The History Man (34 page)

XIII

And now it is the winter again; the people, having come back, are going away again. The autumn, in which the passions rise, the tensions mount, the strikes accumulate, the newspapers fill with disaster, is over. Christmas is coming; the goose is getting fat, and the papers getting thin; things are stopping happening. In the drives the cars are being packed, and the people are ready, in relief, to be off, to Positano or the Public Record Office, Moscow or mother, for the lapse of the festive season. There are coloured lights along the promenade, now on, now off, according to the rhythm of the power strikes; Nixon is back in office for a second term, and there is talk of seasonal truce in Ulster. Mock fir trees decked with empty tinsel packages stand in the pedestrian precinct where the shoppers crowd and generate a minor economic boom among consumables; there are train crashes and plane crashes, as there always seem to be over this season. Snow flurries over the sea; people assume cheeriness; telephones ring to transmit Yuletide compliments. The Kirks, that well-known couple, catch the mood and decide to have a party. They have, actually, had a party at this point in time, the end of the autumn term, the first term of the year up at the new university spreading on the hill, for the past two winters. But it is hardly a tradition with them, and can hardly be, for who can predict ahead of time the strifes and dissensions, the fallings out and the fallings in, that will come upon a group of intelligent people like this when they get together to generate the onward march of mind, the onward process of history. In any case the Kirks are, of course, enormously busy people, with two full lives, and two separate diaries; they are not in the house together very much; there is little space for planning and conversation, with so much in the world to do. But as it happens they do find themselves in the house together, in that last week of term; and though the strife has been considerable, the term wearing, and their own relationship uncertain, for when one is up the other is down, yet some atavistic instinct manages to seize them. They look at each other, with natural suspicion; they examine the mood and the milieu; they say, but not very certainly, ‘Yes.' And then they fetch the common household diary – Howard had fetched it last time, so Barbara fetches it this – and they sit down together with it, in the pine kitchen, and inspect the busy pages. There is a free date that suits them both quite equally, and does not affect their separate plans. They seize it; the date is Friday 15 December, the last day of the term.

After the instinct about the party has come to them, an instinct so tentative and uncertain that neither is quite sure whom to blame for it, the Kirks go together into their living room and pour themselves out a glass of beer each, and they begin to plan it. It is a small inspection of their present relationships; and it becomes quickly clear that it will be a thinner, smaller party than their last one, held at the beginning of this same term, when the prospects were pleasing and the future full of options. For wear and tear have overtaken the Kirks, and their friendships, and their friends. There have been splits and dissensions, and changes of partner and changes of alliance; new divorces pend, new political associations burgeon. He no longer speaks to her; they no longer speak to them; it is not easy to plan a party, unless one is very
au courant
with movement and mood, but the Kirks have a way of being that, and they build up their list accordingly. There are people who, it can be taken, will not now come when summoned by the Kirks; there are people the Kirks will not now summon under any circumstances. The people are already in the process of leaving, for the final week of term is a reading week, and many students have surreptitiously disappeared, and some faculty; there are many with other commitments, caucuses, or affairs. There will be, therefore, no ministrations from Flora Beniform, for she has been absent for the last three weeks; fieldwork in West Bromwich, where there has been a significant outbreak of troilism, has called her away. There will be no Roger Fundy, for he is committed in London that day, appearing before magistrates on a charge of assaulting the police, a consequence of a recent Grosvenor Square demonstration against Cambodian policy. There will be no Leon, for Leon is touring with
Much Ado About Nothing
in Australia, and no avant-gardists from the local theatre, for the cast of
Puss in Boots
is not Kirk company. But there are others, a bouncing if battered crew of survivors, for the radical cause at Watermouth this term has had its victories, and there is every reason to appear in good humour. So the wind beats on the windows, and the night comes in fast; the lights flicker in the broken houses across the streets; the Kirks sit in their corduroy Habitat chairs, and name names and plan delights; the party takes on its modest shape.

