Grantchester Grind (29 page)

By luncheon the freedom the Dean had felt on leaving the Council Chamber had
evaporated. In its place there was a sense of uncertainty and the feeling that things
were occurring in a mysterious and secretive way which would change the College
entirely. The situation had passed beyond the Dean’s control. One shock after another
had left him exhausted–too exhausted to notice that the Senior Tutor kept looking at
him with such poisonous hatred that Sir Cathcart’s belief the night before that the man
was a homicidal maniac seemed perfectly plausible. Certainly the Senior Tutor had
murder in his heart and only the established practice of not having full-blown rows at
High Table (a practice that went back to the seventeenth century when two Fellows had
fought an impromptu duel between the game pie and the roast beef over a
misunderstanding of the word ‘Bestiary’ which duel had resulted in the death of a
talented theologian with a harelip) prevented the Senior Tutor from telling the Dean
exactly what he thought of him. In any case, the Friday lunch fish had its usual
moderating influence. There were far too many bones in the red mullet to attend to.

Only the Chaplain was in conversational mood. ‘I am most concerned about the
Master,’ he said. ‘I tried phoning Addenbrooke’s to find out his condition and they
assured me he hadn’t been admitted.’

‘Hardly surprising. I don’t suppose they recognized him,’ said Dr Buscott. ‘Not as
the Master of a college at any rate. Possibly as a tramp or something of that sort.’

‘What the devil do you mean by that?’ asked the Senior Tutor, glad to be able to vent his
feelings fairly legitimately.

‘Simply that Masters of other colleges are rather more distinguished and don’t wear
bowler hats.’

‘I don’t suppose he was admitted in a bowler hat,’ Professor Pawley commented. ‘Even
if he was wearing it when he had this latest stroke, which strikes me as doubtful, they
would have removed it when he was put on the stretcher.’

‘Nothing wrong with bowlers,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘They used to be very fashionable.
Guards officers in mufti had to wear them. Still do, for all I know.’

‘I remember seeing Larwood when I was a small boy,’ said the Chaplain. ‘He was really
fast. But it was Jardyne who caused all the rumpus over the bodyline bowling. Now they wear
helmets.’

‘We weren’t talking about those bowlers. We were talking about Skullion’s hat.’

‘Of course I asked for him by name. They wouldn’t have known who I was talking about
otherwise. They still said he wasn’t there.’

‘Perhaps he’s in the Evelyn,’ said Professor Pawley. ‘They say it’s very comfortable
there.’

The Dean ignored their talk. As far as he was concerned Skullion no longer existed, and
in any case he had no intention of telling them where Skullion had gone. The fewer people
who knew, the better. He was wondering where the Praelector had got to and whether it had
been wise to give the old man the authority to conduct negotiations with a candidate of
his own choosing. It was too late now to do anything about it, but all the same he couldn’t
help feeling anxious. In the end he excused himself before the end of the meal and went
for a quiet walk along the Backs.

For a moment the Senior Tutor almost followed him but thought better of it. There was
time enough to have it out with the Dean and for all he knew the police were keeping an eye
on the College. He had never for one moment believed the story about Skullion being
taken to hospital. With a sense of tact that was surprising, or perhaps for the
practical reason that a wheelchair could not be got into a police car, the police had
made use of an ambulance to take Skullion to the Parkside Police Station where they were
undoubtedly questioning him. For a moment the Senior Tutor wondered if he ought to do
something about getting him a solicitor before remembering that the Praelector had
mentioned visiting Mr Retter that morning ostensibly to consult the partner about the
constitutional position of a successor to a mentally incompetent Master. Again he
was astonished at the tact and care the Praelector had shown in avoiding unwanted
publicity. It only went to prove the College Council had been correct in putting so much
trust in him.

All the same the Senior Tutor was still in a filthy mood when he set off for the
Porterhouse Boat House across Midsummer Common and as he rode his bicycle his thoughts
were centred on Dr Purefoy Osbert. He would dearly like to find some way of making that
young man regret the day he had ever set foot in Porterhouse. He was still considering
the possibility of somehow incriminating the damned Dr Osbert when, having vented his
fury on the First Boat, he cycled back to the College.

