by Simon Raven
'Don't go overdoing it... and for God's sake be discreet. Your Department may not be much in the public eye, but you're not without name and importance, and if you're caught out it would mean a nasty scandal. Which is the last thing the Party can afford just now.'
'Who's going to catch me out? And what if they do? Can't a man have a mistress?'
'A minister can't,' said Somerset, 'not even a junior one. These days all public men are supposed to be like the angels —devoid of private parts. And what do you mean, mistress? Maisie is a common bawd.'
'I'm thinking of taking her away from Curzon Street and setting her up somewhere else. Just for me.'
'You thelfish old bugger,' yelped Somerset, shocked out of his usual calm: 'I've been going to Maithie for yearth. What would I do without her?'
'I might let you share expenses in the new place. We could work out a rota.'
'It 'ud cost me ten times what it does now.'
'Well, if you're going to be stingy ... said Canteloupe. 'My God, this cricket match is boring. If it doesn't improve soon, I'm going downstairs to telephone Maisie.'
'She's booked for the whole afternoon. I rang her up this morning myself.'
'There you are, you see. Much better have her nicely set up just between the two of us. Jesus Christ,' cried Canteloupe, vibrating with enthusiasm, 'she really is a bloody marvel. Nothing much to look at, as you said, but for sheer lust-making she's unique. I can quite believe she'd have settled Tom Llewyllyn's hash if she'd only been on for the job. How's all that going, by the way?'
'It's working out just as I hoped it would.'
A man came marching towards them down the rows of empty white seats.
'Your cousin, Detterling,' Somerset said.
'Good afternoon, you two.' Captain Detterling remarked. 'Nice to have cricket starting again.'
'You won't find this very amusing.'
'Anything,' said Detterling, 'would be preferable to what I've just been through with Gregory Stern. Do you know what he's doing? He's decided to set up something called the New Jewish Library, and he's got off to a swinging start by contracting for a three-volume commentary on the Gemara.'
'What's that when it's at home?' said Canteloupe.
'The Gemara,' explained Detterling, 'is a commentary on the Mishnah, which itself is a commentary on the Pentateuch. A commentary on the Gemara is therefore a commentary upon a commentary upon a commentary. Apart from which, Gregory has also commissioned three new books about Israel, all of them by Rabbis, and an eight-hundred-page study of the Diaspora in Poland from 1840 to 1845.'
'Not like him,' said Somerset. 'He's got the reputation of being the shrewdest small publisher in the game.'
'It's all started since Isobel's been pregnant.'
'No connection, surely?'
'I don't know,' said Detterling. 'He's been hopelessly overexcited about the whole thing. Because Isobel's pregnant, he's suddenly seen himself as a kind of patriarch. He's gone atavistic, you might say. He'll probably end up in the Sinai desert with a tent and a camel before long, but meanwhile he's expressing it all through his choice of these ridiculous books.'
'How long will it take him to go broke?' enquired Somerset
Detterling turned up his eyes.
'You'll see the vultures hovering when the time draws near.'
'He'll be up there hovering with them.' Canteloupe said.
On the morning of the day on which Fielding was due to lunch with General Grivas, he sent four telegrams from his hotel at Delphi: one to Grivas himself, one to the Grande Bretagne, one to Tom Llewyllyn in London, and one to the firm in Athens from which he had hired his car. Then he got into the car with Nicos and started driving west, heading for the ferry by which they proposed to cross the Gulf of Corinth and land on the Peloponnese, a few miles away from Patras. Prom Patras they would drive to Olympia, and from there over the mountains to Arcadia, that old country where the shepherds piped at noon.
