The Principals

by Bill James

  ‘There would have to be a recognized resting place for the plinth at each campus, a concrete platform, and how depressingly voided and abandoned that would seem at whichever of the campuses were without the statues for the ordained period,’ Angela said.

  Lucy said, ‘I thought there could be an inscription cut into the concrete: “We shall return” – a slight adaptation of General Douglas MacArthur’s “I shall return” when he escaped from the Japanese in the Philippines during the Second World War. This would be a positive factor, not the reverse. That “we” captures the wonderful conjoint purpose. It is a promissory note sure to provoke anticipation of their assured reappearance in this reserved, designated spot.’

  FOURTEEN

  1987

  ‘I know you’ll forgive this … this … well, I think it must be termed subterfuge, or intrusion, at least, Martin. I can’t even say it’s well-meant. No, impossible to say that. The thing is, we don’t feel 100 per cent private, secure, back there in the buildings, as it were. You’ve probably noticed that a dire sort of atmosphere has, regrettably, begun to prevail, an atmosphere hard to define, but obviously to do with acute anxieties, anxieties bordering on fear, and, in addition, something sickly, something toxic and disabling. We’re certain we’d feel inhibited there, given the nature of what we want to discuss with you.

  ‘And so we thought we’d take the chance – see if we could catch you at home. This is presumptuous, perhaps – presumptuous in the sense that it might be deeply inconvenient for you. If it is, Martin, please say so at once. We’ll vamoose. We’ll not be offended. We quite recognize that it’s outstanding good luck to find you here, answering the doorbell to an unannounced call. For us to then go further and demand a slice of your time is beyond presumptuous. It’s super-presumptuous.’ She paused and for a second put her hand over her mouth, as if to silence herself. ‘But, I say, what a spiel this is on your doorstep, Mart! I’ve gone blabby.’

  And, yes, she bloody had. ‘Come in, do come in,’ Moss replied with gorgeous affability.

  ‘May we, really? We’re not a nuisance? I hope you won’t think we’re ganging up on you – the two of us in a combined, double-pronged approach.’

  ‘Please,’ Martin said. He led them into the sitting room. He didn’t see how this visit could be other than extensively bad for him. Their need for 100 per cent privacy and security unsettled him. The lavish, galumphing politeness put him on guard. He wished he hadn’t made them lucky by opening the door. Yes, he did suspect this visit to be a double-pronged approach, a double-pronged attack, the old one-two.

  ‘As you’ll no doubt have gathered, I elected myself spokesperson for the early moments at any rate. Well, you might say, it seemed a lot more than moments – yes, elected myself as icebreaker spokesperson,’ Flora Ellison said.

  ‘I knew Flora would make a better fist of it than I possibly could,’ Roy Gormand said, ‘her flair for summing up a situation in a few meaningful words.’

  ‘Comparatively few,’ Flora said.

  ‘Summing up and clarifying,’ Gormand said. ‘No matter how complex that situation might be Flora will provide a simplified version, missing none of the essentials.’

  ‘Such a lovely room – the sense of space and yet also of comfort,’ Flora said, doing a panopticon gaze. ‘I’m deeply fond of watercolours.’

  It was as if she felt scared of reaching the actual reason for their visit. Her nerves drove her to talk, but to talk about nothing that mattered very much; something, in fact, that didn’t matter at all – room decoration. Mart thought he could guess what brought them.

  ‘Watercolours, so unvulgar, so unbrash, so gently declaring “pray take me as I am”,’ she said, ‘so true to the moment when the artist spotted his/her topic and set up her/his easel and began. And don’t let anyone claim that watercolours are easier to do than oils. Water is … well, watery. It’s liable to run and needs strict control. So, the watercolourist must have the inspirational element but also management skills or it’ll be the day the damn dam broke. I suppose it could be argued that all artistic production depends on such a fusion – you can’t reproduce the almost magically created Chopin piece without the mechanical ability to hit the right notes with the right emphases and timing – but the water in watercolours demands special aquatic busybodying. Think of that inscription asked for by Keats to go on his gravestone: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” meaning insubstantial.

  ‘My mother was in many ways an arrantly stupid cow but she often correctly pointed out that “water always finds its own level”; and that level is downwards as far as it can get, including through gaps in the floorboards. Thus, a watercolour artist has a continuous problem in keeping the water from slipping down her/his legs to the ground.’

