Matricide at St. Martha's

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  Miss Stamp simpered and gazed down at her tiny chest, which was encased in a remarkably elaborate construction of blue and pink embroidered butterflies on a white mohair background. In itself it wasn’t bad, thought Amiss; it might have looked quite fetching on an eight-year-old girl.

  ‘Francis, I mean Dr. Pusey, made it for me. Well, that is, I knitted it and he embroidered it. We help each other out in our sewing circle. Can you sew or knit, Mr. Amiss?’

  ‘’Fraid not. I’ll have to get you to teach me—if I get this job.’

  ‘Oh, then we’ll have to see that you do.’ Giggling girlishly, she led him down the hall.

  ‘The others are in here already,’ she said. ‘Now I’ll go and get the Bursar and I’ll see the three of you at lunch.’

  She tripped away. Amiss smiled at his rivals.

  The Bursar had assured him that she had misused her position as applications supremo to claim that the only con tenders available for consideration at this short notice were these two carefully selected lemons who were unlikely to appeal to any of the three factions. Certainly he felt that sartorially they were on a hiding to nothing. The woman’s smart City suit was ideologically incorrect for the Dykes (aping the patriarchal), too smart for the Virgins and lacking the little feminine touches that would have appealed to the Old Women. The chap was kitted out like a prep-school master from his leather-patched tweed jacket to his brogues, which made him bad news for Dykes and Old Women, though OK with Virgins.

  Conversing with them gave him even more confidence. The chap, it emerged, had never been to university and wondered what was the point of studying all these dead languages: the woman was clipped and businesslike and talked about meeting the needs of the marketplace. By the time the Bursar plunged into the room and interrupted, Amiss was moved to smile at her with complicity and approbation. He received a stony look in response.

  ‘Come on you three, must get on, must get on. Off to lunch now with your interrogators so we can all suss out if you know which fork to use for the asparagus.’ The booming laughter with which she always greeted her own sallies rang out at a volume which rattled Amiss’s companions.

  ‘Hold on,’ called Amiss, as she accelerated out the door. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up with you.’

  The Bursar turned round and surveyed him and his stick. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing, it’s just an old trouble.’

  ‘Well you weren’t a bloody cripple when I interviewed you last week. If you had been I’d have thought twice about putting you on the shortlist, I can tell you. Well come on, drag yourself along as fast as you can.’

  Amiss had the satisfaction of observing the prep-school master and the City type falling into a condition of paralysed embarrassment.

  Lunch was held in a cavernous dining room which could at a pinch have fitted a hundred and fifty, but today con tained only the guests, the selection committee, Miss Stamp and half a dozen undergraduates. Amiss was put sitting between the Bursar and the Senior Tutor and opposite an earnest anorexic-looking blonde with an American accent who was introduced as Sandra Murphy.

  ‘There’s steak and kidney pudding. Fill you up a bit now you’re crippled,’ said the Bursar solicitously. ‘It’s not on his application form, but he’s a cripple,’ she explained to Sandra.

  ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing,’ said Amiss. ‘Honestly, since I grew up it only occasionally recurs.’

  ‘Excuse me, Bursar,’ said Sandra. ‘Like, it’s very hurtful to use that term.’ Amiss tried to look hurt.

  ‘Oh God, what’s it supposed to be, handicapped?’

  ‘Differently abled, Bursar. Our condition is no better than Mr. Amiss’s condition. It’s just different. OK?’

  ‘That’s a lot of bollocks if you ask me,’ said the Bursar. ‘If he’s crippled he’s crippled, so he isn’t as abled as us. Stands to reason.’ She shook her head at her colleague’s stupidity.

  Amiss composed his features in what he hoped was a grateful, non-sexist, non-sexual smile and shot it across the table at Sandra, on whose solemn features it had no discern ible effect.

  ‘Right,’ said the Bursar. ‘What d’you want? We have to go and get the food from the hatch and I suppose I’ll have to go and get it for you, since you’re whatever you are. Steak and kidney pudding or that health muck they’ve introduced recently.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘Root vegetable and dried fruit salad,’ said Sandra. ‘It’s really great.’

