by Bill James
‘I can report what she said, thank you, Roy,’ Flora replied. ‘Rest while you recover. She reported noting a “complicit” appearance on your face, Mart.’
‘What does it look like, a complicit face?’ Moss asked.
‘Complicit,’ Flora replied.
‘There wasn’t much to be complicit in, was there?’ Mart said.
‘Was there?’ Flora said.
‘A seemingly innocent little journey but to what purpose?’ Roy asked. ‘You’ll have seen Charter Mill frequently in your goings and comings about the city.’
‘And we are not the only ones curious about that journeying, are we?’ Flora said.
‘Lawford didn’t know the photographs were going to be taken,’ Moss said.
‘Of course he didn’t know they were going to be taken. His expedition to Charter had been turned against him, trumped, hadn’t it?’ Flora said.
‘Had it?’ Mart replied.
‘Despite all his damn slyness he’s rumbled,’ Flora said. ‘Or not just Chote, you as well, Mart. Let me give you the full scene, will you?’
‘Which scene?’ Moss said.
‘The scene as Flora sees it,’ Roy said. He seemed pretty well OK now after the punch and talked clearly. He bent and picked up his glass from near his feet, where Flora had put it, and took a drink to help. ‘And, generally speaking, the same as I see it,’ he added.
‘U.F.C. have not only a copy of the photo but the date and time it was taken,’ Flora said. ‘This would indicate, I think, that it comes from someone in Charter, someone who knew about the filming. As I’d expected, the date and time match the dates and times of Chote’s timetabling inquiries, Mart. This confirms that he wanted to know whether one of us, or more than one, might have been around to witness your start in the pictured Volvo – to witness it and to make a call to Tane, or one of Tane’s people, to say you were on your combined way.
‘So, you’ll reply that nobody watching that departure would know where Chote was taking you. This is a naïve reaction though, isn’t it? What we can see is that at the Charter end they instantly and rightly assume the Volvo is coming there, and, accordingly, get the camera man or woman into position. I say “instantly” because they wouldn’t have much time to arrange for the filming. It’s only a couple of miles from Sedge. I say “instantly” for another reason, too. The reaction to that tip-off at Charter is virtually automatic and instinctive. Doesn’t it look as if someone there – possibly Tane himself, perhaps one of his team – hear in the call from Sedge that with Chote in the car is someone not normally considered as one of Lawford’s particular mates – Roy, me, Carl Medlicott. The swift Charter deduction is that Chote has a new lieutenant and wants to break him in, show him the likely objective in Lawf’s colonising dream? The fact that you knew already what Charter Mill looked like is not important to Lawford. He wants you, Mart, to see those buildings and playing fields in a different fashion from previously, see them as an apprentice conquistador might – as a possible prize, as a target.
‘Now, as a matter of fact, Roy and I would agree with that assessment of events. You are the new man, Moss. Roy and I are nowhere. That’s how he and I might read the situation. Not, though, how Chote does. He believes Roy, Carl and I were not nowhere but very much somewhere – somewhere that enabled one of us, maybe more than one, to watch the Volvo and its passenger hit the road and let Charter know about it. Hence the research into our timetables. He’s hunting for a traitor, traitors. Can any of us – Roy, Carl, I – ever work properly with him again after this disgusting slur?’
‘If that disgusting slur really does exist, Flora,’ Gormand said.
‘Of course it exists, you limp oaf,’ Flora replied. ‘That’s what we’re here to confirm, Mart. If it’s the case, I’m putting myself on the market for a job somewhere else. Possibly even with Tane. This ludicrous behaviour from Chote almost certainly means he hasn’t got the kind of brain and stamina that might save Sedge. I’m not going down with the ship. Lawford can, if he wants to. He’s the captain, isn’t he? Captains do.’
‘It wasn’t you who rang Charter about the Volvo was it, Flora?’ Roy asked.
‘Who says anybody rang?’ she replied.
‘Well, I thought that was your theory,’ Roy said.
‘Yes, Flora,’ Moss said.
