Moonspender (3 page)

"Look, Mrs. Ryan. I've a big day on . . ." But it was no
use. Women always have everything their own way.

Before she took off on her animal she said to kit myself out at
Kirkham's tailor's in town, on her personal account. I said ta, and promised
most sincerely to remember whatever it was she'd been on about.

The day of my television debut dawned into one of those mornings
where you have plenty of time but suddenly it evaporates. I don't suppose it
happens to other people much, everybody else being so organized. But it gets on
my nerves when unexpectedly I'm having to hurtle everywhere out of breath.
Worse, the train for London was punctual, an all-time first. Big Frank from
Suffolk was alighting. He visits our antiques Arcade on the rare days he isn't
being sued for alimony. I like him. He's a real dedicated silver dealer,
anything before 1900. He's also a
megamarrier
,
bigamist, and multiple divorce.

"Hello, Lovejoy. Jeez, you're done up like a dog's
dinner."

"Wotcher." I felt embarrassed in my new suit.
"Here, Frank. Tell Tinker I've left him an envelope at the Three
Cups." Tinker's my scruffy old barker—that's
antiquese
for a bent Machiavellian scrounger. I pay him in booze. "Help us up."

He bumped the basket into the compartment for me, gaping.
"It's a frigging call" I'd bought the big shopping basket this
morning with my newfound wealth. Toffee watched dispassionately while she was
hauled aboard, monarch of all she surveyed. I wasn't sure what cats lie on, so
I'd bought her a blanket thing. The pet shop girl had tried telling me that
cats traveled in a lidded basket. I'd told her to stuff" her portable
dungeon. "What's the game, Lovejoy?"

"Going on telly." The whistle blew.

"Straight up?" He slammed the door. I put the window
down. "Here, Lovejoy. Got anything like a silver fertility pendant?"

These are mostly oriental, or Regency, except for those of the
ancient world, which are semiprecious stone or bronze. "Gawd, Frank.
You're not asking much."

He looked so crestfallen—a massive slump for such a big bloke that
I felt sorry. "Okay, Frank. I'll have a try. Still on that collection,
eh?" He'd been trying to compile erotic antiques for some local lady.

"
Mmmmh
. Oh, Lovejoy." The
train began to move. "Will you be best man?"

"Me?" I don't usually get asked this, being a
scruff". Must be this frigging suit, which served me right. "If you
want. How
many's
this?"

"Eighth. That's why it'll have to be at that redundant
church."

Well, I could see why a going parish couldn't risk doing weddings
as job lots. Religion's never any help to the living, is it.

Big Frank ran out of platform. We ended up bawling at each other
over the wheel clatter, him yelling eleven o'clock at St. Mary the Virgin's
church on Saturday week, me bawling a polite ta-for-asking. I sagged in my
seat, nearly crushing Toffee in her basket. What with Mrs. Ryan, the tailor's,
Toffee, and Big Frank I was knackered before the journey'd even started. So
this new wife would be the eighth. Did bigamies count two?

"Morning, Lovejoy." Dorothy was smiling at me from the
opposite seat. I hadn't noticed her. "My, aren't we smart!"

"Traveling by train?" I gave back, though I like her
because she's bonny and plays the harpsichord for Les Moran's music shop in the
High Street. "The broomstick in for service?" Her husband Les is a
jealous burke.

She smiled, letting Toffee sniff her fingers. "Now stop that,
Lovejoy."

Three months previously she'd been interviewed on local television
talking about witchcraft, midsummer frolics, and all that. "Seriously,
Dot. Still a fully paid-up witch, are we?"

"I still . . . commune with nature, if that's what you
mean."

"I'm going on telly, too," I said proudly. We chatted of
that until she got off at Kelvedon. After that some old dear with cherries on
her hat started telling me what she fed her own rotten moggie.

"Cats are superior," she explained, in a terrible
sentence I later wished I'd listened to more carefully. "Lone walkers,
they. Dogs want friends, especially in the night hours. Old softies."

Daft owd bat, I thought, and nodded off.

