The Rich And The Profane (7 page)

‘Lovejoy!’ Metivier came out, trotted after me. I kept going.

‘Oh, it’s you. You’re that Lovejoy, aren’t you?’ The lady got out, flashing a mile of leg. Smart red suit, hem cut just so, necklace that could have bought me, cottage and all. ‘Wait for the abbot.’

‘No.’

‘Stop him,’ she said quietly, and I was grabbed in a flurry of habits. A monk held me. He looked old enough to be my grampa, but God he was wiry. There must be something in this religion business.

‘Phone the police, Gesso,’ I called out. Gesso shook his head like you do at a disobedient dog. ‘I’m being kidnapped.’ The woman was the one from the auction, Irma’s Auntie Crucifex.

‘You’re being stupid,’ said the woman. ‘Take him to the vigil cell.’

And they did. And me innocent, if there is such a thing.

An hour later I’d cooled my heels. The cell had a small altar, two modem candlesticks of machined brass, a plain cross, a tabernacle. The window showed where the original stained glass had been excised, for a cheapo painted glass replacement concreted in. I’d seen holier sheds.

You can’t do much in a vigil cell, except vig. So I pondered.

The Channel Islands were news to me. I’d never been there. What did I know about them, offhand? Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm. Were there more? Odd facts, like the Dame of Sark never lets motor cars ashore. There’s no love lost between Guernsey and Jersey, word is, because the former feels disadvantaged and the latter’s a snob. Herm is minute. Tourists abound. Did I know anything else?

Bits of the Channel Islands still have their own variants of the old Norman lingo, varying parish to parish. No antiques I could think of. No great tradition of joinery or jewellery, no dazzlingly brilliant silversmiths slogging away.

End of message. I’d been chucked into the priory’s pokey, I was especially narked to remember, on the orders not of Prior George, but of a trendy bird.

Two hours later, I’d searched my cell top to bottom. From outside I could hear some plainchant, nuns’ fragile warbling contrasting with the monks’ uneven bass. I felt daft and embittered. What God lets visitors get imprisoned? I’d only come from interest, to see how a religious community actually works, hadn’t I? Well, no. I’d come because Prior Metivier promised me filthy lucre, but I was still a person interested in God’s rotten old priory. I sulked.

After a third hour I wanted to pee, but there was no loo. The doors were locked. I decided to wait until everything went quiet - even the Inquisition had a rest now and then - whereupon I’d break a window and do a moonlight into Aldeburgh.

Just when I was getting really desperate there came a rattle of keys, locks, bolts. The door opened. A midget nun stood there.

‘Please come, my son,’ she piped. Son? That crinkly white biscuit-tin paper round their faces makes them all look like comely teenagers.

‘Where to?’ I didn’t budge.

‘To the prior’s sanctum.’

‘No. I’ve had enough.’ I stalked past her. Three monks stood in the cloister. Noisy, they’d have been formidable. Silent, they looked scary. ‘Which way?’ I asked the nun.

She walked ahead. Following a nun is quite boring, whereas following any other woman’s quite interesting. There’s always something to see. I heard the monks’ sandals going slap-slap-slap behind me. They let me have a pee in a spartan loo.

Then I felt it. We were going along a cloister when I stumbled. For a second I thought somebody had clouted me. I looked about. Nobody, except the nun, turning to see what the heck, and my trailing gaolers.

We were on one side of the inner courtyard. Work had ceased for the whilst. Against the cloister wall, no windows, was an array of artefacts on loose tiered shelving. Prior Metivier had evidently learnt display from his trip to the boot fair. Some had labels,
ciborium - twelfth century;
and
vellum hours of the virgin - English, fifteenth century,
and the like. They were covered by plastic.

‘Are you well, my son?’ asked this little titch in her saintly falsetto.

‘Eh? Ta, er, nun,’ I said. ‘I feel a bit queer.’

‘Please rest a moment.’

She pulled away the plastic, giving me room to perch.

The feeling worsened. I doubled with a groan, sweat coming down my face. I felt really giddy. Then I saw it. Up and to the left, almost burning my shoulder, was a metal animal mask. It looked home-made, as if some kiddie had worked it in Plasticine. Two recesses showed where eyes had been. Less than five inches wide, its mouth held a metal ring. Flecks of goldish colour gleamed, where inlay had once been. It was a simple handle. I looked, felt, listened. No, just the one. The other of the pair was missing.

