The Rich And The Profane

by Jonathan Gash

  He came to peer. ‘Two old tins and a bugle upset you so much? What’s the connection? Were they your dad’s?’

  ‘It’s one of the commonest mistakes,’ I said, to get speech going again. ‘Rene Laennec invented the modern stethoscope. That’s one. It doesn’t look much like a hunting horn.’ I blew my nose. He waited in silence. ‘I often wonder if Laennec thought it up from the musical instrument - he played half a dozen different instruments, including the hunting horn. Died,’ I added, free of charge, ‘in 1826. His stethoscopes are all sorts of shapes, some in two or three pieces.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ He was staring again. ‘Are you OK?’ ‘Can I go to the loo, please? Send word to Florida. Won’t be a sec.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He went into the corridor with me. I turned left, he right. The waitresses crowded for his autograph. A cook said to me, agape as I went through her kitchen, ‘It’s Jonno Rant! He had three number ones in the charts!’

  I said, ‘Isn’t it wild?’

  Outside, two rows of horse vehicles were lined up about a hundred yards away. I walked alongside a girl leading a horse. If I’d known how, I’d have stooped to inspect its hoof, but didn’t risk it. Horses can spot a duckegg a mile off, though they’re basically dimwits. At the horseboxes I

  ducked low, and made the boundary unmanacled. In a trice I was among the trees heading for the scent of woodsmoke.

  They call him Logger Yelk, for reasons that aren’t clear, because his name is Bernard Marlborough. He’s our cleverest charcoal burner. It mightn’t sound much, but to me Logger Yelk’s a series of plusses. I approve, and that’s a fact.

  ‘Logger,’ I called when I’d gone a mile through the undergrowth. The scent was stronger, so I was heading in the right direction. He hates being surprised.

  No answer. Shouting for people who didn’t respond was becoming a way of life. I seemed to have done a lot of it lately.

  ‘Logger!’ I yelled. ‘It’s me, Lovejoy.’ I plodded on.

  Woods are grim places. Farmers shoot squirrels, crows, magpies, and hang them up on trees to warn Mother Nature to get it together or else. Much notice she takes, being in league with God. They’re a right pair, more carnage than the rest of us put together.

  Woods baffle. I can never work out where east is. Even stars don’t work, because they go round instead of pointing stoically north. You’d think they’d make themselves useful for a frigging change.

  At last I came on the clearing. It was a scene from the past. Breathlessly I sat, panned out.

  Logger was hard at it. He’d just returned from a cutting session, I noticed. His logs are no more than six inches across, two inches diameter the thinnest.

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy. Come to hide out again?’

  ‘No, ta, Logger.’

  Logger lives in a makeshift hut at the corner of the clearing, year in, year out. I’d had occasion to befriend him when I was on the run a couple of times. He’s a good bloke, says nothing. I got him the charcoal-making concession that started his career, by persuading Her Ladyship of Ashwood-Pentney, a famous manor, to let him manage this woodland free of charge. I used unorthodox but successful methods, until she said I was getting too friendly with her cousin’s wife from Basingstoke. I think jealousy’s really naff, but women are full of it.

  He poked his fire. It’s in a great iron pot some ten feet across and a yard deep. He has two, burns three tons of wood a week. Each fire pot has a huge metal lid. You start your fire with alderwood, hazel, oak, ash, about teatime, let it bum until the roaring dies down. Stick the lid on for a sixteen-hour smoulder. There are four chimney-like vents in the metal. It’s an ancient career.

  ‘Wipe that expression off your face, Lovejoy,’ Logger said, cheerful as ever. ‘I’m not killing the trees. It’s care that brings butterflies and insects, starts flowers growing again. I only clear the underbrush, make way for new. I’ve rescued whole species. Did you know that ninety per cent of the world’s species aren’t yet identified?’

  ‘No.’ Because I didn’t.

  ‘East Anglia’s got sixty thousand acres of derelict woods rotting away. They could be bettering the world.’ He stopped, angrily shook a stick at me. ‘Manage our woods properly, we’d not need to import charcoal from the tropical rain forests, save the planet...’

  He continued like this. I listened, agreeing every now and again. Eventually he worked the lid on to his fire tin and went for a pint of ale.

  ‘Sycamore this time, Lovejoy.’ He gave me a pint glass.

  ‘Cheers, Logger. Ta.’ It was his famous tree beer.

  Logger produces ale from great trees like the sycamore. He makes slits in their trunks, with a sort of half cup clamped to the bark. I looked. It had no flies in it. His sap cups are always filled with the damned things. He laughed. He thinks me amusing because I’m out of my depth when civilization vanishes.

