Ten Word Game

by Jonathan Gash

  “You want one? I’ll offer you two, you’ll make a fortune.”

  She sat back. “Go on, then.”

  She wore a plain blue dress, with a Fair Isle cardigan in the thinnest wool. Her pearls were genuine, of course, earrings simple drop shapes. June Milestone always did scrub up well, as Cockneys joke, and look top cutlery. Her hair was different. I could remember when it had been sweat-soaked in a tent on an Oxford lawn – her lawn, of course, in the early morning. Her maid-servant brought us breakfast at half-seven. It had been raining, and it was our third-from-last encounter, but I’d forgotten all that, and I’m definitely never going to remember it.

  “You’ve heard of the Vinland Map? Proved Vikings discovered the Americas before Columbus? Priceless, right?”

  “Go on.” She was amused, doing that woman’s laugh-non-laugh that comes with the set.

  “Yale University’s map, worth a mint. Well, I’ll do you one better. You could sell it.”

  “Wasn’t it a forgery, though?”

  “Course it was!”

  I went over the facts. It was faked up by the Reverend (not quite so reverend) Joseph Fischer, a Jesuit from Austria who, mesmerised into forgery by political right-wingery in mid-1930s Germany, scrawled his Vinland Map to show it wasn’t slothful old Latins like Columbus but noble flaxen Aryans who discovered the Americas. Some folks claim Fischer was moved by nobler motives. Yeah, right. He used its “discovery” to add to his reputation as an exalted mediaeval scholar. Somehow, though, it came into dealers’ hands for less than US$4,000. They offered it to the British Museum in 1957, then a charitable Yank – the sort every antique dealer except me seems to know – bought it and gave it to Yale University. Sensation! Believers multiplied, and Bjarni Herjolfsson is famed in song and story for his A.D.985 landfall there. I don’t disbelieve in random intrepid Norsemen, or in Leif Eriksson who went touristing along in A.D.1002. I just disbelieve the map. The antiques trade calls such trifles crappy-mappy, and thinks them too good to be true. The trade’s right. Dealers make up comical poems.

  “Fischer’s long gone,” I finished. “He used a parchment page from an old book, authentically 1440s or so, so it would test right under a microscope. Except the ink let him down. It contained some stuff called anatase, whatever that is, only in use since 1923.”

  “And you?”

  “I’d buy authentic parchment. But I’d have inks specially made, and work in a Class 100 laminar-flow laboratory. I’d invent a Portuguese navigator, pre-1300. Or an ancient Chinese bamboo book – they’re easier, and cheaper to get – and old Chinese inks, and depict the Californian coast as far as Oregon. You’ll have to find American buyers, just to shut the international press up. The media in USA would create mayhem, saying China could claim Mexico to Vancouver as China’s first colony.”

  “You’re a scream, Lovejoy.” She glanced about first, those eyes of hers, to check nobody was within earshot. “The second?”

  “I’d fake Vicari, that modern painter. Money for jam, and the scam’d be dirt cheap. Cost a day’s wages, no more. Anybody could do it.”

  “Are you joking?” She scanned the vast cafeteria, still wondering if she could get away with lighting a fag.

  “He’s a modern artist, lives somewhere in Monte Carlo, probably owns the damned place by now. Charges the earth to paint your portrait, but only if you’re mega-famous, like kings, moguls, frightening dictators, untouchable gangsters.”

  “And do what?”

  “Paint what he would have painted. A collection of august royals, or some movie mighties, film stars.”

  I was starting to get enthusiastic, the way ideas take hold when you’re on a roll.

  “A load of fake Vicari paintings, and you’d pay journalists to talk them up as original?”

  I remembered her smile like from yesterday, and found myself smiling back.

  “I’d get some lads to nick the paintings in transit, then go to the mogul’s friends, movie studios, the royal house, the dictator’s hoods, whoever, and offer to rescue them unharmed, saving face all round and preventing scandal. Tah-tah-tah!” I made a fanfare of imagined success.

  “Hasn’t that sort of thing been done?”

  “Everything’s been done before, June.” I wanted to reach for her hand, but two of the ship’s officers were passing on their way to the Crystal Pool. Anyway, she probably still hated me, or she wouldn’t have landed me in this mess.

