Porterhouse Blue

by Tom Sharpe

  *

  The Master’s sudden decision to seek some ground of understanding with the Senior Tutor left him almost as soon as he had crossed the Fellows’ Garden. Any sort of overture now would be misinterpreted, he realized, taken as evidence of weakness on his part. He had established his authority. It would not do to weaken it now. But having come out he felt obliged to continue his walk. He went into town and browsed in Heffer’s for an hour before buying Butler’s Art of the Possible. It was not a maxim with which he had much sympathy. It smacked of cynicism but Sir Godber was sufficient of a politician still to appreciate the author’s sense of irony. He wandered on debating his own choice of a title for his autobiography. Future Perfect was probably the most appropriate, combining as it did his vision with a modicum of scholarship. Catching sight of his reflection in a shop window he found it remarkable that he was as old as he looked. It was strange that his ideals had not altered with his appearance. The methods of their attainment might mellow with experience but the ideals remained constant. That was why it was so important to see that the undergraduates who came up to Porterhouse should be free to form their own judgements, and more important still that they should have some judgements to form. They should rebel against the accepted tenets of their elders and, in Sir Godber’s opinion, their worse. He stopped at the Copper Kettle for tea and then made his way back to Porterhouse and sat in his study reading his book. Outside the sky darkened, and with it the College. Out of term it was empty and there were no room lights on to brighten the Court. At five the Master got up and pulled the curtains and he was about to sit down again when a knock at the front door made him stop and go down the corridor into the hall. He opened the door and peered out into the darkness. A dark familiar shape stood on the doorstep.

  ‘Skullion?’ said Sir Godber as if questioning the existence of the shape. ‘What are you doing here?’

  To Skullion the question emphasized his misery. ‘I’d like a word,’ he said.

  Sir Godber hesitated. He didn’t want words with Skullion. ‘What about?’ he asked. It was Skullion’s turn to hesitate. ‘I’ve come to apologize,’ he said finally.

  ‘Apologize? What for?’ Skullion shook his head. He didn’t know what for. ‘Well, man? What for?’

  ‘It’s just that …’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Sir Godber, appalled at Skullion’s inarticulate despair. ‘Come on in.’ He turned and led the way to his study with Skullion treading gently behind him.

  ‘Well now, what is it?’ he asked when they were in the room.

  ‘It’s about my dismissal, sir,’ Skullion said.

  ‘Your dismissal?’ Sir Godber sighed. He was a sympathetic man who had to steel himself with irritation. ‘You should see the Bursar about that. I don’t deal with matters of that sort.’

  ‘I’ve seen the Bursar,’ said Skullion.

  ‘I don’t see that I can do anything,’ the Master said. ‘And in any case I really don’t think that you can expect much sympathy after what you said the other night.’

  Skullion looked at him sullenly. ‘I didn’t say anything wrong,’ he muttered. ‘I just said what I thought.’

  ‘It might have paid you to consider what you did think before …’ Sir Godber gave up. The situation was most unfortunate. He had better things to do with his time than argue with college porters. ‘Anyway there’s nothing more to be said.’

  Skullion stirred resentfully. ‘Forty-five years I’ve been a porter here,’ he said.

  Sir Godber’s hand brushed the years aside. ‘I know. I know,’ he said. ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘I’ve given my life to the College.’

  ‘I daresay.’

  Skullion glowered at the Master. ‘All I ask is to be kept on,’ he said.

  The Master turned his back on him and kicked the fire with his foot. The man’s maudlin appeal annoyed him. Skullion had exercised a baleful influence on the College ever since he could remember. He stood for everything Sir Godber detested. He’d been rude, bullying and importunate all his life and the Master hadn’t forgotten his insolence on the night of the explosion. Now here he was, cap in hand, asking to be taken back. Worst of all he made the Master feel guilty.

