by Simon Raven
'Sorry to hear about your father.' Tuck said.
'It was certainly sudden ... Tell me, when did you first know him? You'll forgive me saying so, but until a few weeks ago neither mother nor I had ever heard of you.'
'Good point,' said Tuck. He laughed loudly, as though it were also a cracking good joke. 'Let's see now. When did I first meet your old man? Early in the war, it must have been. He was with some kind of Ordnance outfit in Kalyan - big transit camp near Bombay. We just met by accident in the old Taj one night. Got talking over a peg, saw a bit more of one another ... Then he was posted away. That's how it was in those days. You were just getting to know a chap, and he'd be posted away.'
He lit a particularly foul cheroot.
'And you didn't see him again until this summer?' I said.
'That's it.'
'And yet he spoke of you as an old friend, and was prepared to pull my entire career to pieces on your suggestion.'
'Your old man,' said Tuck, 'knew a good thing when he saw it,'
'Perhaps.' I said, with a glance at Angela. 'But India wouldn't have been any good for me.'
'That,' said Tuck. 'remains to be seen.'
'What do you mean?'
'Do you suppose,' Angela said, 'that this hole can produce a drink?'
'No harm in trying.' said Tuck, and rang a bell.
'What do you mean? What remains to be seen?'
An indignant woman in a tweed skirt appeared.
'Who rang the bell?' she snarled.
'I did,' Tuck snarled back, 'because I wants some service. What is there to drink?'
'No drinks in the lounge,' she said with relish. 'There's been a war on, or hadn't you heard?'
'I'd also heard it was over.'
'No drinks in the lounge.' the tweedy woman repeated spitefully, and marched out.
'Jesus Christ,' said Tuck, 'whatever is this bloody country coming to? You may find,' he said to me, 'that India's not so bad after all. At least the servants do what they're told.'
'Would you please tell me,' I said, 'what all this is about? I neither have, nor ever have had, any intention of going to India to plant tea. And now my father's dead—'
'—But old Ange,' said Tuck complacently, 'had quite a few talks with your mother before she went away. Didn't you. Ange?'
'So you've been getting at her? I suppose you want our money for your damned plantation.'
'Her money,' Angela emended. 'She's very concerned, you know, about your future. So are we all.'
I rose to go.
'That's very kind of you.' I said, 'but I don't need your interest. Nor does my mother.'
'No?' said Angela. 'She's very lonely... and very grateful for advice.'
'She's weak, if that's what you mean. Too weak to get rid of hangers-on.'
'Now then,' said Tuck: 'you're being most impolite to my; wife.'
'Your wife,' I shouted at him, 'is a common whore and you're a common crook.'
Not until I was half-way home did it occur to me that Tuck had almost certainly connived at, had probably indeed ordained, Angela's infidelity with my father. That it had failed so ludicrously of its object was mere bad luck. Now they had started on my mother instead. And Somerset? Had that been just a whim of Angela's, or had she decided that Somerset too might somehow come in useful? What had they spoken of together, I wonder, that night after I was dismissed?
'Dear Fielding (Christopher wrote)
I can't come to London to meet you for lunch or anything else. I'm sorry, but please don't write to me again until I've first written to you.
'Christopher'
I walked along the empty beach. It was a grey, blowy day, not at all like the afternoon, a month before, when I had sat in the warm sand hills with Angela. Autumn was coming to expel the few holiday-makers who had braved the barbed wire and the gun-sites, war-time relics which, though already rusted and crumbling, brought a lingering hint of violence to the lonely dunes. Violence; savagery; threat. Somerset; my mother; Tuck. And Christopher. Christopher too seemed to betoken the same residual sense of menace as the jagged concrete and the rotting ration packs. What did he mean - 'don't write to me again until I've first written to you'? Everything had been made up between us. If he really couldn't have me to stay (parent trouble?) what could be more pleasant and obvious than a day together in London? What the devil was going on? Nervous, Ivan had said, and also upset because the tutor had gone. But it wasn't just that. 'Something very wrong there ... you if anyone should be able to help.' But Christopher had refused my help. Should I go there despite that, force myself on him, make him tell me about it? Oh hell, I thought, and kicked an empty tin: his letters had been plain enough; if he didn't want me, he didn't.
