Wilt

Chapter 21

The Principal sat behind his desk and regarded Wilt incredulously. ‘Promotion?’ he said. ‘Did I hear you mention the word “promotion”?’

‘You did,’ said Wilt. ‘And what is more you also heard “Head of Liberal Studies” too.’

‘After all you’ve done. You mean to say you have the nerve to come in here and demand to be made Head of Liberal Studies?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt.

The Principal struggled to find words to match his feelings. It wasn’t easy. In front of him sat the man who was responsible for the series of disasters that had put an end to his fondest hopes. The Tech would never be a Poly now. The Joint Honours degree’s rejection had seen to that. And then there was the adverse publicity, the cut in the budget, his battles with the Education Committee, the humiliation of being heralded as the Principal of Dollfuckers Hall…

‘You’re fired’ he shouted.

Wilt smiled. ‘I think not,’ he said. ‘Here are my terms…’

‘Your what?’

‘Terms,’ said Wilt. ‘In return for my appointment as Head of Liberal Studies, I shall not institute proceedings against you for unfair dismissal with all the attendant publicity that would entail. I shall withdraw my case against the police for unlawful arrest. The contract I have here with the Sunday Post for a series of articles on the true nature of Liberal Studies–I intend to call them Exposure to Barbarism–will remain unsigned. I will cancel the lectures I had promised to give for the Sex Education Centre. I will not appear on Panorama next Monday. In short I will abjure the pleasures and rewards of public exposure…’

The Principal raised a shaky hand. ‘Enough,’ he said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Wilt got to his feet. ‘Let me know your answer by lunchtime,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in my office.’

‘Your office?’ said the Principal.

‘It used to belong to Mr Morris,’ said Wilt and closed the door. Behind him the Principal picked up the phone. There had been no mistaking the seriousness of Wilt’s threats. He would have to hurry.

Wilt strolled down the corridor to the Liberal Studies Department and stood looking at the books on the shelves. There were changes he had in mind. The Lord of the Flies would go and with it Shane, Women in Love, Orwell’s Essays and Catcher in the Rye, all those symptoms of intellectual condescension those dangled worms of sensibility. In future Gasfitters One and Meat Two would learn the how of things not why. How to read and write. How to make beer. How to fiddle their income tax returns. How to cope with the police when arrested. How to make an incompatible marriage work. Wilt would give the last two lessons himself. There would be objections from the staff, even threats of resignation, but it would make no difference. He might well accept several resignations from those who persisted in opposing his ideas. After all you didn’t require a degree in English literature to teach Gasfitters the how of anything. Come to think of it, they had taught him more than they had learnt from him. Much more. He went into Mr Morris’s empty office and sat down at the desk and composed a memorandum to Liberal Studies Staff. It was headed Notes on a System of Self-Teaching for Day Release Classes. He had just written ‘non-hierarchical’ for the fifth time when the phone rang. It was the Principal.

‘Thank you,’ said the new Head of Liberal Studies.

Eva Wilt walked gaily up Parkview Avenue from the doctor’s office. She had made breakfast for Henry and Hoovered the front room and polished the hall and cleaned the windows and Harpicked the loo and been round to the Harmony Community Centre and helped with Xeroxing an appeal for a new play group and done the shopping and paid the milkman and been to the doctor to ask if there was any point in taking a course of fertility drugs and there was. ‘Of course we’ll have to do tests,’ the doctor had told her, ‘but there’s no reason to think they’d prove negative. The only danger is that you might have sextuplets.’ It wasn’t a danger to Eva. It was what she had always wanted, a house full of children. And all at once. Henry would be pleased. And so the sun shone brighter, the sky was bluer, the flowers in the gardens were rosier and even Parkview Avenue itself seemed to have taken on a new and brighter aspect. It was one of Eva Wilt’s better days.

The End