In The Image of God

by Simon Raven

  Copyright & Information

  In the Image of God

  First published in 1990

  © Estate of Simon Raven; House of Stratus 1990-2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Simon Raven to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2011 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  1842321978 9781842321973 Print

  0755129814 9780755129812 Kindle

  0755129970 9780755129973 Epub

  0755153928 9780755153923 Epdf

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in 1927 into a middle class household, Simon Raven became both an outrageous figure and an acclaimed writer and novelist. His father inherited a hosiery business and did not have to work, his mother was an internationally successful athlete. The young Simon, however, viewed the household as ‘respectable, prying, puritanical, penny-pinching, and joyless’.

  Initial education was through attending Cordwalles Preparatory School, near Camberley, Surrey, where he later claimed to have been ‘deftly and very agreeably’ seduced by the games master. From there he went on to Charterhouse, but was eventually expelled in 1945 for serial homosexuality. Nonetheless, he still managed to wangle his way into King’s College, Cambridge, to read classics, after a two year gap to complete his national service in the Parachute Regiment.

  Raven had loved classics from an early age and read daily in the original, often translating from Latin to Greek to English, or any combination thereof.

  At Cambridge, he probably felt completely at home for the first time in his life. In his own words, ‘nobody minded what you did in bed, or what you said about God’. This was civilised to his mind and he was also later to write, in a somewhat fatalistic manner: ‘we aren’t here for long, and when we do go, that’s that. Finish. So, for God’s sake, enjoy yourself now - and sod anyone who tries to stop you.’ Despite revelling in Cambridge life, or perhaps because of it, Raven fell heavily into debt for the first time whilst there and also faced his first real responsibility. Susan Kilner, a fellow undergraduate was expecting his child and in 1951 they married. He took little interest in the marriage, however, and they were divorced some six years later.

  He also failed to submit a thesis needed to support an offered fellowship, so fled both Cambridge and his marriage for the army, where he was commissioned into the King’s Own Shropshire Light Infantry. After service in Germany and Kenya, during which time he set up a brothel for his men to use, he was posted to regimental headquarters in Shropshire. It was here that debt once again forced a change in direction after he lost considerable sums at the local racetrack.

  Resigning his commission so as to avoid being court-martialled, he turned to writing having won over a publisher who agreed to pay him weekly in cash, and also pick up bills for sustenance and drink. Moving to Deal in Kent he embarked upon producing a prodigious array of works which over the years included novels, essays, reviews; film scripts, radio and television plays and the scripts for television series, notably The Pallisers and Edward and Mrs Simpson. He lived in modest surroundings within rented accommodation and confined many of his excesses to London visits where his earning were dissipated quickly on food, drink and gambling – not forgetting sex which continued to feature as a major indulgence. He once wrote that the major advantage of belonging to the Reform Club in London was the presence opposite of a first class massage parlour.

  In all, Simon Raven produced over twenty five novels and hundreds of other pieces, his finest achievements being reckoned to be a ten volume saga of English upper-class life, entitled Alms for Oblivion, from 1959-76 and the First Born of Egypt Series from 1984-92.

  He was a conundrum; being both sophisticated and reckless; talented in the extreme yet regarding himself as not being particularly creative; but not applying this modesty (if that’s what it was) to his general behaviour, which was sometimes immodest beyond all reasonable bounds. He was exceedingly generous towards his friends; yet didn’t think twice about the position of creditors when getting into debt; was jovial, loyal and good company, but was unable to sustain a family life. He would drink like an advanced alcoholic in the evenings, but was ready to resume work promptly the following morning. He was sexually indiscriminate, but generally preferred the company of men. As a youth he possessed good looks, but a general abuse of his body in adulthood soon saw that wain.

  Simon Raven died in 2001, his legacy being his writing which during his lifetime received high praise from critics and readers alike. He was a ‘one-off’, whose works will continue to delight readers for generations to come.

  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

  Genesis, Ch. I, v. 27

  Demiurgus (Greek), in the language of Platonists, means that mysterious agent which made the world, and all that it contains…

  Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,

  by the Revd Dr E. Cobham

  Brewer of Trinity Hall, Cambridge,

  12th Edition, p. 219

  Demogorgon…[auth. Statius (Thebais)] ‘the most high of the triple universe, whom it is unlawful to know’…perhaps a mistake for Demiurgus, the Creator.

  The Oxford Companion to Classical

  Literature, compiled and edited

  by Sir Paul Harvey, 3rd Edition, p. 139

  Demogorgon. A terrible deity, whose very name was capable of producing the most horrible effects.

  The Revd Dr Brewer’s Dictionary

  of Phrase and Fable (v. supra),

  p. 219

  PART ONE

  The Magus

  ‘So you see,’ said the Marchioness Canteloupe, who was nine months gone with child, to the elderly companion with whom she walked on the winter beach, ‘so you see, Auntie Flo, Marius Stern arrived too late at Brindisi. Whatever happened had already happened, and he had nothing to do with it. So there was no test, no challenge; no taint of evil, no signal of grace.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Auntie Flo (who was everyone’s aunt and nobody’s). She took Theodosia Canteloupe by the arm and led her to the edge of the many-sounding sea. ‘There must have been some indication of how the matter might have gone if Marius had got to Brindisi in time to take part.’

