The Grace in Older Women (40 page)

'Yes, Lovejoy. They're waiting for you, said to tell them when you
want them to move something in.'

So the great Stubbs was still inside this van?

'Where's Tinker?' When weapons come out, find your mates.

'He's with them. He's drunk, Lovejoy.'

We went in, Chemise silent, the biddies chattering excitedly.
Tinker was telling Tomtom some tale, cackling.

'And Lovejoy says he owns the frigging firm -'

'Sorry, Tinker.' I winked at Tomtom to show him I was only
pretending, innocent ears abounding. 'Come with me. Tomtom, er, that large
extra object you wish auctioned. Could you bring it in on my nod, please? You
can stay out here if you like, have a drink.'

'No, Lovejoy.' Tomtom spoke his monotone straight at me. 'We'll be
with you every second.'

'Oh.' Sweat ran down my arms. ‘Glad of that, Tomtom.' I couldn't
lose for winning today. On a roll. Grinning scared, I told Chemise and the
Dewhurst ladies to go ahead into the dining room where it would be held. I
could hear the hum of voices even from the hallway, gusts of laughter. 'Just
nip to the loo.'

My hands were almost a giveaway, shaking. Tomtom remained by the
end of the corridor. His mate Cav went on by, to stand blocking the light from
the fire escape. God, they were hulks.

Tinker. Listen. Can you drive a pantechnicon?' I had to mop my
face with the towel, splashed a bit on my brow.

'Drive anyfink, Lovejoy.' He frowned. 'Why? Which?'

'Soon as I start the auction, Tinker, that end van. Drive it away.
I've no keys or anything.' My frigging teeth chattered.

'Right.' He thought a bit. The mirror looked back at me with that
sneer mirrors get when you're ridiculous. 'Where to?'

'Have I to think of everything, for Christ's sake?' I almost
raised my hand to clout the drunken old soak, my anger shuddering to a halt
just in time. 'Anywhere,' I said, tired out. 'Vanish the damned thing.'

'We in trouble, Lovejoy?' he gravelled out, watching me.

I looked into my horrible eyes. 'Not you, Tinker. Me.'

'Not on your own, son,' he said with a cackle. He made a fist.
'I'll marmalize the lot.'

'Ta, Tinker. Look after yourself.' I left, putting on fake
jubilation. I didn't want compassion getting in my way at this stage.

The dining room was thronged. I should have been pleased, but
wasn't. I waved cheerily, all those familiar faces. Many dealers were from
outside East Anglia.

A sadness was on me, as I stepped to the dais. All these people.
Maybe it was the occasion. The building was packed with phoney fame, re-created
in forgeries by human skill. And I'd done it. Not by my own hands, but I
couldn't escape blame. If it hadn't been for me there would be no auction, no
forgeries. And every single item in the whole place would appear within days on
the antiques stalls as 'genuine, original'. Don't misunderstand. I've done my
share, God knows, hundreds. I stood there, gavel in my hand, wondering for a
sour second what fakes do for an ancient genuis's reputation.

The trouble is that fame isn't. In the Middle Ages, the teeming
mediaeval centres of learning were thronged with the savants -Rome, Bologna, Liege,
Paris, Oxford. Even among these glitterati, one bloke's name was on everybody's
lips, the toast of mediaeval Paris. His learning, brilliance, his carousing
worse than any Macheath, this riotous English scholiast from humble Wilton was
admired, copied, praised and envied from the Danube to the Atlantic. The world
worshipped. And (fanfare) here comes his name: Serlon. Your mind goes,
Who?
Fame, like I say, isn't. Looking
around at the sea of expectant avarice, I wondered sadly if we deliberately
exterminate the reputations of the great. Is it that's what greed does to
anyone honourable?

‘Lovejoy!' somebody said. 'Don't stand there like a prat.'

'Sorry. Just checking.'

Holly was at the corridor door, arguing with a whiffler. She was
one problem I could do without. I passed my index finger along my chin, the
sign of rejection. Whifflers bundled her out. Not a head turned. I saw the
whifflers stand sentry by the closed doors, registered the Dewhurst sisters at
the wall phones, gavelled once.

