The Principals

by Bill James

  In Quantum Hall, Rowena Chote had slumped slightly to the left, her head resting on the shoulder of the university Developments Director, one of the Principal’s inner, inner team. The Developments Director didn’t seem to mind providing this cushion but, because he knew the Principal so well – his bursts of crazed temper and unforgiving, serial hates – he would find nudging or forcibly jostling her too much. In any case, she had quietened again now. The refusal to act by those sitting near to his wife had probably angered Chote. He’d regard them as craven jerks. It wouldn’t please Lawford to realize they must be afraid of him. He’d believe good leadership should enthuse and, yes, inspire, subordinates, not scare them, paralyse them.

  Moss continued his address and for a while at the lectern was looking down and reading from his crib sheets. When he raised his head again and glanced towards Mrs Chote and the D.D. to check the current state of things, he felt amazed to see she had opened her eyes, righted herself on the chair, and was staring with vast animation and interest towards Moss. She muttered something and smiled; he experienced a kind of triumphalism. He had broken her deep doze, harvested her attention. How, though, for God’s sake?

  He had been reading to the audience more or less robotically from the script while his mind went off to calculate what his new salary would justify as a bank loan to buy the Florida property. Now, though, he paused and did a super speed-read of the preceding chunk or two of his notes. He’d been talking about Lady Chatterley’s Lover, her husband, bodily ruined, and her search for, and discovery of, sexual fulfilment with the gamekeeper; ‘not invariably via the dedicated route,’ he’d added. And now he thought he could interpret the words she’d muttered a moment ago: ‘not invariably via the dedicated route,’ she’d repeated. The happy smile had followed. Moss’s lecture went well after that.

  The staff dining room and bar on the second floor were reached by a wide, curving, azure-blue carpeted staircase. This had been installed lately on the Principal’s orders at big expense and despite protests in the senate about extravagance. Dr Chote had declared he wanted a university staircase fit to figure in the kind of university he was making this university into. Impressive staircases gave extra character to their surrounds. The more modest, workaday stairway that had been part of the original building was torn out, broken up and the bits dumped. Moss knew that the Principal considered this as brilliant symbolism: Sedge was on the way up and now had a staircase apt for this ascent. The Principal had also commissioned a revamp of the dining room and bar themselves. They were panelled now in oak and the tables and chairs were also oak. He had said that royalty would most likely visit Sedge in the future to witness directly its outstanding advance, so the décor and fittings should be in keeping.

  Dr Chote bought the Developments Director and Martin aperitifs. The Principal, like his wife just now, was smiling. Quite often a smile from Chote could be taken as a genuine, temporary guarantee of friendship and safety. ‘Martin,’ he said, ‘Roy and I were wowed, delighted, at the way you dealt with that situation in Quantum.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Roy Gormand, the Developments Director said. ‘Wowed. Delighted.’

  ‘Decisive, tactful, delicate,’ Chote said.

  ‘Certainly,’ Gormand said. ‘Decisive.’

  THREE

  1987

  ‘Look here, Martin, I’m always on the alert for people who will bring inventiveness, subtlety, clarity to what I call my “action group” – Roy, of course, and a few others whom I can trust to see matters as they should be seen, and who will work with me to bring added initiative, merit and distinction to Sedge.’ Chote knew he did need people of that kidney, yet their yes-man qualities sometimes bored and irritated him. Sometimes, like tonight, for instance, sometimes did more than bore and irritate him: sickened him. Roy would at least not betray him, desert him, in any battle, though. And there would be battles.

  But the kind of help he and others could offer was not very much because (a) they would approve anything as long as it came from him. And (b) people knew the cronies would approve anything as long as it came from him and therefore gave no weight and, or credence, to what came from them. Someone like this young – youngish – Moss would be different. Moss had vision and the striking ability to explain that vision to others. Moss saw that Cliff Chatterley had been treated very poorly by D.H. Lawrence. Roy Gormand would not be capable of such insight. Moss was someone who could phrase a delicate comment about Connie’s and Mellors’ shenanigans that could wake up and interest Rowena even when she was comatosed and three-quarters pissed. Martin Moss might be of clear-sighted, sensitive use to him.

