by Simon Raven
‘He must have had a good eye for form, sir, to back so many winners.’
‘Oh, he did. Even if you were up to your chin in a sewer, if you were winning material Vautrin knew at a glance. He hoicked you out and wiped you off and set you on the road up to social grandeur, or down to criminal empire, or simply across to professional dominance – in any case at all, to SUCCESS. Oh yes, he knew how to pick ’em, Vautrin did. I only hope our choices turn out half as well.’
‘What have you in mind for them, sir? Up, down, or across?’
‘Something rather different from any of those,’ said Raisley Conyngham.
There was a knock on the door: a black-robed beldam entered, hunched over a service of coffee on a silver tray; she eyed Conyngham with split-second devotion, put the tray on a low table in front of him, and left.
‘The last proper landlady in the world, I wouldn’t wonder,’ Raisley Conyngham said.
‘What shall you when she ceases, sir?’
‘Move into a hotel…no, Milo. I do not plan on moving Marius and Teresa either up, down or across. Round and round, perhaps: round and round, just under the surface. I want to make of them…perfect and unsuspected agents of subversion – unsuspected even by themselves, you understand?’
‘Not very clearly, sir.’
‘The nearest comparison I can muster is Raffles, the gentleman cracksman…a thoroughly trivial and misleading comparison, if only because Raffles obviously did know what he was up to, whereas Marius and Teresa will not. They will be fashioned so as to be totally acceptable in almost any circle – just like Raffles, only with a far wider range than he had. Theirs will comprehend not only society (what’s left of it) but also government departments, colleges of science, art and learning, industrial and commercial federations, and so on and so forth. Now they will, like Raffles, be well liked and respectable. Not just apparently respectable, but, unlike Raffles, genuinely so. When, as a result of these and other qualities, such as personal beauty, intellectual ability, agreeable and co-operative characters – when, I say, they are welcomed in the various households or institutions for which they are destined, they will not steal my lady’s diamonds, as Raffles would; nor will they purloin or memorise or photograph the secret documents; nor will they drug, torture, blackmail or eliminate the Field Marshal or the Principal Secretary; they will do none of these things, Milo, they will simply and silently and effortlessly and unconsciously subvert. Despite, or rather because of, their absolute respectability, their good will, their innocence and their outstanding abilities, they will act as the unsuspected catalysts – unsuspected even, I repeat, by themselves – of decay, disruption and disrepute, ultimately of total dissolution.’
‘An interesting notion, sir,’ said Milo; ‘but to whose good, or ill, and for what purpose?’
‘To the good, i.e. the enjoyment, of connoisseurs of human vanity–’
‘–You and me, sir?–’
‘–To the ill, i.e. the frustration and fury, of self-important jacks in office all round us. And as for the purpose, if you wish one, the delight, dear to amateurs in every field, of proving that the thing can be done.’
‘So…whereas Balzac’s Vautrin was training winners of the World’s Game, you, sir, propose to introduce…a new and secret element into the Game…which will eventually render it meaningless.’
‘No. Just very much more complex and entertaining to watch. I am just putting in some Jokers.’
‘I should have thought, sir, that God had already inserted enough of those.’
‘Well, here are some of a new kind, albeit man-made. It will be interesting to see how soon the dedicated players spot them and what they decide to do about them. Black or white? Or with cream?’
‘Black with sugar, if you will, sir. And what we are now planning for Easter is an elementary and preliminary exercise in the new subversion?’
‘A trial manoeuvre, amusing in itself and from which much may be learnt.’
‘And if the thing explodes in our faces?’
‘There are too many safety devices, Milo. The key word in this whole conception is respectability – mine and yours as well as Marius’ and Teresa’s.’
‘Safety devices, even of the most respectable manufacture, have been known to miscarry, sir.’
‘If anything should go wrong, Milo, then it will seem, at the very worst, as if there has been an unlikely accident or a foolish misunderstanding. Nothing culpable – or if there should be any blame to be assigned, it will be such as to be easily assignable to God. As you aptly remarked just now, my dear Milo, most of the Jokers in the pack are indeed of his insertion.’
‘There,’ said Greco Barraclough: ‘Paolo Filavoni, orphaned son and only issue of Guiseppe and Susanna Filavoni: taken into care, on his parents’ death in the flood of sixty-six, by his mother’s spinster sister, Anna Tomasino. Direct and last descendant of a line, clearly registered here all the way down, which started with Umberto and Caro fitzAvon (later, during her widowhood, officially renamed Cara Filavoni) in 1797. That, I think, is what Ptolemaeos Tunne wished you to establish.’
‘Thank you, kyrie,’ Nicos said.
Prompted by long affection and habit, and knowing that Nicos was too inept, in clerical matters, to see his way through even the simplest problem in that line, Greco Barraclough had accompanied Nicos on his expedition to Samuele in the marshes and was now checking the Church Register in the manner required of Nicos by Ptolemaeos Tunne. For his part, Nicos, also prompted by long affection and habit, accepted the Greco’s attendance without objection, was grateful to him for deciphering the register, and was even apt, from time to time, to revert to former customs of address and obedience.
‘Thank you, kyrie,’ he now repeated.
