The Grace in Older Women

by Jonathan Gash

  'Cavern?' asked Big John.

  'Easy, John,' said Cavern. He's a prematurely wrinkled Morne bloke. You don't mangle with Cavern. Big John once sent him into a gaol to punish some inmates that Big John wanted corrected. Cavern slipped in, inflicted the necessary, and was home the following day without a scratch. I like the sense of security that comes from agreeing with Cavern et al.

  'I bid one,' Farouk said.

  ‘Two.' Habit said the bid for Litterbin.

  ‘Three.' Bog Frew did his I-don't-care pose, fooling nobody but himself, as Farouk capped Litterbin.

  Silence. Sheehan gave it the nod. Farouk looked dismayed, but I wondered. His sort of quiet reflective type never looks dismayed, however downcast he might be. So he wanted us to believe he was dejected when he really wasn't. Now why would an antique dealer propose the theft of an antique from a country house, pay local thieves to steal it, yet not really want it?

  We pressed on, me shelving the little problem. Antiquery's full of these twists. You can never remember half of them. I'd have to ask Tinker what Farouk was up to.

  Sheehan next allowed some Louis Comfort Tiffany glass to be stolen from an East London museum, but said Bog Frew would have to make his own arrangements because this wasn't his area. Tomtom would give Bog a couple of names, contacts. Besides, Big John couldn't care less about foreign stuff. It broke my heart to hear of pieces so lovely as Tiffany Glass Company of New York - leaders in the Art-Nouveau style, late nineteenth century. Oddly, these glorious American antiques are far more admired by non-Americans than by the Yanks themselves. The Tiffany firm had a workman called Arthur Nash, whose colours and designs are brilliant. I'd seen the collection - only eight pieces, only one night guard. I'd wondered whether to try the place myself, just for one of Nash's Tiffany 'favrile' pieces, which are simply glass shapes like balls, vases, fruits, decorated by flowers or vines. Louis Tiffany coined the name himself, bright lad, and did the same shapes on metalwork and even pottery. I wondered whether to try to 'chop' (meaning to share) the scam with Bog Frew. I'd heard lately he had lost heavily on horses. Again.

  Big John denied Montgomery permission to do our town's museum for Roman coins, on the grounds that it was done far too often. But he allowed him a theft of a vintage motor from a Berkshire museum. There was enthusiastic bidding for this, the maniacs. Car addicts are really odd. Bog Frew wanted a lovely flintlock fowling piece by Manton stolen from the Rotunda Museum in Woolwich, and sulked when Big John said a flat no because it belonged to the Royal Artillery, the "Gunners'.

  'Any separates?' Big John asked.

  'Er, John. Sorry and all that . . .'

  His gaze interrogated Cavern, who shook his head to tell his gaffer this was the first he'd heard of an extra proposal.

  'Yes, Lovejoy?'

  'Er, John. There's a big painting, Stubbs, a horse. Down the estuary. I've been wondering if . . . Nothing definite, you understand, and I'd have to get the gelt together, maybe syndicate it, like, and I know it's early days . . .'

  'Picture?' He wouldn't know a masterpiece if he fell over it, but his shrewdness can't be bested. 'What's he saying, Cavern?'

  'Propose it, Lovejoy. Then bid. With,' Cavern added, secretly rioting in mirth-filled glee, 'money on the nail.'

  'I know, John,' I said, desperate. 'But can I give notice that I want to propose it next time? If that's all right?'

  Sheehan thought a second. 'Put it on hold? Right, Lovejoy. But you'll pay a half extra when you bid.'

  I dabbed my sweaty brow. 'Thanks. Really good of you, John.'

  'Called?' he asked.

  'Whistlejack,' I said, looking to see if anybody present jumped in surprise.

  Montgomery did. Bog Frew turned slowly to look at me in utter astonishment, but he was an actor, right? Farouk didn't, possibly being the dog that did not bark, as Sherlock Holmes remarked. Only Litterbin's response seemed normal. He guffawed.

  'What a frigging name!'

  Practically grovelling in gratitude, I fawned my way out into the cool daylight, every muscle trembling. I was standing by the Roman wall recovering when Montgomery came by. I could see Corinth at a cafe table, smoking her head off.

  'Lovejoy!' False heartiness. 'Chance of a word?'

  'Sorry. Monty. I'm due at a meeting. Clients waiting.'

