XIII

And now it is the winter again; the people, having come back, are going away again. The autumn, in which the passions rise, the tensions mount, the strikes accumulate, the newspapers fill with disaster, is over. Christmas is coming; the goose is getting fat, and the papers getting thin; things are stopping happening. In the drives the cars are being packed, and the people are ready, in relief, to be off, to Positano or the Public Record Office, Moscow or mother, for the lapse of the festive season. There are coloured lights along the promenade, now on, now off, according to the rhythm of the power strikes; Nixon is back in office for a second term, and there is talk of seasonal truce in Ulster. Mock fir trees decked with empty tinsel packages stand in the pedestrian precinct where the shoppers crowd and generate a minor economic boom among consumables; there are train crashes and plane crashes, as there always seem to be over this season. Snow flurries over the sea; people assume cheeriness; telephones ring to transmit Yuletide compliments. The Kirks, that well-known couple, catch the mood and decide to have a party. They have, actually, had a party at this point in time, the end of the autumn term, the first term of the year up at the new university spreading on the hill, for the past two winters. But it is hardly a tradition with them, and can hardly be, for who can predict ahead of time the strifes and dissensions, the fallings out and the fallings in, that will come upon a group of intelligent people like this when they get together to generate the onward march of mind, the onward process of history. In any case the Kirks are, of course, enormously busy people, with two full lives, and two separate diaries; they are not in the house together very much; there is little space for planning and conversation, with so much in the world to do. But as it happens they do find themselves in the house together, in that last week of term; and though the strife has been considerable, the term wearing, and their own relationship uncertain, for when one is up the other is down, yet some atavistic instinct manages to seize them. They look at each other, with natural suspicion; they examine the mood and the milieu; they say, but not very certainly, ‘Yes.’ And then they fetch the common household diary – Howard had fetched it last time, so Barbara fetches it this – and they sit down together with it, in the pine kitchen, and inspect the busy pages. There is a free date that suits them both quite equally, and does not affect their separate plans. They seize it; the date is Friday 15 December, the last day of the term.

After the instinct about the party has come to them, an instinct so tentative and uncertain that neither is quite sure whom to blame for it, the Kirks go together into their living room and pour themselves out a glass of beer each, and they begin to plan it. It is a small inspection of their present relationships; and it becomes quickly clear that it will be a thinner, smaller party than their last one, held at the beginning of this same term, when the prospects were pleasing and the future full of options. For wear and tear have overtaken the Kirks, and their friendships, and their friends. There have been splits and dissensions, and changes of partner and changes of alliance; new divorces pend, new political associations burgeon. He no longer speaks to her; they no longer speak to them; it is not easy to plan a party, unless one is very au courant with movement and mood, but the Kirks have a way of being that, and they build up their list accordingly. There are people who, it can be taken, will not now come when summoned by the Kirks; there are people the Kirks will not now summon under any circumstances. The people are already in the process of leaving, for the final week of term is a reading week, and many students have surreptitiously disappeared, and some faculty; there are many with other commitments, caucuses, or affairs. There will be, therefore, no ministrations from Flora Beniform, for she has been absent for the last three weeks; fieldwork in West Bromwich, where there has been a significant outbreak of troilism, has called her away. There will be no Roger Fundy, for he is committed in London that day, appearing before magistrates on a charge of assaulting the police, a consequence of a recent Grosvenor Square demonstration against Cambodian policy. There will be no Leon, for Leon is touring with Much Ado About Nothing in Australia, and no avant-gardists from the local theatre, for the cast of Puss in Boots is not Kirk company. But there are others, a bouncing if battered crew of survivors, for the radical cause at Watermouth this term has had its victories, and there is every reason to appear in good humour. So the wind beats on the windows, and the night comes in fast; the lights flicker in the broken houses across the streets; the Kirks sit in their corduroy Habitat chairs, and name names and plan delights; the party takes on its modest shape.

