by Rebecca Tope
‘China? What – plates and vases and all that? Since when?’
‘Ages ago. When I was about sixteen, I had an aunt who ran a stall in a market in Exeter. She did car boots as well. I went round with her sometimes. She showed me a few tricks.’
‘What sort of tricks?’
‘How to spot fakes, or damage that’d been covered up. I remember the marks – some of them, anyway. It’d probably come back to me with a bit of effort.’
‘Which aunt was it? Have I met her?’ Maggs frowned. ‘Doesn’t sound like your dad’s sister. She’s Auntie Chrissie, isn’t she?’
‘The one I mean has died. She was Aunt Pauline. She had cancer when she was only fifty-four. Nobody talks about her any more.’
‘Until now. What day is the flea market, then?’
‘I forget. Let me find out tomorrow. Someone at work’s sure to know.’
And someone did. Leslie Perkiss, well past retirement age, and moved sideways again and again, still clung to his position at the airport. He was currently being paid to channel travellers through the security gates, where they removed shoes and laptops, placed heavy luggage into plastic trays and walked stiffly through the archway that scanned them for unauthorised metalwork. Leslie Perkiss had a ready smile and never tired of the tedium. He had long ago abandoned any hope of discovering a machine gun inside a baby buggy’s frame or a hand grenade in a sponge bag. He regarded the procedures as pure nonsense as far as actual security was concerned. He had worked out for himself that it was actually designed to pacify the passengers and make them believe they were safe. And that was fine with him. He chucked children under their chins and made sure the elderly weren’t jostled in the queues.
Den liked Leslie, and often sat with him in the canteen. They had chatted about a thousand subjects over the years, including the joys of treasure hunting in junk shops. Leslie collected militaria and old postcards. He had a profound understanding of the ways of eBay. ‘I wondered whether I could do a bit of buying and selling,’ Den ventured. ‘China, probably.’
‘China from China and Japan?’ quipped the elderly man.
‘No, no. Strictly British. Worcester, Royal Doulton, Poole. I like Poole particularly.’
Leslie cocked his head. ‘Bit girly,’ he said. Leslie had a horror of anything girly, never suspecting that his fondness for small children might qualify. ‘Wouldn’t be my choice.’
Leslie’s choices had all been made decades ago, but Den refrained from pointing this out. ‘Any hints for me, then?’ he asked. ‘I wondered about the flea market they have in Corn Street.’
His friend pulled a face. ‘Never find anything good there. They know the exact value of everything to the last penny. Best bet’s a car boot, or charity shop. Same as it’s always been. People that don’t know what they’re doing. Mind you, there’s not so many of them any more, with all this antique stuff on the telly. Everybody’s an expert these days.’
‘Thanks.’ Den nodded to himself. The advice was good. ‘I think I’ll have a look at the market, even so. Just to get an idea of prices and whatnot. It’s been years since I went to anything like that. What I’m thinking is maybe getting a bit of stock and then putting it all into an auction in the Cotswolds or somewhere, with plenty of rich people, and seeing how that goes.’
The face was pulled again. ‘Have to pay seller’s commission, remember. Eats into any profit, that does. You’d do better to have a stall in one of those posh towns up there. They do big fairs in the town halls … Stow-on-the-Wold – isn’t that one of them?’ He pronounced the name slowly and roundly, as if there was something comical about it. Then he said it again. ‘Stow-on-the-Wold. What a name!’
‘I might manage that,’ said Den slowly. Plans and possibilities were filling his head, although he knew perfectly well that he lacked the capital to buy anything but the most cut-price bargains at either charity shop or car boot sale.
They made it a family outing, driving through Somerset to Keynsham, near Bristol, in the ageing car that was in urgent need of new tyres and a thorough clean. As a former police officer, Den was in agonies of worry that they would be stopped and chastised for the bald treads. ‘It’s actually rather dangerous,’ he told Maggs.
‘Only if we skid, and that won’t happen,’ she reassured him. ‘It’s not icy or wet. We’ll be fine.’
‘The first thing I spend any profits on will be the car,’ he promised.
