Grantchester Grind

by Tom Sharpe

  For one thing he was going to make his presence felt in Porterhouse. The place was worse than an anachronism, more than an archaism, it was decadent, possessed a diseased arrogance to disguise its abysmal banality and lack of any academic distinction and to hide from the outside world the fact that it was morally as well as financially bankrupt. What other colleges in Cambridge hid from the world Purefoy had no idea but, whatever that might be, they did produce educated graduates and distinguished scholars. It was even claimed, though Purefoy found the statistic incredible, that one college, Trinity, had produced more Nobel Prize winners than the whole of France. In short, other Cambridge colleges could afford to parade a sense of superiority without appearing wholly ridiculous. Porterhouse had no such right. It was ridiculous. Worse still, it had as a Master an ignorant brute who could admit to having murdered the previous Master without a vestige of remorse or regret. Well, all that was going to change. Maddened by Mrs Ndhlovo’s laughter and the recognition it had brought with it of his own ineffectuality, Purefoy Osbert had lost all fear of the place and of the elderly buffoons who were the Senior Fellows. He intended to fulfil his contract as the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow and make his presence felt. With this dominating thought he strode past Sir Cathcart D’Eath without noticing him and went to his rooms. It was too late to do anything now but in the morning he would tackle the Dean and tell him what he knew and what he intended to do. He had in mind to announce that he was going to the police with his knowledge and he would see how the Dean reacted. It was this reaction that would actually be his purpose. Purefoy Osbert had discovered gifts of provocation. He would force the Dean to admit the truth of Skullion’s confession. Or to deny it. It hardly mattered which. His own position didn’t matter to him either. All his life he had pretended to accept only certainties. But now in the space of half an hour in Mrs Ndhlovo’s flat he had learnt that nothing was so unsettling as some prior knowledge mixed with absurdly inconsequential accusations. He would apply the technique to the Dean in the morning. Exhausted by the day’s events Purefoy Osbert slept soundly.

  *

  The Praelector slept too, though in short bursts. He always went to sleep quickly only to wake an hour or two later to lie awake dwelling on the previous day’s events or simply lying quite happily in the darkness letting thoughts roam. He rather enjoyed his broken nights. They gave him an opportunity to ponder things uninterruptedly and without the feeling that he ought to be doing something useful. But this night his thoughts were focused narrowly on the question of the new Master. Unlike the Dean and Senior Tutor he had no illusions about Porterhouse. He had, as he had told the Dean on their walk, been shocked at the state of the College finances. And then on top of that had come the shock of Skullion’s crime and his imminent removal to Porterhouse Park and the need to decide on a successor. Finally, and in its own way most disturbingly, the multiple misunderstandings at Duck Dinner and in the Dean’s room had proved once and for all the incompetence of those who were supposedly in charge of the College. The Senior Tutor had become childishly emotional, the Dean was demoralized and Sir Cathcart D’Eath’s changes of mood and identity suggested he was beginning to suffer from senile decay. The time for radical change had obviously come. As the sky began to lighten at dawn the Praelector went to the nub of the problem and with a sudden grasp of essentials found a startling solution.

  In fact it was so startling that he hoisted himself up the bed and sat upright against the pillows to consider it more carefully. But though he looked at it from as many angles as he could think of he could not fault the solution. On the other hand it was so extraordinarily wild and daring that he could hardly bring himself to believe in it. Besides, the risks were tremendous. For an hour he lay there propped up against the pillows searching for a more moderate alternative and failed to find it. Then with the clearest picture in his mind of what he must do and with the certain knowledge that he had found a way to save Porterhouse, he slid down the bed and went back to sleep.

  At half past seven he was awake again. He got up, had his bath and shaved, and then, as he did every day, he stood naked in front of the wardrobe mirror and studied his long, lean body with a dispassionate acceptance that was the tribute he paid to reality. What he saw was what he had become, an old man with spindly legs, a slight stoop but with clear blue eyes above a long nose and a firm, if shrunken, mouth. Having done that he dressed more carefully than usual and chose a suit that was so old that it seemed to have no perceptible style at all. It was his favourite suit and one he wore so seldom that Dege might have cut it for him only a week before. Having dressed and checked that his tie was as imperceptibly smart as the suit he went down to breakfast by way of the Porter’s Lodge.

  ‘Kindly inform the Senior Fellows that there will be an Extraordinary Meeting of the College Council at 11.30,’ he told Walter. ‘It is vital that as many as possible attend.’ And leaving the Head Porter to wonder what was in the offing he walked across the Old Court to the Hall.

  ‘Something serious is up,’ Walter told the under-porter. ‘When they use Extraordinary they don’t mean Maybe. And when the Praelector calls the tune, you jump to it.’

  *

  For the rest of the morning the Praelector went about various errands. He visited the offices of Waxthorne, Libbott and Chaine, Solicitors, and spent half an hour with Mr Retter and left that gentleman in a state of consternation and alarm, and in no doubt that it was make-or-break day at Porterhouse. After that the Praelector took a taxi to the Bursar’s house and, after a short and bitter exchange in which the Praelector spoke with lethal clarity of the alternative futures facing him, the Bursar took three pills and went back to Porterhouse with him.

