The History Man

by Malcolm Bradbury

  V

  The Kirks and Beamishes have known each other for a very long time, since the days in Leeds, in fact, where Howard and Henry were graduate students together. Over the years in Watermouth they have seen a good deal of each other; it is one of those relationships which, based on an old friendship, keeps on running its course, even though the subscribing parties to it have all changed and have little really to say to each other. The Beamishes have come to the Kirk parties; the Kirks go to the Beamishes; they talk a lot to one another, over the telephone and in person. There have even been closer intimacies. Once, in the days of 1968, when everything was unsettled, Howard went out to the farmhouse, after a telephone call from Myra. Henry was out teaching an evening class on Conflict in Modern Society, at an adult education centre in one of the nearby seaside towns; Myra was sitting on the sofa crying; Howard went to bed with her. It was a failed, unrepeated occasion; he remembers nothing about the event but the anxiety afterwards, with himself on his knees, naked, wiping all trace of his presence from the bedroom carpet, while Myra made the bed, hoovered the house, emptied the ashtrays and washed all the glasses, to make everything exactly and precisely as it was before. The space between them was growing wide then, and now seems immeasurable; today the Kirks have only to look at Myra, sitting there, a knife in her hand, in that old chiffon party dress no one else in their entire acquaintance would wear, to see how much they themselves have changed, developed, grown up with experience, since they first came to Watermouth. As for the Beamishes, they profess somehow to understand the Kirks, to be privileged intimates; what they do not understand is that the Kirks they understand are people of several protean distillations back, people they themselves cannot remember ever having been.

  Meanwhile the Beamishes, like some extraordinary historical measuring rod, have managed to persist just as they were when the Kirks first found them in Watermouth. Enormities have torn through the world, tempers have altered; the Beamishes have become different only by their obstinacy in staying the same, living on in a strange cocoon of old experience which strains them without altering them. Or have they altered? The Kirks look at Myra, as she cries in their kitchen, her outrage stated. Howard remembers her tearful unease of years ago; he thinks, disconfirmingly, of Henry, and what he has become. For Henry has now grown fat; he has taken to talking in a loud, heavy voice; he has become noticeably lazy. In the department, in the common-room, when intellectual matters are discussed, he has acquired a manner of shifting conversation round to questions of manure and pasture and the state of nature in general. When Howard or others try to push him on sociological or political matters, he looks pained. Once, in Howard's study, as they had gone through finals marks together, he had begun to cry a little and accuse Howard of damaging his career, in ways he could not quite name; Howard, it seemed, by doing what Henry had always intended to do, had stopped Henry from doing it himself. 'That's foolish,' Howard had said; 'I've become foolish,' Henry had said. And Myra, too, has darkened and become stranger; she noticeably drinks more, and talks frenziedly at parties, as if there were nowhere else in the world to talk. 'Why?' he says to her. 'Why do you want to leave him?'

  Myra 's expression is blank but slightly mystified, as if she had not expected such a question; surely the Kirks have an instinctive comprehension of all marital disillusion. 'I suppose for the most obvious of all reasons,' she says, 'I want the chance to exist, which I've been denied. I'd like to assert my identity. That is, Howard, if you've left me with one.'

  'Of course,' says Howard. 'Where is it, then?' asks Myra. Barbara says: ' Myra, has Henry done something to you?'

  'No,' says Myra, picking up the knife, and starting slicing at the bread again, 'he never does anything to me. That's why he's so boring. If I were asked to define my condition, I'd say boredom. I'm bored because he never does anything to me, and nor does anyone or anything else. Am I making sense?'

  'I think so, Myra,' says Barbara. 'Doesn't he sleep with you?'

  'Oh, it's not that,' says Myra. 'He does, in his own trite way. But, contrary to prevailing opinion, that's no revelation. Someone should write a book on the boredom of orgasm. Why don't you, Howard?'

  'Howard's not bored,' says Barbara. 'Look, have you tried anyone else?' Myra, her face a little red, looks down at the table. 'That's just not the issue,' says Myra. 'There's no one else.'

  'You're not leaving him for anyone?'

  'No,' says Myra, 'I'm leaving him for me.'

  'What will you do?' asks Barbara. 'I don't know,' says Myra. 'It's push, not pull, that's driving me.'

  'But what is the issue?' asks Howard. 'What is it you want that you don't have?'

  'Well, obviously,' says Myra, with a little impatience, 'absence from Henry.'

