A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair

4

THERE ARE PUBLIC gardens where Tower Bridge Road crosses Abbey Street near St Mary Magdalene. Facing the New Caledonian Market proper, Fawnance Duleppo sits. He plays a tuba - only oompah, oompah - in memory of a great-great-grandpa who, he says, in 1853 led the first ever national Brass Band Champions, that started the Victorians' brass-band fever.

Seeing this grubby musician in his tattered trenchcoat, crutches temporarily laid aside, you can easily forget what brass bands meant. Passions seethed. Everything was choirs, silver bands, marching concertina teams. Millmasters vied with each other to bribe away rival factories' best trombonists. There was a corrupt transfer system because rival mine owners hated the thought of some other coal mine seizing the glory at Manchester's famed championships. Judges were seduced, threatened, even waylaid. Nowadays, it's still a musical tradition in the north, but the fervour is no more. We're down to Fawnance playing oompah, his cloth cap out for coins. He wears a medal, Mossley Temperance Band, Winners, First Brass Band Champions 1853. Don't laugh. On that brilliant day there were 16,000 competitors, outdoing our drug-riddled, bribe-skewed so-called Olympics. When the Bess O'T'Barn Brass Band visited Australia in the early 1900s all Melbourne thronged to a standstill. Like I say, though, progress has reduced yet another art-form to a toothless beggar in a cloth cap. I think his medal's homemade, though.

'Wotcher, Fawnance. Nice tune.' It wasn't a tune at all, just parps.

He paused, took a breath. 'It's me teeth, Lovejoy,' he said. 'You're never the same when your lips melt. Mine went both together, lips and teeth.'

'Still, you play pretty well.' I dropped coppers in his hat.

'Ta, wack. Having a bad day? I heard Dosh sent you here.'

'Aye. Don't know where to start.'

'Do Sturffie a favour, Lovejoy. Whatever you do, do it fast. I seen that Doshie here with Chev a week back. Looked a nail job to me.'

'Cash and dash? Ta, Fawnance.' I hesitated, wanting to repay him for vital information.

'Look. They sell a brass renaissance trumpet kit up in Bradford, Manningham Lane I think. It's in the modern D major, which is a pig of a key, but they do a brass crook to get it to D, low pitch. It's got no ornamentation. Get Jerry Sorebones to engrave it. You know him, in Farnworth? Tell him I said not to do modern soldering, okay? Aged right, you'd sell it easy as an antique. Don't for heaven's sake get one of them modern angel faces to decorate the trumpet bell. It's a dead giveaway.'

'Ta. You're a pal, Lovejoy.'

Aye, I thought morosely, to everybody else. Never to me. I drifted into the market, listening, watching, getting shoved.

You can't help loving words. Words were everywhere, this particular Friday. If it wasn't Gock from Pontipool shouting about some duff bureau that was supposed to be priceless Ince and Mayhew but wasn't, it was flirtatious little Samanta Sellers working hard - she alone knew how hard - to sell her dud gemstone inlays to fund her next face-lift. God knows why Samanta resorts to surgery. She's a lovely smooth (not to say surgically whittled) lass of twenty-three. Her loving sister once told her she'd got an odd face and she's been paranoid ever since. Women. Forlorn, I sat on the wall swinging my legs, absorbing the balderdash. The stallholders' patter was so daft I wonder if antiques cause brain damage.

I'm not big on words. You may have noticed. They're strange. For instance, we have a useful word to utter falsehood - to lie - but none for speaking the truth. Is it because words can be lethal? Once you've spoken a word, it becomes a terrible deed. Words can mean that murder is on the way. Look at Rache, who moved in with me. I hardly knew who she was at first. Ten times a second Rache told me that she was hooked on holidays. Four days later she suddenly blazed away at me for 'not communicating!' and swept out in rage. I'd thought I was doing her a favour by keeping quiet. See the problem? Words.

And take Stan, the Treble Tile's barman. Well, Stan set his sights on this lovely bird called Angharad. Her husband's an amateur cyclist forever pedalling up and down the Pennines. Handsome Stan really campaigned for Angharad. He did everything a wooer could - gifts, flowers. He even dashed her his priceless antique watch. The whole tavern was agog. We were worn out.

The luscious Angharad took his largesse with disdain.

Quietly observing this sorry pantomime most nights, was Percy. Percy was a mediocre market gardener. The business was actually run by his go-for-gold missus while Percy imbibed. One night at closing time, this conversation, I swear, occurred: Percy: Don't blame Stan, Angharad. You're gorgeous.

