Paintings, Pottery, Furniture, Jewelry, Other Items!
All Valuations Free
As Seen on TV.
Then underneath, in the neatest painting I could manage: This Genuine Antique Road Show Is Guaranteed
By The Trade Descriptions Act
By Parliamentary Law.
By six-thirty I was breathlessly noshing Francie’s fry-up in her caravan with Dan and Betty. They were curious and asking me what I was up to, which made me maddeningly evasive. Francie got quite irritated.
The posters were quite legal, in that fraudulent way law permits. Near-skating, I’d carefully misspelled the names of the two great London auction houses. The correct name of the BBC’s so-called spontaneous antiques sweep uses the pluraclass="underline" “Antiques.”
Copyright. Make it singular, and it becomes legal. The Trade Descriptions Act simply covers trade, and I’d do the valuations free. At least my own particular road show really would be spontaneous, not a put-up job like all the rest. It was basically the old saying about the Mountain and Muhammad. I’d have to move on with the fair, so I wouldn’t have time to scout the area for junk. Now, the countryside would bring their junk to me.
And they did.
Funny, but that first night I was really nervous. Francie pressed my trousers and jacket, and gave me one of Dan’s least gaudy shirts. A maroon silken scrap poking from my top pocket as an artistic touch. My hair got semi-straightened and painfully I scraped my nails with a borrowed emery. I was neat, an all-time first. Francie bought me some new modern sponge impregnated with shoe-polishing wax to do my shoes. I was delighted, because Cherry Blossom thought that ancient idea up long before the modern fairground was born. Nice to see old friends.
Dan found me a corner in the peas-and-spuds tent, and Big Chas and Ern erected a section of green canvas. To the sound of roaring generators and in the fug of black peas I set up my borrowed rickety trestle and switched on Francie’s anglepoise lamp.
Dan’s best cuff links gleaming at my wrists, my frayed jacket cuffs inturned and my scrubbed face frowning with sincere honesty, I was ready for the world.
Dross, when it comes in a deluge, isn’t really dross. It’s really something else, like snow. Look at snow one way and it’s a nuisance, blocking roads and flooding your socks. Look at it another, and it’s brilliant crystals spun into magical mini-webs up there in the heavens. If nobody’s looking, I always try to catch a snowflake on my tongue, outer space’s holy communion… Where was I?
In this tent, waiting. A whole hour.
Another hour. Eight o’clock.
And a half. I was tormented by the aroma of black peas but determined not to spoil my grand image of the London expert.
Nine-oh-five, and in she came, an old lady with the inevitable brooch. I drew breath.
One thing I’ve learned in this mad game is that sinning with a smile somehow detoxifies the transgression enough to make people want to join in.
“Come in, love,” I said, with a smile. She was the first of the horde that came between then and the midnight closing.
For a start, they brought jars of buttons and boxes of foreign coins. Every house has a jamjarful. God knows why. They fetched christening clothes and mysteriously ornate lenses. They wheeled in complex wooden garden structures. They carried in rusting machinery too heavy to stand on my table. They brought tiny pieces of jewelry, rings, bits of pendants that made my heart weep for the loneliness of it, opera glasses, stair-rod fittings, scent bottles, glass inkwells, old umbrellas… Dross is snowflakes. I was in paradise. Until, that is, Francie took a hand. Women have very decided views on paradise, thinking it bad for morale. In days when I was a terrified believer, women saints never seemed up to much. They didn’t deliver the goods.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Francie announced suddenly, appearing brightly. “Our resident antiques expert will be having his break now, for twenty minutes only. Until resumption, please avail yourself of the fairground’s refreshments at reasonable prices…” The queue groaned.
“Wait, Francie,” I began, but she gripped my arm and said with that steel, “This way, sir.” I was hauled out. “My caravan,” she whispered as we left the tent for the light-starred fairground night.
“Look, Francie,” I said, peeved. “Can’t you wait? And hadn’t you better check Dan’s not around?”
She tutted angrily. “Not that, Lovejoy.”
Abducted by a desirable bird, yet not for rape? Could this be?
There was quite a delegation in the caravan. Dan, Big Chas—but for once not singing hymns, Sidoli, Calamity Sadie the black-rooted blonde from the Wild West Show, Big Jon the Eastern Slave Spectacular’s eunuch with the bad teeth, and silent sexy lone Joan the Devil Rider, who crewed the Ghost Train. And Sidoli’s two unshaven henchmen.
I entered, smiling and pleased they’d gone to all this trouble to express their thanks for my efforts. Dan rose, jabbed furiously at me with a finger like a rail.
“What the frigging hell do you think you’re frigging playing at, Lovejoy?”
My grin felt like biscuitware. This was no congratulation party. I’d been summoned before the Supreme Soviet.
“Lovejoy the crowd-puller,” I said, narked.
That made him worse. “Explain, Francie.”
“Priced and advised on twenty-eight items,” Francie said.
“Grass,” I accused, quite pleasant.
“Sod the list, Dan,” Sidoli said. He had one of those stiletto-and-alcove accents, sowed dee leest, Dane.
“There was some very collectible stuff,” I defended, narked. “One bird brought a near-undetectable Sisley copy. And a millefiori glass bowl, 1870. It’ll fetch—”
“Fetch!” Dan barked. He was having a hard time not clouting me. He was still in his spangled waistcoat from his death ride, all hair and brawn. “Fetch? Who for, Lovejoy?”
“For…” Ah. They were worried about the money. “For the punters,” I admitted.
“Any ideas on making it pay us?” Big Chas asked, and sang a phrase, “Each other’s wants may we supply…”
“Shut that row, Chas,” from Sidoli, obviously first pecker.
I said, “Is that what’s bothering you?”
Sidoli’s face darkened. “Don’t bait me, Lovejoy.”
Dan came between us, placating but clearly worried. I realized that to the fairground I was his and Francie’s responsibility.
Francie spoke up. “Sid. Lovejoy’s quite serious. He doesn’t think much of money. It’s old things. Antiques.”
They all stared at me as though I’d just dropped from Saturn. Joan’s eyes penetrated my anxiety. I’d never seen such gray eyes. Steady, still. Ethereal, almost.
“Not care for money?” Sidoli said. “He crazy? He’s making it on the side.” Own eee say-ert, in his exotic syllables.
“Let Lovejoy talk. Please,” Francie pleaded.
“I feel on trial, Francie. What’s the charge?”
Francie said, “If some of the things you valued were so desirable, Lovejoy, say why you didn’t buy them.”
There was silence. Then I said, ashamed, “Because I’m broke, love.”
I’d gone red. Dan looked at Francie, who glared a typical female told-you-so. Sidoli drew breath for more threats, said nothing. Glances exchanged. Despairingly I decided to help.
“There was a silver Taureg ring I could have got for a couple of quid,” I said. It’s hard to suppress enthusiasm. I found myself rattling on, smiling at the memory. “An original Waterman fountain pen, the very first sort—the bloke would have let us have it for a go on the rifles. A pair of silver-and-glass cosmetic powder cylinders, late Victorian. They come in pairs, one for powdering each glove, see? And…”
Sidoli raised a hand. “Shtope, Loof-yoy.” Lovejoy stopped.
In the painful silence that ensued we were all thinking, some of us thoughts quite different from the rest. Everybody shuffled, eyes avoiding mine. Except for that level pair belonging to Joan.