by Tom Sharpe
‘Ah,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Oh yes. See what you mean. Daresay something of that sort could be arranged. I know a dolly bird in Rose Crescent who’ll be only too ready to lend us her Torture Chamber.’
‘For God’s sake, Cathcart, didn’t you hear me? I said I didn’t want any violence.’
‘Not violence, old boy, just a bit of the old Tie-’Em-Up-and-Tickle-’Em stuff. Nothing nasty about it at all. Rather jolly for a change.’
‘And is she black?’ asked the Dean, who couldn’t for the life of him imagine anything jolly about being tied up and tickled.
‘Of course she’s not black. White as the driven snow,’ said the General. ‘But I’ll let you into a secret if you really want to know –’
‘I don’t,’ said the Dean, ‘I definitely don’t.’
But Sir Cathcart couldn’t be stopped now. ‘Got all sorts of women at a certain training camp not a million miles from Hereford and when they’re testing chaps to see if they can stand up to interrogation they strip ’em naked and blindfold ’em and bring in –’
‘If you don’t mind, I really don’t want to hear,’ begged the Dean.
‘Nothing wrong. Don’t hurt the blighters. Bit of humiliation. Anyway it’s good for your education to know these things. Can’t live your whole life in some sort of romantic dream world.’
‘I much prefer to, I assure you. I really do. Man cannot stand too much reality. This man can’t at any rate.’
‘Just as you like. All I’m saying is they’ve got all sorts over there. Chinese, Indians, Irish of course. For all I know they’ve got an Eskimo lass. Russians, naturally, and Jerries. But the one I’ve got in mind for our young friend is a Zulu woman. Strapping great gal. If you like them big and black, she’s right up your street.’
‘Not my street,’ said the Dean in some annoyance. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this.’ He got up to go.
‘By the way,’ he said as the General saw him out to his car, ‘how is … what did you say you’d changed his name to? The you know who.’
‘Oh him. Kentucky Fry. Not a bad chap at heart and I’ve got to hand it to him, he’s very good with horses. I’ve got him working in the Catfood Canning Factory. Keeps him out of sight and he seems to feel happier with a knife in his hand and all that blood about. Reckons we should start up a pig farm. Extraordinary. Keeps bleating every now and again about Skullion. Seems the Master made a big impression on him. And how is the old rascal?’
‘Odd you should ask that,’ said the Dean. ‘Hasn’t been his usual self these last few days. I think he rather misses not having Kentucky Fry about the place.’
24
And Skullion did. He had enjoyed sitting beside Kudzuvine’s bed and exercising his authority over him. It was a long time since Skullion had been able to demonstrate the power of his personality to any worthy adversary, and to be called The Thing and Quasimodo and Hunchback by a damned Yank had provided him with the sort of stimulus he needed. With Kudzuvine to reduce to a state of gibbering terror he had escaped the boredom he had suffered ever since his Porterhouse Blue but now the boredom had returned, made worse by the knowledge of what he was missing. To make up for it he insisted on Arthur bringing up bottles of Hardy’s Special Ale from the Buttery where very few people knew it had been laid down twenty years before to mature. ‘Piquant yet without a twang,’ read the label, ‘full in body.’ Which was more than could be said for Skullion, but it was still his favourite tipple and as the Master he was free to drink as much of it as he liked and his obnoxious bag would hold. Or far more if he was out in the garden with the bag removed from the end of the pipe and hidden from view under a rug over his knees where the bottles of ale were hidden too. As Arthur, who shared his taste in beers, pointed out, ‘You can always have a leak under there and no one will notice. Not out on the lawn they won’t. Now, if you was a bitch it would be different, Mr Skullion, but you ain’t that. You’re an old dog, you are.’ Skullion had smiled at the compliment. ‘Bitch pee leaves marks on lawns,’ Arthur went on, ‘but dog’s piss don’t. Know that for a fact because my old dad was kennel man out Hardingley and old Mrs Scarbell used to carry on something frightful if a bitch peed on the lawn. “What do you think you’re doing, Arthur?” she would say to my dad who I was named after. “You know nothing will grow when a lady dog has passed water.” And my old dad would say …’
It was on conversations such as this that Skullion depended for any interest in his life. And on his daily consumption of Hardy’s Special Ale and the memories the ale seemed to encourage. Every day the Chef would come over for a chat or, if there was anything very special for High Table dinner, he would bring some over for the Master’s approval. ‘Knowed you liked this, Mr Skullion, and I’ve cut it up small so it’s easier to chew,’ he would say and Skullion would answer, ‘Very nice, Cheffy, very tasty. Always were the best Chef I can remember in this or any college and old Whatsisname in Trinity used to take some beating.’ Almost every day the Chef brought over some quails’ eggs even when they weren’t on the Fellows’ menu because Skullion was partial to them like and they went down easy and hardly needed any chewing to speak of.
