Free Grantchester Grind by Tom Sharpe Page A

may be a fucking poof…gay but I’m not and if you touch me again I’ll’
    He got no further. A very large person in a loud check suit appeared in front of him.

    ‘Who are you calling a poof?’ it asked, and promptly delivered a knock-out blow to

    Purefoy Osbert’s chin. Goodenough caught him and hailed a taxi.
    ‘Earls Court,’ he told the driver and gave the address of Vera’s flat. By the time they

    arrived there Purefoy’s nose had stopped bleeding and he wasn’t at all sure what had

    happened. They went up in the lift.
    ‘I don’t think I’d better be around when he wakes in the morning,’ Goodenough told Vera

    when they’d got Purefoy to bed. ‘It’s been a perfectly ghastly evening.’
    ‘I can see that,’ said Vera. ‘What on earth happened?’
    ‘He thought I was out to seduce him. It’s all the Grimsby bastard’s fault.’
    ‘And you went and hit him because…?’
    ‘I didn’t hit him. That wasn’t me,’ said Goodenough. ‘Some weight-lifting lesbian

    slugged him for calling me a poofter. And I’ll tell you another thing. He thinks you put him

    my way so that I could make a pass at the brute. He swore he was going to kill you. You don’t

    know what it was like. As though I wanted to bed him.’
    And I’ll tell you something,’ said Vera. ‘You’re staying the night and you’re going to

    bed me. It’s the only way out.’
    They went through to the bedroom and began to undress.
    ‘I have to hand it to you,’ Goodenough said. ‘You certainly pick the perfect

    candidates. Lady Mary is going to love your Purefoy, and he’s going to cause havoc in

    Porterhouse.’
    Two days later, and only after a great deal of persuasion and cajoling, Purefoy

    Osbert went to be interviewed by Lady Mary. He still wasn’t entirely happy about

    Goodenough’s sexual inclinations. ‘If you’d seen that gay bar,’ he told Vera. ‘I mean I

    don’t care what people do but it was like a vision of Hell by Hieronymus Bosch. And why did

    he have to look at me like that?’
    ‘He just had to be sure,’ Vera said.
    ‘Well, I hope to hell he’s sure now. And don’t ever leave me alone with him. He may be as

    straight as you say he is but if you’d seen the way he looked at my mouth…’
    ‘I can assure you he’s all right. Now let me tell you about Lady Mary Evans…’
    Purefoy Osbert spent an hour with Lady Mary, who still felt safer behind her desk and

    with the housekeeper’s husband close by. ‘Dr Osbert,’ she said, ‘I see from your

    application that you have been at Kloone University for eleven years. Isn’t that a long

    time to remain in the same university? Haven’t you ever wanted to advance your

    career?’
    ‘My career consists of researching what actually happened,’ said Purefoy, looking

    without any warmth into her strangely blue eyes. ‘I am not interested in any other

    approach and I can research the facts I need as well at Kloone as anywhere else.

    Certainties are to be found in primary source materials and to some extent from

    secondary opinion, though only where such opinion is confirmed from a separate and

    wholly unconnected source.’
    Lady Mary nodded, perhaps approvingly. And I see that your area of research is in the

    methods of penal restraint or, in simpler terms, prisons.’
    ‘With particular reference to capital punishment,’ said Purefoy.
    ‘Of which you approve?’
    Purefoy Osbert almost stood up. ‘Of which I entirely disapprove,’ he said. ‘In fact

    the word “disapprove” is not adequate to express my convictions. Capital punishment in

    any form is an act of the utmost barbarity and–’
    He would have gone on but Lady Mary stopped him. ‘I am delighted to hear that,’ she said.

    ‘Dr Osbert, what you have just said confirms the opinion expressed to me by Mr Lapline, my

    solicitor, who has been handling the choice of applicants for the Fellowship I am

    sponsoring at Porterhouse College.’
    Purefoy Osbert