The Campus Trilogy

by AnonYMous

  Reg looked sulky, but his wife, for all her meek appearance, was determined. ‘Come on Reg, it’ll do you good. You need to have more contact with young people. You’re becoming much too stuffy. You can do your magic tricks …’ I had never associated my difficult colleague with conjuring abilities, but it cast an interesting light on his character.

  The cathedral Evensong was wonderful. The choir sang exquisitely and the hymns, canticles, prayers and lessons went without a hitch. I congratulated the Precentor afterwards and he blushed with pleasure. ‘I’m glad you liked it, Provost. It has all gone well this year.’

  Then it was time for the choirboys’ party. We played games; we sang songs; under the supervision of Mr and Mrs Thomas we all ate a colossal tea. Then I felt it was time for a little break so I asked everyone to sit down. When there was a degree of quiet, I let them all into a big secret. They must not tell anyone, but Canon Blenkensop had a hidden talent. In his spare time he was a magician. I was a little afraid that my introduction would raise too many expectations, but I was wrong. My colleague’s magic tricks were superb. I could not imagine how he did them. The boys gasped and giggled and applauded. It was splendid.

  Then it was time for parcels from the tree. During the conjuring performance, Evan Thomas had climbed into a Father Christmas suit. Every choirboy was awarded his own individual present with an accompanying Welsh injunction, (‘And it’s a good boy, you’ve been this year I hope!’) All the gifts had been carefully chosen by the Precentor and the floor of the drawing room was soon awash with discarded paper and string.

  After that it was time for a second tea and the boys did not hold back. I could not imagine where they put all the food they ate. When they really could not swallow another mouthful, we let them loose in a wild game of hide-and-seek all over the house. By this stage the adults had given up. We all sat down among the debris in the drawing room and we silently wrapped ourselves round large glasses of sherry. I can never remember being so exhausted.

  But the Precentor was tireless. We saw a different side to his nature. With the cathedral Chapter he was shy and awkward, but with his choirboys he was as loud and boisterous as any of them. At half-past-seven he gathered them all together. Under his guidance, we had three cheers for the Provost and Mrs Gilbert, three cheers for Canon and Mrs Blenkensop, three cheers for Mr and Mrs Thomas, three cheers for absent friends and, finally, three cheers for St Sebastian’s Cathedral and its incomparable choir. Then at last it was time for them all to go home.

  When we finally closed the door on the last of them, I said to Victoria, ‘That was terrific! And you know, Blenkensop was quite human today.’

  ‘Ah,’ replied Victoria, ‘that’s because Marmaduke is incapacitated. I think that cat is a very bad influence.’

  The next day we felt a little jaded. Mercifully little went on in the cathedral in the period between Christmas and New Year and Victoria and I had resolved to relax. We were having a late breakfast in the kitchen when the cats suddenly sat bolt upright. Then we heard a letter being pushed through the front door. There are no posts on Boxing Day so we knew that it must have been delivered by hand. Sure enough a white envelope with the address written in green ink was lying on the doormat.

  ‘It must be a late Christmas card,’ Victoria surmised. ‘No one could have written a thank-you letter this early …’

  Unfortunately it was not a graceful note of gratitude; rather it was an irate complaint. Written in a florid hand, it read:

  Dear Provost,

  I am sorry to disturb you the day after Christmas, but I felt I must express my disquiet about yesterday’s party. Our son, Rupert, is a pupil at St Sebastian’s Choir School. When we fetched him from the precincts late last night, he told us that you display an obscene statue in your downstairs cloak-room. Rupert described it to us, and we are shocked and appalled that someone in a senior position in the Church of England could possess such a thing.

  As the Provost of our cathedral, you are the spiritual and moral leader of our community. We simply cannot understand how you could allow impressionable boys to be exposed to such an object or indeed take pleasure in it yourself.

  You also should be aware that Rupert came home grossly over-excited after the party. He was sick in the night and I had to stay up with him.

  I am sending a copy of this letter to the Archbishop of Cannonbury. I am sure he will take it up as a serious breach of church discipline,

  Yours sincerely

  (Mrs) Gillian Holmes

  Victoria began to laugh. ‘Greedy little toad!’ she said. ‘What it comes down to is young Rupert ate too much. Don’t worry about the statue. Magnus is an expert on the ancient world and if his pre-Minoan image isn’t art, it’s at least serious anthropology. Doesn’t this woman ever go to museums or art galleries?’

  ‘Perhaps the loo was a bad place to leave it …’

  ‘Well I don’t know where else it could go. I really don’t want it in our bedroom and anyway the boys were all over there too when they were playing hide-and-seek… Anyway I don’t think we should give in to this kind of Philistine bigotry.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should get rid of it?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘No I do not! It was very generous of Magnus to give it to us and there’s nothing obscene about it.’

  I looked doubtful, ‘Perhaps it should be in a less visited position?’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh all right.’ my wife conceded. ‘For the time being, I’ll put it in the cupboard in the scullery, but it’s not going to stay there for ever… Anyway, what are you going to do about that ridiculous letter?’

  ‘I’ll ring Percival Samuel,’ I said. ‘As Precentor, he must deal with these kind of communications once in a while.’

