VI

It is four in the morning when the party comes to its end. The last guests stand in the hall, some of them needing the support of the wall; they say their goodbyes; they venture through the door into the quietness of early-morning Watermouth. The Kirks, that hospitable couple, usher them forth, and then they go upstairs to their disorderly bedroom, which smells sharply of pot, and push the bed back into position, and take the ashtrays off it, and undress, and get under the duvet. They say nothing, being tired people; they do not touch each other, having no need; Barbara, in her black nightdress, folds her body into Howard’s, her buttocks on his knees, and they are quickly asleep. And then it is the morning, and the Habitat alarm clock rings on the bedside table, and they wake again, back into the life of ordinary things. Consciousness returns, and feels heavy with use; Howard presses his eyelids open, jerks towards being, regresses, tries again. Traffic chumps on the creases of the urban motorway; a diesel commuter train hoots on the viaduct; the graders are revving on the construction sites. The bed vibrates and bounces; Barbara is getting up. The Habitat alarm clock says it is V to VIII. Barbara pads across to the door, and takes her housecoat from the hook; she goes across to the window and pulls back the curtain to admit dull wet daylight. The room appears in its unmitigated thinginess, flavoured with the dusty smell of cigarette smoke, the sweet aftersmell of pot. A thrown-off dress, gutted by its long zip, hangs askew on the door. On the junk shop chest of drawers, its grain surface rough, one handle gone, two handles broken, are some plates, three full ashtrays, and many empty wine glasses from the supermarket. The lavatory flushes along the landing. Outside black rainclouds move in off the sea and over the tops of the luxury flats; the rain pours and smudges and blackens the brickwork of the shattered houses opposite, dripping violently in the Kirks’ unstable guttering. In Howard’s head is the dry image of a person: Felicity Phee, a mottling of spots above her breasts. He activates muscular mechanisms; he gets out of bed and walks, through the party detritus and the unredeemed daylight, to the bathroom. He urinates into the bowl; he takes his razor from the medicine cabinet, and unravels the cord. He plugs the razor into two black holes under the white globe of the light.

He pulls the string of the switch. Light and razor, glare and noise, both come on. His face rises into visibility in the fingermarked glass of the mirror. In the cool urban sheen of the morning, he inspects the Condition of Man. His bleak, beaky features, the moustache worn like a glower, stare out at him as he stares back in at them. ‘Christ,’ he says, ‘you again.’ His fingers come up and touch and shape this strange flesh into position. He runs the razor over it, shaping and ordering the construct before him, sculpting neatly round the edge of the moustache, clipping at the line of the sideboards. He stops the razor; from downstairs, he can hear the barbaric yawp of his children. The features he has been designing hang pallidly, abstractly, before him in the mirror; he pokes at them, hoping to urge into them that primordial glow which is actual and real livingness. There is no response. He picks up a bottle of aftershave lotion with a machismo label, and slaps some into his cheeks. He switches off the light above the mirror; the face fades. A family row of toothbrushes are prodded into a metal rack above the washbasin; he takes one, and scrubs up a foam inside his mouth. The rain splashes in the gutters. A female cooing sounds in the acoustical complexities of the staircase; he is being called to breakfast and his domestic duties, for it is his turn to take the children to school. He combs his hair, and drops a fuzz of haircombings into the yellow waters of the lavatory bowl. He presses the handle, and flushes it. He returns to the bedroom and reaches into the wardrobe, selecting some clothes, his cultural identity. He puts on jeans and a sweater; he straps on his watch. He goes towards the domestic arena. On the landing, on the stairs, there are empty glasses and plates, cups and ashtrays, bottles. Anita Dollfuss’s dog has left its traces, and there are strange dark drips of something along the length of the hall. A silvery dress lies on the floor. He goes through into the pine decor of the kitchen, where chaos is total. Many empty bottles stand on the pine counters; many dirty plates are scattered everywhere. The stench of old parties prevails. In an endless sequence of little explosions, rain plumps on the glass roof of the Victorian conservatory, where the children are playing. The electric kettle fuzzes a thin line of steam around Barbara, who stands in her housecoat, in front of the cooker, her hair untidy.