  He smiled in polite disbelief. 'Ring me. Pretty urgent, what?'

  ‘Ta. What about?'

  'Good idea that, about Whistlejack. I'll tell Miss Corinth.'

  So we went our separate ways. I felt I'd done superbly, for now Whistlejack. the famous Stubbs painting, could not be stolen, for Big John Sheehan's writ ran throughout the whole Eastern Hundreds. I hadn't lost my touch for disaster.

  Hurry now to fit in everything before twilight, when I'd have to do the burglary. Sabrina time.

  11

  One thing you can be sure of: antiques and sex are scarey. Which one's more frightening than the other, I don't really know, but they run it close. Which is why I walked past Sabrina's house without looking, then stro-o-o-olled slowly past the remnants of the Roman wall that borders Castle Field, carefully not looking across the road to where the luscious Sabrina palpitated behind her window. Two o'clock, on the dot, and Sunday, as she'd ordered.

  The curtains were drawn upstairs, signal forgo. Her Jaguar, size of the Norwich express, was backed into the driveway, not bum outwards. Signal two. And the flowers in the windows downstairs, blue: signal three. I went towards the house only when nobody happened by walking their dog, across the small lawn and darted inside, the door opening the instant I made it.

  'You're only just on time, Lovejoy.'

  What's the answer when a woman says that? Early, I'd be risking her reputation. Late, disaster.

  She enveloped me, mouth seeming rimmed by lips a foot thick, breasts slamming me against the wall. She clicked the door lock as we groped and clutched. It was two o'clock Sunday all right. From the corner of my eye, as passion took over, I caught sight of the printer's proofs of the next Aldeburgh auction lying tantalizingly on the couch, but I was already too far gone and my vision blurred. We made the safety of her outhouse before paradise obliterated my remaining senses.

  We'd met in odd circumstances. The trip to the Cornish holiday resort was by reason of some antiques catastrophe. I'd tried to organize a syndicate to buy an Adam Revival cabinet known to have been exhibited at the 1867 Paris Exhibition. Cruelly, some New Yorker bought it for quarter of a million slotniks, leaving me owing frightening interest on a loan I'd thought cast-iron. This Leslie Mulrose bloke I'd come to Cornwall to meet was a heavy roller, gave loans on antiques. I'd arranged to meet him at his hotel. I had three forged sale notes on me, all relating to imaginary furniture in the Midlands, as convincers.

  I'd been nearly basking on the bobbing briny - meaning I was staring out to sea from the sand - when Sabrina happened by. She was carrying her succulent self and a catalogue from Greenhalgh's Original Antiques Auction (every word of that title's a laugh) in Aldeburgh. For a moment I was startled, thinking she'd come after me about an overdue account and a dropsy I'd done - that's moving a good antique from a mixed job into some dross, so you get it- and the good little one - cheap. It takes sleight of hand.

  We got chatting. I made sure of that.

  'Go ahead,' I grumbled as she borrowed my beach parasol. 'Let me sizzle.'

  She laughed pneumatically like they do. 'This sunshade is mine.'

  I'd nicked it by pretending I was Number Forty-two. 'Okay. But don't start complaining I should pay. You're the rich auctioneer.'

  'How - ?' She remembered her catalogue. 'Quick eyes.'

  'Here on your tod?'

  'No. My husband.' She indicated a figure zipping along the ocean, skis behind a speedboat. 'He does hang-gliding, scuba diving, that.' She gave me a wry look that spoke volumes. 'Burns off his excess energy.'

  She spoke dismissively. It made me swallow. 'Heavy duty in the City?' Sympathy wins women.

  'Leslie's in ba
nking regulations, investors amok at the drop of a decimated cent.' She smiled. 'I exercise differently.'

  More swallowing. She looked, sounded, was massively voluptuous. More than ample, and that hidden languour women promise with.

  'Lifting antiques about all the time, eh, Mrs. Mulrose?' Her catalogue wore a 'For The Personal Attn Of' sticker.

  She looked startled, cottoned on and smiled, perfect teeth. Then she started, telling me tales of minor antiques scams, to impress me. But she laboured under a handicap: I knew who she was, while she'd not a clue about me. I'd heard the lads talking of this superb blonde auctioneer with an accurate memory for faces, names, bids, names of substitutes. This was the famous Sabrina Mulrose. The lads all over East Anglia lusted after this delectable lass. They'd give anything, antiques excepted, of course. I was here to meet Leslie Mulrose. I hadn't connected the surname.

