When the train stopped at Cambridge Skullion had made up his mind. He would make one last appeal, this time not to the Dean or Sir Cathcart. He’d speak to the Master himself. He walked out of the station and down Station Road wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before. He had his pride, of course, and he’d put his trust in the Dean but the Dean had let him down. Besides, he despised Sir Godber, according him only that automatic respect that went with the Mastership. At the corner of Lensfield Road he hesitated under the spire of the Catholic Church. He could turn right across Parker’s Piece to Rhyder Street or left to Porterhouse. It was only twelve o’clock and he hadn’t eaten. He’d walk into town and have a bite to eat in a pub and think about it. Skullion trudged on down Regent Street and went into the Fountain and ordered a pint of Guinness and some sandwiches. Sitting at a table by the door he drank his beer and tried to imagine what the Master would say. He could only turn him down. Skullion considered the prospect and decided it was worth trying even if it meant risking his self-respect. But was he risking it? All he was asking for was his rights and besides he had a quarter of a million pounds to his name. He didn’t need the job. Nobody could accuse him of grovelling. It was simply that he wanted it, wanted his good name back, wanted to go on doing what he had always done for forty-five years, wanted to be the Porter of Porterhouse. Buoyed by the good sense of his own argument Skullion finished his beer and left the pub. He threaded his way through the shoppers towards the Market Hill, his mind still mulling over the wisdom of his action. Perhaps he should wait a day or two. Perhaps they had already changed their mind and a letter was waiting for him at home offering him his job back. Skullion dismissed the idea. And all the time there was the nagging fear that he was putting in jeopardy his self-respect by asking. He silenced the fear but it remained with him, as constant as the natural tendency of his steps to lead towards Porterhouse. Twice he decided to go home and twice changed his mind, postponing the decision by walking down Sydney Street towards the Round Church instead of going on down Trinity Street. He tried to fortify his resolve by thinking about Lord Wurford’s legacy but the idea of all that money was as unreal to him as the experience of the past few days. There was no consolation to be found in money. It couldn’t replace the cosiness of his Porter’s Lodge with its pigeonholes and switchboard and the sense that he was needed. The sum was almost an affront to him, its fortuity robbing his years of service of their sense. He needn’t have been a porter. He could have been anything he wanted, within reason. The realization increased his sense of purpose. He would speak to the Master. He hesitated at the Round Church. He wouldn’t go in the Main Gate, he’d knock at the Master’s Lodge. He turned and went back the way he’d come.
The Master’s sudden decision to seek some ground of understanding with the Senior Tutor left him almost as soon as he had crossed the Fellows’ Garden. Any sort of overture now would be misinterpreted, he realized, taken as evidence of weakness on his part. He had established his authority. It would not do to weaken it now. But having come out he felt obliged to continue his walk. He went into town and browsed in Heffer’s for an hour before buying Butler’s Art of the Possible. It was not a maxim with which he had much sympathy. It smacked of cynicism but Sir Godber was sufficient of a politician still to appreciate the author’s sense of irony. He wandered on debating his own choice of a title for his autobiography. Future Perfect was probably the most appropriate, combining as it did his vision with a modicum of scholarship. Catching sight of his reflection in a shop window he found it remarkable that he was as old as he looked. It was strange that his ideals had not altered with his appearance. The methods of their attainment might mellow with experience but the ideals remained constant. That was why it was so important to see that the undergraduates who came up to Porterhouse should be free to form their own judgements, and more important still that they should have some judgements to form. They should rebel against the accepted tenets of their elders and, in Sir Godber’s opinion, their worse. He stopped at the Copper Kettle for tea and then made his way back to Porterhouse and sat in his study reading his book. Outside the sky darkened, and with it the College. Out of term it was empty and there were no room lights on to brighten the Court. At five the Master got up and pulled the curtains and he was about to sit down again when a knock at the front door made him stop and go down the corridor into the hall. He opened the door and peered out into the darkness. A dark familiar shape stood on the doorstep.
“Skullion?” said Sir Godber as if questioning the existence of the shape. “What are you doing here?”
To Skullion the question emphasized his misery. “I’d like a word,” he said.
Sir Godber hesitated. He didn’t want words with Skullion. “What about?” he asked. It was Skullion’s turn to hesitate. “I’ve come to apologize,” he said finally.
“Apologize? What for?” Skullion shook his head. He didn’t know what for. “Well, man? What for?”
“It’s just that…”
“Oh for goodness sake,” said Sir Godber, appalled at Skullion’s inarticulate despair. “Come on in.” He turned and led the way to his study with Skullion treading gently behind him.
“Well now, what is it?” he asked when they were in the room.
“It’s about my dismissal, sir,” Skullion said.
“Your dismissal?” Sir Godber sighed. He was a sympathetic man who had to steel himself with irritation. “You should see the Bursar about that. I don’t deal with matters of that sort.”
“I’ve seen the Bursar,” said Skullion.
“I don’t see that I can do anything,” the Master said. “And in any case I really don’t think that you can expect much sympathy after what you said the other night.”
Skullion looked at him sullenly. “I didn’t say anything wrong,” he muttered. “I just said what I thought.”
“It might have paid you to consider what you did think before…” Sir Godber gave up. The situation was most unfortunate. He had better things to do with his time than argue with college porters. “Anyway there’s nothing more to be said.”
Skullion stirred resentfully. “Forty-five years I’ve been a porter here,” he said.
Sir Godber’s hand brushed the years aside. “I know. I know,” he said. “I’m aware of that.”
“I’ve given my life to the College.”
“I daresay.”
Skullion glowered at the Master. “All I ask is to be kept on,” he said.
The Master turned his back on him and kicked the fire with his foot. The man’s maudlin appeal annoyed him. Skullion had exercised a baleful influence on the College ever since he could remember. He stood for everything Sir Godber detested. He’d been rude, bullying and importunate all his life and the Master hadn’t forgotten his insolence on the night of the explosion. Now here he was, cap in hand, asking to be taken back. Worst of all he made the Master feel guilty.
“I understand from the Bursar that you have some means,” he said callously. Skullion nodded. “Enough to live on?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, I really can’t see what you’re complaining about. A lot of people retire at sixty. Haven’t you got a family?” Skullion shook his head. Again Sir Godber felt a tremor of unreasonable disgust. His contempt showed in his face, contempt as much for his own vulnerable sensibilities as for the pathetic man before him. Skullion saw that contempt and his little eyes darkened. He had swallowed his pride to come and ask but it rode up in him now in the face of the Master’s scorn. It rose up out of the distant past when he’d been a free man and it overwhelmed the barriers of his reference. He hadn’t come to be insulted even silently by the likes of Sir Godber. Without knowing what he was doing he took a step forward. Instinctively Sir Godber recoiled. He was afraid of Skullion and, like his contempt a moment before, it showed. He’d been afraid of Skullion all his life, the little Skullions who lived in drab streets he’d had to pass to go to school, who chased him and threw stones and wore grubby clothes.