The Rich And The Profane (22 page)

I then wondered about longing. Does a woman unfailingly forgive a bloke who longs for her? Doubt it. There are times a bird wants action, when soulful isn’t enough. No action, she’ll hate you with anything she can throw into the ring.

Respect? I felt myself getting close, a hint of ‘maybe’ in there. After all, you can seduce, use, betray even, but you’ve got a lifeline if you respect the lady for her style/class/wit/ looks. (Delete any, as long as you leave any two). Yes, respect edged close to what I was searching for.

Synonyms for respect? Adoration got a bit closer to the right answer. But a pedestal’s so damned hard for a woman. And sooner or later even goddesses want to descend, to sojourn a while among us sordid mortals and experience our passionate imperfections.

Worship, then?
Yes!

Excitedly I rose, paced a yard or two, resumed my perch. It was
worship
! With worship she’s in the driving seat, can put her own ascription on a man’s grovelling. Worship gives a woman an emotional blank cheque, to cash in any time. And a handy slave. And worshippers don’t ask questions.

Worship was the key. I thought to myself, ‘Dear Mrs Crucifex..

An hour later I’d found the post office and had composed my letter filled with hidden - not so hidden - passion:

Dear Mrs Crucifex,

Don ’t be mad, this coming out of the blue. I’m in 
Guernsey. You’d better let me help. I won’t have them 
taking advantage of you the way they are. I wouldn't have written
,
but can't get you out of my mind. You deserve the very best. I'll do anything. If you tell me to get lost, I’ll do as you say and just wish you luck. I truly am sorry about intruding like this. I'm not usually so stupid, not even about pretty women, but I'm hopeless where you are concerned.

With worship,

Lovejoy

Naturally, every word needed changing a score of times, like everything else I write, until it was almost what I’d started with. Women like words.

I posted it, and got Walt Jethou to drive me past Metivier Mansion for a look. It was beautiful, set back from a narrow road in its own grounds. No expense spared there.

Then Walt took me back by way of the Crucifex’s residence. I was surprised to see that it stood next to a posh hotel. For a second that set me thinking, but I was tired. Far too much thinking for one day. I went home to Rosa Vidamour’s. She whipped up salmon and chips for supper. That night, I went to bed full of optimism. Once a nerk,

S
leeping unaided in
a strange bed makes me restless, dreaming, into nightmares. Sometimes mine are fairly innocuous, but often they’re sweat-and-yelp.

People find antiques. It’s an eternal law. (Really the law is that everybody
else
finds antiques, but you know what I mean.) God having this wicked sense of humour, it’s mostly the undeserving rich who visit auctions from sheer boredom and bid groats for a trinket on a whim - hang it all, there’s the afternoon to kill - and whoops, the trinket turns out to be a genuine antique and jewellery dealers are clamouring at your front door. I once saw a lady do exactly that. I’d just got to Gimbert’s Auction rooms, out of the rain and late as usual. This lady - in furs, if you please, smoking with an ivory fagholder to amuse stray environmentalists -was there. She saw something flash when the auctioneer’s dodgy helper made his traditional call, ‘Showing here, sir!’, and held up this little necklet. She bid on the auctioneer’s, ‘Who’ll start me at twenty ... ?’ which no dealer ever does, and got it, to chuckles of disbelief. I was the only one who groaned, because even across the distance it radiated beams that set me juddering. It was a small diamond, sure, which is mistake enough to make, but there’s one type of setting you must promise never,
never ever,
to miss. And this was it. Easy to spot, easy to miss.

Back in the dim dark days of the 1860s there lived in Paris a Belgian jeweller. He made a living setting small semi-precious stones. Working away, he suddenly thought, ‘Hey! What if I invented a setting that made a small stone look big!’

So he did. Oscar Massin created the famed Illusion Setting.

It’s a peculiarly pleasant thing to fake. I’ve done it often, when I could get somebody to buy me the gemstone and the precious metal. You need both.

You take a gemstone - he used midget diamonds - and make an ordinary ring. Nothing special so far. Bare rings already fashioned up, you can buy in dozens, no problem. The marvellous trick is in the setting.

