The Possessions of a Lady

by Jonathan Gash

  'Frothey went gorilla, Lovejoy.'

  Roadie sniggered. 'I told her you'd gone with that posh sheila.'

  'What're we after, Lovejoy?' Tinker gazed soulfully into his empty glass. I got him another two pints, which was almost me cleaned out. 'You've got that look.'

  'Carmel has a sand job. I'm lumbered with Tubb.'

  'Gawd, Lovejoy. Might as well phone the Plod. His superstition'll cock it up. Hear how he got nicked? They were robbing this mansion

  'I know,' I said sourly. 'Maythorn indoors.'

  'We broke, Lovejoy?' Tinker asked.

  Roadie fell about as I hawked out my last groat. 'Some antique dealer! Evicted, stony broke.'

  'Aureole might have word of your niece,' I told Tinker sourly, but didn't say she'd been on Aureole's dating agency. Tinker gave a grimace. He looked shifty.

  'Big John wants you about scossing the Yank Museum.'

  'Oh, dear. I've just seen him.'

  Sheehan must have decided he'd been too giving over that reffo. Every so often he considers antiques as a career. That is to say, he decides what antiques he wants, and we're expected to obtain them at no risk to him. To 'scoss' is to strip entirely of spoils, for later division.

  'The one in the West Country?'

  It's actually the only extant American Museum in the whole of Europe. Established in the 1980s, it's still worth seeing. A great mansion filled with old American furniture, patchwork quilts, utensils. Entirely furnished, ready to inhabit, early New England vintage. Word said it had naff security. I wondered idly what the USA had done to incur Big John's wrath.

  'Tell Big John I'll think hard about it.'

  'And Lydia's back. There she is.'

  My heart gave a lurch, a rotten sensation. I'm in enough trouble without emotion creeping in. Don't get me wrong. I'm in favour of Lydia, love, the lot. But travel light goes fleetest, and Lydia was impedimenta. Women tidy my cottage—when I have one, that is. Thekla's tender loving care lost me my home. See what I mean? They tidy everything so my few clothes are untraceable. The arch tidier is Lydia.

  Another lurch. I saw her shadow on the vestibule's frosted glass. Two lads hauled in, laughing, joshing as Lydia hesitated. She'd dither there until closing time unless I fetched her.

  'Wotcher, love.'

  'Good evening, Lovejoy.'

  There she stood, blushing prettily. Slim, but not too. Dark blue suit, smart hem, high-neck lace blouse, small matching hat, navy blue handbag, neat white gloves. My resolution evaporated. I grinned like a fool.

  'You're back, then, Lyd.'

  'Lydia, please. May I . . . ?'

  'Oh, come in. Tinker's here.'

  We joined them. Everybody gaped, playing who's-the-looker. Women gave her the cold eye, working out how to talk her down. They'd have a hard time. She dulled every mirror. Tinker explained Roadie to her.

  'Good evening, Mr. Dill. How do you do, Roadie?'

  'Is she real, for fu—?'

  Tinker clapped a hand over the youth's mouth and gravelled out in a whisper audible on the Kent coast, 'Shut your 'ole, lad. There's a frigging lady present.'

  I smiled weakly. 'May I offer you a drink?'

  'Earl Grey tea, please. Do they have biscuits?'

  She drew off her gloves, knees together, ready for the sermon and offertory. Body of a sinner, manners of a saint, soul of a nun.

  'Is she real?' Roadie was astonished.

  This called for my bent eye. He subsided while I went to ask Prissy the barmaid for some Earl Grey tea and some biscuits. The bar lads guffawed, but even they knew that Lydia was the classiest the pub had ever had in its chequered seven-hundred year old history, and just eyed me with envy.

  'You joking, Lovejoy?' Prissy asked. She was new, a Walsall lass. 'Tea and biscuits in the saloon bar? How much do I charge?'

  'Make a note,' I offered gallantly. 'I'll settle up later.' Like I say, Prissy's new.

  ' . . . a divvy can unerringly diagnose antiques, you see,' Lydia was telling Roadie when I rejoined them. 'So Miss Carmel is particularly keen. . .’

  'How was the course, Lydia?' I interrupted. The less said about Carmel's sand job the better. Lydia would assume it involved inspecting some cabinet in a vicarage. 'Learn all about antiques? Porcelain? Wedgwood? Paintings?'

  'Lovejoy,' Roadie said. 'Your shag's telling us about some bint's sand job.'

  'Could I have a word, please?' I beckoned Roadie into the vestibule. A snogging couple desisted, watched sullenly as I throttled the lad until he went puce.

