The Vatican Rip

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Somebody else? Not Adriana?’ There was a dry rasp. I looked up. The blighter was laughing, heaving up and down in his chair. ‘So. It isn’t really Adriana at all? By acquiescing to Adriana you were merely demonstrating unfailing obedience to your employer?’

  ‘Well, if you put it like that . . .’

  He took off his specs and wiped his eyes. I didn’t think it was all that funny but he was rolling in the aisles.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lovejoy,’ he said, wiping his eyes with his glasses lifted on to his forehead. ‘Very remiss of me. But if you only understood the context . . .’

  ‘Is that all?’ I rose, trying for a bit of dignity. It can be useful in the right place.

  ‘My abject apologies, signor,’ he said, still falling about. He came with me to the door. ‘But Adriana playing second fiddle to some other woman is delicious.’

  I went frosty. ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘The car will be at the entrance for you. Don’t be too offended, Lovejoy. Let’s say it’s our little secret, shall we?’

  ‘Look, signor.’ I had to get one thing straight. ‘What if the signora says I’m to dine with her again, and . . . ?’

  ‘Be her guest, Lovejoy.’ He smiled and patted my arm. ‘After all, everybody’s different. And you are merely . . . what’s the expression? . . . scratching bread, same as the rest. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, wondering where I’d heard those words spoken recently.

  It was returning in the Rolls, wondering about the rum world we live in, when I remembered where I’d heard those words before recently. And who spoke them.

  It was me, to Piero. Word for word. My headache got worse. Well, whatever they were all up to, Piero, Adriana, the signor, and Fabio, the rip had to go ahead.

  I made the driver drop me near the emporium, seeing it was getting on for four o’clock. The three cafeteria tables were delivered on time, to my satisfaction. I’d told Adriana two, and instead had ordered three. I was very, very pleased, because two from three leaves one. Smiling at last, I covered them with a sheet of plastic and walked home to see Anna.

  Chapter 20

  In the heat of the day the Colosseum induces a curiously offensive languor, inducing scores of cats to live there. God knows where the Italians get all their moggies, but it’s by the gross. I’d never seen so many. Anna came with me, still in her old gear and occasionally conning a few lire from stray tourists. And she was in a bitter mood. ‘You tell me what magnificent photos I took,’ she complained, ‘then waste our rest time wandering about these old stones.’ And her photographs really were great, every nook from every angle. Real skill. I like talent like that. But you really need to get the feel of the place you might die in, I always say, and you can’t get that from photographs.

  There was hardly anybody in, just us and a straggle of Scandinavians. Anna kept asking me why we were looking at the same recess over and over again. Finally she got on my nerves and I told her to shut it. That did it. Nothing’s quieter than a bird in sulk.

  The recess was the stonemason’s place. Presumably the animals for Rome’s great circuses had been fed into the great arena through this kind of entrance. What I liked about it was that it stood just below a great mason’s hoist, complete with block and tackle, and with an almost-completed block of stone in the centre of the sandy flooring. Obviously, from the tools and the stone chips scattered around, the workers were still at it. Before long they would be ready to haul the missing stone into place.

  But what I really liked most was that the recess was at least forty-odd feet deep, and had smooth walls impossible to climb.

  ‘Why are you smiling, Enrico?’

  ‘Don’t call me Enrico.’ I asked her, ‘What would happen if somebody were to get himself trapped in that recess?’

  ‘He’d have to stay till people lifted him out. But nobody could get trapped down there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Scornfully she pointed across to the opposite wall below us. ‘He could just walk out, couldn’t he? That great stone’s missing. Cretino!’

  I shaded my eyes at the great beam overhead. ‘But if that unfinished stone were to fall into that hole . . . ?’

  ‘Then he’d be trapped!’ She took my arm. I was still gaping skywards. ‘Enrico? I don’t like you when you’re like this.’

  ‘You don’t like me anyway,’ I reminded her acidly. I’d slept in the same room for what felt like a lifetime, and we were as chaste as Abelard and Heloise – different reasons, of course.

  ‘It’d be an open-air prison.’ I realized I was smiling at thoughts of Arcellano.

