I never tell her, because until now she hasn’t shown the slightest interest. Of course I know Sarson! He is the most unpopular boy in the school, but I don’t tell mother this. She seems so pleased with herself, as if she has made a delightful discovery which will benefit me enormously. The holidays are coming to an end, and no doubt she will insist on my making friends with Sarson the following term.
It is not immediately obvious why Sarson is so unpopular. He is tall, fair-haired, and unusually good-looking. Contrary to what some people think, you know, pre-adolescent boys are very susceptible to beauty. Well, I am, but I’m still not keen on Sarson, though mainly because nobody else is. He’s not specially clever at work, or good at games, though he’s not bad, but he always acts as if he’s incredibly superior. It’s nothing you can pin down except that he boasts a lot about how rich his parents are. His father’s something in oil and they live most of the time abroad. And he boasts of course about his famous Uncle Rex, but I’ll come to that later.
Ours is an old-fashioned preparatory school. I’m talking about the year 1957, fifty years ago — is that right? — so it must seem even more old-fashioned to you than it does to me. There’s a lot of petty regulations and a lot of beating. Does that still go on? The Headmaster even has names for his canes: they’re called Scipio Major and Scipio Minor, after the Roman generals who tamed Hannibal, you know. I suppose one of them is supposed to be less painful than the other, but I could never tell the difference. Well, Sarson is always getting ‘Scipio’d’, as we call it, though it doesn’t seem to worry him. What for? Oh, all sorts of things, but mostly for things he does to the smaller boys, like putting ink in their geometry boxes, or glue on their hair, or drawing pins on their seats. That’s when he’s caught, but mostly he isn’t caught, so he is feared as well as hated.
Am I painting too grim a picture? I do not intend to. I think I am happy here. The Head Master, The Reverend Richard Cowdray, always known as R.C., is pretty decent, in his intentions anyway. Russell Court is in Kent, situated a few miles inland from the Channel Coast on the edge of a little town called Northgate, one of those quiet, respectable places where elderly spinsters go to fade away in pairs, and retired Majors play golf and bridge. I am a solitary boy, which does not mean that I have no friends, but that I take them or leave them at a whim, and in between I walk alone, like a cat. I am not noticeably bad at games, but I never shine. I dream and wander whenever I can, and the grounds offer many places of solitude. In the summer the shade of trees beside a playing field is what I like best. There I can hide myself with a book or two until across the evening air the Master On Duty calls: ‘All In!’
Summer evenings on a Saturday or Sunday are my favourite because they are a time of no obligations or duties: no games, no work. You cannot be got at: being got at by people with intentions for me is the thing I dread. Those evenings are long, like the shadows that stretch across the cricket fields. I have a spot where I go on these occasions because it is where no one else goes. It is the Second Eleven Cricket Pavilion on Lower Field. Its quiet, self-proclaimed mediocrity soothes me and appeals to something deep within. I cannot tell you what it is; perhaps I discovered that later in life, but I don’t know, you see. There is usually an old deck chair on its verandah where I can sit and read unmolested.
It was the second or third Saturday evening of that summer term. I am not in my usual tranquil frame of mind because that morning I have had a letter from my mother. ‘I met Mrs Sarson again today in Harrods. Are you making friends with her boy Giles? He sounds a very nice sort of boy.’ I cannot fathom this last remark. What makes her think he is nice? Is it because his parents are rich? I feel guilty not simply because I have done nothing about befriending Sarson, but because I have no intention of doing so. You see, my mother’s wishes have been until now my only moral imperatives.
I am trying to erase her voice from my head — ‘Such a nice boy! Do Make friends with him!’ — so I wander down to the Second Eleven Pavilion with a book, Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet. I have read it before, but that will help me concentrate and forget. I come near to the pavilion. The air is still, and full of the soft, lingering warmth of evening. To my annoyance I begin to hear voices. They are coming from behind the pavilion. I approach as close as I can without seeing or being seen.
‘Well, Stubbings, do you want to join the Ancient Order of Sarsonites?’
‘Oh, yes, Sarson.’
‘Then prepare yourself, Stubbings.’
‘Oh, I say, Sarson. What are you doing?’
