by Simon Raven
“There’s nothing I’d like better,” said Fielding, obscurely moved by this suggestion. “But I must get down to work. Stern’s been very good, and if I’m to - ”
“ - You’re quite right,” said Tom, flicking his fingers. “That’s where I nearly came unstuck when I started - kept delaying. You get down to work and stay down. But you’ll take a day off for my wedding?”
“With the greatest pleasure.”
“Patricia’s family are rather grand, you see. I’ll need a few friendly faces on my side of the church.”
Fielding shuddered slightly and Tom looked him straight in the eye.
“I meant exactly what I said, Fielding. To me, your face is now that of a friend. And so, however disfigured, it is a friendly face ... a face to call up love.”
Max de Freville was spending a week in Menton with Angela Tuck. On his fourth day there he received a letter from Mark:
“. . . So as soon as Somerset’s cheque went through, I got out the jolly old letter and off we pranced to Wiltshire to talk turkey with Edwin Turbot. I was in favour of having a word with Isobel first, but Somerset said no, we’d announce ourselves as the editor of Strix, and that would get us straight in. He’d already rung up from London, it seemed.
“In the hall was a galumphing lass with a lot of jerseys and a po face.
“ ‘You must be Miss Patricia Turbot,’ Somerset said. ‘I’d like to congratulate you on your engagement to Tom Llewyllyn.’
“She thawed out a bit at that, though she still seemed suspicious. I don’t know Tom well, but it’s funny he should choose a kind of female gladiator after all these years of dainty ladies from the chorus at the Tin Tack Club. Wants a change, I suppose, and he’ll certainly get it: like going to bed with that statue of Nurse Cavell. Anyway, this Patricia just stood there simpering and blocking up the doorway, till Somerset reminded her we’d got an appointment with her old man. At this she let us in and strode along in front at heavy infantry pace on the way to what she called ‘the study’. But before we got there, she suddenly stopped, did a parade ground turn, and said to Somerset,
“ ‘Do you know where Tom is?’
“ ‘He’s on a walking tour,” said Somerset. 'Didn’t he tell you?’
“ ‘Yes. But I’d like to know where.’
“ ‘He didn’t know where he was going. He told me he was just going to start and see where his feet took him.’
“ ‘How childish,’ she said. ‘And what about his work for your paper?’
“ ‘No more now till after the honeymoon.’
“At this she went a deep, sweaty scarlet, not only bashful, if you ask me, but ripe and randy, so perhaps Tom has picked well after all. But it seems that she doesn’t approve of Tom wandering away over the countryside like his namesake Jones, and though she gave permission she’s now thought better of it (wildly jealous of possible picaresque adventures) and wants to get her great big capable paws on him again. If Tom had seen the look of greed in her face, he’d start sending back the wedding presents tomorrow.
“Well, Somerset couldn’t help her, so she clanked off to her own quarters, and we went in to see Sir Edwin, who was busy stuffing himself with digestive biscuits and spraying the crumbs all over The Times.
“ ‘Strix,’ he said, ‘of course. I suppose you’ve come to ask my views on the forthcoming election?’
“ ‘No, we haven’t,’ says Somerset, as sharp and nasty as a rusty bayonet, ‘we’ve come to do business with you. We have proof positive that you and other ministers conspired with Israeli agents to force a crisis over Suez. We’re here to tell you how you can make amends.’
“One in the teeth for Sir Edwin. But he took it like a real trooper. You’ve got to hand it to the old gang - they’ve a monopoly in sheer brass neck.
“ ‘Llewyllyn told me about you,’ Sir Edwin said. ‘What he didn’t tell me was that you were foolish as well as unscrupulous. What sort of storyteller’s rubbish is this?’
“For answer, Somerset held the letter under his nose. Sir E. was just about to take it, when Somerset withdrew it and gave him a photostat.
“ ‘You read this,’ Somerset said, ‘and then you tell me what sort of storyteller’s rubbish it is.’
“You could almost see the poor old chap shrinking as he read it. But when he’d done, he stood up with his back to the wall (Steady the Buffs), reinflated himself, and took a steady return aim.
