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There’s a main trouble with anything good. Like with women my question is, why can’t they see how much we crave them, for heaven’s sake? (The answer’s that maybe they do…)
The trouble with antiques is fakes. The trouble with fakes is antiques. Just as in any war, greed is the instigator, and dithering uncertainty the determinant, of success. Thus antique dealers become a happy band of mourners at the funeral feast for casualties in an unending conflict.
Our local merry mob of antique dealers occupies a few crevices of dereliction. They’ve installed a small bar since the boozing law changed, to sell liver-corroding liquids at extortionate prices. The whole Arcade is nothing more than an alcove of many alcoves. You’d walk past it with hardly a glance. Wise folk do just that.
The usual chorus of jeers and imprecations rose to greet me. They were all in, bemoaning (a) the cheapskate public, (b) being broke, and (c) having this priceless Rembrandt/Wedgwood/Michaelangelo genuine antique that they’re willing to let go for a few quid as a special personal favour to you/him/her/anybody… The siren song of the dealer.
Frederico grabbed me first, looking more like Valentino than Valentino. He’s from Wigan, but cracks on he’s never been to gaol. He wore a green suit by mistake, because he’s only Irish on Fridays. Mondays he’s from Tuscany.
“I’ve got a couple of things, Lovejoy!” He hisses this terse sentence, looking furtively round shoulders, trying for Fagin in the next amateur
“Over here when you’ve a minute, Lovejoy,” Liz Sandwell called. I waved, brightening. Her tough boyfriend wasn’t with her. “Got what, Fred?”
Fool for asking. You need never ask, not with Frederico. His act’s something to do with the ferries from the Hook of Holland. They dock at Harwich bringing loads of tourists. He gets caught out sometimes, finds he’s claimed to speak a tourist’s own lingo. Also, he only talks gibberish, a handicap for so determined a communicator. It’s not my fault if I get confused. He dragged me to his alcove—a plank, a chair, a battery light, two boxes.
“Lovejoy,” Donk interposed, breathing fury. “You owe me. That message—”
“Sod off, Donk. I’m busy —”
But he wouldn’t be put off with IOUs, promises, tales of misery. Only when Frederico shelled out the dosh did Donk leave. I think civilization’s got a lot to answer for, now trust’s gone. Which raised the interesting question why Frederico paid up for me. He’s never done that in his life.
“It’s genuine old glass, Lovejoy. Honest. Every sign!”
“Oh, aye.”
One of his two boxes yielded a lovely little sweetmeat glass, its stem faceted and its foot scalloped. The dealers all around went quiet and started drifting over. Frederico made insulting gestures to repel them. It worked. They retreated muttering, narked and envious. Old glass is valuable beyond common sense these days. If you find one, order your blonde and two-litre Morgan and spit in your general manager’s eye.
“See? Genuine 1780.” He sounded as if he was offering me surface-to-air missiles, peering about.
“Sorry, Frederico.” His paddy green kept getting me on the wrong track. “It’s duff.”
“No!” A cry from the heart. The other dealers chuckled, resumed chatter, pleased their friend would lose a fortune.
This is always the hard part. The glass simply didn’t reverberate in me. Therefore it was dud. How to find explanations other people would understand…?
“Look, Frederico.” I held it up against the bulb, though daylight facing north’s best. “Glass isn’t a solid. It’s a supercooled liquid. Think that, and you’re halfway there.” Pointing, I showed him. “Old glass—anything before 1800—
“But the iridescence, Lovejoy!” He was almost in tears.
You feel like knocking their heads together sometimes. Can’t the blighters read? Being basically fluid, glass interacts with air and whatever crud’s around. So over the years, wetness—in air, ground—causes its surface to iridesce, due to laminations. Think of microscopic scaling, and you’ve almost got it. Light gets bounced about wrongly in the glass, causing the effect. Sadly, dealers and the thieving old public jump to conclusions, the daftest but most constant folly.
“Somebody’s dunked this in a cesspool.” It can take two cesspool years to get the right quality of iridescence. I’ve had three good fakes—Laurela at Dovercourt makes them for, er, friendship’s sake—steeping in a marsh near here since last Kissing Friday. I sluch them out to check, every fortnight. It’s grim, because one of those yellow- beaked black ducks has nested on the very spot, interfering little blighter.
“I’ve a certificate, Lovejoy! The industrial chemists—”
Now he was really agitated. I looked at him with real surprise. He’s a con artist, so should know that every antique fake doing the rounds has more certificates than an Oxford don. The trick is to slice a piece of genuine ancient iridescent glass surface from some antique, and have it analysed—then sell the certificate to a dealer, who’ll pass the testimonial off as belonging to some fake drinking goblet he happens to have.
The other box made me hesitate. He was so miserable. I waited. He waited. Liz Sandwell called. I looked expectantly at Frederico. He said nothing, forlorn with his dud glass.
“Look, mate,” I said, with sympathy. The poor bloke had pinned his faith—his greed, really—on scooping the pool. “Get a few fakes from some old genuine piece, and cement them to your fake. The old trick. Then it’ll sell at any provincial auction. And you can use your certificate to authenticate it.”
Hope filled his eyes. Avarice works wonders. “Cement how?”
Narked, I walked off. Dealers are useless. I mean, Theophilus wrote how in his
