The Rich And The Profane (3 page)

Which genuine antique had now come down in the world, to end up being bartered in a low-life tavern. I almost had tears in my eyes. We discussed the price. I gave him an IOU.

‘I’ll redeem it tomorrow at noon, Arty,’ I lied.

‘Earlier, Lovejoy. There’s racing at York.’

‘Right, right.’ I was peeved. Now I’d have to evade the blighter all morning, in case he wanted me to pay my debts. Is life unfair, or what?

The sugar crusher I wrapped in my grotty hanky. I only had a few quid, so I got hold of Liz Sandwell, a lovely dealer, but whose bloke is a rugby player of frightening size. She was talking to Maureen Jolly. This luscious lass doesn’t belie her name and is given to displaying her long legs to impress any passing impressario, she being a songstress/ actress of burning ambition. Her doting husband believes in her, which only goes to show.

‘Lovejoy!’ Liz purred. ‘That miniature. Better cough up.’

‘Honest, Liz, I’ll have the dosh any sec.’

‘Buyers are queuing up, Lovejoy. I’ll give you till tomorrow.’

Some days are nothing but bother. A couple of days previously I’d IOU’d a miniature painting from Liz. It was quite good, done in pewter as a plain brooch. What interested me had been that the lady in the portrait had been wearing stomacher jewellery. This has nothing to do with the padding that ancient ladies used to bulge themselves out front as if they were pregnant. In jewellery a stomacher is a large -
large
- triangular setting of pearls and gems to adorn her bodice, often to hang as low as the waistline, or down from the decolletage. Sometimes, as in the miniature portrait I’d conned off Liz, the stomacher can even be in two separate pieces of similar design. They are rare. And I was almost sure I’d seen it before somewhere, hence my eagerness. Trouble was, Jessica from Norwich had conned it off me - women have ways - ‘to show a friend’. Once a duckegg, as they say. Now I was in a real mess.

‘Ta, love. Do us a favour, Liz? Please?’

Her lovely eyes fixed on me. The non-laughing laugh is a woman’s trick men can’t do. She did it now. I shrank. ‘Your favours always cost me, Lovejoy.’

‘No, honest, love. Just go to Gimbert’s and write me a bid for a fake Rockingham jug. Number 152.’

‘Fake? You? Bidding for a
fake
?’ Now they both did laugh, Maureen so much she had to put her drink down in case it spilt. ‘I thought only genuine antiques clanged your bell!’

‘Among other things, Liz!’ Maureen fell about.

‘Very droll,’ I said gravely. ‘Will you?’

Liz sobered, appraised me, slid from her stool and collected her handbag.

‘This once, Lovejoy, and that’s final. I can’t go on subbing you.’

‘Ta, Liz. I owe you.’

She left, ignoring invitations, in various grades of eloquence, called after her by the mob of dealers lusting in the taproom. Which left Maureen.

‘Maur, love. Look. I’ve no barker - you know Tinker got gaoled?’

‘Yes.’ Maureen smokes long cigarettes that must be specially made. Sit near, you’ve to watch your eyes for burning fag ash. ‘What’s that to do with me?’

‘I need a barker.’

Her eyes widened in astonishment. ‘Me? To be your—?’

‘Shhh!’ I said, showing my teeth in a jovial grin to prove we were only chatting. ‘On the sly. Nobody’d know. OK?’

She looked about the tavern, checking the mirrors. ‘Why, Lovejoy?’

‘I couldn’t pay much, love.’ I lowered my eyes, inventing shyness. ‘And, well, Maur, you know how I feel about you.’

‘You, Lovejoy?’ She was surprised and wary. ‘Are you saying—?’

‘No,’ I denied nobly. ‘I’m honestly sincere.’

‘I thought you had that horrid Florida.’

‘She’s only learning the antiques trade, Maur. I can pay you in kind.’

‘In kind of what?’ she asked shrewdly, narrowing her pretty eyes.

‘I know this bloke.’ I made sure nobody was earwigging, this being one of my ultra-special fables. ‘He puts on shows and that.’ I petered out, not knowing anything about the stage.

‘You do?’ she breathed. Her eyes uncrinkled, revealing undiluted faith.

‘His agency’s big.’ I invented, rollercoasting recklessly on. ‘Jonno Rant and me played football together.’

‘Jonno Rant?’ she whispered in awe. ‘I’ve heard of him!’ ‘Shhh, love. I don’t want every tinpot actress in East Anglia asking me to put in a word.’

‘When do you see him next?’ she demanded. ‘He’s stupendous!’

‘Soon. Jonno always pops in from the Hook of Holland.’ ‘Oh, Lovejoy! You darling!’ She was almost beside herself. She bought me a white wine and told me of her outstanding performing abilities. I didn’t listen. Acting is endless infancy, just as politics is endless bullying. Crime is endless barbarity. The antiques game on the other hand is perpetual lust.

