The History Man (9 page)

They are very busy people, with very full diaries; the days may lie contingently ahead of them, but the Kirks always have a plot of many events, an inferior plot to the one they have come to desire, but one that gives them much to do. And this is as well, for it means that they do not conflict with each other as directly as they might, for each in his or her own way distrusts the other, in some nameless; unexpressed dissatisfaction. Having bound themselves by marriage, they persist with it; but it is an adult, open marriage. They are both having affairs, though affairs now of a rather different kind. ‘See a friend this weekend' say the advertisements at the railway station; Barbara does. She has met an actor called Leon, twenty-seven years old, who wears yak coats and does small parts at the Traverse and on television, on the train up to London one Friday. Now, every so often, she takes a weekend in London, and spends it at his flat, having first been careful to ensure that proper arrangements have been made about the children. These she calls her shopping trips, for she shops too: she makes avaricious love to Leon over the weekend, and then moves on to Biba, coming back home on the midmorning train on Monday with a brighter look on her face and several dresses, each in their elegant, dark brown plastic bags. Meanwhile, Howard is not idle. He has various desultory interludes; he has been having these for several years. But now he is spending a good deal of time with a colleague of his, a handsome big girl in her late thirties, whose name is Flora Beniform, a social psychologist who has worked with Laing and the Tavistock Clinic. Flora is formidable, and she likes going to bed with men who have troubled marriages; they have so much more to talk about, hot as they are from the intricate politics of families which are Flora's specialist field of study. Flora has a service apartment in a suburb of Watermouth, a clean and simple place, for she is often away. And here Howard and Flora lie in bed for hours, if they can spare long hours, fondling each other intimately, considerably satisfying each other, without too great commitment, but above all talking things over.

And there is much to talk over. ‘What do you fear from her?' asks Flora, her big weight lying on top of Howard, her breasts before his face. ‘I think,' says Howard, ‘we compete too closely in the same area. It makes sense. Her role's still bound too tightly to mine; that traps her growth, so she feels compelled to undermine me. Destroy me from within.' ‘Are you comfortable there?' says Flora, ‘I'm not squashing you?' ‘No,' says Howard. ‘Destroy you how?' asks Flora. ‘She has to find a weak core in me,' says Howard. ‘She wants to convince herself that I'm false and fake.' ‘You have a lovely chest, Howard,' says Flora. ‘So do you, Flora,' says Howard. ‘Are you false and fake?' asks Flora. ‘I don't think so,' says Howard, ‘not more than anyone else. I just have a passion to make things happen. To get some order into the chaos. Which she sees as a trendy radicalism.' ‘Oh, Howard,' says Flora, ‘she's cleverer than I thought. Is she having affairs?' ‘I think so,' says Howard. ‘Can you move, you're hurting me?' Flora tumbles off him and lies by his side; they rest there, faces upward toward the ceiling, in her white apartment. ‘Don't you know?' asks Flora. ‘Don't you bother to find out?' ‘No,' says Howard. ‘You have no proper curiosity,' says Flora. ‘There's a living psychology there, and you're not interested. No wonder she wants to destroy you.' ‘We believe in going our own way,' says Howard. ‘Cover yourself up with the sheet,' says Flora, ‘you're sweating. That's how people catch colds. Anyway, you stay together.' ‘Yes, we stay together, but we distrust one another.' ‘Ah, yes,' says Flora, turning on her side to look at him, so that her big right breast dips against his body, and wearing a puzzled expression on her face, ‘but isn't that a definition of marriage?'