  Percival answered the phone on the first ring. I told him the story and he sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘The school has a complaining letter from that particular mother at least once a fortnight. Nothing is ever right. If it’s not the music, it’s the teaching and if it’s not the teaching it’s the food. If she would only leave him alone, Rupert could be a very nice boy. And considering he has a full scholarship and he is getting a completely free education, you would have thought that the parents might show a bit of gratitude. But no! Something is always wrong. I’m sorry she’s turned her attention to you, Provost. My impression is everyone had a splendid time last night. I certainly did and I was going to telephone you later this morning to thank you.’

  ‘That makes me feel better,’ I said. ‘It’s good of you to say so. I really do not want to corrupt the morals of your nice boys …’

  The Precentor laughed. ‘With a seriously old fertility statue? I don’t think so. If you only knew what sites they look up on the internet, then you’d have cause for concern.’

  ‘But don’t you block all the pornography on your computers?’ I asked.

  ‘We do in school, of course,’ Percival reassured me. ‘But what they get up to at home is another matter.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘what am I to do with this letter? What should I say to the anxious Mrs Holmes?’

  ‘Tell her the truth.’ The Precentor was very downright. ‘Say that the statue is of an ancient fertility goddess. Point out that the Choir School is intending to take Rupert’s class on a visit to the British Museum next term and he is likely to see several similar examples there. If she really wants to protect him from this sort of thing, then she must let the School Secretary know as soon as possible that Rupert should not be included in the expedition. Then, if you feel very energetic, you might download pictures of similar statues from various world-famous museums. That will stop her in her tracks. Then say you’re sorry that Rupert was sick, but that it is a valuable lesson in life to learn when you have had enough.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘You sound very experienced about this sort of thing. Do you often receive these kinds of letters?’

  The Precentor sighed. ‘I would say about three in an average week.
However little education she herself may have had, the modern parent believes that she knows best. Most of my mothers seem to spend all their time on the telephone comparing notes with one another and insisting that their little paragon of boyhood has been hard done by.’

  I laughed. ‘I don’t envy you your job,’ I said.

  Despite his triumph at the Choirboys’ Treat, there had been no thaw in my relationship with Reg Blenkensop. He continued to look straight through me and ignore whatever I said. Marmaduke was fully restored to health by the end of Boxing Day and there was no improvement in his behaviour either.

  One lunchtime, just before the New Year, I was waylaid by one of the cathedral ladies. She formed part of the regular volunteer cleaning corps, whom Victoria persisted in referring to in private as the ‘Holy Dusters’. In fact they did an excellent job and it would have cost the Chapter a lot of money if they had to be replaced with professional cleaners.

  She was in a state of considerable distress and was clutching one of the cathedral needlepoint kneelers. It was in a dreadful condition. It was smeared with blood; it had been heavily clawed so many of the threads were hanging loose and much of its stuffing was falling out.

  ‘I found this when I was polishing in the nave,’ she said. ‘There was a half-eaten blackbird beside it.’ She wiped her nose with her handkerchief. ‘I’d have felt bad whichever kneeler it was, but as it happened I embroidered this particular one in memory of my dear mother when she died eight years ago. It took me six months.’

  There was nothing I could say. I commiserated with her and promised that if she could mend it, the cathedral would of course pay the cost of the materials. She was not to be consoled. When we parted she was still lamenting and vowing vengeance on (I quote) ‘that nightmare of a cat’.

  On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, Magnus rang up to wish us a Happy New Year. We had not seen him over the holidays since he and Pushkin had been spending Christmas with his Aunt Ursula. She was a lady of immense age who had brought Magnus up and who continued to live independently in Norfolk. Victoria invited him round for a drink.

  He was in fine form though he was not pleased to hear of the complaint about his statue. ‘Silly cow!’ he said of Mrs Holmes. ‘I expect she has no idea what young Rupert gets up to when he’s alone in his bedroom with his computer.’

  ‘That’s exactly what the Precentor said,’ I remarked.

  ‘Well he would know. Believe me, the young all have a detailed knowlege of every possible sexual perversion from bestiality to paedophilia and beyond. If my students spent a quarter of their time on their Hebrew grammar that they do poring over the Internet, there might be some hope for Semitic scholarship in the future …’

  Victoria disappeared into the kitchen to find some clean glasses while I finished off a letter I was writing. Meanwhile Magnus picked up a copy of The Times.

  I was startled by him saying ‘No!’ very loudly.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I inquired.

  ‘Haven’t you read the paper yet?’ he asked. ‘Look at this!’

  He handed over the page and there, in the middle, was a picture of a familiar face. Underneath was printed ‘New Baron: Professor Alf Flanagan Joins the Opposition Front Bench in the House of Lords’.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Victoria had come back into the room. ‘Let me see!’

  There was no mistake. Alf Flanagan was listed among the new barony creations in the New Year Honours. It was a political appointment. He was being rewarded for his services to higher education and he was to be the new Party Spokesman for universities and colleges.

  Victoria, as the daughter of a baronet, was familiar with the ways of the world. ‘Someone important in the Opposition is sponsoring him. You don’t get that kind of honour just for beavering away and being a thoroughly dutiful good egg.’