“ ‘It’s a fake.’ he said.
“ ‘There are those that can prove otherwise.’
“ ‘What it says is untrue.’
“ ‘That will be for others to judge. They might think it fitted in rather well with what they already know.’
“ ‘You publish a word of this, and I’ll sue you through every court in Christendom.’
“ ‘Even if you won, you’d still be finished after what was said.’
“ ‘And to think,’ Sir Edwin said, ‘that originally I was going to back you for Bishop’s Cross. I’m glad I changed my mind.’
“ ‘Won’t you have to change it back again?’
“ ‘Very probably. But at least I’ve the satisfaction of knowing, that I reached the right decision . . . even if circumstances now prevent me acting on it.’
“For of course he was too old an operator not to know when he was beaten. But once again, you’ve got to hand it to him: there was a kind of offhand dignity about his surrender which implied that although he was having a bad run just now, he was still in the game and ready to wait for his own turn. It was very well done. Somerset had hoped to have him grovelling, instead of which he was a model of self-possession and turned out, when they came on to the terms of treaty, to be much the cooler and more accurate of the two.
“ ‘Very well.’ he said: ‘so you’re asking for my support at Bishop’s Cross?’
“ ‘I’m asking to be assured of selection as conservative candidate there.’
“ ‘I can’t assure you of any such thing.’
“ ‘They’ll listen to you.’
“ ‘No doubt. But I can’t make them do more.’
“ ‘Then somewhere else?’
“ ‘Look,’ Sir Edwin said; ‘the truth is, and a lot of people are beginning to know it, that you’re not fit to represent Bishop’s Cross or anywhere else. So I can’t promise. You must see that.’
“ ‘And you must see that I’ve got enough here to blow you to fragments.’
“ ‘After which I wouldn’t be able to help you at all.’
“This elementary piece of logic went home. While Somerset chewed away on it, Sir E. started on me.
“ ‘And what do you want?’
“ ‘Money.’
“ ‘Thank. God for that. I can cope with your sort. But him’ - pointed at sulky Somerset - ‘he’ll want a ministry before I can turn round.’
“ ‘I can’t see,’ huffed Somerset, ‘that there’s anything ridiculous in that.’
“ ‘Except that for some years now these things have been rather difficult to arrange. How’s your father?’ he shot at Somerset, then turned away without waiting for an answer, went to a desk, and came back with a cheque book.
“ ‘His father's called Shagger,' he told me as he started to write. ‘You know why? He had a reputation for bedding half the shop girls in Cambridge. Put about by himself, of course. If you ask me, he just stayed in his room and had dirty thoughts. Like his son, I wouldn't wonder. Here’s £500 to be going on with. You can have another £1,000 in September, and the same after Christmas. All right?’
“ ‘All right,' I said. ‘But after that?’
“‘We'll have a little talk-about a regular arrangement. That's if smarty-boots here hasn't opened his spotty mouth.’
“ ‘Look here,’ said Somerset, who was looking positively sorry for himself, ‘there's no need for all this personal talk. All I'm asking is your assistance and good report.’
“ ‘You shall have both. The question is, who's going to believe me?’<
br />
“ ‘There's only one person need believe you. Rupert Percival. He can answer for the Selection Committee at Bishop's Cross.’
“ ‘Granted. But what makes you think he'll like the cut of your jib?’
“ ‘That's up to you,’ Somerset said.
“ ‘Well, I don't really know the chap,’ said Sir Edwin, as easily as if we'd been talking about the local cricket club, ‘but I'll ask myself over there and see what's to do. And now, in order to keep up the domestic fiction that you are welcome visitors, you'd better come and meet my daughters over lunch’.”
“Tell me,” said Angela to Max de Freville in Menton, “is anything the matter?”
“What should be?”
“You’ve been odd. And all that time you spend brooding over those letters.”
“That’s my business,” snapped Max: “don’t interfere.”
“Darling, I don’t want to. I was only asking . . .”
