Fielding Gray

by Simon Raven

  Having, with some difficulty, dismissed Dixie, I reverted to the problem of my father. He had now given Angela a definite promise that myself plus £5,000 would be signed, sealed and delivered over to Tuck. It was always possible that my father had no intention of trying to keep his bargain; but equally, why should he not? The £5,000 would probably be quite a sound investment: the arrangement would get me off his hands for good; and more than all this, he would have had the satisfaction of destroying my most cherished plans and ambitions.

  Quite why my father was so set against Cambridge, I was unsure. It was not, I suspected, just a simple matter of meanness about money or jealousy of my success; there was an intensity in his attitude, an element (however perverse) of morality, the clue to which, I thought, might possibly lie in something that I had once been told by the Senior Usher.

  'If there is one thing people cannot stand,' the old man had said, 'it is that someone should achieve happiness and distinction by doing work which they despise. Their indignation is grounded in genuine moral feeling: it is like the resentment which dully married women feel at the success of a famous courtesan.'

  'And why,' I had asked, 'are you telling me this?'

  'My dear Fielding. You propose to spend your life doing intellectual work. You may as well learn now as later that many people - most people - regard such work as effeminate and degrading.'

  Yes, I thought now, it fitted near enough '... effeminate and degrading.' 'Sometimes,' my father had said, 'I think I've got a woman for a son.' My father clearly regarded Cambridge and all it stood for as immoral or at least unmanly; the work was not proper work at all (it was far too pleasant, for a start) and no son of his was going to make a living by it. So much, I thought, for diagnosis. But what, in heaven's name, was I going to do? If my father wanted to cut off supplies, no one could stop him. The Headmaster's talk of government grants and subsidies was all very well; but hitherto I had been accustomed to ample provision and I now shrank from the prospect of going through Cambridge on a meagre official pittance, of which, in any case, I had yet to be definitely assured. And quite apart from all that, if my father persisted in his present intention it would mean no last year at school, and on this I had set my heart.

  Calmer than when I had set out but even more depressed, I arrived at our front door. Just inside the hall, on a hard chair by the telephone, sat my mother, looking very peculiar indeed.

  'Mama ... Why on earth are you sitting out here?'

  'Something rather funny has happened,' my mother said. Her eyes glinted weirdly, part in amusement and part in shock. 'Angela Tuck rang up. Your father's just died of a heart attack.'

  Quite how much my mother knew or guessed, I never found out for sure. The official version, which mama apparently accepted, was that my father had gone to Angeta to ask where he could get in touch with her husband in London, as he wanted some more information about the tea-planting scheme. Angela, while entertaining him to a cup of tea, had suggested that I myself might make difficulties about this; upon which father had flown into a rage, choked, gone into violent spasms, and then relapsed into a kind of coma. Angela had rung for a doctor, but by the time he arrived my father was dead.

  This seemed to me a very convenient version of the affair; inaccurate but on the whole equitable. I was glad that I myself was mentioned as in some sort contributing to father's demise; for since I had good reason to believe that this might indeed be the case, some reference to me, however wide of the actual facts, was both ironic and just. Guilt I felt none; my father had been a pestilential bully and now, by a happy accident, had been permanently removed. Even if one assumed that my own act of slamming the door had been the mortal factor (and who was ever to say that this was so?), the act had been excusable and its consequence unforeseen.

  To Angela I did not speak of the matter. If she suspected that I had been the intruder that afternoon, she had yet to give any sign of it. For my part, my feelings towards her were unaltered, save that they now included considerable admiration of her resource: she must have had a most difficult and disagreeable job rigging the scene into decency against the arrival of the doctor. No doubt about it: a slut she might be but a slut to be reckoned with.

  The coroner was soon satisfied that death was due to natural causes, and arrangements for the funeral were briskly made, Mama, once she had had a few hours to get over her surprise, showed more efficiency and character than in all the years I could remember.

