, the resulting peal a charm to awaken... what? Or maybe it was all a dualist mirage, spacetime that only existed once entered, the wave form collapsing on departure only to reassemble when the next consciousness was drawn to the dusty doorway and the piles of antiques beyond. One thing is certain, though, amongst the infinite possibilities: if you put enough things together, they make their own gravity, a force weak but relentless.

Vikki had no certain memory of Uncle Lewis, and being the only child of only children she had no real extended family to ask. There was a vague image of an off-white linen suit and a beard and the smell of roll-up cigarettes, a family visit somewhere by the lakes, but nothing more. Or perhaps she was confusing him with Captain Birdseye, a character far more real to her back when she was four. Decades later there was no voice, no story of the man left, just a letter on her doormat in the autumn sunshine: Uncle Lewis was dead, and she was his sole beneficiary.

It floored her at first and she sat on the end of her bed, the letter limp in her fingers. She had actually had a living relative, and now he was dead. Can you grieve for something you never knew? Vikki tried, but it was no use. It wasn't shock she was feeling, it was surprise, and not a little anger: for years, since her parents died in the fire, she'd thought herself alone and yet for all that time there was someone, a link to who she was, and he didn't swoop in to rescue her from her solitude. It was selfish. Was she being entitled? Perhaps, but she had been a child, basically, even at eighteen, and he must have been in his sixties then. She scanned the solicitor's letter again... yes, he had died peacefully (she would later learn that he actually died with a beatific smile plastered across his rotten face) at the age of eighty-one, two months previously.

Well, it absolutely changed her plans for the day. There would be no shopping with Margot, and she had planned the free day meticulously, too. A quick call and some disappointment morphed into a friendly promise to accompany Vikki to Goldfinch, Proctor and Webb, solicitors, to investigate the estate that awaited.

"I was hardly likely to stay at home after paying a babysitter, was I?" said Margot, masking her curiosity.

"Oh, come on!" laughed Vikki, "you want to find out if I'm a millionaire or something."

"Well, how often do you get the chance to sit in on the 'reveal'? It's like being in an episode of Poirot."

They were standing staring at the mirrored glass frontage of the solicitors' office, Margot short and mumsy, Vikki willowy in her trenchcoat and scarf, the reflected Thursday life of an English market town passing by behind them. The casual observer would find it difficult to divine the connection between them, an elfin brunette and a pear-shaped redhead. Margot oozed practicality, inhabiting the permanent air of a woman who bustled, particularly since the arrival of her children, whilst Vikki seemed more suited to sitting on a window seat by a bay window, gazing out at an ethereal morning mist over a lawn as she pondered the connection between English and German Romanticism.

The contrast wasn't entirely unfair, but the bond was there. It was deep, too, initially forged through a mutual dislike of Alfie Weatherall, a vile little urchin in primary school who would pull the girls' hair and slip chewing gum down the back of their blouses, all the while revelling in his sulphurous farts. They had stuck together since then, as thick as thieves despite their differences, holding each other's hands through life's tribulations and cheering each other through life's joys (though it seemed the tribulations were beginning to outnumber the joys now their thirties had arrived).

"You won't find your fortune standing out here," prompted Margot, and it usually was her with the quiet prompts. Vikki smiled and with an inward prayer that Margot didn't end up too disappointed at the lack of millions she pushed open the door and went to see what her future held.

They saw Proctor, from Goldfinch, Proctor and Webb, a brusque woman with a busy desk who tried her best to remember about customer service. She battled the distracted air of someone drowning, not swimming in piles of work, and whose current assignment is keeping them from something of greater import.

"I'm afraid there isn't much value to the estate," she said after a brief exchange of pleasantries in her cramped office, "and once ongoing costs are subtracted the balance of funds will be effectively nil. Perhaps enough for a nice meal in his memory."

Vikki glanced across at Margot and sure enough, there was her expression of disappointment. She reached across and took her friend's hand, giving her a little squeeze and a wan smile.

"There is also the matter of his business," Ms Proctor continued, not looking up from her file, "the rent is paid up to the end of next month but then the landlord wants to repossess. There's a development in the offing. There is the stock, though, which seems to be a confused attempt at running an antiques business. We had an assessor take a brief look but he couldn't make head nor tail of it, so it might have a little value but it's probably only fit for the knacker's yard. If you'd sign here, please."

As Vikki signed in triplicate Ms Proctor opened the bottom drawer in the filing cabinet behind her and pulled out a bulky brown paper parcel, jumbo size, and slid it across her desk to Vikki.

"These are his effects. He was wearing them when..."

Vikki nodded, "how did it...?"

"He was discovered on a bench on Mousehold Heath in Norwich, where his business is... was. A jogger had noticed him sitting there late one morning and was surprised to see him in the same position when she went back for her early evening run. She investigated, and he was long gone. The coroner estimated he'd been dead when she saw him, or soon after. It was painless, his heart just suddenly stopped. There are copies of the death certificate here," and Ms Proctor handed Vikki a slim file containing all the relevant documents. With that it was over, no reading of a will, no last profound message summing up the meaning of his life, just a brief handshake and a dispassionate 'if there's anything else you need, you have my number.'

