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, except 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.