Before The Cock Crow (First Born of Egypt)

by Simon Raven

  With considerable persistence, Fielding had then discovered from Directory Enquiries that Lamprey lived in the Villa Nestor-Juxta-Ullacote and had two telephone numbers: a private one which could not be disclosed and an official or public one which was presumably in his office. In any event, application to it overnight went unanswered, but at nine o’clock the next morning (this morning) Lamprey had responded promptly and in person.

  ‘Fielding Gray? You don’t sound like him.’

  ‘Some time since we met, Jack. I was blown up in Cyprus, just after you left the Squadron, and that changed my appearance…and my voice.’

  ‘Yes. I heard a bit about that. Rotten luck. Not but what you’ve done a bloody sight better scribbling porn than you would if you’d stayed with that pox-ridden whore, Auntie Army. What is it you want? Don’t think I’m not pleased to hear you, but I’ve got a busy old morning on, and I can’t imagine you’ve rung me up over this distance of years just to ask if I can still get my prick up a hole.’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Given a co-operative filly, preferably a many times deflowered sixteen year old, I can just about feed it in like a hose-pipe. What is it you want, Fielding?’

  ‘What are Marius Stern and Tessa Malcolm doing with Conyngham at Ullacote?’

  ‘Not my business, all that. Reading suitable books, I expect.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Playing suitable games. Tennis, fencing, cricket. Going walkies.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘’Pon my word, Fielding, you’re demned inquisitive.’

  ‘Answer up, Jack. There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘And if there is, why should I tell you?’

  ‘Res Unius, Res Omnium, Jack. Our motto in the old mob. Remember?’

  ‘Yes. But only because I’ve got a long memory. That was a quarter of a century ago.’

  ‘That motto is subject to no statute of limitations. The affair of one member of the regiment is the affair of all, if he wishes it to be, twenty-five years ago or now. And assistance given, of which you, God knows, had more than enough from me, must be reciprocated.’

  ‘All right, cobber. But first tell me why you’re so interested. Fancy one of them, perhaps?’

  ‘Marius is the son of old friends. Tessa is the – niece of a partner of mine.’

  ‘You could still fancy one of them – or both.’

  ‘Tell, Jack.’

  ‘Nothing much to tell.’

  ‘Then why the reluctance?’

  ‘I was brought up to mind my own business and leave others to mind theirs. So I don’t like it when buggers get nosy. However, it is certainly true that I owe you, so I’ll give you what return I can…which isn’t, I warn you, very much. Marius is spending three or four hours a day, apart from all his other activities, learning to be a stable lad.’

  ‘Indeed? Does he like it?’

  ‘He’s fond of horses and he has a way with them. Nice, kind pair of hands, as well. I fancy he finds some of the instruction a bit rough, but he likes the lass he’s working under and she likes him…though she swears at him like a Connaught Ranger, which he don’t mind one bit. One more thing: I’ve told this lass and the rest of ’em to keep their hands off his tassel – in case that worries you.’

  ‘Not much, no. It’s Raisley Conyngham that worries me. You must admit that the whole arrangement is peculiar. Will Marius ride?’

  ‘He’ll exercise the horse he’s in charge of. He’s too young to ride in a race, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘You’re not telling me much, Jack.’

  ‘I told you just now: nothing much to tell.’

  ‘Try. Remember how I helped you pay back that money you stole from the Squadron Mess. Or the dud cheque you gave the NAAFI Manageress. Or what you tried to do to–’

  ‘–I’ve turned over a lot of new leaves since then. Giles has helped me. I went to pot but then Giles found me and put me here. I’ve been all right here. It’s my last chance, Fielding. Don’t go raking up the past. Leave me be.’

  ‘Just remember that money you stole from the Squadron Mess, and try to tell me something to square the debt. Then I’ll leave you be.’

