Grantchester Grind

9

The Senior Tutor, on the other hand, was intensely conscious. In fact, in a long life devoted in the main to remaining unconscious of just about everything except rowing and food and ignoring as much of reality as he could, he had never been more unpleasantly conscious. Like the Bursar, he wished to God he wasn't. He had dined in Corpus the night before and while not exactly wisely-the port had been particularly good but a whole bottle of a '47 crusted port had put him in a state where two large Benedictines had seemed a good idea-he had dined extremely well. As a result he had woken late feeling not so much like death warmed over as hell heated up. It wasn't only his appalling headache, it was his stomach. He didn't want to know what was going on down there but whatever it was he wished it would stop. Or come up. The desire to vomit was both overwhelming and impossible to satisfy. And he could only imagine that he had developed galloping hobnail liver, one with spikes on. But it was his eyes that were troubling him most. When he finally got up-'got up' was wrong-when he managed to get to his feet, he had to sit on the edge of the bed for ten minutes alternately clutching his stomach and his head, and had slowly crawled along the wall to the bathroom, the face that he could barely see in the mirror was not one that he had any desire to recognize. It seemed to be covered in floating spots which moved across its purple surface or hung like strands of some sort of detached and rather thick spider's web about the place. In fact everywhere he looked he seemed to be darkly mottled, and when he could focus sufficiently to look more closely at his eyes they resembled strawberries that had something the matter with them. For a moment he thought he must have caught a particularly virulent form of pink eye. Except of course that they weren't pink. The bloody things were scarlet and crimson and to talk about the whites of his eyes would have been absolutely meaningless. But it wasn't what he saw in the bathroom mirror that worried him most. As he went back along the wall towards his bed and, hopefully, death he passed the window overlooking the Court and…It was at that moment that the Senior Tutor knew he was suffering from the DTs and swore for the first time that, if he lived-not that he wanted to-he would never drink anything faintly alcoholic ever again.

There was a man in a polo-neck with a black blazer and white socks and dark blue sunglasses standing gazing up at the Bull Tower. That was fine in its way, though the Senior Tutor disliked tourists intensely. What really appalled him was that there was another man similarly dressed over by the Screens and yet another apparition-or was it two more?-gazing at the fountain. In fact, they were all over the place. The Senior Tutor clutched the sill in front of him and tried to count the swine. He'd got to about eight, though he wasn't sure there weren't sixteen, when he raised his eyes to heaven and caught sight of some more on the Chapel roof.

With a dreadful moan the Senior Tutor fell back against his desk and cursed himself, God, and that fucking '47 crusted port, not to mention the two Benedictines which until that moment he had forgotten. There was no doubt about it. He was in the last stages of delirium tremens. He had to be. Pink elephants were one thing. He'd heard about people with alcoholic poisoning seeing them. And spiders. And frankly he'd have given anything for some decent pink elephants or spiders. But that he should be afflicted by symptoms that produced seemingly dozens of men wearing dark sunglasses and white socks and polo-neck sweaters clearly indicated a degree of insanity he hadn't supposed existed. For a second or two he considered going back to the bathroom and putting an end to the horror once and for all and for ever and ever.

He was saved by a new and extraordinarily vivid illusion. Or delusion. There was another ghastly figure at the Chapel door and as he gazed in utter horror there was a sudden eruption of people from the Chapel who fought their way out and over the ghastly figure. The Senior Tutor shut his eyes and crawled back to his bed. At least in there he couldn't see anything very much. He lay with his head under the covers and prayed for death.

He was in this condition when the Praelector arrived in a state of alarm himself. 'Senior Tutor, Senior Tutor, are you there?' he called out from the passage. The Senior Tutor whimpered and pretended not to be anywhere, but the Praelector was not to be misled. What was happening in the College was so dreadful he had to consult someone and none of the Junior Fellows was about and the Dean was absent and Professor Pawley, who had been doing something astronomical during the night, had sported his oak and refused to be woken. Only the Senior Tutor was available to help cope with the crisis. 'Senior Tutor, for Heaven's sake do get up. The most dreadful things are happening.'

The Senior Tutor knew that but he didn't want to talk about it. 'Go away, please go away,' he called weakly from the bedroom. 'I am very unwell.'

