The Fortunes of Fingel

by Simon Raven

  “Well, I’m sorry,” said Fingel, “but I’m afraid I haven’t got round to it yet. The men in our family usually favour marriage at about fifty…when they’ve been about long enough to pick something cosy and harmless.”

  “I have been apprised,” hissed the Colonel’s lady, “that your last commanding officer was indulgent towards bachelors and their attitudes. This will no longer be the case.”

  “So I gather, ma’am,” said Fingel. “But I don’t quite see what all this has to do with our forthcoming celebrations.”

  “If too many bachelors of mature age are present, they will create a bad impression of the Regiment; they will give it a disreputable air.”

  “Then perhaps we’d better go on leave.”

  “You have just been on your disembarkation leave.” She knew it all, of course. “In any case, you and those like you” – a contemptuous glance at me – “will be needed to make up the numbers.”

  “To the disrepute, you say, of the Regiment?”

  “Not,” she said, in a sharp, steady clack, “if you behave as you should. If you pay the right kind of attentions to the right kind of girls – eligible girls, Major Fingel – and if you give it to be plainly understood that now you are back in England you are hoping to settle down, as we expect of you, in the normal manner, then all will be well. The same” – she nearly spat – “applies to you, Major Raven. Now return to my husband’s conference, and tell Captain Rowley and Captain Bootle to come in here to me.”

  In such manner had we been admonished and dismissed; and now, later the same day…

  “That woman must be put down,” said Fingel, “we must shove our swedes together, old bean, and make a plan…”

  Phase I of Fingel’s plan was Fingel’s bachelor dinner. This took place, at a delectable restaurant ten miles away, immediately after Colonel and Mrs Peregrine-P.’s inaugural cocktail party, and thus ensured that most of the “eligible girls” were deserted at 7.30 sharp as all the young officers trooped off to the banquet promised by Fingel. Although the Colonel’s lady was observed to be looking more than ever like a rat-trap the next morning, she kept silence for that time.

  Phase II was implemented at the cricket match v. the Gentlemen of the county. Fingel and I and a number of the bachelors were playing in this (more or less on our merits), and as long as we were in the field we were safe; but while the Regiment was batting those of us who were out or waiting to go in were supposed to perform such duties as carrying lemonade to and fro for the “eligible girls” and directing their mothers “to the Mess” (i.e. to the lavatory). Fingel’s plan, however, consisted in summoning all the bachelors to practise in the nets (on the plausible ground that we must “put up a good show against the county”) and co-opting any of those that were dismissed from the middle to bowl at those who had yet to bat. Except for the mere thirty minutes of the tea interval, therefore, the eligible girls were largely unattended. Once again, the Colonel’s lady kept her own counsel; but there was a fleck in her eye which made me think that a counter-coup was surely impending.

  At Phase III Fingel played his master-stroke. He invited to the ball (the climacteric function of them all) a certain Mrs Offenden, whom he had first met and appreciated while we were in Kenya and she was touring Africa. “Auntie” Offenden, as Fingel called her behind her back (especially when he was boasting of the lavish presents which he scrounged off her on plea of penury), was a lady of ample if somewhat over-ripe physical attractions, who acknowledged no tiresome obligations to Mr Offenden (something in the City) and was yet respectable enough, being the occasional guest of minor royalty, to be invited anywhere. She was jolly, worldly and witty; she was easy-going and undemanding, with a smile discreetly lewd; she was a feather in any bachelor’s cap – the very image of what a soldier was better accommodated with than a wife.

  Fingel had widely and assiduously advertised the forthcoming appearance of “my Auntie Offenden”, and had engaged her for two purposes (apart, that is, from his carnal and pecuniary ones): to demonstrate publicly his unassailable preference for his present way of life, and in order to distract his brother officers from the eligible girls provided by Mrs Peregrine-Pierce. For a time all went Fingel’s way at the ball: the unmarried captains clustered round Mrs Offenden, and even the shyest subaltern (encouraged by her thigh-caressing smile) led her out to waltz. As for the Colonel’s lady, she was receiving Fingel’s message loud and clear; but, as heretofore during their contest, she was biding her time. She bided it, in fact, until just after supper…when she was observed tapping Colonel P-P. on the shoulder, whispering intently in his ear, and then giving him a smart shove in the direction of the Offenden/Fingel group. The group parted; the Colonel requested a dance; Mrs O. rose like Semiramis to comply.