After a while, Barbara rises, and goes to the door of the living room. ‘Felicity,' she shouts into the complex acoustics of the hall, ‘Howard and I are busy planning this party. I wonder whether you'd mind bathing the children tonight?' ‘Yes, I do mind,' shouts Felicity from somewhere, probably the lavatory, where she spends much time, ‘I'm tired of being exploited.' ‘I don't know what's the matter with Felicity,' says Barbara, sitting down again in the corduroy chair. ‘Never mind,' says Howard, ‘I think she's in another crisis.' ‘I expect you stopped laying her,' says Barbara, ‘you might have thought of me.' ‘I try to do my best,' says Howard, ‘but there's so much.' ‘Yes, we gathered,' says Barbara, ‘from Carmody's camera.' ‘What about the Beamishes?' asks Howard. ‘Or is it Beamish and Beamish?' ‘They're together,' says Barbara, ‘they have been ever since Dr Beniform went away. But would they come if you invited them?' ‘Henry's a friend of mine,' says Howard. ‘Still?' asks Barbara. ‘After Mangel? I can't imagine he ever wants to see you again.' ‘Oh, Henry sees the other point of view,' says Howard. But there is good reason to wonder, for, if the high point of radical success in the term was the occasion of the Mangel lecture, it did not go exactly well for Henry. For the department did issue its invitation to Mangel, and there was much dissent among the faculty, and much resentment, and the news penetrated with great and mysterious speed to the radical student groups on campus who, having already managed two sit-ins, felt in great strength and in a mood of unprecedented cooperativeness one with another. They put up many posters, and held many meetings, some addressed by Howard, that martyr of Carmodian persecution; on the day of the lecture a great crowd gathered, outside the Beatrice Webb Lecture Theatre, where the event was to take place, chanting and angry. Professor Mangel had indicated in advance that his topic would be ‘Do Rats Have “Families”?', but this was found a typical liberal evasion, and indignation ran the higher, and many bodies lay down and obstructed all the entrances to the room, while massive and hostile forces assembled inside, making the radical point with roars and posters.

‘It was Henry's own fault,' says Howard, recalling the famous victory. ‘He was determined to be provocative. Henry makes accidents.' ‘There are people who feel he was the only one who behaved decently,' says Barbara. ‘Christ, Barbara,' asks Howard, ‘are you going soft in your old age?' ‘I didn't like it,' says Barbara. The unfortunate thing was that the task of introduction had fallen to Henry; it should more properly have gone to Professor Marvin, but he had suddenly confessed himself afflicted by an alternative engagement, in Edinburgh, giving a lecture on messianism, or failing that to Mangel's old pupil, Dr Beniform, but she had been claimed by the demanding affairs of West Bromwich. In the event, it was Henry, who, that day, had stepped carefully through the bodies, and entered the forbidden space of the Lecture Theatre. ‘Why didn't he just tell them what had happened?' asks Howard. ‘Oh, you'd have been disappointed if he had,' says Barbara. For Henry had stood at the podium, stark with his bandaged arm; he had said, politely, ‘I ask you all to disperse.' Peter Madden had pushed in front of Henry; he had announced to the audience, ‘This lecture is forbidden by radical opinion.' The audience had roared its assent, ‘Forbidden, forbidden,' and ‘Fascist, fascist,' and then Henry had been unwise. He had pushed Peter Madden aside with his good arm; he had waved his bad one; he had shouted, ‘You're the fascists; this is a crime against free speech.' Then the crowd had pushed and jostled; Melissa Todoroff, noticeable in the audience for her poster ‘Hysterectomize Mangel', had thrown a bread bun at Henry; this had unleashed the forces, who surged onto the podium, and knocked Henry's unsteady body down, and somehow, in the mêlée, trampled him underfoot. In their anger they had then rushed to his office, left unlocked; they had pulled open the filing cabinets, and tipped out or stolen the papers; they had broken the silver-framed mirror; they had poured tea out of the Teasmaid over the Norwegian rugs, and then smashed the Teasmaid; they had tossed his research notes into the mess.

‘He. needn't have been provocative,' says Howard, ‘he could simply have told them about Mangel.' ‘Myra says he was afraid they might cheer,' says Barbara, ‘and that he couldn't have borne.' In fact it was not until the next day, when Henry was in hospital, that the news about Mangel became known; of the many there that day, only Mangel had neglected to come, having died, the evening previous to the lecture, of a heart attack, in his London apartment. ‘Let's ask him, anyway,' says Howard, ‘it will give him a chance to make his peace.' ‘The more we go into this,' says Barbara, ‘the more I feel the last thing we need is a party. I think it's a very doubtful celebration.' ‘You thought that last time,' says Howard, ‘and it cheered you up.' ‘My God, Howard,' says Barbara, ‘what in hell do you know about my cheerfulness or my misery? What access do you have to any of my feelings? What do you know about me now?' ‘You're fine,' says Howard. ‘I'm appallingly miserable,' says Barbara. ‘Tell me why?' asks Howard. ‘I prefer not to,' says Barbara. ‘Okay,' says Howard, ‘you need a party.' ‘My God,' says Barbara, but they go on planning, and talking. A bit later on they go out into the hall, and one stands by and the other makes calls, and then they reverse roles, for the Kirks do everything together and in fairness. Sometimes the telephone is not answered, and sometimes the answer is a refusal; but there is, as they surmise, the human stuff ready and available to be a party, a seasonal, Christmassy party. ‘It'll be fine,' says Howard. Afterwards they eat, and later they go to bed, and lie on each other. ‘What you need is a break,' says Howard afterwards, ‘there's just been too much happening.' ‘To you,' says Barbara, ‘not to me. Name one thing that in any good sense has lately happened to me?' ‘Go up to London and shop,' says Howard. ‘Buy presents.' ‘There's nothing there,' says Barbara, ‘nothing at all there.'