'Unwell? Oh dear, I am sorry. Do you want to have the doctor or Matron? I'll go and…'

But the thought that first the Matron and then Dr MacKendly should see him before he died roused the Senior Tutor. 'No, for God's sake, no,' he pleaded, emerging from under the bedclothes. 'And on no account turn on the light.'

Framed in the doorway, the Praelector hesitated. He had heard rumours about the Senior Tutor's sex life and he was afraid he might be intruding upon it in some way. 'When you say you are unwell…' he began.

'I am…I am the Senior Tutor struggled to find words for his state without mentioning the DTs and men in dark glasses and white socks. 'I am not quite myself.'

For a moment the Praelector, a man who was not easily affected by events and took things as they came, was distracted from his own recent experiences. 'So few of us are,' he said. 'I know that at times I am not entirely sure of my own real nature. It is a question of philosophical interest that-'

'It isn't,' the Senior Tutor protested. 'It has nothing to do with philosophy. I am beside myself.'

'Ah,' said the Praelector, reverting to his previous sexual theory that the Senior Tutor might actually be beside someone else. 'Now do you mean that literally or metaphorically?'

It was not a question the Senior Tutor felt in the least like answering. 'What the hell does it matter whether I mean…Oh God, the agony…Can't you tell I am out of my mind,' he almost shouted.

'Well, I can certainly tell you are not entirely in it,' said the Praelector. 'But then so few Cambridge dons are entirely in their minds all the time. In fact I'd go so far as to say some of them appear to have no minds to be in. That is surely where the expression "to be in two minds" comes from.'

'Does it fuck!' screamed the Senior Tutor, driven even further towards dementia by the abstract nature of the argument. 'I am out of the only mind I've got. Or had. I am mad. I am insane. Don't you understand simple language?'

'If you put it like that, I can't say I am entirely surprised,' said the Praelector, whose goodwill had reached its limit. 'To tell the truth I never believed you to be entirely normal. All that rowing and riding up and down the towpath shouting obscenities…'

The Senior Tutor shouted some more and provoked the Praelector to switch the light on. He had almost entirely forgotten why he had come to see the Senior Tutor. What he saw now served to convince him that his original premise had been the right one. Clearly the Senior Tutor had done something very nasty to himself sexually. The face that glowered at him from the bed was that of a man in extremis. The Praelector's concern came back. 'My dear fellow, what have you been doing to yourself? At your age masturbation can be very dangerous. Have you been using some-'

'Masturbation,' screamed the Senior Tutor. 'Bugger masturbation.' Again it was an unfortunate expression to use.

'Well, there is that,' said the Praelector, glancing round the bedroom to see if there was some young man there, but he could only see the Senior Tutor's clothes all over the floor and what looked like a very full bottle of Californian Chardonnay beside the bed. Something about the aroma in the room suggested he was mistaken about its contents. All the same…'

But the Senior Tutor had been driven beyond the bounds of endurance by the suggestion that he had been masturbating. He didn't exactly leap from the bed-he was incapable of leaping anywhere-but he certainly staggered from it.

The Praelector looked at his naked body with disgust. And fear. The Senior Tutor hadn't been exaggerating. He was extremely mad and extremely dangerous. All right, I'll go,' the Praelector said, backing through the doorway and now remembering why he had come in the first place. 'But before I do I think you ought to know that the College is filled with dreadful young men in dark glasses and polo-neck sweaters and white socks and…' To his amazement a change came over the Senior Tutor. From being very obviously a homicidal maniac he had suddenly switched to being something else.

It would have been going too far to say that he was looking happy. The '47 crusted port and the Benedictine were still having their effects on just about every part of his body and his eyes didn't look at all healthy but his relief had turned him back into something almost human. 'What did you say?' he whimpered. 'What was that you said?'

'I said the College is filled with dreadful young men in dark glasses and polo-neck sweaters-'

In front of him the Senior Tutor sank to his knees and raised his bloodshot eyes to the ceiling. 'Alleluia, praise be to God,' he moaned, and expressed his feelings by throwing up.