  ‘Enrico.’ Her eyes looked at me, enormous with a deep beauty. ‘What has this place to do with the rip?’

  ‘Don’t call me Enrico.’ I was feeling a lot more confident as we left. The arena was after all just one great maze made up of those stone blocks. If anything went wrong I’d be off like a scared rabbit, being the fastest coward ever recorded. And in my time I’ve been chased by experts. Yes, I was pleased – fool that I was. Nothing could go wrong. So I thought.

  During the rest of our spare time I either pored over the photographs, went over Anna’s Vatican Museum measurements, or intently read the pharmacopoeia. In this last Anna had excelled herself, having an epileptiform seizure in the huge bookshop on the corner of the Leone IV and nicking the pharmacopoeia while people ran about for water. She kept asking what I wanted it for but I shoved her away and said it was rude to read over other people’s shoulders.

  ‘I’ve indigestion,’ I told her snappishly.

  ‘You eat like a horse when that cow of a signora feeds with you at those expensive restaurants!’

  ‘She hardly eats anything,’ I corrected.

  ‘Only people! In her grand villa!’

  Which told me a lot. For one, Anna obviously didn’t trust me. For another, she had some means of knowing where we dined each evening, and about my visit to Adriana’s villa.

  Now we’d done the Colosseum I needed a little money and a chance to finish in the workshop. Then it would only be a question of checking the van. But first we had to welcome the great man himself.

  Carlo came home like a wounded hero, groaning in a taxi, overacting and being brave but in pain. Sickening. It was all the same to me, but you couldn’t help being really peeved at the fuss Anna made over him, snatching everybody else’s cushions to make sure he was comfortable. For once she’d bought in a load of provisions and made him a tantalizing mound of unrecognizable food. He managed to force it all down, the greedy pig, while I sweated my guts out over the photographs and sketches. I’ve never seen anybody look so sorry for himself, the pillock.

  No use asking Anna for a loan after the argument we’d just had, though I wouldn’t need much. I’d have to work on Adriana, which was a nuisance because being a bird she’d be as mistrustful as Anna. But there was another problem, just as serious and far more urgent. What did Lovejoy do now hubby was home? So far there hadn’t been a single bad vibe – not more than usual, anyway – but it had to be faced.

  ‘Look,’ I began when Carlo mournfully started on his second bottle of wine. (Naturally, I’d been offered none.) ‘Do you think Carlo’s up to it?’ As is the way with invalids present I spoke over Carlo’s head to Anna.

  ‘Of course he is.’

  Carlo straightened up briskly. ‘You questioning my ability, Lovejoy? You can’t do without me.’ Well, I’d been told that by indispensable allies, and they’d been just as wrong as Carlo.

  Nastily I demanded, ‘Has he ever done anything before?’

  ‘Tell him, Carlo.’

  He got up to stride the room, obviously full of beans. Clearly a good recovery. ‘I’ve ripped off every film crew which has ever come to Rome.’

  ‘Great,’ I said drily. That meant pinching a plug or a bulb and selling it back to the cameramen. ‘Anything with cars?’

  ‘I can drive faster—’

  ‘No,’ I told Anna
flatly. ‘You tell him he’s to drive like a fifty-year-old, not Fangio. Get that into his thick skull or it’s off.’

  Anna smiled, but I could tell she was annoyed. ‘It’s not off, Lovejoy. You know it. I know it. Carlo will do anything you say.’

  ‘He’d better.’ I moved towards the door.

  ‘Hey,’ Carlo called, now mirror boxing and admiring himself. ‘You’ve not said what the plan is.’

  ‘If we get it right, Carlo, you’ll never know.’

  ‘You going back to work, Lovejoy?’ from Anna.

  ‘Yes.’ I hesitated to give Anna time to follow me into the gloomy passageway. ‘Erm, what’s the arrangement for tonight, Anna?’

  ‘Arrangement?’ she was honestly puzzled.

  ‘Well, now your bloke’s back . . .’

  She pealed laughter and clapped hands. ‘You mean . . . Carlo?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said irritably. ‘What’s the joke?’ Women like Anna nark me.