Which was how Liz Sandwell found us, me trying not to nod off while Maureen bashed my earhole with how superbly she could play every female part in Shakespeare given half a chance, and sing better than anyone on earth. ‘Hello, Liz,’ I said, relieved at the rescue.

‘No go, Lovejoy.’ She drained my wine, settling on my stool. ‘The Rockingham fake’s gone. Withdrawn from sale by a Mrs Crucifex. And Gimbert’s withdrawn the charges against that Irma.’

‘Great,’ I cried gladly, because in the antiques game the last thing you must do is show dismay.

‘Shouldn’t you offer me a drink, Lovejoy?’ Liz asked petulantly.

‘Er, another time, love. A friend’s due off the ferry soon.’ ‘Yes, let him go, Liz!’ Maureen cried with a meaningful look.

‘Summer’s mad at you, Lovejoy! He wants to see you.’

‘Right, right. I’m going past the police station. I’ll call in.’

I weaved into the High Street traffic, where it was safer. Tomorrow dawn, I’d do the boot fair on Roman Meadow by the river. I forgot the Irma problem for ever. I thought.

'ext morning was my kind of day: fresh wind, light rain, grey as a goose. I fried my last chunk of bread in my

last scrap of margarine, brewed my last tea leaves. I had to do it on a paraffin lamp, because the electricity barons had gone fascist again and wanted money. All the while the hedgehog was trundling and snuffling underfoot for its grub, and bluetits were hammering on the windows. The robin even had the frigging nerve to come in and cheep his silly head off. Narked, I shooed them all out in a temper. I had to bring a bucket of rainwater in for a bath, because our water barons - who sell us our own God-given rainwater -had also gone ape. I had a soak, yelping at the cold. Yet another of life’s mysteries: why do we shout when dunked into a cold splodge? Shouting doesn’t warm the water, that’s for sure.

Dressed, I shredded a ton of cheddar cheese for the birds, and filled their feeders with a bushel of peanuts.

‘Right,’ I called from the gate into the garden at Mother Nature. ‘Can I go now?’ Not so much as a ta. The ungrateful little swine live better than me, and that’s a fact. Another mystery: who fried hedgehogs their morning bread before I came along? Did bounteous Mother Nature? Did she hell as like. She just lets them all get on with it, the idle cow.

To the boot fair.

The boot fair is our creaking old kingdom’s best ever modem invention. Get all that old tat from your attic, the clag of years you keep meaning to chuck away. Heap it in the boot of your motor. Next morning before cockshout, drive to the boggy field that’s advertised on every telegraph pole. You’ll find hundreds of cars and vans, people everywhere. Rickety tables are set out. Yawning girls collect your gate penny in their buckets. It’s usually raining. And here’s the miracle: unbelievably, other people actually buy your gunge, and cart it off in triumph.

It’s the boot fair, the ultimate in conservation. Nothing is ever destroyed. Buy something and find you hate it, why, just take it back next week and sell it, and life’s cruddy pageant rolls on. It’s every garage sale, jumble rumble, flea market gathered and dumped in a truly rural morass.

I arrived without a motor or possessions, wheedled my way past Gloria and her voracious bucket by promising to take her to the pictures to see that new action-packer, then went to the nosh van. (This saves you hours of muddy blundering, but be careful. You’ll see why in a sec.) Arold - his spelling - serves gangrenous fry-ups on chipped plates and makes a killing, if not several. I cadged some swill in a cup big enough to fall in. It had a floating pubic hair.

‘Here he comes, lads,’ Barko said. ‘Watch your women and your wallets.’

‘Which from you, Barko . . .’

Barko had been in the Plod. He’d arrested me back in the days when I’d been a pickpocket. I wasn’t very good, not like Dosker in Southminster or that sickly specky-eyes they call Deli (short for Delivery) from Romford, who can filch your fillings while you yawn.

His face darkened. ‘Watch it, Lovejoy,’ he growled. ‘I’ll send my pals to visit your patch.’

‘Don’t, Barko. They’d get lost.’

My cottage was only three miles off as the drunkard limps. Some of the blokes standing about gulping Arold’s enteric gave outright guffaws, for Barko once became famous. He’d mistaken Southwold for Southminster in a police night raid, thereby earning the undying gratitude of antique smugglers from King’s Lynn to Kirby Le Soken. Hence Barko’s resignation. Now, he tries to be a freelance antiques barker. He pretends to be good at it, which is like pretending to be fluent in Swahili - it cons everybody except the Swahili. Here in East Anglia, Barko is utterly useless, for we have the world’s best barkers. Like, Tinker can be drunk in a police cell for days, then emerge saying, ‘Here, Lovejoy. That Harrison fake clock just sold for nigh on eight thousand an hour ago. Good, eh?’, making you wonder if he’s got a carrier pigeon secretly kipping in some voluminous pocket.

No, Barko’s a nasty piece of work. He scares me. I spoke to Arold.