  Clearly Moss was someone with high skills as a communicator. Lawford considered this could be valuable in presenting very soon his case for the proud advancement of Sedge, despite that fucking obstructiveness of Thatcher and her cabinet. Chote felt very glad now that he had not followed an earlier impulse to wipe out the tradition of the new-prof lecture, although he rated some – most – of the twerps who qualified as pompous farts, and very obviously pompous farts when they performed. Not Marty Moss, however.

  ‘Perhaps it’s a fault of mine that I haven’t given proper heed to your qualities before, Mart,’ he told Moss. ‘Tonight corrects that. Thank heaven, I say, for Lady Chatterley’s acquired taste for rumpy pumpy. Yes, rumpy. We’re going to undertake some very testing manoeuvres shortly, I think, Martin, and I believe Roy will agree.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ the Developments Director said.

  ‘I know I can count on you for support and help, Martin.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Gomand said. ‘I’m sure.’

  Lawford thought he’d take Martin Moss out to see Charter Mill. This would be creative principalship. Chote disliked imprecise, woolly talk about his aims for Sedge. If Moss saw the Charter Mill buildings, the old watermill itself, and the playing fields it would give a tangible, touchable form to the general noise about expansion of Sedge. Most of it could be seen from the road: no need to get out of the car. Lawford wouldn’t want to be caught spying: some people at Charter would recognize him, including Tane. Awkward speculation about his visit might start. Charter was a couple of miles away from Sedge, but many universities had bits of their campus scattered around a city.

  Of course, Marty Moss might already be familiar with the Charter Mill spread. He had lived in the city for almost a decade, first as a lecturer, then senior lecturer, then professor. But Moss would not have looked at Charter with the sort of purpose Chote wanted now: looked at, to be forthright, looked at it as prey; as a potential prize. He wanted Marty to understand – would help him to understand – that, certainly, Charter was fine in its own limited way, but that it would be much safer, more comfortable, more distinguished, if – when – absorbed by Sedge.

  Chote would admit that Charter Mill had charm, despite the plainness of the modern architecture – if it could be called architecture – but, surely, Charter could not exist independently and alone in the present tough economic circumstances. Charter needed Sedge and it would be only an act of generosity and realism to offer Victor Tane a rescue deal and a lift up to the kind of status implicit in Sedge, natural to Sedge, inherited by Sedge. He thought Moss would see things in this fashion – again, intended to help him see things in this fashion – and Chote would be quite interested in Martin’s positive response.

  At the post inaugural dinner, Rowena Chote had been to tidy up and joined them now in the bar. ‘Wonderful, Martin!’ she said. ‘That D.H. – so smart and comprehensive about sex, isn’t he? No wonder Frieda ran off with him, dumping an academic, as it happens, but don’t let this bother you, Marty. I love the story of Frieda on horseback calling out that it’s so thrilling to have something splendidly powerful between her legs. And Lawrence tells her to stop it, she’s been reading too many of his books! And then there’s D.H.’s The Virgin And The Gypsy where Joe Boswell, the sexy traveller, remembers to tell the maidenly Yvette his name after he’s been to bed with her, trying to w
arm her up, both naked, after a flood. Such finesse! Yes, do get me a drink, would you, please Lawford?’

  FOUR

  1987

  Chote moved off to the bar to fetch his wife’s bevy. Watching him, she found herself doing what she often found herself doing lately: she’d try to work out what someone like Marty Moss really made of Lawford and the Lawford regime. Of course, Moss would have to respond in agreeable style to Lawford’s friendliness: he was the principal, had a lot of clout and knew how to use it, pro or con. Also, he could shout louder than most. He’d had plenty of practice.

  She suspected that there were those in Sedge who considered he had grabbed and continued to grab too much influence. They saw him as an autocrat, and non-collegiate. Perhaps he was, a little. Autocrats could keep going, though. As long as they came up with improvements, gains, success; that blue carpet on the new, broad staircase did look fine.

