by Simon Raven
Copyright & Information
The Troubadour
First published in 1992
© Estate of Simon Raven; House of Stratus 1992-2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Simon Raven to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2011 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
EAN ISBN Edition
1842322443 9781842322444 Print
0755129881 9780755129881 Kindle
0755130049 9780755130047 Epub
0755153995 9780755153992 Epdf
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
About the Author
Born in 1927 into a middle class household, Simon Raven became both an outrageous figure and an acclaimed writer and novelist. His father inherited a hosiery business and did not have to work, his mother was an internationally successful athlete. The young Simon, however, viewed the household as ‘respectable, prying, puritanical, penny-pinching, and joyless’.
Initial education was through attending Cordwalles Preparatory School, near Camberley, Surrey, where he later claimed to have been ‘deftly and very agreeably’ seduced by the games master. From there he went on to Charterhouse, but was eventually expelled in 1945 for serial homosexuality. Nonetheless, he still managed to wangle his way into King’s College, Cambridge, to read classics, after a two year gap to complete his national service in the Parachute Regiment.
Raven had loved classics from an early age and read daily in the original, often translating from Latin to Greek to English, or any combination thereof.
At Cambridge, he probably felt completely at home for the first time in his life. In his own words, ‘nobody minded what you did in bed, or what you said about God’. This was civilised to his mind and he was also later to write, in a somewhat fatalistic manner: ‘we aren’t here for long, and when we do go, that’s that. Finish. So, for God’s sake, enjoy yourself now - and sod anyone who tries to stop you. ’ Despite revelling in Cambridge life, or perhaps because of it, Raven fell heavily into debt for the first time whilst there and also faced his first real responsibility. Susan Kilner, a fellow undergraduate was expecting his child and in 1951 they married. He took little interest in the marriage, however, and they were divorced some six years later.
He also failed to submit a thesis needed to support an offered fellowship, so fled both Cambridge and his marriage for the army, where he was commissioned into the King’s Own Shropshire Light Infantry. After service in Germany and Kenya, during which time he set up a brothel for his men to use, he was posted to regimental headquarters in Shropshire. It was here that debt once again forced a change in direction after he lost considerable sums at the local racetrack.
Resigning his commission so as to avoid being court-martialled, he turned to writing having won over a publisher who agreed to pay him weekly in cash, and also pick up bills for sustenance and drink. Moving to Deal in Kent he embarked upon producing a prodigious array of works which over the years included novels, essays, reviews; film scripts, radio and television plays and the scripts for television series, notably The Pallisers and Edward and Mrs Simpson. He lived in modest surroundings within rented accommodation and confined many of his excesses to London visits where his earning were dissipated quickly on food, drink and gambling – not forgetting sex which continued to feature as a major indulgence. He once wrote that the major advantage of belonging to the Reform Club in London was the presence opposite of a first class massage parlour.
In all, Simon Raven produced over twenty five novels and hundreds of other pieces, his finest achievements being reckoned to be a ten volume saga of English upper-class life, entitled Alms for Oblivion, from 1959-76 and the First Born of Egypt Series from 1984-92.
He was a conundrum; being both sophisticated and reckless; talented in the extreme yet regarding himself as not being particularly creative; but not applying this modesty (if that’s what it was) to his general behaviour, which was sometimes immodest beyond all reasonable bounds. He was exceedingly generous towards his friends; yet didn’t think twice about the position of creditors when getting into debt; was jovial, loyal and good company, but was unable to sustain a family life. He would drink like an advanced alcoholic in the evenings, but was ready to resume work promptly the following morning. He was sexually indiscriminate, but generally preferred the company of men. As a youth he possessed good looks, but a general abuse of his body in adulthood soon saw that wain.
Simon Raven died in 2001, his legacy being his writing which during his lifetime received high praise from critics and readers alike. He was a ‘one-off’, whose works will continue to delight readers for generations to come.
This book is dedicated to my old friend
DESMOND BRIGGS
who, as editor of the ten volumes of
Alms for Oblivion and the seven volumes of
The First-Born of Egypt, has discharged this office
with enduring patience and percipience over
the last thirty years.
SR.
Passa la nave mia colma d’oblio
per aspro mare a mezza notte il verno
enfra Scilla et Caribdi, et al governo
siede ’l signore anzi ’l nimico milo;
à ciascun remu un penser pronto et rio
che la tempesta e ’l fin par ch’ abbi a scherno;
la vela rompe un vento umido eterno
di sospir, di speranze et di desio;
pioggia di lagrimar, nebbia di sdegni
bagna et rallenta le già stanche sarte
che son d’error con ignoranzia attorto.
Celansi i duo mei dolci usati segni,
morta fra l’ onde è la ragion et l’ arte
tal chi’ i’ ’ncomincio a desperar del porto.
