The Rich And The Profane Page 6

  ‘Is he unwell, Sister Cecilia?’ one of the monks said, voice sepulchral.

  ‘He seems overcome, Brother Gervaise. Please bring his friend.’

  Friend? I hadn’t any friends. Somebody brought me water. It tasted foul. I sipped, grimaced.

  ‘From our own healing pool, Lovejoy,’ the nun said with asperity. ‘People come on pilgrimages to drink it.’

  The more fool them, I thought. I moved away, vigilantly followed by the sandalled soldiery. Gesso appeared, with the prior, who dismissed my guardians.

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy. Which is it?’ Gesso looked pleased. ‘Is it that pewter tankard?’

  There was a tankard, a modem Spanish fake looking every day of its age - about four weeks. French forgers buy these pewters wholesale, and age them by either burying them in new-cut grass for a few weeks or giving them a black acid-stained patina. As genuine antique pewter pieces have soared in value, so has the number of fakes and their quality. No, it wasn’t the fake tankard.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I asked, but the game was up.

  Gesso pulled the plastic, left it crumpled.

  ‘Stand close, Lovejoy.’ Gesso was grinning, like traitors always do.

  ‘No.’ I nodded at the bronze handle. ‘That.’

  ‘This old handle?’ Prior Metivier lifted it down, truly amazed.

  ‘They used to make them in pairs. Chinese. There should be semi-precious stones for eyes. The fact they’re missing won’t lower the auction price much.’

  ‘How old, Lovejoy?’ Metivier stood. ‘We priced it at ten pounds.’

  ‘It will buy a new house.’

  The bonny lady approached. She held a cigarette, determined to look out of place, and succeeding.

  ‘What is it?’ she rasped.

  You know when two people look at each other and you know there’s something between them? Well, I felt exactly that. She and the prior were more than just good friends. Metivier determinedly kept his eyes averted. She had no such inhibitions. Her eyes were only for him.

  ‘Lovejoy’s identified an antique.’ He looked at me. ‘Chinese?’

  ‘Older than all you saints, Prior. Remarkable that it’s preserved.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He smiled at the lady. ‘And to think, Mrs Crucifex, that we were about to invoke Lovejoy’s assistance in a—’

  ‘Where do we sell it, Lovejoy?’ Mrs Crucifex cut in.

  ‘London auction, or a private broker-buyer.’ I shrugged. ‘Don’t let Gesso melt it down and make Christmas cracker brooches.’

  That was nasty, because Gesso had once nicked some gold Roman staters from the castle museum. He’d melted the coins down to make pendants. That way, he changed rare ancient coins into cheap trinkets. He coloured in anger.

  ‘Now, gentlemen,’ Prior George placated. ‘Lovejoy, I

  would like to thank you for coming. Mrs Crucifex, would you care to offer Lovejoy a lift home?’

  ‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘Can I go?’

  Metivier smiled. ‘For now. We’ll need you later.’

  8

  IT was dark, leaves brushing my face. I wasn’t very old, maybe ten. I was scared, .but I had a flashlight. Somebody was among the bushes, I didn’t know who. I hadn’t been following them

  but somehow I was there.

  The ground was wet. In the air hung a strange cloying smell. I heard the person returning, so laid myself flat in the thick coarse grass. A beam cut the air but couldn’t get through the low-hanging trees. I could hear the strange sucking plop noises of the hot muddy pool. It was that that I’d come to see.

  The moon shone on its surface when I raised my head to look. Odd scrubby reeds grew there. Nothing grew in its middle. It was some ten feet across, and was having one of its gurgling and spitting fits. Not spectacular, like those New Zealand geysers or the American volcanic spouts, but it was the best East Anglia’s undulating countryside could manage in the way of horror.

  Every so often, it bubbled up enough to source a stream once the water cooled. The great thing was, fossils came up from deep under the earth. They had their original colours, too, unlike those that had been buried for millions of years. Rumours abounded of dinosaur bones, vertebrae and suchlike, still linked, being found in the stream bed, almost as if the pool had reached down and—

  ‘Aaaagh!’ I screeched, fighting the hand off.

  ‘Goodness sake, Lovejoy!’

  ‘Ergh, ergh!’ I was frantic.

  Moonlight, yes, but the voice was Florida’s. I was not ten years old.

  ‘Oh, hello, love.’ Cool, calm Lovejoy.

