by Simon Raven
‘How do you know all this, Provost?’
‘Because the one who survived the accident was my sister-in-law, Isobel Stern. Her dead lover was called Lewson, a man who was in any case damned, whatever the genius of the groves may have made of him. But I tell you this tale, Len, to warn you that the genius of this place – of our College, our Lancaster – may be angry with us for what we are doing, and so may the wood nymphs, the Dryads of his rule.’
‘So you have said, my dear, or at least suggested, several times before today. But in your story the genius loci was angry that his groves had been denied to the local lovers whom he favoured. We are denying nothing to anybody.’
‘We are destroying beauty, murdering trees.’
‘We have no choice, Tom.’
‘Better beauty in decay than mere scorched earth.’
‘No. Corpses must be buried or burnt.’
‘These trees are not yet dead.’
‘Oh Tom, Tom. The thing has been decided as it had to be decided, by the College Council duly assembled.’
‘I am the first of the Council. I stand and speak for the Founder. I am the murderer. Already the nymphs have possessed my daughter, and may do again.’
‘The nymphs may go into the Fens,’ said Len, adopting the Provost’s level of reasoning, ‘for they were reared very close to them, but they cannot cross the salt sea. As you know very well, Baby and Canteloupe left this afternoon for Venice.’
‘For Venice…and its marshes. Do you think that nymphs bred by the Fens cannot communicate with those of the lagoons and marshes?’
‘Baby and Canteloupe will be under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, Tom. They are going to Venice to restore one of her pictures to a Church in Burano. Jacquiz Helmutt is going to be there as artistic adviser and English liaison officer. There will be no improprieties practised by tree nymphs or marsh nymphs or any other kind of nymphs as long as Sir Jacquiz Helmutt is there on the rostrum.’
‘Of course you are right,’ said Sir Thomas, suddenly calm. ‘I am being thoroughly foolish. But, oh Len, I am so sad for our trees.’
Leonard Percival first knew there was something wrong when Gregory Stern did not come out to his car, which was waiting outside the hotel. Gregory had planned to set out from Trieste in a hired and chauffered car during the early afternoon of the day after the conclusion of his conference with Shamshuddin and his minions about his forthcoming book. The conference had been due to end the previous day; there was the hired Renault and its chauffeur waiting, as arranged, outside the Albergo d’Annunzio; there was he, Leonard, waiting as agreed in his Fiat at a discreet distance, ready to follow Gregory into Yugoslavia and along the first leg of his journey towards Dubrovnik and Greece: and where was Gregory?
At 3 p.m. Leonard went into the Hotel and asked to speak with Signor Gregory Stern, who, he presumed, was still in his suite…possibly ill or waiting for a telephone call from some tardy correspondent, business or personal. But no. The Signor had vacated his suite, the clerk told Leonard Percival; on his instruction his luggage had been put in his car outside, while he himself had left the Hotel by the rear entrance to visit the Post Office, which was just opposite that entrance, having first asked the clerk to tell the chauffeur that he would be back in about ten minutes.
What possible purpose could the Signor have had in visiting the Post Office when every conceivable postal or telephonic service was provided, far more swiftly, quietly and efficiently, by the Hotel?’
The clerk did not know.
The chauffeur had seen nothing of the Signor in the one hour and fifteen minutes since he had had his message from the clerk.
None of the employees at the counter of the Post Office recalled a tall, dark Englishman.
Gregory had not returned to the Hotel during the fifteen minutes which it took Leonard to make these enquiries.
In short, thought Leonard, I’ve lost him. I’ve boobed. Not my fault. But of course this is just the sort of thing which I came to prevent. But why has this happened? Well, I had a feeling, on my way here, that he was getting ready to play silly tricks; so perhaps he’s played one and wound up skidding into a crapheap, which is what happens to people that play silly tricks with other people like Shamshuddin. On the other hand, all must have been well at the conference, which must have ended yesterday, thought Leonard, as planned. In any other case Leonard would have had an alert, for there was a simple signal (a red volume of the Leob Library to be left by Gregory in the pigeonhole under his key behind the Porter’s desk) by which they had arranged for Gregory to summon Leonard at the least sign of the conference’s dragging on beyond its time or starting, for whatever reason, to turn sour. No red volume equalled a green light for Yugoslavia and Greece. This afternoon, now. The absence of Gregory, more than an hour after the wheels were ready to roll, equalled heap big mingi fuck-up, thought Leonard, reverting in his uneasiness to the nig-nog lingo he had used many years ago on a rather similar mission (mutatis mutandis) in Kenya, when it was still a proper country properly ruled by proper people…who would not have appreciated the way he had just mashed up his balls here and now. Cunty, cunty, loosy Monkey. What the shit did big-dick Percival do now? Attend to his duodenal ulcer, that’s what, before it blew a hole in his belly.