The Praelector left him there and went down into the Court to find that Walter, three other porters, Arthur, the Chef and the entire kitchen staff plus the gardeners supported by dozens of undergraduates, had rounded up the Transworld team and had hustled them out into the street. 'You come back in here like that and you'll get more than a bloody nose,' Walter told one of the team whose glasses had been broken and who was minus a moccasin. 'Next time you won't know what's fucking hit you.'

In the Chaplain's rooms Kudzuvine still didn't. The Matron, a heavy woman with large hands, had had a look at him and had advised calling Dr MacKendly. 'You never know, do you?' she told the Chaplain who was rather partial to her. 'Not with blows to the head, you don't. I daresay he'll be all right but it's best to be on the safe side.'

'I'm not sure that I want to be,' said the Praelector, who had joined the little group at the bedside. 'Anyone who can do what those men did to the Chapel doesn't come into any category I want to preserve alive.' He thought for a moment and then added, 'Oh, and by the way, Matron, I think it might be advisable for you to pay the Senior Tutor a visit. He's been acting very peculiarly and I think he could do with some assistance.'

Muttering to herself that he always did act peculiar, she left on the Praelector's mission of revenge. He still hadn't got over the Senior Tutor's disgusting behaviour or his language. The Matron would do him good. In any case he wanted to ask this awful gangster with the swollen nose what he and his mob had been doing in the College. 'It's not as though there is anything worth stealing, or we'd have sold it,' he told the Chaplain, who was trying to treat Kudzuvine's suspected concussion or fractured skull with brandy. Kudzuvine wasn't having any. He lay there staring up at the Chaplain in a glazed way.

'Now open your mouth, my dear chap,' said the Chaplain. A little of what you fancy does you good, as dear Marie Lloyd used to say.'

'I don't think he fancies Remy Martin somehow,' said the Praelector, who felt like a drink himself.

'Ray Me who?' muttered Kudzuvine. 'What's happening? What's going on?'

'Nothing is going on. It's just that you've had a little accident and fallen…'

Kudzuvine concentrated hard and remembered. 'You call that a little accident? Being trampled to death by a herd of fucking monks and things? You call that little?'

'It's merely a term of…it's a slight euphemism, an understatement. Nothing to get excited about.'

Kudzuvine glowered. 'Nothing to get excited about? You got to be kidding. And understatement it wasn't. I was the fucking understatement. You ever been trampled to death by a herd of fucking-'

'Yes,' said the Chaplain with surprising authority. As a matter of fact I was lock forward in the scrum, if you know what that means, and I have frequently been trampled on. There's no need to make such a fuss about it. You are obviously an American.'

'I am a citizen of the greatest super-power in the world,' said Kudzuvine. 'That's me. A born and bred natural citizen of the greatest super-power in the whole goddam-world and proud of it you better believe me. We can take on the whole fucking rest of you and whip the hell out of you all no sweat.'

'I seem to remember you did particularly well in Vietnam,' said the Praelector, who had landed in Normandy and hadn't forgotten the platoon being bombed by Flying Fortresses near Falaise. 'A most impressive performance. Brilliant strategy and such excellently disciplined fighting men and generals, but then again you were only up against small men who didn't have any aircraft. I daresay if they'd bombed you as heavily as you bombed them…' He left the comparison for Kudzuvine to work out.

'What the fuck are you talking about? Vietnam? Hell, we didn't stand a chance. Those bastards are so small you can't find them to kill and they breed like flies,'

The Chaplain intervened with a different brandy, this time Hine. 'I'm sure you'll find this to your taste,' he said, only to be told to take the fucking stuff away because he was an American non-alcoholic and teetotaller from Bibliopolis, Alabama, and they'd better believe it.

'Oh, but we do,' said the Praelector. 'Now, if you'll just tell us your name?'

'What for?' Kudzuvine demanded belligerently.

For a moment the Praelector was tempted to say they needed it for his next of kin, but he decided on tact. 'It's just that we want to be friends and-'

'Shit!' said Kudzuvine. 'Trample me to death like I'm a fucking Iraqi or something and you want to be friends? Go fuck yourself.'

'I can see this is going to be difficult,' said the Praelector, who had had a trying day and was sick to death of being insulted.

