Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'Come on, Dean old chap, drink up like a man,' he said. 'Where is the old Porterhouse spirit. Pass the port and all that sort of thing. Can't keep the other chaps waiting. Not done.'

'What other chaps?' demanded the Dean, having just swallowed another disgusting mouthful, and on an empty stomach.

'Me,' said Pimpole. 'Old Jeremy Pimpole.'

'Oh yes, of course,' said the Dean and was further disturbed to see that Pimpole's glass was empty. Nothing was going to induce him to pour a pint of this stuff down his throat like water.

He changed his tactics and tried subterfuge. 'Look, Jeremy dear boy…' he began.

'Don't you "dear boy" me,' snarled Pimpole 'I'm fifty-two if I'm a day and I don't have soft fair hair and the rosy cheeks you used to like looking at so much.'

'True, very true,' said the Dean meaning to refer to the soft fair hair and not to the latter part of the sentence. 'I mean…' he tried to correct himself.

'First you sip a properly concocted Dog's Nose like a fucking poofter sipping tea and now you begin-'

'No, I most certainly don't,' said the Dean furiously. No one had called him a fucking poofter to his face before. 'I was referring to the very obvious fact that you are as bald as a coot, and I'd do something about that nasty scab you've got up there before it gets any worse, and also to the fact that what you called your rosy cheeks look more like the map of the world when we still had an Empire. Mostly red but with nasty bits of green and yellow where the French or Germans were. Now get that into your head.'

For a moment the Dean thought Pimpole was going to hit him. But instead he jerked his head back and roared with laughter. 'One up to you, Dean, you old bastard,' he roared. "That's more like it.' He turned to what the Dean regarded as some yokels down the bar. 'Hear that, you chaps? The bloody old Dean says my face looks like a map of the fucking world when we still had an Empire and…' He turned back to the Dean. 'What did you say the bits of green and yellow were?'

'Oh never mind, never mind,' said the Dean, who had no more intention of discussing Pimpole's complexion with a bar full of farm labourers and tarts than he had of drinking the rest of that beastly Dog's Nose.

'Oh but I do mind,' said Pimpole, whose mood changed from second to second. He stuck his face right up to the Dean's. 'I mind very much. And what about my snout? What's that look like?'

'A snout,' said the Dean. 'I think you've covered it very nicely with that word. Snout, sir, snout.'

Pimpole jerked his head away and roared with laughter again. "That's the stuff, Dean. That's the stuff to give the troops. That's Porterhouse talking. Straight between the eyes and no bullshitting about. Now, get that Dog's Nose inside you and we'll have another. I'm thirsty.'

The Dean looked back at his glass and found to his horror that he had accidentally drunk almost half of it. He wasn't drinking any more even if the man Pimpole tried to force it down his throat. He'd die fighting rather than die of Dog's Nose.

He struck back. 'You may be thirsty, Pimpole,' he said, 'but I happen to have an ulcer.' He didn't, but it was the only excuse he could think of on the spur of the moment. 'I am not drinking any more of that muck on an empty stomach and there's an end to it.'

It wasn't. Pimpole had the matter well in hand. Or appallingly. 'Barman,' he yelled and, when the man went on talking and pulling beer for some other customers, changed it to 'Fred, you shit!'

'Fred you shit, Dean here's got an ulcer. Go and tell that wife of yours, you know, the one with the squint and the bloody great boobs, to make herself useful for a change and rustle up some of those awful cheese sandwiches of hers. And make it snappy.'

For a moment, a terrifying moment, the Dean thought he was about to be involved in an affray or whatever they called bar-room brawls. The look in the pubkeeper's eyes certainly suggested that he knew which wife Pimpole had been referring to and he didn't entirely agree with his assessment of her physical charms. But the look died away to mere hatred and he went off muttering something about Lord Muck and doing for him one of these days.

A minute or two later he was back. 'Says she hasn't got any of that awful cheese you're so fond of. Will a nice bit of cold mutton do?'

'Yes, yes, of course it will. Very nicely, thank you,' said the Dean politely but Pimpole hadn't finished.

'Where did she get the sheep from?' he demanded.

'I don't know,' said the publican, 'and frankly I don't see that it matters much, does it?'

