The History Boys Read online

  The bell goes.

  Scripps What about this, sir?

  ‘Those long uneven lines

  Standing as patiently

  As if they were stretched outside

  The Oval or Villa Park,

  The crowns of hats, the sun

  On moustached archaic faces

  Grinning as if it were all

  An August Bank Holiday lark …’

  The others take up the lines of Larkin’s poem, maybe saying a couple of lines each through to the end, as they go – but matter of factly.

  Lockwood

  ‘Never such innocence,

  Never before or since,

  As changed itself to past

  Without a word –

  Akthar

  ‘– the men

  Leaving the gardens tidy,

  Posner

  ‘The thousands of marriages

  Lasting a little while longer:

  Timms

  ‘Never such innocence again.’

  Irwin How come you know all this by heart? (Baffled, shouts.) Not that it answers the question. (He goes.)

  Scripps So much for our glorious dead.

  Dakin I know. Still, apropos Passchendaele, can I bring you up to speed on Fiona?

  Scripps No.

  Dakin She’s my Western Front. Last night, for instance, meeting only token resistance, I reconnoitred the ground … Are you interested in this?

  Scripps No. Go on.

  Dakin As far as … the actual place.

  Scripps Shit.

  Dakin I mean, not onto it and certainly not into it. But up to it. At which point the Hun, if I may so characterise the fair Fiona, suddenly dug in, no further deployments were sanctioned, and around 23.00 hours our forces withdrew.

  Like whereas I’d begun the evening thinking this might be the big push.

  Scripps You do have a nice time.

  Dakin And the beauty of it is, the metaphor really fits.

  I mean, just as moving up to the front-line troops presumably had to pass the sites of previous battles where every inch of territory has been hotly contested, so it is with me … like particularly her tits, which only fell after a prolonged campaign some three weeks ago and to which I now have immediate access and which were indeed the start line for last night’s abortive thrust southwards.

  Scripps I can’t take any more. Enough.

  Dakin Still, at least I’m doing better than Felix.

  Posner Felix?

  Scripps Why? He doesn’t …

  Dakin Tries to. Chases her round the desk hoping to cop a feel.

  Scripps I don’t want to think about it.

  Dakin He’s only human.

  Posner Actually, when you think about it the metaphor isn’t exact. Because what Fiona is presumably carrying out is a planned withdrawal. You’re not forcing her. She’s not being overwhelmed by superior forces.

  Does she like you?

  Dakin Course she likes me.

  Posner Then you’re not disputing the territory. You’re just negotiating over the pace of the occupation.

  Scripps Just let us know when you get to Berlin.

  Dakin I’m beginning to like him more.

  Posner Who? Me?

  Dakin Irwin. Though he hates me. (Goes.)

  Posner Oh Scrippsy. I can’t bear to listen, but I want to hear every word. What does that mean?

  Posner sings a verse or two of ‘Bewitched’ as Scripps plays and the class filters back.

  Hector Well done, Posner. Now poetry of a more traditional sort.

  Timms groans.

  Timms groans? What is this?

  Timms Sir. I don’t always understand poetry.

  Hector You don’t always understand it? Timms, I never understand it. But learn it now, know it now and you’ll understand it whenever.

  Timms I don’t see how we can understand it. Most of the stuff poetry’s about hasn’t happened to us yet.

  Hector But it will, Timms. It will. And then you will have the antidote ready! Grief. Happiness. Even when you’re dying.

  We’re making your deathbeds here, boys.

  Lockwood Fucking Ada.

  Hector Poetry is the trailer! Forthcoming attractions!

  There is a knock on the door. Hector motions them to silence.

  ‘O villainy! Let the door be locked! Treachery! Seek it out.’

  The door is tried.

  Hector (whispers, or does he even bother to whisper?)

  Knocks at the door?

  In literature.

  The Trial, for instance, begins with a knock. Anybody?

  Akthar The person from Porlock.

  Hector Yes.

  Posner Don Giovanni: the Commendatore.

  Hector Excellent.

  Scripps Behold I stand at the door and knock.

  Revelation.

