The Tartan Ringers (7 page)

I’
M NOT THE
only fraud in and around antiques. Look at names, for instance.

‘Dresden china’ is really a descriptive term. The truth is there never was a porcelain factory at Dresden. The famed Royal Saxony porcelain factory started in 1709 was a distance away, at Meissen. The patron was King Augustus the Strong, whose domain took in Poland and Saxony, which is why the so-called ‘Dresden’ mark is actually his AR Augustus Rex monogram. There’s a further truth, too: they weren’t up to much at the beginning, mostly copying styles and adopting colours from the more sophisticated Chinese. This is why the early stuff looks eastern – robes on the figures, stiff-looking mandarins and clumsy attendants. Artistically they’re dud, not a patch on the later stuff. But it goes big among collectors and dealers because it’s rare. The modern dementia for rarity’s a pathetic revelation of how little we know. I mean, this pen’s rare because I made it myself from hawthorn, not another like it in the world, but it’s still not worth a bent groat. Cynics say ‘Dresden china firstly copied Chinese, secondly Venetian, and after that anybody,’ but it’s harsh criticism because once Joachim Kändler arrived about 1730 they really took off. His figures are lively original objects you never tire of: pretty ladies in farthingales and yellow-lined cloaks, hussars, dancers.

The night we left Penrith I sat mesmerized long after the fairground closed and the folk had all gone. I’d bought a broken porcelain figure of a Harlequin. He was seated on a white stump in his chequered costume and grinning mask. Black cap in one hand, the other to hold what had once been a jug, now broken off and lost. A junk bloke had lugged in a great wooden box of assorted porcelains and slammed it on the table.

‘Fifty quid the lot, mister,’ he said. ‘Good and bad.’

‘For a flyer, yes.’

Without looking, I’d humped the box to the floor, got Francie to pay him. My chest was clamouring like Easter Sunday. Something pure and thrillingly antique lurked down among the clag. It was the Harlequin, when I looked. Harlequins are the most vigorous of Kändler’s porcelains, these and dancing ladies and waistcoated gentlemen. They were often in pairs, but one swallow does make a summer.

‘The show’s pulling up, Lovejoy.’ Carol and Mike ran the peas-and-mash booth, a noisy homely couple with their six spherical children. Carol had an idea it might advertise her grub if the antiques expert was seen dining off her elegant edibles. ‘There’s a bowl and a brew-up for you.’

‘Oh. Right. Ta.’

As the crews fell on the fairground and began dismantling it, I had the pasty and peas while evaluating the haul. A piteously worn slender wedding ring with the thick broad gold band that Victorians called the Keeper Ring, to be worn distal to the wedding ring and prevent its loss. There was an old love letter some young woman had told me was her granny’s, and that she needed money for her baby . . . Her boyfriend, a flashy nerk with gold teeth and a giant motorbike, had waited outside. I’d paid up without a second thought.

‘Lovejoy.’ Francie was there, with Joan. And Sidoli, and his two stalwart lads off the electric generators. They still hadn’t shaved. ‘Sid wants to know what the take is.’

‘Take?’ I said blankly. ‘You mean gelt? Nowt.’

‘No money?’ Sidoli’s lads seethed, leaned in.

‘Let him tell you, Sid,’ Francie said. ‘I’ve seen Lovejoy work before.’

‘What you pay for this?’ Sidoli pointed to the letter.

I shrugged. ‘Fiver. Can’t remember.’

Sidoli paled. ‘Can’t even remember?’

‘He’s been had,’ the slinkiest lad said. He held a length of metal rod. ‘It was a bird, crying poverty. She was dressed to the nines. With a bike bloke in leather. Stank of booze, both of them. She told Lovejoy the tale. He paid her, not a word. They went off laughing.’

‘You’re a trusting sod, Mr Sidoli.’ I’m not keen on sarcasm, but it has its uses. This time it stopped him signalling his two nephews to annihilate me. ‘No need to read the letter. Just glance. It’s in two alphabets. Called “messenger writing” – a letter within a letter. Sort of secret code. The young couple who brought it had made the story up, granny’s love letter and all that. Messenger writing of that style was popular during the Great Civil War – sieges, politics, family conflicts, elopements, heaven-knows-what. The subject will determine the price. But 1642, or I’m not me.’

‘How much about?’ Sidoli asked.

‘Twenty quid, maybe more.’

‘The percentage’ll reduce the loss, Sid,’ Francie encouraged.

