The History Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

never talked. We don’t know what his problems were. We don’t know what seemed absurd to him. We don’t know where he and Rosemary were going.’ ‘Do you remember when our sort of people didn’t think life was silly?’ asks Barbara, ‘when things were all wide open and free, and we were all doing something and the revolution was next week? And we were under thirty, and we could trust us?’ ‘It’s still like that,’ says Howard, ‘people always dropped in and out.’ ‘Is it really like that?’ asks Barbara, ‘Don’t you think people have got tired? Found a curse in what they were doing?’ Howard says: ‘A boy dies and you turn it into a metaphor for the times.’ Barbara says: ‘Howard, you have always turned everything into a metaphor for the times. You’ve always said that the times are where we are; there’s no other place. You’ve lived off the flavours and fashions of the mind. So has this boy, who came to one of our parties, and had a blue tattoo, and put a rope round his neck in a shed. Is he real, or isn’t he?’ ‘Barbara, you’re just feeling depressive,’ says Howard, ‘take a Valium.’ ‘Take a Valium. Have a party. Go on a demo. Shoot a soldier. Make a, bang. Bed a friend. That’s your problem-solving system,’ says Barbara. ‘Always a bright, radical solution. Revolt as therapy. But haven’t we tried all that? And don’t you find a certain gloom in the record?’ Howard turns and looks at Barbara, inspecting this heresy. He says: ‘There may be a fashion for failure and negation now. But we don’t have to go along with it.’ ‘Why not?’ asks Barbara, ‘after all, you’ve gone along with every other fashion, Howard.’ Howard takes the turn into the terrace; the bottles shake in the back of the van. He says: ‘I don’t understand your sourness, Barbara. You just need some action.’ ‘I’m sure you’ll find a way of giving me that,’ says Barbara, ‘the trouble is, I’ve had most of the action I can take, from you.’ Howard stops the van; he puts his hand on Barbara’s thigh. He says: ‘You just got switched off, kid. Everything’s still happening. You’ll feel good again, once it all starts.’ ‘I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you,’ says Barbara, ‘I’m telling you that your gay belief in things happening doesn’t make me feel better any more. Christ, Howard, how did we come to be like this?’ ‘Like which?’ asks Howard. ‘Depending on things happening, like this,’ says Barbara, ‘putting on shows like this.’ ‘I can explain,’ says Howard. ‘I’m sure you can,’ says Barbara, ‘but don’t. Are you going straight off to the university?’ ‘I have to,’ says Howard, ‘to start the term.’ ‘To start the trouble,’ says Barbara. ‘To start the term,’ says Howard. ‘Well, I want you to help me unload all this stuff, before you go.’ ‘Of course,’ says Howard, ‘you take the food in. I’ll bring the wine.’ And so the Kirks get out, and go round to the back of the van, and unload what is there. They carry it, together, the bread, the cheese and the sausages, the glasses and the big red bottles in their cases, into the house, into the pine kitchen. They spread it on the table, an impressive array of commodities, ready and waiting for the party in the evening. ‘I want you back by four, to help me with all this fun we’re brewing,’ says Barbara. ‘Yes, I’ll try,’ says Howard. He looks at the wine; he goes out back to the van. Then he gets in, and drives off, through the town, towards the university.

II
    The Kirks are, indeed, new people. But where some new people are born new people,