‘My God, just look at it,’ says Barabara, putting eggs into a pan. ‘Go on, just look at it.’ Howard puts bread into the toaster; obliging, he looks around. ‘It’s a mess,’ he says. ‘Which you undertook to help me clear up,’ says Barbara. ‘That’s right,’ says Howard, ‘I will.’ ‘Can you advise me when?’ ‘Well, I’m teaching this morning,’ says Howard. ‘And there’s a departmental meeting this afternoon, which will go on very late.’ ‘It wouldn’t,’ says Barbara, ‘if you didn’t argue so much.’ ‘I exist to argue,’ says Howard. ‘I just want to be clear,’ says Barbara. ‘I am not doing this by myself.’ ‘Of course not,’ says Howard, picking up the Guardian from the kitchen table. The headlines advise him of many indignities and wrongs. There is a new anti-pornography drive, a trial of a group of anarchist bombers, an equivocal constitutional meeting in Ulster, a fudging Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. Liberties are sliding; his radical ire thickens, and he begins to feel some of the bitterness that is part of the sensation of living self. ‘I am not going to be that person,’ says Barbara. ‘Did you find me somebody?’ ‘Not yet,’ says Howard, ‘I’ll find someone though.’ ‘I could fix it with Rosemary,’ says Barbara. ‘She was in good shape last night. She went home with your friend from the sex shop.’ ‘You see how quickly these agonies pass?’ says Howard. ‘No, Barbara; please not Rosemary.’ ‘In the meantime, the mess,’ says Barbara. ‘We’ll do it tonight,’ says Howard. ‘I’m going out tonight.’ The toaster pops; Howard takes out the warmed bread. ‘Where?’ he asks. ‘I’ve signed up for an evening class at the library,’ says Barbara. ‘It starts today, and I mean to be there. Okay?’ ‘Of course okay,’ says Howard. ‘What’s it on?’ ‘Commercial French,’ says Barbara. ‘Acceptez, cher monsieur, I’assurance de mes solicitations les plus distinguées,’ says Howard. ‘What do you need it for?’ ‘It’s something new,’ says Barbara. ‘Don’t they have car mechanics?’ asks Howard. ‘I want to read Simone de Beauvoir in the original.’ ‘In commercial French?’ ‘Yes,’ says Barbara, ‘that was all the French they had.’ ‘Well, it should bend your mind,’ says Howard. ‘Don’t patronize me,’ says Barbara, ‘I’m not Myra Beamish.’ ‘Did she leave him?’ asks Howard. ‘I don’t know,’ says Barbara, ‘I lost sight of that particular little drama, Myra making it into the now scene. There were so many.’ ‘A good party,’ says Howard. ‘A mess,’ says Barbara, switching on the radio.

