by Tom Sharpe
‘Do you really mean that?’ he asked cautiously. ‘This isn’t some sort of joke?’
‘Have you ever known me to lie to you, Purefoy? Have you?’
Purefoy Osbert hesitated again. ‘No, I don’t suppose I have. All the same … you’re talking about a salary –’
‘Of nearly sixty thousand pounds a year, which is far more than any professor gets. Now give me the number of your fax machine and I’ll send you a copy of the letter you will be receiving either tomorrow or the next day from your sponsor’s solicitors, Lapline & Goodenough.’
‘But that is the firm you work for,’ said Purefoy.
‘Which is how I happen to know you’re being offered the Fellowship,’ said Vera and, having taken his fax number, rang off.
Ten minutes later a bewildered Purefoy Osbert sat reading the most amazing letter he had ever received. It was on Lapline & Goodenough, Solicitors, official note-paper and was signed by Goodenough, and while it was only a fax copy there could be no doubt about its authenticity. Purefoy considered the stated conditions very carefully. ‘As the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow you will be required only to establish the facts of his life with a view to the possible publication of a biography. His tenure as Master of Porterhouse was a very short one and ended with his death …’
Purefoy Osbert read on, trying to see where the snag was. There didn’t seem to be one. He could pursue his own studies, he could, if he wished, take a post in the University proper as opposed to Porterhouse College, and his stipend of £55,000 was guaranteed from funds provided by the sponsor, who wished to remain anonymous. In short he was being offered a sinecure and, as far as he could see, there were no awkward strings attached to it. He was particularly interested in the repeated emphasis on the sponsor’s respect for his methods. Purefoy Osbert spent the evening in a state of euphoria and even considered going round to visit Mrs Ndhlovo with his amazing news. But he didn’t. He still couldn’t be certain this wasn’t some sort of hoax. If it turned out to be true there would be no more talk about his lack of money or ambition. And she certainly wouldn’t be able to say he wasn’t a proper man.
4
At Porterhouse too there was some delay. Goodenough’s insistence on the need for no publicity and his praise of the Senior Tutor’s reputation for discretion had placed the latter in something of a quandary. For one thing he couldn’t discuss the proposed Fellowship with the Bursar because he wasn’t, in Goodenough’s opinion – which the Senior Tutor shared – to be trusted, and for another the Dean was away from Cambridge, supposedly visiting a sick relative in Wales. And without the Dean’s presence at the College Council no decisions could be made. The Master would never ratify the new Fellowship without the Dean’s consent. And while Skullion had recovered his power of speech and some movement he had never lost the sense of deference, particularly to the Dean, that forty-five years as a College Porter had instilled in him. Besides, the Senior Tutor himself tended to defer to the Dean. They had never liked one another and there were times when they had quarrelled so badly they were not on speaking terms, but together they had prevented Porterhouse from following the example of every other college in Cambridge. Or to put it more accurately, they had slowed change down to a pace that would allow the past to catch up and reimpose old values on new ways. After much argument in the College Council it had been agreed that Porterhouse would finally admit women undergraduates, though with a qualifying motion proposed by the Senior Tutor that this should in no way diminish the accommodation provided for male entrants. This motion had passed unnoticed. The Dean’s conversion to the notion of women in Porterhouse had so amazed the younger and more progressive Fellows – he had been adamantly opposed to the idea for years – that they hadn’t foreseen the consequences of the Senior Tutor’s addendum or the Praelector’s support for it, which he was by custom entitled to make in Latin. It was only much later, when the question of the numbers of women to be admitted to the College came up, that the progressive Fellows led by Dr Buscott realized the crisis facing them. Porterhouse was a poor college. It had once been a rich one but all that wealth had been lost by the then Bursar, Lord Fitzherbert, who had gambled the money away at Monte Carlo. Since that catastrophic moment Porterhouse had sunk into poverty.
