The History Man (17 page)

The route to the children's school is a track of familiar lanes, arrows and pointers, lines and halts, a routed semiology. Tail lights give out red reflections onto the wet road; the rain-stipple accumulates on the windows, and the wiper-arms swing in a steady beat back and forth in front of his eyes. An expert performer, he plays the gears, releasing and checking energy with his feet, swinging from this lane to that, gaining, steadily, maximum advantage in the traffic. The sealed metal and glass box round him is an object he uses well; the surrounding city is a structure he can master, by special routes and short cuts. But now the traffic jams; they come to rest in the line. Rear lights shine back at them. Music wells out of a boutique; there is a chiming of the town-hall clock. Shoppers and pedestrians press along the pavements; the buses disgorge crowds. In front of the van, a man crosses. He has long yellow hair, pulled together at the back with a band, a tie-dyed shirt split down to the navel, leather suede-fringed trousers, a bedroll on his back. He stops in the space between the van and the car in front; he puts one hand on the front of the van, the other on the boot of the other car, and swings between them for a moment. Then he goes on, through the traffic, to the other side of the street. ‘Hey, why did he do that?' asks Martin. ‘He feels free,' says Howard. The traffic moves again. Howard pushes the gear lever in; he turns down sidestreets and back ways until he reaches the red-brick enormity that is the children's school. Many middle-class mothers are parked in a row down the narrow street, releasing themselves from their children for the day. Howard uneasily joins the line, pulling up near the school entrance, and pulling open the van door to let Martin and Celia out. They run to join the woman who guards them across the road. He watches their wet figures across the street. Then he starts the van again, and drives back into the central traffic jam. The town is busy; there are crowds moving to work around the park and the cathedral, the town hall and Woolworth's. He is heading towards the university, which lies beyond the western side of the city, reached through a rundown residential area of Victorian terraces, dirty, carelessly maintained, marked with all the signs of transience. Down these streets the students who do not live in Spengler and Hegel, Marx and Toynbee, Kant and Hobbes, have flats and lodgings; at this time in the morning they flood, from the flats and bedsitters, onto the main road, lined with builders' yards, garages for used cars, stonemasons' premises with sample gravestones. Here they stand, waiting for buses and thumbing lifts.

Howard sits behind the wheel, inspecting faces, looking for one he knows. Shortly he sees one: standing at a bus stop, overarched by a large maroon umbrella, is a girl in a dark grey dress. He waves on the following traffic; he stops, a little way beyond the stop; he hoots the horn. But the girl clearly knows a pickup when she sees one; she glances at the minivan with a very cool curiosity, and then stares back down the main road, investigating the traffic for a sight of the bus she is dedicated to catching. Howard hoots again; finally he opens the door of the van and gets out, pressing against the door to avoid the rushing traffic. He shouts: ‘Miss Callendar, Miss Callendar.' In the queue, Miss Callendar turns again and stares; then there is a shock of recognition. ‘Och,' she says, ‘it's Dr Kirk beckoning me.' ‘Come on,' says Howard, ‘I'll give you a lift to the university.' Miss Callendar stands for a moment, giving this due consideration; then she detaches herself from the line of waiting students, and walks toward the van. ‘Well, it's extremely kind of you,' she says, stopping on the passenger side, ‘on such a poor day.' ‘A pleasure,' says Howard, ‘get in.' Miss Callendar reefs in her umbrella, securing its maroon folds to its silver stalk; then she opens the van door and begins to climb inside. ‘I thought you marched in every day under a banner,' she says as she twists her long legs to fit them into place, putting her briefcase on the floor, her umbrella upright between her knees, ‘I'd no idea you drove about in motorized luxury.' Howard lets out the clutch; he says, ‘It will save you your busfare.' ‘That's right,' says Miss Callendar, ‘a real consideration, these days.' The van pulls out into the traffic lane, and it joins the row of cars that every weekday morning, just before nine, makes its way out from Watermouth toward the university.