  Roy said, ‘Mothers, despite themselves, can come up with all sorts. I remember a—’

  ‘Then, the room has, too, its armchairs and settee in uncut moquette, infinitely serviceable, an irresistible invitation to relax,’ Flora replied. ‘Whether cut moquette as against uncut would have the same happy effect has to remain moot. We have no example here. I stick to the “settee” name though some find it low-class – probably because it’s bracketed with other somewhat snootily regarded nouns, such as “serviette”, “kitchenette”. It’s that “ette” sound. People seem to think it’s from the French and fusspotty. But why take against French? Those who would outlaw “settee” tend to prefer “sofa”. Well “sofa” is from Arabic and therefore just as much a foreign import as any “ette” word. In fact, “settee” isn’t foreign at all, but a development from the old English “settle” – meaning a place to sit, which is, obviously, what a settee is, even in this twenty-first century.’

  ‘Can I offer you both a glass of sherry,’ Mart said, ‘speaking of matters continental? Tesco’s own.’ He went to the sideboard for a tray, the bottle and three glasses. Flora was in one of the armchairs. Roy settled on the settle-settee-sofa. Moss served the wine, then sat down in another of the armchairs.

  ‘Are you sure we’re not imposing on you?’ Flora said, sipping.

  ‘I imagine you can intuit why we’ve come,’ Roy said, ‘and why we’d prefer to talk here rather than at Sedge.’

  ‘Flora mentioned a changed atmosphere there,’ Mart said. ‘Probably this is in the nature of universities, in fact of many kinds of organisation – a dynamism, an urge to improve and go on improving. A university must constantly move forward, otherwise, atrophy and collapse.’

  ‘It’s no fucking improvement,’ Flora said. The gushing preliminaries and lavishly decorous admiration of the room’s pictures and furniture had obviously been ditched, at last.

  ‘This is a little embarrassing,’ Roy said.

  ‘In which way?’ Moss asked, though he thought he was beginning to understand which way.

  ‘You’re part of it, aren’t you, Mart?’ Flora said.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of the change at Sedge,’ Flora said. ‘You’re one of them.’

  ‘One of what?’ Mart said.

  ‘Changes,’ Flora replied.

  ‘But we’re not here to blame you,’ Roy said. ‘That’s not at all in our remit. We look upon you, Mart, as—’

  ‘We want to get things into the open,’ Flora said. ‘There are decisions to be made.’

  ‘We don’t consider you the instigator, Mart. You went along. It could be argued you had no real choice.’

  ‘Of what?’ Moss replied.

  ‘It all began as a totally unplanned incident, didn’t it?’ Roy said.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘No evidence of devious scheming.’ Moss thought he might be getting hard cop–soft cop treatment. Roy said. ‘How could it have been planned? True, Rowena’s supping-up tendency is well-known, but the way things went at the inaugural was utterly unpredictable. Rowena, pissed again, falls asleep. You are shocked but continue, bravely unperturbed, and in due course wake her and win her fascination by recounting what the game
keeper was giving her ladyship and where. Lawford is unstintingly grateful. Perhaps his own sex life gets a lift and a happy variant or two because of your lecture. At any rate, you’re suddenly the inadvertent golden boy, Mart. Most probably you’ll get a top-table invite to Standfast Fort for the Plain Parlour centenary banquet.

  ‘That’s perfectly all right. Indeed, it’s better than all right. Excellent. Lawford sees someone new, of unexpected talents, and wants to avail himself of them. This, surely, can be only a plus, not just for Lawford but for Sedge. It would torpedo an unpleasant belief held by some that the principal is surrounded and propped up by an exclusive cabal or clique – Flora, myself and a couple of others that we needn’t name now. On the contrary, Chote has shown himself willing to take support from wherever it comes. There is a transparency and welcome width to his behaviour. And when I say welcome I mean welcomed by all who have the health of Sedge prominent in their minds, including those like Flora and myself, supposedly members of the specially favoured, self-protecting, narrow cluster.’

