Porterhouse Blue (19 page)

‘No right to do what?’ he asked at first.

‘None of your business,’ Skullion snapped back and Walter gave up the attempt to discuss whatever it was that had put the Head Porter’s back up. Even the Dean, never the most sensitive of men when it came to other people’s feelings, noticed the change in Skullion when he called each morning to make his report. There was a hangdog look about the Porter that caused the Dean to wonder if it wasn’t time he was put down before recalling that Skullion was after all a human being and that he had been misled by the metaphor. Skullion would sidle into the room with his hat in his hand and mutter, ‘Nothing to report, sir,’ and sidle out again leaving the Dean with a sense of having been rebuked in some unspoken way. It was an uncomfortable feeling after so many years of approval and the Dean felt aggrieved. If Skullion couldn’t be put down, it was perhaps time he retired before this new churlishness tarnished his previously unspotted reputation for deference.
Besides, the Dean had enough to worry about in Sir Godber’s plans without being bothered with Skullion’s private grievances.

If Skullion accorded the Dean scant respect, his attitude to the other Fellows was positively mutinous. The Bursar in particular suffered at his hands, or at least his tongue, whenever he had the misfortune to have to call in at the Porter’s Lodge for some unavoidable reason.

‘What do you want?’ Skullion would ask in a tone that suggested he would like the Bursar to ask for a black eye. It was the only thing Skullion, it appeared, was prepared to give him. His mail certainly wasn’t. It regularly arrived two days late and Skullion’s inability on the telephone switchboard to put the Bursar’s calls through to the right number exacerbated the Bursar’s sense of isolation. Only the Master seemed happy to see him now and the Bursar spent much of his time in consultation with Sir Godber in the Master’s Lodge, conscious that even here he was not wholly welcome, if Lady Mary’s manner was anything to go by. Between the Scylla of Skullion and the Charybdis of Lady Mary, not to mention the dangers of the open sea in the shape of the Fellows at High Table, the Bursar led a miserable existence made no less difficult by Sir Godber’s refusal to accept the limitations placed on his schemes by the financial plight of the College. It was during one of their many wrangles about money that the Bursar mentioned Skullion’s new abruptness.

‘Skullion costs us approximately a thousand pounds
a year,’ he said. ‘More if you take the loss of the house in Rhyder Street. Altogether the College servants mean an annual outflow of £15,000.’

‘Skullion certainly isn’t worth that,’ said the Master, ‘and besides I find his attitude decidedly obnoxious.’

‘He has become very uncivil,’ agreed the Bursar.

‘Not only that but I dislike the proprietary attitude he takes to the College,’ the Master said. ‘Anyone would think he owns the place. He’ll have to go.’

For once the Bursar did not disagree. As far as he was concerned Porterhouse would be a pleasanter place when Skullion no longer exercised his baleful influence in the Porter’s Lodge.

‘He’ll be reaching retiring age in a few years’ time,’ he said. ‘Do you think we should wait …’

But Sir Godber was adamant. ‘I don’t think we can afford to wait,’ he said. ‘It’s a simple question of redundancy. There is absolutely no need for two porters, just as there is no point in employing a dozen mentally deficient kitchen servants where one efficient man could do the job.’

‘But Skullion is getting on. He’s an old man,’ said the Bursar, who saw looming before him the dreadful task of telling Skullion that his services were no longer required.

‘Precisely my point. We can hardly sack the under-porter, who is young, simply to satisfy Skullion, who, as you say yourself, will be retiring in a few years’ time. We really cannot afford to indulge in sentimentality,
Bursar. You must speak to Skullion. Suggest that he look around for some other form of employment. There must be something he can do.’

The Bursar had no doubts on that score and he was about to suggest deferring Skullion’s dismissal until they should see what the sale of Rhyder Street raised by way of additional funds when Lady Mary put a spoke in his wheel.

‘I can’t honestly see why the porter’s job shouldn’t be done by a woman,’ she said. ‘It would mark a significant break with tradition and really the job is simply that of a receptionist.’

Both Sir Godber and the Bursar turned and stared at her.

‘Godber, don’t goggle,’ said Lady Mary.

‘My dear …’ Sir Godber began, but Lady Mary was in no mood to put up with argument.

‘A woman porter,’ she insisted, ‘will do more than anything else to demonstrate the fact that the College has entered the twentieth century.’

‘But there isn’t a college in Cambridge with a female porter,’ said the Bursar.

