truce in Ulster. Mock fir trees decked with empty tinsel packages stand in the pedestrian precincts where the shoppers crowd and generate 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 dissentions, 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 livingroom 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
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.'