You build your collet, in which the gemstone will nestle, and burnish it as brilliantly as possible. I use Massin’s technique, make the precious metal dazzlingly reflective to start with. Go for reflectance at all costs. When its brightness is practically charring your retina, set your stone and shape it. But make sure you cut away so much of the setting that
the margins of the remaining collet look like part of the gem.
See the trick? The lady slips it on her finger, extends her hand to see - women always do that - and suddenly that tiny little diamond of maybe a twentieth of a carat will look maybe twice, three times the size! Clever, eh? Now, why isn’t such a piece of superb craftsmanship always spotted? Because antique dealers looking at a ‘reserve tray’ on a viewing day, see a gem, bend closer and quickly move on -spotting of course that most of the gleam comes from the setting, not the stone. These ‘deception’ or ‘mirage’ settings were all the rage in Victorian and Edwardian days, but betokened smaller stones. After all, a posh lady doesn’t want proof that
her
jewellery is made up of minuscule gemstones, thank you. The French still call them
montre illusion
rings. Find an original Oscar Massin ring, you’re in clover.

Antiques get discovered by others equally undeserving. Lady Erica Pearce was wandering in her Sussex garden one day, pleased at how her garden did grow. How nice, she thought, to write about the garden ornaments that she and her husband - distinguished judge, Lord of Appeal, et wealthy cetera - had bought over the years. Good idea! So she and his lordship filled their long winter evenings doing just that. Drawings, photos of their statuary showing each sculpture against the plants, a lovely little volume well worth, people said fondly, a few shillings. Among the statues was a bronze no more than thirty-one inches tall, of a dancing faun, very like the work of De Vries.
Hold it.
Could it -
gasp!
- be the missing Dancing Faun of Adrien De Vries, that obsessional Dutchman who back in Renaissance times made and cast
single
statues, so that each of his bronzes is unique and pricelessly special? Of course it was! So the Dancing Faun, which was originally sold in a job lot (meaning chucked in with several tatty others, not being worth a special listing) forty years earlier for less than eight pounds, became a cool ten million US dollars and got shipped out to the Getty under armed guard. I know antiques thieves who still weep at the missed opportunity, because it was only the village bobby who advised his lordship to sell. The Plod don’t want priceless statues among shrubberies in the lantern hours. See? People who find priceless antiques should be me.

Of course, I come across more than most, being a divvy.

Unfortunately I’m thick, and too soft for my own good. That’s why I’m always broke. I thought on, staring at the ceiling.

Suppose Gussy Quenard really
had
seen some genuine painting in that sea cave when she was a little girl? And suppose there was a cache of similar vintage art works somewhere here in Guernsey, and that Marie and Prior George Metivier had it hidden somewhere. Further suppose that I got close. Could I trust my divvy sense to bong me as senseless as if, say, I was put next to a much older Chippendale bureau, or an invaluable Doctor Johnson-vintage gouty stool? It’s all very well for the Customs and Excise nerks to redefine ‘antique’ just to rake in tax revenue; my sixth sense doesn’t work in quite the same way But I’d definitely felt odd when I’d overpainted that picture I’d nicked from the chapel at Albansham Priory that night.

Thinking always sets me grumbling in a half-doze. Luck always goes to the undeserving. Take Lee Bon. He was a Chinese official back in the Wanli days - contemporary of our good Queen Bess, give or take. Lee Bon was retiring to Imperial China from Burma, having done sterling service for the Ming Dynasty. He brought with him some seeds of the Burmese Egg Plant. They grow in a simple pod like a broad bean. Take one out, though, and it’s rather like a miniature egg in an eggcup, a bulbous little dome on a squat stalk. You can polish the seed to a black-blue burnished gleam. Harden the seed’s stem in the sun, and it carves like ivory. Well, this grand Imperial Chinese official had several of these seeds set in jewels and gold, a gift for his Emperor, gained multo points on the Ming Dynasty creep chart. Then, miracle of miracles! After Lee Bon died, the exotic plant was found growing freely in his courtyard, where some dud old seeds were accidentally chucked. Thus was bom the wholesale production of carving the hardened stems for use as personal seals. These little cheapos date from our Tudor times, and those old originals cost the earth. They’re also replicated in every junk barrow on the China coast, so beware. The lesson is that rich emissaries profit while you and me worry about bus fares. To them that hath and all that.

I was still awake when Rosa Vidamour knocked with a cup of tea. She looked lovely in the dawn light. She put the tea on the bedside table and said, ‘You can stop looking like that.’

Sighing, I had my tea. I’d only been thinking that today Mrs Jocina Crucifex would get my letter. I hadn’t even been thinking of how Mrs Vidamour’s breasts would be naked under her blouse. Is life fair or what?

‘Somebody’s downstairs, Jonno,’ Rosa called before I was even dressed.

‘Tell her to wait, please.’ I was just out of the bath. Jocina!