  “You always get one essential thing wrong, Lovejoy.”

  “What?” I’d promised her an easy fortune.

  “You forget, Lovejoy. We’re the good gang. The actual robbers, who we don’t yet know, are the perpetrators.”

  “I only wanted to – ”

  She rose, smiling hard. “That will do.” She moved away and gracefully joined the officers. One was the purser girl from Reception. Neither smiled my way.

  It wasn’t too hopeless a meeting. I’d discovered a few things. First, I didn’t believe in her, or her good troupe. Who prepares a fake robbery to prevent one? June wasn’t just in it for the money alone. For another, I was expendable once we reached St Petersburg, but for some reason absolutely vital until then. And a third thing: she wasn’t the king wallet, the scam’s principal backer. Wealthy as she was, she was only along for some other reason, and that reason was probably me. I knew now I would have to die somewhere in Russia’s old capital city, once I’d served their task.

  There’s only one thing I’m good at. June knew this, and the others had reason to believe her. If I suddenly pretended otherwise – that I’d lost the divvy gift, or maybe faked some illness – they might change their plans, but they wouldn’t fly me home in a first-class aeroplane. They’d just lob me into the Baltic.

  No, I was down to me. I went to find out where the ship would stop next.

  Chapter Nine

  The table buzzed at dinner. I got the “Where did you get to? We looked high and low.” I said I’d decided to get lost and managed to get a lift from a lady. They were thrilled. Millicent laughed, “Anything to get out of repaying me for that ticket!”

  I began to suss out nearby tables. I’m hopeless at seduction, because women are always ahead of me, but they’re sometimes kind and gullible. Chat up someone with whatever line would convince, I might be in with a chance.

  Somebody mentioned the cost of sending a fax. I listened, heard there was e-mail available.

  “Telephoning’s expensive once we’re out of port,” Jim grumbled, “but at least you can do it from your cabin.”

  On the whole they were good company. I felt fond of them. So far, they had provided me with the one opportunity of escape, and here they were almost guiding my next steps. If we were in prison, they’d be offering me files, and shovels to start a tunnel. I began to think what nice people they were. And when Kevin chipped in about going to the morning session on antiques, I brightened more. Today he wore a shiny eye-shadow and loop earrings.

  “Come with us, Lovejoy.” Holly Sago perked up. Until then she’d been pretty morose. I’d glimpsed her in the Conservatory when June was trying to convince me I was in clover. I was about to say no when she said, “I mean to the Casino. Help me control Kevin’s gambling fever.”

  “That bingo session was a disaster!” Kevin brought out several coloured cards in proof. “Every game, I only needed one number!”

  Holly tapped my hand. “He wastes hundreds every cruise. Never wins.”

  Kevin pouted. “That’s not true! On the Venice cruise I won a tenner!”

  “And lost seven hundred.” Holly confided to the table, leaning forward. “He brings three thousand for gambling money, and goes home with less than a fiver. Can you imagine?”

  The table rejoiced at hearing people’s foibles. A chat began about risks.

  “Antiques are the worst,” Ivy from the Wirral put in. “They’re coming round with one now.”

  “Eh? Where?” I looked, but couldn’t see what she meant. The restaurant waiters thronged a
nd passengers were wading into their dinners. I’d never seen so many crooked little fingers. We were so posh.

  “See Mr Semper? He runs a competition, brings round an antique. Whoever guesses the right value wins one!”

  I’d seen Henry Semper on TV, the Sunday night favourite show, Antiques on the Road. June Milestone was a frequent visitor on it. The idea was simple: take along some treasure from your attic, experts prove it’s worth a gillion and you can spit in your boss’s eye on Monday. Or, as sometimes happens, not.

  “He’s here now.”

  Laughter from other tables clued me in, and here came the great Henry Semper accompanied by a plain specky lass in a severe suit. Mr Semper limped, a short bulky man with a stick.

  “Evening, all! It’s an antique coffee pot tonight.” He spoke in that gravelly voice now known to the world. “Lauren, show them.”

  “This is a wonderful coffee pot by one of the six greatest silversmiths ever.” The girl was in raptures, trying to keep out of the way of the waiters as she lowered her tray so we could inspect the object. “Paul de Lamerie, eighteenth century!”