“There’s not enough to tell, not yet. One day I’ll know it all, and then I’ll tell you. One day I’ll have the key, and then - ”
He broke off when he saw how strangely she was looking at him.
“Just don’t interfere,” he muttered. “You wouldn’t really understand.”
“Gloomy old faces,” Isobel had written to Max, “at luncheon today. Daddy had two guests, a scabby old journalist thing called Lloyd-James, and a younger man, raddled but devastating, who told me on the side that he’s a chum of yours. The silly thing was that everyone was meant to be all palsy, but I could tell that underneath Daddy was ready to widdle with fuss, while the Lloyd-James creature, though he behaved smoothly enough, was quite rancid with frustration about something. He was like a little boy who finds that his new toy isn’t nearly as big and as blissy as he thought it would be from the picture, but still has to go on being grateful in order not to annoy mummy. On top of all this, Patty was in a rare old bait because she still hasn’t heard from Tom on his walking tour and she suspects him of having it off with every other woman he meets. All nerves of course. Tom’s now as staid as an old cow in a field, whatever he may have been like once; but nothing’s going to stop her worrying till she’s got him locked up in a glass case on the mantelpiece. I wouldn’t wonder if she comes out in shingles - and that'll be nice on the honeymoon.
“Anyway, what with one thing and another, the only people there who were enjoying life were me and this celestial Mark Lewson. We played a bit of footy under the table, and then a bit of kneesy, and after lunch I managed to get him to myself, because Daddy went off for his nap and Patty was conducting an inquisition on the Lloyd-James monster about Tom, though Mark said she’d already had one go that morning. It was now Mark told me he knew you, so then I realised there was more in all this than an interview for L-J’s dreary paper and I asked Mark what was frying.
“ ‘Your old daddikins, dear,’ he said.
“Then he told me all about the Suez do-da and Daddy being so naughty, and how L-J wanted a seat in Parliament, and how galling this was for Daddy because of L-J being such a piece of sparrow-crap, and so on and so forth. And I said, was it wise of him to be telling me, and he said he didn’t suppose I’d want to land my old pater in the manure, and that anyway he’d done quite well out of it all by now and didn’t really care if the news did get out.
“ ‘It’d annoy Somerset,’ he said, ‘and Somerset’s a prick. And as for making more money, I’ve thought of another scheme to take care of my old age. Much less risky and much more fun.’
“And then he kissed me in a way that hasn’t happened before, and even though his mouth tasted foul he thrilled me into little bits, so that he could have had the whole caboodle there and then (which no one else really has, I’m not such a tart as I look) only Patty and Lloyd-J. came in, both of them looking like empty slabs in a morgue, and Lloyd-J. said it was going time.
“So that was that. But I’m seeing lovely Mark in London again next week.”
For Fielding Gray in Buttock’s Hotel the days passed quickly. First of all he altered his two novels along the lines suggested by Gregory Stern and the firm’s editor. Then he took out his journal, sorrowed briefly over the memories which it revived, and began to calculate how it could be cast as a work of fiction.
From time to time, in hall or corridor, he passed a small, tense man, of about thirty-five years old, who moved as though he were always on his way to take an urgent part in great events. This, as he had heard from Tessie Buttock, was the new resident, Jude Holbrook. He found it difficult to understand why Tom Llewyllyn’s aversion was so pronounced; for Holbrook, while shifty and tight-lipped, had in his manner a lack of co-ordination, a spasmodic nervous jerk, which, taken with his size, gave him the appearance of a marionette: a villain, possibly, but a villain on a stage of puppets.
For Tom Llewyllyn too the days went swiftly by.
One afternoon, walking through the Quantocks, he breasted a rise and found himself on a small wooded plateau lying along a spur which jutted from the range to the north of it. To the south the county unrolled itself like a great patterned eiderdown: green pastures sprawled at leisure, woods nestled, and orchards lay tidy and demure.
