Inch of Fortune

by Simon Raven

  She dried her hands, and took a cigarette from a box on a wall-bracket.

  'Match please — thanks. . . . And then he always has money. Eight Swiss francs a week he's given, yet never has less than thirty they say. Tells the analyst in Zurich he's hungry— "Poor little boy, give him five francs" — down on my bill, of course. Borrows it too, I suppose — but he also takes things from here and sells them there, which is so sweet-natured.

  'But he's so adorable sometimes that I pour out money to get him well. Two thousand pounds to psychiatrists last year alone. Then these tutors come, and they're pompous or pansy or they have to work three hours a day, and all say how charming he is while he's busy stealing my camera.'

  Had Esme known Mrs Fairweather better, he would have been surprised that she had stuck so long and, by comparison, so coherently to one subject. As it was he felt confused by this mass of inconsequent and ill-expressed detail.

  'How old?' he asked.

  'Sixteen in September. Wants to go to college in America, but just let him set foot there again and he's had everything as far as I'm concerned. Little rat! Selfish, that's what it is, charming while he has what he wants, but just cross him over one little thing and he'll pull the nearest living creature to bits.'

  She began to get out, and Esme hurriedly handed a towel through the door.

  'Thanks. You seem to have some manners. And that's another thing: those damned cosmopolitan children, Argentines, Italians, the Lord knows what — they're all with him in Switzerland — have the most diabolical manners you ever saw.'

  Esme noticed her language was becoming less clipped: she seemed more at ease, and her conversation was almost literary by contrast with what it had been.

  'His table-manners, for instance — the Borgia court on a bank holiday. You have to yell for the salt like a sergeant-major. And if you tick him off he gets moody and goes upstairs to sulk with his precious comic-papers.'

  'Boys that age arc often a little awkward,' said Esme.

  'But you follow up after an hour and find he's bitten the curtains to bits. Jokey, eh?'

  'Docs he get on with his brother?'

  'There you are again. He's madly jealous because his brother's been left in full enjoyment of all the things he affects to despise — Eton and English friends, you know what I mean — and whenever they're together now it's sheer pandemonium. I took Bellamy to Switzerland for Christmas — along with a trained nurse I said was for me (been rather ill lately). We picked up Terence — and within ten minutes he'd bitten Bellamy's left calf till it bled. The nurse was told to take notes on what he said and did, and got enough on paper for a novel.'

  'Perhaps he doesn't like being watched.'

  'But how did he know? I told him the nurse was interested in Alpine botany. I'm pretty crafty, I can tell you, after three years of this sort of behaviour. We had to have male nurses in London once — told him they were extra waiters for Bellamy's birthday party. Pity we only asked four people, though, there's no getting past him with any old thing.'

  Esme said Terence sounded very intelligent; and they went downstairs to see Dr McTavish.

  Dr James Andrew McTavish was a socialite psychiatrist and very much on the make. At first sight he was a youngish young man, with an ineffective moustache and the sort of suit you see about on dummies or assistants at the smarter department stores. When he opened his mouth you heard a more or less Scottish accent, and when he shut it you heard the clicking of more or less false teeth; and if he had just preserved his waistline, he had not preserved his hair. While he was shrewd enough to know that he was on to a good thing in psychology, and intelligent enough to make his diagnoses sound plausible, he was also fool enough to take them seriously himself, so that self-satisfaction exuded from every word he spoke. One of the very fluid crowd that formed Mrs Fairweather's junior menagerie of medicos (the senior group, consisting of one semi-defunct but knighted Mayair physician and one obscure Rumanian of vulgar origin, was apparently more or less stable) he was at the moment high enough in favour to be asked for the weekend. For it so happened that the Royal Route to Mrs Fairweather's esteem was to provide a diagnosis even more gruesome and bizarre than the last, and this, on the strength of a recent visit to Switzerland, he had been able to accomplish. A single use of the word paranoia, a term which Mrs Fairweather treated with almost religious reverence, would have kept him in and out of the house for a month, and at fees of his own choosing: but then he considered it necessary to apply a conscientious coating of science to his fictions before producing them as diagnoses. Science and all, however, he had hit on a winner this time.

