The History Man (18 page)

‘Hello, Howard,' says Flora, ‘how's Barbara?' ‘I can't tell whether she loves me or she hates me,' says Howard. ‘Of course you can't,' says Flora, shaking out her umbrella, ‘she can't either.' Howard pushes open the glass door to let Flora go through. ‘Thank you,' she says, ‘you look tired, Howard.' Howard takes off his wet cap and shakes it. ‘You missed a good party last night,' he says. ‘Oh, no,' says Flora, ‘that's where you're wrong. The guests were present. It was the hosts who were absent.' ‘You came?' asks Howard. ‘I did,' says Flora, ‘and then I went.' ‘I wanted to see you,' says Howard. ‘I'm sure you did,' says Flora, ‘but in default you saw someone else. It was perfectly sensible of you.' ‘You must have come late,' says Howard. ‘I did,' says Flora, ‘I went up to London first to catch a seminar at the Tavistock Clinic.' ‘I hope,' says Howard, as they walk across the foyer, ‘it was worth missing me for?' ‘Yes, it was,' says Flora, ‘the paper had a very narrow concept of normative behaviour and they all seem very clitorally centred these days. But the question period was very challenging and provocative.' ‘You mean you were,' says Howard. ‘I did say some interesting things,' says Flora, ‘did anyone say anything very interesting at your party?' ‘Flora,' says Howard, ‘you're a scholar and a gentleman. No, they didn't. But interesting things were done, though.' They reach the lift in the centre of the foyer, and stop and wait there, surrounded by a large crowd of waiting students. Flora turns to Howard. ‘I know,' she says, ‘they were doing them when I got there.' ‘Did I miss the best of it?' asks Howard. ‘I think you did, Howard,' says Flora, ‘I must say I feel very suspicious about a sociologist who is absent from the tensions of his own party.' The lift doors open in front of them; Howard follows Flora, in her fur-collared coat and her big leather boots, for Flora is always well and strikingly dressed, inside. A faint smell of perfume comes off her; her body is big against Howard's. ‘What happened?' asks Howard. ‘Don't you know, don't you really?' asks Flora. ‘I heard something about a misfortune occurring to Henry Beamish,' says Howard.

‘Yes, indeed,' says Flora. ‘What happened?' asks Howard, ‘Were you there?' ‘Of course I was,' says Flora, ‘I'm always there.' ‘Tell me about it.' ‘I think not here, I'll come to your study, if you've time.' ‘I have,' says Howard. ‘By the way, this new man Macintosh was telling me last night there's a rumour that Mangel is coming here to speak.' ‘Now isn't that funny?' says Flora. ‘I met Mangel at the Tavvy last night. And he obviously knew nothing about it at all. Macintosh did mention it at your party, actually. He said the rumour came from you.' ‘Word of mouth is a curious system,' says Howard. ‘I'm sure you're trying to be interesting,' says Flora, ‘is this us?' ‘That's it,' says Howard, and they both get out at the fifth floor; they walk along the corridor, with its artificial lighting, towards the department office. They go inside the office; the secretaries, Miss Pink, Miss Ho, have just arrived, and taken off their boots, and are at their first serious duty of the day, watering the potted plants. Through the breezeblock wall comes the sound of switches switching, buzzers buzzing; Marvin, who always rises at five and drives through the steaming rural mists of early morning into the university, is well into his work, calling foreign countries, advising governments, planning the afternoon meeting, getting his car fixed. ‘A student just came in to look for you,' says Minnehaha Ho. ‘Well, I'm here now,' says Howard, ‘what's all this?' In the pigeonholes, in the distinctive large grey envelopes, is, for all the faculty, yet another agenda, the supplementary agenda, for the afternoon's meeting; one agenda is never enough. Flora and Howard pick up their mail, sift quickly through it, side by side, and then walk back, side by side, to Howard's rectangular and regulation room. Here Flora, by some automatically assumed right of precedence, seats herself at Howard's red desk chair, leaving him to sit in the grey chair placed there for his students; she puts her umbrella beside the chair; she unbuttons the raincoat with the fur collar, to reveal a black skirt and a white blouse that stretches tightly across her large breasts. Then she turns to Howard, and tells him of Henry and the window, and Myra and her strange behaviour, and then of Henry, at the casualty ward, saying ‘Don't tell Howard, will you? We mustn't spoil his party.'