  ‘I understand from the Bursar that you have some means,’ he said callously. Skullion nodded. ‘Enough to live on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then, I really can’t see what you’re complaining about. A lot of people retire at sixty. Haven’t you got a family?’ Skullion shook his head. Again Sir Godber felt a tremor of unreasonable disgust. His contempt showed in his face, contempt as much for his own vulnerable sensibilities as for the pathetic man before him. Skullion saw that contempt and his little eyes darkened. He had swallowed his pride to come and ask but it rode up in him now in the face of the Master’s scorn. It rose up out of the distant past when he’d been a free man and it overwhelmed the barriers of his reference. He hadn’t come to be insulted even silently by the likes of Sir Godber. Without knowing what he was doing he took a step forward. Instinctively Sir Godber recoiled. He was afraid of Skullion and, like his contempt a moment before, it showed. He’d been afraid of Skullion all his life, the little Skullions who lived in drab streets he’d had to pass to go to school, who chased him and threw stones and wore grubby clothes.

  ‘Now look here,’ he said with an attempt at authority, but Skullion was looking. His bitter eyes stared at Sir Godber and he too was in the grip of the past and its violent instincts. His face was flushed and unknown to him his fists were clenched.

  ‘You bastard!’ he shouted and lunged at the Master. ‘You bloody bastard!’ Sir Godber staggered backwards and tripped against the coffee table. He fell against the mantelpiece and clutched at the edge of the armchair and the next moment he had fallen back into the fireplace. Beneath his feet a rug gently slid away and Sir Godber subsided on to the study floor. His head had hit the corner of the iron grate. Above him Skullion stood dumbfounded. Blood oozed on to the parquet. Skullion’s fury ebbed. He stared down at the Master for a moment and turned and ran. He ran down the passage and out the front door into the street. It was empty. Skullion turned to the right and hurried along the pavement. A moment later he was in Trinity Street. People passed him but there was nothing unusual about a college porter in a hurry.

  *

  In the Master’s Lodge Sir Godber lay still in the flickering light of his fire. The blood running fast from his scalp formed in a pool and dried. An hour passed and Sir Godber still bled, though more slowly. It was eight before he recovered consciousness. The room was blurred and distant and clocks ticked noisily. He tried to get to his feet but couldn’t. He knelt against the fireplace and reached for the armchair. Slowly he crawled across the room to the telephone. He’d got to ring for help. He reached up and pulled the phone down on to the floor. He started to dial emergency but the thought of scandal stopped him. His wife? He put the receiver back and reached for the pad with the number of the Samaritans on it. He found it and dialled. While he waited he stared at the notice Lady Mary had pinned on the pad. ‘If you are in Despair or thinking of Suicide, Phone the Samaritans.’

  The dialling tone stopped. ‘Samaritans here, can I help you?’ Lady Mary’s voice was as stridently concerned as ever.

  ‘I’m hurt,’ said Sir Godber indistinctly.

  ‘You’re what? You’ll have to speak up.’

  ‘I said I’m hurt. For God’s sake come …’

  ‘What’s that?’ Lady Mary asked.

  ‘Oh God, oh God,’ Sir Godber moaned feebly.

  ‘All right now, tell me all about it,’ said Lady Mary with interest. ‘I’m here to help you.’

  ‘I’ve fallen in the grate,’ Sir Godber explained.

  ‘Fallen from grace?’

  ‘Not grace,’ said Sir Godber desperately. ‘Grate.’

  ‘Great?’ Lady Mary enquired, evidently convinced she was dealing with a disillusioned megalomaniac.

  ‘The hearth. I�
��m bleeding. For God’s sake come …’

  Exhausted by his wife’s lack of understanding Sir Godber fell back upon the floor. Beside him the phone continued to squeak and gibber with Lady Mary’s exhortations.

  ‘Are you there?’ she asked. ‘Are you still there? Now there’s no need to despair.’ Sir Godber groaned. ‘Now don’t hang up. Just stay there and listen. Now you say you’ve fallen from grace. That’s not a very constructive way of looking at things, is it?’ Sir Godber’s stentorian breathing reassured her. ‘After all what is grace? We’re all human. We can’t expect to live up to our own expectations all the time. We’re bound to make mistakes. Even the best of us. But that doesn’t mean to say we’ve fallen from grace. You mustn’t think in those terms. You’re not a Catholic, are you?’ Sir Godber groaned. ‘It’s just that you mentioned bleeding hearts. Catholics believe in bleeding hearts, you know.’ Lady Mary was adding instruction to exhortation now. It was typical of the bloody woman, Sir Godber thought helplessly. He tried to raise himself so that he could replace the receiver and shut out for ever the sound of Lady Mary’s implacable philanthropy but the effort was too much for him.

