Gold by Gemini (16 page)

She shrugged. ‘Anyway, there may be nothing nice there,’ she countered. ‘And keep your hand off my knee when I’m driving, Lovejoy.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ My hand had actually fallen on her knee again. My mind was on other things.

No matter what the auction is, somewhere deep in that crush of old mangles, derelict bikes and discarded trinkets is a gem, a real trophy going for a song.

I’ve never yet been to an auction where every single thing’s rubbish. I don’t deny that on viewing day you’ll hear plenty of people all about you saying disgustedly, ‘Did you ever see such rubbish?’ Have you ever wondered why? If you’d spotted, say, the missing chunk of the Cullinan Diamond thinly disguised as a paperweight between a battered radio and a heap of gardening tools, what else would you do but go about pretending everything was a waste of time? I mean, you don’t want all Hatton Garden clattering in. So naturally you go about saying it’s all a heap of dross. Loudly. Often. We call it ‘shading’ the stock. It puts honest people (me, maybe you) off. You’d be surprised how effective it is. You’d also be astonished at seeing how
many of these doom-gospellers actually turn up on sale days all eager to bid for the same rubbish they’ve previously decried.

Janie put the Lagonda in Gimbert’s yard with the dealers’ old bangers. We left it looking like a cathedral among kennels. We walked down the hill, Janie primly keeping her distance from me and smiling good mornings to one and all. We were all assembling. Barkers tend to huddle in doorways, smoking and nodding. A housewife who will be bidding usually stands waiting vigilantly in one spot, presumably in case Sotheby’s suddenly send a dozen experts to bid for the ashtray she fancies.

It’s a saying round here that the best trees are found in forests, and they’re very hard to tell from all the rest. When you go bidding just remember that people aren’t what they say or think or seem. We’re all what we
do.

There were already eighty or so people in. Everybody was on tenterhooks, hearts thumping and fingers itching. I had to tell Janie about her coat. She had unconsciously adopted the old shoplifter’s trick of carrying her coat over her arm.

‘Do you mean they’d think me a . . . thief?’ She was outraged.

‘No, love. Er,’ I invented, ‘you
remind
them, that’s all.’ It had to do, though she was deeply riled. The dealers relaxed as she slipped the coat over her shoulders.

This morning, Gimbert’s auction warehouse was offering several hundred items of assorted junk ranging from battered old tables to tatty trinkets in those pathetic little boxes signifying recent bereavements and relatives desperate to clear out. Some people say all life’s only must, dust and rust. People wandered
about among the bicycles and lawnmowers, mostly without any idea. From the entrance it was ugly, dowdy, pretty rough. To me, exquisite. Somewhere in all that rubbish was that missing Leonardo. I would find it or get damned close. To some that single bargain would be nothing more than a ring, a worn Edwardian matchbox, a Victorian maid’s mob cap. To me, a delight as spectacular as the Crown Jewels.

There’s a technique. You
drift.
Don’t tear in thinking to see it all and race on to the next auction. Don’t search. Idle about. After an hour or so a gradual change takes place. Objects begin to move like swallows shuffling on a wire. I swear it. You can feel it, even see it. Dusty old items you wouldn’t look at twice shift into prominence as if they somehow grow taller and beckon stealthily. But take no notice yet, just carry on drifting. In time one will be practically shrieking for your attention. That grotty old desk covered with rubbish will have grown to twice its size and be throbbing like an old cinema organ. Everything else will fade into the background. And of course it will turn out to be a genuine early New England block-fronted desk, so ugly yet so much desired today. On a good day maybe two or even three items call you. Once I even had to mortgage my cottage again to pay for the seven delicious items I’d bought.

Smiling with anticipation, I drifted in.

Gimbert’s is two enormous galleries half-roofed in glass so the shadows confuse the innocent. Light’s the auctioneer’s worst enemy. It isn’t bad as auction halls go but you have to watch it. Ringers turn up once a month. They’re easy to spot, shuffling about looking at customers and nowhere else the way they do. They
have
to, in case a serious collector turns up. If one does he spells trouble – the collector may be willing to pay
an antique’s true worth and ringers aren’t. They pretend to ignore the desired object, except for one ringer who bids. After the auction they’ll meet in some bar and auction the antique among themselves, sharing the net gain.

It’s illegal.

‘Morning, Lovejoy.’ Dear old Beck! Fancy that.

‘Morning.’