Most of these little meetings of like minds took place out of sight of the rest of the College and were held round the corner on the far side of the Master’s Maze but from his study Purefoy Osbert could only see the foot of the wheelchair and was intrigued by the routine of the Chef in his white hat and coat crossing the lawn bearing dishes on a great silver tray with napkins, immaculately ironed, laid out over the serving dishes, just as he was intrigued by the sight of the Master leaning with infinite patience late into the night against the great beech tree watching the back gate tipped with formidable revolving spikes over which no one ever climbed. It was as though he were witnessing some ancient Porterhouse ritual that had been handed down through the centuries. And always Purefoy wondered what was being said behind the yew hedge of the maze and what he might learn if he listened to it. In the end his curiosity got the better of him and one lunchtime, when Skullion was safely in the Master’s Lodge, Purefoy Obsert sauntered casually through the rose garden before doubling back out of sight of the Lodge and entering the maze. It was not a large maze but it was an unusually difficult one, and the yew was old and dense. It took Purefoy twenty minutes to reach the corner beyond which Skullion sat in the afternoon and the Chef came with his offering. Purefoy Osbert sat down and waited.
He had to wait for an hour before the Master wheeled himself out and stationed himself only a yard or two away with his bottles of ale and his memories of Porterhouse past. But this afternoon he was in a bad temper. He had had a run-in with the Matron who had insisted on his having a bath. ‘It’s no use your grumbling at me, Master,’ she had said, ‘we can’t have you smelling. You’re going to have a bath and a change of clothes. That old suit of yours has got to go to the dry cleaners and if I had my way it would go to the incinerator. Now then, off with your jacket and …’ Being bathed by the Matron was Skullion’s worst moment in the week. It was the ultimate indignity. Deprived of his clothes and the bowler hat, that badge of his office as Head Porter which he had refused to part with even as Master, he not only was naked; he felt naked, naked and vulnerable and in the presence of a woman with none of the sensibilities and respect for human decencies he demanded. Not that he minded having his back scrubbed – he quite liked that – but there were other areas, his privates as he called them, in which the Matron took what he considered a thoroughly indecent interest and insisted on washing very meticulously because, as she put it so coarsely, if she didn’t he’d smell even more like an old dog fox than he did already. Skullion didn’t mind being compared to an old dog by Arthur but for a bitch like the Matron to liken him to an old dog fox was going a damned sight too far. And he’d told her so in no uncertain terms. ‘You aren’t even a married woman and no bloody wonder and, if you want to find out what you’ve been missing, you go and find some other man to fiddle with because I bloody don’t like it. O
r you. I can look after them myself.’ Which had done nothing to improve the Matron’s temper or her treatment of him.
‘You’ve got a dirty mind, you have, and it’s no use your looking at me like that. Call yourself the Master of Porterhouse and you can’t even talk like a gentleman,’ she had snapped back at him and had then really put the boot in. ‘I heard the Dea – well, never you mind who, say the other day, and I did too, that it was about time they sent you to the Park. Oh yes, he did. Where do you think he’s been these past weeks? Hasn’t been visiting any sick relatives in Wales. Been going round the important Old Porterthusians looking for a Master. That’s what he’s been doing. And if you don’t believe me, you ask Walter in the Porter’s Lodge and he’ll tell you. In fact I wonder you don’t know it already because it’s common knowledge in the College. You’re for Porterhouse Park and I for one won’t be sorry to see you go. I won’t have to soil my hands bathing you there.’ She had said it with such venom and conviction that Skullion had sensed she was telling the truth. Besides he had suspected something of the sort himself from the way Cheffy and Arthur and Walter had all treated him with more sympathy than they had ever shown before. He had never wanted sympathy and until very recently they had not wasted it on him. Instead they had shown him the respect they had shown when he was Head Porter and the most important servant in the College. Not that he was going to ask them. He didn’t want them to have to lie to him. That wasn’t proper and he had always done things the proper way.