  The tray was glass-bottomed, with cushioned sides. Innocently I dropped my serviette and beat the waiter to picking it up. The coffee pot was beautifully engraved sterling silver. The spout had a small hinged lid, the handle at right angles to the spout.

  “It is exceedingly rare,” Lauren said earnestly. “Note the finial on the hinged cover, and the maker’s marks in a line by the handle?”

  “Values, please.” Henry Semper placed blank cards on the tablecloth. His smile was his hallmark, they said of him on TV. “Hand in your guesses as you leave, with your cabin numbers!”

  “What’s the prize tonight, Henry?” Billy and Kevin asked together, causing a laugh.

  “That’ll be telling!” Henry said, limping on with his gravelly laughter rattling crockery round the place.

  “Let’s all enter!” Millicent breathlessly filled in her card while Holly tried to peek. “We’ll keep score, shall we? See who wins most by the end of the cruise?”

  “They take a small sum from your account,” Ivy explained, seeing me hesitate. “For charity.”

  “It’s all in a good cause,” they all agreed. Except me.

  We finished the meal. I wanted to see tonight’s film. When I was little, cinema was my only culture apart from books. The difference was, I had to nig in to see a picture, and libraries were free. Civilisation, I always think, is free libraries and pavements. The rest is just window dressing.

  On the way out, everybody comparing what they’d written on their guessing cards, I was stopped.

  “Lovejoy hasn’t done one!” Millicent said loudly.

  “Hasn’t he?” Kevin and Holly handed theirs in to Lauren, who was waiting proudly beside her splendid eighteenth century Paul de Lamerie silver.

  “You have to!” Millicent decided. “We agreed!”

  “Here, Lovejoy.” Ivy found a blank card and a pencil. The waiters were all smiling as I wrote. I shouldn’t have let my temper get the better of me. Lauren took it with the others, glancing at it as she placed it on the pile. I saw her face change.

  There was always a new flower arrangement at the restaurant entrance. I tried to join in conversation when two ladies paused to admire them. I failed, because Lauren, with my card in her hand, quickly attracted the attention of the indefatigable Henry Semper, who was belly-laughing with a nearby coterie of admirers. I had to scarper. People are mesmerised by screen fame and Henry basked in worship. He’d even brought a group of antiques enthusiasts on board to revel in his glory. Get your face on TV, you’re a celebrity, even if like Henry Semper you were running a nasty little crooked scam.

  Moving quickly on among the evening crowd, I found myself in the Atrium. Open staircases swept down to a dance-floor where a small band played, with bars and people lounging and chatting. It was affluent serenity. On the first tier of balconies was another lounge bar with shops rimming the walls. Above that, yet another tier with the library, jewellery shops and clothing places. To make sure I’d dodged my fellow-diners, I slipped into the a garment place and gaped at the clothes, tee shirts with embroidered Melissa logos, anoraks, evening dresses, shoes.

  “They do a sale after the second sea day,” a lady told me. She was looking through a rack of blouses. I recognised her as one who’d been admiring the flowers by the Pacific restaurant. She’d cold-shouldered me when I wanted to get into conversation. I didn’t need spurning again. I usually find that once does it.

  “Right.” I peered about until the coast was clear, and went to the cinema.

  The film was sparsely attended. I liked it. Mostly I read American thrillers and Victorian English writers, then anything else I can get hold of. As for films, anything goes. It was late when the film ended. By the time the credits rolled, I’d worked out where to direct my pleas for help. I decided to write a letter, envelope and stamp in the old-fashioned way – “snail mail” as folk now call it – and to post off a fax. Then I’d speak to the captain, who sometimes held cocktail parties. They couldn’t stop me telling him with everybody there, could they?

  Margaret Dainty is an old friend. She frets about being lame, but has no reason to. She and I have been friends years. She occasionally lends me her husband’s clothes if I’ve to go somewhere grand, like a wedding or funeral. She’s an antiques dealer without much nous and barely scrapes a living. Her shadowy husband’s always overseas mending fallen companies. Margaret and me occasionally make smiles. She said once she was my Out-Patients Department, which is not far from the truth. She blames herself for being lame, over forty-five, and too plump, as if any of that matters. See how daft women are? I wrote her a letter and a fax on the forms they provide at the Reception desk and handed them in.

