The Campus Trilogy (58 page)

Felix shot me a grateful look, but Flanagan was unrepentant. ‘Oh he'll just fix them up a bit. A touch here, a touch there. There's no need to worry Harry. I know what these bureaucrats are like. I went through all this at Fandonegal, my last university. They whinged a bit but as long as you gave them piles of
pen-pushing
stuff, they're quite happy. You've just got to produce a convincing paper-trail. It doesn't matter if it bears no
relationship
to reality.'

I felt that somehow I was losing the plot ‘I'm not following this,' I said. ‘Could you go over it again?'

The Vice-Chancellor put on a golfing cap which was lying on a side-table and he picked up a golf club from his umbrella stand. He started practising his putting. ‘You know, I've just been elected onto the board of the St Sebastian's Golf Club,' he said. ‘How many students are registered for the diploma in
professional
golf this year, Felix?' he asked.

‘Nearly a hundred,' Felix mumbled.

‘You see, Harry. Everything's booming. Golf, Celebrity Studies, Artistic Dance. The students are practically breaking down the doors to come to us …'

‘Could we get back to the paper trail?' I insisted.

‘I think you're too upset about it all. It'll be a piece of cake. If a paper-trail doesn't exist at the moment – and I'm sure that it probably does – then we'll just have to invent one. The quality inspectors won't know the difference.'

‘The Registrar's doing this?' I asked. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. During my time at St Sebastian's the Registrar, Dr Robert Sloth, had lived in a complete haze. Nothing ever got done. A mild narcoleptic, he slept through most meetings. It was impossible to imagine him producing a credible set of documents, even if such a thing were tolerable.

‘He's just appointed his wife as Quality Assurance Officer,' Flanagan pointed out. ‘If he can't do it, she will.'

I was almost speechless. Reminding myself that I was a
clergyman
and, in theory at least, Alf Flanagan's boss, I pulled myself together. ‘Vice-Chancellor,' I pronounced. ‘This is most unwise. We cannot falsify documents. It would be dishonest and unethical and unworthy of the traditions of St Sebastian's. And even if we were prepared to engage in this sort of activity, the Registrar's wife is the last person in the world who should be asked to do it. She was absolutely hopeless when she worked in the university library. She was notoriously lazy and incompetent and I simply cannot
imagine
her creating a document which would deceive anyone …'

‘Ah … you mustn't underestimate the lady …' Alf Flanagan reproved me as he tried to knock a golf ball into his wastebasket. It veered off in the wrong direction and nearly hit Felix's foot. ‘Damn!' he said.

I was about to remonstrate further, but the Vice-Chancellor was distracted. He went to his desk again and rummaged among
the papers. ‘Ah … here it is! Now don't you worry about
anything
, Harry. Leave it all to me! I've got just the thing here to cheer you up.'

He sifted through the litter and pulled out a shiny photograph of a blonde young woman of about twenty-five. ‘Before you go I wanted to talk to you about Olive O'Shea. I've just made a
brilliant
appointment.'

‘Who is Olive O'Shea?' I asked.

‘She's a watercolour artist. Had a small one-woman show in the fringe at Edinburgh a couple of years ago. She's married to old Lord Barridon. You'll remember him. He used to be a junior minister in the foreign office some time ago, but there was a bit of a scandal about kerb-crawling or something twenty years back and he was thrown out. But he still sits in the House of Lords.'

‘But Lord Barridon must be nearly seventy by now. What's he doing with a young woman like that?'

Flanagan winked. ‘Well … what can I say? Anyway I need someone to be a Director of Hospitality for the university. We need a front-woman to charm the pants off everyone and she's just the person to do it …'

He handed me a job description for the new post. I noticed that the salary was in the professorial range. ‘It seems an awful lot of money to pay for a glorified hostess.' I said ‘With a salary like that, you must have attracted some excellent candidates. What are Lady Barridon's qualifications and experience for this sort of post?'

