by Tom Sharpe
But Purefoy was looking in horrified amazement at the enormous pile of old tea-chests with which the cellar was filled. ‘These are the archives? These are really the College archives? It’s insane, it’s criminally insane. Look at the mould.’ He pointed to some fungal growth on the side of one of the boxes.
‘I know. I’ve tried to do something about it but every time it rains we get several inches of water down here because some drain is blocked and they won’t spend money unblocking it. I’ve tried putting bricks under some of the boxes but it doesn’t seem to help very much.’
They went along the great pile and Purefoy felt inside some of the boxes and touched damp paper. He shook his head in disbelief. Even if the Librarian was right and the Dean and the Senior Tutor had burnt Sir Godber Evans’ papers they’d have been wasting their time. All they had to do was leave them down here. The damp would do the rest. Anyway he had found something to do. He would go through these tea-chests and take their contents up into the Library and dry them out one by one. He wasn’t going to see facts turn into mould and he’d have something to say to the Bursar and the Dean when he got a chance. He was going to insist that some part of Lady Mary’s benefaction was spent creating a proper and dry and temperature-controlled archive for the Porterhouse Papers.
16
In fact the Dean was already on his way back to Cambridge. His visits to Broadbeam and the other OPs had proved fruitless. No one had been able to think of any really wealthy man who might be honoured to be Master of Porterhouse.
‘It’s this damned recession, you know,’ Broadbeam had told the Dean. ‘Property prices have tumbled, there’s been the Lloyds fiasco and Black Wednesday. I can’t think of anyone with the sort of money you’re talking about. I don’t suppose you want another ex-Minister as Master? No, I can see you don’t.’ The Dean had gone a very odd colour. ‘I daresay you could find some American academic who’d think it great to be called Master of Porterhouse, but you’d have to be pretty careful who you chose. Some of our Transatlantic friends take education very seriously and you don’t want to spoil the character of the College by having a Master who is too clever by half.’
It had been the same everywhere he had visited. He had been utterly appalled to find Jeremy Pimpole, who had inherited millions from his South African mother, living in a gamekeeper’s cottage on the estate that had been the family home since the middle of the eighteenth century. The house and land had been sold and all Pimpole seemed to be interested in now was his dog, a wall-eyed cross between a bull terrier and a sheepdog, and the local pub, neither of which was to the Dean’s taste. And Pimpole’s addiction to things canine was not limited to the old dog. In the pub he insisted on ordering two large Dog’s Noses which, the Dean was horrified to learn, were made up of two parts gin to three of bitter. When he protested that he couldn’t possibly drink a pint of the filthy stuff and couldn’t he have a half or better still none at all, Pimpole had got quite nasty and had pointed out that it had taken him years to train the pubkeeper to get the proportions right.
‘Bloody difficult to get the fellow to understand that a pint has twenty ounces to it and that means you’ve got to take seven ounces of gin to thirteen of best bitter to get a proper Dog’s Nose. Start asking him to make it a half would confuse the poor fellow. Thick as two short planks, don’t you know.’
The Dean didn’t know. He was totally confused by Pimpole’s calculations. ‘But if it’s two parts gin, and I sincerely hope you’re joking, how on earth can the three parts of beer be thirteen. And seven ounces of gin … Dear God.’
‘You calling me a bloody liar?’ Pimpole demanded angrily.
‘No, of course not,’ said the Dean hurriedly. He understood now why Pimpole’s own nose was the way it was and almost certainly why he had been reduced to living in the gamekeeper’s cottage.
‘You see those three enamel jugs he’s using, the big one and the two small ones?’ Pimpole continued, pointing a grimy finger down the bar where the barman was apparently filling the larger of the two with the contents of a gin bottle. ‘Well, half of that big one is seven and two small ones make thirteen. Got it?’
The Dean hoped not but he was no longer prepared to argue. The wall-eyed dog was lying by the door eyeing him maliciously. ‘I suppose so,’ he said, and watched while the barman levered the beer into the small jugs and then, having poured what was presumably half a bottle of gin into each glass, added the two small jugs of beer. The Dean made up his mind that he wasn’t going to drink a whole pint of Dog’s Nose on anybody’s account. It wasn’t a dog anyway. It was a Hound of Hell’s nose.