'What I don't see,' said the Chaplain who had drunk the Hine brandy himself, 'is what Iraqis have to do with being trampled to death.'

'One must suppose it refers to the world's greatest super-power using bulldozers to bury the poor devils alive in their trenches,' the Praelector said, and poured himself a glass of the Remy Martin.

'Goddam right we did. Those bastards didn't know what hit them,' said Kudzuvine.

The look in the eyes of both the Chaplain and the Praelector suggested that something of the same sort might be about to happen to Kudzuvine but, being the man he was, he had no idea it was coming. 'I don't know if you have a good lawyer,' the Praelector said very quietly and very distinctly, 'but I think I should tell you that when the police arrive and you have been charged with aggravated assault, criminal trespass with damage, and that damage deliberately done to a Listed Building of National Importance-'

'Listed Building of National Importance? What the fuck you talking about? Like what?' Kudzuvine shouted and tried to sit up.

'If you want a comparison with something in your own country, might I suggest deliberately causing the destruction of the Unitarian Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Emerson preached. But then perhaps you don't know who Emerson was?'

'Sure I know who Emerson was. Invented the fucking electric light. Emerson!' Kudzuvine practically spat at them.

The Praelector smiled grimly. 'What I'm trying to get you to understand is that, following in the great tradition set by the lawyers and judiciary in your wonderful country, we are going to sue you for the damage you have caused to one of the oldest and most valued college chapels, in Cambridge. Now I don't know what damages and costs we will be awarded but the courts in England are increasingly following the American custom of…'

There was no need to go on. The physical injuries Kudzuvine had suffered had paled into total insignificance. He knew about damages. 'Get me Hartang,' he whimpered. 'I've got to have Hartang.'

'I'm afraid I haven't got any,' said the Chaplain. 'Lapsang Souchong, yes, and Earl Grey, but Hartang no. I can't honestly say I've ever heard of it.'

The Praelector was less sympathetic. 'He's playing the oldest legal trick in the world. Playing dumb and being of unsound mind. Not that it is going to help in the least. He brought whoever those dreadful men were into the College where they did the most monstrous damage and committed criminal trespass. Now what did you say your name was?'

'Kudzuvine,' said Kudzuvine.

'Really? How very interesting. And I suppose your mother's name was Ivy,' said the Praelector. 'Something botanical at any rate, and I daresay you have Swedish ancestry.'

'What the fuck you talking about my mother's name? Botanical? They called her Lily May. And what's with the Swedish shit? Nothing Swede about us. Free-born citizen of the greatest super-'

'Quite so. We've been through the virtues of America before _ad nauseam_ and we don't need them again. What is your real name? And don't come up with Alfalfa or Kentucky Bluegrass or anything Linnaean.'

Kudzuvine tried to get off the bed on the other side. He was clearly terrified. But the Praelector had already left the room.

'What's with the other guy, monk?' he asked the Chaplain. 'He always like this?'

The Chaplain seemed to consider the question seriously. 'I suppose he must be,' he said, 'though now you come to mention it…oh well, never mind. It's probably that time of the month.'

'Time of the month? What's the time of the month got to do with it? Guy thinks he menstruates or something?'

'I think it's mainly something,' the Chaplain answered. 'I'm most sorry about that tea. I do have some China. Are you sure?'

Kudzuvine didn't want tea and having some part of China wasn't doing him any good either. But his main worry was the 'something'. 'What's he do this time of month?' he asked as he tried to move towards the door. 'Turn into a werewolf like Frankenstein? We did a movie once on fucking wolves. They got a real tight social order, you know that?'

'How very interesting,' said the Chaplain, and tripped Kudzuvine up with a walking stick. He was still on the floor when the Praelector returned with the Head Porter and two assistants. He stared at their shoes and dark grey trousers and moaned.

'I think it is about time he had a strong drink,' the Praelector said, 'though I don't think we should waste good brandy on the swine. Something cheap and nasty. I'll get some from the kitchen.' He wandered off and presently returned with a large bottle. 'Turn him over,' he ordered and Kudzuvine was turned over and looked up frantically at five horrible faces and at the bottle.

'What are you going to do?' he whimpered. 'What's with the bottle?'