  ‘Roy is right, up to a point,’ Flora stated. ‘Naturally, anyone who strengthens Lawford strengthens Sedge and is a boon. Boons are much needed. But there can be side effects – very hurtful, negative side effects. It’s because Roy and I came to realize this – independently of each other at first – yes, it’s because of this realization that we decided we must talk in confidence, away from the Sedge buildings, to you, Mart. I’ve mentioned the very deplorable change of atmosphere at Sedge. But I wonder whether you, in fact, are conscious of this, even though you are there as often as Roy and myself. To you, things might seem all tickety-boo: any changes are good changes, making things better than you have ever known them because what Roy and I would see as a darkening, a falling away, you, Mart, might regard as blissful sunshine and triumph. You’re suddenly in with L. Chote, a success.’

  She sipped. ‘Potentially, you’re our sodding ruin, Moss, or you’d like to be. You sit on your naff, bourgeois furniture, surrounded by wanked-out daubs on the walls, untroubled, snug, smug, while Roy and I are made to feel obsolete, discarded, useless, even traitorous. Yes, that. If you’re such a sex guru, why are you here on your own when we call without forewarning? OK, you’re divorced from Grace. Don’t you have any replacements? And then the sherry? Are we at an Oxbridge tutorial, for God’s sake? Do this banal room and your inaugural performance about brisk and saucy coitus, satisfy you now?’

  ‘Well, Flora, I don’t think much of that’s particularly to the point,’ Roy said.

  ‘Doesn’t it make you enraged to see such grotesque contentment while we are victimized?’ Flora replied. Moss guessed she’d be about fifty. She was middle height, her eyes very pale blue and friendly even while she tore into him and his sitting room. She had a very hearty, unapologetic way of saying ‘fucking’ and ‘sodding’, and gave the ‘f’ and the ‘uck’ and the ‘dd’ sounds full wham. This differed from routine cursing: her heart was in it, though her face remained kindly and apparently eager for eternal matiness. There were certain words that Moss liked to mess about with. ‘Dichotomy’ was one, meaning a difference, a division where one might have expected a unity. If they ever brought in a Nobel prize for dichotomy, Flora would walk away with it: genial, carer’s appearance; moody, switchback soul.

  Mart considered it would be wrong and cliché-driven to describe her features as mobile. They weren’t. They never moved away from expressing total amiability, and this accompanied the initial doorstep civilities just now and the multi-layered contempt she’d directed at Martin and his uncut moquette redoubt. She had on a heavy dark brown duffel coat, untoggled while indoors, over a vividly striped – scarlet, yellow, purple – high-necked blouse and bell-bottom black trousers. Her feet were small in pink, very high-heeled and sharply pointed shoes.

  ‘Think of dear Roy,’ she said. ‘For at least months and possibly years he has brown-nosed Chote with unwavering diligence and, indeed, relish. You won’t find anyone in Sedge who can put as much sincerity and approval into the word “certainly”.

  ‘The principal will say something – quite possibly something virtually lunatic – and Roy, with a fine, discriminating smile will reply, “Certainly”. He doesn’t overdo this in case it starts to sound like mockery. No, he’ll adjust with seamless skill to a resounding, “Absolutely”, in support of some other blatant Chote crap. There is a benign, Darwinian strategy from Roy here; although Lawford Chote is frequently wrong and farcical he is sometimes right, and right about big, brave, admirably creative proposals for Sedge. Roy has decided that Chote’s plentiful barmy ideas and behaviour must be approved so that the principal’s confidence remains intact, enabling him occasionally to produce one of these splendid, unique, seminal developments for the university. Roy doesn’t fling such endorsements around willy-nilly. They are specifically crafted for use on Lawford Chote, like a made-to-measure suit. Is Lawf aware of it – the brilliant accuracy and thoroughly simulated affection that’s gone into this generous kowtowing? Perhaps he was once and felt grateful. But now? Roy is cast off, as I, too, am cast off. Why? Because some shallow, flashy, smarmy bastard comes along and uses these slimy qualities to get the approval of the principal’s boozed-as-buggery wife and, through her, Lawford Chote’s approval, too. You, Moss.’

  Roy Gormand began to weep. It was noisy theatrical, unignorable weeping, not controlled, manly, muted grief but recurrent great waves of sobbing accompanied by fitful arm waving. It seemed wrong for someone on an uncut moquette settee or sofa. Mart’s house stood in a fairly modern terrace. The walls were not thick and solid as in older style properties and he felt afraid neighbours might hear this heartbroken din and wonder whether something terrible had happened or was happening to him. Flora and Roy had come in Flora’s Ford and it stood out front. That might cause people next door – on either side – to suppose a visitor or visitors had brought stress or tragedy to Mart’s place, say forcible debt collection or a gangland revenge. He didn’t want them thinking he was a crybaby.