  Esme, watching him sit with the ends of his fingers pressed pretentiously together, surmised that one tribute — however artificial — to the power of the modem substitute for astrology would have McTavish and Mrs Fairweather neatly in the bag.

  'Terence Fox's illness,' began the doctor, 'is by no means uncommon and very often curable — provided we get hold of it early enough. It is a type of anti-social neurosis, and frequently takes sadistic forms. This anti-social tendency' (the more commonplace the phrase the more significance he strove to lend it) 'was of course intensified when he was compelled to leave Eton College.' (The last two words earned themselves a succulent reverence.) 'While he has yet to do anything criminal, in the common sense of the word, his life since then has abounded in acts of what may best be called minor revolt against the social group which has thus rebuffed him. Some of these acts are merely irresponsible, others have a more stringent and sadistic tinge (Mrs Fairweather has perhaps told you of what occurred to the gardener's boy). Do you think you can follow my line of thought?'

  'I remember,' said Esme, 'in the Army that a man in my platoon was said to be similarly afflicted. In consequence he had become what's known as a prostitute bouncer (if somebody wouldn't pay up, he cut his throat as he went down the stairs). I well remember that we were almost helpless until a detailed psychological analysis had been made: with this very valuable assistance — '

  'Exactly,' said McTavish, with a hint of a purr, 'you seem to have followed me well enough to give a legitimate, if rather ominous, parallel. You can imagine then, from your own experience, how worried Mrs Fairweather must be.' Here he gave a deferential nod in her direction. 'But of course,' he continued, 'there are other factors. The boy is extremely intelligent,' (he would be) 'has definite artistic leanings,' (of course) 'and is full of excellent impulses.' (Five guineas worth of encomium.) 'But all this runs the risk of being vitiated, perhaps even totally atrophied, inasmuch as most of his present energy is diverted into anti-social channels, is used, that is to say, for acts like those of which you have heard or others of petty destruction; while at the same time he is obsessed by representations of violence in ephemeral and pictorial literature. . . . We are at present taking what steps we can, and have hopes of a complete cure,' (a glance at the Dégas) 'if a remote one. Should you be willing to accept the position of tutor, your job, though interesting, would be negative rather than constructive. You would have to observe and report on the boy, above all to see that he does not weaken his position any further by acts that might do him serious — and public — discredit. Do I make myself plain?'

  'May one ask,' said Esme, 'why he had to leave Eton? It might give some sort of an idea what to look out for.'

  'I was coming to that. It seems he was head of a kind of gang which specialized in picking on sensitive boys and — how shall I put it? — humiliating them. He would then name a price of ten shillings or a pound to stop this procedure. Once the money was received,' he continued regretfully, 'the compact was usually forgotten.'

  'Oh.'

  'What we have got to do is to keep him constantly and beneficially occupied — in company. If left to his own devices, he will disappear without warning and return with disaster in his wake. Drawing and literary activity arc valuable as a means of expression, but his products are apt to be distasteful — athletic pastimes are more reliable.

  '
Indeed,' said Dr McTavish, leaning forward with immense self-satisfaction, 'I have a hunch. Sailing,' he said, as though he had just discovered a new element. This will be something new', something adventurous, something that demands both attention and discipline. Should there be any practical difficulties, I know of a friend at Aldeburgh who would be prepared to hire out his yacht for a few guineas a week and also to act as guide and instructor. The river Aide, ha! ha!, has its own sense of humour. The town of course is apt to be very crowded in the summer, but I know of a private hotel (run by a cousin of mine) where the food is excellent and all the guests are treated as members of the family.' (Ugh.) 'Do you know anything about sailing, Mr Sa Foy?'

  'I can manage small boats,' lied Esme, and mentally reviewed the untold dreariness of all the people he knew who were keen on yachting.

  'Good. Well then' — another deferential nod at Mrs Fairweather —'that can be borne in mind. And then again, tennis, while you arc here, is an cxc—'

  'Am I to be kept on my feet all day, Sandra,' said a husky voice, 'while you finick about in conclave?'

  A tall, distinguished man, with grey hair, a guard's tic and a stick on which he was leaning rather heavily, had come in through the French windows.