'What's with the bottle is a rather nasty cooking brandy which you are going to taste rather a lot of unless you tell us your name.'

'Kudzuvine, for fucksake. What you think it is? Clinton or Schwarzkopf or something?'

'No, those hadn't occurred to me,' the Praelector said, 'though now that you mention it…' He knelt beside, Kudzuvine and the look in his eye was very cold. 'Now open your mouth.'

Kudzuvine clenched his teeth. 'I've told you before,' he said nasally and with the greatest difficulty, 'I'm a free-born citizen of the world's greatest su-'

The Praelector poured some brandy onto his teeth and Kudzuvine closed his mouth entirely.

'I can see this is going to be very difficult,' said the Praelector. 'We are going to have to prise his mouth open with something.' He rose immediately to his feet and looked round for a suitable instrument. He seemed to find one in the Chaplain's umbrella. 'Now then Walter, if you and Henry will just hold him steady…'

But Kudzuvine was on his feet again and backed against the wall with a wild look in his eye and a round ebony ruler in his hand. 'You lay one hand on me,' he squealed, 'I'm going to fucking kill you. Kill you, understand? You ain't going to make me drink fucking alcohol no way and you'd better know it. I want out of here and as a free-born natural-'

'He does go on about being free-born and natural rather a lot,' said the Praelector, but the Chaplain had disappeared into the next room.

He came back with a large pink rubber bag with a pipe attached to it. 'I wonder if this would be of any use,' he said. 'A very nice girl from Addenbrooke's comes occasionally to give me colonic irrigation…'

'Shit,' said Kudzuvine.

'Exactly. I find it helps a lot. You put the liquid in this bag here and this plastic bit on the end of the pipe goes up-'

'Oh no, it fucking doesn't,' yelled Kudzuvine. 'You think you're going to stick that thing up my ass and pour a quart of fucking brandy down a douche, you're out of your fucking minds. I'm telling you when I get onto the Embassy you bastards are going to learn what it means to be a citizen of…an American citizen…'

He stopped and stared. The Chaplain had handed the douche to Walter who was filling it with cooking brandy. As the bag swelled the Chaplain explained its mechanism. 'This sort of clothes-peg thing is what controls the flow,' he said, pointing to a plastic grip on the rubber pipe. 'Once we have inserted this rounded piece into his mouth-'

A yell from Kudzuvine stopped the explanation. 'Mouth? Mouth? That thing don't go anywhere near my fucking mouth. No way. It's unhygienic. You know where that thing has been?'

'As a matter of fact I do,' said the Chaplain, 'quite a number of times too. I suppose she's been coming here since 1986. A delightful girl called Daisy with such very delicate hands. I had constipation at the time I remember and-'

He was interrupted by Kudzuvine, who had hit Henry with the ruler and was making a dash for the door. He was overcome and pinned to the wall.

'I think it would be easier to administer if he was lying down,' said the Praelector. 'Mind you, we don't want to spill any brandy on the bed. It will have to be the floor again.' There was a brief but violent struggle and Kudzuvine was held down on the carpet.

'You hold the bag, Henry,' Walter said, 'and I'll just insert this plastic bit…, Funny shape it is too and a bit too long to get it right in. Does it matter if we spill a bit, sir? Because it's got these holes in the side and like I say it's a bit long to shove right in. I mean, we might pour the brandy down his lungs and that wouldn't do him a lot of good, like.'

They considered the problem for a moment and the Chaplain found the answer. 'Blu-Tack,' he said. 'I know I've got some somewhere. I use it for cleaning the keys of my typewriter and picking up pins off the floor, you know. Now if we block up the top holes we won't have to push it right down his throat.'

On the floor Kudzuvine's struggles redoubled and were coupled with the most terrible threats and what the American Embassy and Government would do to them and Porterhouse like…

'Grenada and Haiti? And of course we are an island and a small one too,' said the Praelector and wondered aloud why the United States always seemed to prefer wars with island nations. 'But never mind about that. Now then, Mr Mafia man, you are either going to tell us your real name and address and who you are and what you were doing with a team of…' He searched for a word.

Walter supplied it. 'Goons, sir?'