  ‘I have some telephone calls to make but you can come to my rooms and sit there while I make them,’ the Praelector said. ‘And so long as you do as I say you will be quite safe.’ The Bursar said he felt quite safe, but he spoke without conviction.

  On the other hand, as they passed beneath the Dean’s windows the sound of raised voices clearly indicated that a very different form of conviction was being discussed. The Praelector stopped to listen. He disapproved of eavesdropping as much as he did the reading of other people’s letters but he had shed all moral and social conventions during the night.

  ‘You … you … dare to come in here and … and threaten me … you … have the effrontery to … to suggest that I instigated the mur … murder of the late Master?’ the Dean stammered.

  ‘You tell me,’ a quiet, calm voice replied. ‘You tell me and I’ll tell you what you did.’

  There was a silence in the room. Even the Praelector felt the menace of that cold and calculated statement. The Bursar whimpered.

  For a moment the Praelector hesitated before ordering the Bursar to go to his room and stay there. Then he hurried through the doorway and mounted the stairs. As he reached the top he heard the strangulated voice of the Dean. ‘You … you infernal little whip … whippersnapper,’ he tried to shout. ‘I’ll have … the … the law on you. I’ll …’

  ‘By all means,’ Purefoy Osbert interrupted in a tone of voice that was as icy as it was confident. ‘By all means call the police. The telephone is there beside you. Do you know the number?’

  The Praelector had heard enough. Opening the door he stepped into the room. ‘Ah, Dr Osbert,’ he said with a geniality he did not feel, ‘how very convenient. I hope I am not interrupting anything important?’

  Purefoy Osbert was standing in the middle of the room with his back to the window. He said nothing and against the sunshine outside the Praelector could not see the expression on his face. He could see the Dean’s face well enough though. It was purple with ashen patches.

  ‘He’s accusing me of … of … of having organized Sir Godber’s murder,’ the Dean managed to say. ‘He’s saying –’

  ‘Oh surely not,’ the Praelector began, still maintaining an air of unconcern. ‘I’m sure Dr Osbert knows better than to make unwarranted accusations of
that sort. He is merely fulfilling the terms of his contract as the Memorial Fellow, and we all know Lady Mary’s views on the matter. They are understandable in a widow and the fact that we have a Master in the last stages of senile dementia brought on by alcoholism makes such assumptions unfortunately all too plausible.’ He turned to Purefoy. ‘I suppose you have been talking to poor Skullion?’ He paused for a moment and smiled. ‘Alas, the poor man has developed a sense of guilt, an obsession caused no doubt by his stroke and the terrible misfortune of his position as the so-called Master. He was an excellent Head Porter in his time. We can hardly blame him for taking to drink.’

  Purefoy Osbert looked into the blue eyes which might have been smiling at him and he knew he had met his match. ‘I have made no accusation,’ he said. ‘I merely wanted to know what the Dean thought. I think I have found out.’ And without another word he left the room. As his footsteps retreated down the staircase the Praelector helped the Dean out of his chair.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘we must hurry. The Council is due to meet in five minutes and I have still a telephone call to make.’

  ‘That bloody man –’ the Dean began but the Praelector raised a finger to his lips and listened. The sound of an ambulance siren was growing louder.

  ‘They have come for the Master,’ he said and led the way down into the Court.

  *

  The Extraordinary Meeting of the College Council was a solemn occasion. Even the Senior Tutor and Dr Buscott, evidently sensing that something unprecedented was in the air, were in a subdued mood, while the Dean, still shaken by Purefoy Osbert’s calm assumption that he had conspired with Skullion to murder Sir Godber, was incapable of doing more than agreeing with everything the Praelector proposed even though he did not follow the argument or understand the consequences any more than the Bursar did.

  ‘In the first place we are here today to mark the passing of the Master,’ the Praelector announced. ‘During the night his state deteriorated to the point where he was no longer capable of fulfilling those few statutory duties he has been limited to. This, together with his state of mind, obliged him to relinquish the position of Master on the grounds that he is non compos mentis. We are therefore in a state of interregnum until the new Master has been appointed. Yes, Dr Buscott?’

  ‘I was just wondering if Skul … if the late Master exercised his right to nominate his successor,’ Dr Buscott said. ‘And, if he did, being as you say non compos mentis, whether his nomination had any validity.’

  ‘It is a perfectly proper point to make and one on which I have this morning consulted the College solicitors. They have given it as their opinion that in the circumstances of the Master being unable to make a rational decision the choice of a new Master devolves upon the College Council and in the event of the Council failing to agree, the matter automatically reverts to the Crown. Or, to put it more precisely, the choice of a new Master will be decided by the Government of the day.’ He paused and looked round the table. ‘I, for one, am wholly opposed to such a course of action. We have had previous and catastrophic experience of a Prime Minister’s choice.’