  'Of course not, darling,' said Mrs Fairweather; 'this is Mr Sa Foy who's come to talk about Terence and have dinner. This is Colonel Heffer, Mr Sa Foy. Now you sit down, Ronnie, and talk to Dr McTavish — he's very interested in sailing just now. And I'll take Mr Sa Foy round the garden to meet Tom and Cherry.'

  'It's an open question,' said the Colonel, 'whether I'm more bored by sailing or by psychology.'

  McTavish gave a 'not long for this world' sort of simper. 'Please don't be childish, Ronnie. Dr McTavish will mix you a drink.'

  'I'm not sure,' said McTavish with silky spite, 'that, in his condition, the Col—'

  'You will oblige me,] said the Colonel, 'by fetching the brandy and leaving doubts to the inmates of theological colleges. I hope,' he said to Esme, 'that you're not at a theological college?'

  'No,' said Esme, 'it's not quite the thing now if you've been at a reasonable school.'

  'I've noticed,' said the Colonel, 'that most parsons speak with an accent. What was wrong with being ordained straight from a decent establishment?'

  'They felt people should have time to think seriously about vocation.'

  'Fancy that,' said Mrs Fairweather, 'I thought people only went into the Church if they were younger sons and too poor for the Army.'

  'That's just the point,' said Esme: 'it was thought to be rather irreverent of them. So now they have two years of mortification in a theological college first, to make quite sure they're not just in it for the cash. You have to be very determined to get through.'

  'But there's very little cash when you do get through,' said the Colonel.

  'Well there you are. Longer and longer preparation for a lower and lower income. It insures sincerity, I'm told.'

  'But those accents,' said the Colonel, 'can one never have jobs done these day's except by sincere people with accents?' McTavish winced.

  'Come along, Mr Sa Foy,' said Mrs Fairweather hurriedly, 'and don't talk too much, Ronnie darling, you mustn't get overtired. You'll see he doesn't, won't you, Dr McTavish?'

  But the chances of prolonged conversation between the two of them were small. Esme was swept off into the garden.

  'Come back quickly,' called the Colonel, 'I want Mr Sa Foy to tell me about a few more modem fads — like psychoanalysis,' he said with a chuckle.

  'The Colonel seems to have taken a fancy to you,' said Mrs

  Fairweather. They turned out of the rose-garden through a tracery gate in the wall, and walked across a large and beautiful lawn, with exquisitely coloured borders on either side.

  'How perfectly lovely,' said Esme — his first sincere and unsolicited comment since his arrival.

  'Do you think so? And what do you feel about McTavish?' It was an awkward trick of Mrs Fairweather's to demand the opinions of absolute strangers on anyone from her newest sculler)' maid to her most habitual hanger-on. The answers invariably gave offence to someone or other: but in this case Esme had the sense to stick to Dr McTavish in his professional capacity.

  'He seems to have given a lot of thought to your son.'

  'Yes, but of course he can't be expected to have the intuition of a mother who's known a child all its life.' After all, she had filed every letter or report her paid underlings submitted. 'I mean to say, it's not McTavish that has washed his nappies and fed him at his breast — you know what I mean.'

  It might just as well have been, thought Esme, for all the suck Mrs Fairweather had ever given.

  They were interrupted by the appearance of an unattractive couple who were introduced as 'my cousins, the Valleys'. Mr Valley, it turned out, who had a parody of a moustache and a war record so utterly undistinguished that he still used R.A.F. slang, was 'something' (more or less cultural) in the B.B.C: Mrs Valley being simply a bloody nuisance wherever she set foot, though there was desultory talk of dress-designing. Their real occupation was prancing round Mrs Fairweather to see what they could get — which, to do her justice, was very' little in cash, but an overdraft of confidence. The method of insinuation they employed was to let Tom suggest a grievance (against somebody who actually was getting something) and to leave Cherry to .work it up. This she did very successfully by sitting on Mrs Fairweather's bed from ten o'clock in the morning — when the poor woman was still so fuddled with methol she could hardly open her eyes — and hypnotizing her into a state of neurotic fury by the unceasing repetition of soft-voiced confidences ('actually smokes in bed and puts the ends in the commode'). It would all end in Mrs Fairweather sweeping downstairs (like an agitated bawdy housekeeper who finds one of her clients has made an unusual request) and clearing some unoffending servant into the street. The Valleys, on the strength of having thus led to the weeding-out of corruption, would then ask to borrow the car for the weekend and disappear in a blaze of vicarious splendour to a Motor Congress: for they had many friends among the motor-racing set, which comprises possibly the nastiest people in the world.

