The Grace in Older Women (26 page)

'Right. Send Tinker a note.' I've a soft spot for Harry.

'Forgeries okay, Lovejoy?' Inge boomed, popping lightbulbs.

I winced. Subtlety isn't Inge's strong point, though she'd say it
was, and I would instantly agree.

'You got any? I warn you. I need hundreds, love."

'Eight or nine, Lovejoy. Furniture mostly, some jewellery."

‘Okay. I'll be auditioning.’ Groans all round at that.

'Coins and medals, Lovejoy?' Igglesworth, a devout train spotter
who prayed, actually hands and knees, for engines with meaningful numbers to
hurtle through our station.

'One slot, Iggie.'

They started coming thick and fast then as word spread. Edwardian
bureaux, precious stones with dubious settings, some Tom Keating Old Masters
done a few years since, Victorian furniture, household ware, treen, armour,
weapons (weapon collectors are among the most knowledgeable maniacs in
captivity), costume (biggest crowd-puller, but the least gelt after books),
toys, stamps (never to be touched at any price), hats, locks and clocks, farm
implements, tools, rare pens, Victorian kitchen utensils . . .

'Tinker!' I cried at last, as the stinking old devil shuffled up
in his shabby old greatcoat. 'Where the hell've you been? Been trying to find
you.' Not true, but what can you say to a friend you'd forgotten?

'In nick,' he gravelled out. The crowd edged back, giving his
stink room. 'They did me for that flute you sold some Tewkesbury bird.'

'Eh? Oh. Tough, Tinker. How'd you get out?'

'No fingerprints, were there? Silly cow'd cleaned it."

We'd passed off a silver-plated flute, modern Japanese steel, as
genuine silver. Somebody - no name, no pack drill, as they say - had imposed a
silversmith's mark, illegally. I breathed relief, but Tinker never bears
grudges.

'Tinker. Take deposits, slots in an exhibition. I'm calling an
audition for forgeries, fakes, naffs. Anywhere, soon.'

'How much a slot, Lovejoy? And where do I see you?'

'Misses Dewhurst's Lorelei Tearooms.' I whispered, 'Charge plenty.
Sting everybody. Hold IOUs one day only.'

'Right, Lovejoy. Here. She wants to see you.'

'Who?' Even Beth's Bilstons were in a queue.

'Chemise.'

A sudden silence. People shuffled uncomfortably, nudging each
other, remembering Tryer in the Castle Meadow.

'At your cottage. I said she could go in, Lovejoy.'

'Oh, great,' I said heartily. 'Good. I'll, er, call in.' I took
him aside for a chat, learned quickly about Farouk.

As I eeled out a girl tagged me, saying nothing. Puzzled, I went a
hundred yards among the shoppers, then stopped. I couldn't for the life of me
remember ever having seen her before. Blonde, not more than sixteen.

'Miss. Why are you walking with me?'

'I've come to help your antiques, Lovejoy,' she explained as I
stood there like a lemon.

'Who are you?'

'I'm Holly. Can I move in?'

That stopped even me. I thought I'd heard everything. 'You'll have
me shot. No. Anyway, I've got an apprentice.'

'She's away,' Holly said. 'I'm younger and prettier.'

'Well, I'm staying somewhere else,' I said weakly.

'You'll hate it, Lovejoy. That hotel's a cesspit.'

Muttering, I hurried on. Coming to something when you're ravished
in the High Street by tiddlers. I made the Lorelei Tearooms at rush hour. There
were five people in, my tourist friends. All I could .think was, what do I tell
Chemise?

23

The Lorelei Sweetmeat Delicatessen and Tearooms offered varied
welcomes.

'Lovejoy! Honnnnnee!' from golden dazzler Mahleen.

'Good morning, Lovejoy, dear.' Philadora and Priscilla.

'Hey, ma man,' from Jerry. Thet husband find you?'

Amid jocularity, Miss Priscilla tutted at Jerry's words.

Take no notice, Lovejoy. It was only some tiresome auctioneer
gentleman. Mr. Mulrose, he said. Some message about a salver.' Everything
ornamental, old, and/or silver is a salver to the Dewhurst sisters. Gulp,
though, because Mulrose is the surname of Sabrina, she of the rapacious
Sundays.