  There was a murmur of agreement from the Fellows, all of whom remembered the late Sir Godber Evans.

  ‘It is therefore essential that we show a degree of unanimity in the interest of the College and at the same time accept the indisputable fact that a wholly unprecedented and catastrophic financial crisis faces Porterhouse. I won’t go into the history of it. Rather than look back, I would ask you to look to the future. We are now in a position to ensure that, from being the poorest college in Cambridge and one that is in fact on the point of total bankruptcy, Porterhouse can be among the very richest.’

  A gasp of amazement ran round the table. The Praelector waited until he had their full attention again. ‘You will, I am afraid, have to take my word for it. I have been a Fellow of Porterhouse for more years than I care to remember and I think I can claim to have the interests of the College at heart.’

  For twenty minutes the Praelector went on presenting facts and figures obtained from the Bursar’s office to show the College debts and the temporary nature of the reprieve offered by the Transworld Television compensatory payment when and if, as he implied, it was finally settled. And all the time the Fellows sat mesmerized by his strange authority. For years the Praelector had gone quietly and inconspicuously about his little business and had been ignored as a force in the College. But now, in an Indian summer of the intellect, he had come to dominate them all. Even Dr Buscott recognized that he was in the presence of someone, even some thing, that was too powerful to be doubted. And at the end when the Praelector asked for their unanimous consent that he be allowed to conduct negotiations with the candidate of his own choice and with no questions asked, the Council passed the motion without a single dissenting voice. As they filed out into the spring sunshine there was a new confident mood among the Fellows of Porterhouse. They had surrendered their authority to a man they could trust and they felt a sense of freedom.

  *

  Which was more than could be said for Skullion. Seated in his wheelchair in the ambulance, he knew he had been betrayed again. He wasn’t going to Coft Castle as the General had promised. They had been on the road too long for that and they were moving too fast. They were on the motorway and heading for Porterhouse Park and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He had been taken for a mug again. And they had done a good professional job getting him out of Porterhouse too, sending Arthur off to the chemist for the prescription of his blood-pressure pills and then as soon as the Master’s Lodge was empty coming in without so much as a by-your-leave and having him through the doorway into the ambulance before you could say Jack Robinson and then off through the traffic as if everything was hunky-dory.

  Oh well, it was his own bloody fault. He shouldn’t have got pissed and threatened the Dean. And he shouldn’t have listened to Sir Cathcart fucking D’Eath. He should have known those bastards would stick together. Always did and always would when it came to saving their own skins. Not that they were above slitting one another’s throats if it came to that. And now that he was gone they’d say he’d had another Porterhouse Blue and Cheffy and them wouldn’t know any better. They wouldn’t know he’d been taken off to Porterhouse Park and if they did it wouldn’t do any good. No one ever visited the Park. It was just somewhere they sent you when you’d lost your marbles like old Dr Vertel and Mr Manners who’d become an embarrassment with his incontinence and his nasty habit of suddenly attacking undergraduates with his umbrella because he thought they were sniggering at him behind his back. And now it was his turn and no doubt they’d have some hard old woman in charge to give him his pills and order him about and give him baths. Doubtless too they would wheel him out on sunny days to stare out over the landscape and listen to the other old loonies mumbling to themselves. He’d have to eat with them too and they’d call him Skullion and treat him like dirt just as they used to do when he was a porter. Old Vertel had never liked him, and he must still be alive because there’d been no obituary in the Porterhouse Magazine. Skullion sat in his wheelchair and stared at the curtain they’d pulled across the rear window of the ambulance, and cursed himself for a fool.

  31

  Purefoy Osbert watched the Fellows file out of the old Library with interest. For a moment he thought they had been discussing the threat he posed to the Master but the meeting had been called before his confrontation with the Dean. Something else was in the wind. Some undergraduates passing him in the Court had spoken about the Master having another Porterhouse Blue and of an ambulance arriving at the Master’s Lodge. Whatever the cause of the air of excitement in the College, Purefoy was determined to make use of it. His visit to the Dean and the Dean’s impotent and stammering fury had done surprising things for Purefoy’s confidence. He no longer felt overawed by the atmosphere of Porterhouse and in his own mind saw it as having no more importance than some casual roadside café. Its ceremonies and ritua
ls like the Induction Dinner, its archaic terminology – ‘the Dossery’, ‘the Fellows’ Combination Room’, ‘the Buttery’, ‘the Dean’, ‘the Master’ – were mere devices, theatrical and phoney, having the intention of fooling immature and impressionable minds and masking, like some masonic ceremony, the littleness of the officials who hid behind such titles. In all the other colleges Purefoy had visited at one time or another there had been at least some slight self-mockery. Not at Porterhouse. Here the dense seriousness of small minds prevailed. Purefoy Osbert saw through the pretence and chose his next target. It was to be the Senior Tutor. He caught him as he came up the stairs to his room.