‘On the borrow?’ he asked, grinning. ‘Or selling that Isen?’

He’d fished me more than once, knowing I can’t help going after antiques. You fish friends – or, indeed, enemies – by telling them, say, a genuine painting by Isen (Kano Eishin) is somewhere or other, making it up. Well, who in their right mind can resist Isen’s luscious white highlighted robes and his gusting winds driving those painted ships? Naturally one hares off after it. For somebody like Beck it’s a joke. For somebody like me, going without grub to raise the fare on a wild goose chase, it’s no giggle.

‘Sold it,’ I said back coolly. He stared. ‘Thanks for the tip, Beckie.’ That shut him up.

I drifted on, nodding and passing the occasional word. A mote spoon donged for attention from among a mass of crud in a crammed cutlery drawer. I’m always astonished people’s heads don’t swivel at the sudden clanging. The trouble is that genuine antiques make your breathing funny, I went over casually and pretended to examine the kitchen cabinet. Mote spoons are often forged, but this was true 1752 or so. No maker’s mark. Odd long pointed handle and a fenestrated bowl.

Lily and Patrick arrived to look at the phoney tapestries and Big Frank lumbered in to maul the silver.
Delmer came flashily in, staggering under the weight of his gold rings. Even before he was through the door those of us who knew him glanced about to see where the books were heaped and stepped out of the way because he’s a fast mover. I like dealers like Delmer. Only books. He’d walk past a Rubens crucifixion painting to bid for a paperback. Sure enough he streaked for the corner, slamming a nice pair of Suffolk chairs aside on the way. I sighed. It takes all sorts, but God alone knows why.

‘Anything, Lovejoy?’ Tinker Dill, an unnerving sight this early, obediently emerging from the mob on time. This was toy cue. I hoped Tinker could remember his lines.

‘Not really, Tinker.’ I made sure I said it wrong enough for alert friends to notice.

‘I’ll slide off, then.’

‘Er, no, Tinker.’ A lot of ears pricked. ‘Hang about.’

‘Lovejoy wants you to bid for that drawerful of old knives and forks, Tinker.’ Beck again.

‘Right,’ I said angrily. I didn’t have to act. Beck really does rile me. ‘Get it, Tinker.’

‘It looks a right load of rubbish, Lovejoy –’ Tinker, badly overacting.

‘
Get it
, Tinker.’

‘Lost your wool?’ Beck said innocently. ‘Just because I got that Burne-Jones sketch? Sold it yesterday, incidentally. To your friend, businessman with the blonde.’ So Rink had traced it successfully after all. I hadn’t time to worry about the implications for the minute.

‘Look, Lovejoy –’

‘Do as you’re bloody well told, Tinker.’

I pushed off through the crowd, pretending to be blazing.

‘Easy, Lovejoy.’ Lennie offering me a fag. I shook my head irritably. I deserved an Oscar.

‘Those bloody trawlies get to me, Lennie.’

‘Jill said she’d be in with that opal photo.’

‘Thanks.’ I’d dated it for her, about 1800. Photographs were once done on opal glass and coloured by watercolours. She was asking the earth, naturally.

I drifted. Delmer had found a copy of
The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes
and looked as pleased as Punch. Don’t laugh. The public’s soaked up over two hundred editions since 1765.

‘Is it one of Newberry’s?’ I couldn’t help muttering the vital question as I drifted past. He dropped it casually back into the job lot and sauntered off, shaking his head absently. A good dealer’s a careful one. I touched it for the clang and drifted in the opposite direction. The unique copy’s in the British Museum, but Newberry turned them out for donkey’s years in St Paul’s Churchyard during Georgian times so they’re still knocking about. I had a brief look at the rest. Delmer would have spotted the first edition of Ransome’s
Swallows and Amazons
, which lay among a pile of gramophone records, so no chance there.

I drifted some more. The crowd collected. Ringers were there, trimmers, hailers, tackers, lifters, nobbers, screwers, backers and sharpers, a real tribe of hunters if ever there was one. I can’t help smiling. I actually honestly like us all. At least we’re predictable and, therefore, reliable, which makes us a great deal more preferable than the good old innocent public. Some people were gazing in the window at us. Well, if you stay out of the water at least the sharks can’t get you.

The jade coin was in the corner case, numbered seventy. By the time the auctioneer banged us to the
starting gate practically everybody in the room was pretending to ignore it.