  Shakily I scrabbled for a match, lit a candle stub. Florida was about to climb in beside me.

  ‘Honestly! I hurry to you, and I’m the monster from the deep!’

  ‘No images, please.’ I relaxed. ‘Have you brought any grub?’

  ‘You’re sweating buckets, Lovejoy.’ She got a towel, mopped me briskly. ‘Turn over. Worse than any child. Having a bad dream?’

  ‘Yes. The hot pool at Albansham Priory.’

  ‘Hardly the most frightening puddle in the universe, Lovejoy. Yes, to food. And thank you, Florida darling, would be super.’

  ‘Ta, dwoorlink,’ I said obediently.

  Waking up in the early evening, hardly dark yet, gives you a headache. My headaches go for gold, real temple-splitters. Waking up from a nightmare makes things worse, not better. I dangled my legs over the edge of the bed.

  ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘Get what? The prize money? Soon, darling. I bet far too much!’ She trilled a laugh. Florida’s gorgeous and rich. She gambles heavily on her horses. I could scent the grub. It was in those tin foil boxes that startle you because they’re hotter than you think.

  ‘Not your nags. I meant the glass vase.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Florida said, airy. ‘I forgot. But guess what, Lovejoy? My lovely boy Sharpies got through to the semifinal of the Bycroft Cup!’

  ‘You forgot?’ I stared at her. Lovely, but a pest.

  The previous Saturday, Florida had shown me some photographs. Like all pictures of horsey gentry, they were of stupefying dullness. Except one. It showed Florida laughing with her friend Tara. They were somewhere indoors, a massive boudoir - lady’s room ‘for sulking in’, according to the original French.

  On the dressing table was a piece of Galle. It was indistinct, because Florida and her pal were the centre of focus, but it looked for all the world like an artichoke vase. ‘Standard Galle’ glass, collectors call it, but you can’t mistake the white opaque mutton-fat look of the body, with the marquetry-on-glass coloured covering on parts of the vase’s lovely curved form. Its base looks solid agate. Genius. And Florida forgot?

  Emile Galle was a glass-maker’s son in Lorraine, and studied in Weimar (yes, that one) before starting up with his dad in Nancy. Before he died, in 1904, Emile was world famous. I like his art. He experimented with glass night and day. A man after my own heart. He became the glassmaker hero of Art Nouveau, and I do mean everybody’s champ. There’s a rule of thumb among antiques dealers that if a piece is signed by Galle it was made some time after 1889, but that’s not always true.

  When I’d first asked Florida about the vase, she’d said, ‘Oh, Tara wants to get rid of all her old stuff, have a real throwout.’

  Needless to say, I’d begged her to persuade Tara to chuck the vase my way. Now I get, ‘I forgot.’ Yet she remembers that her stupid nag jumped over some sticks. You’re in a bad way when you call a horse a lovely boy.

  ‘Can I go and see Tara?’

  Florida was undoing the foils. ‘Lovejoy. Tara wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole. She’s not into rough trade yobbos.’

  ‘Like me?’

  She darted me a mischievous smile, battling the luscious aroma.

  ‘Lovejoy. Eat up like a good boy.’

  ‘Ta, love.’ I got the plate, and screamed as the scalding thing charred my naked thigh. I almost spilled the damned thing. Florida laughed so much that tears came
. Her beautiful form shook and quivered. I eyed her, wolfed the grub. Sometimes your mind doesn’t know what comes first.

  We made hectic love. After a rest we imposed further demands, and then slumbered in a sweaty conglomerate. Instead of dozing, for once I found myself thinking. It’s always a hazard.

  There’s this theory about civilization, isn’t there, that it travels ever westwards. As one civilization fades another starts, but always west. Like, China, India, then Persia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, England and now America. I think it’s rubbish myself, because what about all the civilizations we miss out? Anyway, what is civilization?

  Many folk say it’s crime.

  Not long since, everybody in our village left cars unlocked, babies in gardens, doors unlatched, let children walk to school. Now, we think Carnage City. Everything has floodlights. Our very doors are wired to the Plod. Think of Victorian England, where every known vice abounded. If civilization does move west, and America does tote Lady Culture’s lamp, then the flame singes the populace. Maybe crime and culture are inseparables. Now? Now it’s Russia and China. Round and round it goes.