  Timms looks.

  Timms Gone, sir.

  Hector Good.

  Timms (to the others) Irwin.

  Hector Very often the knock is elided – the knock, as it were, taken as knocked.

  Did the knights knock at the door of Canterbury before they murdered Beckett?

  And maybe the person from Porlock never actually knocked but just put his or her head in at the window?

  Death knocks, I suppose.

  Love.

  And of course, opportunity.

  (looking at his watch) Now. Some silly time.

  Where’s the kitty?

  Posner gets a tin and gives it to Hector.

  Timms/Lockwood Oh, sir, sir.

  We’ve got one, sir.

  Hector Fifty p each.

  Timms It’s a good one, sir.

  Lockwood You won’t get this one, sir.

  Hector That remains to be seen.

  Timms We have to smoke, sir.

  Hector Very well.

  Scripps accompanies this scene on the piano.

  Timms Gerry, please help me.

  Lockwood Shall we just have a cigarette on it?

  Timms Yes.

  Lockwood lights the cigarettes and gives one to Timms.

  Lockwood May I sometimes come here?

  Timms Whenever you like. It’s your home, too.

  There are people here who love you.

  Lockwood And will you be happy, Charlotte?

  Timms Oh Gerry. Don’t let’s ask for the moon.

  We have the stars.

  Hector pretends puzzlement, looks in the tin to count the kitty.

  Hector Could it be Paul Henreid and Bette Davis in Now Voyager?

  Timms Aw, sir.

  Hector It’s famous, you ignorant little tarts.

  Lockwood We’d never heard of it, sir.

  Hector Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass.

  ‘The untold want by life and land ne’er granted

  Now Voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.’

  Fifty p. Pay up.

  Lockwood Shit.

  Hector When you say shit, Lockwood, I take it you’re referring to the well-established association between money and excrement?

  Lockwood Too right, sir.

  Hector Good. Well, I will now tell you how much shit there is in the pot, namely sixteen pounds.

  They go, leaving Rudge working.

  Mrs Lintott Ah, Rudge,

  Rudge Miss.

  Mrs Lintott How are you all getting on with Mr Irwin?

  Rudge It’s … interesting, miss, if you know what I mean. It makes me grateful for your lessons.

  Mrs Lintott Really? That’s nice to hear.

  Rudge Firm foundations type thing. Point A. Point B. Point C. Mr Irwin is more … free-range?

  Mrs Lintott I hadn’t thought of you as a battery chicken, Rudge.

  Rudge It’s only a metaphor, miss.

  Mrs Lintott I’m relieved to hear it.

  Rudge You’ve force-fed us the facts; now we’re in the process of running around acquiring flavour.

  Mrs Lintott Is that what Mr Irwin says?

&nb
sp; Rudge Oh no, miss. The metaphor’s mine.

  Mrs Lintott Well, you hang on to it.

  Rudge Like I’m just going home now to watch some videos of the Carry On films. I don’t understand why there are none in the school library.

  Mrs Lintott Why should there be?

  Rudge Mr Irwin said the Carry Ons would be good films to talk about.

  Mrs Lintott Really? How peculiar. Does he like them, do you think?

  Rudge Probably not, miss. You never know with him.

  Mrs Lintott I’m now wondering if there’s something there that I’ve missed.

  Rudge Mr Irwin says that, ‘While they have no intrinsic artistic merit – (He is reading from his notes.) – they achieve some of the permanence of art simply by persisting and acquire an incremental significance if only as social history.’

  Mrs Lintott Jolly good.

  Rudge ‘If George Orwell had lived, nothing is more certain than that he would have written an essay on the Carry On films.’

  Mrs Lintott I thought it was Mr Hector who was the Orwell fan.

  Rudge He is. Mr Irwin says that if Orwell were alive today he’d be in the National Front.

  Mrs Lintott Dear me. What fun you must all have.

  Rudge It’s cutting-edge, miss. It really is.

  Timms Where do you live, sir?

  Irwin Somewhere on the outskirts, why?

  Timms ‘Somewhere on the outskirts,’ ooh. It’s not a loft, is it, sir?

