The Rich And The Profane

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Nice little place you’ve got here,’ I quipped, standing before Albansham Priory. Time for a firing. ‘Did you know that some ancient priories were actually wagered in ancient days?’

  Her features clouded, abruptly Wicked Witch of the West.

  ‘Don’t talk to me—’

  I was happy. ‘Gambling is utterly wasteful.’

  Her face unwrinkled and the dazzling sun shone. She squeezed my arm. I beamed. I was a hit! Eagerly I went on, ‘Once, I knew a man who chucked everything he owned on a game of cards, bet his entire shop - a pokey little antiques place, but still his livelihood - at a poker championship. I tried to talk him out of it...’

  Her face was rapturous. I kept up the patter. Once a crawler. But look how politicians get on. There’s mileage in grovelling.

  7

  You can’t smell antiques, but you can sense them. It’s not a guess, not a feel. It’s like suddenly hearing an enormous shout. You know that feeling in passion, when she becomes the ultimate goddess and it’s heavenly violins? Well, add a clamorous bonging and there you have it. Fakes don’t do it. Forgeries don’t do it. But antiques? Oh, yesyes.

  It’s because antiques have been lived with. People loved them, polished them, cried when they had to sell them, watched heartbroken when bailiffs took them away. Antiques are different. Is it any wonder? It’s how they were made. Anybody can make a chair with modern glues and an electric drill. And if you’re too idle even to do a hand’s turn, simply buy the pieces ready carved and stick them together. Then, like most furniture manufacturers nowadays, claim that you’re as good as the immortal Sheraton or Hepplewhite.

  Except you’re phoney. The reason was plain at Alban-sham Priory.

  The interior courtyard was busy, busy. Workshops abounded. I’d been sniffing tantalizing scents ever since alighting from Hunter’s van. The aromas of glues filled the air. A workshop - chairs, tables, even a small bureau - stood in plain view. Two smocked monkish figures beavered away. I almost puked at their frigging nerve. They had a bandsaw, two jigsaws, a stack of machined beechwood chair legs, more devices than the parson preached about. It was obscene.

  Further along, three figures in nunnish apparel sat at embroidery frames in a large bay window. They too were going at it like the clappers, adjusting auto-holders, sliding their adjustable frames beneath arrays of focused spotlights. No mediaeval eye strain there.

  And I heard the solid thunk of a kiln door, heard the switches go, the first muted belch of gas-firing sequence. At a ground-floor window, there was the erratic flicker of a welder at work.

  ‘Marie?’ I asked, appalled. ‘What is this place?’ ‘Albansham Priory, Lovejoy.’ She didn’t know whether to be proud or depressed. ‘George’s idea is to make reproductions, for income.’

  ‘No, love.’ I stopped, wouldn’t budge. ‘Albansham Priory is holy. With monks and a convent. And a hot pool, where pilgrims are baptized.’

  ‘And ... ?’ Marie prompted.

  I strove to remember. ‘The holy pool’s mud cures you. It chucks up fossils.’

  ‘Better than Wiltshire’s hot pools. But priories have debts.’

  She had a knack of making me feel daft.

  Somebody inside one of the barns gave a shout. I saw the lights flicker as they decanted molten iron into sand moulds, and heard the rattle of gantry chains. I could even smell the wet-blood-and-coffee of the Bessemer process. Making things the old way, but assisted by every mod con. Obscenity ruled.

  She smiled, a real winner. ‘You thought it was all nuns preparing parchment and the Venerable Bede cutting quills for illuminated calligraphy?’

  ‘Sort of.’ I didn’t like being laughed at. I ought to try hate again.

  ‘You’re a romantic, Lovejoy.’

  ‘I didn’t expect a factory, Marie.’

  Which raised the question of why Mrs Crucifex - triga-mist of the three mansions - was creating yet more charities to help this hive of antiques fakery.

  I’m no saint, honest I’m not, though Marie Metivier’s jibe about me being romantic did sting. I’ve forged everything from a Georgian hourglass to the Mona Lisa and back again. I’ve faked Gainsborough one week and Chippendale the next. I’ve forged Ancient Egyptian necklaces out of plastic, and William and Mary pearl coronets out of fish-scale paste (use the Canadian paste; it’s far the best). OK, I know that folk buy them from me then sell them as genuine. I’m not thick. Well, not often. A Lovejoy model of a man-o’-war, allegedly French prisoner-work of the Napoleonic era, won’t be made of bone slivers honed out by an electric drill-and-grinder. My forgery is worked by hand. The metal pins will be cut by hand. The holes for the pins (so’s not to split the bone) will be drilled by hand. Even the hand drill is made by my own scarred lilywhites. In other words, I do what the old master geniuses do, did.

