Nervous at having to deputise for Henry Semper in his chat, I was relieved when only twenty or so passengers turned up. They’d never heard of me, and I wasn’t famous June Milestone or good old TV star Henry Semper. I decided to speak on jewellery. The shops had some on sale. I recognised a few faces. Delia Oakley and her friend Fern, of course, with Lauren along presumably to suss out the opposition (me). One old lady came wearing every bauble she had.
The ship’s newspaper listed seventeen different entertainments in competition. I was glad. A salesgirl came with trays of trinkets. She put pendants and rings out on velvet. For a few minutes I spoke about the problems of wearing baubles.
“Think what a jewel is,” I said, once I’d got going. “It’s only a bit of something we value. Like, when aluminium was purified by a Dane in 1825 it was the same price as gold, even though it’s Planet Earth’s commonest metal and the Ancient Babylonians used its compounds in medicines and dyes. See? Now, it’s stacked in every rubbish tip. We’d laugh to see an emerald set in aluminium, but the Victorians thought that beautiful.”
I asked the salesgirl to uncover her trays of jewellery.
“Hands up those who use spray perfumes, aftershaves and the like.” They all did. “Everybody? Well, you want locking up. And who keeps their rings on when washing up? Everybody? You’re under arrest. Even diamonds are affected by washing liquids supposedly gentle to your hands, as the advertising slogans say.”
Somebody interrupted. “But a gemstone can’t be destroyed, can it?”
“Untrue, missus. Want an example? Remember those bonny marcasite brooches? There have been instances when they’ve been left in an ordinary box. Years later, you find the box holds nothing but powder. It hasn’t been stolen – the marcasite has simply oxidised to powder. And marcasite is pure crystalline iron sulphide.”
“Diamonds are indestructible, though, aren’t they? They’re the hardest substance known.”
“Almost true. In Australia and South Africa, old miners believed in the sledgehammer test. If they whacked a gemstone with a sledgehammer and it didn’t break, they thought it proof the gem was a real diamond. Not necessarily true. They must have shattered hundreds of genuine diamonds, right from the moment little Erasmus Jacobs found his ‘sparkling stone’ in South Africa in 1866 and diamonds became everybody’s darling. A diamond is more vulnerable than you might think. It has planes of cleavage.”
“Which gemstones are most easily damaged?” That was Delia.
“Organic gemstones. Spray perfumes are a real risk, especially to pearls. The pearl’s nacre – the shiny outer coat you pay for – gets dissolved at the pearl’s equator. You can never get it back. It’s the same with mother-of-pearl. I once was in a lady’s … er, room. She had a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid box for her jewellery, eighteenth century, on her, er, coffee table. It was blotchy. She often used one of those spray perfumes, see?”
“Why did she have it on her coffee table and not in her bedroom?” a lady demanded.
I went on, red-faced, “It happens with all the natural gems. There are principally four: pearls, jet, amber, and ivory. Traditional jewellers add coral, making five.”
“I have a coral necklace,” said a lady, proudly showing it off. “It’s a gemstone. They said so when I bought it.”
“That’s true,” said the shopgirl, immediately defensive.
“Lovely,” I said feebly.
The lady’s necklace was clumsily done, a sequence of coral pieces mismatched and made from waste fragments powdered and glued to simulate the real thing. The trade calls it resining, because you crush powdered coral (adding a pinkish dye to make your rubbishy fake even more gorgeous) and simply add resin adhesive. Let the thing set, in the shape you think will sell quick, and there you’ve made a perfectly good-looking piece of “original coral”, if you stretch the truth a bit. Her necklace was mostly resined coral powder. I sighed. I hate having to tell a lady she’s spent good money and bought only gunge.
“Coral is getting rare now, luv, because of pollution. It’s actually the skeletons of small sea creatures in the Cnidaria phyllum. Its personal name is Corallium. It was highly prized even in the ancient world. When the creature dies, it leaves behind the red stone we call coral, sometimes white, pink. One species actually creates slatey-blue coral, but I don’t like it.”
“Are all gems really stone, then?”
“Come close and see.”
The girl, Donna, had on display ivory and bone rings and bangles, amber earrings, one small jet piece, some coral, and various cultured pearls. The folk left their seats and crowded round.
“No. Some purists say amber is the only true organic gem, because it is a fossilised tree resin. The Baltic, where this ship’s sailing, is sometimes called the Amber Sea, because of the amber they find along the littoral. It floats as far as England’s east coast.”
