didn’t. Someone pinched them,’ he said.
‘That someone being the girl you’d been having it off with.’
‘I’ve told you, I was alone.’
‘Oh, sure.’
All in all it was a most unpleasant interview. Finally they sent him home in a police car for another distressing hour of furious questioning by his father, the local Vicar, who had searched the young man’s room when he hadn’t come home and found a packet of condoms in a drawer.
The implied threat to his own reputation was too much for the Vicar, and his consequent ferociousreaction was definitely too much for the young man. He went to bed naked, badly bruised, and without any supper. After today he was of the opinion that sex was not all it was made out to be, and seriously considering joining the priesthood of the Catholic Church, to spite his father.
Chapter 14
Lady Clarissa had spent a very difficult day in Ipford trying to persuade her Uncle Harold to stay in the Last Post. He had flatly refused.
‘It’s not just the Last Post: it’s the last place on earth I’d want to be. I’d rather be in prison for the rest of my life. At least if anyone shouts or screams in the middle of the night there you can be pretty sure someone will stop them, and even prisoners don’t have to wear a ridiculous premature shroud. That sadistic Matron keeps trying to shove a catheter up my penis and she won’t let me have a chamber pot. If you don’t get me into a really decent guest house, I’ll make things extremely awkward for you with that husband of yours.’
Clarissa couldn’t imagine how.
‘Well, I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee anything …’
‘You’d better put your mind to it then. I know what you get up to every time you come down here, supposedly to see me. Do you think Gadsley knows you sleep with the man who drives you down?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Adultery. Or fornication, if you prefer. You see, the manager of the Black Bear is ex-army. Long after my war, of course, but I’ve got to know him quite well when he calls in to visit his mother, that horrible old bag of a Matron. He’s been most helpful to me. Old soldiers stick together, don’t you know? You always stay in the same suite, apparently, and at my request he had it bugged with miniature cameras. The pictures are most interesting.
‘Now, my dear, off you go and find me somewhere pleasant to live. I’ll need to inspect it first, of course. And in the meantime, you’ll pay for me to stay at the Black Bear instead. I think you’ll find that they’re expecting me.’
‘But …’
‘No buts. Just go.’
Lady Clarissa went. She knew when she was beaten. That evening the Colonel sat in the bar of the hotel, toasting his victory with a number of very large malt whiskies. He had fooled his wretched niece: there’d been no cameras, although Matron’s son had been most obliging in confirming his shrewd suspicionsabout the cheating bitch. He sent for the menu and decided to push the boat out by ordering lobster for dinner.
Wilt had spent most of the week sitting in his office, reading a life of Kaiser Wilhelm II. He seriously doubted that the young Gadsley blighter knew anything at all about the causes of the First World War despite his three previous attempts at the exam. From the sound of it this was only going to work if Wilt cut out all the difficult parts and stuck to basics. He’d decided that the best course was to make Edward learn all the easy stuff by heart, so that he was able to regurgitate it at will: if the moron had at least half a brain that ought to do it.
He was periodically interrupted by so-called students asking inane questions about the autumn-term timetable. And then there were the so-called students asking broadly sensible questions about inane subjects. Earlier in the year he and Braintree had invented the most ludicrous seminar topic they could think of and inserted it into the brochure for the autumn term just as it was going to
‘That someone being the girl you’d been having it off with.’
‘I’ve told you, I was alone.’
‘Oh, sure.’
All in all it was a most unpleasant interview. Finally they sent him home in a police car for another distressing hour of furious questioning by his father, the local Vicar, who had searched the young man’s room when he hadn’t come home and found a packet of condoms in a drawer.
The implied threat to his own reputation was too much for the Vicar, and his consequent ferociousreaction was definitely too much for the young man. He went to bed naked, badly bruised, and without any supper. After today he was of the opinion that sex was not all it was made out to be, and seriously considering joining the priesthood of the Catholic Church, to spite his father.
Chapter 14
Lady Clarissa had spent a very difficult day in Ipford trying to persuade her Uncle Harold to stay in the Last Post. He had flatly refused.
‘It’s not just the Last Post: it’s the last place on earth I’d want to be. I’d rather be in prison for the rest of my life. At least if anyone shouts or screams in the middle of the night there you can be pretty sure someone will stop them, and even prisoners don’t have to wear a ridiculous premature shroud. That sadistic Matron keeps trying to shove a catheter up my penis and she won’t let me have a chamber pot. If you don’t get me into a really decent guest house, I’ll make things extremely awkward for you with that husband of yours.’
Clarissa couldn’t imagine how.
‘Well, I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee anything …’
‘You’d better put your mind to it then. I know what you get up to every time you come down here, supposedly to see me. Do you think Gadsley knows you sleep with the man who drives you down?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Adultery. Or fornication, if you prefer. You see, the manager of the Black Bear is ex-army. Long after my war, of course, but I’ve got to know him quite well when he calls in to visit his mother, that horrible old bag of a Matron. He’s been most helpful to me. Old soldiers stick together, don’t you know? You always stay in the same suite, apparently, and at my request he had it bugged with miniature cameras. The pictures are most interesting.
‘Now, my dear, off you go and find me somewhere pleasant to live. I’ll need to inspect it first, of course. And in the meantime, you’ll pay for me to stay at the Black Bear instead. I think you’ll find that they’re expecting me.’
‘But …’
‘No buts. Just go.’
Lady Clarissa went. She knew when she was beaten. That evening the Colonel sat in the bar of the hotel, toasting his victory with a number of very large malt whiskies. He had fooled his wretched niece: there’d been no cameras, although Matron’s son had been most obliging in confirming his shrewd suspicionsabout the cheating bitch. He sent for the menu and decided to push the boat out by ordering lobster for dinner.
Wilt had spent most of the week sitting in his office, reading a life of Kaiser Wilhelm II. He seriously doubted that the young Gadsley blighter knew anything at all about the causes of the First World War despite his three previous attempts at the exam. From the sound of it this was only going to work if Wilt cut out all the difficult parts and stuck to basics. He’d decided that the best course was to make Edward learn all the easy stuff by heart, so that he was able to regurgitate it at will: if the moron had at least half a brain that ought to do it.
He was periodically interrupted by so-called students asking inane questions about the autumn-term timetable. And then there were the so-called students asking broadly sensible questions about inane subjects. Earlier in the year he and Braintree had invented the most ludicrous seminar topic they could think of and inserted it into the brochure for the autumn term just as it was going to
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