by Mike Ripley
Eleven
The Professor of Nines
Mr Campion’s doctors had assured him that he seemed free of any lasting damage and that none of the seventeen pellets of birdshot they had removed had damaged anything more serious than his pride. In their very professional opinions, they were unanimously agreed that after a good night’s rest and a final survey for signs of infection, he could expect to be discharged the next morning. Unlike the wicked, rest was not denied Mr Campion but it was delayed until he had granted audience to a string of persistent petitioners.
Amanda, of course, came first, bearing gifts suitable for the man-of-certain-years who had been caught away from home without a change of clothing saving a hospital gown and a pair of wellington boots. As she unpacked her purchases and displayed them, Mr Campion nodded his approval and if he had any sartorial doubts or misgivings, he hid them well, apologising that he was unable to leap out of his bed and perform a fashion parade to give her the full benefit of his new wardrobe. As usual, Amanda had been thorough in ministering to her husband’s needs. She had purchased underclothes, socks and shirts, a pair of silk cravats (one lime-green with black spots, the other a vibrant orange), dark blue flannel trousers, plain black leather slip-on shoes and a jacket in narrow brown corduroy complete with leather elbow patches, as well as a wash-bag with toiletries and a razor and a cheap hold-all to contain everything.
‘I thought the jacket and trousers would help you blend in with the out-of-term Dons here,’ she said as if considering the image in her mind’s eye, ‘and with one of those understated cravats you could easily pass for a visiting professor from Ruritania.’
‘I doubt that,’ smiled Campion. ‘Oxford perhaps, but not Ruritania where I believe they still have standards.’
Amanda raised her eyebrows disapprovingly. Had she been wearing spectacles, she would have frowned over the top of them.
‘I think you’re rather enjoying all this attention,’ she said, ‘and I can’t allow that. Please refrain from any high jinks whilst in Cambridge.’
‘I promise all my jinks will be low ones,’ said her husband, pressing his right hand over his heart. ‘In fact that’s the motto of dear old St Ignatius College, you know.’
‘I know it is not,’ his wife replied, ‘and please remember that jinks of any height are pretty much out of the question at your age. Promise me.’
‘I promise, darling lady. No jinks above a millimetre. In fact, I think it best if I sub-contract any potential jinks to someone much younger …’
‘Al … bert …’ began Amanda in a gentle warning growl.
‘Where is our beloved son and heir-to-not-very-much and his beautiful new bride at the moment?’
‘Rupert and Perdita are recovering from their honeymoon and working hard to renovate and modernise the flat in St Peter’s Gate Square as their marital home, which is something of a Herculean task in my opinion, but their hearts are set on it. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I think our love-birds could do with a second honeymoon – one can never have too many. Say … a few days in the South of France in a very decent hotel … with perhaps a trip to the local casino one evening …’
Mr Campion’s next visitors were Gus Marchant and Clarissa Webster.
While he gushed, almost genuflecting to the sick bed, with apologies for what had happened out at Saxon Mills, she made coo-ing, sympathetic noises although her gaze was almost completely fixed on Lady Amanda, who was later to describe the experience as ‘akin to being in an X-ray machine’.
Gus Marchant assured Campion that he should concentrate on getting better and think nothing of the items he had left in his room at the Woolpack or his car, which was still being repaired at the Shermans’ garage. In fact, he was not to worry about a thing and could be sure of a warm welcome on his return to Lindsay Carfax where the entire population were anxiously awaiting news of his recovery – especially Don at the Woolpack, whose latest theory was that Mr Campion was probably an international spy and therefore a target for assassination by persons or secret services unknown.
‘Please do not disabuse Don of that notion,’ Mr Campion had told him, ‘for it will ensure prompt service and over-generous measures on my next visit, though I don’t suppose that is something I should be telling the establishment’s owner.’
Mr Marchant had laughed and shaken Campion’s hand and Mrs Webster had leaned over the invalid – rather too generously, Amanda thought – and planted a brief kiss on his cheek, and then the pair had left, to be replaced by Eliza Jane and Ben Judd.
