Complete Short Stories (27 page)

– Now if you have a moment, my sweetheart insists on giving you a much fuller and incomparably more graphic version of these events. Hold on, I beg of you, dear friend…

A
S A CHILD
, psychopath R.G. was conditioned to despise the Light Blues. First became aware of the concept ‘Cambridge’ at the commencement of a long series of Oxford victories on the river. Reveals that no boy either at his dame-school or preparatory school (unless two-fisted and two-booted and having some elder relative closely connected with Cambridge) dared oppose local opinion,
which was devoutly Oxonian. Recalls snatches of playground song:

Psychopath R.G., reclining on couch, exclaims to his
alter ego
, Herr Professor Doctor
R.G.: ‘I tell you, Herr Professor Doctor, that in those days God loved Oxford. And I loved Oxford; moreover, my brother Philip, the left-handed demon bowler, and my brother Dick, the brilliant batsman with his terrible drives to long on, not only loved Oxford, but were actually up there. God loved Oxford, as He once loved and favoured Israel, and the boat race was an annual rite confirming this
fact. I even thought it odd that Cambridge still had the nerve to compete in that fatedly unequal struggle.’

Q. ‘How long did this delusion persist?’

A. ‘My first set-back came when once Downing, C., a new boy at Brown Friars, appeared in the playground wearing a Cambridge favour. This, of course, we at once snatched from his lapel and hurried into the blue-black inkwell to turn it Oxford. Tears
burst from his eyes, and gazing wildly about him, he shouted in impassioned tones: “Anyhow, I don’t care what you stinkers say. The
Sky
’s Cambridge!” I was busily thinking up a
crushing come-back to this blasphemy, when the rest of Oxford University set on Downing, C. and manhandled him; but Mr Orrery, the new maths master, rushed up like a thunderstorm, and rescued Downing, C., throwing my companions
around like sacks.’

Here psychopath R.G. began to perspire and evince great agitation. Coaxed by Herr Professor Doctor he continued: ‘Mr Orrery, who was seen to be wearing a light blue tie, took Downing, C.’s evidence, and awarded us one hundred lines each, to be shown up by teatime: “I must not bully defenceless new boys.” Mr Orrery then escorted Downing, C. to the shop at the corner with sixpence
to purchase a new Cambridge favour, which he wore undisturbed for the rest of the day. Naturally, we sent Downing, C. to Coventry for sneaking to Mr Orrery.’

Q. ‘What effect did the subsequent series of Oxford defeats have on your adolescence?’

A. ‘A most disheartening effect. The world was no longer the same. The sun had, as it were, set for ever. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
while the hosts of Midian prowled and prowled around. Everyone I met seemed to be Cambridge-minded and Cambridge-hearted.’

Q. ‘Did you doubt that God still loved Oxford?’

A. ‘I knew that “whom He loveth, He chasteneth”, Herr Professor Doctor. But Oxford was no longer upstairs, Cambridge was upstairs.’

Q. ‘Hold that! Hold it! Your hand is trembling with redoubled violence! We’ll unearth that
phobia in a jiffy. What do
stairs
mean to you?’

Herr Professor Doctor Robert Graves, though only a quack psychiatrist, did not need to look up the word
Stairs
in
The Grosser Lexicon of Gross Symbolology.
He simply handed psychopath R.G. a nip of centenarian Spanish brandy and out came the whole story.

A. ‘I recall reading a novel called
Darkness of the Soul
at the age of eight or nine, which
made a deep impression on me. It told of a country vicar’s son who had lost money on horses, taken to drinking in taverns, and forged a cheque for no less than £100. While awaiting arrest, the young rake had a painful interview with the vicar, in the course of which he cried out bitterly: “O Father, if only you had put me into trade, instead of sending me to Cambridge, this shame would never have
fallen on our house!” He continued: “There was a little man on my staircase who offered me books to read, wicked books, materialistic books, books that poured scorn on Holy Writ, books that should never have been allowed to exist. And I fell, Father, miserable sinner that I am! I took them, I read them, I absorbed the poison, I lost my faith.” Even as he spoke there came a loud rap at the front door…
Thereafter, every night when I climbed the stairs to bed, a shadowy figure lurked on the upstairs landing. He had a pedlar’s tray full of wicked, wicked books, books that should never have been allowed to exist, books bound in light blue, and he wore Mr Orrery’s
gown and mortar-board and pepper-and-salt suit and light blue tie – oh, it was
frightful
…’

Questioned further, sobbing psychopath R.G.
recalled how, while up at Oxford in 1923, he had been persuaded to visit Cambridge (which he then knew jocularly as ‘Tabland’) for a few hours; and had been scared by all he saw.