Flora has a comfortable room, a soft bed, a telephone beside it, and an ashtray, where a cigarette has burned away, while they have been busy. Howard looks at the ceiling; he says: ‘You think we shouldn't be married? Did you come?' ‘I always come,' says Flora. ‘No, I didn't say that. It's an institution of multiple utility. I myself prefer unconditioned fornication, but that's just my particular choice within the options. Marriages can be very interesting. I think a lot of life gets worked out within that most improbable relationship.' ‘I suppose Barbara and I really belong to the marriage generation, despite ourselves,' says Howard. ‘If we'd been five years younger, we'd just have shacked up together. Taken the best of it, and then cut loose.' ‘But why don't you cut loose?' asks Flora. ‘Explain to me.' ‘I'm not quite sure,' says Howard, ‘I think we both still have expectations. We feel there's something yet to achieve. Somewhere else to go.' ‘You've a spot on your back, Howard,' says Flora. ‘Turn over and let me squeeze it. Where to go?' ‘Your nails are sharp,' says Howard. ‘I don't know. There's still a psychic tie.' ‘You haven't quite finished defeating each other,' says Flora, ‘is that it?' ‘The battle means something,' says Howard, ‘it keeps us alive.' ‘Well, you thrive,' says Flora. ‘Does Barbara?' ‘She's a bit depressed,' says Howard, ‘but that's just the price of a dull summer. She needs a bit of action.' ‘Oh, well,' says Flora, ‘I'm sure you'll be able to fix that. Okay, Howard, out you get. Time to go home to matrimony.' Howard gets out of the big bed; he goes to the chair on which his clothes are neatly laid, picks up his shorts, and puts them on. He says: ‘Shall I see you again soon?' For he is never quite sure of Flora, never quite sure whether he is having an affair with her, or a treatment, with inclusive intimacies, which could be terminated abruptly at any moment, with the patient deemed fully recovered and fit to return to normal married life. ‘Oh, well,' says Flora, reaching with a heave of her large naked self, to the bedside table, from which she picks up her diary, a pencil, and her glasses, ‘I'm awfully busy just now, with the start of term. I hope it's going to be a quiet term for once.' ‘Oh, Flora,' says Howard, ‘where's your radical passion? What's life without confrontation?'

Flora puts on her glasses; she stares at Howard through them. ‘I hope you're not brewing trouble for us, Howard,' she says. ‘Would I?' asks Howard, innocently. ‘I thought you just explained it was your way of keeping your marriage alive,' says Flora. ‘That, and coming here.' ‘When can I come here next?' asks Howard, pulling on his socks. Flora opens her diary; she flicks through the pages, as fully written over as the pages in that other diary which stands by the Kirks' telephone, in the hall that Howard must in a minute get back to. ‘I'm sorry, Howard,' she says, looking at its busy pages, ‘I'm afraid we'll just have to leave it open. I seem to be hopping about all over the place for a bit.' ‘Oh, Flora,' says Howard, ‘first things first.' ‘That's what I'm doing,' says Flora. ‘Never mind, Howard. It will give you a chance to make some things happen. And then you'll have something more interesting to tell me next time.' ‘Well, there's one evening you've got to keep free,' says Howard. ‘Next Monday. Come to a party.' ‘That's the first day of term,' says Flora, looking in her diary. ‘You do pick awkward days.' ‘It's the perfect day,' says Howard. ‘New starts all round. A beginning-again party.' ‘You never learn, do you?' says Flora. ‘There are very few new beginnings. Only more of the same.' ‘I don't believe you,' says Howard, ‘being a radical. There'll be plenty of interesting things happening there.' ‘I'm sure,' says Flora. ‘What time?' ‘About eight,' says Howard. ‘An informal party. If you see what I mean.' ‘Oh, I think so,' says Flora. ‘Well, I'll see, I may have to go to London. I'll come if I can, I won't if I can't. Can we leave it like that?' Howard puts on his jacket. ‘Oh, come,' says Howard, ‘however late. We'll be going on most of the night.' ‘Well, I'll try,' says Flora, and, naked except for her glasses, she takes her little silver pencil, and writes, amid the scribble that fills the entry at the top of the page for the new and coming week, ‘Party at Howard's', and adds a question mark. Howard leans over Flora; he kisses her forehead; ‘Thanks,' he says. Flora swings her big bulk off the bed; she says, ‘I'm going to the bathroom. Can you find your own way out?' ‘I always have,' says Howard. ‘Now don't count on me,' says Flora. ‘I do,' says Howard. ‘Don't,' says Flora, ‘I refuse to be counted on. We're not married, you know.' ‘I know,' says Howard, ‘but what kind of party will it be if you don't come?' ‘Much the same,' says Flora, ‘you'll find a way of making something happen to you, won't you?' ‘You have a cynical view of me, Flora,' says Howard. ‘I just know you,' says Flora, ‘have a novel Monday.' Howard goes out of the bedroom, and across Flora's dark living room, and down the stairs of the apartment block. The minivan is parked discreetly under the trees; he gets in, and drives down the marked roads into the city centre.