  ‘Get off the line,’ he managed to moan. ‘I need help.’

  ‘Of course you do and that’s what I’m here for,’ Lady Mary said. ‘To help.’

  Sir Godber crawled away from the receiver, spurred on by her obtuseness. He had to get help somehow. His eye caught the trays of drinks near the door. Whisky. He crawled towards it and managed to get the bottle. He drank some and still clutching the bottle reached the side door. Somehow he opened it and dragged himself out into the Fellows’ Garden. If only he could reach the Court, perhaps he could call out and someone would hear him. He drank some more whisky and tried to get to his feet. There was a light on in the Combination Room. If only he could get there. Sir Godber raised himself on his knees and fell sideways on to the path.

  20

  It was Sir Cathcart’s birthday and as usual there was a party at Coft Castle. On the gravel forecourt the sleek cars bunched in the moonlight like so many large seals huddled on the foreshore. Inside the animal analogy continued. In the interests of several royal guests and uninhibited debauchery, masks were worn if little else. Sir Cathcart typically adopted the disguise of a horse, its muzzle suitably foreshortened to facilitate conversation and his penchant for fellatio. Her Royal Highness the Princess Penelope sought anonymity as a capon and deceived no one. A judge from the Appellate Division was a macaw. There was a bear, two gnus, and a panda wearing a condom. The Loverley sisters sported dildos with stripes and claimed they were zebras and Lord Forsyth, overzealous as a Labrador, urinated against a standard lamp in the library and had to be resuscitated by Mrs Hinkle, who was one of the judges at Cruft’s. Even the detectives mingling with the crowd were dressed as pumas. Only the Dean and the Senior Tutor came as humans, and they were not invited.

  *

  ‘Cathcart’s the only man I know who could do it,’ the Dean had said suddenly during dinner in the empty Hall.

  ‘Do what?’ asked the Senior Tutor.

  ‘See the PM,’ said the Dean. ‘Get him to rescind the Master’s nomination.’

  The Senior Tutor lacerated a shinbone judiciously and wiped his fingers. ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘General maladministration,’ said the Dean.

  ‘Difficult to prove,’ said the Senior Tutor.

  The Dean helped himself to devilled kidneys and Arthur replenished his wine glass. ‘Let us review the facts. Since his arrival the College has seen the deaths of one undergraduate, a bedder, the total destruction of a building classified as a national monument, charges of peculation and a scandal involving the admission of unqualified candidates, the sacking of Skullion and now, to cap it all, the assumption of dictatorial powers by the Master.’

  ‘But surely—’

  ‘Bear with me,’ said the Dean. ‘Now you and I may know that the Master is not wholly responsible, but the general public thinks otherwise. Have you seen today’s Telegraph?’

  ‘No,’ said the Senior Tutor, ‘but I think I know what you mean. The Times has three columns of letters, all of them supporting Skullion’s statement on the box.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the Dean. ‘The Telegraph also has a leading article calling for a stand against student indiscipline and a return to the values Skullion so eloquently advocated. Whatever the merits of The Carrington Programme, it has certainly provoked a public reaction against the dismissal of Skullion. Porterhouse may have been blackguarded but it is Sir Godber who takes the blame.’

  ‘As Master, you mean?’

  ‘Precisely,’ continued the Dean. ‘He may claim—’

  ‘As Master he must accept full responsibility,’ said the Senior Tutor.

  ‘Still, I don’t see that the Prime Minister would willingly dismiss him. It would reflect poorly on his own judgement in the first place.’

  ‘The Government’s position is not a particularly healthy one just at the moment,’ said the Dean. ‘It only needs a nudge …’

  ‘A nudge? From whom?’

  The Dean smiled and signalled to Arthur to make himself scarce. ‘From me,’ he said when the waiter had shuffled off into the darkness of the lower hall.

