Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

But Dr MacKendly and the Matron were discussing the possibility of seepage from the back passage. 'It happens fairly frequently,' he said. 'I should put a piece of plastic under him. One of those black garbage bags will do nicely, and it will be very appropriate too.'

They looked at Kudzuvine one last time and left the room while he was still muttering, 'Help. God. Help.' It didn't do him any good at all.

His colleagues at Transworld Television weren't helping him either.

'Yeah, so Kudzuvine's in some kind of shit. Ever known when he wasn't?' was Skundler's comment when told about the incident at Porterhouse. 'So he's got to paddle his own. Not my business. You work in the media business you got to take risks. Some come back, some don't. That's the way it is.' And no one else argued with the Assessmentation Officer's judgement. As someone else said, as it happened with more prescience than she dreamed, 'So K.K. 's gone. So he's gone. What's new?'

In Bangkok Edgar Hartang sat with a six-year-old boy on his lap. That was new for the boy, but not for E.H. He tweaked the child's nipple and giggled and took off his blue glasses and his toupee. Good old E.H. He was having one hell of a time.

So was the boy. It was just a different sort of hell.

The Bursar's sort of hell was of an entirely different variety. He hadn't enjoyed having to explain his role in the Transworld invasion of Porterhouse, but at least he had been spared the presence of the Dean and the Senior Tutor. He hadn't seen the Senior Tutor and the Dean, thankfully, was away but he knew what paroxysms of rage Kudzuvine and his Transworld team would have induced in both men and what their attitude to him would have been. He'd have been out of his job and out of Porterhouse and he'd have been lucky not to have been horsewhipped into the bargain. The Senior Tutor was found of saying he'd horsewhip some swine or other and, while these threats had been empty ones in the past, the Bursar was in absolutely no doubt that in the present case, and with the Dean egging him on, the Senior Tutor would have put the words into action. Instead the Praelector had treated him with tea and quite astonishing sympathy and had seemed to find his story of how he had met Kudzuvine and later had lunch with Edgar Hartang more and more interesting as it went along.

All the same, the Bursar had been conscious that the College Secretary was taking it all down in shorthand and that the research graduate Gilkes was making copious notes. By the time the questioning was over the Bursar felt very much better. 'You've been very, very kind to me,' he told the Praelector emotionally. 'I don't know how to thank you.'

'There's no need to blub, my dear fellow. And it is our business to thank you. You have no idea what you have done for the College. And you need not worry about Mr Kudzuvine. He's in safe hands.'

'Did you hand him over to the police?' the Bursar asked.

'Of course not. He's in safer hands than that. Now you go home and have a good night's rest. We are going to need you at your intellectual best in the days to come.'

At the time the Bursar hadn't realized the full implications of that remark. He had gone home, hurrying out through the back gate for fear of running into the Senior Tutor on the way to the Main Gate, and had drunk several very stiff whiskies before taking twice the recommended dose of his wife's sleeping pills and going to bed. On Monday he had stayed at home and it was only on Tuesday, on his return to his office in Porterhouse, that he learnt what the Praelector had meant about Kudzuvine being in a pair of very safe hands. 'You mean he's laid up in the Master's Lodge?' he asked Walter in the Porter's Lodge. 'What? With Skullion?'

'I wouldn't put it quite like that, sir. He's more laid out than laid up, if you take my meaning.'

The Bursar didn't. The Master's Lodge at Porterhouse was beginning to sound like a charnel-house rather than any sort of Lodge. First the late Sir Godber and now Kudzuvine. 'What did he die of, for God's sake? Did the Senior Tutor hit him…?'

'No, sir, nothing like that. Senior Tutor wasn't in any condition to hit anything. He'd already hit the bottle and wasn't very well himself. No, the American basta…gentleman had some sort of accident in the Chaplain's rooms and it was felt best if Dr MacKendly attended to him with the Matron. She's there now and Mr Skullion…the Master has been sitting by his bedside just to make sure he doesn't do himself any more mischief. After all, the College doesn't want no bad publicity, does it, sir?'

'No, I'm sure it doesn't,' said the Bursar doubtfully and wondered just how much publicity Transworld Television was going to give the assault-he didn't for a moment believe that Kudzuvine had had an accident-and battery of one of its Vice-Presidents. Presumably as far away as Easter Island they'd be seeing a bandaged Kudzuvine being carried from the College. They were bound to have satellite TV there, and it had just been installed on St Helena. The Bursar went off to his office and found the College Secretary waiting for him.

'Ah, there you are,' she said. 'Feeling better? No? Well, these things take time to get over, don't they? Anyway the Praelector asked me to tell him when you came in. He wants to come down and talk it over.'

'I don't really think I'm up…' the Bursar began but it was too late. Mrs Morestead had gone through to her office and had phoned the Praelector. 'They'll be down in a moment,' she said brightly when she came back and sat down with her pad and pencil.

'They? Who's coming with him?'

'I don't really know, though I did see Mr Retter and Mr Wyve crossing the Court just now.'

'Mr Retter _and_ Mr Wyve?' said the Bursar, with a resurgence of panic. Things must be simply awful for both the College solicitors to have arrived. It had never happened before. Mrs Morestead's next remark increased his dread. 'And yesterday we had the men from the Ancient Monuments Commission up from London and Mr Furness the architect with them. Stayed all day, and the structural engineers have been shoring up the Chapel roof with great girders. They say the whole thing may have to come down.'

The Bursar covered his face with his hands and waited for the worst. It came in the shape of the Senior Tutor, the Praelector, Dr Buscott and the Chaplain. The Senior Tutor was looking particularly ferocious. He still hadn't got over his hangover and the 'hair of the dog' he'd taken in the shape of a glass of neat rum had given an even sharper edge to his temper. All the same, the Praelector remained in charge. He was far older and senior in Porterhouse rank to the Tutor, and with both Mr Retter and Mr Wyve in attendance it seemed unlikely the horsewhip would come into play. 'I don't think this office is large enough to hold us all,' said the Praelector. 'Perhaps we should adjourn to the Fellows' Private Dining Room.'

They trooped out across the Court, Mrs Morestead following with her pad and pencil, and it was only when they were seated round a mahogany table in the Private Dining Room that the Praelector explained the purpose of the meeting. He did so in a decidedly sepulchral manner.

'We are gathered here today,' he said, 'to take measures to deal with what can only be described as a major catastrophe both for the College itself and for the architectural heritage of the entire country. The Porterhouse Chapel is one of the finest examples of late mediaeval neo-Romanesque religious architecture in Britain. Its style is unique in owing very little to the influence of the Gothic. Constructed at a time when the Gothic style was predominant, it speaks volumes for the conservative nature of the College even in those days that our predecessors chose to celebrate the faith in the most traditional fashion. Porterhouse has always prided itself on being, in the truest sense of the expression, "behind the times" or, to be even more precise, to exist in a timeless world. It is therefore supremely important in an age in which change seems all-conquering, and the future seems to hold nothing but the stultification of the human spirit by the endless watching of television and the proliferation of appalling programmes to satisfy man's baser-desires, that we should fight the company that has deliberately and criminally done such terrible damage to our Chapel. It is our bounden duty to extract the maximum in compensation from these people at Transworld Television not only for the physical damage done to the entire fabric of the College but for the mental suffering they have inflicted on members of the College. I for one will never recover from the shock…'