IV

But now here it is, the day of beginning again, the day that is written down in so many diaries, and it is raining, and dreary, and bleak. It rains on the shopping precinct, as the Kirks do their early-morning shopping; it rains on the terrace, as they unload the wine and the glasses, the bread, the cheese, the sausages; it rains even on the University of Watermouth, that bright place of glinting glass and high towers, the Kaakinen wonderland, as Howard drives up the long carriage drive that leads to the centre of the site, and parks in the car park. In the rain, busloads of students arrive from the station, descending and running for convenient shelter. In the rain, they unload their trunks and cases into the vestibules of the residence buildings, into the halls of Hobbes and Kant, Marx and Hegel, Toynbee and Spengler. In the rain, the faculty, scattered over the summer, park their cars in rows in the car park and rush, with their briefcases, towards the shapely buildings, ready, in the rain, to renew the onward march of intellect. In the rain, academic Howard, smart in his leather coat and denim cap, humping his briefcase, gets out of the van, and locks it; in the rain he walks, with his briefcase, through the permanent building site that is the university, past shuttered concrete, steel frame, glass wall; through underpasses, down random slopes, along walkways, beneath roofed arcades. He crosses the main concourse of the university, called for some reason the Piazza, where paths cross, crowds gather, mobs surge; he reaches the high glass tower of the Social Science Building. He goes up the shallow steps, and pushes open the glass doors. In the dry, he stops, shakes his hair, looks around. The building has a spacious foyer; its outer walls and doors are all of brown glass; beneath the glass, in one corner, trickles a small water feature, a pool that passes under the wall and out into the world beyond – for Kaakinen, that visionary man, is a metaphysician, and for those with eyes to see, emblems of yin and yang, spirit and flesh, inner and outer, abound in his futurist city. The foyer contains much bustle; there are many tables here; at the tables sit students, representing various societies that contend, in considerable noise, for the attention of the arriving freshmen. Just inside the foyer Howard stands still, looking around; it is as if he is looking for someone, seeking something; there is a task to fulfil.

But he seems not to fulfil it; he walks on. At the tables, two groups, the Revolutionary Student Alliance and the Radical Student Coordinating Committee, have fallen out over a principle; they are busy throwing two lots of pamphlets, each labelled
Ulster: The Real Solution
, at each other. Howard ignores the altercation; he passes the tables; he goes on into an area of many notice-boards which, just like the tables, advertise much contention, contradiction, concern. Here are notices for all seasons. There are notices designed to stimulate self-awareness (‘Women's Lib Nude Encounter Group') and self-definition (‘Gaysoc Elizabethan Evening: With Madrigals'), reform (‘Adopt an Elderly Person') and revolution (‘Start the Armed Struggle Now?/Lunch-time Meeting Addressed by Dr Howard Kirk'). The invitations are rich, the temptations many; but even this does not seem to be what Howard is looking for. He passes on, towards the main part of the foyer, where the lift shaft is. There is much activity here too. Students crowd round the lift, going to their first meetings of the new academic year with their tutors, crowding in to their first seminars; there are members of faculty busily carrying papers, and registry persons carrying computer printouts, and signs pointing here, and others pointing there. Howard stops here; once again he looks seriously, purposefully around. There is a thing to do; but with whom might it be done? A figure emerges from the crowd; she wears a large wet raincoat; she carries a carrycot. It is one of Howard's colleagues, a girl called Moira Millikin, unorthodox economist and unmarried mother, notable for her emancipated custom of bringing her infant to class, where it gurgles and chunters as she explains the concept of gross national product to her solemn students. ‘Hello, Howard,' she says, ‘had a good summer?' ‘Well, I finished a book, if that's good,' said Howard. ‘What about you?' ‘I got pregnant again, if that's good,' says Moira. ‘We're a productive lot, aren't we?' says Howard. ‘I'm glad I found you. I've a fascinating piece of news.' The bell pings above the doors of the lift, in front of which they stand; the doors open, and out walks a man in workclothes, pushing a wheelbarrow in front of him. ‘They push those barrows so that no one can mistake them for students,' says Moira, ‘that they'd hate.' ‘Right,' says Howard, ‘are you going up to Sociology?' ‘Well, Economics,' says Moira, ‘back to the grindstone.' ‘Good,' says Howard; and they move forward with the surge, into the lift. He and Moira stand against the back wall, with the carrycot between them; the doors close, the lift rises.