The Wilt Inheritance (2010) Read online

  Tom Sharpe

  The Wilt Inheritance

  The fifth book in the Wilt series

  2010

  Henry Wilt, Tom Sharpe’s beleaguered hero, returns again for another hilarious dose of quickfire farce.

  Stuck in a job he doesn’t want – but can’t afford to lose – as nominal Head of the Communications Department at Fenland University, Wilt is still subject to the whims of The Powers That Be, both in and outside of work. The demands of his snobbish wife Eva, and the stupendous school fees of his despicable quadruplet daughters, cause him the biggest headaches…apart from the hangovers, that is. When Eva signs him up for a summer job, teaching the gun-toting idiot son of a lusty local aristocrat, Wilt is not amused. But, as circumstances unravel and the summer goes on, Wilt sees that the situation could be put to his financial advantage, as well as giving Eva some headaches of her own.

  With Tom Sharpe’s famous dark humour in full evidence, and an explosive plot which takes its readers to places they never realised they wanted to visit, The Wilt Inheritance is another instant classic from the British master of farce.

  1

  Wilt drove down to Fenland University feeling in a thoroughly bad mood. He’d had a row with his wife, Eva, the previous night about the expense of sending their four daughters to boarding school when, in Wilt’s opinion, they had been doing very well at their old school, the Convent. Eva, however, had been adamant that the quads must stay at the private school.

  “They’ve got to learn good manners and they weren’t doing that at the Convent. And in any case, you swear so often they’ve become quite foul-mouthed and I’m not having it. They’re better off away from home.”

  “If you had to fill in totally useless forms and sup-posedly teach Computer Studies to the illiterates I’m lumbered with – who actually know far more about using the bally gadgets than I do – you would swear too,” Wilt had said, choosing not to point out that since they’d become teenagers the quads’ repertoire of obscenities put his own to shame.

  “I can’t afford to carry on paying for another God knows how many years just so that you can boast to the damn’ neighbours about where your damn’ daughters go to school. Even the Convent was already costing a small fortune, as you well know.”

  Altogether it had been a most acrimonious evening. To make matters worse, Wilt had not been exaggerating. His salary really was so small he couldn’t see how he was going to go on paying the boarding-school fees and still maintain the modest standard of living his family presently enjoyed. As merely Head of the so-called Communications Department he was paid less than the heads of academic departments, all re-titled Professors when Fenland College of Arts and Technology had been designated a university and, as a result, earning a great deal more than he was. Eva had, of course, made that point several times over during their row.

  “If you’d had the gumption to leave years ago, like Patrick Mottram, you could have got a really decent job with a much better salary in a proper university. But, oh, no, you had to stay on at that stupid technical college because ‘I’ve got too many good friends there’. Utter rubbish! You’ve No Get Up And Go in you, that’s what you’ve got.”

  At that Wilt got up and went. By the time he got back from the pub, resolving to have it out with Eva once and for all, she had given up on him and gone to bed.

  But as he drove into the ‘University’ car park the next day, Wilt had to admit to himself that she was right. He ought to have left years ago. He hated the wretched Communications Department and actually could probably number his friends still working there on one finger. He should probably have left Eva too. Come to think of it, he should never have married such an infernally bossy woman in the first place. She never did things by halves: the quads were proof of that.

  Wilt’s spirits sank even lower when he thought of his daughters, all four of them exact replicas of his ghastly wife and just as loud and overbearing as she was. No, more loud and overbearing than she was, given the combined effect of their quadruple efforts. All four girls were inexhaustible in their petty squabbling and inter-sororial battles, and he was pretty sure that the demise of his get up and go had pretty much coincided with their arrival.

  There had been a moment in their early infancy when, in between the nappies and bottles and the disgusting pap-like baby food Eva insisted on shovelling into them, he had briefly entertained great hopes for his offspring, imagining shining futures ahead of them. But the older they grew the worse their behaviour became, from torturing the cat to tormenting the neighbours – though pinning anything on any one of them was impossible since they all looked exactly the same. He supposed that at least now they were boarders they were someone else’s problem, although it was a bloody steep price to pay for it.

  Wilt cheered up on his arrival when he found a note inside a sealed envelope on his desk. It was from the Chief Administrator, Mr Vark, telling him that his presence was not required at the meeting of the recently created Academic Apportionment Committee. Wilt thanked God he didn’t have to attend. He wasn’t sure he had the patience to sit through another interminable session of paper-shuffling and self-important pronouncements about nothing.

  Feeling in a better mood, he went off to check the classrooms but found them largely empty except for a few stray students who were playing on the computers. It was the end of the summer term in a week’s time and with no exams in the offing most of the staff and students saw no point in sticking around. Not that the lazy sods stuck around much in the first place. Wilt was back at his desk, making yet another attempt to sort out the following term’s timetable, when Peter Braintree, the Professor of English, poked his face round the door.

  “Are you coming to Vark’s latest nonsensical gathering, Henry?” he asked.

  “No, I’m bloody well not. Vark has sent me a note saying I’m to stay away and for once I’m going to do what he wants.”

