The Vatican Rip

by Jonathan Gash

  I once knew a bloke who was the world’s worst everything – well, almost everything. If he drove a car it crashed. If he wound his watch up its hands fell off. If he dialled a friend the phone electrocuted somebody at the other end. He was a menace at work. Finally, in despair, his boss wrote him off and begged him, tears in his eyes, to get the hell off and out into premature retirement. Honestly, they actually paid him to do nothing. He was a brand new kind of national debt.

  Then, doodling one day in the public library – which incidentally he’d accidentally set on fire the week before – he realized the singular pleasure he was deriving from simply copying the stylized scrawl of an early manuscript which was framed on the wall. I won’t tell you his name, but he is now the greatest mediaevalist calligrapher in Northern Europe, and official master copyist of manuscripts for universities the world over. Get the message? Even the worst of us is the best mankind has got – for something.

  A ‘divvie’ is a nickname for somebody with the special knack of knowing an antique when he sees one. Some divvies are infallible only for genuine oil paintings, or sculpture, or first editions, or porcelain, or Han dynasty funereal pottery. Others like me – rarest of all – are divvies for practically any antiques going. Don’t ask me how it’s done, why a divvie’s breathing goes funny when he confronts that da Vinci painting, or why his whole body quivers to the clang of an inner bell when near that ancient pewter dish or Chippendale table. Like the old water diviners – from whom we derive our nickname – who go all of a do when that hazel twig detects a subterranean river, there’s very little accounting for these things.

  If people ask me to explain, I say it’s just that the antiques’ love comes through and reaches out to touch me. And, since everything modern is rubbish, that’s QED as far as I’m concerned.

  She was staring. ‘For everything antique?’

  ‘Yes. Except when it’s mauled into a pathetic travesty, like your mahogany occasional table out there.’

  She flared briefly. ‘That’s genuine Georgian!’

  ‘It’s wood is that old,’ I conceded. ‘But it’s a hybrid made up of a pole screen’s base and a remade top.’

  She was badly shaken. I wondered how much she’d been taken for. ‘Is that true, Lovejoy? I bought it as Cuban mahogany.’

  ‘The bit you are looking at is veneer.’ It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book: get an original piece of the right date, and simply remould it. Most commonly done with tables, bureaux, cabinets and chairs. Some of these hybrids have to be seen – or bought – to be believed. I hate them, because some beautiful original has been devastated just for greed. Greed, that horrible emotion which makes hookers of us all.

  ‘And you’ll divvie for me?’

  I prompted, ‘For . . . ?’

  ‘You mean payment.’ Meeting an antiques man better than herself had rocked her, but money was home ground. She became brisk, her old poised and perfect self again. ‘How will I verify your accuracy? Of course, I can always give you a knowledge test.’

  ‘I might fail it.’ They always ask the same things. ‘Then where would you be?’

  She blew a spume of smoke into the air, getting the point. Knowledge is only knowledge. I was on about the actual business of knowing, which is light years ahead. ‘Have you any suggestions?’

  ‘For proof? Yes. Stick your own price on any genuine antique, picked at random. I’ll work for it.’

  She bowed like the Gainsborough lady but her eyes were focused on distant gold. ‘Instead of money? No other pay?’

  I smiled at the caution in her tone. People are always stunned by somebody who backs his judgement to the hilt. I said, ‘There is no higher price than time, love. It’s all a person has.’

  ‘You’re hired.’

  ‘Lend me enough to see the week out, please.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought—’

  ‘There’s no future in starving to death, love.’

  ‘That bad?’ She drummed her fingers on her desk, shook her head. ‘No. You might take off. If you are a genuine divvie, I need you here. Fabio!’

  Fabio was into the office instantly, waving a notebook and agog with inquisitiveness. He’d been listening, of course.

  ‘Yes, Adriana.’ He struck an exasperated pose. ‘What’s the verdict? Hitch him to our star, or under a passing bus?’

  ‘Hitch.’

