The Grace in Older Women Read Free

is that sharks in
Australia's blue waters have killed millions. They haven't. Their total is 182,
since records began when an Aborigine lady was eaten off New South Wales in
1791. And peaceful ancient East Anglia's villages aren't so peaceful or stable
as they used to be. Why, look at that place Jox mentioned. Fenstone, hamlet of
pestiferous Juliana Witherspoon (Miss), is in decline. Its population is
dwindling fast, post office closed from atrophy, young people moving away,
parishes merging, houses unbelievably standing empty. And Tinker, my oppo,
whose antennae for antiques are worth any amount of electronics, and who does
mundane (but not servile) jobs for me, passed through Fenstone itself last St
Pumpkin's Day to pick up some antiques from a church robbery that I was
brokering for some lass. He told me it was like a ghost village. No wonder the
survivors were holding out their begging bowls.
    Somebody was asking me something.
    ‘Eh? Oh, wotch, Addie.'
    She stood smiling, tried to take my arm and propel me somewhere. I
shook her off gently, which takes some resolve, seeing I covet Adelaide
Allardyce more than most. Her husband is a security man.
    A born misanthropist, even now he was waiting in his car. As if
people like me can't be trusted, the swine.
    'Come and see this, Lovejoy. We're all agog about it.'
    'It?'
    ‘A colander. Two proddies came peering at it.'
    A proddie is somebody who goes ahead of an antiques road show,
which is a group of 'antiques experts' that travels from town to village, city
to hamlet, offering to value (free of charge!) any antiques you might bring
from your attic. They are loosely described as honest, and claim to act in your
very best interests. Ahead of them barnstorm their proddies, putting up
posters, bleating enthusiasm on local radio, flagging newspapers, stirring up
eagerness. If you think of it, the proddies have to get us all searching our cellars for antiques, otherwise they'd get the
sack. Their nickname is synonymous with unscrupulous.
    'This way. Item 98, think it is.'
    There's no point in hurrying through an auction viewing day. I
take my time, drift, feeling the love that emanates from the few antiques
hiding among the crud. There's always one beautiful antique, take my word for
it. For always read every single time. Don't say I didn't warn you. If you go
to a viewing day and see only an appalling mess of junk, and depart seething at
time wasted cursing me for a fibber, then you've missed it. Serves you right
for being unable to hear love shrieking in your earhole.
    'Slowdown.'
    Addie tutted impatiently. 'You amble ,
Lovejoy.'
    Women are great at impatience. It's not their fault. They're
simply born with it. For me, hurrying is a terrible waste of all the seconds in
between. Amble if you've a mind to. Don't gawp, ogle, rubberneck your way among
the mangles, cupboards, flower stands, bureaux, old desks and boxes of decrepit
toys. Looking never does much for me. It's feel that detects love. Simple as
that. Eagle eyesight can't do it. Nor can those cunning electronic devices that
folk carry about these days to peer microscopically at veneer or vaporize old
paint.
    Addie stamped her foot, pretty but pointless. I've been pushed by
fearsome pushers and still stayed put.
    Give you an instance: once, in Yorkshire, I saw a dealer
inspecting
    a painting at a big auctioneer's. He had more gadgets than the
parson preached about. Stereoscopic MacArthur microscope, water immersion and
polarizing lenses, pigment anaylser, electronic impedance device to suss out
precious stones - he was a walking laboratory, him and his briefcases. Even had
a bonny secretary taking dictation as he probed and fussed. The reason I fell
about laughing was that later I saw him bid, chucking away a fortune on a dud.
The biggest joke was that next to the forgery was a genuine slip-inlaid celadon
ewer. It had been made in Korea by firing the pottery piece on a ring of sand,
producing the most gorgeous of colours, in