The History Man

by Malcolm Bradbury

  They go outside, and get in the minivan; the wipers move backwards and forwards in front of them. 'How are the kids?' asks Barbara. 'Fine,' says Howard. 'They've gone to school?' says Barbara. 'Yes, I took them,' says Howard. 'Was Felicity all right?'

  'She seems to get on very well with them,' says Howard. 'I think she likes them,' says Barbara, 'they like her. She takes an interest.'

  'Yes,' says Howard. 'Did Myra get off?' asks Barbara. 'Yes,' says Howard, 'she's gone back to the farm house.'

  'To Henry?' asks Barbara. 'No,' says Howard, 'Henry's not there. He's staying with Flora Beniform.'

  'She should have kept him,' says Barbara. 'She may come to think that,' says Howard, 'since she doesn't know what to do with herself.'

  'What did you do with yourself?' asks Barbara. 'I worked,' says Howard. 'No fires, no accidents?'

  ' asks Barbara. 'No,' says Howard. They are driving down the hill; they can see the turn into the terrace; the cranes on the building sites turn and creak. 'I'll put my dresses on for you,' says Barbara. 'Tonight,' says Howard, 'I've got to go straight up to the university. Your train was late.'

  'Is anything happening?' asks Barbara. 'No,' says Howard, 'just usual. I have two funny little girls coming in to read me an essay.' They turn into the rainwashed terrace; Howard stops the van. He reaches in the back and lifts out the case. Barbara carries her two plastic bags to the front door; she gets out her key and unlocks it. The house smells dry and flat. 'Hello, Barbara,' says Felicity, coming out of the kitchen, wearing a butcher's apron, 'did you have a good shopping trip?'

  'Yes,' says Barbara. 'Let me get you a cup of coffee,' says Felicity. 'No,' says Howard, putting down the case in the hall, 'if you want a lift up to the university, you'll have to come now.'

  'Sorry, Barbara,' says Felicity, taking off the apron, 'but I've been very good. I've done lots of tidying up.'

  'That's great,' says Barbara, 'Were the kids good?'

  'Oh,' says Felicity, 'they're the sweetest kids ever. I'm really hooked on those kids. Do you want me to come back tonight?'

  'Why not?' asks Barbara. 'I'd love to stay,' says Felicity, 'and I'm sure I'm useful.'

  'Okay,' says Barbara, putting the dress bags down onto a chair. 'Stay a while. Do, that helps me. I can't do this place by myself.'

  'Oh, good,' says Felicity, 'I love it here.' She casts a look at Howard, and goes out into the hall, to get her coat. 'Welcome back,' says Howard, pecking Barbara on the cheek. 'Bye now.'

  Barbara stands in the hall as they go outside to the minivan. They get into it, and drive away, round the corner, up the hill. 'Isn't Barbara good?' says Felicity. 'Yes,' says Howard. 'You're angry,' says Felicity. 'No,' says Howard. They say nothing more until they have crossed town and are out on the dualled road, with the university coming into sight on the right. Then Felicity says: 'I thought she looked sad.'

  'I didn't think so,' says Howard, 'she enjoys her weekends.'

  'Did you enjoy yours?' asks Felicity. 'It had its pleasures,' says Howard. 'I don't really turn you on, do I?' asks Felicity. 'You don't appreciate me. You don't know how much I'm doing for you.'

  'What are you doing for me?' asks Howard, stopping the van in the car park. 'A lot,' says Felicity, 'you'll see.'

  'I can look after myself,' says Howard. 'You need support,' says Felicity, 'you're my cause.' Felicity gets out of the van, and walks toward the Student Union building; Howard gets out, locks it, and moves in another direction, toward Social Science. The students mill in the foyer; he gets into the lift. The lift doors open at the fifth floor; he gets out. He notices, on the information blackboard that faces the lift, a message has been scrawled in chalk, by one of the secretaries. He pauses to read it: it says, 'Dr Beamish has a snakebite and regrets he cannot meet his classes today.' He turns, and goes down the corridor towards his room. He can see, down the corridor, waiting for him, sitting on the floor, with their knees up, the two first-year students who came to him the previous Monday: the bright, bra-less girl, the fat, long-skirted one. They stand up as they see him coming, and pick up their books. 'Come on in,' he says amiably; the girls follow him into the room, and wait while he hangs up his coat behind the door. Then he sits them down, putting the fatter girl in the grey chair, for she is the one who will read her essay. He sits down in his own chair, and looks at them. The bright, bra-less girl, on the plastic chair, says: 'Dr Kirk, are you really a radical?'

