By the time he arrived at Porterhouse the Dean was not in a bad temper. He was too exhausted and disenchanted to be in any temper at all. He hadn't had a bath for forty-eight hours and was unshaven and was just glad to be back in a world he understood and could to some extent control. And go to bed in something that did not have quite so much in common with cobbles as the mattress in Pimpole's spare bedroom. Handing the keys of the old Rover to Walter, he slunk up to his rooms and lay down. His guts were telling him something again and this time there was no mistaking their meaning. He would have supper sent up to his room and not go down to dinner that night. He wasn't fit company for anyone.
17
Something of the sort could be said for both the Bursar and Kudzuvine, though in Kudzuvine's case he hankered for the Bursar. It was Skullion's company he was so particularly anxious to avoid. The Bursar on the other hand had come out of his first little chat, as the Praelector insisted on calling it, in such a state of shock and terror that, like Kudzuvine, he had to be given something calming by Dr MacKendly before he could be induced to go into the bedroom a second time.
'This will put some lead in your pencil,' the doctor said before administering the injection. 'They tried it out on some conscientious objectors in America before the war with Iraq and it turned them into some of the finest fighting men in the world.'
The Bursar pointed out that he didn't want to be a fine fighting man, while the Praelector wondered aloud how there could have been any conscientious objectors in the US Army because they were all volunteers and professionals. 'And I'd still like to know the names of the two gunship pilots who shot up two well-identified British armoured vehicles,' he said. 'Our dear transatlantic allies refused to let them give evidence at the enquiry or reveal their identity. Friendly fire my foot. No such thing.'
But it was the Bursar who objected most strongly. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with Americans, especially ones like Kudzuvine who came from Bibliopolis, Alabama, and who told him with such evident relish awful stories about people they'd known who'd been used as shark bait. He particularly didn't want to hear one word more about Edgar Hartang. As he put it in language reminiscent of his last interview with Kudzuvine (the drug was having some curious side-effects), 'Hell, man, that man Hartang is a fucking walking death machine He finds out I been asking questions about him he's going to have me Calvied by some fucking independents or down the tube from twenty thousand feet the Bermuda fucking Triangle like.'
'There is that to be said for Hartang,' said the Senior Tutor but the Praelector wasn't quite so happy.
'Are you sure you've given him the correct dose?' he asked Dr MacKendly. 'I mean we don't want him going in there and alienating the bloody man by talking like him. It will make it extremely difficult to identify who is saying what when we come to transcribe the tape.'
'Probably just a temporary side-effect,' the doctor assured him. 'Must take people different ways of course but I daresay he'll steady down in a bit and be as right as rain. I got it from one of the medical chaps out at the US airbase at Mildenhall at the time of the raid on Libya. They gave it to some of the pilots who had the habdabs about being shot down and skinned alive by Arab women. Can't say I blame them. Arab women do that, you know. Pilots went off as happy as sandlarks and perfectly normal.'
'Perhaps that explains why they only managed to kill Gaddafi's children and missed him,' mused the Praelector.
'And what exactly did you get it for?' enquired the Senior Tutor.
The doctor smiled. 'We had one or two fellows who'd done the Senate House Leap and had lost their nerve,' he said. "Thought it might help them get it back. Didn't have to use it in the end. One of the poor blighters fell off Ben Nevis and the other one gave up climbing altogether, which was a bit wet of him, I thought. Still, it takes all sorts to make a world.'
'It's certainly made a world of difference to the Bursar,' said the Praelector. 'I've never seen such a change in a man.'
'It's only temporary,' said Dr MacKendly. 'He'll be himself again in no time at all.'
'For God's sake don't start, on about Selves again,' snapped the Senior Tutor. 'I can't stand it.'
Dr MacKendly looked at him curiously. 'Feeling a bit low, are we?' he asked but, before the Senior Tutor could tell him exactly what he felt, the Bursar was raring to go. 'Let the dog see the rabbit,' he said suddenly, using imagery that didn't come naturally to him, and shot through the door into the bedroom.
For once the metaphor was almost precise Whatever sort of animal the Bursar had become, Kudzuvine had all the characteristics of a petrified rabbit. Almost an entire day and part of the night with the Master sitting by his bedside had destroyed his confidence as effectively as any anti-psychotic Dr MacKendly could have misprescribed. He was delighted to see his friend Professor Bursar again. And said so. 'Am I pleased to see you, Prof Bursar,' he said. 'I sure as shit am. I've had that Quasimodo update in the wheelchair up to here.'
'You can stop talking about the Master like that,' said the Bursar harshly.
'The Master? You call him the Master too, Prof Bursar? Oh my God. Someone please help me.'
'And you can stop calling me Professor Bursar. I am the Bursar. Get that into your thick head.'
Kudzuvine shrank back in the bed. 'The Bursar? And Quasimodo's the Master? Oh sweet Jesus. Where am I?'
The Bursar ignored the question. 'The Bursar. Emphasis on the _the._ Got it? And you don't call the Master Quasimodo once more. He's Skullion. But not to you, Kudzuvine. To you he's the Master. Emphasis _the._ And you'd better believe me.'
'Yes sir, I sure do. Anything you say, Professor the Bursar.'
'Not Professor. I am not a Professor. I keep telling you I am the Bursar. This isn't some academic scumhole in Biblifuckingopolis, Alabama, or anywhere else in the US of A where every asshole who can read and write and produce dumb doctoral theses like they're dungflies laying eggs gets called Professor. This isn't even Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is Cambridge, England, and more to the point this is Porterhouse College, Cambridge, England, and the next time you look at a portrait of one of our great past Masters in the Hall you don't call him human foie gras or you'll learn what force feeding really means.'
'Yes sir, Prof…I mean Mr the Bursar, sir,' Kudzuvine whimpered.
'That's better, Kudzuvine,' said the Bursar. 'Now I'm going to ask you some simple questions and you're going to answer them truthfully or you're going to learn…'
But the mere mention of force feeding had touched the rawest nerve in Kudzuvine's demented mind. He understood now the reason the Chaplain had produced that disgusting douche bag so readily. It wasn't something he had dreamt up in his mad unconscious. It wasn't a symptom of anything. It was an old Porterhouse custom. 'I swear I'll tell you anything you want to know, swear to God I will,' he moaned.
'Right,' said the Bursar who was obviously on a winning streak for the first time in his life and knew it. 'So what does Hartang do, and don't give me any shit about baby octopuses and turtles and the Galapagos Islands.'
'Well, we do make movies about protected species as well-' Kudzuvine began but the Bursar stopped him.
'Like you were bringing in a consignment of fucking turtles from the Galapagos Islands like twenty million turtles and they all go play hookie in the Bermuda Triangle? I said truthful, Kudzuvine, truthful answers. Want me to spell it out for you?'