But for my own sake I must find someone else. I thought of Dixie quivering in the ghost-train; of Angela's finger nails on my bare flesh. Both of them had sent me away unappeased. I must be appeased, I must know. Now that it was over with Christopher, I must be admitted, at long last, into the Lotus Country.
Thoughtfully I counted my money. Ten pounds and odd were left of what I had borrowed from Peter. I must pay for my railway ticket, also for meals and so on during the journey; and then there would be the hotel bill for the night in London - but this, as my family was known to the hotel could always be sent to my mother. Yes, I told myself: there would be, there had to be, enough.
Piccadilly, struggling back to the gaieties of peace; coloured lights which I hadn't seen since I was a child in 1939, tawdry, pathetic, out-dated: museum pieces.
Scott's, Oddenio's, Del Monico. The little streets between Piccadilly and Shaftesbury Avenue, the broken glass awnings for the cinema queues. No lack of choice, numerically. But in point of quality, all much the same: young enough, but tired, bitter, all with the angular look of predators, or (worse) with the angles blocked out by slabs of make-up.
Now or never. Choose one. This one; of the angular variety, rather too thin in the leg, a little older than the rest, but with a discernible air of kindness.
'Please could you tell me the—'
'—Like a nice time, dearie? Only just round the corner. A pound.'
'A pound?' (Surely it was more than that, admission to the Lotus Country?)
'Can't do it for less, dear. Professional, pride, you know.'
'All right.'
Over Shaftesbury Avenue and down another little street.
'Rather young, aren't you? I'm not sure I ought to be going with you. Ah well. In here.'
Up three flights of stairs. Little room, big bed, bare dressing table. Ashtray by the bed full of lip-sticked cigarette ends. 'Pound first, please, dearie. And five bob for the maid.' 'For the maid?'
'Someone's got to clean the place up, haven't they? Ta.' Skirt up round middle. Rather nice thighs above gartered stockings. Dixie. Angela. Christopher ...
'Just let me get the doings, dearie... No, don't take your shirt off. Just let your trousers down ... There ... Oh, my, my ... There's a naughty boy.'
Rubber sheath. The woman sitting on the side of the bed. Reaching forward with her hands.
'Can't we get properly on the bed?'
'Don't want much for a quid, do you? '
Knees suddenly raised and thighs part wide; hands under knee joints; feet hanging limply, high heels near buttocks.
'in you go, dearie.'
'Be a man and get on with it. What are you gaping at?'
'I ... Where?'
'For Christ's sake put it in.' Indicative fingers. 'There.'
Easy enough too. Nice, soft.
'Not bad, darling. Now, come on.'
Nice, soft. Crutch straining forward to meet mine.
'Come on, darling. Come ... Come ...'
'Oh ... Oh ... There ... '
'Finished? That's a good boy. Not bad, was it? We'll just ... get ... this ... off you.'
Into the ashtray with the lip-sticked cigarettes.
And so now I knew. It had been, as my companion put it, not bad. Which was about al
l one could say. Not bad; just about worth a pound (and five shillings for the maid). Now back, to the hotel quickly for a thorough wash.
The Headmaster's holiday retreat was in one of those little valleys which, cosy and tree-girt, are tucked away like oases in the military wilderness round Salisbury. Somerset, I was told when I arrived, was in bed at home with a chill and would not be joining us till the morrow. After an ample supper (the Headmaster's wife, besides being a capable amateur philosopher, qualified as a bonne femme) the Headmaster took me to his study.
'There's something,' he said, 'which I don't wish to discuss in front of Elizabeth.'
'Oh?'
'Roland,' said the Headmaster, 'Christopher Roland.'
Oh my God, had Somerset already opened his mouth? Or someone else? Or Christopher, in an agony of repentance (hence his unfriendly letters), written to confess?
'What about Christopher, sir? '
Commendably cool, on the whole.
