Free The Possessions of a Lady by Jonathan Gash Page B

the river widened and the sea's expanse showed.
    'Mind your own business, Patsy,' I said. 'Have you a bowl?' Mavis
who, indeed. Women are nosey.
    Brad put the sails up, hauling away, Patsy heave-hoing along. I
clung on. The wind tugged and shoved. Land receded. We were in the North Sea.
    Half an hour later I plopped onto the muddy foreshore and was
alone on a desolate sea mudbank in the dawn, with solid land two furlongs of
mud away. I was lonely, but my pursuit of the evil divvy needed money, and
amber was the only free money left.
    My shoes sucking at every step, I ploshed along the windswept
shore after the precious sea gold.
     
    Every amber hunter's dream is the famous 'Burma Amber' in South
Kensington's museums, huge at 33 pounds 10 ounces. But not all amber's immense.
It's not all amber, either.
    Baits favour white opaque amber, we clear honey-coloured amber. I
particularly love the deep red ambers of China. On the beach, amber looks like
flotsam, utter rubbish. Hunt some yourself. It's easy. It's free. You'll find a
piece sooner or later.
    Measure ten level teaspoons of salt into half a pint of clean
water. The specific gravity of this fluid will be near the all-important 1.13.
Then scour the beach. Plastic's trouble— shredded plastic's everywhere
nowadays. Your magic bowl of salt solution is your secret weapon, for most
plastic sinks in it. Glass also sinks. Stones sink. Rusty metal sinks. Rubber
floats, but bends. Wood floats, but wood splits like, well, wood. Also, flotsam
wood is pale, veined, striated.
    That leaves only two things floating on your salt water. One is
jet—itself a seashore thing, black, and a genuine organic gem, though fashion
killed it long since except in Whitby.
    The other floater is amber. Never mind what it looks like. If it doesn't
sink, it's a contender. It's S.G. will be 1.12 or just less, which is all that
matters.
    Within ten minutes I found one scrap, then two more. Another half
hour, six, one thumb-nail size. Two hours I went at it. A dilute sun started
washing St Osyth's tower, which ancient smugglers' swift cutters used for
guidance to the despair of the Excise. I made fresh salt solutions as I went.
    Finally I had twenty pieces. The largest chunk was cindery brown,
nearly an inch across. Several bits were the size of my little fingernail, the
smallest a spicule. I'd got enough to survive.
    Even a remote windswept shore is wondrous. I found several blobs
of copperas, but left them. In years gone by, these heavy masses were excitedly
sought on the Eastern Hundreds sealands by village boys. They'd teem down at
low tide to Walton and suchlike places, gathering sacks of the stuff. In one
year, 150 tons.
    People'd buy the copperas, which country folk still call
'vitriol', and put it into open-air tanks. Rainwater would wash its goodness
into lead buckets. This horrible liquid (it stinks to high heaven, really
ruffs) was then reduced in a heated lead-lined boiler, into crystals of iron
sulphates, your original vitriol. Once, highly saleable, but not now. It's
still used by the older antique forgers, but younger fakers have no patience,
too hooked on mass markets to do a proper job.
    There were other things. Wood, jetsam from ships. Here, I'd once
found a Roman coin, a denarius sadly honed by the sand. You occasionally find
fossils, ammonites. As I hunted, I saw Wonker beachcombing three miles to the
north—he's a flotsam sculptor, holds shows in London galleries. He didn't wave.
Odd. I'm sure he saw me.
    Elevenish, I hailed a man fishing in a rowing pram out of Pyefleet
Channel.
    'Caught any yet?' I hullooed.
    'Not a thing.'
    'Ferry me, please? Not near the oyster beds.'
    He laughed. 'Squeamish, eh, booy? Brad told me.
    All in all, a good start. Ominous.
     
    8
    To snare somebody l didn't even know existed, I'd need gelt and help.
I headed back to Lydia's mother's place. A vintage Bentley stood outside.
    'Lovejoy.' Mavis welcomed me glaring, a tribute to finishing
schools, polo, and