In The Image of God

by Simon Raven

  ‘What shall you do now that your mother has told me?’

  ‘Nothing. Why should that make any difference? But it is a relief to know that my “auntie’s” illness was caused by conflicting anxieties rather than by my neglect.’

  ‘She’s still very ill, Tessa. Unbalanced.’

  ‘Not my fault,’ said Tessa; ‘her own. She made her own past, and this is the result of it.’

  ‘A cool judgement.’

  ‘Human misery is such,’ said Tessa, ‘that one has to make cool judgements in order to stay sane oneself. For instance, I believe some girls in my position would drive themselves crazy to know who their father was. Certainly, there’s an adopted girl in my Domus who is doing that. For myself, I don’t at all want to know who my father was, and it is at least possible that my mother couldn’t tell me if I did. So why worry about that? The fact is that I am here, and well looked after, which is quite enough to be going on with. Only totally inadequate people worry about who their parents were, and they do it because they are too stupid or feeble to do anything else, they do it in order to excuse their failure of will and capacity in others’ eyes and in their own.’

  ‘How hard you are. Do you ever talk like this to Thea Canteloupe?’

  ‘All the time. She mostly agrees with what I say. Thea is hard too. Except in her love for Canteloupe, and her love for me.’

  The next day, Marius made another effort to reach Fielding Gray on the telephone. This time he was successful.

  ‘Hang on, Fielding,’ he said, ‘while I put a lot of money in the box. We have things to talk about.’

  Not wanting Raisley Conyngham to overhear this conversation, Marius was using the public box rather incongruously sited in Scholars’ Cloister.

  ‘You could have reversed the charges,’ said Fielding when Marius had finished clanking florins down the slot.

  ‘That would have made me feel inferior. Where is Mrs Malcolm? Last time I telephoned, she poached the call.’

  ‘She poaches all calls,’ Fielding said. ‘But now she can’t because she’s had to be taken away. She was babbling to all and sundry about whoredoms and bastardies. Bad for the morale of the staff and off-putting for the guests.’

  ‘Taken away? To Bedlam, as it were?’

  ‘Not quite that bad. To a discreet home that used to be run by Doctor La Soeur and has now been sold to a promising young colleague of his. Very disappointing, Maisie’s behaviour. She has always been as solid as a brick, and this last summer she was as calm and contented as ever, reading books down at my place in Broughton Staithe. And now – ZAPP.’

  ‘I suppose it had begun boiling up secretly. Under the surface.’

  ‘Why should it have?’ said Fielding crossly. ‘The situation has been what it has been for many years. Why should she suddenly dissolve into pieces now?’

  ‘There’s really no point in enquiring,’ said Marius. ‘Does Tessa know yet?’

  ‘I rang up the Head of her Domus, who made a silly fuss. So I told her to fetch Tessa, who didn’t make a silly fuss.’

  ‘Tess is very tough these days. “Things are what they are, and the results will be what they will be” – that’s Tessa’s message.’

  ‘Then she’s cribbed it from Dean Inge,’ Fielding said. ‘Those weren’t her exact words. That was me cribbing from Dean Inge. What Tessa says is not quite so general in tone and expression. “The fact is that I am here,” she said just now, “which is quite enough to be going on with.” And now I am going on,’ said Marius, ‘to make a very helpful suggestion. Then I shall require information in return. All right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You’ll need somebody to run Buttock’s Hotel. We have a caretaker-cum-cook in our house in London – telephone number under “Stern, Mrs I.” in the book. Nobody ever goes there and he has nothing to do. He is a brilliant cook and a very understanding and capable man. Give him a chance to manage Buttock’s while Maisie’s away. He answers to the name of Terpsichore.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Terpsichore,’ Marius said. ‘He used to be happy with Ethel or Mavis, but he’s been going steadily upmarket.’

  ‘Well, I’ll certainly talk to him. I think, Marius, that poor Maisie is going to be away for a long time,’ said Fielding, and suddenly gave a little sob and then a much bigger one.

  ‘Concentrate your mind,’ said Marius, ‘by answering the questions I have for you, in return for my tip about Terpsichore. Now then. When Maisie answered my telephone call, which was intended for you, last night, she suddenly cracked and spilled the beans to me about being a naughty lady and being Tessa’s mum. She also said that it was my father that begat Tessa.’

