The Jevington System

By Roger Longrigg

A comedy centred upon Hugo Cornish, who does his best to make ends meet as a somewhat strange man-about-town by doing odd jobs, and wherever possible sponging off others. His goal is simply to inherit millions of dollars from an equally bizarre individual, his Uncle Ned, who spends his time on a succession of hobbies. Together with Colonel Freddie Willis-Jevington, another hilarious character who has a fool-proof system for winning at roulette, Hugo finds himself beside the Californian ‘death-bed’ of his uncle. The two of them fantasize and plot to the point where their mind set becomes one of self-deception. Hugo also experiences serious romantic difficulties. All in all, a brilliant comic novel which will delight from cover to cover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Stratus
• Release date: Sep 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9780755132904

Roger Longrigg

Roger Longrigg was a British author of unusual versatility who wrote both novels and non-fiction, along with plays and screenplays for television, under both his own name and eight other pseudonyms. Born in Edinburgh into a military family, he was at first schooled in the Middle East, but returned to England as a youth and later read history at Magdalen College, Oxford. His early career took him into advertising, but after the publication of two comic novels took up writing full time in 1959. He completed fifty five books, many under his own name, but also Scottish historical fiction as Laura Black; thrillers as Ivor Drummond (for which his chief character, Lady Jennifer Norrington was named by HRF Keating in 'The Times' as the 'True heir of James Bond'); black comedies as Domini Taylor; Frank Parish (which titles feature the adventures of Dan Mallett, a poacher who lives on the edges of legality) - and famously Rosalind Erskine - a name with which he hoaxed all for several years, and who appeared to write a disguised biography of what life was like in a girls boarding school where the classmates ran a brothel for boys from a nearby school. Erskine's 'The Passion Flower Hotel' became a bestseller and was later filmed. Roger Longrigg's work in television included 'Mother Love', a BBC mini-series starring Diana Rigg and David McCallum, and episodes of 'Crown Court' and 'Dial M for Murder'. He died in 2000, aged 70 and was survived by his wife, the novelist Jane Chichester, and three daughters.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The tall young man in the coffee-room at Blazon’s Club was almost a caricature of tall young men in London clubs. The coffee-room was almost a caricature too. The perfection of each seemed quite conscious.

The man started at the top with smooth fair hair, beautifully brushed, smelling faintly of Miss Trumper’s Coronis. The face below was beaky and sun-browned, in spite of the iron January in the streets outside; he had intelligent blue eyes and a nice smile. All his clothes were quietly perfect. They had cost a lot of money; he had given them a lot of thought; his intention was evident and fully realised. His shoes looked as though an elderly manservant had laboured faithfully over them for two hours a day over many years.

The room was an epitome of late 18th century masculine elegance. It could have been Adam; it could only have been English. No boiseries, no medallions with cupids or shepherdesses, no trailing swags; no trace of the effeminate Venetian influence or the prettiness of the Chinese taste. It was not only perfect but perfectly preserved. You could picture an architect, the curator of a museum, and a man from the Ministry of Works consulting 18th century prints of the room before making minor changes to the colour scheme.

The tall young man was finishing lunch. He was eating a glutinous piece of Camembert cheese and drinking the heel of a bottle of Gewurtztraminer.

He said to the plump young man sitting opposite: ‘But of course I must go, Charles. My great-uncle only sends for me every other year. He’s getting old. He’s been ill. Of course I must go.’

‘You’re insufferable, Hugo,’ said the plump man. ‘Eight just fit into that chalet and we had a nice tidy party. Two lecherous girls for you. It costs the earth. If you drop out we all pay more. As a matter of fact I think you ought to pay your whack even if you don’t come.’

‘You do, do you?’ Hugo finished his wine and smiled. He was not going to pay but he was not going to be unpleasant about not paying.

‘What are we going to do with those girls?’

‘Find them a ski-instructor. Two ski-instructors.’

‘More expense,’ said Charles grumpily. ‘While you batten on a millionaire in Los Angeles.’

‘You do understand, Charles, don’t you? This is not my choice. I have absolutely no alternative.’

‘Oh, I understand all right,’ said Charles.

‘Four days before we go,’ said Charles to a friend, an hour later, in the card-room. ‘No time to get anybody else. More to pay for the rest of us. And a damned spare girl. Two damned spare girls.’

The card-room was lusher than the coffee-room. A Victorian opulence had invaded furniture and decoration. The console tables had chubby legs, and the curtains were plum-coloured velvet.

‘I can see it’s a bore,’ said the other man, who had the look of an elderly basset-hound. ‘But you know it’s rather good of Hugo really. Lonely old uncle seven thousand miles away. SOS comes over the semaphore, off he shoots, missing his skiing. Rather good of him really.’

‘Good? What on earth do you mean? Hugo’s going to inherit thirty-five million dollars from that uncle.’

‘I need some kind of work, Nora.’

‘I know, Hugo ducky. Be patient. People are beginning to recover from Christmas. Something will pop up.’

They sat in a flossy office with chintz curtains, with posters and pop-art on the walls and a desk like a little dressing-table.

