Porterhouse Blue (22 page)

By the time Walter arrived Skullion had made up his mind. He took his coat down from the hook and put it on. ‘Going out,’ he told the astonished under-porter (Skullion hadn’t been known to go out in the morning since he had been his assistant) and fetched his bicycle. The thaw had set in and this time as Skullion pedalled out to Coft the fields around him were piebald. Head bent against the wind, Skullion concentrated on what he was going to say and failed to notice the Dean’s car
as it swept past him. By the time he reached Coft Castle the bitterness that had been welling in him since his interview with the Bursar had bred in him an indifference to etiquette. He left his bicycle beside the front door of the house and knocked heavily on the door knocker. Sir Cathcart answered the door himself and was too astonished to find Skullion glowering at him from the doorstep to remind him that he was expected to use the kitchen door. Instead he found himself following the Porter into his drawing-room where the Dean, already ensconced in an armchair in front of the fire, had been telling him the news about Cornelius Carrington. Skullion stood inside the door and stared belligerently at the Dean while Sir Cathcart wondered if he should ring for the cook to bring a kitchen chair.

‘Skullion, what on earth are you doing here?’ asked the Dean. There was nothing hangdog about the Porter now.

‘Come to tell the General about being sacked,’ said Skullion grimly.

‘Sacked? What do you mean? Sacked?’ The Dean rose to his feet, and stood with his back to the fire. It was a good traditional stance for dealing with truculent servants.

‘What I say,’ said Skullion, ‘I’ve been sacked.’

‘Impossible,’ said the Dean. ‘You can’t have been sacked. Nobody’s told me anything about this. What for?’

‘Nothing,’ said Skullion.

‘There must be some mistake,’ said the General. ‘You’ve got hold of the wrong end of …’

‘Bursar sent for me. Told me I’d got to go,’ Skullion insisted.

‘Bursar? He’s got no authority to do a thing like that,’ said the Dean.

‘Well, he’s done it. Yesterday afternoon,’ Skullion continued. ‘Told me to find other employment. Says the College can’t afford to keep me on. Offered him money too, to help out. Wouldn’t take it. Just gave me the sack.’

‘This is scandalous. We can’t have College servants treated in this high-handed fashion,’ said the Dean. ‘I’ll have a word with the Bursar when I get back.’

Skullion shook his head sullenly. ‘That won’t do any good. The Master put him up to it.’

The Dean and Sir Cathcart looked at one another. There was in that glance a hint of triumph which grew as Skullion went on. ‘Turned out of my own house. Sacked after all the years I’ve given to the College. It isn’t right. Not standing for it, I’m not. I’m going to complain.’

‘Quite right,’ said the General. ‘Absolutely scandalous behaviour on the part of the Master.’

‘I want my job back now or else,’ Skullion muttered. The Dean turned and warmed his hands at the fire. ‘I’ll put in a good word for you, Skullion. You need have no fear on that score.’

‘I’m sure the Dean will do his best for you, Skullion,’
said Sir Cathcart, opening the door for him. But Skullion stood his ground.

‘Going to need more than words,’ he said defiantly. The Dean turned round sharply. He wasn’t used to being spoken to in that tone of voice by servants.

‘You heard what I said, Skullion,’ he said peremptorily. ‘We’ll do what we can for you. Can’t promise more than that.’

Still Skullion stood where he was.

‘Got to do better than that,’ he muttered.

‘I beg your pardon, Skullion,’ said the Dean. But Skullion was not to be intimidated.

‘It’s my right to be Porter,’ he maintained. ‘I’ve not done anything wrong. Forty-five years …’

‘Yes, we know all that, Skullion,’ said the Dean.

‘I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding,’ interposed Sir Cathcart. ‘The Dean and I will see what we can do to put the matter right. I’ll see the Master personally if necessary. Can’t have this sort of thing going on in a college like Porterhouse.’

Skullion looked at him gratefully. The General would see him right. He turned to the door and went out. The General followed him into the hall. ‘Ask Cook to give you some tea before you go,’ he said, reverting to his old routine, but Skullion had already gone. Planting his bowler hat firmly on his head he mounted his bicycle and pedalled off down the drive.

Sir Cathcart went back into the drawing-room. ‘What price Sir Godber now?’ he said.