  ‘I think I’ll have that,’ said Amiss faintly. The Bursar looked at him incredulously and stomped off muttering ‘pansy’ loudly enough for everybody at the table to hear. Amiss affected not to and began to ask Sandra politely about her area of study. ‘I’m working on phallocentrism and homo phobia in Adam Bede,’ said Sandra. It was one of those answers that made Amiss wish he’d asked about the weather, but he struggled gamely on. ‘And what are your conclusions?’

  ‘Yeah, of course it’s phallocentric. I mean, that’s obvious. Any woman who takes a man’s name to write a book has to be yielding to a phallocentric culture so therefore the book must be too. OK? And as for the homophobia…’

  ‘Oh Christ, not that again,’ said the Bursar, slamming Amiss’s plate down in front of him. ‘George Eliot as queer basher, is that what we’re on about? I suppose you go along with that crap too?’

  She dug deep into her pudding, found a kidney, grunted with pleasure and chomped it noisily. Gazing around with a seraphic smile, she focused on Sandra. ‘I like kidneys,’ she observed. ‘It’s no wonder you look so washed out, never eating anything decent.’ She turned to Amiss. ‘Girl’s a vegan. Can you believe it?’

  ‘Excuse me, Bursar, I’ve explained before that it’s demean ing to speak of any woman past puberty as a “girl”.’

  ‘You never give up, do you?’ The Bursar speared another kidney. ‘I’ll hand it to you, Sandra. You’re some persistent dame,’ she said gaily. ‘Now, enough of this rubbish, I need a word with you about the afternoon’s arrangements.’ As she turned her back on Amiss, he took two forkfuls of diced turnip and raisins and tried to stay brave. He drank from the glass of water which was the only substance on offer and turned to the Senior Tutor, who was apparently on auto-pilot as she nibbled on her salad. She was an easy target; within two minutes he had her burbling happily about the critical edition of Beowulf that she had been working on for thirty years. Amiss won her over completely with a mur mured expression of regret that so little Anglo-Saxon was learned any more; by the end of lunch she had confided in him how she hoped that that would be remedied with the help of the Alice Toon bequest.

  It was a bonus that Sandra had been unable to hear this exchange. The Bursar had drawn the City slicker into their conversation and by an exercise of force majeure had got her to agree that all this feminist business had gone much too far. Amiss couldn’t hear what was happening between the prep-school master and Pusey, but they both looked encouragingly miserable—certainly not like two chaps who were going to rush off and swap knitting patterns.

  ***

  The interview, if it could be called that, went well. Sandra asked him solicitously about special needs in relation to his mobility impairment, which he managed to interpret swiftly enough. The Bursar then helped out by adopting a tone of deep sarcasm and asking if he’d like some ramps installed, or, perchance, a lift. Amiss had managed to sidestep all this by explaining that his present condition was as bad as he ever got and that most of the time no one would know there was anything wrong with him. The Senior Tutor, making an effort to address herself to the central issue, asked Amiss what his views were about the relationship between govern ment and academe, in response to which he had burbled fluently about cooperation, mutual learning, scholarly heritage, but above all the necessity for keeping an open mind. Sandra had then pointed out that open minds could be overrated and that surely no work could be under taken without starting with a set of beliefs.


  ‘I mean, you know,’ she said earnestly, ‘you aren’t going to say that government shouldn’t ban all kinds of discrimina tion on campuses.’

  ‘As long as there is no undermining of academic stan dards,’ piped up the Senior Tutor.

  Amiss had responded to that one with a flow of gobbledy gook about learning from others’ experience, challenging preconceptions and reconciling human and scholarly values. It was, the Bursar later told him grudgingly, one of the finest examples of meaningless but convincing bullshit she had heard in many a long year. Certainly it appeared to have silenced and contented both the Senior Tutor and Sandra. Francis Pusey had then asked Amiss how he felt about continuing cuts in government finance for education, on which Amiss, feeling safe on this one, had waxed concerned and eloquent and had talked about disturbing philistine trends.

  Was there not too, Pusey had asked, a tendency for government to see education purely in terms of the acquisi tion of qualifications? Surely the quality of life at university was as important to the student as the quality of teaching. Should not the purpose of a university be also to introduce the student to beauty, to sensual experience, to art, to the spirit?

