Firefly Gadroon (7 page)

While she made breakfast and I shaved I couldn’t help thinking about her. Antique oriental art. We’d been close when she first hove in from one of the coastal fishing villages. Eventually she bought a little terraced house in the ancient Dutch quarter near the antiques arcade, and she’d arrived. Now, I thought, politely passing the marmalade, why are we suddenly so friendly again? It haunted me all the way into town, because antique oriental art includes Japanese firefly cages of the Edo period, right?

Sadly, I’m afraid this next chunk is about that terrible stuff called money and those precious delectables we call antiques. You’ve probably got cartloads of both. But if you are penniless please read on and save yourself a bob or two.

Helen dropped me in the arcade. This is a long glass-covered pavement walk with minute alcoves leading off. Each is no more than a single room-sized shop with a recess at the back. It doesn’t sound a lot but costs the earth in rates. That’s why we dealers regard possession of a drum in the arcade as a sign that you’re one of the elite. Woody’s Bar perfumes the place with an aroma of charred grease. We all meet there for nosh because it’s the cheapest known source of cholesterol-riddled pasties and we can all watch Lisa undulate between tables. She’s a tall willowy PhD archaeologist temporarily forced into useful employment by the research cutbacks – the only known benefit of any postwar government. Woody keeps messages for barkers like Tinker while serving up grilled typhoid. I always pop in to Woody’s for a cup of outfall first, to suss out the day’s scene.

‘Wotcher, Woody!’ I called breezily. ‘Tea and an archaeologist, please.’

‘It’s arrived, lads,’ Woody croaked. He’s a corpulent moustache in a greasy apron. ‘Chain it down.’

‘Here, Lovejoy.’ That was Brad beckoning through the acrid fumes. He’d only want to moan about the scandalous prices flintlocks were bringing. He couldn’t be more upset about it than me, so I pretended not to see him for the smoke.

A few mutters of greeting and glances from bloodshot eyeballs acknowledged my arrival. My public. Pilsen was in, a half-crazy religious kite collector who lives down on the Lexton fields somewhere. Devlin was absent, which mercifully postponed the next war. Harry Bateman was in the far corner still trying to buy a complete early Worcester dining set for a dud shilling, and Jason our ex-army man was still shaking his head. What puzzles me is that Harry – a typical antique dealer, never paid a good price for anything in his life – thinks other people are unreasonable. Liz Sandwell waved, smiling. She’s high class, a youngish bird with her own shop in Dragonsdale village. Her own bloke’s a rugby player, but I’d never seen the geezer she had with her now. She had three pieces of Russian niello jewellery pendants on the table between them – think of silver delicately ingrained with black. One was the pendant Devlin had complained to me about. I crossed ever so casually near her but Liz stopped talking so I couldn’t hear the prices. Wise lass. That way I landed Pilsen.

‘Wotcher, Pilsen. Get rid of your scroll?’

‘A blessing from the Lord upon thy morning,’ Pilsen intoned, hand raised.

‘Er, ta, Pilsen.’ I sat gingerly opposite while his head bowed in prayer.

‘May heaven bring its grace upon Lovejoy and our holy meeting.’

‘Tea, Lovejoy.’ Lisa plonked a cup down. She always ruffles my thatch. ‘Money, please. Woody says no credit for the likes of you.’

‘Ruined any good antiques lately?’ We’re always arguing. I’ve not forgiven Lisa for what the professional archaeologists did to the Roman graves at Stanway, bloody grave-robbers.

‘Don’t start.’ She edged away. ‘And keep your hands off my leg.’

‘Oh God. Forgive thy erring servant Lovejoy his wickedness . . .’

‘Shut up praying, Pilsen.’ Religion’s bad for the soul. ‘That Ethiopian amulet scroll. What’s your price?’

‘A Cantonese ceremonial dragon kite,’ he said instantly. ‘Or no sale.’

I sighed. I’d been trying to get that Ethiopian scroll for months. There are literally thousands knocking about, but Pilsen’s was special. They are passed down in families which festoon their donkeys, sometimes as many as three dozen dripping from a single beast’s neck to protect them on the road. Richer people had silver filigree containers as long as your finger to hold one. Others put them in horn cylinders or leather boxes. At the time of that appalling drought, dealers went over and shipped them on to the antiques markets of the world literally by the hundredweight. St Michael’s a popular figure, usually the main one of five pictures separated longitudinally by calligraphed passages from Gospels. The eyes will prove them genuine. Nobody can paint those eyes with only a stick like the old Copts. Those and the delectable glowing brick-orange of the dyes. Pilsen’s was the oldest and best-preserved scroll I’d ever seen, and he wanted the impossible.