As he passed the Porter’s Lodge Walter came out with an envelope.

‘Sorry to bother you, sir,’ he said. ‘Urgent message for Dr Osbert and since you’re on
the same staircase I wonder…’ The Senior Tutor took the envelope and hurried on. He was
anxious to see what the urgent message was. It might prove to be useful.

Once in his room he switched the electric kettle on and steamed the envelope open and
read the letter inside. It held little interest for him. It was simply an invitation
from the President of the American Association for the Abolition of Cruel and Unusual
Punishment to meet with the author of _The Long Drop,_ a work that she had read with great
interest and appreciation etc. Unfortunately her schedule was very tight and the
only free evening available was Friday. She was staying with friends in Cambridge
overnight but would be honoured to meet Dr Osbert outside the Royal Hotel at 8 p.m. The
Senior Tutor folded the letter and put it back into the envelope before changing his
mind and tearing it up. That was one appointment Dr Osbert was not going to keep.

In London Schnabel was on the phone to Transworld Television. ‘I’m telling you they are
evidently offering you a way out,’ he told Hartang. ‘This guy’s the genuine article and
he’s got real influence.’

‘Like how real?’ Hartang wanted to know.

‘Like Downing Street,’ Schnabel told him.

There was a long pause while Hartang considered this extraordinary statement.

‘He’s got that sort of influence, what’s he want from me?’ he asked finally.

‘I don’t know. He’s got some sort of proposal to put to you. He stated quite
specifically that he thought that the matter could be dealt with on an amicable and
mutually beneficial basis. Feuchtwangler was with me. He can tell you.’ Feuchtwangler
told him and handed the phone back to Schnabel. It took another half hour to convince
Hartang to agree to see the Praelector and even then he remained highly suspicious. It
was the mention of extradition to Singapore as an alternative that finally
persuaded him.

‘You get this one wrong, Schnabel, and I won’t just be looking for some new legal
advisers, I’ll be needing the help of some contractors from Chicago. Know what I
mean?’

Schnabel said he did, and hung up. ‘Number Eleven Downing Street and the stupid bastard
talks like that,’ he said.

The Praelector rose late and had a leisurely breakfast. Then, in case his movements
were being watched, he paid a visit to a nephew who did have a job in the Home Office.
After that he had lunch with a retired bishop. All in all his day was spent building up in
any watcher’s mind the belief that he was dealing with a man of very considerable
influence. When he returned to the Goring Hotel, an invitation to meet with Mr Edgar
Hartang at the Transworld Television Centre was waiting for him. The Praelector had a
rest and then took a taxi to Docklands where he was subjected to a body check and the
attentions of the metal detector before shooting up and down in the elevator to the
unnumbered floor and Hartang’s bleak office. Hartang greeted him with an ingratiating
concern and a sickening servility that fully substantiated the Bursar’s account of
his meeting with him. Hartang had slipped into his middle-European charm mode. It didn’t
fool the Praelector for a moment. On the other hand he was pleased to see that Hartang had
discarded the blazer and the polo-neck and even the white socks and was dressed slightly
more formally in a light suit with a plain tie.

‘I am authorized,’ said the Praelector when the slight courtesies were over, ‘by the
College Council of Porterhouse College to offer you the position of Master of the
College.’ He paused and looked at Hartang with all the solemn benevolence he could muster.
Hartang was staring at him through lightly tinted glasses–the dark blue ones had gone with
the white socks and moccasins–with a mixture of incredulity and extreme suspicion.