It seemed very much like it wasn't enough, and Vikki said as much over their gin and tonics in the Southampton Arms.

"He was a recluse," said Margot, "he probably hadn't got any message or meaning, just existing and then, well, not."

"And you don't think that's sad?"

"Maybe, but you can't make someone something they're not," Margot shrugged, "anyway, what about this shop of his?"

"Oh, that," Vikki rolled her eyes, "now I've got to go to the time and expense of a cross-country trip to take a load of junk to a rubbish tip."

"The solicitor did say there might be some things of value..."

"Stop it, Margot! My uncle sounds like the kind of man who amassed a lifetime of broken crap and then passed it on for just enough to stop himself starving to death."

"You should still take a look. You never know..."

"I do," said Vikki before relenting, "but you're right."

"How about this. What if I get Peter to look after the twins on Saturday..."

"About time he did his share," Vikki interjected, her comment an in-joke as Peter was almost the ideal husband, if a little dull. But he was very good for Margot and absolutely did his share and more, and Vikki had nothing but affection for him.

"Peter will look after the twins and I'll drive us over to Norwich and we can have a look at this shop. Deal?"

"Deal. Just don't expect anything, OK?"

Margot merely grinned.

***

Norwich is one of those English cities that foreigners expect to find, with a castle and a cathedral and a river with swans, with a central market place and quaint lanes with interesting shops. A pub for every day of the year, a church for every week, as the saying goes. In medieval times it was the second biggest city in England, rich on the back of the wool trade. Now it was small in comparison to the industrial behemoths, but better for it, intimate and entertaining: even the art school was housed in a converted friary, which according to urban legend had a tunnel to the building across the road -- a former nunnery, of course. But that was 'nice' Norwich. Uncle Lewis's shop was in the bit of Norwich the tourists don't see, seedy and rundown, the few shops boarded up, victims of the online boom.

Uncle Lewis's shop was at one end of a short row of such establishments. There was a betting shop at the other end, and a kebab shop in the middle, but the other eight had soaped up windows and fading 'for rent' signs. Above them in the brick-built parade were two storey flats, neglected for the most part, tatty curtains behind grubby windows and peeling paint on the window frames, the brickwork dirty and askew and flora peeking from gaps in the mortar. Vikki saw that her uncle's shop fitted right in with the aesthetic, the plate glass window opaque with dirt and the paintwork, which might once have been green, flaked off to reveal the cracked, wizened wood beneath. The door was the same -- the glass black with dirt and the door handle seemingly held on by a single ancient screw.

Margot was fussing about her car, understandably. The neighbourhood looked like the kind of place where your car is up on bricks as soon as your back is turned. Or perhaps it might be if anyone was around, but the place was drab and deserted. Even so, Margot double-checked her car was locked, even though it was parked directly outside the shop. Vikki, on the other hand, was staring at the derelict shop front, trying to understand how someone could let it deteriorate so much. She'd often heard of genteel decay, and had even seen some down at heel country houses where old eccentrics lived out their days, full of tales of the wild forties and fifties. But this was simple dereliction, with no charm to recommend it.

She sighed and fished in her backpack for the key, then struggled to turn it in the lock. It was stiff, and she needed both hands, her fingers hurting as the brass fob dug into her knuckles. She stopped and took a breather, the extra cost for a locksmith looming on her mental horizon but, ever practical, Margot came to the rescue, retrieving a can of WD40 from her glove compartment and spraying it liberally deep into the lock. As ever it did the trick and the key turned, and in the pregnant pause that followed Vikki and Margot exchanged an eager glance: even Vikki could momentarily wonder if there was pirate treasure in the dead man's chest.

They pushed, and the door swung inward a little more easily than might be expected, banging against the small bell held above it on a bracket. The peal was oddly melodic, spreading into the dark corners, and Vikki and Margot cautiously stepped over the threshold. Margot immediately let out a little gasp, the accumulated piles of bric-a-brac simultaneously appealing to her urge to clean and her urge to investigate. Vikki, on the other hand, turned her head to one side a little, trying to home in on the source of... something. It was unusual, a timbre tantalisingly just beyond the edge of hearing.

"Can I?" burst out Margot, nudging Vikki back to the here and now, "please, please, please, please, please?"

She was holding up a small statuette of a cat she had spotted on the window sill by the doorway. The cat looked to be Egyptian, with a gold collar. Probably their cat god Bastet, in what appeared to be black onyx.

"Help yourself," Vikki shrugged, still a little distracted, Margot grinning with victory at a day already well-spent as she thrust it in her jacket pocket. Then Vikki pulled herself together and looked around for the light switch.

"At least that works," she said, though the faint yellow glow hardly penetrated to the back of the room, the bare lightbulb speckled with generations of fly shit, "but look at this place."

It was indeed, a sight, though surprisingly it didn't stink. There was, however, stagnation, and a sense that the dust would come in clouds once they started to seriously move around. There didn't seem to be a single empty surface, yet it was hard to discern individual items in the chaos, the light oppressive and not helped by a low ceiling that seemed to press down on them.