‘A Bible box?’ I offered resignedly.

‘Get knotted,’ said this holy paragon. He gave me a quick blessing and shot out of the door, having been waved at through Woody’s window by Maud. Now there’s a thing, I thought. Pilsen and Maud. Well, well. Maud took his arm and they strolled off down the arcade. She was being her beautiful best, suited and high-heeled. The slop of her social worker set was gone. She looked straight off a fashion page. Odderer still. I decided to follow. Lily tried flagging me down from her table but I hurtled past.

‘See you in the White Hart, love.’

‘But Tinker said . . .’

I dithered frantically, then resigned myself and screeched to a stop. Just as I’m Tinker’s only source of income, so Tinker’s messages are my only lifeline. Lily hopefully pushed the tissue paper bundles across the table as I plumped down.

‘. . . you’ll have these.’

That sounded a bit high-handed for Tinker. Lily was risking a bowl of Woody’s opaque gelatinous soup. She used to be with Patrick until the Widow Deirdre homed in on him. Now she miserably endures her pleasant husband and all the comforts of home and affluence. Looking across at her I despaired of women. Some just seem to need to carry a heavy crucifix, and I’ll bet crucifixes don’t come any heavier than Patrick. Yet since losing him she’d been at a low ebb. The trouble is I’m too soft.

‘Right, love.’ I slipped them into my pocket, nodding. Pilsen and Maud would be in the High Street by now. ‘Settle up later tonight?’

Lily was relieved. ‘Thanks, Lovejoy. They’re not perfect.’

‘Who is, love?’ I cracked, bussed her and shot out into the arcade, managing to ignore Woody’s howl for his tea money, impudent berk. Gelt, for that swill. I ask you.

And Pilsen and Maud had gone. Great. I darted frantically among the shoppers for a few minutes hoping to see them but kept falling over pushchairs and dogs. Margaret was at the door of her shop. She’d seen me streak past.

She curtsied. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

I went in resignedly. ‘Wotcher, Margaret. Still got the Norfolk lanterns?’

‘Special price for you, Lovejoy.’

Gazing about the interior of her enclosure depressed me more. Practically all of her stuff was priced and labelled by me because we’re, er, close. Margaret’s one of those older women who are clever dressers, interesting and bonny; she has a slight limp from some marriage campaign. Nobody asks about her bloke, whoever he was. His dressing-gown fits me, though.

‘Put them to one side for me, love.’

You’ll see a thousand reproduction Norfolk lamps for every genuine antique one, and a real antique pair is so rare that . . . well, it’s no good going on. Imagine you took an ordinary earthenware drinking mug, complete with handle, then bored assorted holes in the side. You’d have made a Norfolk lantern. They were used with oil and a perforating wick or, more usually, a candle stump. The holes are often arranged in cruciform patterns. Margaret got them from an old farmhouse. Well, I thought, I owe everybody else. Why not admit Margaret to my famous payment-by-deficit scheme?

‘Did Lily catch you with her coal carvings?’

Coal carvings?
‘Eh?’

‘What’s the matter?’

I sat on a reed-bottomed Suffolk chair and fumbled the tissue paper bundles out. There were three. It’s difficult not having a lap so I unwrapped them one by one. A little cart, crudely done, an even more imperfect donkey, and a little
hut of some sort. All very poor quality, each chipped and frayed. But definitely coal. Miners everywhere have tried a hand at carving the ‘black diamond’, but there was a world of difference between the lovely firefly cage and these. These were crude rubbish, the most inept carvings I’d ever seen. Modern crap. I wrapped them, thinking hard.

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Not yet.’

I had to catch Lily and find where she’d got them, though this isn’t the sort of thing one antique dealer ever dares ask another. Oddly, they reminded me of something or somebody . . . I looked up. The alcove had suddenly darkened and there was this chauffeur, resplendent in uniform. I stared. He looked as though he’d left a thoroughbred nag tethered to the traffic lights.

‘You Lovejoy?’ he snapped, all crisp.

‘Yes.’

‘Come on.’ Clearly not a man to be trifled with.

‘Clear off.’ I stayed on the Suffolk chair.

‘You’ve to come with me,’ he said, amazed. ‘Mrs Hepplestone instructs.’

Oho. So my newspaper advert had gone full circle. I’d throttle Elsie for turning me in, especially to a serf like this.

‘Sorry, mate.’

