Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

The Chaplain said Grace and Hartang was offered the Master's Chair. On either side of him the Fellows took their seats and at the very end Skullion sat in his wheelchair looking down the table with approval. At least the standards he had known were being kept up. The silver had been polished and the old oak table gleamed with wax. That gave him some sense of accomplishment but he had greater cause for satisfaction. All the same he was still afraid. The Fellows of Porterhouse, of Porterhouse past, had not been men who gave way to threats-not easily at any rate-and there was still the danger that they would deceive him. Even the Hall played a part in his apprehension by calling up memories of feasts and great occasions when he had been a servant of the College and proud of his position. Skullion closed his mind to the siren call of that past with its deference and its social wiles and steeled himself with a contempt for the present. He was helped by the occasional anxious look the Dean gave him. They were all as old and feeble as he was in his body but theirs was a worse weakness: they had lost their spirit. They were going to see that he hadn't.

'I hope we are not going to have anything too rich,' Hartang said to the Praelector.

'I can assure you, Master, that the menu has been carefully chosen with your constitution in mind. I trust you like German wine. We start with Vichyssoise and we have a delicate Rhein wine to go with it. Then there is the cold salmon, one of the Chefs specialities and a great favourite with the Queen Mother.' He broke off to allow the Dean to tell the story of his meeting with the Queen Mother or the Queen as she then was and the King on the battleship, the _Duke of York,_ then Flagship of the Home Fleet during the Fleet Review on the Clyde in 1947 and how when the Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, was piped on board he didn't know whether to take his hat off or leave it on and he held it sort of hovering above his head. To make matters worse, King George VI and the Queen and, of course, the young Princesses with Prince Philip in tow had been round the Fleet on a motor torpedo boat which made a terrible din and was so loud when it came alongside that the Royal Marine Guard of Honour on the quarterdeck had barely heard the order to Present Arms. The Senior Fellows knew the story off by heart and Hartang wasn't interested in kings and queens unless he held them in his hand, but the story saw them through the soup and the salmon. All Hartang was thinking was that he was safe. Safe and bored. His thoughts drifted to Thailand and the beach house he owned there and what he would do if he were there instead of sitting with these stuffed shirts.

A moment later he knew with a terrible certainty that he was not safe. The doors at the far end of the Hall under the Musicians' Gallery had been flung open and four waiters entered carrying on their shoulders like some monstrous bier a vast pig, a tusked boar with a blackened apple in its mouth. Behind them came waiters with two more great roast boar. And beside the first pig came Kudzuvine dressed from top to toe in black with an enormous carving knife and fork in his hands. For several seconds Hartang gazed at the ghastly beasts in frozen terror. At the long tables the undergraduates were shouting and clapping enthusiastically. It was bedlam in the Hall. Then with a scream only he could hear-his mouth opened but no sound came out-the financier struggled to his feet unable to take his eyes off the approaching monstrosity. This was death and Kudzuvine was its herald. The Master's great Chair fell back with a crash and Hartang recoiled in horror. The Fellows had no eyes for him. They stared at the boar with astonishment and delight. The Chaplain's simple Grace, 'For what we are about to receive may the good Lord be thanked,' had been answered in full measure. So had the Praelector's intention. Hartang staggered a few steps and fell.

'Kudzuvine, attend your Master,' ordered the Praelector and Kudzuvine came round the table, but there was no need for his appearance to complete the charade. Hartang was already dead.

'A Porterhouse Blue, do you think?' the Senior Tutor enquired when the body had been removed and the great boar had been carved by the Chef.

'Less a Blue than a yellow, if you ask me,' said the Dean, who had suddenly remembered Hartang's phobia about pigs on the tape.

'It looks as though we are going to have to look for another source of funding,' said 'the Bursar sadly. 'It's really most unfortunate.'

'I don't somehow think we need to worry about the College finances,' the Praelector said as he helped himself to some more apple sauce. 'I happen to know he died without making a will.'

'You mean…' the Senior Tutor began.

'Intestate. No next of kin. And in such cases the Crown, as you know, is the beneficiary. I think we will find we have not been forgotten. After all we have been most cooperative in dealing with a very unpleasant situation.'

The Fellows gazed at him in amazement and almost stopped eating.

'But that will mean the Prime Minister will appoint the new Master,' said the Senior Tutor. 'We may well end up with Tebbit.'

'I can think of worse choices,' said the Dean with unintended perception.

'You seem to forget that the Master is still with us,' said the Praelector and directed his gaze at Skullion. 'He has the traditional right to name his successor, and I can think of no better moment.'

At the end of the table Skullion raised his head and made his pronouncement. For one terrible moment it looked as though the Dean was going to follow Hartang's example, but he had merely swallowed a piece of crackling the wrong way and tried to say something. When he had stopped coughing and had been given another glass of Fonbadet he was still incapable of speech.

'What did the Dean say?' shouted the Chaplain.

'God knows,' the Praelector said with the utmost tact.

It was mid-summer before Purefoy Osbert had completed the first edition of what he now thought of as Skullion's memoirs. It was by no means the final version, was ostensibly no more than the punctuated transcript of the long monologue, but he felt it was enough to indicate to Lady Mary that he had not been wasting his time. Mrs Ndhlovo typed it out for him-Purefoy was far too busy cross-referencing the College archives even to look at the final version. Then to save him the trouble she took it down to London and delivered it to Lapline and Goodenough. Mr Lapline read the manuscript over and over again and on each reading was more and more appalled. 'We can't possibly let her see this,' he told Goodenough. 'It's out of the question.'

'I don't see why not. After all, she asked for the facts and she has obviously got them.'

'Yes, but she didn't know she was going to get the most scurrilous account of her husband's time as an undergraduate. I had no idea he was capable of such things. This bit about blackmailing the Praelector would be enough to kill her. The man was an absolute shit.'

'We knew that already,' said Goodenough. 'Married for money and all that sort of thing.'

'I daresay, but not all this sort of thing.'

'Quite a different kettle of fish, eh?'

Mr Lapline winced. 'I wish you wouldn't use expressions of that sort, Goodenough. It is painful enough having to digest this filth without additional culinary references. You'll be telling me next that Porterhouse was a positive stew.' He smiled bleakly at his own pun.

'It certainly makes Sir Cathcart D'Eath's peculiar tendencies slightly more understandable,' Goodenough said. 'Though why he should fancy large middle-aged women in rubber beats me.'

'Bedders and bedwetters,' said Mr Lapline and left it at that.

'Bedwetters? I missed that bit. Where is it?'

'Never mind. The point is that we cannot possibly allow Lady Mary to see this…this document. It would destroy what few illusions she has left. God knows she can't have many since the end of the Cold War. She shall carry her happy memories of her marriage to Sir Godber to her grave.'