So, now, on this warm afternoon, he sat drinking an unusually large number of bottles of Hardy’s Special Ale which Arthur had opened for him, all the time nursing a growing sense of grievance against the world. He even snapped at Cheffy for cutting off the crusts of his cucumber sandwiches for tea which he had never done before. And when Arthur had come out to tell him his dinner was ready, Skullion said he didn’t want any.
‘Got to keep your strength up, Mr Skullion,’ Arthur told him.
‘What for?’ Skullion demanded. ‘What bloody for?’
Arthur was nonplussed. ‘Well, I don’t really know, Mr Skullion. But you’ve always been so fond of your grub.’
‘Well, I ain’t now. You go and get me another half of Hardy’s. I’ve got things to think about.’
For a moment Arthur hesitated. He knew he ought to say he’d had enough already and another six bottles, which was what Skullion meant by a half, and he wouldn’t just be half-seas over, he’d be all the bloody way. But he knew better. It wasn’t just that Skullion – that Mr Skullion – was the Master. If that had been all, like with the previous Masters, he’d have told him to his face he’d had enough and it wasn’t right the Master getting pissed. No, he’d have said that and been cursed for his damned insolence, and maybe he’d have got the Master in to his dinner and maybe he wouldn’t, but in the morning the incident would have been forgotten and certainly ignored. But with Mr Skullion it was different. Mr Skullion wasn’t just any old Master of Porterhouse, he was Mr Skullion the Head Porter which meant far more to Arthur and Cheffy and the rest of the College servants who remembered him in his prime. It went still deeper, far, far deeper than that. It was that Mr Skullion was Mr Skullion who’d always done things proper and never lied except when he had to save someone else’s bacon or the College reputation. He’d have died for Porterhouse, Mr Skullion would have, and no mistake. As Head Porter he’d licked the young gentlemen into shape. ‘You’d better get your hair cut, Mr Walker,’ Arthur had once heard him tell an undergraduate. ‘We can’t have them saying Porterhouse is full of nancy boys like King’s, can we, sir? And if you haven’t got it on you, sir, here’s half a crown and I’ll put it down against the slate.’ And he had done the same with every College servant who’d needed pulling up and told to do it proper, whatever it was. ‘Proper is as proper does,’ had been Mr Skullion’s motto and, if there’d been one word he’d used more than any other – and there was – it was proper. Mr Skullion was proper. There was no other way of putting it and, if he wanted to get properly pissed, Arthur wasn’t going to stop him. Mr Skullion was his own man and there weren’t many in Cambridge or anywhere else for that matter you could say that about. And so, after the briefest of hesitations, Arthur went back into the Master’s Lodge and came back with the bottles and put them down with the tops off on the tray under the rug where Skullion could reach them and all he said was, ‘Are you all right, Mr Skullion?’ And Skullion had replied with a strange look, ‘All right, Arthur? All right? Oh I’m all right. It’s the others is all wrong.’ And as Arthur had walked away back to the Lodge he’d heard Skullion call out, ‘And thank you, Arthur, thank you,’ which was only proper.
*
Three yards away behind the yew hedge Purefoy Osbert sat on the mossy grass and wished he could move. He was getting hungry himself and cold and he had learnt nothing except that the Master was drinking halves and didn’t want his dinner or the crusts cut off his cucumber sandwiches for tea. Above him the sky darkened – it was already dark in the maze – but still Skullion sat there and Purefoy Osbert with him, each keeping a vigil the other would not have understood, they were such worlds apart. He was still there after ten o’clock when the Dean came out of the Combination Room and walked towards the Master’s Lodge. He had dined well and had had another talk with the Senior Tutor about Dr Osbert and had assured him without going into any detail at all that he need not worry any longer because the matter was being attended to. Now he wanted a word with Skullion to warn him about not talking to the new Fellow. Skullion didn’t seem to hear him coming.
