The Rich And The Profane

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘It will make the winner a multi-millionaire, Jimmy.’

  He stared, gaped, harrumphed. ‘By jingo, Jonno! You take the biscuit, old chap! Thinking big, hey? Tickety boo. What is the antique?’

  ‘Secret, Jimmy,’ I said, going furtive, because I didn’t know myself yet, though I had the glimmerings. ‘Insurance, Sotheby’s, Lloyd’s. Security, you understand.’

  ‘Say no more, old bean!’ Solemnly he raised his glass. ‘Chin chin.’

  ‘Chin, er, chin,’ I said. ‘Six-thirty, press conference.’

  ‘ Waaaw kyeb'.'

  ‘Waaaw, er...’ I left him a happy man. His back was straighter, stalking danger on safari.

  The little auction had started to fourscore people in a mild carnival atmosphere. I lurked. Nobody I recognized, and nobody bidding with a recognizable ‘signature’, the auction pattern that’s a dead giveaway. The way a regular bidder goes about his bids is as characteristic as handwriting.

  There’s never an auction but what something’s worth buying, even in a small charity do. I bid a few coppers for five old posters in a cardboard roll. I tried to look indifferent, but was delighted to see that I’d bought the greatest of Victorian posters, practically mint. Advertising boomed recklessly in the nineteenth century - adverts even popped up on the Pyramids, on sacred national flags. People even had artillery literally firing wads of handbills for tooth powder all over the suburbs. Ignore ‘advertabilia’ if you like, but you’re throwing money away if you do.

  Collectables make purists mad, but if they make you money, do they have to be a Rembrandt? Any auction has sporting memorabilia, forgettables, watercolours, porcelain, toys, jewellery. Scavenging’s not a nice side to human nature, but if looking round old junk shops was the worst we got up to, the world would be a pretty pleasant place. So I paid up and put the roll under my arm. Plenty of people make a living from new advertising, so what’s wrong with old? For once I’d scooped the pool.

  Andrew Pears, soap maker, founded his company in 1789. For his time he was a dynamite salesman. His granddaughter’s husband, Tom Barratt, got the marketing bug. He’d do anything to sell Pears soap. It’s a famous Victorian story, how in 1887 Tom bought from the Illustrated London News the painting called ‘Bubbles’, by that marvel Sir John Millais. A little lad, actually the painter’s grandson, is admiring a soap bubble he’s just blown using a clay pipe. Barratt had a bar of his soap painted in — and there was his tasteful advert. He even got Lily Langtry - the Jersey Lily - to sign that she used Pears Soap exclusively. There was a row, as only Victorians could row, but eventually even Millais didn’t mind. The modem advertising lesson was learnt: publicity ruled. A perfect ‘Bubbles’ poster nowadays costs as much as the original painting did. And I’d just bought one for a quid.

  Barratt’s the same bloke who imported tons of French ten-centime copper coins - then usable in the UK as legit ‘pennies’ - and stamped them with his advertising slogan, at fourteen to the shilling instead of twelve. The government went nuclear, melted them all down, and angrily amended the law. They showed Barratt the door when the cad offered to print the nation’s 1891 census forms free of charge - if the forms carried yet another soap advert. I like Barratt, a true manic Victorian. The government’s refusal made him indignant: wasn’t the national flag being flown inscribed with beer adverts? And hadn’t government allowed Barratt to print his adverts on the gummy side of the official 1881 lilac penny postage stamp? (In New Zealand, a rival’s legend in 1893 came off on your tongue when you licked the stamps: ‘Sunlight Soap for Washing Dogs ...’). I was content. I knew four collectors of advert-abilia. Is it my fault they’re off their trolley? I once sold a Victorian advert for magnetic foot warmers. The most expensive are those shaped metal painted adverts advertising posh American shops of the 1870s; one will buy you a new house. Keep looking. Meanwhile ... Eh?

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Hello, Walt.’ He looked uneasy. ‘Augusta’s painting’s the next lot?’

  ‘People only laugh, Lovejoy. She won’t come to these auctions.’ He coughed. ‘Sorry not to have been around.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Walt.’ I can be quite kind when I’m lying. ‘I leave Guernsey today, so I’m glad I caught you.’

  He was relieved. ‘Rosa told me. Glad there’ll be no more trouble. Gussy’s disappointed, after your promise, but she’ll get over it.’

  So much for loyalty to principle. ‘Remember me to her.’ If I’d had a watch I’d have glanced at it. ‘Better get down to the ferry. Cheers, Walt.’