  ‘All right. It isn’t much but I swear it’s all. Conyngham has some scheme afoot. He says it’s little more than a joke, and it certainly seems harmless, the little I know of it, but sometimes I wonder. It’s to do with the stallion which Marius takes care of – Lover Pie. Some mare of Prideau Glastonbury’s is also involved. Now, Prideau lives in Hereford. Giles made a diversion over here on his way there to stay with Prideau. He used to own horses in partnership with Prideau, and I think he might be interested in a leg of this very mare I’ve just mentioned – Boadicea. The other thing is, there’s some trouble about Prideau’s son, Myles, and Giles is going round picking up the shit and taking samples off to Prideau. That’s the reason he gives for being there now.’

  ‘All rather muddled, Jack.’

  ‘I’m a muddled man.’

  ‘Does Giles know about this scheme? After all, if you think he might be interested in buying a leg of the second horse involved–’

  ‘–I think not. I think that Giles is being left out of this joke.’

  ‘And where does Marius come into it?’

  ‘Walking on part. Stable lad under instruction in charge of Lover Pie. He’ll walk Lover Pie round the paddock the next time he races…with Gat-Toothed Jenny on hand in case anything goes wrong.’

  ‘Gat-Toothed Jenny?’

  ‘Lass who instructs Marius. Head travelling lass as well. The head lad here is pretty well past it, only kept on because he’s got nowhere to go, and Jenny handles the bulk of it.’

  ‘But what is this joke, this scheme?’ Fielding asked.

  There was a kind of gobbling at the other end.

  ‘I’m not sure, Fielding, truly I’m not,’ Jack Lamprey fluted down the telephone. ‘I just know that Conyngham has warned me that he’s getting up some harmless little trick, or trying some experiment, which involves Lover Pie and Boadicea, with Prideau’s consent, the next time they both go out in the same race. Or the next but one.’

  ‘But Conyngham’s a highly respected figure on the turf, or so everyone says. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be allowed to have you as his Private Trainer. Now respectable owners, Jack, shouldn’t be playing little tricks – not even harmless ones.’

  ‘I told you. This is my last chance. It’s not for me to question what my governor’s up to.’

  ‘Ringing? Doping? Stopping?’

  ‘A harmless little scheme, he said. A trick or an experiment. But harmless.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. Otherwise Conyngham might be seen off, and your last chance vanish with him. How can I be sure Marius is not in some kind of danger?’

  ‘Because they’re both potty about him. Raisley Conyngham and his right-hand man – right-hand boy, I should say – Milo Hedley he’s called, one of the boys at Conyngham’s school, you know the kind, so important he’s almost a master. Neither Conyngham nor Hedley want to touch, I think, but they both absolutely dote. As does Tessa – Teresa, as Conyngham calls her. If any harm came to Marius, Teresa would raise the poxy dickens from here to John O’Groats. So there can’t be any risk to him.’

  ‘But surely… Conyngham must have given you some instructions? So you must have some idea of what’s up?’

  ‘Not really. My instructions are to have Marius ready to lead Lover Pie round the paddock immediately before his next race and probably before the one after. He’s got all his documents, the identikit they all have to have to get into racecourse stables and all that – and he’s just got to be taught by Jenny and me how to go on with a horse in the paddock before a race. Regis Priory, the first race, Bellhampton Park the next. I must also see that he’s taught how to manage or manipulate Lover Pie while taking off his blanket out on the course just before a race, and putting it on again when the race is over. Nothing in the least extraordinary about that.
And that’s the lot, Fielding. I’ve done my best for you. Please let me go.’

  ‘All right. One condition: you telephone me if you find out any more.’ He gave Jack his telephone number both at Broughton Staithe and Buttock’s Hotel. ‘It’s true, Jack, that it’s a very long time since you put your hand in the Mess funds, and I dare say it’s also true that you’ve turned over lots of new leaves since. But I still think the story would do you no good with the Jockey Club. You know how those sort of chaps feel about Clubs and Messes and all that. So if I ever find that you’ve been holding out on me–’

  ‘–If there’s anything more to hear, Fielding, you shall hear it. Res Unius, Res Omnium, as you say.’