And so, a few minutes after Len and Tom had gone from under the elm trees in Lancaster, Leonard Percival went once more into the Hotel d’Annunzio, negotiated a sweaty passage through a jabbering mob of charabanc-borne Japs, and reached the bar. Here he asked for a glass of milk and, on impulse, for the English Signor Gregory Stern, who was staying in the Hotel.
‘Giornalista?’ said the barman.
‘Friend.’
‘I know Signor Stern. Suite Number Three. ’E come in here. I take things up there, when doing Number Two in this bar, late night. So. Friend, not journalist? Your milk will cost you fifty thousand.’
‘Here.’ Percival handed it over.
‘Tough little girl in black. She talk to ’im as ’e leave the lift. As I come down to go on duty, thirteen forty-five, a quarter to two, you say. She talk to ’im near lift. Then he go to the clerk and say something and leave with ’er by the back. Fifty more thousand for tip please.’
‘Here.’
‘She pretend to be bad girl, putana, feeling herself to excite ’im, as if she pick ’im up for quick jig-jig. But I see she do it wrong, not liking. Whyever he go with her, not jig-jig. Is all.’
Artemis. The tough girl in black whom Isobel had fancied, the girl of whom she had told Gregory and Gregory, before leaving England, had told Leonard. Artemis: so named by Isobel for her purity. At the last minute Artemis had somehow hijacked Gregory, or persuaded him that he must go with her. How? Why? Where? They would make a recognisable pair: strong, tight-faced, spare, chaste Artemis in black, unskilfully pretending to be a putana, and huge, shambling, doubtless unhappy Gregory. Recognisable, yes: but how did he set about finding them? ‘Excuse me, sir or madam, but have you seen a couple answering to this description? If so, which way were they going?’
Talk about boobs and fuck-ups. Sweet Jesus Christ.
‘Talk about the Pied Piper,’ said Len. ‘There’s Fielding Gray and Piero Caspar already chasing after him. Why do you two want to get in on the act?’
‘I, for one, do not,’ said Carmilla. ‘But Theodosia says she is in love with him and won’t rest till she knows what’s become of him. I cannot let her set out alone.’
‘Why not?’ said Len.
‘Because I should worry about her.’
‘But you don’t even know which way he went.’
‘He went,’ said Theodosia, ‘to one or more of the places to which he went with Major Gray last September.’
‘That’s a lot of places.’
‘Starting with Pau,’ Theodosia went on, ‘because he asked me to send him a telegram there to tell him how Lady Canteloupe was getting on. But I don’t think Pau’s his real destination. He just fancies a long ride to soothe himse
lf.’
‘I dare say,’ said Len, ‘but exactly where are you going to look for him?’
‘I think,’ said Theodosia, ‘that some useful hints are to be had from Nicos Pandouros. He was getting very friendly with Jeremy just before…just before he left.’
‘Look,’ said Len, trying to be patient. ‘If you girls want to go off into the blue to look for Jeremy Morrison, no one’s going to stop you. I can vouch for it that it’ll be all right with the Provost, and that you’ll be welcomed back with open arms when you choose to come. But we’re all going to miss you. Jesus Christ, I’ll miss you like I’d miss my own head, even if it’s only for a week or two. You’re…you’re special,’ said Len, ‘they don’t come like you very often, and I just hate to think of all your time and talent being wasted on trying to find that inflated Cherubino.’
‘A good description,’ said Theodosia. ‘He’s also a thumping crook. But I think that now he is in real trouble and not just pretending. Anyway, I can’t be doing without him any more, Len, and that’s the nub of it.’