“Is this ivory?”
A lady passed me a brooch of pseudo-eastern design. I could tell from the way she glanced with hard eyes at Donna that she’d bought it from the jewellery shop on Deck Seven in the Atrium. I borrowed the salesgirl’s loupe and peered in the best light available. She carried a MacArthur microscope – basically a small illuminated tube. It focuses by a little ratchet wheel, and shows you the surface of any material in high magnification.
“Ivory is a chemical they call oxyapatite – calcium phosphate to you and me – and a bit of chalk, with a little organic material.” I looked up. “This is nicely cut.” I was being kind. It was horrible. “Ivory’s elastic, in fact, and lovely to carve because it’s not very hard. People who work in ivory praise its tenacity – that means it won’t splinter easily.”
“Isn’t it banned?” asked a young woman, ready to crusade.
“Dunno. Some folk argue the African elephant is over-multiplying now it’s protected, others the opposite. Stored ivory abounds, but it dries out and tends to crack.”
“What about the elephants?” the belligerent bird said.
“They only live fifteen years in zoos, but live to over sixty in the wild. Why keep them in prison? I think we should let them go. More years of life is generally a plus.”
“Is it real, though?” the brooch’s owner asked.
“It’s ivory.” I passed it back. “Bone has a heterogeneous network structure – you see it by one of these tube things Donna has. Remember the density test we all did in school and thought a stupid waste of time? Loss of weight in water? Transparent resins can be used to trick the buyer by adding white oxyapatite and chalk mixtures, but they’re more dense. Ordinary solid plastic is less dense. Do the simple test in your kitchen at home. It’s easy and interesting.”
Donna looked relieved. Well she might, because many of her “ivory” items in her shop were actually plastics, but there you go.
“One of the easiest tests – if the shopkeeper will allow you to try it – is to heat a paper clip. Press the tip into the ivory. It turns black and gives off a pungent burnt-meat smell. Plastic offers no resistance to the red-hot metal. Any questions?”
“Would you look at these pearls?”
A man passed me his wife’s string of pearls.
“There’s always one give-away with every gem,” I told him, smiling. “These are synthetic. Look at them. Perfectly spherical, whatever their sizes. Natural pearls are eccentric, however slight the tendency. Jewellers pierce natural pearls so the axis along which he drills the string hole makes the thing like Planet Earth, which only seems a perfect sphere but really isn’t. It’s slightly flattened.”
I looked through the loupe. “You can tell they’re not frauds because the surfaces look like they’re trying to appear ploughed, with miniature plecks. Beginners call it moon-surfaced.”
“Write me a certificate saying all that,” the man said, highly narked. “I bought them from a jeweller as natural pearls, not cultured. I’m going to sue them.”
“Not me, mate,” I said wearily. I always get this. I once got sued for not helping a couple to sue. Can you believe folk that daft? “You want to march on Rome, get on with it.”
“You’ve got to!” The bloke got heated. His wife tried to pull him down. He stood glowering. “You’re an employee of this company! I’m going to – ”
“I’m a paying passenger,” I lied. “I’m only filling in here because somebody’s sick. Do your own lawsuit.”
“Can I ask, please,” Delia interrupted smoothly, saving me more lies, “about amber? It’s the only one you’ve missed out. I’ve been wondering whether to buy some from the Mayfair shop upstairs.”
“Ta.” And I meant it. The bloke, silly sod, sat whispering angrily to his missus. “Actually, jet is an organic stuff too. No longer fashionable because it was used once for mourning brooches and pendants. I love amber.”
Donna nervously passed me the tray. I picked up some earrings.
“Genuine amber. I’ve yet to find anybody who hates amber. The least dense of all organic gems. The loveliest-ever line of poetry in the world was inspired by amber. In Milton’s Comus. Only a few words, but it’s inspired a succession of Hollywood films about the lass called Sabrina.”
“Say it!” some lady called.
I went red and said I’d a poor memory. I saw June Milestone smile, now standing at the back among more passengers. The meagre crowd had grown, probably thanks to the seething bloke and his frigging cultured pearls.
“Floats in ordinary salt water, which is why it’s found on the seashore. Splinters when you slice it. Amber workers get spicules in their skin, causing what they call amber rash. The insects and spiders entombed in it are highly prized, but make me feel ill.”
“They’re proof it’s genuine,” Donna put in, proud of her displays.
