* * *
The trade refers to him as the ‘mysterious emperor of ancient things’. They are ignorant of his origins and the way in which he developed his eclectic taste, formed as it was in the sewers and tunnels under London. In the world of auction lots and bric-a-brac the only man who has knowledge of Finn’s identity is not a man at all, but a female cross-dresser who knows how to keep a secret. Finn must trust someone, and she, Pauline, asks no questions.
Finn continued his apprenticeship, as he calls it, in a lowly manner. He attended scenes of misery; homes where people were cowed by their desperation for money, and where he then bundled their incongruous items to resell for a profit. Although there is no better pleasure than to buy cheap and sell dear, he could sustain no appetite for their misfortune.
For two decades he travelled to Britain’s ports of entry at Hull and Yarmouth, where a healthy and seemingly endless bounty of imported furniture was his for the sniffing. When he began making a decent living, temptation straddled him like a hungry whore. The fakes and forgeries flowing in London’s Wardour Street presented him with an opportunity to make a larger profit. Greed soared up in him and so clawed at his nerves that he gave a few spurious items to Jonesy and instructed him to mend and carve them into passable pieces of ancient furniture. How easy it was for Finn to proclaim his redemption while passing the hours in Millbank all those years ago. Now that temptation was before him, he almost fell flat on his face, for he ached for that shortcut to profit.
It was the lesbian Pauline who put him straight again before he tipped properly over the edge. The heft of her person and her extensive experience made her formidable on Wardour Street, where she sold Finn’s merchandise. When he first met Pauline she was already too old to continue her buying journeys, and eventually when she was assured he possessed ‘the eye’ she anointed Finn with her knowledge of the golden route across the Continent, and more importantly, her contacts. She refused to sell his pieces of trumpery, though she praised Jonesy’s fine and detailed work, and insisted that Finn take an oath to forswear thievery in all its forms, forever. He did so honestly, with an inner smirk at the word ‘forever’ and its particular meaning to him. Fifty years have seen the burial of Pauline and her brogues, and now a Mr Tiller fills new shoes.
Finn no longer crosses the Continent every other year, for it is gruelling, and as glamorous as a drunk at a christening. He rests his head on flat pillows in bad hotels and eats cheap food with the locals. The luxury itself is in being far away from London and the house on Magdalen Street. Travelling gives him perspective when he is tempted to forgo his drops and die a painful death, which he contemplates periodically. He plans his journeys around his long sleeps, departing a few weeks after he wakes. The profit proves so great that Clovis curbs her envy of his time away.
Low on stock this year, by June he relaxes in the Dover ferry’s roomy saloon. He blinks at the vision striding towards him and then almost empties his bowels when he’s sure of it.
‘What in holy hell are you doing? You can’t be here.’
‘Calm down. I’ve left them a note. My sleep was a month ago, I wasn’t followed, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t come along.’
Rafe is unusually determined.
Finn almost lets it drop. He’s near allowing the whole prolonged lie to unravel at last. What a bloody relief it would be to confess, ‘I’m not your father. Go home.’
But it’s too late for that, and too late to disembark.
The railway line between Paris and Marseilles travels smoothly. By the time they approach the southern port, Finn’s anger subsides. There are small, awkward efforts of politeness: ‘You take this bed, it’s firmer.’ ‘No, you have it, I’m all right here.’
The wind of Marseilles is in Finn’s favour and the whiff of it leads him to the enamelled pottery of the widow Perrin. The bargaining journey of 1914 begins.
In Stamboul they sample a few draws of cheroots and accept lemonade from a new dealer. The air is different here, warm and fragrant with mint and sweet dust. Finn’s challenge is to haunt the old places while making new contacts. He buys a beauty of a gilded pipe bowl. The smell of it makes him dizzy.
Like a shadow, Rafe follows Finn each day, through the souk and to each appointment, every coffee house. He’s disquieted and doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. Finn assumed Rafe would take advantage of his freedom and explore, go a little wild, but he soon recognizes the mask of disorientation on his face.
‘I know how you’re feeling,’ Finn offers. ‘I felt the same way on my first trip abroad since … since we lost our freedom.’
Finn quickly picks up on Rafe’s sigh.
‘Our situation. It’s not your fault, Rafe.’
‘Of course it is.’
On the train to St Petersburg they sink into comfortable seats and sip strong, sweet tea. Their silences, made less awkward by their days together, are now filled with nods of acknowledgement of the sweeping Russian landscape.
The train rattles on for hours without offering a view of a single settlement, followed by frequent station stops, where hawkers wait on the platforms selling smoked fish the size of a large man’s thigh. Having once sampled the chicken drowned in soured cream and cheese, Finn has since shunned the restaurant car. Today he buys fish and sausages from a kerchiefed woman on the platform who hunches with a bundle of birch twigs on her back. In their compartment Rafe mentions the pungent odour, but it is nothing compared to the fish paste the Mongolians have smuggled on board.
Their salty