VII

‘Well,' says Howard, sitting in the wet light of his room, overlooking the boilerhouse chimney, after Flora has stopped speaking, ‘it's a very interesting story.' ‘The trouble is,' says Flora, picking up her handbag, and feeling into its interior, ‘I'm not sure it is. Isn't a story usually a tale with causes and motives? All I've told you is what happened.' ‘Perhaps it's a very modern story,' says Howard, ‘a chapter of accidents.' Flora takes from her handbag her cigarettes and a lighter; she says, ‘The trouble with our profession is, we still believe in motives and causes. We tell old-fashioned stories.' ‘But aren't there times when just what happened is just what happened?' asks Howard. ‘I mean, didn't Henry just have an accident?' ‘Oh, Howard,' says Flora, lighting her cigarette, ‘what is this thing called an accident?' ‘An accident is a happening,' says Howard, ‘a chance or a contingent event. Nobody has imposed meaning or purpose on it. It arises out of a set of unpredictable features coming into interaction.' ‘Oh, I see,' says Flora, ‘Like your parties. And you think Henry had one of those?' ‘That's what you said,' says Howard, ‘a Henry and a window came into chance collision.' ‘That's not what I said at all,' says Flora. ‘You said he went into the guest bedroom, fell, and cut himself.' ‘That's interesting,' says Flora, ‘because I didn't say that. I portrayed a consciousness, with an unconscious. He went into the bedroom. His arm went through the window, and he was cut. That's what I said.' Howard gets up; he goes to the window, and looks through it down into the Piazza, where the wind beats, the rain falls. He says: ‘Is there some reason for thinking it wasn't an accident?' ‘You worry me, Howard,' says Flora. ‘Why do you need to believe it was an accident? Or that accidents are like that?' ‘I thought most events were accidents until proved otherwise,' says Floward. ‘You're trying to make something interesting that probably wasn't. Of course you have a great gift for it.' ‘No, I don't,' says Flora, ‘I have a gift for not making it sound dull. And for asking the questions you chose, from some need, not to ask. I don't understand it. It's not like you at all.'

Howard laughs, and touches Flora's hair. He says, ‘Well, you see, I
know
Henry. And for me Henry and accidents naturally go together.' ‘Like love and marriage, horse and carriage,' says Flora. ‘But
why
do they?' ‘Did I ever tell you the story of the first time I saw Henry?' asks Howard. ‘No,' says Flora, ‘I don't think I ever knew Henry meant anything to you.' ‘Oh, yes,' says Howard, ‘I'm quite attached to Henry. I've known him for ages. We were research students at Leeds together.' ‘I've noticed your hostility towards him,' says Flora, ‘I ought to have guessed you were friends.' ‘I'd seen his face around the department. He was doing something with termites, because they wouldn't let him use people. But my first real encounter with him was one day when I was walking down a back street, quite near the university. I saw this person in front of me, lying in the middle of the pavement, flat on his face. He'd got a big rucksack, stuffed with notes, on his back. Flat in the street near the Express Dairy. His nose was bleeding, and the rucksack was holding him down. My first real sight of Henry.' Flora laughs and says: ‘It's a very interesting story. And how had he got there?' ‘He'd been knocked down by a football. A football had come over the fence from the playing fields, next to the path, and hit him in the middle of the back. The football was next to Henry in the road. A purely contingent football. No one had thrown it purposely at him.' ‘Not even you, Howard?' asks Flora. ‘As I say, I hardly knew him then,' says Howard. ‘No, a boy had kicked it high in the air, and it had come down, as footballs do, and under the trajectory of its descent there happened to be Henry, who was knocked over by it. So, you see, Henry has accidents.'

‘Well, it's true, of course,' says Flora, ‘Henry has accidents. He's a man on whom footballs fall. But why do footballs fall on Henry, and not you, and me? Haven't you ever asked yourself that?' ‘Well, he's careless and clumsy and uncoordinated,' says Howard, ‘and he has an instinct for disaster. If Henry came to two paths, one labelled safe and one labelled dangerous, he'd confuse the signs and take the dangerous one.' ‘Exactly,' says Flora, ‘he colludes with misfortune.' ‘But he can only collude so far,' says Howard. ‘If a branch were rotten and going to fall, it would wait to fall until Henry passed under it. How does he get the message to the tree? There has to be a higher plotter, the God of accident.' ‘I never knew you were such a mystic, Howard,' says Flora, knocking out ash into Howard's grey-glass ashtray, ‘you're making me very suspicious. Now why do you need a theory like that?' ‘Because it seems to me true to experience,' says Howard. ‘It also explains innovation.' ‘But all your theories depend on the great historical purpose working itself out,' says Flora, ‘it's hardly consistent. No, you're covering something up. You're denying Henry his psychological rights. In this, I should add, you aren't alone. Myra has a version too.' ‘What's Myra's?' asks Howard. ‘Well, she at least granted Henry a motive,' says Flora, ‘she looked at him, bleeding away on the floor, and decided it was all an appeal for her sympathy, which she didn't feel like giving.' ‘Myra was very drunk last night,' says Howard, ‘and upset herself.' ‘My God,' says Flora, ‘you're turning into a great simpleton of life, aren't you, Howard? Myra's behaviour last night was fascinating. I was the one who took Henry to hospital; Myra stayed on at your party. For all she knew, he might have been dying. He had twenty-seven stitches, and they had to give him blood. They should have kept him in hospital, of course, but, no, he had to get back to Myra. So I got my car, and shipped him home. And Myra wasn't even back. She turned up ten minutes later; she'd got your friend Macintosh, the one who told you things he couldn't possibly know, to drive her home. And as soon as she saw us she went and locked herself in the bathroom. I had to roar at her through the door for half an hour before she'd come out. Then she scarcely glanced at the poor man; just shouted at him for spoiling her lovely evening. If that's normal behaviour, then I'm crazy. Of course you'd explain it all as a typical drunken performance.'