Whilst Eliza Jane comforted Amanda – though an Amanda no longer in need of emotional support – Judd pumped Campion’s hand and swore that vengeance and, if possible, justice would be visited on the perpetrators of the heinous crime which had resulted in his hospitalisation.
It took some time for Mr Campion to convince Judd that his injuries were minor and that he had probably been the victim of an accident rather than a crime and when Eliza Jane wisely insisted they leave Mr Campion in peace, it was as if a summer storm had blown over and left the room.
For once, the arrival of Lugg, who had patiently been waiting his turn in the corridor, provided a calming, almost pastoral, atmosphere though he would do his best to dispel it.
‘I don’t trust that young feller Judd, you know,’ he declaimed without prompting. ‘Bit of a h’educated tearaway if you ask me.’
‘Nobody has,’ observed Mr Campion.
‘Says he’s an artist; which covers a multitude of sins in my opinion.’
‘An opinion unsought by anyone here,’ Campion sighed.
‘Well, I reckon he uses his hands as fists more than for holding a paintbrush and he’s the sort who’d start a fight in a confessional box.’
‘And there speaks one who could try the patience of the Dalai Lama. Now please make your report. Have you been about your master’s business?’
‘Oh, very droll, I’m sure,’ said Lugg over a curled lip. ‘Yes, I’ve been round to St Ignatius and called on the Master. Well, strictly speaking, I had a bit of a conflab with Mr Gildart at the front gate. Like-minded souls we are, so it turns out, and we sorted you out good and proper over a glass of very fine claret from the bottle he keeps in the First Aid box.’
Mr Lugg smacked his lips at the memory and his expression segued from the surly to the beatific.
‘Gildart?’ Campion spluttered. ‘Gildart the Head Porter? That’s impossible. He must have been at least sixty when I was an undergrad – and we never did twig where he kept that never-ending bottle.’
‘Well it just proves you don’t know everything, which I thought all Cambridge men were supposed to.’
‘No,’ interjected Amanda, ‘they just think they do.’
‘I am referring,’ continued Lugg, ‘to young Mr Gildart, who inherited the position from Mr Gildart Senior, the Gildart who had you down on his Most Wanted list when he was Head Porter and you were a spotty youth, or so I hear.’
‘I am flattered that my notoriety has bridged the generation of gate-keepers,’ said Campion, ‘but I trust I am still welcome in those hallowed precincts?’
‘Surprisingly it seems you are. Mr Gildart rang the Master and mentioned your name and when the college towers did not crack nor the walls start weeping blood, it seemed as if it was safe for you to stay there. Mr Gildart said he would make all the arrangements, as it was best not to trust the Master’s memory on fine detail, and to inform you that it was the Master’s habit out of term to take a light lunch in an establishment called the Panton Arms, if you know where that is.’
‘My dear old fruit,’ grinned Mr Campion, ‘that is the one thing all Cambridge men do know.’
‘Dr Livingstone, I presume!’
‘Rudolph! You promised me you would never use that salutation again, you know it vexes me greatly.’
‘I apologise, Master, I simply could not resist, just as you could not resist calling me by a name I abandoned, or at least put the back o
f a very dark wardrobe, some time ago.’
The Master of St Ignatius College dipped the tankard of ale he was holding in deference to the new arrival in the flagged courtyard of the Panton Arms, an area universally known (or at least by members of the university and the staff of the Perse School for Girls) as ‘the garden’.
‘Forgive me; I must remember it should be ‘Albert’ when you are in mufti. The memory’s going, you know. An old man’s burden: so much to remember, in so little brain. Have you settled yourself into the guests’ quarters? Is Gildart looking after you?’
‘Yes to both questions, Master, but I challenge the poor assessment of your mental faculties. Surely not even your enemies would describe you as having a small brain.’
‘I have enemies, do I?’ the Master asked with a sly grin.
‘You are the Master of a Cambridge College,’ said Campion firmly, ‘of course you do.’
‘Then I had better,’ laughed Dr Jolyon Livingstone, ‘recruit you as an ally by buying you a flagon of the Panton’s excellent ale.’