'She attractive as Roberta, Lovejoy?' needled Hilda.

That's the trouble with reputations. They never fade. Like the 4th
Earl of Sandwich, inventor of the sandwich. He invariably gets the world's
worst press except for Judas, just as unfairly. Reference books tell of
Sandwich's useless Admiralty career, his repulsive neanderthal appearance, his
occult sex orgies, depravity, gambling, disloyalty. Every schoolkid knows
these. But Sandwich's 'casual mistress', Martha, shot dead by a killer's
flintlock outside Covent Garden, was Sandwich's true love for over sixteen
dedicated years. He was parsimonious because he started off- and finished up -
poor, after a lifetime's dedicated patriotic work. True, he was ugly, but so am
I. And he did join in the sex orgies at Medmenham - wouldn't we, if we could
have?

Against the tide of supposition there's always a neglected truth.
Like, the endless recycling of General Gordon's Mysterious Death at Khartoum.
Wasn't it truthfully depicted in Charlton Heston's film . . . ? Well, no.
MursalHamuda, one of the'Mad'Mahdi's black riflemen, did it quite
unintentionally in the turmoil. But the image of G. W. Joy's painting of the
brave soldier facing the delirious enemy is so admirable it's what we want to
believe. Like a woman's reputation (pick any). Once people slag her off, she's
marked for life.

‘Mrs. Battishall?' These Yanks were red hot at gossip.

'We saw the glint in her eye, Lovejoy!' Nadette said.

'Want to see an exhibition of antique forgeries?' I asked, eyeing
the Misses Dewhurst hurrying food.

'Sure do! Where? When?'

'Chance of finding any genuine antiques there, Lovejoy?'

'Sure is.' I caught myself. Americanisms infect. 'Possibly.’

'Will you divvy for us, Lovejoy?' from Wilmore. I'd begun to like
Wilmore. Now I wasn't quite so sure.

'Certainly. And I promise to give you first offer.’ I smiled, an
honest smile being the essential accomplishment for falsehood. These were my
friends. 'It's at Dragonsdale, the Battishalls' hotel.'

'Will we be here?' They started discussing dates, could Gwena
alter a visit here, a trip there.

Priscilla brought over some toast, eleventh hour.

'Here you are, Lovejoy, to start you off. Lovejoy,’ she announced
proudly, 'is our partner. Libra, with a tilt -'

'Please, love,' I begged through a mouthful. 'Not that zodiac
thing. I can't stand -'

'Oh, don't, Lovejoy!' from a soulful Mahleen. 'We had a
fascinating session with Roberta. No amount of criticism can alter the Obverse
Zodiac

Switching off, I heard their non-reason reasons for believing
dross. They seemed really into the Barmy Battishalls' society. Hereabouts, we
have the Richard the Third Society, which argues that Dick was innocent, never
murdered the Princes in the Tower. I let them get on with their stories.
(Mahleen: i saw instantly the bitch was a Scorpio, and you know them, right?')
My mind drifted. I would have to make sure that Corinth and Montgomery
Mainwaring, Litterbin, Bog Frew the thespian, all knew about the exhibition.
And Farouk. One thing nagged: if Dame Millicent was so poor, why didn't she
simply sell the one genuine antique Farouk wanted, that valuable piece of
Danish furniture?

'Your friend, Lovejoy?' Vernon indicated a girl pressing her face
at the window.

'Oh, that's Holly,' I said airily. 'Runs errands for me.’

Miss Philadora rushed to shoo Holly away.

'Natal chart readings prove Roberta right,’ they were saying when
I came to, Nadette leading. 'Until the Misses Dewhurst discovered the O.Z.
there was no explaining deviances.'

The twins demurred with simpering modesty. 'Yes,' Priscilla said.
'That's why Mrs. Roberta must -

'Miss Priscilla!' three of them interrupted together. 'How about
more coffee here?'

'Must what?' I asked.

'Nothing.' Vernon did the denial, laughing. 'Hey, Wilmore. That
new golf course by that river

We joked into a sideslip then, so Vernon's deflection had worked.
I wondered exactly what we were raising money for. The Old Pretender Society,
or something else? I noshed at increasing speed, Mahleen admiring my talent. I
was suddenly in a hurry. Things were linking. Ashley did Tryer, sure. But who
were these tourists? Nice people all, but too many coincidences carouselling
round them.

