Grantchester Grind (21 page)

‘Odd you should ask that,’ said the Dean. ‘Hasn’t been his usual self these last few days.
I think he rather misses not having Kentucky Fry about the place.’

And Skullion did. He had enjoyed sitting–beside Kudzuvine’s bed and exercising his
authority over him. It was a long time since Skullion had been able to demonstrate the
power of his personality to any worthy adversary, and to be called The Thing and
Quasimodo and Hunchback by a damned Yank had provided him with the sort of stimulus he
needed. With Kudzuvine to reduce to a state of gibbering terror he had escaped the
boredom he had suffered ever since his Porterhouse Blue but now the boredom had returned,
made worse by the knowledge of what he was missing. To make up for it he insisted on Arthur
bringing up bottles of Hardy’s Special Ale from the Buttery where very few people knew it
had been laid down twenty years before to mature. ‘Piquant yet without a twang,’ read the
label, ‘full in body’ Which was more than could be said for Skullion, but it was still his
favourite tipple and as the Master he was free to drink as much of it as he liked and his
obnoxious bag would hold. Or far more if he was out in the garden with the bag removed from
the end of the pipe and hidden from view under a rug over his knees where the bottles of ale
were hidden too. As Arthur, who shared his taste in beers, pointed out, ‘You can always have
a leak under there and no one will notice. Not out on the lawn they won’t. Now, if you was a
bitch it would be different, Mr Skullion, but you ain’t that. You’re an old dog, you are.’
Skullion had smiled at the compliment. ‘Bitch pee leaves marks on lawns,’ Arthur went on,
‘but dog’s piss don’t. Know that for a fact because my old dad was kennel man out
Hardingley and old Mrs Scarbell used to carry on something frightful if a bitch peed on
the lawn. “What do you think you’re doing, Arthur?” she would say to my dad who I was named
after. “You know nothing will grow when a lady dog has passed water.” And my old dad would
say…’

It was on conversations such as this that Skullion depended for any interest in his
life. And on his daily consumption of Hardy’s Special Ale and the memories the ale seemed
to encourage. Every day the Chef would come over for a chat or, if there was anything very
special for High Table dinner, he would bring some over for the Master’s approval. ‘Knowed
you liked this, Mr Skullion, and I’ve cut it up small so it’s easier to chew,’ he would say
and Skullion would answer, ‘Very nice, Cheffy, very tasty. Always were the best Chef I can
remember in this or any college and old Whatsisname in Trinity used to take some
beating.’ Almost every day the Chef brought over some quails’ eggs even when they weren’t on
the Fellows’ menu because Skullion was partial to them like and they went down easy and
hardly needed any chewing to speak of.

Most of these little meetings of like minds took place out of sight of the rest of the
College and were held round the corner on the far side of the Master’s Maze but from his
study Purefoy Osbert could only see the foot of the wheelchair and was intrigued by the
routine of the Chef in his white hat and coat crossing the lawn bearing dishes on a great
silver tray with napkins, immaculately ironed, laid out over the serving dishes, just as
he was intrigued by the sight of the Master leaning with infinite patience late into the
night against the great beech tree watching the back gate tipped with formidable revolving
spikes over which no one ever climbed. It was as though he were witnessing some ancient
Porterhouse ritual that had been handed down through the centuries. And always Purefoy
wondered what was being said behind the yew hedge of the maze and what he might learn if he
listened to it. In the end his curiosity got the better of him and one lunchtime, when
Skullion was safely in the Master’s Lodge, Purefoy Obsert sauntered casually through
the rose garden before doubling back out of sight of the Lodge and entering the maze. It
was not a large maze but it was an unusually difficult one, and the yew was old and dense.
It took Purefoy twenty minutes to reach the corner beyond which Skullion sat in the
afternoon and the Chef came with his offering. Purefoy Osbert sat down and waited.

