Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

Again, in the ordinary way the Dean would have found pleasure in the sound of that old song-which he had heard so many times, and sung himself in his youth, though he had never known where Hobson's Conduit whorehouse had been and had supposed that in years gone by it might have been at The Little Rose opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum. But now in the darkness-it had begun to rain-and in the knowledge that the man singing it had added a very large wineglass filled with crème de menthe to his first Dog's Nose and had probably had another 'for the road' and that this foul-tempered man was accompanied by a large wall-eyed dog on whose tail the Dean had stepped only half an hour before, the sound of the song held no magic for him. None whatsoever. It merely served to cause the Dean to fear for his immediate future. For a moment, a long moment, he considered sleeping out under the hedge or in a haystack but they didn't make convenient haystacks any more and anyway it was still raining and the Dean had no intention of dying of pneumonia under some hedge. Perhaps if he hid and let the drunken Pimpole go past the brute might fall asleep and allow him to sneak up to his room…

The Dean found a gateway and was about to scramble over-the damned gate was locked-when he discovered it was also topped by barbed wire. With a muttered curse he turned and hurried on until he reached a dark copse to his right and, scrambling down into the ditch and then dragging himself painfully into the hedge itself, tried to blend in with a holly tree which seemed suitably black. The sound of Pimpole's ghastly voice was quite close now and he was singing a revoltingly rustic song, an adaptation of 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' so filthy that the Dean began to wonder about Pimpole's relationship with that beastly dog, and concluded that no animal could possibly be safe in his presence. Unfortunately the wall-eyed dog had similar feelings about the Dean and, while Pimpole staggering up the lane might well have mistaken the Dean in his black suit for part of the holly tree, the dog's nose knew better. The dog stopped and peered into the darkness and growled. Pimpole halted and peered too.

'Some fucking thing in there,' he mumbled. 'Better go have a look at it.' He came forward and the Dean decided the only thing to do was to come out of the hedge as gracefully as he could.

'It's only me, Jeremy old chap,' he called, and stepped away from the holly and fell headlong into the ditch. It was, he was quick to discover, a ditch in which stinging nettles grew in profusion. In his agony the Dean got on all fours and looked up at the swaying figure of Pimpole silhouetted against the drifting clouds.

'What the fuck are you doing down there?' Pimpole asked. 'And anyway what gives you the right to call me "Jeremy old chap"! I'm Lord Pimpole to you, and don't you forget it. And who the hell are you?'

'I'm the Dean, you know the Dean of Porterhouse, Jeremy dear…'

'Lord Pimpole to you,' Pimpole yelled and called the dog, 'Scab, Scab go fetch!'

But the Dean had had enough, enough of the stinging nettles, of the ditch, of Pimpole, of the whole bloody situation, and he had not the slightest intention of being fetched by that filthy dog. He scrambled to his feet and shot out of the ditch and was only stopped from falling flat on his face in the lane by Pimpole who caught him in his arms.

'Hold hard there,' he yelled. 'Steady the Buffs. No need to take off like a scalded bloody cat. Why, my goodness gracious me, if it isn't the Dean. My dear fellow, what on earth were you doing in that ditch? I mean one's heard of hedge priests and all that sort of thing but I've never seen you in that role, old fellow-me-lad. Marrying someone down there, were you? What a rum show.' And breathing crème de menthe, gin and draught beer fumes in the Dean's face he put his arm through his and off they staggered together towards the cottage. Behind them, disappointed by the missed opportunity to get its own back for its stepped-on tail, slouched the dog. But at least Pimpole had regained some of his old warmth and friendliness, probably due to a second or even a third Dog's Nose. He was obviously very drunk indeed and waxing maudlin.

'Don't know what the fuck the country's come to, Dean my old dear,' he said, practically weeping. 'Gone to the dogs Not that I mind dogs. Love the little buggers. And the big ones too, of course. Irish Wolfhounds. Lovely beasts. Knew a chap in Spain who bred them. Bloody good judge of a dog. Didn't much care for me though. Can't think why. I'm not a bad sort of dog, am I Dean?'

'No, of course not. A very good one,' said the Dean.

'Lost all my bloody money though. Can't think how. It just stopped coming in. It was Mummy's, of course. Copper and stuff like that in Northern Rhodesia and places like that. Just stopped. Couldn't pay the butler. Bugger took to drink. And I thought, that's not a bad idea, so we used to make Dog's Noses and have some laughs together I can tell you but I had to give it all up. Polo ponies. Used to like polo and then some blokes came along. Called themselves bailiffs or receivers or some such. Never seen them before in my life. Offered them a Dog's Nose. Don't really know what happened after that. Live by myself now with Scab of course. Bloody loyal friend, Scab. Old Barney Furbelow's wife comes in and does for me now three times a week and I do for her when I can. Used to be the Under-Gardener Barney did. And his father before him. The good old days, Dean, bloody good old days.'

Somehow they went into the cottage and Pimpole tried to show the Dean up the stairs to his room and failed. The Dean helped him to his feet.

'Sleep on the sofa in the front room,' Pimpole muttered. 'Lavatory is out the back when you want it.'

The Dean went up to his room and, having undressed, got into bed. It was an iron bedstead of a sort the Dean had forgotten existed and the mattress was thin and lumpy. His hands still stung from the nettles, his face did too, and the sheets smelt peculiar, but he was glad to be alone and under a roof. It had been an appalling day.

It wasn't a very pleasant night. A sleepless hour later he needed to pee and the lavatory was out in the back garden. The wall-eyed dog wasn't. It was sleeping with Pimpole in the front room and as the Dean came down the stairs it poked its horrid head out of the door and growled. The Dean stopped and the dog came further out and growled again. The Dean backed miserably up the stairs and shut his bedroom door hoping that a room equipped with such an ancient bed might also contain a chamber pot. It didn't, and in desperation he was forced to piss out of the window, from the sounds of things onto the metal lid of a dustbin. Then he got back into bed and fell asleep for another hour, woke, shuddered and thought about death and the dying of the England he had loved and how squalid it had all become and longed to be back in Porterhouse where he would be safe and need never again have to experience the horrors attached to drinking a Dog's Nose in a public bar with the ghastly Pimpole.

How many hours, if they were hours, he managed to sleep he didn't know but at 6 a.m. he could stand the bed no longer. He got up and went in search of the bathroom to wash and shave. There wasn't one or if there was it was downstairs and that damned dog…He dressed, thanked God that he'd only brought an overnight bag into the house and that the rest of his luggage was in the boot of his old Rover, and with a murderous courage in his heart went downstairs, braved the growls of Scab, and walked out of the cottage.

By the time he got back to Cambridge the Dean had experienced more of the horrors of modern England. Eschewing the narrow lanes and country roads he had so enjoyed on his drive north, he had stuck resolutely to motorways, only to be held up by an accident involving a chemical spill outside Lancaster and an enormous tailback; the old Rover had overheated; the RAC man who arrived to get it started again had been amazed it went at all and wanted to know how it had ever got its MOT certificate; the Service Area he had stopped at for coffee and something to eat had been occupied by eight coachloads of Liverpool football supporters with several police vans in attendance; the sausage and chips he had chosen to fill the vacuum in his stomach disagreed with him and made him wonder if the sausages had been well past their sell-by date; and, to complete his humiliation, he had been called a stupid old wanker by a young lout he had bumped into in a public lavatory near Birmingham. To round off the horrors of the day he had missed the turn-off on the Ml and had had to drive for miles before finally managing to back-track to Cambridge.