‘‘Oh, I say!’ That’s a rather old-fashioned way of talking. Come along. You haven’t prepared yourself yet, Stubbings.’
‘Oh, all right, but what’s going to happen, Sarson?’
‘What are the two maxims of the Ancient Order of Sarsonites , Stubbings?’
‘Secrecy Above All.’
‘And——?’
‘No Pain, No Gain, Sarson.’
‘Precisely. Now, are you going to be a brave little soldier, Stubbings?’
‘What are you doing with that needle?’
‘I am rendering it sterile with this lighter, Stubbings.’
‘Oh, Sarson, please. Don’t——’
‘Don’t what? Now come along, Stubbings. Sarsonites are brave. I don’t want you blubbing or anything. If you’re going to cry out, stick a hanky in your mouth. Now, are you ready to receive the Sarsonite mark of honour?’
‘Oh, all right, Sarson.’
There was a pause, and then a sound halfway between a gasp and a sob. I heard Sarson say: ‘All right, Stubbings, you can pull your shorts up now. You are now part of the Ancient and Honourable Order of Sarsonites.’
‘Thanks, Sarson. And you will get me that signed photo, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will. A Sarsonite promise is always kept. It shall be personally inscribed to you.’
‘Oh, no, Sarson!’
‘What? Are you being impertinent to me, Stubbings?’
‘No, Sarson! No, but actually, you see the signed photo, it’s not for me, it’s for my sister Janine. I promised her.’
‘Did you indeed? That was rash of you. Very well. Run along now, Janine, I’ll see what I can do.’
Round the corner of the pavilion comes Stubbings. His eyes are red and wet and he is rubbing the seat of his shorts. He does not see me, but Sarson does when he emerges. He is surprised but not unduly alarmed.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask.
‘Hello, Sternfield. Just initiating young Stubbings into my little Secret Society. You don’t want to join, do you?’
‘No dam’ fear!’ Sarson sees that I am not to be intimidated, so he tries a different tack.
‘I believe my ma met your ma in the hols,’ he says.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re not going to sneak on me, are you?’
‘What about?’
‘Well you know, because R.C. gives us all that bilge about bullying in his sermons.’
I say, ‘I didn’t see anything.’ This is true.
I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but Sarson and I do become sort of friends from that moment. It’s not that I like him any better, it’s just that we have shared some sort of confidence. And he fascinates me. My other friends warn me against him, rather pompously, I think. One of them, Merton, says to me: ‘He’s a bad influence, you know, Sternfield.’ I despise this, because I know instinctively that Merton has used a phrase that was just parroted from something his parents say. Boys of twelve and thirteen don’t talk about ‘influence’; I suppose because their life is all influence and nothing else.
I write to tell my mother that Sarson has invited me out with him one weekend,and she is delighted. At weekends, you see, boys are allowed to be taken out by relations for lunch and tea, and they are allowed to take a friend with them. I do not tell my mother that the relation who has come to take out Sarson and me is his Uncle Rex.
It is a couple of Saturdays later, midday, and we are about to b
e let out of class. Those who are being taken out for the day wear suits instead of school uniform. From my class I can see the front drive, where parents and relatives are gathering to greet their charges. Amid the sensible Rover Saloons and Estate Cars there sits, grand, immaculate, jet black, a Rolls-Royce. I know whose it is, and when I glance at Merton I sense that he does too. We exchange respective glances of triumph and envy.
Uncle Rex does not wear a suit, or a tie like most the other male adults on the drive. He wears fawn slacks and a blazer over a black polo-necked sweater. As our class ends he gets out of his Rolls and stands on the gravel drive, nonchalantly smoking his Montecristo, surveying the scene with the casual incuriosity of adults. When the master has left the classroom, boys gather at the window to stare at him; but I have gone to join Sarson and meet the man himself.
You’ve heard of Rex Raymond, of course? The singer. Is he still alive? You must have heard of him. ‘I’ll send my Love’, that was the big hit number of his they were all playing then. I can hear him now in my head, because I heard him sing it many times on stage. We’ll come to that later.
Wherever you may be
On land or sea
I’ll send my Love
And if I die, my love
Then from above,
I’ll send my love,
I’ll send my Love!
