Porterhouse Blue (24 page)

‘You’ll do me in London or you won’t do me at all,’ he insisted.

‘In London?’

‘Haven’t been to London for thirteen years,’ said Skullion.

‘We can take you up to London for a day if you like but it would be much better if we filmed the interview here. We can do it here in your own home.’ Carrington looked round the dingy kitchen approvingly. It had just that element of pathos he required.

‘Wouldn’t look good,’ said Skullion. Under his breath Carrington cursed the old fool.

‘I’m not having myself on film either,’ Skullion continued.

‘Not having yourself on film?’

‘I want to go out live,’ said Skullion.

‘Live?’

‘In a studio. Like they do on
Panorama
. Always wanted to see what it was like in a studio,’ Skullion went on. ‘It’s more natural, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Carrington, ‘it’s extremely unnatural. It’s hot and you have large cameras …’

‘That’s the way I want it,’ Skullion said, ‘I’m not doing it any other way. Live.’

‘All right,’ Carrington said finally, ‘if you insist. We’ll have to rehearse it first, of course. I’ll put questions to you and you’ll reply. We’ll run through it so that there aren’t any mistakes.’ He left the house in some annoyance, troubled by Skullion’s persistence and conscious that without Skullion the programme would lack dramatic impact. If Skullion wanted to go to London and if, in his superstitious way, he objected to being ‘put on film’ he would have to be placated. In the meantime the cameramen could film Rhyder Street and at least the exterior of the Head Porter’s home. He drove back to Porterhouse and collected the camera crew. Only one interview left now, that with General Sir Cathcart D’Eath at Coft Castle.

A week later Carrington and Skullion travelled to London together. Carrington had spent the week editing the film and adding his commentary but all the time he had been harassed by a nagging suspicion that there was something wrong, not with the programme as he had finally concocted it but with Skullion. The petulance that had attracted Carrington to him in the first place had gone out of him. In its stead there was a stillness and an impression of strength. It was as though Skullion had gained in stature since his dismissal and was pursuing interests he knew to be his own and no one else’s. Carrington did not mind the change. In its own way it would heighten the effect Skullion would have on the millions who would watch him. Carrington had even found reason to congratulate himself on the Porter’s insistence that he appear live in the studio. His rugged face, with its veined nose and heavy eyebrows, would stand out against the artificiality of the studio and give his appearance a sense of immediacy that was lacking in the interviews filmed in Cambridge. Above all, Skullion’s inarticulate answers would stir the hearts of his audience. Across the country men and women would sit forward in their chairs to listen to his pitiable story, conscious that they were witnessing an authentic human drama. Coming after the radical platitudes of Sir Godber and the reactionary vehemence of the Dean, Skullion’s transparent honesty would emphasize the homely virtues in which they and Cornelius Carrington
placed so much faith. And finally there would come the master-stroke. From the gravel drive in front of Coft Castle, General Sir Cathcart D’Eath would offer Skullion a home and the camera would pan to a bungalow where the Head Porter could see his days out in peace. Carrington was proud of that scene. Coft Castle was suburbia inflated and transplanted to the countryside and the General himself the epitome of a modern English gentleman. It had taken a good deal of editing to achieve that result, but Carrington’s good sense had prevailed over Sir Cathcart’s wilder flights of abuse. He had to admit that the Sealyham had helped to inject a note of sympathy into Sir Cathcart’s conversation. Carrington had spotted the dog playing on the lawn and had asked the General if he was fond of dogs.

‘Always been fond of ’em,’ Sir Cathcart had replied. ‘Loyal friend, obedient, go anywhere with you. Nothing to touch ’em.’

‘If you found a stray you’d give him a home?’

‘Certainly,’ said Sir Cathcart. ‘Glad to. Couldn’t leave him to starve. Plenty of room here. Have the run of the place. Decent quarters.’

Since in the edited version Sir Cathcart’s hospitality appeared to refer to Skullion, Carrington felt that he could congratulate himself on a brilliant performance. All it had needed had been the substitution of ‘If Skullion needed a place to live you’d offer him a home?’ for ‘If you found a stray you’d give him a home?’ The
General was unlikely to deny his invitation. The consequences to his image as a public benefactor would be too enormous.