  'What . . . ?' the nerk gasped when I let go.

  'Listen. Lydia is not like you or me. We're nigh on rubbish. She isn't. Keep mum, or I'll break your arm. Understand?' I didn't know if I could fulfil the threat, being a coward, but I could at least bludgeon him and run.

  'What's so special about her?' he choked, feeling his neck.

  'She's so special about her, see?'

  Enough, in case he decided to fight back. I told the snog-gers sorry, and brightly returned.

  'Roadie's checking the weather.' I eyed Lydia. She smiled shyly back. 'You're bone dry, love. It's teeming cats and dogs.'

  'Mr. Boxgrove kindly gave me a lift from the railway station. He was seeing off Miss Aureole's friend.'

  'How kind,' I said. Lydia talks like an abbess.

  'Wasn't it?' She smiled, sun breaking through cloud. 'He gave her a ticket, a map and everything. He would have introduced but she was in desperate hurry. She seemed so tired. Just back from Salford, too.'

  Deep down Roger's a shagnasty. I wasn't jealous, but didn't like him giving Lydia a lift. Change the subject.

  'Tinker? Aureole owes me a Berkley Horse, okay?'

  'Is that an antique, Lovejoy?' asked Lydia.

  'Er, no,' I lied. She'd have her notebook out any minute. 'It's, er, a wooden display stand.'

  Tinker frowned. 'You got that right, Lovejoy? Isn't it . . . ?'

  'Get another pint,' I bawled, nudging him hard. I smiled at Lydia. 'Tinker always misunderstands.'

  Her tea was served on a tray with doylies, if you please. The old Bay and Say had never seen such elegance. I glanced gratitude to Prissy, who went red and looked away. She's nice, Prissy.

  Something was odd, though. Roger doesn't do kindnesses except for money. Tinker knowingly caught my anxiety, gave one of his spectacular coughs as cover, shaking the rafters as far as the Roman ruins, and went for the ale.

  'Sorry, miss,' he said, returning carrying five pints. I wish I could do that. I once tried lifting three, but spilled two. His rheumy old eyes streamed. He wiped snot into his palm, and gulped phlegm down with relief. 'My chest's getting worse. I need a drink bad . . .'

  'Oh. Please, Mr. Dill. Allow me.'

  He swiftly vanished her proffered note into his mitten. 'Wouldn't dream—ohwellifyouinsist. Ta.'

  'Would you care for a cup, Mr. Roadie?' Lydia asked, pouring. T am pleased about Miss Carmel's new . . .'

  'No!' I shot in, then lamely added as everybody in the pub stared. 'He's allergic to tea.'

  'Er, yep, allergic'

  He was learning. My head ached. I kept sane by asking Lydia about 'Antiques For Trade Experts' in Chichester. Outside, thunder stuttered, quivering the floorboards. It was a while before the din dwindled and folk started to come in shaking umbrellas.

  'And now, Lovejoy,' Lydia said eagerly, coming to the end of her diatribe about Georgian furniture. 'Could you tell me of the successes of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc.?'

  Roadie laughed. Tinker looked uncomfortable.

  'Well,' I said weakly, 'we've been after

  'Successes, Lovejoy.' She frowned. 'I insist.'

  I managed to say it seventh go.

  'None, love.'

  Her luscious lips thinned. 'In all that time?

  So I explained, down to my present penury and homelessness.

  That night I slept on her mother's sofa.

  7

  That sofa night was longish, as nights go. I'm not one to lie awake fr
etting. If you sleep, you sleep. I usually read, or lie smiling at memories. But not tonight. Mavis warned me (a) not to move one inch, and (b) not to touch a single thing, like I was going to nick her teaspoons. (They were only electroplate anyway.) I sighed. I'm what prejudice is for.

  The storm crashed and pealed. The living-room fire died. I watched the embers. Hearing Lydia moving about upstairs made me unhappy. Worse, I was outwitted.

  My sparse living comes from detecting antiques, among the crud of fakes. I feel genuine. They speak to me, as in Thekla's fashion show with Loon Rodney's antique carpet. We divvies are few and far between. I've only heard often besides me in my whole life, and I've searched. The chance of meeting another divvy is logarithmically remote. Yet here I was being outsmarted, out-started. Reason? There might be another divvy around.

  Look at the evidence. I turned under my blanket, stared at the embers. Lydia must be sleeping, selfish cow. She sleeps on her side, hands bunched under her chin, as if kipping is a sheer slog. She does her hair in a bun, olden style, except when she goes to bed. My mind wandered after Lydia, deep in slumber . . . Where was I? A rival divvy.

