The History Man

A Novel

Malcolm Bradbury

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781504007764
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Malcolm Bradbury's classic skewering of 1970s academia, hailed by the New York Times as "an encyclopedia of radical chic as well as a genuinely comic novel" Among the painfully hip students and teachers at the liberal University of Watermouth, Howard Kirk appears to be the most stylish of them all. With his carefully manicured mustache and easygoing radicalism, Kirk prides himself on being among the most highly evolved teachers on his redbrick campus. But beneath Kirk's scholarly bohemianism and studied cool is a ruthless, self-serving Machiavellian streak. A sociology lecturer who outwardly espouses freethinking nonconformity, Kirk is himself vain and bigoted, dismissing female students and colleagues while releasing vitriol against those who contradict him, particularly his clever, wayward wife, Barbara, the long-suffering mother of his two children. A funny and incisive satire of academia and ideological hypocrisy, The History Man is one of Malcolm Bradbury's most acclaimed novels and remains just as sharp and witty today as when it was first published.

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.

It is pleasant to hold him inside, with the heat of the gas fire on the skin of her side, her leg. And later it is pleasant to make up the daybed, and get into it, and fold into each other again, to feel sensation, to let pieces of self come alive. It is pleasant, too, to wake in the night against flesh, to stir, to touch and press the adjoining body until it connects with yours once more. It is pleasant in the morning to lie in bed, while Leon goes out and fetches the Observer, and to read one section while he, undressed and back in bed, reads the other. It is pleasant to spend Sunday walking, looking at paintings in a gallery, lunching in a pub, going to look at the river. It is pleasant to walk along the shopping streets on a Sunday, past the bright displays, and the mirrors where you see yourself reflected, bright-looking yourself, with bright Leon, with his stark face and long hair, among all the other young people. It is pleasant to go back to the bedsitter, and put the fire on once more, and begin again the touching and feeling and the delicate tactical motions that bring pleasure, which is pleasant, and to try on the dresses you’ve bought, and some of Leon’s clothes and costumes, and smoke, and feel. It is only not pleasant to be told that Leon, who is busy with parts, will be busier; he is going off for five months on tour, with Much Ado About Nothing, to Australia and the United States. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re gone,’ says Barbara. ‘I’m not the only one like me,’ says Leon, pulling her down. So it is depressing to wake up early on Monday morning, while Leon still sleeps, and let yourself out, and make your way with your case and your two dress bags to the bus, and the tube, and get to Waterloo for the busy morning train. It is hard to find a seat, and there is rain again, soaking the London suburbs, driving across the woods and fields. The magazine is open on Barbara’s knee, but she does not look at it. She sits with her mouth open, her fur coat kept on, her face staring through the window. The train slides slowly down the platform at Watermouth. When it stops, she picks up her luggage and gets out. Howard is waiting in the concourse, in his leather jacket, a neat, new, brown jacket, the car keys in his hand. He kisses her lightly, and takes her bag. ‘Did you have a good time?’ he asks. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘quite good. I bought two dresses.’

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 farmhouse.’ ‘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 towards the Student Union building; Howard gets out, locks it, and moves in another direction, towards 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, braless 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 matte...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Author’s Note
• Epigraph
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• Welcome Back to The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
• About the Author
• Copyright Page