The Grail Tree Read online

  ‘Sorry, love. There was a chance of picking up an antique.’

  ‘Oh! So you think more of an antique than you do of me, do you?’ All frost.

  I thought hard. Women always put you on the spot.

  ‘Well, yes,’ I admitted. ‘It’s antiques I’m always short of.’

  ‘You absolute –’

  ‘Swine,’ I filled in for her and rang off. That’s women. Very self-centred.

  I was right when I said it looked like becoming one of those days. I climbed back into bed again, determined to erase the entire wasted day from my mind. Sleep didn’t come immediately, though. I tossed and turned.

  Holy Grail, indeed.

  Chapter 4

  I’M NOT ONE of these people who let themselves be affected by the weather. Rain, sun, snow and gales are all the same to me. As long as there’s an antiques shop or two around we could be in another stellar constellation for all I care, because then I’m as happy as a pig in muck. But next day dawned with a brilliance which dazzled the soul. The scores of our local artists, from Constable to Wilson on down, must have stirred in their graves with this dawn’s invigoration and excitement. I just knew in my bones it would be a good day, full of profit and luscious antiques.

  Mind you, you don’t have to like all antiques. They’re just like people. You get all sorts. Some can bring ecstasy the minute you clap your eyes on them. Others put the fear of God into you. Antiques are luscious or loathsome, but all are magical.

  My breakfast was a barley cake made by my own lily-white hands, a couple of apples and a glass of milk, actually my crude copy of a Roman’s breakfast. I do it because it’s cheap as well as interesting. Of course, you need a pair of Campanian bronze pateral vessels in which our people and the Roman legions hereabouts used to heat their wines and food in the first and second centuries, rather like the Lancastrians used fire hobs right up to modern times. I believe you have to cook simple or sad, so to speak, to get anywhere near the historical man’s grub.

  Singing loudly, I locked up, fending off a strong temptation to make my bed and stoutly resisting the urge to wash up my breakfast things. Handling this sort of temptation’s my strong suit. The Ruby was practically pawing the ground. ‘No nonsense from you,’ I told it pleasantly. The inside had mostly dried from last night’s rain. I mopped the seat to get that extra mileage. Luckily, the floor has more holes than a colander so drainage is adequate. I was full of beans, pretending to percuss its chest and chuckling. ‘How’s your middle lobe?’ I asked it, leaping in. ‘A bit chesty?’ Wit. I throttled off down the drive, singing.

  Stupid, innocent Lovejoy.

  The biggest town hereabouts is on a hill above a curving river. It’s only a handful of miles to the open sea. I always halt the Ruby at the middle bridge for a moment because that point was the limit of navigation for the Roman galleys arriving from Gaul. Our town council, a gaggle of real cack-handers, has tried ten billion river improvement schemes since Claudius limped off his Imperial trireme on to our wharf, with the result that boats can’t even get this far nowadays. Politicians call it progress, but I do wish they’d stop trying. A huge shape purred alongside.

  ‘Hi, Lovejoy!’ Good old Honkworth with his admirers. The blonde bird again, that smarmy creep, and Diamond Lil doing her lipstick thing.

  ‘Wotcher, Honkie.’ I had to crane my neck to the vertical.

  ‘Daydreaming? Race you up the North Hill.’ A roar of laughter at this witticism. He leaned over me, patting my head again while the traffic behind hooted us to get going. ‘Has your Bugatti Special recovered? It’s got epilepsy, you know,’ he confided loudly to his mob. Two of them laughed.

  ‘So had Alexander the Great,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Before your time, Honkie,’ I told him, clacking the handbrake free. You just have to be kind.

  His giant motor wafted ahead in a second. From my lowly position his nearside exhaust looked like the Mersey Tunnel as his mobile castle dwindled grandly up the hill. Now, what was he doing out so early?

  I’d headed for the Arcade. Our local antiques dealers, a merry band of siblings, have this covered alleyway with stalls and booths. Our town planners stuck their oar in, so the architectural style is neo-gothic catastrophic with a smattering of postcard mosque. There’s a cafe with its own popular brand of travellers’ enteric.

  I parked the Ruby between two Fords and chatted up the traffic warden, Brenda. She and I know each other from the trainee snogging days of our shared golden youth.

  ‘Have you noticed,’ I asked her carefully, ‘that my horseless carriage is illegally parked?’