The radio trills, and there is a newsbreak. The noise of the radio draws the children, Martin and Celia, fresh, separate, critical beings, in their clothes from the manikin boutiques, into the kitchen; they sit down at the table, in front of coloured enamel bowls from Yugoslavia. ‘Bonjour, mes amis,’ says Howard. ‘Did the party make you drunk, Howard?’ asks Martin. ‘Who left her bra in the plantpot of the living-room geranium?’ asks Celia. ‘Not me,’ says Howard. ‘You have the messiest friends in the whole world,’ says Celia. ‘One of them broke a window,’ says Martin, ‘in the guest bedroom.’ ‘You’ve checked around, have you?’ asks Howard. ‘Anything else I should advise the insurance company about?’ ‘I think someone jumped out,’ says Martin, ‘there’s all blood in there. Shall I go and look outside?’ ‘Nobody jumped out,’ says Barbara. ‘You sit there and eat your cornflakes.’ ‘Cornflakes, yuk,’ says Martin. ‘My compliments to the cook, and tell her “yuk”,’ says Howard. ‘I expect this person jumped out because he couldn’t stand the noise,’ says Celia. ‘You say we’re noisy, but that was terrible.’ ‘Is there really some blood, Celia?’ asks Barbara. ‘Yes,’ says Celia. ‘Why does it always have to be cornflakes?’ asks Martin. ‘You can’t say all that much for the human lot, as we bumble around in the Platonic cave,’ says Howard, ‘but sometimes there are glimpses of the eternals beyond. Like cornflakes.’ ‘No metaphysics, Howard,’ says Barbara. ‘Let’s all just eat our cornflakes.’ ‘Are you opposed to metaphysics?’ asks Celia, not eating her cornflakes. ‘She’s a British empiricist,’ says Howard. ‘Look,’ says Barbara, ‘these kids leave for school in fifteen minutes, right? I know it’s against your principles, which are dedicated to driving me insane. But could you exercise a bit of parental authority here, and get them to eat their sodding cornflakes?’ ‘Are you going to eat your sodding cornflakes?’ asks Howard of the children. ‘Or do you want me to throw them out of the window?’ ‘I want you to throw them out of the window,’ says Martin. ‘Christ,’ says Barbara, ‘here’s a man with professional training in social psychology. And he can’t get a child to eat a cornflake.’ ‘The human will has a natural resistance to coercion,’ says Howard. ‘It will not be repressed.’ ‘By cornflake fascism,’ says Celia.

Barbara stares at Howard. ‘Oh, you’re a great operator,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you give them wider options? Set them free?’ asks Howard, ‘Weetabix? Rice Krispies?’ ‘Why don’t you keep out of it?’ asks Barbara, ‘I feed this lot. They’re not asking for different food. They’re asking for my endless sodding attention.’ ‘We are asking for different food,’ says Martin. ‘We’d like the endless sodding attention too,’ says Celia. ‘Eat,’ says Barbara. ‘If you don’t you’ll die.’ ‘Oh, marvellous,’ says Howard. ‘And if you don’t eat fast, you’ll be late for school as well,’ says Barbara. ‘Okay?’ ‘They don’t want you at school if you’re dead,’ says Martin. ‘They give your crayons to another person.’ ‘Shut up, Martin,’ says Barbara. ‘If you speak again, I’ll drop this egg on your head.’ ‘Speak,’ says Celia. ‘Resist tyranny.’ ‘You’ve built this one up,’ says Barbara to Howard. Howard inspects the Guardian; the radio trills; the rain drips. After a minute, Celia says: ‘I hope Miss Birdsall doesn’t make me stand outside the classroom again today.’ Howard recognizes a situation designed for his attention; he looks up from the Guardian; he says, ‘Why did she do that?’ ‘Because I said “penis”,’ says Celia. ‘Honestly,’ says Barbara, ‘that woman.’ ‘It’s a proper word, isn’t it?’ asks Celia, pleased with the development of the situation. ‘I told her you said I could use it.’ ‘Of course it’s a proper word,’ says Howard, ‘I’m going to call the Education Committee. I want an enquiry into that sick, nasty woman.’ ‘Is she sick and nasty?’ asks Barbara. ‘Maybe she’s just overstrained.’ ‘You’re identifying,’ says Howard, ‘Miss Birdbrain needs a good kick up her protestant ethic.’ This creates delight in the constituency; the children shout, ‘Miss Birdbrain, Miss Birdbrain,’ and Martin knocks over his egg. It performs an elegant arc, and smashes on the rush matting. Howard watches as the yellow yolk oozes out and forms a coagulating pool. He says: ‘Take care, Martin.’ Barbara tears paper off the kitchen roll; she bends over, in her housecoat, her face red, and begins to wipe up the mess. When she has finished, she looks at Howard. ‘You wanted that to happen,’ she says.