"This is a lot of work" said Margot as she took it in, the implication being that she'd happily set to work there and then. Vikki was more circumspect.

"I don't know. Maybe I should just pay someone to do a clearance..."

"You can't do that!" Margot was indignant, "there's bound to be some good stuff in here, I mean, at least to make it worth your while."

Vikki shook her head, "I guess he kept a ledger or something. That's the first thing to find. At the back maybe."

Margot followed her as she squeezed past the heaps of stuff, trying not to actually touch anything as she went by. Vikki was single-minded, heading for a doorway into the back room. Margot, though, kept up a running commentary as she followed, noting an old typewriter here, a dressmaker's dummy there, her eyes widening in interest at every knick and knack.

The back room was depressing, a collection of dilapidated pieces of furniture within submarine grey walls. The worst of it was in the corner, a camp bed and an old ammunition box at its foot. Vikki had wondered why there hadn't been an address for her uncle, a flat to empty, and here was her answer -- he slept in the back, a kettle his only appliance. She glanced briefly at the collection of clothes in the ammunition box and mentally consigned them to the rubbish at her earliest convenience. She shivered, and Margot rubbed her arm, the pathetic embers of a shadow life too harsh for words.

Vikki swallowed then turned away, gingerly seating herself on a rickety dinner chair in front of a bureau. She tried some of the drawers while Margot hovered hopefully. None of the bottom drawers opened, though whether they were locked or simply fused was impossible to tell. Then Vikki pulled down the angled top, releasing a cloud of dust that made her lean back and wave it away from her face as Margot coughed dramatically. Once the dust settled they saw a jumble of yellowing papers and bent files.

Vikki sighed and set to, separating official letters and bills and the like from pages of incomprehensible notes written in tiny handwriting. And to the other side she placed the brown crumbling files. Margot was getting bored, and she soon wandered back into the front of the shop. Before long she was backwards and forwards with items, interrupting Vikki to make her look at a coup stick, and a kaleidoscope, a jade snake and a 78 of 'Who were you with last night?' by Harry Fay.

"What do you make of this?" said Vikki, passing Margot the pile of notes in the hope it would occupy her.

"Do you think it's English?" she said, peering briefly at the text then shrugging, "it reminds me of an old great aunt I had in my family. Never met her, only heard about her. The woman was convinced we were related to the Duke of Wellington..."

"Are you?"

Margot simply snorted in derision and went on, "after she retired she spent every waking minute down at the Public Records Office trying to trace all the births and deaths. She made all these notes on tiny bits of paper with handwriting like that, and after she died nobody could decipher them. What she hoped for I've no idea. Perhaps she thought we could all go to dinner with current Duke at Apsley House. Quite mad, really."

"And your point?"

"Is that this looks like another collection of nutball's notes. You could drive yourself mad with it or simply throw it in the bin."

"Hmm," said Vikki, "I'll sleep on it."

She reached into the bureau and pulled out the last file, noting that it was in pretty good shape in comparison to everything else. She turned it over and there, in neat block capitals were the words AMOROUS GOODS. If she hadn't been so wrapped up in her work she might have had the fanciful feeling that the shop was suddenly paying close attention to her, almost holding its breath, had it had any. But of course, that was fanciful. She opened the file and in neat handwriting on lined foolscap was what seemed to be the ledger she been searching for, with a list of items in and out, and a record of payments made and received.

But the title bothered her a little -- was it a joke? Or something more? She glanced over her shoulder at Margot, but her friend was leafing through the loose pages of coded notes, shaking her head and paying Vikki no attention. She had a sudden sense that perhaps this file might be better kept from Margot, who would only want to pore over every entry. She closed the file and slipped it into her backpack, tipping in the bills and letters on top of it.

"I need a drink," Vikki announced once she'd zipped up her backpack.

"What about all this?" said Margot, clearly eager to keep rooting through the detritus of Uncle Lewis's life.

"I need to go through the papers first. Then I'll take a few days off and come back. Gloria can manage the library perfectly well without me." Margot pouted, but Vikki shook her head, "I can't ask you to do any more. It's my burden. Come on, I'll buy you lunch."

And as they left there was a sense of ancient calm, a feeling that the collection was stretching itself like a cat, settling down to purr as it dozed: Amorous Goods had a new owner.

***

Life, despite Vikki's best intentions, managed to get in the way of her growing interest in Uncle Lewis's legacy. She had been able to sort out his official correspondence over a frustrating Sunday and was pleasantly surprised to find he had been punctilious with his bills, not one outstanding. And contrary to Ms Proctor the solicitor, there was a little money left over. Not much, but enough to perhaps add a couple of nice items to her wardrobe -- and she hadn't really contemplated that since Neil had left her. Was that really more than a year ago, now?

But then work reared its ugly head. Well, not really that ugly: she liked working at the library, not that it paid that much. So, in she went and managed the late returns and small fines, scrutinised the new additions and pleaded with the higher-ups once more to update the software on the public computers, and led the reading class for the pre-schoolers on Wednesday afternoon, her favourite task of the week. Life settled back into its rhythm.