'Exactly. Thank you, Walter. A team of goons, or hoods. Who did very substantial structural damage to a budding, namely the Chapel, which was built several hundred years before your charming country was so unfortunately discovered. Such a shame Columbus didn't go the other way. Now, if you tell us what we need to know, we will not have to put this rather peculiar enema contraption which, I agree, is not at all sanitary, to a purpose I cannot believe it was originally intended for. This is your last chance.'

'I've got the Blu-Tack,' said the Chaplain excitedly. 'Now if we just put it in these holes at the top of the plastic bit…'

'I don't think it's going to be necessary with some of the holes, sir,' Walter told him. 'Some of them are sort of blocked already with…well, I don't like to say, sir, but if you ask me…'

But Kudzuvine was a broken man. 'I swear to God my name is Kudzuvine, Karl Kudzuvine, from Bibliopolis, Alabama, sir,' he said, weeping copiously.

The Praelector was unimpressed. He had served as a recruiter for MI6 and knew some of its methods. A likely story,' he said. 'First Linnaeus and a very unpleasant convolvulus plant rather like Russian Vine or Mile-a-Minute used to prevent soil erosion on roadside cuttings in the South, and now a town called Bibliopolis which clearly doesn't exist. What will you think of next?'

'I swear to God it's true. I'm Vice-President of Transworld Television Productions and I-'

'Oh dear,' the Praelector interrupted, 'have you ever known an American who wasn't a vice-president of something or other? I'm sure I haven't. So terribly boring, all this self-importance.' He simulated a yawn. 'And can't you come up with something better than Transworld Television Productions? Such a very trite name for a company. Transworld indeed!'

'But I swear to God-'

The Chaplain intervened. 'This does happen to be Sunday,' he said, 'and I would be obliged if you would refrain from using that sort of language.'

Kudzuvine looked at him pitifully. The Chaplain was holding the end of the douche, which now had blue holes as well as brown ones, in a very threatening manner.

'Language? What language for Chrissake? You keep asking me questions how the fuck am I supposed to answer without language? I don't know no deaf and dumb. You know, with the hands and all.'

He lay and wept and the Praelector continued with his questioning. He had decided to soften his approach for the time being. 'Now I don't want to have to do this but-'

'You don't?' Kudzuvine broke in. 'You don't want it? You think I do? You think I want that filthy thing in my mouth where it's been? You think that, you're wrong. Man, you couldn't be more wrong, sir.'

'Well, it's up to you,' said the Praelector. 'It's either that thing, as you call it, and frankly I don't know what to call it myself, or the brandy. I don't know if you are acquainted with cooking brandy but the taste isn't pleasant, not pleasant at all. I always stick to decent cognac myself.' He paused for a moment. 'Now then, which is it to be?'

Kudzuvine tried to consider the alternatives and found it very difficult. The Praelector seemed to have left something out. 'You mean between cooking brandy and cognac? Man, I don't know what to say. I keep telling you I'm a non-alcoholic teetotaller. I don't even touch beer. I don't smoke grass, nothing. Not any more. You know, keep my body clear and clean. Even gave up Listerine somebody tells me it's got alcohol. And you want to go easy on the under-arm stuff too. Some of that's got aluminum in it. Gives you Alzheimer's.' He paused as a new and more terrible thought hit him. 'You guys haven't got Alzheimer's, have you? Dear shit…'

The Praelector drew up a chair. He had reached the end of what little patience he had managed to retain. 'If you are ready, Walter,' he said to the Head Porter, but the Chaplain had remembered something. 'You know, I do believe he may be right,' he said.

The Praelector looked up at him. So did Kudzuvine. About what?' asked the Praelector, who couldn't for the life of him believe that this filthy American gangster could be right about anything at all.

'About the television thing. Weren't they trying to bring some sort of lorry with wires in through the Main Gate, Walter?'

'What, this morning, sir? Come to think of it, they were. Had Transworld Television written on the side. I wouldn't let them. I wasn't having that. I told them the last time them bolts was undone was when Her Majesty-'

'Is this true, Walter?' the Praelector interrupted. 'You actually saw this…these words?'

'Oh yes, sir, and Henry did too, didn't you, Henry?'

