The Grace in Older Women

by Jonathan Gash

  Addie stamped her foot, pretty but pointless. I've been pushed by fearsome pushers and still stayed put.

  Give you an instance: once, in Yorkshire, I saw a dealer inspecting

  a painting at a big auctioneer's. He had more gadgets than the parson preached about. Stereoscopic MacArthur microscope, water immersion and polarizing lenses, pigment anaylser, electronic impedance device to suss out precious stones - he was a walking laboratory, him and his briefcases. Even had a bonny secretary taking dictation as he probed and fussed. The reason I fell about laughing was that later I saw him bid, chucking away a fortune on a dud. The biggest joke was that next to the forgery was a genuine slip-inlaid celadon ewer. It had been made in Korea by firing the pottery piece on a ring of sand, producing the most gorgeous of colours, in the Koryo dynasty-which began over a century before our Battle of Hastings. It would have bought me a house, freehold, taxes paid. It went for a song, but not to me. Tragically, the four blokes I'd been trying to con -er, encourage - into buying it for me didn't turn up. The Japanese of the 1590s had sense: they invaded Korea and kidnapped the Korean potter families wholesale, kilns and all.

  Drifting, I saw a few half-decent pieces that could be restored, mostly Victorian or Edwardian, but I'd not the money to bid. There was a lovely amber pendant, biggest I'd ever seen, carved in the form of a crucifixion scene, but it didn't feel right so I didn't stop to look because it would only have told me that Scandal was out of gaol and had resumed doing his stuff in Walberswick. He's our best amber carver, but can only afford amberoid - amber chips heatwelded together to simulate the real thing.

  But this colander stopped me cold.

  Some things don't need inspecting. They just glow like a star at dusk. I wobbled, crashed into a chai»- that almost gave. Adelaide caught me with a faint shriek.

  ‘You all right, Lovejoy?'

  A tweedy bystander, stiff country-gent collar, asked Addie what was going on. I heard her explaining, 'It's all right. He goes like this near a genuine antique . . .'

  Feet thumped as people gathered, asking which was it, was it that painting over there that looked like Holman Hunt ... I broke out in a sweat, same as malaria I'd had once when getting shot in indescribable foreign foliage.

  ‘I'm all right,' I told Addie, and ta, mate, to Tweeds.

  'Lovejoy's like this. Never forgeries. Only genuine –'

  'Shut up, silly cow.' I would have clocked her one but I was still shivery from the colander.

  'Can he really, well, tell?" a lady asked, fascinated. I could only see her shoes. They could have bought me, my immobile Ruby motor, and my prospects. Rare species had died to shoe her feet. She'd probably wear them twice.

  'Every single time,' Addie announced proudly to the assembling multitude, her voice gaining decibels with every syllable. My secret gift was no secret any more. 'He's famous. We swear by him.’ In auctions she bids like a rock'n'roll drummer. The essence of tact.

  'Then why's he look destitute?' a manly voice intoned.

  'Oh, well.' Addie was stuck, wanting to retreat. 'Lovejoy's, ah, affairs cost.'

  To my relief a gravelly voice cut short Adelaide's broadcast.

  'Lovejoy's shagnasty. Never the price of a pint.' Tinker, my barker, shuffled waveringly into view and hauled me upright. 'Come on, mate. Where is it?'

  'There.' No point in trying to conceal the colander. Its price would now be astronomical, all the world and his wife poised to bid.

  He all but dragged me to the table. I stared, for politeness. It didn't look much, but neither does the Mona Lisa.

  Stoneware, a sandy brown, a simple pottery colander. That's all it was, the thing you strain vegetables with. Shaped, though, like a small basket, with plain holes all the way up its straight sides. The handle had two grooves. Nothing else to be said, except that it was the rarest piece of kitchenware. I'd seen one in my Grandma's when a little lad. Genuine, pure, lovely. I couldn't help smiling. Each little hole - all perfectly matched - had a small line grooved from it to the next horizontally, not vertically. The times I'd run a slate pencil along Gran's, hole to hole, making a grey-blue decoration.

  Wasn't worth more than a week's wages, though, despite its rarity and pristine condition. Except to someone like me, who loved it.

  'Genuine, Lovejoy?' from Addie, queen of the bloody obvious.

  'Beautiful. Lanes., eighteenth century.' My voice wobbled.