‘Sooner or later,’ Sidoli moaned. ‘That’s what this idiot said. His very words.’ His voice rose to a scream. ‘The loss is
tonight!
It rains two days people stay home and don’t come to the fair! And he’s got a box of old pots.’

‘Francie told me about your loss rate,’ I said, rising and stretching. ‘You can forget it this pitch.’ That stilled the galaxy. ‘One of those “old pots” will cover you this stop.’

‘Jesus,’ Sidoli gasped. ‘Is true?’ Eeass threw?

‘Yes, Sid,’ Francie said. ‘Lovejoy’ll be right.’

Joan spoke. ‘Profit or not, it’s my stake, Sid,’ she announced quietly. ‘I have the say. Give him a week.’

Sidoli was staring into the box with awe. ‘One of these is worth . . . ? Which?’

Big Chas came and shouted, ‘Hey. Nobody striking the show or are you going to stand gossiping all night?’ And he sang,
‘Through the night of doubt and sorrow, Onward goes the pilgrim band
. . .’

‘Coming,’ I said, peering out at the rain past him. I felt all in, drew breath and stepped out to join the gang, leaving Sidoli to stew in his own explanations.

We finished bottling up, as they call it, about five in the morning. I spelled Dan and Francie alternately, one hour in three off for a juddery slumber in Francie’s wagon. Ern normally spelled Dan but this stop he and Big Chas were among the rear gang who would clear the generators and heavy machinery and haul on after us by eleven.

Our next pitch was near one of the Lancashire mill towns. I was relieved as we bowled in, because it meant grub and a kip before the rearguard arrived and we’d have to start erecting the fair all over again. After Francie’s fry-up I went straight out and did my poster stint.

When I returned, the cauliflower sky mercifully clearing into a geographical blue, the camp was still. Everybody was kipping. I made my way over the heath to the wagon hoping my blanket hadn’t got damp during the journey, when somebody called my name quietly. Joan was sitting on her caravan steps.

‘Coffee, Lovejoy?’

I hesitated. ‘Well, ta, but I was hoping to sleep my head.’

Joan’s grey stare did not waver. ‘There’s room for that.’ She rose and opened her door.

‘Well, actually, Joan,’ I began, but she’d already gone inside, so there was nothing else for it. It’s churlish to refuse an offer that’s kindly meant, isn’t it? My old gran used to say that. ‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’ No answer again, so I stepped inside saying, ‘Just a cup, then.’

All that month we zigzagged up the country, moving from industrial towns to moorland markets. It was a slog. One heaven-sent pitch was six whole days long, the rest only three or four. The distances were less tiring than striking and pitching, because once you’re on the road that’s it.

As fairs go, I learned, we were quite a respectable size. Some deal which Sidoli had pulled off meant we stuck to the eastern slice of the country except for parts of Lancashire and bits of the north. I did well and started sending stuff down to auction houses in the south. Of course I used the long-distance night hauliers in the road calls, mentioning Antioch’s name. Some items I sold locally practically the next day, sometimes in the same town. One I sold to a town museum. It was only a dented lid off an enamel needle case, but the curators went mad when they saw it: a Louis XVI piece showing a sacrificing nymph. They immediately identified it as DeGault from its
en grisaille
appearance (just think grey). It had chimed at me from inside a leather-covered snuffbox – some Victorian goon had ruined a valuable antique needle case to make a dud. I ask you. God knows what they’d done with the case’s body, but there’s a fortune going begging near Preston if anybody’s interested.

By the third stop, tenth day or so, the profit was trickling in. Antique dealers live in a kind of monetary para-world, always owing or being owed by others. It became nothing unusual for a dealer to wander in, ask around for me, and then shell out a bundle of notes in payment for some item a colleague had received in the south a couple of nights earlier. Often they’d take away one of my items just purchased from the never-ending queue of punters. I always took a quick sale, following the old maxim. First profit’s best, so go for it.

Halfway through the month the income became a stream, and Sidoli offered me a regular pitch. And more. His percentage was the standard fee from stallholders plus a tenth of the take. For this he did bookings, the pitches, argued shut-out arrangements with other fairmasters, dealt with the local councils and hotly denied liability when people blamed us for anything. Or, indeed, everything. He brought three old silent geezers in dark crumpled suits who only tippled the wine and listened, and his two menacing nephews.

We talked all one long cold night in Joan’s caravan, them smoking cigars in my face and poisoning me with cheap red wine. His two nephews bent metal pipes in the background, nodding encouragingly. But I declined. I had a job on, I explained. This made everybody frown, which terrified me into useful lies.

‘It’s a matter of honour, you see.’

