‘Oh, but we do,’ said the Praelector. ‘Now, if you’ll just tell us your name?’
‘What for?’ Kudzuvine demanded belligerently.
For a moment the Praelector was tempted to say they needed it for his next of kin, but
he decided on tact. ‘It’s just that we want to be friends and–’
‘Shit!’ said Kudzuvine. ‘Trample me to death like I’m a fucking Iraqi or something and
you want to be friends? Go fuck yourself.’
‘I can see this is going to be difficult,’ said the Praelector, who had had a trying
day and was sick to death of being insulted.
‘What I don’t see,’ said the Chaplain who had drunk the Hine brandy himself, ‘is what
Iraqis have to do with being trampled to death.’
‘One must suppose it refers to the world’s greatest super-power using bulldozers to
bury the poor devils alive in their trenches,’ the Praelector said, and poured himself a
glass of the Remy Martin.
‘Goddam right we did. Those bastards didn’t know what hit them,’ said Kudzuvine.
The look in the eyes of both the Chaplain and the Praelector suggested that something
of the same sort might be about to happen to Kudzuvine but, being the man he was, he had no
idea it was coming. ‘I don’t know if you have a good lawyer,’ the Praelector said very
quietly and very distinctly, ‘but I think I should tell you that when the police arrive
and you have been charged with aggravated assault, criminal trespass with damage, and
that damage deliberately done to a Listed Building of National Importance–’
‘Listed Building of National Importance? What the fuck you talking about? Like what?’
Kudzuvine shouted and tried to sit up.
‘If you want a comparison with something in your own country, might I suggest
deliberately causing the destruction of the Unitarian Church in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where Emerson preached. But then perhaps you don’t know who Emerson
was?’
‘Sure I know who Emerson was. Invented the fucking electric light. Emerson!’
Kudzuvine practically spat at them.
The Praelector smiled grimly. ‘What I’m trying to get you to understand is that,
following in the great tradition set by the lawyers and judiciary in your wonderful
country, we are going to sue you for the damage you have caused to one of the oldest and
most valued college chapels, in Cambridge. Now I don’t know what damages and costs we will
be awarded but the courts in England are increasingly following the American custom
of…’
There was no need to go on. The physical injuries Kudzuvine had suffered had paled into
total insignificance. He knew about damages. ‘Get me Hartang,’ he whimpered. ‘I’ve got to
have Hartang.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t got any,’ said the Chaplain. ‘Lapsang Souchong, yes, and Earl Grey,
but Hartang no. I can’t honestly say I’ve ever heard of it.’
The Praelector was less sympathetic. ‘He’s playing the oldest legal trick in the
world. Playing dumb and being of unsound mind. Not that it is going to help in the least.
He brought whoever those dreadful men were into the College where they did the most
monstrous damage and committed criminal trespass. Now what did you say your name
was?’
‘Kudzuvine,’ said Kudzuvine.
‘Really? How very interesting. And I suppose your mother’s name was Ivy,’ said the
Praelector. ‘Something botanical at any rate, and I daresay you have Swedish
ancestry.’
‘What the fuck you talking about my mother’s name? Botanical? They called her Lily May.
And what’s with the Swedish shit? Nothing Swede about us. Free-born citizen of the greatest
super–’
‘Quite so. We’ve been through the virtues of America before _ad nauseam_ and we don’t
need them again. What is your real name? And don’t come up with Alfalfa or Kentucky
Bluegrass or anything Linnaean.’
Kudzuvine tried to get off the bed on the other side. He was clearly terrified. But the
Praelector had already left the room.
‘What’s with the other guy, monk?’ he asked the Chaplain. ‘He always like this?’
The Chaplain seemed to consider the question seriously. ‘I suppose he must be,’ he
said, ‘though now you come to mention it…oh well, never mind. It’s probably that time of the
month.’
‘Time of the month? What’s the time of the month got to do with it? Guy thinks he
menstruates or something?’
‘I think it’s mainly something,’ the Chaplain answered. ‘I’m most sorry about that tea.
I do have some China. Are you sure?’
Kudzuvine didn’t want tea and having some part of China wasn’t doing him any good
either. But his main worry was the ’something’. ‘What’s he do this time of month?’ he asked
as he tried to move towards the door. ‘Turn into a werewolf like Frankenstein? We did a
movie once on fucking wolves. They got a real tight social order, you know that?’
