Matricide at St. Martha's (11 page)

‘Furthermore,’ she ran her hands vigorously through her hair, ‘on the question of language, I have here, as an interim measure, a list of words which should be banned immediately from use.’

‘That sounds very democratic,’ said the Bursar.

Other than ‘ugh!’ (offensive to Native Americans and to replaced by ‘how unpleasant!’), the extensive list circulated round the three of them held few surprises for Amiss. The familiar targets were there – from the gender unacceptables (or in Bridgetspeak ‘pseudogeneric’) like ‘brotherhood’ and ‘policeman’; the ethnically offensive like ‘blackboard’ and ‘yellow’ (as in ‘coward’); and the section headed ‘handicappism’, which included ‘blind’ and ‘idiot’ (to become respectively ‘visually’ and ‘cerebrally challenged’).

‘There must be three or four hundred words here,’ said the Bursar. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that the likes of Miss Stamp and the Senior Tutor are to be forced to learn’ – she gazed down at the list – ‘to say “animal companion” instead of “pet”?’

‘And why not?’

‘Because it’s like asking them to learn Urdu.’

‘A typically ethnic slur. It implies that Urdu is an unnecessary language for white people to learn.’

‘It bloody does not!’ shouted the Bursar. ‘It implies it’s difficult – which it damn well is. You know perfectly well that this would be an impossible task for that generation.’

‘Not once the training courses are instituted. Which brings me to my next point. The prime object for this college now has to be to heighten sensitivity and make us all more multi-culturally sensitive. We will have to seek and root out the white racism endemic in our values, attitudes and structures and ensure that no one ever uses any terminology found offensive by any other.’

‘I find a great number of these substitutes offensive,’ snarled the Bursar. She seemed, noted Amiss, to have temporarily forgotten her new role. ‘What about me?’

‘I should have said “found offensive by any other from an oppressed group”. Next, I want the College made smoking-and scent-free immediately.’

‘I don’t detect that you are much in the mood for compromise.’

‘When dealing with human rights, compromise is wrong.’

‘But you can’t seriously think that you can overthrow the structure, languages, habits and thought processes of almost a century just like that?’

‘We’ll see about that.’ Bridget began to assemble her papers and put them into her case. She stood up. ‘I think you will find pressure can be brought to bear to make this step towards recognition of the rights of others preferable to the chaos which is likely to ensue if you strive to retain paternalistic values.’

‘I understand you,’ said the Bursar grimly. ‘But I have my allies too.’

‘What conclusions should I report from this meeting?’ asked Amiss.

‘Standoff,’ said the Bursar. ‘Now you must excuse me. I am going to smoke a pipe in my room; it helps me to plan.’ She shot at Bridget a look that would have made a rhinoceros nervous and stomped out.

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Trapped by a prior engagement with Francis Pusey to be shown around every last nook and cranny of St Martha’s with accompanying no-stone-unturned commentary, Amiss was chafing with impatience to find out what had been the fruit of Jack Troutbeck’s ruminations. But Pusey insisted on keeping him by his side and giving him a glass of sherry before dinner.

‘A rare treat for me, dear boy. I have to have the excuse of a visitor. Go on, have another. I will if you will.’

Amiss was happy to oblige. With the second, Pusey was moved to confidences. ‘I’m depressed, Robert. The writing is on the wall, I fear. There was a stage when I felt that somehow common sense would prevail and we might see the Alice Toon money make our lives here a little less austere, but now I see no hope. Cyril and you and I are caught between these ferocious Amazons and have no power to affect matters.’

‘With which side are you sympathetic?’

‘Neither. Are we, Bobsy? All we can aspire to now is to avoid being drawn into any rows. Have another sherry, dear boy.’ The fourth followed with considerable speed, so it was in quite a mellow mood that Amiss approached dinner. This was quickly dispelled by the combination of Jack Troutbeck’s absence and the presence of the Reverend Cyril Crowley. Amiss endured the lecture on the role of the Anglican Communion in these days of changing values with as good a grace as he could muster until he got a chance to ask Miss Stamp if she knew of the Bursar’s whereabouts. ‘I’ve got a rather urgent financial problem to sort out with her,’ he confided.

‘She’s probably gone out to see her friend.’

‘What friend?’

