The Principals

by Bill James

  TWENTY-THREE

  2014

  Her voice gentle and considerate, Elvira Barton (Classics) said, ‘Wayne recently asked us to look at, and pronounce upon, the very existence of the statues theme and decide whether we should recommend abandonment of the project, which would put us out of existence also! We gave an answer, and, what I believe it’s fair to term, an unambiguous one, an answer which Wayne has honourably accepted. I’m sure we would have expected nothing other from him.’

  ‘Here, here,’ Angela Drape (Environmental Engineering) said.

  ‘Absolument,’ Bill Davey (French) said.

  Seated between Gordon Upp (Linguistics) and Lucy Lane (History) Wayne Ollam (Philosophy) gave a small nod-bow in acknowledgement and some curls fell forward on to his brow, like rounds from a disturbed sliced loaf. Unhurriedly, he pushed them back with the spread fingers of his ringless right hand. The whole exchange had a simple, but emphatic dignity. To Mart, those fingers looked for the moment like fingers which knew they were among top-grade stuff, even if the curls belonged to someone crash-ball annihilated in a vote not long ago.

  ‘And, despite the way our moot went then, I feel I have learned something from Wayne’s boldness in scrutinising the very fundamentals of our duties,’ Elvira said. ‘He humbly included himself in his suggestion that we might have been hasty and careless in not questioning why the statues committee had come into being. Perhaps our vote negated that criticism. But it taught me that this is the kind of head-on confrontation we should practise with all aspects of our musing and mulling. For instance, and this brings me to my point, the matter of equality. Now, equality is a very fine thing. None of us would deny that, I’m sure.’ She stopped. Mart thought some talented pre-planning, even rehearsal, had gone into this.

  ‘Well … no … I’m not sure!’ she said, the ‘not’ categorical, aggressive.

  Martin recognized one of the standard tricks by lecturers to stop students dozing off: the deliberate error, followed by a wake-up-at-the-back-there correction.

  ‘This uncertainty is why I’m badgering you with my spiel now,’ she said. ‘It is the kind of re-think that Wayne’s courageous initiative has caused me. Slavishly – and a little farcically at times – we have striven to avoid giving either of the universities and either of the principals any sort of precedence, any sort of priority. And so the laborious recitation of, say, the universities’ names: if in one phrase we refer to “Sedge and Charter Mill”, we immediately have to reverse this in the rather tiresome and pathetic avoidance of notional favouritism and add, “Charter Mill and Sedge”. Likewise “Tane, Chote” has urgently to be back-to-fronted, “Chote, Tane”.’

  ‘Oh, but come now, Elv, that is mere politesse, isn’t it?’ Theo Bastrolle (Business Studies) said. ‘My parents told me about a weekly comic radio programme in the 1940s called It’s That Man Again where one of the running jokes was a pair of characters about to pass through a door and saying, “After you, Claud.” “No, after you, Cecil.” Isn’t the Sedge, Charter, Charter, Sedge and Chote, Tane, Tane, Chote like that?’

  ‘It is deception. It is pretence,’ Elvira replied. ‘It is blind-eyeing.’

  ‘In which respect, Elv?’ Theo asked.

  ‘You very kindly furnished us all with a copy of the centenary gig review in d’Brindle Hall, Theo,’ she said. Elvira waved her copy. Other committee members studied theirs.

  ‘Yes,’ Theo replied.

  ‘I’d like to ask the Chair – ask Martin – what kind of reception that review got at the time,’ Elvira said. ‘We are lucky to have someone who was well-placed in Sedge when so many of these events took place.’

  ‘Reception?’ Mart said. ‘Receptions varied, like receptions of any opinion expressed in a newspaper.’

  ‘How did you, personally regard it?’ Elvira said.

  ‘Regard exactly what, Elvira?’ Mart said.