  ‘He’s my brother.’ She fell about some more. ‘He sleeps on the folding camp bed.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I felt even more of a nerk and backed out into the alley. ‘See you tonight, then.’

  ‘Ciao,’ she called, slamming the door on me. ‘Cretino!’ I heard her laughter as I walked the uneven alley towards the Castel.

  That same day I had luck, which was important. By nightfall I had become practically independent in Adriana’s business. A trustee instead of a convict.

  The antiques game’s the queerest on earth. Some days – weeks, months, even years – you come across nothing worth a second glance. Then they roll in, and everywhere you look there is some genuine wonderment, preening its lovely feathers and shrieking to be bought.

  We hit a purple patch. Adriana had reluctantly agreed to visiting a small antiques bazaar about a mile away. I’d felt vibes almost like never before while passing on a bus. The dazzling spiritual glow from beyond Piazza Argentina all but blinded me. I was almost certain I’d glimpsed a monk’s chest – neither a chest nor for a monk – being unloaded in a small street. The funny thing was I could have sworn I’d seen its photograph in one of Adriana’s catalogues where a great deal of miscellaneous items, arranged as job lots, had been listed. (This in itself is a serious mistake and argues a cataloguer too idle or inexperienced.) I persuaded Adriana to come and see if they had picked up any of these items as well as the monk’s chest. It turned out like Christmas.

  It was a small quickie business run by three lads and their birds, you know the kind of place, everything for speed. They had bought indiscriminately, and hadn’t even unpacked the smaller stuff. So eager to display their larger pieces, they let me go through and buy four small cardboard boxes of stuff practically without doing much more than unwrap a couple of top items in each. I made out I was in a great hurry, wanting stuff to trade for period reproductions in Turin the very next morning. It was a steal. Of course it cost Adriana more than the same pieces would have done had she attended the auction itself, but that was okay.

  Adriana waited round the corner in Piero’s car with him while I did the deal. She’d collected enough money for me to buy outright, and I came haring across the Piazza Argentina practically crowing with delight. I was so chuffed I nearly downed a fat bloke ambling across the road. The youngsters had been hugely pleased – we always say the first profit is the best, and best means fastest – but I’ll bet they weren’t as pleased as me. I swear I’d felt the clamouring of the eighteenth-century malachite green decorative jewellery inside among all those newspapers, and nobody could help feeling that ringing emanation from the Chien Lung agate-tiled silver box. The only William IV lead funereal marker I’ve ever bought was among them – and you know what’s happened to the price of those. Ten years ago these flat lead pieces were thrown out with the beer bottles. Practically everything was worthwhile, and some pieces – like the little box of early model French soldiers – would pay for the rest.

  She took the receipt while I hugged the stuff to me on the way back to the emporium. Unbelievably, there was a travelling dealer waiting with Fabio. He was a pleasant but tatty little Milanese bloke and had with him a collection of miniature early furniture, probably used for display in some furniture maker’s in the 1830s. We call these geezers ‘sweepers’ in the trade because they do ‘sweeps’ through the country trying to gather up anything and everything which could be regarded as antique. They’re the blokes who come knocking at your door on dark nights. (Take my tip: always send them packing. No bigger crowd of rogues exists on earth, and I should know. I was one for years.) The BBC and Sotheby’s do ‘sweeps’ too – respectable ones, and at least as honourably, I’m sure.

  I urged Adriana to buy the stuff. When the sweeper had gone we all looked at each other. It was only half past six, and I’d made the emporium a fortune.

  ‘We overpaid the sweeper,’ Piero said sourly, the miserable sod.

  I wasn’t having that. ‘We’ll make twice the cost on his stuff.’

  ‘Of course, we still have to sell them,’ Fabio said waspishly, another ray of sunshine. ‘And as for buying those little balls—’

  I’d bought two balls of compressed feathers wedged inside a small fraying leather case the size of a shaving stick.

  ‘We paid the price of two beers,’ I said gently. ‘We’ll sell them for the price of a car. They’re early golf balls. Rare as hen’s teeth. I’ll bet you—’

  ‘You haven’t a bean to bet with, Lovejoy,’ Fabio countered waspishly, sweeping back to his accounts.