  The Kirks, compassionate instructors in the arts of separation, look at each other. 'I don't think you've told us much yet,' says Howard. 'You must have been thinking about this for a long time. You must know what it is your marriage isn't expressing.'

  'It isn't expressing anything at all,' says Myra. 'You might say it was silent.'

  'But you're not silent,' says Howard, 'you've something in yourself to be said.'

  'Yes,' says Myra. 'Ouch.'

  'And Henry?' asks Howard. 'Does he feel the same?'

  'Howard,' says Myra, 'have you inspected Henry lately? Don't you find him banal? Don't you think really he's become ridiculous?'

  'I've worried about Henry,' says Howard. 'I'm concerned for him.'

  'Well, can't you imagine me wanting to be free of him?'

  'But haven't you talked about it? A marriage is a thing in common; you have something to do with his nature,' says Barbara. 'I think that sounds a nasty question,' says Myra, 'as if I'm to blame. But he shapes me much more than I do him. The man shapes the woman. He has the advantages. He sets the pace.'

  'But you've not talked,' says Howard. 'No,' says Myra, 'there's nothing to talk about. You always said marriage was an archaic institution. Now you seem to want me to stay with him.'

  'Oh, no,' says Howard. 'Howard doesn't mean that,' says Barbara, 'he just wants to get into the question of where things went wrong.' Myra begins to cry again. She says: 'I thought you'd agree with me.'

  'We're not trying to stop you leaving him,' says Barbara, 'we want you to understand what you're doing.'

  'I think I do understand that,' says Myra, 'I'm quitting while the going's good.'

  'Have you thought of asking what's wrong with Henry?' asks Barbara. 'Trying to help him?'

  'I've been trying to help him ever since we married,' says Myra. 'You've been married as long as we have. It was the year after, wasn't it? You know what things are like.' Howard looks at Barbara; he says, 'Ah, but ours hasn't been one marriage. It's been several.'

  Myra sits at the table, and contemplates this undoubted truth for a moment. She looks up at the Kirks, standing, one on each side of her, custodians of the coupled relationship, concerned, a striking pair. She says, 'Oh, you two. I don't know how you do it.'

  'How we do what?' asks Barbara. 'Have such a good relationship,' Myra says warmly. 'I wouldn't exactly boast,' says Barbara. 'Do you remember when Howard and I split up in Leeds?'

  'Of course,' says Myra, 'but you talked to each other and got back together again. You learned to deal with each other. We never will.' Howard says, ' Myra, everyone's life looks more successful from the outside. Ours has been a fight. We've had our disasters.' He takes Myra 's glass, and pours some more wine into it. 'But you bounce back,' says Myra. 'Thanks a lot, love.'

  'I suppose it's a question of being determined to keep up with every stage of life,' says Barbara, 'of never relaxing.'

  'You've just been more mature about it than the rest of us,' says Myra. The word 'mature' rings pleasantly with the Kirks; they look at each other with some pleasure. 'I think yours is the only successful academic marriage I know,' says Myra. 'What's wrong with the others?' asks Howard. 'You know what's wrong,' says Myra. 'Look around you at all these sad pairs
. How can they work? The man goes out to the university, his mind's alive, he's fresh with new ideas.'

  'Sometimes it's the woman,' says Barbara. 'Even the women are men,' says Myra. 'He talks all day to pretty students who know all about structuralism, and have read Parsons and Dahrendorf, and can say "charisma" properly, and understand the work he's doing. Then he comes home to a wife who's been dusting and cleaning. He says "Parsons" and "Dahrendorf", and she says "Huh?" What can he do? He either gives her a tutorial, and thinks she's pretty B minus, or he shuts up and eats the ratatouille.'

  'She should work,' says Barbara. 'Oh, fine,' says Myra, 'except she keeps getting older, and the students manage to stay eighteen. And then comes the bit where all your friends start separating and divorcing, because the husbands run off with the alpha students who can say "charisma".'

  'Do you think Henry wants to run off with an alpha student?' asks Barbara. Myra looks at her. 'No,' she says, 'not Henry, he hasn't that much ambition. He might sort of stumble into walking off slowly with a beta student. Maybe I'd like him better if he did.'

  Barbara says, 'You mean you blame him because he does stay at home.'

  'That's right,' says Myra. 'Much more of this bloody connubial bliss, and I swear we'll kill each other, Henry and me.' Howard laughs; he says, ' Myra, you really don't make sense.'