‘My loyalty comes cheap,’ replied Campion graciously. ‘A half-pint will suffice.’
‘And will you join me in a simple luncheon of bread and cheese and pickles? I take it you are dining in hall tonight?’
‘Again, two answers in the affirmative, as long as the pickles are sharp not sweet and the dinner is not formal, as I have no dinner suit with me.’
‘Worry not, old boy,’ said his host, rising and pointing himself towards the pub door labelled Four Ale Bar, ‘dinner will be just we happy few fellows who have no homes to go to and a plain gown is all that is required for form’s sake. We always have a few spare in a cupboard somewhere for the unwary and unprepared, rather like ties at the Reform Club. Sit down, dear boy; pull up a pew while I see to the victuals.’
Mr Campion straddled a low wooden bench with his long legs and inched in closer to the planked wooden table until he was comfortable. He noticed that the rough oak tabletop had suffered from that curse which befalls any piece of plain wood where there are men or boys around armed with a penknife or a pen nib. On closer observation, he was delighted to detect that the most common graffiti consisted not of the traditional whereabouts of ‘Kilroy’ or the affairs of star-crossed lovers, but rather complex algebraic equations. He allowed himself a smile and felt reassured that in Cambridge, the vandals still had ambitions.
He was distracted by the sight of Dr Livingstone zigzagging his way slowly across the courtyard bearing, at a gravity-defying angle, a square metal tray decorated with the heraldic arms of the owning brewing company on which sat, precariously, two piled plates of food, cutlery, an empty half-pint tankard and a large glass jug containing – unless Mr Campion’s practised eye deceived him – about half a gallon of foaming ale.
The Master of St Ignatius College lowered his burden on to the table in front of Campion with a resounding thump and a sigh of relief, then wriggled himself between bench and table until he was comfortably wedged.
‘Shall I be mother?’ he asked, lifting the jug and offering to pour.
‘I really must insist on a small one only, Master.’
‘Nonsense; it’s only the ordinary bitter. We don’t drink the strong stuff – the Abbot’s Ale – during daylight,’ said Livingstone cheerfully. ‘Oh, I was forgetting, you’re an invalid aren’t you? Just released from Addenbrooke’s, I hear.’
Mr Campion sipped beer and observed Dr Livingstone over the rim of his glass.
‘Your time in Intelligence wasn’t wasted, Jolyon. Do you have spies everywhere?’
‘I would love to say that I have, but I would be fibbing. The truth is that last night I overheard a conversation between two junior Fellows from the Engineering faculty and they could hardly contain themselves they were so excited.’ Dr Livingstone refilled his own glass from the jug before adding: ‘Oh, not about you, Albert! They had spotted Lady Amanda Fitton – the famous aeroplane designer – on Trumpington Street. Apparently, she’s something of a pin-up girl among engineers. I always said you had wived well, old chap.’
If the Master of St Ignatius had indeed ever said that, Campion had been blissfully unaware and whilst he mumbled the appropriate noises of a man embarrassed by an unfair portion of good fortune, he racked his brains to try and remember if Livingstone had actually met Amanda or was merely being polite. Campion and Livingstone had shared the late years of the war doing things in Intelligence which still, twenty-five years later, were never spoken of in public and only rarely in private. With the outbreak of peace, Livingston had returned to academia as a Fellow at St Ignatius and set his sights firmly on becoming the Master. What he lacked in talent he had made up for in dogged determination, a pedantic efficiency when it came to writing the interminable minutes of a thousand dull committees, and a robust constitution which helped him out-live his rivals. Although he was ten years younger than Campion, a life devoid of unnecessary physical exertion in a college noted for its kitchens and wine cellars had hastened middle-aged spread and coupled with premature baldness thinly disguised by two or three straggling strands combed over his pate, Livingstone could easily have been mistaken for the older man.
As they broke bread, sliced cheese, speared pickled onions and sipped beer together, Livingstone steered the conversation into calm, willowy waters as if poling a punt on the Cam.
‘I would think Cambridge has seen considerable changes since your day, old chap.’
