(Tip: avoid these at all costs. They're never, never ever, worth buying, because everything today will be antique in the future, right?) But some very mundane antiques are priceless because of their rarity.
I get narked, because it's always others who find these genuinely desirable items, never me. Somebody finds a priceless 26,000-year-old woolly mammoth planted in the Siberian ice. It's some undeserving rambler.
This piece of toast. It was found in the Yarnton pit near Oxford, together with a biggish flint knife, hazelnut shells, a few apple cores, some toasted cereal, bits of pottery, and a few tools. It turned out to be barley bread, like the stuff my gran used to make, but baked in 3,485 BC, give or take a radiocarbon burp. Unimportant? Yes, until you realize it's a mite older than Stonehenge, and antedates all other antique breads by a cool 2,500 years. Now, Vestry was always a scammer, never honest like me. And Horse and FeelFree are nothing but no-hope scammers working the investment club game. Vestry claimed he had some ancient toast from Yarnton, complete with authentic radiocarbon dating certificates. Worthless? Hardly; find some, it means a cool five years of affluence in Monaco, blondes and beer thrown in. Horse sensed profit. He tried to buy Vestry's archeological relics for his current antiques club scam. Vestry refused. Word was he'd been scared of drowning in the tide of litigation that always threatens to submerge Horse and FeelFree's manky clubs.
'What I mean, Feel, is why would you two supposed Royal Doulton collectors race to the Fenlands to buy some antique barley bread?'
'Money, Lovejoy!' she said with scorn, tears drying instantly. 'Heard of it?'
'You shunned Vestry after that Beethoven business.'
This is what I mean by luck. In 1817, the great Ludwig had a young English visitor called Richard Ford. In the way of geniuses, I've dashed off a string quartet for him.
The original manuscript lay dormant in some attic, only coming to light when money called its siren summons. The whole thing was dated, and in Big B's own hand. Ecstasy!
Sotheby's auctioned it, musicians fought to play it, and harmony soared on wings of song while the rest of us, forlorn and deprived, drooled and sobbed. Needless to say, the ancient house in Pencarrow, Cornwall, where the manuscript was found, is now the focus of many a braggart dealer's imaginings: 'I've got a Dickens manuscript from that attic in Pencarrow. The end of Edwin Drood, for the right price . . .' Vestry tried this on with everybody in the Eastern Hundreds, and got nowhere.
'Vestry made us a special offer,' she said lamely. 'He chucked in a French pottery fake.'
'Nobody trusted Vestry. He'd the knowledge of a gnat.' And the luck of one.
'We did!' She tried to sound indignant. 'Horse is clever!'
I didn't believe a word of it. Horse wouldn't know how to market Stone Age toast any more than fly. He didn't know porcelain from pork. Clever? This was the man who, unbelievable to relate, once sold a dinner service, not spotting that the gungy old chipped plates were actually copies done by Edme Samson of Paris, the immortal copier. Samson's creations often cost ten times the originals. Samson started as a faithful honest duplicator of broken pots, and ended up making brilliant fakes of Meissen, Chelsea, and Chinese famille rosé by the million. Pretty good they are, too.
Incidentally, moulds taken from Meissen originals are almost invariably smaller than the originals (a useful tip, this) owing to shrinkage in firing, so watch out. And the base of Meissen figures of, say, 1740 to 1750-odd, is always supposed to be a flat unglazed
'buff' hue, whereas fakes are practically white, though I've never found this much use because there are exceptions. If I have a fake porcelain anything, I offload it onto Horse and FeelFree because they know nil.
Hence FeelFree was lying, telling me Horse and she were doing a deal with Vestry. But why?
'Did you tell the police this, love?'
'Should I? We just popped over. He was our friend. We found him hanging there. It was horrible.'
She burst into sobs, hands over her face, peeping between her fingers to see how I was taking her falsehoods.
'God rest him,' I said, sick now.
'Leave her alone, you brute.' The same vicious old bat advancing threateningly across the square made me get up with ill grace.