  ‘Take this sentence about the Tannhauser interlude,’ she replied, reading from her copy: ‘“As he clashed those two shining brass discs together at pretty well exactly the right dramatic moments one could see the challenging sound as defiance, a sort of Bronx cheer, aimed at those who regard his principalship as disastrous, and want him kicked out while there might still be time to save Sedge under a new chief and a more sane regime.”’ Elvira looked up from the article and gazed around the room, taking in everyone. ‘Now, what do we make of that?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, what do you make of it, Elvira?’ Martin replied, with a Claud and Cecil intonation. He wondered whether Elvira, also, had seen the historic tape of Charlie Drake half concussing himself with the cymbals din. He thought he could detect which way her questions were headed, though. He didn’t want to be an accessory to bloodletting, and was glad to fall back on the excuse that a chair had to be all-round non-partisan. ‘It’s too long ago for me to remember what I felt then and I’m not allowed to have feelings now, except to exercise a casting vote if necessary, which it isn’t.’

  Elvira gave him a ten second you-fucking-fuckface stare then said, ‘This is ridicule masquerading as praise, isn’t it?’ She waved the copy and returned to the text. ‘We hear he did his banging bit at “pretty well exactly the right moments”. What does “pretty well exactly” mean? It means not quite exactly. It is a boot in the balls phrased urbanely, but still a boot in the balls. To be slightly off with his cymbals contributions is as bad as being a mile off. It would rupture the Tannhauser excerpt.’

  She lowered her eyes towards the end of the review then hopped about willy-nilly to make her points. ‘He has charisma, yes, but no money to match it and make the charisma of some use. Childishly he can give a Bronx cheer but it damages nobody. “Red hat, no drawers” as the folk wisdom goes about mere show. Although Mart, for his own reasons, refuses to endorse this, the impression given in 1987 by the review is of a leader struggling frantically, pitiably, to lead, but barred from doing so any longer because he lacks the wherewithal. Almost everyone must have observed this. Mart, through what I suppose might be deemed respect for the conventions of his present role and a failure of memory, declines to say so, but probably knows that this is how things were.’

  ‘You mustn’t tell me what I’m thinking, Elvira,’ Mart replied.

  ‘And it is here that we come to the question of equality, and its relevance to the statues,’ Elvira said.

  ‘Relevant how?’ Jed Laver (Industrial Relations) asked.

  Theo said in a definitive, boardroom voice, ‘What you’re telling us, Elv, is that the review probably got the picture of Chote right, despite its snide tone here and there. You think he was generally regarded as a runaway nincompoop: massive, even glorious, ambitions, no genuine ability to achieve them. You believe this should not be tactfully, sentimentally, ignored, “blind-eyed” now. You think what would stick damningly in the reader’s mind back then is the mention of his kennel of wild hatreds; and the notion that he should be kicked out and a new chief and more “sane” regime established while there was still time to save Sedge. Out of this analysis you would bring a demand that, in the matter of statues, Victor Tane’s should, in some way or ways, indicate a superiority to Chote, Tane being the one who would soon have the task – and complete the task well – of repairing the appalling damage done by Lawford Chote.’

  ‘Along those lines, Theo, yes,’ Elvira said. ‘This review offers vision. I’ll say why it must have been effective. It’s this: it has balance. Certainly it mocks his cymbals clumsiness, and is unkind in the Titanic comparison. But it also delivers admiration for him. It recognizes his inspired doggedness and positive imagination in creating d’Brindle Hall, a beautiful building and brilliantly acousticked concert centre. Jurbb saw that Chote refused to be domineered by money, or its shortage. Like some warrior hero he was facing fearful odds and would face them. But his defeat is treated as almost inevitable. The fearful odds are justifiably, accurately, fearful. He is blatantly unable to handle the basic task – running Sedge, or saving Sedge by the time O
.T.O. wrote.’

  ‘We still don’t know who this Jurbb, capable of so many penetrating insights, really was, do we?’ Angela said. ‘Mart has admitted he can’t help on this.’

  ‘Jurbb is – or, at least was – Jurbb, as far as I could discover. I did wonder about the then local editor, Alan Norton-Hord, possibly choosing to hide under a pen-name, but that was only speculation,’ Martin replied.

  ‘He/she is by-lined as Music Correspondent. Did she/he review in the paper regularly?’ Angela asked.

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ Martin said.

  ‘Those extraordinary initials,’ Upp said.

  ‘If they are initials,’ Bill Davey said.

  ‘How do you mean, Bill?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘We spoke of anagrams previously, taking up all the letters,’ Davey said. ‘The O.T.O. would be part of the hidden name – Jo Burbot, Rob Jobut. We called them “names to conjure with”. Well, we’ve tried to conjure and the trick doesn’t work.’