  Marie sighed. ‘It’s dwindling, Lovejoy. There are no new novices coming in. Costs soar. Religion is out.’ She walked me on. Her brother came forward to welcome me. He wore a monk’s russet habit and looked really delighted, wrung my hand.

  ‘How marvellous!’ He waved at the activity. ‘You approve, I trust?’

  ‘He doesn’t, actually, George.’

  Marie said his name funny, slurring each g. Was it actually Georges, like the French say?

  ‘I’m sure he’s impressed deep down.’ He did his twinkly look, came to my other side to take my free arm. I felt a prisoner between them. ‘Do come inside.’

  ‘One thing, er, George.’ I couldn’t say it like Marie. ‘Why aren’t you at compline or vespers, or hoeing the field ready for the Angelus bell?’

  ‘Have you looked at the calendar, lately, Lovejoy?’ he said with phoney sorrow. ‘Time marches on.’

  He ushered me in through the main door. A nun glided past, her habit sweeping the wooden parquet flooring. Flowers, light falling through stained glass windows, bannisters gleaming, it seemed about right. Metivier seemed authoritative, merely responding with a nod when the nun quietly greeted him.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  They still held me, making sure I wouldn’t run away. We went through into a sumptuous book-lined study. It was all oak panels and leather armchairs. It would have done credit to a London club. Once in, they visibly relaxed. ‘It means, Lovejoy, that all you see about you—’

  ‘Is duff.’ I let them assimilate that. ‘Look, how am I to call you?’

  ‘I am Prior George of Albansham Priory.’ He grimaced. ‘No religious titles, between friends.’

  His roguish twinkle was starting to nark me. I saw an old print, badly mounted, across from the window. Stupid to hang it there, where sunlight would ruin it. An engraving of islets, an escutcheon, a massive compass, a border with lozenges. Phoney, of course. The outlined islets seemed familiar.

  Saumarez. Nelson’s second in command at the Battle of the Nile was a Saumarez. And Prior George’s name, Meti-vier. I tried not to study the engraving. So I was a friend. For how long?

  ‘Yes, Lovejoy. All the priory’s antiques are gone.’ He walked the study. His sister sat by the bay window, a pretty picture. ‘Which raises the question of what I’ve persuaded you to come and see!’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I said. ‘Why did you ask people about me in the first place?’

  ‘Maybe because of this, Lovejoy?’

  And he brought out a musical instrument I’d made. I recognize my own forgeries like old friends and started forward eagerly.

  This was a small can-shaped structure. It was the great bass racket, a renaissance wind instrument that can play as low as a double bassoon. I’d made it of nine parallel-bore cylinders of wood - I’d used pear, but laburnum does as well if you can get it properly cured. It looks ridiculous, seen from a distance. Goons call it the pocket bassoon. Much they know. Close to, it looks even dafter, with a thing like a small smoking tube sticking out of the top. Its sides have holes. But play it right, it’s a dream. One of the few musical instruments that sound good enough to eat.


  ‘Here,’ I said indignantly. ‘What frigging idiot replaced the reed?’

  ‘Me,’ said Marie sweetly.

  ‘Ah, well,’ I said lamely. ‘Don’t do it again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Each reed has to be cut properly - cane, bamboo - as personal as the shoes on your feet.’

  ‘Can it play?’

  ‘Cheek,’ I said, before remembering where I was. ‘Er, begging your pardon, reverend.’

  The reed was too thick. She’d carved it out of solid wood. Shaving it thin is the trick, that and soaking it in spit.

  ‘Wrong reed.’ I huffed and puffed for breath, then played a few notes of that Purcell gigue, then collapsed exhausted.

  ‘Bravo, Lovejoy.’ Metivier let me recover, then asked, ‘Would you make us a few more?’ He sounded quite wistful. ‘We could sell them.’

  Haven't you got any wood carvers on the Channel Islands? I didn’t ask in case I’d got it wrong. Least said, quickest profit. I needed to find Mrs Crucifex, maybe get something out of her faster than I would this close pair.