  Evidence: Tinker was busy searching for Roadie's missing sister Vyna. Tied up with Thekla, I'd sent Oddly after the mazarine. And it had already gone.

  More evidence: that fish, Tinker's words, had been shuffed—illicitly pre-sold. You could count on the fingers of one hand the people who'd spot, as I had, a J. Cooper display of antique stuffed fish.

  Yet more evidence: lately, I'd been out-sprinted on seven genuine, heart-burning antiques. One that really grieved me was a plain flat piece of iron with a sharp angular point. It was priceless, a 1490s fireback from some country house nigh a century older than Good Queen Bess. In a scrap metal yard in Goldhanger. The yard gaffer was out, and I was hurrying to meet Betty about a silver salver so I didn't have time to wheedle the fireback out of the gaffer's bonny missus. I sent Tinker. Unbelievably, he'd come back empty-handed. Somebody had bought it minutes before.

  Now, this simply doesn't happen. Never ever. I could understand losing the mazarine—everybody falls for silver, queen of metals. I could accept losing the fish display— angling is the kingdom's most frequented 'sport'. I could even believe losing a Bow Factory soft-paste porcelain mug, decorated with crude copper-plate printed figures coloured in with enamels. It had the one feature that makes collectors squeal with joy—a little heart-shaped blob at the handle's bottom. You may have to look hard to see it, but it means a fortune.

  But a soot-encrusted chunk of iron from behind a fireplace? Crudely made, in a sand-floor mould, rope and sword-handle indents its only decoration?

  Never in a million years.

  I'd only gone into the scrap yard to ask if I could use their phone. The chimes from the fireback had literally knocked me reeling. I'd told the scrappie's lass not to sell it please, promised the earth . . . Gone.

  Conclusion: there must be an evil divvy in the Eastern Hundreds. He had a car, and money, therefore a backer. Uneasily I thought Big John Sheehan, except he is straight as a die and ferocious, yes. Devious? No. Somebody new in these remote east lands, was funding my mystery foe. It was driving me to drink.

  Or it would be, if I hadn't alienated Frothey.

  The rain lashed on the windows. The gale howled. The embers fell with a tiny crash. Dozing, I remembered Jessica, in her church. That conversation when Tubb arrived was phoney, some way. Two people pretending they'd never met. Like they both knew all about Carmel's sand job. I watched the embers.

  Antiques are the strangest things. People think that some genius makes them, the world applauds and the antiques are fixed for ever. Wrong.

  Antiques are a shifting sand. Often they're so ephemeral that they're gone like will-o'-the-wisps. Other times, they're staring you in the face unnoticed. Like poor old Vincent van Gogh's paintings that nobody wanted, and now you have to queue for days even to glimpse them under armed guard. And Lowry's once-derided paintings of matchstick people in grimy mill townscapes. And Munch's 'formless, vulgar, brutal' paintings, that caused such an uproar in Berlin in 1892 that the artist rose to fame.

  It can go the other way. What is at first priceless can become cheap, like money, that halves in value each decade. A generation ago, you couldn't give old steam railway engines away. Today, whole towns turn out merely to see one puff by. We have a well-heeled woman called Fortune Phoebe, who stands eternally by the council rubbish dump. She makes a mint out of discarded dross, squirrelling a car load away every nightfall.

  Like the 'lilly-narcissus', a.k.a. the tulip. Brought innocently from its native Turkey to Vienna about the 1540s, the tulip showed up in England in 1577 to no ado. So what, a different flower? Then it took off, in Holland in 1594. For forty years the Dutch went crazy. One— one —bulb of a red-white stripey flower fetched 10,000 guilders, the cost of a pricey town house. Dealers used diamond-merchants' scales to weigh bulbs out. The dirt cheap old flower zoomed to priceless.

  Until a terrible April in 1637, when the whole inverted pyramid—paper shares of paper wealth on paper promises balancing on a tulip—toppled. Speculators' fortunes crumpled. Ruin stalked Holland's proud cities. The lesson, if only we'd hark: money is whim.

  Sometimes, too, antiques can change and we forget. The worthless suddenly focuses today's lust in a new way unprecedented even though nothing about the antique has changed. Nowadays, we all boggle at the daft Victorians who couldn't see the blindingly obvious, that barmy old Turner's strange daubs are worth a king's ransom.

