Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

Mr Skundler pushed his blue glasses up onto his forehead and ran his eyes down the pages for several minutes, while the Bursar sat and glared at him, and Kudzuvine peered over his shoulder at the figures. It was clear they were having difficulty believing what they were seeing. Finally Skundler looked up.

'I got to tell you something, Professor Bursar,' he said in a tone that was almost kindly, 'I got to tell you. With figures like these you're wasting your time You don't need double entry. This is all one way. Like financially temperaturewise it's absolute zero.' He shook his head. 'I never seen like it since Maxwell took a swim in the sea some place.'

'Don't you mean BCCI?' asked Kudzuvine. 'They buried Maxwell Mount Olive.'

'Popeye,' said Skundler. 'Of Olives. O fucking F, for Chrissake.'

In his chair the Bursar looked on miserably. All his hopes had been dashed. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'but there you are. We are a very poor college and I'm obviously wasting your time…'

Skundler raised a hand. 'Wasting our time? Professor Baby, you are not wasting our time one microsecond. You need us. That's what we are here for. You're not wasting our time. I haven't seen anything better than this since the Berlin Wall came down. Suddenly it's freedom all the way for guys like Soros.'

'Really?' said the Bursar. 'How very interesting. You do mean Soros the financier who sold sterling…? Oh well, never mind. You actually think Mr Hartang will provide some funding for Porterhouse?' He said it uncertainly and Kudzuvine laid a kindly though heavy hand on his shoulder.

'Think, Professor Bursar? We don't think-and I heard that, Skundler-we know. The thing is wrapped up right now.'

'Shrinkwise,' said Skundler, 'solid plastic You've got it made, no question.'

'Well, there is just one question,' said the Bursar, feeling suddenly extremely happy and confident. 'I mean…I mean why should Mr Hartang be so very generous?'

'Generous?' said Skundler. 'Of course he's generous. He's got rich being generous. He's a philanthropist.'

'He's that too,' Kudzuvine agreed, 'though since he had that heart coronary thing he's had to go easy on the girls. Takes it out of him. I said to him one time, "Mr Hartang you want to go easy. Take it the Clinton way like they're on their fucking knees praying to the thing."'

'Well, I must say…' the Bursar began but Skundler stopped him.

'Don't. It's better not to with K.K. around. Like he gets everything wrong. It's because he's a moron.'

'Mormon,' said Kudzuvine. 'It's got an M in it.'

'See what! mean?' Skundler said to the Bursar. 'Like ignorance is a religion with him.'

'That ain't ignorant. We did a series one time on Mormons outside Salt Lake City. Real nice.'

By the time the Bursar went back to Cambridge the ledgers had been copied with some difficulty and he was feeling both elated and peculiar. In so far as he had been able to understand what Kudzuvine and Ross Skundler had been saying, Transworld Television Productions and Edgar Hartang were going to pour money into Porterhouse not only because Hartang was into philanthropy but, as Kudzuvine had put it, 'Cambridge is where it's at. You got it all.'

'It's nice of you to say so but-'

'Listen. You live there. Cambridge. Place has got it over Disneyworld every which way. History, DNA, professors; a whole bunch of churches and stuff. Geniuses all over town like Hawking. You read _The History of Time._ Great book. Teaches you. I been up to take a look-see and it was something else with all those cunts on the river and lawns like they give them facials every day.

Cambridge. Man, Cambridge makes virtual reality look like it's not happening.'

The Bursar felt rather the same way about Transworld Television. He still couldn't see how a man like Hartang could get rich by giving money away. It didn't make sense.

Purefoy Osbert's trip to London was pretty peculiar too. Purefoy wasn't sure why or rather how he had been chosen to become the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow at Porterhouse and Goodenough wasn't sure he wanted to meet him face to face and had to be forced to do so by Vera who said he'd be pleasantly surprised; and Lady Mary made it a condition of her interviewing Dr Osbert that either Lapline or Goodenough-preferably both-should inspect him first to make sure that he was hygienic, wasn't an alcoholic, wasn't a raving racist who advocated mass transportation of black people like Dr Lamprey Yeaster from Bristol, and, most importantly, wasn't from Grimsby.

'Grimsby? What's she got against Grimsby?' asked Mr Lapline when he read the letter. 'Perfectly respectable town. Cold in winter of course.'

'If you remember the candidate from Grimsby was into-' Goodenough began.

Mr Lapline had remembered. 'Oh God,' he said violently. 'You don't mean to tell me Lady Mary actually interviewed him?'

'I think he tried to get into her too,' Goodenough went on. 'As she told it, she was lying on this chaise longue with a bad leg-'

'I warn you, Goodenough, if you lose Lady Mary Evans' account, I'll…I'll…' Another gall-bladder spasm silenced him.

'That's why we've got to inspect Dr Purefoy Osbert,' said Goodenough. 'I thought if we took him out to lunch at the Savoy Grill…Now what's the matter?'

Mr Lapline explained what the matter was and why he bloody well wasn't going anywhere near the Savoy Grill or any other restaurant in London and if Goodenough seriously thought…

'All I meant was we'd be able to tell whether he's house-trained and knows how to use a knife and fork properly and that sort of thing. We can't possibly have some ghastly uncouth fellow going up to Porterhouse. Or molesting Lady Mary.'

Mr Lapline looked up at him curiously. 'Goodenough,' he said finally, 'there are times when I wonder if you are entirely sane. If you can think back that far, you may remember that when I first read that list, I said they were all impossible candidates and that swine from Grimsby ought to be behind bars. And now you have the gall to tell me we can't have some uncouth fellow going to Porterhouse. The whole damned lot aren't even faintly couth.'

'But no one else wanted to take the post and we had to find her some candidates,' said Goodenough. 'Anyway I'll wine and dine this Purefoy Osbert chap and tell you what it was like. I think I'll have Omelette Arnold Bennett.' And on this unfortunate note he left the office.

In the event he was pleasantly surprised by Purefoy who was relatively well dressed for an academic and was actually wearing a tie for the occasion and wasn't unduly impressed by being taken to the Savoy Grill. Having passed that test with flying colours-Purefoy had accepted a glass of dry sherry rather than the extra dry martini Goodenough had offered him and had then quietly had two glasses of wine with the meal-Goodenough insisted on taking him to an extremely low strip joint. Purefoy expressed the opinion that he had never been into anywhere like it before and didn't think he wanted to ever again. And anyway the girls were absolutely nothing to write home about though, come to think of it, some of them were so dreadful trying to describe them in a letter might help to exorcize the memory of them. As a result of that remark-Goodenough had found one or two of the strippers rather attractive-their next stop, after Purefoy had practically been forced to have two double Scotches, was at a gay bar filled with transvestites and men in leather where Purefoy was touched up by someone who might have been a lesbian but probably wasn't. By that time Goodenough was almost convinced, and there was no 'almost' about Purefoy's opinion of Goodenough.

Goodenough's next question, put as he leant negligently against the bar, clinched it. Are you by any chance interested in anal-erotic fantasies?' he asked.