By the time the programme ended, the switchboard at the BBC was jammed with calls from people all over the country supporting Skullion in his crusade against the present.
Chapter 18
In the Combination Room the Fellows sat looking at the blank screen long after Skullion’s terrible image had disappeared and the Bursar had switched the set off. It was the Chaplain who finally broke the appalled silence.
“Very interesting point of view, Skullion’s,” he said, “though I must admit to having some doubts about the effect on the restoration fund. What did you think of the programme. Master?”
Sir Godber suppressed a torrent of oaths. “I don’t suppose,” he said with a desperate attempt at composure, “that many people will take much note of what a college porter has to say. The public have very short memories, I’m glad to say.”
“Damned scoundrel,” snarled Sir Cathcart. “Ought to be horsewhipped.”
“What? Skullion?” asked the Senior Tutor.
“That swine Carrington,” shouted the General.
“It was your idea in the first place,” said the Dean.
“Mine?” screamed Sir Cathcart. “You put him up to this.”
The Chaplain intervened. “I always thought it was a mistake to duck him in the fountain,” he said.
“I shall consult my solicitor in the morning,” said the Dean. “I think we have adequate grounds for suing. There’s such a thing as slander.”
“I must say I can hardly see any justification for going to law,” said the Chaplain. Sir Godber shuddered at the prospect.
“He deliberately fabricated questions to answers I had already given,” said the Senior Tutor.
“He may have done that,” the Chaplain agreed, “but I think you’ll have difficulty in proving it. In any case if I were asked I should have to say that he did manage to convey the spirit of our opinions if not the actual letter. I mean you do think the modern generation of undergraduates are… what was the expression?… a lot of lily-livered swine. The fact that you have now said it in public may be regrettable but at least it’s honest.”
They were still fulminating an hour later when the Master, exhausted by the programme and by the terrible animosity it had provoked among his colleagues, finally left the Combination Room and made his way across the Fellows’ Garden to the Master’s Lodge. As he stumbled across the lawn he was still uncertain what effect the programme would have. He tried to console himself with the thought that public opinion was essentially progressive and that his record as a reforming politician would carry him safely through the outcry that was bound to follow. He tried to recall what it was about his own appearance on the screen that had so alarmed him. For the first time in his life he had seen himself as others saw him, an old man mouthing clichés with a conviction that was wholly unconvincing. He went into the Lodge and shut the door.
Upstairs in the bedroom Lady Mary disembarked from her corset languidly. She had watched the programme by herself and had found it curiously stimulating. It had confirmed her opinion of the College while at the same time she had been aroused once again by the warm hermaphroditism of Cornelius Carrington himself. Age and the Rubicon of menopause had stimulated Lady Mary’s appetite for such men and she found herself moved by his vulnerable mediocrity. As ever with Lady Mary’s affections, distance lent enchantment to the view, and for one brief self-indulgent moment she saw herself the intimate patroness of this idol of the media. Sir Godber, she had to admit, was a spent force whereas Carrington was still an influence. She smothered the impulse with cold cream but there was enough vivacity left to surprise Sir Godber when he came to bed.
“I thought it went rather well, didn’t you?” she asked as the Master wearily untied his shoes. Sir Godber lifted his head balefully.
“Well?” he asked incredulously.
“Well of course there was that awful creature at the end,” Lady Mary conceded. “I can’t imagine why he had to appear.”
“I can,” said Sir Godber.
“Otherwise I enjoyed it. It showed the Dean up in a very foolish light.”
“It showed us all up in a perfectly terrible light,” said Sir Godber.
“He gave you fair warning,” Lady Mary pointed out. “He said he had to show both sides of the problem.”
“He didn’t say he had to show it from underneath,” Sir Godber snapped. “He made us all look like complete idiots and as for Skullion, anybody would think we had done the damned man an injustice.”
“Aren’t you being a bit extreme?” Lady Mary said. “After all anyone could see he was a dreadful oaf.”
Sir Godber went through to the bathroom and did his teeth while Lady Mary settled down comfortably with the latest statistics on juvenile crime.
At Shepherd’s Bush Skullion sat on smoking his pipe and drinking whisky while Carrington screamed at the programme producer.
“You had no right to let him continue,” he shouted. “You should have cut him off.”
“It’s your programme, sweetie,” said the producer. The telephone rang. “Anyway I don’t know what you’re worried about,” said the producer, “the public loved him. The phone’s been ringing non-stop.” He listened for a moment and turned to Carrington. “It’s Elsie. She wants to know if he’s available for an interview.”
“Elsie?”
“Elsie Controp. The Observer woman,” said the producer.
“No, he isn’t,” shouted Carrington.
“Yes, he is still here,” the producer said into the phone. “If you come over now you’ll probably get him.” He put the phone down.
“Do you realize he is likely to involve us in a legal action,” Carrington asked. The phone rang. “Yes,” said the controller. He turned to Carrington. “They want him for Talk-In on Monday. Is that all right?”
“For God’s sake,” shouted Carrington.
“He says that’s fine,” said the producer.
Skullion sat in the entertainment room with Elsie Controp. It was past eleven but Skullion was not feeling tired. His appearance had invigorated him and the whisky was helping. “You mean the College authorities accept candidates who have taken no entrance examination and who have no A-levels?” Miss Controp asked. Skullion drank some more whisky and nodded.
“And their parents subscribe to an Endowment Fund?” Skullion nodded again. Miss Controp’s pencil flitted across her pad.
“And this is quite a normal procedure at Porterhouse?” she asked. Skullion agreed that it was.
“And other colleges admit candidates in the same way?”
“If you’re rich enough you can usually get into a college,” Skullion told her. “I don’t say they subscribe to any funds like in Porterhouse but they get in all the same.”
“But how do they get degrees if they can’t pass the exams?”
Skullion smiled. “Oh, they fail the Tripos. Then they give them pass degrees. College recommends someone for a pass degree and they get it. It’s a fiddle.”
“You can say that again,” said Miss Controp fervently. Skullion spent the night in a hotel in Bayswater. On Saturday he went to the Zoo and on Sunday he stayed in bed reading the News of the World and then went down to Greenwich to look at the Cutty Sark.
Sir Godber came down to breakfast on Sunday to find Lady Mary engrossed in the Observer. He could see from her expression that a disaster had struck some part of the world.
“Where is it this time?” he asked wearily. Lady Mary did not reply. “It must be a simply appalling catastrophe,” Sir Godber thought and helped himself to toast. He sat munching noisily and looking out the window. Saturday had been an unpleasant day. There had been a number of calls from old Porterhouse men who wanted to say how much they resented the sacking of Skullion and who hoped that the Master would think again before making any changes to the College. He had been asked for his opinions by several leading London papers. He had been approached by the BBC to appear on Talk-In. He had even received a phone call from the League of Contraception complimenting him on his stand. Altogether the Master was in no mood to face Lady Mary’s sympathy for some wretched population stricken by disease, destitution, or natural disaster at the other end of the globe. He could have done with some sympathy himself.