'Lads and lasses. Please be aware that the management cannot claim
that all these items are authentic antiques. Okay?' There was laughter,
cynicism rampant.

'We've got to be out of here in lightning time. Let's go. Item
one.'

Tinker was by the door that led into the kitchens, waiting on my
signal. The hatchways were bolted.

'Tinker, check those corridor doors, okay?' And coursed on as he
tottered out to comply. 'Item one: a mosaic said to be Roman, Balkerne Hill
site, two yards square. Quick . . . T

The mosaic I recognized, one of three exhibits fetched by Sampan,
a grave robber from Harwich. It was genuine, unlike his other two. He does them
well. And it had begun.

Before I knew it I was into the low twenties, thirties, then the
sixties, really motoring.

‘Item seventy-two,' I was rattling on, when I saw somebody slip in
at the back, smiling apologetically. Now, you don't slip into a roup auction.
But Mr. Geake was sure of himself. I saw Zem, one of the whifflers on loan from
Podge Tater's place in Kings Lynn, look doubtfully at his mate but let him
through. Well, so? He'd saved my life. This painting, manner of Seurat I'd say,
start me off, a thousand . . . ?'

And crossed my feet. Instantly, not even a decent pause,
Priscilla's hand shot up. She spoke into the phone.

The painting got knocked down to her for a fortune. She was pale
but game, rising to join the queue at Chemise's table where the successful
bidders were signing chits, flashing wads, arguing the toss but getting on with
it, the old cinema writer's joke engraved on their minds: it's not the price,
it's the money.

Lot 100 came and went, then 150. At 190 I knocked old Mrs.
Boyson's writings of Thangliena down to a phoney bidder called Squire
Malpassant, carefully avoiding the use of double-barrelled names that posh
London houses go for when fraudulently knocking lots down to phoney bidders
'off the wall'.

Tinker was gone. I surged on, selling everything in the
exhibition. Some things astonish you. I've seen seventy-year-old antique
dealers rendered speechless by coming across some trick that they've never
seen. You never stop learning. I mean, who'd have thought that a handful of
poor quality sketches of old boxers, badly aged by simple dilute tea - a
child's trick - would go for the price of a new semidetached house? I’d thought
twice before admitting them. I myself had scrawled their illegible dates in
pencil, in the interests of authenticity, because Manda, though beautiful,
hasn't the brains of a rocking horse.

We were into Lot 434 before I noticed the room go quiet. I
realized that Mr. Geake was bidding. Then I saw. Every time a slumped figure in
the ninth row started to bid, Mr. Geake bid instead, cutting him out.

The slumped figure was Father Jay.

Now, there's nothing sets antennae quivering at an auction like
rivalry. And this appeared a definite 'frog', as dealers say. Mr. Geake was
definitely 'pulling a frog', and Father Jay, wearing a dowdy tweed trilby, was
missing out. I don't know what made me do it, but I thought swiftly, decided to
up the lot by taking imaginary bids off the chandelier, as the saying goes.

And the bids raised, raised, lifted off, soared.

I checked to see what the hell 434 was. A few so-say diaries, fake
birth certificates, old photos. I'd only agreed to let this particular lot in because
it showed how badly forgers can fake. Every auction had these family
reminiscences. This was a real hotchpotch. Fakers usually form up job lots, and
slip in a taster, a near-authentic bit of scribble, letter or some certificate,
that might hoodwink the unwary. The taster is usually a faked up Christmas card
from a queen, a printed card supposedly to some lady from King Edward VII, or a
note 'evidently or said to be from the hand of some princess having it away
with a bodyguard. The Kennedys are another favourite, especially in fake job
lots of USA origin. I couldn't for the life of me remember what was in the
damned box. Woodwork had knocked the lot together- not too crude a description.
I'd find him after and see.

Everybody knew it was dross. I get fed up. To save Mr. Geake a
fortune, I knocked Lot 434 to Father Jay, called out, 'Sold to that gent in the
hat,' and cruised on.

The auction was going a bomb. I forgot the stupid 434, and
gavelled, joked with ribaldry, rushed on, yelling, pretending anger, getting
them all laughing.