‘It must have,’ Campion agreed politely. ‘My time as a wastrel student is so far back it should be regarded as archaeology rather than history.’
Dr Livingstone waved a pickled onion skewered on his fork.
‘Students don’t change in my opinion. They may be badly dressed and unwashed now compared to our day, but they are just as rambunctious. At St Ignatius of course, they have a long tradition of high spirits to live up to, not to mention high jinks.’
Mr Campion, thinking of his wife, flinched involuntarily but Dr Livingstone did not notice.
‘It is part of college folklore than a certain undergraduate, caught trying to climb the gates after midnight, spent an hour persuading the Head Porter that he was in fact a werewolf who had misjudged the waning of the full moon and had turned back into human form before he could spring over the college wall.’
Mr Campion’s complexion began to take on a pinkish hue.
‘I believe that same student kept a pet jackdaw named Autolycus in his rooms,’ continued the Master, ‘and whilst such specific behaviour may seem quaint these days, the same joie de vivre permeates most aspects of student life. Oh, the political ones are loud and unruly and often appear thuggish – think of that trouble when the American ambassador visited a couple of years ago – and the whole Vietnam thing has got them hot under the collar. Still, let them protest I say, just remember that the longhaired one carrying the biggest banner today is quite likely to be the chief inspector of tomorrow.’
‘You may very well be right,’ said Campion, relieved that the Master had wandered away from the subject of his youthful college charge sheet.
‘I am sure I am, but each to his own. Let others go on protest marches while we enjoy the simple pleasures which Cambridge offers. You are familiar with the Footlights Club, of course.’
‘Certainly; in my day we used to meet in a Masonic Hall.’
Dr Livingstone appeared to be surprised at Campion’s answer.
‘Yes, well it’s quite professional nowadays. Anyone who can sing a comic song or play the absent-minded judge in a skit gets snapped up by the West End almost immediately, or even television! Musical revue is not always to my taste, though. I myself am a jazz man and we have quite a flourishing jazz scene here, you know. Only last week I heard Dan Pawson’s Artesian Hall Stompers in full flow. They almost took the roof off the Corn Exchange!’
It was Mr Campion’s turn to be surprised.
‘I never had you down as a cool cat, Jolyon.’
‘It keeps me young, and
I find the reckless rhythms positively exhilarating. Was there jazz in your day, Albert?’
‘You sound as if you are quoting bad poetry, ‘Campion said with a broad grin. ‘And was there still jazz back then, when the world was young …? Oh yes, we knew the difference between a tuba and a tailgate trombone. Jazz was not approved of, but it was hardly proscribed.’
‘Cars were, though.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Campion was thrown by the Master’s change of tack.
‘Students were not allowed to own cars, but they are now. Some things remain, some things change. Young women – they were proscribed too.’
‘I don’t believe there was ever a universal embargo,’ Campion observed.
‘But now there’s talk of mixed colleges and they will come, Campion, they will come. Certain colleges – and they know who they are – are even vying to be the first to admit women as if it was some sort of race with a prize!’
‘I doubt very much if it would lead to the collapse of Western civilisation, but am I to take it that St Ignatius is not in the vanguard of this particular revolution?’
‘I think we shall insist on being the last to change, should change be forced upon us.’
‘Forgive me if I do not join you on the barricades, Master, but I happen to believe that an injection of young female ideas might just pump some life into the place. After all, a man has walked on the Moon this year and if that was but a small step for Man, then admitting women to St Ignatius would surely not be such a giant step.’
‘Good Lord, Albert, you haven’t turned into one of these liberationists have you? You’ll be demanding a female Master or a woman prime minister next!’
Campion pushed his plate to the side and reached into a trouser pocket. He produced two pennies and a half-crown and laid them on the table with their obverse faces uppermost.
‘There is one woman in a top job, and she’s being doing it very well for more than sixteen years now,’ he said softly.
‘Er … quite. Of course, I was forgetting your … er … absolutely. Anyway, Albert, enough of my ramblings. Is there anything St Ignatius can do for you other than bed and board? Of course, that is always a pleasure …’