  However, universities were inclined to regard themselves as deeply democratic, their policies decided by committees and votes after civilised, thorough discussion: checks and balances. Lawford lacked affection for committees and votes, and especially for checks and balances. ‘Stick them,’ he’d bellow. ‘Did Julius Caesar have to worry about fucking checks and balances?’

  Moss, she reckoned, would be thirty-six or -seven. She thought the views of younger staff like Mart about Lawford’s style of leadership could be important. Although Lawford might – did – see himself as the future, the actual Sedge future, the calendared days, weeks, months, years and decades, lay with Moss and his contemporaries. The Roy Gormands, nearing retirement, would go along with Lawford at least partly because they wanted a quiet, unstressful rundown of their careers. Why invite aggro so late in the day, so late in their day? This might not be the attitude of the Martys.

  She regretted now having gin-kipped and probably snored an unmusical bar or two while he did his obligatory, functional spiel. It would be bad if he turned cold and hostile. She felt she ought to demonstrate fast that she’d heard more of his stuff than might be apparent. The shut-eye period could have indicated concentration, an escape from distractions, couldn’t it? OK, the snoring, if there had been snoring, knocked this interpretation into the ditch, but it wasn’t certain that she’d snored and, if she had … if she had she had, no getting around that now.

  She tried to recall earlier passages of his lecture, before the jolly section that had roused her, because from then on she’d stayed alert and radiantly wakeful in case he had more of the same on offer. She dredged her brain. Was something said about a hilarious absurdity in the trial? Oh, yes, yes, she could just about remember this.

  She turned to him. ‘Mart, you mentioned that idiot prosecution lawyer who asked the jury in super dudgeon whether they would allow their servants to read this book. How many jury members would have servants? What was the lawyer afraid of – that one of the housemaids would get hotted-up by envy of Connie’s sportif shags and jump the homeowner in the scullery?’

  ‘Order,’ Moss said. ‘They were scared publication would be a step towards destruction of social order. It was published first in Florence and everyone knew how riotously sexual people around the Mediterranean were. Britain must not accept such a dodgy, subversive import. That was the prosecution’s line.’

  A middle-aged, dumpy, wheezy-voiced man with a mop of grey hair and a crimson bow tie on a black shirt joined them. He carried a glass of what looked to Rowena like apple juice. ‘Greetings, Al,’ Rowena said. Alan Norton-Hord was editor of the local morning paper, a graduate of Sedge, and chair of the Former Students’ Society. He’d occasionally turn up at a public performance like Mart’s inaugural. ‘We were just discussing order,’ Rowena said.

  ‘There can come times when order will mean repression, wouldn’t you say so, Al?’ Chote asked. He’d returned with her drink.

  ‘The world has to be run,’ Norton-Hord replied.

  ‘Roy, what’s your view?’ Chote said.

  ‘Oh absolutely,’ Gorman said.

  ‘Martin?’ the principal said.

  ‘An American poet speaks of the “rage for order”,’ Martin said.

  ‘Wallace Stevens,’ Rowena said.

  ‘A possible evil,’ Chote replied. ‘It can be used to suppress and make us downtrodden, subservient. We must resist, mustn’t we, Roy?’

  ‘Unquestionably,’ Gorman said.

  This was Lawford’s gospel. Rowena watched Mart’s face but she couldn’t read much reaction there. She thought that if Lawford prevailed, the blue stair carpet would be trodden on, but not by people who were downtrodden.

  ‘Talking of resistance, how are things between you and the Universities Finance Centre, Lawford?’ Norton-Hord asked.

  Rowena switched her attention from Moss to him. His paper was one of a string run by the Roudhouse Gate company, including two national dailies. Now and then rumours, tips, facts possibly drifted down from London to Al Norton-Hord. Rowena wondered whether he’d decided to come tonight with Mart’s lecture as a pretext; but in fact looking for a chance to get an unofficial chat with Lawford. A literature prof’s prescribed palaver wouldn’t rate as news.

  ‘The U.F.C. and us?’ Chote said. ‘All serene as far as I know.’

  ‘No … no signals?’ Norton-Hord said. ‘Intimations?’