After a while, Barbara rises, and goes to the door of the living room. ‘Felicity,’ she shouts into the complex acoustics of the hall, ‘Howard and I are busy planning this party. I wonder whether you’d mind bathing the children tonight?’ ‘Yes, I do mind,’ shouts Felicity from somewhere, probably the lavatory, where she spends much time, ‘I’m tired of being exploited.’ ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with Felicity,’ says Barbara, sitting down again in the corduroy chair. ‘Never mind,’ says Howard, ‘I think she’s in another crisis.’ ‘I expect you stopped laying her,’ says Barbara, ‘you might have thought of me.’ ‘I try to do my best,’ says Howard, ‘but there’s so much.’ ‘Yes, we gathered,’ says Barbara, ‘from Carmody’s camera.’ ‘What about the Beamishes?’ asks Howard. ‘Or is it Beamish and Beamish?’ ‘They’re together,’ says Barbara, ‘they have been ever since Dr Beniform went away. But would they come if you invited them?’ ‘Henry’s a friend of mine,’ says Howard. ‘Still?’ asks Barbara. ‘After Mangel? I can’t imagine he ever wants to see you again.’ ‘Oh, Henry sees the other point of view,’ says Howard. But there is good reason to wonder, for, if the high point of radical success in the term was the occasion of the Mangel lecture, it did not go exactly well for Henry. For the department did issue its invitation to Mangel, and there was much dissent among the faculty, and much resentment, and the news penetrated with great and mysterious speed to the radical student groups on campus who, having already managed two sit-ins, felt in great strength and in a mood of unprecedented cooperativeness one with another. They put up many posters, and held many meetings, some addressed by Howard, that martyr of Carmodian persecution; on the day of the lecture a great crowd gathered, outside the Beatrice Webb Lecture Theatre, where the event was to take place, chanting and angry. Professor Mangel had indicated in advance that his topic would be ‘Do Rats Have “Families”?’, but this was found a typical liberal evasion, and indignation ran the higher, and many bodies lay down and obstructed all the entrances to the room, while massive and hostile forces assembled inside, making the radical point with roars and posters.

‘It was Henry’s own fault,’ says Howard, recalling the famous victory. ‘He was determined to be provocative. Henry makes accidents.’ ‘There are people who feel he was the only one who behaved decently,’ says Barbara. ‘Christ, Barbara,’ asks Howard, ‘are you going soft in your old age?’ ‘I didn’t like it,’ says Barbara. The unfortunate thing was that the task of introduction had fallen to Henry; it should more properly have gone to Professor Marvin, but he had suddenly confessed himself afflicted by an alternative engagement, in Edinburgh, giving a lecture on messianism, or failing that to Mangel’s old pupil, Dr Beniform, but she had been claimed by the demanding affairs of West Bromwich. In the event, it was Henry, who, that day, had stepped carefully through the bodies, and entered the forbidden space of the Lecture Theatre. ‘Why didn’t he just tell them what had happened?’ asks Howard. ‘Oh, you’d have been disappointed if he had,’ says Barbara. For Henry had stood at the podium, stark with his bandaged arm; he had said, politely, ‘I ask you all to disperse.’ Peter Madden had pushed in front of Henry; he had announced to the audience, ‘This lecture is forbidden by radical opinion.’ The audience had roared its assent, ‘Forbidden, forbidden,’ and ‘Fascist, fascist,’ and then Henry had been unwise. He had pushed Peter Madden aside with his good arm; he had waved his bad one; he had shouted, ‘You’re the fascists; this is a crime against free speech.’ Then the crowd had pushed and jostled; Melissa Todoroff, noticeable in the audience for her poster ‘Hysterectomize Mangel’, had thrown a bread bun at Henry; this had unleashed the forces, who surged onto the podium, and knocked Henry’s unsteady body down, and somehow, in the mêlée, trampled him underfoot. In their anger they had then rushed to his office, left unlocked; they had pulled open the filing cabinets, and tipped out or stolen the papers; they had broken the silver-framed mirror; they had poured tea out of the Teasmaid over the Norwegian rugs, and then smashed the Teasmaid; they had tossed his research notes into the mess.

‘He. needn’t have been provocative,’ says Howard, ‘he could simply have told them about Mangel.’ ‘Myra says he was afraid they might cheer,’ says Barbara, ‘and that he couldn’t have borne.’ In fact it was not until the next day, when Henry was in hospital, that the news about Mangel became known; of the many there that day, only Mangel had neglected to come, having died, the evening previous to the lecture, of a heart attack, in his London apartment. ‘Let’s ask him, anyway,’ says Howard, ‘it will give him a chance to make his peace.’ ‘The more we go into this,’ says Barbara, ‘the more I feel the last thing we need is a party. I think it’s a very doubtful celebration.’ ‘You thought that last time,’ says Howard, ‘and it cheered you up.’ ‘My God, Howard,’ says Barbara, ‘what in hell do you know about my cheerfulness or my misery? What access do you have to any of my feelings? What do you know about me now?’ ‘You’re fine,’ says Howard. ‘I’m appallingly miserable,’ says Barbara. ‘Tell me why?’ asks Howard. ‘I prefer not to,’ says Barbara. ‘Okay,’ says Howard, ‘you need a party.’ ‘My God,’ says Barbara, but they go on planning, and talking. A bit later on they go out into the hall, and one stands by and the other makes calls, and then they reverse roles, for the Kirks do everything together and in fairness. Sometimes the telephone is not answered, and sometimes the answer is a refusal; but there is, as they surmise, the human stuff ready and available to be a party, a seasonal, Christmassy party. ‘It’ll be fine,’ says Howard. Afterwards they eat, and later they go to bed, and lie on each other. ‘What you need is a break,’ says Howard afterwards, ‘there’s just been too much happening.’ ‘To you,’ says Barbara, ‘not to me. Name one thing that in any good sense has lately happened to me?’ ‘Go up to London and shop,’ says Howard. ‘Buy presents.’ ‘There’s nothing there,’ says Barbara, ‘nothing at all there.’

