Inch of Fortune

by Simon Raven

  All this sounded encouraging and simple. The cook was briefed with care and his room was seen to be warm and spotless. There was, however, a shortage of wine: for while there was enough gin on the sideboard to last a regiment for a week, the cellar was firmly locked and the key was thought to be with Sandra, This necessitated a drive to Sandra's wine-merchants in Ely, and a triumphant return with two bottles of champagne, a bottle of something white and light for Sunday lunch, and a superb bottle of claret over which Esme intended to launch any attack that might be necessary.

  After this there was nothing to do except have a bottle of champagne to themselves on Saturday night and wait for Trito's arrival on the following day.

  The great thing about Dr Fibula Trito was that, unlike pasteboard McTavish, he was made of flesh and blood.

  He arrived in time for three large gins before lunch and complimented Esme upon the wine. He then went to sleep until tea-time, after which he cheerfully fleeced poor Bellamy of about a month's pocket-money before dinner. At dinner the two boys did the best thing one could ask and had a fight over who should keep the champagne cork. This meant that Esme would merely have disloyalty and not untruth as well upon his conscience when he told Dr Trito how difficult it was to manage them together. After dinner they disappeared to go on fighting somewhere else, Esme produced the claret, and Dr Trito, who had addressed about six words to Terence in the course of the whole day, began to get down to brass tacks.

  'What do you think about all this?' he asked.

  'I've hardly been here long enough to say,' began Esme cunningly: 'I think Terence is very nice and very intelligent, and I shall hope to be able to do something to help him find his feet.'

  Dr Trito, who wore a made-up bow-tie and was very corpulent, began to look cynical.

  'What sort of thing?' he asked in his purring voice.

  'Well, keep him interested in pursuits and subjects that will be good for him and distract him from any sinister influence.'

  'And that?' enquired Trito, pointing to a highly coloured copy of Weird Tales that had been carelessly left about.

  'That,' said Esme, 'is just what I mean by a sinister influence. It's not so much the substance I deplore as the atrocious style. But I hope you'll agree with me that it's very important not to force him away openly from such things, but to try and steer him gradually in the right direction.'

  'And what method do you propose using?' Trito had a smile which never left his face, but it was a variable smile, and expressed quite as much by the subtlety of its gradations as another man's face achieves by an entire change of expression. Like the moon, it had its phases. At the moment it was very new and very narrow.

  'Yes, your method?' he insisted.

  'Well,' said Esme, 'I had hoped that I should be able to discuss that with you. But I have drawn one or two elementary' inferences, both from what Dr McTavish has told me and from my own observations.'

  'I hear you've had an accident,' said Trito apropos of nothing at all.

  'Yes, a lot of people seem to have heard that. It's absolutely nothing really.'

  'I hear it will cost Sandra about twenty pounds.' He turned his smile full on. 'She'll hate that.'

  'But surely — ' began Esme. Trito held up his hand, drained and refilled his glass in almost the same movement, and lit a cigarette.

  'There's no but about it,' he said: 'now if you'll be so kind as to keep quiet I'll tell you a few things.' The smile had gone back to something like the Cheshire cat's. 'In the first place, I don't in the least want to hear about your "observations". I know them already. You were going to tell me about a "dichotomy" — you were going to use the very word — in Terence's character. (Don't be surprised, I've heard dozens of young men of your sort on the subject.) You were "going to point to a dichotomy" between his intelligence on the one hand and the vulgarity of his tastes on the other. You were then going to look very important, and say "Now what do I conclude from this?" After that there were going to be some commonplace remarks on the subject of slight concessions but an overall and beneficial control. You would have finished up by blinking your great eyes at me and asking my advice — to which you would have not listened because you would have been too busy thinking about the next intelligent remark you were going to make. So much,' he said very deliberately but with a very friendly look, 'for your "observations".