  By the time I’d recovered and brewed up, Florida was awake. I got her talking about Irma - whom she knew - and Mrs Crucifex, whom she disliked with a woman’s indelible passion. I asked why. Florida said, very disapproving, that Mrs Crucifex had too many husbands, in too many places. I did my ???, and got it on the nail.

  Mrs Crucifex, from the Channel Isles. I said how I’d met her, and where.

  ‘That place?’ Florida almost spilt her tea in fury. She made a wondrous sight, sitting up in the candleglow, her breasts curved and her shoulders with that lovely sheen. ‘Albansham Priory is on its last legs. That phoney man and his sow of a sister.’

  ‘Oh,’ I remarked innocently. ‘I thought Prior Metivier was holy—’

  ‘He’s gutted it! My husband was educated there. We remember when it was a real priory, not just a few geriatrics putting on fetes and catchpenny stalls.’

  ‘Your husband?’ I didn’t like that.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? He’s home.’ And this paragon of virtue added with sweet smiling innocence, ‘I’m glad. Things are back to normal.’

  ‘Er, look, love.’ I started to get up. ‘I’d better—’

  She held me. Her tea spilt anyway. ‘Not that normal, Lovejoy.’

  Women have ways of delaying you when you ought to be gone. Finally we dressed. She prattled about the Metiv-iers. In my wisdom I didn’t listen much. Once a loon, always a duckegg.

  Gesso was in the taproom of the Welcome Sailor. I’d tried eleven pubs. I needed Tinker. He’d have simply known where Gesso was, saved me hours.

  ‘Drink?’ I tried to get tick from Maisie, but she wouldn’t and I had to fork out my last groat. ‘Rum old place, that priory, eh, Gesso? What were you doing there, anyway? Bit religious for you, I’d have thought.’

  I’ve known Gesso a long time, since he used to prepare gesso walls for me to paint murals on.

  He’s got a face like one of those mournful comics who can make you laugh just standing there. In fact he used to be a pub comedian. Once, he tried to set up restoring antiques, but he was useless. He helped me at the occasional house robbery, until I realized I wasn’t really much good at it. His ex-wife Desdemona’s a friendly lass, very gregarious.

  ‘Mmmh.’ He took the ale with a nod. ‘I was at their open day, got talking to Prior George. He asked me about antiques. I told him about you. He’s got some old painting he wanted you to shufti.’

  So why didn’t Prior George just call? And a painting? Not that priceless Chinese bronze handle?

  ‘They’re going on retreat soon, Lovejoy. Here.’ He nudged me suggestively. ‘His sister’s a cracker, eh? And that Mrs Crucifex.’

  ‘She ran me to the village. Not a word.’

  ‘She’s his fund-raiser. Hates Miss Marie. Women.’

  ‘Aye.’ I thought of Gesso’s skills. ‘What exactly are you doing?’

  ‘Me? Bricking that mud bath they have. It’s taken me three days. None of them monks can lift a bloody shovel. Worse than useless.’

  ‘A bath?’ I was mystified.

  ‘Like for the Roman springs in Bath, but smaller. Visitors’ll soak. He’ll make Albansham a modern place of pilgrimage like in olden days.’

  ‘Why not just put a rope round the hot pool, five quid a head?’

  Gesso guffawed at my ignorance.

  ‘You’re off your trolley, wack. A farmer tried to fill it in years back, chucked in a hundred tons of rubble. Know what? It just vanished, glug, glug. No, Lovejoy. Sit a tourist down in that, it’s goodnight Vienna.’

  ‘Wise, then,’ I said, uneasy, ‘your little brick bath. I can see that.’

  He came to the end of his pint. ‘What you want me for, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, aye. Help me to burgle it, Gesso?’

  He stared. ‘To what?’

  ‘You heard. Tomorrow night? You know the monks’ routine.’

  ‘Here, hang on—’

  Maureen Jolly waved at me from the saloon bar. I went to her.

  ‘Did you meet him?’ Maureen breathed eagerly, bussing me and shoving her friend off a stool for me.

  ‘Who do you mean, Maureen?’ I pretended a roguish ignorance.

  ‘Jonno Rant, you fiend!’

  Phew. I’d forgotten the name I’d made up. ‘Yes. He’s resting at my cottage.’ Good lies are reckless.

  ‘He’s a lovely man,’ said Maureen’s friend wistfully. ‘I nearly auditioned for him once. Some younger bitch got the part.’