  ‘How very Old Testament you sound.’

  ‘My father was a Jew. Was it him…that begat Tessa? Or was Maisie making it up?’

  ‘Maisie told me the whole story some time ago, when she was indubitably sane. I am as certain as a man can be that she was not making it up.’

  ‘That’s it then.’

  ‘How much does Tessa know about that?’

  ‘Tessa knows only that Mummy was a rorty girl and conceived Tessa in sin. Mummy never told her, but I did – and anyhow she’d guessed.’

  ‘But does she know you’re her half-brother?’

  ‘No. I have taken advice…and I am keeping my options open.’

  ‘Raisley Conyngham’s advice, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Does it matter whose? It suits me very well. I have a plan.’

  ‘Marius. You must not…interfere with Tessa.’

  ‘I don’t intend to. But she might want to interfere with me. Some years ago, she was quite keen.’

  ‘Not now, never now, not when she has Thea Canteloupe.’

  ‘There could be complications in that area,’ said Marius. ‘Thea has had a daughter. Suppose Canteloupe wants her to try again for a son? Thea doesn’t like men. That puts me off Thea. But with Tessa as a kind of catalyst…you see the possibilities?’

  ‘You couldn’t be so wicked,’ said Fielding.

  ‘Hark who’s talking,’ said Marius. ‘I’d be doing no more, probably a great deal less, than Byron did with his half-sister, Augusta.’

  ‘You know very well that Byron is a bad example. I’m not sure I shouldn’t warn Tessa myself.’

  ‘I shan’t be very fond of you if you do, Fielding.’

  ‘I suppose not. Well, I shan’t spoil your sport. But for Christ’s sake be careful. And Marius…’

  ‘Yes, Fielding?’

  ‘A lot of us would be quite pleased if you would just settle down and be a normal, decent schoolboy. That way you’ve got everything going for you, as they say these days. Why not leave all this…truffling in the dirt…to the pigs?’

  ‘Getting sentimental about me, Fielding?’

  ‘I always have been. Don’t forget, your father gave me my first real chance as a writer.’

  ‘Very well. You deserve an answer. I like truffling, Fielding, because I like truffles.’

  ‘But you can’t like the dirt.’

  ‘The dirt is a necessary condition of what I have learned to call “the world’s game”. The most amusing and exciting game of them all, Fielding.’

  There was a bleeping on the line.

  ‘Time’s run out,’ said Marius; and then, as the bleeping paused, ‘quite a common occurrence during the world’s game. The great question, of course, is when it’s going to run out for good. Don’t forget to ring up Terpsichore,’ he yelled, as the bleeping began again.

  Carmilla Salinger wrote from Lancaster college, Cambridge:

  ‘…the team is to meet at Piero Caspar’s house in the fens. Come by tea time, Friday, prepared to spend a night or two.’

  Friday was the next day but one. Fielding could have left Buttock’s Hotel in the charge of Maisie’s Assistant Manager, but he neither liked nor trusted the man, so,

  ‘Is that Terpsichore?’ he said, when the telephone was answered at the Sterns’ London number.
>
  ‘Who wants her?’ said a tight masculine voice.

  ‘My name is Fielding Gray…’

  ‘The Fielding Gray?’

  ‘If such there be. Marius Stern says we should meet.’

  ‘Such a kind boy, Marius. Is he trying to bring us together, do you think?’

  ‘Only with a view to discussing the temporary management of Buttock’s Hotel.’

  ‘It would be a change, darling. I’ve been living here alone for years. Nobody ever comes, except occasionally that cute little Marius. Not so little these days, either. Or quite so cute, come to that.’

  ‘We are talking about Buttock’s Hotel.’

  ‘Don’t be so stern, darling; it doesn’t suit your voice. Makes you sound all mardy. Of course I’m interested in Buttock’s – excuse the pun. But I’d have to go on spending some time here. Doing the dusting, you know.’

  ‘Why not?’ Fielding said. ‘Why not, Terpsichore?’

  ‘Another thing: I’m not Terpsichore any more. Too much of a good thing. I thought Procne might do rather well instead. Procne was a cook too, you see.’

  ‘She killed and cooked her own son,’ Fielding said.