  All the same, thought Fielding now, as he turned back past the gun-sites and towards the golf course, I can’t imagine that Jack will shop Raisley Conyngham in a hurry, to me or anyone else. From what they all say, Raisley Conyngham is not the sort of man that anyone shops: for how can you betray a man who rouses, as Conyngham has clearly roused in Jack, both the warmth of loyalty and the chill of fear?

  ‘So old-fashioned, darling,’ trilled Ashley Dexterside down the telephone to Theodosia Canteloupe; ‘it absolutely creaks. The only thing it’s alive with is death-watch beetle.’

  As Managing Director of Salinger, Stern & Detterling, he was reporting to Theodosia on Part One of The Grand Grinder.

  ‘You’ll forgive me, Mr Dexterside,’ said Theodosia, ‘but I’m not at all sure that you are entitled to be so critical here. I don’t think sporting and military achievements are quite in your line.’

  ‘Dear me, no, darling. But one is a judge of prose.’

  ‘Is one? I thought one was a judge of advertising material. But never mind that now. I think, and my sister Carmilla thinks, that The Grand Grinder has great charm and is shaping very well. We want the provisional arrangements for publication in January absolutely confirmed, and we should like to know, not later than the end of July, your exact plans for promotion.’

  ‘If you say so, darling.’

  ‘We do say so. And we also say that you know neither of us well enough to call us “darling”.’

  ‘If you say so, dar – Lady Canteloupe.’

  ‘That’s better. And another thing. If, as I suspect, Major Gray is rather short of material for Part Two and there is a significant falling off in quality, then we shall simply publish Part One by itself. It will stand quite well alone.’

  ‘The book would hardly be economic to publish at that length.’

  ‘Then it will have to be uneconomic, won’t it? Its literary excellence will compensate for that.’

  ‘But the Board–’

  ‘–The Board consists of my husband, my sister, myself, Isobel Stern, widow of the late Gregory, Colonel Ivan Blessington–’

  ‘–All of whom will support you. But it also consists, Lady Canteloupe, of myself and five members of the old Board of Salinger & Holbrook as agreed at the amalgamation.’

  ‘If you are about to say, Mr Dexterside, that your party outnumbers mine, I should go on one side first, if I were you, and do a little quiet counting of shares. Leave alone my holding and my sister’s, my husband and Isobel Stern between them–’

  ‘–Point taken, Marchioness. No need to come it so heavy.’

  Theodosia giggled. ‘Anyway’, she said, ‘I dare say he’ll make as good a job of Part Two as he has of Part One. And if he doesn’t, it won’t be altogether his fault. As I say, material must be getting thin. There’s a limit to the amount of scandal and eccentricity that one can squeeze out of one family. But then again, he’s a very ingenious writer, and I dare say he’ll find a way out of the difficulty.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, Marchioness,’ intoned Ashley.

  ‘“Marchioness” is a ridiculous form of address.’

  ‘You said I mustn’t call you “darling”.’

  ‘What was the matter with “Lady Canteloupe”?’

  ‘So frowsty. I know, I shall call you “milady”, like your maid would. That way,’ cooed Ashley, ‘I shall feel deliciously close, as if I was brushing your hair or something. And while the mood is so intime, milady, let me just repeat: I think The Grand Grinder is a load of cold semolina.’

  ‘What do you think of the first part of The Grand Grinder?’ said Theodosia on the telephone to Ivan Blessington. ‘After all, you’ve known Fielding longer than any of us.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just rather desperate that somebody should agree with Carmilla and me that it’s jolly good stuff.’

  ‘Who told you it wasn’t?’

  ‘Ashley Dexterside. He said it was cold semolina. And Canteloupe isn’t very keen either. He says it’s “mannered”. It would have been all right coming from someone like E. F. Benson fifty years ago, he says, or even from J. B. Priestley in the 1960s, but coming here and now it smells of mothballs.’