  Elvira took charge again. ‘Theo, with his business expertise, will be able to confirm what I’m going to say now. In management there is a theory dubbed The Peter Principle. Its originator argues that people in top jobs will frequently get promoted to a position one stage above their abilities. A vast muck-up results. Nixon would be an example, and Anthony Eden. And Lawford Chote. I gather that he had a brilliant academic and administrative career before Sedge. I wholly accept this. His CV must have been irresistible. But past form is only that – past. Sedge turned out to be a fatal bit too much for him. He valiantly, foolishly, made his wager against those fearful odds and lost, though unwilling to admit he’d lost until compelled to by the Universities Finance Centre. Happily, though, this, was not the end of the game. Someone else – Victor Tane – stepped in and ultimately secured recovery.’

  ‘“A second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came,”’ Upp said. ‘Cardinal Newman?’

  ‘Doesn’t this rescue require special, obvious recognition?’ Elvira replied. ‘In universities we do not champion equality, and we certainly do not champion flagrant failure, nor the purblind determination not to acknowledge that failure, causing further chaos. We are higher education, in fact, the highest. We are the top, and this implies there is much below. We exist to recognize and encourage merit. There are First Class degrees and there are Third Class degrees. There are first class institutions. There are seventh or tenth class institutions. There are staff who get elected to the Royal Society. And there are others who don’t. It would be dishonest and intellectually sloppy and perverse to pretend that each ex-principal deserves exactly the same quality memorial and similar prominence. We must have distinctions. That’s what I’ve been getting at today.’

  ‘What about the plinths?’ Upp asked.

  ‘Plinths are important, though not of the essence,’ Elvira replied. ‘But, yes, it might be appropriate to differentiate statues’ status by plinth variations.’

  ‘Plinths are very eloquent in their own stony way,’ Angela said.

  ‘Perhaps at that interesting contribution we should break,’ the chair said.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  1987

  Eligible under a special civil service protocol, Mart was invited to join them when Geraldine Fallows and Neddy Lane-Hinkton travelled from London to Sedge for a meeting with Lawford Chote in his suite there. Neddy had telephoned Martin in advance to tell him of the arrangements. ‘Geraldine remains very anxious, Mart. Well, “anxious”? Perhaps that’s not the word. It makes Geraldine sound nervy, which she ain’t. Perhaps “watchful” would be more like it. Yes, very watchful.

  ‘We had this Volvo pic, with its unclear, possibly disquieting implications; and now our press cuttings service here have put the O.T.O. Jurbb piece in front of her. They’ve been asked to look out for anything to do with Sedge and, or Charter Mill. You’ll have seen the article, of course. Jurbb – who the fuck is he or she with a name like that? Sounds like a belch. Is it a misprint? We’ve done all the searches, but nix, Mart. And those initials. Is that another misprint? Should it be Otto? Are the sub-editors all pissed on that paper? We wondered if it was a real name anagrammed as cover. But we got only Jo Burbot, who’d be female, and Rob Jobut or Bob Rojto. Nothing on these, either.

  ‘You’d have been at the concert, I imagine. Did you see anyone who looked like a Jurbb? Is that an absurd question? Probably. But what I mean is, he or she could be foreign. Possibly Jurbb is as commonplace as Smith in some other country. She or he might be black. There are probably some good music colleges over there in Africa, say, Malawi or Kenya. He or she could have been trained at one of those and then come to Britain looking for journo work. Music is very international. Just think of Aaron Copeland or Edith Piaf. There is often some quite interesting ethnic hullabaloo stuff on the BBC Radio Three programme late at night. Would someone like that know Convergence Of The Twain, though? It’s unquestionably a bit of a puzzler, Mart.

  ‘Perhaps he or she at the concert, white or black, would be making notes to remind herself/himself of the Titanic witticism, and of Chote off-kilter on the cymbals. She or he possibly had one of those small torches used by theatre critics in the stalls when jotting down her/his reactions to the acting and sets. I wonder if you observed any little gleams like that?

