by Raven, Simon
Table of Contents
Copyright & Information
About the Author
Author's Note
An Invitation
Part One
I
II
III
IV
V
Part Two
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Part Three
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
First Born of Egypt Series
Novels
Stories/Collections
Synopses of Simon Raven Titles
Copyright & Information
Doctors Wear Scarlet
First published in 1960
© Estate of Simon Raven; House of Stratus 1960-2011
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
1842321803 9781842321805 Print
0755129784 9780755129782 Kindle
0755129946 9780755129942 Epub
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.
Author's Note
At certain stages in this story the holders of actual offices – Princes, Bishops or Headmasters – appear briefly on the scene. It is not to be inferred that I intend portraits of those who are the present holders of such offices. The Headmaster of Eton, for example, who appears at the Michaelmas Feast, is a generalised figure who stands for all headmasters whatever; he is not my old and respected acquaintance, Mr Robert Birley.
SR
An Invitation
The Provost
and Fellows of Lancaster College, Cambridge
Request the Pleasure of the Company of
MAJOR ANTHONY SEYMOUR, MA
At the Annual Michaelmas Feast
To be Celebrated on October 31st, 1959
at Half Past Seven O’Clock
Evening Dress with Decorations
Doctors Wear Scarlet
R.S.V.P.
Part One
Chimes and Meadows
I
One evening in the May of last year, one of those evenings which are so blue and beautiful that you start thinking everything will be all right forever, I came home to my flat in Chester Square at about ten o’clock and found Tyrrel sitting by the window. He was reading a translation of Cavafis and looking very young and tired.
“I’m sorry, Mr Seymour,” he said. Then he produced an identity card which said he was Inspector John Tyrrel of the Metropolitan Police.
“How did you get in?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said again. “The caretaker… I showed him my card.”
“My telephone number’s in the book,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned the police can r
ing up for appointments just like anybody else.”
“I’m sorry,” he said; “but you see this isn’t really an official visit. I’ve just come–”
“If this isn’t an official visit,” I said, “then so much the more could it have waited until some reasonable and pre-arranged hour of the day.”
“I’m rather busy just now, sir.”
And then his face seemed to crumple a bit, like that of a worn out child on the verge of crying at the end of a long day. I’ve come to know Tyrrel much better since then, so that now I realise that this can only have been a trick; but on that evening in May we were still strangers and I fell for his trick straight away, thinking how pompous and futile I was being – and that in any case the best way of getting rid of him was to find out what he wanted and settle the matter. So I asked him to have a drink, since he was only unofficially present, and gave him the brandy which, to my surprise, he preferred to whisky or beer. Then, still treating him like the harassed and pathetic child he was still pretending to be, I settled him in a comfortable chair. Finally, after he had been sipping his brandy for five minutes and showing no signs of saying anything at all, I found the strength of will to bring him to the point.
“What,” I said, “do you want?”
“I should very much like some more of this excellent brandy, Mr Seymour.”
This was cool behaviour by any standard. But Tyrrel was still looking so much like an orphan standing over his mother’s grave that Herod himself could not have refused his request. I got up and fetched him some brandy. By now it was quite plain that he had beaten me hands down; there was nothing for it but to wait until he himself saw fit to state his (unofficial) business. Perhaps, however, he was satisfied with the degree of moral ascendency he had achieved; in any event, after only another minute’s sipping, he condescended to converse.
“You are the friend, sir, of Mr Richard Fountain.”
“Certainly. But I haven’t seen him for nearly a year. He’s away in Greece.”
“Ah, yes,” said Tyrrel sadly; “that’s the trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“As far as we can make out.”
“You’re not being very plain.”
“I know… Tell me, sir, how well do you know Mr Fountain?”
I rallied a little.
“It might be more to the point if you were to explain exactly why you’re so interested.”
“I dare say it would be,” Tyrrel said – so humbly and wistfully that I felt like the ogre in a pantomime. “I dare say it would be,” he said; “and I’ll try – oh yes, I’ll certainly try. But first of all, sir, if you could tell me how well you know him?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m four years older than Richard Fountain and I’ve known him since he was thirteen. He came to Charterhouse at the beginning of my last year there, and I had him for my study fag.” (“Study fag,” said Tyrrel gravely to himself.) “So naturally I knew him quite well then. But in 1944 I had to go away from school to the war, and I didn’t see him again until October four years later, when we both came up to Lancaster College, Cambridge, as freshmen.”
“This would be in 1948?” said Tyrrel.
“It would.”
“So Mr Fountain must have been allowed to come straight to college from school? Without doing his National Service?”
“In those days,” I said rather sharply, “you could choose whether to do National Service before or after your time at the University. Richard wasn’t getting out of anything.”
“I know that, sir,” said Tyrrel.
“Then why ask?”
“Just to make sure I’ve got everything dead right. And that you’ve got everything dead right, Mr Seymour.”
I decided to let this pass. If I don’t get on, I thought, Tyrrel will be here till the birds start singing in the square.