'It's very odd and very sad. It seems he was reported to the Tonbridge police for hanging about a nearby Army camp and ... and what they call soliciting.'
'Oh my God.' Horror. Relief. Nothing to do with me at any rate.
'I can understand that you're shocked. I wondered, though, whether you could ... cast any light on the matter. After all, the two of you were very close.'
'I don't think so, sir.' Play this one with care. 'It explains, of course, some rather curious letters I've had lately.' I told him what Ivan Blessington had written, and about the curt notes of refusal I'd had from Christopher himself. 'I was puzzled and hurt. But if this had already happened ...'
'It happened about ten days ago. Because of his youth and the good standing of his family the police have agreed to take no action, provided his parents keep him in strict supervision and arrange for him to have psychiatric treatment. He cannot, it goes without saying, come back to us next quarter.'
'I suppose not.'
'No question of it. But my duty lies, not only in taking preventive measures for the future, but in investigating any damage that may already have been done. It occurred to me ... that you might help me there.'
'But look, sir. You say he was suspected of soliciting. It can't have been more, or else the police would have acted - family or no family. So on the strength of mere suspicion. Christopher is to be confined at home, messed about by psychiatrists, and forbidden to return to school - disgraced. Can't you see the terrible injury this must do to him?'
'I have six hundred boys to consider. I can't risk contamination.'
'Where there are six hundred boys, there's bound to be contamination already. You know that, sir.'
'I can't, knowingly, add to it.'
'But what do you know? What did Christopher do?'
'He hung about ... with his bicycle ... near the entrance to this camp. When the men came out, He used to smite at them, try to enter into conversation.'
'There could be a dozen explanations. He could have had friends serving there, friends from school perhaps.'
'Among the private men?'
'Everyone starts in the ranks these days.'
'In special training units. Not in a serving battation. Besides, Roland was given every chance to provide just such an explanation. His only response was to sulk. They could think what they pleased, he said.'
'Dignified.'
'Petulant. I can understand. Fielding, that you are concerned for your friend. I am too; but I must put my public duty first. And I must therefore ask you directly, to tell me anything you may know about Roland's previous behaviour, so that any damage he has done may be undone.'
'By removing more people on mere suspicion?'
'That was not worthy.' the Headmaster said wearily.
'I know, sir, and I'm sorry. But Christopher is a very dear friend and this has been a shock. Can nothing be done?'
'The psychiatrists will do all they can.'
'The shame of it will destroy him.'
'I gather lots of people these days submit quite willingly to psychiatric treatment.'
'Not people of Christopher's kind.'
'But is there anything so special about him?' said the Headmaster gently. 'He always seemed an ordinary boy to me. Pleasant but ordinary.'
'He was very proud in his own way, very ... fastidious. This kept him away from the others and made him lonely. He wanted love.'
Careful; don't go too far.
'For someone who was fastidious he seems to have gone a very peculiar way about getting it. So I shall ask you once again: how was this wretched boy corrupted? And has he corrupted anyone else in my charge? As we both know, Fielding, you were intimate with him.'
'Yes, I was sir. And as far as I am concerned, he was innocent. His innocence ... that's what I prized most of all.'
'But now ... after what's happened?'
'I can't begin to understand or explain it, sir, and there's nothing more I can say.'
And that must be enough for him, I thought. After all, what I had told him was true enough. I certainly couldn't understand what had happened; and from where I stood, Christopher was neither corrupter nor corrupted. The terms were meaningless.
'I think,' said the Headmaster heavily, 'that Elizabeth will have coffee ready now.'
Thinking it all over in bed that night, I suddenly realized that I was glad. Despite my protest to the Headmaster, despite my genuine indignation at what had been done, I could not really have wished it undone and Christopher restored. Where Christopher now was he was truly lovable, because he could be contemplated as the image of vanished beauty: if brought back again, he would only become what he had threatened to become in July, a common pastime, to be casually lusted for. and later a common nuisance. Christopher's downfall, then, was both convenient and poetically apt. Best get such people out of the way before they lost their charm and grew ugly, boring, irrelevant. These things are so ...