  Within minutes she had me smiling then laughing. By the second drink - she quaffed it faster than I ever could -I was learning of the auctioneer's viewpoint. To this day I don't know what prompted me to ask my question outright. Was it delight at being one up on an auctioneer? A chance to show off, laugh at her expense?

  ‘I read once you lot have trouble with antiques scruffs. They can, what's the word, divine whether something is a fake. Is it right?'

  'Divvies, you mean.' She tossed her hair from her nape with a hand. I watched, mesmerized. I believed the lads now. Before, I'd taken it with a pinch of salt because they're a randy lot. 'We've one in our region. He's a swine, always broke. Cadges off women, a born thief. He's been too scared to come to our auction since I came.'

  'He has?' I was double narked. She could only be talking about me. Scared? Of her?

  ‘I’ve a degree in fine art, an MA art history. I've written two books on antiques. I contribute to Antique and New Art, specialist auction articles.'

  Gradual graduates. Who profit by degrees, as it were.

  It was then that her husband Leslie skimmed in to the beach and waved. She waved prettily back, extended herself elegantly skywards, brushed sand off. I couldn't take my eyes from her.

  'See you, Mrs. Mulrose,' I said, working out how to come on them accidentally in the bar, pretend surprise.

  'See you. Lovejoy,' she said.

  My face burning, I sat watching her retreating figure. I hadn't told her my name, clever cow. She fell in with her hubby, him explaining with swooping arms how he'd hung on to that rope and flown like an albatross.

  That was the start of it. Needless to say, good old Leslie hadn't lent me the money, but me and Sabrina went on from there. While her husband went out flippered and sealskinned to inspect the seabed's detritus, she'd had the gall to ravish me on her hotel balcony within clear view of the ocean. It adds spice, Lovejoy,' was all she would say when I remonstrated. She meant risk. God knows how many I was, in her ordinal list of lovers. She was scarily frank about her previous blokes. And the reason I had to come when summoned, so to speak? Two reasons. She dissuaded Leslie from lending me the gelt, then offered me a lump sum, which saved my skin. Second, she was eager to run a scam in the Aldeburgh auction, and had been waiting for some gormless dupe like me.

  The means? She was the one who checked the secret proofs from Greenhalgh's printer, before the auction viewing day. Which gave her a head start on any legal honest bidder like you and me, because a cataloguer can change descriptions enough to deceive. Tell you about it if I get a minute. Since then, me and Sabrina had been active in, er, making such adjustments after clandestine encounters. She was thorough, precise, demanding.

  'The last thing I want, Lovejoy,' she'd told me when first we made smiles, 'is for Leslie to find out that you do this to me. Understand?'

  'Yes, Sabrina.' Me doing. . . ? Who was doing what to whom?

  'He wouldn't tolerate you messing about with me like this.'

  'No, Sabrina.'

  'He can be vicious, Lovejoy. So obey my signals to the letter when you start seeing me regularly at home. Understand?'

  That was the first I'd heard of her permanent interdict, to coin a phrase. It had been over six months ago, and I'd come once a week,' Sabrina's Sunday seduction. Only twice had Leslie failed to sail, fly like a bird or dive like a duck. Then, we'd met the following day when Leslie was beavering for dinars on some London heat seat. Sabrina hadn't paid me a groat yet. 'It's in a numbered account, Lovejoy,' she told me huskily whenever I asked for my cut. 'I'll pay it eventually. Now, where were we. . . ?'

  Answer: where me and Sabrina always were, in her spare room, outhouse, on her stairs even. She never took me into her own bedroom. Some fine sensitivity, perhaps.

  'The catalogue, darling,' she said. Her voice always goes kind of sleepy afterwards, though she's wide awake. It's the same with a lot of women. Even Liz Sandwell and Margaret and Josie and Cerise, and the wood nymph Beth, even when she was worried sick we'd be startled by forest ramblers.

  ‘I’ll get it.'

  'No. Let me.'

  Which meant a wait, while she padded about, returned with the proofs. She kept hold of it, as always.

  'This stool, Lovejoy. The lady wants a massive reserve price.'

  'Oh, aye.’ Casual, but that knowing heart of mine pounded.

  ‘Funny thing. Looks old, walnut, round top covered in thick faded embroidered fabric, might have had a coat of arms.'