‘Right,’ said Len. ‘I shall procure you leave of absence, in the first instance until the first day of Full Term next, though I shall hope you’ll be back before the end of this. Starting tomorrow, I take it?’
‘No,’ said Carmilla, ‘not till Monday.’
‘Monday? But I thought Theodosia just couldn’t wait.’
‘I’ve got to wait,’ said Theodosia. ‘I am to play Second String for the University Tennis team against Hampton Court on Saturday. Tough opposition, whom we are keen to beat for the sheer prestige of the thing, as University Tennis has been at very low tide lately. Our Captain, Myles Glastonbury, is relying on me, and I cannot let him down.’
‘Sweetheart,’ said Len, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, ‘you sound like something straight out of the Boys’ Own Paper.’
‘The Girls’ Own Paper,’ said Theodosia, ‘if you don’t mind.’
‘So that’s settled,’ she said to her sister as they left the Provost’s Lodging, ‘not that I ever thought there’d be any difficulty. “Special”, as Len calls us, we may or may not be, but we’re certainly privileged right up to the ears. Two big rich girls. So: off on Monday…after a word with Nicos.’
‘Irritating news in the second post,’ said Carmilla, ‘Ivan Blessington says that the board of Salinger & Holbrook are making a fuss about printing Gregory Stern’s book.’
‘But we’ve given our word.’
‘I don’t think we need worry. Come up to my place and read his letter. He says that a little hint about our shareholding nearly stopped the show, and he’s confident that all will go as we would wish. Two big rich girls, like you said.’
‘Nice, having someone like Ivan to leave things with when we’re going away for a bit. What is it about him? You couldn’t call him clever or shrewd or quick. He has no particular gifts of intelligence or intuition. And yet I have a feeling that he is utterly and absolutely reliable.’
‘He’s a gentleman,’ said Carmilla. ‘That’s all about it, and that’s what it’s all about.’
‘You’re beginning to sound,’ said Theodosia, ‘like something out of the Boys’ Own Paper.’
‘I’m glad we’re going to be in Venice for a few days before the ceremony,’ said the Marquess Canteloupe.
‘So I suppose, or we wouldn’t be going,’ his wife said.
‘We can visit some of the places we went to when we were here last time. With your father and Daniel Mond. Remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘The Gritti is always agreeable; and Tullius will be quite all right with Nanny for a week or two.’
‘No doubt of that.’
‘Balbo Blakeney will be coming just before the ceremony.’
‘He can’t come too late for me.’
‘After all, he did find the bloody picture… But don’t worry. He’ll be with Sir Jacquiz Helmutt and his wife at the Danieli. Helmutt has to make a last minute check of the arrangements in the Church of San Martino. You may have to take a small part.’
‘Do a strip show?’
‘Look,’ said Canteloupe, ‘you don’t have to stay with me in Venice if you don’t want to. You can turn right round and go home the minute this aeroplane lands. In fact, with Leonard away it would be quite convenient if you did go home. You could keep an eye on all the things which Leonard usually looks after. We can’t expect Nanny to do that.’
‘I thought the Corporation had lent you a man to sub for Leonard.’
‘Not much of a man.’
‘I expect he’ll do for a week or two. Since I’ve got nothing else on,’ said Baby Canteloupe, ‘I may just as well be with you in Venice. The Gritti will serve as well as anywhere, as that’s what you’ve arranged. Daisy and Sarum will be blissfully happy without either of us. Since I’ve got that little rat, Piero, out of my hair, nothing worse can come of Venetian memories than harmless boredom. And I can even put up with the food so long as I don’t have to eat it at the same table as Balbo Blakeney.’
‘Both dead,’ said Jean-Marie Guiscard, who had telephoned from Clermont-Ferrand, to Ptolemaeos Tunne. ‘My father died within an hour or two of hearing about my mother. I’d better talk to Jo-Jo. She’ll have to bring Oenone and come for the funeral.’
‘She isn’t here,’ said Ptolemaeos.
‘Where is she? With Baby Canteloupe?’
‘No. She’s gone off with Isobel Stern.’
‘Gone off? With Isobel Stern? For how long?’
‘God knows. It was all rather sudden. But I suppose they’ll have to be back in three weeks or so, when Gregory is due home from his trip…unless Isobel has decided to chuck him.’
