The History Boys (11 page)

Dakin
What degree did you get, sir?

You've never said.

Irwin
A second.

Dakin
Boring. Didn't the old magic work?

Irwin
I hadn't perfected the technique.

Dakin
What college were you at?

Irwin
Corpus.

Dakin
That's not one anybody is going in for.

Irwin
No.

Dakin
You happy?

Irwin
There? Yes. Yes, I was, quite.

This is quite a
pausy
conversation, with Dakin more
master than pupil
.

Dakin
Do you think we'll be happy … say we get in?

Irwin
You'll be happy anyway.

Dakin
I'm not sure I like that. Why?

Irwin shrugs
.

Uncomplicated, is that what you mean?

Outgoing?

Straight?

Irwin
None of them bad things to be.

Dakin
Depends. Nice to be a bit more complicated.

Irwin
Or to be thought so.

How's Posner?

Dakin
Why?

Irwin
He likes you, doesn't he?

Dakin
It's his age.

He's growing up.

Irwin
Hard for him.

Dakin
Boring for me.

You're not suggesting I do something about it. It happens.

I wouldn't anyway.

Too young.

Irwin says nothing
.

You still look quite young.

Irwin
That's because I am, I suppose.

There is an interminable pause
.

Dakin
How do you think history happens?

Irwin
What?

Dakin
How does stuff happen, do you think?

People decide to do stuff.

Make moves. Alter things.

Irwin
I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Dakin
No? (
He smiles
.) Think about it.

Irwin
Some do … make moves, I suppose.

Others react to events.

In 1939 Hitler made a move on Poland.

Poland …

Dakin
… gave in.

Irwin
(
simultaneously
) … defended itself.

Irwin
Is that what you mean?

Dakin
(
unperturbed
) No.

Not Poland anyway.

Was Poland taken by surprise?

Irwin
To some extent.

Though they knew something was up.

What was your essay about?

Dakin
Turning points.

Irwin
Oh yes. Moments when history rattles over the points.

Shall I tell you what you've written?

Dunkirk?

Dakin
Yes.

Irwin
Hitler turning on Russia?

Dakin
Yes.

Irwin
Alamein?

Dakin
Yes.

Irwin
More? Oh, that's good.

Dakin
Two actually.

The first one: when Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister in 1940 Churchill wasn't the first thought; Halifax more generally acceptable.

But on the afternoon when the decision was taken Halifax chose to go to the dentist. If Halifax had had better teeth we might have lost the war.

Irwin
Very good. Terrific.

And the other one?

Dakin
Well, it is Alamein, but not the battle. Montgomery took over the Eighth Army before Alamein but he wasn't the first choice. Churchill had appointed General Gott. Gott was flying home to London in an unescorted plane when, purely by chance, a lost German fighter spotted his plane and shot him down. So it was Montgomery who took over, seeing this afterwards, of course, as the hand of God.

Irwin
That's brilliant. First class.

Dakin
It's a good game.

Irwin
It's more than a game. Thinking about what might have happened alerts you to the consequences of what did.

Dakin
It's subjunctive history.

Irwin
Come again.

Dakin
The subjunctive is the mood you use when something might or might not have happened, when it's imagined.

Hector is crazy about the subjunctive.

Why are you smiling?

Irwin
Nothing. Good luck.

Boys and staff all come on as the boys arrange the chairs
for a photograph
.

Posner
All my life I've been one of those squatting at the front. I don't care about Oxford and Cambridge. I'd just like to graduate to a chair.

Mrs Lintott moves up
.

Mrs Lintot
t
Posner, sit here. Rudge, you go down there.

She moves up and he sits on the front row
.

Akthar
Ready.

They are all ready for the picture when the
Headmaster turns up
.

Headmaster
A photograph? Always a good idea.

Dorothy, sit here. Then I can go here. Posner, you'll be better on the floor.

Who's taking the picture?

Akthar
It's delayed action.

Headmaster
No, no. Too much hit-and-miss.

Hector, why don't you take it?

Mrs Lintott
Then he won't be in the picture.

Headmaster
Hector doesn't mind.

Mrs Lintott
The boys might.

Headmaster
It isn't for the boys. It's for the school. Rudge, floor, Akthar.

Now, boys. Look like Oxbridge material.

No negative thoughts. Threshold of great things.

Hector
‘Magnificently unprepared

For the long littleness of life.'

The boys do a farewell song and dance of Gracie Fields'
‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye', then go off,
leaving Irwin and Mrs Lintott waiting to see the
Headmaster. Very flat and empty
.

Irwin
What's he want us for?

Mrs Lintott
No idea.

Irwin
Pep talk?

Mrs Lintott
Bit late for that, it's probably about Hector.

Irwin
I sort of know.

Mrs Lintott
I imagine everyone sort of knows.

Irwin
Does his wife?

Mrs Lintott
He doesn't think so, apparently, but I imagine she's another one who's sort of known all along. A husband on a low light, that's what they want, these supposedly unsuspecting wives, the man's lukewarm attentions just what they married them for.

He's a fool. He was also unlucky.

For a start Mrs Headmaster didn't normally do a stint at Age Concern on a Wednesday unless someone was off. And what if a customer had come in just as Hector had got to the lights and she'd been looking the other way? Or the lights had been green? This smallest of incidents, the junction of a dizzying range of alternatives any one of which could have had a different outcome. If I was a bold
teacher … if I was you, even… I could spend a lesson dissecting what the Headmaster insists on calling ‘this unfortunate incident' and it would teach the boys more about history and the utter randomness of things than … well, than I've ever managed to do so far.

Irwin
I wonder how they're going on.

