Paid and Loving Eyes

Big John nodded. “Right, Corse.”

The world relaxed, thankful it could orbit safely until next time.

Josh Sparrow dragged on a couple of floodlights, falling over wires and needing three goes to get the plugs right while his serfs carried a small japanned table in. I couldn’t help staring at Corse. I was thunderstruck. I’d never seen Big John countermanded before. And he’d backed down. It was like learning that God picks his nose. Feet of clay, or something.

“Lovejoy.” Josh was telling me things, and I wasn’t paying attention.

“Eh? Oh, aye. Ready.” I stepped out of the limelight.

The American advanced. She was dressed casually but clever, if you follow. Frocks can look almost exactly the same, cheap or rich. But some slight difference instantly tells you that one is a shop-bought end-of-sale good- riddancer, and the other classy and extortionate. This was the latter.

“Phoebe Colonna,” she announced, cool as you please.

She faced the three, standing for all the world like a girl about to recite. Small, hands folded. The pool of light made an arena of the flagged floor. No other lights, just the single shaded bulb above. The japanned table gleamed. I could make out the pale shirts and collars of the nerks around the arena. A mini-circus.

“Before I begin,” she preached, “I particularly want to thank you gentlemen for the opportunity of presenting my work here in East Anglia. You will observe that I have paid particular attention to the composition of the glass incorporated—”

“Get on with it,” Corse growled. His catch-phrase.

Phoebe gamely kept up her prattle as she hurriedly beckoned a serf forward. He carried a covered object.

“—questions of design integral to the complexities of rationale, creativity-wise…” Et mind-bending cetera. I bet she’d slogged, postdoctoralwise, to be that slick in balderdash.

I watched her reach out, still lecturing away, and gently lift the cover as floodlights splashed on…

Only on the Portland Vase.

“Lovejoy?” Josh timidly interrupted her to warn me, stay where I was, but by then I was already across and staring down at the object. Lovely, truly bliss. I started smiling. Time hung about for a minute or several.

“Can I?” I asked.

Phoebe checked with the three by a quick glance. Josh tutted, coughed away a smoke spume. I lifted it from its stand. Flat disc base, not the knobbed amphora type. Beautiful work. She made to point, guessing I was some sort of referee.

“See where I effected the cameo relief carving—my own patented blowing process—of the white outer layer?” She was so proud of her work. I could have eaten her.

“Thank you, Phoebe,” I said. My eyes had filled for some reason. Eyes are stupid.

She was moved. “You appreciate beauty, Lovejoy.”

Her vase was covered, I retreated, Phoebe smiled out of the way, and on came Steve Yelbard. He was a real artisan, decisive, no cackle, just put his piece down, lifted the cover and stood aside.

Thin, in overalls, scuffed boots, pencil behind his ear, he looked ready to make another ten soon as somebody got a furnace started. Another Portland Vase. Fake, of course. Which is the truth word for a copy, look-alike, reproduction, simulant.

I didn’t need to go over to it. Excellent work. Interestingly, his was the full amphora type, base dropping to a rounded point in its stand.

Now the Portland Vase is famous. Everybody knows it, and its story. Any Roman cased glass —layers made separately then heat-fused—is beautiful. The most gorgeous of all is the Portland. Cobalt-blue translucency, it looks solid black unless you try to shine a light through. Opaque white glass figures adorn it—Peleus and Thetis, a tree, a cupid, some sort of sea dragon, you know the sort of thing; all those deities whose names you can never get the hang of. That’s about it, really, except that there’s only one. The British Museum has it. And here we were with two. Isn’t life grand?

Corse the charm-school graduate grunted, “Shift. Let’s look.”

I stood aside. Steve Yelbard waited, talking technology with Phoebe. His eyes never left her Portland. She talked attractively and laughed merry laughs. The three rollers stalked round, looking at the two glass pieces. They hadn’t a clue. A roller is a big investor in antiques. Any old, or even new, antique will do as long as it’s worth a lot. They’re nerks on the whole, but usually dangerous. I cleared my throat. Nobody stopped talking. Steve was the only one who looked at me.

“I saw your exhibition in St Edmundsbury, Steve. Not bad.”

He brightened. “My prototype?” He grimaced. Real glass-makers always apologize, knowing nowt is perfect.

“Two prototypes,” I reminded him. “One’s base was disced, like Phoebe’s. You decided against it?”

“I believe the original was in a true Greek amphora shape. The point removed and later replaced with a disc. Lovely, but twelve centimetres —”

“Twelve point one.” I nodded. “And a different blue.”

He took instant offence. “I wasn’t shunning the challenge, Lovejoy. It’s a question of what’s artistically right.”

“No talking!” Corse snarled.

I leapt away and shut up. Jan was chattering, displaying his awesome vocabulary, making an impression on everyone listening, chiefly himself.