  ‘Piero Caspar, who escorted him there, is very doubtful. On balance, his judgement is that Marius would have played Judas had he met Jeremy in time. But there were occasions on which Marius seemed to be tending the other way – and in any case at all, as we have told each other ad nauseam, Marius simply did not meet Jeremy in time. Marius was here with you over Christmas, Auntie Flo; you’re the last of us to have seen him; did he give you any clues about how he might have behaved…had he arrived in Brindisi in time to confront Jeremy Morrison?’

  ‘None. (Breathe in deeply, dear; sea air is good for the baby.) He concentrated entirely
on making my Christmas the happiest I can remember for sixty years. He was very careful to suppress his excitement at the prospect of joining Jeremy Morrison in Greece on 28 December, because he did not wish to hurt me, to let me realize that he was simply aching to be gone. But of course there was no question of my being hurt. Of course a boy of that age wants to be off with his friend. I was only touched that for ten whole days he took enormous trouble to try and hide the fact. He gave me one very appropriate Christmas present, Thea: he gave me love.’

  ‘And then left immediately.’

  ‘He cried when he left. (Watch out for that wave, Thea: pregnant women should not get their feet sopping wet.) He said, “I must go, because Jeremy is my favourite person in the whole world. I wish it could be you,” he said: “I love you more than I love Jeremy…but he is my favourite person, which is different.”’

  ‘And yet this Jeremy…his favourite person…is the one whom he would have betrayed.’

  ‘Might have betrayed. We shall never know,’ said Auntie Flo, dragging Thea back from the fractious foam, and wheeling her in the direction of Sandy Lodge, which was half a mile back along the beach towards Burnham-on-Sea.

  ‘Who knows that he’s gone?’ said Theodosia. ‘Raisley Conyngham, the slee dominee? These days Marius does not do much without Raisley Conyngham’s imprimatur.’

  ‘Raisley, the dark Angel, eh? I never much cared for him when I used to meet him at the races in the old days.’

  ‘If only he confined himself to racecourses. It is his presence as a senior and respected master at Marius’ school that bothers me.’

  ‘That bothers all of us,’ said Auntie Flo. ‘For once, however, I think Marius has acted independently of Raisley and his wishes. On 22 December, an air ticket to Corfu via Athens arrived from Jeremy, with a note to say that he wanted to make up for past disappointments in this line and was now inviting Marius to meet him in Corfu on 28 December and accompany him on a brief tour of the Peloponnese. There was also a note for me: it said that Jeremy would ensure that Marius was back here in Burnham by 10 January, in good time to return to school on the fifteenth.’

  ‘So Jeremy was not exactly asking your permission, but he was deferring to you?’

  ‘Civil enough. Not many people bother to defer to a penniless old woman. Not really penniless,’ said Auntie Flo, nuzzling briefly against Theodosia’s shoulder, ‘because of you, my darling, but penniless before the world, which you forbid me to tell of your kindness. Anyway, Marius has his own money since his father died, and quite a lot of it, so that it would really be absurd for me to think in terms of having charge of him, or giving permission for him to accept invitations.’

  ‘Only just,’ said Theodosia Canteloupe sharply.

  ‘Don’t be prickly, girl. Even though Marius is the father of the child you are carrying, he is still under sixteen. But as I was saying, he has his own money and goes his own way – except that he normally consults Raisley first. On this occasion he did not. Raisley lives quite near here, as you very well know – at Ullacote by Timberscombe, only half an hour from Minehead. Marius could easily have got in touch with him personally, or simply have telephoned him. He did neither. He put the ticket in his pocket, and he said, “I must not refuse him, Auntie Flo, or he would be upset. He’s had a lot to upset him lately, with that horrid business in Australia; and although he’s over that now, I think I must go.” “Yes, darling,” I said: “I think so too.” So he spent Christmas loving me and trying to pretend he didn’t really want to leave on the twenty-eighth. Then he came out with the truth while he was saying goodbye, and a very endearing truth it was. But in all of this, no mention of the matter to Raisley (as far as I know, and I know quite far) nor any mention of Raisley to me.

  ‘This time,’ said Auntie Flo, ‘he is not in any way under the instructions of Raisley Conyngham.’

  ‘Good. But I still don’t quite trust his affection for Jeremy. People should not feel affection for Jeremy.’

  ‘You did. Your sister did.’

  ‘We should not have done,’ Theodosia said; ‘he was worthless.’

  ‘Between you, you saved him. By setting up that journey from Ithaca.1 You two set it up – you told me. It has been the salvation of him – everybody says so though I don’t quite understand what happened.’

  ‘At the end of his voyage, he believed that he had somehow come to be present at the death of the poet Virgil, in Brindisi nearly 2,000 years ago, and that he was able to serve and comfort the poet as he died. He suffered great pain for the sake of Virgil – or so it seemed to him – in order to stop his poetry being stolen by a rival. He redeemed himself.’