Mrs Lintott
Don't you ever want to go back?

Irwin
To Oxford? Not clever enough.

Not … anything enough really.

Pause
.

I used to imagine myself doing research and coming up with something startling, a new way of looking at things. Like Namier, say.

And I would do it, then fling it in their faces.

Mrs Lintott
Oxford? Why should they care? No. They're like everybody else. Make money, that's what they admire. Make lots of money then don't give them any.

Headmaster comes out with Hector
.

Headmaster
Dorothy, a word?

They go back into the study
.

Hector
Trouble at t' mill.

That's the news he's aching to impart.

My … marching orders.

Irwin
I sort of knew.

Hector
Ah.

Irwin
Dakin told me.

Hector
Did he tell you why?

Irwin nods
.

I've got this idea of buying a van, filling it with books and taking it round country markets … Shropshire, Herefordshire. ‘The open road, the dusty highway. Travel, change, interest, excitement. Poop, poop.'

Pause
.

I didn't want to turn out boys who in later life had a deep love of literature, or who would talk in middle age of the lure of language and their love of words. Words said in that reverential way that is somehow Welsh. That's what the tosh is for.
Brief Encounter
, Gracie Fields, it's an antidote. Sheer calculated silliness.

Irwin
Has a boy ever made you unhappy?

Hector
They used to do.

See it as an inoculation, rather. Briefly painful but providing immunity for however long it takes. With the occasional booster … another face, a reminder of the pain … it can last you half a lifetime.

Irwin
Love.

Hector
Who could love me? I talk too much.

Irwin
It took me by surprise.

Hector
Don't do it.

Irwin
I wouldn't dare.

Hector
No. Don't teach.

Irwin
I wasn't intending to.

Hector Who intends to?

Six months, a year. Till something more exciting turns up. It's always the same. I used to think I could warm myself on the vitality of the boys I taught, but that doesn't work.

It ought to renew … the young mind; warm, eager, trusting; instead comes … a kind of coarsening. You
start to clown. Plus a fatigue that passes for philosophy but is nearer to indifference.

Now boys come and go but I am no more moved by this than by the arrival and departure of trains.

Boys have become work.

Irwin
Do they know?

Hector
They know everything.

Don't touch him. He'll think you're a fool.

That's what they think about me.

I'm lucky, I suppose. Dodging the ignominy.

Still, I'd have liked to have served my time.

Mrs Lintott comes out of the study
.

I gather you knew, too.

Mrs Lintott smiles
.

And the boys knew.

Mrs Lintott
Well, of course the boys knew. They had it at first hand.

Hector
I didn't actually do anything. It was a laying-on of hands, I don't deny that, but more in benediction than gratification or anything else.

Mrs Lintott
Hector, darling, love you as I do, that is the most colossal balls.

Hector
Is it?

Mrs Lintott
A grope is a grope. It is not the Annunciation.

You … twerp.

Anyway what Felix wanted to tell me is that when I finish next year he's hoping he can persuade you to step into my shoes.

The Headmaster comes out
.

Headmaster
Irwin –

Mrs Lintott
For your information they're a size seven court shoe, broad fitting.

Irwin goes into the study
.

Scripps
I attended Eucharist in the college chapel where, apart from a girl from a school in West Bromwich, I was the only communicant. It was a genuine act of worship, though I knew it would do me no harm with the college, the self-servingness of my devotions in this instance leaving me untroubled. I really wanted to get in. I have never particularly liked myself but the boy I was, kneeling in that cold and empty chapel that winter morning, fills me now with longing and pity.

Dakin
The guy whose room I had seemed a bit of a pillock. There was a
Lord of the Rings
poster for a start and an Arsenal scarf draped round a photograph of Virginia Woolf, only I think maybe this was irony. No books much, except he had a book with lists of everybody who'd been at other colleges, so I looked at that for a bit. Oh, and I went and looked at Corpus where Irwin was.

No sex.

Posner
I sat in the room most of the time or trailed around the streets. I can see why they make a fuss about it. Every college is like a stately home; my parents would love it. There was a question on the Holocaust. And I did play it down.

They asked me about it at the interview. Praised what they called my sense of detachment.

Said it was the foundation of writing history.

I think I did well.

The boys erupt onto the stage
.

Headmaster
Splendid news! Posner a scholarship, Dakin an exhibition and places for everyone else. It's more than one could ever have hoped for. Irwin, you are to be congratulated, a remarkable achievement. And you too, Dorothy, of course, who laid the foundations.

Mrs Lintott
Not Rudge, Headmaster.

Headmaster
Not Rudge? Oh dear.

Irwin
He has said nothing. The others have all had letters.

Headmaster
It was always an outside chance. I felt we were indulging him by allowing him to enter at all. That college must think we're fools. A pity. It would have been good to have a clean sweep.

Ah, Rudge.

You … you haven't heard from Oxford?

Rudge
No, sir.

Mrs Lintott
Perhaps you'll hear tomorrow.

Rudge
Why should I? They told me when I was there.

Irwin
I'm sorry.

Rudge
What for? I got in.

Irwin
How come?

Rudge
How come they told me or how come they took a thick sod like me?

I had family connections.

Headmaster
Somebody in your family went to Christ Church?

Rudge
In a manner of speaking.

My dad. Before he got married he was a college servant there. This old parson guy was just sitting there for most
of the interview, suddenly said was I related to Bill Rudge who'd been a scout on Staircase 7 in the 1950s. So I said he was my dad and they said I was just the kind of candidate they were looking for, college servant's son, now an undergraduate, evidence of how far they had come, wheel come full circle and that.