  Off I walked. I posted the cardboard roll of posters to my cottage, and got a taxi to drop me off a few hundred yards short of Gussy’s antiques place, clever old Tracker Dan that I am. I walked in. She was at her easel, yet another masterpiece. I guessed what it would be. I stood there a few minutes, saw her do the preliminary underpainting. Christ, but she poured on «l*e turpentine. It was awash, stank the place out.

  ‘Same, love?’

  She painted wildly on, hair any old how. ‘Thought you’d gone back to the mainland, Lovejoy,’ she said bitterly. ‘Come to buy one of Mad Gussy’s crazies?’

  ‘No.’ I went closer. ‘I want fourteen.’

  She rounded so fiercely I recoiled. Then she saw my face.

  ‘Lovejoy. You’re one person, then you’re not. You’re leaving, then still here. You say my paintings are balderdash. Now you want fourteen?’

  ‘Yes. I can pay a deposit now, the rest later. How much are they?’

  She started to laugh, tears streaming down. I grew uncomfortable. I don’t like that noise between laughter and tears. Women laughing crying like that make me think something’s wrong. Joy and pain ought to keep separate.

  ‘What the hell for, Lovejoy?’ she got out finally. ‘You buy fourteen, then ask the price?’ She sobered. ‘I knew you were trouble, first time I saw you.’

  ‘Not interfering, love, but is so much turpentine wise?’

  Artists kill critics (and vice versa; fair’s fair), so I was dicing with death. ‘Play your cards right, a spoonful will do for a whole canvas. Think of the original. He never splashed it about like that.’

  ‘You see?’ Tears fell, plop, plop, on to her skirt. ‘It’s the same feeling.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I knew a man once. We were close. He’d been in prison for manslaughter. I was young.’ I don’t know what a sardonic laugh is, but it sounded close. ‘We were the scandal of Guernsey. He left because of the police.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, narked. ‘I’m not a criminal. As for manslaughter—’

  ‘It’s the same feeling, Lovejoy. Doing wrong, the speed, not knowing why.’ She looked at me. ‘And not caring any longer if I’m doing wrong. Tell me, Lovejoy. What are my paintings to do with you?’

  ‘When it’s all over, I’ll keep one. For my cottage. For now, I need a place to hide, and your gungey old motor. And paintings.’

  We spoke for an hour, me and Gussy, mostly about her childhood. I listened while she talked. And the oddest thing happened. She became animated. The years fell from her. Her lunacy dwindled and vanished. We were suddenly the friendliest of friends. Augusta Quenard was the best thing that had happened to me since I’d arrived.

  Later, laughing, she sought out the last of her grey paintings and we got them covered up in her car boot. Solemnly I paid her a note for deposit.

  ‘Sale or return, Lovejoy?’ she asked mischievously. ‘And can I come?’

  ‘No, love.’ I got her keys and coaxed the engine. ‘Waaaw kyehV

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Dunno. I think it’s optimism. Cheers, love.’

  I badly wanted to see Prior Metivier and his delectable sister, but things were more pressing. The crook, Gesso’s killer, would have to wait. I drove to the airport to meet Florida.

  omen make me hungry. Sometimes, just a glimpse makes my mouth water. Don’t misunderstand.

  Florida was no bimbo. She came into Guernsey’s miniature air terminal
like a goddess. Bright, alert, demanding. Powder-blue suit, pillbox hat, skirt trim and everything matching. In comparison the arriving crowd looked utter tat.

  ‘Dwoorlink!’ I cried, advancing, old times.

  She swept past. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lovejoy. Where is it?’

  That’s what I mean. Florida was class. I know my place is humility, but why the reminder? She stopped, looking about. Three porters, three suitcases each. Probably staying all of two days.

  ‘The scam? I’ll show you, love.’ I stutter when I’m edgy, worse when I’m flummoxed.

  ‘Florida means the limo, idiot.’

  A massive bloke was standing by her. Slim of waist, muscly, an inverted pear of aggro. Tarzan in trendy King’s Road leather, long blond hair, tanned from alligator wrestling in some tropic. He looked a giant sixteen. Florida and him? I’d thought it was Florida and me.

  ‘It’s there.’ I pointed to Gussy’s wheels.

  Tarzan stared at Florida. ‘You were right. This worm’s pathetic.’ He turned to me, amid clusters of tourists. ‘Get decent wheels, idiot. Pronto.’