Q. ‘In what way scared?’

A. ‘Everything was so much the same and yet so disturbingly different, Herr Professor. As when I first went to the U.S.A. and visited rural Pennsylvania. The perils of that countryside! I remember
sitting down in the corner of a meadow and getting poison ivy on my wrists and jiggers in my toes; and a series of the most extraordinary animals appeared – a skunk, two snapping turtles, three robins the size of thrushes, and a small, ill-favoured pig which I afterwards identified as a ground-hog and hadn’t known existed.’

Q. ‘Never mind about North American zoology. What about Cambridge?’

A. ‘The College porters all wore top-hats! Imagine! And it seemed that all the oldest colleges were built of brick, instead of the newest ones, as at Oxford; and the pleasure punts were propelled backwards, not forwards – that is, they were pointed the wrong way round. It was all so Looking-Glassy. The undergraduates treated me well enough, I grant; but each in turn said with a certain icy reserve:
“We hear you are from the other place.” Since I had hitherto heard the phrase applied only to Hell and the House of Lords, I felt acutely embarrassed.’

Herr Professor Doctor cut short the inquiry at this point and advised the patient, on behalf of them both, to accept the unexpected and generous invitation from the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, which had prompted this successful
analysis. Furthermore, to take with him his children, Lucia (aged 11) and Juanito (aged 9) as a prophylaxis against any similar phobia that they might have inherited, their mother too being devotedly Oxonian. This advice he took.

Yes. I had a wonderful time, and came away cured. They had dined and wined me, and listened patiently to my lectures on English Literature which were, I admit, far from
urbane. I became a convert to top-hats as the only decent wear for college porters, and to brick as a highly suitable material for ancient colleges. And though, after dinner, at Trinity, the great silver laver was borne in empty, as a mere signal for grace after meat – its counterpart at Pembroke still brimmed with fair water – I was invited to dip a fine linen napkin in it and dab myself behind
the ear for coolness. And how charming that on a Friday at Trinity, no flesh nor fowl might be served in Hall, but only fish, fish, beautiful fish, even to Protestants! And
that a long Latin grace was still declaimed antiphonically in the old pronunciation, with no
weeny, weedy, weaky
nonsense. I even heard gallant talk, at a high level, of putting the College brew-house, now a lumber-room, back
into commission.

Lucia and Juanito had a wonderful time too – in the Egyptian Room at the Fitzwilliam, and on the swings in the municipal playground – and admitted that they had never in their lives been in a grander house than the Master’s Lodge at Trinity… Yet, as I leaned over the bridge at Clare College, gazing at the pellucid waters of the Backs, and the glowing autumnal flower beds, and
the green lawns, and the dignified college architecture, I heard a pleasure punt approaching. The children, in dark-blue jerseys, were punting it right end foremost (or wrong end foremost) and I heard Juanito’s embarrassingly loud question: ‘When are we going to get somewhere
really
pretty?’ The good people of Clare were not to know that Juanito is accustomed, when he goes boating at home, to
cliffs five hundred feet high, rich in sea-eagles’ nests, and to rocks green with samphire and wild caper, and violet-tinted backwaters full of striped fish, and pinewood headlands crowned by mediaeval watch-towers of golden limestone.

‘I’
VE GIVEN UP
the old rag in utter disgust,’ growled Haymon Fugg, Q.C. ‘And you, Admiral?’

Admiral of the Fleet Sir St Clair Fopp-Jalopy sighed uncomfortably. ‘It’s a little difficult for an old salt like myself to break the habit of a lifetime, my dear fellow, and I still hope it may not come to that. After all, they’ve not gone Walt Disney yet; show no signs of
it either, praise be! However, as I was telling you, I did write Fleetway House a couple of stingers, on Club notepaper too, and got two quite civil, though not altogether satisfactory replies. The editor at least did me the courtesy to answer in his own fist – not one of those jelligraphed form-letters – to the effect that analysis of the correspondence received (mainly, he admitted, from the Sex)
showed 83 per cent in favour of permanent substitution. Last night I wrote to Rupert direct, hadn’t done such a thing since the second year of the Peacemaker’s reign! Maybe
he
’ll be able to arrange matters for us.’

‘Not a hope, I’m afraid, Admiral. In my opinion, Rupert’s been quietly dethroned by a palace revolution. Because he made the journal what it is, and named it too, they couldn’t decently
rob him of that column; but anything he and his friends do is only back-page stuff now.’

‘Still in full colour, you must admit.’

‘Oh, yes, still in full colour… Clearly, there was no immediate course between that and liquidation. It would have been going a bit too far to print him in red on the middle page, along with Fay and Eddie and similar riff-raff.’

‘Fay and Eddie, riff-raff? Choose your
words, please, Fugg! I couldn’t disagree with you more strongly.’

‘Very well, “riff-raff” is unreservedly withdrawn. But I shall, with the very greatest respect, characterize Fay and Eddie as caviare for the Admiral.’