When Nicos had reported at Heathrow for his flight to Venice, he had seen the kyrios ahead of him in the queue at the flight desk and had realised, more or less, what was happening. ‘Hullo,’ the kyrios had said: ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I might come along too. For company, you know; and I think that I might be useful.’ As indeed he had been, reflected Nicos now.
They loitered out of the church and into a small meadow. In the distance were some mean little houses of red brick (‘bungalows’, they would have been called in England, thought Nicos idly), then a small ridge, probably artificial in formation. Along the ridge was a row of dejected poplars, and above and beyond the tops of these the elegant eighteenth-century balustrade of one end of a flat roof.
‘The villa which Samuele built,’ said Barraclough, pointing. ‘What’s your next task?’
‘To go and look at Paolo,’ said Nicos; ‘to see what kind of man he is and how he is living.’
‘Very well. A few enquiries should find him out, him and his Aunt Anna Tomasino. We shall ask in one of these beastly little houses.’
As they walked across the slimy meadow, Barraclough went on:
‘Have you any idea what all this is about?’
‘Not really,’ said Nicos. ‘I do what I am told. It makes a change from studies for which I am not competent and from being your daily manservant. Not that you were ever unkind,’ he said, ‘just restricting. I was getting too old to be restricted. Yet for all that,’ he said, ‘I am very pleased that you have now come with me as my friend.’
He placed his hand lightly in the crook of Barraclough’s arm.
Dear, bone-headed Nicos, thought the Greco: too unimaginative to take any interest; too loyal to question any orders; too thick to smell anything peculiar, and even if he did, too amiable and honest to wonder if there are any extras in it for him; just like a Boy Scout, sent on a simple mission and rather enjoying the ride.
A man with a scrawny body and a large imperial Roman head (top heavy, thought the Greco, like a foetus) was walking from the red houses towards them. As he walked, he picked with the fingernails of one hand at the cuticles of the nails on the other.
‘Can I help you?’ he said in English.
‘Yes,�
�� said the Greco. ‘We are looking for the casa of Anna Tomasino, who we believe to have care of her orphaned nephew, Paolo Filavoni.’
‘And what do you want with them?’
‘My old friend, Sir Thomas Llewyllyn,’ said the Greco, ‘Provost of Lancaster College, Cambridge, encountered Paolo and his aunt some years ago while he was here doing some historical and sociological research. Knowing that I was to be in this area, he asked me to visit the good lady and convey his respectful compliments, and also to report on the development of Paolo, of whom he has affectionate memories.’
Dear kyrios, thought Nicos, dear Greco, what would I have done without you?
‘He does, does he?’ said the scrawny man. ‘I wonder whether he has affectionate memories of me? My name is Holbrook, Jude Holbrook.’
‘It has been mentioned once or twice,’ the Greco said. ‘You live here with the lady your mother, I think?’
‘Dead,’ said Holbrook.
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘I can’t think why you should be. She wasn’t your mother. I’ll take you to Paolo. I shall be interested to hear what you make of him… Mister… Mister…?’
‘Barraclough.’
‘Ivan Barraclough? Author of Maniot Customs and The Tombs of Areopolis?’
‘The same,’ said the Greco, trying not to simper.
‘My mother admired your work. She had it sent out by the London Library. Remarkable institution – somehow it managed to despatch its parcels in such a way that they had immunity even from the malice of the Italian Post. The dear old London Library: I don’t know what my mother would have done without it all these years.’
‘Do they still send parcels for you, Mr Holbrook?’
‘No. I am not a reading man.’
Holbrook’s tone discouraged further enquiry into his pastimes. Without another word, he pushed in front of them and led them past several of the red brick houses, until they came to one which stood slightly apart, near a small, black pool. He knocked on the door of this, and was presently confronted by a large and slovenly woman with long, grey, greasy hair, who greeted Holbrook with respectful reluctance. Holbrook asked a brief question; the woman replied in some grotesque vernacular.
‘He is, as usual, working in the old woman’s garden,’ said Holbrook. ‘My mother took an interest in him and presented several sets of suitably educational toys, stating her hope that he might be allowed some relief from his labour to play with them. The notion was not approved by his Aunt Tomasino, who purported to think that the toys were some kind of witchcraft. They all disappeared without trace – into that pool, I imagine.’
Holbrook, disregarding the woman, led them across what seemed to be the only room in the house to a window which overlooked a sparse allotment.
‘Sometimes he exhibits himself to strangers,’ remarked Holbrook; ‘I don’t suppose you’d mind,’ he said, looking obliquely at the Greco: ‘it’s his form of greeting.’
A very burly figure was bent over a shallow trench, preparing it (thought Nicos) for God knew what.
‘Paolo,’ called Holbrook, rapping on but not opening the window.
The figure straightened up. The face was handsome but jowly: the second imperial head this morning, the Greco thought; Holbrook’s Caracalla and now this youth’s Commodus. And there is someone else, thought the Greco, of whom he reminds me.
Paolo made a rude but amicable gesture at Holbrook with four filthy fingers spread above a filthy thumb, then returned to his task.