  Sand job, but where? No prizes for guessing that Roger Boxgrove's new wealth was funding it. He'd put me on to Carmel, the instigator. But what was the stripe? Jessica, and Tubb already knew, if I'd guessed right. I knew of few museum loans, though I don't follow news much. Should I ask Lydia, in the morning? Something she'd said vexed me, but I didn't know what.

  It's unusual for me not to wake about five. The wind had abated, the rain a steady drizzle. In the gloaming Mavis's garden seemed to have been put through a tumble drier. I tiptoed about, had my bath without splashing. By the time I emerged, unshaven but clean, I knew Lydia was listening. You can always feel a woman awake in bed, even with walls in between.

  Toast is easiest. I managed to strangle the toaster's beeping when it popped. Mavis only had inferior marmalade, really annoying. What good is stealing a neffie breakfast? I brewed up. The house listening in silence. We're odd, people.

  I stole a teaspoon, drank the milk, nicked the milk bottle, Mavis's kitchen salt, a half-pint commemoration mug, and a bottle of spring water. Off to make some free money. We homeless waifs have to.

  Dressed, dry, I let myself out, walked to the bypass, where I got a lift from a returning student. I told him I was late for my fishing smack. He drove me the extra three miles to the harbour.

  Brad was about to put to sea. With a cheery greeting I jumped aboard, thrilled that his lass Patsy was with him. She's the most beautiful female on earth, dark eyes, pale skin, lips you'd jump into without hanging on to the selour. She's one of these exquisite women who wears clumsy garb to accentuate the entrancing figure beneath.

  'After mackerel, Lovejoy?' Brad joked. He knows I think fish come in batter.

  'Ha ha, Brad,' I said gravely. 'Land me at Toosey Stone?'

  'Morning, Lovejoy,' said Patsy, stopping the world.

  Weakly I returned the greeting, sat in the thwarts, whatever those are. The clouds were wearing thin, the wind whippy.

  'What's in the bag, Lovejoy?' Patsy asked.

  Brad grinned. 'Lovejoy's broke. He's hunting amber.'

  She eyed me, coiling a rope. Everything Patsy does looks erotic. We'd once made smiles when Brad was away at Birmingham's flintlocks auctions. I hoped Brad didn't suspect. I wouldn't like to fall overboard.

  'Amber? Hunting amber? At Toosey Ness?'

  'I'll show you,' I offered, and quickly added, 'Er, when you're both free.'

  Toosey Ness is the local way of saying Saint Osyth's Point,
after the priory. It's marked by a great stone, for sailors to take sightings. There's one each side of every estuary, predating the Romans.

  'Amber's cast up on shore after storms.'

  'Got enough salt there, Lovejoy?' Brad's often seen me wash for amber.

  'Aye, ta. I nicked all Mavis had.'

  'Mavis who?' Patsy asked, quick as a flash.

  The boat pulled as the river widened and the sea's expanse showed.

  'Mind your own business, Patsy,' I said. 'Have you a bowl?' Mavis who, indeed. Women are nosey.

  Brad put the sails up, hauling away, Patsy heave-hoing along. I clung on. The wind tugged and shoved. Land receded. We were in the North Sea.

  Half an hour later I plopped onto the muddy foreshore and was alone on a desolate sea mudbank in the dawn, with solid land two furlongs of mud away. I was lonely, but my pursuit of the evil divvy needed money, and amber was the only free money left.

  My shoes sucking at every step, I ploshed along the windswept shore after the precious sea gold.

  Every amber hunter's dream is the famous 'Burma Amber' in South Kensington's museums, huge at 33 pounds 10 ounces. But not all amber's immense. It's not all amber, either.

  Baits favour white opaque amber, we clear honey-coloured amber. I particularly love the deep red ambers of China. On the beach, amber looks like flotsam, utter rubbish. Hunt some yourself. It's easy. It's free. You'll find a piece sooner or later.

  Measure ten level teaspoons of salt into half a pint of clean water. The specific gravity of this fluid will be near the all-important 1.13. Then scour the beach. Plastic's trouble— shredded plastic's everywhere nowadays. Your magic bowl of salt solution is your secret weapon, for most plastic sinks in it. Glass also sinks. Stones sink. Rusty metal sinks. Rubber floats, but bends. Wood floats, but wood splits like, well, wood. Also, flotsam wood is pale, veined, striated.

  That leaves only two things floating on your salt water. One is jet—itself a seashore thing, black, and a genuine organic gem, though fashion killed it long since except in Whitby.

  The other floater is amber. Never mind what it looks like. If it doesn't sink, it's a contender. It's S.G. will be 1.12 or just less, which is all that matters.