  ‘That ale is crystal clear, Lovejoy. You’re no countryman.’ ‘Course I am.’ I was indignant. ‘I like everything.’ I looked round the clearing, with its stacks of branches cut ready for burning. ‘It’s really, er, good.’

  ‘Because I give you wood, Lovejoy, ready labelled.’

  He checks wood for me, especially unusual ones. Only rarely does Logger come to civilization, always calls on me. He borrows a McArthur microscope from somewhere. Lately he’s been going over a batch of the unusual arbutus wood - it’s the sort I call the strawberry tree - that Killarneyware trinket boxes are made from. They take ages to fashion, being intricately inlaid, but ideal for long winter evenings after your woman’s walked out in a temper. Other fakers make these Victorian Killarneyware items from infilled teak and Japanese oak instead of strawberry tree wood, which only goes to show how low some forgers sink.

  ‘The prior himself praised my learning,’ I grumbled back.

  ‘Did he now,’ Logger said laconically. He sat on a stack of cuttings.

  ‘Aye. Nice priory he’s got there, eh? Lovely old place.’ ‘Balls, Lovejoy.’ He cocked an ear. ‘It’s no more ancient than that blaze yonder. It was, before Prior George gutted it and sold everything off.’

  ‘Did he?’ I asked, innocent.

  ‘My dad remembered it well. Prior George brought in his monks, nuns. Good riddance, I says.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, even more innocent. ‘He’s gone, has he?’ ‘Scattered. Monks to Preston, nuns to near Lindisfame.’ ‘I didn’t know you could. Thought religious foundations were sacrosanct.’ Though Henry VIII didn’t do a bad job. ‘Led them off himself, did he?’

  Logger didn’t answer for a minute. He went to listen to his cauldron, kicked it, returned to sit, looking directly at me.

  ‘You mean where has he gone, Lovejoy?’ he said. ‘Does he owe you money? He’d gamble on a weather vane, that one. You’re in goodly company.’

  ‘I’ll come clean, Logger. Where’s he gone?’

  ‘Like that, is it?’ he said, scuffing the earth with his boot. ‘He’s a Guernsey man. Him and his sister. Do anything for a farthing, especially if he could pop it on some nag. That meet,’ he said, pointing at some nearby trees. He meant the point-to-point. ‘It’s the first time there’s been gambling without him for years. Beats me how he does it. Gets women to collect objects, money, endowments for his priory, then milks it and loses it on everything, dogs to donkeys. A menace.’

  A suspicion was growing within, and I hated it.

  ‘He’s gone to Guernsey?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, sure. His sister’s going about the county settling up.’

  ‘What with? Is she rich in her own right?’

  ‘Not her. She’s had a slice of luck lately, dunno what from.’

  ‘Ta, Logger. Look. Is there any way—?’

  ‘Hold it, Lovejoy.’ He stood, went to put a hand on a tree trunk at the edge of the clearing. He listened. ‘There’s people coming, six or seven. And a motorbike on the Alban-sham road. Somebody after you?’

  ‘Me?’ I said innocently. ‘No. But I’d best
be off. Ta, Logger. Oh, pretty soon I’ll need some pear wood, maybe laburnum if you can get it.’

  ‘You don’t ask much, do you, Lovejoy?’ He sounded peeved. ‘Do you know how much pear heartwood costs? A mint.’

  ‘Get some,’ I said, narked, starting off. ‘You’re the frigging woodsman, Logger. Oh.’ I stopped, sheepish. He was grinning. ‘Er, please could you tell me which way? Only, I fancy a quiet walk. I don’t want to be bumping into others.’

  He pointed, rolling in the aisles at my embarrassment.

  ‘Go that way for six furlongs. You’ll come to a coppice of ash with a medlar. Turn half right for three perches, and you’ll meet a footpath. Turn left, and the Albansham road’s a mile. You can get a bus.’

  He might as well have spoken Tagalog. A coppice of ash with a medlar?

  ‘Thanks, Logger,’ I said politely, and simply walked in the direction he pointed.

  ‘Lovejoy,’ he called after me. ‘Give my regards to Guernsey.’

  Who’d said anything about going to the Channel Isles? I thought this, but did not say, striding away from that Jonno Rant and his mob.

  I wondered what the fare was.

