The Vatican Rip

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘That your auntie over there in the police car?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That old lady. She’s been pickpocketing.’

  Everybody was looking. ‘Er, yes. Good heavens!’ I pushed through the crowd towards the car. A tired policeman in the front seat was smoking a cigarette. Anna was hunched shamefacedly in the back, putting on an act of dizziness.

  ‘This old bag—’ the cop began.

  ‘Auntie!’ I cried in relief. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘—causes us more trouble than the rest of Rome.’

  ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’

  ‘Now, signor.’ The copper with me tapped my shoulder. ‘Now. We tire of her. Understand? You take her in hand, or else . . .’

  ‘I will! I promise!’

  If you looked after her properly she wouldn’t need to steal.’

  ‘You are right, signor,’ I said, all humble. With my hand on my breast and my heart seething with murderous intentions towards Anna I smiled apologetically.

  We warn you,’ the boss cop said, wearily exhaling smoke into my face like he was doing me favours. ‘You are responsible in future. Okay?’

  They took my name and address and let us off with a warning. I even had to sign for the silly old bitch. I grabbed Anna and backed off into the crowd, bowing and scraping to the cops as I went. All the way I said nothing, dragging Anna home in a blaze of white-hot fury, and once there it happened without any conscious decision. I didn’t even give her time to have a shower. I gave her a damned good shaking, and called her all the names under the sun for risking the rip and getting us booked like that.

  She took it in silence, struggling a bit at first and sobbing a little.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lovejoy,’ she snuffled after I’d nearly calmed down.

  ‘So you ought to be,’ I snapped. ‘You’re now a registered felon on the cops’ frigging books.’

  ‘I’ll make it up—’

  ‘There’s no time.’ As I said it my heart was in my boots. I felt ill at the thought.

  ‘I’ll ditch old Anna, build another character—’

  ‘The fucking rip’s next week, you silly cow!’

  ‘Next week?’ Stricken, she raised a tear-streaked face. ‘We must put it off—’

  ‘Rips can’t be postponed. They’re cancelled, or done. Silly bitch.’

  ‘But, Lovejoy—’

  Then I nicked her handbag – why change a profitable habit? – and slammed out into the alley. The trouble with allies is they try to help, and nothing is more trouble than that. Within an hour I’d got plastered on white plonk, and that evening was thankful it was Sunday. I could barely totter to the restaurant whose name Adriana had written down.

  * * *

  I worked so hard planing and chiselling that I could see wood wherever I looked.

  I’d better explain. A rent table is not your usual rectangle or flapped circle, nothing like that. Think of a mushroom, a top on a pedestal. It was used for what its name says, collecting rent from the peasantry. The serfs’ coins went on to a decorated centre, which sinks like Sweeney Todd’s chair and drops the gelt into the pedestal below. Some are oval. Arcellano’s was angled, with drawers all round. It stands to reason that every drawer can’t be rectangular, or they would have no space to enter. Slices of cake are wedge-shaped for the same reason. So some of the drawers have to be phoney for the exterior to look right.

  I was using wood cannibalized from cheap furniture about thirty years old, plus a few panels quite a bit older. Incidentally, when you are forging furniture don’t turn your nose up at chipboard. It’s a hell of a weight but it’s cheap, it veneers like a dream, and it won’t warp in central heating. Very few whole-thickness woods have all those merits.

  As my plan called for two rent tables I was wood from floor to ceiling. A lucky find was a supply of beeswax and turpentine at the furniture makers’ next door to Anna’s place, and a reasonable range of wood varnishes from the main Corso. The adhesives you can get nowadays are great, but a few have one terrible drawback – a characteristic stink – so those have to be avoided. I’d also need a controlled temperature of 68° Fahrenheit or so to do all this glueing and varnishing, and as I’m very keen on knowing what the relative humidity is playing at around furniture, another battle with Adriana was obviously called for. The trouble was Piero would say the opposite to whatever I proposed. Him having the monarch’s ear, so to speak.

  During an afternoon break Anna conducted me to a couple of furniture warehouses. The tables I finally decided I liked were crummy and modern enough to break your heart.