‘No,’ says Howard. ‘You built it up,’ says Barbara. ‘I was just radicalizing the children a little,’ says Howard. ‘To fix me,’ says Barbara. ‘You see plots everywhere,’ says Howard. ‘As you often say,’ says Barbara, ‘the reason people have conspiracy theories is that people conspire.’ ‘I think Miss Birdbrain’s a marvellous name for her,’ says Celia. ‘She’s just a nasty old penis.’ ‘And you told her that?’ says Barbara. ‘Yes,’ says Celia. ‘So she sent you out of the room,’ says Barbara. ‘Yes,’ says Celia. ‘You’d better explain that when you call the Education Committee,’ says Barbara. ‘Maybe I won’t call the Education Committee,’ says Howard. ‘No,’ says Barbara, ‘save your radical indignation for higher things.’ ‘How come the male organ is now a term of abuse?’ asks Howard. ‘It’s just us second-class citizens getting our own back,’ says Barbara, ‘thanks to reading Simone de Beauvoir in the original.’ Out in the hall the telephone rings; Barbara goes out to answer it. Celia says, ‘Who’s Simone de Beauvoir?’ ‘Who’s Hegel?’ asks Howard. ‘You should answer a question directly when I ask one,’ says Celia. ‘She’s a woman women read,’ says Howard, ‘she’s on the right side.’ ‘Why do women read her?’ asks Celia. ‘They’re angry at men,’ says Howard. ‘At you?’ asks Celia. ‘Oh, not me,’ says Howard, ‘I’m with them in their fight.’ ‘Is Barbara glad?’ asks Celia. ‘I’ll never eat another cornflake in the whole of my life,’ says Martin. The phone goes down in the hall; Barbara walks back into the kitchen, and Howard sees that her face is strange. ‘What in hell happened at our party?’ she asks. ‘A good time all round,’ says Howard. ‘Who was it?’ ‘Myra,’ says Barbara. ‘Aha,’ says Howard, ‘where is she?’ ‘Home,’ says Barbara. ‘I knew she’d stay,’ says Howard, smiling, ‘she was playing.’ ‘There was an accident at our party,’ says Barbara. ‘I told you that,’ says Celia. ‘An accident?’ asks Howard. ‘Is the guest-room window really broken, Martin?’ asks Barbara. ‘I’ll show you, come on,’ says Martin. ‘It was Henry,’ says Barbara, ‘he cut himself on it. He had to go to hospital and have twenty-seven stitches.’ ‘Henry?’ asks Howard, ‘When was this?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ asks Barbara. ‘Weren’t you there? Wasn’t there a host at this party?’ ‘Where were you, baby?’ asks Howard. Barbara says, ‘Get your coats on, you kids. Nearly time for school.’

When the children have run out into the hall, the Kirks sit and look at each other. ‘Another one,’ says Barbara, ‘Rosemary’s boy, and Henry.’ ‘You said an accident,’ says Howard, ‘Well, was it?’ asks Barbara. ‘You think Myra told him she was leaving?’ asks Howard. ‘Isn’t that one explanation?’ asks Barbara. ‘People cry out like that.’ ‘Some people might,’ says Howard, ‘Henry wouldn’t.’ ‘It makes me feel sick,’ says Barbara. ‘Henry already had one accident last night,’ says Howard, ‘A dog bit him. Anyway, Myra didn’t leave him. She’s at home.’ ‘Yes,’ says Barbara. ‘Did she tell you what happened?’ asks Howard. ‘She didn’t really explain anything,’ says Barbara. ‘She didn’t want to talk. Just to apologize for ruining our party. I told her it didn’t.’ ‘Was she disappointed?’ asks Howard. ‘Is it funny?’ asks Barbara. ‘It’s just Henry,’ says Howard, ‘even in his big drama he makes a mess of things.’ ‘Shouldn’t you go and see him?’ asks Barbara. ‘My bet is he’ll bounce right back. Turn up at the departmental meeting this afternoon. Voting with the reactionaries.’ ‘You wouldn’t have pushed him, would you? Just to fix the vote?’ ‘I’m more subtle,’ says Howard. ‘Besides, I want Henry’s reactionary vote.’ ‘I had a sick feeling about that party,’ says Barbara. Howard eases the last curve of egg out of the shell; he puts down the spoon. ‘Everyone else enjoyed it,’ he says, and goes out of the kitchen to get ready for departure. The children are waiting in the hall; he goes towards his study. A chair still stands in place at the top of the stairs; he moves it, and goes down the steps. In the study, the curtains are still drawn in place; he opens them, and lets daylight in. Two cushions lie on the floor, between the desk and the wall; he picks them up, fluffs them, replaces them in the canvas chairs. The creased pages of the typescript of his book lie scattered everywhere. Carefully he picks them up, flattens them, sorts them, remakes the neat stack, and puts it by the typewriter on his desk. Doing this, he sees again the blue light that had flashed over the room, over the two bodies on the floor; he hears the footsteps on the stairs and in the hall. He moves around, pulling books off shelves, picking up marked essays, lecture notes, committee papers, thinking of Henry and Felicity. He puts all these things in his leather briefcase, and hurries upstairs.