In the chair behind the desk sat a middle-aged woman in figure-hugging oatmeal tweed. She was hung about with chains which clinked and jangled when she moved. She fiddled with an antique inkpot on the desk and said: ‘It’s unfortunate you couldn’t get on with that man you couldn’t get on with.’

‘I can get on with anybody,’ said Hugo, pained.

‘As a matter of fact I think that’s true. Though surprising. At least I did think so. But the little man you had your row with—’

‘He’s not the only little man in the world. Just the most odious. ‘

‘Yes, ducky. The world crawls and seethes with little men, any of whom you could safely have had a row with. It’s just sad that the one you picked happens to be in charge of casting all the television commercials of the biggest advertising agency in London.’

‘But I didn’t have a row with him. He suddenly threw this awful tantrum. I was willing, polite, tolerant, eager, co-operative, most anxious to please—’

‘I suppose you towered over him.’

‘Well, yes. I towered over him. Yes.’

‘And looked down at him.’

‘In a literal sense. Inevitably. Not through design. Purely a matter of cubits. Genetics gave me a certain stature, him another. For Christ’s sake, it’s what they chose me for.’

‘It’s unfortunate. Little men like that form a gang. He knows most of the other casting directors and all the production companies. Word flies about.’ She sighed and fiddled with the inkpot. She said: ‘I thought you were going to Switzerland?’

‘I was. I can’t afford it. So I said I’d been sent for by uncle.’

‘Poor duck. Be patient. We’ll find something. Would you be prepared to model underwear?’

‘Well, er,’ said Hugo, ‘yes.’

‘It may not come to that. I’ll get in touch as soon as there’s anything.’

She sat back. The conference was finished. But Hugo still sat quietly opposite her. His expression was friendly and confident, his blue eyes placid. Nora avoided his eyes. He did not look like a man who was pleading. He looked like a man to whom further remarks must nonetheless be addressed.

Nora said: ‘I suppose you’re racing at Newbury tomorrow.’

‘I said I’d go.’

‘I’d rather you than me in this weather.’

‘I like Newbury. And it’s a free weekend.’

Like many people on the fringes of show-business Nora knew all about racing. They discussed the races at Newbury. Hugo was wasting her time. The time was moderately well wasted because he was decorative and friendly and polite, and because, outside her special, hard, professional world of agenting he knew more about every subject than she did.

She told him at last that she had six million telephone calls to make. He rose immediately and apologetically. He left behind him, as he closed the door, a smell of fright, self-contempt, and despair.

‘Three fivers Corncrake, Mr Cornish,’ said the bookie to his clerk. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Hugo nodded and pushed through the crowd by the rails.

‘Hullo, Hugo. Bloody, isn’t it?’

‘Hullo, Bill.’

‘Hullo, Hugo. Have you ever known such a bitter wind?’

‘Hullo, Molly.’

‘Hullo, Hugo. Isn’t it lousy? Doing any good?’

‘Hullo, Puggy.’

Hugo’s raceglasses bumped against his hip. Other people’s raceglasses thudded into his elbows and behind. One pair, swung by a horrible old woman in a hurry, knocked him sharply on the wrist. She stopped, turned, and looked at Hugo coldly. She was waiting for an apology.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Hugo, raising his hat and slightly smiling.

She stared at him, frowning. ‘Don’t I know you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I know your face.’

Hugo smiled again.

She nodded dismissively and turned to the rails to be rude to her bookie.

Hugo climbed to the roof of the grandstand and shivered. There were not many people there. The wind blew from the north-east out of an iron-grey sky. There were occasional gusts of sleet. It was difficult to hold binoculars in numbed and shivering fingers.

Hugo thought of the long, overheated evening ahead in the house near Lambourn where he was staying. As he freeloaded he would sing for his supper. On Sunday he would sing for his breakfast and for his lunch. And at some point, in his hearing or out of it, one of the older men staying in the house would say to their host or hostess: ‘Why doesn’t the feller do a job of work?’

Hugo’s horse fell at the water-jump in front of the grandstand. The horse galloped on with the others, jumping his way cheerfully to the front. The jockey lay in an awkward little heap by the jump; the ambulance chugged up over the rough winter grass.

Hugo now owed his bookmaker £28. It was too much. In one afternoon it was much too much. The roof of the grandstand emptied. Hugo stood by himself in the bitter wind. He hoped very much that Nora found him some work soon. He did not want to be a waiter or a barman again, or enrol with the Adonis Escort Agency. He looked down at the bleak racecourse. A flurry of sleet stung his face. He said to the sky: ‘There is a clear distinction between sponge and gigolo.’ The sky answered with a cruel stab of wind from a new direction. Hugo grabbed his hat in time to save it. It was an expensive hat from Herbert Johnson and he had not yet paid for it.

He thudded down the steep wooden back-stairs of the grandstand, and edged politely through the crowd towards the paddock. He looked about for someone with reliable information, a trainer or journalist, who would give him a tip and get him out of trouble.