8: Journey's End
When Tom Llewyllyn received Fielding's telegram, which informed him that there must now be an indefinite delay before Fielding could meet Grivas, he was both puzzled and annoyed. Why an indefinite delay? Either Grivas would meet Fielding or he wouldn't; there need be nothing indefinite about it. And why the lack of explanation? If it was safe to send telegrams on the subject at all, it was safe to offer a more circumstantial account. The whole matter was the more irritating as time for preparing the programme on Cyprus would soon be running short; and although a postponement would be in order. Tom did not relish the task of telling Constable that Fielding was behaving in a manner which made certitude as to dates impossible and did much to bear out Constable's uncharitable judgments, as to Fielding's obliquity, which Tom had been at pains to refute.
A telephone call to the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens revealed that Fielding had left the hotel some three days before. He had told Reception that he would be away at Delphi for one night only, but he had since wired—that very morning, in fact—to say that his date of return was, now indefinite. That word again, Tom thought: something must have happened on Fielding's one-night excursion out of Athens to throw all his plans into total confusion. Had he been kidnapped and made to send the wires to prevent anxiety in other quarters? Or was he funking his confrontation with Grivas? Or was he, perhaps, ill?
It was clear that if he had been kidnapped his captors would have made him insert in his telegram a convincing explanation of his inactivity. The absence of any such implied first that Fielding was quite free and secondly, this being so, that he had not explained himself simply because he did not wish to. Whatever had happened to cause the delay was therefore in some sense attributable to Fielding himself and almost certainly something of which he was ashamed. What could one do at Delphi of which one would be ashamed? Very little, Tom thought: it would be interesting to find out. He therefore sent for a guidebook, telephoned through (with some difficulty) to the principal hotel listed at Delphi, and was rewarded by discovering that the kyrios Gray had indeed stayed there for the last three nights. He had left that morning ... with his friend. His friend? Yes, the kyrios had—er—met a friend in Delphi, somewhat younger than himself, for whose accommodation in the hotel, as well as his own, the kyrios had paid before leaving. But where had he gone when he left? The kyrios had enquired the best way to the ferry at Antirrhion, so it was to be inferred that he had gone there.
By this time Tom did not need to be very acute to form a rough idea of what must have happened. Fielding had found something he fancied and driven it off. But why on earth had he driven it off in the wrong direction? Why couldn't he have taken it to Athens, since it was so important that he should go there? However much he fancied his new find, he could surely have borne a few hours' separation while he had lunch with Grivas as pledged. Clearly, something was badly out of order and something must be done. But what? It was a question of mounting an emergency operation to rescue Fielding (and with him his programme), and that meant finding a lot of money, which the BBC could be made to cough up, and a man of resource to send in pursuit, which was another thing again. Tom himself could not possibly go, having much urgent work on hand to get out the first programme in the series. The only person he could think of, there and then, was Captain Detterling (whom one automatically associated with expeditions of this nature), but Detterling was a Member of Parliament, and although he was much given to Journeys he might not be able to take off just like that.
However, he was worth trying. A call to Detterling's chambers in Albany raised only a mealy-mouthed and unhelpful manservant, and a call to Gregory Stern Ltd raised only Gregory Stern, who insisted that Tom should listen for fifteen minutes while he read out a synopsis for a book on the Jewish problem in Mauritius. After this, Tom was just about to try the House of Commons, when there was a knock on his door, through which came the Director of Features and a man who looked like an upright crocodile in a bowler hat.
'Mr Llewyllyn,' the Director of Features said
, 'something very grave indeed has just been brought to my notice. I can only hope that you will be able to explain.'
I will have this, Fielding thought: I must have it. I am well over thirty years old and such a chance will never come again. I must go on having this for as long as I possibly can.
He was sitting on the steps of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, watching Nicos, who was standing among broken columns somewhere away by the river. Behind and above the temple a small tree-covered hill rustled in the faint breeze of the afternoon. Tourists pottered singly about, for the most part keeping in the shade of pine or masonry. Only Nicos, standing among the broken columns by the river, remained out under the fierce white sun.
Yes, thought Fielding: I must go on having this for as long as I can. But how long could that be? How long could he exist in this timeless state, measuring the hours and the days only by the recurring rhythms of desire, ecstasy, satiety and then, once more, desire? How long could he stay out of the world, thinking nothing of dates or money or obligations, living only in his coloured dream of love?