  “I don’t blame you. Rotten waste of time. Wish I could get out of it as well, I’ve got stacks of exam papers to mark.” Braintree paused. “I suppose you wouldn’t think of…”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Wilt said firmly. “Mark your own papers. Can’t you see I’m occupied?” He waved airily at the timetable in front of him. “I’m working out how to fit the Digital Future into Thursday afternoon.”

  Braintree had long since given up trying to make sense of any of Wilt’s more obscure remarks. He simply shrugged his shoulders and let the door bang loudly behind him.

  Wilt gave up the timetable as a bad job, and for the rest of the morning sat filling in the forms the Administration Department concocted practically every day to justify employing more staff than the ‘University’ had lecturers.

  “Suppose it keeps the sods off the street,” he muttered to himself, “just like having so many so-called students makes the employment figures look far better than they really are.” He could feel his bad temper returning.

  After lunch he sat for an hour in the Staff Room, reading the newspapers piled up there. As usual they were filled with horror stories. A pregnant woman had been stabbed in the back for no apparent reason by a twelve-year-old boy; four louts had kicked an old man to death in his own garage; and fifteen insane murderers had been released from Broadmoor after five years – presumably because they hadn’t been allowed to kill anyone in that time. And that was in the Daily Times. Wilt tried the Graphic and found it just as sickening. In the end he skipped the political pages, which were full of lies, and decided to go for some air. He went out to the park and was walking round it when he spotted a familiar figure sitting on a bench.

  To his surprise Wilt realised it was his old adversary Inspector Flint. He crossed over and sat down beside him.
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br />   “What on earth are you doing here?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I was sitting here wondering what you were getting up to.”

  “Not a very interesting topic. I should have thought you’d have been concentrating on something more in your line,” said Wilt.

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, arresting innocent people perhaps. You’re good at that. Trying to convince yourself that they’re criminals. I know you were certain I was one when I was idiotic enough to dump that beastly inflatable doll down a pile hole, but I was drunk at the time and anyway it was years ago.”

  Flint nodded. “Quite. Then there was the drug stunt and the terrorist business in Willington Road. You were involved in all those rotten affairs. Not intentionally, I agree, but it’s interesting how you repeatedly seem to find yourself in the middle of particularly curious situations. There must be something criminal about you for you to get caught up in quite so many nefarious activities, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t think. And nor, quite often, do you. Though you’ve got a really fantastic imagination, I’ll grant you that, Inspector.”

  “Not me, Henry. Oh, definitely not me. I’m just quoting your old friend, and my old colleague, Mr Hodge. Superintendent Hodge to you, of course, Wilt. And I can tell you, Mr Hodge still hasn’t forgotten the quagmire you led him into over that drug business…nor has he ever got over it. Speaking frankly, I myself don’t think you could commit a real crime if it was handed you on a plate. You’re a talker, not a doer.”

  Wilt sighed. The Inspector was only too damned right. But did everyone have to keep reminding him of how impotent he was?

  “Well, apart from thinking about me, what on earth are you doing sitting out here?” he asked. “Have you retired or something?”

  “Been thinking seriously about that too,” said Flint. “I think I may do. I’m never given anything interesting to do, thanks to that bastard Hodge. He goes and marries the Chief Constable’s daughter, and gets promoted to Superintendent as a result, while I’m desk-bound, filling in forms and doing nothing but paperwork. It’s as boring as hell.”

  “Join the club,” said Wilt in spite of himself. He hated the expression. “I’m doing the same. Forms, agendas, bumf of all sorts…and all I get in return is hell from Eva when I go home because I earn a miserable salary and she insists on our paying a small fortune to send the quads to an expensive boarding school. God alone knows how we’re going to continue doing it.”

  They chatted on, grumbling about the economy and politicians in general, and it was some considerable time before Wilt glanced at his watch and realised it was later than he’d thought. He wondered if the Academic Apportionment Committee meeting had ended yet.

  He said goodbye to Flint and went back to his office. It was past four o’clock before Braintree stuck his head round the door again, this time with the news that he’d only nipped out for a pee and the committee was still at it hammer and tongs.

  “You were bloody sensible deciding not to go even if Vark would have let you. They’re all having a hell of a row. Mostly the usual topics,” he said. “Anyway I’ll definitely be finished by six. Do you want to hang on for me?”

  “Suppose so – I’ve nothing better to do with myself. Thank God I kept away,” Wilt muttered as Braintree hurried back out. For the remainder of the afternoon Wilt sat in the Staff Room, occasionally wondering about Inspector Flint’s assessment of his ability to attract crime. “I am a talker, not a doer,” he said to himself. He’d have given anything to have had the old Fenland Tech back. He’d had a sense of doing something useful in those years, even if that only amounted to having arguments with apprentice technicians and making them think.

  By the time Braintree returned, Wilt was thoroughly depressed.

  “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Braintree said.

  “I have. The ghost of things past and opportunities lost. As for the future…”

  “What you need is a stiff drink, old chap.”

  “You’re damned right I do and it won’t be a pint of beer this time. Whisky is what I need.”

  “So do I after that verbal punch-up.”

  “Was the meeting as bad as all that?”