‘Well, down the hatch, Dean old boy. Good of you to come and see me.’
‘Yes,’ said the Dean bitterly. It wasn’t good of him to come and see this ghastly drunk. It was damned bad. He took a tentative sip of the filthy stuff and recoiled. Whatever the proportions of gin to beer were meant to be, they didn’t even approximate to two to three. It was more like five to two. And anyway he’d never liked gin. It was a woman’s drink, he used to say, and of course it had always been called Mother’s Ruin. The Dean took another sip and revised his opinion. It ruined more than mothers. It completely ruined a perfectly decent pint of beer. Pint? Of course it wasn’t a pint of beer. From what he could make out it was a third of a pint of beer topped up with gin. And it had obviously ruined this bloody man Pimpole. He’d been such a charming young man, a little vague, it was true, but with that delightful air of innocence about him that made up for his superior attitude to those around him. There was nothing in the least charming about Pimpole now and, the Dean thought, not even the publican found his company pleasant. Still, if he drank gin in these quantities every day, and from the look of his nose he must have done for several decades, he had paid for a good many of the pubkeeper’s holidays in Benidorm or wherever such people went. Only the superior attitude remained and that had turned to irritable arrogance. He sipped again and found Pimpole watching him rather contemptuously.
‘Come on, Dean old chap, drink up like a man,’ he said. ‘Where is the old Porterhouse spirit. Pass the port and all that sort of thing. Can’t keep the other chaps waiting. Not done.’
‘What other chaps?’ demanded the Dean, having just swallowed another disgusting mouthful, and on an empty stomach.
‘Me,’ said Pimpole. ‘Old Jeremy Pimpole.’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ said the Dean and was further disturbed to see that Pimpole’s glass was empty. Nothing was going to induce him to pour a pint of this stuff down his throat like water.
He changed his tactics and tried subterfuge. ‘Look, Jeremy dear boy …’ he began.
‘Don’t you “dear boy” me,’ snarled Pimpole. ‘I’m fifty-two if I’m a day and I don’t have soft fair hair and the rosy cheeks you used to like looking at so much.’
‘True, very true,’ said the Dean meaning to refer to the soft fair hair and not to the latter part of the sentence. ‘I mean …’ he tried to correct himself.
‘First you sip a properly concocted Dog’s Nose like a fucking poofter sipping tea and now you begin –’
‘No, I most certainly don’t,’ said the Dean furiously. No one had called him a fucking poofter to his face before. ‘I was referring to the very obvious fact that you are as bald as a coot, and I’d do something about that nasty scab you’ve got up there before it gets any worse, and also to the fact that what you called your rosy cheeks look more like the map of the world when we still had an Empire. Mostly red but with nasty bits of green and yellow where the French or Germans were. Now get that into your head.’
For a moment the Dean thought Pimpole was going to hit him. But instead he jerked his head back and roared with laughter. ‘One up to you, Dean, you old bastard,’ he roared. ‘That’s more like it.’ He turned to what the Dean regarded as some yokels down the bar. ‘Hear that, you chaps? The bloody old Dean says my face looks like a map of the fucking world when we still had an Empire and …’ He turned back to the Dean.
‘What did you say the bits of green and yellow were?’
‘Oh never mind, never mind,’ said the Dean, who had no more intention of discussing Pimpole’s complexion with a bar full of farm labourers and tarts than he had of drinking the rest of that beastly Dog’s Nose.
‘Oh but I do mind,’ said Pimpole, whose mood changed from second to second. He stuck his face right up to the Dean’s. ‘I mind very much. And what about my snout? What’s that look like?’
‘A snout,’ said the Dean. ‘I think you’ve covered it very nicely with that word. Snout, sir, snout.’
Pimpole jerked his head away and roared with laughter again. ‘That’s the stuff, Dean. That’s the stuff to give the troops. That’s Porterhouse talking. Straight between the eyes and no bullshitting about. Now, get that Dog’s Nose inside you and we’ll have another. I’m thirsty.’
The Dean looked back at his glass and found to his horror that he had accidentally drunk almost half of it. He wasn’t drinking any more even if the man Pimpole tried to force it down his throat. He’d die fighting rather than die of Dog’s Nose.
