The History Man

'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 breeze-block 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 pigeon-holes, 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.'

VII

'Well,' says Howard, sitting in the wet light of his room, overlooking the boilerhouse chimney, after Flora has stopped speaking, 'it's a very interesting story.'

'The trouble is,' says Flora, picking up her handbag, and feeling into its interior, 'I'm not sure it is. Isn't a story usually a tale with causes and motives? All I've told you is what happened.'

'Perhaps it's a very modern story,' says Howard, 'a chapter of accidents.' Flora takes from her handbag her cigarettes and a lighter; she says, 'The trouble with our profession is, we still believe in motives and causes. We tell old-fashioned stories.'

'But aren't there times when just what happened is just what happened?' asks Howard. 'I mean, didn't Henry just have an accident?'

'Oh, Howard,' says Flora, lighting her cigarette, 'what is this thing called an accident?'

'An accident is a happening,' says Howard, 'a chance or a contingent event. Nobody has imposed meaning or purpose on it. It arises out of a set of unpredictable features coming into interaction.'

'Oh, I see,' says Flora, 'Like your parties. And you think Henry had one of those? 'That's what you said,' says Howard, 'a Henry and a window came into chance collision.'

'That's not what I said at all,' says Flora. 'You said he went into the guest bedroom, fell, and cut himself.'

'That's interesting,' says Flora, 'because I didn't say that. I portrayed a consciousness, with an unconscious. He went into the bedroom. His arm went through the window, and he was cut. That's what I said.' Howard gets up; he goes to the window, and looks through it down into the Piazza, where the wind beats, the rain falls. He says: 'Is there some reason for thinking it wasn't an accident?'

'You worry me, Howard,' says Flora. 'Why do you need to believe it was an accident? Or that accidents are like that?'

'I thought most events were accidents until proved otherwise,' says Howard. 'You're trying to make something interesting that probably wasn't. Of course you have a great gift for it.'

'No, I don't,' says Flora, 'I have a gift for not making it sound dull. And for asking the questions you chose, from some need, not to ask. I don't understand it. It's not like you at all.'

Howard laughs, and touches Flora's hair. He says, 'Well, you see, I know Henry. And for me Henry and accidents naturally go together.'

'Like love and marriage, horse and carriage,' says Flora. 'But why do they?'

'Did I ever tell you the story of the first time I saw Henry?' asks Howard. 'No,' says Flora, 'I don't think I ever knew Henry meant anything to you.'

'Oh, yes,' says Howard, 'I'm quite attached to Henry. I've known him for ages. We were research students at Leeds together.'

'I've noticed your hostility towards him,' says Flora, 'I ought to have guessed you were friends.'

'I'd seen his face around the department. He was doing something with termites, because they wouldn't let him use people. But my first real encounter with him was one day when I was walking down a back street, quite near the university. I saw this person in front of me, lying in the middle of the pavement, flat on his face. He'd got a big rucksack, stuffed with notes, on his back. Flat in the street near the Express Dairy. His nose was bleeding, and the rucksack was holding him down. My first real sight of Henry.' Flora laughs and says: 'It's a very interesting story. And how had he got there?'

'He'd been knocked down by a football. A football had come over the fence from the playing fields, next to the path, and hit him in the middle of the back. The football was next to Henry in the road. A purely contingent football. No one had thrown it purposely at him.'

'Not even you, Howard?' asks Flora. 'As I say, I hardly knew him then,' says Howard. 'No, a boy had kicked it high in the air, and it had come down, as footballs do, and under the trajectory of its descent there happened to be Henry, who was knocked over by it. So, you see, Henry has accidents.'

'Well, it's true, of course,' says Flora, 'Henry has accidents. He's a man on whom footballs fall. But why do footballs fall on Henry, and not you, and me? Haven't you ever asked yourself that?'

'Well, he's careless and clumsy and uncoordinated,' says Howard, 'and he has an instinct for disaster. If Henry came to two paths, one labelled safe and one labelled dangerous, he'd confuse the signs and take the dangerous one.'

'Exactly,' says Flora, 'he colludes with misfortune.'

'But he can only collude so far,' says Howard. 'If a branch were rotten and going to fall, it would wait to fall until Henry passed under it. How does he get the message to the tree? There has to be a higher plotter, the God of accident.'

'I never knew you were such a mystic, Howard,' says Flora, knocking out ash into Howard's grey-glass ashtray, 'you're making me very suspicious. Now why do you need a theory like that?'

'Because it seems to me true to experience,' says Howard. 'It also explains innovation.'

'But all your theories depend on the great historical purpose working itself out,' says Flora, 'it's hardly consistent. No, you're covering something up. You're denying Henry his psychological rights. In this, I should add, you aren't alone. Myra has a version too.'

'What's Myra 's?' asks Howard. 'Well, she at least granted Henry a motive,' says Flora, 'she looked at him, bleeding away on the floor, and decided it was all an appeal for her sympathy, which she didn't feel like giving.'

' Myra was very drunk last night,' says Howard, 'and upset herself.'

'My God,' says Flora, 'you're turning into a great simpleton of life, aren't you, Howard? Myra 's behaviour last night was fascinating. I was the one who took Henry to hospital; Myra stayed on at your party. For all she knew, he might have been dying. He had twenty-seven stitches, and they had to give him blood. They should have kept him in hospital, of course, but, no, he had to get back to Myra. So I got my car, and shipped him home. And Myra wasn't