Even the Bursar, who had voted for the changes and for the inclusion of women, had been appalled at the suggestion that a new block be built for them behind the Chapel. ‘Of course I support the proposal in principle,’ he said, ‘but I must point out that it is totally impractical. Such a building programme would cost millions. Where do you suppose we could find the funds?’
‘Presumably in the same way as other colleges go about these things,’ said Professor Pawley, Porterhouse’s most eminent scholar, an astronomer whose life’s work had been concentrated on an exceedingly remote nebula known as Pawley One. ‘Other Bursars have recourse to banks and commerical loans. It is surely not beyond our intellectual resources to make use of similar means?’
The Bursar had swallowed the insult and had taken his revenge. ‘It is not our intellectual resources which are in question, but our practical ones. We don’t have any means of obtaining loans. The cost of rebuilding the Bull Tower proved far higher than had been foreseen by those on the Restoration Committee’ – Professor Pawley had been its chairman – ‘who failed to distinguish the difference between the cost of modern building materials such as bricks and the vastly more expensive price required to replace extremely old materials. In the circumstances, if anyone can explain how I can obtain any additional funding, I shall of course be most grateful.’
*
In the face of this unanswerable question the new building never materialized and while women had come to Porterhouse their numbers were negligible. And since the Senior Tutor was in charge of admissions as well as the Boat Club, those women who were admitted had certain characteristics that distinguished them from the girls in other colleges. Even the Chaplain, always a broad-minded man, had complained.
‘I know the world is a very different place these days and I try to keep up with the times,’ he had said over the kidney ragout at dinner one night, ‘but I draw the line at young men wearing lipstick in public places. There is some man on my staircase who is distinctly odd. I found a tube of lipstick in the lavatory this morning and whatever aftershave lotion he uses is most disturbing.’
‘I don’t suppose there is any point in explaining,’ said the Praelector, keeping his voice down. The Chaplain was deaf, but it was as well to take precautions.
‘Definitely not,’ said the Dean. ‘If he ever found out their real sex, Heaven alone knows what he might get up to.’
‘I suppose we must be grateful he’s not interested in boys. A lot of the dons in other colleges are, I’m told.’
‘It’s amazing he can get up to anything at all at his age,’ said the Senior Tutor a trifle mournfully. ‘Still, it was obviously a great mistake to put any women on his staircase.’ They looked accusingly at the Bursar who was in charge of room allocations.
‘I only put two there,’ he protested, ‘and I made sure they passed the Test.’
‘The Test? What is the Test? Apart from matches and rivers and things,’ enquired the Praelector.
The Bursar hesitated. Dr Buscott and some of the younger Fellows were down the table and he had no desire to be linked in their minds with the ‘Old Guard’. ‘It is an exceedingly outmoded way of ensuring –’ he began, but the Dean seized his opportunity.
‘The Bursar means that he has to examine the creatures before employing them as bedmakers to make absolutely certain that they are sufficiently repulsive to stifle the sexual urges in even the most desperately frustrated undergraduate,’ he explained in a loud voice. ‘That is why it is called the Bedder Test. The aim is to keep them out of the beds they are paid to make.’
In the silence that followed, Dr Buscott at the far end of the table was heard to wonder aloud what century some people thought they were living in. The Sen
ior Fellows chose to ignore him. Dr Buscott held a post in the University and that, as the Dean had said, made him no sort of Porterhouse man.
‘Not that the system always works, if memory serves me,’ said the Praelector finally. ‘That young man who blew up the Bull Tower with gas-filled condoms was found to have been fornicating with his bedder at the very moment of the explosion. Name of Zipser, I seem to remember. Now what was the bedmaker’s name?’
‘Biggs. Mrs Biggs,’ the Chaplain shouted suddenly. ‘Big Bertha Biggs I remember they called her. Wore tight boots and a shiny red mackintosh. A splendid woman. Most ample. I shall never forget the way she smiled.’