And the days go by, and Howard tidies up at the university, setting vacation essays, inviting the students who still manage, somehow, to be about to his party, and then it is the morning of Friday 15 December. The Kirks rise, early and together, they go down the stairs and into the kitchen. Felicity Phee, who still sleeps in their guest bedroom, is sitting at the pine table, dark-eyed, in her drawstring top and long skirt, eating toast; the children are somewhere, she does not know where. ‘It’s a pretty busy day,’ says Barbara, ‘I hope you can give me a hand.’ ‘Actually I’m packing,’ says Felicity, ‘I think you’ve had all the help from me you want.’ ‘But how will I manage tomorrow?’ asks Barbara. ‘Tomorrow will sort itself, Barbara,’ says Felicity, ‘you’ll manage. I’m sure there’s always someone who’ll do all those jobs just so they can have the marvellous company of the Kirks.’ ‘Have we upset you, Felicity?’ asks Barbara. ‘Well,’ says Felicity, ‘I suppose a person always has to keep moving on. I’m just into something else. I’m joining a Hare Krishna community.’ ‘Oh, Felicity, that’s not you,’ says Barbara. ‘I don’t think too much is known around here about what’s me,’ says Felicity, ‘I’ve done a lot for you both. I mean, I have, haven’t I, Howard?’ ‘Yes,’ says Howard, ‘a great deal.’ ‘Well, you sort of hope to get something out of that, and if it doesn’t work out, well, you have to keep moving. That’s Dr Kirk’s advice. He likes people to keep moving.’ ‘Oh, good,’ says Barbara, ‘you’ve discussed it.’ ‘I mean, I don’t say there’s so much that’s smart about his advice,’ says Felicity, ‘but that’s his job, and I suppose he sort of knows something about it. Maybe.’ ‘You’re angry with us, I’m sorry,’ says Barbara. ‘It’s all right,’ says Felicity, ‘you’re just not my kind of scene any more.’ ‘Anyway, stay for the party,’ says Howard. ‘Maybe I will,’ says Felicity, ‘if you mean just be around. I mean, not work. Just enjoying myself.’ ‘That’s right,’ says Howard.

Howard goes and fetches the van; the Kirks get in. ‘I think you exploited her,’ says Barbara, as they drive up the hill towards the shopping precinct. ‘Still, as you always say, everybody exploits somebody. I’ll get the food, you get the wine.’ The Kirks move through the precinct, with its artificial fir trees, its massed crowds, its abundance of shiny goods. Then they drive back down to the damaged terrace; there is just time to get the children off to school. ‘Last day, last day,’ shout the children, as they get into the van. Howard, along with the other mothers, drops them and then goes into the university, to dictate letters, say goodbyes. The trunks are piled up for collection by British Rail outside Toynbee and Spengler; buses are taking students down to the station. From the administration building still hang tattered remnants from the sit-ins of the term; a red banner saying ‘Come on in, it’s living’ and another saying ‘Fight repression’. A small burn mark on the concrete indicates the area where a radical faction tried to advance the protest further by starting a fire. The campus, emptying, looks like a deserted battlefield; inside there are dark corridors and cold rooms where fuel economies amount to social dysfunction. Everywhere is the worn, public look of a place that has seen much, and is used by everybody, and belongs to nobody. Howard sits there, in the purity of his anonymous room; he works and he telephones; he looks with pleasure over the landscape of his late victories. In mid-afternoon, he goes through the littered Piazza to his van, and drives into town, to pick up the children from school. The schoolyard is buoyant with farewells, crowded with parents; Martin and Celia run to the van bearing toilet-roll Santas, and child art calendars, and an attempt, on Martin’s part, at a crib. Martin has a black eye; Celia’s boutique dress is torn. ‘What happened to you?’ asks Howard, as they get in. ‘Oh,’ says Celia, ‘we had a party.’