A burly man trod on his toe. The man was running. He shouted: ‘Sammy!’ He stopped and said softly to himself: ‘Blast the boy.’ His shoulders sagged. He looked defeated. Then he suddenly straightened. He squared his shoulders. He began to walk away through the crowd.

Hugo’s life accustomed him to rebuff. He had not become insensitive but he had become realistic. But this was intolerable. In the summer he might have overlooked it. But not in this wind, and not when he was broke. He thought that no-one should be allowed to get away with such inconsiderate boorishness.

He called: ‘Hey, you! ‘

The burly man stopped and turned. Hugo saw his face for the first time. He was unmistakably military. Thin, sandy hair brushed very close to the skull. Sandy eyebrows. Pale eyes, a little watery. A nose short and slightly upturned, red in the wind. His whole face was reddish, the veins close under the skin. A long upper lip, with a sandy moustache large in area but clipped like a lawn. A square jaw, a thick neck, a big but short-legged body.

‘Yes?’ he barked. ‘How can I be of service to you?’

‘You’ve broken most of my toes.’

Hugo indicated his shoe. On its beautifully-polished toecap was to be seen the muddy semi-circle of the man’s heel.

The military man faced the evidence. It was incontrovertible. His demeanour changed. He said in a new tone: ‘My dear sir, I do most humbly beg your pardon. How exceedingly clumsy of me. Did I hurt you very badly? Can you walk? Shall I find you a doctor?’

‘Perhaps not actually broken,’ said Hugo, mollified. ‘No doctor, thank you.’

‘You see I was in a hurry. Forgot my manners. I daresay it happens to everybody. But of course I don’t put that forward as an excuse. You see I very badly wanted a word with a chappie I glimpsed.’

‘He can’t have got far.’

‘I’ve changed my mind now. I won’t look for him after all. It’s his loss. But if a feller hasn’t the guts or the manners to face you—’

He blinked. His eyes were a little weak, like those of many men who have spent a long time under harsh and distant suns. They watered in the cold wind.

‘So my toes,’ said Hugo, ‘suffered for nothing.’

The military man stiffened and glared. He said: ‘I have apologised. I have offered you the services of a doctor. I don’t know what the devil more you expect.’

His manner conveyed that his full duty had been performed. His clumsiness had been expiated. The matter was closed. For a much younger man to pursue it would be impertinent. If no bones were broken no harm was done and the episode was not to be made the excuse for familiarity.

Hugo sighed. These rigid soldiers caricatured themselves, like stage Irishmen. Literature and films had turned men like this into comic stereotypes. They should have been ridiculed into some self-awareness, some notion of how they struck other people, some attempt at normal human relationships. But a lifetime of the creaking protocol of officers’ messes had turned them into pachydermous robots. Everyone had a rank and was to be treated accordingly. Hugo was a newly-joined subaltern. To apologise to him was almost more than enough. To condescend further was to weaken the whole structure of the system.

There was just such a man in the Lambourn house-party, a retired cavalryman who was never at a loss for the predictable remark. It was doubtless he who would ask, and doubtless in Hugo’s hearing, why the feller couldn’t get down to a job of work. He and this preposterous red-faced bully were brothers.

And yet. The cavalryman had a D.S.O. and bar. His men had allegedly worshipped him. He had a bone-simple creed, anchored on the immutable tripod of honour, loyalty, and courage. He had got down to whatever job of work he was ordered to do. If the enemy got in the way, too bad for somebody. A part of Hugo yearned, like Tolstoy, for these unfashionable certainties. His own life was soft and equivocal by comparison. His standards were ambiguous, his honour relative, his courage untested. He was not evil, he thought, or cruel, or a criminal: but he could not look back at the end of any day with any sense of achievement. He would leave the world exactly the same place as when he entered it. These absurd, thick-skinned, middle-aged schoolboys could look back on their lives with pride. They didn’t, but they could.

Hugo said to the burly man: ‘I’m sorry, sir. Of course my toes are at your disposal.’

This was not really the remark he meant. He had not intended flippancy, but something gracefully deferential which would end the conversation on a note of détente. As it came out, the remark would have grated on the cavalryman. It sounded as though it was meant to be clever; he would have suspected impertinence. Such a remark would have done a subaltern no good.

But the burly man reacted unexpectedly. His mood changed again. He laughed. He laughed with abandon, loudly. His laughter was infectious. Hugo smiled and then laughed too.

‘Sporting of you,’ said the burly soldier at length. ‘Grand way to take it.’

‘Not at all,’ said Hugo, still laughing.

‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

‘Very kind of you, but I’ve got to drive—’

‘I insist that I make it up to you.’

All right,’ said Hugo. ‘Thank you.’

‘Capital! Good fellow! Quick march! Oh I say, how thoughtless of me, can you walk?’

‘I’ll manage,’ Hugo assured him.

They set off towards the big bar under the grandstand. Hugo walked slowly, very slightly limping. His bruised toes were painful because they were cold. The military man was held back by invisible ropes of politeness, but he showed signs of wanting to march at light-infantry pace, or even run. It seemed that once the decision to drink had been taken, his nature required instant implementation of the plan.