Chapter 10

Keeping in the direction indicated by signs of a silhouetted coach, I made my way to the bus station just by the main road outside the town. Although there were no buses or coaches, there was a reassuring assembly of travellers. I was unable to get past a group of bulls who had converged, stomping and disputing, in front of the bus timetable and so could not decide which bus to take. A small dragon in an official cap and overcoat was standing by a poster promoting holidays in the Illicit Republics. I contemplated approaching him to ask where the buses were heading, but I was somewhat intimidated by the smoke billowing from his nostrils.

I looked around in some perplexity. Where should I go next? And would I be travelling nearer to or further away from the Truth? I stood on the tip of my toes and scanned the depots in the hope of seeing some helpful signs or indicators. A Gryphon approached me, carrying a newspaper under his claws. "You look lost, young man. Can I be of help?"

"I was just wondering where the buses went from here."

The Gryphon cawed slightly. "Is that all? Well, I can assure you they go to quite a few destinations. And if you are willing to transfer, you will be able to reach any point on the globe you choose. Where is it that you actually want to go?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted with embarrassment.

"You're not sure? You must have some idea. It is just not possible for one to have no destination at all. Do you want to go to the Suburbs? To Lambdeth? To the City? To the Country?"

"Lambdeth sounds a very agreeable destination."

"And indeed it is. The great University city of our fair land. The seat of learning and the font of knowledge. Is that where you want to go?"

"Yes!" I said decisively.

"Well, let's have a look at the timetable if our bovine friends will just allow us to squeeze through..." The Gryphon approached the company of bulls, many wearing cheerful straw boaters and scarves, and with a few polite and firm excuse mes, he made his way to the front and gazed up at the timetable finding instruction from its seemingly arcane symbols. He placed a claw on the back of a bullock, with the newspaper headline (Red Victory Likely) prominent. His other claw traced a route across the columns of destinations and times.

"There's a bus to Lambdeth Central in just a few minutes from bay number..." his eyes gazed up at the headings, " ... bay number Nine. The same bay where my bus is leaving in fact. But a little later than yours, I'm afraid." He squeezed back out past the broad backs of the bulls. "Now the next thing is to buy a ticket. I trust you have sufficient for the journey. It'll cost you nine shillings and nine pence."

The Gryphon led me along to the ticket office window where another dragon took my two crowns in his claw and hesitated over a groat, before handing me three pennies as change. "Are you sure you only want a single?" he wondered. "The return fare is only a shilling more expensive."

"No, that's fine," I replied returning with the Gryphon to a bay where the huge number 9 was displayed, but no list of destinations. We sat on the narrow flap-down seats, and the Gryphon unfolded and refolded his newspaper. The headlines tantalised my eyes during this rather fastidious process: Whites Certain to Win Suburbs. Illicit Gains Spider Vote. Blacks Threaten Immigrants. A diverse selection of other passengers were lined up on the plastic seats or stood guard by their luggage. There were a few jocund bullocks; a young woman in a long green overcoat; an elderly dragon with a pitifully thin column of sulphurous smoke trailing from his nostrils; a diprotodon in a dapper three-piece suit; a snowman sweating in the mid-afternoon heat; a turtle in a bonnet with a basket of eggs; and a large black swan.

"There are quite a few heading to Baldam," I remarked to the Gryphon.

He frowned slightly, wagging his large tufted ears. "I'd be very surprised indeed if very many were going to Baldam, however attractive a destination it may be. Most will, like me, be catching the following bus, which is for the City. More people go to and from the City than any other destination, so statistically I would assume so too is the majority of this motley crew."

"Do you live in the City?"

"Goodness no! Although I have been tempted by the pay and availability of work. I'm a teacher, young man. I teach at a school in a town perhaps nine leagues from here. I teach Mathematics and General Science at a Lower Secondary Modern. I have been enticed by the opportunity to teach at a City Grammar School or perhaps even one in Baldam, but my wife and children are happy where they are so relocation is quite unlikely for the moment."

"What's your school like?"

"A very ordinary school, young man. With a very ordinary syllabus: Latin, Greek, Home Economics, Physical Education, Geography. Not very different, I imagine, from the school you attended."

"Perhaps," I replied, reflecting that none of my teachers had beaks, wings and leonine tails. "I suppose schools are much the same wherever you go..."

"Well, you're showing your ignorance there, young man. As a result of the incoherence of the Coition government's education policies there's quite a free-for-all of approved syllabi in this nation. Boroughs are at liberty to institute any model of education they wish. In this town, for instance, the children are not so much educated as indoctrinated. And indoctrinated it seems to me in the most appalling nonsense that there ever was. There are boroughs dominated by one or other of the multitude of churches where even such basic facts as the law of evolution, the principle of genetics, the curvature of space and Gödel's Theorem are denied them. I abhor education which seeks not so much to enlighten as to conceal."

The Gryphon snorted his distaste and reorganised his newspaper. Whites May Lose Out to Blacks, I briefly glimpsed. Reds Get the Blues, another headline ambiguously announced.