  ‘But only in a dream?’

  ‘Say rather…in a vision.’

  ‘And what,’ said Auntie Flo, ‘has he done with himself since having this vision?’

  ‘He went into Norfolk,’ said Theodosia. ‘He gave great pleasure to his father and an old family servant by staying at Luffham for Christmas. He gave it out to his friends that he would be there over the New Year and until further notice – but as you and I and Marius now know, he left for Corfu to meet Marius. You say that he has promised to have Marius back here by 10 January. Will he come here with him?’

  ‘As to that, we shall see,’ said Auntie Flo. ‘He is welcome to spend a night or two in Sandy Lodge – if it’s still there. Look, Thea. The dunes are withdrawing further and further. At certain seasons Sandy Lodge is an island at high tide. Look now. We must hurry, lest we be cut off from our own front door.’

  ‘Homer called it “Sandy Pylos”,’ said Jeremy Morrison to Marius Stern, as they walked on the stone promenade above the stony beach of the Bay of Navarino.

  ‘I have actually read the Odyssey myself. Or much of it.’

  ‘If you know so much, tell me where Homer’s “Sandy Pylos” really was.’

  ‘The Palace,’ said Marius, green eyes glistening at Jeremy, ‘was some miles north. The old harbour was much nearer – under that Venetian castle at the top end of the bay. That is where Telemachus disembarked to meet Nestor “on the sands of the sea”. I did the passage with Mr Conyngham last spring.’

  Marius looked across the bay and sighed.

  ‘Such a deep sigh,’ Jeremy said: ‘for Raisley Conyngham or Homer?’

  ‘For both.’

  ‘I know a chap,’ Jeremy said, ‘a very nice chap, who went up to Oxford to read the classics for four years and spent his entire time reading Homer. He read nothing else whatever. He got a poor third in Mods and failed Greats absolutely flat. Well worth it, he said. He knew most of the Iliad and all of the Odyssey by heart.’

  ‘Sandy Pylos,’ Marius said. ‘“Pray now, stranger from the sea, to the Lord Poseidon, for his is the feast whereon you have chanced in coming hither.” That is what old Nestor said to Telemachus. I remember Mr Conyngham drew my particular attention to that passage. “Always be polite to the God of any Feast which you may attend,” he said, “and also to the Genius Loci.”’

  ‘Good advice,’ said Jeremy. ‘Raisley was full of it, as I recall, when I sat under him at school some years back. But they seem to think he is giving you a certain amount of extra advice, special tutelage, which is not so wholesome. To put it another way, Raisley does not, unlike my chum at Oxford, confine himself to Homer. He is just as likely, some of your friends think, to be teaching you in the tradition of Hermes Trismegistus.’

  ‘Magic?’ said Marius. ‘I have learned no magic from Raisley Conyngham.’

  ‘What have you learned?’

  ‘How to write Latin and Greek verses. How to translate from Latin and Greek texts. How to appreciate what I read in them, while always remaining critical of it.’

  ‘I can’t fault that. What else has he taught you?’

  ‘Lots of things. That this town we are in was built by the French after the Battle of Navarino. That a party of Spartans held out bravely against the Athenians in 425 BC on the island opposite us, which guards the bay and is called Sphacteria.
That the island is said to have been the scene for Byron’s Corsair. Raisley, you see, is not concerned merely with words, with translating this way and that. He explains, minutely, the history and topography which frame ancient literature.’

  ‘Yes. Although he was away quite a lot when I was at school, I remember him as a fine, broad teacher. Therefore a great power for evil, Marius, as well as for good. What is Raisley teaching you apart from classics?’

  ‘To play the world’s game.’

  Jeremy turned about. They walked back down the promenade towards the Turkish castle, which sat under a low ridge near the south end of the port.

  ‘And my knowledge of the world’s game tells me this,’ said Marius; ‘it is bad form, if not actually against the rules, to ask too many questions – particularly of an invited guest.’

  ‘In Homer they were always asking questions of their guests.’

  ‘Only if he were uninvited; and even then they were confined to the necessary minimum, to establish the guest’s identity and provenance.’

  ‘But questions about other people were allowed, to any amount. I am questioning you about another person, about Raisley Conyngham.’

  ‘Yes; but about Raisley Conyngham in his relation to me. You surely haven’t had me fly all the way to the terrain of Homer…first to Untoiling Scheria and now to Sandy Pylos… just to ask tedious questions about my intercourse with my pedagogue.’

  ‘I have brought you here so that I may be the first to show these places to you. Raisley has only told you about them. Now you are seeing them, with me.’

  ‘I wish we could go on seeing them forever. This afternoon we shall go to Methoni?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘And tomorrow to Areopolis and Vatheia and Gytheion.’

  ‘And then Monemvasia. Black Sparta and Sweet Argos, Epidauros and Tiryns and Mycenae. Frankish towers and Christian tombs and Turkish castles and the Shrines of the Old Gods.’