Gold by Gemini (7 page)

There was nothing left but the smouldering forests, the waiting city, and silence. Then the spooks began. The statue of Victory tumbling to the ground and
swivelling its sightless stone eyes ominously away from Rome. Omens, multiplied. Rivers ran red. Air burned. Statues wailed in temples. I won’t go on if you don’t mind. You get the picture.

Finally, one gruesome dark wet dawn, Boadicea’s warmen erupted from the forests, coming at a low fast run in their tens of thousands. The Temple of Jupiter, with the Roman populace crammed inside, was burned. The rest were slaughtered in the streets. The city was razed. Boadicea jauntily crucified seventy thousand people, Roman and Briton alike, and nobody survived. It’s called patriotism.

In the nick of time, Suetonius miraculously returned to evacuate London, shoving everybody south of the Thames while Boadicea burned London and everywhere else she could think of. See what I mean, about women never giving up. Naturally, Rome being Rome, Suetonius made a comeback and the British Queen took poison after her great defeat, woman to the last.

I’d always accepted the story at its face value, but now I couldn’t help wondering about something which had never struck me before.

Hadn’t Suetonius been a long time coming back?

Nowadays our locals say to newcomers, ‘Don’t dig below the ash, will you? The ash is so good for the roses. And there’s bits of bone, too. Calcium and phosphorus. We’re quite famous for our roses hereabouts.’ It’s such good advice to gardeners.

I don’t do any gardening.

Janie went in the nick of time. Eleanor collected Henry, now awake and singing with his foot in his mouth. I’m
really proud of that trick, but Janie said they all do it. I waved from the front door.

I cleared up and got the map. The Isle of Anglesey is about half a mile from the Welsh coast. Thomas Telford even flung a bridge over the narrow Menai Straits. (Incidentally, Telford’s engraved designs are worth far more nowadays than the paper they’re printed on. They’re hardly impressionistic but give me first choice of any you get.) One old historian, Polydore Vergil, always said Suetonius invaded the Isle of Man, but he was an erratic Italian everybody said was a nut anyway. There is ever, a belief that Suetonius had with him the famous Gemini Legion, but that must be wrong as well.

Augustus Caesar once received a delegation from a far country and is reputed to have whispered behind his hand to an aide: ‘Are they worth conquering?’ The country happened to be Ceylon – Sri Lanka – which for size could dwarf Rome any day of the week. The point is that the ancient Romans were distinctly cool. And one of the coolest was Suetonius, that dour, unsmiling, decisive and superb soldier whose tactical judgement, however grim, was unswervingly accurate.

As the evening drew on I tried to light a fire but the bloody wood was wet. I switched on the electric again instead. The birds outside had shut up. Only the robin was left on a low apple branch. My hedgehogs were milling about for nothing, rolling from side to side like fat brown shoppers.

Had the might of Rome been paralysed by a stretch of water you can spit over? Was Suetonius held up by a few Druids booing on the other side? History says yes. This old chap Bexon was telling me no.

I gazed at the garden till it was too dark to see.

N
EXT MORNING
, I shaved before seven. I had some cereal in powdered milk and fed the robin my last bit of cheese. I went to have a word with Manton and Wilkinson, gave them their groundsel.

‘Now, Manton,’ I demanded as it noshed its greenery sitting on my arm, ‘what’s all this Roman jazz?’

It wisely said nothing, knowing there was more to come.

‘The old man leaves two diaries. But why two?’

Wilkinson flew on me for his share.

‘If he was crackers, let’s forget it, eh?’ They hesitated suspiciously. ‘On the other hand, curators may be duckeggs but Popplewell can tell genuine Roman antiques, coins or otherwise. Right?’ They closed up along my arm, interested now. ‘Bexon’s coins being genuine, pals, what can there possibly be, I wonder, stuck in an old lead coffin in some well-remembered spot in the Isle of Man?’

We thought hard.

‘And who should benefit better,’ I demanded, ‘than Lovejoy Antiques, Inc.?’

Wilkinson fluffed out, pleased. Manton looked sceptical.

‘Don’t be so bloody miserable,’ I told Manton angrily, ‘just because I haven’t the fare to get there. You’re always critical.’

I shoved them on to a branch and shut their flight door. Both were looking sceptical now.

‘I can get some money,’ I snapped. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll have the sketch
and
the fare from Dandy. I’ll be back. You see.’