  ‘Ooooh, fantabulation!’ he squealed excitedly. ‘I wonder what he’ll say about that ebony thing you keep saying is an eighteenth-century Benin ceremonial mask prototype!’ He winked at me with grotesque roguishness. ‘She paid a fortune for it, dearie, been on tenterhooks ever since!’

  I thought, oh dear. They make them near Dakar and have fooled the best of us. My expression must have changed because his eyes ignited with delighted malice. Adriana sensed the bad news and nipped it swiftly in the bud.

  ‘Fabio. See that Lovejoy receives no money, no expenses of any kind.’

  Fabio fingered his amber beads and beamed. ‘Is it to be entirely a labour of love?’

  ‘And you can stop that. We’ve come to an arrangement. Lovejoy will be paid in antiques of our choosing – after he’s divvied them for us.’

  ‘I’ll book it in as payment in kind,’ Fabio whispered confidentially to me. Adriana’s lips thinned even more. I could see how Fabio could get on the calmest nerves.

  ‘His food will be provided by me,’ she coursed on tonelessly.

  ‘Must I book a table, dear?’ Fabio asked innocently, eyes on the ceiling.

  She iced him with a look. ‘By that I mean under my supervision.’

  He pencilled an ostentatious note, murmuring to himself, ‘Lovejoy to feed under Adriana,’ then asked briskly, ‘Anything else, dear?

  She gave up and turned to me. ‘Have you a place to live?’

  I thought swiftly. If she was this careful and I was fool enough to admit that I dossed in the park she’d probably stick me in some garret over her stables, with that businessman of hers counting the teaspoons every time I went for a pee.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m fixed up.’

  They both looked dubious at that but said nothing, and we went to work.

  I’d found a nook. I was in with a chance of doing the rip. And doing Arcellano.

  Chapter 12

  The Vatican walls seemed more impenetrable than ever when I photographed them that afternoon. Every gateway, the enormous doors in St Peter’s, the Museum entrance, every Swiss Guard in sight and the Angelica gateway, with me grinning and clicking away among droves of tourists all doing the same thing. I went about like someone demented. There wasn’t a lot of time.

  Adriana had objected when I asked to use the camera. All known antiques firms – except Lovejoy Antiques, Inc, that is – have cameras of various sorts, though most dealers are too bone idle to use them much. She had finally let me borrow a cheap box camera that was hanging on hoping to become an antique, a century still to go.

  ‘Thanks, Adriana,’ I said. My last money would go on a film.

  ‘Signora Albanese to you.’

  I grovelled. ‘Thank you, Signora Albanese.’

  ‘And that’s enough for a rustica.’ That meant eating on the hoof.

  I asked what about food this evening. ‘That requirement will be met, Lovejoy,’ she intoned mercilessly.

  The giant purple Rolls called for her just before two. We shut shop with Piero sourly giving me the once over in case I’d nicked a valuable Isfahan carpet or two, and with Fabio taking an age doing his eyes in a French early Georgian period swivel mirror.

  Signora Albanese refused to allow the car to drive off until she saw me enter the pizzeria at the street corner and emerge with two chunks of scalding pizza in my hands. Only then did the Rolls glide away, with her businessman still doing his executive bit. He’d hardly looked up when Adriana got in, and I’d taken particular pains to notice, because . . . I wondered why I’d been so sly. I hardly notice anything except antiques, exc
ept when I’m scared, and then I behave like . . . like I was doing now, moving casually but watching Fabio and Piero and the Rolls reflected in every possible shop window.

  I decided I was merely going through a paranoid phase, brought on by Marcello’s death and loneliness maybe mixed with apprehension at the thought of the rip. After all I’d done all the choosing, picked Adriana’s place at random.

  The final agonizing choice came about half past three. To buy a tiny booklet on the contents of the Vatican Museum, or to enter the place to suss it out? I decided on the latter course and spent my last on a ticket. I hurtled up the wonderful ancient staircase (a double helical spiral that curiously is a better model of nucleic acid even than that flashy Watson-Crick mock-up in Cambridge). Adriana had said to be back by five, and the emporium was a good half-hour’s walk from the Vatican. There were seven photographs left in my camera, and I would need to shove the film in for developing on the way. It didn’t leave long.