  Akthar Do you exist on an unhealthy diet of takeaway food, sir, or do you whisk up gourmet meals for one?

  Timms Or is it a lonely pizza, sir?

  Irwin I manage.

  No questions from you, Dakin?

  Dakin What they want to know, sir, is, ‘Do you have a life?’

  Or are we it?

  Are we your life?

  Irwin Pretty dismal if you are. Because (giving out books) these are as dreary as ever.

  If you want to learn about Stalin, study Henry VIII.

  If you want to learn about Mrs Thatcher, study Henry VIII.

  If you want to know about Hollywood, study Henry VIII.

  The wrong end of the stick is the right one. A question has a front door and a back door. Go in the back, or better still, the side.

  Flee the crowd. Follow Orwell. Be perverse.

  And since I mention Orwell, take Stalin. Generally agreed to be a monster, and rightly. So dissent. Find something, anything, to say in his defence.

  History nowadays is not a matter of conviction.

  It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it so.

  Rudge I get it. It’s an angle. You want us to find an angle.

  Scripps When Irwin became well known as an historian it was for finding his way to the wrong end of seesaws, settling on some hitherto unquestioned historical assumption then proving the opposite. Notoriously he would one day demonstrate on television that those who had been genuinely caught napping by the attack on Pearl Harbour were the Japanese and that the real culprit was President Roosevelt.

  Find a proposition, invert it, then look around for proofs. That was the technique and it was as formal in its way as the disciplines of the medieval schoolmen.

  Irwin A question is about what you know, not about what you don’t know. A question about Rembrandt, for instance, might prompt an answer about Francis Bacon.

  Rudge What if you don’t know about him either?

  Irwin Turner then, or Ingres.

  Rudge Is he an old master, sir?

  Timms ‘About suffering, they were never wrong,’ sir,

  ‘The Old Masters … how it takes place

  While someone else is eating or opening a window …’

  Irwin Have you done that with Mr Hector?

  Timms Done what, sir?

  Irwin The poem. You were quoting somebody. Auden.

  Timms Was I, sir? Sometimes it just flows out. Brims over.

  Irwin Why does he lock the door?

  They turn to each other in mock surprise.

  Akthar Lock the door? Does he lock the door?

  Lockwood It’s locked against the Forces of Progress, sir.

  Crowther The spectre of Modernity.

  Akthar It’s locked against the future, sir.

  Posner It’s just that he doesn’t like to be interrupted, sir.

  Crowther Creep.

  Akthar You have to lock the doors, sir. We are a nation of shoplifters, sir.

  Lockwood It’s excrement, sir. The tide of.

  Timms And there’s sexual intercourse, too, sir. They do it at bus stops, everyone young going down the long slide to happiness endlessly, sir.

  Akthar Free as bloody birds, sir.

  Crowther Disgusting.

  Irwin Does he have a programme? Or is it just at random?

  Boys Ask him, sir. We don’t know, sir.

  Akthar It’s just the knowledge, sir.

  Timms The pursuit of it for its own sake, sir.

  Posner Not useful, sir. Not like your lessons.

  Akthar Breaking bread with the dead, sir. That’s what we do.

  Irwin What it used to be called is ‘wider reading’.

  Lockwood Oh no, sir. It can be narrower reading. Mr Hector says if we know one book off by heart, it doesn’t matter if it’s really crap. The Prayer Book, sir. The Mikado, the Pigeon Fancier’s Gazette … so long as it’s words, sir. Words and worlds.

  Crowther And the heart.

  Lockwood Oh yes, sir. The heart.

  ‘The heart has its reasons that reason knoweth not,’ sir.

  Crowther Pascal, sir.

  Lockwood It’s higher than your stuff, sir. Nobler.

  Posner Only not useful, sir. Mr Hector’s not as focused.

  Timms No, not focused at all, sir. Blurred, sir, more.

  Akthar You’re much more focused, sir.

  Crowther And we know what we’re doing with you, sir. Half the time with him we don’t know what we’re doing at all. (Mimes being mystified.)