Howard drives back towards the stage and scene of his own. In the kitchen, Barbara is absent; he hears water running in the bathroom. He sets to, and opens bottles; he walks about the house, arranging furniture, setting out spaces and counterspaces. The darkness is down already; he stands in his bedroom, while glow lights the battered houses opposite, and fixes lights. Barbara comes out of the bathroom, and he goes in. He strips and takes a bath, powders himself, and goes through into the bedroom to dress. Barbara is in there, putting on a bright silvery dress. ‘Is it all right?’ she says. ‘Where did you get it?’ asks Howard. ‘I bought it in London,’ says Barbara. ‘You never tried it on for me,’ he says. ‘No,’ says Barbara, ‘I offered, but you’d not got time.’ ‘It’s nice,’ says Howard. ‘Yes,’ says Barbara, ‘he had very good taste.’ Barbara goes out of the bedroom; Howard begins to dress himself, smartly, neatly, for the fray. The children come in, and run around. ‘Will the people make as much mess as they did last time?’ asks Martin. ‘I don’t think so,’ says Howard, ‘not so many of them.’ ‘I hope nobody jumps out of the window again,’ says Celia. ‘Nobody jumped out of the window,’ says Howard. ‘Someone just hurt himself a bit.’ ‘Uncle Henry,’ says Martin. ‘Is he coming?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Howard, ‘I’m not sure who’s coming.’ ‘Supposing nobody comes,’ says Celia, ‘who’ll eat all that cheese?’ ‘Not me,’ says Martin. ‘Oh, lots of people will come,’ says Howard, ‘you’ll see.’

And lots of people do come. The cars roar in the terrace. Howard goes to the front door to open it for the first guests; the bright lights from the house fall across the damaged pavements, and shine on the debris and demolition of the street. The guests walk into the glow, towards the step; here is Moira Millikin, carrying her baby, and behind her the Macintoshes, each of them bearing a baby in a carrycot; Mrs Macintosh, when she did deliver, delivered in bulk, and had twins. Barbara comes down the hall, wearing her silvery showpiece and a large Russian necklace, her hair done in a social bun. ‘Your lovely parties,’ says Moira, coming inside, taking off her cape, showing her pregnant bulge, ‘Can we stick this one somewhere?’ ‘And these,’ says Mrs Macintosh, looking very thin, with just a small loose bounce at the stomach where not all fitness is back. ‘Hello, Kirks,’ says Dr Macintosh, taking off his macintosh, ‘Are we the first ones again?’ ‘Great to see you, come inside,’ say the hospitable Kirks, a welcoming couple, both at once. No sooner are the first arrivals in the living room, with drinks, talking breastfeeding, when more guests arrive. The room fills. There are students in quantities; bearded Jesus youths in combat-wear, wet-look plastic, loon-pants, flared jeans, Afghan yak; girls, in caftans and big boots, with plum-coloured mouths. There are young faculty, serious, solemn examiners of matrimony and its radical alternatives; there are strangers from the Kirks’ general acquaintance – a radical vicar, an Argentinian with obscure guerrilla associations, an actor in moleskin trousers who has touched Glenda Jackson in a Ken Russell film. Minnehaha Ho has come, in a cheongsam; Anita Dollfuss, with her big brown dog on a string, is here, fresh from months of sleeping through seminar after seminar. Barbara, in her bright green eye-shadow, her silvery dress, appears here and there, with her plates of food: ‘Eat,’ she says, ‘it’s sociable.’ Howard goes about, a big two-litre bottle hanging on the loop from his finger, the impresario of the event, feeling the buoyant pleasure of having these young people round him, patched, harlequinned, embroidered, self-gratifying, classless, citizens of a world of expectation, a world beyond norms and forms. He pours wine, seeing the bubbles move inside the glass of the bottle in the changing lights of his rooms. The party booms; a jet out of Heathrow roars over the top of the town; a police car heehaws away on the urban motorway; in the abandoned houses opposite the little lights flicker, and behind them the expanding urban waste.