‘Lot One,’ he piped, a callow youth on his tenth auction. ‘A very desirable clean modern birdcage complete with stand. Who’ll bid?’

‘Dad send you to feed the crocodiles, sonny?’ one of the Aldgate circus called. Laughter.

A woman near me tutted. ‘How rude!’ she exclaimed.

I nodded sadly. ‘Modern manners,’ I said. She approved of my sentiments and I was glad. I’d seen her inspecting the kitchen cabinet, and Tinker Dill was on to it, with my money.

Sharks and cut-throats, we all settled and paid rapt attention to the sale of a birdcage.

I watched it come. Ten, twenty. At thirty-two, Margaret bid for and got a pair of small Lowestoft soft-paste porcelain animal figures, a swan and a dog. I don’t like them much because of the enamelling but I was glad for Margaret. Delmer got his
Goody Two-Shoes
and a pile of others for a few pence at thirty-eight. At forty, Tinker Dill got the cabinet, though Beck had a few laughs at my expense and. threatened loudly to compete in the bidding. One of the Birmingham lads wandered over curiously during the bidding to look at the cabinet, but by then Tinker had guessed right and was standing idly by, leaning against the drawer where the mote spoon was.
My
mote spoon now. The Brummie stared across at me carefully. I smiled benevolently back. I saw him start edging across to the others of the Brummie circus. Well, they’re not all daft.

Harry Bateman tried a few bids for a Victorian copy of an anonymous Flemish school oil and failed.
Why first-class nineteenth-century artists wasted their talents making copies of tenth-rate seventeenth-century paintings I’ll never know, but you couldn’t say this to, Harry.

‘Lot Seventy,’ the auctioneer intoned.

This was it. My jade piece, a dark lustrous green with brown flacks and one oblique growth fault, was carved in the form of an ancient Chinese cash coin. Jade is the wonder stone, matt and oily and soft to look at yet incredibly hard. It can resist shock blows time after time. (Remember that those large but thin uninteresting jade rectangles you see are most probably nothing less than temple
bells
, to be struck when tuning string instruments. Very desirable. A complete set is worth . . . well, a year’s holiday. Give me first offer.) I saw Beck glance around. The bidding started. I went in quick, too quick for some. Jimmo was prominent in the early stages. Then Jonas came in, raising in double steps to the auctioneer’s ecstasy. Jonas is a youngish retired officer with money, no knowledge and determination. This combination’s usually at least fatal, but Jonas has survived in the business simply by refusing to give up. From an initial dislike his fellow, dealers, me included, switched to neutrality and finally with reluctance to a sort of grudging acceptance. He’s silver and pre-Victorian book bindings with occasional manuscripts thrown in for luck. Lily was there but left the bidding when I started up. Patrick looked peevish when she stalled – there’d be trouble over her tea and crumpets when he got her home. Four others showed early and chucked up. That left me, Jonas, a Brummie and Beck. I bid by nodding. Some people bid by waving programmes or raising eyebrows. Remember there’s no need to wave and tell everybody who’s bidding. Don’t be afraid your
bid will be missed. A creased forehead is like a flag day to an auctioneer. He gets a percentage.

On we went, me sweating as always. I was beaten when Beck upped. Jonas must have sensed something wasn’t quite right because he hung on only briefly, then folded. I saw that the Brummie bidder was the one who’d crossed to look at the kitchen cabinet. He finally stopped when Beck showed the first sign of wavering, clever lad. The jade was knocked down to Beck.

Beck glanced triumphantly in my direction through the throng. I glared back. He would brag all year how he picked up this rare ancient Chinese jade coin in the face of organized local opposition.

‘He had us, Lovejoy,’ Jonas said, pushing past at the break. I followed him muttering to the tea bar.

‘Hard luck, Lovejoy,’ from Jimmo. ‘Hell of a price.’

‘Outsider!’ I heard Patrick snapping at Beck.

‘Things are getting worse every day,’ I agreed.

Janie had our teas waiting in the brawl. We had to fight our way into a corner to breathe. Tinker kept Janie a part of a bench. I kissed her.

‘Watch out, Lovejoy,’ she said, smiling brightly to show eagle-eyed watchers we were only good friends. ‘One of my neighbours is here.’ She flashed a brilliant grimace towards a vigilant fat lady steaming past. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she added, moving primly away from my hand which had accidentally alighted on her knee.

‘What about?’

‘The old jade.’ She reproved me under her breath, ‘I’d have given you some money. Nobody need have noticed.’