  He buffeted me so my head spun. I reeled. I don’t mind these tough duffs, but feel narked when they decide they’re Godzilla and us amoebas. I grinned, stored it up. I’m good at hate, but tend to forget why I’m seething.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, humbly. ‘Will they do for the whilst?’

  We drove, him clipping my ear when I hesitated at intersections. I kept silent. Every one was a chit I’d cash in later, to his profound regret. They named a hotel I’d never heard of. To Dook, as she called him, my ignorance of its whereabouts proved I was an imbecile. Florida didn’t deign to speak. I drove them to the Roi de Normandie, unloaded their luggage.

  ‘This is the sister hotel,’ I lied. ‘Yours, sir, is in, er, superclass, through main reception.’

  I promised to call later, take her and her primate to dinner. Florida ignored me, swept inside holding her gilded youth’s hand. They left their suitcases in a heap. So did I. I’d assumed Florida, my mark one gambler, would be a superb ally. Wrong again. I drove off.

  Thirty minutes later I knocked on the Carrieres’ door, and asked to see Dove. They took me through.

  ‘Lucky you caught me in,’ Dove said cheerily.

  Like a fool I found myself agreeing before I got the quip. I laughed shamefacedly. Joe was sculpting in the garden. Dove was painting in watercolours, using her pulleys, a brush in her teeth.

  Meg seated me, brewed up. We talked of this and that. I asked could I crate some things up in their shed. They said why not. I got Dove laughing fit to burst, describing Florida’s arrival and her bronzed stalwart.

  ‘Dook,’ I said when Dove asked. ‘Honest. He’s called Dook.’

  ‘Don’t be upset, Lovejoy,’ Dove narked me by saying. ‘She’ll see sense.’

  ‘Upset?’ I laughed so merrily that I hurt my ribs. ‘You seriously think ... ? Good grief!’ I went on about Florida’s ugliness for some time, saying if I was that hard up I’d be really down, but I wasn’t so I wasn’t.

  ‘So she’s very pretty?’

  ‘She’s married, heaven’s sake!’ I told them. They were all listening by now, nodding. ‘She has a terrible temper. She likes horses. Can you imagine?’

  ‘No, no,’ they went.

  It makes you narked, when people misunderstand. Me and Florida? Give me a break. I’d have said it outright, but Americanisms sound daft when I try them. Conversation faltered.

  Joe took me to his shed. It stood behind his workshop, where he was trying to model a Lalique piece in that new porous fast-drying clay - a boon to forgers, incidentally. Made in Swindon, but costs the earth. He had plenty of spare wood. I backed the motor in, said I could manage on my own, ta very much. They went about their business, so didn’t see what I was bringing in, and I didn’t say. Fourteen canvases don’t take much space, even in frames. Two small flat crates, wood and fibreboard, that anybody could lift, three by four by two. Done.

  ‘They’re only garments and pottery,’ I told them, Dove looking really excited, when they called me in for tea after I’d sat alone a while in the shed thinking things out. ‘No peeping. No nipping out to the woodshed,’ I threatened Dove grimly, ‘in the candle hours, you. Understand?’

  ‘It’s very thrilling, Lovejoy. Are we in a dangerous adventure?’

  ‘Yes. You’re accomplices. And,’ I said when she exclaimed in delight, ‘I’ve never had such duckeggs helping in a crime before.’

  The word sent them quiet. ‘Crime?’Joe looked at Meg.

  These glances between spouses get on my wick sometimes. Warning, alarmed, encouraging, they exclude the rest of us. Maybe that’s why they do them? I think they should keep their private glances to themselves.

  ‘You’ve gone all serious, Lovejoy,’ Dove said. Her brush was a No. 4 hog brisde, floating suspended above her. I removed it, wiped the tip on a rag dipped in turpentine. ‘I’m glad it’s us, Dad. Honestly. I like Lovejoy.’

  ‘Shut it, you,’ I told Dove gruffly. ‘Where’s your twin dish? Separate dirty and clean, you trollop.’

  ‘Can’t manage.’

  ‘Should be able to make you one.’ I inspected her pulleys. Her mirrors seemed important.

  ‘What crime, exactly?’ from Joe. Meg didn’t mind half as much. I could tell. Women usually don’t.

  ‘Somebody died.’ I could have explained how Gesso’d gone missing, the evidence. I could even have said how I was starting to blame myself, but I’d have sounded as if I was to blame, and I wasn’t having that. I eventually found the fudge formula. ‘I want to bring a crime to light, that’s all.’

  ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel!’ Dove squealed. ‘Robin Hood!’

  Joe was already throwing up logistical earthworks, a frigging pest. ‘Why not simply tell the police? And why come to Guernsey to do it?’

  ‘Because the murderers are here!’ Dove shrieked. ‘We must stake their place out!’

  ‘Ta, love.’ There’s a point where help becomes hindrance. ‘Not a word. I haven’t been here, OK? And if you’re asked, I brought nothing.’

  ‘We should swear an oath!’ Dove was saying when I left. Meg was full of merriment, Dove had never been so animated, Joe doubtful. Women are easier to con. They have such faith.

  Twenty minutes later, returning Gussy’s motor, I was arrested. Two tourists looked on, aghast. I tried to look casual about being apprehended, but fooled nobody.

  Jonno Rant was at the police station. I was interrogated to within an inch of the truth. I admitted everything, most sincerely.

  ‘I am Lovejoy, not Jonno Rant. I live in East Anglia.’ Grouville was as succinct a bobby as ever I’d met, if I’ve got the right word. He registered facts by writing one-liners, each no more than three syllables. I’d have hated to meet him on that TV word game. Stout, but he moved smooth. Like, he went for a file, and didn’t seem to have to go through the motions of having to stand up. Tennis player? I tried, from curiosity, to read his scrawl upside down, see how he managed to encapsulate my tale so fast.

  ‘That is correct,’ Jonno Rant said, still amused. ‘I’m me. He isn’t.’

  Even I could have jotted that down in three.

  ‘Your purpose in this deception, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Support for charity, Mr Grouville.’ Trying it for size. ‘Purpose,’ Grouville reminded me. ‘I said purpose.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ Hadn’t I just told him? ‘I want to support Prior Metivier’s holy establishment in Suffolk. I have no means of my own. I had the idea of running a show in some holiday centre. I know nothing about music hall promotions, so I nicked - borrowed - a list of performers—’ ‘From Bamie Woodfall,’ Jonno said with scorn. I perked up. Scorn’s useful when it’s other peoples’.

  ‘And rang some of them to come here,’ I said hopefully. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Why Guernsey?’

  ‘The best holiday centre on earth.’ Get stuffed, Jersey. ‘There’d be more support, seeing Prio
r Metivier is from here.’

  ‘Why Mr Rant?’ Grouville announced each question like a proposition from Euclid: construct equilateral triangles using a set square and compass.

  ‘He’s famous. He’s popular. Everybody knows his name. His musicals are done everywhere.’

  ‘Mr Rant doesn’t write musicals.’ Grouville wrote only two words this time on his rotten old paper. For my marvellous explanation? Stingy swine.

  ‘Promotions and that,’ I said lamely. Got three.

  ‘Mr Rant?’ Grouville prompted, wanting Jonno to demand the death penalty.

  The impressario looked unkempt. Maybe from the flight? These pop stars are real scruffs. I’ve not seen one that couldn’t do with a good tidying up. I felt like lending him a comb, if Fd got one. He was in green leather, a long fringed coat. He wore sun specs with vertical-strip lenses. His head looked a bisected arthropod, a real extra-terrest. ‘Why Barnie Woodfall, Lovejoy?’

  I explained how Fd come across the audition, and how the odd couple had reacted. I had to keep searching for his face beyond those glasses. ‘The auditions frightened me.’

  ‘Samantha Costell.’ Jonno nodded. Anger plus scorn now? Bad news can be quite good, and anger even better. I perked up some more. ‘Why did you choose these artists, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Random, from the list I conned from that Samantha bird. Except for Maureen. I knew her once.’Jonno thumbed a list Grouville passed him. ‘I phoned the other night from Mrs Vidamour’s, told her to make the arrangements.’ I cleared my throat. Honesty time. ‘I’ve also taken on a local gentleman called James Ozanne, to—’

  ‘Ozanne’s activities are what claimed our attention.’ Grouvillespeak, do an isosceles triangle without a set square. ‘He is next door.’

  ‘Please tell him sorry. Jimmy’s a nice bloke.’

  ‘You impersonated for financial gain,’ Grouville said. ‘You deceived airlines, ferry services, hoteliers, landladies and other residents here.’

  ‘Excuse me, please.’ Rant didn’t speak for a bit, stood staring at me. ‘Might I have a word?’

  They made me stand outside. The disconsolate figure of Jimmy Ozanne was sitting in the corridor. I waved, called, ‘Sorry, Jimmy.’