Inside the party grows, thickens, becomes fissiparous. Space fills up; activity is forced back through the premises, into new rooms with new colours on the walls and hence new psychic possibilities, rooms with new tests to perform, for there is food spread on a table in the dining room, and a space for dancing in the Victorian conservatory, and recesses of intimacy and silence upstairs. Somewhere someone has found a record player and set it going; somewhere else in the house a guitar is playing. ‘Hi,’ says Melissa Todoroff, arriving in a tartan dress, ‘I salute the radical hero. I think you’re wonderful, I think you’re tops.’ ‘Let me take your coat,’ says Howard. ‘Thanks,’ says Melissa. ‘Now. Where do I go to get laid?’ In the hall the bra-less girl from Howard’s seminar, still bra-less, is explaining the philosophy of Hegel in detail to the actor who has laid hand on Glenda Jackson, and has now laid hand on the bra-lessness. ‘It’s eminently a dialectical portrait,’ says the girl. ‘Don’t pinch.’ In the living room, the familiar group or coterie from the Radical Student Alliance stand together in a corner, solemn, looking a little like the scene at the Last Supper after the guests have risen. They are being accosted by Miss Callendar, who wears a bright thin caftan, and has let loose her hair, and is saying, ‘Hello, what have you all come as?’ In the Victorian conservatory, where the dancing is desultory, Barbara stands in silver, talking to Minnehaha Ho, who is wide-eyed and solitary against the wall. ‘What kind of contraceptive do you use?’ Barbara is asking, in her sociable concern. On the landing Felicity Phee, in her same long skirt, is talking to Dr Macintosh. ‘The awful thing is,’ says Felicity, ‘I thought I’d found out where I was and now I’m there it’s not where I am at all. If you see what I mean.’ ‘I do,’ says Dr Macintosh sagely, ‘that’s it, isn’t it? Existence never stops. The self keeps going on, endlessly.’ ‘Oh, I know, Dr Macintosh,’ says Felicity, ‘you’re so right.’ In one of the rooms off the upstairs landing, a mattress that Howard has thoughtfully laid out beforehand is squeaking in one of the familiar rhythms of the universe.

There is turmoil in the hall; Anita Dollfuss’s dog has bitten the radical vicar, and compassionate persons take him away upstairs for treatment. ‘I’m sorry, Howard,’ says Anita, ‘you’ll stop inviting me. He tried to pat him. He should have patted me.’ The dog pants happily at Howard, who says: ‘That reminds me, you’ve not seen Dr Beamish, have you?’ ‘No, I haven’t,’ says Anita Dollfuss, in her long long dress, her hair in its Alice headband, ‘I don’t think he’s here.’ He walks about with his bottle, upstairs, downstairs; Henry has clearly neglected to come. An uneasy instinct takes him to the closed door of the guest bedroom. He taps; there is no answer. He opens the door; the room is dark. The window is in place. ‘Do you mind, please?’ says the voice of Dr Macintosh, ‘I’m afraid this is occupied.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Howard. ‘It’s Howard,’ says Felicity. ‘We don’t want you, Howard. Why don’t you find your Miss Callendar?’ He goes downstairs again into the party. There is no Henry, there is no Flora, and now, it seems, there is no Barbara; the spread of food is devastated, and the hands that tend it seem to have found other, better pastures. With hostly compunction, Howard goes into the kitchen. He stands in front of the wallpaper celebrating the lines of onions and garlics; he stands in front of the pine shelves, with their scatter of selected objects: the French casseroles, the row of handthrown pottery mugs in light brown, the two pepper-mills, the line of deep blue Spanish glasses from Casa Pupo, the dark brown pot saying Sel. In front of him, in a rush basket, lie ten long French loaves; Howard stands at the pine table, and neatly, crisply he slices the crusty bread. The room is his, but then the door opens. Myra Beamish stands there, wearing a dress that looks as if it has been made from sacking. ‘There you are,’ she says, coming in, ‘you look like an extremely trendy peasant. Where’s Barbara?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Howard, ‘she seems to have disappeared, so I’m doing this.’ ‘Oh, ho,’ says Myra, sitting down on the edge of the table in her sacking dress. ‘Well, never mind, you seem to be doing a great job. Do you cook too?’ ‘I have a few specialities,’ says Howard. ‘Well, Howard, I must try them sometime,’ says Myra.