"The objectives of education are forever perverted by ideological or religious prejudice. Education isn't simply to fit students into a mould determined by national or local government. It has the much nobler task of adapting future citizens to an unpredictable future and inculcate values of common decency and virtue without which the realm will degenerate into ignorance and dullness. It is education's duty to anticipate the changes ahead and ensure that the student has the appropriate grounding in Ancient Latin, Classical Mythology or Euclidean Geometry to confront that future.

"Undoubtedly, education must also pertain to ethical instruction. Without moral guidance, who is to say what degrees of amorality may pervade in the future? I would hate to see any pupil of mine ignorant of the proper rules of etiquette; lacking appreciation and respect for their elders and betters. I despair of the so-called modern schools in the City which provide not even the minimum of moral guidance, complying with anarchistic doctrines that assert that the pupil's character is like a flower that blossoms when abandoned to free expression. Such a flower will simply be swamped by weeds and be a very sorry sight indeed."

"Aren't there other reasons for education?" I questioned, finding the Gryphon's views remarkably similar to those held by teachers in the Suburbs.

"Yes, indeed," the Gryphon agreed, thoughtfully scratching the feathers on his chin with a claw. "There is the provision of an educated and skilled workforce. What hope has any society unless it has the army of doctors, lawyers, accountants, clerks, estate agents, teachers and Classics scholars that all societies need?"

The Gryphon paused to further re-organise his newspaper. He smoothed it flat with a claw so that the half-finished crossword faced upwards. He looked back at me. "Where is it that you come from, young man?"

"The Suburbs."

"I guessed so. People from there are very distinctive. But you don't find many of them so far away as this. So, why have you left the Suburbs? Are you considering settling down in the fair city of Lambdeth?"

"No, I'm actually on a quest. A quest for the Truth."

"The Truth? You're not an Illicitist are you?"

"No, not at all. I was intent on finding the Truth before I was aware that anyone else was interested."

"Is that so? I must say it is a most curious endeavour for someone from the Suburbs to engage in. But as they say, it takes all sorts! Even in the Suburbs there must be some with a penchant for the crazy, the futile and the misguided. My advice to you, young man, is simply to abandon your quest now, take your bus to Lambdeth and, after a short holiday, return to the Suburbs. You will never find the Truth by travelling about the nation by omnibus."

"Is it totally futile?" I asked, discomfited by the Gryphon's apparent common sense.

"In the way you're going about it ... frankly, yes!" The Gryphon lowered his eyes to his crossword, hummed softly and then returned his gaze to me. "The Truth, young man, is not a physical thing that you can just go off and look for, whatever these fanatics in this town may say. The Truth is nothing more and nothing less than the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the ages: exactly what I am paid to impart to my pupils and with which they will carry on the noble tradition of imparting the same wisdom to future generations. The Truth is just a convenient term for the knowledge gathered under such more precise headings as English Literature, Trigonometry, Algebra, Political Geography, Inorganic Chemistry and Religious Education. There is nothing mystical, fantastic or exotic about the Truth. It doesn't wait for us in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It doesn't live with the fairies at the bottom of the garden (and they have assured me of that!) It is something to be unearthed only after long hours of dedicated study and research, poring over books in libraries, taking notes in lectures and doing the exercises attached to the end of every text book chapter."

"Is the Truth really as dull as all that?"

"It is. It must be. It is prosaic, unexciting and unremarkable."

"Is it possible to know all the Truth there is to know?"

"Of course not. Well not for anyone of your species or mine, although no doubt the boffins are working hard at inventing machines which could store all the knowledge that currently exists and all that may exist in the future. What they would make of such an enormous amount of knowledge, I don't know. So, if you still seek the Truth, take advantage of your visit to Lambdeth and ensconce yourself in the university library."

The Gryphon sighed and looked at the company gathered around the bus station. He discreetly indicated the woman in the green overcoat who was reading a magazine on her lap. "Do you recognise her at all, young man?"

I scrutinised the woman carefully. She was too engrossed in her magazine to notice that we were watching her. "No, I can't say I do."

"I may be wrong, and I am definitely not an expert on these matters, but I believe she's a film actress. But what she's doing here, I don't know!"

"A film actress! Are you sure?"

"Not at all. But if she is the actress I think then she makes her living from displaying her naked body to the prurient and dissolute. An immoral and shameless harlot."

"A pornographic actress?"

"No less! And what more disgusting occupation can there be? Other than prostitution of course. Spreading filth and low morals to the weak minded and the easily led. Totally perverting the moral purpose and æsthetic value of her profession. I have often had to confiscate pornographic material from my pupils and I am certain that her face is one I have seen in magazines about the pornographic film industry. Well, not certain, but the likeness is rather remarkable."

"Is that so?"

Although fairly attractive there was nothing about the way she dressed or behaved that would lead me to suspect this.

"Pornography is just one thing about modern film and theatre I find impossible to condone. And it is not merely the nature of pornography I find unacceptable, but the way it has demeaned the noble theatrical tradition represented by Shakespeare, the author of Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucretia. Theatre should raise the sensibilities of the audience with unambiguous moral messages and refined æstheticism. It is, or should be, an educational tool to supplement the pedagogical tradition in moulding the character. It is both instruction and a joy to those in full possession of their critical faculties."