“Hi!” I say, and nod at his haul. “You did well.”
“Very well.” He holds the bowl up. “This is a very handsome piece.”
“It was in Elle Decoration once,” I tell him. “Very cool.”
“Really? I’ll tell my daughter.” He puts it slightly awkwardly under his arm. “So you’re off to America tomorrow.”
“Yes. Tomorrow afternoon. After I’ve paid a small trip to your friend John Gavin.”
A wry smile passes over Derek Smeath’s face.
“I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.” He extends his hand as best he can to shake mine. “Well, good luck, Becky. Do let me know how you get on.”
“I will,” I say, smiling warmly. “And thanks for… You know. Everything.”
He nods, and then walks off into the night.
I stay outside with Suze for quite a time. People are leaving now, carrying their loot, and telling each other how much they got it all for. A guy walks by clutching the mini paper shredder, a girl drags a bin liner full of clothes, someone else has got the invitations with the twinkly pizza slices. Just as I’m starting to get cold, a voice hails us from the stairs.
“Hey,” calls Tarquin. “It’s the last lot. D’you want to come and see?”
“Come on,” says Suze, stubbing out her cigarette. “You’ve got to see the last thing go. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I say as we mount the stairs. “The fencing mask, perhaps?”
But as we walk back into the room, I feel a jolt of shock. Caspar’s holding up my Denny and George scarf. My precious Denny and George scarf. Shimmering blue, silky velvet, overprinted in a paler blue, and dotted with iridescent beading.
I stand staring at it, with a growing tightness in my throat, remembering with a painful vividness the day I bought it. How desperately I wanted it. How Luke lent me the twenty quid I needed. The way I told him I was buying it for my aunt.
The way he used to look at me whenever I wore it.
My eyes are going blurry, and I blink hard, trying to keep control of myself.
“Bex… don’t sell your scarf,” says Suze, looking at it in distress. “Keep one thing, at least.”
“Lot 126,” says Caspar. “A very attractive silk and velvet scarf.”
“Bex, tell them you’ve changed your mind!”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I say, staring fixedly ahead. “There’s no point hanging on to it now.”
“What am I bid for this fine designer accessory by Denny and George?”
“Denny and George!” says the girl in pink, looking up. She’s got the hugest pile of clothes around her, and I’ve no idea how she’s going to get them all home. “I collect Denny and George! Thirty pounds!”
“I have a bid at £30,” says Caspar. He looks around the room — but it’s swiftly emptying. People are queueing up to collect their items, or buy drinks at the bar, and the very few left sitting on the chairs are mostly chatting.
“Any further bids for this Denny and George scarf?”
“Yes!” says a voice at the back, and I see a girl in black raising a hand. “I have a telephone bid of £35.”
“Forty pounds,” says the girl in pink promptly.
“Fifty,” says the girl in black.
“Fifty?” says the pink girl, swiveling on her chair. “Who is it bidding? Is it Miggy Sloane?”
“The bidder wishes to remain anonymous,” says the girl in black after a pause. She catches my eye and for an instant my heart stops still.
“I bet it’s Miggy,” says the girl, turning back. “Well, she’s not going to beat me. Sixty pounds.”
“Sixty pounds?” says the chap next to her, who’s been eyeing her pile of stuff with slight alarm. “For a scarf?”
“A Denny and George scarf, stupid!” says the pink girl, and takes a swig of wine. “It would be at least two hundred in a shop. Seventy! Ooh, silly. It’s not my turn, is it?”
The girl in black has been murmuring quietly into the phone. Now she looks up at Caspar. “A hundred.”
“A hundred?” The pink girl swivels on her chair again. “Really?”
“The bidding stands at one hundred,” says Caspar calmly. “I am bid £100 for this Denny and George scarf. Any further bids?”
“A hundred and twenty,” says the pink girl. There are a few moments’ silence, and the girl in black talks quietly into the phone again. Then she looks up and says, “A hundred and fifty.”