General Grivas, Tom Llewyllyn, Gregory Stern. Sooner or later he would have to return to their world and account to them for his absence. To Grivas he had wired that he was unwell and begged to be excused. To Tom he had wired that there must be delay. But sooner or later he would have to approach Grivas again, he would have to beg Tom's pardon for the hiatus (and all too probably for total failure, as Grivas might not prove so amenable to a second request), he would have to go home and propose some new scheme to Gregory and start earning his bread. He looked at Nicos, as he stood by the river Alpheius. How long could he go on having this? The answer was brutally simple: until the cash ran out.
So be it, then. If Nicos would stay with him, Fielding would keep him until the bottom of the purse was in sight Then he would give him what he could and say good-bye, go back to Athens and start worrying about the bills. These would be heavy, and some of them, like the draft he had drawn on Tom's patience, might never be fully met. But that could not be helped. For the first time in seventeen years he had been in love, and this time he must not toss it away from him, as he had before, he must cherish it with all his strength and resources. The gods had offered him a second chance, which was perhaps the greatest privilege in their gift, and if he spurned it they would curse him for ever.
He left the temple step and walked through the scorching sun to where Nicos stood.
'You will stay with me?' he said. 'Promise that you'll stay.'
'If you will take care of me,' said Nicos, 'I will stay as long as it is permitted.'
'Permitted?'
'We do not settle these things ourselves. You know that. There are powers much stronger than us who settle them for us. They let us meet; they will decide when we must part.'
'The Fates, you mean? The stars? The gods?'
'There is one above all these. Necessity, that is what we have always called it in Greece. 'Αύϰγκη,' Nicos said: 'Necessity.'
'I was just thinking much the same thing.'
Necessity. When the money ran out. Necessity was above everything, even above those gods who had given him his second chance.
'But meanwhile we can make the best of the time we have,' Nicos said, and ran his tongue over his lips. 'Nobody knows when Necessity will come, so there Is no good thinking about it until it does. We will sleep the night here in the hotel and go on tomorrow. Sleep another night, at Tripolis maybe, and go on again. It is best like that.'
'You think Necessity may take longer to catch up if we keep moving?'
'No. Necessity is everywhere at once. But it is nice to feel free, even if we can never be so.'
'They both remained standing,' said Tom to Patricia, 'both the Director and the crocodile man, even when I offered them chairs. So then I knew something really bad must be coming.'
'Oh, darling ...'
'But at first it just seemed ridiculous. Apparently Miss Enid Jackson of the Administration Department had written to the National Insurance people to say that I had instructed her that my card had been inadvertently destroyed, and would they kindly issue a new one forthwith?'
'And would they?'
'No. They'd consulted their files and discovered I'd never had one at all. For a long time they'd been making attempts to get hold of me, the man in the bowler hat said—like that letter to Buttock's, I suppose—but they'd never succeeded. Now, at last, they'd caught up, and I must understand that I was to be prosecuted for fifty-two separate offences under the Act—i.e. one for every week that I'd failed to stamp my card over the last year, which is as far back as they're allowed to go. Since the maximum penalty for each offence is ten pounds, I could be fined over five hundred quid.'
'We can surely find five hundred pounds, darling.'
'They can also sue through the civil courts for contributions outstanding—in this case for at least as far back as three years, and possibly for the whole lot.'
'We can still find the money. If you haven't got it all just now, I can sell some of the shares Daddy handed over last year.'
'That was the line I took,' Tom said. 'I got my chequebook out and asked the crocodile man how much he wanted. Let him name his sum, I said, and go away and leave me in peace. But he said it had gone beyond that now. The due processes of the law had been invoked, he said, and there was no stopping any of it. Then he went away and left me with the Director, who was practically flying round the ceiling.'