  Marie didn’t like ‘mainland’ weather. It’s what a Channel Islander would say, their having a sunnier clime. Saumarez, the last admiral to fly his flag on Nelson’s Victory, came from Guernsey. That accented way of saying names. And even the name Metivier - hadn’t a Metivier done some notable Norman dictionary? Possibly a Channel Island name. I looked at them both anew. I couldn’t call to mind any famous Channel Island antiques. Had I missed something?

  ‘I might.’ I had no intention, though, what with having Prince’s famous forgery to finish. And I didn’t want Summer lurking around my workshop. Mind you, George had talked about filthy lucre, so I added, ‘How soon would you want them?’

  ‘We had a travelling antique dealer call less than a week ago, Lovejoy. He wants old violins, cellos, wind instruments.’

  ‘Does he.’ A likely tale. Anybody in the Eastern Hundreds wants anything, I’m the first to hear. Except I was barker blind, Tinker being in gaol, the unhelpful old swine. You can’t depend on anybody.

  ‘We happen to have a very cultured lady who knows a good reproduction when she sees one. She guessed your name. Hence my message at the boot fair.’

  ‘Is this the “antique” you wanted me to suss?’ I was disappointed. I’d forged the wretched thing.

  ‘No, Lovejoy.’ Marie stared at her brother. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Now, Marie,’ George soothed. He stood behind his desk, very Churchillian, and smilingly explained, ‘My sister wishes that Albansham Priory were still mediaeval. I say we move with the millennium.’

  ‘Your one remaining antique is pretty valuable, then?’ I cleared my throat, feeling greed coming on. ‘Is it the abbey’s own property?’

  ‘Yes,’ said George.

  ‘No,’ said Marie.

  ‘Er, are you sure?’ The best I could do, confronted like that.

  ‘Lovejoy,’ Metivier said gravely. ‘How well do you know the Eastern Bloc?’

  ‘Eh? I thought that was over and done with.’

  ‘It’s still there, like a historic tribal war. We can’t ignore it.’

  Well, no. I wouldn’t want history to forget, either. Yet here we were in a soporific old priory, with a few remaining monks and nuns trundling out antiques replicas for tourists. Politics has nothing to do with life. I told him as much. ‘No, Lovejoy. It has everything to do with us.’

  ‘Show him, for heavens sake,’ Marie spat out. ‘It’s the only way.’

  I wondered whether to ask. ‘Find out what?’ I said after a bit.

  ‘Whether you are the one we need for them,’ George said.

  ‘Whether you aren't the one we need for it,’ Marie said.

  They both spoke together. For it? For them?

  ‘Shall we go and see it, then?’

  ‘Oh, it’s here, Lovejoy. Behind you. It’s a rare engraving, a valuable historic map.’

  Carefully I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even bother to look.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, polite as a kiddie leaving a party. ‘Ta-ra.’

  ‘Why are you going?’ Metivier, baffled, started after me.

  ‘You’ve not got an antique, George. I’d feel it.’

  And left, out through the ornate hall with its gliding nuns, across the courtyard. I met Gesso there. He was with a tubby monk, who was furious.

  ‘Wotcher, Gesso,’ I said.

  He brightened. ‘Wotcher, Lovejoy. Going to help our Open Day?’

  Each year, Albansham Priory has a gala. Village children dress up in Tudor costumes, and the whole place is given over to ancient times. Wheelwrights do their stuff with old implements, joiners, embroidresses, farriers, leather workers, parchment stretchers, wool spinners, everybody goes back several hundred years. Visitors pay an entrance fee, and a high old time is had by all. Imagine the gaiety.

  ‘Er, ta, Gesso, but I’m visiting my sick auntie in hospital.’

  ‘The oven failed to fire properly,’ the stout monk moaned. He looked as if he wanted to be in a hell of a temper but was too holy.

  ‘Hard luck, er, reverend.’ I made to move on, then paused. ‘Here, Gesso. Was it you told old Metivier about me?’

  ‘Course.’ He brightened. ‘Thought there’d be a quid in it. Any joy?’

  ‘Not really. Is there a bus service hereabouts?’