Barbara comes out into the hall as he puts on his coat; she says, ‘I’m really going to London. You’ll get me someone.’ ‘Yes,’ says Howard, ‘I’ll do it’; and he bends down and picks up two wet letters that lie deposited under the letterbox. He tears them open, glances through them: one is a circular from a radical publisher, announcing new books on Marxism; the other is a letter from a group of modern churchmen in London, inviting him to speak to them on the topic of the changing fabric of morality, a topic on which, says the letter, ‘you are a recognized authority’. A recognized authority, he goes back into the kitchen to find the children. Barbara has a cup of coffee in her hand; she says, ‘How late are you going to be tonight?’ ‘Who knows?’ says Howard, ‘a departmental meeting.’ ‘I’m leaving at seven fifteen for my class. I’m going whether you’re here or not. If you’re not, there’s no Anne Petty, so we don’t have a babysitter. I leave you to sort that out in your own way.’ ‘Okay,’ says Howard, ‘are you out late? Supposing I have to find a babysitter?’ ‘Pretty late,’ says Barbara, ‘people usually go to a pub and have a drink after an evening class.’ ‘I suppose so,’ says Howard. ‘So I’ll see you when I see you,’ says Barbara. ‘Right,’ says Howard, ‘come on, kids, be ready and waiting. I’m going to fetch the van.’ He picks up his briefcase, and goes along the hall to the front door. He steps out of his domestic interior into the day and the pouring rain. The city world takes him in again; the puddles shimmer on the terrace. The morning begins; the edge of nameless melancholy with which he started the day begins faintly to lift. He walks round the corner, adapts to the anonymous world, watches the traffic lights glint, the umbrellas move in the street, the yellow bulldozers churning the mud of demolition. Up the hill he goes, to the square; he finds the van, and starts it. He drives back down to the terrace, and the front door opens to his hoot. Barbara stands on the steps; she ushers out two huddled, miniature figures in red wet-look raincoats. They run through the rain, and pull open the passenger door, arguing about who will sit in front, who in the back. On the step, Barbara waves; the children climb in; Howard starts the van, and turns it in the terrace, and drives, past his long, thin house to the business of the main road up the hill.

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 2000 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.