  'The next thing we ought to get straight is that you know and I know that your salary is just so much money down the drain. Don't be alarmed, that's just a general observation about all private tutors. In your case,' he went on, 'it is more money than usual, but it's going down, if I may say so, a more than usually satisfactory drain. For while you are conceited, idle and unscrupulous, you have a small knowledge of literature and a genuine, if untutored, taste for wine.'

  He paused to look almost sentimentally at the bottle.

  'Now what, you may ask, has all this got to do with Terence? Well, I want you to understand from the beginning that whatever's wrong with Terence and whatever's going to be done about it, is entirely my affair. It's not your business to observe dichotomies, draw inferences, form conclusions or make pert remarks. All right?'

  Esme nodded.

  'His cure then, which,' said Trito with some satisfaction, 'will take a very long time, is for me to bother about. Now although whatever you do will almost certainly result in putting that cure back indefinitely, one thing is obvious. The more you're actually enjoying yourself, the more you're allowed to go to congenial places and do congenial things, the less bad temper and laziness you'll show. You might even,' he said a little wearily, 'become a stimulating companion. Now what did Dr McTavish suggest?'

  'Athletic activity — sailing at Aldeburgh.'

  'Sandra is one of the few rich women in England,' said Trito hopelessly, 'and McTavish suggests sailing. Followed up, I suppose, by a fortnight at the Edinburgh Festival.'

  'Not exactly,' said Esme, 'though he did talk a lot about culture.'

  'He's got culture on the brain,' said Trito, 'he talks about nothing else, and would probably tell you that Ulysses came from Dublin. And has Sandra made any suggestions?'

  'She got as far as talking about Biarritz.*

  'I thought I told you not to be pert. Now in Biarritz you have something more suitable to her income-group. I must say I'm rather taken with the idea. It would amuse you, you might therefore amuse Terence, and he'd have plenty to look at and think about. What's going to happen is all the old business about keeping Terence away from Bellamy, which I think can be allowed to pass muster as usual. Biarritz isn't really Bellamy's cup of tea, and in any case,' he said, 'we don't want the whole place cluttered up with private tutors. Bellamy can go and crawl after deer in Scotland — he'll love that and it'll do his figure good. Now let me think.'

  In a fit of absent-mindedness he emptied the claret bottle into his glass and sat back looking at the ceiling.

  'It'll work like this,' he said: 'when Sandra gets back I shall tell her that you and Terence must be out of the way before Eton breaks up. I shall suggest that she sends you to Dieppe with a car, and tells you to motor down to the south-west by slow degrees. She can join you in Biarritz — with myself, since I shall be anxious to assess the result of this experiment. The idea being that colour, excitement, movement and independence are just what Terence requires.'

  'Dr McTavish was talking about stability, discipline, routine and early hours.'

  'Dr McTavish,' said Trito, 'would be better occupied counting the remaining hail's on his head— No,' he said, 'one can't be as disloyal as that. Dr McTavish has made a mild error in his diagnosis. After some thought I have decided that the merits of his plan reside in its static nature. But while he is giving Terence no opportunity to deteriorate, he is likewise giving him no chance to progress. I am prepared to make a slight gamble in the interests of a possible and very favourable development. What do you think of the plan?'

  'I think it's heaven. But if you don't mind my asking, is it
certain that Mrs Fairweather will accept it?'

  'I was coming to that. I can't, I'm afraid, give an absolute guarantee. On the one hand, I have considerable influence with her, having been her doctor and the boy's for several years. On the other hand there are a lot of elements one can't always control. To start with, she's so erratic that it has been said of her, "God proposes, Sandra disposes." For another thing, she pays a good deal of attention to two malicious women — her secretary and Mrs Valley — who are always with her. They've got nothing much against me, but they just don't like to see people like you and Terence enjoying themselves. There's been a lot of joy killed by those two.