The room thinned after the first hour. Cars began starting up
outside as one by one the dealers left, having stumped up on the sanads and
collected their items. The whole building was shaking as the whifflers helped
the dealers load. The stairs thumped. People swore outside. Humpers cursed the
loads aboard, rushed back for the next. Sanads were even bought and sold before
the items were out of the door. It's usual.

The doors were ajar now, as the dealers left. The trouble is, the
ones who've finished always think everything's over and leave bragging loudly.
I had to keep calling for quiet.

One piece was a laugh. Old Doothie makes me chuckle sometimes.
He'd faked a series of Intelligence Quotient studies from that old codger – Dr.
Cyril Burt, was it? - who faked the racial purity studies on IQ. Doothie'd forged
this so-say research from University College, signed by the defunct doctor, on
improvements in IQ caused by people listening to Mozart's sonatas. This 'sonata
effect' was only proved in the autumn of 1993, and at a blow negated all the IQ
studies done everywhere before that date. Doothie's a sly old devil. I got a
decent price for it, not a giggle among the dealers even when I pointed the
joke out.

The hard core was still there, though, waiting for the one true
antique, the nicked Stubbs. As I hurtled on through the 500s and 600s, and
reached the 760s, I found my eyes drawn to them. They weren't sitting as one
group, like I wanted. I could see French Saunders from Hartlepool, looking a
neat youth, but actually a killer aged forty plus. Barnet, not from Barnet but
because he has a wig

(Barnet Fair, hair), was reading: he reads until he decides to
bid, then he ahems, looks up, nods, and it's back to poetics. He's got two art
galleries in Ponder End. And, bad news, Ammster from Amsterdam, Indonesian
knifer with, they say, poison-tipped blowpipe arrows secreted about his person
for swift use and swifter escape.

And Corinth and Montgomery Mainwaring. Bidders for a sum with
noughts all round the pelmets? Looking confident, Corinth causing all the males
to breathe harder. Costigan from Spain's Costa del Crime, bank robber and, now,
TV magnate on the proceeds. With his lass, Ack Emma, supposed to carry a gun in
foreign parts, so to speak, willing to do Costigan's bidding (sorry) any time.
And Patch Halliwell, he of the corporate spying triumphs in Russia. Survival
seemed a problem.

The Misses Dewhurst caught my eye. I saw Miss Priscilla's benign
gaze on me before she glanced away. I raced through a series of new bids. I'd
told Chemise to leave the rubbish to the last, was pleased the dealers drifted
quicker. Penultimate was a set of dornick vestments, superbly done by two
strange embroideresses in Galashiels, worth a mint. I got very little for them,
considering the work involved.

The last item was a set of old golf clubs, feather balls included.
Everybody's faking them nowadays. You can hardly give them away. I sold them to
Harry Bateman, who gave a yelp of glee and paid Chemise after getting her to
stamp his sanad.

Until only the main group, the money core, was left. Tired, I
signalled to the two remaining whifflers to close the doors and push off. I
gave Tomtom and his oppo the nod.

'Now, ladies and gentlemen,' I announced, voice shaky, 'you all
know why we're here. We expect a large sum. There is a high reserve price. This
work of art is world famous. Bring it in, Tomtom. Back the pantechnicon up to
the side door. See the corridor's closed off, eh?'

They went. Chemise and the Misses Dewhurst were totting up,
comparing notes, who'd bought what. My heart was where it had been for hours,
in my mouth. There was the sound of feet pounding up to the door. Cav burst in,
aghast.

'It's gone, Lovejoy!'

'Eh?' I rose, at least as aghast as Cav. Tinker, thank God, had
nicked the pantechnicon. 'It can't have!' I yelled.

'The fucking pantechnicon's gone, Lovejoy! It's been halfed!'
Half-inched, pinched in Cockney slang.

'With all these people around?' I thundered, well, bleated.

Tomtom appeared, talking with quiet malevolence into a mobile
phone. My knees actually quivered. He was on to Big John Sheehan. The world was
for it, especially the bit with me in it.

At times like these I have to consider my future. A friend would
defend his mate, deny all knowledge of the theft, postulate thieving strangers.
But I knew I'd be for it, because I always am. But I had to stand by Tinker,
even if it meant sacrificing myself. I gagged. Sacrifice me? Had I gone mad? My
voice opted for survival.