‘Is he unwell, Sister Cecilia?’ one of the monks said, voice sepulchral.

‘He seems overcome, Brother Gervaise. Please bring his friend.’

Friend? I hadn’t any friends. Somebody brought me water. It tasted foul. I sipped, grimaced.

‘From our own healing pool, Lovejoy,’ the nun said with asperity. ‘People come on pilgrimages to drink it.’

The more fool them, I thought. I moved away, vigilantly followed by the sandalled soldiery. Gesso appeared, with the prior, who dismissed my guardians.

‘Hello, Lovejoy. Which is it?’ Gesso looked pleased. ‘Is it that pewter tankard?’

There was a tankard, a modem Spanish fake looking every day of its age - about four weeks. French forgers buy these pewters wholesale, and age them by either burying them in new-cut grass for a few weeks or giving them a black acid-stained patina. As genuine antique pewter pieces have soared in value, so has the number of fakes and their quality. No, it wasn’t the fake tankard.

‘What d’you mean?’ I asked, but the game was up.

Gesso pulled the plastic, left it crumpled.

‘Stand close, Lovejoy.’ Gesso was grinning, like traitors always do.

‘No.’ I nodded at the bronze handle. ‘That.’

‘This old handle?’ Prior Metivier lifted it down, truly amazed.

‘They used to make them in pairs. Chinese. There should be semi-precious stones for eyes. The fact they’re missing won’t lower the auction price much.’

‘How old, Lovejoy?’ Metivier stood. ‘We priced it at ten pounds.’

‘It will buy a new house.’

The bonny lady approached. She held a cigarette, determined to look out of place, and succeeding.

‘What is it?’ she rasped.

You know when two people look at each other and you know there’s something between them? Well, I felt exactly that. She and the prior were more than just good friends. Metivier determinedly kept his eyes averted. She had no such inhibitions. Her eyes were only for him.

‘Lovejoy’s identified an antique.’ He looked at me. ‘Chinese?’

‘Older than all you saints, Prior. Remarkable that it’s preserved.’

‘Indeed.’ He smiled at the lady. ‘And to think, Mrs Crucifex, that we were about to invoke Lovejoy’s assistance in a—’

‘Where do we sell it, Lovejoy?’ Mrs Crucifex cut in.

‘London auction, or a private broker-buyer.’ I shrugged. ‘Don’t let Gesso melt it down and make Christmas cracker brooches.’

That was nasty, because Gesso had once nicked some gold Roman staters from the castle museum. He’d melted the coins down to make pendants. That way, he changed rare ancient coins into cheap trinkets. He coloured in anger.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ Prior George placated. ‘Lovejoy, I

would like to thank you for coming. Mrs Crucifex, would you care to offer Lovejoy a lift home?’

‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘Can I go?’

Metivier smiled. ‘For now. We’ll need you later.’

but somehow I was there.

The ground was wet. In the air hung a strange cloying smell. I heard the person returning, so laid myself flat in the thick coarse grass. A beam cut the air but couldn’t get through the low-hanging trees. I could hear the strange sucking plop noises of the hot muddy pool. It was that that I’d come to see.

The moon shone on its surface when I raised my head to look. Odd scrubby reeds grew there. Nothing grew in its middle. It was some ten feet across, and was having one of its gurgling and spitting fits. Not spectacular, like those New Zealand geysers or the American volcanic spouts, but it was the best East Anglia’s undulating countryside could manage in the way of horror.

Every so often, it bubbled up enough to source a stream once the water cooled. The great thing was, fossils came up from deep under the earth. They had their original colours, too, unlike those that had been buried for millions of years. Rumours abounded of dinosaur bones, vertebrae and suchlike, still linked, being found in the stream bed, almost as if the pool had reached down and—

‘Aaaagh!’ I screeched, fighting the hand off.

‘Goodness
sake,
Lovejoy!’

‘Ergh, ergh!’ I was frantic.

Moonlight, yes, but the voice was Florida’s. I was not ten years old.

‘Oh, hello, love.’ Cool, calm Lovejoy.

Shakily I scrabbled for a match, lit a candle stub. Florida was about to climb in beside me.

‘Honestly! I hurry to you, and I’m the monster from the deep!’

‘No images, please.’ I relaxed. ‘Have you brought any grub?’

‘You’re sweating buckets, Lovejoy.’ She got a towel, mopped me briskly. ‘Turn over. Worse than any child. Having a bad dream?’

‘Yes. The hot pool at Albansham Priory.’