  “It is a special pleasure,” the Colonel said, “to welcome a close relation of Major Fingel’s.”

  “A close what of Major Fingel’s?” said Mrs Offenden, stopping short of the floor.

  “Relation. His aunt, surely.”

  “His aunt?”

  “They tell me he is always talking of his rich and generous aunt. ‘Dear old Auntie Offenden,’ he is always saying, ‘she’s just sent me another £50 – should be enough for a dinner…’ ”

  But already Fingel’s Auntie Offenden had turned from the Colonel and dealt Fingel such an epic back-hander as made the teeth rattle in his chops and the champagne glass shatter in his fist; after which she marched out of the ball and out of her nephew’s bank account forever.

  The Passing of Fingel

  The day Fingel retired from the Army he gave a party at our Regimental Depot in Salop.

  “Twenty-five years with the Colours, give or take a few days,” he said the day before; “one may as well do the right thing for once. Drinks for all chums ad lib. and after dinner; always the best time. I’ve got permission from the Commandant to invite Mack into the Mess and one or two of the Warrant Officers.”

  In fact Fingel could perfectly well have stayed on in the Service for another ten years, until he was fifty-five. Even though he was now stuck fast in the Rank of Major, the Army could have continued to find work, of a kind, to fill in his time – was indeed bound to do so if he wished to remain.

  “But what work?” he had said to me some time before. “Counting spare parts or auditing Mess accounts. Not my world, old bean. Time to go.”

  “But whatever are you going to do?” I had asked him.

  “Commute my pension – that’ll raise a few thou – and stick the lot on some horse. If I’m lucky I’ll then have a comfortable capital, and if it goes wrong I can slit my throat.”

  “Jokes apart, Fingel: what are you going to do?”

  “I’ve just told you.”

  “Please be serious. Now, what about your mother’s money?”

  “I’m beginning to think she’s immortal. In any case, it’s just not enough, old bean, to keep Fingel in the manner to which he wishes to become accustomed. Or not for more than a few months.”

  “But with your share of that, when it comes, and your pension, and your gratuity – ”

  “– I could just about find enough fuel to crawl down the years to my grave – ”

  “– And what you could earn in the sort of job open to ex-officers – ”

  “– Like secretary to a suburban golf club, grovelling to a pack of haberdashers? You look here, old bean: I’m leaving the Service because I’ve now reached the stage at which it can offer me only boring and humiliating tasks; so it surely stands to reason I don’t aim to be bored and humiliated outside it. Give me liberty, as the man said, or give me death.”

  And so now, on the day of Fingel’s farewell party, I still had no idea of his plans. All I knew was that he would be paid a gratuity of three or four thousand pounds down, and that he would receive a modest annual pension, half of which (and only half) he would be able to commute “for a few thou” more. In whatever way he arranged all that, he would have to have occupation; and on t
he subject of occupation he simply declined to speak.

  “Where are you going tomorrow?” I said, as he held a final inspection of the rows of bottles.

  “Somewhere well clear of my mother,” was all the indication he would give. “Here’s Sweenie Mack. I thought he’d be the first to show up.”

  It was a good party as such parties go. Most of the guests got drunk, and all the Sergeant-Majors told Fingel, as is their wont on these occasions, that he was the finest officer they’d ever served under. The Commandant handsomely conceded, though not without undertones of irony, that the Regiment would not be the same without him; and several old enemies arrived uninvited and insisted on shaking hands with Fingel and drinking his liquor to his future. Everything, in short, was going off in a more or less decent and traditional fashion, when Sergeant Mack came up to me (at about half past midnight) wearing a worried look.