Alf Flanagan shook his head. ‘Oh she's a real cracker, mate. You'll love her. She's got loads of influential friends who know important people, if you know what I mean. Actually we haven't advertised the post yet and we'll have to go through the motions of interviewing, but she knows the job's hers. She's already put it on her curriculum vitae.'

‘She's not the easiest person to work with Alf …' began Felix.

The Vice-Chancellor patted his colleague's shoulder and looked across at me. ‘This bloke's always such a worrier,' he said. ‘It'll all be all right on the night, just you see!'

At this point, Flanagan's secretary knocked on the door to inform him that his next appointment was waiting. It was time for us to go. We both stood up and thanked the Vice-Chancellor for his time.

‘Now you mustn't be concerned about a thing, Harry,' he said, as I opened the door to leave. ‘It's all under control …'

Felix wanted me to go to his room to talk things over. It turned out that he had been allocated the same study that had been mine during my eleven years at the university and I felt at home straightaway.

‘You see,' said Felix, throwing himself down into an armchair. ‘It's impossible to get any sense out of Alf. He won't concentrate on the matter at all …'

I tried to be encouraging. ‘Well he's been through all this before. The Quality Control people did an inspection at Fandonegal University when he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor there. As at St Sebastian's, he'd introduced all sorts of educational
partnerships
with some very shady institutions …'

‘Most of whom have since transferred here …' interrupted Felix.

‘I seem to remember that the final report was pretty critical,' I continued, ‘but Fandondegal got away with it in the end. The
Times Higher Education
magazine covered it pretty thoroughly at the time.'

‘But he can't believe that Registrar Sloth or that idiotic wife of his could create a decent smoke-screen if they tried with both hands. And as for Lady Barridon, or Olive O'Shea as she insists on calling herself …'

‘Yes … what was all that about?' I asked. ‘Why's he doing this for her? Is she his mistress?'

Felix shook his head, ‘I don't think so … she seems genuinely attached to Barridon. But she's completely unsuitable for the job. She has only two subjects of conversation – one is herself and the other is her activites. She has no interest whatsover in anyone else. I had to sit next to her at a formal dinner last month and she talked non-stop about her talents through the whole first course. She didn't ask a single thing about me. Then the conversation at the table became general. She tried to interrupt several times, but the other guests had things to say. So as soon as the second course was finished, she got up, pulled poor old Lord Barridon out of his seat, announced she was developing influenza and
disappeared
off home.'

I laughed. ‘Oh dear! She sounds very much as if she's what
my old mother would have described as ‘All mink coat and no knickers!”

Felix looked rueful. ‘That's exactly it … But what is the
Vice-Chancellor
doing giving her the salary of a professor and
ignoring
the demands of the Quality Control Agency. Do you think he's gone mad?'

After dinner that evening Victoria and I were having coffee in the study. Brutus and Cleo were perched together looking anxiously out of the window. The Green Court was in darkness. In the
distance
we heard the unmistakeable sound of a cat fight. Marmaduke was on the prowl. I was telling Victoria about my conversation with the Vice-Chancellor. ‘You know,' I said, ‘I don't think the university has any of the required documentation for this Quality Control visitation. Flanagan kept talking about creating paper trails where none exist. As I was leaving, Felix said that they have never even recruited external examiners for most of the new degree programmes. The inspectors will be outraged if they find out.'

Victoria laughed. ‘I expect someone will create some fictitious papers …'

‘They can't produce non-existent external examiners. It would be disgraceful. And anyway, if they got caught, the whole degree course and possibly the whole university would have to close down.'

‘But do you think anyone would check?'

‘I don't know. Probably they wouldn't. But the whole thing's a scandal. And I can't see how, as Visitor, I can ever approve of such a policy.'

‘I don't think they're going to ask for your permssion, Harry.'

‘No, they won't. But if I know what's going on, then I can't stay silent.'

‘What are you going to do?' asked Victoria. ‘You certainly can't tell anyone.'

