A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair l-21 Read online

  'Better late than never, eh?' I thought, what the hell? I'd come to her for help, and she thought I was her rescuer.

  Dang I vaguely knew. He lived over her antique shop in Islington. I'd met this muscle mountain when I'd delivered a rare 1786 vase-shaped mustard pot there. He'd dismissed me with a terse ta-goodnight, which could only mean heavenly choirs as soon as the riff-raff, namely moi, departed. He'd grabbed the mustard pot so hard I'd told him to be careful. Billia had emerged. I explained to him that 'wet' mustard pots came after Queen Anne. Until about 1730 or so, diners mixed mustard powder as they dined along. He'd just gaped at me with complete incomprehension. Bodybuilder, boxer, Dang and Billia later did an antiques stall in St Edmundsbury market, him toting her barge and lifting her bales with massive dedication.

  'I'm scared, Lovejoy.'

  Glam, rich, delectable, all these are superlatives. But scared was a definite grounder. It was also impossible. Women, having it all, cannot possibly have any reason to be scared. Lovejoy logic was called.

  'You can't be, love. You've got everything.'

  'You're just thick, Lovejoy.' She said it listlessly.

  Folk bullied into the hall clamouring arguments about clock hands they'd failed to re-blue properly. If I'd not been mesmerized by Billia's kaleidoscope mouth I'd have gone after them to explain. The temptation is to do it on a naked flame, but that's wrong.

  You do it in a crucible of brass filings, on a gas ring. It calls for split-second timing.

  Watch for the colour change from a grubby brown to deep slate, then soon as you see a pretty steely blue whip the hands into an oil bath. Leave them to cool. The blue's exactly that on flintlock gun barrels. Incidentally, take care not to set your place on fire.

  Had she just said hospital? 'Hospital?'

  'You're not listening, are you?' Bitterness reigned. 'I saw you lusting after that fat cow Mimi. And that dim whore Moiya. You're just weak, Lovejoy.'

  I said indignantly, 'I heard every word.'

  'Dang's so gullible, Lovejoy.'

  'He didn't look it to me.' Hospital, though?

  'Far too trusting. Now it's too late.'

  I cleared my throat. 'Who's in hospital?'

  'The other boxer. They hurt him badly because he didn't lie down in the sixth round.'

  Took a drop, she'd said. She meant throwing a fight.

  'You know who did it?'

  'The money men sent their friends.'

  'Lovejoy? Suss these, wack. Brilliant, eh?' I stared at the stack of greeting cards plonked in front of me. Ballcock's a shifty madman who travels on a bicycle. It has butcher-boy paniers, so he can carry his fakes.

  I riffled through them. 'They all Father's Day, Ballcock?'

  'All dated, 1868 to 1903, genuine Victoria.' He was so proud.

  'Great, Ballcock.' Sometimes I don't have the heart. Everybody from Camden Passage to Petticoat Lane knows that Ballcock fakes and decorates these greeting cards himself.

  He went into it four years ago to meet alimony payments. Mrs John Bruce Dodd of Spokane, Washington, USA, would have been surprised, for it was that sentimental lady who in 1910 (note that) petitioned the US president Mr Woodrow Wilson to designate a special day for remembering dads. Her own widower father raised his six children unassisted, did a grand job. June's third Sunday got elected as the modern Father's Day, joy of retailers everywhere. Now here came Ballcock with cards dated 1868. And he'd sell most by dusk. I just said, 'Great, Ballcock,' and he departed rejoicing. Caveat emptor.

  That little incident made me notice how other dealers were behaving. Usually, antique dealers are one big bustle, yapping worse than any wine party. They shout, catcall about deals gone wrong, Leonardo paintings missed by a whisker, amazing antiques found in some old lady's cupboard. Fables, lies, and crises are the soul of the antiques game. Yet since I'd joined Billia - usually as popular as fish and chips - not a soul had said a word to me, except for Ballcock, a known crazo. Something was wrong. To test, I deliberately grinned as Legs Leslie clumped past - he lost both feet in a motor race years agone. I got cut dead. Legs pretended not to see me. This, note, from a bloke who I'd got a job for at Pasty's oil-fired pottery kiln in Long Melford.

  They were shunning me because I sat with Billia. Whose bloke Dang had thrown a fight. Oh, dear. One plus one equaled exit.

  I went ahem, ahem. 'Look, love. I can't do much for you just now. I've got this sick dog that's dying of…' What do dogs die of, for God's sake? '… er, viruses. And I've to fly to Chicago. A sick uncle…'

  Her eyes filled. 'You too, Lovejoy?'