The plateau itself, with its groves of lady birch, would have been enchanting - were it not that gangs of men and machines were clearing away the woodland at a rate of ten yards a minute, and that a large space already cleared was occupied by closely packed caravan-trailers of identical design with a perimeter of prefabricated stalls and huts. There were two large notices: one carried the name of a contractor; the other proclaimed,
WESTWARD HO !
First of the Government-sponsored
Canteloupe Country Culture Camps
FITNESS FAMILY
FAITH.
As he walked downhill towards the south, Tom wondered whether he should telephone Patricia that evening. He decided not. In his good time he would move east again to Wiltshire, where he would be with her, as promised, some seven days before the wedding in order to settle any last minute arrangements. Meanwhile, she must do without further reassurance; she had already had plenty, and she must learn to put up with his long withdrawals which, for one reason or another, would be bound to continue during their married life, probably to the great benefit of them both. So let the days pass in silence and soon enough they would bring him to his bride.
Two meetings with Isobel in London confirmed Mark in the idea which had come to him in Wiltshire. A regular arrangement, Sir Edwin had said. Very well; let him hand over his younger daughter and a suitable dowry, and Mark would abandon any further claim upon him. In this way he would have achieved security and social status (for both of which he had always had a secret longing), to say nothing of an amusing, vivacious, appetising wife. He wanted a bit of peace and permanence; he was fed up, worn out with the constant struggle for petty cash and the endless antics in strange beds. All ways round, Isobel would do very nicely: she was his Sophy Western, waiting with arms wide open at the end of the turbulent road.
But there were two formidable obstacles. First, Sir Edwin, who was already somewhat put out by the imminence of one dubious marriage, might be reluctant to hand over his remaining daughter to a penniless adventurer. And secondly, although his objections might be overcome by reference to the letter, he would surely want this to be given up to him, as confirmation that he had now paid the final price. Since the letter was in Somerset’s possession, and since Somerset had no intention of giving it up to anybody, Mark was in no position to close the deal . . . even on the assumption that Sir Edwin would consent to make one.
But as the days went by and the grass grew fat and rank in the Royal Parks, he conceived a plan. A bold, roistering plan, full worthy of his gay Sophy Western.
Sir Edwin Turbot consulted warily with Alastair Dixon in London. After all, he said, he had decided that Somerset Lloyd-James was the better choice for Bishop’s Cross: would Dixon, as outgoing member and mutual friend, do his best to convince Rupert Percival? Di
xon would, but wanted to know what part Sir Edwin himself proposed to bear in the matter. The trouble was, Sir Edwin said, that while he would much prefer to make a discreet and personal approach, he was but little acquainted with Percival. Dixon, who knew that the old country lawyer would resent and resist any pressure exerted through hierarchy but might perhaps yield to personal suasion, approved Sir Edwin’s choice of method and suggested that Percival should be asked to the wedding, where their acquaintance might be renewed as a preliminary to further negotiation. Dixon himself would be staying with Percival the night before the wedding, so Percival’s invitation would appear quite natural: it would be seen as a graceful if not mandatory way of recognising that his house was harbouring one of the more prominent wedding guests. Sir Edwin opined it a pity, since time was passing, that their movements should be quite so stately; but Alastair Dixon pointed out that any sign of fuss or urgency would put Percival against them for good.
“We’ve been asked to Tom Llewyllyn’s wedding in Wiltshire,” said Peter Morrison to Helen.
“It seems a long way. . . . And I’ve hardly ever met Tom. Except for that awful time when he was so drunk at Chevenix Court.”
“He’s changed a good deal. I think we’ll go, if you can bear it. There’ll be several people there who’ll be in the know about Bishop’s Cross. And if Turbot really is going to back me, as Detterling says, it’ll do no harm to be polite to him.”
“Will Somerset Lloyd-James be there?”
“I expect so - Tom’s editor, you see.” Peter chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind seeing his deceitful old face again. I might even ask him what he’s up to. You never know, he might tell me; he’s got a peculiar sense of humour - like all Papists.”
“You’re much too kind about him.”
“He’s got a bit of a kink, that’s all. I expect someone dropped him on his head when he was one.”
