The History Man (30 page)

‘Well,' says Marvin, ‘have you ever thought what a difficult and strange business our practice of assessing students is?' ‘I've often condemned it as completely artificial,' says Howard, ‘but it happens to be our practice.' ‘Trying to place a man on a scale of virtue, saying whether we deem him to pass or fail, trying to reach an objective standard.' ‘Though all judgments are in fact ideologically subjective,' says Howard. ‘Yet we agree to try,' says Marvin, ‘we agree we can reach a consensus of judgment.' ‘Not all of us,' says Howard. ‘Do I take it that you're questioning the marks I've given Carmody?' ‘Let me put it like this,' says Marvin, ‘I wonder if, quite informally and out of hours, we might discuss them.' ‘You mean you think Carmody's essays are
good
?' asks Howard. ‘No,' says Marvin, ‘they're bad and problematic. The trouble is they're evasive, they don't meet the tests you've set the man. But they also have intelligence, shrewdness, and cultural insight. The problem is to assess the level of the badness and the failure.' ‘I see no problem,' says Howard, ‘they're outright, failing bad.' ‘I've read each one three times, Howard,' says Marvin. ‘Now markers frequently disagree, and have learned ways of resolving their disagreements. My impression is simply that you're not using our elegant marking scale, with its plusses and minusses and query plus minusses, with quite the delicacy you might. So I found, reading them, that I often had here the sense of a C, there an intimation even of lower B, where you go for the full punitive weight of the outright and explicit F.' ‘I see,' says Howard, ‘and how did you come to be a marker of Carmody's essays?' ‘Oh, by right, Howard,' says Marvin, ‘you see, as I'm sure you know, marks here aren't finally awarded by individuals, but by the university. In practice the university is a board of appointed examiners. We're both examiners.' ‘I don't agree,' says Howard, ‘so I won't discuss Carmody's marks with you. Those marks can only be judged against his entire performance in my classes, which no one else can see and estimate. I've judged him, as his teacher, and you have to trust me, right or wrong.'

There is a pause at the other end, and then Marvin says, ‘So my informal solution doesn't appeal to you.' ‘Not a bit,' says Howard, ‘I don't propose to look at Carmody's essays again. I don't propose to look at Carmody again, or have him in my classes.' ‘Oh, dear,' says Marvin. ‘Oh, dear, dear. A failing person? Is he really a failing person? We require a very high standard of nothingness for that.' ‘I think Carmody meets all the criteria of nothingness you can devise,' says Howard. ‘Then I'm afraid I shall have to register my formal dissent from you, Howard,' says Marvin. ‘Now, naturally, I've done a bit of homework on this, and there is a university procedure when examiners disagree. We refer the matter to other examiners, and that I propose to do. I shall have Carmody's essays photocopied, and get all your marks and comments deleted, a not inconsiderable secretarial task, but one necessary to ensure justice. I hope that seems fair to you.' ‘No,' says Howard, ‘not at all. You're not marking Carmody, you're marking me. You're challenging my competence as a teacher, and I question your right to do it.' ‘You, er, feel still that we can't settle this informally,' asks Marvin. ‘No,' says Howard, ‘I think you've got yourself a real bone of contention.' ‘Well, excuse me for disturbing you at home,' says Marvin, ‘I strongly disapprove of disturbing my colleagues in their leisure hours, but it seemed worth the try. How's Barbara?' ‘Well,' says Howard. ‘Good,' says Marvin. ‘Goodbye, Howard.' ‘Goodnight,' says Howard, and puts down the red telephone.