‘Am I reading the situation right, Mart?’ Flora asked.
‘I had a ride out to Charter with Lawford Chote, yes,’ Moss said. ‘The purpose I’m not sure about.’ Moss tried to give this a brush-off tone.
It didn’t work. ‘I’m sure,’ Flora said. Apart from that minor emphasis on the ‘I’m’ Flora spoke more or less off-handedly, as if Mart’s opinion didn’t rate. She obviously believed almost everybody would expect her to see and understand matters better than anyone else; and therefore she didn’t need to bluster and/or harangue.
‘As I mentioned earlier, the thing about Flora is she cuts through to the very core of things,’ Roy said.
‘Does she?’ Mart replied.
Yes, Moss could accept that she often did. The Volvo hop-over to Charter had probably been what Flora said: a kind of recruitment device by Lawford to bring Mart into the topmost Chote team, a brief, motorized induction ceremony. But, although that’s what might have been in Chote’s mind, Moss detested this interpretation of the Charter Mill excursion. He didn’t want to be regarded as a principal’s stooge, a principal’s yes-man, his minion. It had always depressed him to observe how Roy and some of the others in Chote’s retinue would slavishly agree with him, defer to him, creep to him. Mart hoped he had a more independent spirit than that and what he’d heard described as ‘proper pride’ – not vanity, not coxcombery, but decently earned, solid self-esteem. He wouldn’t allow Flora’s poisonous caricature of him to kill that.
Mart could understand how someone in a leadership position like Lawford might get excited and energized about possibly extending the scope of that leadership, conferring his unique skills and strength on new areas; more or less an obligation. Moss had mentioned atrophy and collapse to Flora just now – the penalties for failing to move forward. Moss didn’t know much about capitalism but he had often heard that a business could not stand still. It had to develop or it would be overtaken and crushed by competitors. Same with some public bodies, such as universities? Chote wanted to do the overtaking, not drop behind. Moss regarded this as a reasonable ambition, in fact, a fine, necessary ambition and didn’t mind helping Lawford with it, if Mart could.
And he didn’t mind having traipsed over to Charter with Lawford to share a reminder of where, if Chote managed matters OK, the Sedge expansion would take place; this was part of that excitement and energy. But to sympathise didn’t mean Mart had become Roy Mark Two, he hoped, or would ever become Roy Mark Two, gutted and lickspittling.
‘Who chose them?’ Flora asked.
‘Chose what?’ Mart said.
‘The watercolours,’ she said. ‘I imagine it must have been Grace. You wouldn’t pick such tame, insipid stuff. And not even she wanted them when you split, I guess. You hang on to them out of a quaint sense of loyalty, I suppose?’
‘No, definitely not Grace. I picked them,’ Moss replied.
Actually, Flora was right again and Grace had chosen them, then lost interest. But Mart felt he must do a bit of self-assertion on Flora. He didn’t mean to answer her questions about Chote’s and his own aims and intentions. ‘I love the watercolours,’ he said. ‘Gentle, unobtrusive yet amazingly alive, so intent on their unique, individual identities.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’ Flora replied.
Exactly. He didn’t say it, though. He found the pictures wishy-washy and lackadaisical and had several times considered taking them down and dumping them on the Salvation Army for one of their raffles. But that would entail buying other works of about the same size so as to cover the faded patches of wallpaper where the watercolours had hung; or getting the room redecorated. He couldn’t be arsed.
<
br /> FIFTEEN
2014
Mart Moss said, ‘At some time reasonably soon the committee will have to go as a body to look at prospective sites for the statues. You’ll note I say “sites”, not “site”, and perhaps you’ll also note that I say it tentatively, a slight tinge of query in my voice. But, just the same, I believe I have it right. Despite the suggestion in a previous session that the two figures should share one plinth, and, therefore, obviously, one site, though moveable, I felt that the discussion of that proposal – albeit a thorough, balanced and sensitive discussion – yes, I felt nonetheless that the majority view quite perceptibly favoured separate plinths, and, as a probable consequence, separate sites on the two campuses, giving each statue its own personal, psychologically speaking, autonomous space.
