Reginald Hill - An Advancement of Learning

“What’s on?’ asked Halfdane.

“By Christ!’ said Henry, pushing his fifteen stones breathily out of the chair. They’re going to shift Hippo lyta, her of the golden tits, begging your pardon, Miss. Soper. This we mustn’t miss!”

“What?”

“The statue. AI’s statue. Acres of thigh swinging on high! Coming, Sam?” “No, thanks,’ said Fallowfield, shaking his head moodily, his recent liveliness in the face of the enemy now completely evaporated. ‘ don’t think I will.”

“See you later then.’ He puffed cheerily away, followed by the slight figure of Halfdane. Soon there was only one other person left in the Common Room. She came to a halt by Fallowfield’s chair.

“Yes, Miss. Disney?’ he said without looking up.

“Mr. Fallowfield,’ she said loudly, as though speaking to someone much more distant. ‘ the outcome of this business, I should like you to know I consider your admitted conduct to be absolutely deplorable.

You have debauched a charming and delightful young girl. Should you be acquitted… “

“I’m not on trial,’ observed Fallowfield, but it wasn’t worth the effort.

‘… and stay on at the college, I warn you there are other matters I may have to speak of. Other matters. You follow me, I have no doubt.”

She left in a shudder of flesh and a crash of door.

Fallowfield whistled a couple of bars of ‘ Dead March’.

“Glass houses to you, Miss. Disney,’ he murmured. ‘ great glass houses.”

He finished his coffee and poured himself another cup even though it was cold.

The giant mechanical shovel-cum-crane lumbered through the herbaceous border on to the lawn of the staff garden. Miss. Scotby winced visibly and Miss. Disney took a step forward as though to lay herself beneath its tracks.

It was as well she didn’t. The ground was baked hard by the summer sun, but still the vehicle’s metal teeth left a deep imprint in the level green turf.

The college gardener, who had tended it and watered it to the last, spoke a word which normally would have caused the Disney bosom to push indignantly against the Disney chin. Now she nodded sadly as though in full accord.

“What happens now?’ asked Halfdane.

“I think they’ve drilled most of the base out of the concrete,’ said Henry, pointing with his much-chewed pipe. ‘ they’ll take the strain with that thing, finish the drilling and haul away. Look. Here comes Simeon.”

The long, wirily energetic figure of Simeon Landor, the college principal, came striding from the mellow, castellated sandstone building known as the Old House which backed on to the garden.

“Hello, Principal. Come to see the fun?”

Landor shook his head in reproof.

“No fun, Saltecombe. A sad moment, this. For us all. Very sad.”

He raised his voice slightly. Miss. Disney, who was standing some yards away, shot him an indignant glance and turned her back.

Halfdane had come in at the tail-end of this particular saga, but as usual with the help of the inveterate chronicler by his side he was in full possession of the facts.

The college had expanded rapidly since Landor had taken over as principal five years earlier on the death of Miss. Girling, whose services to the college were commemorated by this very statue.

When he came, the place had been a teachers’ training college for some two or three hundred girls, though for the first time men were being admitted the following September. Now it covered a much wider range of courses, vocational and academic, some leading to degrees from the new university of East Yorkshire, situated some fifteen miles to the south.

Numbers of students, staff and buildings had risen rapidly, and now the Old House, the early nineteenth-century mansion which once housed the entire college, was the centre of a star of concrete and glass. But it was an incomplete star. In one direction lay half an acre of cultivated beauty which had once been a source of pride and joy to Miss. Girling and still was to Miss. Scotby and Miss. Disney and many others. It was like an artifact created for a nurseryman’s catalogue. It had everything, including a fringed pool and a ferned grot, and from the first crocuses in spring till the last dahlia in the autumn it was ablaze with colour.

Above all, it had the long, level lawn, the finest Solway turf, five thousand square feet without a blemish. Till now.

For the Landor plan needed the garden. Where the blushing flowers had once risen in such profusion a new growth was going to gladden the eye, or some eyes at least. A biology laboratory.

The principal had tried to soften the blow by pointing out that an integral part of this was to be a hot-house for experimental husbandry.

And that the fish-pool would likewise be preserved as a source of water insects and algae.

But the bruised feelings of many of his staff were not so easily salved.

And when he announced that Miss. Girling’s memorial would have to be shifted this seemed the central symbol of an act of needless and unwarranted desecration.

Now the moment had come. A canvas sling had been wrapped around Hippolyta, one strap passing between her legs, another two crossing beneath the magnificent breasts.

“Note how they shine,’ said Henry. ‘ student wit paints a bra on them at least once a year and they always get a good polish when the paint comes off.”

But neither Halfdane nor Landor was listening. They were watching Marion Cargo, who suddenly ran forward anxiously and spoke to the man in charge of the tying operation. He nodded his head reassuringly and moved her away with a gentle push at her shoulder.

Then he waved to the man in the cab, who began to take the strain.

Slowly the great arm of the machine pulled back towards the sky. The statue resisted for a second, gave a little jerk, then was swinging free in a stately semicircle towards the truck which was waiting to take it into storage till a new site was prepared. A little trail of powdered concrete fell off its feet like talcum powder whitening the green lawn.

“A fine sight!’ breathed Henry.

“Yes, indeed,’ said Landor.

Halfdane turned his attention from the statue to the watchers. A contingent of students had gathered and with an instinct for the end of prohibitions were using one of the larger rockeries as a grandstand.

Franny Roote, the student president, a large, quiet-mannered youth, was there, marked out by his height and his very blond hair. As usual he had three or four attractive girls crowding around him. Most of the staff were standing in a semicircle on the edge of the lawn nearest the building. Jane Scotby looked as if she were praying. ” Disney was looking with contempt at the man next to her. He was three or four inches shorter than she was, a little man with a big, loose, Glasgow mouth. This was George Dunbar, Head of Chemistry, who shared with Henry Saltecombe the distinction of being the first man appointed to the staff. The older women hated him.

Marion Cargo had moved back to the edge of the lawn. Her face was set and tense, but no less attractive because of it. Halfdane felt a slight stirring of interest and resolved once again to get to know her better.

He noted with surprise that Fallowfield had appeared beside her, though he didn’t seem to be looking at the moving operation. Curious, he followed his gaze over to the students’ rockery and found the answer.

Behind Roote had appeared the tall long-haired girl who had been pointed out to him as Anita Sewell.

“There she goes,’ said Henry as Hippolyta was deposited gently into the back of the truck.

“A perfect operation,’ said Landor gratifiedly. ‘ there’s just the base.”

Halfdane had turned to go but he stopped when he saw no one else was moving. The tackle had been taken off the shovel-arm and it was now swinging back along the white path left by the statue. A workman was busy at the concrete base which remained sticking forlornly out of the ground. He was removing the commemorative plaque. When he had it in his hand, he turned uncertainly towards the staff.