by Mike Ripley
‘And what will your contribution be?’
‘Me? Little old me? I will do what is expected of me, which is to corrupt young minds and morals, incite rebellion and demand social revolution.’
‘But you cannot take the credit for that. Surely, some of it must be down to pop music and television.’
Professor Thurible turned his pipe stem on himself and jabbed the frilly frontage of his shirt.
‘I agree, but as a sociologist I will take the blame, for I am the bad influence around here. If the ritual of the Black Dudley dagger was still going as a parlour game, then I’d be the one you’d find stabbed in the back when the lights came back on.’
FOUR
Pep-Talk in a Threepenny Bit
The welcoming lecture by the official university Visitor went rather well, even if Mr Campion said so himself, which he frequently did in the few days of peace which followed.
It took place in the twelve-sided building to the south of Piazza 1, which the architect had probably called The Dodecagon but normal humans, even the Bishop of St Edmondsbury, referred to as the ‘Threepenny Bit’. Officially it was the lecture-theatre complex, which actually comprised six theatres of varying sizes, and greeting the new intake of students took place in the largest, the stage of which had been laid out with a semicircle of plastic chairs, so the ranked layers of fresh-faced first-years could get a good look at the speakers. They would have, Mr Campion thought, the same view as the plebs in the upper tiers of the Colosseum, but hopefully without the accompanying thirst for blood.
He worried unnecessarily, for the audience displayed no mob-like behaviour and did not bay or howl, but listened in polite, nervous silence to what wisdom the hierarchy of the university, with Dr Downes acting as MC, could offer, even accepting Gerontius Meade’s homilies on why bicycles should be padlocked when not in use and left in the racks provided. Had the campus not been a pedestrianized area, Campion felt, Meade would have followed up with a demonstration of the new Green Cross Code.
After the doctor had done her ‘sex bit’, as she called it, and Gregor Marshall had pointed out, with a wolfish smile, that as most of the new intake would be paying rent for the first time, he had made their lives easier by charging by the term and in advance. Then came the three academics: Szmodics and Perez-Catalan emphasizing the thrilling opportunities on offer for learning and research in exciting new fields of study with the aid of state-of-the-art language laboratories and computers, and finally a clarion call from Thurible to ‘question everything, always answer back and, now free from parental control, behave badly’.
Naturally, it was Thurible’s exhortation which went down best with the youthful audience, and Mr Campion realized that he had a hard act to follow.
‘You are all very intelligent,’ he proclaimed, ‘otherwise you would not be at university. You are also all very young and probably have excellent eyesight. Consequently, you will already have observed that I am very old. Not just older than you, but even more ancient than your distinguished professors who have allowed me to share a stage with them despite being totally unqualified to do so.
‘They say that with great age comes great wisdom, although I am aware that I am currently disproving that theory. I do not claim to be wise, but I have experienced more of that strange thing called life than anyone else in this room; probably more than any three put together. That is, I’m afraid, the only thing I bring to this shiny new campus in my role as Visitor. It’s a new role for me and I am still finding my feet, but from what I can gather I am expected to act as a sort of United Nations peacekeeping force in the unlikely event of any disputes between the student body and the university.
‘Such disputes will be rare, hopefully unknown, and I will be gainfully unemployed. In the meantime, as I have the stage and your undivided attention, I will pass on one piece of wisdom.
‘You have been urged to throw yourselves into your studies, and that you should certainly do, but also told’ – and here Campion glanced pointedly at Professor Thurible, who responded with a very knowing smile – ‘that you should question everything and protest at every opportunity. As the younger generation, that is absolutely your right and privilege and I would fight to the death – preferably someone else’s death – to defend that right. But please be aware that the student next to you on the protest march today could be the chief of police of tomorrow.’
It was not an occasion where speeches were greeted with thunderous applause, or low-pitched boos, for the audience, most of whom were fresh from school, was too innocent and nervous at their first experience of university life. Still, Campion thought, the event had gone well; no one had cried, heckled or thrown things at him.
As the greeting party filed out of the lecture theatre through the flood of students who had already learned one valuable lesson – where the exit was – Professor Thurible came up behind him and spoke softly in Campion’s ear.
‘I knew I could rely on you to give the Establishment viewpoint. Don’t rock the boat, let us spoon-feed you with what we think you should know and protesting can get you arrested.’ He patted Campion lightly on the shoulder. ‘But I don’t hold it against you.’
‘I am grateful for that,’ said Mr Campion, ‘but I was merely offering the advice any caring uncle would. In the absence of a brief from any higher authority, I have decided that the role of university Visitor should be that of the university’s universal uncle.’
‘But you don’t like the idea of your nephews and nieces going on protest marches?’
‘If the protests are peaceful and in a just cause, not at all, but you and I are well aware that there is a growing tendency to violence in student protests, and often it is violence initiated by a fanatical few. I certainly do not approve of that, nor of those who encourage such lawlessness but themselves sit back in safety and observe the chaos as if monitoring some sort of experiment.’
Thurible’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Do you mean a sociological experiment?’
‘I am not equipped to answer such a question, Professor,’ said Mr Campion, ‘and I would have to refer you to an expert. Yourself, perhaps?’