‘Has Henry come?’ asks Howard. ‘No, Henry’s not coming,’ says Myra, ‘he’s sitting at home very depressed because he can’t get on with his book.’ ‘I thought he saved most of his notes,’ says Howard. ‘He may have saved them,’ says Myra, ‘but with one arm in a sling and the other broken and in plaster he can’t really write very well.’ ‘I suppose not,’ says Howard, ‘but he could come to a party.’ ‘Well, Howard,’ says Myra, ‘he doesn’t want to see you. He does blame you, you know. You did encourage them.’ ‘But he’s usually so good at seeing the other point of view,’ says Howard, ‘and politics isn’t a bloodless business.’ ‘I thought it was horrible,’ says Myra, ‘all those screaming people. I panicked, I ran out.’ ‘Any sensible person would have panicked,’ says Howard. ‘You’re teasing,’ says Myra, ‘you know I’m very bad about these things. I know I’m very square.’ ‘But anyway you came, Myra,’ says Howard. ‘Well, I don’t do all that Henry wants me to do,’ says Myra, ‘in fact, I rather do what he doesn’t want me to do. I felt like seeing you, you lovely man.’ There is a stir on the table; Myra suddenly leans forward and kisses Howard, catching him obliquely on the nose. ‘That’s to say Merry Christmas,’ she says. ‘Ah,’ says Howard, ‘Merry Christmas to you.’ Myra bends seriously over her black handbag, and dips down into it. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she says, taking something from the bag, ‘I don’t suppose you still remember that time in my bedroom.’ Howard looks at her; she has taken out a mirror, and, her head down, her nose shining under the overhead light, she is inspecting her lipstick, her mouth open in an O. ‘A very long time ago, Myra,’ says Howard. ‘I know you’ve been everywhere since then,’ says Myra, ‘toured the parish. But come again sometime, won’t you? It would be different. I was silly then. I’m not so bloody bourgeois now. I know what I missed.’ ‘But what about you and Henry?’ asks Howard, ‘I thought you were back together again.’ ‘You and Barbara are back together again,’ says Myra, ‘but you have an advanced marriage. It doesn’t keep you on a very tight rein, does it? We did hear all the rumours about what Mr Carmody found out.’ ‘Don’t believe all that,’ says Howard. ‘No, Barbara and I have learned to accept each other’s lifestyles.’ ‘You mean Barbara’s learned to accept yours,’ says Myra, ‘or has to, for want of a better.’ ‘It works both ways,’ says Howard. ‘Anyway,’ says Myra, ‘Henry’s got to accept mine. We’re back together, Howard. But on my terms, Howard boy, on my terms. It’s one of those intelligent marriages, now.’

‘But what does Henry get from it?’ asks Howard. ‘Is it fair to Henry?’ ‘I don’t understand you, Howard,’ says Myra, ‘this unwonted concern. Henry had Flora Beniform. So I can do what I like. Isn’t that right?’ ‘Oh, Flora is primarily therapy,’ says Howard. ‘Oh, I know you’ve been round there, too,’ says Myra, ‘Flora is primarily the classic bitch done up in modern dress. But I’m sure you are too, Howard.’ ‘A bitch?’ asks Howard. ‘No,’ says Myra, ‘therapy. And we all need treatment. It’s the age of treatment. I’m asking for some.’ ‘But I can’t help thinking about Henry,’ says Howard, ‘how is he? He’s depressed, he’s helpless, doesn’t he need you?’ ‘This isn’t like you, Howard,’ says Myra. ‘I’m concerned for Henry,’ says Howard. ‘You hold him in contempt,’ says Myra, ‘you and your cohorts break his arm and smash his nose, when he’s trying to do something moderately decent. You despise his mores. And then, when nobody needs it, you express concern for him. He’d rather be without it, Howard. Devote it to me.’ ‘Yoo-hoo, baby,’ says Melissa Todoroff, standing a little unsteadily in the doorway in her tartan dress, ‘how about splashing some of that wine you’re hiding into my glass?’ ‘I’m sorry, Melissa,’ says Howard, picking up a bottle. ‘Or maybe you should just pour it, right, down, my, little throat,’ says Melissa Todoroff, coming into the room. ‘Am I neglecting you?’ asks Howard, pouring wine. ‘You sure are,’ says Melissa, putting an arm through his, ‘you haven’t come near me for ages.’ ‘How’s the party?’ asks Howard. ‘There are things going on out there,’ says Melissa, ‘that would make your nipples pucker. Well, hi there, Myra. How’s it going?’ ‘I’m just going,’ says Myra, picking up her bag, ‘I’d better go back to Henry, hadn’t I?’ ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh,’ says Melissa, watching as Myra walks out of the door, in her sacklike dress, ‘did I do something?’ ‘I don’t know,’ says Howard, detaching his arm, and beginning to slice bread again, ‘of course you did once throw a bread bun at Henry.’ ‘Oh, God, I did, that’s right,’ says Melissa Todoroff, with a gay, hacking chuckle, ‘and then we trampled him underfoot. Is she sore?’ ‘I don’t know whether Myra’s sore,’ says Howard, ‘but …’ ‘But Henry sure is sore,’ says Melissa, ‘he has a sore face and a sore arm and a sore ass and he’s sore.’