The Dean rubbed his hands happily. ‘I think we’ve got the rod we need,’ he said. ‘The Master is going to rue the day he sacked Skullion. That’s one of the nice things about these damned Socialists. The first people to get hurt by their rage for social justice are the working classes.’

‘He’s certainly got old Skullion’s back up,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Well, I suppose we had better get in touch with the Bursar and see what we can do.’

‘Do? My dear Cathcart, we do precisely nothing. If Sir Godber is fool enough to have the Bursar sack Skullion, I for one am not going to rescue him from his folly.’

Sir Cathcart stared uneasily at the receding figure of the Porter. Seen through the glass of the mullioned window Skullion had assumed a new amorphous aspect, dwindling but at the same time unsettling. He wondered briefly how much the Dean knew about Skullion’s amendment of the examination process. It seemed a question better left unasked. Doubtless the whole business would blow over.

‘After all, Cathcart,’ said the Dean, ‘you were the one who said the bleating of the sheep excites the tiger. Carrington is going to love this. He’s staying at the Blue Boar. I think I’ll drop in and have a word with him on the way back. Invite him to dine in Hall.’

General Sir Cathcart D’Eath sighed. It was one of the few good things about the affair that he didn’t have to share his house with Cornelius Carrington.

Cornelius Carrington spent the morning in his room organizing his thoughts. It was one of his characteristics as a spokesman for his times that he seldom knew what to think about any particular issue. On the other hand he had an unerring instinct about what not to think. It was for instance unthinkable to approve of capital punishment, of government policy, or of apartheid. These were always beyond the pale and on a par with Stalin, Hitler and the Moors murderers. It was in the middle ground that he found most difficulty. Comprehensive schools were terrible but then so was the eleven-plus. Grammar schools were splendid but he despised their products. The unemployed were shiftless unless they were redundant. Miners were splendid fellows until they went on strike, and the North of England was the heart of Britain to be avoided at all costs. Finally Ireland and Ulster. Cornelius Carrington’s mind boggled when he tried to find an opinion on the topic. And since his existence depended upon his capacity to appear to hold inflexible opinions on nearly every topic under the sun without at the same time offending more than half his audience at once, he spent his life in a state of irresolute commitment.

Even now, faced with the simple case of Skullion’s sacking, he needed to decide which side the angels were on. Skullion was irrelevant, the object of an issue and superbly telegenic, but otherwise unimportant. He would be paraded before the cameras, encouraged to say a few inarticulate but moving sentences, and sent home with his fee to be forgotten. It was the issue that bothered Carrington. Who to blame for the injustice done to the old retainer? What aspect of Cambridge life to deplore? The old or the new? Sir Godber, who was evidently doing his best to turn Porterhouse into an academic college with modern amenities in an atmosphere of medieval monasticism? Or the Dean and Fellows, whose athletic snobbery Carrington found personally so insufferable? On the surface, Sir Godber was the culprit but there was much to be said for lambasting the Dean without whose obstinacy the economies which necessitated sacking the Head Porter could have been avoided. He would have to see Sir Godber. It was necessary in any case to get his permission to do the programme. Carrington picked up the phone and dialled the Master’s Lodge.

‘Ah, Sir Godber,’ he said when the Master answered, ‘my name is Carrington, Cornelius Carrington.’ He paused and listened to the Master’s voice change tone from indifference to interest. Sir Godber was evidently a man who knew his media, and rose accordingly in Carrington’s estimation.

‘Of course. Come to lunch. We can have it here or
in Hall as you prefer,’ Sir Godber gushed. Carrington said he’d be delighted to. He left the Blue Boar and walked towards Porterhouse.

Sir Godber sat in his study invigorated. A programme on Porterhouse by Cornelius Carrington. It was an unexpected stroke of luck, a chance for him to appear once more in the public eye, and a golden opportunity to propound his philosophy of education. Come to think of it, he cut a good figure on television. He rather doubted if the Dean would come across as well, always supposing the old fool was prepared to appear on anything quite so new fangled. He was still engrossed in composing an unrehearsed account of the changes he had in mind for the College when the doorbell rang and the au pair girl announced Cornelius Carrington. The Master rose to greet him.

