Tom Sharpe - Porterhouse Blue

“That machine in the toilet,” he said conspiratorially to the barman.

“What about it?” the barman asked.

“It’s empty,” said Zipser.

“That’s right,” said the barman. “It’s always empty.”

“Well, it’s got some of my money in it.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do say.”

“A gin and tonic,” said a man with a moustache next to Zipser.

“Coming up,” said the barman. Zipser sipped his pint while the barman poured a gin and tonic. Finally when the man with the moustache had taken his drink back to a table by the window, Zipser raised the subject of faulty dispensers again. He was beginning to feel distinctly belligerent.

“What are you going to do about my money?” he asked.

The barman looked at him warily.

“How do I know you put any in?” he asked. “How do I know you’re not just trying it on?”

Zipser considered the question.

“I don’t see how I can,” he said finally. “I haven’t got it.”

“Very funny,” said the barman. “If you’ve got any complaints to make about that dispenser, you take them to the suppliers.” He reached under the bar and produced a card and handed it to Zipser. “You go and tell them your problems. They stock the machines. I don’t. All right?” Zipser nodded and the man went off down the other end of the counter to serve a customer. Zipser left the pub with the card and went down the road. He found the suppliers in Mill Road. There was a young man with a beard behind the counter. Zipser went in and put the card down in front of him.

“I’ve come from the Unicorn,” he said. “The dispenser is empty.”

“What already?” the man said. “Don’t know what happens to them, they go so quickly.”

“I want…” Zipser began thickly but the young man had disappeared through a door-to the back. Zipser was beginning to feel distinctly light-headed. He tried to think what he was doing discussing wholesale contraceptive sales with a young man with a beard in an office in Mill Road.

“Here you are. Two gross. Sign here,” said the clerk reappearing from the back with two cartons which he plonked on the counter. Zipser stared at the cartons, and was about to explain that he had merely come to ask for his money back when a woman came in. Zipser suddenly felt sick. He picked up the ballpen and signed the slip and then, clutching the two cartons, stumbled from the shop.

By the time he got back to the Unicorn the pub was shut. Zipser tried knocking on the door without result and finally gave it up and went back to Porterhouse.

He weaved his way past the Porter’s Lodge and headed across the Court towards his staircase. Ahead of him a line of black figures emerged from the door of the Council Chamber in solemn processional and moved towards him. At the head of them waddled the Dean. Zipser hiccupped and tried to focus on them. It was very difficult. Almost as difficult as trying to stop the world going round. Zipser hiccupped again and was sick on the snow as the column of figures advanced on him.

“Beg your pardon,” he said. “Shouldn’t have done that. Had too much to drink.”

The column stopped and Zipser peered down into the Dean’s face. It kept going in and out of focus alarmingly.

“Do you… do you… know how red your face is?” he asked, waving his head erratically at the Dean. “Shouldn’t have a red face, should you?”

“Out of the way,” snapped the Dean.

“Shertainly,” said Zipser and sat down in the snow. The Dean loomed over him menacingly.

“You, sir, are drunk. Disgustingly drunk,” he said.

“Quite right,” said Zipser. “Full marks for perspic… perspicac… ity. Hit the nail on the head firsht time.”

“What is your name?”

“Zhipsher shir, Zhipsher.”

“You’re gated for a week, Zipser,” snarled the Dean.

“Yesh,” said Zipser happily, “I am gated for a week. Shertainly, shir.” He struggled to his feet, still clutching his cartons, and the column of dons moved on across the court. Zipser wobbled off to his room and collapsed on the floor.

Sir Godber watched the deputation of Fellows from his study window. “Canossa,” he thought to himself as the procession trudged through the snow to the front door and rang the bell. For a moment it crossed his mind to let them wait but better judgement prevailed. Pope Gregory’s triumph had after all been a temporary one. He went out into the hall and let them in.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said when they had filed into his study, “and what can I do for you now?”

The Dean shuffled forward. “We have reconsidered our decision. Master,” he said.

Behind him the members of the College Council nodded obediently. Sir Godber looked round their faces and was satisfied. “You wish me to remain as Master?”

“Yes, Master,” the Dean said.

“And this is the general wish of the Council?”

“It is.”

“And you accept the changes in the College that I have proposed without any reservations?” the Master asked.

The Dean mustered a smile. “Naturally, we have reservations,” he said. “It would be asking rather much to expect us to abandon our… er… principles without retaining the right to have private reservations, but in the interest of the College as a whole we accept that there may be a need for compromise.”

“My conditions are final,” said the Master. “They must be accepted as they stand. I am not prepared to attenuate them. I think I should make that plain.”

“Quite so. Master. Quite so.” The Dean smiled weakly.

“In that case I shall postpone my decision,” said Sir Godber, “until the next meeting of the College Council. That will give us all time to consider the matter at our leisure. Shall we say next Wednesday at the same time?”

“As you wish, Master,” said the Dean. “As you wish.”

They trooped out and Sir Godber, having seen them to the door, stood at the window watching the dark procession disappear into the winter evening with a new sense of satisfaction. “The iron fist in the iron glove,” he murmured to himself, conscious that for the first time in a long career of political manoeuvring and compromise he had at long last achieved a clear-cut victory over an apparently intransigent opposition. There had been no doubting the Fellows’ obeisance. They had crawled to him and Sir Godber indulged himself in the recollection before going on to consider the implications of their surrender. No one – and who should know better than Sir Godber – crawled quite so submissively without good reasons. The Fellows’ obeisance had been too complete to be without ulterior motive. It was not enough to suppose that his threat had been utter. It had been sufficient to force them to come to heel but there had been no need for the Dean, of all people, to wag his tail so obsequiously. Sir Godber sat down by the fire and considered the character of the Dean for a hint of his motive. And the more he thought the less cause he found for premature self-congratulation. Sir Godber did not underestimate the Dean. The man was an ignorant bigot, with all the persistence of bigotry and all the cunning of the ignorant. “Buying time,” he thought shrewdly, “but time for what?” It was an unpleasant notion. Not for the first time since his arrival at Porterhouse, Sir Godber felt uneasy, aware, if only subliminally, that the facile assumptions about human nature upon which his liberal ideals were founded were somehow threatened by a devious scholasticism whose origins were less rational and more obscure than he preferred to think. He got up and stared out into the night at the medieval buildings of the College silhouetted against the orange sky. It had begun to snow again and the wind had risen, blowing the snowflakes hither and thither in sudden ungovernable flurries. He pulled the curtains to shut out the sight of nature’s lack of symmetry and settled himself in his chair with his favourite author, Bentham.