The Praelector savoured his astonishment for a moment and then went on. ‘My purpose
in doing so is to achieve two objects, the first beneficial to the College and the
second, I believe, very much to your standing as an eminent financier and as an
individual. Let me say that the gift of the Mastership at Porterhouse is the Crown
prerogative and it is only in exceptional circumstances that the Crown, or to be more
precise the Government of the day, that is to say the Prime Minister is prepared to
derogate its authority in these matters to the College Council. It has done so in the
present case for reasons that we need not go into and which, in any event, I am not at
liberty to divulge. Suffice to say these reasons have to do with the national
interest. Treaty obligations with certain countries can be obviated by your
acceptance while at the same time your recognized financial expertise will remain
inviolate.’ The Praelector paused again and this time he assumed the most solemn
expression to emphasize the seriousness with which he had spoken. He hadn’t tickled
trout as a boy without learning when to take particular care. Edgar Hartang hardly
breathed at the other end of the green sofa.

‘Naturally you will want to consider the proposal at your leisure and consult your
advisers before giving an answer. However, I can assure you that the position of
Master is not offered lightly or capriciously. Nor does it involve more than formal
duties. You would have as your residence the Master’s Lodge, the provision of College
servants and of any amenities you chose to provide for your own comfort and security. At
the same time your social position would be assured. I cannot put it more highly than
that. Porterhouse College is one of the oldest in. Cambridge and, if I may be permitted a
moment’s frankness, your contribution in the field of electronic communications
would be invaluable to us, to say nothing of your financial expertise. I will leave you
now. I shall be staying at the Goring Hotel for three more days and will await your answer
there.’

The Praelector rose and took his leave with a slight diplomatic bow. As the elevator
doors shut Hartang loosened his collar and then sat down again and tried to come to terms
with the extraordinary mixture of threats and promises he had just heard. In a life full
of crude alarms and brutal opportunities he had never experienced anything in the
least like this. For an hour he tried to find a snag in the Praelector’s offer and failed.
Maybe Schnabel would know. He picked up the phone and punched the lawyer’s home number.

It was an altered Edgar Hartang who went into conference with Schnabel,
Feuchtwangler and Bolsover that evening.

The realization that something fundamental had occurred in his life had softened
Edgar Hartang’s approach to his legal advisers. ‘You believe it’s for real, the old guy
having the authority to negotiate like he’s an ambassador or something?’ he asked
them.

‘We do,’ said Schnabel.

‘It’s a very great honour, sir,’ said Bolsover.

‘It’s helluva good protection,’ was Feuchtwangler’s comment. ‘I never heard of them
extraditing a college President yet.’ Hartang gnawed a knuckle. He hadn’t liked that
talk about treaty obligations one bit. A godson at Number Eleven Downing Street and what
the fuck had the old geezer been doing with the guy who worked in the Home Office and
Bishops and all?

‘It’s the way the Brits have always done things,’ Feuchtwangler explained. ‘They tie you
up tight and then say “Join the club, old boy.” Don’t have to mention what the option is
because you know. How do you think Dick Whittington became Lord Mayor of London?’

Hartang said he didn’t know any Dick Whittington. ‘What’s in it for them?’ he wanted to
know.

‘What he said, your expertise. First, money. Information highway stuff costs. You’ve
got to hand it to Kudzuvine. He’s done you a favour.’

It was a risky statement. Hartang wasn’t ready to think of Kudzuvine doing him any
favours yet.

‘And one thing is certain,’ said Bolsover. ‘Dos Passos will be on a flight out the moment
you officially accept. They’ve got him under surveillance now.’

It was a convincing point. Hartang agreed to become Master of Porterhouse.

‘It is amazing how things work out,’ Schnabel said as they drove away. ‘I won’t say he’s
at all civilized yet but the process has begun. In two years I daresay he’ll be
house-trained.’

‘Porterhouse-trained,’ said Bolsover.

