“What game?” Nicko had toasted some game.
“What I’d buy if I had the money.”
“The Burnet,” I said, in for a penny in for a pound.
“Not the Book of Hours?” I mumbled something in reply. She heard me out. Then, “Lovejoy. How long will you stay?”
“I’m for California, as soon as I can. See the, er, folks.”
“What d’you get at Manfredi’s?”
A slow inhale. American confidences have three-league boots. But I was being my up-front Californian self, so I told her and she shook her head.
“That’s peanuts, Lovejoy.”
“I made some extra last night, waiting on at a private party.” I cursed myself for sounding defensive. Why should I defend stingy old Fredo? “Fredo’s okay.”
We talked of money in the book trade. Actually, book dealers are my least favourite antiquarians. They’re demon elbowers at book fairs, chisellers with each other and worse with customers. Go to any provincial book fair in England. Booksellers’ commonest moan is “There’s no books to
We finished the coffee, both pretending, and went to the antiques show she’d promised me. On the way I heard a girl yell abuse at a taxi. I heard a man tell another, “Get outa here, ya bum.” We saw buskers playing wonderful street music. I nearly had my toes whisked off by every passing car. Noticed that the street corners are kerbed in iron! Asked why the manhole covers steamed so, got no answer. Learned the murder rate in New York topped anybody else’s, though Washington was a contender.
But beautiful it is. Despite what happened it’ll stay that way in my memory for ever and ever.
WE walked alongside Central Park to the New-York Historical Society’s place.
“Note that hyphen, Lovejoy,” Rose warned. “They’re compulsives!”
“Show me a museum curator who isn’t.”
The elegant woman was there ahead of us, standing on the corner of West 77th, ostensibly admiring the Natural History place next road along. I didn’t wave, but wondered uneasily about Rose’s pale indentation on her ring finger. I knew from ancient Doris Day films that marriage holds a special place in American lawyers’ hearts. Was I a prospect, Moira along to suss me? She followed us in.
The exhibition gobsmacked me. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Here was quite a small building, not many people about, getting little attention. And inside they’d pulled together a staggering display of Regency furniture. I’ve seen most of the stuff that matters. I simply stood there, gaping.
Remember preconceptions? Even though I’d landed hoping simply to somehow scrape the transatlantic fare home, I’d been an arrogant swine, imbued with that Old World toffee-nosed attitude: the United States of America’s got no culture, not deep down.
The first glory I saw was a Hepplewhite piece, then a blinding Ince cabinet, two—that’s
There’s only one way to greet people you love, including antiques. And that’s to drift. I kept losing Rose in the process. Finally I chucked in the sponge of pretence as the hours flew away. Until then I’d been trying my best to be the returned expatriate. Now I thought, what the hell, I’ll probably never even see Rose again. I started answering naturally when she asked about things.
“No, Rose.” I remember grinning like a fool. “They loved brass. See that brass inlay, all round the sofa table? They couldn’t resist it. Good old George the Fourth. He has more influence on everyday life through furniture and household decoration than we care to remember. Of course, he was a bit of a ram, women all over the kingdom…” I saw people looking. “Er, he was a libertine…”
“Why did you pull a face at that one?”
“It’s a fraud, love. See the woods? Coromandel’s a devil to use, hard as iron, difficult to place just like the Regency makers did. In fact, it’s as if they filed rather than planed. We use fierce electric sanders and routing planes. If you were to look with a McArthur microscope at the surface, you’d see microscopic…”
More folk listening, one gentleman stern, two others casual. And the elegant beauty. In an odd moment she’d crossed glances with Rose, though neither had shown recognition. I moved Rose on underneath a silver chandelier.
“There’s only a dozen known, replicas excepted. Find one and you’ve pulled off the biggie.” That was a thought, because in the USA possession of a silversmith’s die—with which each made his hallmark—isn’t illegal, whereas back in dozy old East Anglia… So anybody could make a
The clocks were disappointing. Some goon nearby started expounding about the 1820s being the peak of London’s longcase clockmakers—the nerk called them “grandfather”clocks. He would. This sort of thing’s often quoted from the slithery catalogue spiel of auctioneers. You have to arm yourself with truth to counteract it. London clockmakers let longcase clocks alone after about 1804 or so, when the provinces took over. There was a bonny archtop bracket clock in mahogany I would have found room for under my jacket if I’d been the only visitor (only kidding) and a pearlware Wedgwood jug with that priceless yellowish tinge they couldn’t get rid of until they discovered that a little touch of cobalt made all the difference.
“For myself,” I was saying as we left—it shut at teatime—“I’d rather have the lemonish tint.”
I ignored the glimpse of the elegant woman to one side of the entrance, because what did it matter? Her sister was overprotective. So what?