He struck back. ‘You may be thirsty, Pimpole,’ he said, ‘but I happen to have an ulcer.’ He didn’t, but it was the only excuse he could think of on the spur of the moment. ‘I am not drinking any more of that muck on an empty stomach and there’s an end to it.’
It wasn’t. Pimpole had the matter well in hand. Or appallingly. ‘Barman,’ he yelled and, when the man went on talking and pulling beer for some other customers, changed it to ‘Fred, you shit!’
‘Fred you shit, Dean here’s got an ulcer. Go and tell that wife of yours, you know, the one with the squint and the bloody great boobs, to make herself useful for a change and rustle up some of those awful cheese sandwiches of hers. And make it snappy.’
For a moment, a terrifying moment, the Dean thought he was about to be involved in an affray or whatever they called bar-room brawls. The look in the pubkeeper’s eyes certainly suggested that he knew which wife Pimpole had been referring to and he didn’t entirely agree with his assessment of her physical charms. But the look died away to mere hatred and he went off muttering something about Lord Muck and doing for him one of these days.
A minute or two later he was back. ‘Says she hasn’t got any of that awful cheese you’re so fond of. Will a nice bit of cold mutton do?’
‘Yes, yes, of course it will. Very nicely, thank you,’ said the Dean politely but Pimpole hadn’t finished.
‘Where did she get the sheep from?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ said the publican, ‘and frankly I don’t see that it matters much, does it?’
‘Oh don’t you? Well I do,’ said Pimpole. ‘If she gets it from old Sam, I don’t think the Dean would want to eat it. I know I wouldn’t.’
‘Not fresh enough for you, Mr Pimpole?’ said the publican sarcastically.
Pimpole leant forward with his empty glass. ‘Too fucked for me, Fred, too fucked. Ever since his wife died two years ago, Sam’s been into sheep when he can’t get someone else’s wife, don’t you know. Likes his meat cold, does Sam.’
‘Christ,’ said the Dean, and even the publican recoiled. But still Pimpole hadn’t finished his discourse. ‘Of course if you’re not fussy, I don’t suppose it matters very much. And it does come cheaper from Sam. Been well hung, too. You ask your Betty Cross-eyes and see if she don’t agree.’ The publican lurched away while the Dean tried to find words to say that he didn’t want mutton sandwiches after all. He’d lost his appetite, and in any case he had no doubt whatsoever that the woman would do something quite disgusting to the sandwiches to get her own back. In the kitchen he could hear some very unpleasant words being used, mostly by the husband.
‘Struck the right chord there, Dean old boy,’ said Pimpole with a hideous wink. ‘And don’t you worry about your mutton. Old Sam’s been into Betty more times than he has sheep and anyway he likes them live with their fur coats still on. I only said it to rile Fred.’
‘By the sound of things you have succeeded only too well,’ said the Dean. ‘All the same, with my ulcer …’
‘Of course, your bloody old ulcer. Got to do something about that, haven’t we? Now Mummy always used to say peppermint …’ Pimpole leaned right across the bar and seized a bottle of crème de menthe and a large wineglass.
‘For God’s sake stop,’ shouted the Dean as Pimpole began to pour. ‘You can’t be serious. After that half pint of gin?’
Pimpole ignored him. He had filled the wine glass and spilt some of the crème de menthe on the bar. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ he said accusingly.
‘I didn’t make you do anything,’ the Dean protested. ‘And I’m damned if I’m going to drink that bloody stuff. And don’t –’
‘Come on now, there’s a good Deanie boy, take Mummy’s lovely medicine like a good little man and tum-tum will feel much better.’
‘It bloody well won’t. Take the stuff away from me. I detest it. And what is more, I detest this beastly pub of yours. You can stay here if you want to but I am going home.’
‘Where the fucking heart is,’ said Pimpole and drank the schooner of crème de menthe as the Dean, no longer caring what the wall-eyed dog did to him, marched out of the pub, stepping on the animal’s tail as he went. Outside he looked around for his car and was about to get into it when he spotted a police car with two policemen in it watching him. The Dean veered away from his car and tried to walk unconcernedly down the road in the hope of finding a hotel or at least a Bed & Breakfast to spend the night in. There wasn’t one.
