Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page B

Influence of Pumpernickel on the Politics of 16th-Century Osnabruck but without success. He no longer cared that it had been known as
bonum paniculum
and his interest in Westphalian local politics had waned. The problem of his feelings for Mrs Biggs was more immediate.
    He had spent an hour in the stacks browsing feverishly through textbooks of clinical psychology in search of a medical explanation of the symptoms of irrational violence and irrepressible sexuality which had manifested themselves in his recent behaviour. From whathe had read it had begun to look as if he were suffering from a multitude of different diseases. On the one hand his reaction to Skullion suggested paranoia, ‘violent behaviour as a result of delusions of persecution’, while the erotic compulsion of his feelings for Mrs Biggs was even more alarming and seemed to indicate schizophrenia with sado-masochistic tendencies. The combination of the two diseases, paranoid schizophrenia, was apparently the worst possible form of insanity and quite incurable. Zipser sat staring out of the windows at the trees in the garden beyond the footpath and contemplated a lifetime of madness. He couldn’t imagine what had suddenly occasioned the outbreak. The textbooks implied that heredity had a lot to do with it, but apart from an uncle who had a passion for concrete dwarves in his front garden and who his mother had said was a bit touched in the head, he couldn’t think of anyone in the family who was actually and certifiably insane.
    The explanation had to lie elsewhere. His feelings for the bedder deviated from every known norm. So for that matter did Mrs Biggs. She bulged where she should have dimpled and bounced when she should have been still. She was gross, vulgar, garrulous and, Zipser had no doubt in his mind, thoroughly insanitary. To find himself irresistibly attracted to her was the worst thing he could think of. It was perfectly all right to be queer. It was positively fashionable. To have constant and insistent sexual desires for French au pair girls, Swedish language students, girls in Boots, even undergraduatesat Girton, was normality itself, but Mrs Biggs came into the category of the unmentionable. And the knowledge that but for the fortuitous intervention of the vacuum-cleaner he would have revealed his true feelings for her threw him into a panic. He left his table and went downstairs and walked back into town.
    As he reached Great St Mary’s the clock was striking twelve. Zipser stopped and studied the posters on the railings outside the church which announced forthcoming sermons.
    CHRIST AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN Rev. F. Leaney.
    HAS SALT LOST ITS SAVOUR ? Anglican attitudes to disarmament. Rev. B. Tomkins.
    JOB, A MESSAGE FOR THE THIRD WORLD Right Reverend Sutty, Bishop of Bombay.
    JESUS JOKES Fred Henry by permission of ITA & the management of the Palace Theatre, Scunthorpe.
    BOMBS AWAY A Christian’s attitude to Skyjacking by Flight Lieutenant Jack Piggett, BOAC.
    Zipser stared at the University Sermons with a sudden sense of loss. What had happened to the old Church, the Church of his childhood, the friendly Vicar and the helping hand? Not that Zipser had ever been to church, but he had seen them on television and had been comforted by the knowledge that they were still therein
Songs of Praise
and
Saints Alive
and
All Gas and Gaiters
. But now when he needed help there was only this pale parody of the daily paper with its mishmash of politics and sensationalism. Not a word about evil and how to cope with it. Zipser felt betrayed. He went back into Porterhouse in search of help. He’d go and see the Senior Tutor. There was just time before lunch. Zipser climbed the stairs to the Tutor’s rooms and knocked on the door.
*
    ‘The trouble with the Feast,’ said the Dean, munching a mouthful of cold beef, ‘is that it does tend to run on. Cold beef today. Cold beef tomorrow. Cold beef on Thursday. After that I suppose we’ll have stewed beef