‘I gladly accept your rectification. Well, let us agree that Rupert may be slipping, like “Nyet” Molotoff; but surely he still has a deal of pull in the Fleetway House Politburo?
Probably owns quite a block of shares, don’t you think?’

‘I wonder… And I also wonder (forgive me) whether a commendable
loyalty to the Senior Service has not perhaps coloured your judgement on the whole shocking affair… ?’

‘A little hard on me, aren’t you, Fugg? I confess that it could have been worse if our old Ethiopian friend had elected to become a damned pongo or an Air Force erk, instead
of a red-haired matelot; but I am hardly the man to be swayed by sentiment in a case where tradition has been so wilfully flouted.’

‘To revert for a moment. You must surely have noticed that pressure has recently been exerted on Rupert to make him omit the hyphens in his two- and three-syllabled words, and change his familiar form of address. “Hullo, boys and girls!” indeed! A disgusting neologism!
They’ll be changing the name of the paper next.’

‘Wouldn’t dare. Remember that sensational drop in circulation when the old
Nineteenth Century
tried to give itself a new look? No, you’re a little too young perhaps… But I can still hear the angry sputter of my father’s quill pen when he resigned his subscription.’

‘Quill pen in 1900?’

‘Yes, indeed. My father was one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors
of Schools under the Board of Education, and every year around April 1st they dealt him out not only sealing wax and red tape but packets of goose-feather quills; and a little black pen-knife, every five years, to trim them with. However, what do you think is at the back of this… this… transmogrification? Colour prejudice?’

‘That, I fear, may be the correct diagnosis, Admiral. First, we had the
Mau-Mau trouble, then this friction in our ports and industrial centres due to the influx of cheap and unrestricted West Indian labour. And it cannot have escaped your attention that our poor saucer-eyed blackamoor hero is said to have undergone his denigration – no, that’s the wrong word; should I say
catamelanesis
? – because of a confessed inferiority complex about his complexion. Yet I cannot
quite take that statement
au pied de la lettre
. He had all our hearts, and knew it.’

‘Indeed he had. Personally, I never thought of him as one of what Kipling used undemocratically to call “the lesser breeds within the Law”. Golly was Nature’s own gentleman, and if he had an ugly mug, why, I’m no beauty myself; and if you’ll forgive me…’

‘Certainly, Admiral, I too have a face like a clumbungus…’

‘Thank you kindly! My point is that Rupert cannot have been consulted in the matter. He would never have let down the journal with such a bump. And the girl’s unhappy too – you can read it in her face… Look here, I believe with the help of fellow-chicks in the Savage and White’s and perhaps the Athenaeum, and the Rag of course, we could put pressure on the top brass at Fleetway House to set that
damned spell in reverse, and get the poor fellow back again as he used to be? We might also have a smack at restoring the hyphenization, while we’re about it.’

Major Spinks, a garrison gunner, who was acting Club Secretary coughed apologetically from a near-by armchair. ‘Don’t want to butt in on a private discussion, gentlemen, but the fact is, I felt equally bad about this how-d’ye-do – at first.
Then I had a word with Doubleday Durkins, who keeps his private line to the Street. Apparently, the case is even worse than you suppose. What happened seems to have been that Rupert Chick took Betty out to a night-club, with Nigger, Stripey and the rest of the Soho gang. There she danced with a very personable young member of the Lower Deck and fell for him like a ton of chocolates. Our Golly,
of course, felt more than a trifle peeved and, being already a bit high, threw a gin-and-tonic in her face. The sailor then landed him one on the mark. Betty giggled and asked: “What price the Black Hope?” The next thing, the rivals began breaking chairs on each other; but Golly is as tough as they come and the sailor got hospitalized. Betty, just like a woman, announced that she was through with
Golly for ever and would rather die than go through the farce of pretending that she wasn’t, just to soothe the pie-faced public. Doubleday reports harrowing days at Fleetway House, with even talk about the paper folding up. Betty had meanwhile issued a statement; said she loved the sailor boy heart and soul and would cancel her contract unless their friendship were officially recognized. She also
accused Golly of submitting her to forty years of mental cruelty. Rupert Chick got into fearful hot water for first introducing Betty to the other fellow and then not intervening in the rough house. He pleaded bumble-foot, but they nearly threw him out on his ear, all the same. At last, late on Monday evening, only a few hours before
Chicks’ Own
hit the newsstalls, some clever type – I believe
it was Eddie of “Fay and Eddie” – thought up this ingenious story of a kind fairy waving a wand and changing Golly into Sailor Boy. Fooled me, fooled you, fooled all of us! Meanwhile Golly has turned Trappist monk and can’t be reached by phone or letter; he’s just trying to forget, Doubleday says. So now we see Betty and the Sailor Boy at their carefree domestic antics, in full colour on the front
page. Seems to me the acme of bad taste. Apparently she’s bought him out of the Navy.’