  Timms We’re poor little sheep that have lost our way, sir. Where are we?

  Akthar You’re very young, sir. This isn’t your gap year, is it, sir?

  Irwin I wish it was.

  Lockwood Why, sir? Do you not like teaching us, sir?

  We’re not just a hiccup between the end of university and the beginning of life, like Auden, are we, sir?

  Dakin Do you like Auden, sir?

  Irwin Some.

  Dakin Mr Hector does, sir. We know about Auden.

  He was a schoolmaster for a bit, sir.

  Irwin I believe he was, yes.

  Dakin He was, sir. Do you think he was more like you or more like Mr Hector?

  Irwin I’ve no idea. Why should he be like either of us?

  Dakin I think he was more like Mr Hector, sir.

  A bit of a shambles.

  He snogged his pupils. Auden, sir. Not Mr Hector.

  Irwin You know more about him than I do.

  Dakin

  ‘Lay your sleeping head, my love,

  Human on my faithless arm.’

  That was a pupil, sir. Shocking, isn’t it?

  Irwin So you could answer a question on Auden, then?

  Boys How, sir?

  No, sir.

  That’s in the exam, sir.

  Timms Mr Hector’s stuff’s not meant for the exam, sir. It’s to make us more rounded human beings.

  Irwin This examination will be about everything and anything you know and are.

  If there’s a question about Auden or whoever and you know about it, you must answer it.

  Akthar We couldn’t do that, sir.

  That would be a betrayal of trust.

  Laying bare our souls, sir.

  Lockwood Is nothing sacred, sir?

  We’re shocked.

  Posner I would, sir.

  And they would. They’re taking the piss.

  Lockwood

  ‘England, you have been here too long

&nb
sp; And the songs you sing are the songs you sung

  On a braver day. Now they are wrong.’

  Irwin Who’s that?

  Lockwood Don’t you know, sir?

  Irwin No.

  Lockwood Sir!

  It’s Stevie Smith, sir. Of ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ fame.

  Irwin Well, don’t tell me that is useless knowledge.

  You get an essay on post-imperial decline, losing an empire and finding a role, all that stuff, that quote is the perfect way to end it.

  Akthar Couldn’t do that, sir.

  It’s not education. It’s culture.

  Irwin How much more stuff like that have you got up your sleeves?

  The bell goes.

  Lockwood All sorts, sir!

  The train! The train!

  Scripps plays a theme from Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto.

  Posner (Celia Johnson) I really meant to do it.

  I stood there right on the edge.

  But I couldn’t. I wasn’t brave enough.

  I would like to be able to say it was the thought of you and the children that prevented me but it wasn’t.

  I had no thoughts at all.

  Only an overwhelming desire not to feel anything at all ever again.

  Not to be unhappy any more.

  I went back into the refreshment room.

  That’s when I nearly fainted.

  Irwin What is all this?

  Scripps (Cyril Raymond) Laura.

  Posner (Celia Johnson) Yes, dear.

  Scripps (Cyril Raymond) Whatever your dream was, it wasn’t a very happy one was it?

  Posner (Celia Johnson) No.

  Scripps (Cyril Raymond) Is there anything I can do to help?

  Posner (Celia Johnson) You always help, dear.

  Scripps (Cyril Raymond) You’ve been a long way away.

  Thank you for coming back to me.

  She cries and he embraces her.

  Irwin God knows why you’ve learned Brief Encounter.

  Boys Oh very good, sir. Full marks, sir.

  Irwin But I think you ought to know this lesson has been a complete waste of time.

  Dakin Like Mr Hector’s lessons then, sir. They’re a waste of time, too.

  Irwin Yes, you little smart-arse, but he’s not trying to get you through an exam.

  Staff room.

  Mrs Lintott So have the boys given you a nickname?

  Irwin Not that I’m aware of.

  Mrs Lintott A nickname is an achievement … both in the sense of something won and also in its armorial sense of a badge, a blazon.

  Unsurprisingly, I am Tot or Totty. Some irony there, one feels.

  Irwin Hector has no nickname.

  Mrs Lintott Yes he has: Hector.