Petrarch: Rime sparse; 189
PART ONE
The Oracle
So, on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers – as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
You’d think; a burr had been a treasure-trove.
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land’s portion. ‘See
‘Or shut your eyes,’ said Nature peevishly,
‘It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
‘’Tis the Last Judgment’s fire must cure this place,
‘Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.’
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
In the dock’s harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk
All hope of greenness? ’tis a brute must walk
Pashing their life out, with a brute’s intents.
As for the grass
, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood…
Browning: Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came;
X to XIII
‘Sarcophagi,’ said Fielding Gray, as Jeremy Morrison and he surveyed the avenue of the Alyscamps: ‘the specialty of Arles.’
‘Sarcophagi,’ echoed Jeremy: ‘eaters of the flesh. These have long ago eaten the flesh consigned to them – two or three times, one is told. First they ate the Roman colonists, then their Christian successors. The finest examples had pagan carvings on one side and Christian on the other.’
Fielding Gray looked, with his one eye, along the row of stone coffins that lay to the left-hand side of the avenue, all the way from the gate to the ruined church three furlongs away, while Jeremy inspected the right-hand rank, his round eyes bulging out of his round face.
‘Of course,’ Jeremy went on, ‘you won’t see any finely carven coffins round here. The best of them were either given to visiting notables, of whom something dirty or confidential was required, or, later on, displayed in a museum. To tell you the truth, old man, I’m getting a bit sick of tombs. After all, we’ve just been within measurable distance of installation in our own.’
‘Oh no. There was to be no tomb for any of us,’ said Fielding, ‘on the island of Palus Dei. Raisley Conyngham was just going to leave us to rot where we fell…dead of hunger or exposure…in the shifting dunes or the long ripple washing in the reeds.’
‘Nunc me fluctus habet,’ said Jeremy, ‘versantque in litore venti. Poor old Palinurus speaking: “Now the wave has me and the winds wanton with me on the shore. ”’
‘And that is what bloody Raisley intended for us. The mire on the shore of that lagoon…’
‘But as it was,’ said Jeremy, ‘darling Milo came back and led us to safety through the quagmire. When Raisley realises what has happened, he will be somewhat less than civil to Milo.’
‘He has expelled me,’ said Milo Hedley, coming up the avenue behind them, ‘with bell and book. ’ He drew level and walked between them, smiling his young, ageless Greek smile and taking an arm of both. ‘I have lost my Master, my Sorcerer, forever.’
‘And he,’ said Fielding, ‘has lost a very capable apprentice. How did you find us? Through what remains in you of Raisley’s art?’
‘Magic was not required. The people in your swish hotel at Barbazan told me that of your group Mademoiselle Salinger and Signor Caspar had booked flights back to England from Toulouse, while the Honourable Morrison and M’sieur le Commandant Fielding Gray had asked them to book two rooms by telephone at the Jules César in Arles. When I arrived there just now, the girl at the desk said that she had overheard, as you left your keys, a mild dispute between you about the quickest way to Les Alyscamps. So here I am.’
Jeremy kissed him on the lips.
‘You saved us,’ he said.
‘Demonstrations of love are ill advised in the Alyscamps,’ said Fielding. ‘A French poet wrote a poem warning lovers to beware of upsetting the ghosts here. Carnal contacts make them envious, you see.’
Sobered by this consideration, they walked on in silence through the tombs and towards the broken church.
‘The party’s over then?’ said Milo. ‘Carmilla and Piero are gone…’
‘They had their answer,’ said Jeremy. ‘All four of us have had it. It was time for them to go home and attend to the affairs of Lancaster College.’
‘What exactly,’ enquired Milo, ‘was the answer that you all received?’
‘That Raisley Conyngham,’ said Fielding, ‘is subtle, sinister, and, if it suits him, homicidal.’
‘You knew that already.’
‘In a general way, yes. We know now of one particular area in which he operates – the Cathar provinces here in the Languedoc – and we know the precise nature,’ said Jeremy, ‘of his operation: present and practical diabolism.’
‘And how,’ said Milo, ‘do you propose to prove this singular assertion? How can you use your knowledge to discredit Raisley? That’s what you want, isn’t it? To get the man out of the way, and especially out of Marius Stern’s way, by branding him as an agent of evil and corruption, totally unfit to instruct the young at a great English public school – or indeed anywhere else. That is what this entire business is about.’
‘Right,’ said Jeremy and Fielding together.