He had to wait for an hour before the Master wheeled himself out and stationed himself
only a yard or two away with his bottles of ale and his memories of Porterhouse past. But
this afternoon he was in a bad temper. He had had a run-in with the Matron who had
insisted on his having a bath. ‘It’s no use your grumbling at me, Master,’ she had said,
‘we can’t have you smelling. You’re going to have a bath and a change of clothes. That old
suit of yours has got to go to the dry cleaners and if I had my way it would go to the
incinerator. Now then, off with your jacket and…’ Being bathed by the Matron was
Skullion’s worst moment in the week. It was the ultimate indignity. Deprived of his
clothes and the bowler hat, that badge of his office as Head Porter which he had refused to
part with even as Master, he not only was naked; he felt naked, naked and vulnerable and in
the presence of a woman with none of the sensibilities and respect for human decencies
he demanded. Not that he minded having his back scrubbed he quite liked that but there were
other areas, his privates as he called them, in which the Matron took what he considered
a thoroughly indecent interest and insisted on washing very meticulously because,
as she put it so coarsely, if she didn’t he’d smell even more like an old dog fox than he did
already. Skullion didn’t mind being compared to an old dog by Arthur but for a bitch like
the Matron to liken him to an old dog fox was going a damned sight too far. And he’d told her
so in no uncertain terms. ‘You aren’t even a married woman and no bloody wonder and, if
you want to find out what you’ve been missing, you go and find some other man to fiddle with
because I bloody don’t like it. Or you. I can look after them myself.’ Which had done
nothing to improve the Matron’s temper or her treatment of him.

‘You’ve got a dirty mind, you have, and it’s no use your looking at me like that. Call
yourself the Master of Porterhouse and you can’t even talk like a gentleman,’ she had
snapped back at him and had then really put the boot in. ‘I heard the Dea–well, never you
mind who, say the other day, and I did too, that it was about time they sent you to the Park.
Oh yes, he did. Where do you think he’s been these past weeks? Hasn’t been visiting any sick
relatives in Wales. Been going round the important Old Porterthusians looking for a
Master. That’s what he’s been doing. And if you don’t believe me, you ask Walter in the
Porter’s Lodge and he’ll tell you. In fact I wonder you don’t know it already because it’s
common knowledge in the College. You’re for Porterhouse Park and I for one won’t be sorry
to see you go. I won’t have to soil my hands bathing you there.’ She had said it with such
venom and conviction that Skullion had sensed she was telling the truth. Besides he had
suspected something of the sort himself from the way Cheffy and Arthur and Walter had all
treated him with more sympathy than they had ever shown before. He had never wanted
sympathy and until very recently they had not wasted it on him. Instead they had shown
him the respect they had shown when he was Head Porter and the most important servant in
the College. Not that he was going to ask them. He didn’t want them to have to lie to him.
That wasn’t proper and he had always done things the proper way.

So, now, on this warm afternoon, he sat drinking an unusually large number of
bottles of Hardy’s Special Ale which Arthur had opened for him, all the time nursing a
growing sense of grievance against the world. He even snapped at Cheffy for cutting off the
crusts of his cucumber sandwiches for tea which he had never done before. And when Arthur
had come out to tell him his dinner was ready, Skullion said he didn’t want any.

‘Got to keep your strength up, Mr Skullion,’ Arthur told him.

‘What for?’ Skullion demanded. ‘What bloody for?’

Arthur was nonplussed. ‘Well, I don’t really know, Mr Skullion. But you’ve always been
so fond of your grub.’

‘Well, I ain’t now. You go and get me another half of Hardy’s. I’ve got things to think
about.’

For a moment Arthur hesitated. He knew he ought to say he’d had enough already and
another six bottles, which was what Skullion meant by a half, and he wouldn’t just be
half-seas over, he’d be all the bloody way. But he knew better. It wasn’t just that
Skullion–that Mr Skullion–was the Master. If that had been all, like with the previous
Masters, he’d have told him to his face he’d had enough and it wasn’t right the Master
getting pissed. No, he’d have said that and been cursed for his damned insolence, and maybe
he’d have got the Master in to his dinner and maybe he wouldn’t, but in the morning the
incident would have been forgotten and certainly ignored. But with Mr Skullion it was
different. Mr Skullion wasn’t just any old Master of Porterhouse, he was Mr Skullion the
Head Porter which meant far more to Arthur and Cheffy and the rest of the College servants
who remembered him in his prime. It went still deeper, far, far deeper than that. It was
that Mr Skullion was Mr Skullion who’d always done things proper and never lied except
when he had to save someone else’s bacon or the College reputation. He’d have died for
Porterhouse, Mr Skullion would have, and no mistake. As Head Porter he’d licked the young
gentlemen into shape. ‘You’d better get your hair cut, Mr Walker,’ Arthur had once heard
him tell an undergraduate. ‘We can’t have them saying Porterhouse is full of nancy boys
like King’s, can we, sir? And if you haven’t got it on you, sir, here’s half a crown and I’ll
put it down against the slate.’ And he had done the same with every College servant who’d
needed pulling up and told to do it proper, whatever it was. ‘Proper is as proper does,’
had been Mr Skullion’s motto and, if there’d been one word he’d used more than any other–and
there was–it was proper. Mr Skullion was proper. There was no other way of putting it and,
if he wanted to get properly pissed, Arthur wasn’t going to stop him. Mr Skullion was his
own man and there weren’t many in Cambridge or anywhere else for that matter you could say
that about. And so, after the briefest of hesitations, Arthur went back, into the Master’s
Lodge and came back with the bottles and put them down with the tops off on the tray under
the rug where Skullion could reach them and all he said was, ‘Are you all right, Mr
Skullion?’ And Skullion had replied with a strange look, ‘All right, Arthur? All right? Oh
I’m all right. It’s the others is all wrong.’ And as Arthur had walked away back to the Lodge
he’d heard Skullion call out, ‘And thank you, Arthur, thank you,’ which was only proper.

