Wilt stood up. 'I don't like being in them at the moment,' he said 'You call me in here and cross-examine me about something I can't prevent because you refuse to give me any real authority and then when I propose making this disgraceful state of affairs a public issue you start threatening me. I've half a mind to complain to the union.' And having delivered this terrible threat he headed for the door
'Wilt,' shouted the Principal, 'we haven't finished yet.'
'Nor have I,' said Wilt and opened the door. 'I find this whole attempt to cover up a matter of serious public concern most reprehensible. I do indeed.'
'Christ,' said Mrs Chatterway uncharacteristically calling for Divine guidance. 'You don't think he means it, do you?'
'I have long since given up trying to think what Wilt means,' said the Principal miserably. 'All I can be certain about is that I wish to God we'd never employed him.'
Chapter 6
'You'd be committing promotional suicide,' Peter Braintree told Wilt as they sat over pints in The Glassblower's Arms later that evening.
'I feel like committing real suicide,' said Wilt, ignoring the pork pie Braintree had just bought him. 'And it's no use trying to tempt me with pork pies.'
'You've got to have some supper. In your condition it's vital.'
'In my condition, nothing is vital. On the one hand I am forced to fight battles with the Principal, the Chief Education Officer and his foul Committee on behalf of lunatics like Bilger who want a bloody revolution, and on the other, after I have spent years thrusting down predatory lusts for Senior Secretaries, Miss Trott and the occasional Nursery Nurse, Eva has to introduce into the house the most splendid, the most ravishing woman she can find. You may not believe me... remember that summer and the Swedes?'
'The ones you had to teach Sons and Lovers to?'
'Yes,' said Wilt, 'four weeks of D. H. Lawrence and thirty delectable Swedish girls. Well, if that wasn't a baptism of lust I don't know what is. And I came through unscathed. I went home to Eva every evening unblemished. If the sex war was openly declared I'd have won the Marital Medal for chastity beyond the call of duty.'
'Well we've all had to go through that phase,' said Braintree.
'And what exactly do you mean by 'that phase'?' asked Wilt stiffly.
'The body beautiful, boobs, bottoms, the occasional glimpse of thigh. I remember once...'
'I prefer not to hear your loathsome fantasies,' said Wilt. 'Some other time perhaps. With Irmgard it's different. I am not talking about the merely physical. We relate.'
'Good God, Henry...' said Braintree, flabbergasted.
'Exactly. When did you hear me use that dreaded word before?'
'Never.'
'You're hearing it now. And if that doesn't indicate the fearful predicament I'm in, nothing will.'
'It does,' said Braintree. 'You're...'
'In love,' said Wilt.
'I was going to say out of your mind.'
'It amounts to the same thing. I am caught in the horns of a dilemma. I use that cliche advisedly, though to be perfectly frank horns don't come into it. I am married to a formidable, frenetic and basically insensitive wife...'
'Who doesn't understand you. We've heard all this before.'
'Who does understand me. And you haven't,' said Wilt and drank some more beer bitterly.
'Henry, someone has been putting stuff in your tea,' said Braintree.
'Yes, and we all know who that is. Mrs Crippen.'