  Brenda examined the yellow lines and the parking meters. ‘No, Lovejoy. In fact,’ she said, just as carefully but smiling. ‘I doubt if I ever would.’

  I hesitated, but antiques called from nearby along the narrow streets. She’d have to wait.

  ‘One thing,’ I said. ‘Is your engagement ring illegally parked too?’ It’s best to be certain.

  ‘Get on with you,’ she scolded, still smiling. Women have all sorts of knacks we don’t have, like two-way smiles. Smiles should mean yes or no. Not both.

  Temporarily immune to the laws of the highway, I sprinted off, pleased. Well, the mayor parks free. In the cafe Woody was in action, ash from his cigarette busily spraying the edibles he’d carefully flung on the counter to filter his coughed droplets.

  ‘Wotcher, Woody.’

  He swirled a couple of stale plaice into the frying-pan. I looked away.

  ‘Watch your women, lads,’ he croaked. ‘Lovejoy’s here.’

  A muted chorus of jeers and greetings rose like an audible fog from the hunched dealers scattered thinly among the tables. It’s not a sight for the squeamish. A plate of Woody’s fried breakfast is enough to turn the strongest stomach. I waved to his survivors and called for tea. Every antiques dealer in East Anglia comes through Woody’s sooner or later. One or two, like Nick Maldon, came in for egg and chips the day Woody opened and never budged since. More deals are done in Woody’s than on Wall Street and the Stock Exchange put together. Not all are carefully recorded for the Chancellor’s tax accountants, however.

  ‘Fry-up as well, Lovejoy?’ Lisa’s the only waitress in the known world with a PhD in ancient history, between archaeological digs.

  ‘And I call you friend,’ I said theatrically. She slipped into the chair opposite and lit a cigarette. This always fascinates me. Women can flick a match and hold a cigarette and have you goggling at their elegance. ‘Who’s been in so far?’

  ‘Too early yet.’ Her gaze ranged the other tables through Woody’s louring smoke. ‘Most don’t come till elevenish.’

  I already knew that. ‘Tinker?’

  ‘No.’

  I checked the tables as far as the bloodshot eye could see, about two yards. Fearless Fred was slogging his way through chips, sardines and toast. He earns his nickname every Tuesday from his bids at the local auction. He’s silver tableware, Sheffield plate and a diehard gambler on the horses. Jimmo was there, another threadbare soul like me, though he now had a place across the way in the Arcade. He was going through a bad patch, and rumour was he’d have to sell up soon, poor bloke. I waved and we both beamed beams of derelict joviality to show how well off we were. That done, I cast around for more profitable contacts.

  ‘Hey, Lovejoy.’ Cask is one of those remarkable baby faces who never look as if they need a shave. He’s always full of corny jokes. He’d be a good barker if only he’d stick to barking, but his delusions of grandeur make him deal in early scientific and navigational instruments. His long-suffering wife Has Faith In Him, which only makes his predicament worse because Cask can’t tell a Persian astrolabe from a football.

  ‘How do, Caskie,’ I called. I like him, from sympathy.

  ‘Lovejoy. Heard this one?’ He fell about in his chair, spraying noshed egg as he laughed. ‘Two savage man-eating lions in town shopping, and one says, “I thought you said it was crowded on Saturd
ays?” Get it?’

  ‘Great, great, Caskie.’ I laughed along to give him heart.

  Marion laughed too, she of the aggressive manner and unplumbed appetite, delicately spooning yoghurt opposite her temporary escort Jed Radcliffe at an adjacent table. He’s a quiet smart man like all print dealers. Curious how a prints man managed to pair up with a Regency furniture specialist like Marion. Perhaps he puts his engravings in her chest of drawers. A trio of barkers were in, one already moderately tipsy. They’d be clocking up commission for their wallies – a wallie’s the dealer the barker finds antiques for – as soon as they could stand. Two flintlock pistol specialists were huddled over gruesome porridge, nodding and talking prices quite openly the way no other antiques dealers ever do. Why weapon people are like this I don’t know. The shorter chap, Eric, has two wives. Everybody knows except them and the law, but one final day he’ll need every loaded weapon he possesses, plus ten yards start. I wondered idly if he’d been at yesterday’s pageant and seen the sword. Eric’s good at his weaponry. But good enough?

  ‘Lovejoy.’ Lisa brought me back. ‘Going to the fireworks?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said cautiously. I’m sick of fêtes, fairs, pageants, displays. We have an epidemic of them every summer. Makes me wonder how we find the time for anything else.

