Porterhouse Blue

Chapter 19

The College Council met at ten on Monday morning. Several Fellows were unable to attend but signified their readiness to vote by proxy through the Dean. Even the Master, who was not fully informed of the agenda, welcomed the meeting. “We must thrash this affair out once and for all,” he told the Bursar, as they made their way to the Council Chamber. “The allegations in yesterday’s Observer have made it essential to make a clean break with the past.”

“They’ve certainly made things very awkward for us,” said the Bursar.

“They’ve made it a damned sight more awkward for the old fogeys,” said Sir Godber.

The Bursar sighed. It was evidently going to be an acrimonious meeting.

It was. The Senior Tutor led the attack.

“I am proposing that we issue a statement rescinding the dismissal of Skullion,” he told the Council when the preliminaries had been dealt with.

“Out of the question,” snapped the Master. “Skullion has chosen to draw the attention of the public to facts about College policy which I am sure we all agree have put the reputation of Porterhouse in jeopardy.”

“I can’t agree,” said the Dean.

“I certainly don’t,” said the Senior Tutor.

“But the whole world knows now that we sell degrees,” Sir Godber insisted.

“That portion of the world that happens to read the Observer, perhaps,” said the Senior Tutor, “but in any case allegations are not facts.”

“In this case they happen to be facts,” said the Master. “Unadulterated facts. Skullion was speaking no more than the truth.”

“In that case I can’t see why you should object to his reinstatement,” said the Senior Tutor.

They argued for twenty minutes but the Master remained adamant.

“I suggest we put the motion to the vote,” said the Dean finally. Sir Godber looked round the table angrily.

“Before we do,” he said, “I think you should consider some further matters. I have been examining the College statutes over the past few days and it appears that as Master I am empowered, should I so wish, to take over admissions. In the light of your refusal to agree to a change in College policy regarding the sort of candidates we admit, I have decided to relieve the Senior Tutor of his responsibilities in this sphere. From how on I shall personally choose all Freshmen. It also lies within my power to select College servants and to dismiss those I consider unsatisfactory. I shall do just that. However you may vote in Council, I shall not, as Master, reinstate Skullion.”

In the Council Chamber a momentary silence followed the Master’s announcement. Then the Senior Tutor spoke.

“This is outrageous,” he shouted. “The statutes are out of date. The position of the Master is a purely formal one.”

“I admire your consistency,” snapped the Master. “As the upholder of outmoded traditions you should be the first to congratulate me for reassuming powers that are a legacy of the past.”

“I am not prepared to stand by and see College traditions flouted,” shouted the Dean.

“They are not being flouted. Dean,” said Sir Godber, “they are being applied. As to your standing by, if by that you mean that you wish to resign your fellowship, I shall be happy to accept your resignation.”

“I did not say anything…” stuttered the Dean.

“Didn’t you?” interrupted the Master, “I thought you did. Am I to understand that you withdraw your -”

“He never made it,” the Senior Tutor was on his feet now. “I find your behaviour quite unwarranted. We, sir, are not some pack of schoolboys that you can dictate to -”

“If you behave like schoolboys, you may expect to be treated like schoolboys. In any case the analogy was yours not mine. Now if you would be so good as to resume your seat the meeting may continue.” The Master looked icily at the Fellows and the Senior Tutor sat down.

“I shall take this opportunity, gentlemen,” said Sir Godber after a long pause, “to enlighten you on my views about the function of the College in the modern world. I must confess that I am astonished to find that you seem unaware of the changes that have taken place in recent years. Your attitude suggests that you regard the College as part of a private domain of which you are custodians. Let me disabuse you of that notion. You are part of the public realm, with public duties, public obligations and public functions. The fact that you choose to ignore them and to conduct the affairs of the College as though they are your personal property indicates to me that you are acting in abuse of your powers. Either we live in a society that is free, open and wholly equalitarian or we do not. As Master of this College I am determined that we shall extend the benefits of education to those who merit it by virtue of ability, irrespective of class, sex, financial standing or race. The days of rotten boroughs are over.” Sir Godber’s voice was strident with idealism and threat. Not since the days of the Protectorate had the Council Chamber of Porterhouse known such vehemence, and the Fellows sat staring at the Master as at some strange animal that had assumed the shape of a man. By the time he had exhausted his theme he had left them in no doubt as to his intentions. Porterhouse would never be the same again. To the long catalogue of changes he had proposed at earlier meetings, he had now added the creation of a student council, with executive powers to decide College appointments and policy. He left the Council Chamber emotionally depleted but satisfied that he had made his point. Behind him the Fellows sat aghast at the crisis they had precipitated. It was a long time before anyone spoke.