He reached over and hauled me to my feet. ‘Don’t muck me about,’ he was saying threateningly when his voice cut off owing to me taking reprisals. I had to be careful because Margaret always has a lovely display of porcelain in, and never enough reliable shelves to show the pieces off properly. He gasped for air while I leant him against the door jamb.

Margaret hastily put the ‘Closed’ notice up. ‘Lovejoy! Stop it this instant!’

‘He started it!’ Honestly, I thought, narked. It’s no good. Even trying to stay innocent I get the blame. There’s no justice.

‘I saw you!’ she accused. ‘You fisted him in the abdomen.’

A couple of potential browsers peered in, smiling, then reeled hurriedly away at the scene in the shop. Time I went. No way of winning here for the moment.

‘See you, love.’

‘But this poor man . . .’

‘Chance of a quick sale.’ I grinned and left him wheezing.

Lily had gone when I reached Woody’s again. I asked Lisa where to but nobody knew. It was one of those days. Thinking hard about the three crummy coal carvings, I wandered disconsolately along the arcade, exchanging the odd word here and there with the lads and lassies. A kid could have carved better. Yet they were a clue, if I could only think.

Jane Felsham saw me shambling past and hauled me in – well, beckoned imperiously. I’ve a soft spot for Jane. She’s thirtyish and shapely, mainly English watercolours and Georgian silver. She sports a mile-long fag-holder to keep us riff-raff at bay.

‘Your big moment to help, Lovejoy,’ she told me airily. ‘To work.’

Remembering Tinker’s admonition to fix a price for my services first, I drew breath. Then Jane showed me the plate. It was wriggle-work, genuine wriggle-work. My mind went blank and I was into her place like a flash. All was suddenly peace and light. Pewter’s the most notoriously difficult collecting field, but some pieces just leap at you. This was a William III plate, with a crowned portrait bust of the King centred in a rim decorated by engraved wriggles. It screamed originality. Many don’t care for pewter, but its value should ease
any artistic qualms you have. Weight for weight it can be more precious than silver. It had the right pewter sheen, like reflection from a low sun on our sea marshes. Modern copies don’t have it, though heaven knows some are great. Jane was poking me.

‘Lovejoy. I asked is it original?’

‘Luscious,’ I confessed brokenly. ‘Just feel its beat.’

She was delighted. While I priced and labelled it correctly my eyes lit upon a genuine old Sphairistike racquet. I couldn’t block my involuntary exclamation. Jane looked puzzled.

‘That? I thought it was just an old tennis racket—’

I sighed. People really hurt my feelings sometimes. ‘Once upon a time, love, a retired major invented a game for playing on the croquet lawn. He invented a name, too. Sphairistike. It’s called tennis now.’

That pewter sheen lured my eyes back but it would cost my cottage. I asked her if she had any coal carvings. She said no without emitting a single bleep.

I left and did a bit more divvying for the goons in the arcade, seeing I was unemployed and had passed up the only chance I had of improving matters. Anyhow, I reasoned, Josiah Wedgwood’s famous ‘Fourteenth Commandment’ was ‘Thou shalt not be idle,’ so who am I to quibble? I asked everywhere about coal carvings. Harry Bateman caught my interest with an old countryman’s dove-feeder, genuine eighteenth-century. They make reproductions in country potteries now, but the shape’s the same – a big stoneware bottle siamesed to a smaller one, with half of the side scooped from the titch to let the bird drink. Jenny thought she had a priceless item – a King Alfred hammered silver penny.

‘It’s been mounted, love.’ I showed her the plug where somebody had sealed the pendant attachment. Mounts or
holes in a coin don’t quite make it worthless but my advice is to simply move on.

‘Does it matter?’ she asked, poor soul. ‘That only proves it’s real, though, doesn’t it?’

‘It would have been worth a year’s takings. Now . . .’ I saw her eyes fill at the disappointment and scarpered. I had enough problems without taking on psychotherapy. And neither Harry nor Jenny had seen a coal carving in months.

Dig Mason was waiting for me and dragged me across the arcade. He’s the wealthiest dealer in the arcade. I quite like Dig, though he has more money than sense. Like now.

‘You didn’t buy
that,
Dig?’

‘Sure.’

Fairings are so-called ‘amusing’ pottery figures you used to win at fairs for roll-a-penny or chucking balls into buckets. They were made in Germany between 1860 and 1890, and were given away as worthless in junk shops when I was a kid. Now, things being the way they are, they cost the earth – well, at least a full week’s wages for one.