  I felt myself go red but Adriana said quickly, ‘You were very astute, Lovejoy. Thank you.’

  ‘Not at all, signora.’ I hadn’t meant to sound bitter but it came out different from what I’d intended. The workshop was clearly the place for me, though I was itching to go through the rest of the job lots to see what other brilliant stuff we’d got.

  Time was getting short, though Adriana’s rent table was coming along fast. It would soon be finished and good as new. Better still, good as old. One difficulty was not having the sketches of the Vatican Museum’s period piece with me, but I’m not that daft. If Piero or Fabio found drawings like that they’d smell a rat. So I worked in the old way, from notches cut in sticks. Every morning at Anna’s I tied the sticks to my calf inside my trouser leg. Once I was at the workshop an extra stick or two went unnoticed.

  Another difficulty was assembly. The reproduction rent table I was making for Adriana to put on display had to be ready fairly soon or they’d be wondering what the hell I was doing down here, especially after they’d all commented, each in his pleasant little way, on my working speed. So I did a zillion test assemblies of every drawer and every joint, and never put it all together. The outer surfaces of her table I copied precisely using light plywood but giving them the same kinds of finish. These were the pieces I’d told Piero were my patterns for copying.

  Like hell they were.

  Somehow I made room for the two cafeteria tables, scattering bits of wood about on them to show how useful they were being. The third one I left out in the yard, allegedly ready to be returned.

  A further stroke of luck came about thirty minutes before we closed for the night. Signor Gallinari phoned us to say he was ready for swapping – we were doing a trade of chairs to make up complete period dining sets. Piero and Fabio went off in the van grumbling and sulky. I immediately put the metal saw across the tubular steel tips of the cafeteria table’s legs. I put the four tips in my pocket, wrapped in a hankie so as not to clink, and stepped off to look. Nobody could tell. I was whistling happily and splitting some thin dowelling when Adriana came in.

  ‘Here, Lovejoy.’ she held out an envelope.

  ‘Thank you, signora.’ It was thicker than usual.

  ‘Open it, please.’

  There was money inside, besides the invitation card. I drew breath. I needed money badly, but not that bad.

  ‘No, thank you, signora.’ I kept the card and held out the notes.

  �
�Why not?’

  ‘We’ve agreed what the rules are, signora.’

  She avoided my eyes. It gives you the choice, Lovejoy. Where to dine, what to do in the evenings.’

  I tried to make light of the whole thing. ‘With all this gelt I might streak off.’

  ‘No, Lovejoy.’ She sounded listless. ‘Not you. You do what you want. You’re here for your own reasons.’

  So she’d realized too. ‘But signora—’

  ‘No more, Lovejoy. Please.’ All the day’s successes were forgotten. ‘No more hypocrisy. I don’t ask why you stay. From now on you won’t be forced into anything. I’ll see you are paid money each day.’

  Her eyes were wet. I was lost. ‘What about Fabio? He’ll realize . . .’

  ‘I’ll find some way. Take it out of the petty cash. He won’t know.’

  That seemed odd, almost as if she was apprehensive about Fabio. She was the boss, after all, and Fabio was only a hireling, like me.

  ‘Am I to be at the restaurant?’

  ‘Only if you wish.’

  I hesitated while Adriana dabbed at her eyes. Women get me mad because you never know where you are. ‘Did Signor Albanese say anything? He had me taken to his office.’ She looked merely resigned as I told her about it, word for word. ‘I made up some cock-and-bull story about having fallen for another bird and wanting to stay here to work it out.’

  ‘What woman?’ she asked immediately.

  I had a hard time convincing her there was no such woman, that she was a figment invented on the spur of the moment. ‘The signor thought it hilarious.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, finally convinced. It was more than I did.

  ‘The only thing is, he seemed to know that, erm, you and I, erm, at your villa . . .’

  The others came back at that moment, so we got no further.

  When we locked up later Piero was unusually affable while Adriana was still there, and walked with me as far as the corner. I wondered if this was it. There were plenty of people about, but he was such a bloody size.