  Sandra had interrupted to warn of the dangers of such experiences being elitist; art should not be seen as objectively good or bad. Amiss began to flounder slightly on this one but was rescued by the Bursar, who explained she was bored to tears with all this claptrap and proposed to throw Mr. Amiss out unless somebody had something else practical to ask him. Nobody had.

  ‘Just one thing before you go,’ she said. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘No,’ said Amiss, hoping he was getting this right.

  ‘Thought not,’ she said. ‘Hobble off then. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ She snorted loudly at her own wit as he nodded his goodbyes and limped to the door. As he shut it behind him he heard her saying, ‘I don’t think we want any more poofs in this place, do we?’ and he knew the job was his.

  Chapter 3

  ‘I played a blinder on that one,’ said the Bursar complacently as they conducted their postmortem on the telephone later that evening.

  ‘What about me? I thought I did rather well.’

  ‘Not a bad touch with Oscar Wilde and the stick, but I thought my approach was rather more subtle.’

  ‘Subtlety, Jack, is not the first word which comes to mind when thinking about you.’

  ‘Just because I’m loud and a bit of a ham doesn’t mean I’m not subtle. And how many times do I have to tell you to cut out this “Jack” business. It’s imperative that you think “Bursar”.’

  ‘What’s Jack short for anyway, or instead of?’

  ‘Never you mind. We girls have to have some secrets.’

  ‘Oh, blast you, be mysterious, then. Can I entice you into sharing with me what happened to the other two?’

  ‘Oh, a touch of the blood sports really. Sandra impaled the poor bitch with the padded shoulders on the spike with which I had provided her. She was asked to explain her position on feminism with particular relation to dealing with sexist language, sexual harassment, sexism in the workplace and sexism on the syllabus. Poor bitch never had a chance. She tried to shift her ground at one stage and became a bit radical, so she managed to upset Emily by saying that rele vance in education was very important and must take account of changing trends.

  ‘Francis didn’t take much interest in her. He was holding himself in readiness to tear the other poor schmuck apart, which he did in a rather splendidly feline fashion. I have to say that Francis, though undoubtedly a twerp, is quite a shrewd twerp, and he quickly revealed our poor tweedy friend to be both dumb and ignorant. Mind you, Sandra’s both dumb and ignorant and would probably think it elitist to require brains and knowledge in a Fellow, but she had already decided against him. She’s a maternal little soul who had been won over by your sufferings and my insensitivity.’

  ‘How do they put up with you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they? The civil service did. Anyway quite apart from my three-year contract being watertight, I’m so good at the job the majority of the Fellows know they’d be mad to do without me. Besides, I think I bring a bit of cheer into their dreary lives; they can swap stories about my latest grossness.

  ‘Now, to our muttons. What sort of accommodation do you want?’

  ‘What can I have?’

  ‘Medium-sized and uncomfortable, or large and very uncom fortable.’

  ‘No small and comfortable?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous; this is St. Martha’s.’

  ‘Medium,’ he sighed. ‘I suppose that means no bathroom.’

  ‘You’re lucky there’s one on your corridor.’

  ‘Who are my neighbours?’

  ‘Francis Pusey and the Reverend Cyril Crowley, you lucky chap. Men get tucked away in corners by themselves for reasons of propriety.’ She gave a loud cackle. ‘When are you coming?’

  ‘Soon as you like.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘No. First I’ve got to go and find a cattery for my cat.’

  ‘Why not bring it?’

  ‘What, Plutarch?’

  ‘I like cats. It would be quite nice to have one around the place. Add a bit of grace and elegance.’

  ‘Listen, Bursar, that cat has about as much grace and elegance as you have.’

  ‘Why then, you must certainly bring it. See you tomor row, in time for guest night.’

  ‘What happens on guest night?’

  ‘You’ll find out,’ and with another loud cackle she rang off.

  ***

  On the train to Cambridge, Amiss cursed himself for having given in so feebly to the Bursar about Plutarch, who had not ceased yelling throughout the entire journey.