  All this, however, was mere background activity. As their objects in life were interference and ingratiation, the best scope of all was afforded by Mrs Fairweather's two sons. Scope for interference, because the boys could be reported on, for ingratiation, because in the case of the cider the reports would usually concern some new and sinister trend in his development which would otherwise have gone unobserved. Presumably then the Valleys deserved thanks on the ground that their observations provided data for a cure, though in fact needless to say they had complicated it beyond measure and materially contributed to its date of completion receding. It followed, however, that the arrival of a new tutor was an important event to them both, for not only would his personal conduct give opportunity for interference, but the possibility of his aggravating some undesirable tendency of Terence's might assist them to earn substantial gratitude. Esme was therefore put firmly, as it were, under the arc-lamp of their discernment, a telling instrument, for it was maintained by the driving power of avarice. Two pairs of eyes assessed his clothes, his hair, his features and his manner; two pairs of ears strained after every intonation of his voice; and two minds decided that he was just the irresponsible trifler necessary to provide occasion for discredit, interference and ingratiation of every kind. A totally admirable choice in fact.

  'How wonderful the garden's looking,' said Mrs Valley.

  'Don't know how you do it,' said her husband.

  'What do you think, Mr Sa Foy?' said Mrs Valley.

  'I think it's miraculous,' said Esme.

  'Well it's really Sandra's hard work,' she replied.

  It was certainly Mrs Fairweather's pride and joy, but she had her moments of fairness.

  'The poor man does a great deal,' she murmured.

  'I know, Sandra darling, but without your instructions ...'

  'Is Terence int
erested in gardens?' asked Esme.

  'No,' said the Valleys in concert. It was a way of urging his ingratitude.

  'Pity,' said Esme, 'with all this....'

  'A pity indeed,' said Mrs Valley as snappily as the Queen of Hearts, 'but then so arc a lot of things.'

  She was a small woman with stumpy legs and a bitchy way of moving. Esme wondered why anyone had ever married her. But she seemed to take her husband for granted — and everything else:

  'Come on,' she said greedily, 'we'll go and have a drink.'

  A mental review of the situation told Esme that good luck had so far enabled him to play up satisfactorily to everyone present. The Valleys — he couldn't quite see why — seemed to regard him with approval, while the Colonel had conspicuously sought his company and conversation when they were having drinks. More important, Mrs Fairweather seemed to like his manners and the socialite psychiatrist seemed to like his views on psychiatry. All that was needed now, he felt, was a suitable display of case, together with a becoming diffidence, at the dinner-table. He was therefore very careful not to accept more than three large gins beforehand.

  The dining-room gave a subaqueous impression (it was low, rather dark, and surrounded with seascapes), and it was difficult to resist the idea that one was in a part)' of aquarium exhibits. For once inside the room it was everybody's piscine qualities that predominated. McTavish became slimier than ever, while the habitual ('we are the poor relations but rather well bred') look of gloom on the Valleys was transformed into the snub-nosed stupidity of the turtle — one even forgot the urge to kick them. As for Mrs Fairweather she dashed hither and thither in her zeal to hasten and supplement the efforts of the servants, till she became like one of those tiny, glancing fish with a red streak, that dart from one end of their tanks to the other with insistent and heartbreaking futility. Only the Colonel, whose blood, for all his recent illness, was primed with forty years' worth of excellent claret and salacious stories, still seemed properly to belong to the world of light. He was placed on one side of Mrs Fairweather, Esme on the other. On Esme's left was the psychiatrist, and to his left again was Mr Valley, at the end of the table and thus opposite his hostess; while Mrs Valley was between her husband and the Colonel.