  'No, love,' I said earnestly. 'I'll help, sincerely.'

  'You will?' Her magic mouth moved, opened, closed on her tongue.

  I demanded, hoarse, 'Tell me what you want.'

  'See me later? The Nell of Old Drury?'

  'Up the West End? Why there?'

  'I want you to meet someone.' It was her turn to look furtive.

  I couldn't imagine anybody on earth big enough to put the frighteners on Dang. I smiled reassuringly, with no intention of meeting her.

  'About seven do, love?' I rose, poised for flight.

  'Seven o'clock,' her delicious mouth said. 'I'll do whatever you want, Lovejoy, if you'll help.'

  Life's a swine. I dithered. 'I promised, didn't I?'

  'Remember that mustard pot, Lovejoy? I've got the original. It's yours, if you'll stand by me.'

  I bussed her cheek, and took off. Until she said that, betrayal seemed easy. After all, promises are made to be broken. And me protecting Man Mountain Dang from a lorry load of rabid East Enders was ludicrous. But temptation's never done me much good.

  Within a couple of minutes I'd worked it out. By seven I'd want a drink, and where better than one of London's most famous taverns?

  I emerged into the open market, intent on sizing up Moiya December, and came upon Fawnance Duleppo, who I'd been avoiding ever since I could remember. What with Sir Ponsonby, Miss December, and the woebegone Billia, names weren't my thing today.

  With a name like mine I should talk.

  4

  THERE ARE PUBLIC gardens where Tower Bridge Road crosses Abbey Street near St Mary Magdalene. Facing the New Caledonian Market proper, Fawnance Duleppo sits. He plays a tuba - only oompah, oompah - in memory of a great-great-grandpa who, he says, in 1853 led the first ever national Brass Band Champions, that started the Victorians' brass-band fever.

  Seeing this grubby musician in his tattered trenchcoat, crutches temporarily laid aside, you can easily forget what brass bands meant. Passions seethed. Everything was choirs, silver bands, marching concertina teams. Millmasters vied with each other to bribe away rival factories' best trombonists. There was a corrupt transfer system because rival mine owners hated the thought of some other coal mine seizing the glory at Manchester's famed championships. Judges were seduced, threatened, even waylaid. Nowadays, it's still a musical tradition in the north, but the fervour is no more. We're down to Fawnance playing oompah, his cloth cap out for coins. He wears a medal, Mossley Temperance Band, Winners, First Brass Band Champions 1853. Don't laugh. On that brilliant day there were 16,000 competitors, outdoing our drug-riddled, bribe-skewed so-called Olympics. When the Bess O'T'Barn Brass Band visited Australia in the early 1900s all Melbourne thronged to a standstill. Like I say, though, progress has reduced yet another art-form to a toothless beggar in a cloth cap. I think his medal's homemade, though.

  'Wotcher, Fawnance. Nice tune.' It wasn't a tune at all, just parps.

  He paused, took a breath. 'It's me teeth, Lovejoy,' he said. 'You're never the same when your lips melt. Mine went both together, lips and teeth.'

  'Still, you play pretty well.' I dropped coppers in his hat.

  'Ta, wack. Having a bad day? I heard Dosh sent you here.'

  'Aye. Don't know where to start.'

  'Do Sturffie a favour, Lovejoy. Whatever you do, do it fast. I seen that Doshie here with Chev a week back. Looked a nail job to me.'

  'Ca
sh and dash? Ta, Fawnance.' I hesitated, wanting to repay him for vital information.

  'Look. They sell a brass renaissance trumpet kit up in Bradford, Manningham Lane I think. It's in the modern D major, which is a pig of a key, but they do a brass crook to get it to D, low pitch. It's got no ornamentation. Get Jerry Sorebones to engrave it. You know him, in Farnworth? Tell him I said not to do modern soldering, okay? Aged right, you'd sell it easy as an antique. Don't for heaven's sake get one of them modern angel faces to decorate the trumpet bell. It's a dead giveaway.'

  'Ta. You're a pal, Lovejoy.'

  Aye, I thought morosely, to everybody else. Never to me. I drifted into the market, listening, watching, getting shoved.

  You can't help loving words. Words were everywhere, this particular Friday. If it wasn't Gock from Pontipool shouting about some duff bureau that was supposed to be priceless Ince and Mayhew but wasn't, it was flirtatious little Samanta Sellers working hard - she alone knew how hard - to sell her dud gemstone inlays to fund her next face-lift. God knows why Samanta resorts to surgery. She's a lovely smooth (not to say surgically whittled) lass of twenty-three. Her loving sister once told her she'd got an odd face and she's been paranoid ever since. Women. Forlorn, I sat on the wall swinging my legs, absorbing the balderdash. The stallholders' patter was so daft I wonder if antiques cause brain damage.