The Praelector sat on a seat in the spring sunshine and watched some children fighting
on the grass. It was a great many years since he had indulged in such an enjoyable
activity, rolling over and over and trying to get the upper hand in a tussle with
another boy but he could remember vividly what fun it had been even when he had lost. And
now for the first time for many years he was having fun again though this time it was the fun
of genuine conquest. Of course there would be more battles to come. For one thing Hartang
would have to be tamed and–even in these gross days it would never do to have a Master using
the word ‘motherfucker’ at High Table too often. But the Praelector intended to leave
that aspect of Hartang’s development to the other Fellows and to the atmosphere of the
College with its many little formalities. His more immediate problems were quite
different. He had to persuade the College Council to ratify Hartang’s appointment and
he had never faced a more difficult task in his life. Even the most brilliant Cambridge
academics had no grasp of the political implications of finance and industry. Brought
up in a Welfare State they had not lived through the Twenties and Thirties when the poor had
been genuinely hungry and men and women and children had pinched white faces and there had
been Salvation Army soup kitchens. Some of them had read about such things but they had
never experienced them. Instead they indulged in nostalgic charades and mock
hunger-marches, their plump comfortable faces glowing with health and their feet shod in
warm well-soled shoes, and went home afterwards filled with a sense of self-righteous
concern and satisfaction to congratulate themselves on their moral stance over smoked
salmon and coq-au-vin in centrally heated houses. And everywhere television and
glossy magazines insulated and to some extent inoculated them from real pain and
misery. The Praelector had lived too long to forget the world before Beveridge and the
need to produce manufactured goods for export. Now Porterhouse had to come to terms with
his decision or it would go under. It would be his last struggle. He got up and walked back
to the hotel relishing the thought of the Dean’s face when he heard the news.

Purefoy Osbert and Mrs Ndhlovo sat in the sunshine too on a bench under the wall of
Peterhouse with the old river gate behind them. It was blocked up now and the river over a
hundred yards away but it had been from that gate that the Masters and Fellows had stepped
into boats centuries earlier to travel down to their colleges and avoid the mud and filth
of the streets.

‘I had to come and explain,’ she was saying. After all it was only a joke, and all right
it wasn’t in the best taste but really good jokes so seldom are.’

Purefoy scowled at some horses browsing in the grass in front of them. He still hadn’t
made up his mind about Mrs Ndhlovo and her sister. And he was no longer sure he believed a
word she said. On the other hand he was secretly pleased she had never been the third wife
of the late Mr Ndhlovo.

‘It was the only way I could get into the country,’ she had explained. Purefoy said he
didn’t understand.

‘How do you imagine someone without a birth certificate or a passport can pass through
Immigration Control without any papers? It is impossible.’

‘But you must have had some sort of identification. You must know who you are.’

‘I know who I am now, but I didn’t then. Nobody knew. You have never lived in a country
like Argentina under the Generals where people quite literally disappeared. That’s
what happened to my mother and father. Brigitte and I were found one morning on a picnic
table on the bank of the Rio Plata in a town called Fray Bentos. We had labels tied to us
with the word “Unknown” in English written on them. So we went to a Catholic orphanage
where the nuns called us Incognito. That was a joke too, to begin with, but the name stuck
and I became Ingrid Natasha Cognito and Brigitte was more fortunate. All the same we
hated the orphanage and the nuns and we ran away and went to Paraguay. And that wasn’t nice
at all because we had to live with some very poor Germans in a really strange settlement.
We had blue eyes and fair hair and spoke English.’

Purefoy listened with a drowsy fascination. The River Plate, Fray Bentos and the
meat-packing factory which had closed, the Golf Club with the Coronation Plaque for
George VI on the wall and the distances of the holes still in yards, Paraguay and
Stroessner’s German-helmeted troops goose-stepping in a dusty plaza, the dilapidated
farmhouses of the descendants of nineteenth-century German settlers, strange South
African sects in modern buildings, heat and insects, and then back through Uruguay to
Montevideo, a city which was frozen in the 1950s and where Anglos still gathered in the
English Club with its cracked and pasted dining-room window and the plaster ceiling in
the bar broken and partly fallen and its bound copies of the _Montevideo Times_ piled in
the library next to the ancient and unused fencing gallery. From there to Africa, this time
with the help of the South African sectarians.

