The History Boys (10 page)

Headmaster
Jewish boys often are, a role though nowadays that is more and more being taken over by the
Asian boys, intelligence to some degree the fruit of discrimination.

It was apropos the Holocaust.

Irwin
It came up in discussion.

Headmaster
As it should. A shaping circumstance. A line drawn. Before and after.

However, Posner
père
, who seems a little overexcited, has taken some exception to your remarks that it should be kept in proportion.

Irwin
I didn't quite say that.

Headmaster
Mr Posner calls it ‘a unique historical event' and says that it can't be compared with the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Well, who in his right mind would think it could?

Irwin
We did discuss how the Holocaust should be tackled in the event of them getting a question on it.

Headmaster
Prefaced presumably with all the right disclaimers?

No suggestion above all that it didn't happen.

Irwin
No, no … only the boys were asking.

Headmaster
(
suddenly angry
) I'm not concerned with what the boys were asking. What concerns me is what you were telling them.

Irwin
I was telling them that there were ways of discussing it that went beyond mere lamentation. The risk the historian …

Headmaster
Mr Irwin. Fuck the historian.

I have two angry Jewish parents threatening to complain to the school governors. I have explained to them that you are young and inexperienced and that your anxiety that the boys should do well has perhaps outrun your sense of proportion.

You will write them a letter of apology on much the same lines.

They also complain that Hector has had the boy singing hymns.

Irwin
Posner likes singing.

Headmaster
Hymns?

Irwin
Anything.

Headmaster
Not … Gracie Fields?

Irwin
Possibly.

Headmaster
Didn't I suggest you grew a moustache?

Posner sings a verse of Gracie Fields' ‘Sing as We Go
'.

Irwin
Do you tell them everything that goes on at school?

Posner
He's old, my father. He's interested. I just said the Holocaust was a historical fact like other historical facts.

It was my uncle who hit me.

Irwin
I'm sorry. It was my fault. I was too … dispassionate, I suppose. The Holocaust is not yet an abstract question. Though in time, of course, it will be.

Pause
.

No more singing, too, I gather?

Posner
Not hymns. They're fine with Barbra Streisand.

Pause
.

Sir, sorry to keep on about it, but if the Holocaust does come up …

Irwin
At home?

Posner
No, as a question.

Irwin
Surprise them. You're Jewish. You can get away with a lot more than the other candidates.

Equivalent would be Akthar singing the praises of empire.

But … say what you think.

Posner
They don't send your papers home?

Dakin
My duty to Your Lordship.

Irwin
(
going
) Your essays, so called, are on the table.

Dakin
I really enjoyed doing this one. And I'm beginning to get it. Turning facts on their head. It's like a game. (
He
looks at his mark
.) Shit. He never gives an inch, does he? ‘Lucid and up to a point compelling but if you reach a conclusion it escaped me.'

Scripps
Have you looked at your handwriting recently?

Dakin
Why?

Scripps
You're beginning to write like him.

Dakin
I'm not trying to, honestly.

Scripps
You're writing like him, too.

Posner
No, I'm not. Dakin writes like him. I write like Dakin.

Dakin
It's done wonders for the sex life.

Apparently I talk about him so much Fiona gets really pissed off. Doing it is about the only time I shut up.

Scripps
Would you do it with him?

Dakin
I wondered about that. I might. Bring a little sunshine into his life. It's only a wank, after all.

Scripps
What makes you think he'd do it with you?

Dakin smiles
.

You complacent fuck.

Dakin
Does the Archbishop of Canterbury know you talk like this?

Scripps
So you broke through with Fiona. The Western Front.

Dakin
Broke through. Had the Armistice. The Treaty of Versailles. It's now the Weimar Republic.

Scripps
Decadence?

Dakin nods happily
.

Posner
Aren't you frightened it's all going to be over too soon?

Dakin
What, sex?

Posner
I mean, what have you got to look forward to?

Dakin
More of the same. You can't save it up. I like him.

I just wish I thought he liked me. (
He goes
.)

Posner
Irwin does like him.

He seldom looks at anyone else.

Scripps
How do you know?

Posner
Because nor do I. Our eyes meet, looking at Dakin.

Scripps
Oh Poz, with your spaniel heart, it will pass.

Posner
Yes, it's only a phase.

Who says I want it to pass?

But the pain. The pain.

Scripps
Hector would say it's the only education worth having.

Posner
I just wish there were marks for it.

Hector, Irwin and Mrs Lintott are sitting behind the
table, pretending to be the examination board
.

Irwin
Anything provocative in your papers and they may question you on that. Otherwise they are likely to be the usual, ‘What are your hobbies?' type questions.

Mrs Lintott
Mr Akthar. You say you're interested in architecture. Who is your favourite architect?

Akthar
Richard Rogers.

Mrs Lintott
I was thinking more along Wren–Hawksmoor lines. Richard Rogers? Doesn't he write musicals?

Akthar
Oh, miss. It's a different one. You wouldn't get far, miss.

Mrs Lintott
Nor will you. Next. Now, Mr Crowther. One of your interests is the theatre. Tell us about that.

Crowther
I'm keen on acting. I've done various parts, favourite being …

Irwin
Can I stop you?

Don't mention the theatre.

Crowther
It's what I'm interested in.

Irwin
Then soft pedal it, the acting side of it anyway.

Dons … most dons anyway … think the theatre is a waste of time. In their view any undergraduate keen on acting forfeits all hope of a good degree.