  'Then there's the question of expense. Whenever Sandra's not there, everything's meant to be on the cheap. Since she's never tried it herself, she's got the idea that "on the cheap", even nowadays, can mean something like five pence a day. You'd be all right with her in Biarritz, but what you'd be allowed for travelling through France would probably provide for a succession of nights in doss-houses. I'm always having trouble about that myself. Last time I went to Switzerland, she'd convinced herself she was so short of Swiss francs that I couldn't stay in the best hotels. I had to tell her that it was one thing being a student and hitch-hiking over Europe and quite another being a medical practitioner on business. Eventually I took the best room at each place I stopped just to teach her a lesson. You see the kind of thing we're up against.'

  Esme did — and wished he had Trito's way of dealing with it. 'It's just possible too that she may take sufficient notice of McTavish, whom she seems to like, to allow his ideas at any rate to keep you off the Continent if not to condemn you to Aldeburgh. There's a polite fiction going that McTavish and I co-operate, as I recommended him. As a matter of fact I recommended him because he promised he'd keep his mouth shut and string along with me. This is what comes of going away for a fortnight — people get ideas — McTavish of all people.

  'Still, we'll do the best we can. And now,' he said succinctly, 'it's time for a little backgammon.'

  X

  After a good deal of havering about, it was decided that Esme and Terence should drive Bellamy back to Eton on Monday and then spend the night in London to meet Sandra off her 'plane the next day. For some reason it was thought she'd be glad to see them.

  On the way down to Eton they discussed the prospects.

  'Trito,' said Esme, 'seems very keen on your mother's idea of going to Biarritz. He wants us to drive slowly through France first.'

  'Will I be coming?' said Bellamy, who had taken a great fancy to Esme, because here at last was someone about who liked his size and his giggling and sincerely condoned his lack of intelligence.

  'I don't know about that,' said Esme rather guiltily, 'it depends on what Trito tells your mother. He seemed still to be harking on this business of keeping you two apart. That champagne cork...'

  'I know,' said Bellamy sadly, 'they always say something like that. Then Terence goes somewhere nice and I'm sent off to Scotland. They seem to think I like Scotland.'

  'Don't you?'

  'Not a bit. It's damp and cold and uncomfortable, and everyone arranges for me to do the dampest, coldest and most uncomfortable things you can do.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like deer-stalking, for instance. Someone writes to Mother and says they've got three moth-eaten deer in a horrible park, and does she know anyone who wants to spend a week in their beastly castle and go stalking. "Just the thing for Bellamy," she says. I've even started intercepting the post and tearing up all letters from Scotland. Somehow I seem to get invited more than ever,' he concluded wistfully. 'Well, I shouldn't bother at the moment,' said Esme, 'there's a lot of things can happen in a few days. Trito was saying that Mrs Chaser and Mrs Valley would do their best to bitch everybody up.'

  'They will at that,' said Terence, 'they'll both be getting their little tales ready about what went on when she was away. "Car smashes," they'll tell her, "in bed all the morning, rudeness on the telephone," everything they can think up.'

  'Yes, we've been a little unlucky.'

  Gloom descended on the garden van. (It was still unmended, as people seemed to nurse a forlorn hope about the insurance and said the 'man' would want to see it.)

  'Of course, come to that,' said Terence, 'Trito seems to be acting rather odd. He's all for Mother getting rid of her cash, but it's generally slick little holidays for her with him tagging along as a kind of nanny. I get dumped in Ireland — Glengariff or some bloody place.'

  Bellamy giggled.

  'I s'pose the thing is,' Terence went on, 'that there's nothing much wrong with her any more, so now I've got to be the excuse for him to get a bit of sunshine.'

  'She doesn't cat very much,' said Esme inanely.

  'You're telling us. She lubricates her nerves with a bit of gin and steams along on that.'

  'What about McTavish?' asked Esme.

  'He just hangs around when Trito's away. She seems to like him though. But you want to see her with Trito — Fibula darling this and Fibula darling that. He just purrs.'

  'Then won't she take his suggestion?'