‘Profits!’ she scoffed. ‘You haven’t even bought anything yet.’
He had in mind a raid on a small emergency fund for outlay, if it seemed worth the risk, but was not proposing to buy anything immediately. First he had to try to get an idea of how it all worked, twenty years or more after he had last shown any interest. The flea market was not the one in Corn Street after all, but a different monthly operation, which was actually easier to reach from their side of Bristol. ‘It starts at ten,’ he kept saying. ‘I want to be there from the beginning.’
They arrived precisely on time, thanks mainly to Maggs’s ineffable efficiency. Well trained by Drew Slocombe, she could estimate times and distances with great accuracy. Even though not constrained by a crematorium’s inflexible schedule, a burial had to be punctual. Everything had to be in place at the exact moment promised. ‘Otherwise they think we’re unreliable,’ she had explained to her husband.
They followed a small queue of cars, and parked easily. A huge, half-derelict building filled the view, until they turned and identified the new centre, hosting the market. There were a few stalls outside, but almost everything was inside. They went in, and all three were instantly delighted by the scene that met their eyes. ‘It’s like a fairy tale,’ gasped Maggs. Meredith kicked her heels and crowed aloud. Den quickly felt overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of objects on display. How would he ever work out any sort of plan? There were two big spaces filled with stalls offering antique, vintage, collectable, junk and kitsch. Shabby chic was yet another category, and one he barely understood. What might it be like to have a stall in this place? Could such a venture possibly bring in enough money to justify the time and outlay?
He stopped at a stall near the entrance densely stocked with ceramics. He identified Staffordshire and Worcester at a glance, and then paused over three very nice pieces of Limoges. He picked up a small lidded jug and turned it over. It felt creamy and cool in his hand, and he found himself wanting it with a startling passion. The sheer luxury of porcelain hit him between the eyes. He leant down to show it to his little daughter, to the palpable alarm of the stallholder.
‘Careful!’ he yelped. ‘That’s a genuine chocolate pot.’
‘Oh?’ Den examined the translucent object with increasing interest. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Pouyat, about 1860,’ said the man carelessly. ‘Lovely thing.’
‘How much?’ asked Maggs, who had been slow to notice the exchange. She had drifted towards a stall full of toys, all in original boxes with prices that stunned her.
‘Hundred and fifty,’ said the man promptly.
‘Thought it was English you were after,’ came another voice close by.
‘Les! What’re you doing here?’ Den was flustered. Too much was going on for clear thinking. Meredith was reaching for the pot, assuming her father had intended to give it to her, and making loud sounds of desire. Maggs was shaking her head in disgust at the apparent impossibility of affording anything on offer.
‘I come here most months,’ shrugged Les. ‘Makes a good day out, if there’s naught else to do.’
‘You know a bit about china, after all,’ Den accused him.
‘Enough to tell French porcelain when I see it. Doesn’t everyone?’
Den put the pot down with infinite care. It was the loveliest of the three, but the others were still gorgeous. ‘Porcelain,’ he murmured. ‘Imagine the first time anyone made something half decent with it. Getting it really thin and firing it just right. Maybe colouring it with something. Then realising you could see throug
h it. What magic it must have seemed.’
‘God, listen to him,’ sighed Maggs. ‘Who are you, might I ask?’ She smiled at Les, as if at an ally.
‘Sorry,’ said Den. ‘This is Les Perkiss, from work. He knows a lot about antiques and collecting.’
‘I see. So it’s all your fault, is it,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And now you’ve got Merry all excited about it as well.’
‘Out of my price range,’ said Den to the stallholder, with a regretful shake of his head. ‘But you’re right – it is a lovely thing.’
Over the lunch that Maggs had prudently brought with them, she asked several probing questions. ‘What exactly do you think you might achieve?’ was the gist of most of them. ‘These people all know what they’re doing. There isn’t a single bargain in the whole place. They know just what everything’s worth.’
‘That’s true. The question really is – where did they get these things from? Did they pay a couple of quid for something worth a hundred? And if so, where?’