As they drove to London Carrington coached Skullion in his role. ‘Remember to look straight into the camera. Just answer my questions simply.’ In the darkness Skullion nodded silently.

‘I’ll say, “When did you first become a porter?” and you’ll say, “In 1928.” You don’t have to elaborate. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Skullion.

‘Then I’ll say, “You’ve been the Head Porter of Porterhouse since 1945?” and you’ll say “Yes.”’

‘Yes,’ said Skullion.

‘Then I’ll go on, “So you’ve been a College servant for forty-five years?” and you’ll say, “Yes.” Is that clear?’

‘Yes,’ said Skullion.

‘Then I’ll say, “And now you’ve been sacked?” and you’ll say, “Yes.” I’ll say, “Have you any idea why you’ve been sacked?” What will you say to that?’

‘No,’ said Skullion. Carrington was satisfied. The General might just as well have been talking about Skullion when he said that dogs were obedient. Carrington relaxed. It was going to go well.

They crossed London to the studio and Skullion was shepherded by an assistant to the entertainment room in the basement while Carrington disappeared into a
lift. Skullion looked around him suspiciously. The room looked like a rather large air-raid shelter.

‘Do sit down, Mr Skullion,’ said the young man. Skullion sat on the plastic sofa and took off his bowler hat, while the young man unlocked what looked like a built-in wardrobe and wheeled out a large box. Skullion scowled at the box.

‘What’s that?’ he enquired.

‘It’s a sort of portable bar. It helps to have a drink before one goes up to the studio.’

‘Ah,’ said Skullion and watched the young man unlock the box. A formidable array of bottles gleamed in the interior.

‘What would you care for? Whisky, gin?’

‘Nothing,’ said Skullion.

‘Really,’ twittered the young man. ‘That’s most unusual. Most people need a drink especially if they’re going on live.’

‘You have one if you want one,’ Skullion said. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ He took out his pipe and filled it slowly. The young man looked doubtfully at the portable bar.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a drink?’ he asked. ‘It does help, you know.’

Skullion shook his head. ‘Have one afterwards,’ he said, and lit his pipe. The young man locked the bar and put it back into the wardrobe.

‘Is this your first time?’ he asked, evidently anxious to put Skullion at his ease.

Skullion nodded and said nothing.

He was still saying nothing when Cornelius Carrington came down to collect him. The room was filled with the acrid smoke from Skullion’s pipe and the young man was sitting at the far end of the plastic sofa in a state of considerable agitation.

‘He won’t drink anything,’ he whispered. ‘He won’t say anything. He just sits there smoking that filthy pipe.’ Carrington looked at Skullion with some alarm. Visions of Skullion drying up in the middle of the interview began to seem a distinct possibility.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

Skullion looked at him sourly. ‘Never felt better,’ he said. ‘But I can’t say I like the company.’ He glowered at the young man.

Carrington escorted him out into the corridor. ‘Poofter,’ said Skullion as they went up in the lift. Carrington shuddered. There was something disturbing about the Head Porter’s new attitude. He lacked the eagerness to please that seemed to affect most people who came to be interviewed, a nervous geniality that made them pliable and stimulated in Carrington a dominance he was unable to satisfy outside the artificial environs of the studio. If anyone was likely to dry up, he admitted to himself, it seemed more likely to be Cornelius Carrington than Skullion. He ushered the Porter into the brilliantly lit studio and sat him in the chair before hurrying out and having two quick slugs of whisky. By
the time he had returned Skullion was telling a young make-up woman to keep her paws to herself.

Carrington took his seat and smiled at Skullion. ‘One thing you must try to avoid is kicking the mike,’ he said. Skullion said he’d try not to. The cameras moved round him. Young men came and went. In the next room behind a large darkened window the producer and the technicians arranged themselves at the console. Carrington on Cambridge was on the air. 9.25. Peak-hour viewing.

In Porterhouse dinner was over. It had, for a change, been an equable affair without any of the verbal infighting that usually occurred whenever the Fellows were gathered together. Instead a strange goodwill prevailed. Even the Master dined in Hall and the Dean sitting on his right managed to refrain from being offensive. It was as though a truce had been declared.

‘I’ve done my best to see that more influential members of the Porterhouse Society have been informed about the programme,’ he told the Master.