By my front door the robin was cackling with fury. He was quite full but battling to keep the sparrows from the cheese he didn’t want. Very feminine, robins.

The bus was on time. In my innocence I thought it a good omen.

Dandy Jack’s is a typical lock-up, a shop front and two rooms. The clutter held miscellaneous modern tarted up as old, a brass 1890 bedstead (worth more than you’d think, incidentally), pottery, wooden furniture and some ornamentals plus a small gaggle of portabilia in a glass-fronted cabinet.

A few people milled about inside, mostly grockles (dealers’ slang: tourists, not necessarily foreign, derogatory) and the odd dealer. Big Frank Wilson from Suffolk was there. He gave me a nod which said, nothing worth a groat. I shrugged. He’s a Regency silver by desire, William IV furniture by obligation, and undetected bigamist by the skin of his teeth, as if scratching a quid in the antiques game isn’t enough nightmare to be going on with. Jenny from the coast (she’s tapestries and Georgian household items) was painstakingly examining a crate of porcelain. She and Harry Bateman were desperately trying to stock up their new shop on East Hill. They’d badly overspent lately to catch the tourist wave, but their stuff was too
‘thin’ (dealer’s slang again: much low quality spiced with only rare desirable items).

I pushed among the driftwood – not being unkind, but I really had seen better antiques on Mersea beach.

‘Hello, Lovejoy.’

‘What’s new, Dandy?’

‘Bloody near everything,’ he grinned. I had to laugh. ‘Message for you from Bill Fairdale. He says to call in.’

Bill was from my village, rare manuscripts and antique musical instruments. The only trouble was that his rare illuminated manuscripts are a bit too good to be true. The sheepskin parchments pegged out drying in his garden do very little to restore a buyer’s confidence. He’s even been known to ask a visitor’s help in mixing ‘mediaeval’ monks’ egg-tempera pigments with an unfinished carpet page of Lindisfarne design in clear view, only to offer the same visitor the completed ‘antique’ next day. He’s very forgetful.

‘Has his handwriting improved any?’

Dandy Jack fell about at my merry quip. Once, Bill actually acquired a genuine love-letter from Horatio to his dearest Emma Hamilton. Nobody else dared believe Bill. I bought it for a song. That’s the danger of forging too much and not doing it well enough. A happy memory.

‘He’s got something right up your street.’

It was probably that bone flute, cased, sold in Bury the previous week. I’d heard Bill had gone up. Potter, the great old London maker, if Tinker was right. Very desirable. I said nothing, nodding that I’d pop in.

‘I want a favour, Dandy. A certain sketch.’

His eyes gleamed. ‘Come back here.’ We withdrew into his inner sanctum. He offered to brew up but my stomach turned. That left him free to slosh out a gill of
gin. Dandy was permanently kaylied. He perched on a stool opposite his crammed sink, shoddy and cheerful, a very rum mixture. Where I think in terms of mark-up, Dandy thinks booze. I’ve never seen him sober in
n
years, where
n
is a very large finite integer. He has a good eye, sadly wasted. For some reason he believes there’s no way of actually learning of the beautiful objects we handle, but then you don’t get libraries in pubs.

‘An old chap called Bexon. You got his stuff at Gimbert’s auction.’

‘Your young lady spoke to me yesterday. I gave her the box.’

‘That’s only rubbish, but he was an old friend and –’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘Never mind all that, Lovejoy.’

I said, desperate now, ‘She said you had a sketch he did.’

‘That sketch’ll cost you.’

‘How much?’

‘Do me a scan and you can have it free.’

‘Get lost,’ I groaned. It always came down to this, from fellow dealers too useless to do their own work.

‘Go on, Lovejoy. You’re a divvie. Help me out.’

I had enough trouble without feeling sympathy. ‘Commission?’ I tried hopelessly, but the wretch was grinning. He knew he had me and shook his head. ‘Scan my stuff or you don’t even get to see Bexon’s picture.’

‘All right,’ I gave in bitterly. ‘Anyhow, your commission wouldn’t keep me in pobs.’

‘My stuff’s in that crate. I’ll fetch it.’

He dragged in a tea chest of miscellaneous porcelain, followed by Jenny Bateman protesting she’d not finished looking.

‘Hard luck,’ Dandy told her, pushing her out. All heart.

‘Is this it?’ I hate scanning junk.

‘A job lot. There’s a ton of valuable stuff in there, Lovejoy.’ The eternal cry of mankind since Adam dressed.