  'Imagine!' Addie shrieked, clapping, just in case somebody in the Midlands hadn't heard her first pronouncement.

  Trice?' That man, peremptory.

  'What it'll bring,' I said curtly and turned away.

  'I asked you a civil question,' the man thundered.

  Notice that people who aren't civil always say that, when they've been downright rude? I still hadn't seen his face. I felt for my hankie, decided not to bring it out because the women would holler it should have been washed last Easter, and instead blotted my dripping forehead with my frayed sleeve.

  'Isn't it a stupendous gift?' Addie shrilled. 'Can you imagine? Coming over queer for a moment, then you simply know genuine? I've known Lovejoy for ages, ever since . . .'She coloured, ahemed.

  'Lady, leave orff.' Tinker coughed, the burbling notes of his emerging phlegm magically clearing a space round us. His chest heaved, his old threadbare greatcoat swaying as his wheezes shook him into rigor. A fetor wafted away the delectable aroma of dust and must. Everybody wilted. 'Come on, mate.'

  We got out, him marching me along the pavement like a squaddie to the guardroom. I shook my arm free.

  'Where are we going, you stupid burke?'

  'Forgotten, you pillock?'

  'What? Forgotten what?' We'd reached Marks and Spencer's, stood there getting buffeted by prams and shoppers.

  'The law, that's what. You're due in court.'

  'Oh.' He was right. 'Have I got to?'

  'Better had,' the scruffy old devil ground out. 'A bird's following you.' He jerked his chin stubble at the window. The girl in the bright peach frock was reflected at the bus stop, staring intently. Coincidence?

  Anyhow, I'd no time. I had to get thinking about theatre glasses, as used by London's elegant ladies in 1750 to spy on other women making love.

  “I say! You there! Lovejoy!'

  The thunder man's voice, dopplering as he approached. I didn't even look. Tinker was right. The law wanted me.

  3

  Nothing gets very far from love. Antiques are already there, because they personify love like nothing else. Antiques are it. Look at 'opera' glasses, for instance.

  As theatres and technology grew in the eighteenth century, so did innovations among theatre-goers. Gentry moved into boxes, snootily quaffed and noshed during the plays on balconies, far removed from the hoipolloi rioting with pies and beer in the stalls below. But grand ladies found it irksome to merely watch actors giving their all. They'd mostly gone for gossip, a chance to suss out the gorgeous apparel of rival beauties. Even with the aid of 'prospect glasses' - miniature telescopes - to observe the actors' dastardly deeds, shows could be pretty dull. These 'lorgnettes', as the French called them, could be put to more interesting use, especially if one's dear friend was in another box across the other side of the theatre. What could be more interesting than swivelling the prospect glass to watch her instead of Ben Jonson's play?

  It could be more interesting still if one's best friend got up to no good in the gloaming of reflected limelight, just when she thought she was secure and incognito. And women crave to see other women at it - as long as they themselves go unnoticed.

  But ladies who planned assignations in theatres learnt cunning. They came with fans, wore masks, adopted fanciful garb, used screens, employed disguise. And gentlemen took umbrage at being overtly observed while in some deep sexual intrigue. It became especially troubling when the lady concerned turned out to be no lady at all, but some tart picked up in Covent Garden. Duelling was in the air. Reputation was everything. Scandal was a fitting reason to go
about killing people who spread it.

  Enter the inventiveness of Georgian London. Lorgnettes were hidden in the handles of the gentleman's walking canes, in ladies' fans. Prospect glasses were sold that folded, or shrank to minuscule proportions. All clever stuff. But the worrisome fact remained, that if you wanted to spy on a friend making love in the theatre's cosy dark, you still had to dangle out at an ungainly angle and ogle with your mini-telescope in an unseemly way. You simply could not pretend, when pretending is the woman's love game, always has been. Another urgent call on Georgian instrument makers.

  They solved it brilliantly, with a thing called the polemoscope. The French, always in the running when improving wickedness, called the polemoscope a lorgnette de jalousie , the 'jealousy glass' of London.