'Sorry, love,' I said loudly to the crone. 'She's an alcoholic junkie. Spare a copper for her junkie friends. She's not had a drink for almost an hour.'
I fled the contumely.
11
I BELIEVE THAT women love a scrap. For what reason? Nobody knows. I used to know this placid woman. Placid, that is, until one day something went wrong at work, heralding a terrible fight next morning. 'Sorry, love,' I sympathized. Eyes shining, best dress on, she swung joyously from my cottage that Monday dawn, the songs of angels on her lips. And that evening arrived home blissfully replete. She'd had the ghastliest fight. Somebody else had got her comeuppance and retreated in tears. See? They love it.
It's the same with my understanding of people – lack of it, I mean. Some folk don't accept the obvious. 'Oh, it's raining!' this bird Nia once exclaimed, halting at the door. 'I said it would,' I pointed out. She rounded on me. 'Oh, you!' she spat, furious. 'Weather isn't my fault,' I told her, because it isn't. No good. She blamed me because she got wet.
Which brings me to Quaker, seeing I was in trouble and didn't know why.
First, I called at a shop in Long Wyre Street and got a small silver cup. Cost me the earth. Engraving was extra. I also bought – my next four days' meals – a silver trophy depicting a kite, the sort you fly on windy days with a string. I caught the bus, and eventually reached Quaker's house by the Quay, where the theatre is.
'Quaker? You in?' I knocked.
He is always in, seeing he's in a wheelchair and won't go out.
'That you, Lovejoy?'
I entered diffidently, hoping Maud wasn't home. She was, and came all a-bustle. She bakes cakes for church bazaars, orphanages, supports starving donkeys. Her father's a bitter brigadier, retired from lack of wars. (You'll see why in a sec.)
'Wotcher, Quake. Thought I'd bring your award, seeing you were too damned idle to collect it yourself.'
'Lovejoy! What a treat!' Maud engulfed me, flour leaving her mark on me like an exotic printing device. 'It's been so long! Cake and tea any moment!'
Here came Quaker, trundling in his wheelchair. Specky, stout, wheezing, he shoves the wheels. He's only thirty-one. Won't see a doctor, won't accept that he can't walk, run, jump, swim, sing, dance, fly, or any of the above.
'You just caught me, mate,' he said, his face rapturous. 'I was just off out. I'm in the sculling finals!'
'Don't miss the start because of me, Quake,' I called, but he'd pumped himself quickly into his room.
'Lovejoy,' Maud murmured.
'Shhh,' I said. Do lame folk hear better, or is that blindness? I needed Quaker's help, couldn't risk wives' whispers, though I like Maud.
'I'm going shopping at two, Lovejoy. Meet me in the Corn Market.'
'I'm in trouble, love. Quaker can help me.'
'Help me, Lovejoy,' she whispered huskily.
Quaker rolled back into view. I sprang away, hoping he wouldn't notice Maud's new flour imprint on me.
'They'll wait half an hour,' he said happily. 'Just give us time for a chat.'
'Who's your opponent this time, Quake?'
His face clouded. 'A bloke called Matterheim. Dolomite champion. He's in the Olympics.'
'Christ, Quake,' I breathed, anxious. 'You'll have your work cut out.'
He spun with extraordinary dexterity. 'He's odds on favourite.'
Into his room we went, Maud dashing to the kitchen to bring sustenance.
Not everybody gets to see Quaker's private room. It's vast, a specially extended part of his bungalow. You can see rowing boats on the Stour, canoes and things, sculling past this long picture window. Big as any classroom. At the far end, a glass wall. Seated in the conservatory through there, in the adjoining bungalow, sat the brigadier, Maud's dad, looking at me with sardonic eyes. I'm not quite sure what sardonic means, but if any geezer on earth's sardonic it's Brigadier Hedge. He acknowledged me with a nod, which from him is like a tournament. He wants his beloved daughter Maud to leave Quaker and get a life. She says no because Quaker needs her. Brig says Quaker's off his trolley, she should cut her losses. She says no. Joining the dots in the argument can wear you out. It sends me mental.