The Dean’s footsteps were soft upon the lawn and it was only when he had passed the maze that he became aware of the dark shape behind him and heard the clink of a bottle. ‘Good Heavens, Master,’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing out here?’ It was a silly question. Skullion nearly always sat out at night but usually by the back gate.
‘Sitting,’ said Skullion, slurring the word more than usual. A whiff of Hardy’s Special Ale reached the Dean. ‘Sitting and thinking.’
‘Sitting and drinking?’ said the Dean, choosing to interpret the word differently. It was an unwise remark.
‘Sitting and thinking and drinking,’ said Skullion and there was no friendliness nor the deference the Dean had come to expect. This was no way for the ex-porter to speak to him.
‘Mostly drinking, by the sound of it,’ he said.
‘Mostly thinking. The drinking is my business, not yours. I’m entitled to it.’
‘Of course, Master, of course,’ said the Dean hurriedly. He realized he had gone too far. ‘You have every right to drink.’
‘And think,’ said Skullion.
‘That too, of course,’ said the Dean. ‘And what have you been thinking about?’
‘About you,’ said Skullion. ‘About you and the Park. Porterhouse Park where you send all the old Fellows you want to get rid of, the loonies like old Dr Vertel.’
‘Dr Vertel? What utter nonsense, Skullion. You know perfectly well –’
‘Oh, it’s Skullion now, is it?’ There was no mistaking the savagery in Skullion’s voice. ‘And I do know perfectly well. Old Vertel turned dirty, didn’t he? Started flashing the bedders and the kiddies over at the Newnham swimming pool so he had to go.’
‘You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying,’ said the Dean angrily.
‘I’m drunk and I do know what I’m saying because I was in the Porter’s Lodge when the police came and I held them off till you got him out the back into the Senior Tutor’s car and down to the Park where they couldn’t find him or want to. Under the carpet you said, under the carpet. And the Praelector made a joke and said, “Under the Parket,” and you all laughed over your coffee in the Combination Room. So don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m saying. And don’t think you’re sweeping me under the carpet because you ain’t. And that’s a fact.’
In the darkness, and silhouetted against the lighted windows of the Master’s Lodge, the Dean felt
that strange feeling of alarm he had felt listening to Purefoy Osbert a few nights before. But this time he felt an even greater threat. There was a strength about Skullion and a depth of anger that had been absent in the younger man. The Dean tried appeasement. ‘I assure you, Master, that there is no question of your being sent to the Park. The idea hasn’t crossed anyone’s mind. It’s absurd.’
From the wheelchair there came a sound that might have been laughter. ‘Bullshit,’ said Skullion, ‘bullshit. Where’ve you been the past weeks? Visiting someone sick in Wales? My eye and Betty Martin. Been going round asking the O.P.s, the important ones, who’s to be the new Master. And don’t tell me you haven’t because I know.’
‘How do you …’ the Dean stopped himself but it was too late. The hair on the back of his neck was tingling. Skullion’s knowledge was terrifying and somehow the Dean knew there was worse to come.
‘How I know is my business,’ Skullion went on. He didn’t sound in the least drunk now. He was frighteningly sober. ‘And what I know is my business and what you’d better know is you aren’t sending me to Porterhouse Park not never.’ He paused and let the statement sink in. ‘Know why?’
The Dean didn’t and he didn’t want to know. But there was no stopping Skullion now. He was the Master of Porterhouse and for the first time the Dean knew it. He was the lesser man. ‘Because I’ve got you by the short and curlies,’ Skullion said. ‘Know what that means?’
The Dean thought he did but he said nothing.
‘By the balls,’ said Skullion. ‘By the bloody balls and you want to know how and why?’
‘Skullion, you’ve said enough …’ the Dean began but Skullion’s voice merely rose.
‘Don’t you Skullion me,’ he said. ‘It’s Master from now on.’
The Dean gasped. Something had happened to Skullion but he had no idea what it was.
‘You ask yourself this question,’ Skullion said. ‘You ask yourself this question. Who put up six million quid to send the new Fellow here, the one they call Oswald or something? Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow. Who did that?’