From Miss Callendar comes the scent of a healthy shampoo. Her umbrella is elegantly capped with a glass knob, into which a flower is set, like some Victorian antique; her white hands curl around it. She turns toward Howard and says, as if confessing a guilty secret, ‘Actually, I'm almost late for a class. I just couldn't stir myself out of bed.' ‘You know why?' says Howard, ‘too much partying.' ‘It doesn't do, does it?' asks Miss Callendar. ‘What time did you finish?' ‘Oh, late,' says Howard, ‘long after you left. About four.' ‘I don't know how you do it,' says Miss Callendar, ‘it was an awfully demanding party.' ‘All parties are demanding,' says Howard, ‘if you take a real interest.' ‘Ah,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I do agree. The last thing they should be is fun. That demeans them into something trivial.' Howard laughs, and says: ‘But did you take an interest?' ‘Oh, I did,' says Miss Callendar, ‘in my own way. You see, I'm a stranger, and I have to find out what you're all up to.' ‘Did you?' asks Howard. ‘I'm not sure,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I think you're very interesting characters, but I haven't discovered the plot.' ‘Oh, that's simple,' says Howard, ‘it's the plot of history.' ‘Oh, of course,' says Miss Callendar, ‘you're a history man.' ‘That's right,' says Howard, ‘and that's why you have to trust us all. Like those kids last night. They're on the side of history.' ‘Well, I trust everyone,' says Miss Callendar, ‘but no one especially over everyone else. I suppose I don't believe in group virtue. It seems to me such an individual achievement. Which, I imagine, is why you teach sociology and I teach literature.' ‘Ah, yes,' says Howard, ‘but how do you teach it?' ‘Do you mean am I a structuralist or a Leavisite or a psycho-linguistician or a formalist or a Christian existentialist or a phenomenologist?' ‘Yes,' says Howard. ‘Ah,' says Miss Callendar, ‘well, I'm none of them.' ‘What do you do, then?' asks Howard. ‘I read books and talk to people about them.' ‘Without a method?' asks Howard. ‘That's right,' says Miss Callendar. ‘It doesn't sound very convincing,' says Howard. ‘No,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I have a taste for remaining a little elusive.' ‘You can't,' says Howard. ‘With every word you utter, you state your world view.' ‘I know,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I'm trying to find a way round that.' ‘There isn't one,' says Howard, ‘you have to know what you are.' ‘I'm a nineteenth-century liberal,' says Miss Callendar. ‘You can't be,' says Howard, ‘this is the twentieth century, near the end of it. There are no resources.' ‘I know,' says Miss Callendar, ‘that's why I am one.'

Howard looks across at Miss Callendar. She is looking back at him, with cool eyes, her mouth a little open, her manner serene. Her white face and dark hair and grey-dressed body fill the little van. He remembers her leaving his house last night, standing above the study, looking in; ‘You showed much more curiosity about that girl there than you do about me,' Felicity Phee had said. The road now leaves the suburban belt and is running into the scrap of countryside that lies between town and university. The thirty mile limit finishes now; on the dual carriageway Howard picks up speed. There are a few high elms, a few chopped-down hedges, a converted cottage or two by the roadside. He looks again at Miss Callendar, who provokes him. He says, ‘Where do you live?' ‘I have a flat,' says Miss Callendar, ‘a very convenient flat. It has a bathroom; that's convenient. And a bedroom with a bed. And a tin-opener with a tin. And a very pleasant living room.' ‘Do you do a lot of pleasant living?' asks Howard. ‘Not a lot,' says Miss Callendar, ‘one hardly has the time. Being in the twentieth century, very near the end of it.' ‘Where is this flat?' asks Howard. Miss Callendar turns her head and looks at him. She says, ‘It's very hard to find.' ‘Oh, yes,' says Howard, ‘why is that?' ‘Mainly because I don't tell anyone where it is,' says Miss Callendar. ‘Tell me,' says Howard, ‘you must tell me.' ‘Why?' asks Miss Callendar curiously. ‘I hope to come there sometime,' says Howard. ‘I see,' says Miss Callendar, ‘well, it's just that kind of casual, arbitrary visiting I'm trying to stop.' ‘Oh, you shouldn't,' says Howard. ‘Oh, yes,' says Miss Callendar, ‘otherwise any old structuralist or Leavisite or Christian existentialist who happened to be passing would be there. Knocking at the door, ringing the bell, wanting to fit you up with a contraceptive or get you into history. How is your wife, Dr Kirk?'

The entrance sign of the university, done in the distinctive modern lettering which is, along with the Jop Kaakinen cutlery (now mostly stolen) and the Mary Quant robes for congregation, part of its contemporary stylistic mannerism, appears on the right side of the road. Howard moves into the outer lane to be ready for the turn; there is a sudden screech of brakes behind him. ‘Screw you,' says Howard. ‘Why, Dr Kirk,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I do believe you want to do that to everybody.' ‘I meant the man behind,' says Howard, pulling into position in the long line of cars waiting to make the turn into the campus. ‘Of course, I'd like to.' ‘You'd like to what?' asks Miss Callendar. ‘Screw you,' says Howard. ‘Would you?' says Miss Callendar, her eyes staring ahead, her hands holding tight to the umbrella. ‘Oh, now, why would you want to do a thing like that, Dr Kirk?' The van makes the turn into the carriage drive that leads through the university site, the drive that led once to the Elizabethan splendours of Watermouth Hall. Loud bangs thump on the van roof, a fusillade of raindrops falling from the chestnut trees that line one side; those on the other side have been removed, to widen the road, and have been replaced by a row of saplings that, in the course of time, if there is a course of time, will hopefully acquire the old dignity. ‘I think you're attractive,' says Howard, ‘I think you need serious attention.' ‘I gathered you'd been researching in the sexual field,' says Miss Callendar, ‘you're still working at it, are you?' ‘Oh, that's all finished and published,' says Howard, ‘no, this would be purely for pleasure.' ‘Oh, pleasure,' says Miss Callendar, ‘but what would be the pleasure? My own lovely self, of course. That goes without saying. But I'm sure you have grander motives.' ‘I like you physically,' says Howard, ‘and you're a serious challenge. You haven't been made over.' ‘Oh, I see,' says Miss Callendar. ‘You're a provocation,' says Howard. ‘I'm sorry,' says Miss Callendar, ‘were you being provoked last night?' ‘Last night,' says Howard. ‘When I left the party,' says Miss Callendar. ‘Oh, that was part of my tutorial duties,' says Howard. ‘One has many obligations.' ‘But I'm not an obligation, I'm a pleasure.' ‘That's right,' says Howard, ‘come out to dinner with me.'