‘That’s right,’ says Howard. ‘Well, he got in the way of justice,’ says Melissa, ‘you know what they say, if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. Maybe that’s why she got out of the kitchen.’ ‘Maybe,’ says Howard. ‘Oh, boy, wasn’t that a day?’ says Melissa Todoroff, reminiscent, ‘I really blew my mind. What a trip. Freedom and liberation seemed really real. The people chanting, the crowds roaring, all crying for goodness. It was Berkeley, Columbia, Vincennes. We were all so beautiful. Then, zap, with the bread bun. Things were so wide open and easy. Will we ever be like that again?’ ‘It was only a couple of weeks ago, Melissa,’ says Howard. ‘You know what they say,’ says Melissa, ‘a week’s a long time in politics. Fantastic. There was action then. People really felt something. But what happened to it?’ ‘It’s around,’ says Howard. ‘You know what’s the matter with people now?’ says Melissa, very seriously, ‘They just don’t feel any more.’ ‘Not the way they did last week,’ says Howard. ‘They sure don’t feel me any more,’ says Melissa. ‘The night’s young,’ says Howard. ‘Not as young as it used to be,’ says Melissa. ‘But I mean, seriously, who, anywhere, now, is getting down to the real, root, radical problems of the age?’ ‘Who?’ asks Howard. ‘I’ll tell you whom,’ says Melissa, ‘nobody, that’s whom. Who’s authentic any more?’ ‘You seem pretty authentic,’ says Howard, slicing bread. ‘Oh, God, no, Christ, really, do I?’ says Melissa Todoroff, agonizing. ‘Do I really seem like that to you? I’m not, How, it’s just a front. I’m more authentic than these other bastards, but I’m not authentic the way I mean authentic.’ ‘You are, Melissa,’ says Howard. ‘You’re giving me shit,’ says Melissa Todoroff, ‘you’re a good guy but you’re giving me shit.’ Melissa Todoroff walks towards the door, precariously carrying her glass of wine; she says, ‘I’m going right back there into that party and then, wow, watch out.’ At the door she stops. ‘I don’t care what your friends say about you, you’re a good guy,’ she says, ‘a radical’s radical. And if you really work at it, you could be a radical’s radical’s radical.’

Howard stands for a while longer, in the kitchen, slicing his hostly bread; then, the chore done, he walks back into his own party. It has changed, grown weak at the centre, active at the circumference. In the living room, where the main illumination is the flashing string of lights on the children’s Christmas tree, there is torpor; a few people lie about, chatting, in varieties of intimacy. In the Victorian conservatory, there is desultory rhythmic dancing; junior members of faculty bounce and rock in the near darkness. In the dining room, the piles of bread and cheese stand in a state of neglect; Howard’s dutiful ministrations are no longer needed. The party’s momentum is clearly elsewhere, in nooks here and there, in the upper parts of the house, in the garden, perhaps even in the wasteland beyond. A few people are going, in the hail; there in the hall stands a figure wearing an anorak and a large orange backpack, from which protrude various large objects. ‘I’m off now, Howard,’ says Felicity Phee. ‘Someone’s giving me a ride to London. I’ve cleared out all my stuff.’ ‘I’ll see you next term,’ says Howard. ‘I don’t know whether you will see me next term,’ says Felicity. ‘Haven’t you sort of passed me up?’ ‘Well, we’ll meet in class,’ says Howard. ‘I doubt it,’ says Felicity. ‘I went to see Professor Marvin today, and asked him to find me a new teacher.’ ‘Oh, I don’t think he’ll do that,’ says Howard, ‘after the trouble with George Carmody.’ Felicity looks at him; she says, ‘I really don’t think you’d better stand in my way. I mean, I know as much as anyone about what happened with George Carmody. Do you plan to get rid of me too?’ ‘Of course not,’ says Howard. ‘Of course not,’ says Felicity, ‘I know everything about you.’ ‘What does that mean?’ asks Howard. ‘I wanted to help you,’ says Felicity. ‘I wanted you to recognize me.’ ‘You did help me,’ says Howard. ‘Okay, well, it didn’t do me any good, did it?’ asks Felicity. ‘You won and I didn’t. So now just leave me alone.’ ‘I will,’ says Howard. ‘Well, do,’ says Felicity. ‘Say goodbye to Barbara for me. If you can find her.’