  ‘Signals as to what?’ Chote asked. ‘Do you know of any signals, Roy?’

  ‘Signals?’ Gorman said. ‘Not that have come my way, I can assure you.’

  ‘Apropos the cuts, the Thatcher cuts policy,’ Al said.

  ‘We don’t engage in that policy,’ Chote replied.

  ‘This is what I mean,’ Norton-Hord said.

  ‘What do you mean, Al?’ Chote said.

  Rowena thought his voice might be on the rise.

  ‘We have a university to run,’ Chote said. ‘We have bright new professors to appoint, haven’t we, Mart?’

  ‘You’re kind,’ Moss replied.

  ‘Some irritation at the U.F.C.?’ Norton-Hord said. ‘I gather they’ve already had to deal with a similar situation in Wales – one of the Cardiff principals there being very resistant and bolshy.’

  ‘What happens in Wales is hardly relevant to Sedge,’ Chote said.

  ‘Hardly, indeed,’ Gorman said.

  ‘Irritation at a seeming failure to comply,’ Norton-Hord said.

  ‘Comply with what?’ Chote asked.

  ‘Economising. Cutbacks,’ Al said.

  Lawford stuck his head forward over his glass of ale. He seemed to have decided against shouts, but did a snarl instead. He looked as though he was about to tear off Norton-Hord’s bow tie. ‘I’m not in the complying vein,’ he said. ‘Universities do not reach excellence by compliance, by kow-towing to political instructions. Some instructions, some orders are, as I’ve said, retrograde, defeatist, evil. Torch them.’

  ‘We’re being instructed, ordered, to go into dinner, I think,’ Rowena said.

  FIVE

  2014

  The emblematic blue carpet on the stairs to the staff bar and dining room was well over twenty-five years old now. In one or two spots the colour had faded a little and here and there were small, faint traces of intractable staining where someone might have brought in oil on her or his shoes from the car park. But overall it still did what Lawford Chote had required it to do in his spend and spend-again epoch: chime with the qualities of the high-grade university that he had sought to create from the Sedge of his days. The university had, in fact, moved up a fair way towards this glittering status, though not everyone would credit Chote and the hotel-standard carpet for providing lift-off. True, the number tending to think reasonably well of Chote had begun to rise, but it was from a very low start. Sedge had not yet produced a Nobel prize winner to scale the Chote stairway en route to a celebratory bucket of Taittinger. Perhaps very soon, though.

  But Lawford Chote wouldn’t hear about it. He died within a year of his readily assisted departure from the principalship. The arguments about
his influence, worth, strategy continued. Martin Moss, chairman of the recently formed Commemorative Statues Committee had to find a way around these prejudices, doctrinal loyalties and antagonisms and produce a suitably agreed commission for the two sculptures, which could be presented to the senate and then, ultimately, to the high board for ratification.

  A couple of times he had dreamt of Chote in full, scarlet trimmed PhD garb, but worn with heavy mountaineering boots, standing halfway up the blue-carpeted staircase, eyes challenging, dauntless, ablaze, and pointing with stretched out, stiff arm to somewhere even further up. Moss had the notion that this somewhere wasn’t merely the staff eatery. In fact, on Chote’s back, over the PhD costume, was strapped a cheap looking canvas knapsack which might well contain sandwiches and other refreshments for a journey, making the dining room redundant. No, Chote’s commanding gesture in the dream urged staff towards brilliant, soaring, stratospheric Sedge achievement, perhaps that longed-for Nobel; or, taking into account Chote’s ferocious ambitions for Sedge, the second or third Nobel, plus half a dozen memberships of the Royal Society.

  Chote had been a decorated bomber pilot during the Second World War, and perhaps he had brought to Sedge something of the Royal Air Force motto, ‘Per Ardua Ad Astra’, meaning: ‘By hard work we’ll reach the stars.’ Also, Moss recalled reading that when a member of the Black Panther racial equality agitators in the United States was asked by a would-be placator, ‘Well, what do you want?’ he had answered, ‘Everything.’ Lawford Chote had wanted everything for Sedge. Post mortem some of it had been secured.