  Basically simple, you can make one yourself. Take a tube (cardboard if you like) and make a small telescope out of it same as usual. You cut a long oval in the tube's side, and glue a mirror inside at an angle. Then to the theatre and, affecting great interest in Mr. Shakespeare's tragedy, you raise your jealousy glass. And you see, not the stage play, but the goings-on in the box immediately to your right or left. And nobody knows. Folk can glance slyly at you all they like, but all they see is you staring with wrapt fascination towards the stage. Actually, you have a bird's-eye view of your friend's passionate scene in the adjacent box and can focus on every ravishing grab and grope. Polemoscopes sold well.

  The ones that collectors favour most nowadays are the jewelled ones, plus the rarities. The great Wedgwood did some All things being equal, the smaller the better. Go for the ones concealed in toothpick quivers, pendants or hidden in watches - this last the rarest.

  ‘In, Lovejoy,' Tinker was saying, pushing me.

  ‘I'm going, I'm going.'

  Across the street the girl in the peach dress was walking purposefully along the pavement. So what?

  ‘I’ll be in the Drum and Dog, Lovejoy,' Tinker said, pity in his voice. For himself, note, not for me.

  Tut your beer on the slate. I'll pay at weekend.'

  'We broke again?'

  Not even worth answering. I went in for my big scene.

  Most things actually aren't. Antiques taught me that. It's a sort of law with me. It's simple, but complex inside, if you follow. Most things aren't.

  Start with antiques. Antiques aren't, because mostly they're fake, dud, Sexton Blakes, simulants, repros. Estimates vary, but the lowest is ten per cent at any famed auction. Choose any great art gallery in the world, forgeries are a tenth. And the highest proportion? The sky, the sky. Old Master drawings are all fakes until proved genuine. And I do mean proved squared, cubed, finger prints of Michelangelo attested by Scotland Yard, and the certificate of authenticity treble checked. And then don't bother, for an Old Master drawing is sham. Only a true divvy knows.

  It goes for other things too. Marriage, cynics could say, is a partnership of deceivers based on convenience. Government isn't. Policing isn't. Truth usually certainly isn't. Holiness positively certainly isn't its beautiful self. But the real front runner for being definitely not what it's cracked up to be is Law. Lawyers, laws, legalities, The Law in all its grandeur, is one enormous fraud. We don't have Law, we have lawyers. Sadly, lawyers've won the game. One or two judges, maybe a politician here and there, is aware of this terrible criminal conspiracy, but they're as helpless as the rest of us. I entered the law courts without misgiving. I've misgiven so often there was no point.

  'Lovejoy,' I reported.

  The goon looked up. 'Hello, Lovejoy. Thought you was still with that rich bird in Wales.'

  Some memories make you wince. I winced stealthily, not to give him satisfaction. Den Heanley's a stout uniformed bloke with a walrus moustache, fancies himself at nine-pin bowls of a Saturday night at the Welcome Sailor, sails off Southwold. He has a cousin in Zurich's police, so he knows I killed my missus once, he says. He has a wayward daughter, sixteen, who manages illicit chemicals and university students. He's worried sick, his wife suicidal over the girl. Outwardly, he's the avuncular custodian of our legal portals, ticks names off a tally list.

  ‘I've no money for bribes, Den.'

  ‘Fees, Lovejoy. The law's against bribes.'

  'Ha, ha, Den.' I looked about. 'Where do I go?'

  'Through there, and - '

  'And wait,' I finished. 'Chance of a cupper?'

  Taking his pen, I signed Winston Churchill, 1, Hyde Park Gate and walked through. Nobody else waiting. Distant voices pontificated, echoed. A door slammed. Footfalls thumped. Silence. More fairy voices, a stern bass intoning somebody's name.

  Quarter of an hour. Another. Half an hour.

  Rising, I returned to Den. 'How much longer?' A posh suited bloke advanced.

  'Lovejoy? I called out, and you ignored me! That's the action of a bounder!'

  'Sod off,' I said. It was the thunder man from the auction. Medium height, furled brolly, waistcoated double-breasted suit worn with such assurance you could almost believe they were still in fashion. Moustache like that old comedian. He'd have his bowlers privately made (sorry, built; you build bowler hats), Bates's of Jermyn Street, London.

  'Guard! Make this hoodlum speak in a civil manner!'

  ‘Yes, sir.' Den's eyes gave me an imploring look. 'Lovejoy. This is the chief magistrate, Mr.. Ashley Battishall.'

  'Sod off.'

  'Heanley,' the thunder man thundered. 'Bring him to me the instant he's given his evidence!'

