by Tom Sharpe
*
It was left to Skullion to represent the College on the towpath that afternoon. The Dean had driven over to Coft to see Sir Cathcart and Skullion stood alone in the biting wind watching Porterhouse row over for the second day running. The terrible sense of wrong that he had felt in the boiler-room when he heard the proposed sale of Rhyder Street had not left him. It had been augmented by the news Arthur had brought him from High Table after lunch.
‘He’s put the cat among the pigeons now, the Master has,’ Arthur said breathlessly. ‘He’s got under their skin something terrible this time.’
‘I don’t wonder,’ said Skullion, thinking bitterly of Rhyder Street.
‘I mean you wouldn’t want one in your own home, would you? Not one of them things.’
‘What things?’ Skullion asked, all too conscious of the fact that he was unlikely to have a home to put anything in if Sir Godber had his way.
‘Well I don’t rightly know what they’re called,’ Arthur said. ‘Not exactly, that is. You put your money in and …’
‘And what?’ Skullion asked irritably.
‘And you get these things out. Three I think. Not that I’ve ever had occasion to use them.’
‘What things?’
‘Frenchies,’ said Arthur, looking round to make sure no one was listening.
‘Frenchies?’ said Skullion. ‘What Frenchies?’
‘The Frenchies that Zipser gentleman exploded himself with,’ Arthur explained. Skullion looked at him in disgust. ‘You mean to tell me they’re going to bring one of those filthy things into the College?’
Arthur nodded. ‘In the men’s toilet. That’s where it’s going.’
‘Over my dead body,’ said Skullion. ‘I’m not staying here as Head Porter with one of those things in the toilet. This isn’t a bloody chemist’s shop.’
‘Some of the other colleges have them,’ Arthur told him.
‘Some of the other colleges may have them. Doesn’t mean we’ve got to. It isn’t right. Encourages immorality, French letters do. You’d have thought they’d have learnt that from what happened to that Zipser bloke. Preyed on his mind, all those FLs did.’
Arthur shook his head sorrowfully. ‘’Tisn’t right,’ he said, ‘’tisn’t right, Mr Skullion. I don’t know what the College is coming to. Senior Tutor is particularly upset. He says it will affect the rowing.’
Standing on the towpath Skullion agreed with the Senior Tutor. ‘All this business about sex,’ he muttered. ‘It doesn’t do anybody any good. It isn’t right.’
When the Porterhouse VIII rowed past Skullion raised a feeble cheer and then stumped off after them. Around him bicycles churned the muddy puddles as they overtook him but, like the Dean the day before, Skullion was lost in thought and bitterness.
His anger, unlike the Dean’s, was tainted with a sense of betrayal. The College whose servant he was and his ancestors before him had let him down. They had no right to let Sir Godber sell Rhyder Street. They should have stopped him. That was their duty to him, just as his duty to the College had been for forty-five years to sit in the Porter’s Lodge all day and half the night for a miserable pittance a week, the guardian of privilege and of the indiscretions of the privileged young. How many drunken young gentlemen had Skullion helped to their rooms? How many secrets had he kept? How many insults had he suffered in his time? He could not begin to recall them but in the back of his mind the debits had balanced the credits and he had been secure in the knowledge that the College would always look after him now and in his old age. He had been proud of his servility, the Porter of Porterhouse, but what if the College’s reputation was debased? What would he be then? A homeless old man with his memories. He wasn’t having it. They’d got to see him right. It was their duty.
12
In the library at Coft Castle, the Dean put the same point to Sir Cathcart.
‘It’s our duty to see these damnable innovations are stopped,’ he said. ‘The man seems intent on changing the entire character of the College. For years, damn it for centuries, we’ve been famous for our kitchens and now he’s proposing a self-service canteen and a contraceptive dispenser.’
‘A what?’ Sir Cathcart gasped.
‘A contraceptive dispenser.’
‘Good God, the man’s insane!’ shouted Sir Cathcart. ‘Can’t have one of those damned things in College. When I was an undergraduate you got sent down if you were caught riveting a dolly!’