‘Only the pub,’ a man he stopped to ask told him. ‘The Leg of Lamb. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Used to be The Pimpole Arms but they had to change it on account of His Lordship’s habits. Sheep, you know. Some of these old families go a bit queer.’
‘I’ve gathered that,’ said the Dean and, adding sheep to the addictions of Jeremy Pimpole, walked on disconsolately in the direction of Pimpole Hall and the gamekeeper’s cottage. It was not a pleasant journey. The cottage lay a mile and a half from the village and the muddy lane was not lit. Only the moon helped and then only fitfully, most of the time being hidden behind clouds. In the hedges on either side of the lane night creatures went about their business and somewhere an owl hooted. In the ordinary way the Dean wouldn’t have minded quite so much, but the mixture of gin and beer and the awful atmosphere in the pub where so much latent violence had been almost palpable, not to mention Pimpole’s sudden changes of mood, had frayed the Dean’s nerves so that every sound startled him and every dark shadow filled him with alarm. Cursing himself for not having tried to find a taxi, though it was almost certain the village didn’t have one, and cursing himself even more for having come to see Pimpole in the first instance, the Dean trudged on, stopping every now and again to listen. He could have sworn he had caught snatches of the Porterhouse Boating Song wafted on the night air from the direction of the village. The third time he stopped there was no doubt about it. The words were clear now. ‘Bump, bump, bump, bump the boat before us. Bump, bump, bump, join the jolly chorus. There ain’t no boat, there ain’t no boat, there ain’t no boat before us, So all drink up and off we’ll go to Hobson’s Conduit whorehouse.’
Again, in the ordinary way the Dean would have found pleasure in the sound of that old song which he had heard so many times, and sung himself in his youth, though he had never known where Hobson’s Conduit whorehouse had been and had supposed that in years gone by it might have been at The Little Rose opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum. But now in the darkness – it had begun to rain – and in the knowledge that the man singing it had added a very large wineglass filled with crème de menthe to his first Dog’s Nose and had probably had another ‘for the road’ and that this foul-tempered man was accompanied by a large wall-eyed dog on whose tail the Dean had stepped only half an hour before, the sound of the song held no magic for him. None whatsoever. It merely served to cause the Dean to fear for his immediate futur
e. For a moment, a long moment, he considered sleeping out under the hedge or in a haystack but they didn’t make convenient haystacks any more and anyway it was still raining and the Dean had no intention of dying of pneumonia under some hedge. Perhaps if he hid and let the drunken Pimpole go past the brute might fall asleep and allow him to sneak up to his room …
The Dean found a gateway and was about to scramble over – the damned gate was locked – when he discovered it was also topped by barbed wire. With a muttered curse he turned and hurried on until he reached a dark copse to his right and, scrambling down into the ditch and then dragging himself painfully into the hedge itself, tried to blend in with a holly tree which seemed suitably black. The sound of Pimpole’s ghastly voice was quite close now and he was singing a revoltingly rustic song, an adaptation of ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ so filthy that the Dean began to wonder about Pimpole’s relationship with that beastly dog, and concluded that no animal could possibly be safe in his presence. Unfortunately the wall-eyed dog had similar feelings about the Dean and, while Pimpole staggering up the lane might well have mistaken the Dean in his black suit for part of the holly tree, the dog’s nose knew better. The dog stopped and peered into the darkness and growled. Pimpole halted and peered too.
‘Some fucking thing in there,’ he mumbled. ‘Better go have a look at it.’ He came forward and the Dean decided the only thing to do was to come out of the hedge as gracefully as he could.
‘It’s only me, Jeremy old chap,’ he called, and stepped away from the holly and fell headlong into the ditch. It was, he was quick to discover, a ditch in which stinging nettles grew in profusion. In his agony the Dean got on all fours and looked up at the swaying figure of Pimpole silhouetted against the drifting clouds.
‘What the fuck are you doing down there?’ Pimpole asked. ‘And anyway what gives you the right to call me “Jeremy old chap”! I’m Lord Pimpole to you, and don’t you forget it. And who the hell are you?’