“I’ve seen some lily-livered swine in my time,” the Senior Tutor bawled, “but nothing to equal this. A more disgraceful exhibition of gutlessness I’ve never seen.”
“Would you put this down to pot-smoking?” Carrington enquired.
“Of course,” said the Senior Tutor, and promptly disappeared from the screen.
In the Combination Room the Senior Tutor was speechless with rage. “He didn’t ask me any questions like that. He wasn’t even there,” he managed to gasp. “He told me they were simply going to film me on the river.”
“It’s poetic licence,” said the Chaplain, and relapsed into silence as Carrington and the Senior Tutor reappeared in Hall and strolled between the tables. The camera focused on the several portraits of obese Masters before returning to the Senior Tutor.
“Porterhouse has enjoyed a long reputation for good living,” Carrington said. “Would you say that the sort of expense involved in providing caviar and truffled duck paté was really necessary for scholastic achievement?”
“I think much of our success has been due to the balanced diet we provide in Porterhouse,” said the Senior Tutor. “You can’t expect people to do well unless they are adequately fed.”
“But I understand that you spend fairly large sums on the annual Feast. Would you say that £2,000 on a single meal was a fair estimate?” Carrington enquired.
“We do have an endowed kitchen,” the Senior Tutor admitted.
“And I suppose the College makes a large contribution to Oxfam,” said Carrington.
“That’s none of your damned business,” shouted the Senior Tutor. The camera followed his figure out of Hall.
As the devastating disclosures continued the Fellows sat dumbfounded in the Combination Room. Carrington waxed eloquent on Porterhouse’s academic shortcomings, interviewed several undergraduates who sat with their backs to the camera to preserve their anonymity and claimed that they were afraid they would be sent down if their identities were known to the Senior Members of the College. They accused the College authorities of being hidebound and violently reactionary in their politics, and… On and on it went. Sir Godber put his case for social compassion as the hallmark of the educated mind and suddenly the scene changed. The images of Cambridge disappeared and the Fellows found themselves staring lividly at Skullion who sat firmly in his seat in the studio. The camera switched to Carrington. “In the interviews we have already shown tonight we have heard a good deal to justify, and some would say to condemn, the role of institutions such as Porterhouse. We have heard the old traditions defended. We have heard privilege attacked by the progressive young and we have heard a great deal about social compassion, but now we have in the studio a man who more than any other has an intimate knowledge of Porterhouse and whose knowledge extends over four decades. Now you, Mr Skullion, have been for some forty years the Porter of Porterhouse.”
Skullion nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“You first became a porter in 1928?”
“Yes.”
“And in 1945 you were made Head Porter?”
“That’s right.”
“So really you’ve been in the College long enough to have seen some quite remarkable changes?” Skullion nodded obediently.
“And now I understand you’ve been sacked?” said Carrington. “Have you any idea why this has happened?”
Skullion paused while the camera moved in for a close-up.
“I have been dismissed because I objected to the installation of a contraceptive dispenser in the College for the use of the young gentlemen,” Skullion told three million viewers. There was a pause while the camera swung back to Carrington, who was looking suitably shocked and surprised.
“A contraceptive dispenser?” he asked. Skullion nodded. “A contraceptive dispenser. I don’t think it’s right and proper for Senior Members of a college like Porterhouse to encourage young men to behave like that.”
“Oh my God,” said the Master. Beside him the Senior Tutor was staring at the screen with bulging eyes while the Dean appeared to be in the throes of some appalling paroxysm. Throughout the Combination Room the Fellows gazed at Skullion as if they were seeing him for the first time, as if the caricature that they had known had suddenly come alive by virtue of the very apparatus which separated him from them. Skullion’s presence filled the room. Even Sir Cathcart took note of the change and sat rigidly to attention. Beside him the Bursar whimpered. Only the Chaplain remained unmoved. “Skullion’s remarkably fluent,” he said, “and making some interesting points too.”
Carrington too seemed to have shrunk to a less substantial role. “You think the attitude of the authorities is wrong?” he asked lamely.
“Of course it’s wrong,” said Skullion. “Young people shouldn’t be taught to think that they’ve a right to do what they want. Life isn’t like that. I didn’t want to be a porter. I had to be one to earn my living. Just because a man’s been to Cambridge and got a degree doesn’t mean life’s going to treat him any different. He’s still got to earn a living, hasn’t he?”
“Quite,” said Carrington, desperately trying to think of some way of getting the discussion back to the original topic. “And you think -”
“I think they’ve lost their nerve,” said Skullion. “They’re frightened. They call it permissiveness. It isn’t that. It’s cowardice.”
“Cowardice?” Carrington had begun to dither.
“It’s the same all over. Give them degrees when they haven’t done any work. Let them walk about looking like unwashed scarecrows. Don’t send them down when they take drugs. Let them come in at all hours of the night and have women in their rooms. When I first started as a porter they’d send an undergrad down as soon as look at him and quite right too, but now, now they want them to have an FL machine in the gents to keep them happy. And what about queers?” Carrington blanched.
“You ought to know about that,” said Skullion. “Used to duck them in the fountain, didn’t they? Yes I remember the night they ducked you. And quite right too. It’s all cowardice. Don’t talk to me about permissiveness.” Carrington gazed frantically at the programme controller behind the dark glass but the programme remained on the air.
“And what about me?” Skullion asked the camera in front of him. “Worked for a pittance for forty years and they sack me for nothing. Is that fair? You want permissiveness? Well, why can’t I be permitted to work? A man’s got a right to work, hasn’t he? I offered them money to keep me on. You ask the Bursar if I didn’t offer him my savings to help the College out.”
Carrington grasped at the straw. “You offered the Bursar your life savings to help the College out?” he asked with as much enthusiasm as the recent revelations about his sex life had left him.
“He said they couldn’t afford to keep me on as Porter,” Skullion explained. “He said they were having to sell Rhyder Street to pay for the repairs to the Tower.”
“And Rhyder Street is where you live?”
“It’s where all the College servants live. They’ve got no right to turn us out of our own homes.”
In the Combination Room the Master and Fellows of Porterhouse watched the reputation of the College disintegrate as Skullion pressed on with his charges. This was no longer Carrington on Cambridge. Skullion had taken over with a truer and more forceful nostalgia. While Carrington sat pale and haggard beside him, Skullion ranged far and wide. He spoke of the old virtues, of courage and loyalty, with an inarticulate eloquence that was authentically English. He praised gentlemen long dead and castigated men still alive. He asserted the value of tradition in college life against the shoddy innovations of the present. He expressed his admiration for scholarship and deplored research. He extolled wisdom and refused to confuse it with knowledge. Above all he claimed the right to serve and with it the right to be treated fairly. There was no petulant whine about Skullion’s appeal. He held a mirror up to a mythical past and in a million homes men and women responded to the appeal.