  Most towns have a drill hall. Historians say they’re relics from days when bowmanship was compulsory and every lad worth a grain had to trudge out with his bow and arrows to the fields to learn the art. Hence the abundance of Butt Roads and Archers Lanes. Nowadays, territorial platoons do their stuff, and whist drives raise funds there for hopeless causes. They’re also where the ultimate embarrassments are enacted. I use that last term loosely. Performers were assembled, a real motley. Many were in leotards, tights. Some carried sheet music. To one side a juggler frantically juggled. Is anything sadder than a juggler hoping for a job?

  ‘Next,’ a woman called. She looked in off the road, a dragster, smoking her head off, scratching lazily.

  Next to her was the Power In The Land, the pop music/ impressario boss. He drank volatile liquid with fevered intensity. The pair were seated at a trestle table in front of the stage. He looked a cheapo version of Jonno Rant. The itchy lady had a clipboard. They looked an unsavoury pair. I’d come miles to find this grotty scene, paid my all in phone calls. For this? But I needed money. If a derelict scruff like Jonno Rant could get instant adoration from one and all simply by being in show business, then the whole thing was a con. It was a career made for somebody like me, who needed to travel fast on no resources and catch up with Prior Metivier.

  The producer cleared his throat. Everybody froze in terror before realizing there was no message from Olympus yet awhile. A pianist, already well drunk, was at a tinny piano. The hall held some thirty hopefuls in various stages of confidence.

  A man started singing ‘Heart Of My Heart’. I thought he was quite good.

  ‘Next,’ the itchy woman said, bored.

  ‘Can’t I finish?’ The singer was youngish, tousled, anxious.

  ‘You already finished,’ the woman said, huffling at her quip. The singer left, red-faced and despondent. ‘Next.’

  A girl stepped forward, looked about for adequate lighting, realized this was it, and announced shrilly that she would do an Ayckbourn speech.

  ‘That fucking voice,' the assistant woman said, grinding out her perfumed fag and instantly lighting another. She called, ‘Do your Shakespeare piece, lovie.’

  ‘Very well,’ the girl said, ‘So oft it chances in particular •men—’

  ‘No, dear,’ the woman bawled. ‘It was a fucking for fuck’s sake. Like I mean exit left and leave your CV in the wastebasket and go. Next.’

  The girl went, in tears. I found myself heartbroken at the sheer waves of desperation among the actors waiting to go on. Auditions are hell. I advanced at an indolent stroll. I wished I’d not given up smoking. You can be so much more confident in a con trick when you’re smoking.

  ‘Hold it,’ I called, casual. ‘You’re ... ?’

  ‘Bamie Woodfall.’ The woman glared, spoken to by a mere mortal. ‘I’m Sam Costell.’

  ‘Hi, Barn,’ I said to the man. He looked ill, could hardly sit upright. Her, I ignored. ‘Jonno said to drop by. Got the list?’

  Barnie Woodfall’s eyes descended from orbit, fixed on the woman. ‘Jonno? We talkin’Jonno Rant here, Sam?’

  ‘No.’ I gave him bitter sarcasm. ‘I mean like Jonno Two-Shoes. Have you got the fucking list? She rang for your audition schedule, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘She who?’ Sam Costell demanded, suddenly gone edgy. My demand had done Bamie some good. I wondered if pupils should be quite that size, and leant away from their aromatic smoke in case. I’d rather have Logger’s clean charcoal any day.

  ‘Her who, exacdy?’ I thumbed a thumb insolently. If she wanted to be called a man’s name that was her lookout, but she’d already proved that bravado ruled. ‘You know what Jonno’s like, Barn. He’ll have her balls.’

  ‘We talkin’ failure here?’ Barnie erupted in an insane screech. He fell over backwards, the chair going with a crash, couldn’t get up. A dying fly.

  ‘Oke. Take the poke. See yous aroun’,’ I intoned, drifting. I sounded ridiculous.

  ‘We talkin’ cock-ups here, Sam fucking Costell?’ Barnie shrieked from his moribund position at his scratchy bird.

  She raced after me, caught me up at the door. Barnie’s shrill tantrum echoed in the rafters.

  ‘Look, er ... ?’

  ‘I’m Miles,’ I said. ‘Jonno’s oppo, but don’t frig about, willco?’ It was as near as I could get. I’d heard them say willco on telly police procedurals.

  ‘Here’s the list, Miles.’ She’d have been really attractive if she stopped smoking, got proper clothes, had a bath, did her hair, cleaned her teeth. Or not. ‘I’m sorry about the cock-up, truly. Look.’ She whispered it, looking scared. ‘Is Jonno back? Please tell him it was all a terrible mistake, OK?’