‘How very nice of you to come,’ he said warmly and led Carrington into the study. ‘I had no idea you were an old Porterhouse man and to be perfectly honest I still find it hard to believe. I don’t mean that in any derogatory sense, I assure you. I’m a great admirer of yours. I thought that thing you did on epilepsy in Flintshire was excellent. It’s just that I’ve come to associate the College with a rather less concerned approach to contemporary problems.’ Conscious that he was perhaps being a little too effusive, the Master offered him a drink. Carrington looked round the room appreciatively. There were no photographs here to remind him of the insignificance of his own youth and
Sir Godber’s adulation came as a pleasant change from the Dean’s polite asperity.

‘This programme of yours on the College is a splendid idea,’ Sir Godber continued when they were seated. ‘Just the sort of thing the College needs. A critical look at old traditions and an emphasis on the need for change. I imagine you have something of that sort in mind?’ Sir Godber looked at him expectantly.

‘Quite,’ said Carrington. Sir Godber’s generalities left every option open. ‘Though I don’t imagine the Dean will approve.’

Sir Godber looked at him keenly. The hint of malice he detected was most encouraging. ‘A wonderful character, the Dean,’ he said, ‘though a trifle hidebound.’

‘A genuine eccentric,’ agreed Carrington drily. It was evident from his manner that the Dean did not command his loyalty. Reassured, the Master launched into an analysis of the function of the college system in the modern world while Carrington toyed with his glass and considered the invincible gullibility of all politicians. Sir Godber’s faith in the future was almost as insufferable as the Dean’s condescension and Carrington’s erratic sympathies veered back towards the past. Sir Godber had just finished describing the advantages of coeducation, a subject that Carrington found personally distasteful, when Lady Mary arrived.

‘My dear,’ said Sir Godber, ‘I’d like you to meet Cornelius Carrington.’

Carrington found himself gazing into the arctic depths of Lady Mary’s eyes.

‘How do you do?’ said Lady Mary, her sympathies strained by the evident ambiguities of Carrington’s sexual nature.

‘He’s thinking of doing a programme on the College,’ Sir Godber said, pouring the driest of sherries.

‘How absolutely splendid,’ Lady Mary barked. ‘I found your programme on spina bifida most invigorating. It really is time we put some backbone into those people at the Ministry of Health.’

Carrington shivered at the forcefulness of Lady Mary’s enthusiasm. It filled him with that nostalgia for the nursery that was the hidden counterpart of his own predatory nature. The nursery with Lady Mary as the nanny. Even the thin mouth thrilled him, and the yellow teeth.

‘Of course it’s the same with the dental service,’ Lady Mary snarled telepathically. ‘We should put some teeth into it.’ She smiled and Carrington glimpsed the dry tongue.

‘I imagine you must find this a great change from London,’ he said.

‘It’s quite extraordinary,’ said Lady Mary still blossoming under the warmth of his asexual attention. ‘Here we are only fifty miles from London and it seems like a thousand.’ She pulled herself together. He was still a man for all that.

‘What sort of thing were you thinking of doing on the College?’ she asked. On the sofa Sir Godber blended with the loose cover.

‘It’s really a question of presentation,’ Carrington said vaguely. ‘One has to show both sides, naturally …’

‘I’m sure you’ll do that very well,’ said Lady Mary.

‘And leave it to the viewers to make up their own minds,’ Carrington went on.

‘I think you’ll have difficulty persuading the Dean and the Fellows to cooperate. You’ve no idea what a reactionary lot they are,’ Lady Mary said. Carrington smiled.

‘My dear,’ said Sir Godber. ‘Carrington is a Porterhouse man himself.’

‘Really,’ said Lady Mary, ‘in that case I must congratulate you. You’ve come out of it very well.’ They went in to lunch and Lady Mary talked enthusiastically about her work with the Samaritans over a pilchard salad while Carrington slowly wilted. By the time he left the Lodge carrying with him their benediction on the programme Carrington had begun to feel he understood the Master’s longing for a painless, rational and fully automated future free from disease, starvation and the miseries of war and personal incompatibility. There would be no place in it for Lady Mary’s terrifying philanthropy.

He dawdled throughout the College grounds, gazed at the goldfish in the pond, patted the busts in the Library, and posed in front of the reredos in the Chapel.
Finally he made his way to the Porter’s Lodge to reassure himself that Skullion was still agreeable to stating his grievances before three million viewers. He found the Porter less pessimistic than he’d hoped.

‘I told them,’ he said, ‘I told them they’d got to do something.’