‘It’s a him.’ She sounded full of humour.

Last Candlemas, I washed my cottage floor. Dunno what came over me, but I did. Got a bucket, filled it with water from my well, got some of that detergent powder that makes you choke, and actually knelt down and washed - that’s
■washed
- the flagged floor. I even shifted my chair, shoved the divan up (it lets down from the wall), did it exactly like Gran used to. I ended up knackered. I’d never done it before. Afterwards, though, instead of feeling really proud, sitting there like Noel Coward hoping for somebody to happen by and say, ‘Gosh, look at glitzy Lovejoy’s floor,’ I just stood there. It looked no different. And I thought, why the heck did I do it? It’s like making your bed. What’s the point? It only gets tumbled again. It’s women who decide these cycles in life. Wash, polish, dust, watch for a sunny day to hang out the washing. Like Rosa Vidamour was doing now, singing in the kitchen.

‘Hello, Lovejoy.’ Martin Crucifex was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee before him like a trial judge’s mallet. ‘You came to Guernsey, then.’

‘I didn’t know I was expected.’

‘You’ve met Mr Martin Crucifex, Jonno?’

‘His name isn’t Jonno Rant, Mrs Vidamour. It’s Lovejoy. He’s an antique dealer of ill repute and worse behaviour.’ Martin glared at me. ‘I have checked. Jonno Rant is still in Suffolk. Lovejoy is an impostor.’

‘Got breakfast for a cheat, Rosa, please?’

She sparkled, really rising to the occasion. Maybe I provided more excitement than she usually got from holiday visitors? I’d have settled for a peaceful start to the day. I’d done nothing criminally wrong yet, though I had hopes.

‘Yes, Lovejoy. What an unusual name!’ She bustled about. Eggs, fried spud, fried bread, tomatoes, loads of bread, strong tea. ‘Mr Crucifex?’

‘Thank you, Mrs Vidamour, but no.’

He exuded malice. Rosa constantly deferred to him, smiling and coming near to curtseying. To her, Martin was nobility. I wondered if he had one of those ancient titles.

‘You haven’t time to fill your face, Lovejoy,’ Martin said, cold. ‘Mrs Crucifex wants to see you instantly, to explain your presence here.’

‘I’m busy, Martin.’ I smiled at Rosa, who gasped at my effrontery. ‘Mrs Vidamour and I have to find a concert hall. To put on a show.’

‘How dare you come here and—’

Ignoring his splutters, I started my nosh. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ I said through a mouthful. ‘Me and Jonno Rant go way back.’

Martin stormed out, Rosa peering through the curtains.

‘You’re in trouble now, Lovejoy,’ she said, eyes like saucers. ‘They won’t forget that. Please pay your room and board by teatime today.’

Notice how women go straight to the heart? It’s not their fault that money gets there ahead of them.

‘We’ve a lot to do before anybody gets slung out into the gutter.’

‘What was that about a hall, Lovejoy?’

‘More bread please, Rosa,’ I said. ‘We’ve not much time.’

‘Me too?’ She sat, nervous. ‘I don’t know anything about music halls.’

I said, narked, ‘What did I just say? Get a move on, love.’

Some days just have rotten beginnings. She did as she was told. Several times she started to speak, but wisely saved her breath. Nine o’clock, we were out into St Peter Port, the light of eagles in our eyes.

‘This is a waste of bloody time, Lovejoy,’ Walt grumbled.

‘We’ve seen some marvellous places, haven’t we?’ I sounded unconvincing, but grinned at Rosa.

‘For what?’ She was lost, though I’d explained several times.

‘For cheating.’ Walt was fed up. I recognized the exasperation of the drinker wanting his noontime pint.

‘For a show,’ I countered, narked. ‘Look, troops. This scam’ll founder unless we keep cheerful. Keep smiling, look optimistic.’

Rosa said, ‘We’ve found twenty halls. You’ve rejected them all. Why?’

‘Not big enough, love.’

We stopped at a hotel rather larger than the others we’d seen so far, the Roi de Normandie.

‘Here, Lovejoy?’ Rosa exclaimed. ‘It’s a five crowner.’ Hotels in Guernsey have their own signs of excellence, one to five crowns. Fewer than half a dozen hotels boast five, the max. Across the way was the OGH, as everybody calls the Old Government House Hotel. This other one opposite was a jaunty newcomer, and more my style. It had neon lights, coloured fountains. Music blared. The restrained OGH sneered, full of disdain.