  ‘Take me.’

  We looked at each other. I don’t quite understand how they do it but women always seem to be one plot ahead.

  ‘Castle Park. Saturday night.’

  Middle of the town. That meant I wouldn’t have to work out how to fold Lisa’s impressive length into the Ruby. Even I have to adopt the foetal position to get behind the wheel.

  ‘Well, er . . .’

  ‘I’m not a tart, Lovejoy,’ Lisa said evenly. ‘And too many of those crummy popsies you choose to go about with are.’

  Since when does a man have any choice?

  ‘Well,’ I relented, ‘I like fireworks.’ When you think of it, they’re the only explosives you can make and not get shelled at. Lisa smiled. Suddenly I realized I’d never seen her smile before. It was this morning’s sunrise all over again.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘See you outside the Arcade. Dusk.’

  ‘Er . . .’

  Margaret has a shop in the Arcade. Lisa swiftly understood.

  ‘No,’ I said suddenly. ‘The Castle doorway.’ It’s a common meeting place with no prying lights after dark. She rose at Woody’s emphysematous shout for her to get a move on. I slurped my tea as a penance. Rising to go, I crossed to Marion and Jed.

  ‘German dolls?’ I offered hopefully. We aren’t ones for formal greetings in the trade. Jed drew an eager breath but Marion said no, too sharply.

  ‘A Wellington chest, Lovejoy?’ she countered. ‘London 1830?’

  I sighed, saying no. If only I had the money.

  ‘I need Irish glass,’ she said after a drink. ‘And jade.’

  My spirits rose. Irish glass? Liz Sandwell had offered me some. Obviously, the promised luck had just arrived.

  ‘I’ve got two good buyers down from the North,’ Marion added.

  ‘See you tonight at the pub,’ I said. Well, if I had a chance of earning a quid or two from Liz’s cut glass, I could pop in for a free nosh as well at Ma Cookson’s and pick up the Holy Grail. It should be worth a few pence, I thought nastily, after all these years. And she had asked me to lunch.

  Mercifully, I escaped without remembering to pay. Lisa once said that my trouble is I always forget but sometimes remember, instead of it being the other way round. I hope I don’t know what she means.

  Chapter 5

  LIZ SANDWELL’S THREE pieces of Irish cut glass were nearly what she’d told me. We agreed on prices, and by ten to twelve the Ruby was tottering up Martha Cookson’s drive, obviously beginning to feel it had done its bit for the day. Naturally, I hadn’t the money to pay Liz, but a day or two’s no problem in the antiques world where people who pay on the nail are regarded as imbeciles or eccentric.

  Liz had been proudest of a ‘real bluish antique Waterford flat-cut glass, Lovejoy’. That mysterious bluish tinge which is supposed to be characteristic of all Waterford glass is a myth. Hand on my heart. Antique Waterford glass is no more blue than you or I. Look at an authentic piece in a museum and see. If it is blue, it’s a fake, manufactured by the skilful for the incredulous. Dutch imitators had flat-cut Liz’s bluish polygonal glass bottle, using bluish-tinted glass. There’s a lot of them about. I’m all for copying as long as I know what actually goes on. The Excise Acts from 1745 on messed about with English glassmaking, so the free trade Ireland got after 1780 boomed Irish glass production, sales and reputation – you don’t need to delve too far back in history to find out politicians making a balls-up. Hence the development of the sophisticated three-piece mould system for blown glass in America and Ireland before 1825 or so. Why the Yanks aren’t proud as peacocks of their lovely glass beats me. Liz had one, a lovely barrelled spirit bottle complete with stopper (remember the stopper – its presence doubles the price you pay. And if it’s missing starts some hard bargaining). The last piece was a Cork Glass Co. decanter, quite attractive, but beware.

  ‘Bainbridge,’ I explained to Liz, ‘says they made modern ones from the original moulds, and I think he’s right.’ Hers was genuinely old, though I didn’t tell her that my bell was clamouring its lovely chime, so she said okay let’s price it as modern. I didn’t disagree. Well, all’s fair in love, war and antiques.

  So there I was, the Ruby crawling spluttering up Martha Cookson’s drive. An ancient gnarled gardener rose from among some bushes to stare. I gave him a royal wave. He resumed work, shaking his head and grinning.