  ‘Look, my dear,’ said Ivan Blessington. ‘Men like Fielding’s grandfather, who win races and ride away to wars, are not, these days, considered entirely proper. They are thought to be “competitive” or “chauvinistic” or “aggressive”. Guts and success do not appeal to the mealy majority who have neither. Or again, when Fielding takes for granted that his great-grandfather had maidservants or that the women and children did whatever they were told at the double, he offends almost everyone under forty. Now, as for Ashley, he is simply bored by the book because he is an old queen who does not begin to understand what it’s about; but it’s Canteloupe’s reaction that is our real worry, because he has spotted that its attitudes and premises are dangerously dated – “mannered” is the wrong word, I think.’

  ‘But do you like it, Ivan?’

  ‘I do. So does Betty. So do the girls.’

  ‘But the girls are under forty, so surely they ought to be offended…according to what you’ve just been saying?’

  ‘And so they would be – so would you and Carmilla be for that matter – if you’d all gone to a state school. The very idea of anyone’s winning anything, of an individual who comes first, would have had you all snarling with resentment. As it is, you and they have been brought up to appreciate effort and courage, so you raise a cheer, along of me and Betty, when Fielding’s grandfather comes in by a neck on his chin-strap, and we none of us give a hoot when one of Fielding’s great uncles puts his women in their place. But these sort of going-son will be very unpopular in many other quarters, I can tell you that.’

  ‘But surely,’ said Theodosia, ‘there’s still enough of the old gang around for Fielding to have a large audience?’

  ‘Yes…if they get to hear of the book. But Ashley and his kind will try to kill it…not by damning it but by ignoring it, by quietly letting it die the death. And all those knotted up women of either sex who edit or write for the weeklies – they’ll see that it never gets more than a scruffy mention at the bottom of a column, two or three lines on “the total deterioration of Mr Fielding Gray’s always dubious talent”.’

  ‘I’ve told Ashley to lay on a five-star advertising campaign for just after Christmas.’

  ‘Then we’ll both have to breathe on him like Drill Sergeants, or he’ll somehow contrive to slide out of it. We’d better get together about this very early, make sure all the foundations are properly laid some months ahead. I’ll telephone as soon as we’re back from the Balkans. We’re off on Thursday. Betty and the girls can hardly wait. They’ve mapped out every yard of the drive from here to the tip of Taenarus.’

  This picture filled Theodosia with such pleasure that she started sniffing heavily into the telephone.

  ‘Thea? Thea? What’s the matter, sweetheart?’

  ‘Nothing, Ivan, nothing. Have a lovely. Have a beaut,’ she said, a curious formula which she reserved for her most rare and especial blessings.

  ‘The thing is, darling,’ said Len to Carmilla Salinger, as they walked on the lawn of the Great Court of Lancaster, ‘that you like this stuff of Fielding’s, and I
like it, and Tom likes it, and Ivor Winstanley likes it, and the Greco likes it – or so he said yesterday before leaving for Italy – and even Nicos likes it in so far as he can understand it, because we all of us still believe in outmoded concepts such as honour, rank, merit and reward. Since we believe in them, we can admire and applaud those who attain to them, and we can also see the absurdity, the tragedy or the wickedness of those who should attain to them but either fall short of them or deliberately reject them. Believing in honour and appreciating its exercise, we can also believe in treachery and appreciate its exercise, whether as matter for moral disapproval or merely for a grim smile. We see the point. When Fielding’s great uncle sells the formula for the meat pies, we know that this is treachery, albeit of a mildly comic kind, and we can evaluate and relish the whole affair. But most people in the world can no longer do this. They do not know that honour or treachery even exist. To them the sale of the secret of the pie filling is not a gross betrayal of family confidence but simply a natural thing to do if you happen to be low in luck or money. To them there are no obligations, only gratifications to which they all have a “right”: and as for rewards, the whole idea is obscene to them as they think that anything or everything available to reward one person should be shared, as of “right”, between them all. It follows that this book of Fielding’s will go straight up the nose of the great British public, who will be annoyed and made envious by instances in which merit brings reward, while they will simply not understand the humour, sadness, evil or irony of instances in which the code is accidentally or otherwise flouted. No distinctions will be drawn, no judgements made, no jokes seen or savoured. The universal response will be: so bloody what?’