Malcolm Bradbury - The History Man

The Kirks do not believe in property; but they look out upon this apocalyptic landscape of the times, these craters, this rubble, these clutches of willow-herb, these drifting migrants, with a sense of territoriality. It is the outside of the inside of their minds, their perfect vista; like landed squires having their portraits painted, they can be posed appropriately against it. Here is Howard, small and elegant, his Zapata moustache drooping around the corners of his mouth, the hair thinning slightly and therefore combed forward, the firm jaw jutting in an angry, thrusting look; beside him, his good wife Barbara, in her long caftan, large and light-haired, Thermos in hand, one fist slightly raised and clenched; behind them, in strong detail, a scatter of broken forms, a coming down and a going up, society and consciousness in transformation; the two central figures equal, their eyes alert, their limbs twitching, struggling to get out of the frame and on with the plot of history. The plot of history; it serves them, and it matters to them, but somehow it doesn't quite give them all now. For of course they are now in their middle thirties, and certain things have been achieved; that is part of the trouble, as Howard, who is frank in his own self-exposure, will tell you. As a famous radical at the university, Howard has a senior lectureship there, and has been put on a fair number of committees. He is still active in the town's radical causes, in a free school for underprivileged children, a rescue campaign called People In Trouble, and in the radical journals, where he writes often. He edits a sociology series for a paperback publisher, and has published a second book, The Death of the Bourgeoisie. The Kirks go to publishers' parties in Bloomsbury, and radical socialist parties in Hampstead, and parties for new boutiques in the King's Road. And of course they give good parties of their own, like the one they are giving tonight.

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 mid-morning 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,' pays 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.'