  A real Jonno Rant? I eyed Maureen’s friend. Until then I’d been admiring her on the sly - redhead, elfin and pretty in a green woollen dress. Now, I wasn’t sure I liked her one bit. I needed gelt to finance a burglary, not truth. Also, I wanted my lies to stay lies, not suddenly turn into realities. Life’s a mess.

  ‘Are you sure it was Jonno Rant?’ I said, sleet. Where the hell had I got the name from? Maybe some subconscious news bite lingered in my cortex.

  Maureen laughed, slapping me playfully. I wish she wouldn’t do that.

  ‘Lovejoy’s always joking, Patty. Take no notice. Jonno’s famous! He’s produced more shows than anybody on earth When can I meet him, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ I heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve been trying to borrow enough to take him out for a proper meal. You know these...’ Christ, what were Jonnos called? ‘These, er, show-business types. I don’t want him to think badly of East Anglia.’

  Maureen groaned. Patty groaned. We all groaned.

  ‘I’ve got it, Lovejoy! Everything is looks. It’s the world. Here!’ Patty brightened, me thinking thank God the penny’d dropped. ‘How about we lend you the money, Lovejoy? That way,’ the lovely goddess explained while I fell in love with her, from the bottom of my heart, ‘he’ll be really impressed.’

  ‘That’s it!’ I cried. ‘We’re noshing in the George, you stroll by—’

  ‘Right! Right!’ they both squealed, rummaging in handbags. Angel voices warbled fit to burst.

  On my way out I gave Gesso the nod, then phoned Florida to say I was delayed at an auction.

  She was outraged. ‘At this hour, Lovejoy?’

  ‘It’s a ring auction, love. I’ll see you about eleven o’clock. OK?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can be bothered to wait.’

  Then don’t, I thought but wheedled, ‘Please, dwoorlink.’ Then I gave Thaddeus Harrod a few quid to lend me his motor and drove to Saumarez House, the home of Mrs Crucifex.

  9

  THE motor was basically defunct. It had suffered. Twice it conked out on the bypass. On the outskirts of Albansham I flagged down a passing motorist. He was heading to the snooker match. His brother ran the team.

  ‘You’re lucky, mate,’ he said, laughing. ‘Don’t stay out tonight.’

  ‘Why? Is it All Hallows?’ I can never keep track of these ancient folk festivals. Hereabouts it’s all ‘next Lady Day’ and ‘three nights bef
ore Michaelmas’, and ‘on Lammas Day’ and suchlike nonsense. I can’t see the point, when we’ve got calendars.

  ‘No. The hare coursing’s tomorrow.’ For a second he looked stricken. ‘Here. You’re not the Plod?’

  ‘Give over.’

  ‘Thank God.’ He really did seem relieved. ‘The prior would kill me.’

  ‘Prior George?’ I chuckled, putting it on. ‘He’s a lad, eh?’

  He said, guiltily, ‘It’s harmless fun, the dog racing.’ Now, hare coursing’s illegal. It’s been so since the law was passed through Parliament in 1841. It’s pretty grim, if you’ve never seen it. The real hypocrisy is we’ve fine upstanding moralists who enjoy such sports. There’s even an annual Waterloo Cup, real dogs and real hares. Sportsmen (sic) say the hares love it.

  Hare coursing’s done for a bet. Gamblers come from every comer of our creaking old kingdom to run their dogs in East Anglia’s fields. You don’t want to miss seeing some poor harmless creature being brutally exterminated, do you?

  It’s done like this: you catch a hare. Your dogs are the competitors. At a signal, you open your sack and release a hare. You also release dog A. It chases and kills the hare, while you enjoy the grand spectacle. Then you release a second hare, and dog B. Timekeepers clock the killing times, et evil bloodthirsty detestable cetera.

  It’s called rural sport. East Anglia’s riddled with them, each as barbaric as the rest. Within ten miles of my cottage, you can see bare-fisted prize fights of a bright frosty morn. And cockfights, and pitbull terriors savaging one another, God knows what else. I’m not talking of some primitive backwoods (or am I?). I’m speaking of clean, quiet East Anglia. Civilized folk like me - and maybe you - might remember that there’s legal greyhound racing at Romford and Swinton, if you crave seeing your dog running after an electric stuffed toy hare, where you can have a pint and place a bet as well, if you’ve a mind. OK?

  No, not for the barbaric tribes among us, because there’s no blood, no whimpers as the poor prey—