  'Tell the undertaker,' she instructed me: 'opening time tomorrow .'

  'Opening time?'

  'As soon as he opens his shop or whatever he calls it. No point, Fielding dear, in hanging about.'

  Or again, while kneeling in the church before the service.

  'The people from the firm,' she decreed, 'must come in for drinks afterwards. But not the soaks from the golf club.'

  'Some of them were friends of father's.'

  'You mean they'd let him buy them drinks. Not that he was so quick to do that.'

  'They'd resent it, mother.'

  'I don't doubt it, dear.' said mama, as she concluded her devotions and resumed a sitting position: 'but since I never want to see any of them again, it doesn't matter, does it?'

  The Rector, irritated by the flippancy with which mama had convened the ceremony, cut his address to a minimum. Even what little could be said in favour of the deceased he threw away rapidly, like a bored actor whose new mistress was waiting for him in his dressing-room. 'John Aloysius Gray,' he snorted, 'served from 1940 to 1945 as captain, later major, in the Army Ordnance Corps.' An undistinguished record, it now sounded infamous.

  After John Aloysius Gray had been fed to the worms, the widow stood to receive condolences. Last in the line was Angela Tuck, to whom mama was more than gracious.

  'You're not to feel it was your fault, Angela dear.' (Did she then know more than she let on?) 'You come home with me and Fielding. And when I've got rid of those nuisances from the firm we can all have a nice talk.'

  From that day on my mother seemed increasingly eager for the company of Angela Tuck. Since Tuck himself was still away, presumably recruiting, Angela was free to indulge mama, and was indeed invited to be present on the most intimate occasions, such as the family discussion with little Mr. Japhet, the solicitor from Lympne Ducis, about my father's will.

  With the exception of a few minor bequests to old friends and senior employees of the firm, everything was left to my mother, with the suggestion that she should 'take what steps she thought fit' as to the education and subsequent provision of myself. Although this was broadly in accordance with bourgeois custom, I was disconcerted that no more definite arrangements had been made. Knowing my father as I did, I had expected either to be provided for under some restrictive form of trust, or, quite possibly, to be spitefully disinherited: what I had not expected was that the will should be merely casual. (Here, of course. I had badly misread my father's character: I should have realized that he would have seen no point in restricting or spiting people by means of his will, as he himself would not be there to enjoy their discomfiture.) Again, quite apart from the vagueness of the immediate arrangements, my father had shown a disquieting unconcern for the future: there was no kind of entail, no stipulation that mama should regard myself as her heir, indeed nothing whatever, as far as I could see, to stop her giving away the whole lot that very afternoon. While I did not doubt her good will. I had no very high opinion of her good sense: mama was simply not a person who should be allowed to control a fortune.

  Little Mr. Japhet clearly thought the same and was busily trying to persuade her to put her affairs entirely in the discreet hands of himself and the bank manager. But mama, true to the spirit which she had shown since father's death and strongly supported by Angela, was being difficult.

  'You say,' she said, 'that after death duties there'll be about £50,000 in cash and investments?'

  'That's right, dear lady.'

  'And what's the firm at Torbeach worth?'


  'To you, dear lady, about £5,000 in a good year.'

  'I don't mean yearly profits. I mean lock, stock and barrel.'

  Mr. Japhet looked shocked. My stomach stirred uneasily.

  'Surely, mother—' I began.

  'Don't interrupt, dear.' said mama. 'Now then. Angela. Tell Mr. Japhet what you were telling me yesterday.'

  'Just at the moment,' said Angela, 'there's more money around than materials or plant. It follows that a going concern like this one, fully staffed and equipped and with half a century's good will behind it, would fetch an abnormally high price.'

  Shrewd enough, I thought: but I wish you'd mind your own business instead of ours.

  'But,' continued Angela, 'the seller's market won't last for ever. As soon as things settle down again and they start producing more modern kinds of machinery, your bucket shop at Torbcach will be a back number.'

  'Bucket shop?' said Mr. Japhet.