I sat wearily, waiting for the mystic mood to come over my mind. A divvie always suffers. Having friends irritates me sometimes. I closed my eyes and stilled. Sounds receded. The world slipped into silence and all feeling fell gradually into the distance.

Divvie? Maybe from the old word ‘diviner’, as in water, but who knows? It’s slang for anybody who can guess right about a thing without actually knowing. Some people have it for gems or paintings, others for race-horses, thoroughbred dogs or scenic design, a precious knack that goes separate from any learning. I’m an antiques divvie. And, incidentally, I’m the very best there is.

I’ve tried asking other divvies how they know, what actually happens. Some say they are ‘told’, others say it’s a feeling. Water diviners say it’s a foot-tingle or a twisting stick. To me it’s a kind of bell, and it rings in my chest. My knowledge, on the other hand, only tells me what an antique is. But my bell just rings for truth. And look, folks – good news.
Everybody
alive has this knack for something. Maybe not for antiques or diamonds, but for something. Nobody’s been left out. It’s superb news really, because you’re included too. You. All you need to find is what your particular gift is for. You might actually be the most original and creative porcelain or furniture expert without knowing it. If you don’t already know you’re being dreadfully wasted.

The way I do it’s to get close as possible, look and then maybe a light touch if that’s not damaging to the
antique. Always remember to leave antiques alone. Never fondle, clean, wipe, polish or brush. And I don’t mean ‘hardly ever’, like in the song. Never is never. Leave antiques alone.
Never
scrape, improve, smooth, fill in or dissect. Remember that all antiques really are Goya, Chippendale, Sheraton or Michelangelo until proved otherwise. If you say that yours aren’t, I’d like to know what makes you so sure.

Dandy Jack was very considerate as I worked, tiptoeing in like a steamhammer for another pint of White Horse and having a hell of a row with a customer over the price of a modem vase he swore was Ming. Honestly, my head was throbbing by the time I finished. I was finished.

‘Dandy,’ I called. ‘Done.’ He dropped a pile of books with a crash and reeled in.

‘Prime stuff, eh, Lovejoy?’

‘Not bad.’

He grinned at the three objects on the table and nodded wisely.

‘Bloody rubbish,’ he agreed. ‘I knew it was all valuable except for them.’

‘
They’re
the good stuff, Dandy.’ I rose, stretching. ‘Chuck the rest.’

‘Eh?’ He glared into the heaped chest. ‘All this? Duff?’

‘Duff,’ I nodded. ‘Have you any grub?’

‘Margaret fetched these over for you. She’ll call back.’ He held out a brown paper bag towards me, two whist pies and an Eccles cake.

I sat and ate, recovering, while I explained the three pieces to him. He listened quite mystified.

‘Candle snuffer, Worcester.’ I nodded at the smallest item, a tiny bust of a hooded Victorian woman. ‘It’s
1864, give or take a year.’ I hate them. Collectors don’t.

‘Pity it’s not earlier.’ He peered blearily in my direction. Good old Dandy. Always wrong, not even just usually.

There was a shaving mug shaped like a white monkey, grotesque with an exquisite glaze. I honestly don’t know what the Victorians were thinking about, some of the things they made. The bowl was the precious item, though Dandy Jack could see nothing special about it. Like I say, some people can hear fish squeak. Others wouldn’t hear a train in a tunnel. He said it looked like Spode, when it was clear Daniel, early 1830s. I tried not to stare at the lovely thing, but the elevated tooled bird motifs in gold, with curves jesting on feet of bright blossoms, dragged my eyes. Blues screamed at pinks, greens and shimmering maroons in a cascade of colour. It sounds garish, but it really is class, and incredibly
under
priced at today’s prices, though that only means for a second or two. Dandy was more than a little narked that the rest was mostly junk.

‘Bexon’s sketch, Dandy,’ I reminded him. Scanning stuff really takes it out of me, why I don’t know. After all, it’s only sitting and looking.

‘Here.’

I took the drawing from Dandy’s grimy hands. Bong went my chest. Simple, stylish, very real, a tiny pencil caricature with some colour. It was her again. The artist had pencilled her name in, Lady Isabella. She was the same snooty lass, doubtless made to look starchier than in real life, riding in a high absurd one-wheeled carriage with idiotically long shafts and no horse. The wheel splashed water as it rolled through the streets. It was probably one of those crazy skits they got very
worked up about before steam radio and television blunted pens and sense.

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes. Straight up, Lovejoy. What Is It?’