The TV building amazed me. If you've never seen these places,
don't. They're grottie, a real letdown. I emerged from the station to find this
hunchback, gaunt-windowed brick building looking like a Salvosh soup kitchen
between a post office and a derelict cinema. I even walked round the place to
make sure, until Sykie's lads came out and wearily hauled me in past the
unshaven doorman.

"I could do
wiv
yer, Lovejoy,"
Sykie's eldest told me, "but you're frigging weird. Bleedin' nag one
minute, moggie the next."

The audience numbered about a hundred, mostly the blue-rinse
brigade. We sat obediently in rows facing an alcoholic comedian who tried to
make his transparent anxiety less contagious by telling a succession of corny
Christmas cracker jokes. Finally he surrendered from exhaustion, and left us
with a blunt instruction to applaud when he
wagged
a
rolled newspaper.

This particular telly game's moronic, like all the others. God
knows why people watch. I used to, before sadists among the authorities played
hell about license money and nicked my black-and-whiter. The idea is that
somebody comes onto the stage with some alleged antique. "Is it real or
fake?" the compere bleats through her lacquered grin. Bloody stupid,
because everything's one thing or the other, including people. She continues,
"Is it . . . 
old or gold
?" The studio audience jubilantly
chants this catchphrase, applauding themselves and laughing. (Thrilling stuff,
no?) A panel of three tries to guess each antique's value while an antiques
"expert" sits there, sneering. His job's to reveal the truth. He
says. Former civilizations created brilliant musical liturgies and literature
reaching the highest spheres of art. We add stupendous technology to this particular
cake mix—and produce gunge.

There's only one dicey bit: You've got to believe the expert. The
reason the whole absurd carry-on's so fascinating is of course antiques
themselves. They're exactly what life is: exalting, beautiful, and an
exhilarating risk. Or fake.

Toffee's feline brain sussed out the scene's potential and wisely
switched off. I was just settling next to a nice Birmingham bird who insisted
on telling me all about other telly shows she'd been to, when Sykie's action
started. A thin terrified woman carrying a clipboard tore on, twisting with
anguish.

Would you believe, she announced, but a panelist had—gasp!— flu
and a volunteer was needed from the audience. She ran about, demented. People
frantically rose to volunteer as one. I sat, bored out of my mind, until a
Sykie-prompted knee nudged my seat's back and I obediently raised my hand. I
can take a hint. The corkscrewing lady rotated down the aisle and picked me. I
gave a glowering Sykes lad Toffee to hold, and followed the lady into a kind of
barber's where a lank bird in jeans tried to put powder on my face. I wasn't
having that, and saw her off. I made the panel unsullied. The show was Going
Out Live, they told us breathlessly, as if we'd all be moribund otherwise.

So we panelists sat there on these neffie tubular steel chairs
that hurt your spine. I eyed the others mistrustfully. Two youngsters were
penning our names on cards. "Lovejoy," I told my particular youth
when he asked. For some reason the duckegg was crawling on the floor. I shrugged.
Whatever turns you on.

"And here's Veronica Gold!" a deity boomed. Applause and
swivelling
lights. This fetching bird marched on amid
pandemonium. She's attractive, in a rather threatening manner. Worship me, her
smile commands, or I'll liquidate you. We'd been instructed to call her Goldie.
The suicidal comic flagged the applause to a mere tumult, and we were off.

"Our panelists this week," Goldie trilled, "are
Famous Television Personality . . ."I listened with half an ear.

This FTP was quite a pleasant scholarly bloke who looked in from
the country, Peter Something. I vaguely recalled him reading the news years
ago. Then an intense lass of savage plainness called Beth, a Famous Feminist
Author and Equal-Right Journalist, as if there is such a thing. And me.

"And," Goldie beamed, "tonight's Volunteer
Celebrity Panelist, selected for one hundred consecutive viewings of this
program— Lovejoy."

"Er, sorry, love," I interrupted. "Never watch it,
I'm afraid."

Her eyes glazed. "What?"

"Bit of a run-in over the TV license."