For a moment he sits at the desk; then he hears, and identifies, a small noise from upstairs. He gets to his feet, and goes up into the hall. The hall is darkened; but there, in bare feet, in the butcher's apron, is Felicity, a few feet from the telephone, looking at him. ‘You were listening,' he says. ‘That was private, Felicity.' Felicity smiles at him, appearing not to grasp the point. ‘Oh, Howard, darling, what's private?' she asks. ‘Private is doing business in my own house without it being interfered with,' says Howard. ‘Isn't that rather a bourgeois attitude?' asks Felicity. ‘Get ready,' says Howard, ‘I'm taking you back to your flat.' Felicity puts her back against the wall; she says, ‘I'm not going.' ‘Oh, you are,' says Howard. Felicity's eyes brim with tears. ‘Look at all the work I did for you,' she says, ‘wasn't that good? Let me stay here.' ‘It's an impossible situation, Felicity,' says Howard. ‘Now come on to the car.' He takes her arm; they move down the hall. ‘No,' says Felicity, pulling her arm free, ‘you're being very silly.' ‘Why am I being silly?' asks Howard. ‘You need me so much now,' says Felicity, ‘Suppose they ask your class about George Carmody?' ‘I don't think anyone is going to bother asking my class about George,' says Howard. ‘I think George has reached the end of the line.' ‘But don't you see what that phone call means?' asks Felicity. ‘The liberal reactionaries are ganging up against you. They'll support him. But if we supported you, the students in that class, if we said how terrible he'd been, they'd not be able to touch you. I think you'd be very silly to turn me out now.' ‘Would I?' asks Howard. ‘I'm not out to harm you, Howard,' says Felicity, ‘I only want to have a useful part in your life.' In the dark hall they stand and look at each other; as they stand, the doorbell rings loudly over them. ‘I'll be ever so good if you keep me,' says Felicity. Howard moves past her, down the hall to the front door. He opens it; on the steps stands someone in a cossack coat and high boots, holding a suitcase and a birdcage. ‘Myra,' says Howard. Myra steps into the open door. She sees Felicity down the hall; she looks at Howard. ‘Oh, Howard,' she says, ‘I've left Henry. I've got nowhere to go.' ‘You've walked out on him?' asks Howard. ‘Yes,' says Myra, putting down the birdcage, ‘I've done it now. You will let me stay here, won't you?'

XII

On Saturday 7 October the sun shines, there is a light mist off the sea, and Barbara gets ready to go to London. There is bread in the house, food in the refrigerator; the guest-room window has been mended, the dishes are washed, the glasses have gone back to the wine shop, and all is fit to leave. Just before nine o'clock, Howard, the helpful husband, goes up to the square, and fetches the minivan; Felicity Phee, the helpful help, takes the children outside, and lifts them, giggling and full of enjoyment, into the back. Barbara is smart in a furry coat, and high boots; she runs down the steps, carrying a small striped suitcase, and puts it in the back, and shuts the doors, and gets into the van beside Howard. Felicity waves from the steps. ‘Have a good time,' she shouts, ‘I'll take care of all of them.' Things are well arranged; Barbara smiles, the van starts. The bright sun glares into the van windows as they drive up the hill, through the traffic, and pull into the station yard. ‘Weekend in London', say the posters under the covered arcade where the van has stopped; Barbara will. She leans across to her helpful husband; she kisses him on the cheek. She kneels up on the seat, and kisses the children in the back. ‘Be good,' she says, ‘all of you.' Then she lifts out her case, and walks into the bustle of the concourse. They can see her from the van; she stops and waves; she goes through the glass doors into the bright ticket hall. She stands in the queue, and buys a weekend ticket, waiting in front of the counter while the booking clerk prints the ticket on a large console. Her coat is smart, her hair is frizzed and pretty; the people in the line look at her. She is still in good time for the train, so she goes to the news-stand at the end of the platform, and looks through the magazine display: the bright photography of faces, clothes and breasts, the clean modern graphics. She browses a while; then she picks out a glossy magazine designed for today's sophisticated woman, advertising articles about Twiggy, and living together, and the controversy about the vaginal versus the clitoral orgasm, and pays for it.

The train stands at the platform, a very convenient train, with a buffet. The day's travellers walk down beside it, past the orange curtains. Barbara joins them, passing the coaches until she finds the buffet; she gets in, finds a corner seat, and throws her magazine down on it. She looks around; the coach is not busy; the buffet counter is being arranged by the attendant. She puts her case on the rack; she hangs up her coat on the peg; she sits down, and places the magazine on her knee. She watches the people get onto the train. A young man in a denim suit, with a briefcase, comes and sits opposite her; he smiles at her, and she smiles back, but does not speak. The train whistle blows; the train pulls out of the domed shed of the station. With the magazine on her knee, she stares out at the freightyards, the dumps of coal, the office blocks in the town centre, the pillars of the motorway, the view, down through the shopping business of Watermouth, to the sea. The blind of the buffet rolls up; she gets to her feet, goes to the counter, and buys a cup of coffee, carrying it back in its plastic cup held in a brown plastic holder. The man smiles at her again as she sits; he says, ‘Off for the weekend?' ‘I'm a married woman,' says Barbara, and puts her head down, and reads an article about vasectomy. After a while she lifts her head and stares out of the window, at the fields and hedges. The day is bright; the sun shines and shimmers in her eyes; it is a red disk in her lashes. The man stares at her. At home the household arrangements are secure; Felicity will take the children for a walk on the beach this morning, and put out their lunch, ready in the refrigerator, and spend the afternoon with them at the funfair, and bath them before they go to bed. The man still looks at her; she puts her head down, and stares into the magazine, examining the fashion photographs in which, on some beach in Tunisia, nipples slip chancily into view out of loose silk, and female faces pout angrily, in the fashionable style, at the prodding camera. Her eyes are green; her cheeks are rubbed red; she sits comfortably in her seat, taking the man's gaze over her.