  The river was running higher than last night from the rain we’d had. The old longboat seemed immovable, not rocking at its ropes like boats are supposed to do. Maybe it was stuck on the bottom by aeons of silt. If it wasn’t, that thick hawser would keep it from accidentally winning any races.

  No smoke rose from its black chimney. It was a fifty-footer, no longer neat but still embellished with carvings and painted floral and scenic decorations of the traditional bargee style. Curious how those gross reds, greens, yellows and light blues caught on with our itinerant workers, bargees, caravan-dwellers, tinkers and gypsies alike.

  ‘I’m so very glad you came, Lovejoy.’ I was brought back to earth. Martha Cookson came to say hello, both hands outstretched. I found her hands in mine. She was suddenly likeable, but I suppressed the fond feeling. I had to find a way to return the money she’d given me. ‘Have you quite forgiven us?’

  ‘Hello. Forgiven?’

  ‘For offending you yesterday. Weren’t we awful?’ She drew me into the hall the way they do. I started to explain why I’d rushed off with such ill grace but she would have none of it. ‘We quite understand. We’re appropriately ashamed of our clumsiness, Lovejoy. Now, first names immediately. Absolutely the minimum of fuss.’ She led the way into the same living room. Sherry was ready on an occasional table. As we entered this bird turned to inspect us, smiling economically. Last seen this morning with Honkworth. This was all going to be rather a drag, her sour expression announced, so everybody keep illusions out of it and no hang-ups, okay? ‘You must hear all sorts of ridiculous stories in your occupation, Lovejoy,’ Martha Cookson said. ‘We can’t blame you in the least.’

  ‘Er, well, Martha, I actually came to, er, say . . .’ I started a stumbling explanation that I wanted out.

  ‘This is my niece, Dolly,’ Martha Cookson introduced brightly. ‘I made her come along in case you were still angry with us. Dolly, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Er, I think we’ve met.’ I gave Dolly a nod.

  ‘So we have.’ No change out of me, Lovejoy, her tone said loudly. She turned and poured sherry for us all.

  ‘Really?’ Martha was all agog. ‘When and where?’

  ‘He’s a friend of Alvin’s,’ Dolly said. She held out a glass distantly, avoiding actually seeing me. I had to plod acro
ss a few million leagues of carpet to reach it. I felt like a passing pilgrim thrown a crumb. Alvin? Was poor old Honkworth actually called that?

  ‘Not a friend,’ I said. Let there be no fobbery, my tone said back. I saw Martha’s quick glance but I don’t go for all this coy stuff.

  ‘You’re both antiques experts,’ Dolly said, innocent.

  ‘No. I am.’ I moved across to a de Wint watercolour, drawn by my clanging bell. Genuine, the boat reflected and the moonlight just right. I did my infallible watercolour trick. Always half close your eyes and step back a few inches more than seems necessary. Then do the same from a yard to its right. Then ditto left. Do this and you’re halfway to spotting the valuable genuine old master. It works even for painters as late as Braque. You need not know anything about the art itself. Forgeries and modem dross look unbalanced by this trick, full of uneven colours and displeasing lines. It’s as simple as that.

  Dolly was still bent on battle, woman all over. ‘If you’re an expert,’ she was demanding sweetly, ‘what does that make Alvin?’

  I sighed. There’s no hinting to some people. ‘I’m an antiques dealer, love,’ I told Dolly kindly. ‘I’m the best I’ve ever seen, heard or come across. Alvin Honkworth is a nerk. Even other nerks think he’s a nerk.’

  ‘I’ll tell him your opinion,’ she threatened sweetly.

  ‘Woe is me,’ I said politely. I moved aside. The Imari plates called. Dutch copies, as I’d thought. Lots of pretty famous porcelain is really artistically poor. Among the poorest (and somewhat ‘overpriced’ at provincial auctions nowadays) I rank these Continental Imaris, plus soft-paste Lowestoft, the enamel-painted hard-paste Bristol porcelain figures of 1775 vintage, and much of the underglaze-blue transfer-printed hard-paste porcelain garbage from Staffordshire’s New Hall China Manufactory of the mid 1780s. Seriously underpriced, though, if you can currently believe that of anything, is the eerily glowing mother-of-pearl Belleek porcelain from Fermanagh, though it’s more modern. (Incidentally, the mark ‘Ireland’ was only added to the harp and Irish hound mark after the McKinley Tariff Act took effect in America, 1891, so look before you leap.)