Tom Sharpe - Porterhouse Blue

“Guns, Godber, guns.”

Sir Godber raised his eyebrows doubtfully. What guns he had had, and, in the light of Lady Mary’s pacifism, he doubted if the metaphor was morally appropriate, appeared to have been effectively spiked by Zipser’s tragic act.

“I really can’t see what I can do,” he said finally.

“Well, in the first place, you can see that contraceptives are freely available in the College.”

“I can what?” shouted Sir Godber.

“You heard me,” snapped his wife. “King’s College has a dispenser in the lavatory. So do some of the other colleges. It seems a most wholesome precaution.”

The Master shuddered. “King’s has them, eh? Well I daresay it needs them. The place is a hotbed of homosexuality.”

“Godber,” said Lady Mary warningly. Sir Godber stopped short. He knew Lady Mary’s views on homosexuals. She held them in the same sort of esteem as foxes, and her views on foxhunting were intemperate to say the least.

“All I meant was that King’s have them for a purpose,” he said.

“I hardly imagine that…” Lady Mary began when the French au pair girl brought in coffee.

“As I was saying…”

“Pas devant les doméstiques,” said his wife.

“Oh quite,” said Sir Godber hastily. “All I meant was that they have them pour encourager les autres.”

The girl went out and Lady Mary poured coffee.

“What others?” she asked.

“Others?” said Sir Godber, who by this time had lost the thread of the conversation.

“You were saying that King’s had installed a dispenser to encourage the others.”

“Precisely. I know how you feel about homosexuality, my dear, but one can have enough of a good thing,” he explained.

“Godber, you are prevaricating,” said Lady Mary firmly. “I insist that for once in your life you do what you say you’re going to do. When I married you, you were filled with splendid ideals. Now when I look at you, I sometimes wonder what happened to the man I married.”

“My dear, you seem to forget that I have spent a lifetime in politics,” Sir Godber protested. “One learns to compromise. It’s a depressing fact but there it is. Call it the death of idealism if you will, at least it saves a lot of people’s lives.” He took his coffee cup and went through to his study and sat morosely by the fire and wondered at his own pusillanimity.

He could remember a time when he had shared his wife’s enthusiasm for social justice, but time had dimmed… or rather since Lady Mary remained vigorous over the years, not time itself but something had dimmed his zeal – if zeal could be dimmed. Sir Godber wondered about it and was struck by his preoccupation with the question. If not time then what? The intractability of human nature. The sheer inertia of Englishmen for whom the past was always sacred and inviolable and who prided themselves on their obstinacy. “We didn’t win the war,” thought Sir Godber, “we just refused to lose it.” Stirred to a new belligerency, he reached for the poker and poked the fire angrily and watched the sparks fly upwards into the darkness. He was damned if he was going to be put upon by the Dean. He hadn’t spent a lifetime in high office to be frustrated by an ageing academic with a taste for port. He got up and poured himself a stiff whisky and paced the room. Lady Mary was right. A dispenser would be a move in the right direction. He’d speak to the Bursar in the morning. He glanced out of the window towards the Bursar’s rooms and saw the lights burning. It wasn’t late. He’d pay him a social call now. He finished his drink and went out into the hall and put on his overcoat.

The Bursar lived out. He dined in College as frequently as possible, thanks to his wife’s cooking, and it was only by chance that he had stayed on in his rooms after dinner. He had things to think about. The Dean’s pessimism, for one thing, and his failure to solicit the help of Sir Cathcart. It might be as well, he thought, to consider transferring his tenuous loyalties to Sir Godber after all. The Master had already shown himself to be a man of some determination – the Bursar had not forgotten his ultimatum to the College Council – and properly handled might well reward him for services rendered. After all it had been the Bursar who had given him the information which Sir Godber had used to browbeat the Council. It was worth considering. He got up to put on his coat and go home when footsteps on the stairs suggested a late caller. The Bursar sat down at his desk again and pretended business. There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” said the Bursar. Sir Godber peered round the door.

“Ah, Bursar,” he said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. I was crossing the Court when I saw your light and I thought I would pop up.”

The Bursar rose to greet him with warm obsequiousness. “How good of you to come. Master,” he said, hurrying to take Sir Godber’s coat. “I was about to drop you a line asking if I could see you.”

“In that case, I am delighted to have saved you the trouble,” said Sir Godber.

“Do take a seat.” Sir Godber sat in an armchair by the fire and smiled genially. The warmth of the Bursar’s welcome and the atmosphere of indigence in the furnishings of his rooms were to his taste. He looked round approvingly at the worn carpet and the second-rate prints on the walls, from an almanac by the look of them, and felt the broken spring in the chair beneath him. Sir Godber recognized the importunity of it all. His years in office had given him a nose for dependency, and Sir Godber was not a man to withhold favours.

“Would you care for a little something?” the Bursar asked, hovering uncertainly near a decanter of indifferent port. Sir Godber hesitated a moment. Port on top of whisky? He thrust the considerations of his liver aside in favour of policy.

“Just a small glass, thank you,” he said, taking out his pipe and filling it from a worn pouch. Sir Godber was not an habitual pipe smoker; he found it burnt his tongue, but he had learnt the value of the common touch.

“A bad business about poor Zipser,” said the Bursar bringing the port. “It’s going to be a costly business restoring the Tower.”

Sir Godber lit his pipe. “One of the topics I wanted to consult you about. Bursar. We’ll have to set up a Restoration Fund, I imagine.”

“I’m afraid so. Master,” the Bursar said sadly.

Sir Godber sipped his port. “In the ordinary way,” he said, “and if the College were only less… er shall we say… less antiquated in its attitudes, I daresay I could use my influence in the City to raise a substantial sum, but as it is I find myself in an ambiguous position.” He trailed off airily, leaving the Bursar with a sense of infinite financial connections. “No, we shall simply have to fall back on our own resources.”

“We have so few,” said the Bursar.

“We shall have to make what use we can of them,” Sir Godber continued, “until such time as the College decides to give itself a more contemporary image. I’ll do what I can of course, but I’m afraid it will be an uphill battle. If only the Council would see the importance of change.” He smiled and looked at the Bursar. “But then I daresay you agree with the Dean?”

It was the moment the Bursar had been waiting for. “The Dean has his own views, Master,” he said, “and they are not ones I share.”

Sir Godber’s eyebrows expressed encouragement with reservations.

“I have always felt that we were falling behind the times,” continued the Bursar, anxious to win the full approval of those eyebrows, “but as Bursar I have been concerned with administration and it does tend to leave little time for policy. The Dean’s influence is quite remarkable, you know, and of course there is Sir Cathcart.”