‘How very interesting,’ said the Chaplain, and tripped Kudzuvine up with a walking
stick. He was still on the floor when the Praelector returned with the Head Porter and two
assistants. He stared at their shoes and dark grey trousers and moaned.
‘I think it is about time he had a strong drink,’ the Praelector said, ‘though I don’t
think we should waste good brandy on the swine. Something cheap and nasty. I’ll get some from
the kitchen.’ He wandered off and presently returned with a large bottle. ‘Turn him over,’
he ordered and Kudzuvine was turned over and looked up frantically at five horrible
faces and at the bottle.
‘What are you going to do?’ he whimpered. ‘What’s with the bottle?’
‘What’s with the bottle is a rather nasty cooking brandy which you are going to taste
rather a lot of unless you tell us your name.’
‘Kudzuvine, for fucksake. What you think it is? Clinton or Schwarzkopf or
something?’
‘No, those hadn’t occurred to me,’ the Praelector said, ‘though now that you mention
it…’ He knelt beside, Kudzuvine and the look in his eye was very cold. ‘Now open your
mouth.’
Kudzuvine clenched his teeth. ‘I’ve told you before,’ he said nasally and with the
greatest difficulty, ‘I’m a free-born citizen of the world’s greatest su–’
The Praelector poured some brandy onto his teeth and Kudzuvine closed his mouth
entirely.
‘I can see this is going to be very difficult,’ said the Praelector. ‘We are going to
have to prise his mouth open with something.’ He rose immediately to his feet and looked
round for a suitable instrument. He seemed to find one in the Chaplain’s umbrella. ‘Now
then Walter, if you and Henry will just hold him steady…’
But Kudzuvine was on his feet again and backed against the wall with a wild look in his eye
and a round ebony ruler in his hand. ‘You lay one hand on me,’ he squealed, ‘I’m going to
fucking kill you. Kill you, understand? You ain’t going to make me drink fucking alcohol
no way and you’d better know it. I want out of here and as a free-born natural–’
‘He does go on about being free-born and natural rather a lot,’ said the Praelector,
but the Chaplain had disappeared into the next room.
He came back with a large pink rubber bag with a pipe attached to it. ‘I wonder if this
would be of any use,’ he said. ‘A very nice girl from Addenbrooke’s comes occasionally to
give me colonic irrigation…’
‘Shit,’ said Kudzuvine.
‘Exactly. I find it helps a lot. You put the liquid in this bag here and this plastic
bit on the end of the pipe goes up–’
‘Oh no, it fucking doesn’t,’ yelled Kudzuvine. ‘You think you’re going to stick that
thing up my ass and pour a quart of fucking brandy down a douche, you’re out of your fucking
minds. I’m telling you when I get onto the Embassy you bastards are going to learn what it
means to be a citizen of…an American citizen…’
He stopped and stared. The Chaplain had handed the douche to Walter who was filling it
with cooking brandy. As the bag swelled the Chaplain explained its mechanism. ‘This sort of
clothes-peg thing is what controls the flow,’ he said, pointing to a plastic grip on the
rubber pipe. ‘Once we have inserted this rounded piece into his mouth–’
A yell from Kudzuvine stopped the explanation. ‘Mouth? Mouth? That thing don’t go
anywhere near my fucking mouth. No way. It’s unhygienic. You know where that thing has
been?’
‘As a matter of fact I do,’ said the Chaplain, ‘quite a number of times too. I suppose
she’s been coming here since 1986. A delightful girl called Daisy with such very delicate
hands. I had constipation at the time I remember and–’
He was interrupted by Kudzuvine, who had hit Henry with the ruler and was making a
dash for the door. He was overcome and pinned to the wall.
‘I think it would be easier to administer if he was lying down,’ said the Praelector.
‘Mind you, we don’t want to spill any brandy on the bed. It will have to be the floor again.’
There was a brief but violent struggle and Kudzuvine was held down on the carpet.
‘You hold the bag, Henry,’ Walter said, ‘and I’ll just insert this plastic bit.., Funny
shape it is too and a bit too long to get it right in. Does it matter if we spill a bit, sir?
Because it’s got these holes in the side and like I say it’s a bit long to shove right in. I
mean, we might pour the brandy down his lungs and that wouldn’t do him a lot of good,
like.’
They considered the problem for a moment and the Chaplain found the answer.
‘Blu-Tack,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve got some somewhere. I use it for cleaning the keys of my
typewriter and picking up pins off the floor, you know. Now if we block up the top holes we
won’t have to push it right down his throat.’