  ‘You?’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘How?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of Skullion’s Scholars?’ the Dean asked. His bloated face glowed in the light of the candles.

  ‘That old story,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘An old chestnut surely?’

  The Dean shook his head. ‘I have the names and the dates and the sums involved,’ he said. ‘I have the names of the graduates who wrote the papers. I have even some examples of their work.’ He put the tips of his fingers together and nodded. The Senior Tutor stared at him.

  ‘No,’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes,’ the Dean assured him.

  ‘But how?’

  The Dean withdrew a little. ‘Let’s just say that I have,’ he said. ‘There was a time when I disapproved of the practice. I was young in those days and full of foolishness but I changed my mind. Fortunately I did not destroy the evidence. You see now what I mean by a nudge?’

  The Senior Tutor gulped some wine in his amazement. ‘Not the PM?’ he muttered.

  ‘Not,’ admitted the Dean, ‘but one or two of his colleagues.’ The Senior Tutor tried to think which ministers were Porterhouse men.

  ‘I have some eighty names,’ said the Dean, ‘some eighty eminent names. I think they’re quite sufficient.’

  The Senior Tutor mopped his forehead. There was no doubt in his mind about the sufficiency of the Dean’s information. It would bring the Government down. ‘Could you rely on Skullion to substantiate?’ he asked.

  The Dean nodded. ‘I hardly think it will come to that,’ he said, ‘and if it does I am prepared to stand as scapegoat. I am an old man. I no longer care.’

  They sat in silence. Two old men together in the isolated candlelight under the dark rafters of the Hall. Arthur, standing obediently by the green baize door, watched them fondly.

  ‘And Sir Cathcart?’ asked the Senior Tutor.

  ‘And Sir Cathcart,’ agreed the Dean.

  They stood up and the Dean said grace, his voice tremulous in the vastness of the silent Hall. They went out into the Combination Room and Arthur shuffled softly up to the High Table and began to collect the dishes.

  *

  Half an hour later they drove out of the College car park in the Senior Tutor’s car. Coft Castle was blazing with Edwardian brilliance when they arrived.

  ‘It seems an inopportune moment,’ said the Senior Tutor doubtfully surveying the shoal of cars.

  ‘We must strike while the iron is hot,’ said the Dean. Inside they were accosted by a puma.

  ‘Do we look like gatecrashers?’ the Dean asked severely. The puma shook his head.

  ‘We have urgent business with General Sir Cathcart D’Eath,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘Be so good as to inform him that the Dean and Se
nior Tutor have arrived. We shall wait for him in the library.’

  The puma nodded dutifully and they pushed their way through a crush of assorted beasts to the library.

  ‘I must say I find this sort of thing extremely distasteful,’ said the Dean. ‘I am surprised that Cathcart allows such goings on at Coft Castle. One would have thought he had more taste.’

  ‘He always did have something of a reputation,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘Of course he was before my time but I did hear one or two rather unsavoury stories.’

  ‘Youthful excess is one thing,’ said the Dean, ‘but mutton dressed as lamb is another.’

  ‘They say the leopard doesn’t change its spots,’ said the Senior Tutor. He sat down in a club easy while the Dean idly examined a nicely bound copy of Stendhal. It contained, as he had expected from the title, a bottle of liqueur.

  Outside the puma stalked Sir Cathcart. He found it extremely difficult. He tried the billiard-room without success. In the kitchen he asked the cook if she had seen him.

  ‘I wouldn’t know him if I had,’ the cook said primly. ‘All I know is that he’s gone as a horse.’

  The detective went back into the menagerie and asked several guests who were wearing horsey masks if they were Sir Cathcart. They weren’t. He helped himself to champagne and tried again. Finally he ran Sir Cathcart to ground in the conservatory with a well-known jockey. The detective surveyed the scene with disgust.

  ‘Two gentlemen to see you in the library,’ he said. Sir Cathcart got to his feet.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said indistinctly. ‘What are they doing there? I said nobody was to go in the library.’ He staggered off down the passage and into the library where the Dean had just discovered a copy of A Man and A Maid inside an early edition of Great Expectations.