  'Could be. But she likes to put her own spoke in, and he doesn't want to get in bad books with her.'

  And that seemed to be about the sum of it. When they were nearing Eton, Bellamy disconcerted them all by starting to cry. Esme, who was always instantly melted by tears, gave him back the two pounds Trito had won off him. That only made him cry more. However, as Terence explained on the way back to London, there was nothing to worry about because Bellamy was so soft he cried whenever he left anyone he'd been with for more than a day. He even used to cry in the train coming home from school: when he left the castles in Scotland he hated so much he went into floods of tears; and when he'd left America he'd cried the whole twelve hours they were in the 'plane. You had to be very careful when Bellamy was going away, that was all. After dinner they went to the latest American film. Esme had an idea that he was going to need all the help Terence could give him.

  There was something in that. Next morning everyone in London seemed to descend on 6, St Ambrose Gate — like flics on a rotten plum. Sandra was due about tea-time; but well before twelve the whole house was full to bursting. The secretary arrived at nine-thirty, followed closely by the two Valleys. About eleven o'clock McTavish arrived — in the vanguard of a screaming mob of Sandra's aunts, friends, hangers-on and general dependants, all of whom grabbed at Terence in concert and nearly tore him apart. Last of all appeared Trito, who treated Esme to an enormous wink and made straight for a tray of drinks.

  They all settled happily down to discuss the probable pickings to be gleaned from Sandra's latest expedition, while some, like the Valleys, busied themselves with little jobs, such as ringing up to see if the 'plane would be on time, poking their noses into Sandra's bedroom to make sure the bed had been made up and so on. The whole place buzzed with activity and anticipation, and no one showed the slightest signs of going away to have lunch — except, of course, for Trito (McTavish, as Terence had predicted, just stood around) who whisked the two boys off to somewhere he knew of in Jermyn Street and managed to get them four pounds worth of food and drink on Sandra's account there.

  'We shall need all our strength,' he explained.

  When they returned to St Ambrose Gate, the crowd was even thicker and the excitement was mounting rapidly. On the whole Esme rather enjoyed it, but he noticed that he himself was receiving a quantity of hostile looks all round, particularly from the Valleys and Mrs Chaser, and that the word Biarritz, accompanied by vigorous head-shakings, was all over the house. Trito got looks in which respect, ingratiation and jealousy were subtly blended, while Terence had already picked up three pounds in tips and was busy patrolling from one group to another. Eventually Esme decided that the atmosphere was so unhealthy that they went out for half an hour to buy American tics with the three pounds.

  It had been arranged that a priority group, consisting of Terence, Esme, the two Valleys an
d Dr Trito, should go to

  Northolt in the powder-blue Rolls. The main party would wait behind ready to seize on Sandra's luggage the instant she arrived. Esme received more hostile looks than ever when he got into the Rolls with Terence.

  For some unaccountable reason the 'plane was half-an-hour early, and Sandra was storming with rage when they met her.

  'I've got presents for you all,' she screamed, and threw a series of small packages at them in rapid succession: 'now for Christ's sake let's get out.'

  This wasn't as easy as it sounded, for her luggage had doubled itself during her absence. (The wretched lady's maid was nowhere to be seen, and must, thought Esme, have got lost in Canada.) But eventually they started at breakneck speed for London, Sandra yelling at them at the top of her voice about all the wonderful things she'd brought back.

  '...a camera,' she roared, 'which develops its own photos. You take the picture, shut the camera, count a hundred, open it again at the back and there's the photo. How have things been?' she shrieked at Esme.

  Esme was just opening his mouth to say that things had been lovely, but Mrs Valley saw her chance and was in before him.

  'They've had trouble with the van,' she smirked.

  Sandra's face went black.

  'What sort of trouble?' she said icily.

  'They've smashed a doorpost,' said Mrs Valley.

  'Only part of a doorpost,' said Esme feebly.

  There was a grim silence.

  'Terence hasn't been very well,' said Mrs Valley.