‘Dinner,' says Miss Callendar. ‘We ought to get to know each other,' says Howard. They are passing, one on either side of the drive, two of the Kaakinen residences, Toynbee and Spengler; from them, in the pouring rain, comes a bedraggled procession of students, carrying cases and books, on their way to nine o'clock classes. ‘Why, Dr Kirk,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I don't think it would do.' ‘Why not?' asks Howard. ‘You go out to dinner and eat scampi and seduce nineteenth-century liberals,' says Miss Callendar, ‘and meanwhile your wife sits at home and sews. Do you honestly think this is right?' ‘My wife can't sew,' says Howard, ‘and she goes her own way. She has wicked weekends in London.' ‘And you sit home and sew?' says Miss Callendar. ‘No,' says Howard, ‘we get little time for sewing.' ‘I can imagine,' says Miss Callendar, ‘well, it's very kind of you to invite me, but I really don't think I can accept.' A sign says P, and points: Howard turns the van towards the car park. Now the main buildings of the university are in sight, up and down, high and low, glass and cement. ‘Why not?' asks Howard, ‘Am I too old? Too fast? Too married?' ‘I don't think I belong in your company,' says Miss Callendar, sitting beside him, holding her umbrella. ‘Mightn't it do you good?' asks Howard. ‘It's the good I'm suspicious of,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I think I know what your interest is in me. I think you regard me as a small, unmodernized, country property, ripe for development to fit contemporary tastes. You want to claim me for that splendid historical transcendence in which you feel you stand.' ‘That's right,' says Howard, ‘you're repressed, you're uptight, you haven't begun to reveal yourself yet. I want to reveal you.' In the car park, a student in a Rover
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backs out of one of the spaces; Howard drives neatly into the vacated space. ‘Don't think I don't appreciate it,' says Miss Callendar, ‘some people would just want to lay you and forget it. You provide redemption as well, a full course in reality. But I do have an idea of reality already. Only it's not quite the same as yours.'

Howard stops the engine; he turns to face Miss Callendar. She is sitting, looking forward towards a row of concrete bollards, with a very cool look on her face, her hands still around the handle of the umbrella. He puts his hand on top of her hands. He says, ‘Tomorrow night, yes?' ‘Tomorrow night, no,' says Miss Callendar. ‘I'm sorry,' says Howard, ‘I'm really after you. You know what Blake says.' ‘Yes,' says Miss Callendar, ‘I know very well what Blake says.' ‘“Better murder an infant in its cradle than to nurse unacted desires,”' says Howard. ‘Of course you would say that,' says Miss Callendar, ‘actually what he said was that it was better to nurse unacted desires than murder an infant in its cradle.' ‘I think I have it right,' says Howard. ‘It's my field,' says Miss Callendar, opening the car door. ‘Many thanks for the lift. It saved me seven new pence.' ‘I'm delighted to have supported your economy,' says Howard, ‘what about my invitation?' ‘Maybe one day,' says Miss Callendar, angling herself out of the car and rising up beside it to her full height, ‘when I'm hungry.' Standing in the wet lake of the car park, she erects her maroon umbrella. Then, as Howard watches, she pushes it up in the air and walks off across the lake, her briefcase swinging beside her knee, towards the Humanities Building. Howard gets out of the van too, locks it, and, with his briefcase, walks off in the other direction, towards Social Sciences. He walks past posters advertising theatrical productions, the forthcoming visit of many Maharishis, some new anti-Vietnam demonstrations, lectures on picketing, drugs, and the development of Byzantine art; he walks under cranes and welders; he crosses the Piazza. A large figure under a transparent domed umbrella is crossing the Piazza from the other direction; it is Flora Beniform, swinging her briefcase, wearing a big black fur-collared coat. They meet just under the portico of the Social Sciences Building, outside the glass doors; they stop and smile at each other.