Islamic ceramics and calligraphy, and did Arabic, Sanskrit and art at college. She has a lovely figure. Janet hates her.
Saturday morning turns any town centre into hell. With the crowds and the traffic I was too preoccupied to give Helen more than a passing wave. She’s the only real breathtaker we’ve got among the dealers, and was beckoning me from Jason’s window. Probably she wanted my say-so on that terracotta portrait bust of the Florentine Benivieni, supposedly a genuine article made about 1530 when the great philosopher was getting on for eighty. Tinker had told me the tale during one of his hospital visits, now Helen was keen to buy but uncertain. I knew what was worrying her – the world’s greatest-ever terracotta faker, Giovanni Bastianini, had done brilliant fakes which went for fortunes in the 1860s. I’d sent a message to Helen through Tinker to buy the damn thing outright because, like the famous Billie and Charlie medallion forgeries, Bastianini fakes are now more famous than the originals. And, by that incomprehensible quirk of the public, often more pricey. Helen had obviously got cold feet and wanted me to divvie it for her.
Full of the comradeship for which antique dealers are famed, I quickly looked away from Helen’s alluring beckon – not easy, this – and ducked into the alley between the music shop and the grocer’s. In a dozen strides you leave the heaving street behind and enter a different world.
This is the amazing thing about these East Anglian market towns. Their main streets could be mistaken for part of the busiest city in the world. Step a few paces to one side, and you recede centuries.
The tranquil ruins of St Botolph’s Priory are fairly immense as ruins go. They stand between the huge nineteenth-century brick reconstructed priory and the old churchyard. Several figures were standing among the gravestones talking. Others moved carefully about on the trimmed wet grass. I recognized most of the local dramatic society, including Marcia. Their next open-air production was due soon. They looked perished.
‘Morning, Lovejoy.’
‘Wotcher.’
‘Want a part, handsome?’
There was a roar at Marcia’s crack. I smiled weakly and edged past the rehearsal. She meant the time when I stood in to read three announcer lines to start a Melville skit and nearly fainted from fright. I’d been going out with Marcia at the time.
‘Never again,’ I said fervently.
‘We stop in an hour, Lovejoy. Free lunch?’
‘Don’t trust you actresses. You’ll give me a part again.’ I tried to keep it light and made the path safely. Marcia was smiling far too brightly. A few of the others shuffled and looked at the grass as Jimmy Day the producer quickly took it up.
‘Go again, people. Page thirty of your Fourth Folios . . .’
A relieved laugh broke the embarrassment and they went easily back into Big Bill’s
The Winter’s Tale
, saving Marcia from her brief lapse, so I didn’t mind Jimmy’s dig at me.
Joxer’s shed is a converted chicken coop, and is situated among the nettles and brambles which overgrow tall fencing rimming the churchyard. Some lone heroine was busy scraping lichens from a nearby headstone to record the inscription as I opened the creaky door.
‘Top of the morning, Joxer.’
‘Hello, Lovejoy.’ He looked up from his workbench. ‘Watch that bleeding draught.’ He is our plate man, and was busy French-plating across a damaged Sheffield plate. He had the silver leaves still in block, thank God, or they would have gone everywhere at a breath, and his agate-stone burnisher all ready with the plastic comb and toothpicks handy on the shelf. He’s a good workman, is Joxer, so it was all the more upsetting for him when I reached across and took hold of his bunsen fanburner and ran it gently up his arm.
‘Be careful, you frigging lunatic? You burned me! What—’
He dropped everything and tumbled off his stool.
I leaned on his workbench. ‘You never
do
get
Saturday morning turns any town centre into hell. With the crowds and the traffic I was too preoccupied to give Helen more than a passing wave. She’s the only real breathtaker we’ve got among the dealers, and was beckoning me from Jason’s window. Probably she wanted my say-so on that terracotta portrait bust of the Florentine Benivieni, supposedly a genuine article made about 1530 when the great philosopher was getting on for eighty. Tinker had told me the tale during one of his hospital visits, now Helen was keen to buy but uncertain. I knew what was worrying her – the world’s greatest-ever terracotta faker, Giovanni Bastianini, had done brilliant fakes which went for fortunes in the 1860s. I’d sent a message to Helen through Tinker to buy the damn thing outright because, like the famous Billie and Charlie medallion forgeries, Bastianini fakes are now more famous than the originals. And, by that incomprehensible quirk of the public, often more pricey. Helen had obviously got cold feet and wanted me to divvie it for her.
Full of the comradeship for which antique dealers are famed, I quickly looked away from Helen’s alluring beckon – not easy, this – and ducked into the alley between the music shop and the grocer’s. In a dozen strides you leave the heaving street behind and enter a different world.
This is the amazing thing about these East Anglian market towns. Their main streets could be mistaken for part of the busiest city in the world. Step a few paces to one side, and you recede centuries.
The tranquil ruins of St Botolph’s Priory are fairly immense as ruins go. They stand between the huge nineteenth-century brick reconstructed priory and the old churchyard. Several figures were standing among the gravestones talking. Others moved carefully about on the trimmed wet grass. I recognized most of the local dramatic society, including Marcia. Their next open-air production was due soon. They looked perished.
‘Morning, Lovejoy.’
‘Wotcher.’
‘Want a part, handsome?’
There was a roar at Marcia’s crack. I smiled weakly and edged past the rehearsal. She meant the time when I stood in to read three announcer lines to start a Melville skit and nearly fainted from fright. I’d been going out with Marcia at the time.
‘Never again,’ I said fervently.
‘We stop in an hour, Lovejoy. Free lunch?’
‘Don’t trust you actresses. You’ll give me a part again.’ I tried to keep it light and made the path safely. Marcia was smiling far too brightly. A few of the others shuffled and looked at the grass as Jimmy Day the producer quickly took it up.
‘Go again, people. Page thirty of your Fourth Folios . . .’
A relieved laugh broke the embarrassment and they went easily back into Big Bill’s
The Winter’s Tale
, saving Marcia from her brief lapse, so I didn’t mind Jimmy’s dig at me.
Joxer’s shed is a converted chicken coop, and is situated among the nettles and brambles which overgrow tall fencing rimming the churchyard. Some lone heroine was busy scraping lichens from a nearby headstone to record the inscription as I opened the creaky door.
‘Top of the morning, Joxer.’
‘Hello, Lovejoy.’ He looked up from his workbench. ‘Watch that bleeding draught.’ He is our plate man, and was busy French-plating across a damaged Sheffield plate. He had the silver leaves still in block, thank God, or they would have gone everywhere at a breath, and his agate-stone burnisher all ready with the plastic comb and toothpicks handy on the shelf. He’s a good workman, is Joxer, so it was all the more upsetting for him when I reached across and took hold of his bunsen fanburner and ran it gently up his arm.
‘Be careful, you frigging lunatic? You burned me! What—’
He dropped everything and tumbled off his stool.
I leaned on his workbench. ‘You never
do
get
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