‘Don’t ask me.’ She bit into a thick ham sandwich. ‘But it’s a nice cheap day out,’ she acknowledged. ‘I like looking at all this stuff.’
‘Meredith’s bored, though,’ he noted. ‘Not being allowed to touch anything or toddle about where she likes.’ The child had learnt to walk at thirteen months and was constantly eager to practise.
‘Pretty much the story of her life,’ Maggs agreed. ‘We could find a park for her, if it’s not too cold.’
It was March, with the appropriate chilly wind. ‘We have to check out the stalls by the entrance,’ he said. ‘There are four or five of them. You can let Merry toddle on the grass out there, look.’
‘Like a dog,’ said Maggs. She sounded tired and at the end of her patience. ‘And there’s probably the muck to prove it.’
‘Not these days,’ he argued.
He got his way and that was what they did when all the food was finished. Meredith appeared bemused by her sudden freedom after so long in the buggy. Her unsteady walking skills were unequal to navigating the many obstacles in her path, as Maggs chivvied her around the stalls and towards the patch of grass. She fell head first onto a hand-embroidered tablecloth that concealed a prickly wicker basket with sharp edges. The stallholder feared for her embroidery, and the child wailed at the pain caused by the bruise on her cheek. ‘We’d better go,’ said Maggs. ‘I think we’ve seen enough, haven’t we?’
Den begged ten minutes in which to thoroughly explore these final stalls, which in the arcane scheme of things struck him as composed of mixed junk, most of it in large bins labelled ‘Everything £2’ or sometimes ‘Everything £1’. There was something forlorn and unhopeful about these overflow tables, cast into the inclement outdoors where few buyers paused on their way in or out.
He rummaged in two of these bins, bringing out a small blue lustre jug, and a larger orange lustre vase. He looked up at the person sitting in an incongruous deckchair, who appeared to be half asleep. ‘I owe you four pounds,’ he said, proffering the right money.
‘Thanks, duck,’ said the woman. ‘You have a good day, now.’ The accent was North Country, the smile exhausted. ‘D’you want a bag?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got one.’
‘What have you got there?’ asked Maggs.
‘I’m not sure. I just liked them. They’re nothing special, but she was virtually giving them away. And I felt sorry for her.’
‘That’s no way to do business,’ she reproached him.
‘I’m not doing business. These aren’t for resale.’ Only then did he turn the orange vase over and look at the mark on its base. Saying nothing, he glanced back at the stallholder, who was paying no attention. ‘Hmm,’ he said, rubbing his cheek. ‘Now that’s a surprise.’
‘What is?’
‘Let’s go. Can you remember where we left the car?’ He carefully put the china into a canvas bag he’d brought with him. He felt furtive, as if he had stolen something, which Maggs was quick to observe.
‘Of course I can,’ she said. ‘Can’t you?’
‘Not exactly.’ His lack of observational skill was a standing joke with them. How he had ever functioned as a policeman remained a mystery. His current work seemed equally inappropriate, but he had taught himself to take note of any anomalies in the behaviour of air passengers, and he was good at following them unobtrusively. Most of the time he was simply responding to other people’s requests, without any need to show much initiative, anyway.
Since Meredith had been born, he seemed to be suffering from a kind of fugue state that was commonly associated with new mothers, rather than fathers. He found himself dreaming of the future, where his daughter would share all her thoughts with him and be willingly instructed in the ways of the world by him. He was also eagerly pressing for a second child. ‘She’ll be well over two at this rate,’ he worried. ‘She deserves a companion. I hated being an only child.’
‘I don’t believe you. I loved it, personally.’
‘Well, we should have a try. It’d be a waste otherwise.’
Maggs sighed. While not actively opposed to the idea, she was in no rush to repeat the whole process. It would upset Drew, apart from anything else.
They found the car, and Maggs demanded an explanation for Den’s behaviour.
‘It says “Moorcroft” on the base,’ he told her. ‘You’ve heard of Moorcroft?’
‘I’m not sure. Vaguely, maybe. So what?’