  ‘Should have given her a tranquillizer, dear,’ said one elderly passenger. ‘Poor little mite, she’s terrified.’

  ‘Madam,’ said Amiss stiffly, ‘it would take three circus strongmen to administer a tranquillizer to this…this… extremely large and bad-tempered animal.’ He turned his face to the window and tried to pretend he had nothing to do with the rocking and relentlessly vociferous cat-basket.

  By the time he reached St. Martha’s, he was exhausted from emotional tension and even Plutarch was beginning to show signs of weariness, but she started up again enthusi astically when Miss Stamp arrived at the door and began cootchy-cootchy-cooing into the wickerwork. This time she was sporting a lavender mohair jumper with a motif of musical notes. ‘Dr. Pusey’s handiwork?’

  Miss Stamp beamed and smiled. ‘Yes, and I’m knitting him a waistcoat. One like the Bursar’s got. You know, with a lot of pockets for his implements.’

  Plutarch’s needs were too pressing for Amiss to stop and seek further information on this baffling statement. ‘Would you be very kind, Miss Stamp, and help me up to my room?’

  ‘Well, yes, certainly, Mr. Amiss. But you’re a little early. I don’t know if Mr. Franks has gone yet.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Poor Mr. Franks.’

  ‘Why is he poor?’ asked Amiss in some trepidation.

  ‘Well, it’s been ever so nasty over the last few weeks, all those allegations. Those girls, I don’t know, really. I’m sure he didn’t do any of those things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Oh, er, it’s not for me to gossip and I’m sure there’s nothing in it. He never laid a finger on me.’

  Not bloody surprised, thought Amiss ungallantly. ‘What was his job?’

  ‘He was the Household Management Fellow.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘You know, like in Mrs. Beeton.’

  ‘Of course, quite, I see,’ said Amiss, who was by now completely foxed. ‘Well, my problem revolves around Plutarch, my cat. I don’t want to let her out yet because she might never find her way back again. I thought I should introduce her first to our joint accommodation—let her get the hang of things gradually.’

  �
�It’s awfully nice to see a young man travelling around with his cat like this. Have you had her since a child?’

  ‘No. She was, let us say, an unsolicited gift,’ said Amiss grimly.

  ‘Oh, you lucky thing. Now of course, with your poor leg you can’t manage everything. I’ll take your suitcase and you take Plutarch. I’m sure she’d be much happier with Daddy carrying her.’

  His resentment at being categorized as the cat’s father removed the guilt Amiss was feeling about letting an elderly lady carry his heavy case. Miss Stamp trotted up the stairs ahead of him and by the time they had climbed three flights, she, carrying the heavier burden, seemed in much better nick than he was.

  ‘You’re very fit,’ he said enviously.

  ‘I set great store by our Swedish drill. I hope you’ll join in, Mr. Amiss—7:10 every morning, outside if it’s not actually raining, otherwise in the hall. Nearly all the Fellows are there, Mistress to the fore.’

  ‘Is it compulsory?’ he asked faintly.

  ‘Not quite, but the Mistress does like us all to be there. Of course, the students won’t do it. You know what they’re like nowadays. Anyway, here we are.’

  She knocked on the door and a shout invited them to enter. ‘Mr. Franks, this is Mr. Amiss. He’s come to investigate how we can have a better relationship with the government. Now I’ve got to dash. Perhaps I can leave you two young men together.’ Girlishly she skipped away.

  ‘Sorry to intrude,’ shouted Amiss over Plutarch’s screeches.

  ‘I think you’d better let that thing out,’ said Franks, an agreeable-looking man in his late twenties. Amiss looked nervously around. ‘Do you have any valuables within reach? She tends to be a bit frisky when released.’

  ‘No,’ I’ve finished packing and, as you can see, this place is decorated very simply.’

  ‘It certainly is. Nay, monastically or more properly—conventually.’ In a room that could have fitted fifty people standing, the only objects were a narrow bed with a plain beige bedcover, a spartan wooden desk and wooden chair, a small wardrobe, tiny bookcase, hideous armchair and a washbasin. The walls were white, the curtains were beige to match the bedcover and the floor covering was brown lino with a small grey bedside rug to brighten it up.