The History Man

by Malcolm Bradbury

  'Well, that's what we all want, isn't it?' asks Howard, 'sweetness and light and plenty of Mozart. But we can't have it, and you can hardly sit back and rest on your own record. If that's life, Henry, you're not very good at it, are you?'

  'No,' says Henry, 'that's the whole sad little comedy. The personal, which is what I believe in, I can't bloody well manage. I'm stuck. And that's why it's no use your worrying about me. I don't want my soul saved. I don't want to be grist to the historical mill.'

  'But what about Myra?' asks Howard. 'Right,' says Henry. ' Myra is the optimum point of suffering that arises. I'm a disaster for her. I know it. I look at her, and the feeling I count on doesn't come: the love, the enormity of otherness, I'm after and can't get. There are occasional cheap sparks: some student with nice legs comes alive in the chair in front of me, or the nagging caring about Myra, which is a sort of love. I wish the funds were there, I'd like to spend them on her, but they're not. Well, it's not hard to provide a psychological profile or a political explanation for all this. Actually I can probably do it nearly as well as you can, Howard. Or could, if we were talking about someone else. But in this case it's me. And there's not much help for being that, thanks, Howard. I do appreciate your thinking about me.'

  'You mean you'll let Myra go,' says Howard. 'Isn't that what you'd advise her to do, anyway?' asks Henry. 'And me to find someone else?'

  'I suppose so,' says Howard.

  Just then Henry looks up, and stares, and says: 'My God, look at the time. I promised Myra I'd be home at seven to eat her steak. I can't tell you the row there'll be if I'm late.' There is an old railway station clock over the bar, which says that the time is six forty-five. 'I've got a busy evening too,' says Howard, 'we'd better rush.'

  'Howard, would you mind doing up my top button again?' says Henry, and Howard fastens the button, and helps Henry up from the bench. 'Goodnight, Chlöe,' calls Henry, as they hurry out of the Gaslight Room. 'Night night, Mr Beamish,' calls Chlöe. 'Take care, don't have another accident.' They go through the cold car park to the van, and get in, and Howard drives them out onto the main road and out toward the countryside. They go at speed through the rurality of Henry's kingdom, down narrow lanes, covered in big wet leaves, through fords, over small bridges, down rutted tracks. Dark creaking branches lean over the van; the wheels slip and skid; small animals appear under the wheels and force them to swerve. The cart-track to the farmhouse is on a high bank, but they reach it safely. Stopping the van, Howard can see that, in the kitchen, where he had eaten cheese and biscuits with Myra on the evening when Henry was out, there is a light. 'Come inside a minute and have a word with Myra,' says Henry, getting out of the van, his briefcase clutched in his good hand. 'She seems to be in.' And surely enough the back door opens, and there is Myra, in an apron, standing on the steps; she waves to Howard. 'Tell her I'd have liked to,' says Howard, 'but I'm late myself, I have to rush.'

  'Well, look, Howard,' says Henry, leaning his head in through the van window, 'I just want to say that I really do appreciate it. Our talk, and the lift. And don't forget to send me the bill for the window.'

  'I won't,' says Howard, 'Can you just see me back to turn?'

  'You've got two feet,' says Henry, going behind the van. 'Come on, come on.' It is fortunately not a bad bump, and Henry is only slightly grazed, on his good hand, the hand that he has put out to save himself as he falls forward onto the gravel as the van topples him. Happily there is Myra to pick him tap, and dust him down. 'He's all right,' she says in through the van window, 'Christ, would you believe it.' Turning the van, Howard sees them, momentarily, inside the kitchen, apparently in a quarrel, as he sets his wheels on the high bank.

  The busy evening lies ahead; he drives down the rutted tracks, over the small bridges, through fords, down narrow lanes, covered in big wet leaves. It was just on seven when he reached the farmhouse; it is just on seven fifteen as, following the street markings, responding to the red and green lights, he pulls the van into the decrepit terrace. He parks, and hurries indoors. In the kitchen is a domestic scene. Felicity Phee has come, and 'I don't know how all those dirty glasses got there in the sink,' is what Barbara is saying to her. 'You want me to wash them, Mrs Kirk,' says Felicity. 'Well, it would be marvellous if you could, after you've got the kids in bed. It's usually a bath night for them,' says Barbara. 'You want me to bath them, Mrs Kirk,' says Felicity. 'Would you like to?' asks Barbara. 'You're all set up, I see,' says Howard. 'I'm sorry I'm late. I had to take Henry home. He came without a car.'