‘Quite,’ said the Dean, who had a shrewd suspicion that in his time the General had been a steam-hammer if the imagery of his language was anything to go by. ‘What you don’t seem to appreciate, Cathcart,’ he continued, before the General could indulge in any further mechanical memories, ‘is that the Master is undermining something very fundamental. I’m not thinking simply of the College now. The implications are rather wider than that. Do you take my meaning?’
Sir Cathcart shook his head. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said bluntly.
‘This country,’ said the Dean with a new intensity, ‘has been run for the past three hundred years by an oligarchy.’ He paused to see if the General understood the word.
‘Quite right, old boy,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Always has been, always will be. No use denying it. Good thing.’
‘An elite of gentlemen, Cathcart,’ continued the Dean. ‘Now don’t mistake me, I’m not suggesting they started off as gentlemen. They didn’t, half of them, they came from all walks of life. Take Peel, for instance, grandson of a mill hand, ended up a gentleman, though, and a damned fine Prime Minister. Why?’
‘Can’t think,’ said Sir Cathcart.
‘Because he had a proper education.’
‘Ah. Went to Porterhouse, eh?’
‘No,’ said the Dean. ‘He was an Oxford man.’
‘Good God. And still a gentleman? Extraordinary.’
‘The point I’m trying to make, Cathcart,’ said the Dean solemnly, ‘is that the two Universities have been the forcing-house of an intellectual aristocracy with tastes and values that had nothing whatever to do with their own personal backgrounds. How many of our Prime Ministers over the last hundred and seventy years have been to Oxford or Cambridge?’
‘Good Lord, don’t ask me,’ said the General. ‘Got no idea.’
‘Most of them,’ said the Dean.
‘Quite right too,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Can’t have any Tom, Dick or Harry running the affairs of state.’
‘That is precisely the point I have been trying to make,’ said the Dean. ‘The business of the older Universities is to take Toms and Dicks and Harrys and turn them into gentlemen. We have been doing that very successfully for the past five hundred years.’
‘Mind you,’ said Sir Cathcart doubtfully, ‘I knew some bounders in my time.’
‘I daresay you did,’ said the Dean.
‘Used to duck ’em in the Fountain. Did them no end of good,’ Sir Cathcart reminisced cheerfully.
‘What Sir Godber proposes,’ the Dean continued, ‘means the end of all that. In the name of so-called social justice the man intends to turn Porterhouse into a run-of-the-mill college like Selwyn or Fitzwilliam.’
Sir Cathcart snorted.
‘Take more than Godber Evans to do that,’ he said. ‘Selwyn! Full of religious maniacs in my time, and Fitzwilliam wasn’t a college at all. A sort of hostel for townies.’
‘And what do you think Porterhouse will be with a self-service canteen instead of Hall and a contraceptive dispenser in every lavatory? There won’t be a decent family prepared to pay a penny towards the Endowment Fund, and you know what that means.’
‘Oh come now, can’t be as bad as that,’ said Sir Cathcart, ‘I mean to say we’ve survived worse crises in the past. There was the business over the Bursar … what was his name?’
‘Fitzherbert.’
‘Enough to ruin another college, that was.’
‘Enough to ruin us,’ said the Dean. ‘If it hadn’t been for him we wouldn’t be de
pendent on wealthy parents now.’
‘But we got over it all the same,’ Sir Cathcart insisted, ‘and we’ll get over this present nonsense. Just fashion, all this equality. Here today, gone tomorrow. Have a drink.’ He got up and went over to the Waverley Novels. ‘Scotch?’ The Dean regarded the set in some bewilderment.
‘Scott?’ he asked. He had never regarded Sir Cathcart as a man with even remotely literary tastes and this sudden change in the conversation seemed unduly inconsequential.
‘Or sherry? If you prefer,’ said Sir Cathcart, indicating a handsomely bound copy of Lavengro. The Dean shook his head irritably. There was something extraordinarily vulgar about Sir Cathcart’s travesty of a library.
‘Romany Rye perhaps?’ The Dean shook his head. ‘Nothing, thank you,’ he said. Sir Cathcart helped himself to Rob Roy and sat down.