  Anna noticed quick as a flash and burbled, ‘Why, Enrico! They’re exactly like the ones in—’

  I trod neatly on her foot and ordered three, for delivery next afternoon. ‘They’re just the thing I need in the workshop, Auntie,’ I explained loudly.

  On the way home Anna demanded, ‘Has the beautiful signora said you could buy them on her account?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But you expect she will agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied, looking Anna straight in the eye.

  ‘They’re expensive, Lovejoy.’

  ‘They’re for the rip,’ I said coldly. ‘What’s expense between friends?’

  She saw sense. ‘Why did you tell the man to deliver the tables at four o’clock? The emporium’s closed—’

  ‘Anna, love,’ I told her wearily. ‘Shut it.’ She was driving me mad. ‘And you forgot your voice, you silly bitch.’ Old Anna had twice spoken with the mellifluous voice of a young woman. I’d had to kick her into the right gear.

  She gave me a mouthful. ‘It’s working with a selfish brute like you!’ But I could tell she was shaken.

  It was in this happy mood of fellowship we parted, Anna furiously plunging into the nearest crowd of tourists and me slamming off to the workshop for another few hours’ beavering.

  Mondays are always busy with customers. Several times I was interrupted by Fabio to try the tray dodge, which began to get on my nerves. It seemed every few minutes. Still, whoever pays the piper. Whether it was the row with Anna or the knowledge of Piero’s special, erm, position with regard to Adriana I honestly don’t know. But by closing time I was thoroughly cheesed off. When Adriana called me in to hand me my restaurant chit I refused to accept it.

  ‘No, thank you, signora.’

  Piero was bolting the back yard. Fabio was checking the window grilles.

  ‘Where will you eat, Lovejoy?’ Her frigging trump card.

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  She flamed. ‘Like you did the other night, I suppose. With that fat tourist?’

  So she knew of that. Good old Fabio. Or Piero. Or yet another of Arcellano’s goons? Christ.

  ‘She wasn’t fat.’

  ‘And you naturally know for absolute certain how fat!’

  I’d never seen her so pale and angry. It was one of those days. Everything was in a bloody mess at the emporium and I didn’t even know if Anna and I were still speaking.

  ‘Signora,’ I said, because I was fuming too, ‘all my childhood I had food tickets on the charity. I’ll have no more. Please decide what you think I’ve earned. Give me any cheap antique you think will come near it. I’ll manage the way I always have. Antiques is my game. Greed appears to be no different in Rome than anywhere else.’

  I left her to make the choice and went out to help with the locking up, though one of the others always checked them after me again anyway.

  We did our reporting session as usual, me last. I told her I’d ordered two modern cafeteria-type tables that afternoon and told the suppliers to bill the emporium.

  Fabio started up instantly. ‘Of all the nerve.’

  ‘They were needed for glue tables in the workshop.’

  ‘Will there be any further expenses, Lovejoy? I mean, this is your last requirement?’

  ‘No. An old box iron, but I can make one of these.’

  ‘Very well. But in fu
ture ask first. Is that understood?’

  I drew breath to explain that there was very little future left, but Fabio broke in with an exasperated ‘Oh!’ so I turned to go, writing the whole bloody thing off, when Adriana said, ‘Lovejoy. Here, please.’

  Please? She was holding out a sealed envelope between her fingers, avoiding my eye by the trick of paying attention to Fabio’s complaints. I hesitated, but took it and went to shut the workshop windows.

  I opened the envelope. A posh monogrammed card was inside. It read,

  Signora Adriana Albanese requests the pleasure of Signor Lovejoy’s company this evening at supper in the Gold Season Restaurant, Rome.

  Eight-thirty for nine o’clock.

  I had the sense to put it in my jacket pocket before I turned round. Piero was waiting there in the doorway.

  ‘All done, Lovejoy?’ he said without inflection. It could have meant anything.

  I said, ‘Nearly.’ And left.