And the days go by, and Howard tidies up at the university, setting vacation essays, inviting the students who still manage, somehow, to be about to his party, and then it is the morning of Friday 15 December. The Kirks rise, early and together, they go down the stairs and into the kitchen. Felicity Phee, who still sleeps in their guest bedroom, is sitting at the pine table, dark-eyed, in her drawstring top and long skirt, eating toast; the children are somewhere, she does not know where. ‘It's a pretty busy day,' says Barbara, ‘I hope you can give me a hand.' ‘Actually I'm packing,' says Felicity, ‘I think you've had all the help from me you want.' ‘But how will I manage tomorrow?' asks Barbara. ‘Tomorrow will sort itself, Barbara,' says Felicity, ‘you'll manage. I'm sure there's always someone who'll do all those jobs just so they can have the marvellous company of the Kirks.' ‘Have we upset you, Felicity?' asks Barbara. ‘Well,' says Felicity, ‘I suppose a person always has to keep moving on. I'm just into something else. I'm joining a Hare Krishna community.' ‘Oh, Felicity, that's not you,' says Barbara. ‘I don't think too much is known around here about what's me,' says Felicity, ‘I've done a lot for you both. I mean, I have, haven't I, Howard?' ‘Yes,' says Howard, ‘a great deal.' ‘Well, you sort of hope to get something out of that, and if it doesn't work out, well, you have to keep moving. That's Dr Kirk's advice. He likes people to keep moving.' ‘Oh, good,' says Barbara, ‘you've discussed it.' ‘I mean, I don't say there's so much that's smart about his advice,' says Felicity, ‘but that's his job, and I suppose he sort of knows something about it. Maybe.' ‘You're angry with us, I'm sorry,' says Barbara. ‘It's all right,' says Felicity, ‘you're just not my kind of scene any more.' ‘Anyway, stay for the party,' says Howard. ‘Maybe I will,' says Felicity, ‘if you mean just be around. I mean, not work. Just enjoying myself.' ‘That's right,' says Howard.

Howard goes and fetches the van; the Kirks get in. ‘I think you exploited her,' says Barbara, as they drive up the hill towards the shopping precinct. ‘Still, as you always say, everybody exploits somebody. I'll get the food, you get the wine.' The Kirks move through the precinct, with its artificial fir trees, its massed crowds, its abundance of shiny goods. Then they drive back down to the damaged terrace; there is just time to get the children off to school. ‘Last day, last day,' shout the children, as they get into the van. Howard, along with the other mothers, drops them and then goes into the university, to dictate letters, say goodbyes. The trunks are piled up for collection by British Rail outside Toynbee and Spengler; buses are taking students down to the station. From the administration building still hang tattered remnants from the sit-ins of the term; a red banner saying ‘Come on in, it's living' and another saying ‘Fight repression'. A small burn mark on the concrete indicates the area where a radical faction tried to advance the protest further by starting a fire. The campus, emptying, looks like a deserted battlefield; inside there are dark corridors and cold rooms where fuel economies amount to social dysfunction. Everywhere is the worn, public look of a place that has seen much, and is used by everybody, and belongs to nobody. Howard sits there, in the purity of his anonymous room; he works and he telephones; he looks with pleasure over the landscape of his late victories. In mid-afternoon, he goes through the littered Piazza to his van, and drives into town, to pick up the children from school. The schoolyard is buoyant with farewells, crowded with parents; Martin and Celia run to the van bearing toilet-roll Santas, and child art calendars, and an attempt, on Martin's part, at a crib. Martin has a black eye; Celia's boutique dress is torn. ‘What happened to you?' asks Howard, as they get in. ‘Oh,' says Celia, ‘we had a party.'