  'I am,' says Howard, 'but why?' The girls look at each other. 'There's a rumour around that they're trying to fire you,' says the bra-less girl, 'because you're such a radical.'

  'Is there?' says Howard. 'Well, as it happens, they can't fire me for that. Only for gross moral turpitude.' The girls giggle and say, 'What's that?'

  'Who knows, nowadays?' asks Howard. 'One story has it that it's raping large numbers of nuns.'

  'Well,' says the fat girl, 'if they try, we'll stand by you.'

  'That's very good of you,' says Howard. 'Have you found out who Hegel is yet?'

  'Oh, yes,' says the bra-less girl, 'Do you want to hear about him?'

  'I think we'd better stick to business and hear the essay,' says Howard. 'All right,' says the fat girl, 'but people say you're very nasty to students reading their essays to you.'

  'You seem to be hearing a great deal about me,' says Howard, 'most of it hardly true. You read it, and see.' The girl pulls out an essay from between her books, and says, 'Well, you asked me to write on the social structure of imperialism.' She puts down her head, and starts reading; Howard, the serious teacher, sits in his chair as she reads, interrupting now and then with a comment, an amplification. 'Was that so nasty?' he says afterwards, when the discussion has finished. 'Not at all,' says the fat girl. 'Well,' says Howard, 'it was a reasonable essay.'

  'What you wanted,' says the girl. 'I hope what you wanted too,' says Howard. He continues teaching through the morning; at lunchtime he finds it necessary to go and seek out Peter Madden, and sit in a corner of the cafeteria with him; they eat salad plate together amid the noise, and discuss. The discussion is long, and it is just before two o'clock when Howard gets back to his room. As he unlocks his door, the telephone on his desk starts to ring. He takes off his coat, sits down in his chair, and picks up the phone. 'This is Minnehaha Ho,' says a voice, 'Professor Marvin wishes you.'

  'Hello, Minnie,' says Howard, 'Professor Marvin wishes me what?'

  'He wants you to come and see him now, in his room,' says Miss Ho. 'Well, just a moment,' says Howard, 'I have to check whether I'm teaching.'

  'It's urgent,' says Miss Ho, 'also you are not teaching. Professor Marvin checked already.'

  'Oh, did he?' says Howard, 'very well. I'll be along in a moment.'

  Howard gets up from the desk, locks his door, and goes along the corridor to the Department Office. The secretaries, just back from their lunch-hour, during which they have been shopping with string bags, are sitting at their desks. Professor Marvin's room is a sanctum beyond the department office, its entrance guarded by Miss Ho. 'Hello, Minnie,' says Howard, 'what does he want me for?' Miss Ho does not look up from the letter she has in her typewriter; she says, 'I don't know. He'll tell you.' Just then the door of Marvin's office flies open; Marvin himself stands in the doorway, very little, the familiar row of pens sported in the top pocket of his worn suit. The spirit of the age has tempted him into wearing his facial hair down to the level of the bottom of his ears; this provides him with a solemn expression. 'Ah, Howard,' he says, 'come on in.' Marvin's room is more spacious than those of the rest of his colleagues, for he is a man of many affairs; it has a thick carpet, and fitted mahogany bookcases, and a small xerox copier, and its own pencil sharpener, and a very large desk, big enough to hold a coffin, on which stands a dictaphone and three telephones. Small Arabic and Oriental features are included in the decor; there are framed wall tiles inscribed in Arabic script, and pictures of Istanbul and Trebizond and Shiraz, and a photograph of Marvin, taken when younger, riding very high on a camel
, in Arab headdress. 'Do have a seat, Howard,' says Marvin, putting himself behind his desk, against the light, 'You know I hate to interrupt my colleagues when they have better things to do. But I've a problem on my plate, and I thought we needed a word.'

  'About Carmody?' asks Howard, not sitting. 'Yes,' says Marvin, seating himself, 'that little bone of contention.'

  'Then I think we do,' says Howard, 'I gather you've consulted my colleagues about his essays, despite my protest. I formally object.'

  'I had to, Howard,' says Marvin, 'there is an official procedure. I gather you've also objected informally, by talking to them about it.'