‘Proust,’ he said, raising his glass. The Dean stared at him angrily. Sir Cathcart’s flippancy was beginning to get on his nerves. He hadn’t come out to Coft Castle to be regaled with the liquid contents of the library.
‘Cathcart,’ he said firmly, ‘we have got to do something to stop the rot.’
The General nodded. ‘Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.’
‘It needs more than agreement to stop Sir Godber,’ continued the Dean. ‘It needs action. Public pressure. That sort of thing.’
‘Difficult to get any public sympathy when you’ve got undergraduates running round blowing up buildings. Extraordinary thing to do really. Fill all those contraceptives with gas. Practical joke I suppose. Went wrong.’
‘Very wrong,’ said the Dean, who didn’t want to get sidetracked.
‘Mind you,’ said Sir Cathcart, ‘I can remember getting up to some pretty peculiar pranks. When I first went in the army, great thing was to fill a French letter with water and stick it down someone’s bed when he was out. Top bunk, you follow. Comes back. Gets into bed. Puts his toe through the thing. Fellow below gets drenched.’
‘Very amusing,’ said the Dean grimly.
‘That’s only the beginning,’ said the General. ‘Fellow below thinks fellow on top has wet his bed. Gets up and clobbers him. Damned funny. Two fellows fighting like that.’ He finished his whisky and got up to replenish his glass. ‘Sure you won’t change your mind,’ he asked.
The Dean studied the shelves pensively. He was beginning to feel the need for some sort of restorative.
‘A pink gin,’ he said finally, with a malicious gleam in his eye.
‘Zola,’ said the General promptly and reached up for a copy of Nana. The Dean tried to collect his thoughts. Sir Cathcart’s flippancy had begun to erode his fervour. He sipped his gin in silence while the General lit a cheroot.
‘Trouble with you academic wallahs,’ said Sir Cathcart finally, evidently sensing the Dean’s confusion, ‘is you take things too seriously.’
‘This is a serious matter,’ said the Dean.
‘Didn’t say it wasn’t,’ Sir Cathcart told him. ‘What I said was you take it seriously. Bad mistake. Ever hear the joke Goering told his psychiatrist in the prison at Nuremberg?’
The Dean shook his head.
‘About different nationalities. Very revealing,’ Sir Cathcart went on. ‘Take one German and what have you got?’
‘And what have you got?’
‘A good worker. Take two Germans and you’ve got a Bund. Three Germans and you’ve a war.’
The Dean smiled obediently. ‘Very amusing,’ he said, ‘but I really don’t see what this has to do with the College.’
‘Haven’t finished yet. Take one Italian and you’ve a tenor. Two Italians a retreat. Three Italians an unconditional surrender. Take one Englishman and you’ve an idiot. Two Englishmen a club and three Englishmen an Empire.’
‘Very funny,’ said the Dean, ‘but a little out of date, don’t you think? We seem to have mislaid the Empire en route.’
‘Forgot to be idiots,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Great mistake. Did bloody well when we were chinless wonders. Done bloody badly since. The Sir Godbers of this world have upset the applecart. Look serious and are fools. Different in the old days. Looked fools and were serious. Confused the foreigners. Ribbentrop came over to London. Heil Hitlered the King. Went back to Germany convinced we were decadent. Got a thrashing for his pains in ’40. Hanged for that slip-up. Should have looked a bit closer. Mind you, it wouldn’t have helped him. Went on appearances.’ Sir Cathcart chuckled to himself and eyed the Dean.
‘You may be right at that,’ said the Dean grudgingly. ‘And certainly the Master is a fool.’
‘Clever fellows often are,’ Sir Cathcart said. ‘Got one-track minds. Have to have, I suppose, to do so well. Great handicap, though. In life I mean. Get so carried away with what’s going on inside their own silly heads they can’t cope with what’s going on outside. Don’t know about life. Don’t know about people. Got no nose for it.’