  I felt a real scruff in the Gold Season. The carpet absorbed me up to my ankles. The walls were discreetly illuminated along their entire lengths, gold light warming the restaurant as far as the crystal fountain in the centre.

  Needless to say, an incoming tramp flashing a card and being given an ostentatiously hysterical welcome by the senior captain caused no little stir. You can’t help feeling a right duckegg sometimes. Even people in the alcoves looked up to see the fuss.

  I was given a dry sherry as if I’d asked for it. The offered smokes I declined. I was nervous as hell, though I’d washed. The invitation presumably meant I was to dine with the Albaneses, rather than in some quiet corner. But what did one talk about with a bloke like Signor Albanese? And I’m a clumsy sod. I was sure to drop everything or knock his wineglass all over his precious papers. Every portent indicated a really swinging time. I sat miserably listening to the gentle background music and trying to work out things to say.

  There are times when even portents get things wrong. This was one of them. A second sherry had just arrived to make me hungrier still. I could hardly remember the pizza I had had at two o’clock. I’d just decided that the invitation had been some kind of elaborate joke when a cough alerted me, one of those directional look-out-we’re-here coughs waiters use. I looked up, and there was Adriana, being ushered towards my table.

  I stumbled to my feet, nudging the bloody table so the glasses tinkled dangerously. Calm hands steadied it and trained voices murmured apologies for the habitual clumsiness of serfs, as if it had been them and not me.

  ‘Good evening, signora,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Good evening, Lovejoy.’

  They say Queen Victoria is the only person in history never to check that a chair was available before sitting down. (One always was, of course.) Well, Adriana did it too, sinking elegantly in the sure conviction that enough kulaks were around to spring forwards with a chair. She was blinding. Her dress was a simple sheath thing in green with a scooped collar. The emerald on her breast seemed out of place at first until she raised her arms to the table and the gold bracelets picked up the emerald’s gold setting. Her emerald earrings shed a million lights. I’d never seen anything so exquisite before. The waiters hurtled about to bring her sherry.

  I had to tell her. ‘Look, signora. I’m letting you down, being here.’

  She said coolly, ‘I invited you, Lovejoy.’

  ‘I know. But you’re . . . perfect. Just look at me.’

  ‘Appearances are unimportant, no?’

  ‘That is untrue, signora. As your husband will agree.’

  ‘Signor Albanese will not be able to join us this evening. He’s unavoidably detained.’

  Until then I’d assumed he was merely telling the chauffeur where to park that purple Rolls. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Unsuccessfully I tried to suppress my overwhelming relief.

  ‘You’re very kind.’ While she accepted the sherry I wondered if I detected a certain dryness in her tone but decided I couldn’t have. ‘Lovejoy. I saw Signor Gallinari over the weekend.’

  The bloke who’d sold us the lovely Jacobean piece. ‘You didn’t tell him I’m on your staff?’

  ‘Yes. He remembered you.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Pity. He has two luscious early Wedgwoods, both underpriced.’ We couldn’t pull the same lift twice. Gallinari wasn’t that dim. A lift is persuading somebody to sell an antique ridiculously cheap. Dealers are always on guard against other dealers.

  Her brown eyes flicked up at me, seeming big as saucers. ‘He called you that young man who loves things.’ Lustrous. That’s the word. ‘You rather surprised him, Lovejoy.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘When I said you . . . assist me, he expressed astonishment that you had not asked for a special deal.’

  ‘I don’t do milkers.’ A milker is a trade trick. You claim you’ve had to pay more than the real purchase price. Had I done a milker, Gallinari would have given me two invoices, a genuine and a phoney one. The loser would have been Adriana. ‘Is that what Piero and Fabio expected, too?’

  ‘Of course. And I.’

  ‘Look.’ I cleared my throat. Even a perfect woman can be dim. ‘Antiques are valuable to me even if they aren’t mine. They’re not just hard currency. They are love. Some people – kids in slums, men and women slaving in intolerable conditions, dying as they worked – solidified love, welded it into things they made. When you think of it, it’s magical. There’s nothing more valuable than that.’

  ‘There’s feeling.’ She was watching me again.