“I don’t understand,” said the Dean pathetically, “I simply don’t understand what these people want.” It was clear that in his mind Sir Godber’s eloquence had elevated or possibly debased him from an individual to a class.

“Their own way,” said the Senior Tutor bitterly.

“The Kingdom of Heaven,” shouted the Chaplain.

The Bursar said nothing. His multiple allegiances left him speechless.

Lunch was a mournful occasion. It was the end of term and the Fellows at High Table ate in a silence made all the more noticeable by the lack of conversation from the empty tables below them. To make matters worse, the soup was cold and there was cottage pie. But it was the knowledge of their own dispensability that cast gloom over them. For five hundred years they and their predecessors had ordained at least some portion of the elite that had ruled the nation. It had been through the sieve of their indulgent bigotry that young men had squeezed to become judges and lawyers, politicians and soldiers, men of affairs, all of them imbued with a corporate complacency and an intellectual scepticism that desiccated change. They were the guardians of political inertia and their role was done. They had succumbed at last to the least effectual of politicians.

“A student council to run the College. It’s monstrous,” said the Senior Tutor, but there was no hope in his protest. Despite his cultivated mediocrity of mind, the Senior Tutor had seen change coming. He blamed the sciences for re-establishing the mirage of truth, and still more the pseudomorph subjects like anthropology and economics whose adepts substituted inapplicable statistics for the ineptness of their insights. And finally there was sociology with its absurd maxim. The Proper Study of Mankind is Man, which typically it took from a man the Senior Tutor would have rejected as unfit to cox the rugger boat. And now with Sir Godber triumphant, and the Senior Tutor, at least privately, admitted the Master’s victory. Porterhouse would lose even the semblance of the College he had loved. Sickly unisex would replace the healthy cheerful louts who had helped to preserve the inane innocence and the athleticism that were his only safeguards against the terrors of thought.

“There must be something we can do,” said the Dean.

“Short of murder I can think of nothing,” the Senior Tutor answered.

“Is he really entitled by statute to take over admissions?” The Senior Tutor nodded. “Tradition has it so,” he answered mournfully.

“There’s only one thing they can do now,” said Sir Godber to Lady Mary over coffee.

“And what is that, dear?”

“Surrender,” said the Master. Lady Mary looked up. “How very martial you do sound, Godber,” she said, invoking the ancient spirit of Sir Godber’s pacifism. The Master resisted the call.

“I sounded a good deal more belligerent in the Council,” he said.

“I’m sure you did, dear,” Lady Mary parried.

“I should have thought you would have approved,” Sir Godber said. “After all, if they had their way the College would continue to sell degrees, and exclude women.”

“Oh, don’t think for a moment I am criticizing you,” said Lady Mary. “It’s just that power changes one.”

“It has been said before,” Sir Godber replied wearily. His wife’s insatiable dissatisfaction subdued him. Looking into her earnest face he sometimes wondered what she saw in him. It must be something pretty harrowing, he thought. They’d been happily married for twenty-eight years.

“I’ll leave you to your little victory,” Lady Mary said, getting up and putting her cup on the tray. “I shan’t be in this evening for dinner. It’s my night as a Samaritan.” She went out and Sir Godber poked the fire lethargically. He felt depressed. As usual there had been something in what his wife had said. Power did change one, even the power to dominate a group of elderly Fellows in a fourth-rate college. And it was a little victory after all. Sir Godber’s humanity prevailed. It wasn’t their fault that they opposed the changes that he wanted. They were creatures of habit, comfortable and indulgent habits. Bachelors too – he was thinking of the Dean and the Senior Tutor – without the goad of an empty marriage to spur them to attainment. Good-hearted in their way. Even their personal animosities and petty jealousies sprang from a too constant companionship. When he examined his own motives he found them rooted in inadequacy and personal pique. He would go and speak to the Senior Tutor again and try to establish a more rational ground for disagreement. He got up and carried the coffee cups through to the kitchen and washed up. It was the au pair’s day off. Then he put on his coat and went out into the spring sunshine.