  That's what it makes, doesn't it? Buckets?'

  'General hardware, madam.'

  'What the hell,' said Angela.

  'Anyway,' said mama, quiet but firm, 'I've made up my mind. Sell the firm ... for money down. Not for shares in anything else or deferred bills or whatever they call them, but for money down. I've been living to the shadow of that factory for twenty years, and I never want to hear of it again.'

  'But,' said Mr. Japhet primly, 'it is a family firm. The employees of the factory are also the loyal employees of your family. They will be distressed.'

  'I doubt it,' said mama. 'Loyalty to families is going to be a thing of the past, if my newspaper is anything to go by.'

  Despite my uneasiness, I had to admit that my mother and Angela between them had made some telling points. Now I must put in a word for myself.

  'Excuse me, mother,' I said politely, 'but while Mr. Japhet is here, do you think we might come to some firm arrangement about my allowance? Could it be paid into a bank every month or something?'

  'Your allowance, dear?' said mama softly. 'I thought your father gave you pocket money?'

  'Yes, mother. But now.. .'

  'I think the same sort of arrangement will still do very well, dear. For the time being ... And now, Mr. Japhet. In a day or two I propose going away on a little holiday. I've got a lot of things to think over, and I need a change and a rest. You can arrange, I think, to have money placed at my disposal in the bank?'

  'The bank will allow you to draw as you wish,' said Mr. Japhet, 'against repayment when we obtain probate.'

  'That,' said mama dismissively, 'will be exceedingly convenient.'

  'Mama?'

  'Yes, Fielding dear?'

  'Would you like me to come with you? On this holiday, I mean?'

  'Oh no, dear. I wouldn't dream of asking you to put yourself out. Not that you would, would you?'

  'What can you mean?'

  'Simply that there's a lot of your father in you.'

  'If you want me to. I'll put off—'

  '—No, dear. I'll do very well by myself for a while. What day is your friend coming? Somerset Lloyd-Thing?'

  'Lloyd-James. Thursday.'

  'Then I'll be off on Wednesday so as to be out of your way, How long will Somerset Lloyd-Thing be staying?'

  'Lloyd-James. Only a few days. Then we go to Peter at Whereham.'

  'Such nice manners Peter always had. How kind of him to ask you.'

  'And then, later on. I'm going to stay with the Headmaster in Wiltshire. So you see, mother—'

  '—The Headmaster? I should have thought he saw enough of you in term time.'

  'He wants to discuss arrangements for next year.'

  'Does he?' said mama blankly.

  'Yes. So you see, mother. I'm going to be away a lot and I shall need some money.'

  'But you'll be staying with people all the time.'

  'Yes, but fares and so on ...

  'We mustn't be extravagant, dear, must we? And if the Headmaster wants to talk to you, perhaps he might be the one to pay your fare.'

  'For Christ's sake, mother.'

  'It's not Christ's money, dear, but mine. So I'll write you out a little cheque. But you do understand - don't you? - that just because your father's dead you can't automatically have everything you want. As it is, there'll be the extra food for Somerset Lloyd-Thing.'

  An unsatisfactory letter from Christopher at Tonbridge. He was enjoying his tuition, it seemed, as his tutor from Oxford was a very kind and interesting man. He was looking forward to telling me about some of the things they had discussed. Until when, he was 'yours ever'.

  If that was all he had to say, I could see no reason why he had written at all. He hadn't even remembered to confirm the dates which I had suggested for my stay in Tonbridge. So I wrote him a quick note, repeating that I could be with him on 4th or 5th September, even a day or two earlier if he liked, and asking him to reply at once as I was anxious to have it settled.

  Angela dined with mama and me on both the last two nights previous to mama's departure. Indeed, I gathered that had not Tuck's return been daily expected, Angela would probably have accompanied my mother on part at least of her holiday.