Ptolemaeos was deliberately telling less than he knew and implying more, to get his own back on Jean-Marie for having married and removed Jo-Jo. Not that he disliked Jean-Marie, or had ever thought that Jo-Jo would stay in Tunne Hall and the Fens for ever: he rather enjoyed, however, making Jo-Jo’s husband smart a bit.
‘But why didn’t Jo-Jo let me know that she was going away and where?’
‘I expect you’ll get a postcard in due course,’ said Ptolemaeos, knowing that Jo-Jo, who had funked ringing up Jean-Marie, had nevertheless posted a letter to Clermont-Ferrand before leaving with Isobel.
‘But I can’t postpone the funeral while I wait for a postcard.’
‘Don’t,’ said Ptoly. ‘She hates funerals. Her mother and father and two brothers were all buried at the same time after their motor smash, so she got enough then to last her for life.’
‘But in France it is expected that a daughter-in-law should–’
‘–Come, come,’ said Ptolemaeos. ‘You’re not married to a French bourgeoise.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Jean-Marie, remembering his aspiration to resemble an upper class Englishman and telling himself that he must not let the shock of his parents’ death cause him to revert to type. ‘Of course she can’t be bothered with all that silly rot about family funerals.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Ptoly, warming to Jean-Marie, whom indeed he had always liked. ‘I’ll tell you what to do. Plant your parents, then come back here and sit it out with me. I don’t think Jo will be gone long, it’s just that she’s been put a bit off level by this business of having Oenone. Childbirth often turns ’em funny for a bit. I dare say Isobel will sort her out and bring her back as good as new. But if she don’t, we’ll see what’s to be done, you and I.’
‘Good egg, Ptoly,’ said Jean-Marie bravely, ‘I’ll be along by Tuesday.’ But to himself he said, as he put down the receiver, that the little bitch needed her face slapping: all that money, of course – it made her independent; but money could not excuse – he was about to use the phrase ‘disobedience to one’s lawful and wedded husband,’ but just in time he substituted ‘sheer bad manners’. However, he told himself, he must go on trying to see the thing from the point of view of the upper class Englishman, whose attitudes were more sensible and elegant than a
ny other in the whole world. In this role, then, the best course was to pay no attention whatever, to pretend, when she got back, that he had hardly noticed her absence, and to display, for as long as she did not return, total indifference.
Leonard Percival had decided to go south. From what he remembered of Gregory’s account of being kidnapped by Shamshuddin & Co the previous summer, Gregory had reckoned (though he was far from being certain) that he and Isobel had been taken to a small island off the Dalmatian Coast. It could be reasonably presumed, therefore (and if it couldn’t nothing else could) that he would now be taken (by the same people) to the same place.
However, since it was already late in the afternoon when Leonard finally realised that Gregory had been abducted, and since his ulcer, despite his expensive glass of milk, was playing up something shocking, Leonard had (guiltily) deferred his departure until the next morning and booked himself a room for the night in the Hotel d’Annunzio. What he needed, he told himself, was a quiet, plain, wholesome Italian dinner, followed by a good rest. And in the end it had turned out that he had done absolutely the right thing, however wrong and self-indulgent his reason. For while he was dining in the hotel restaurant a young woman dressed in black had calmly seated herself at his table, named herself to him as ‘Artemis from Shamshuddin’, and presented him with a note from Gregory. Discussion would have to be resumed, Gregory wrote, as Shamshuddin had become uneasy about the attitude of Salinger & Holbrook towards printing his book. Recent enquiries in that direction had revealed that objection had now been raised by the Chairman of the Board and others. Until confidence had been restored in this matter, Shamshuddin had invited him to be his ‘guest’. Although Shamshuddin had not told Gregory where he was to be held, he was quite willing that Gregory should have a friend and adviser in the neighbourhood, who might be of use in case of further awkwardness or uncertainty, and was therefore permitting Gregory to notify Leonard that if he cared to spend the next few days at the Albergo Garibaldi in Mestre he would be promptly informed when and if his services should be required. It appeared that Shamshuddin and his friends had for some time been aware of Leonard’s ‘attendance’ on Gregory (Christ, thought Leonard, I really am getting past it) and would have no difficulty, Gregory wrote, in finding him to deliver this note.