Somerset arrived the next afternoon, looking even more pasty-faced than usual as a result of his chill. After tea. however, he felt strong enough to walk with the Headmaster and myself to inspect a nearby church, the tower of which, as the Headmaster explained, had once been used for an interesting local variant of the games of Fives.
'A custom more common further west,' Somerset commented: 'in my part of the country we once had as many kinds of Fives as there were convenient church towers.'
'When was it given up? ' I asked.
'Early nineteenth century,' Somerset said. 'Ball games against church walls did not suit middle-class notions of propriety.'
'It went deeper than that,' said the Headmaster. 'Even early in the nineteenth century, it was already plain that Christianity was to be dangerously attacked. Not just by irreverant ironists, as in the previous century, but by dedicated men of science and intellect and high moral principle. The threat was so serious that the church could no longer afford to be associated with everyday pleasures: the parson must cease to hunt, the layman from playing his games in the churchyard. Frivolities like these could be tolerated only in an age of faith, when the church was so firmly entrenched that even ribaldry in its own ministers could do it no damage.' He gestured amiably. 'In an age of faith, immorality itself could be seen as joyous. But once let there be doubt, and severity, even in the most trivial things, must follow. It is the first line of defence.'
'So evangelism, like the Inquisition, was a reaction against rational inquiry? ' I said smugly.
'There is something in that, though a stricter study of dates would discourage so glib a summary ... There is a box-tomb which I should like you both to see. Twelfth century.'
The Headmaster led us over a small mound, through a clump of yew trees, and down into a little hollow. The tomb was of a curious faded red: it had sunk unevenly, so that on the side nearest us, which was badly cracked, it was about a foot high while on the far side the tilting slab that topped it almost dug into the grass.
'A tomb of importance,' Somerset remarked. 'One would have expected its oc
cupant to be buried inside the church.'
'Ah,' said the Headmaster with relish. 'This tomb belongs to a renegade. Geoffery of Underavon he was called, and he was given this manor as a reward for knight service in one of the minor crusades. But Sir Geoffery had come home through Provence where he acquired the habits and graces of the Troubadors. The arts he had learned proved only too effective in the unsophisticated part of the world, where bored wives and daughters were very grateful for a little pagan zest. His songs and addresses made him notorious and then infamous: until finally, one summer afternoon when he was riding by the river, without armour and on his way to an assignation, he was set upon and murdered by six vizored knights, none of whom displayed either pennant, crest or coat of arms. Or so said the one attendant esquire, who had made off at the first sign of trouble. The deed was approved by the local clergy, who were keen to curry favour with injured husbands, and it was decreed that the Lord Geoffery should not be buried inside any church of the diocese. However, he could not well be denied burial in holy ground, and hence this tomb, out here in a lonely corner of the churchyard.'
'Lord Geoffery of Underavon,' I murmured, touched by the tale, 'martyr for poetry. Do any of his songs survive?'
' "Ver purpuratura exiit",' said the Headmaster in his soft, deep voice.
' “Ornatus sous induit,
Aspergit terram floribus,
Ligna silvarum frondibus”.'
'Sir?' objected Somerset politely.
'I know, I know. Sir Geoffery would have sung in French or Provencal. In any case, that verse comes from the Cambridge Collection and so was probably written by a clerk. But it is my fancy to imagine Geoffery singing something out of the kind. Since,' said the Headmaster sadly, turning to me, 'the answer to your questions is “no”. None of his songs has come down.'
A flowered meadow by the river. The chirrup of the grasshopper, to remind him of fiercer afternoons when he had pursued the same errand in the Midi. The long robe, the lute, the two prancing heraldic dogs, the esquire riding a few paces behind. 'Will you not sing, my lord?' 'For you, boy? Why not? A song of the season.' The tone of the lute, plangent even in celebration. 'Ver purpuratum exiit ...' The coloured spring is forth ... Then six men, six black helmets, and down goes poet and lover, vulnerable in the soft robe which he wears for his tender mission. No, his songs have not come down to us. He could not even be buried in his own church. He has lain in the shadow of the yew trees for eight hundred years.