Miss Stamp giggled. ‘Ooh, there’s someone in the Bursar’s life you know. She slips out once or twice a week and disappears for the whole evening. Quite often for the night. We’ve never seen him.’ She stopped and thought. ‘Well, we thought it was a him. But maybe it’s a her.’

Amiss could just about imagine what a female lover of the Bursar’s might look like; the notion of a male was too taxing an idea for him to address. ‘Oh, well, it’ll just have to wait.’

As he left the dining room, he felt a pull on his arm which proved to be provided by Francis Pusey, low-voiced and conspiratorial and still rather merry from his pre-dinner debauchery.

‘I wondered, Robert, if you’d like to see a film. I have quite a selection on video in my room, and if you’d like, we might even have a little port.’

Amiss wasn’t very keen on port but in his present mood he would have looked kindly on an invitation to partake of turpentine. ‘Why not? What a nice idea.’ And off we went together, as he wrote the next day to Rachel – two chaps getting away from the women by sitting with their Pekinese amidst the chintz and needlework and trinkets of Francis’s dainty little nest.

Amiss had been rather attracted by the idea of watching the kind of film he expected Francis Pusey to favour –
Arsenic and Old Lace
or an old Ealing comedy like
The Ladykillers
. In fact, when Pusey had dispensed port along with much information about origins, suppliers, vintages and so on, and had produced his index to his video collection, his visitor got a nasty shock. Ladykillers there were aplenty but they came from a genre, wrote Amiss to Rachel, that could be described most succinctly as ‘1990s dismembering’.

He announced in that prissy little voice and with that self-deprecating ‘tee-hee’ that makes my toes curl with the effort of suppressing a scream of irritation, that he and Bobsy liked nothing more than to curl up at night with some choccies and a good film. I was not, he sniggered, to think he was some horrid old sadist because he liked a bit of gore in his films. ‘Just a bit of escapism, Robert. Helps me wind down after a hard day.’

Hard day my arse. I’ve yet to discover anything he does that a normal person would classify as work, since the young breed of gel is about as interested as I am in learning to tat, knit, sew, dry flowers or turn last year’s skirt into a spring hat. For their accomplishments they mostly these days go to Sandra’s course on ‘Getting in Touch with your Feelings Through Tree-Hugging and Dance Movement Therapy’ or some other similar kind of crap which in these days passes muster as a female accomplishment. (This is not an area in which the Mistress takes much interest. ) So he has a negligible amount of teaching. You know how squeamish I am. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to be faced with making it a choice between films with names like
Eviscerate 3
or
The Gouger Stalks
. So I simpered and said I wasn’t macho enough for the really horrid stuff. That made him – and no doubt Bobsy – feel very tough, but fortunately left him protective enough to expose me only to some drama that involved a muscley chap avenging some insult by rushing round the place waving an AK47 and knocking off thousands. I found if I shut my eyes during the worst bits and thought about tatting I could get through without too much pain.

The pain came later. Just as the moronic machine-gunner espied someone who had made fun of him in nursery school and decided terminally to assuage his hurt feelings, Miss Stamp knocked on the door perfunctorily and came rushing in squawking. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry to interrupt, but she said I had to come and get you. She won’t let me get a doctor or anything.’

‘Who wants whom?’ asked Amiss.

‘The Bursar. She’s been injured by the blunderbuss.’ The images that this information set coursing through Amiss’s imagination would have done credit to the most deranged product of Hollywood.

‘She’s been shot with the blunderbuss? And survived?’ squeaked Pusey. ‘I know she’s got the hide of a bison, but… ’ He tailed off, evidently appreciating that this comment was hardly suitable to the crisis in hand.

‘Not shot. Hit over the head. Come on, come on. She wants you.’

‘Me?’ asked Pusey incredulously.

‘No, not you. Mr Amiss.’

As Amiss – followed by an excited Pusey – ran after his nimble-footed guide, he realized to his dismay how attached he had become to Jack Troutbeck.

She was sitting in her customary leather armchair taking a copious draught of what looked like neat Scotch. Around her stood a small group of protesting colleagues.

‘Nonsense,’ she was saying. ‘A bit of blood never did anyone any harm. Ah, here he is. Talk sense to this crew, will you, Robert? Everyone’s making such a fuss. Nothing wrong with me that won’t be cured by a couple of stiff drinks and an early night.’

