Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

He was interrupted in his reverie by the arrival of Hartang. He was smaller than the Praelector had remembered him, seemed to have shrunk and had a haggard look about him. 'You wanted to see me?' he asked almost humbly, his weak eyes blinking in the bright light of the drawing-room.

The Praelector nodded deferentially. 'Good evening, Master,' he said. 'I trust I am not disturbing you. I'm afraid our May Ball this year is unusually noisy. The students are celebrating the change in the College fortunes and your appointment.'

Hartang smiled slightly. He was never too sure about the Praelector. 'It's nice to hear kids enjoying themselves,' he said. He indicated a chair and the Praelector sat down.

'I have come, Master, to say that your Inauguration Feast has been fixed for Thursday and to find out if this suits you.'

'Inauguration Feast?' Hartang sounded uncertain.

'Yes, it is a necessary part of the formal ceremonies which are traditional in Porterhouse with the appointment of a new Master. We take sherry in the Combination Room and then proceed to the Hall where you will take your place in the Master's chair.'

'I've got to do this?' Hartang asked.

'No Master has ever been known to absent himself,' said the Praelector. 'It is considered a great honour. The College is closed for the evening and no guests are invited. It is a purely private Porterhouse function.'

Hartang considered the matter for a moment. 'I guess it'll be all right,' he said at last. 'Yes, I guess so. Thursday?'

'We gather at 7.30 and the Senior Fellows will escort you to the Combination Room. You will not be required to make a speech.'

'Sounds fine with me. 7.30?'

'Thank you, Master, we will be honoured by your presence.'

The Praelector left the Lodge well satisfied, and Hartang went back to his communications room. He wanted to find out what the yen was doing. It was up and the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 100 points. He'd got it right again.

Purefoy and Mrs Ndhlovo sat on the bank of the river on the way to Grantchester watching the punts go by. It was 6 a.m. and the revellers were going happily up to the Orchard Tea Garden for breakfast before drifting wearily back to Cambridge and bed. It was the custom and in their evening dresses and dinner jackets they struck a discordantly gay note against the pollarded willows and the flat farm fields on the far bank. 'Not our scene,' said Purefoy. 'But worth seeing. Like going back fifty years and probably much more. Weird.'

But Mrs Ndhlovo was a little envious. She would have liked to dance the night away and be lying in a punt while Purefoy poled it up the river with the one-handed twist some of the young men affected before leaving the punt pole dragging in the water for a moment to steer. All the same she knew what Purefoy meant. Even at their dances the English lacked the vivacity of the people she had seen in South America and Africa. Their laughter was different too and hadn't the same joyfulness about it. To her ear it didn't seem spontaneous, merely an awkwardly conventional response that was required of them. But these were young people whose year had been spent in pursuit of academic excellence and in serious discussions and the world weighed heavily upon them. They were recruits in the army of the intellect, drilled and disciplined in thinking. And after a week listening to Skullion she was confused. Behind the facade of convention so many dark inhibitions found expression in the weirdest ways. Nothing was what it seemed. She and Purefoy had been taken behind the scenes into a little world full of the strangest inconsistencies and disguised animosities that was both sad and alarming and full of hidden unhappiness. It was not her world.

She turned over and looked down at the grass. Some ants were busily going to and fro along a path of their own devising, never deviating for more than a moment from some unknown and interminable purpose. Mrs Ndhlovo wondered if she looked like that seen perhaps from a satellite. It was certainly how Purefoy behaved, busily pursuing his facts and placing so much reliance on the written word. Skullion had shaken that solid confidence with his oral history of forty-odd years in Porterhouse and perhaps Purefoy would change. It wouldn't be enough. He was already working furiously, editing the typescript that had cost so much, cutting a digression here and noting it for future use, removing unnecessary repetitions and even once-and in her eyes unforgivably-removing a double negative 'in the interest of clarity'. Mrs Ndhlovo sighed and rolled over again to look up at some passing clouds in the blue summer sky.

'Purefoy my love,' she said, 'you aren't the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow any longer. You're the James Skullion Memorial Fellow. You'll write a book from what he's given you and with all the checking; of cross-references it will be your life's work. Your _opus dei.'_

But Purefoy Osbert didn't get the allusive pun. His had been a strictly Protestant upbringing. 'Ours,' he said and lay down beside her. Mrs Ndhlovo smiled but said nothing. She wasn't going to stay in Cambridge and she wasn't going to stay with Purefoy, but she had no intention of telling him that now. He was too happy. It would be soon enough when he had his nose in the book to give him a sense of real achievement and lessen his feelings of loss. Besides, it would never have worked. Purefoy was far too easy to lie to and far too gentle, to hurt. She would find an improper man who would understand her.

In Porterhouse the marquees were gone and only the marks on the lawn remained where the dance floors and the pegs had been. The courts were silent again and the tables and benches had been brought back into the Hall when Kudzuvine presented himself nervously at the Porter's Lodge and was admitted.

'Shoot, what's happened to the grass?' he asked Walter as they went through to the Buttery. 'That stuff has been there hundreds of years. Like it's a protected species. How come it's all fucked up?'

'It was the May Ball last week.'

In Kudzuvine's head the words had a sinister ring to them. 'Last week? Last week was June.'

'Yes sir,' said Walter. 'Last week was June.' He wasn't going to bother explaining things to the Yank. He'd had them up to the eyeballs. Only Mr Skullion knew how to handle them and he was in the Combination Room sitting in his wheelchair with his bowler hat still defiantly on and eyeing the Fellows with a hard unyielding authority. Even the Dean was solemnly deferential now. He knew when he was beaten.

Only the Chaplain's bonhomie remained unchanged. 'Ah, Skullion, my dear old fellow, how splendid to see you again. It seems ages since we had a chat. What have you been doing?'

'Oh, this and that,' Skullion said. 'Mostly this, but a bit of that.'

'A bit of that, eh? And at your age! How I envy you. I remember once years ago now…' But he stopped himself in time and looked puzzled. A bit of this and that, eh? Well I never.'

Presently, when everyone was assembled, the Praelector and the Dean and the Senior Tutor in their festal gowns and silk hoods walked slowly across the Garden to fetch the new Master. Hartang walked back between them. In the background the two men kept a discreet watch on the procession and then followed.

'We are deeply honoured…' the Dean was saying but the words meant something else to the security men. They had no time for Hartang and would be glad to get back to some real work. They took their places in the Hall, the shorter one in the Musicians' Gallery and the older man in the shadows behind High Table where Arthur was lighting the candles and the silver gleamed. They didn't have long to wait. The new Master said he didn't drink amontillado and no one offered him whisky. Then the door of the Combination Room opened and the Fellows filed in. This time the Dean and the Praelector preceded Skullion in the wheelchair and Hartang followed. He was feeling really awful. This was it, his future life and it was his idea of hell.