‘He knows me quite well,’ said Holbrook with evident affection: ‘that is probably why he has not exposed himself after all. I am too familiar to disturb him. My mother used to say that he resembled a portrait she once saw in the National Portrait Gallery – some eighteenth-century nobleman who was a big wheel at Court and a well known patron in his day. She sent to the London Library for some book or other, and there it all was…with a reproduction of the portrait for good measure. Then,’ said Holbrook, ‘I remembered that Tom Llewyllyn and others had been nosing round here some time before…and began to wonder. You see, the man of whom Paolo reminded my mother, Lord High This, That and ’Tother, Marshal of Somerset, Commodore of the Avon (or something of the kind), President of half a dozen learned institutions, including the Philhellenic,’ he said to the Greco, ‘which might appeal to you – this man was a certain Earl of Muscateer, later promoted to Marquis Canteloupe.’
So that must be where I’ve seen Paolo’s likeness before, thought the Greco: either in the National Portrait Gallery, or, more likely, in the Chambers of the Philhellenic Society in London. ‘At first,’ Holbrook was saying, ‘I thought this resemblance must be just a coincidence. Then I remembered Tom’s visit again…and began to wonder once more. But shortly afterwards the book fell overdue and was returned to London, and a little later my mother fell ill and died, and I myself had a prolonged and horrible bout of a heart complaint that has bothered me on and off for many years…and so I lost interest. But it could be, it just could be, that your appearance might arouse it ’again. Perhaps I should start examining the ledgers in the church, which Tom Llewyllyn was so persistent about? And perhaps I should join the London Library and ask them to send out that book my mother had? It would make something to do. What do you think… Barraclough?’
‘I think…that those ledgers in the church will make very dull and difficult reading… Holbrook…for someone who is not a reading man.’
‘And you,’ said Holbrook to Nicos: ‘you haven’t said much yet. What is your concern with all this?’
‘I am just here…for company,’ said Nicos, effortlessly reversing (as indeed the event had reversed) the original roles of himself and the kyrios.
‘So one would suppose,’ sneered Holbrook, who much resented the quiet yet evident affection between Nicos and the Greco, the young man’s hand in the crook of his elder’s elbow.
‘I think,’ said the Greco, ‘that we have seen all we came to see, Nico mou. Paolo seems quite contented.’
‘He should be,’ said Holbrook with an air of possession. ‘My mother left an annuity to help feed him – and I always check with the lawyers to make sure it’s promptly paid.’
‘Well nourished he certainly is,’ said Nicos, the first comment he had offered. ‘How do you attend…to his other needs?’
‘I suppose nature takes care of those,’ said Holbrook with an old-fashioned schoolmasterly air, as if the subject were not one which decent fellows would willingly discuss. He looked contemptuously at Nicos and then, with a blend of speculation and concern, at Paolo in the allotment. Suddenly his look became prurient. ‘Perhaps his aunt interests herself in her growing nephew,’ he said. Prurience gave way to jealousy and spite. ‘Why do you ask?’ he said to Nicos. ‘It’s none of your business. But perhaps you wish it were. Want to take a hand yourself do you?’
Nicos took his hand from the Greco’s elbow and moved towards Holbrook.
‘Nico,’ quacked Barraclough in a hoarse, penetrating voice which he had used, when Nicos was still his page boy, to call him to heel.
Nicos came to heel.
‘May I take your regards to Provost Llewyllyn?’ said the Greco to Holbrook.
‘Tell him…that I am most grateful to him for suggesting first by his own visit and now by sending an emissary…so significant a line in sociological and historical research.’
When Maisie Malcolm received a letter from Raisley Conyngham in which he asked her permission to entertain her niece, Teresa, for the Easter holidays, at his house, Ullacote, near Timberscombe in Somerset, she was at first slightly reluctant to part with Tessa for the entire month of the holidays (which the invitation evidently comprised) and then slightly relieved to think that during that month Tess would certainly see nothing of Fielding Gray. For although Fielding had been officially found not guilty of carnal intent towards Tessa, doubts still lingered in Maisie’s mind lest one or the other or both of them might get ‘carried away’ or ‘over excited’ one
rainy afternoon, and she preferred to keep them apart except for short periods during which they could be closely supervised. What was on offer in Mr Conyngham’s letter was country walks on Mr Conyngham’s estate, tennis on Mr Conyngham’s hard tennis court, swimming in Mr Conyngham’s heated swimming-pool, much reading of improving works of literature (‘In some sort,’ Mr Conyngham had written, ‘this will resemble an old-fashioned “reading party”, which sounds pukka enough, thought Maisie, though why people should go to a party to read was more than she could see), and the company of Teresa’s friend and Mr Conyngham’s very promising pupil: Marius Stern. Well…all right…so long as they don’t get too fond… thought Maisie; it does seem, when all is said, that after that wretched business two and a half years ago they have settled down just to be sensible and friendly; and in any case, I can’t watch over them every hour of every day, leave alone when they’re at school, I’ve just got to hope for the best, so I may as well hope for the best at this ‘Ullacote’ as well.
‘He says there’ll be horses too,’ she said to Tessa at the weekend: ‘racehorses which he trains on the moors.’