That’s the tune. I can’t do his voice: smooth, sophisticated. A crooner, I suppose you’ll call him. Well, anyway, he’s big, believe me, and he’s got everything: the voice, the looks, the charm. In the flesh his face is easily identifiable from those sleek, cunningly lit photographs, but it is somehow less real, less characterful. Perhaps the features are a little fuller, more indulgent, but there is nothing to be read in the eyes. The famous soulful look of all the photographs is absent. He is in his early thirties, I think, and there is not a dark hair out of place, nor a recalcitrant patch of stubble on his cheeks. The grooming is professional. Besides the cigar smoke I smell something which I later know to be a male cologne. I feel the ridiculous softness of his fawn cashmere overcoat which has been draped carelessly over the back seat where Sarson and I have been installed. The coat seems more real than he is. He is a man of accessories and trappings whose perfect richness and newness excite me in spite of myself.
He takes us into the big coastal resort, Seabourne which is, strictly speaking, out of bounds to us, even when we’re with an adult, but this fact is not even mentioned. It happens that Rex Raymond is there for the summer, topping the bill of a variety show at the Grand Pavilion.
We drive past the Grand — a vast Victorian palace of pleasure, a Matcham Monster — and there above the entrance is Rex Raymond’s name in letters as tall as a tree, and a giant photograph of him in black tie, gazing tenderly down on us like a god. There are other names, too, beneath his in smaller letters, and I ask about them. These, Rex tells me grandly, are ‘the support acts’: supporting him, I presume. I read their names and the mottos beneath them, which I am told are called ‘bill material’. There is the comic Joey King (‘Only Jo-King!!’) and Little Billy Wilshire (‘Radio’s Favourite, Billy the Kid’), Mephisto (‘The Great Illusionist’), Carloni’s Acrobats, and the Dave Dixon Dancers. There’s a great picture of these last along the front of the theatre, all in a row, ostrich plume head-dresses, sequins, long legs in fishnet tights with Rex in a gold lamé tuxedo, microphone in hand, parading in front of them, like a General at a Military Review. I long to see the show, but this is not possible. The first house begins at six and we must be back at Russell Court before then. Still, there are hours to enjoy and the sun is out.
We arrive the Metropole Hotel where Rex has a suite for the season. I see him change as he gets out of the Rolls because he knows he is being watched. ‘That’s Rex Raymond!’ He smiles to left and right, exchanges a matey little joke with the doorman, signs a couple of autographs in the foyer. We enter the Metropole deliciously in the wake of his importance.
There is lunch in the dining room off a vast à la carte menu full of French that we have not learnt in school: brochettes and mousselines and entrecôtes. We order lavishly; he asks for a bottle of champagne. Then he begins to talk.
It is such a relief. Usually when you are taken out by parents or kindly relatives, you are asked how you are getting on at school and what is your favourite subject and who is your best friend. You do not want to tell them because they will not understand, and anyway your favourite subject is staring out of the window, or flicking rubber bands at your neighbour’s neck. Rex is not interested in our school; he wants to talk about himself.
Apparently Show Business, or ‘The Show Business Game’, as Rex invariably calls it, is all about percentages and agents and top billing and deals with the Management. ‘You’ve got to watch your back in this Show Business Game,’ says Rex. I haven’t heard this phrase before and I’m puzzled. How can you watch your own back? It appears that everyone — agents, managers, even fellow performers — are out to ‘get’ him, or to ‘get a piece’ of him. This is another phrase I do not understand. In spite of this, he seems to me to be doing well. The food arrives and we gorge ourselves after weeks of cartilaginous stews, watery cabbage, and semolina. Nutritional and not sexual deprivation is still uppermost in our minds. Champagne is brought in a perspiring, silvery bucket and we are allowed a glass.
As we drink the champagne I notice that Rex is watching us closely. There is a strange look on his face. Could it be envy?
After lunch we go up stairs to Rex’s suite where we play vingt-et-un for pennies, and watch racing on television. This is still a comparative novelty to me. My mother has recently acquired a television but I am only allowed to watch a very limited amount, and under the strictest monitoring. After a couple of hours I notice that Rex is becoming restless. He goes into his bedroom to ring someone up.