‘Hello, Howard,’ says Flora, ‘how’s Barbara?’ ‘I can’t tell whether she loves me or she hates me,’ says Howard. ‘Of course you can’t,’ says Flora, shaking out her umbrella, ‘she can’t either.’ Howard pushes open the glass door to let Flora go through. ‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘you look tired, Howard.’ Howard takes off his wet cap and shakes it. ‘You missed a good party last night,’ he says. ‘Oh, no,’ says Flora, ‘that’s where you’re wrong. The guests were present. It was the hosts who were absent.’ ‘You came?’ asks Howard. ‘I did,’ says Flora, ‘and then I went.’ ‘I wanted to see you,’ says Howard. ‘I’m sure you did,’ says Flora, ‘but in default you saw someone else. It was perfectly sensible of you.’ ‘You must have come late,’ says Howard. ‘I did,’ says Flora, ‘I went up to London first to catch a seminar at the Tavistock Clinic.’ ‘I hope,’ says Howard, as they walk across the foyer, ‘it was worth missing me for?’ ‘Yes, it was,’ says Flora, ‘the paper had a very narrow concept of normative behaviour and they all seem very clitorally centred these days. But the question period was very challenging and provocative.’ ‘You mean you were,’ says Howard. ‘I did say some interesting things,’ says Flora, ‘did anyone say anything very interesting at your party?’ ‘Flora,’ says Howard, ‘you’re a scholar and a gentleman. No, they didn’t. But interesting things were done, though.’ They reach the lift in the centre of the foyer, and stop and wait there, surrounded by a large crowd of waiting students. Flora turns to Howard. ‘I know,’ she says, ‘they were doing them when I got there.’ ‘Did I miss the best of it?’ asks Howard. ‘I think you did, Howard,’ says Flora, ‘I must say I feel very suspicious about a sociologist who is absent from the tensions of his own party.’ The lift doors open in front of them; Howard follows Flora, in her fur-collared coat and her big leather boots, for Flora is always well and strikingly dressed, inside. A faint smell of perfume comes off her; her body is big against Howard’s. ‘What happened?’ asks Howard. ‘Don’t you know, don’t you really?’ asks Flora. ‘I heard something about a misfortune occurring to Henry Beamish,’ says Howard.

‘Yes, indeed,’ says Flora. ‘What happened?’ asks Howard, ‘Were you there?’ ‘Of course I was,’ says Flora, ‘I’m always there.’ ‘Tell me about it.’ ‘I think not here, I’ll come to your study, if you’ve time.’ ‘I have,’ says Howard. ‘By the way, this new man Macintosh was telling me last night there’s a rumour that Mangel is coming here to speak.’ ‘Now isn’t that funny?’ says Flora. ‘I met Mangel at the Tavvy last night. And he obviously knew nothing about it at all. Macintosh did mention it at your party, actually. He said the rumour came from you.’ ‘Word of mouth is a curious system,’ says Howard. ‘I’m sure you’re trying to be interesting,’ says Flora, ‘is this us?’ ‘That’s it,’ says Howard, and they both get out at the fifth floor; they walk along the corridor, with its artificial lighting, towards the department office. They go inside the office; the secretaries, Miss Pink, Miss Ho, have just arrived, and taken off their boots, and are at their first serious duty of the day, watering the potted plants. Through the breezeblock wall comes the sound of switches switching, buzzers buzzing; Marvin, who always rises at five and drives through the steaming rural mists of early morning into the university, is well into his work, calling foreign countries, advising governments, planning the afternoon meeting, getting his car fixed. ‘A student just came in to look for you,’ says Minnehaha Ho. ‘Well, I’m here now,’ says Howard, ‘what’s all this?’ In the pigeonholes, in the distinctive large grey envelopes, is, for all the faculty, yet another agenda, the supplementary agenda, for the afternoon’s meeting; one agenda is never enough. Flora and Howard pick up their mail, sift quickly through it, side by side, and then walk back, side by side, to Howard’s rectangular and regulation room. Here Flora, by some automatically assumed right of precedence, seats herself at Howard’s red desk chair, leaving him to sit in the grey chair placed there for his students; she puts her umbrella beside the chair; she unbuttons the raincoat with the fur collar, to reveal a black skirt and a white blouse that stretches tightly across her large breasts. Then she turns to Howard, and tells him of Henry and the window, and Myra and her strange behaviour, and then of Henry, at the casualty ward, saying ‘Don’t tell Howard, will you? We mustn’t spoil his party.’