The white horses grazed on the meadow grass and Purefoy’s imagination followed the
story of Miss I. N. Cognito’s wanderings with the growing conviction that she must be
telling the truth. All the same he was still suspicious. In the modern world everyone in
faintly civilized society had to have some means of identifying themselves even if it
was only some nuns in an orphanage or someone who had known them for a time.

‘That doesn’t help you get into the UK,’ Ingrid said. ‘You try coming into Heathrow with
no passport or birth certificate and no one to vouch for who you are. It’s weird. Those
immigration officers don’t even pretend to think you’re telling the truth. We tried it
one time on a cargo flight from Lusaka. That was a mistake. It got the crew into terrible
trouble and they gave us the most gruesome body searches. And laxatives in case we’d
swallowed condoms of drugs or diamonds. Not nice.’

‘What on earth were you doing in Lusaka?’

‘I told you we had become born-again members of the Benoni Sect. Some woman had visions
or something back in 1927 and the people thought this was a good time to move out of South
Africa with some money to build missions in South America.’

‘They could have given you some means of identification…’

‘Could have. Didn’t because we told them the religion was a phoney and it’s amazing how
intolerant religious people can be when you refuse to believe. They cast us out into
outer darkness, in this case Brakpan, and we had to make it on our own.’

‘So how did you get into this country?’

‘By making friends with a nice Greek who had a corner store and two sisters who didn’t
mind losing their passports. We had to give them back to him in Athens. After that it wasn’t
so difficult. We worked our way along the Mediterranean to Spain, on yachts mainly, and a
sweet old man in Palamos needed crew. His wife didn’t like crossing the Bay of Biscay in
winter and went home by air. So one day we sailed into Falmouth and came ashore when no one
was looking.’

‘And you still have no papers? You don’t have a passport or a birth certificate or
anything?’

‘Oh, but I have. Once you’re here it’s easy to get a birth certificate.’

‘How?’ Purefoy asked. He wanted certainty. She gave it to him.

Purefoy looked at her in amazement. ‘You didn’t,’ he said. At least, I hope you
didn’t.’

‘Well, we had to do something. And he was such a pathetic man. All alone in the world and
slaving away in Somerset House and no one had been nice to him before.’

‘So you got a passport in the name of Mrs Ndhlovo?’ said Purefoy suspiciously.

‘Oh no, not Mrs Ndhlovo. She was only a temporary expedient much later. I’m Isobel
Rathwick and I was born in Bournemouth. I’m entirely legitimate now. All the same I much
prefer Mrs Ndhlovo. I don’t want you to call me anything else It gives me a lot of fun with
all those serious people who are concerned about the Third World.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Purefoy. And what about your sister? What’s she doing now?’

‘Being frightfully respectable in Woking. She’s married and has two daughters, but
every now and then she has to break out and go back to being herself.’

‘It all sounds very odd to me. I don’t see how you can live a lie.’

‘Because we’ve had to invent ourselves, Purefoy dear, just like everyone else.’

‘Not me,’ said Purefoy. ‘I’m certain I know who I am.’

‘You only think you do,’ Mrs Ndhlovo thought but she didn’t say it.

They strolled back up King’s Parade and looked at the stalls in the market and had tea in
a little café behind the Guildhall, and this time Purefoy told her about his sparring
rounds with the Dean and the Senior Tutor, and how Skullion had been taken away.

‘Oh Purefoy, how brilliant. And it’s all because of me and Brigitte. I think I shall
become something called…What shall we call it? A Provocator, yes, a Provocator and
conduct classes for shy young men who believe everything they are told or read in books.
I’m tired of Male Infertility and Masturbatory Techniques and all those earnest women
feeling deeply about Female Circumcision and not a smile among them.’

‘But you are an expert on it. You can’t just give it up like that.’