‘I doubt if anyone else will either, come to that,’ said the Dean grimly, ‘though whether she was smiling when the Tower exploded we will, I am glad to say, never know. Not that I am in the least interested. Any sexual deviant, and a young man who could find Mrs Biggs in any way desirable must have been a pervert, deserves to die. It was the other consequences I found deplorable. Quite apart from the enormous cost of the restoration, it gave that damned Master, the late Sir Godber Evans, the chance to exert his authority over the College Council. The only good thing to come out of the whole ghastly affair was that he died of drink not long afterwards.’
‘I always understood that he had an accident and fell over,’ Dr Buscott intervened from the far end of the table.
‘He would not have fallen had he not been drunk.’
But Dr Buscott hadn’t finished. ‘And saddled the College with a Head Porter as Master. I have never been able to understand why he named Skullion. If, of course, he did.’
The Senior Tutor almost rose from his chair and the Dean’s face was suffused. ‘If you are accusing us of lying …’ the Senior Tutor began but the Chaplain provided a diversion.
‘Dear Skullion,’ he shouted. ‘I saw him sitting in the garden the other day wearing his bowler hat. He seemed to be much better and certainly much happier.’
‘Did he have his bottle with him?’ asked the Praelector.
‘His bottle? I didn’t notice. He used to have a bag, you know. It was on the end of a pipe and sometimes would slip out. I once stepped on it, quite by accident of course, and the poor fellow –’
‘For God’s sake, shut up,’ snarled the Senior Tutor and pushed his plate away. ‘I really don’t see why we should discuss Skullion’s bladder problems over the kidney ragout.’
‘I entirely agree,’ said the Dean. ‘It is a most unsavoury topic, and not at all suitable at table.’
‘Savoury now?’ the Chaplain shouted. ‘But I haven’t even finished my main course.’
‘I think if someone would switch off his hearing aid …’ said the Praelector.
*
The Dean’s first port of call in his search for a new Master was Coft Castle, the training stables belonging to the President of the Old Porterhouse Society, General Sir Cathcart D’Eath, to consult him.
‘Seen this coming,’ said the General. ‘Bad show having to have a Porter as Master. Worse still a chap in a wheelchair. Makes a bad impression in a sporting college, don’t you know.’
‘Quite,’ said the Dean, who didn’t share the General’s view of Porterhouse. For him the College was the repository of traditional values. ‘The fact of the matter is that our finances are in a dreadful state. We need a very rich Master to put us in the black again. Can you think of anyone who might be suitable?’
‘Daresay you could try Gutterby down in Hampshire. Good family and plenty of money,’ the General said. ‘Things haven’t been good for anyone lately, though. Difficult. Difficult.’
They sat in Sir Cathcart’s library late into the night. From inside the cover of Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy the General had produced a bottle of Glenmorangie. The Dean on the other hand was drinking Armagnac which came from The Three Musketeers. It put an idea into Sir Cathcart’s head.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve considered Philippe Fitzherbert,’ he said. ‘Old Fitzherbert’s boy. Said to be extremely rich. Got a place down in Gascony and lives there. Odd chap. French mother.’
The Dean looked puzzled. ‘Rich? Considering the way his father practically bankrupted the College and finished the Anglian Lowland Bank on which we relied, I’m amazed to hear his son is rich. He can’t have inherited it. The College had to soak old Fitzherbert as Master.’
Sir Cathcart sipped his drink and his ginger moustache twitched. Behind the bloodshot eyes something was happening. ‘Heard something,’ he said, resorting to the staccato that best expressed his important thoughts. ‘Rum. Very rum. After the war.’
The Dean sat rigid in his deep armchair. He recognized that the General too was following his instincts. This was no time to interrupt.
‘Tell you who might know more. Anthony. Anthony Lapschott. Financial wheeler-dealer. Never quite sure what. Went into publishing too, made a small fortune. Writes books in his spare time. Tried to read one once. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Something about the loss of power. I’ve never quite known what to make of him but he seems to have known everyone. Spends his time these days down in Dorset. Portland Bill. If anyone knows, he will.’