  ‘And then became a nightingale, at least in one version, and sang about it all night long.’

  ‘I hope you’ll refrain from that. What would the staff and the guests call you?’

  ‘What’s wrong with Procne? They’d think it was Polish or something?’

  ‘Mister Procne?’

  ‘Oh dear me no, darling. Ms. I’m very advanced these days. I come in drag or not at all…and I’m a howling feminist.’

  The idea of a transvestite male feminist as manager(ess?) of Buttock’s Hotel was more, Fielding thought, than he could resist. If the appointment was a flop, he could take it out on Marius.

  ‘I’m going into the country on Friday,’ Fielding said. ‘Come and see me at eleven a.m. tomorrow, Thursday.’

  ‘I’ll bring some of your books for you to sign, darling. I must say, I take it very kindly of Marius to recommend me, and I take it very kindly of you to follow it up.’

  ‘One thing must be clear, though, Ms Procne. Drag is quite all right with me: but no dragging back.’

  ‘No dragging back yourself, Mister Gray.’

  ‘Major. Major Gray.’

  ‘So you still use the title?’ said Ms Procne. ‘Res Unius, Res Omnium, Major Gray.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not forgotten the old motto, have you? And I hope you haven’t forgotten me – when you see me. Geddes. Barber of the 10th Sabre Squadron.’4

  ‘Geddes. You cut Daniel Mond’s hair before the big manoeuvre, Armageddon – excuse the pun. Geddes. You know that some years after Germany I was blown up in Cyprus? My face is rather a mess. I’m just warning you so as not to give you a nasty shock tomorrow.’

  ‘What happened to your hair? Your lovely auburn hair?’

  ‘Still there, most of it.’

  ‘You’ll let me cut it again, as I used to in Göttingen? Just once, for old times’ sake.’

  ‘We’ll have to see. It doesn’t grow as quickly as it did. Seldom needs cutting now.’

  A bit of a lie, he thought. Perhaps it would serve. Funny how odd men’s memories are, he thought, as he confirmed tomorrow’s appointment and rang off. Geddes had remembered his hair – which on no account, however, had he ever been allowed to cut. Officers of the 10th Sabre Squadron did not use the services of the Squadron barber. They went to an elegant Salon in Hanover, taking a whole day off for the purpose.

  Why, Fielding wondered, does Carmilla have to choose Piero Caspar’s house, in the middle of the distressful fens in the middle of distressful winter, for this conference of hers? Anywhere else in England – in the world – would have been preferable.

  On the other hand, he thought, the house, Tunne Hall, had always been a comfortable one even in the knockabout days of the former owner, Ptolemaeos Tunne; and Piero, as his adopted heir, had made many improvements. One no longer ate in the kitchen; the heating had been improved until it was a match for the fenland dews and fogs; the two appalling witches that had cooked and kept were gone forever; and the place was now manned by a deaf and dumb Jack of all work (crude but serviceable) and by a trio of courteous if sometimes rather voluble male cot-queans from Syracuse. If, thought Fielding, Maisie should return to Buttock’s and have no use for Ms Procne (duly installed as Manageress the previous day), I shall seriously recommend to Piero that he takes Procne on to control his crew of Sicels. Apart from anything else, Procne’s cooking, of which he had been given a special example last night in Buttock’s, by far excelled the South Italian cuisine provided by the present cook, Luigino, sound as this doubtless was. Luigino could no more attempt Procne’s eggs in lobster sauce under a covering of cheese soufflé than he could swim back to Sicily (not that he’d want to, for although all the Sicilians found the fens abominable, they adored Piero and were paid munificently). It would be interesting to see whether Maisie would be minded to keep Ms Procne on at Buttock’s after she returned…if she returned, thought Fielding miserably; remembering the dismal report he had received on the telephone a few hours earlier from La Soeur’s successor in the nursing home where Maisie lay, silent and motionless once more, as she had been when her illness started.

  But suddenly the sun shone on the fields as Fielding drove, and the light, bright frost was merry about him, so he put away his sorrowful thoughts of his long-time friend, kind Maisie, and thought of the welcome with which Caspar would meet him at Tunne Hall. Who else would be there? Carmilla, the convener, of course, and probably Jeremy. That would make, with Piero Caspar, four acknowledged experts on Marius. Didn’t they need, then, an acknowledged expert on Raisley Conyngham, the enemy? But of acknowledged experts (as opposed to casual gossip-mongers) about Raisley Conyngham there were very few, and these did not turn up at conferences to discuss the undoing of Raisley.