The train is convenient, the service to London fairly quick; that is one of the pleasures of Watermouth. It is a familiar journey. The cars stand in the car parks of London commuterland, and then there are the back gardens of London suburbia. The tenement area comes up; then they are following the Thames, and running down the platform at Waterloo under noisy loudspeakers. She rises from her seat, and puts on the furry coat. The man opposite rises, and lifts down her case. ‘Have a good time,' he says. She smiles at him, thanks him, and goes and stands by the train door. When the train stops, the man walks beside her down the platform. He asks her name; she does not give it. She comes to the barrier, and there, waiting, waving, is Leon, in his much-worn leather motorcycle jacket, his hair long. He pushes to her, puts his arm round her, kisses her. The man has gone. She puts down her case, and kisses him. ‘Oh, you're here,' she says. Leon takes her case, and they go across to the station buffet, and sit talking busily over a cup of coffee. Her eyes are bright; she slips her coat down her shoulders. After a while they leave the buffet and walk across to the Underground entrance. They go through the busy concourse, take tickets, and wait on the platform for a Northern Line train. The train comes through the tunnel; they get in and stand close together, Leon's hand inside her coat, until the train reaches Charing Cross where they change to the Circle Line for Sloane Square. They leave the train there, hurry through the station, with Leon in front, laughing, and they come up into the street, among the traffic. Leon carries her bag; they make their way along, stopping frequently, staring into the windows of boutiques with their fancy display of fabric, their tactile colour-mixes, their strobe lights. They go in and out of shops, touch objects, look along racks of bright clothes. Music booms from speakers, and theft-detection cameras show their pictures on a screen, a smart couple.

They buy a pepper-mill; they look together at a sex magazine; they look through a rack of posters. Here and there Barbara takes dresses off the racks, and shows them to the pretty shopgirls, and takes them to the fitting rooms, trying them on, this style and that, in a crowd of girls in their underpants. Each dress she tries she shows to Leon, posing before him, showing him different selves, as he sits on a chair among the racks, or leans against the counter, talking to the assistants. Together, in due consideration, they pick two; they are put into high-coloured plastic bags, which she carries as they go on. Later they find a pub, and sit together drinking, and eat sandwiches from the bar. Afterwards they get on a bus, and go to a cinema; they watch a Hungarian film and lean lazily against each other, their hands feeling into each other. When the film is over they walk the shopping streets, walking and talking. There is a restaurant in Greek Street where actors go; they eat dinner there, and talk to acquaintances of Leon's. Then there is a pub where actors drink; they join a crowded table there, with actors and actresses, television directors and writers, all talking in bright style about football. Girls kiss Leon; men kiss Barbara. Much later on, they go out, through the restaurants and strip-shows, to find a bus and go to Islington, where Leon's bedsitter is. They go past cracked stucco and antique shops and ethnic stores to the ramshackle house. They go up the stairs, unlock the door, light the gas fire. It is an untidy room, barely tenanted; there are posters on the walls, and photographs of sets, productions, many face shots. There are only two chairs, and a daybed, and a table, and an old brown carpet on the floor. There is a stereo; Leon switches it on, and noise booms. They then pull cushions off the daybed, onto the floor; they lie together in front of the gas fire, and reach out and undress each other, quickly; and then Barbara subsides backwards onto the cushions, and looks as Leon's face pushes towards her, his body comes over her. His hands stir pleasure into her, his body comes in.