The Dean considered Anthony Lapschott. He remembered him as a strange young man whose friends were for the most part in other colleges. An Arty, not a Hearty. On the other hand he had the reputation of being one of the few serious thinkers to have emerged from Porterhouse. Yes, he would go and see Lapschott. The Dean had that gut feeling again.
5
The Bursar’s feelings were strong too, but of a different kind. Unlike the Senior Tutor, whose relationship with the Dean had its up and downs, the Bursar couldn’t be said to have any relationship with either of them that was not down. The Dean and the Senior Tutor despised and hated him, and he in turn detested them. Ever since he had sided with the late Master and Lady Mary over the changes they had wanted to introduce in Porterhouse, they had regarded him as a traitor and the man who had given Skullion the sack. What Skullion himself thought of the Bursar couldn’t be put into words even by someone who wasn’t in the Master’s awful condition. In the circumstances Goodenough had made a wise decision to approach the Senior Tutor and to leave the Bursar well alone. On the other hand the Bursar, who was responsible for the College’s so-called finances, knew only too well the situation had reached crisis point. The actual fabric of the College, the roofs and gutters, the stonework and the old wooden floors, all needed urgent attention and, while every other Cambridge college had been able to afford general repair and cleaning-up, Porterhouse remained as grimy and smoke-blackened as ever. A piece of guttering had fallen into the street near the Main Gate, fortunately not hitting anyone, and there were leaks in the roof of the Chapel and parts of Old Court.
In short, unless funds were found quickly Porterhouse would fall apart and once again the Bursar would be blamed. In a last-ditch attempt to avoid this and learn how to raise funds he had recently attended a seminar on ‘Private Fund-raising for Establishments of Higher Education etc’ in Birmingham. For three days he had sat through a series of lectures on the subject and had been impressed by what he heard. For obvious reasons he hadn’t spoken himself but late one afternoon, when he was leaving a lecture entitled ‘Private Influence on Education in Donational Usage’ which had been given by a don from Peterhouse, the Bursar was approached by a man curiously dressed in a black blazer, a light brown polo-neck sweater, white socks and moccasins. His eyes were almost invisible behind dark blue sunglasses.
‘May I introduce myself, Professor,’ he said, producing a card from his breast pocket. ‘My name is Karl Kudzuvine, Personal Assistant to Edgar Hartang of Transworld Television Productions and Associated Enterprises.’
He spoke in a strong American accent and the card certainly did say he was Karl Kudzuvine, Personal Assistant and Vice-President of TTP etc. There were a number of telephone and fax numbers and an address in London with another in New York.
‘As Vice-President and Personal Assistant
to Mr Hartang it is my privilege to say how inspirational I found your comments on the need for Private Influence in Donational Usage. I want you to know that Edgar Hartang shares your opinions without reservations and I am instructed to say that he will appreciate meeting with you to discuss this issue at your convenience on Wednesday twelfth at twelve forty-five over lunch.’ And before the dumbfounded Bursar could explain that he hadn’t said a single thing about Donational Usage or Private Influence, and in any case he wasn’t a Professor, the extraordinary American had seized his hand and shaken it, had said he’d been deeply honoured to meet him, and had hurried from the hall. The Bursar watched him get into an enormous car, with black windows and what appeared to be a satellite dish on the roof. As it disappeared into the night he read the words ‘Transworld Television’ on the side.
The sight galvanized the Bursar. He wasn’t sure that he knew who Mr Edgar Hartang was but he was evidently a person with money to burn on huge cars. The Bursar went back down the hall to the financial expert from Peterhouse, who was arguing with several Principals of Poly-Techs who found the idea of any private interference in educational policy deeply offensive.
‘I wonder,’ said the Bursar in his most ingratiating manner, ‘I wonder if I might borrow your lecture notes for a moment. I found what you had to say remarkably to the point.’