  Jeremy Morrison drove from Luffham-by-Whereham through Swaffham and Downham Market to Upmill Fen and Christchurch, through Manea (not as pleasant a place as it sounded), Welches Dam and Chatteris, where he took the B1050 across Pidley Fen to Pidley. Soon after this he turned right and proceeded a little way towards the Isle of Ely (where the monks of the Palatinate, he remembered, had greeted King Cnut with a hearty anthem), and then south a little way to Witchford, and so on to Tunne Hall, where two of the cotqueans from Syracuse marched out of the front door, together and abreast, to attend ceremoniously to his luggage; for although there was very little of this, his style of ‘Honourable’ elevated him, in their view, to the status of ‘milor Inglese’, and no service could be too assiduous for such a wondrous being.

  Carmilla drove over to Tunne Hall from Cambridge, fairly early in the afternoon as she did not (these days) like motoring alone in the dark. This was not because she couldn’t see well enough to drive, but because when the dark came down some old faces came out of it (her adopted mother’s or Baby Canteloupe’s) which she did not wish to see.

  I might have asked Fielding to pick me up in Cambridge on his way from London, she thought, or even made Jeremy take a long deviation from Luffham. But then I should not have had my own car with me, and, since I do not wish to be dependent either on Fielding, Jeremy or Piero, that would have been a nuisance and a bore.

  ‘So,’ said Carmilla by the fire in the library: ‘tell us, Piero, what you think of Marius’ behaviour while he was with you in Italy.’

  ‘Good company. Prepared to defend his treacherous mission, but still not entirely certain, I think, that he would go through with it – fair-minded enough to listen patiently, from time to time, to the arguments I urged against it.’

  ‘What hope did you have that he might drop his original purpose?’

  ‘Very little, but not none at all. In the event, as we all know, he simply came too late to Brindisi to pursue the matter.’

  ‘Jeremy,’ Carmilla said: ‘did you see Marius at all in Brindisi?’

  ‘He
paid a courtesy visit to the hospital where I was,’ said Jeremy. ‘Fielding was there, and Piero. Not an occasion for searching discussion. But we spoke very closely, Marius and I, while we were in the Peloponnese together after Christmas. The sum of it all is that Marius claims to have his own genius or daimon which makes him morally independent. He has listened to Raisley’s lessons, he says, both about literature and about life, and has been much informed and impressed by them; but in the end it is his daimon, not Raisley, that tells him what to do. One felt bound to comment that the daimon’s instructions seemed to bear a remarkable resemblance to what we know, or have good cause to suspect, might so easily be Raisley Conyngham’s. Marius’ daimon appears to have a lot of Raisley’s style.’

  ‘And did Marius agree,’ asked Carmilla, ‘that his daimon had been influenced or even formed by Raisley?’

  ‘No. He said that it was, perhaps, his own part of God.’

  ‘If he said that and meant it,’ said Piero, ‘he can surely be left on his own to fight his own battle.’

  ‘No,’ said Fielding Gray. ‘I have spoken to him, on the telephone, since he has been home from Greece…since he has gone back to school where he is taught by Raisley Conyngham. His attitudes have already deteriorated from those described by Jeremy and Piero. For example. He had received certain confidences from Mrs Malcolm when she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. He is now considering the possibility of exploiting these for his own pleasure or advantage.’

  Fielding now told the company what Marius had learned from Maisie and what he was apparently prepared to make of it.

  ‘He had telephoned me,’ Fielding said, ‘to make sure that Maisie was speaking the truth – that Tessa was indeed her child and fathered by Gregory Stern, and was therefore Marius’ half-sister. Now, Tessa herself has somehow surmised, it seems, that Maisie is her mother; but she does not know that Marius is her half-brother. Nor does Marius now propose to tell her. He is, in his own phrase, keeping his options open…in case he wishes to exploit her in a fashion which she might not allow if she knew their true relation. In order not to annoy him, I have reluctantly condoned his attitude. We have to co-operate with him…up to a point…if we are to get anywhere with him.’