‘Hardly the most frightening puddle in the universe, Lovejoy. Yes, to food. And thank you, Florida darling, would be super.’

‘Ta, dwoorlink,’ I said obediently.

Waking up in the early evening, hardly dark yet, gives you a headache. My headaches go for gold, real temple-splitters. Waking up from a nightmare makes things worse, not better. I dangled my legs over the edge of the bed.

‘Did you get it?’

‘Get what? The prize money? Soon, darling. I bet far too much!’ She trilled a laugh. Florida’s gorgeous and rich. She gambles heavily on her horses. I could scent the grub. It was in those tin foil boxes that startle you because they’re hotter than you think.

‘Not your nags. I meant the glass vase.’

‘Oh, that,’ Florida said, airy. ‘I forgot. But guess what, Lovejoy? My lovely boy Sharpies got through to the semifinal of the Bycroft Cup!’

‘You forgot?’ I stared at her. Lovely, but a pest.

The previous Saturday, Florida had shown me some photographs. Like all pictures of horsey gentry, they were of stupefying dullness. Except one. It showed Florida laughing with her friend Tara. They were somewhere indoors, a massive boudoir - lady’s room ‘for sulking in’, according to the original French.

On the dressing table was a piece of Galle. It was indistinct, because Florida and her pal were the centre of focus, but it looked for all the world like an artichoke vase. ‘Standard Galle’ glass, collectors call it, but you can’t mistake the white opaque mutton-fat look of the body, with the marquetry-on-glass coloured covering on parts of the vase’s lovely curved form. Its base looks solid agate. Genius. And Florida
forgot?

Emile Galle was a glass-maker’s son in Lorraine, and studied in Weimar (yes, that one) before starting up with his dad in Nancy. Before he died, in 1904, Emile was world famous. I like his art. He experimented with glass night and day. A man after my own heart. He became the glassmaker hero of Art Nouveau, and I do mean everybody’s champ. There’s a rule of thumb among antiques dealers that if a piece is signed by Galle it was made some time after 1889, but that’s not always true.

When I’d first asked Florida about the vase, she’d said, ‘Oh, Tara wants to get rid of all her old stuff, have a real throwout.’

Needless to say, I’d begged her to persuade Tara to chuck the vase my way. Now I get, ‘I forgot.’ Yet she remembers that her stupid nag jumped over some sticks. You’re in a bad way when you call a horse a lovely boy.

‘Can I go and see Tara?’

Florida was undoing the foils. ‘Lovejoy. Tara wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole. She’s not into rough trade yobbos.’

‘Like me?’

She darted me a mischievous smile, battling the luscious aroma.

‘Lovejoy. Eat up like a good boy.’

‘Ta, love.’ I got the plate, and screamed as the scalding thing charred my naked thigh. I almost spilled the damned thing. Florida laughed so much that tears came. Her beautiful form shook and quivered. I eyed her, wolfed the grub. Sometimes your mind doesn’t know what comes first.

We made hectic love. After a rest we imposed further demands, and then slumbered in a sweaty conglomerate. Instead of dozing, for once I found myself thinking. It’s always a hazard.

There’s this theory about civilization, isn’t there, that it travels ever westwards. As one civilization fades another starts, but always west. Like, China, India, then Persia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, England and now America. I think it’s rubbish myself, because what about all the civilizations we miss out? Anyway, what
is
civilization?

Many folk say it’s crime.

Not long since, everybody in our village left cars unlocked, babies in gardens, doors unlatched, let children walk to school. Now, we think Carnage City. Everything has floodlights. Our very doors are wired to the Plod. Think of Victorian England, where every known vice abounded. If civilization does move west, and America does tote Lady Culture’s lamp, then the flame singes the populace. Maybe crime and culture are inseparables. Now? Now it’s Russia and China. Round and round it goes.

By the time I’d recovered and brewed up, Florida was awake. I got her talking about Irma - whom she knew - and Mrs Crucifex, whom she disliked with a woman’s indelible passion. I asked why. Florida said, very disapproving, that Mrs Crucifex had too many husbands, in too many places. I did my ???, and got it on the nail.

Mrs Crucifex, from the Channel Isles. I said how I’d met her, and where.

‘That place?’ Florida almost spilt her tea in fury. She made a wondrous sight, sitting up in the candleglow, her breasts curved and her shoulders with that lovely sheen. ‘Albansham Priory is on its last legs. That phoney man and his sow of a sister.’