“Well then,” I said. “We were both Scholars,” (“Scholars,” mumbled Tyrrel appreciatively), “so we both had rooms in College for our entire time as undergraduates. And we both read the Classics,” (“Ah”), “so we saw a lot of each other for three years. We got to know each other very well. We went abroad together once or twice. We were…close. And then in 1951, when we graduated, I came to London–”
“Were you lovers?” said Tyrrel, very quickly and without a trace of insolence or malice. Something in his manner demanded and deserved a sensible answer and would have rendered expostulation merely absurd.
“No. We neither of us…went in…for that kind of love.”
“I thought not,” he said. “So. In 1951…?”
“…I came to London late in the summer and started to live here. But Richard had got a further two years’ deferment from call-up so that he could write a dissertation” – (“Dissertation,” said Tyrrel with silky admiration) – “in competition for a Fellowship. He stayed in Cambridge to do this, and of course we still saw quite a lot of one another. But it wasn’t what it had been because it wasn’t so continuous. I mean, when we were both up together, we’d plan the whole day – day after day. Once I’d left…”
“I know what you mean, Mr Seymour,” said Tyrrel. I was certain, too, that he did.
“In any case,” I went on, “after two years Richard duly finished his research, and then he had to go off and do his National Service. Some six months later he heard that his dissertation had been successful – which meant that he was awarded a Fellowship and would be able to return and take it up as soon as he was out of the Army. Meanwhile, he was just about to be commissioned – into the same Regiment, incidentally, as I’d been in – and once that happened, he went to the Middle East and was seen no more in England for a year and a half. He wrote occasionally, and I heard something of him from friends of mine in the Regiment who came back home from time to time; but I didn’t meet him again till he returned to Cambridge as a Fellow of Lancaster in September ’55–”
“…with a brand-new MC glittering on his chest,” put in Tyrrel.
“That’s right. Well, after that he stayed in Cambridge for a year, and we saw quite a lot of one another again. But then, at the end of last summer, he left to do some research in Greece; and, as you seem to know well enough for yourself, he’s still there.”
“You’ve heard from him?”
“Not a lot. He’s not a great letter writer unless there are some actual arrangements to be made. Once or twice, soon after he got there, he wrote that he’d settled in and his research was ticking over… But I’ve heard nothing since Christmas… So there you are. Have I been telling you what you wanted to know?”
“Up to a point, sir, only up to a point.”
I found this rather deflating. Once again, I attempted to rally myself.
“Nevertheless,” I said, “it’s your turn to tell me something. You did say you would, you know.”
“Yes, yes indeed,” he said. “The trouble is that there’s almost nothing to get your tongue round. It’s just the Greek people have been getting…impressions.”
“The Greek people?”
“The police, I mean. The authorities. ‘They’, you might understand.”
“I understand nothing.”
“Neither do I really,” said Tyrrel. “But I was hoping that what you would have to say would give me some sort of clue. Then I might have been able to explain to you as well. But as it is…you’ve really told me nothing, have you? Just a string of dates and places. Now, you’re a…a humanist, Mr Seymour. You’ve read the Classics. You must know that dates and places, necessary no doubt, never tell one what one wants to know. Particularly in cases like this. Now, sir, I’m asking you: put a little flesh on all these bones.”
“Why should I? You’ve as good as told me that there is nothing in all this except for some vague feeling…some impression…harboured by ‘them’ in Greece…that there’s something odd about Mr Fountain. So vague is it all, indeed, that you seem to want me to tell you his life history in the hope that this will give you something concrete to latch on to at
last. It strikes me that you might seize at anything. Now why should I help you to give body to some entirely nebulous suspicions? Just answer me that, Inspector Tyrrel.”
I had rather expected Tyrrel to start looking winsome or pathetic again. Instead, he suddenly looked very grave indeed.
“Oh no, sir,” he said slowly. “You’ve got it wrong. Assuredly you have. I may not understand this but I know there’s something in it. Something not a bit nice, either. The Greek people made that quite clear.”
“So now they’ve stopped having vague impressions and become models of precision?”
“No, sir,” he said steadily. “Their impressions are still vague; but they are the sort of impressions which neither they nor anyone else could possibly have unless something…very odd indeed… was going on. Put it like this. You or I might have a vague impression, about some politician, say, that he was a genius or a crook or a sexual misfit; and we might be right or we might be wrong, but in any case these are the sort of vague impressions people have every day and, as such, do not command respect. But suppose we suddenly got a vague impression, about this politician of ours, that he might be the Son of God, or even just that a lot of other people thought he might be. Now, sir, whether he was the Son of God or not, there’d have to be something very odd going on before we could begin to think in these terms. You see what I mean? However vague, it would be an altogether different impression from those people normally have. Not at all an everyday affair.”
“So Mr Fountain thinks he’s the Messiah?” I asked with heavy sarcasm.
“I didn’t say that, sir. I’m just saying that this impression the Greeks have got, however…nebulous (and thank you, sir, for that word), is nevertheless so much out of the run of things that it couldn’t have begun to arise unless there was something – whatever that something might be – something very peculiar in the air.”