  'I found that necessary, yes,' says Howard. 'Of course that may explain why my little exercise turned out, something of a failure,' says Marvin. 'I warned you it would,' says Howard.

  'Well, you might like to know what happened,' says Marvin, 'if you don't already. The essays were seen by six examiners. Three mark him at passing level, with small variations, but mostly around high C or low B. Roughly in accord with my own judgment, in short. Two gave him Fs, much as you had, and one refused to mark altogether, saying you had told him this was interference with a colleague's teaching.'

  'It seems to me a very instructive result,' says Howard. 'As I told you, marking is not an innocent occupation. It's ideologically conditioned.'

  'In all my examining experience I've never had such a pattern of discrepancy,' says Marvin, 'so I think there might be a lower explanation. But I don't propose to go into those murky waters.'

  'I'm sorry,' says Howard, 'but I'm afraid I feel my point's established. There's no such thing as objective marking.'

  'It may be hard,' says Marvin, 'but in my view it's the task of a university to try for it. And if we can't manage that kind of disinterestedness, then I'm damned if I know what justification there is for our existence.'

  'That's because you live in a liberal fantasy,' says Howard. 'Well, what do you propose to do about Carmody now?'

  'Well, I've spent a somewhat painful weekend thinking over the situation,' says Marvin. 'And then I saw Carmody and his adviser this morning, and told them I could see no way of improving his situation. I also informed them that you had made a complaint against him.'

  'In short,' says Howard, 'you told him that he'd made a malicious and unfounded assertion.'

  'I could hardly say that,' says Marvin. 'After all, you've been instructing me in the fact that there's no disinterested marking. I had to ask him if he wished to take the matter further. He then became hysterical, said that he did, and then proceeded, in what I fear was a most unfortunate way, to make further accusations.' Howard stares at Marvin; he says, 'What sort of accusations?'

  'Well, I'm afraid of a most gossipy character,' says Marvin, 'of a kind that in normal circumstances I would not have listened to. But I can't feel these are quite normal circumstances, in view of the specific challenge that's involved to our conventions and expectations of marking. Briefly, what his point boiled down to is that your marking, which disfavours him, favours others.'

  'I see,' says Howard, 'which others?'

  'The case he mentioned was that of a Miss Phee, who has, I see from the mark-sheets, been getting good marks in your course,' says Marvin. 'She's a good student,' says Howard. 'Why am I supposed to have favoured her?'

  'Well, the point was partly abstract and political,' says Marvin, 'but I'm afraid it was also concrete and, so to speak, physical.'

  'I don't quite understand,' says Howard. 'Carmody's way of putting it was crude but terse,' says Marvin. 'He said he could have done as well in your seminar if he'd had a left-wing head and, er, female genitals.'

  'And what did you take that to mean?' asks Howard. 'He said you were having an affair with her,' says Marvin. 'There's one thing I agree with you about. He's a somewhat nasty man.'

  'It's hardly your business, is it?' asks Howard, 'Even if it were true.'

  'Precisely,' says Marvin, 'that's just what I told him.'

  'Good,' says Howard. 'Yes,' says Marvin, 'I told him I felt the matter was becoming more moral than pedagogic. And hence that I could not listen to it.'

  'I'm glad to hear it,' says Howard. 'And that the only person competent to deal with such questions was the Vice-Chancellor,' says Marvin. 'You sent him to see the Vice-Chancellor?' says Howard, looking at Marvin. 'No,' says Marvin, 'I simply told him what his options were. I pointed out that the charges were very serious, and if they were false he would find himself in the severest trouble. Indeed I advised him strongly to withdraw them, and go no further.'

  'And did he agree?' asks Howard. 'No,' says Marvin, 'he said he felt his evidence made the accusation quite watertight.'

  'His evidence?' asks Howard. 'Sit down, Howard,' says Marvin, 'I can't tell you how much I've detested all this. But it's as if you wanted it to expand like this.'

  'What is his evidence?' asks Howard. 'One has to say this much for Carmody,' says Marvin, 'he has a certain capacity for research. If only he could have harnessed it to better use.'

  'You mean he's been doing research into me?' asks Howard. 'That's it,' says Marvin. 'He's been taking great interest in your recent movements.'

  'You mean he's been following me around?' asks Howard.

  'You know,' says Marvin, leaning forward over the desk, 'I've always thought of myself as a very busy man, with a full diary of engagements. But if what he says is true, what your diary's been like lately I can't imagine. I don't know when you've had time to wash and shave.'