Skullion lay in bed and stared at the pale blue ceiling of his hotel room. He felt uncomfortable. For one thing the bed was strange and the mattress too responsive to his movements. It wasn’t hard enough for him. There was something indefinite about the whole room which left him feeling uneasy and out of place. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger to but it reminded him of a whore he’d once had in Pompey. Too eager to please so that what had started out as a transaction, impersonal and hard, had turned into an encounter with his own feelings. It was the same with this room. The carpet was too thick. The bed too soft. There was too much hot water in the basin. There was nothing to grumble about and in the absence of anything particular to assert himself against, Skullion’s resentment was turned in on himself. He was out of place.

His tour of monuments had unsettled him too. He wasn’t interested in the Cutty Sark or even in Gypsy Moth. They too were out of place, set high and dry for kids to run about on and pretend that they were sailors. Skullion had no such romantic illusions. He couldn’t pretend even for a moment that he was other than he was, a college servant out of work. The knowledge that he was a rich man only aggravated his sense of loss. It seemed to justify his dismissal by robbing him of his right to feel hard done by. Skullion even regretted his appearance on the Carrington Programme. They’d said how good he was but who were they? A lot of brown-hatters and word-merchants he had no time for, giggling and squeaking and rushing about like blue-arsed flies. They could keep their bleeding compliments to themselves. Skullion didn’t need them.

He got out of bed and went through to the bathroom and shaved. They had even bought him a new razor and aerosol of shaving foam and the very ease with which he shaved robbed him of his own ritual in the matter. He put on his collar and tie and did up his waistcoat. He’d had enough. He’d said his piece and he’d been inside a television studio. That was sufficient, he decided. He’d go back to Cambridge. They could have their talk-in without him. He collected his things together and went down to the desk and paid his bill. Two hours later Skullion was sitting in the train smoking his pipe and looking out at the flat fields of Essex. The monotony of the landscape pleased him and reminded him of the Fens. He could buy a bit of land in the Fens now if he wanted to, and grow vegetables like his stepfather had done. Skullion considered the idea only to reject it. He didn’t want a new life. He wanted his old one back.

When the train stopped at Cambridge Skullion had made up his mind. He would make one last appeal, this time not to the Dean or Sir Cathcart. He’d speak to the Master himself. He walked out of the station and down Station Road wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before. He had his pride, of course, and he’d put his trust in the Dean but the Dean had let him down. Besides, he despised Sir Godber, according him only that automatic respect that went with the Mastership. At the corner of Lensfield Road he hesitated under the spire of the Catholic Church. He could turn right across Parker’s Piece to Rhyder Street or left to Porterhouse. It was only twelve o’clock and he hadn’t eaten. He’d walk into town and have a bite to eat in a pub and think about it. Skullion trudged on down Regent Street and went into the Fountain and ordered a pint of Guinness and some sandwiches. Sitting at a table by the door he drank his beer and tried to imagine what the Master would say. He could only turn him down. Skullion considered the prospect and decided it was worth trying even if it meant risking his self-respect. But was he risking it? All he was asking for was his rights and besides he had a quarter of a million pounds to his name. He didn’t need the job. Nobody could accuse him of grovelling. It was simply that he wanted it, wanted his good name back, wanted to go on doing what he had always done for forty-five years, wanted to be the Porter of Porterhouse. Buoyed by the good sense of his own argument Skullion finished his beer and left the pub. He threaded his way through the shoppers towards the Market Hill, his mind still mulling over the wisdom of his action. Perhaps he should wait a day or two. Perhaps they had already changed their mind and a letter was waiting for him at home offering him his job back. Skullion dismissed the idea. And all the time there was the nagging fear that he was putting in jeopardy his self-respect by asking. He silenced the fear but it remained with him, as constant as the natural tendency of his steps to lead towards Porterhouse. Twice he decided to go home and twice changed his mind, postponing the decision by walking down Sydney Street towards the Round Church instead of going on down Trinity Street. He tried to fortify his resolve by thinking about Lord Wurford’s legacy but the idea of all that money was as unreal to him as the experience of the past few days. There was no consolation to be found in money. It couldn’t replace the cosiness of his Porter’s Lodge with its pigeonholes and switchboard and the sense that he was needed. The sum was almost an affront to him, its fortuity robbing his years of service of their sense. He needn’t have been a porter. He could have been anything he wanted, within reason. The realization increased his sense of purpose. He would speak to the Master. He hesitated at the Round Church. He wouldn’t go in the Main Gate, he’d knock at the Master’s Lodge. He turned and went back the way he’d come.

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 forever 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 tray 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.