  I'm not big on words. You may have noticed. They're strange. For instance, we have a useful word to utter falsehood - to lie - but none for speaking the truth. Is it because words can be lethal? Once you've spoken a word, it becomes a terrible deed. Words can mean that murder is on the way. Look at Rache, who moved in with me. I hardly knew who she was at first. Ten times a second Rache told me that she was hooked on holidays. Four days later she suddenly blazed away at me for 'not communicating!' and swept out in rage. I'd thought I was doing her a favour by keeping quiet. See the problem? Words.

  And take Stan, the Treble Tile's barman. Well, Stan set his sights on this lovely bird called Angharad. Her husband's an amateur cyclist forever pedalling up and down the Pennines. Handsome Stan really campaigned for Angharad. He did everything a wooer could - gifts, flowers. He even dashed her his priceless antique watch. The whole tavern was agog. We were worn out.

  The luscious Angharad took his largesse with disdain.

  Quietly observing this sorry pantomime most nights, was Percy. Percy was a mediocre market gardener. The business was actually run by his go-for-gold missus while Percy imbibed. One night at closing time, this conversation, I swear, occurred: Percy: Don't blame Stan, Angharad. You're gorgeous.

  Angharad (amused): Not you too, Percy?

  He (smiling): I know I've no hope. Only, I'd woo you different.

  She (amused by this pot-bellied oaf): How?

  He: I'd say: Angharad, I'm desperate for you. Give me thirty minutes in the car park, and you can have any Mediterranean holiday. With anybody you like. One condition.

  She (eyeing the daft old git): Oh? What condition?

  He: Book the holiday through Cumbersedge and Darff Travel Agent. I own a third, see.

  She (laughing): Oh you do, do you?

  He (smiling along): Expenses-paid Med holiday, for half an hour with you in the car park.

  She (cool): Come on, then. Night, Stan. (Exeunt, the world aghast) I heard every word.

  See? Once words are out, the deed is all but done. I'm sure Shakespeare's said it better because he always has, but it's true. Rache had simply planned whisking me on holiday.

  And make no mistake, I truly loved her. Reflecting on this, I saw again that old lass tottering under a stack of obsolescent black LP gramophone records. Soon after Rache left, I took up with an older grand dame of ancient lineage, who owned a Chelsea antiques firm. Now, why did I think of that?

  Highborn or lowly, women trust words. I don't. Words, dear friends, are scary.

  Here endeth today's gospel. Except for that tip about holidays. Bribe a woman, you may get nowhere. Bribe her with a holiday, you're into yippee land. Where was I? Forlorn, in Bermondsey.

  Mimi was tacking up fraudulent ethnic falsities outside her dad's van - authenticity nil, ethnicity nil, colour ten out of ten - and being chatted up by passing marauders of impressive dubiety. Sir Ponsonby was milking the lovely Moiya December as an enticing advert for all he was worth, making her ascend his stall, the better to make dealers gape. She lounged, sprawled, innocent of the impression she was creating. It's lucky women don't know the effect they have.

  'You sap, Lovejoy.' Alice plopped down beside me. 'That Moiya knows what she's doing, the bitch.'

  Palace Alice is a pleasant Northamptonshire lass, brings her own caravan every market day. She has a little lad in Daventry, and does all the London street markets. Her two brothers and her bloke Kayzo are in clink for general naughtiness, namely inflicting harm on a traffic warden while in execution of a robbery. They run fake auctions, but a fake auction is a long time for antique dealers to stay lucky.

  'Does she?' I was surprised.

  'Why d'you think she shows herself off? Posing, so hundreds can ignore her? Men are stupid.'

  I went for it. 'Gemstones, love. Who?'

  She eyed me. 'Dosh Callaghan, wasn't it, got gold-bricked? It couldn't happen to an uglier bloke. Ask Gluck.'

  'Who's Gluck?'

  Alice smiled. 'You ought to drop by more often, Lovejoy. Dieter Gluck's one of the new wave. Has a placer in Chelsea. Deals in Camden Passage, Islington, Portobello Road, Cutler Street by Petticoat Lane.'

  'He a gemstone man?'

  'He's everything.' She spoke with envy. 'Wish I'd half his clout. Pal of Sir Ponsonby. You know his Chelsea shop, Lovejoy.'