From the entrance lobby of the lecture-theatre building, which reminded Campion of the foyer of a modern cinema minus the ability to purchase ice creams and tropical fruit drinks, paved footpaths pointed pedestrians to the right towards Piazza 1 or to the left to a concrete and glass, oval-shaped building. Dr Downes took Campion’s arm and guided him towards the brightly lit oval, from which wafted the mingled scents of frying onions and boiled vegetables.
‘You must come and see the Circus, Campion, though I don’t expect you to eat there.’
‘Circus?’ said Campion, but then the penny dropped. ‘Ah, of course, the elongated oval shape which mimics a Roman racecourse.’
‘Yes,’ said Downes with a sigh. ‘Our architect had a bout of whimsy when he designed the non-teaching buildings, and they have all got nicknames. The Threepenny Bit for lectures, as you’ve seen; The Circus for the refectory and bar and shop complex; and, unfortunately, for our library, the shape reminds people of a toilet roll.’
As they walked past the top curve of the refectory, Campion nodded in the direction of the four unavoidably large concrete and glass pyramids which totally filled the eyeline.
‘And this must be your Valley of the Kings,’ he observed.
‘Our beloved pyramids, for which we are more famous than we are for our teaching; but that, I hope, will soon change.’ Dr Downes adopted the air of a weary public relations man who could not wait for the press conference to end. ‘We had to give our students somewhere to live as there is simply not the accommodation available to rent in neighbouring towns. In fact, we have no neighbouring towns and all available houses, rooms, stables and garden sheds in White Dudley were snapped up by the staff, so our student residences have to be modern and fully furnished to attract students.’
Mr Campion adjusted his spectacles and looked up to the apex
of the nearest pyramid. ‘I believe they are – what is the phrase? – co-educational? Although our mutual friend the bishop tends to refer to them as “hives of sex” – a very unfortunate term, in my opinion.’
Dr Downes drew a deep breath in order to answer the question he had been asked, it seemed, a million times.
‘The buildings are mixed-sex, but each floor is single-sex. There are twelve rooms on the ground floor, decreasing proportionally up to the sixth floor and then, at the apex, a single flat for the member of staff willing to take on the job as block warden. Each floor has its own very basic kitchen with a hotplate, a kettle and fridge, a bathroom and toilets, and is single sex, though there is a central staircase allowing easy access to all floors.’
Campion made a show of raising his eyebrows in pretend horror.
‘At the moment, a majority of our applicants are female; around fifty-five per cent of them.’
‘Once that news gets out,’ said Campion, ‘I suspect you will have far more applications from young men, but I am delighted at your statistics. My own university treated women abominably. I am glad the academic world has changed. Might I ask what attracts the young ladies?’
‘I would like to think it is our approach to teaching languages, which will be invaluable should we ever get around to joining the Common Market,’ answered Dr Downes.
‘But not specifically Finnish or Hungarian?’
‘I see you’ve been listening to gossip; Yorick Thurible, perhaps? It is true, those languages are not in the demand we had hoped for, but our language labs are state of the art and a major in French or German language, with a minor in French or German literature, is one of our most popular degrees among young women.’
‘And sociology?’ tempted Campion. ‘Is that popular?’
‘Yes, it is, and particularly so among a certain strata of teenage girls who have, shall we say, issues with their parents. Now, are you up to clambering up one of our pyramids? The view from the top is worth the climb.’
Mr Campion peered over the top of his round tortoiseshell glasses. ‘I have admitted in public this very morning that I am old, but I have never so much as dropped a hint that I am infirm, so lead on, Vice Chancellor. Last one to the top of the pyramid gets to be mummified!’
Mr Campion stretched out his long legs and strode towards the entrance to the nearest pyramid, which resembled the gloomy opening to one of the older London Underground stations rather than a Regal or an ABC cinema. Campion half expected to find a newspaper vendor shouting “Hee-vening Stanar’” from the shadows.
Yet sprightly as he was out of the blocks, Mr Campion sensed a figure, a burly, grey-suited figure, at his shoulder, intent on overtaking him in the inside lane.
‘I’ve asked Mr Meade to go on ahead and clear the way,’ said Dr Downes, trying to keep pace.
‘In case of booby traps?’
‘I’m not expecting any, as only a few second- and third-years are back, just the ones helping out with Freshers’ Week, although we might find a bicycle inconsiderately parked in the stairwell. Big Gerry will be clearing the way diplomatically – I hope. We don’t like to drop in on students unannounced, and it might give them a few minutes’ grace to make the kitchen presentable.’
Campion shot his cuff and checked his wristwatch. ‘They’ll be cooking their lunch?’
‘Probably cleaning up from breakfast if I know students, but speaking of lunch, you are of course invited to join my wife and me in our quarters.’
‘Thank you, but I must decline,’ said Campion as they began to climb the neon-lit central staircase. ‘I am already booked for a late lunch with my wife and her sister over at Monewdon. We’re staying there with the Randalls for a long weekend. Catchin’ up with the family; can’t really get out of it.’
Two flights above them, a large grey figure loomed in front of the wall-mounted lights on the landing.