  'And what have I been busy doing?' asks Howard. 'Well, you know that, Howard,' says Marvin, 'I hardly like to repeat these things.'

  'I should like to know what Mr Carmody believes he's found out about me,' says Howard. 'Since you think they're matters important enough for the Vice-Chancellor to consider.'

  'He claims to have a record of promiscuous sexual intimacy,' says Marvin. 'A rather circumstantial record.'

  'Can I have some details of this record?' asks Howard. 'Well, it begins on Monday,' says Marvin, 'You had I gather, a party; in the late evening you were in your downstairs room, and according to Carmody an intimacy took place, on the floor, with Miss Phee.'

  'Did I?' asks Howard. 'On Tuesday you had recourse in a different direction, to the flat of one of our mutual colleagues. It was an upstairs flat, but with diaphanous curtains, and again Carmody surmised intimacy.'

  'Is that a matter for the Vice-Chancellor?' asks Howard. 'I should hardly think so,' says Marvin, 'but the evening continues. You returned home, your wife was out, and Miss Phee was in.'

  'Did you know Mrs Beamish was also there?' asks Howard. 'I gather there was a significant time-lapse between your arrival home and Mrs Beamish's coming,' says Marvin. 'It was largely occupied with an extended telephone conversation with you,' says Howard. 'I shall ask you to testify to that if necessary.'

  'Ah, what a web it is,' says Marvin. 'Of course I shall tell all I know.'

  'And on Wednesday?'

  'On Wednesday you stayed in,' says Marvin, 'I gather a fruitless evening for the outside observer.'

  'I must have been recouping my strength,' says Howard. 'Is there more?'

  'On Thursday you had dinner in a small French restaurant with Carmody's own adviser. The lady was present, so that we were all able to agree on the innocence of that occasion.'

  'The evidence is beginning to look rather thin, isn't it?' asks Howard. 'Ah,' says Marvin, 'until the weekend. I gather your wife was away for the weekend, and Miss Phee came and stayed in the house over this period, and is presumably still there. According to Mr Carmody, it's been rather a lively weekend. Indoors and out, so to speak.'

  'Did Mr Carmody also tell you that there were two children there, most of the time, and that Miss Phee was there to look after them?'

  'He claimed they were no barrier,' says Marvin.

  'Well,' says Howard, 'thank you for telling me this. I think it completely clinches my case. I told you the man was a blackmailer. You failed to be convinced. Now he's expo
sed himself totally.'

  'He's certainly shown himself as vilely unpleasant,' says Marvin. 'And of course it will save time if he goes to see the Vice-Chancellor. After all, he's the person to deal with this sort of illegality. Unless, of course, it's the courts. I'm only surprised, and I expect the Vice-Chancellor will be, that you've treated him as if he had some sort of case.'

  'Howard,' says Marvin, 'I should like you to understand I have not taken Carmody's side. But I did warn you not to let this become a bone of contention, and you have. I have to look at it all objectively. The trouble is he believes himself to be the victim of an injustice, conducting inquiries to prove his innocence.'

  'I'm the victim of an injustice,' says Howard. 'Perhaps you might now see that. I can answer these charges and show the corrupt motives behind them.'

  'Oh, that's good, then, Howard,' says Marvin. 'I mean, I think you will need to explain yourself a little to the Vice-Chancellor. Once he sees the photographs.'

  'Carmody took photographs?' asks Howard. 'Didn't I say?' asks Marvin. 'He's obviously quite an adept with a camera. Of course the night shots are terribly unconvincing, pictures of shadows on closed curtains, and the like. Your problem will really be with the daytime pictures. I fear it is indubitably you and Miss Phi together in that ravine. And kissing in the dodgers.'

  'It's obscene,' says Howard. 'All the apparatus of blackmail.'

  'I find it all awfully distressing, Howard,' says Marvin, 'and I'm sure the Vice-Chancellor will too.' Marvin gets up; he walks round his desk, and pats Howard on the arm. 'I do wish you'd listened to re,' he says. 'Avoid bones of contention.'

  'I think when you've heard Miss Phi's evidence…'says Howard. 'Oh, I shan't hear it,' says Marvin, walking Howard toward the door. 'Happily that's the Vice-Chancellor's problem. It's all passed beyond re, I'm very glad to say. You know, this is one of those bleak moments when I'm actually pleased to think I lead an utterly boring and empty life.'