  Gesso and the monk smiled the smile of the rural trudger and let me go. I was almost out of the door when a lady arrived in a sleek reddish motor too posh for me to recognize the badge.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ Metivier came out, trotted after me. I kept going.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. You’re that Lovejoy, aren’t you?’ The lady got out, flashing a mile of leg. Smart red suit, hem cut just so, necklace that could have bought me, cottage and all. ‘Wait for the abbot.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stop him,’ she said quietly, and I was grabbed in a flurry of habits. A monk held me. He looked old enough to be my grampa, but God he was wiry. There must be something in this religion business.

  ‘Phone the police, Gesso,’ I called out. Gesso shook his head like you do at a disobedient dog. ‘I’m being kidnapped.’ The woman was the one from the auction, Irma’s Auntie Crucifex.

  ‘You’re being stupid,’ said the woman. ‘Take him to the vigil cell.’

  And they did. And me innocent, if there is such a thing.

  An hour later I’d cooled my heels. The cell had a small altar, two modem candlesticks of machined brass, a plain cross, a tabernacle. The window showed where the original stained glass had been excised, for a cheapo painted glass replacement concreted in. I’d seen holier sheds.

  You can’t do much in a vigil cell, except vig. So I pondered.

  The Channel Islands were news to me. I’d never been there. What did I know about them, offhand? Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm. Were there more? Odd facts, like the Dame of Sark never lets motor cars ashore. There’s no love lost between Guernsey and Jersey, word is, because the former feels disadvantaged and the latter’s a snob. Herm is minute. Tourists abound. Did I know anything else?

  Bits of the Channel Islands still have their own variants of the old Norman lingo, varying parish to parish. No antiques I could think of. No great tradition of joinery or jewellery, no dazzlingly brilliant silversmiths slogging away.

  End of message. I’d been chucked into the priory’s pokey, I was especially narked to remember, on the orders not of Prior George, but of a trendy bird.

  Two hours later, I’d searched my cell top to bottom. From outside I could hear some plainchant, nuns’ fragile warbling contrasting with the monks’ uneven bass. I felt daft and embittered. What God lets visitors get imprisoned? I’d only come from interest, to see how a religious community actually works, hadn’t I? Well, no. I’d come because Prior Metivier promised me filthy lucre, but I was still a person interested in God’s rotten old priory. I sulked.

  After a third hour I wanted to pee, but there was no loo. The
doors were locked. I decided to wait until everything went quiet - even the Inquisition had a rest now and then - whereupon I’d break a window and do a moonlight into Aldeburgh.

  Just when I was getting really desperate there came a rattle of keys, locks, bolts. The door opened. A midget nun stood there.

  ‘Please come, my son,’ she piped. Son? That crinkly white biscuit-tin paper round their faces makes them all look like comely teenagers.

  ‘Where to?’ I didn’t budge.

  ‘To the prior’s sanctum.’

  ‘No. I’ve had enough.’ I stalked past her. Three monks stood in the cloister. Noisy, they’d have been formidable. Silent, they looked scary. ‘Which way?’ I asked the nun.

  She walked ahead. Following a nun is quite boring, whereas following any other woman’s quite interesting. There’s always something to see. I heard the monks’ sandals going slap-slap-slap behind me. They let me have a pee in a spartan loo.

  Then I felt it. We were going along a cloister when I stumbled. For a second I thought somebody had clouted me. I looked about. Nobody, except the nun, turning to see what the heck, and my trailing gaolers.

  We were on one side of the inner courtyard. Work had ceased for the whilst. Against the cloister wall, no windows, was an array of artefacts on loose tiered shelving. Prior Metivier had evidently learnt display from his trip to the boot fair. Some had labels, ciborium - twelfth century; and vellum hours of the virgin - English, fifteenth century, and the like. They were covered by plastic.

  ‘Are you well, my son?’ asked this little titch in her saintly falsetto.

  ‘Eh? Ta, er, nun,’ I said. ‘I feel a bit queer.’

  ‘Please rest a moment.’

  She pulled away the plastic, giving me room to perch.

  The feeling worsened. I doubled with a groan, sweat coming down my face. I felt really giddy. Then I saw it. Up and to the left, almost burning my shoulder, was a metal animal mask. It looked home-made, as if some kiddie had worked it in Plasticine. Two recesses showed where eyes had been. Less than five inches wide, its mouth held a metal ring. Flecks of goldish colour gleamed, where inlay had once been. It was a simple handle. I looked, felt, listened. No, just the one. The other of the pair was missing.