  Roy had his sherry glass, still half full, in one hand. He stared down at it and then at some indeterminate spot on one of the walls, then back to the glass. It reminded Martin of the way place kickers in rugby went through their ritual: first a glance at the angled ball on the ground; then a longer look at the goal posts; then the attempt to send the ball over the crossbar. Roy seemed about to fling the glass and the sherry to shatter on the selected area of plaster as part of his roaring sorrow display.

  Flora obviously interpreted things the same. She stood quickly, feinted with her right and then switched stance to punch Roy hard with her left on his right cheekbone, just below the eye, a classic straight jab, not a haymaker or upper-cut. Although Roy didn’t fall, the blow forced his head around sharply twenty degrees to the right, but Moss thought there’d be no bone splintering. He wondered whether Flora had dealt with him like this at other times of crisis. Mart tried to remember if he had ever seen Roy around the Sedge corridors with abrasions to his face and/or teeth missing. The punch seemed very precisely and knowingly placed so that it would destabilize and bring pain but not knock him out or require surgery. ‘Calm yourself, Roy, would you, please, you showy, waistcoated, near-defunct git?’ she purred. ‘We both feel for you, I’m sure, but this sympathy has boundaries and you’d better recognize them. Blub away if you like. A blub is commensurate with the hurt Chote has caused you. But no vandalising.’ She took the glass from him. He did not resist.

  He had been sitting crouched slightly forward on the settee, but now moved himself back and straightened, as if this constituted part of a recovery. It was like coming to attention while seated, possibly a drill he’d learned when called up in World War Two. He wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. He was near retirement age – mid-sixties – with plentiful grey-white hair, nicely cut. He had a square face with brown eyes behind thin-framed glasses, a deep unlined brow, upper mouth false teeth, too white and too immaculately shaped. He was short-legged but st
retched out his paces when on his feet, possibly hoping people would think he must be taller, to cover so much ground at one pop.

  He wore a three-piece, grey double-breasted suit, the jacket unbuttoned now, the edge of a spectacle case poking out from one of the waistcoat pockets. His lips were full. Mart wondered whether they’d plumped themselves out like that through framing so many concurring, unctuous, comfortable phrases for Lawford. It was hard to think of lips like those saying anything cantankerous or niggardly. Roy’s job title made him sound important (Sedge Developments Director) but he had only very minor power; Chote looked after most of that area himself, ‘Development is my life-theme,’ he’d said in an article written for the Sedge News quarterly magazine.

  ‘As you can see, Martin, it’s an emotional matter for me. Flora is younger, so although it is an emotional matter for her, too, it is also a very practical matter. Does she want to stay on at Sedge in these changed, shaming conditions, or does she look for a post elsewhere? Also, for me, a room is just a room, so I don’t feel the rage that Flora obviously does. For her, this room betokens your selfishness, your indifference to the appalling indignity Lawford has imposed on both of us, and perhaps on Carl Medlicott, also. I’ll be gone soon. I don’t have to think of a tomorrow and a string of tomorrows here. It’s the past I think of, Mart, and my loyalty to him and his cause, all of that now apparently disregarded, spurned.’ Gormand seemed about to start sobbing again and slumped a little on the settee. The right cheekbone had a red-black swelling, but Moss felt certain now that the bone was intact.

  ‘Unfailing devotion came from Ray to Chote,’ Flora stated. ‘This was sucking-up of a quality rarely encountered among educated adults; connivance of an unparalleled purity and enthusiasm. Now, as poor Roy remarks, this wholesome relationship is abruptly and permanently expunged, blotted out.’

  Gormand said, ‘For instance we hear that Lawford asked for a schedule of our timetable on a specific day and a specific time. The reasons are not clear. Whatever they might be, though, it is unpleasant, chilling, to think we have been spied upon. To what purpose, Mart? Flora’s guess is that it’s something to do with a photograph she’s been informed of by an acquaintance at the U.F.C., a photo of you and Lawford in his official Volvo seemingly on a sightseeing tour around Charter. Flora’s U.F.C. pal says that about you there was a—’