'Oh don't you? Well I do,' said Pimpole. 'If she gets it from old Sam, I don't think the Dean would want to eat it. I know I wouldn't.'

'Not fresh enough for you, Mr Pimpole?' said the publican sarcastically.

Pimpole leant forward with his empty glass. 'Too fucked for me, Fred, too fucked. Ever since his wife died two years ago, Sam's been into sheep when he can't get someone else's wife, don't you know. Likes his meat cold, does Sam.'

'Christ,' said the Dean, and even the publican recoiled. But still Pimpole hadn't finished his discourse. 'Of course if you're not fussy, I don't suppose it matters very much. And it does come cheaper from Sam. Been well hung, too. You ask your Betty Cross-eyes and see if she don't agree.' The publican lurched away while the Dean tried to find words to say that he didn't want mutton sandwiches after all. He'd lost his appetite, and in any case he had no doubt whatsoever that the woman would do something quite disgusting to the sandwiches to get her own back. In the kitchen he could hear some very unpleasant words being used, mostly by the husband.

'Struck the right chord there, Dean old boy,' said Pimpole with a hideous wink. 'And don't you worry about your mutton. Old Sam's been into Betty more times than he has sheep and anyway he likes them live with their fur coats still on. I only said it to rile Fred.'

'By the sound of things you have succeeded only too well,' said the Dean. All the same, with my ulcer…'

'Of course, your bloody old ulcer. Got to do something about that, haven't we? Now Mummy always used to say peppermint…' Pimpole leaned right across the bar and seized a bottle of crème de menthe and a large wineglass.

'For God's sake stop,' shouted the Dean as Pimpole began to pour. 'You can't be serious. After that half pint of gin?'

Pimpole ignored him. He had filled the wine glass and spilt some of the crème de menthe on the bar. 'Now look what you've made me do,' he said accusingly.

'I didn't make you do anything,' the Dean protested. 'And I'm damned if I'm going to drink that bloody stuff. And don't-'

'Come on now, there's a good Deanie boy, take Mummy's lovely medicine like a good little man and tum-tum will feel much better.'

'It bloody well won't. Take the stuff away from me. I detest it. And what is more, I detest this beastly pub of yours. You can stay here if you want to but I am going home.'

'Where the fucking heart is,' said Pimpole and drank the schooner of crème de menthe as the Dean, no longer caring what the wall-eyed dog did to him, marched out of the pub, stepping on the animal's tail as he went. Outside he looked around for his car and was about to get into it when he spotted a police car with two policemen in it watching him. The Dean veered away from his car and tried to walk unconcernedly down the road in the hope of finding a hotel or at least a Bed & Breakfast to spend the night in. There wasn't one.

'Only the pub,' a man he stopped to ask told him. 'The Leg of Lamb. But I wouldn't recommend it. Used to be The Pimpole Arms but they had to change it on account of His Lordship's habits. Sheep, you know. Some of these old families go a bit queer.'

'I've gathered that,' said the Dean and, adding sheep to the addictions of Jeremy Pimpole, walked on disconsolately in the direction of Pimpole Hall and the gamekeeper's cottage. It was not a pleasant journey. The cottage lay a mile and a half from the village and the muddy lane was not lit. Only the moon helped and then only fitfully, most of the time being hidden behind clouds. In the hedges on either side of the lane night creatures went about their business and somewhere an owl hooted. In the ordinary way the Dean wouldn't have minded quite so much, but the mixture of gin and beer and the awful atmosphere in the pub where so much latent violence had been almost palpable, not to mention Pimpole's sudden changes of mood, had frayed the Dean's nerves so that every sound startled him and every dark shadow filled him with alarm. Cursing himself for not having tried to find a taxi, though it was almost certain the village didn't have one, and cursing himself even more for having come to see Pimpole in the first instance, the Dean trudged on, stopping every now and again to listen. He could have sworn he had caught snatches of the Porterhouse Boating Song waited on the night air from the direction of the village. The third time he stopped there was no doubt about it. The words were clear now. 'Bump, bump, bump, bump the boat before us. Bump, bump, bump, join the jolly chorus. There ain't no boat, there ain't no boat, there ain't no boat before us, So all drink up and off we'll go to Hobson's Conduit whorehouse.'