  'The selfless service you perform,' says Barbara, 'it never ceases to astound. I gather you're right off out again.'

  'I have to go to a meeting,' says Howard, 'a psychological meeting. Everything all right, Felicity?'

  'Yes,' says Felicity, 'I got here early, and Mrs Kirk and I got everything sorted out. It's really great to be in a real house. I just love it.'

  'Fine,' says Howard, 'can I give you a lift to your class, Barbara?'

  'No,' says Barbara, pulling on her coat, 'I'll find my own way. Well, well, a psychological meeting.'

  'A physiological meeting might have been a truer description,' says Flora Beniform, her naked body raised above him, her dark brown hair down over her face, her strong features staring down at his face on the pillow, while the clock in her white bedroom records the time as seven forty-five, 'but it's a familiar type of displacement syndrome.'

  'I like to think it's a psychological meeting as well,' says Howard, looking up at her. 'So do I, Howard, so do I,' says Flora, 'but I begin to wonder about you. I think you enjoy deceptions, and I don't.'

  'I just try to make things interesting,' says Howard. 'Oh, you're heavy.'

  'Too fat?' asks Flora. 'No,' says Howard, 'I like it.'

  Around them is Flora's white bedroom, which has long, deep windows and fitted wardrobes, and one picture, a large, steel-framed print of a Modigliani nude, and two small chairs, on which their two piles of clothes have been neatly stacked; they have hastened into the bed, but Flora maintains in all these things a certain orderliness. And now on the bed they lie, dipping and jogging in a steady rhythm; Flora's big bed is fitted with a motorized health vibrator, her one great opulence. 'Mangel,' says Flora, moving about him, above him, 'I'm disgusted about Mangel.'

  'Don't talk, Flora,' says Howard. 'There's no hurry,' says Flora, 'you've got until nine o'clock. Besides, you don't come to my bed just for the fun of it. You have to give a reckoning.'

  'No, Flora,' says Howard, 'do that more. It's marvellous. You're marvellous, Flora.'

  'You lied to me,' says Flora, looking down at him fiercely from her eminence, 'didn't you?'

  'When?'

  'This morning in your room,' says Flora. 'How?' asks Howard. 'By not telling me what you knew. By not giving me all the truth.'

  'There's so much truth to tell,' says Howard brightly. 'I don't know why I let you come this evening,' says Flora. 'You haven't let me come,' says Howard. Flora giggles, and says, 'Come to see me.'

  'You did it because you wanted to find out the rest,' says Howard. 'Which is, of course, why I didn't tell you the rest.'

  'Oh, yes?' says Flora, 'well tell me one thing.'

  'Sssshhhhh,' says Howard. 'At a really good psychological meeting, the main business comes first, and then the question period afterward.'

  'All right, Howard,' says Flora. 'All right, Howard.' And she weaves above him, her breasts dipping, her ribcage tight. Her body is there once and then twice, three times, because shadowed high on the wall and the curtains and the ceiling, in shapes thrown by the two small lights on the tables at either side of the bed. The shapes, the formidable body and its shadows, move rhythmically, as the bed does; the pulses of self in Howard's body beat hard; and time, at seven fifty-two, on Tuesday 3 October, pings like Benita Pream's alarm clock, comes to a point, distils, explodes; and then spreads and diffuses, becomes flaccid and ordinary and contingent time again, as Flora's head drops forward onto Howard's chest, and her body
collapses over him, and the clock ticks emptily away on the table next to his sweating head.

  The bed moves slowly, lazily under them. After a while, Flora's body slides off his, and comes to rest at his side, tucked in, delicately connected. Their sweat is ceasing, their pulses are slowing, the shadows are still. They lie there together. There is Flora, with Howard's left hand on her large right breast, her body long and solid, with dark hair, Flora with her doctorate from Heidelberg, and her famous little book on the growth of affection in the young child. And there is Howard, with Flora's right hand on his left inner thigh, his body neat and wiry, his Zapata moustache black on his skin; Howard with his radical reputation, and his two well-known books on modern mores, and his many television appearances. They lie there in the master bedroom of Flora's compact, modern service flat, with its good-sized living-room, well-fitted galley kitchen, its second bedroom that doubles as study, its bathroom with bath and fitted shower, in the elegant block in the landscaped grounds in the leafy suburb, all described by the letting agents as perfect for modern living, and ideal for the professional single person. They lie, and then Flora moves, turning slightly, lifting her head. She has a deep, serious, thoughtful face; it comes up and looks into his. He opens his eyes, he closes them, he opens them again. 'Good,' he says lazily. 'Very good. A perfect psychological meeting.' Flora runs a fingernail down the centre of his chest; his hand comes out, and strokes her hair. Her thoughtful face still looks at him. 'Yes, it was,' she says, and adds, 'Howard?'