  Magnus and I looked at each other. ‘Lord Barridon!’ We said in unison.

  Victoria nodded. ‘I should think so. It’s a little thank-you for bailing out the druggie son and heir. And probably the nice little earner that was thrown in the direction of the glamorous Miss Olive O’Shea didn’t go amiss either.’

  I shook my head. ‘I suppose it really does work like that …’

  ‘’Fraid so, Harry,’ said Victoria cheerfully. ‘Yet again, it’s nothing to do with the greatest good for the greatest number!’ she grinned as she looked at me.

  Magnus was abstracted. ‘Of course … that explains it!’ he said.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘I need my drink,’ Magnus insisted. ‘It explains Flanagan’s behaviour. I couldn’t understand why he was so cavalier about the Quality Control Inspection. It would have reflected very badly on him if St Sebastian’s had failed. And he knows as well as anyone how incompetent both Sloths are …’

  Victoria handed over a large whisky and soda. She nodded. ‘Yes… it all makes sense. He’s known this was in the pipeline for at least a year and, of course, once he’s left, the University of St Sebastian’s will be nothing to do with him. His reputation will be completely intact.’

  ‘But he can’t go straightaway,’ I said.

  Magnus laughed. ‘You won’t see him for dust! I shouldn’t think any of us will meet Lord Flanagan ever again.’

  Later that evening, I was sitting at my desk working on my sermon for the next Sunday matins. As I typed away on my computer, a message flashed up that a new email had just arrived. I was bored with my own efforts so I looked up my new mail straightaway. It proved to be a letter from Flanagan addressed to all members of the university staff. It had been copied to me as Visitor.

  Dear Colleagues,

  You may have read in the newspapers that I have been invited to become a Life Peer and shall be taking up a seat in the House of Lords as Opposition Spokesman for Higher Education. I am of course very surprised and honoured by the summons. At the same time I am very aware that it merely reflects the success of all we have achieved at St Sebastian’s University over the past couple of years. Each and every one of us has played a part in pioneering a programme of education that can serve as the model for all institutions of higher learning in the United Kingdom and beyond. We should all be proud of what we have accomplished, and my elevation to the Lords is a symbol of the fact that St Sebastian’s is now the outstanding university of the twenty-first century.

  I am, of course, very sad that I shall be leaving you all. I have greatly enjoyed my time here as your Vice-Chancellor and I will miss the many friends I have made. I am afraid that I shall be compelled to leave St Sebastian’s almost immediately to take up my seat – certainly before the students return at the beginning of term. My sponsors insist that my advice is urgently needed and that there are some essential tasks to be undertaken within the next few weeks. This means that I will not be able to say good-bye in person to everyone, but this in no way detracts from the value I place on our relationship.

  I am also aware that the university is currently facing a major inspection by the Quality Control Agency in the next few weeks. Indeed, it is a great disappointment to me that I shall be missing it. However, I am totally confident that our plans for this visitation are at the highest state of readiness. As you may know, Mrs Jenny Sloth was recently appointed to a new post, that of Quality Control Officer. She is doing a splendid job, gathering together all the necessary documents and ensuring that all our procedures are watertight. With the institution under the overall control of our dear Registrar Sloth, I know I can leave with a clear conscience. I much look forward to reading the inspectors’ final report when it is issued. I know how glowing it will be.

  London is not far away and I want to return very often to this ancient city. I hope you will invite me back frequently. I shall, of course, be hearing the latest news from Olive O’Shea, the university’s talented hospitality director. The Barridons own a flat in Dolphin Square which lies empty while Olive labours for St Sebastian’s. They have been generous enough to lend it to me while I look around for
something more permanent. Although I shall be very busy, I shall forever be interested in the welfare of the university and its concerns will always be close to my heart.

  With all good wishes now and in the future,

  Alf Flanagan

  The next day the Vice-Chancellor’s elevation was the front page story in the St Sebastian’s Gazette. In a lengthy interview, the Vice-Chancellor described the numerous progressive innovations he had made since he had arrived at the university and he outlined the policies he would be advocating in the House of Lords. Again it was made clear that he would be leaving for London immediately.

  The Times newspaper announced Flanagan’s new title. Despite all his professed fondness for the city of St Sebastian’s, he was not going to be associated with it formally. Instead, his elevation was gazetted under the title of Baron Flanagan of Fandonegal. ‘Quite right!’ was Victoria’s comment. ‘After all, it was to the Honourable Tristram Barridon’s time at Fandonegal that he owes his promotion.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ I objected. ‘Presumably what finally pushed Lord Barridon over the edge was the generous salary St Sebastian’s University was persuaded to cough up for his wife.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Victoria. ‘Olive’s wages are simply Flanagan’s way of getting the university to pay his London rent. You should regard it as a pension for him.’

  At that moment, the telephone rang. It was Felix. ‘Harry,’ he said, ‘have you seen the email Flanagan sent out?’

  ‘I read it too. What about The Times and St Sebastian’s Gazette?’ I asked. ‘It seems that he’s leaving straightaway.’