  ‘No there’s not.’ That sort of yap riles me. ‘Feeling isn’t love.’

  She waved away a hovering waiter. ‘What are they, then?’

  ‘Feelings are feelings. Nothing else.’

  She was nonplussed. Women hate the cold light of truth. I saw a milliard doubts flicker across her face, to and fro like dappling sun on a stream. She said slowly, staring past me, ‘I’m not used to this kind of discussion. You’ll have to explain . . .’

  ‘Look,’ I said apologetically. ‘Erm, sorry about this, but could we possibly, erm . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, certainly!’

  She ordered, and mercifully the grub started coming. I just lasted out. Apart from the prawn cocktail being so natty it was practically microscopic, the grub was lovely. I fell on it, desperately trying to maintain a light chitchat till each next lot appeared. The signora kept it coming, thank God. By the time the second lot of dessert rolled up I had slowed to a steady noshing rhythm and only then noticed that conversation had ceased at the adjacent tables. A good number of diners were watching us – well, me. Adriana had hardly eaten a thing. I reddened and glanced up at her but she only smiled.

  ‘I would like your opinion,’ she said smoothly, ‘on those profiteroles. They are supposed to have quite a name for them here . . .’

  ‘Oh, er,’ I stammered, wondering if I ought to pretend I was full from politeness. Adriana overrode my embarrassment by interrogating the captain on the cream and insisting on inspecting it herself. Not knowing what the hell profiteroles were I was a bit lost and waited till all our fates were decided. They turned out to be little chocolate things that tended to vanish when you bit.

  You have to admire a woman like her. Instead of being mortified by this shabby moron whaling his way through platefuls, she blossomed and funnily enough raised her voice, almost showing off. She seemed to take a curious delight in supervising what was going on. I suspected afterwards she was just covering up so I wouldn’t feel bad on her account, though at the time I was just a bit surprised because I’d never seen her so animated. If I hadn’t known I was a proven liability I’d almost have believed she was enjoying being with me. Like I say, women are odd. Over coffee I tried to apologize in case I’d put her off her grub. I’d just been so hungry.

  She smiled. ‘Not in the least.’

  ‘You never have much.’ As I said it I realized the mistake. It meant I’d ogled her every mouthful whenever she dined. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don�
�t apologize. I never really enjoy mealtimes.’

  A message to cut and run? ‘Erm, I think I’d better be getting along . . .’

  ‘I’ve ordered coffee,’ she commanded. ‘I’d like you to try our famous liqueur. Sambuca isn’t to everyone’s palate, but I’m told . . .’

  She insisted we finish the wine and asked where I was living.

  I said, ‘Over in a small street near the Castel Sant’ Angelo,’ but I was trying to work it out. If Piero had followed me to that hotel when I’d visited that lady tourist, and reported back to Adriana, why didn’t she know where I lived?

  ‘Is it satisfactory?’

  ‘It’s free.’ Another mistake, possibly implying resentment at being fastened on her financial chain. Her colour heightened. I could have kicked myself. ‘I meant it’s okay.’

  She gathered her handbag then, in a glitter of emerald and gold. Dinner was over. Minions panted up, quivering. She said, ‘I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to drive.’

  ‘Me? That big thing?’

  ‘No. Something much smaller. The Rolls is . . . in use. Can you manage . . . ?’

  She meant was I tipsy.

  An army of waiters leapt to drag our chairs away. We processed out of the restaurant, Adriana sweeping ahead and me following.

  The car was the same longish low job. Adriana passed me the keys. All fingers and thumbs, I made a pig’s ear of opening the doors, and once in I took a fortnight finding the controls. Adriana said nothing, just laid her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes until we got going. Then she opened her eyes and from then on simply directed, telling me only left or right and saying nothing else.

  It came on to rain after some twenty minutes. We were on a major carriageway. Quite a lot of traffic was about though it thinned as we turned off on to a smaller road. I had no idea where we were. She never said where we were heading, though when the city ended and the countryside seemed to rise, and the road with it, I began to wonder. Possibly they had two houses, and her husband had some business out of the city.