  'Yes?' says Howard. 'Howard,' she says, 'how's the family?'

  XI

  There are people who ask the question 'How's the family?' and, receiving the answer 'Fine' are perfectly satisfied; there are other people, the real professionals, who expect the answer in a very different realm. Families are Flora's business; all over the world there are families, nuclear and extended, patriarchal and matriarchal, families cooked and families raw, which pause, rigid, in their work of raising children, bartering daughters, tabooing incest, practising wife-exchange, performing rites of circumcision, potlatching, as Flora enters their clearing or their longhouse or their living-room and asks, notebook in hand, 'How's the family?' It is a serious and searching question about the universe; and, Flora is seeking a universal answer. For Flora is famous for questions. When she is not in her service flat in the leafy suburb, or out in the world on fieldwork, she is to be found at meetings and congresses, in small halls in London or Zurich; here she habitually sits in a left-hand aisle seat near the front and, the paper over, rises first, a pencil held high for attention, to ask the initial and most devastating question ('I'd hoped to bring evidence to show the entire inadequacy of this approach. Happily the speaker has, presumably unconsciously, performed the task for me in the paper itself. As for my question…) Flora, it is widely known, wherever she goes, is formidable, with her dark serious eyes, her firm manner, her big, intimidating body. And as for her more intimate relationships, well, it sometimes seems to Howard, when he lies, on the happy occasions when the privilege has been granted to him, on her moving bed in her large white bedroom, that Flora has reinvested fornication, an occupation at which she is in fact extremely skilled and able, with new purpose and significance. She has conceived of it as a tactical-advance on the traditional psychiatrist's couch; permitting more revelation, more intimacies, it therefore leads, inevitably, to better questions. So he looks up at her serious face, peering at him over his bent arm; he considers; he says, 'Well, of course, it's the old story.'

  'Oh, Howard,' says Flora, 'I want a new story. Which old story?'

  'Well, when I'm up, Barbara's down,' says Howard, 'and vice versa.'

  'When you're up who, Barbara's down on whom?' asks Flora. 'Flora, you're coarse,' says Howard. 'No, not really,' says Flora. 'And Barbara's down now?'

  'Well, I'm up,' says Howard. 'Things are happening to me.'

  'You ought to watch Barbara,' says Flora. 'Oh, it's the usual things,' says Howard. 'We battle on, emissaries of the male and female cause. Barbara says: "Pass the salt." And then, if I pass it, she smirks. Another win for the sisters over the brothers.'

  'Marriage,' says Flora, 'the most advanced form of warfare in the modern world. But of course you usually pass the pepper.' Howard laughs and says: 'I do.'

  'By accident,' says Flora. 'Oh, Flora,' says Howard, 'you should have married. You'd be so good at it.' The bed heaves; Flora pushes herself up from her place against Howard, and sits in the bed with her knees up, her hair loose, the bedside lights glowing on her flesh and casting sharp shadow. 'Isn't it amazing?' she says, reaching across to the table at her side, and picking up a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, 'Why is it that married people always say "Come in" when everything they do says "Get out"? They talk about their miseries and then ask you why you're unmarried. No, Howard, I prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch. I really find it much safer.' Howard laughs; he reaches out, and runs his hand round the curve of Flora's breast. 'It has its compensations,' says Howard. 'You're never lonely.'

  'I know you aren't, Howard,' says Flora, 'but it seems to me that you've demonstrated that the main compensation of marriage is that you can commit adultery. A somewhat perverse argument.'

  Flora bends her head, and lights her cigarette; she looks down slyly at Howard. 'Well, have you found out?' she asks. 'Found out what?' asks Howard. 'Who Barbara was with last night?'