‘Any sign of Rupert, Arold?’ That’s my code, Rupert being fictional. Normally Tinker changes my code names every day, but in view of his absence I was stuck in a Rupert groove.

‘Nar, Lovejoy.’ Arold spat expertly out from his serving hatch, spittle frosting his rock cakes. ‘But I’d visit the far end if I wus you.’

‘Ta.’

This astonished me, though I just grinned and went on. The opposite side of the field, rapidly filling with cars and bargain hunters, was usually reserved for amateur flower growers, vendors of pot plants. I only rarely meander among foliage because flowers are pretty famous for not being antiques, though geriatric aspidistras have notched up handy prices lately, the same as ancient bonsai trees - their poor feet, though, cramped in those bowls.

‘How it comes, Lovejoy?’ somebody said close to me.

Like a fool I turned and said hello. I should have taken to the hills.

‘Wotcher, Prince.’ I did my heartiest beam, ready to flee.

Prince cracks on he’s from Eastern Europe, and that he’s ultra noble. But Pollack, who really is from there, says that anybody with a hundred goats was titled Prince This, Duke That, when they were really only smallholders. The Swahili syndrome again. Don’t misunderstand me. Prince dresses the part, even down - up? - to the monocle and deerstalker, but the whole effect is of something got up to seem. In a word, fraudulent. The feeling would persist even if you discovered he honestly was the Czar of All the Russias, God of Danzig, whoever.

‘It’s coming along fine, Prince, ta for asking.’ I drew apart from the bell-like shell-likes of the craning listeners, all dealers or barkers. I didn’t want them overhearing my latest fraud.

‘Really?’ His thin features glowed with the antique dealer’s fervour that only greed can bring. ‘How soon, Lovejoy?’

‘The porcelain,’ I intoned loudly for everyone else’s benefit, ‘will be ready in two weeks, Prince.’ I stepped into another puddle inches further away. It was still raining.

‘Ha! I see, Lovejoy!’ Prince boomed. ‘You seem secret, yes?’

People snickered. He has gelt, but lacks brains.

‘It’d help, Prince,’ I whispered. ‘Those blokes by Arold’s van are rivals. They might steal your porcelain.’

He glared at them. ‘We deceive them, yes?’

Not any more we don’t. Blokes like Prince wear you out before coffee.

‘That’s it, Prince. We—’

He winked through his monocle. ‘We not reveal it is furniture, yes?’

‘No, yes. Er, aye, we don’t.’ My mind was going ????? I clung to my point of lying reference. ‘Fortnight, Prince. I promise. I’ll bring it round in a bag.’

‘Bag! Ha ha ha!’ thundered Prince, yet more secrecy. ‘That is good yoke, hey? I send lorry, Lovejoy!’

So now the world knew it was a monster piece of furniture requiring a pantechnicon. I tried to escape. ‘Sorry, Prince. I’m meeting somebody at the daffodils.’

‘Daffodils!’ the nerk announced to the world, nudging me. ‘You give red herrings, yes? Oh, Lovejoy. You get varnish I send?’

‘Er, yes. All in hand.’

I escaped down a row of sodden trestle tables where people milled and rain did its little thunders on plastic awnings erected over heaps of saleable rubbishy crud. It was quite an interesting walk.

Don’t be deterred. There’s always something worth finding at a boot fair. There were the inevitable record and CD stalls, collectors’ tables of toys and comics, the inevitable car maniacs’ arrays of bits from obsolesent motors, boxes of books, clothes in stacks, racks, packs, and umpteen stalls of pottery, brasses, ornaments and plastic everythings. Cover the field in volcanic lava, and just think what a tourist exhibit it would make in two or three millennia. For now, though, an expanse of garbage.

A few folk called hello. I waved, trudged on through the damp dross, thinking of the world’s costliest piece of furniture that I was faking. It was the reason I’d installed locks and bolts. It was also partly paid for by Prince. I’d taken only a small advance - he’s not as dumb as all that - to buy materials, but I’d had a bit of a mishap. Broke, creativity had to halt. I was too scared to tell Prince because he’s volatile and has vile connections in Austria. Until I scraped some groats together, I was stymied.

Fakers of antiques these days don’t do right. Their shoddy workmanship’s enough to drive you to drink. Typical instance? There’s a young bloke called Toggle near Long Melford. He’s a near genius with inlays, veneers and the like. You’d think he’d do fakes of, say, Boule the Frenchman’s beautiful cabinet fronts, which are sheer furniture magic. Toggle could make an absolute fortune. (Toggle badly needs fortunes, because he has this lust for a parson’s wife, lavishes his all on her to impress. She accepts everything with disdain. Dealers swear blind that the nearest Toggle’s got to her is in the third pew of a Sunday evensong.) Question: so does Toggle make worthwhile fakes, which he’s good at, and earn a life of luxury? Not on your nelly. He wastes his time rattling off bits of decorations on modem sideboards for a few zlotniks, to please a tease.