‘Excellent,’ said Sir Godber. ‘I’m sure we all owe you a debt of gratitude, Dean.’ The Dean forbore from sniggering. ‘One does one’s best,’ he said. ‘After all it’s for the good of the College. We should get one or two fairly healthy subscriptions for the restoration fund as a result of young Carrington’s efforts.’

‘I found him a most sympathetic man,’ said Sir Godber. ‘Unusually perceptive, I thought, for …’ He was about to say an old Porterhouse man but thought better of it.

‘Flirty Bertie, they used to call him, when he was an undergraduate,’ shouted the Chaplain.

‘Ah well, he seems to have changed a good deal since those days,’ said Sir Godber.

‘They ducked him in the fountain,’ the Chaplain continued. It was the only ominous remark of the whole meal.

Afterwards they sat in the Combination Room over coffee and cigars, glancing occasionally at the large colour television set that had been installed for the occasion. At nine they switched it on and watched the news, while Arthur, the waiter, was told to bring some more brandy. Sir Cathcart arrived at the invitation of the Dean and when
The Carrington Programme
began all those who had some part in it were present in the Combination Room. All except Skullion, who sat in the studio with the suggestion of a smile softening imperceptibly the harsh lines of his face.

In the Combination Room Cornelius Carrington’s voice broke through the last bars of the Eton Boating Song which had accompanied the opening shots of the Backs and King’s College Chapel. ‘To many people Cambridge is one of the great centres of learning, the birthplace of science and of culture. Here the great English poets had their education. Milton was a scholar
of Christ’s College.’ The interior of Milton’s room appeared upon the screen. ‘Wordsworth and Tennyson, Byron and Coleridge were all Cambridge men.’ The camera skipped briefly from an upper window in St John’s to Trinity and Jesus, before settling on the seated figure of Tennyson in Trinity Chapel. ‘Here, Newton,’ Newton’s statue glowed on the screen, ‘first discovered the laws of gravity, and Rutherford, the father of the atom bomb, first split the atom.’ A corner of the Cavendish Laboratory, discreetly photographed to avoid any sign of modernity, appeared.

‘I must say friend Carrington has a way of leaping the centuries fairly rapidly,’ said the Dean.

‘What’s the Eton Boating Song got to do with King’s?’ asked Sir Cathcart.

Carrington continued. Cambridge was the Venice of the Fens. Shots of the Bridge of Sighs. Punts. Grantchester. Undergraduates pouring out of the lecture rooms in Mill Lane. Carrington’s emollient voice proclaimed the glory that was Cambridge.

‘But tonight we are going to look at a college that is unique even in the unchanging world of Cambridge.’

The Master sat forward and stared at the College crest on the tower above the main gate. Around him the Fellows stirred uneasily in their chairs. The invasion of their privacy had begun. And it continued. Carrington asked his audience to consider the anachronism that was his old college. The balm had left his voice. A new strident note of alarm had crept in suggesting to his
audience that what they were about to see might well shock and surprise them. There was an implication that Porterhouse was something more than a mere college and that the crisis which had developed there was somehow symbolic of the choice that confronted the country. In the Combination Room the Fellows gaped at the screen in amazement. Even Sir Godber shivered at the new emphasis. Malaise was hardly a word he’d expected to hear applied to the condition of the College and when, after floating through Old Court and the Screens, the camera zoomed in on the plastic sheeting of the Tower there was a unanimous gasp in the Combination Room.

‘What drove a brilliant young scholar to take his life and that of an elderly woman in this strange fashion?’ Carrington asked, and proceeded to describe the circumstances of Zipser’s death in a manner which fully justified his earlier warning that viewers must expect to be shocked and surprised.

‘Good God,’ shouted Sir Cathcart, ‘what’s the bastard trying to do?’ The Dean closed his eyes and Sir Godber took a gulp of brandy.

‘I asked the Dean his opinion,’ Carrington continued and the Dean opened his eyes to peer at his own face as it appeared on the screen.

‘It’s my opinion that young men come up today with their heads filled with anarchist nonsense. They seem to think they can change the world by violent means,’ the Dean heard himself telling the world.

‘He did nothing of the sort,’ shouted the Dean. ‘He never mentioned Zipser!’

Carrington issued his denial. ‘So you see this as an act of self-destructive nihilism on the part of a young man who had been working too hard?’ he asked.