  ‘The Titanic stuff: that’s savagery against Chote, and perhaps partly justified, but, it smears Geraldine as well, doesn’t it? Smears all of us in her bailiwick. Implies negligence, indifference. Chote’s ship is going down while Geraldine and her department busy ourselves elsewhere with flimflam. I mean she’s our expert on university finances, and we’re talking serious finance here, aren’t we? As I remember it, there’s a sea-worm in that poem excitedly waiting in the depths for a look at itself in one of the state room mirrors. This is a dark fate for a fine vessel. Not a pretty comparison, Mart.

  ‘Ger didn’t object to his staging the centenary concert – or, at least, she didn’t object at full Geraldinish whack. Sedge is Sedge and to date still there, occupying its ground, educating its intakes, offering places for next year. She considered it reasonable for the birthday to be marked, despite everything. There’s a sensitive side to Ger, not always on view, though. But then this fucking O.T.O. Jurbb is let loose on the event. We did inquiries and found that the editor of the paper is … hang on … I’ve got the name and details here … yes, the editor is an Alan Norton-Hord who was actually an undergrad at Sedge and held student union office. Him? Or him a party to it, although, plainly, he can’t be anagrammed into Jurbb?

  ‘But Ger says she thinks she divines a woman’s hand and mind in the review. Don’t ask me why – something to do with the use of adverbs, I gather. Geraldine’s sharp. The fact that the initials are the same if read from the front or back like the word “kayak”, infuriates her, more than the double “b” in Jurbb, though it’s a near run thing, as Wellington said after Waterloo. She asks, what kind of parents would send a kid out into life with initials like those? It’s an invitation to mockery and bullying, in her opinion. That is, if the O.T.O. Jurbb name is genuine. You’re a prof. Have you ever heard of a word ending in a double b?’

  ‘It’s not the kind of thing that would come up in English Literature studies, or American. There’s Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol where there are two “b”s and one is at the end, but it’s separated from the earlier “b” by the “o”,’ Mart said.

  ‘We might imagine that boob would be given two, with the round, base bit of the “b”s imitating a pair of knockers,’ Neddy replied, ‘but not so. Why is the second one necessary in Jurbb? No, not “necessary”. That’s my whole point. “Indulged in” rather than necessary. Utterly unnecessary. The pronunciation is the same whether it’s double or single. Geraldine is not against double “b”s per se. Clearly, she sees them as acceptable and even obligatory within the body of words like “Scrabble”, and “rubble” and “babble.” A single “b” in these instances would produce a different and possibly confusing pronunciation: “Scrab
ble” would sound like “Scrayble”, “rubble” like “rouble”, “babble” like “babel”. Sorry, Mart, am I, as it were, babbling on a bit? But for the repeated “b”s to be tacked on to the end, as in Jurbb, Geraldine regards as a kind of affront to readers of the paper and to all those associated with Sedge.

  ‘Ger can see that the review might in a devious way be trying to support Sedge by lobbing some praise at Chote for getting the d’Brindle done, an acoustics paradise. (“Lobbing”, there’s another allowable double “b”! It would be the alternative “o” pronunciation if only one “b”: lobing, maybe to mean earholing, eavesdropping.) Geraldine believes that Chote’s enemies – the iceberg, metronomes, accountants, bailiffs, ministries – are depicted as evil persecutors of a decent, conscientious chap, if, admittedly rather headstrong. But she doubts whether this is the message most people will carry away from O.T.O., or may we call you O?

  ‘Geraldine thinks there’d better be some head-to-head stuff – her head and Lawf’s. She’s talked to Tane, so has one side of the situation fairly clear; and she doesn’t think it would be wise to wait for you to report back after my visit and our conclave at The Lock Gate. That was to ask you to keep us briefed. She doesn’t believe there’s time for this any longer. Urgency has taken over. She possibly thinks, too, that you might not feel comfortable about offering insights on Chote because you have a certain admirable loyalty. Maybe she’s right. I haven’t heard anything from you since our lunch, and neither has she.’

  Neddy paused, apparently hoping Mart would comment – attempt an explanation. He stayed silent, though. He supposed he did have a sort of loyalty to Chote off-and-on, even if he thought Chote often ludicrously and perilously wrong. Things were too complicated to be dealt with in this phone session with Neddy. And, anyway, Mart didn’t feel like putting himself into a situation where he was offering excuses to someone like Ned, who had no boss status over him. Neddy had been a good lunch companion. This was the whole story.