On the floor Kudzuvine’s struggles redoubled and were coupled with the most terrible
threats and what the American Embassy and Government would do to them and Porterhouse
like…
‘Grenada and Haiti? And of course we are an island and a small one too,’ said the
Praelector and wondered aloud why the United States always seemed to prefer wars with
island nations. ‘But never mind about that. Now then, Mr Mafia man, you are either going
to tell us your real name and address and who you are and what you were doing with a team
of…’ He searched for a word.
Walter supplied it. ‘Goons, sir?’
‘Exactly. Thank you, Walter. A team of goons, or hoods. Who did very substantial
structural damage to a budding, namely the Chapel, which was built several hundred years
before your charming country was so unfortunately discovered. Such a shame Columbus
didn’t go the other way. Now, if you tell us what we need to know, we will not have to put
this rather peculiar enema contraption which, I agree, is not at all sanitary, to a
purpose I cannot believe it was originally intended for. This is your last chance.’
‘I’ve got the Blu-Tack,’ said the Chaplain excitedly. ‘Now if we just put it in these
holes at the top of the plastic bit…’
‘I don’t think it’s going to be necessary with some of the holes, sir,’ Walter told him.
‘Some of them are sort of blocked already with…well, I don’t like to say, sir, but if you ask
me…’
But Kudzuvine was a broken man. ‘I swear to God my name is Kudzuvine, Karl Kudzuvine,
from Bibliopolis, Alabama, sir,’ he said, weeping copiously.
The Praelector was unimpressed. He had served as a recruiter for MI6 and knew some of
its methods. A likely story,’ he said. ‘First Linnaeus and a very unpleasant
convolvulus plant rather like Russian Vine or Mile-a-Minute used to prevent soil erosion
on roadside cuttings in the South, and now a town called Bibliopolis which clearly doesn’t
exist. What will you think of next?’
‘I swear to God it’s true. I’m Vice-President of Transworld Television Productions and
I–’
‘Oh dear,’ the Praelector interrupted, ‘have you ever known an American who wasn’t a
vice-president of something or other? I’m sure I haven’t. So terribly boring, all this
self-importance.’ He simulated a yawn. ‘And can’t you come up with something better than
Transworld Television Productions? Such a very trite name for a company. Transworld
indeed!’
‘But I swear to God–’
The Chaplain intervened. ‘This does happen to be Sunday,’ he said, ‘and I would be
obliged if you would refrain from using that sort of language.’
Kudzuvine looked at him pitifully. The Chaplain was holding the end of the douche,
which now had blue holes as well as brown ones, in a very threatening manner.
‘Language? What language for Chrissake? You keep asking me questions how the fuck am I
supposed to answer without language? I don’t know no deaf and dumb. You know, with the
hands and all.’
He lay and wept and the Praelector continued with his questioning. He had decided to
soften his approach for the time being. ‘Now I don’t want to have to do this but–’
‘You don’t?’ Kudzuvine broke in. ‘You don’t want it? You think I do? You think I want that
filthy thing in my mouth where it’s been? You think that, you’re wrong. Man, you couldn’t be
more wrong, sir.’
‘Well, it’s up to you,’ said the Praelector. ‘It’s either that thing, as you call it, and
frankly I don’t know what to call it myself, or the brandy. I don’t know if you are
acquainted with cooking brandy but the taste isn’t pleasant, not pleasant at all. I
always stick to decent cognac myself.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Now then, which is it to
be?’
Kudzuvine tried to consider the alternatives and found it very difficult. The
Praelector seemed to have left something out. ‘You mean between cooking brandy and cognac?
Man, I don’t know what to say. I keep telling you I’m a non-alcoholic teetotaller. I don’t
even touch beer. I don’t smoke grass, nothing. Not any more. You know, keep my body clear and
clean. Even gave up Listerine somebody tells me it’s got alcohol. And you want to go easy
on the under-arm stuff too. Some of that’s got aluminum in it. Gives you Alzheimer’s.’ He
paused as a new and more terrible thought hit him. ‘You guys haven’t got Alzheimer’s, have
you? Dear shit…’
The Praelector drew up a chair. He had reached the end of what little patience he had
managed to retain. ‘If you are ready, Walter,’ he said to the Head Porter, but the Chaplain
had remembered something. ‘You know, I do believe he may be right,’ he said.