Angharad (amused): Not you too, Percy?

He (smiling): I know I've no hope. Only, I'd woo you different.

She (amused by this pot-bellied oaf): How?

He: I'd say: Angharad, I'm desperate for you. Give me thirty minutes in the car park, and you can have any Mediterranean holiday. With anybody you like. One condition.

She (eyeing the daft old git): Oh? What condition?

He: Book the holiday through Cumbersedge and Darff Travel Agent. I own a third, see.

She (laughing): Oh you do, do you?

He (smiling along): Expenses-paid Med holiday, for half an hour with you in the car park.

She (cool): Come on, then. Night, Stan. (Exeunt, the world aghast) I heard every word.

See? Once words are out, the deed is all but done. I'm sure Shakespeare's said it better because he always has, but it's true. Rache had simply planned whisking me on holiday.

And make no mistake, I truly loved her. Reflecting on this, I saw again that old lass tottering under a stack of obsolescent black LP gramophone records. Soon after Rache left, I took up with an older grand dame of ancient lineage, who owned a Chelsea antiques firm. Now, why did I think of that?

Highborn or lowly, women trust words. I don't. Words, dear friends, are scary.

Here endeth today's gospel. Except for that tip about holidays. Bribe a woman, you may get nowhere. Bribe her with a holiday, you're into yippee land. Where was I? Forlorn, in Bermondsey.

Mimi was tacking up fraudulent ethnic falsities outside her dad's van - authenticity nil, ethnicity nil, colour ten out of ten - and being chatted up by passing marauders of impressive dubiety. Sir Ponsonby was milking the lovely Moiya December as an enticing advert for all he was worth, making her ascend his stall, the better to make dealers gape. She lounged, sprawled, innocent of the impression she was creating. It's lucky women don't know the effect they have.

'You sap, Lovejoy.' Alice plopped down beside me. 'That Moiya knows what she's doing, the bitch.'

Palace Alice is a pleasant Northamptonshire lass, brings her own caravan every market day. She has a little lad in Daventry, and does all the London street markets. Her two brothers and her bloke Kayzo are in clink for general naughtiness, namely inflicting harm on a traffic warden while in execution of a robbery. They run fake auctions, but a fake auction is a long time for antique dealers to stay lucky.

'Does she?' I was surprised.

'Why d'you think she shows herself off? Posing, so hundreds can ignore her? Men are stupid.'

I went for it. 'Gemstones, love. Who?'

She eyed me. 'Dosh Callaghan, wasn't it, got gold-bricked? It couldn't happen to an uglier bloke. Ask Gluck.'

'Who's Gluck?'

Alice smiled. 'You ought to drop by more often, Lovejoy. Dieter Gluck's one of the new wave. Has a placer in Chelsea. Deals in Camden Passage, Islington, Portobello Road, Cutler Street by Petticoat Lane.'

'He a gemstone man?'

'He's everything.' She spoke with envy. 'Wish I'd half his clout. Pal of Sir Ponsonby. You know his Chelsea shop, Lovejoy.'

Know as in knew? They've lately discovered a new physics particle. It's one of those quark things, and exists for a billion-trillionth of a second, give or take a yard. For a brief moment I knew how it felt, one flash and goodnight Vienna. To an outside observer, the antiques game might seem pretty static, but from within it's zoom city.

'Is Gluck here?' I looked about.

'Him, in a market? Too grand. Took over that pal of yours in Chelsea. The lads still mutter about it.' That pal of mine? I was worn out.

'Padpas, Alice. I need an answer. Dosh is a sod.'

She stood. 'Thought you'd never ask. Come into my parlour, Lovejoy.'

Her van was just by the church, being watched over by a couple of graveyard winos.

She pays them in scotch. I didn't really want to, because divvying gives me hell of a headache in daytime. It's easier in the lantern hours but I don't know why.

'Look, Alice. I'll come later. What time will you leave?'

'About two, Lovejoy.'

Applause rang out for Mimi Welkinshaw's next striptease. I promised to call on Alice, and eeled into the maelstrom. Things had got on top of me. I wandered, listening and looking. I don't know about you, but when despond takes hold I seek the familiar.