  Now, don't mock stools just because they're not chairs. Truly old ones are rarer than chairs, believe it or not. The great find is always the tabouret, a round-topped stool like this might be. Sinful old James I brought with him the continental politeness of letting the wives of important lords actually sit down in his presence, the famous tabouret etiquette' of that age. Quite a concession. Charles II favoured it, too, but the courtesy died out with the Georges, whereon round stools petered out mostly until Victoria. I'd go so far as to say that the stool is more of an historical indicator than almost anything else, from monarchs down to the level of my labouring ancestors. Mind you, if you happen to snap up one of Queen Mary IPs own set of eighteen from Windsor Castle, complete with its original green damask covering, you can start your own antiques firm straight off. The familiar music stool that can be adjusted on a central pillar screw is one of my real favourites. (Tip: seek out the ones that the Victorians, after about 1847, cased in with a wooden sleeve. They did this because that screw, sliding erotically into that plush circular top, clearly suggested something unthinkable in the Victorian withdrawing room. The wooden-sleevers are a lovely unusual craftsmanship.) Hepplewhite in 1778 wanted stools taken back to stark simplicity, delectable mahogany, or japanned 'to match the suit of chairs', he said. My mouth watered. A dressing stool matching a set of chairs -

  'Eh?' Sabrina'd mentioned her this-week scam.

  ‘. . . send somebody to bid, make the bid come from you.'

  A think. This was the wrong way round. 'No, love,' I said patiently. 'We pick out the good items, get them for a song by distorting the catalogue description, see? As we always do it.'

  'Not this time, lover.' She leant over me, talking, me recumbent. Her breast curved eloquently near my eye. 'We give it a poor description, true. But this time you send your terrible old tramp to bid a fortune.'

  Her breast made me inclined to agree. 'Why?'

  'Because of what you just said, Lovejoy. Hepplewhite, the matching chairs. It occurred to me as you spoke.' Spoke? I hadn't realized I'd been talking out loud. 'We con folk into thinking there's a matching suit of chairs somewhere!'

  'And lose the tabouret?' Reason's a mistake with women.

  'And gain. . . ?' she prompted, going on when I said nothing. 'We learn who the rich cow is, see?'

  'The vendor is anonymous? You said a lady.'

  'Yes, but through that mare Corinth's pimp.'

  You have to sigh. I don't understand why women hate each other. I mean, she hardly knows Corinth, and here she was slagging off. . . Hang on. 'How d'you know the vendor's a bird?'

  'Montgomery let it slip when
he brought the stool in. Reverence,' she sneered, 'for titles is the bane of antiques. Mind you, he's only doing what the rest of the trade's been up to these past weeks, clearing out a decaying village.'

  'Any idea which one?' I asked, dreading the answer.

  'The one that changed its name,' she said. 'Fenstone.'

  'That old dump,' I dismissed the whole thing. 'Any more?'

  'A coffee biggins is in, genuine silver they're saying.' Her gaze slipped gently down her breast and met mine, a feat. 'Here it is, One-one-nought. How much d'you think?'

  'A fortune.' Silver is slowly recovering. A biggins would temp Big Frank from Suffolk, silver maniac and bigamist.

  'I want it, Lovejoy. Myself. Can we blam the bid price?'

  'You'll bid through a nominee?'

  'Of course.'

  This really hurt. I could do that brilliantly, yet here she was, naked as Eve when God got narked, getting somebody else to do her clandestine illicit bidding. 'No trust?'

  She smiled. My vision couldn't get past her nipple. 'Lovejoy. You serve one purpose. My employees serve another.'

  Only one purpose? It was a crude admission, that I was utterly superfluous to tender-hearted Sabrina, except for my antiquery talent. Love was out, even carnal lust was incidental. I was a pawn. But what bloke isn't?

  George Biggins was one of those dazzling intellects who suddenly explodes into history. Tragically only remembered for his coffee percolator nowadays, back in the 1790s George shone. He was a musician, inventor, a clever mechanic - this at a time when Great Britain was knee-deep in genius mechanics - and a clever chemist. Equating this outstanding polymath with a coffee pot's like honouring Shakespeare for walk-ons. George's name was synonymous with the coffee percolator soon after he made the first one in the mid-1790s. It's a simple cylinder with a snouty pouring lip, a three-legged lampstead beneath. With decoration of the time, nothing unusual.