Three yards away behind the yew hedge Purefoy Osbert sat on the mossy grass and wished he
could move. He was getting hungry himself and cold and he had learnt nothing except that
the Master was drinking halves and didn’t want his dinner or the crusts cut off his
cucumber sandwiches for tea. Above him the sky darkened it was already dark in the maze
but still Skullion sat there and Purefoy Osbert with him, each keeping a vigil the other
would not have understood, they were such worlds apart. He was still there after ten o’clock
when the Dean came out of the Combination Room and walked towards the Master’s Lodge. He
had dined well and had had another talk with the Senior Tutor about Dr Osbert and had
assured him without going into any detail at all that he need not worry any longer
because the matter was being attended to. Now he wanted a word with Skullion to warn him
about not talking to the new Fellow. Skullion didn’t seem to hear him coming.

The Dean’s footsteps were soft upon the lawn and it was only when he had passed the maze
that he became aware of the dark shape behind him and heard the clink of a bottle. ‘Good
Heavens, Master,’ he said. ‘What on earth are you doing out here?’ It was a silly
question. Skullion nearly always sat out at night but usually by the back gate.

‘Sitting,’ said Skullion, slurring the word more than usual. A whiff of Hardy’s Special
Ale reached the Dean. ‘Sitting and thinking.’

‘Sitting and drinking?’ said the Dean, choosing to interpret the word differently.
It was an unwise remark.

‘Sitting and thinking and drinking,’ said Skullion and there was no friendliness nor
the deference the Dean had come to expect. This was no way for the ex-porter to speak to
him.

‘Mostly drinking, by the sound of it,’ he said.

‘Mostly thinking. The drinking is my business, not yours. I’m entitled to it.’

‘Of course, Master, of course,’ said the Dean hurriedly. He realized he had gone too
far. ‘You have every right to drink.’

‘And think,’ said Skullion.

‘That too, of course,’ said the Dean. And what have you been thinking about?’

‘About you,’ said Skullion. About you and the Park. Porterhouse Park where you send all
the old Fellows you want to get rid of, the loonies like old Dr Vertel.’

‘Dr Vertel? What utter nonsense, Skullion. You know perfectly well’

‘Oh, it’s Skullion now, is it?’ There was no mistaking the savagery in Skullion’s
voice. ‘And I do know perfectly well. Old Vertel turned dirty, didn’t he? Started flashing
the bedders and the kiddies over at the Newnham swimming pool so he had to go.’

‘You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying,’ said the Dean angrily.

‘I’m drunk and I do know what I’m saying because I was in the Porter’s Lodge when the
police came and I held them off till you got him out the back into the Senior Tutor’s car
and down to the Park where they couldn’t find him or want to. Under the carpet you said,
under the carpet. And the Praelector made a joke and said, “Under the Parket,” and you
all laughed over your, coffee in the Combination Room. So don’t tell me I don’t know what
I’m saying. And don’t think you’re sweeping me under the carpet because you ain’t. And
that’s a fact.’

In the darkness, and silhouetted against the lighted windows of the Master’s Lodge,
the Dean felt that strange feeling of alarm he had felt listening to Purefoy Osbert a few
nights before. But this time he felt an even greater threat. There was a strength about
Skullion and a depth of anger that had been absent in the younger man. The Dean tried
appeasement. ‘I assure you, Master, that there is no question of your being sent to the
Park. The idea hasn’t crossed anyone’s mind. It’s absurd.’