“In a way, but remember that copal – that varnishy stuff portrait painters use – looks just like amber, and is also a natural resin. It’s cheap, and you can immerse an insect in it as it hardens. Make a strong salt solution – ordinary kitchen salt – and your amber floats, but so does copal. Plastics sink, unless they’re hollow – hold them up to the light and you see the space.”
“Look,” the man said, still wanting a war because he’d been stupid.
“Doesn’t amber attract shreds of paper?”
Thanks, Delia. “So do many things, if you rub them. Proper alcohol – not methylated spirits – in a minute or two will soften copal, so you can rub a mark onto a white hankie. It’s a good test. Amber’s resistant.”
“So this amber is genuine?” Donna, still batting for her shop.
“These earrings are, love, yes. The risk is buying amber fragments heated and pressed together. A terrible fraud. Amber carvers use this trick to save wasting amber bits. Always test amber in alcohol. In two minutes, you see the crazy-paving look on the surface if it’s amberoid, meaning fragments pressed together.”
I passed Donna the earrings. “No offence, but myself, I’d wait to buy in St Petersburg or elsewhere in the Baltic. They say people practically give it away, it’s a quarter of what you’ll pay back home. That’s it, folks. Ta for listening.”
A few gathered round to ask questions. This always happens, people too shy to blurt out their queries but wanting answers about this pendant or that antique.
Prompted by the kindly Delia, they pressed me how to buy amber. I was gasping for a cuppa.
“Pliny in the Ancient World knew about it. The Romans loved white amber, which they thought was a kind of sea wax. Red, transparent amber was thought to protect against evil, so was a special present for babies.”
“Isn’t there gold amber?” from Delia, kindly obstructing the irate bloke who wanted to force his way through.
“The Teutonic Knights were busy all along the Baltic,” I said with gratitude. “They wanted the white amber, for making rosary beads, symbolising purity, see? Most of the Baltic amber’s pale gold. I like the red Chinese amber most. Clear amber sells higher in Britain. An ancient amber cup workmen found under Hove railway station near Brighton is in the British Museum. I’d give anything to… er, hold it just once.”
She smiled knowingly. “Have you ever worked amber, Lovejoy?” She segued sideways, still blocking the narked goon and his blinking pearls.
“I’ve had a few goes, with the small pieces I’ve gleaned from the East Anglian seaside. It’s easily done. Any morning at low tide you’ll find a couple of pieces an hour, average, with a bucket of salt water.
“You see all sorts of amber antiques. Candlesticks, bowls, meerschaum pipes, carved plaques, devotional religious carvings, snuffboxes, chess boards, chess pieces, amazing things.”
I tried to drift away. They drifted with me. I tried to keep going on the subject, to prevent the man trapping me into conversation about his grievance.
“You either get amber alone, or as encrustation. Not a pleasant word for such beautiful material. It means using amber to embellish other stuffs, as in amber plaques round a chalice. There was even the famous Amber Room – a whole room!”
“Look. If I were to offer – ”
“No, mate,” I told him. I was getting as narked as he was. “I won’t testify under any circumstances. Law never does anybody any good. Don’t throw good money after bad.”
“The Amber Room,” Delia prompted quickly. I blessed her for sticking by me.
“Aye. Frederick the First of Prussia started it. He got a bloke called Wolffram, a famous Danish amber turner, to build a whole room of the stuff in Charlottenburg, but fell out with designers in 1707. It’s a famous tale. Other craftsmen came and went. It got finished about 1711 in time for Peter the Great to see it when he visited Berlin.”
“Did he steal it?”
“Got it as a pressie, and took it to St Petersburg for his Winter Palace in St Petersburg. His daughter Elizabeth shifted it later. They called it the Wonder of the World.” I smiled. “Now, that’s an antique!”
“Is it there now? Can we see it?”
“It went missing in the war, love.” I tried to make a joke, to escape. “If anybody finds it, let me know and we’ll split the proceeds! Oh, Harry!” I pretended to see somebody beyond them and waved. “Just coming! Look, I’m sorry, but I’m late for an appointment. Ta for listening…”
And ran, with a grateful smile to Delia Oakley. Nice lady. The bloke trotted after me with his pearls, but I kept going. Honest to God, I thought, does he want blood?
And made it to the Raffles Lounge, where a concert pianist was playing, so nobody could talk to me for at least an hour. No wonder people go on voyages for their health. I wish I did.