‘What's your explanation?' asks Howard. ‘Well, obviously,' says Flora, ‘she wished to state that she was rejecting all possible appeals he could make. I think she was disappointed he hadn't done the job properly. A fascinating vignette into family life.' ‘It's true,' says Howard, ‘there's stress there, in that marriage. But that's not to say it wasn't an accident.' ‘My God, Howard,' says Flora, ‘what
are
you hiding?' ‘Nothing,' says Howard, ‘I suppose you think with Barbara that I pushed him through the window. I didn't.' ‘The thought never crossed my mind,' says Flora. ‘Is that what Barbara thinks? I thought she knew you better.' ‘Ah, Flora,' says Howard, ‘what a vote of confidence in me.' ‘Well, I have been to bed with you, Howard,' says Flora, ‘and so I know how your aggression operates. If you wanted someone through a window, you wouldn't push him yourself. You'd get someone else to do it. Or persuade the man he should do it himself, in his own best interests.' ‘You don't think he was pushed, then,' says Howard. ‘God, no,' says Flora, ‘it's not that kind of story. But he could be pushed emotionally. You'd grant that was possible.' ‘I might,' says Howard. ‘But you'd rather it was all a little act of chance, a happening,' says Flora. ‘Part of the fun of your party.' ‘It's not what I want it to be,' says Howard, ‘it's what I think it is.' ‘I wonder why you're evading this,' says Flora, ‘I really wonder why.' ‘Perhaps I'm worried about my insurance responsibility,' says Howard. ‘That would be a good bourgeois reaction.' ‘You have more of those than you think,' says Flora. ‘No, I think there's a better reason. You weren't there, you see. You were busy. So you'd like as ordinary an explanation as possible.' ‘Whereas you were there,' says Howard, ‘and so you'd like an extraordinary one.' ‘It's true, though, isn't it?' asks Flora. ‘You'd hate to admit that something really interesting happened at your party, when you were absent. As with Myra. The only significant occurrences are the ones that happened to you. What did happen to you, Howard?' ‘Ah,' says Howard, ‘so that's what you're after. You've been trying to find out who I was with.' ‘Now you're getting uneasy,' says Flora. ‘I'm right, aren't I?' ‘You sound jealous,' says Howard. ‘I don't suffer from female complaints,' says Flora, pulling her coat up over her shoulders, and stubbing out her cigarette in the regulation ashtray, ‘Well, you tuck the whole thing away, Howard. Let's say that nothing at all happened.' And Flora gets to her feet, and picks up her umbrella from beside the chair.

‘Oh, don't go, Flora,' says Howard, ‘you haven't told me anything yet.' ‘You've not told me anything,' says Flora. ‘You know more than you say. You're not sharing. I think you want to keep Henry for yourself. You want to fathom him in your own way. Redeem him with your own instruments.' ‘No, sit down, Flora,' says Howard, ‘I really do admit it. The more one thinks, the more it seems not like one of Henry's usual accidents.' Flora smiles, and sits down in the chair again; she flicks her lighter, and lights another cigarette. ‘Not at all like,' says Flora. ‘You know, I'm sure Henry acted.' Howard looks out of the window; he can see the shuttered concrete of Kaakinen's inspiration, which in its pure whiteness is intended to induce the sense of unadulterated form, and hence belongs really in some distant, Utopian landscape of sun and shadow, in New Mexico, perhaps, or on the Cap d'Agde; here the teeming rain stains it all a dark and dirty grey. ‘Acted?' says Howard. ‘One doesn't just slip and procure that kind of wound,' says Flora. ‘He pressed down into that glass. I think it was a minimal suicide attempt. An act of anger and despair. An appeal.' ‘Did Henry tell you that it was?' asks Howard, turning. Flora laughs, and says, ‘If only he had. Then we could have brought our superior wisdom to bear, and proved him wrong. No, Henry said nothing at all about it. All he could say was “Don't tell Howard”. Which shows a real sweetness of nature.' ‘Oh, come, Flora,' says Howard, ‘there must be a deeper meaning than that.' Flora laughs; she says, ‘I'm sure I'm right.' ‘The trouble is I can't see it,' says Howard. ‘You could convince me about almost anyone except Henry. You say he acted. But Henry doesn't act. All action leads to suffering, someone else's, or one's own. That's why Henry disapproves of it.' ‘And that, of course, is why you do approve of it,' says Flora, ‘I think you favour the suffering more than the action. But anyway, suicide is the traditional way of nullifying oneself as an actor. You know Hamlet.'