The comic wafted the feeble applause into a riot, and blew it out
with a horizontal swipe of his newspaper.

"No significance in Lovejoy's name, folks!" cried Goldie
desperately.

The comic leaps into action. A gale of laughter, then silence. It
was getting on my nerves, but it was their business. If this ludicrous
pantomime made me immune from Sykie's righteous anger, I'd play along. I'd been
happier flogging hankies.

"And now it's time to play . . ." Goldie chirped gaily.

"Old or gold!" the audience thundered. And on came the
first item.

It was a small piece of niello jewelry on a velvet card, brought
in by a brown-coated serf. The ex-newsreader guessed it Russian, worth a
fortune. Beth the journalist talked until she was signaled by yet another
creeping kulak—God, they seemed everywhere, crawling about. Like being in a
bloody dogs' home. One kept jabbing a finger at me and then at Goldie, telling
me to keep staring at our elegant compere. Obligingly I tried, but kept getting
distracted by somebody dangling past in the semigloom beyond the lights.

Somebody had asked me something. "Eh?"

Goldie looked narked. "Beth says stylized French, two
centuries old, and five thousand pounds. Your guess, Lovejoy?"

My turn. "Oh, thank you," I said politely. "Crappy
modem junk, love. Not worth a light."

A split second of silence, then Goldie smoothly moved on. "So
three distinct views. But is it. . . ?"

"Old or gold!" everybody yelled.

Our expert, a museum curator, emerged to a drumroll and pulled a
lever. A massive screen above us showed carousel numbers clicking past. They
stopped at twenty-six. I fell about laughing. The clapping faltered, stopped.

"Yes, three points to Lovejoy," Goldie announced
brightly. "He is in good humor at his success!"

"Not that, love," I said. "You'd never get
twenty-six quid for that rubbish. It's penny a ton. Thailand stuff,
mass-produced. There's no variation in the niello, see? Ancient niello makers
stuck to the old Cellini one-two-three step formula, silver is to copper is to
lead. So do the Thais, incidentally, but their absolute mix is—"

"Thank you," screamed Goldie, smiling a terrible smile
at a camera. There were lots of these. A red light kept shining, first on one,
then another. Pretty clever, really. "And the next item is . . ."

A lady walked on wearing an amber necklace. She was a good
middle-aged handful for some fortunate yokel. Her beads were bonny, simply
carved, a light orange.

"Amberoid," I said in disgust without rising to examine
the necklace and thinking, no wonder we're all morons these days if this is
your average telly. Why show dross when you needn't? The lady exhibiting them
looked lost. "Not your fault, love," I told her kindly. "Wiser
heads than yours have fallen for it. Amber fragments heated together. You can
tell by the longitudinal striations. Maybe a couple of quid on a bad day."

In the mutterings that followed, Beth actually won that round
because the expert said a hundred quid and she'd guessed nearest.

But when the next serf brought out this vase I really did burst
out in a guffaw. I just couldn't help it. It was on the far side so I couldn't
see it clearly at first. Its shape told me enough—well, almost. Only as tall as
your ordinary neffie modem ornament, it was a pale apple green, bulbous at the
base and slender-necked. I laughed because everybody gets scores of these Hong
Kong replicas every week. They're less than a quid each, delivered.

"It's another blinking fake," I said, falling about to
Goldie's obvious fury. I couldn't help it.

Then something happened. I stopped.

Distantly, yet deep within me, a faint peal of bells sounded.
Their chimes intensified, increased, until I was deafened by the resonance.
Appalled, I felt myself shake. Their clamor actually set me quivering. Not real
bells, you understand, but total.

The serf came nearer, placed the vase on a stand. The pedestal
rotated. I thought, Oh God, no. The world was suddenly glowing. Dimly I heard
Goldie say, all acid, "Lovejoy's especially amused ..." but by then I
was up and at the vase, apologizing heartbroken.

There it stood, its luscious ancient soul radiating while I chimed
like a Sunday church. Sometimes I'm just thick. I could hardly speak from grief
at what I'd just said to it. Alone, among this cretinoidal gathering, it was
magic.