‘I took it up just like that,’ said Ms I. N. Cognito. ‘I got the slides in London and
read up on all the rest. And if you want to know why, because I was bored with being a
stewardess on airlines and being polite to people I would never want to see again. Oh,
the lies one had to tell! And they were always the same boring lies. At least as Mrs Ndhlovo
I could be more imaginative, but that’s got boring too, and people, usually most
unattractive ones, will come up to me afterwards and ask questions. The number of really
awful women who have tried to proposition me! But now it’s all going to be different. I
want you to show me your Porterhouse. I’m going to apply for the post of Provocator.
Junior Provocator. Do you think they’ll accept me?’

‘They’ve got enough troubles already,’ said Purefoy.

In the bedroom at General Sir Cathcart D’Eath’s ’safe house’ near the Botanical
Gardens Myrtle Ransby was experiencing a sense of the unreal combined with a
hangover that was the worst she had ever known. She had arrived at the right time the night
before as the General had ordered, having had one or two brandies to steady her nerves
which were still affected by meeting the American with the bloodstained apron, the awful
knife and the partly dismembered stallion at the Catfood Canning Factory. She had let
herself in the back door and after one or two more brandies–there was no one else about–she
had managed with great difficulty to get into the black latex suit and had put the hood
on over her en bouffant. Then she had sat down and waited, every now and then helping
herself to some more brandy. The client hadn’t turned up. Myrtle rummaged in her bag and
read the General’s instructions again. He had definitely said Friday at 8 p.m. It was
now nearly nine. Well, she’d get paid whatever happened. Those torn notes were going to
become whole ones even if she had to sit there all night. Two hours later she decided to
take the hood off and get some fresh air. This entailed removing the rubber gloves first
and they wouldn’t come. She was interrupted in her struggle with the things by the need to
go wee-wee and she was fighting another battle, this time with the bottom half of her
costume when the phone rang. Myrtle told it to go fuck itself and stayed where she was.
Then, when it was too late, she made an attempted dash for the thing and tripped over. The
phone stopped ringing. Myrtle reached for the brandy bottle and drank quite a lot more. It
was almost midnight when she tried to go to the bathroom again and inadvertently
switched the light off and couldn’t find the switch again. By now her efforts to rid herself
of the gloves, the hood and the rest of her costume had become a waste of time. In the
darkness she crawled about the floor and found the brandy bottle and finished it. Presently
she passed out and spent the night where she lay, happily unaware of time, place and her own
condition.

Morning, not a bright morning in the shuttered room, was very different. It took her
some time to work out why she could hardly breathe, could only see out of part of one eye–the
hood and en bouffant had both changed position–and was encased in something that was at
once cold and sticky. Slowly and painstakingly she managed to get to her feet and make it
with the help of the wall to the bathroom and turn the light on. The image in the mirror did
nothing to restore her self-esteem. Used to fairly awful mornings in the company of
boys at the airbase with peculiar tastes in fetish costumes, she had never seen herself
in anything approaching this bizarre condition. Myrtle Ransby sat down on the lavatory
and began to cry before dimly remembering that she had promised her husband she’d be
back by one o’clock at the latest. She had also been promised the other half of the two
thousand pounds. For a moment fury rose in her. She had been betrayed, was in a strange
house and in a rubber suit that was far too small for her. She felt like death. Worst of all
it was the weekend and somehow she had to get home. At that moment the effects of the
brandy made themselves felt in various ways.

Ten minutes later, feeling only slightly better, Myrtle rallied and tried to find
something to help her cut her way out of the costume but apart from an old toothbrush which
was no help at all, the only thing was a double-bladed plastic razor but even in her
desperation she couldn’t get it to cut anything. Once again she set to work trying to get
the gloves off and when that failed, she spent a fruitless and frequently painful twenty
minutes dragging at the various slits in the costume which kept recoiling violently.
There was nothing for it. She wasn’t going to risk having her nose broken or being choked
to death on her false teeth. She’d just phone for help. She sat on the edge of the bed
squinting down at the telephone and wondering what her husband Len would say or, more
importantly, do if he came and found her like this. Knowing him, he’d either knock her
about a bit, and quite a bit at that considering she was in no condition to fight back or,
even worse, laugh himself sick and tell all his rotten mates down the local and she’d be the
laughing stock of Thetford.