Nostalgia soothes. I looked for Doctor Coffin, who used to lie down in a gilded coffin, and bought any antiques to do with death. The Victorians were great celebrants of mortality, so he did a roaring trade. He dressed as an undertaker, black everything, went for the cadaverous effect. He even had ghoul-riddled patter. Other dealers fed him comic lines: 'You'll be the death of me, Doc!' and he'd say, grinning, 'Promise?' to great hilarity. He's not been seen for donkey's years.

And there used to be a middle ager dressed up as a Navaho squaw. Probably got every detail and feather wrong, but she ran a neat Regency porcelain stall. Puntasia, she called herself. Always had one dazzler, a genuine antique -whoops! There she was! I stopped, joyous.

'Wotcher, Puntasia. How's it doing?'

'Better than you, Lovejoy!' She offered me her peace pipe. It's phoney, smokes like a burned barn and stinks worse. You have to accept it or she does a tomahawk war dance. 'Chatting up Alice? She knows zilch about your gemstone problem.'

Rumour is slow in some places. In Bermondsey it's quarky, if there's such a word. I choked on her pipe's carcinogenic filth.

'And you do?' What had Alice said about Chelsea? I guessed, fishing, 'My pal lost everything to somebody called Dieter Gluck, I hear.'

Puntasia took her peace pipe back and adjusted her feathered head-dress. 'Colette was doomed, Lovejoy. Ever heard of a younger bloke staying with an ageing tart? Always ends in tears. Don't go down Chelsea. It'll break your heart.'

The bobby dazzler on her barrow shone like the sun. A few dealers stopped to eye it with lust. I said nothing, just felt its warm clamour shudder through me. I've always been interested in pot pourris.

Back in older days, homes stank. Coaches, towns, rivers, alleyways, churches, schools, elegant ladies and their beaus ponged to high heaven. Factories were stews from hell.

Miracle of miracles, mankind bravely held on in the filth. In spite of all, civilization advanced by creating wonders. One genius was young Josiah Spode who, about 1762, managed the Turner and Banks pottery in Stoke-on-Trent in the English Midlands.

Risking his all on a dicey mortgage he bought the joint, and began experimenting. His talent made him a front runner, like Wedgwood. Under-glaze transfer printing,

'Staffordshire Blue', white pearl ware, his own blinding Spode blue, and his precise (never smudgy the way forgeries and fakes are) designs, made him a legend. His firm was always honest, even after he died in 1797. This is why antique dealers love Spode, because Spode marks are simple and never cunningly frilled to pretend they were the marks of other manufacturers. He had a Josiah Spode II and Josiah Spode III, and they copied Meissen, Chelsea, and others superbly. The plain fact is that old Spode spells money.

The pot pourri evolved in the smelly past. It's a container to hold mixtures of scented flowers and herbs. These mixtures were kept dry in England, but were wet on the Continent. It's still popular. Find one like Puntasia had on her stall, and you can sleep in next Monday morning. The most sought ones have two lids. One lid is fenestrated - has pierced holes so the lovely aroma will make your room fragrant. It is bigger than the solid inner lid, which is merely to keep the petals' perfume in. When a lady's gentleman was about to call, maidservants would rush about the house removing the inner lids and leaving the outer lids on the pot pourri vessels. The rooms would become scented, allowing romantic thoughts to bloom.

With a mute appeal to Puntasia - her name's a mixture of Fantasia and Pocahontas because she's daft on cartoon films -I removed the lids. Inverting the container I groaned. William Copeland joined Josiah Spode II as the eighteenth century turned.

The indented Spode mark changed to a painted Spode and Copeland, which met my eyes. You can't match the feeling. Just think of the romantic trystes this lovely porcelain had witnessed! Reverently I returned it, my vision misty.

'Genuine, Lovejoy?' Puntasia asked, real pity in her voice.

'Perfect, love. Give me first offer?'

'Can't, Lovejoy. You only pay in IOUs. How much should I ask?'

'As much as you like, love. That's Spode blue. Buy the market.'

'Good luck in Chelsea, Lovejoy.'

'Chelsea? Who said anything about going to Chelsea?'

Quickly I walked down Tower Bridge Road, crossed by the Old Kent Road, and eventually survived the maddening traffic at the Elephant and Castle, to catch the Tube.

If I'd the sense I was born with, I'd have raced to find Colette earlier. That doddering scrumper lady in the market had reminded me of her, yet I hadn't taken my mind's hint. Colette, my 'old pal', was the rich owner I once made smiles with. When in trouble, reach for money.

The journey took minutes, just long enough to think of Colette.