  He strode off. Unfortunately, you need really long legs for a good stridey exit. He tried, didn't make it. And I think bowlers are only for squat navvies or tall effete gentlemen who are deadly shots and can ride dromedaries.

  'He ever ridden a dromedary, Den?'

  Den sighed. 'Don't start, Lovejoy.' He perked up with a smile at a distant echo. 'They're calling you.' He pointed with a pencil. I hate that. 'If you get done, Lovejoy, it's Bill Tyrone on the cells.'

  Bill, custodian of us honest people penned in our town dungeons, gets me fish and chips from Sadie's.

  If it's all right with you, I won't go into detail about the court. The ritual's repellent, their tricks hideous, the whole charade disgusting. Lawyers can't see it, of course, because it's their livelihood. Makers of poison gas must have their own rationalizations. Juries listen, or don't. Judges listen, or don't. The mouthies talk, trying to seem lifelike. My bit concerned a polemoscope.

  'Would I be right to say you gave the defendant one of these instruments?' the barrister asked when he could be bothered.

  'Aye.'

  'An antique?'

  'No.'

  That made his team shuffle papers and glare.

  He cleared his throat, to put the knife in. He flapped a paper at me, an irritating fly.

  To the police, you stated it was marked London made, 1878. Do you deny this?'

  'No.'

  'Yet now you say it isn't an antique?'

  'Yes.'

  The magistrate cut in. 'Could you explain, Love joy?'

  Him I knew from last year. I'd sold him a mahogany smallboy without veneer. Lovely. Because he was a magistrate I'd told him it was a reproduction I'd made, but he hadn't minded.

  'Antiques begin in 1837, m'lord. Things made later aren't.'

  'Aren't?'

  'The Customs and Excise lot started to con the public into believing antiques were defined as a century old, so they could charge money on more things. Then people started claiming anything older than seventy-five years, then fifty.' I paused, but nobody spoke. I added helpfully, k l don't trust moving goalposts, Your Honour.'

  'The, ah, device was marked as London, 1878?'

  'Yes.'

  'Very well!' The barrister flung his paper down to put the fear of God in me. It didn't work, because the fear's already there. This wart was a pillock. 'Why did you give it to the defendant, Packo Orange, a rival antique dealer?'

  'So he would keep quiet.'

  'Quiet about what?' He looked blank.

  'About a sym
pathy.'

  'Explain!' He stood akimbo, jowls dangling.

  i already have.'

  'Lovejoy.' The magistrate was getting tired. An old bloke, he's our town's contract bridge champion, hangs anybody who uses the Culberston system. 'What is a sympathy?'

  Packo wasn't in court, which was a pity. He'd like this. No greater raconteur than Packo Orange. He was probably pulling his usual trick of dying in the cells. He's an elderly mate of mine, paintings faker in Dedham. Looks exactly like a garden gnome, beard and all, yet cohabits with a succession of young blondes. His worn joke is that he changes them when the ashtrays are full. You are expected to laugh.

  'A sympathy's a painting, m'lord, done using sympathetic inks.'

  'Lovejoy,' he admonished wearily, as if I'd gone two no trumps without a knave for entry and only one point.

  ‘I’m telling you!' I said indignantly. The auction had a blank painting, a sympathy, on sale. I wanted it badly. The dealers laughed, thinking it stupid, but they're thick as a well wall. Packo knew it for a sympathy. So I bribed him to keep out of the bidding.'

  That is illegal!' somebody interposed.

  My turn to be weary now. We have this hopeless law about the conduct of bidders in auctions. It stands virtually unused.

  'What did you bribe him with, Lovejoy?' the old beak asked.

  'The polemoscope, and the Coke recipe.'

  The what?' Everybody woke up at that.

  'The recipe for Coca-Cola, sir. Packo was thinking of marketing some, though it seems a waste of time to me.' The news seemed to have thrown them. Consternation was about. I helped it along, seeing they were interested. 'I told him to convert it all back to imperial measures, because the Coke company do it in metric nowadays. But that's not my fault, is it?'

  Nobody answered. Two lawyers were whispering. Then, 'Recipe? Is it not secret, Lovejoy?'

  'Oh, aye. Packo thought 19.94 grammes of alcohol was too much-you end up with a hundred litres.' I paused, adding helpfully, 'That's knocking on twenty-seven gallons, Your Honour.'