After another race or two, during which even we begin to tire of the parade of monochrome horses, there is a knock on the door. Rex leaps up and opens it to a tall, coltish blonde girl. I reckon she’s eighteen or so, barely five years older than we are. She looks at us with some surprise, perhaps even alarm.
She says: ‘Oh, sorry, Rex. I didn’t know you were . . .’
Rex says: ‘No, no. Come in. Boys, meet Roxy. One of Dave Dixon’s tarts.’
‘Rex!’
Rex puts on a mock posh voice. ‘Ho, ai do beg your pardon. One of the ladies of the chorus.’
‘That’s better. Hello, boys, I’m Roxanne.’
‘Roxy. You can call her Roxy.’
‘No, Rex. You can call me Roxy, if you really want to, but you boys can call me my proper name. Roxanne.’
‘Rexy and Roxy. That’s what we are. Aren’t we, babe?’
‘If you say so, Rex.’
We shake hands solemnly with Roxanne. I like her, and feel as if she could be my friend. She has sharp, delicate features and long legs, like a bird. She has a nice smile and there is something fragile about her, in spite of which Rex appears a little uneasy in his presence. As a result he becomes assertive. He gives us ten shillings each to go out into the town and buy sweets, or anything we want. He tells us that he needs a rest before the show, so Mort will drive us back to the school. He gives us the number of Mort’s room, which is on the top floor of the Metropole. Sarson wants him to sign some photos for him before we go. Rex laughs.
‘Sell them, do you, you little beggar? Ask Mort before he drives you back. He’s got all the pictures and he signs them for me, too. Does my autograph better than I do. Now bugger off, the pair of you. I want some shut-eye.’ And he winks mysteriously.
I smile at Roxanne who smiles back at me, but I notice that she also smiles, and perhaps longer, at Sarson.
We bought sweets and comics in the town, and played the fruit machines that glittered and clattered in the arcades along the Seabourne front, all activities expressly banned by Russell Court. Soon, though, time was tugging at our sleeves, reminding us to return to school, and anyway the forbidden
fruit machines had lost their savour. Sarson bought a packet of cigarettes, but having smoked half of one — I took a puff — and felt very sick, he threw it off the end of the pier.
We thought of looking in on Rex in his suite and thanking him, but Sarson wisely decided against it, so we made our way to the top floor of the Metropole, room six hundred and something, to seek out Mort so that he could take us back in the Rolls.
His door is open, and I can see him sitting with his back to us, reading. The odd thing that strikes me now is that he is wearing his cap. In fact I never saw him bareheaded, without his cap on. No, there was one occasion. I’ll come to that later.
The room is small. There is a bed, a wardrobe, a wash hand basin, and the chair in which he sits. A dormer window permits a glimpse of sky with a pale grey stain of sea below it. I notice the strange, sinewy column of Mort’s neck, the dry, dull, sandy hairs sticking out from under his cap, and the book, an American paperback with a lurid cover. The title is Hot Dames on Cold Slabs. Sarson asks for some signed photos, which he gets from a drawer in the wardrobe and signs according to instructions, as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. He drives us back to Russell Court.
There is little else that I remember about that occasion except that Sarson was Scipio’d for being found in possession of a comic, The Beano, I think it was. I never much liked children’s comics, even though I read them greedily if they came my way. I hate the way they portray children not as real boys and girls, but as malignant demons.
II
In the Summer Holidays, I am invited to stay for three weeks with Sarson in Seabourne. He was at the Metropole with his Uncle Rex and I was to share a room with him. My mother cannot understand my reluctance, but I sense that this is what she wants, so I give in. She promises to come and join me at the end of the three weeks.
I think I have to mention one thing she asked me to do, because it seems odd. She asked me to continue to go to church on Sundays in Seabourne. It is true that we go to church every Sunday in London, but I have never quite understood my mother’s insistence on the practice. Apart from these attendances she never showed any sign of piety or interest in doctrine. Perhaps it has something to do with my father, but I have forgotten.
MASQUES OF SATAN Page 26