  ‘Ten frigging more minutes, that’s all.’ I stuffed her list in my pocket.

  ‘Take my card, Miles. Please. Anything I can do for you or Jonno—’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ I said, like in American films.

  At least I had a list of performers. The drill hall’s notice outside read, auditions/cabaret/music hall/equity. I left it untouched. 1 can be really forgiving.

  Then I went to see a man about a painting, and got Irma.

  Paula’s antique shop’s just round the comer from the Hippodrome. They have a bar there, though it’s no longer a great old-fashioned music hall. Symie Doakes drinks there, three hours in the day, six at night. He never moves, but sometimes is exactly the one you want. I perched on the next stool.

  ‘Wotcher, Symie.’

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy.’ He stares at himself in their ornate mirrors. I’d look at the barmaid if I were him. He wears a pork pie hat, a tweed overcoat and wellingtons, summer and winter. ‘What?’

  ‘How much, Symie? I’m broke, mind.’

  ‘What’s new?’ he said, sarcasm. He puts on this Jewish act, hands up, plaintive at penury and all that, but I don’t know. ‘Aren’t we all?’

  ‘What paintings have been sold lately? Modern, lookalike Expressionists or Neo-Thingies?’

  ‘Ov vey,’ he said, but it came out somehow wrong. ‘From round here? Only one. It went for a king’s ransom, through a London broker.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Gelt first, Lovejoy. My old saida used to say, God bless her, always get the dinars first, ma booy.’

  See what I mean? Saida’s their word for a relative, I think, and they don’t use dinars. Like a bad act. The purpose escapes me.

  ‘I’ve got money, Symie.’ I feinted at my pocket. ‘Who sold what?’

  ‘A modern, they say, Lovejoy. Horrible. Squirts of colour. O’Conor, they’re saying, though I didn’t see it myself. Thank God it wasn’t Russian. I should praise a Cossack painter yet?’ He chuckled, inspected his empty glass. Gladys the barmaid shook her head, smiling, then looked harder, then nodded, pulled Symie a refill. I thanked her kindness. Mayb
e she’d seen something in my eyes I didn’t want to have there.

  ‘Woman or man, Symie?’

  ‘Holy man’s sister, bad cess to him. Frigging Jesuits. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ I went for gold. ‘Symie. I need names. Prior Metivier owes me a mint. Was it him?’

  ‘His sister Marie sold it to Benbrooks and Dellors.’ Maybe he’d seen something in my gaze too because his jokes ended, and his act with it. ‘He’s escaped Gellbridge the bookie’s honchos. She paid in full. They let him go.’

  ‘Go where?’ As if I couldn’t guess.

  ‘Guernsey, folk say, but who knows? His sort’s a bad penny, leave a trail of punters’ papers across the kingdom. A brother like him, I’d let him sink.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, in a hurry now I’d got it. ‘I’ll ring you the next couple or three days. Suss out any more antiques from the priory for me. I’ll see you gain, Symie.’

  ‘Right. You’ll phone here?’

  ‘Sure. Have my drink, Symie, and ta.’

  ‘Here, Lovejoy,’ he exclaimed. ‘You owe me for that. Twenty.’

  ‘Haven’t got it, Symie. Ta and oy, er, whatever you said.’ Gladys called so-long. I waved, and left him grumbling. Paula wasn’t in, so I told her shop minder - it’s her unpaid mother - to clear off, brewed up and found a vegan pie in her fridge. You have to make do.

  Using Paula’s phone, I rang Desdemona. No news of Gesso. I said he’d turn up. Then I called Benbrooks and Dellors of London. Some plum-voiced article condescendingly answered. I asked what time I could call tomorrow for the painting, expressionist or something, that I’d paid a deposit on. I made myself sound a twit, not difficult. They became flustered. I became angry.

  ‘Now look here,’ I yelled. ‘This is Colonel Haffton Morley, Grenadiers. I have the receipt signed by Miss Marie Metivier, and I want my picture!’

  ‘Colonel, Miss Metivier’s painting has already been sold on.’

  ‘Sold on?’ I thundered. I began to enjoy myself. Being apoplectic’s quite invigorating. ‘Describe the painting! If you’ve sold mine, my lawyers ...’ et cetera.

  The man described. It really did sound like my O’Conor. He had the nerve to say that it had been badly overpainted with a badly faked Paul Klee, which really got my goat. I rang off spluttering, turned to see Paula standing there, massively miniskirted.