Ancestral Vices by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online

Petrefact’s shrunken figure seemed to swell and grow as monstrous as his reputation.
    ‘And what, pray, is that?’ he demanded. Yapp noted the archaic use of ‘pray’ and also that Croxley seemed to have taken the advice. Only then did he look at the extraordinary object that the headwaiter was holding with some difficulty on a silver platter beside him. Even to Walden Yapp’s eyes, inexperienced as they were in the oddities of haute cuisine, there seemed to be something fundamentally wrong with the roast animal and for a moment he had the distinct impression that he was seeing things.
    Lord Petrefact certainly was. His face had ballooned out into an awful purple. ‘Sucking pig?’ he yelled at thewaiter. ‘What do you mean “sucking pig”? That thing’s no more a sucking pig than I am.’
    ‘I daresay not, sir,’ said the waiter with a courage Yapp had to admire, ‘I rather think the butcher must have got it wrong.’
    ‘Wrong? He didn’t just get the thing wrong. He must have got it from the same place he got that damned turtle shell or more likely some circus specializing in deformed animals.’
    ‘By wrong I mean he got the message wrong, sir. The chef definitely asked for sucking pig on the telephone and possibly the butcher thought he said . . .’ The waiter stopped and looked pathetically at Croxley for help. But Lord Petrefact had already got the message.
    ‘If anyone’s telling me that whatever’s on that platter fucked anything they’re out of their tiny minds,’ he yelled, obviously almost out of his. ‘Look at its back bloody legs. It’s a wonder it could hobble about, let alone fuck. It must have tripped over its own bleeding snout all the time. And where’s its bloody stomach?’
    ‘In the refrigerator, sir,’ mumbled the waiter. Lord Petrefact goggled at him.
    ‘Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?’ he bellowed. ‘You bring me a roast dwarf of a pig and . . .’
    ‘Porg,’ said Yapp, feeling rather unwisely that it was time to come to the waiter’s assistance. Lord Petrefact looked at him full-face.
    ‘Pork? Of course it’s pork. Any fool can see it’s pork. What I want to know is what sort of pork it is.’
    ‘I was referring to your use of the word “dwarf”,’ said Yapp adamantly. ‘It’s not a term I would expect to find used in polite company.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you? Then may we have the privilege of learning what you would like to hear used in polite company? And take that fucking apparition of a stunted pig out of my sight.’
    ‘Person of restricted growth,’ said Yapp.
    Lord Petrefact stared at him dementedly. ‘Person of restricted growth? I get handed a pig that looks as though it’s been concertinaed and you start blathering about polite company and people of restricted growth. If anything’s ever had its growth restricted that poor damned animal . . .’ He gave up and slumped exhausted in his wheelchair.
    ‘The term “dwarf” has pejorative overtones,’ said Yapp, ‘whereas Person of Restricted Growth, or Porg for short—’
    ‘Listen,’ said Lord Petrefact, ‘you may be a guest in this house and I may be impolite but if anyone mentions anything even vaguely reminiscent of pigs again . . . Excuse me.’ And with a whirr he turned his wheelchair and sped from the dining-room. Behind him Yapp heaved a sigh of relief.
    ‘I shouldn’t let that worry you,’ said Croxley, who had warmed to Yapp for diverting Lord Petrefact’s fury. ‘He’ll be as right as rain by the time we’ve finished here.’
    ‘I wasn’t worried. I was simply interested to observe the clash of contradictions manifested in the socialbehaviour of the so-called upper class when confronted by the objective conditions of experience,’ said Yapp.
    ‘Oh really. The foreshortened pig being an objective condition I suppose?’
    They ate the rest of the meal in silence interrupted only by the occasional sound of raised voices from the kitchen where Lord Petrefact was