A Good Day

We run a small vintage store in a delightful market town on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. The Bohemian capital of the Cotswolds apparently! And we’re as much to blame for that as anyone else in town.

Who’s shop was featured in the Tourist Board’s Promotional Video? That was us, in all our glory. An eighteen-second whistle-stop tour around both of our floors, plus a cameo of yours truly serving a lovely purple-haired customer. (Actually, it was Ella - our Saturday Girl.)

Eighteen-seconds doesn’t sound like much, but the entire film only ran for one hundred and eighty seconds! Three minutes in layman’s terms. A star was born!

Work is a joy! Opening the doors first thing in the morning I feel a welcoming glow. I fire up the vintage soundtrack, Fred and Ginger burst into life with ‘The Continental’, and I’m home again.

Our shop is jam-packed with the most amazing treasures. Or ‘stuff’ as I sometimes call it, on a rare, bad day. Yes, there is a lot of ‘stuff’ and we really don’t need anything else. There’s just no room!

Yet still, new ‘stuff’ appears.

I’ve lost count of the number of times the old antique doorbell rings, followed by an oft-asked question…

‘Do you buy things?’

‘Depends what it is…let’s have a look’

Some glorious pieces have come through that shop door. There was the Victorian Metis beaded buckskin jacket stuffed in the bottom of a black bin liner… The 1920s Egyptian Assuit silver wedding shawl that I first mistook for a table runner… The Chanel collection… The Versace Armchair…But often enough it’s just Mrs. Hodges with a 60s dress that was ugly then and is uglier now!

We mainly draw from our vast network of dealers who know exactly what we are looking for, and they seem to come up with the goods time after time after time!

The beaded 20s Deco gowns. The Miriam Haskell jewellery. The Mitzi Lorenz and Philip Treacey hats.

Plus, my business partner (who I just happen to be married to...) is out and about all of the time hunting down those wonderful little gems that can make all the difference to a day, or sometimes a week and occasionally an entire month!

But often, when she comes back to base with a sack load of treasures, I can tend to turn into ‘grumpy bloke’.

‘Oh God - not more stuff! We don’t have the room! We already have three of these!’

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And this Sunday was no different. A trip to an outdoor antique fair and flea market nestling at the foot of The Malvern Hills. We had arrived at the crack of dawn and we were still queuing an hour later to get in.

Well, I don’t go in. Grumpy here stays in the van with the dogs and the sandwiches while Miss Marple goes off hunting, returning every hour or so with more stash… Good stuff, of course, but my Mr. Grumpy persona swings into action and spoils it all.

Hatpins, feather boas, hip flasks - how many more do we need? Brooches? Amber? Tie Presses…?

The Tie Press; a case in point. Nobody wears ties anymore. Who presses them anyway? But this is a pretty one. Looks like a 30s original. The nice marquetry figuring, although beautiful, is flaking a little. The wingnuts are steel, but in pretty rough condition. Perfect for pressing flowers, if I can get the damn thing open. Of course, it could be restored into a fine piece, but Mr. Grumpy has to throw his two pennorth worth in.

Then off she goes again.

As soon as she’s gone back through the turnstile, I have a proper look at all the stuff. It’s really good, of course! Well-chosen. And, we’ll make a tidy profit. The amber is particularly fine - an unusual colour, pale honey, Baltic - definitely the real deal. A bit of bargain straw we’ll be turning into gold.

And I really do like the tie press. It’s a bloke thing, I suppose. The wingnuts are rusted fast and I just can’t budge them. I root around under my van seat and locate the WD40. A few judicious shots and I manage to get some movement on the nuts at last. I lever off the top and there’s a wad of paper crushed inside. An old leather-bound notebook. It unleashes a musty, musky antique smell that cuts through the WD40. Quite pleasant and churchy. There are a few desiccated stems and petals crumbling at the edges of the pages. I unwind the leather thong that is tightly wound around the book. The years squashed inside the tie press have left grooves on the black skin cover. I prise the brittle pages carefully open and fan the paper like a deck of cards.

There is an inscription inside the front cover.

’To Albert Morris on his birthday - AM 31 08 35 85’

A strange little code, probably the date of his birthday. The 31st of August 1935. The 85 had been added later, pencilled in a different hand.

The book was fascinating, full of hand-written poems and verses and cryptic notes. These were not diary entries, just random things jotted down. There was no consistency in the dates. There would be a flurry of creative writing, and then nothing for a month or two, sometimes longer. Just a few notes of a life going by. A holiday or a wedding anniversary away. Sometimes a year or two would go by without an entry. Then, maybe a recipe that went down well, a wine label peeled and pasted in.