  “There’s something wrong about His Honour tonight,” Mack said; “I can always tell.”

  “I expect he’s a bit sad.”

  “No; it’s not that, surr; he’s fey.”

  “Pissed?”

  “Fey. Meaning, surr, that he’s up to some folly, or soon will be. Has His Honour said aught to you, surr, about putting all his pension on a horse?”

  “Yes, but he couldn’t mean it seriously. Anyhow, he can only commute half his pension, and he can’t have done so yet. It takes months to arrange.”

  “He could have raised money against his pension from somewhere, surr. And against his gratuity too. If not from the bank, from the Hebrews. It wouldna be the first time he’s been there. His wurd to me was that he had an eye to some horse at Liverpool.”

  “He must have meant the Grand National. That’s not for weeks yet.”

  “Exactly so, surr. The earlier you bet, the longer the odds on the ante-post market. It’s long odds His Honour seeks.”

  “Where is he anyway?”

  “He was passing round the whusky not three minutes gone. Foreby His Honour is in the lavvy.”

  But the time passed and His Honour did not return. I sought him in “the lavvy” and then in his bedroom. In the former a sole subaltern was being sick; in the latter Fingel’s black tin trunk was sitting on the floor, packed but still open. Automatically I looked into it and retrieved three of my evening shirts. Then I sat on Fingel’s bed, gazing stupidly at the trunk, remembering the journeys on which it had accompanied us and the grotesque or scandalous objects which Fingel had from time to time produced from it: native beer, tinned curries, endless stolen goods, a bundle of dildoes which he had picked up for a song in Singapore and hoped to sell (after demonstration) to frustrated Regimental wives whose husbands were away on courses.

  As I gazed and remembered, something caught my eye. The removal of my shirts had revealed the jacket of Fingel’s Mess Dress. On the left breast of this was pinned a short row of miniature medals: the Coronation Medal (for Fingel had carried the Regimental Colour in the procession, I now recalled), campaign medals for Korea and Kenya. But surely, I thought to myself, those miniatures should be in their case. The case itself, some six inches by two inches and oval in section, was protruding from a sock in which it had been wrapped. Without thinking, I crossed to the trunk, picked out the case and opened it. Inside were about ten pills, little tubular capsules with powder inside them.

  “Careful, old bean,” said Fingel’s voice: “I wouldn’t want to lose any of those. A portable cure for all ills.”

  “Where have you been? I was looking for you.”

  “Taking a last look round the old place.”

  He took the medal case from me and put it in his pocket.

  “Time to go back to the party,” he said.

  “Sweenie Mack’s worried. He thinks you’re up to something.”

  “Let’s go and cheer him up.”

  We descended the stairs to the room in which the party had been going on. Now only Sergeant Mack remained. Fingel poured himself whisky – his measure for special occasions.

  “A final toast,” he said: “to the horse I’ve backed at Liverpool to win my fortune.”

  “Fingel…how much have you put on it?”

  “All I could raise on my legitimate expectations.”

  Mack looked at me as if to say “I told you so”.

  “What’s it called, Your Honour?”

  “Just…horse.” He produced the medal case from his pocket and took out a capsule. “Would you care for a sample? Very stimulating, I’m told, but apt to become addictive, so I don’t use it myself. Anyway, I don’t believe in consuming my potential profits.” He grinned widely. “Horse…you must have heard the term?”

  “Fingel…how much of that stuff have you got?”

  “Rather a lot. In the bottom of my trunk. I’m keeping these pills separate to interest my customers.”

  “But where in God’s name did you get it?”

  “I told you. Liverpool. I met a man in Hong Kong when we were there. He gave me an address and a letter of introduction – told me they were always glad of reliable recruits. I’m working on commission, but if you’ve got some money to invest they’ll let you buy a certain amount at relatively low rates to sell on your own account. They believe in keeping their employees happy, you see. Worker participation, I think it’s called.”

  “No wonder you were cagey about your future. Why are you telling us now?”