Observing the bloodstains on her jumper and the greyish tinge of her complexion, Amiss’s initial relief turned to crossness. ‘Do I understand that you’re trying to avoid having proper medical attention?’

‘Stuff and nonsense. Proper medical attention is one thing, sending for ambulances is another. I won’t have it.’

‘Jack, how long have you been unconscious?’

‘Not long.’

‘The Bursar,’ said the Mistress icily, ‘appears to have been concussed since about six o’clock. That is, about four hours ago. She is extremely fortunate not to be dead.’

‘I haven’t been unconscious. I’ve been asleep.’

Dr Windlesham let out a hoot of derision. ‘Being assaulted with about half a ton of wood and iron sent you to sleep, did it?’

‘No, Deborah, I fell asleep first. I distinctly remember sitting here having a pre-prandial gin and feeling very sleepy. I must just have been over-tired and needed a nap. So that, combined with somebody hitting me, does knock a girl out for the count a bit.’

‘Bursar,’ said the Mistress, ‘you’ve probably got a fractured skull.’

‘Feel this,’ said the Bursar pointing at her forehead. ‘Hard as a rock.’

Curiosity drove Amiss to press his fingers gingerly to her head.

‘Not like that,’ she said impatiently. She grabbed his hand, forced it into a fist and rapped hard with his knuckles on her forehead. ‘Ebony,’ she said. As he sucked his bruised knuckles, he felt inclined to agree.

‘All the Troutbecks were like that. It would take more than a few bashes on the head to make any impact.’

‘Have you called for an ambulance?’ Amiss asked the Mistress.

‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘We’ve been arguing for the last half an hour. Any sane person would have an X-ray but since we’re dealing with the Bursar, normal rules do not apply.’

The Senior Tutor, Miss Stamp, Pusey and Miss Thackaberry together embarked on various squealing imprecations: the Bursar took another defiant swig.

‘Compromise, Bursar, please,’ said Amiss. ‘Come upstairs to bed and receive a doctor – just to clean you up and make sure everything’s hunkery-dory.’

‘Oh, all right.’ Her voice sounded exhausted.

‘Let me give you my arm.’

‘
Festina lente
,’ warned Miss Partridge.

‘Oh, stop fussing,’ said the Bursar weakly, as she accepted Amiss’s offer. And leading a small procession of worried scholars and against a background of agitated chatter, they proceeded towards her sleeping quarters.

It was an hour later when Dr Scott reported back to the group. He was a man who was economical with his words. ‘She should be dead. Abnormally thick skull, so the wound’s only superficial. Try and persuade her to have an X-ray, but it’s my guess there’s no damage done. She should have a few days in bed.

‘I’ll drop by tomorrow. Have you called the police yet?’

‘Should we?’ The Mistress seemed surprised at the suggestion.

‘Unless you actively enjoy the idea of consorting with a would-be murderer, I should.’ He raised his eyes to heaven at the daftness of intellectuals and left.

‘There’s no need to do anything till the morning,’ said the Mistress firmly. ‘We all need a good night’s sleep. I’ll ring the police after drill.’

Amiss looked at her incredulously. ‘It doesn’t worry you that somebody might try again?’

‘Certainly not. This is nothing to do with any of us. It was a burglar and he will have escaped by now anyway.’

‘Supposing it wasn’t? Supposing it’s somebody within who might try again? Shouldn’t the Bursar have police protection?’

‘Oh really, Mr Amiss. You’re being a little alarmist, surely.’

‘Nonetheless.’ He adopted his firmest tone. ‘I’m going to spend the night on the sofa in her room.’

‘Mr Amiss,’ said Dr Windlesham, ‘that would be not only improper but contrary to the statutes.’

Amiss felt his temper rise. ‘Madam, I am aware that there are persons in this institution who believe that all men are potential rapists, but I assure you that the Bursar’s virtue is safe with me.’

‘But the statutes…’

‘Say what? “There shall be no shacking up in this establishment?” ’

There’s no need to be coarse. The Founder made it very clear that no man was ever to be permitted within the sleeping quarters of either staff or students except for tea and under the supervision of a chaperone.’

‘I’m quite happy with that,’ said Amiss heading for the door. ‘Feel free to join us with a tea-tray. And remember to make the cucumber sandwiches with very thinly-sliced bread.’

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