Hector
So much for Shakespeare.

Irwin
It's not the plays, it's the acting of the plays, Shakespeare, anybody. It's no fun teaching the stage-struck.

Hector
And isn't being stage-struck part of their education?

Posner
Music is all right though, isn't it, sir? They don't frown on that.

Hector
No. You should just say what you enjoy.

Posner
Mozart.

Irwin
No, no. everyone likes Mozart.

Somebody more off the beaten track. Tippett, say, or Bruckner.

Posner
But I don't know them.

Hector
May I make a suggestion? Why can they not all just tell the truth?

Irwin
It's worth trying, provided, of course, you can make it seem like you're telling the truth.

Hector
Oh, yes, a degree of presentation.

Dorothy. Have you anything you'd like to add?

Mrs Lintott
I hesitate to mention this, lest it occasion a sophisticated groan, but it may not have crossed your minds that one of the dons who interviews you may be awoman.

I'm reluctant at this stage in the game to expose you to new ideas, but having taught you all history on a strictly non-gender-orientated basis I just wonder whether it occurs to any of you how dispiriting this can be?

It's obviously dispiriting to you, Dakin, or you wouldn't be yawning.

Dakin
Sorry, miss.

Mrs Lintott
Women so seldom get a turn for a start, Elizabeth I less remarkable for her abilities than that, unlike most of her sisters, she did get a chance to exercise them.

Am I embarrassing you?

Timms
A bit, miss.

Mrs Lintott
Why?

Timms
It's not our fault, miss. It's just the way it is.

Lockwood
‘The world is everything that is the case,' miss.

Wittgenstein, miss.

Mrs Lintott
I know it's Wittgenstein, thank you. Tell me, just out of interest, did he travel on the other bus?

Hector
Bus? Bus? What bus?

Irwin
On the few occasions he went anywhere, yes, I believe he did.

Mrs Lintott
You can tell.

Because ‘The world is everything that is the case' seems actually rather a feminine approach to things: rueful, accepting, taking things as you find them.

A real man would be trickier: ‘The world is everything that can be made to seem the case.'

However, je divague.

Can you, for a moment, imagine how dispiriting it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude?

Why do you think there are no women historians on TV?

Timms
No tits?

Hector
Hit that boy. Hit him.

Timms
Sir! You can't, sir.

Hector
I'm not hitting you. He is. And besides, you're not supposed to say tits. Hit him again!

Mrs Lintott
I'll tell you why there are no women historians on TV, it's because they don't get carried away for a start, and they don't come bouncing up to you with every new historical notion they've come up with … the bow-wow school of history.

History's not such a frolic for women as it is for men. Why should it be? They never get round the conference
table. In 1919, for instance, they just arranged the flowers then gracefully retired.

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men.

What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.

And I'm not asking you to espouse this point of view but the occasional nod in its direction can do you no harm.

There is a silence
.

Mrs Lintott
You should note, boys, that your masters find this undisguised expression of feeling distasteful, as, I see, do some of you.

Irwin
Rudge?

Rudge is interviewed
.

Mrs Lintott
Now. How do you define history, Mr Rudge?

Rudge
Can I speak freely, miss? Without being hit.

Mrs Lintott
I will protect you.

Rudge
How do I define history?

It's just one fucking thing after another.

Hector makes a moves to hit him but is forestalled
.

Mrs Lintott
I see. And why do you want to come to Christ Church?

Rudge
It's the one I thought I might get into.

Irwin
No other reason?

Rudge shakes his head
.

Mrs Lintott
Do you like the architecture, for instance?

Rudge
They'll ask me about sport, won't they?

Mrs Lintott
If you're as uncommunicative as this they may be forced to.

Hector
The point is, Rudge, that even if they want to take you on the basis of your prowess on the field you have to help them to pretend at least that there are other considerations.

Rudge thinks
.

Rudge
I'm keen on a film.

Irwin
What film?

Rudge
Well, lots of films, only Miss said to say film not films.

Mrs Lintott
No, Rudge. What I said was that it sounds better to say ‘I'm keen on film' rather than ‘I like films'.

Irwin
Like what?

Rudge thinks
.

Lockwood
Say,
This Sporting Life
.

Rudge shakes his head
.

It's about rugger.

Rudge
I'd like to see that. Is it recent?

Look, I'm shit at all this. Sorry.

If they like me and they want to take me they'll take me because I'm dull and ordinary. I'm no good in interviews but I've got enough chat to take me round the golf course and maybe there'll be someone on the board who wants to go round the golf course.

You think that's a joke, but golf makes the same sense to me as architecture or films do to you. You may not rate it but it's an accomplishment. I may not know much about Jean-Paul Sartre, but I've got a handicap of four.

Mrs Lintott
Where have you heard about Sartre?

Rudge
He was a good golfer.

Hector
Really. I never knew that. Interesting.

Bell goes
.

Irwin Remember also, our puny efforts notwithstanding, you will be up against boys and girls who will have been taught better than you.

Hector
Taught differently, anyway.

Hector and Mrs Lintott go
.

Lockwood
How did you know Sartre was a golfer?

Rudge
I don't know that he was. How could I? I don't even know who the fuck he is. Well, they keep telling us you have to lie.

Crowther
I've a feeling Kafka was good at table tennis.

Akthar
Yes?

Crowther
I'll be glad when we can be shot of all this shit.

Dakin is left with Irwin
.

Dakin
Sir, I never gave you my essay.

Irwin
That's good.