‘Floor six is clear, Vice Chancellor – nobody home.’
‘Thank you, Gerry,’ said Downes, then to Campion he added, ‘The freshers will be getting their library cards and signing up for seminars and tutorials today, which should keep them out of trouble until the bar opens this evening. The Students’ Union are putting on a welcoming disco.’
‘A welcome to the world of hangovers, I suspect.’
‘For many of them, yes – first time away from home and parents.’
‘They’re young,’ said Campion, ‘their livers will survive. I am constantly amazed that mine did given the amount of beer I drank as an undergraduate.’
‘I did my PhD in Spain,’ said Downes with a smile, ‘which involved an awful lot of Rioja.’
Gerontius Meade, standing to attention, interrupted their Bacchanalian reminiscences by pulling open a door and holding it for them. Only a salute was missing.
‘This is a standard kitchen, shared by everyone on this floor,’ said the vice chancellor with pride, ‘and, you have to admit, the views are spectacular.’
They were indeed. Through the large sliding windows of reinforced glass, Campion got a seagull’s-eye view over the three interlinked piazzas and, beyond them, Black Dudley and the coastline and the deceptively calm North Sea off to the east.
‘What is that, Vice Chancellor?’ Campion asked. ‘That little building on the shoreline. I noticed it yesterday when I arrived. I don’t remember it.’
‘That be St Jurmin’s,’ said Meade, while pacing the kitchen as if conducting an inventory of the fixtures and fittings.
‘And what might a St Jurmin’s be? Should I know?’
‘It’s a chapel,’ Downes explained, ‘named for Saint Jurmin, sometimes known as Hiurmine, of Blythburgh. He was of the Wuffingas, the royal family of East Anglia in Anglo-Saxon times, and the chapel is said to date from around AD 670, and to be built on the foundations of a Roman fort, though as far as I am aware there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for that.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Campion, ‘something older than I am. Is it in use?’
‘There’s them in White Dudley who process up there every Palm Sunday for a service and for a midnight mass on Christmas Eve, with the local vicar officiating,’ said Meade, ‘and we keeps the grass cut and the roof on now it’s in the university grounds.’
‘Our friend the bishop,’ Dr Downes said wearily, ‘was keen on making St Jurmin’s a chapel of contemplation for our students when he realized there were no plans for a chaplaincy, but nothing came of it, though I believe some students do visit it for …’
‘Quiet contemplation?’ Campion suggested.
‘I hope so. Now, what else can we show you?’
‘Well, I would love to challenge your computer to a game of chess, but I fear that may be a contest spread over several days and I have a lunch date, so I must take my leave of you. Perhaps on my next visit you could show me your language laboratories. I’d love to learn Albanian or, say, Swedish, in two easy lessons.’
‘I’m not sure we can manage that,’ said the vice chancellor, ‘but you would be more than welcome to a tour.’
Campion moved closer to the window until he had his nose almost pressed against it.
‘While we have the high ground, as it were, can I just make sure I have my bearings. Down there, nearest to us, is Piazza 3, which is where the students held their Freshers’ Fair yesterday. Correct?’
In the reflection from the glass, he saw Dr Downes nod agreement.
‘I noticed the fountain in the middle, which is a nice Italianate touch, apart from the fact that it no longer functions as a fountain; in fact it has been filled in and now holds less water than the average goldfish bowl.’
‘Safety reasons,’ growled Gerontius Meade from behind Campion’s back. ‘When it was a fountain it had a depth of about four feet and that proved just too tempting for some of our young gentlemen who couldn’t hold their liquor on Saturday nights.’
‘There was an incident, an accident,’ said Downes hurriedly. ‘A first-year found himself out of h
is depth, quite literally, and almost drowned. It was a drunken prank; his pals had dared him to dive in and he knocked himself out when he hit his head on the concrete.’
In the reflection from the glass, Meade pulled a face expressing his disgust.
‘Lad was the son of an MP,’ he snarled through curled lips, ‘so naturally there was a stink and we had to fill the thing in. That’s when the trouble started.’
‘Started? How?’ asked Campion.
‘Once we poured concrete, we ended up with a fireplace, not a fountain, and that’s exactly what the little bleeders used it for.’
‘It was the time of the big Vietnam protests,’ said Downes, ‘and after one protest march, the students had the bright idea of burning all their banners in the old fountain. It started an unfortunate tradition. Every time the students wanted to make a point, they started a bonfire in what was effectively a firepit we had created for them, so we dug out a couple of inches of concrete and put some water back, to dampen the flames as it were.’
‘It still seems to be a hot spot,’ said Campion, stubbing a forefinger against the window. ‘That’s Professor Perez-Catalan down there, is it not?’
Below them, in the centre of the piazza, just to the left of the fountain/firepit, was the unmistakeable figure of the diminutive, bearded Chilean scientist in what, Campion assumed, was for him his natural stance of agitation. The thick curls of his head were thrown back and his arms rotating like windmill sails and, even at that distance, he was clearly engaged in a frenzied debate with a slim, tall, blonde woman dressed in a blue denim jacket and matching jeans.