Indignantly, I said that I certainly would if necessary. ‘There have to be proper standards. That's what the role of a Visitor is, to ensure fair play and all that …'

‘But imagine the consequences …' Victoria smiled to herself. ‘Think about the situation in utilitarian terms. If what really
matters
is the greatest good for the greatest number, then calling
attention to the fact that the university is making up its reports would have appalling results. The standard of St Sebastian's degrees would be called into question. The staff and students would suffer. There would be a major investigation and they might even close the place down. All your erstwhile colleagues would lose their jobs. It would be a disaster. Surely a few little white lies and turning a blind eye would end in a much happier situation for everyone.' Victoria looked smug as she passed me a box of chocolates, one of the housewarming presents we had received from the residential Canons.

I sighed. I could see that here potentially was a very knotty
situation
. I did not feel strong enough to tackle it that night. ‘I think I'll have to face the problem when it comes,' I said, and ate the last two chocolates in the box. One was an orange cream – a flavour I greatly dislike.

Exasperated, I went to answer the telephone which was ringing in the kitchen. It turned out to be Magnus who said he had run out of food for his cat and he wondered if we might be able to lend him some. About twenty minutes later he arrived at our front door. I led him into the study where he picked up the empty box of
chocolates
. ‘What a pity!' he said. ‘It looks like you've run out.'

He was displeased when he saw the brand of cat food we could offer him. ‘You don't really make your two eat this cheap stuff, do you? Pushkin's digestion would be upset for a week if I gave him muck like this. Oh well, I'll just have to defrost some fish out of the freezer.'

Victoria went out to the kitchen to refill the coffee pot as I told him about my conversation with Flanagan.

‘Inevitable,' he said. ‘Flanagan's batty. Thank God I only do a little part-time teaching. If I were dependent on the university for my livelihood, I'd be seriously worried. He's turned the whole place upside down with his schemes. It's overflowing with students doing degrees in God-knows-what. None of it academic as far as I can see. Do you know they have a degree in Striptease?'

‘Don't be ridiculous,' I said.

‘It's true! It's part of the Dance and Drama department. Flanagan went into partnership with an organisation in Florida called the Pussy Galore College. They pay the university a fortune and send students on exchange. Now you see these little
girls running about campus dressed in a few feathers and very little else.'

‘But he can't put “Striptease” in the university prospectus.' Victoria had come back into the room.

Magnus sniggered. ‘He doesn't! It's called Artistic Dance. Flanagan mentioned it to you when we all had lunch together, remember?'

‘I thought he looked a bit shifty about it,' said Victoria.

Brutus jumped down from the window and hopped onto Magnus's lap as Victoria poured him out a cup of coffee. Magnus sprawled on the sofa as I complained about the
Vice-Chancellor's
plans to manufacture documents for the Quality Control Agency. ‘Sloth and his wife are supposed to do it,' I said.

Magnus groaned. ‘It'll be a disaster.'

‘That's what I told Flanagan,' I sighed. ‘Don't you think I ought to do something about it, Magnus? I am the Visitor, after all …'

‘I wouldn't if I were you. You're only supposed to be filling in temporarily. Why make trouble?'

‘But there's a principle involved,' I objected.

‘Harry somehow believes that blowing the whistle will lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number in the long run,' Victoria smirked. ‘But I demonstrated to him that it could only lead to general misery.'

‘That sounds most probable,' agreed Magnus. ‘You wouldn't want everyone to be unhappy, would you Harry? Let them do whatever they want – Celebrity Studies, Fashion, Brewing Technology, Tourism, Striptease … as long as it keeps the place full and the money coming in.'

Victoria nodded her head. ‘Please Harry. Stay out of this. You promised me that you wouldn't get mixed up with things you don't understand when you took this job.'

‘But I do understand. I understand all too well. Alf Flanagan is planning to cheat.'

‘Cheat? Of course they are!' Magnus said. ‘They always have; they always will! What's new? Victoria's right! Just lie low and enjoy your fancy Cope, Harry.' Picking up the empty chocolate box, he looked at Victoria. ‘You haven't got another one of these things, have you?' he asked.