The Junior Porter nodded. 'He kept asking for Professor Purser and you said we didn't have no Professor Purser and the Bursar came along. Been to Early Communion the Bursar had and you said that wasn't like him to come so early…'

On the floor Kudzuvine managed to find words. Brandy had been dripping from the end of the douche onto his face. 'Professor Bursar,' he screamed, 'Professor Bursar gave me permission to take…to video the College for Mr Hartang. You ask him he'll tell you. I had his authorization. Okay, so not on the lawns.'

'Not on the lawns? What not on the lawns?'

'Like walk on them. They're hundreds of years old you know that? Hundreds and hundreds of years old.'

'Really?' said the Praelector, who happened to know they had been relaid ten years before 'You know, I hadn't thought of it like that.' He was beginning to think that whatever had been going on the Bursar was going to have a quite staggering amount of explaining to do. In the meantime this man, whose name seemed as unlikely as his syntax, had to be handled with rather more care and sophistication than he had been shown to date It would do the Porterhouse reputation no good at all if it leaked out-the word was unfortunately most appropriate-that he had been threatened with forced brandy-drinking by means of a douche that had for ten years been used for colonic irrigation purposes by the Chaplain. That sort of thing would not look good in the _Cambridge Evening News._

The Praelector set out on a policy of appeasement. 'My dear chap,' he said, helping Kudzuvine to his feet. 'You were saying something about the lawn being hundreds of years old and…'

'Sure. Professor Bursar told me that. They're protected species like whales and stuff,' said Kudzuvine, still eyeing him very warily indeed. 'Didn't say nothing about roofs and chapels. They a protected species too?'

'More or less,' said the Praelector and changed his mind. This man Kudzuvine, if that was really his name, had very little grasp of English. 'In fact very much more. They are Listed Buildings under an Act of Parliament signed by Her Majesty the Queen and cannot be altered, touched, damaged or in any way interfered with without the duly obtained permission given in writing and after due consultation by Her Majesty's Commissioners for Ancient Monuments which permission will only be given should the Monument or Listed Building be in serious danger of collapsing. I can assure you that the Porterhouse Chapel and the Monuments it contains come into the latter category as a result of the actions of the men you introduced into the College and for whom you are responsible. I cannot begin to imagine the full consequences of your action except that they will be extremely drastic The issue may have to go to the Privy Council. I hope I have made myself clear.' By which the Praelector of course meant the opposite.

Kudzuvine was still gaping at him. 'The Privy Council?' he muttered. 'Did you say Privy Council?'

'Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second's Privy Council deals with matters-'

Kudzuvine held up a shaking hand. 'Don't tell me,' he said, 'and I had romantic dreams about that Princess of Wales and the Royal Family. And now you tell me Her Majesty…Shit! You British. I'm never going to understand anything round here.'

'Few people do,' said the Praelector. 'We are, I suppose, an acquired taste. Am I not right, Chaplain?'

Kudzuvine turned to look at the Chaplain, who was helping Walter and Henry to drain the cooking brandy back into the bottle. 'Did you say "an acquired taste"?' he said. 'I shouldn't have thought so. It's only cooking brandy and I very much doubt that anyone will notice the Blu-Tack. In fact it might actually add a certain bouquet to the brandy which it presently lacks.'

'I got to get out of here but now,' said Kudzuvine and stumbled towards the door only to be tripped up again by the Praelector using the umbrella. As he slumped forward and hit his head Kudzuvine had the briefest moment of lucid thought. He had to get out of this terrible, terrible place before…

By the time Walter and Henry carried him across the Fellows' Garden to the Master's Lodge he was mercifully quite unconscious.

'I am afraid the creature will have to be our honoured guest for a few days until he has quite recovered,' the Praelector said. 'I can think of no better place for an honoured guest than the Master's Lodge It is immensely secure and well-protected, and besides he will be company for the Master. I am sure Skullion will see he is looked after properly. I shall send for Dr MacKendly and perhaps it would be advisable for Matron to move into the room next to his with another porter on hand and possibly even one or two of the larger kitchen staff to see to his needs and to ensure he does not leave the College. In the meantime, I think a word with the Bursar is called for.'