‘If anyone feels I have misread the committee’s thinking on this, I would, of course, be willing to put the matter to a vote, on the simple question: “Do you favour a unitary plinth per statue or one binary plinth per paired statues?” – abstentions to rate as acceptance of the status quo, the status quo being the original working assumption of one statue one plinth.’
Wayne Ollam (Philosophy) said, ‘No need, Mart, none at all. I think you’ve caught the general view accurately. That is, respectful, positive consideration of the solo plinth with double occupancy suggestion, but eventual abandonment of that idea as over-complicated, particularly the inescapable, endless requirement to transport the duo and their close-cohabited plinth across the city at specified intervals. If the statues were visible on the back of a lorry during such trips the general public, although quite unbiased, might feel this arrangement to be laborious, contrived and even slightly farcical. On the other hand, were the plinthed couple moved between locations secretly – say under tarpaulin on the lorry, or in the windowless back of a van, and this became known to the media, we could be knocked, mocked, for behaving sneakily and furtively with the images of two men who, in their time, had stood for transparency, openness, honesty – fundamental qualities of universities worldwide. Also, because of this periodic transfer, requiring time on the road between Sedge and Charter, or, to put it another way, for the sake of equality, Charter and Sedge, there would inevitably be spells when both campuses had no statue or statues at all. Agreed, that might be only a brief break since the distance is not great, but I believe we should strive to establish a completely uninterrupted continuum, symbolic of a steady, strong, unthreatened future for the new, composite Sedge.’
Theo Bastrolle (Business Studies) said, ‘And if the statues were single-plinthed and swapped around at set intervals between the two campuses, Sedge and Charter, or Charter, Sedge, like changes of shift, it would similarly look – what were Wayne’s words – look, yes, laborious and contrived. There’s another demeaning comparison, isn’t there: one of those barometers where two figurines came out in turns according to what the air pressure and weather are doing?’
‘So, if Victor and Lawford, or Lawford and Victor, are to be mono-plinthed and fixed in their respective locations we come back to the major problem touched on at a previous meeting of who is where?’ Lucy Lane (History) said. ‘I recognize that the statues could be close to each other, without that implying they’re at each end of the same plinth. We have already considered proximity issues such as the height disparity between dumpy Chote and beanpole Tane, or beanpole Tane and dumpy Chote.
‘But if there were to be proximity, though not on a single plinth, it would imply that only one of the campuses would get the statues and the high board might not see this as suitable. There would be an acute risk of false appearance. For instance, if both were installed near each other in what used to be Charter, this might be interpreted by some as meaning that they jointly brought the new university into happy conjunction with the older one; whereas it’s clear to anyone who reads even the smallest amount of documentation and press coverage of the period that Lawford Chote loathed the notion of a merger, regarded it as a kind of slumming to have any link with Charter, let alone a formal marriage. On the other hand, if both individually plinthed statues were set down not far from each other in the Sedge campus it could be taken as a statement that Lawford had gladly welcomed Vic Tane into his bailiwick as an admired, supportive partner which, of course, is top-of-the-range bollocks.’
Angela Drape (Environmental Engineering) said, ‘Had we been thinking of statue placements in 1987 we’d have met no real difficulty. Lawford Chote was installed at Sedge and Victor Tane at Charter Mill, or to put it differently, Victor Tane at Charter Mill, Lawford Chote at Sedge. But, clearly, the problems wouldn’t have arisen then because they were both alive, not requiring statues, and actually in their obvious situs. Do we now, a quarter of a century later, follow that pattern and put the Tane statue at what is today the Charter Mill campus of Sedge and the Chote statue in what is today the Sedge campus of Sedge University, a title which encompasses both?’