The Dean sipped his gin and tried to follow the train of Sir Cathcart’s thoughts. A new mellowness had begun to steal over him and he had the feeling, it was no more than a mere glimmer, that somewhere in the General’s rambling and staccato utterances there was a thread that was leading slowly to an idea. Something about the General’s manner as he helped himself to a third whisky and the Dean to a second gin and bitters suggested it. Something like a sparkle of cunning in the bloodshot eyes and a twitch of his veined snout and the bristles of his ginger whiskers which reminded the Dean of an old animal, scarred but undefeated. The Dean began to suspect that he had underestimated Sir Cathcart D’Eath. He accepted one of the General’s cheroots and puffed it slowly.
‘As I was saying,’ Sir Cathcart continued, settling once more into his chair, ‘we’ve forgotten the natural advantages of idiocy. Puts the other fellow off you see. Can’t take you seriously. Good thing. Then when he’s off guard you give it to him in the goolies. Never fails. Out like a light. Want to do the same with this Godber fellow.’
‘I really hadn’t visualized going to quite such lengths,’ said the Dean doubtfully.
‘Shouldn’t think he’s got any,’ said the General. ‘Wife certainly doesn’t look up to much. Scrawny sort of woman. Bad complexion. Not fond of boys, is he?’
The Dean shuddered. ‘That at least we’ve been spared,’ he said.
‘Pity,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Useful bait, boys.’
‘Bait?’ asked the Dean.
‘Bait the trap.’
‘Trap?’
‘Got to have a trap. Weak spot. Bound to have one. What?’ said the General. ‘Bleating of the sheep excites the tiger. Stalky. Great book.’ He got up from his chair and crossed to the window and stared out into the darkness while the Dean, who had been trying to keep up with his train of thought, wondered if he should tell Sir Cathcart that Lavengro had nothing to do with Spain. On the whole he thought not. Sir Cathcart was too set in his ways.
‘I forgot to mention it earlier,’ he said at last, ‘but the Master also intends to put Rhyder Street up for sale.’
Sir Cathcart, who had become immersed in his own reflection in the window, turned and stood glowering down at him. ‘Rhyder Street?’
‘He wants to use the money for the restoration of the Tower,’ the Dean explained. ‘It’s old College property and rather run down. The College servants live there.’
The General sat down and fiddled with his moustache. ‘Skullion live there?’ he asked. The Dean nodded. ‘Skullion, the Chef, the under-porter, the gardener, people like that.’
‘Can’t have that. Got to stable them somewhere,’ said the General. He helped himself to a fourth whisky. ‘Can’t turn them out into the street. Old retainers. Wouldn’t look good,’ and his eyes which a moment before had been dark suddenly glittered. ‘Not a bad idea either.’
‘I must say, Cathcart,’ said the Dean, ‘I do wish you would not jump about so. What do you mean? “Wouldn’t look good” and “Not a bad idea either”. The two statements don’t go together.’
‘Looks bad for Sir Godber,’ said the General. ‘Bad publicity for a Socialist. Headlines. See them now. Wouldn’t dare. Got him.’
Slowly and dimly, through the shrapnel of Sir Cathcart’s utterances, the Dean perceived the drift of his thought.
‘Ah,’ he said.
The General winked a dreadful eye. ‘Something there, eh?’ he asked.
The Dean leant forward eagerly. ‘Have you ever heard of a fellow called Carrington? Cornelius Carrington? Conservationist. TV personality.’
He was aware that the inflection of the General’s staccato had finally taken hold of him but the thought was lost in the excitement of the moment. Sir Cathcart’s eyes were gleaming brightly now and his nostrils were flared like those of a bronze warhorse.
‘Just the fellow. An OP. Up his street. Couldn’t do better. Nasty piece of work.’
‘Right,’ said the Dean. ‘Can you arrange it?’
‘Invite him up. Delighted to come. Snob. Give him the scent and off he’ll go.’
The Dean finished his gin with a contented smile.
‘It’s just the sort of situation he likes,’ he said, ‘and although I deplore the thought of any more publicity – that wretched fellow Zipser gave us a lot of trouble in that direction you know – I rather fancy friend Carrington will give Sir Godber cause for thought. You definitely think he’ll come?’
‘Jump at the opportunity. I’ll see to that. Same club. Can’t think why. Should have been blackballed,’ said the General. ‘Fix it tomorrow.’