  'I don't know that she was with anybody,' says Howard. 'I've told you,' says Flora, 'you ought to take an interest in Barbara.'

  'Have you found out?' asks Howard. 'No, I've not had time,' says Flora, 'but I think I can make an inspired guess.'

  'Your guesses are always inspired,' says Howard. 'It's not serious,' says Flora, 'just something interesting. You mustn't try her with it.'

  'I won't,' says Howard. 'You know, I sometimes wonder whether you have anything else to think about besides the fornication's of your friends.'

  'I pay attention,' says Flora, 'but, after all, it's my research. Sex and families.'

  'An interesting field,' says Howard, 'rather better than Christadelphianism in Wakefield.'

  'Look,' says Flora, 'do you want to know my guess?'

  'Yes, please,' says Howard, flat on his back. 'Dr Macintosh,' says Flora. 'A man gets very competitive when his wife's having a baby.' Howard stares at her face, lit with amusement; he says, 'That's marvellous, Flora. Though actually his wife seems not to be having a baby.'

  'Oh, she's tantalizing him with it, she'll have one in the end,' says Flora. 'But I mean, what else can a man do at a time like that, except go to bed with the hostess of the party she's so wilfully chosen to leave?'

  'Of course, nothing,' says Howard. 'It's a very interesting speculation.'

  'Not to be used or quoted, of course,' says Flora. 'I didn't say it was true. Barbara was probably out of sight having a bath or something.'

  'I must say,' says Howard, 'you're very good at making life sound interesting.'

  'Well, we both are, aren't we?' asks Flora. 'Presumably for fear it may not be.'

  'Oh, it is,' says Howard. 'There's always something or someone to do.'

  'But don't you ever find it too much work, Howard?' asks Flora, 'All this dressing and undressing, all these undistinguished climaxes, all this chasing for more of the same, is it really, really, worth the effort?'

  'Of course,' says Howard. 'Well, you, Howard,' says Flora, 'who did you screw last night?'

  Howard laughs and says, 'Well, Flora, it's awfully personal.' Flora turns her face toward him: she says, 'My God, what kind of an answer is that? Where would the state of modern psychological knowledge be if Dora had said to Freud: "I'm sorry, Sigmund, it's awfully personal."'

  'Oh, Freud deduced,' says Howard. 'Ah, well, so did I, of course,' says Flora. 'It was that student, wasn't it?'

  'Which student?' asks Howard. 'Oh, Howard, come on,' says Flora, puffing at the cigarette, 'Felicity someone, the one with spots. The one who came into your room this morning for
morning-after recompense.'

  'Another inspired guess,' says Howard. 'No,' says Flora, 'this one was absolutely bloody obvious. I never saw two people who looked more as if they'd just jumped off each other. She felt entitled to a new role, you felt compelled to resist it.'

  'Flora,' says Howard, 'you're jealous.'

  'My God,' says Flora, flicking ash into an ashtray, 'I don't suffer from these female diseases. Why do you need me to be jealous? So that you can believe I care for you much more than I do?' Howard laughs and says, 'You do care for me, Flora. And you sounded jealous.'

  'Oh, no,' says Flora, 'I sounded disgusted. You drift off and screw that scrawny, undistinguished girl, whom you could have had at any time, day or night, just when all those interesting things were going on. It shows a shameful lack of concern in the human lot.'

  'She had her problems, too,' says Howard. 'Well, of course, she'd have to have,' says Flora, 'but what were her problems, compared to the kind of problems you'd got at your party last night? How did you get on with Henry?'

  'Get on with Henry when?' asks Howard. 'You know,' says Flora, 'when you grabbed him and took him off, after the meeting, so you could get to him before I did. Just now.'

  'So-so,' says Howard. 'He took me to his local. It's got a barmaid in a bustle. Henry goes there every night to gird his loins before going home to the marital fray.'

  'That's sensible enough,' says Flora, 'but did he tell you what happened last night?'

  'He said it was an accident,' says Howard. 'He said he'd slipped on a piece of ice someone dropped from a drink.'

  'I didn't see any ice at your party.'

  'No,' says Howard, 'there wasn't any.' Flora laughs, and looks satisfied. She says, 'Oh, Howard, how sad. It's the typical story of those who show a true concern for others. You try to convince them that there are serious psychological factors at work in their situation, and all they can do is talk about chances and accidents.'