The party can spare its host now, having become entirely self-made, as good parties must; a little later, Howard goes downstairs, into his basement study. The sodium light shines over the tops of the broken houses, penetrating stark orange designs onto the walls, the bookcases, the African masks. The street is empty of people; Howard draws the curtains. ‘So this is the scene of your many triumphs,’ says someone coming down the stairs. ‘It’s all right, Annie,’ says Howard, ‘no one can see us. He’s not there any more.’ ‘I rather wish he was,’ says Annie Callendar, coming into the study. ‘The critical eye.’ ‘Is it strange to be on the inside?’ asks Howard. ‘Yes,’ says Annie, ‘I suppose I ought to be raking through your book.’ ‘It’s gone,’ says Howard, ‘it’s being printed.’ Later on, under Howard on the cushions, Annie Callendar says: ‘I can’t help thinking about him out there.’ ‘He’s gone, he’s gone,’ says Howard; and indeed Carmody has, fled weeks ago after a brief student sit-in – the banners said ‘Preserve academic freedom’ and ‘Work for Kirk’ – had demanded his expulsion, after the story of his campaign against Howard had become widely known. ‘I never knew whether you believed me, Howard,’ says Annie Callendar. ‘I really didn’t tell him.’ ‘Tell him what?’ asks Howard lazily. ‘You didn’t tell him what?’ ‘I didn’t tell him what I saw that night,’ says Annie. ‘You down here laying little Miss Phee.’ ‘Of course I believed you,’ says Howard. ‘Did you?’ asks Annie. ‘Why?’ ‘I know who did tell him,’ says Howard. Annie stirs under him; she says, ‘Who did? Who’d do that?’ Howard laughs and says, ‘Who do you think? Who else knew?’ ‘Little Miss Phee?’ says Annie Callendar. ‘That’s it,’ says Howard. ‘You’re smart.’ ‘But why should she?’ asks Annie. ‘Why get you into trouble?’ ‘You see, she wanted to help,’ says Howard. ‘It’s an odd way to help you,’ says Annie. ‘I shan’t help you like that.’ ‘She thought like that,’ says Howard. ‘What she said was, she wanted to defend me against the attacks of the liberal reactionary forces, and they needed something to attack me with so that she could defend me properly.’

‘It sounds a little crazy,’ says Miss Callendar. ‘She is a little crazy,’ says Howard. The party noise booms above their heads. Annie Callendar says, ‘When did you find out?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Howard. ‘Before he went?’ ‘Yes, it was,’ says Howard. ‘On the strength of that, you got rid of him,’ says Annie Callendar. ‘Rose to your present radical fame on campus.’ ‘He was an historical irrelevance,’ says Howard. ‘Did you know before you came to see me that afternoon?’ asks Annie Callendar. ‘I can’t remember,’ says Howard. ‘Of course you can remember,’ says Annie, ‘you did.’ ‘I may have done,’ says Howard. ‘Did you plan it with her?’ asks Annie. ‘Did you know all along?’ ‘I think we discussed it,’ says Howard. ‘But what was it for?’ asks Annie. ‘I wanted you,’ says Howard, ‘I just had to find a way to you.’ ‘No,’ says Annie, ‘that wasn’t all. It was all a plot.’ ‘I thought you liked plots,’ says Howard. ‘In any case, it’s the plot of history. It was simply inevitable.’ ‘But you helped inevitability along a little,’ says Annie. ‘There’s a process,’ says Howard. ‘It charges everyone a price for the place they occupy, the stands they take.’ ‘You seem to travel free,’ says Miss Callendar. ‘Some travel free,’ says Howard, ‘some pay nice prices. You enjoy your price, don’t you?’ ‘Going to bed with you?’ asks Miss Callendar. ‘Which was the real end in view,’ says Howard. ‘No,’ says Miss Callendar. ‘Ssshhh,’ says Howard, ‘of course it was.’ Up above, the party noise vibrates. A small trouble is taking place in the hall; Mrs Macintosh, holding one carrycot, stands facing Dr Macintosh, holding another. ‘You slipped upstairs with her,’ she says, ‘and I was breastfeeding.’ ‘The girl was crying,’ says Dr Macintosh, ‘she was very upset.’ ‘Right,’ says Mrs Macintosh, ‘this is the last party you come to.’

But it is a small altercation, and down in the basement they do not hear it. Nor do they hear when, higher in the house, in a guest bedroom empty of Felicity’s things, a window smashes. The cause is Barbara who, bright in her silvery dress, has put her right arm through and down, savagely slicing it on the glass. In fact no one hears; as always at the Kirks’ parties, which are famous for their happenings, for being like a happening, there is a lot that is, indeed, happening, and all the people are fully occupied.