‘Then it’s time there was,’ Lady Mary snapped. The Bursar left the Master’s Lodge a troubled man. Lady Mary’s intervention had ended once and for all his hopes of deferring the question of Skullion until the Porter had either made himself unpopular with the other Fellows by his manner or had come to his senses. The thought of having to tell the Head Porter that his
services were no longer required daunted the Bursar. For a brief moment he even considered consulting the Dean but he was hardly likely to get any assistance from that quarter. He had burnt his bridges by siding with the Master. He could hardly change sides again. He entered his office and sat at his desk. Should he send Skullion a letter or speak to him personally? He was tempted by the idea of an impersonal letter but his better feelings prevailed over his natural timidity. He picked up the phone and dialled the Porter’s Lodge.

‘Best to get it over with quickly,’ he thought, waiting patiently for Skullion to answer.

The summons to the Bursar’s office caught Skullion in a rare mood of melancholy and self-criticism. The melancholy was not rare, but for once Skullion was not thinking of himself so much as of the College. Porterhouse had come down in the world since he had first come to the Porter’s Lodge and in his silent commune with the gas fire Skullion had come to feel that he had been a little unjust in his treatment of the Dean and Fellows. They couldn’t help what Sir Godber did. It was all the Master’s fault. No one else was to blame. It was in this brief mood of contrition that he answered the phone.

‘Wonder what he wants?’ he muttered as he crossed the Court and knocked on the Bursar’s door.

‘Ah, Skullion,’ said the Bursar with a nervous geniality, ‘good of you to come.’

Skullion stood in front of the desk and waited. ‘You wanted to see me,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes. Do sit down.’ Skullion chose a wooden chair and sat down.

The Bursar shuffled some papers and then looked fixedly at the doorknob which he could see slightly to the left of the porter.

‘I don’t really know how to put this,’ he began, with a delicacy of feeling that was wasted on Skullion.

‘What?’ said the Porter.

‘Well to put the matter in perspective, Skullion, the College financial resources are not all that they should be,’ the Bursar said.

‘I know that.’

‘Yes. Well, for some years now we’ve been considering the advisability of making some essential economies.’

‘Not in the kitchen I hope.’

‘No. Not in the kitchen.’

Skullion considered the matter. ‘Wouldn’t do to touch the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Always had a good kitchen the College has.’

‘I can assure you that I am not talking about the kitchen,’ said the Bursar, still apparently addressing the doorknob.

‘You may not be talking about it but that’s what the Master has in mind,’ said Skullion. ‘He’s going to have
a self-service canteen. Told the College Council, he did.’

For the first time the Bursar looked at Skullion. ‘I really don’t know where you get your information from …’ he began.

‘Never you mind about that,’ said Skullion. ‘It’s true.’

‘Well … perhaps it is. There may be something in what you say but that’s not …’

‘Right,’ interrupted Skullion. ‘And it’s all wrong. He shouldn’t be allowed to do it.’

‘To be perfectly honest, Skullion,’ said the Bursar, ‘there are some changes envisaged on the catering side.’

Skullion scowled. ‘Told you so,’ he said.

‘But I really didn’t ask you here to discuss …’

‘Could always raise money in the old days by asking the Porterhouse Society. Haven’t tried that yet, have you?’

The Bursar shook his head.

‘Lot of rich gentlemen still,’ Skullion assured him. ‘They wouldn’t want to see changes in the kitchen. They’d chip in if they knew he was going to put a canteen in. You ask them before you do anything.’

The Bursar tried to think how to bring the conversation back to its original object.

‘It isn’t simply the kitchen, you know. There are other economies we have to make.’

‘Like selling Rhyder Street I suppose,’ said Skullion.

‘Well, there’s that and …’

‘Wouldn’t have done that in Lord Wurford’s time. He wouldn’t have stood for it.’

‘We simply haven’t got the money to do anything else,’ said the Bursar lamely.

‘It’s always money,’ Skullion said. ‘Everything gets blamed on money.’ He got up and walked to the door. ‘Doesn’t mean you’ve got the right to sell my home. Wouldn’t have happened in the old days.’ He went out and shut the door behind him. The Bursar sat at his desk and stared after him. He sighed. ‘I’ll simply have to write him a letter,’ he thought miserably and wondered what it was about Skullion that was so daunting. He was still sitting there ten minutes later when there was a knock at the door and the Head Porter reappeared.

‘Yes, Skullion?’ the Bursar asked.

Skullion sat down again on the wooden chair. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’

‘Really?’ said the Bursar, trying to think what he had said. He had been under the impression that Skullion had done all the talking.