  'I'm not as clever as you,' says Myra, 'but I want to leave him. And I came to you so that you could tell me why and how. You're experts, aren't you?' There is carbonise outside in the terrace. 'Oh, Christ,' says Barbara, 'I must go and put on my dress.' Myra says suddenly, 'Look, you mustn't tell Henry I'm leaving him. I haven't told him myself yet.'

  'We'll have to have a longer talk,' says Barbara. 'Tomorrow, call me.'

  'I'll probably be gone by then,' says Myra. 'You won't,' says Howard. 'I mean it,' says Myra. 'Yes,' says Barbara. 'Go and let them in, Howard.'

  'Is my face a mess?' asks Myra, as they hear Barbara's feet rushing up the stairs. 'You're fine,' says Howard. 'Do you remember when we slept together?' says Myra. 'Yes, we did once, didn't we?' says Howard. 'The only time,' says Myra, looking at him. 'The only bloody time I ever did it. I bet you find that extremely ridiculous.'

  'No, I don't,' says Howard. 'I want to fix my face a bit,' says Myra, 'you go and welcome your guests. I hope I've not spoiled things.'

  'Of course not, Myra,' says Howard, and he goes out of the kitchen and along the cool long hall to the front of the house, to open the door to arrivals.

  He opens the door. Out over the town the sodium lights are lit, and they cast an artificial red tint into the air, illustrating the jagged shapes of the decrepit houses opposite, where no one lives. The bright lights from the windows of the Kirks' house fall out over the old, broken pavement stones of the terrace, which are drying now, for the rain has stopped. In the terrace a big black Daimler hearse, of rather old vintage, has come to a stop. There are artificial flowers stuck in its elegant silver flower-holders; on the etched glass of the long side window is a sticker, saying, 'Make Africa Black'. The rear window rises; out slide three young men, all in jeans; two more descend from the front, one wearing a floppy leather hat, the other carrying a guitar. They begin to walk towards Howard's front door. Now a reconstituted pre-war Standard Eight, in good condition, halts across the street. A thin young man in a black leather jacket gets out of the driving seat, and goes round to the passenger door to draw forth a very pregnant woman, in loose top and trousers. They too cross the street toward the Kirks' bright house. Behind Howard there is a bustle; Barbara comes hurrying down the stairs, her hair up in a social bun, her healthy peasant bosom thrusting through the lines of a pink velvet Biba dress she has brought back from her most recent trip to London, her face bright. She comes and stands beside Howard in the hall, her hand on his shoulder. 'First arrivals,' says Barbara. 'Come on in,' says Howard. They stand together, Barbara big and blonde, Howard neat in his turned down moustache. The students come in freely, saying 'Hi,' their unfitting shoes flapping on the sealed wood floor. The other couple, a sociologist from Howard's department, a new appointment, and his very round wife, are more nervous; they stand in hesitation on the threshold, each looking equally weighted by the heavy pregnancy. 'You must be the Kirks,' says the sociologist. 'My name's Macintosh.'

  'Come inside,' says Howard, the manager of this social theatre, 'I'll bring some drinks.'

  'This is nice,' says Macintosh, looking around, 'you really know how to live.' They go through into the living-room; Howard gives out drinks; the students sit in a circle on the floor, while the Macintoshes stand, he dour, she sharp with the divine anger of the bright wife.

  Outside there are more arrivals; souped-up minis, beach-buggies, psychedelically painted wrecks are drawing into the terrace, the first of many that will park in the broken curve and then in the streets beyond. The people begin to come in; there are people in old suits that look new and new jeans that look old. There are students and youths in Afghan yak, loon-pants, combat-wear, wet-look plastic; bearded Jesuses, long-haired androgynes, girls with pouting plum-coloured mouths. There are somewhat older people, the young faculty, serious young men, bright young women, bearing babies in harnesses on their backs, or in carrycots, slung between them, that are subsequently disposed of in many corners of the house. The groups that began as separate and compartmentalized begin to merge and mix; the few becomes a crowd, and moves from room to room. The students begin to talk to the faculty, and both groups begin to talk to the third, the strangers: a civic leader from the local Pakistani community, a young man in dark sunglasses who owns the town's sex shop, which is called Easy Come, a Women's Lib polemicist from London in an Afro fright-wig, a radical Catholic priest and his Ouspenskyite mistress, the man with the Smile badge from the wine store, and, much later, when the performance is over, the entire cast and production staff of the nude touring production of The Importance of Being Earnest, in Watermouth this week. Howard is busy and protean, a knowing host, a master in the enterprise of sociability. Now he stands at the door or circulates carrying a bottle, negotiating contact and association. Now he disappears backstage, to shift a table, open a door, expose a bed, remove a strategic fuse from the fusebox in the hall, to advance the contingent but onward progress of the illusion that is taking place under his guidance. He watches social animation jerk into operation. He sees the dresses flutter, the clothes flash and, with precision, does all he can with light and sound and movement to stimulate the performance. Talk begins to rise in level, to fill all the aural spaces; conjugal loyalties begin to dissipate; peer-group affiliations start to shift; cathexis takes place; people talk to and touch and tease one another.