'Look,' I said, managing to lever my foot from under some lady's
sole beneath the table. 'Sorry, but I've to leave. Don't leave town until
you've seen the exhibition, okay? You might find a bargain!'

Ha-ha cheeriness to that. They promised to catch me up.

'You never breakfast, Lovejoy!' Hilda complained. 'Supper
tonight?'

'A deal. I'll be at my cottage. Give me a ring if you're at a
loose end.' The phone was cut off months back. I didn't tell them I was going
to see the bishop. 'Philadora, can I use the back door?'

Holly might be lurking.

Usually I'm relaxed when I've to see one dealer, forger,
collector. It's because I like them. Look at Noah, an old furniture faker of
renown. He is the most patient bloke on earth. Looks a gorilla, soul of an
angel. Never cheats anybody, just turns out three pieces of furniture a year.
Sixty-five if he's a day, selects the right wood, glues, makes his own
hand-filed screws. He's the only bloke in East Anglia who can make a genuine
forgery of a tripod tea table, except me. His workshop is a thing of beauty,
set behind a flower garden on

the bypass. It's so small you have to open the door and stand
outside talking in. He's called Noah because he makes little wooden animals for
a children's hospital.

'Wotch, Noah.Going okay?'

'Nearly done, Lovejoy.' He looks like Pinocchio's dad, bushy
eyebrows, specs, leather apron. I wonder sometimes if he's caricaturing himself
as somebody else. Like, say, Juliana's Reverend Father Jay?

'Lovely, Noah! You've dished the top!'

He smiled shyly. The mahogany tripod table was beautiful. 'I hate
forgers who dish on a lathe, Lovejoy.' He sighed. 'No patience these days,
fakers. God knows how they'd manage without an electric drill!'

We tut-tutted along. I looked at his table. 'Sell anywhere, this,
Noah.' He was still caressing the surface eccentrically so it wouldn't show the
dishing absolutely central, only lopsided. 'Can I measure?' Nearly
three-quarters of an inch difference. 'Lovely, Noah.'

'It's only common sense, Lovejoy. Wood shrinks over two centuries.
It does it across its graining. You'd think they'd learn.'

'Isn't that a bit much? Nearer a half-inch, eh?'

We discussed degrees of shrinkage. I'd have made it a smaller
difference, something less obvious, but Noah is a craftsman so I gave in. All
his wood was evenly darkened - old wood has shadows in exposed areas - except
for the bit where the table top exactly covered the underneath block. The four
little supporting columns, forming the 'birdcage' on which the table turned,
stuck out proud from the upper block. Really authentic, for wood shrinks in its
diameter, not its height. There were small bruises matching these protrusions
underneath.

'Want it sold, in an exhibition of forgeries?'

He pursed his lips. No forger likes to be called a forger in
public, only on the quiet. 'From me, Lovejoy?'

The old man's pride. 'Invent a name. Anybody worth a light will
know it's your work.' Class tells.

We agreed, Tinker to collect. I was lucky. His piece would lend
the exhibition style. I didn't want my fakes to be polythene and acrylic
garbage, home-cast resins from kits. There are tons on every street barrow. I
wanted style.

In an hour I'd seen Spoons, he of the silver forgeries. I'd
discovered him via his fake silver spoons, hallmarked 1630-ish, but with the
bowls too wide, too regular at the margin, and the finial's saint always too
ornate. He works in a garage mending motors, all axles and revving engines. He
has a little furnace at the rear, to work silver in his break. He offered two
fine silver candlesticks, but was narked when I rejected his Spanish mariner's
silver astrolabe. He was astonished that navigational instruments had to be
robust, and silver isn't.

'But I've wasted months on the frigging thing, Lovejoy!'

'Melt it down, Spoons.' They go on making the same mistake. Like
Noah says, no patience. 'And no more mug-to-tankard switches, Spoons,' I added,
heartless. 'The country's awash with the damned things.' I left the garage to
Spoons's cries and his workmates jeers.

Why silver forgers can't leave good antiques alone is beyond me.
Every bloke with a gas burner thinks it clever to buy a genuine antique silver
mug and convert ('switch up', in the trade) it into a jug, imposing fake
hallmarks. Can't understand them.