‘I’m prepared to help the College,’ Skullion said.

‘Well, that’s very good of you, Skullion,’ said the Bursar, ‘but …’

‘It isn’t very much but it’s all I can do,’ Skullion continued. ‘You’ll have to wait till tomorrow for it till I’ve been to the bank.’

The Bursar looked at him in astonishment.

‘The bank? You don’t mean …’

‘Well, it’s College property really. Lord Wurford left it to me in his will. It’s only a thousand pounds but if it …’

‘My dear Skullion, really this is … Well, it’s extremely good of you but I … we couldn’t possibly accept a gift from you,’ the Bursar stuttered.

‘Why not?’ said Skullion.

‘Well … well it’s out of the question. You’ll need it yourself. For your retirement …’

‘I ain’t retiring,’ Skullion said firmly.

The Bursar stood up. The situation was getting quite beyond him. He must take a firm line.

‘It’s about your retirement that I wanted to see you,’ he said with a determined harshness. ‘It has been decided that it would be in your own interest if you were to seek other employment.’ He stopped and stared out of the window. Behind him Skullion had sagged on the chair.

‘Sacked,’ he said, with a hiss of air that sounded as if he were expiring with disbelief.

The Bursar turned reassuringly.

‘Not sacked, Skullion,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Not sacked, just … well … for your own sake, for everyone’s sake it would be better if you looked around for another job.’

Skullion stared at him with an intensity that alarmed the Bursar. ‘You can’t do it,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘You’ve got no right. No right at all.’

‘Skullion,’ the Bursar began warningly.

‘You’ve sacked me,’ Skullion roared, and his face which had been briefly pale flushed to a new and terrible red. ‘After all these years I’ve given to the College you’ve sacked me.’

To the Bursar it seemed that Skullion had swollen to a fearful size which filled his office and threatened him. ‘Now, Skullion,’ he began, as the Porter loomed at him, but Skullion only stared a moment and then turned on his heel and rushed from the office slamming the door behind him. The Bursar subsided into his chair limp and exhausted.

To Skullion, stumbling blindly across the Court, the Bursar’s words were impossible. Forty-five years. Forty-five years he had served the College. He reeled into the Screens and stood clutching the lintel of the Buttery counter for support. The sense of being needed, of being as much a support to the College as the stone lintel he clutched was to the wall above it, all this had left him or was leaving him as waves of realization swept over him and eroded his absolute conviction that he was still and would for ever be the Porter of Porterhouse. Breathing deeply Skullion heaved himself on down the steps into the Old Court and walked woodenly towards the Porter’s Lodge and the consolation of his gas fire. There he brushed past Walter and sat slumped in his chair, unable even now to accept the enormity of the Bursar’s words. There had been
Skullions at Porterhouse since the College was founded. He had Lord Wurford’s word for it and with such a continuity of possession behind him, it was as though he stood upon the edge of the world with only an abyss before him. Skullion recoiled from the oblivion. It was impossible to conceive. In a state of numbed disbelief he heard Walter moving about the Lodge as if it were somehow distant.

‘Gutterby and Pimpole,’ Skullion muttered, invoking the saints of his calendar almost automatically in his agony.

‘Yes, Mr Skullion?’ said Walter. ‘Did you say something?’ But Skullion said nothing and presently Walter went out leaving the Head Porter muttering dimly to himself.

‘Going off his head, old bugger,’ he thought without regret. But Skullion was mad only in a figurative sense. As the full extent of his deprivation dawned on him, the anger which had been gathering in him since Sir Godber became Master broke through the barrier of his deference and swept like a flash flood down the arid watercourse of his feelings. For years, for forty-five years, he had suffered the arrogance and the impertinent assumptions of privileged young men and had accorded them in turn a quite unwarranted respect and now at last, released from all his obligations, the anger he had suppressed at so many humiliations added to the momentum of his present fury. It was almost as though Skullion welcomed the ruin of his pretensions,
had secretly hoarded the memories of his afflictions against such an eventuality so that his freedom, when and if it came, should be complete and final. Not that it was or could be. The habits of a lifetime remained unaltered. An undergraduate came in for a parcel and Skullion rose obediently and brought it to the counter but without the rancour that had been the emblem of his servitude. His anger was all internal. Outwardly Skullion seemed subdued and old, shuffling about his office in his bowler hat and muttering to himself, but inwardly all was altered. The deep divisions in his mind, like the two separate lobes of his brain, his allegiance to the College and his self-interest, were sundered and Skullion’s anger at his lot in life could run unchecked.