‘What this comes down to ultimately, I think,’ Elvira Barton (Classics) said, with a let’s-cut-the-crap rasp, ‘is whether one of the apparent options presenting themselves to us for selection is in truth an option at all. We would never choose it. I refer, of course, to the notion that in the disposition of statues Lawford Chote’s could conceivably be allocated to Charter, while Tane’s at Sedge is a perfectly feasible concept since he became Principal of the merged Charter and Sedge, or Sedge and Charter. Consequently, he’s entitled to be at either site; and – specifically – is entitled to what some might regard as the more prominent, city centre display. There is no such similar obviousness in a suggestion that Lawford Chote’s replica should go to Charter. There would be something crazy in any decision to send the Chote image there. Some would put things much stronger than that and possibly talk of Lawford’s being dumped out there – “out there” referring to its semi-rural, semi-obscure setting – as a kind of punishment for his mismanagement and presumptuousness, a kind of malign, sneering joke.’
‘Like Devils’ Island or Alcatraz or Siberia,’ Bill Davey (French) said.
‘In what sense a joke, Elvira?’ Gordon Upp (Linguistics) asked.
‘There are still people around – me, for instance – who have heard that it had been Chote’s blatant boast that he and Sedge would take over what was then regarded as the lesser, entirely undistinguished institution, Charter Mill,’ Elvira said. ‘He would probably have gone about slagging off this neighbour for needing a name that blared possession of a charter in order to call itself a university. This, he would have argued, showed it was very shaky – and deservedly so – about its identity and status. Was Oxford or Harvard or the Sorbonne ever mistaken for something other than universities because they didn’t have charter or the French equivalent in their titles?
‘But then comes the reversal, the cruel, absolute, humiliating reversal and an end to Lawford’s braggadocio. Sedge doesn’t eat up Charter because Sedge is broke and can’t afford that kind of delicacy. Instead, Charter makes a snack of Sedge and spits Lawford out like a lump of irredeemable gristle. To put his statue at the former Charter now would be like saying to him, “You wanted Charter Mill, didn’t you? Now you’ve got it, but only a tolerated bit as big as your plinth, Chotey. Look about you and see the quiet orderliness and solvency that brought Sedge last-minute salvation, but brought it at a cost.” If the statue’s face showed the authentic Lawford self-satisfaction and arrogance, it would come across, wouldn’t it, as an indication of outright madness, as if he couldn’t realize what a terminal mess he’d made of things; still imagined he had a future and was on his way to a knighthood or even a peerage for services to higher education. We surely can’t allow such gross lampooning of someone who had several genuine achievements in his career. Well, one or two.’
‘I think we shouldn’t make our minds up until we’ve done an organized, on-the-spot examination of each potential site, whether in what was Charter Mill or the original Sedge,’ Mart Moss said. ‘The actuality can be a brilliant help in attaining cla
rity of vision when things are complex and clouded.’
‘Of course, Mart, you would most likely be able to endorse that from your own experience, wouldn’t you?’ Claud Nelmes (Physics) said.
‘Not sure I follow that, Claud,’ Moss replied, in fact following it very well. He didn’t fancy getting frogmarched into that snippet of history, though.
‘I was a research student at Sedge during those run-up months to the merger crisis. I remember, don’t I, Mart, that there was a kerfuffle about a picture of you and Lawford in his belligerent Volvo apparently sizing up Charter as a possible target in a Sedge expansion scheme? A Chote expansion scheme. “Come in under my umbrella, Charter, and feel the instant benefit.” It seemed both of you wanted to see that “actuality” you’ve just mentioned. Or re-see. This was the rumour around, anyway. And a copy of the photo reached the Education Ministry heavy mob in London, didn’t it, leading to a series of clean-up interventions?’
‘All sorts of rumours flying then weren’t there, Claud?’ Moss replied.
‘But this seems to me an example of that actuality thing,’ Nelmes said.
‘Actuality thing?’ Mart replied, as if amused.
‘You spoke just now about actuality, Mart, referring to it as “a brilliant help” to our thinking and understanding. Contact with actuality, you seemed to say, would be an advance on what so far is only ideas – ideas in this case about the statue sites. You suggested, didn’t you, that we should go “as a group” to see, to experience in that actuality, the competing emplacements.’