  It had been a rum sort of day. Worn out, I went to the quiet Horizon Lounge, upstairs at the front of the ship, to listen to the piano and see the distant lights of other ships moving out there in the darkness. I had a drink while I worked out what to say to Margaret on the phone. She isn’t quite the SAS, but is willing. Green cards placed about the ship warned that the clocks were going to be changed during the night. I worked out that Margaret would be home by midnight, whatever she was doing. I’d phone on the stroke.

  The lounge was fairly empty, everybody at late-night shows, dancing, and films. I’d assumed it would be peaceful while I worked things out.

  The mistake found me when I’d almost made up my mind.

  * * *

  “I think that was a dreadful joke!” Lauren stood over me, seething with rage.

  I sighed. The lounge was wide, muted colours, outside a tranquil sea with occasional lights, the night velvet royal blue and faintly starlit. The piano was playing softly, low armchairs and occasional tables dotted about, stewardesses wandering, occasional quiet laughter from passengers having a last slurp before turning in. It should have been the most placid of scenes. Instead, I get this bottle-eyed fury. She polished her specs furiously, working on a better glare.

  “Joke? I never joke, miss.”

  “What you wrote on your card, about our rare Paul de Lamerie coffee silverware! Worth nothing?”

  “You asked for a valuation.”

  “Everybody saw it! Some actually…” she closed her eyes and went for it “…laughed out loud! At Mr Semper! They talked! You are vicious!”

  “I tried not to hand one in, but you insisted.”

  “Mr Henry was livid! You are despicable!”

  “Look, love.” I felt done for. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t like your nasty little boss and his nasty little antiques scam. I don’t like you because you’re helping him to defraud people who’re too ignorant not to fall for his tricks.”

  Two ladies further along the lounge were listening. One was the one who’d cold-shouldered me and said about the shops having sales days.

  “I shall complain to the captain, the purser, the ship’s officers and the cruise director!” Lauren
said, voice trembling. “I shall have you evicted at the very next port! You’re an infidel. That silver piece was made by the hand of one of the greatest – ”

  “Ballocks, miss.” I turned in my seat to look up at her. “Paul de Lamarie was a Huguenot refugee from the Continent who worked in London. He was a deeply religious man and entirely honest, unlike your slimy boss. Your illegal faked mark will stand up to ordinary scrutiny, but the coffee pot won’t. It started life a couple of centuries after de Lamerie died – as a plain pub tankard. The handle Semper’s faker stuck on it at right angles is an attempt to make it look old – servants poured sideways like that after coffee first came into fashion when Pasqua Rosee opened London’s first coffee house in St Martin’s Alley, off Cornhill, in 1652. The habit grew, so there’s plenty of elegant silverware about. A real de Lamerie would be worth a mint, but your pot is naff. You’ve no right to defraud history, you rotten cow.”

  “The hallmarks – ” She tried to get going, but strangled.

  “Your forger bought an ordinary silver tankard, then added a spout and faked de Lamerie’s marks. Tell him he forgot to add the fake marks on the spout and on the finial.”

  She gaped, her mouth opening like a fish working against the stream.

  “I hate bad fakes, love. I don’t mind good forgeries, because at least somebody’s tried.” She made a woman’s exclamation, “Oh!”, in anger and turned aside. I said after her, “I said it was worth nothing because it’s illegal. It can’t be bought or sold.”

  She spun, her face white. “I shall have you put ashore!” she rasped, and turned away to flounce off.

  “One more thing, Lauren.” For some reason I felt so sad, because now she seemed nothing more than an ignorant dupe – like the rest of us, I suppose.

  “Haven’t you said enough?” she spat.

  “No, love. It’s a chocolate pot, nothing to do with coffee.”

  She marched off. I relaxed, and saw the two women nearby looking hard at me, and that other people were finding their evening suddenly a little less mellow. Conversation slowly picked up, and the piano regained composure. The two ladies rose and crossed over to my group of three armchairs. I was going to get another wigging. Had the women on board the Melissa nothing better to do than ballock me, for God’s sake?