‘It’s usually covered with art nouveau-type patterns. Flowers mostly. I never knew you could have plain ones. The shape seems right, though.’
‘Not sure I like the colour.’
‘Don’t you? I think it’s lovely. Like a sunrise. Or a ripe mango.’
‘Never seen a mango that colour,’ she objected.
‘Yes, you have. Inside, not the skin.’
‘Oh. Okay. You’re probably right.’
‘I should really try to sell it. It might be worth as much as that Limoges.’
Maggs gave him a sceptical look and concentrated on strapping Meredith into her car seat. ‘That’d be real beginner’s luck,’ she muttered.
Den was inspired. He spent an hour that evening googling the subject, trying to find the very item he’d bought so cheaply and establish a value for it. He found the orange lustre, but not the exact shape. He was bemused by all the different marks that denoted the Moorcroft factory over the years. He took a magnifying glass to his purchase, fearful of finding a hidden crack or chip. At the end of his researches, he was very little the wiser.
‘Well, if it’s that unusual, some collector might want it,’ said Maggs, looking over his shoulder. ‘If you could just track such a person down.’
‘I should have asked Perkiss, I suppose. But I think he’d gone.’
‘No, no. You want to keep it quiet. Don’t tell him anything. That’s too close to home.’
He angled his head so he could see her face. ‘Suddenly you think this is a good idea?’
‘I never said it wasn’t. I just didn’t think it’d work. I’m still not convinced. It can’t be as easy as this.’
‘We’ll have to see then, won’t we,’ he said. ‘I’m going to the local car boot sale next weekend, and maybe one or two charity shops in Shepton Mallett. I’m on early shift this week – I can pop in on the way home.’
‘Just don’t spend much money,’ she warned him.
Ten days later, Den had spent forty pounds on an assortment of ceramics, including a small Limoges plate that had caught his eye in a Cancer Research charity shop. ‘Three pounds,’ he said triumphantly.
‘Now what?’ said Maggs.
‘We find out where there’s an antiques fair or auction, preferably in the Cotswolds or thereabouts. We can ask Thea and Drew if they know of anything.’
When Den phoned the Slocombes, Thea instantly thought of an Easter garden party she had seen advertised in Snowshill. She riffled through a pile of papers by the phone and found a leaflet. ‘It says “i
ndoors if wet”,’ she read out. ‘Which it probably will be. Anybody can have a stall and donate ten per cent of their proceeds to the cause. Which appears to be something to do with donkeys. And they have a hashtag on Twitter. You ought to tweet about it.’
‘That’s my mother’s department,’ said Maggs, who was listening in, with the phone switched to speakerphone. Then, ‘Where’s Snowshill?’
‘Not very far from here. It’s got a big National Trust place right in the middle of the village, full of weird and wonderful objects. The owner was an eccentric collector, and he filled the whole house with rubbish.’
‘You did a house-sit there. A kid was killed.’
‘That’s right,’ Thea said tightly.
‘So – is this garden party anything to do with the collector chap? I assume he was some while ago?’
‘No and yes, roughly speaking. It’s a typical Cotswolds event, fundraising for somebody’s pet charity and Snowhill gives it added appeal, because of the associations. You’d get some well-heeled customers.’
Den was both enthusiastic and apprehensive. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got enough for a whole stall.’
‘The trick is to imply quality not quantity. Give everything its own stand, with spotlights and velvet cloths.’
‘What?’ he spluttered. ‘Did you say spotlights?’
‘Well, it might not work outside. But you must have seen the way people make everything look so sparkly and special. When you get it home, it turns into a dull, ordinary bit of tat.’
‘You’ll have to help me,’ he pleaded.
‘I’d be delighted,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’ He still sounded doubtful. ‘It seems like an awfully big job. Maybe I should go to an auction house instead.’
‘Up to you,’ said Maggs. ‘But I think it’ll be fun.’
Thea agreed. ‘Easter Monday’s always dreary,’ she said. ‘Just another annoying bank holiday. This’ll brighten it up for you.’
‘All right, then. I’ll phone and ask if I can have a stall.’