Tom Sharpe - Porterhouse Blue

Zipser awoke from his troubled sleep and blinked. He sat up in bed and stared at Mrs Biggs brilliant in her red coat. It was evidently morning. It didn’t feel like morning but there was Mrs Biggs so it must be morning. Mrs Biggs didn’t come in the middle of the night. Zipser levered himself out of bed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled groping for his dressing-gown. “Must have overslept.” Zipser’s eye caught the alarm clock. It seemed to indicate half-past three. Must have stopped.

“Shush,” said Mrs Biggs with a terrible smile. “It’s only half-past three.”

Zipser looked at the clock again. It certainly said half-past three. He tried to equate the time with Mrs Biggs’ arrival and couldn’t. There was something terribly wrong with the situation.

“Darling,” said Mrs Biggs, evidently sensing his dilemma. Zipser looked up at her open-mouthed. Mrs Biggs was taking off her coat. “Don’t make any noise,” she continued, with the same extraordinary smile.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Zipser. Mrs Biggs went into the other room.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” she called out in a hoarse whisper.

Zipser stood up shakily. “What are you doing?” he asked.

There was a rustle of clothes in the other room. Even to Zipser’s befuddled mind it was evident that Mrs Biggs was undressing. He went to the door and peered out into the darkness.

“For God’s sake,” he said, “you mustn’t do that.”

Mrs Biggs emerged from the shadows. She had taken off her blouse. Zipser stared at her enormous brassiere.

“Darling,” she said. “Go back to bed. You mustn’t stand and watch me. It’s embarrassing.” She gave him a push which sent him reeling on to the bed. Then she shut the door. Zipser sat on his bed shaking. The sudden emergence of Mrs Biggs at half-past three in the morning from the shadows of his own private fantasies into a real presence terrified him. He tried to think what to do. He couldn’t shout or scream for help. Nobody would believe he hadn’t invited her to… He’d be sent down. His career would be finished. He’d be disgraced. They’d find the French letters up the chimney. Oh God. Zipser began to weep.

In the front room Mrs Biggs divested herself of her bra and panties. It was terribly cold. She went to the window to shut it when a faint popping noise from below startled her. Mrs Biggs peered out. Skullion was running round the Court with a stick. He appeared to be spearing the contraceptives. “That’ll keep him busy,” Mrs Biggs thought happily, and shut the window. Then she crossed to the gas fire and lit it. “Nice to get dressed in the warm,” she thought, and went into the bedroom. Zipser had got back into bed and had switched off the light.

“Wants to spare me,” Mrs Biggs thought tenderly and climbed into bed. Zipser shrank from her but Mrs Biggs had no sense of his reluctance. Grasping him in her arms she pressed him to her vast breasts. In the darkness Zipser whimpered. Mrs Biggs’s hand slid down his pyjamas. Zipser squeaked frantically and Mrs Biggs’s mouth found his. To Zipser it seemed that he was in the grip of a great white whale. He fought desperately for air, surfaced for a moment and was engulfed again.

Skullion, who had returned from the Porter’s Lodge armed with a broom handle to which he had taped a pin, hurled himself into the shoal and struck about him with a fury that was only partially explained by having to work all night. It was rather the effrontery of the things that infuriated him. Skullion had little use for contraceptives at the best of times. Unnatural, he called them, and placed them in the lower social category of things along with elastic-sided boots and made-up bow ties. Not the sort of attire for a gentleman. But even more than their humble origins, he was infuriated by the insult to Porterhouse that the presence of so great and so inflated a number represented. The Dean’s admonition that news of the infestation must not leak out was wasted on Skullion. He needed no telling. “We’d be the laughing-stock of the University,” he thought, lancing a particularly large one. By the time dawn broke over Cambridge Skullion had cleared New Court. One or two had escaped into the Fellows’ Garden and he went through the archway in the wall and began spiking the remainder. Behind him the Court was littered with tattered latex, almost invisible against the snow. “I’ll wait until it’s a bit lighter to pick them up,” he muttered. “Can’t see them now.” He had just run a small but agile one to earth in the rose garden when a dull rumbling noise at the top of the Tower made him turn and look up. Something was going on in the old chimney. The chimney pot at the top was shaking. The brickwork silhouetted against the morning sky appeared to be bulging. The rumbling stopped, to be succeeded by an almighty roar as a ball of flame issued from the chimney and billowed out before ascending above the College. Below it the chimney toppled sideways, crashed on to the roof of the Tower and with a gradually increasing rumble of masonry the fourteenth-century building lost its entire facade. Behind it the rooms were clearly visible, their floors tilted horribly and sagging. Skullion stood mesmerized by the spectacle. A bed on the first floor slid sideways and dropped on to the masonry below. Desks and chairs followed suit. There were shouts and screams. People poured out of doorways and windows opened all round the Court. Skullion ignored the screams for help. He was busy chasing the last few remaining contraceptives when the Master, clad in his dressing-gown, emerged from the Master’s Lodge and hurried to the scene of the disaster. As he rushed across the garden he found Skullion trying to spear a contraceptive floating in the fishpond.

“Go and open the main gates,” the Master shouted at him.

“Not yet,” said Skullion taciturnly.

“What do you mean, not yet?” the Master demanded. “The ambulance men and the fire brigade will want to get in.”

“Not having any strangers in College till I’ve cleared these things up. Wouldn’t be right,” said Skullion.

The Master stared at the floating contraceptive furiously. Skullion’s obstinacy enraged him. “There are injured people in there,” he screamed.

“So there are,” said Skullion, “but there’s the College reputation to be thought of too.” He leant across the pond and burst the floating bubble. Sir Godber turned and ran on to the scene of the accident. Skullion turned and followed him slowly. “Got no sense of tradition,” he said sadly, and shook his head.

“These sweetbreads are delicious,” said the Dean at dinner. “The coroner’s inquest has given me a considerable appetite.”

“Very tactfully handled,” said the Senior Tutor. “I must admit I had anticipated a less magnanimous verdict. As it is, suicide never hurt anyone.”

“Suicide?” shouted the Chaplain. “Did I hear someone say suicide?” He looked up expectantly. “Now there’s a topic we could well consider.”

“The Coroner has already done so at some length, Chaplain,” the Bursar bawled in his ear.

“Very good of him too,” said the Chaplain.

“The Senior Tutor has just made that point,” the Bursar explained.

“Has he now? Very interesting,” said the Chaplain, “and about time too. Haven’t had a decent suicide in College for some years now. Most regrettable.”

“I must say I can’t see why the decline of the fashion should be so regrettable. Chaplain,” said the Bursar.

“I think I’ll have a second helping of sweetbreads,” said the Dean.

The Chaplain leant back in his chair and looked at them over his glasses. “In the old days hardly a week went by without some poor fellow taking the easy way out. When I first came here as Chaplain I used to spend half my time attending inquests. Come to think of it, there was a time when we were known as the Slaughterhouse.”