‘Ah,’ said Sidoli, interested. ‘You kill someone, no?’

‘No,’ I explained. ‘I’ve certain obligations . . .’

‘Ah.’ He beamed at this and to my alarm signalled for another bottle. He was desperately inquisitive but I tried to seem noble and uptight and he went all understanding. ‘But after you have shot this pig and all his brothers, and his father – assuming he had one . . . ?’ The nephews chuckled, light-heartedly bent more pipes.

‘After,’ I promised, ‘it’ll be different.’

‘Excellent!’ He poured more wine. ‘Lovejoy, I have heard of your police record. Very formidable.’

‘Er, that’s all lies.’

‘
Certo
,’ Sidoli agreed politely. ‘Police. The law. Judges. All are complete liars. Now.’ He leaned forward. It was the Joseph Wright lamplit scene straight out of the Tate Gallery. ‘My fair will pitch the Edinburgh Festival.’

I looked at him blankly. ‘Are we allowed?’ Francie’d told me the arrangement: our fair stopped short and our rival Bissolotti did the festival.

‘Ah,’ Sidoli said, doing that slow shrugging chair-bound wriggle Mediterranean folk manage to perfection. ‘Well, yes. I did promise. But, Lovejoy, it’s a question of money.’

This sounded like more bad news. ‘Er, Mr Sidoli. Won’t the other mob be, er, furious?’

He spread his hands in pious expiation. ‘Is it my fault if Bissolotti lacks Christian charity?’

‘No,’ his nephews said. In the pause the three mute mourners shook their heads. We were absolved.

‘Er, well, no,’ I concurred obediently. ‘But—’

‘No buts, Lovejoy.’ He patted my hand. ‘I misjudged you. I thought you a man of no honesty, a man only interested in those pots. Woman’s things. Now,’ he smiled proudly, ‘I hear you are a multiple killer, who fooled even Scotland Yard. You slew a lorry driver. With your own hands in an ocean you drown an enemy. It is an honour to have so great a murderer, when we fight Bissolotti. His people are animals.’

Some lunatic scientist once proved that headaches are actually useful. He should share mine.

‘Eliminate Bissolotti,’ a nephew prophesied.

‘More wine, Lovejoy?’ Sidoli invited. ‘I say nothing about you in Joan’s caravan.’ He smiled fondly. ‘And call me Sid.’ Cow-all meey Seed.

‘Thanks, Seed,’ I said. Out of the frigging frying pan into Armageddon. Headache time.

B
ETTER EXPLAIN SIDOLI
’
S
crack about Joan before going on.

Joan was the most reserved bird I’ve ever met. Even for a sensitive bloke like me she was a puzzle: thirty-two or so, smallish, hair permanently fading from mousey, face unremarkable in daylight and eyes that lovely grey. She’d be what other women call plain, except the first night I saw her by candlelight, and then I knew. Her beauty hit me like a physical blow.

We’d pitched that night after Joan gave me tea and a lie-down, me working with Big Chas and Ern. Joan had asked if I wanted to use one of the spare bunks in her caravan. I checked with Francie, who said it’d be fine. Betty asked if Joan would be my mummy now. Dan fell about and slapped his thighs. After the midnight dowsing I went over to Joan’s caravan and knocked. She called me to come in.

For her devil-riding on the Ghost Train she wears a crash helmet with horns and a bone-and-spangle costume, bat wings and a forked tail. Sparks shoot from her head and her suit belches coloured smoke and radiates a green fluorescence. Because of this she always has her hair in a tight bun and flattened on her head. It was the only way I’d seen her.

The caravan was in darkness, except for slits of wavering yellow light showing from behind a cross curtain. Hesitantly I called, ‘Joan?’ and she said to come through. Making plenty of noise in case – she might after all be shacking up with Big Chas or somebody – I coughed and pulled the curtain slowly aside. The sight caught at my breath. Her face was looking obliquely back at me from the dressing mirror. A single white candle in an old pewter candlestick, the only illumination, stood to one side. Her hair, enormously long, hung down her back to her narrow waist. It was now a lustrous brown, even russet. Her skin was smooth, her lashes long and dark. She wore an old lace nightdress – some would have said wrong by reason of its age, but not me. In the mirror’s frame she was a living Gainsborough.

‘Sorry about the light,’ she said.

‘Eh?’ I thought: it spoke.

‘My father was strong on the right light for makeup,’ she said calmly, doing something to her face with folded tissues from a jar.

‘You’re beautiful,’ I heard myself say, to my alarm.