  Know as in knew? They've lately discovered a new physics particle. It's one of those quark things, and exists for a billion-trillionth of a second, give or take a yard. For a brief moment I knew how it felt, one flash and goodnight Vienna. To an outside observer, the antiques game might seem pretty static, but from within it's zoom city.

  'Is Gluck here?' I looked about.

  'Him, in a market? Too grand. Took over that pal of yours in Chelsea. The lads still mutter about it.' That pal of mine? I was worn out.

  'Padpas, Alice. I need an answer. Dosh is a sod.'

  She stood. 'Thought you'd never ask. Come into my parlour, Lovejoy.'

  Her van was just by the church, being watched over by a couple of graveyard winos.

  She pays them in scotch. I didn't really want to, because divvying gives me hell of a headache in daytime. It's easier in the lantern hours but I don't know why.

  'Look, Alice. I'll come later. What time will you leave?'

  'About two, Lovejoy.'

  Applause rang out for Mimi Welkinshaw's next striptease. I promised to call on Alice, and eeled into the maelstrom. Things had got on top of me. I wandered, listening and looking. I don't know about you, but when despond takes hold I seek the familiar.

  Nostalgia soothes. I looked for Doctor Coffin, who used to lie down in a gilded coffin, and bought any antiques to do with death. The Victorians were great celebrants of mortality, so he did a roaring trade. He dressed as an undertaker, black everything, went for the cadaverous effect. He even had ghoul-riddled patter. Other dealers fed him comic lines: 'You'll be the death of me, Doc!' and he'd say, grinning, 'Promise?' to great hilarity. He's not been seen for donkey's years.

  And there used to be a middle ager dressed up as a Navaho squaw. Probably got every detail and feather wrong, but she ran a neat Regency porcelain stall. Puntasia, she called herself. Always had one dazzler, a genuine antique -whoops! There she was! I stopped, joyous.

  'Wotcher, Puntasia. How's it doing?'

  'Better than you, Lovejoy!' She offered me her peace pipe. It's phoney, smokes like a burned barn and stinks worse. You have to accept it or she does a tomahawk war dance. 'Chatting up Alice? She knows zilch about your gemstone problem.'

  Rumour is slow in some places. In Bermondsey it's quarky, if there's such a word. I choked on h
er pipe's carcinogenic filth.

  'And you do?' What had Alice said about Chelsea? I guessed, fishing, 'My pal lost everything to somebody called Dieter Gluck, I hear.'

  Puntasia took her peace pipe back and adjusted her feathered head-dress. 'Colette was doomed, Lovejoy. Ever heard of a younger bloke staying with an ageing tart? Always ends in tears. Don't go down Chelsea. It'll break your heart.'

  The bobby dazzler on her barrow shone like the sun. A few dealers stopped to eye it with lust. I said nothing, just felt its warm clamour shudder through me. I've always been interested in pot pourris.

  Back in older days, homes stank. Coaches, towns, rivers, alleyways, churches, schools, elegant ladies and their beaus ponged to high heaven. Factories were stews from hell.

  Miracle of miracles, mankind bravely held on in the filth. In spite of all, civilization advanced by creating wonders. One genius was young Josiah Spode who, about 1762, managed the Turner and Banks pottery in Stoke-on-Trent in the English Midlands.

  Risking his all on a dicey mortgage he bought the joint, and began experimenting. His talent made him a front runner, like Wedgwood. Under-glaze transfer printing,

  'Staffordshire Blue', white pearl ware, his own blinding Spode blue, and his precise (never smudgy the way forgeries and fakes are) designs, made him a legend. His firm was always honest, even after he died in 1797. This is why antique dealers love Spode, because Spode marks are simple and never cunningly frilled to pretend they were the marks of other manufacturers. He had a Josiah Spode II and Josiah Spode III, and they copied Meissen, Chelsea, and others superbly. The plain fact is that old Spode spells money.

  The pot pourri evolved in the smelly past. It's a container to hold mixtures of scented flowers and herbs. These mixtures were kept dry in England, but were wet on the Continent. It's still popular. Find one like Puntasia had on her stall, and you can sleep in next Monday morning. The most sought ones have two lids. One lid is fenestrated - has pierced holes so the lovely aroma will make your room fragrant. It is bigger than the solid inner lid, which is merely to keep the petals' perfume in. When a lady's gentleman was about to call, maidservants would rush about the house removing the inner lids and leaving the outer lids on the pot pourri vessels. The rooms would become scented, allowing romantic thoughts to bloom.