  Now, in the Victorian conservatory at the back of the house, the lights have almost gone out, and rhythmic dancing has started. The group from the theatre arrive, talking very loudly. A local vigilante group, with signs saying 'Keep Britain Clothed', have picketed the theatre, and this has made them passionate and argumentative. They have also brought with them several bottles of spirits, which they pass liberally around.

  Their arrival has the effect of increasing social particle-drift, the patterns of fission and fusion. The party has found new obstacles and options in new places. The collective appetite has struck, as food has been discovered; tables arranged with cheese and paté have been suddenly cleared. Upstairs, Howard puts a record on a player; downstairs, from speakers in a bookcase, the voice of Joan Baez sounds. Momentarily, another of the impresarios appears; Barbara, in her long pink dress, passes around with olives and pretzels, saying, 'Eat, I'm a Jewish mother.' A small, podgy girl named Anita Dollfuss, in her second year, wearing long curled hair with an Indian headband, steel-frame spectacles and a patchwork skirt almost too long to walk in, has arrived dragging a small, brown terrier on a string. Mrs Macintosh, who, having made her timely appearance, has been sagging slowly downwards towards the floor all evening, is put to sleep on a daybed. The rumour has passed that there are drugs upstairs, which has spread the par
ty upward through the house. Someone has gone to fetch a guru who was advertised to be in town, but who will never in fact arrive at the party. A German lectrice in a see-through blouse is being encouraged to take it off. Howard stands at the head of the stairs and surveys the spectacle. 'My wife and I have an arrangement,' says a man sitting on the top stair, to a girl. 'That's what all the married men say,' says the girl. 'This is different,' says the man, 'my wife doesn't know about it.' The downstairs of the house looks like a vast museum of costume, as if all the forms and styles of the past have been made synchronic and here, in Howard's own house, have converged, and blurred; performers from medieval mystery plays, historical romances, dramas of trench warfare, proletarian documentaries, Victorian drawing-room farces play simultaneously in one eclectic, post-modern collage that is a pure and open form, a self-generating happening.

  Howard walks down the stairs in pleasure, feeling the dull and contingent reality of things mysteriously transformed. He looks at these people, instinct with the times, and feels their newness, their possibility. He goes from mouth to mouth in the crush, looks into eye after eye, hunting the contemporary passion. 'Would that be an authentic kind of guilt?' asks someone. 'That marvellous surrealistic sequence in colour towards the end,' says someone else. Downstairs Mrs Macintosh has some time back declared labour pains; there has been much fuss as she has been driven off to hospital in the Standard Eight. The divine anger of wives has sensed a case of suppression; anxious about her interrupted career in social work, which is being sacrificed for mere child-bearing, they are becoming neurotic about their own careers as well. Meanwhile her husband, Dr Macintosh, has returned to the party; he sits in the hall by the telephone, with his own bottle, an object of curiosity and contemplation. At the front door, Anita Dollfuss's small, brown, untrained terrier has bitten the ankle of a new arrival: the arrival is Henry Beamish, who has come on foot, looking dishevelled, wearing a big bush hat, and having the manner of one fresh from a dangerous safari. He is taken upstairs for antisepsis, his hat still on and tipped over one eye. 'Sit, Mao,' says Anita Dollfuss to the dog. In the living-room, faces and voices throw violent sound around; it is the noise of man, growing. 'Kant's version of the inextricable entanglements of perceptual phenomena,' says someone. 'I'm low because I'm high,' says someone else. By the wall Barbara is talking to a small, dark girl standing by herself, in a white hat and a dark-blue trouser suit. 'What kind of contraceptive do you use?' asks Barbara socially. 'What about you, Mrs Kirk?' says the girl, who has a mild Scots accent. 'Oh, I'm Pill,' says Barbara, 'I used to be Bung but now I'm Pill. What's your method?'