Malcolm Bradbury - The History Man

There are groans and shouts; Benita Pream, meanwhile, has been fumbling through papers; now she whispers a brief something into the ear of the chair. The chair says: 'Oh, good.' There is still much noise in the room, so Marvin taps the table. 'I feel quite sure,' he says, 'my colleagues will bear with me if I say that it is undesirable to re-run this entire meeting. It now appears that this is the only motion today which was passed on a margin of one vote. With the consent of the meeting, I will assume all other votes satisfactory. Do I have that?' The sociologists, weary from the fray, agree. 'Now our last vote,' says Marvin. 'As your chairman, I have to consider the position here very carefully. Do we happen to know the way Dr Todoroff voted?'

'It seemed to me rather obvious,' says Dr Zachery, 'from her comments on leaving.'

'That's injustice,' says Moira Millikin, 'a ballot should be secret. When one individual's vote can be singled out in this way, the system's wrong.'

'I think there may be another way to answer this,' says Marvin, looking at another note from Benita Pream. 'I think I've resolved it, I hope to the satisfaction of this meeting.' The meeting looks about itself; it does not have the air of a group easily satisfied. ' If Dr Todoroff had voted against the motion,' says Marvin, 'and we simply subtracted her vote, that would leave the voting as eleven to nine, with the motion carried. Do we agree?' The meeting agrees. 'If, on the other hand, she had voted for the motion, and her vote was subtracted, that would give us a tie, at ten ten. But in the event of such a tie, I as chairman would have had to use my casting vote. In the circumstances, and only because of the circumstances, as a pure matter of procedure and not of preference, I would have had to vote for the motion. Either way, therefore, the motion may be presumed to be carried.'

There is once again much uproar. 'Wishy-washy liberal equivocation,' shouts Moira Millikin, while her baby squawks by her chair. 'A crime against mankind,' says Roger Fundy. 'I can only tell you, Dr Fundy,' says Marvin, 'that I do not myself greatly relish the idea of Mangel visiting this campus. Not because what has been said about him seems to me true, but because we as a department do much better without these contentious situations. But this has been forced on me, and there was no other way procedurally for justice to be done.'

'A reactionary reason,' says Moira Millikin. 'Justice!' cried Roger Fundy. 'Democratic justice is clear injustice.'

'You always seem to find it convenient when it is in your favour,' says Marvin. This generates much more uproar, through which come many shouts for the vote to be retaken, and the level of the lake outside continues to rise, and the darkness increases beyond the big windows with their rattling blinds. The dumper-trucks have stopped; the pile-drivers have been put away; but, high in the dark, the lights of the Durkheim Room shine bright. The meeting goes on, and then, at 17.30, there is a loud ping of Benita Pream's alarm clock, and it is over. Or almost over, for even now they have to consider a proposal that, since there has been no tea interval, a notional time should be set for the actual consumption of the tea and the biscuits; it is this spot of notional time that is finally used to justify the fact that the meeting has gone on a few minutes longer in order to consider whether it should go on a few minutes longer. The sociologists rise and disperse; Professor Debison, who has not spoken at all, hurries off to his taxi, which will take him straight to Heathrow; in the corridor outside the Durkheim Room, caucuses huddle and discuss coming upheaval. 'You were very quiet,' says Flora Beniform to Howard, as they leave the room. 'Well,' says Howard, 'some of these bones of contention are very hard to resolve.'

'You've never had that trouble before,' says Flora. 'You want Mangel. You want a fight.'

'Who, me?' asks Howard, innocently, as they get into the lift. They stand there, waiting for the doors to close. 'I've got a babysitter,' says Howard. 'I see,' says Flora, and reaches in her bag, and gets out her diary, and deletes from the page marked with a thread a word that says: 'Provisionally'. 'Secret assignation?' asks Henry Beamish, getting into the lift, his arm sticking out stiffly before him, 'Well, Howard, that was very enjoyable. I'm glad I took the trouble to come. There were some issues there that greatly concerned me.'

'Were there, Henry?' asks Flora. 'What were those?'

'The question of the grant for research into senile delinquency,' says Henry. 'We can really move forward on that one now.'

'Did we discuss that?' asks Flora. 'Flora, you weren't attending,' says Henry, 'it was one of the most important items. I thought we'd have a battle over it, but it went straight through without discussion. I suppose people see its importance. A very uncontentious meeting, I thought.'

'Were you attending?' asks Flora, 'I noticed a certain flurry round the matter of Mangel.'

'I found that terribly predictable,' says Henry. 'The trouble with sociologists is that they usually fail to take genetics seriously. They talk about the balance of nature and nurture, but when it comes down to it they're all on the side of nurture, because they can interfere with that. They can't realize how much we're genetically predetermined.'

'But it is, as the chair says, a bone of contention,' says Flora. 'It'll blow over,' says Henry. 'Will it, Howard?' asks Flora. 'I doubt it,' says Howard. 'There's a lot of passion on this.'

'Oh, God,' says Flora, 'I must admit I was really hoping for just one quiet term. Without an issue, without a sit-in. I know it sounds terribly reactionary. But even though permanent revolution may have its claims, I really think before I die I'd like the peace to write one decent book.'

'But we won't let you,' says Howard. 'No,' says Flora, 'so I see.'

The lift stops at the fifth floor, and they get out, back into Sociology. 'Funny how it came up,' says Henry, 'it was all a bit of an accident.'

'Henry,' says Flora, wearily, 'there are no accidents.' Henry turns and looks at her, puzzled. 'Of course there are,' he says. 'I don't think Howard agrees with you,' says Flora. 'I must go home and work. Take care of yourself, Henry.'

'Of course,' says Henry. The three of them separate, going along three of the four corridors that lead away from the lift, to collect up the briefcases and the books and the new essays and the new department memos, the accumulated intellectual deposit of the day, which will now need fresh attention. 'Grand girl, Flora,' says Henry, a few minutes later, when Howard comes to the door of his room, to remind him of their appointment. Henry's room, like all the rooms, is a matching version of Howard's own, with the Conran desk, the Roneo-Vickers filing cabinet, the gunmetal wastepaper basket, the red desk chair, all in approximately similar places in the rectangle. The difference is that Henry has domesticated the space, and filled it with potted plants, and a bust of Gladstone, and a modernistic silver-frame mirror, and a loose-weave Norwegian rug for the floor, and a machine called a Teasmaid, which links a teapot to a clock, and throws out an intense smell of tea-leaves. 'Are you ready, Henry?' asks Howard. 'I've got a somewhat busy evening. And I've got to take you home for your steak.'

'I think that's about it,' says Henry, 'I shan't get much work done tonight like this. I wonder, Howard, if you could give me a hand to get my raincoat on? The problem is to fit this arm of mine in somewhere.'

'Let's put it over your shoulders,' says Howard, 'and I'll button it up for you at the neck.' They stand in Henry's domestic room, Henry with his chin up, as Howard attends to his coat. Then they pick up their briefcases and walk down the empty corridor towards the lift.