  Up to this time, I had been no more than vaguely irritated by this new friendship, putting it down to the loneliness of the two women. But on the night before my mother left, I began to feel almost as if the association were turning into a league - a league against myself. The women paid me none of the deference which the senior male in a household, however young, is usually accorded. They were deaf to my small requests and combined to disregard my preferences. The off-hand manner which Angela had lately adopted towards me had now become something more like contempt; while my mother's old self-effacement now seemed nearer to indifference. All in all, I was relieved that they were about to part; their influence on one another was clearly unwholesome. Yet I saw no need of worry. My mother would return from her holiday rested and in her right senses (in so far as she had any); and Angela, no doubt, would soon be swept back to India by Tuck. Meanwhile, I was to see Somerset and Peter again: at last, the longed for company of old friends.

  This afternoon, when the mail-boat arrived, I received a copy of a London weekly to which I subscribe. On the second page is the announcement that the Editor, Mr. Somerset Lloyd-James, will shortly contribute a series of five long articles about the current state of our national finances; so Somerset, it seems, has realized his ambition to become an authority. At the head of the announcement is a photograph, taken, I should surmise, while he was still up at Cambridge, not so very long after I last saw him. Yet the face on the page before me might as well belong to the devil for anything it recalls of my school-boy friend. And indeed, even when he arrived in Broughton Staithe that August of 1945, he had already changed a great deal. The change, of course, had been taking place the whole of the previous quarter, but since it had been gradual, and since I had seen him daily, l had hardly noticed it (despite the comments of Peter, who, seeing him rather less often, had been more aware). But now, after I had been nearly a month away from Somerset, the metamorphosis was plain: he had matured, I might almost say he had aged, and his knack of spreading a defensive glaze over his eyes war now more than ever pronounced. Had we not still had a number of friends and interests in common (and even these were now discussed by Somerset in a new spirit, a spirit which was grudging where before it had been merely guarded), and had it not been for certain familiar tricks of manner and idiom, I should scarcely have recognized the boy who had walked with me over the cricket ground in May.

  'I was sorry, said Somerset as soon as he was out of his train, 'to hear about your father.'

  'You needn't be.'

  'I should have been interested to meet him. Your mother too.'

  'She thought we'd sooner be left to ourselves.'

  'Considerate of her,' murmured Somerset. 'As it happens, I do have one or two rather private things to say to you.'

  'Fire ahead.'

  'Not yet.'

  'W
hy not?'

  'Your mood is not propitious. I must wait until you are more receptive.'

  'And when is that likely to be?'

  Somerset was silent for several seconds. Then he said:

  'Before I can tell you what I'm going to, I must first establish the new relationship between us.'

  'The new relationship?'

  'Yes. Hitherto I have been the ugly but amusing boy befriended by the glamorous school hero. I have been philosopher, clown and client. This is a role I am no longer willing to sustain. I must assert my claim to equality - in some respects to dominance.'

  'For heaven's sake, Somerset. I've always regarded you as an ally'

  'No, you haven't. Whether you knew it or not, you always condescended.'

  'Well, if so I'm sorry. I never for a moment—'

  '—No need to be sorry,' Somerset said. 'I bear no rancour. But from now on things must be different. When I'm sure you fully understand that, I shall be ready to speak more plainly.'

  A taxi appeared at last in the station yard. We piled into it with Somerset's luggage, and sat side by side in silence until we were home. There was about Somerset, I thought, the air of a scrupulous duellist - of one determined to ensure, before shedding his opponent's blood, that everything was entirely en règle at the outset. It was as though he were giving me fair warning, enough to let me know that combat was about to begin, not enough to let me into the stratagems which would be used. Yet if he was after my blood, why should he trouble to give warning? Perhaps his Catholic conscience would not allow him to omit this, or perhaps he was obeying some atavistic notion of chivalry, such as might have deterred his remote ancestors from 'striking horse' in a tournament. But whatever the refinements might be, an instinct told me plainly, amid much that was in question, that Somerset meant business and meant it soon.