  “Because I’ll be off in ten minutes and you’re not going to see me again. In my new game, old bean, one needs to be anonymous and elusive. So Fingel is about to vanish. In a year or two Fingel – or rather, whatever he is then called – should be rich enough to retire. But not in England, I fancy; they’re so unkind here to people with unexplained money. Bung-ho.” He drunk down his whisky. “My car’s outside the Mess,” he said: “I brought it over from the garages just now. Do me one last good turn, both of you: help me down with my trunk.”

  A few minutes later Fingel and his black tin trunk drove away into the darkness. I have neither seen nor heard of him since.

  The Works of Simon Raven

  Published by House of Stratus

  First Born of Egypt Series

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Morning Star 1984

  2. The Face of the Waters 1985

  3. Before the Cock Crow 1986

  4. New Seed for Old 1987

  5. Blood of My Bone 1989

  6. In the Image of God 1990

  7. Troubadour 1992

  Novels

  1. Brother Cain 1959

  2. Doctors Wear Scarlet 1960

  3. Close of Play 1962

  4. The Roses of Picardie 1979

  5. An Inch of Fortune 1980

  6. September Castle 1982

  Stories/Collections

  1. The Fortunes of Fingel 1976

  2. Shadows on the Grass 1981

  3. A Bird of Ill Omen 1989

  Synopses of Simon Raven Titles

  Published by House of Stratus

  Before The Cock Crow

  This is the third volume in the First Born of Egypt saga. The story opens with Lord Canteloupe’s strange toast to ‘absent friends’. His wife Baby has recently died and Canteloupe has been left her retarded son, Lord Sarum of Old Sarum. This child is not his, but has been conceived by Major Fielding Gray. In Italy there is an illegitimate child with a legitimate claim to the estate, whom Canteloupe wants silenced. The plot also sees young Marius Stern and his school friend, Tessa Malcolm, drawn into Milo Hedley’s schemes and into a dramatic finale orchestrated by Raisley Conyngham, Milo’s teacher.

  Bird if Ill Omen

  This hilarious instalment from Simon Raven’s entertaining autobiography takes the reader to the four corners of the globe. A lifetime spent travelling – as a soldier and as a civilian – brought Raven into contact with an amazing selection of characters: Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, Morgan Grenfell, plus eccentrics such as Colonel Cuthbert Smith
and ‘Parafit’ Paradore. Army life, travels, meetings, dinners and calamities take place in Kenya, Bombay, the Red Sea, Greece and California, among other exotic locations. Wherever he is, Raven entertains us in typical style.

  Blood of My Bone

  In this fifth volume of Simon Raven’s First Born of Egypt series, the death of the Provost of Lancaster College is a catalyst for a series of disgraceful doings in the continuing saga of the Canteloupes and their circle. Marius, under-age father of the new lady Canteloupe’s dutifully produced heir to the family estate, is warned against the malign influence of Raisley Conyngham. Classics teacher at Lancaster, Conyngham is well aware of the sway he has over Marius, who has already revealed himself a keen student of ‘the refinements of hell’. With fate intervening, the stage is set for another deliciously wicked instalment.

  Brother Cain

  Expelled from school, advised to leave university, and forced to resign from the army, Captain Jacinth Crewe has precious few options open to him. For a man in his position, an approach to join a sinister British Government security organisation, with a training centre in Rome, is not an opportunity to be turned down. In Rome, he learns fast how to be ruthless. There is one final mission to complete his training however – to kill an American diplomat and his wife. The setting for the final test is Venice, the occasion, a New Year’s Eve costume ball. As the clock nears midnight, the choice has to be made. And there is no turning back.

  Close of Play

  They are young and entirely unconventional. They have finished at Cambridge and done the tour of Europe. Now the three friends need to earn a living, so they have set up a unique organisation – a very exclusive London club with high membership fees, affordable only to a select few, and where the services on offer are richly varied and exotic. The menu is sex, in every imaginable form, guaranteed to satisfy any craving and fulfil any desire. Some of the world’s most prominent people make up the clientele.