  The precious Chippendale piece was still there, sulkily supporting the weight of that horrible nature tableau. A museum guard was being bored stiff at the end of the gallery when I nipped behind a display case and clicked the view from the nearest window. Then the other way, with a complete disregard of lighting conditions. Then the length of the gallery. A couple of times I had to pause for small crowds of visitors – still sprinting as if they got paid mileage. But by the finish of my reel (who can ever work out when a film’s ended?) I guessed I had at least six good shots of the gallery. Then I crossed to feel again those lovely vibes of the true Chippendale, drawn like iron filings to a magnet.

  That table really was something to see. I mean that most sincerely, and I’ve loved antiques all my life.

  Genuine ones, of course.

  It was on the way out that I realized I was being observed. There is a small glass-covered cloister between two divisions of the Museum galleries. Walk along it and quite suddenly you leave that antechamber where they sell replicas of Michelangelo’s Pietà, and emerge on a curved terrace. You can sit in the sunshine and look out over the Vatican grounds. They look accessible, but aren’t. There’s no way for the public to reach either the grounds or the lovely villa situated in them, because although the terrace looks spacious it is very, very restricted. There’s no way of climbing off, either up or down. It’s a swine of a design.

  Look away from the greenery and the Museum buildings loom above you. I guessed the windows high above – and some distance away laterally, too, worse luck still – were those of my gallery. Near, and practically begging you to enter, was the splendid cafeteria they’ve recently installed. The grub even looks good enough to eat. The place is spotless and – coming as a dizzy novelty to a bloke like me, raised on a diet of enteric from Woody’s Nosh Bar – the tables are laminates and tubular steel, and clean. Mind-boggling.

  The people noshing there were the usual crosssection of modern tourists: denim-geared youngsters with birds and blokes indistinguishable, family clusters with infants laying the law down, intense schoolish couples scoring Items Seen in guidebooks. Nobody sinister. But that prickling was still there. My shoulders felt on fire with burning unease. I had this notion Adriana might have set Piero or Fabio on to me in case I scarpered with her mouldy old camera, stingy bitch.

  It was well after four when I made the exit and set off down the wide Viale Vaticano. Funny what tricks your mind plays when you feel on edge. I had this odd idea I’d just glimpsed Maria. It turned out to be a woman at least as beautiful and very like her. I first caught sight of her near the ancient Roma section and had almost exclaimed aloud. She even seemed to stand the same, one foot tilted alluringly while posing casually on the other. But when she turned and strolled away among the mediaeval paintings I could see she was very different – smaller, not so full in the figure. She seemed quieter and much, much calmer than Maria. A gentle young soul, possibly a convent novice out on parole.

  The odd thing was, I felt she was as aware of me as I was of her. At the corner I looked back but the woman was not in sight. There, I told myself in satisfaction. There, see? Letting yourself get spooked for nothing. And Maria was hundreds of miles away, bollocking a new class for getting its verbs wrong.

  I made the emporium with one minute to go.

  * * *

  That first day was a real success. We fell into a pattern, the four of us. Piero was not much help, except as a removals man; the shop muscle. Fabio on the other hand turned out to be quite good on porcelain and ethnographical items, but useless on anything else. Because of some unmentionable disaster to do with a sale of commemorative medallions he had been demoted from doing any independent buying, and had been relegated to the accounts. Like many of his kind he had a real flare for display, and I very quickly came to trust his judgement when laying stuff out. Adriana of course was our vigilant boss. All cheques had to receive her signature. All sales were pitched round her mark (ie, price) and she had veto over every single tag. What she was trying to prove I don’t know, but supposed it was merely competition with that podgy businessman of hers. Women can be very odd.

  Calling the place an emporium makes it sound grander than it actually was. The main showroom was about forty feet deep and a smaller room led off to one side, which Adriana called the ‘specials’ room. There she put anything she considered to be of high value, or which was small enough to be easily nicked by the customers – a right load of light-fingered dippers they are, too. Don’t think Adriana was being horrid. The average antique shop loses one per cent of its costed stock per fortnight from thievery by decent members of the public who stop by ‘just to look’.