'But why?' asked Patricia. '
'Ah. This is where it all stopped just being boring and absurd and got absolutely loathsome. I was going to be publicly tried, the Director said. So what, I said: I'd plead guilty, pay up and get out. But for twelve years or more, the Director said, I'd deliberately evaded my obligations as a citizen. Rubbish, I said: it wasn't deliberate, I'd never even thought about it. But you lied, he said; you told Miss Jackson your child had torn up your card when you never ever had one. A fraudulent lie—he was squealing with indignation by now—to try and evade paying out money for an invaluable social service. A squalid piece of deceit—and I'd had the effrontery to involve the BBC, to try to exploit the Corporation as the agent of my falsehood. I couldn't be trusted, I wasn't fit to work with decent people—let alone to give orders to them—I was evil. I was filth, I was slime ... and I needn't bother to come back tomorrow.'
'But Tom ... He can't do that.'
'He can't but those above him can—and have. There's a clause in my contract, something about my preserving the capacity to fulfil my obligations to the BBC. These, it seems, I have implicitly repudiated by my behaviour. Or so the Director has persuaded the gentlemen upstairs.'
His head drooped and he looked very defeated.
'Tom. Darling Tom. After all your work.'
'I don't think it would ever have been much good. For all their fine talk at the beginning. I think they were going to muzzle the series somehow—they've been making difficulties all along. But there's another thing.'
He told her the story of Fielding, as he himself had construed it, and of his very worrying behaviour.
'God knows what sort of mess he's getting into. I was going to send someone after him—I could have got the BBC to pay. But now ... well, I suppose I'll have to go myself. I can spare a few days, as things are.'
Patricia drew a sharp breath.
'You won't be allowed out of the country. Not if you've charges to face.'
'They'll accept security. I dare say.'
'We haven't the money for you to go gallivanting all over Greece. Not with those fines, and all they're going to sue you for.'
'I can manage ... though I might have to ask you to cash some of those shares. Just as a loan, of course.'
'That was for if you needed it. Not for anyone else.'
'But Fielding's an old friend.'
'Dirty pig.' Her face was hard and pinched. 'Running off with some filthy little boy from the gutter. If you go after him, I won't give you a penny.'
'Patricia�
��'
'—Not a penny.'
'Very well. I'll have to get hold of Detterling and ask him to go. He can probably afford the money. But when he asks me why, in all the circumstances, I'm not going myself, I shall have to grovel... grovel... and say my wife won't let me.'
Patricia saw the danger signals working in Tom's face and realised that she had gone too far.
'Tom, darling ... I'm sorry I said that about Fielding. I didn't mean it.'
'Yes. you did. I saw your face when you said it. It was obscene.'
'I was upset, at the thought of you going away. Listen, Tom,' She came very close to him. 'Now that you've left the BBC, it's all over with the series. So what does it matter if Fielding doesn't see Grivas?'
She fingered him crudely and pressed up against him. He backed slightly away.
'It would be nice to know the truth, series or no. And then there's Fielding himself to think of.'
Patricia fumbled with her skirt.
'Do you really think Grivas would have told him anything? And as for Fielding himself, don't you think he might be ... happy ... with this boy of his?'
'Perhaps,' said Tom, looking down to where her hands were working.
'Then forget them all,' she breathed at him. 'You've no need to go to Greece, no need to grovel to Detterling either. Look at me, Tom, and say you'll forget them.'
Tom stared fascinated at her violently circling fingers. 'That's right,' she said: 'look at me, and forget them.'
Fielding and Nicos motored over the mountains, through Tropaia (with its tiled roofs and blue balconies) and Dimitsana (terraced on its citadel of rock), and down into, Arcadia, most of which consisted of bare hills, not at all Arcadian. But in the later afternoon, on the road between Tripolis and Sparta, they found a little valley in which were trees, wild flowers and a rocky stream. Here they stopped to discuss the night's harbour.
'Back to Tripolis or on to Sparta? From Sparta we could go to Gytheion or Monemvasia and take a boat to one of the islands.'