The latter pages became quite poignant and there was mention of a sick wife. Of being alone for the first time. Then a homecoming, another recipe, a flower, and then nothing for a year or two again.

There were four years between the last and the final entry. Scrawly handwriting, a different character from the other entries, the spider scratchings of an ancient hand.

‘Why did I have to live so long?’

The ink was smudged across the page. With tear stains, I thought…

And there was a final pressed pansy, in faded purples and yellows, still holding the faintest scent of summer.

And then there was nothing else to read. No more writing.

I turned to the last page and there was a five-pound note tucked into the endpaper. It was quite new - one of the polymers. The one with yet another grumpy bloke staring out - Winston Churchill this time. It was like looking in a mirror!

The dealer in me took over. Yay! We’ve made a profit! She’d only paid a quid she thought, but here was a fiver, and a fiver was a profit.

So, where was she? It was getting late.

Maybe I should join her for a quick coffee before they closed up for the night.

A good way to spend the fiver.

Then I looked again. Interesting serial number. ‘AM 31 08 35 85’. I flipped back the pages to have another look. The note had the same numbers as the inscription written in the front of the book. Albert Morris, August 31st 1935…

He would probably have been about 85 years old. Well, close enough. Maybe that’s why he’d added the number at the end.

On a whim, I Googled the numbers on my iPhone.

'Bloody Hell!'

The numbers came up really quickly.

I had to look again. There were several entries. I scrolled through the details. Now, this was interesting. Five of the new polymer five-pound notes with random numbers had been doctored by a miniaturist artist. Apparently, he’d engraved a tiny portrait of Agatha Christie into the transparent part of the note, so small as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. Then he spread them around the country to see what would happen.

Very Banksy!

But it wasn’t one of Banksy’s little japes.

I scrolled on.

Four of the notes had already been discovered in various parts of the UK, but there was still one to go.

My scalp tingled. A head rush. Bloody hell! I scrolled down the screen of my dying iPhone for more info. The other four had sold for over 20 grand apiece - a couple online, and the other two at auction…

I checked the numbers again. And again. I felt in my shirt pocket for the little magnifying glass I always carried. I needed a closer look. As I held the note up to the light I could definitely make out something. Through the magnifier, I could make out more. A woman’s face scratched into the polymer. Could well have been Agatha… Blooming Heck!

I checked the numbers again. Good old Google! There was no doubt. They matched the missing numbers. The numbers on the fifth fiver.

Jeez!

I felt sick - elated - faint. My heart was thumping so fast I had to wind down the window of the van for some fresh air.

My iPhone battery was running close to shut-down and the signal was faint. I tried to call her again.

I tried, but I couldn’t get through…

Where was she?

I looked up. Traders and buyers were leaving through the turnstiles in their droves. I had to find her.

Then the iPhone died a painful death.

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I pushed my way through the crowds into the emptying showground. I needed coffee. I needed a shot of something a bit stronger if truth were told. My head was throbbing with the sound of my heartbeat.

And then there she was. In the distance. A great bag of swag in each hand, far too big and heavy for her to carry. I raced over and relieved her of the stuff, completely out of breath and with a dangerous pulse rate.

‘Are you okay?’

I couldn’t answer.

Then she began the babble. Just this and that.

I found my voice.

‘I need to tell you something…’, I blurted out.

‘Can’t it wait until we’ve had a coffee? I’m parched…’

I was too out of puff to answer. I nodded.

‘Look!’, she said. ‘There’s one coffee stall still open. Shall we? My treat.’

So we did. We drank our coffee. Wonderful, deep, dark flavourful coffee. The best I’d ever had.

‘So what did you want to tell me?’

‘Oh, nothing…it can wait. The moment had gone. ‘I’ll tell you on the way back.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘No nothing…don’t worry! I’ll tell you later.’

‘It’s been a good day, hasn’t it?’

I let her have her moment.

‘Yeah - it’s been a really good day!’

And then she kissed me.

‘Love you!’

Could it get any better?

I pulled the little black book out of my shirt pocket and laid it flat on the table between the coffee cups, and she looked at me with a quizzical half-smile. The axis of our world shifted imperceptibly and time seemed to freeze for a second or two…and then I pushed the little book toward her.

Time melted and moved gently on.

Oh, yes - it was going to turn into a very good day indeed!