  We did our tray trick only once that first day, but it was a bonanza when it came off and I swear Adriana almost smiled with delight. Nearly. This time it was with a painting which a German lady was admiring. I was being a casual browser, strolling and looking at furniture, and only getting drawn in when I heard Adriana doing a lyrical exposition of a sentimental mid-Victorian scene, quite a good painting with very little restoration.

  ‘I’m sorry, signora,’ I interrupted. ‘But do please advise this lady about the medium.’

  ‘The medium?’ Adriana was nonplussed for a second because we had planned to use her vaunted ‘solid’ Cuban mahogany hybrid. ‘But oil paints are the most durable—’

  ‘Not on bitumen.’

  At one time bitumen was regarded as a splendid permanent ground matrix for oil painting, and reached a high vogue during the early nineteenth century. The only trouble is that nothing cracks or disintegrates like bitumen does. So whether you buy for love or investment, check that the painting doesn’t contain it. I explained this to the fascinated customer. The crowd she was with took great interest and one or two were even eager that I should accompany them back to their hotel and pronounce on some antiques they had bought earlier. The lady wrote me her name and room number.

  ‘Come for supper,’ she cooed. ‘We could have a really good chat.’

  Adriana’s expression said over her dead body so I hastily said I might give them a ring. I went on to pick out a good painting for the customer, a little-known Spanish artist’s work in egg tempera on laid parchment showing an early scene in industrial Milan. Adriana invented a solid price for it and the lady paid up on my say-so. It was a bargain but I wasn’t too happy because I’d had my eye on it for my wages.

  As soon as they’d gone Adriana yanked me into her office. Unluckily there was no innocent browser I could use for protection.

  ‘What do you mean by that asinine display, Lovejoy?’ she rasped, slamming the door.

  ‘We made a sale—’

  ‘Don’t give me that! Do you think I’m an absolute fool?’

  ‘That painting’s solid bitumen—’

  She stormed round the desk at me. ‘I’m talking about you ogling that German cow out there in my shop! And I saw you collect her hotel number from her and I heard you promise you’d deliver the painting personally—’

  I reeled und
er the salvo. ‘Look. She insisted—’

  ‘I won’t have it! Do you hear? Making a brothel out of my emporium! Any one of the crowd could have taken offence! I’m employing you to provide—’

  I bleated, ‘You heard her invite me to supper—’

  She practically took a swing at me as I cringed towards the door. ‘You were practically down her cleavage—’

  ‘Now, Adriana—’

  ‘And don’t Adriana me!’ she yelled, heaving up her porcelain ashtray.

  I ducked out fast to get that expensive glass door between us and streaked into the yard to help Piero load up the painting for delivery to the German lady’s hotel. He gazed at me sardonically but said nothing. Fabio came out to watch us, his arms folded and an ecstatic smile on his face.

  ‘Lovejoy.’

  ‘Mmmmh?’ I was preoccupied knocking up a plywood crate for the tempera. Always remember that tempera painting antedated oils by several centuries, and that to use egg tempera properly you need a relatively inflexible support – hence it is done on copper sheeting or board. You can do it on semi-rigid supports such as parchment paging but the technique is very special. Piero, a right Neanderthal, was all for trying to roll the bloody thing up. I ask you.

  ‘You really bother our dear signora,’ Fabio was saying.

  ‘It isn’t my fault she hadn’t priced it,’ I grumbled defensively. ‘I haven’t stopped since I came this morning.’

  ‘She wants you. Now.’

  He didn’t move out of the way to let me pass, just raised his eyebrows and winked as I hurried in. Adriana had a small card ready. She held it out without looking up from her desk. I took it gingerly.

  ‘This is the name of a restaurant, Lovejoy. You will dine there at eight-thirty this evening. The bill will be taken care of.’

  ‘I could eat somewhere cheaper and keep the difference—’

  Her voice went low and murderous. ‘Lovejoy.’