  “Let’s just say that in the end it couldn’t have been much worse…Which pub do you want to go to?”

  “In my present mood I suggest the Hangman’s Arms. It will be quiet and I’ll be able to walk, or at least stumble, home from there,” said Wilt.

  “I’ll say! By the time I’ve had a few, I’m not going to risk driving either. Nowadays those buggers will breathalyse you as soon as look at you if you’re within a bloody mile of a pub.”

  There was no one in the bar when they entered. The place was as grim as its name, and the barman looked as though he’d been a hangman himself once and, given the opportunity, would be happy to demonstrate his skills on either of them.

  “Well, what’s it to be?” he asked gruffly.

  “Two double Scotches and go easy with the soda,” Braintree told him.

  Wilt noted the order and sat down in a dark and grubby corner. The situation must be genuinely dire for Peter Braintree to order doubles and go easy on the soda.

  “Well,” Wilt grunted when his friend brought the drinks over to the round table, “spit it out. Was it that bad? Yes, clearly it was. Out with it then.”

  “I’d say ‘Cheers’, but in the circumstances…Well, mud in your eye!”

  “All I want to know is, have I been given the boot?”

  Braintree shook his head and sighed.

  “No, but you’re not out of the wood yet,” he said. “You were saved by the Vice-Chancellor. Correction: the Vice-Principal. Sorry, I know how you feel about these pompous new titles. As you’re bound to know also, Mayfield was in the Chair and doesn’t exactly like you.”

  Wilt bridled.

  “That’s the understatement of the decade.”

  “Agreed. But he loathes Dr Board even more, and since Board is Head of Modern Languages, and languages are vital if they’re going to go on calling the place a university, there’s damn all Mayfield can do to get rid of him. So, because you’re a friend of Board, and because Mayfield doesn’t like you in the first place, it was starting to look bad for Computer Studies…”

  “Meaning my job is at stake?”

  “Well, yes, but wait for it: the Vice-Principal came to your rescue by pointing out that the Communications Faculty…sorry, the Communications Department…has many more students than any other, and now that History has gone and Maths is down to around forty which is even lower than Science, the Univers – the College can’t afford to dispense with Communications. And that includes you.”

  “Why? They could find someone else to take my place.”

  “The V-P doesn’t think so. He put the boot into Mayfield by asking him if he’d care to volunteer to take your job on, and Mayfield said he wouldn’t dream of dealing with the hooligans in your department. Oh, yes, the V-P had him by the short and curlies there! Mayfield had gone quite white by then but the Vice-Principal still hadn’t finished. He said you handled the brutes very deftly and…”

  “That’s very decent of him. Did he actually say ‘deftly’?”

  “His exact word, and he was backed up by Board who said you had a real gift plus years of experience in dealing with blighters he wouldn’t go near with an AK47 or something even more lethal. At one point he called you ‘something of a genius’.”

  Wilt gulped at his whisky.

  “I must say, Board’s always been a good friend,” he murmured. “But he’s gone above and beyond this time. No wonder Vark didn’t want me there.” He looked down at his glass gloomily. “They may be hooligans but some of my lads are good-hearted enough. The main thing is to let them get on with what they really like to do.”

  “You mean, muck around playing games and surfing the internet for porn?”

  Wilt shook his head.

  “They can’t get on
to the pornography sites. I got a couple of technicians over from Electronics to block that area off, and in any case it costs money to download the really hard filth and none of my lot have credit cards. Or only ones they’ve stolen from someone, of course, which don’t usually work on the internet.”

  “Oh, well, that puts paid to Mayfield’s argument that they should never have forced all those computers on to you,” Braintree said.

  Wilt finished his whisky.

  “Shouldn’t have closed the old Tech down,” he declared. “Still, I’ve got something to celebrate. At least my job’s safe for the time being and the Vice-Principal isn’t going to resign any time soon. He earns such a whacking great salary, lucky bugger, and so long as he’s around it sounds as though dear Professor Mayfield’s scuppered. I’m going to have another Scotch. No, don’t move. I’ll get them.”

  This time he ordered triples.

  “I’d love to have seen Mayfield go white. He’s no more a professor than I am. Let’s drink to the V-P…and to Dr Board.”

  2

  Despite the row with Henry the previous night Eva had had one of her better days. In fact, it had been her best day for a long time. For some months now she had been cultivating a very upper-class woman who regularly visited the Harmony Care and Community Centre where Eva helped out. Lady Clarissa came down once a week from North Fenland to see her uncle, a retired colonel who had lost a leg in the Second World War.

  “I’ve found a perfect home for Uncle Harold,” she told Eva when she arrived. “It’s called the Last Post. It’s quite near here in Clarton Road, and a doctor lives just two doors down the street. But, best of all, it’s especially for retired officers and the woman who runs it has a son who was in the army. Obviously he wasn’t in the army during Uncle’s war because he was far too young if he was even born at the time…but he was definitely some sort of officer in a war somewhere. He works in the Black Bear Hotel now. In fact, he’s the manager according to Matron, but he still puts his old uniform on from time to time and she’s awfully proud of him.”