‘So you came here to find out what he was up to, and now you know. But you can prove nothing – nothing even remotely injurious to Raisley Conyngham. Yes, he will say, indeed I was in the Languedoc early this year. I have been there many times – ever since nineteen fifty-one, when I first went with the lady who taught me the Classics at Brydales. It was she that first instilled into me a love of the Languedoc and its history…so great a love that for the last thirty years I have been conducting research into its people, its customs, its religion. My efforts as a scholar in this line have been recognised by my old college – Marcian College, Cambridge – the council of which subsidised and strongly encouraged my research during the sabbatical year (nineteen seventy-five to six) that the school where I teach awarded me in order to pursue it. As for my most recent visit, on which my accusers set so uncharitable a construction, I had urgent cause to check previous findings with a view to their forthcoming publication. The fact that their vulgar curiosity in some matter or other led them to lose themselves in the swamps of Aigues Mortes is nothing to do with me.’
‘But you could put the record straight about that,’ said Fielding to Milo: ‘you could tell the world what Raisley tried to do to us.’
‘And what I too tried to do to you as his accomplice,’ said Milo. ‘Yes, yes, I know I thought better of it and came back to rescue you. The fact remains that I willingly helped Raisley to trap the four of you in the middle of that abominable bog, and it is not a matter which I wish to discuss with the authorities.’
‘That’s the trouble with Raisley,’ Jeremy Morrison said: ‘no one can accuse him of anything or ever could. Either the evidence is too flimsy, or the charge would also destroy his accusers.’
‘That’s what Raisley said to me when he excommunicated me,’ said Milo. ‘“You can prove nothing that any sane man would believe,” he said, “and if you try, you will be the first of your own victims. Now get out, you nasty little toad; and remember that though those glands of yours are throbbing with poison, you can never dare to spit. I hope the surfeit kills you.” But,’ continued Milo Hedley, ‘that wasn’t quite the end of the interview – or not as far as I was concerned. Just as I got to my own bedroom, the telephone rang in Raisley’s. You know how thin the walls of French hotel bedrooms are – you hear every quaver in the sexual scale from opening squawk to the final squeal – so with a bit of concentration I was able to listen to Raisley’s telephone talk. And what it was all about was this: Raisley had been rung up by Mrs Maisie Malcolm’s lawyer, John Groves he’s called –’
‘– “Young” John Groves,’ said Fielding; ‘heir to the secrets of half the peerage. One of Maisie’s smart clients must have put her on to him. Perhaps “Young” John Groves was one of her clients,’ said Fielding speculatively, ‘when she was still a swish whore…so she became one of his –’
‘– Anyway, it seemed that he’d made her will for her. And was executor, and so on. He’d traced Raisley to Lourdes, where he’d missed him, and now on to Sète, to tell him about a codicil in this will, made in the spring of 1981, which appointed Raisley to be guardian to Tessa (properly called Teresa) Malcolm in the event of Maisie’s dying before Tessa came of age.’
After a silence, Fielding said: ‘Of course it was sensible of Maisie to name a guardian in succession to herself…if only because little Tessa will now be very rich. She will own Maisie’s half of Buttock’s Hotel. As it happens,’ he added with a puzzled air, ‘I own the other half. The question is, what to do with it. The place is now worth millions – but old mother Buttock
bound her heirs in honour not to sell it. She knew, you see, that developers would just pull it down and put up some cheap and modish obscenity on the site – like what happened to the dear old Cavendish. Although one sees the old bag’s point, Buttock’s can’t just go on being fossilised by mortmain. It was – it is – an attractive hotel of its kind, but if it’s not pulled down soon it’s going to fall down. It will be pertinent to find out what view Tessa is going to take…’
‘That will depend,’ said Milo, ‘on what view Raisley Conyngham takes. While he’s her guardian, he can presumably pre-empt her decisions.’
‘Only until she is eighteen. Is he in charge of her money as well as her mores?’ Fielding asked. ‘I should imagine there’s a financial trustee as well as a guardian…in which case they would both have to be in agreement before anything radical was determined.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Milo. ‘All Raisley seemed to be getting was the basic news – that he was to be Tessa’s guardian.’
‘Which raises some interesting questions,’ said Jeremy, ‘quite apart from what is to be done with the hotel. For instance, I’ve often wondered by what authority Mrs Malcolm became Teresa’s guardian in the first place; and now one asks, by what authority can she bequeath the guardianship? She purported to be Tessa’s aunt and her nearest living relative; but the welfare nargs can’t have been too happy about handing Tessa over to a rackety old number like Maisie, even if she did own half a hotel. And come to that, she must have adopted Tessa long before she ever went to Buttock’s.’
‘All that’s easily explained,’ Fielding said. ‘Although Maisie masqueraded as Teresa’s aunt, it is now an open secret that she was in fact her mother. And now Maisie’s dead nobody can reasonably question her wish that her daughter should be under the care of a respectable schoolmaster at the school where Tessa is a contented and promising pupil.’