The History Boys Read online

  Irwin But he’s called Hector.

  Mrs Lintott And that’s his nickname too. He isn’t called Hector. His name’s Douglas, though the only person I’ve ever heard address him as such is his somewhat unexpected wife.

  Irwin Posner came to see me yesterday. He has a problem.

  Mrs Lintott No nickname, but at least you get their problems. I seldom do.

  Posner Sir, I think I may be homosexual.

  Irwin Posner, I wanted to say, you are not yet in a position to be anything.

  Mrs Lintott You’re young, of course. I never had that advantage.

  Posner I love Dakin.

  Irwin Does Dakin know?

  Posner Yes. He doesn’t think it’s surprising. Though Dakin likes girls basically.

  Irwin I sympathised, though not so much as to suggest I might be in the same boat.

  Mrs Lintott With Dakin?

  Irwin With anybody.

  Mrs Lintott That’s sensible. One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them.

  Posner Is it a phase, sir?

  Irwin Do you think it’s a phase?

  Posner Some of the literature says it will pass.

  Irwin I wanted to say that the literature may say that, but that literature doesn’t.

  Posner I’m not sure I want it to pass.

  But I want to get into Cambridge, sir. If I do, Dakin might love me.

  Or I might stop caring.

  Do you look at your life, sir?

  Irwin I thought everyone did.

  Posner I’m a Jew.

  I’m small.

  I’m homosexual.

  And I live in Sheffield.

  I’m fucked.

  Mrs Lintott Did you let that go?

  Irwin Fucked? Yes, I did, I’m afraid.

  Mrs Lintott It’s a test. A way of finding out if you’ve ceased to be a teacher and become a friend.

  He’s a bright boy. You’ll see. Next time he’ll go further.

  What else did you talk about?

  Irwin Nothing.

  No. Nothing.

  Mrs Lintott goes.

  Posner.

  Posner Sir?

  Irwin What goes on in Mr Hector’s lessons?

  Posner Nothing, sir.

  Anyway, you shouldn’t ask me that, sir.

  Irwin Quid pro quo.

  Posner I have to go now, sir.

  Irwin You learn poetry. Off your own bat?

  Posner Sometimes.

  He makes you want to, sir.

  Irwin How?

  Posner It’s a conspiracy, sir.

  Irwin Who against?

  Posner The world, sir. I hate this, sir. Can I go?

  Irwin Is that why he locks the door?

  Posner So that it’s not part of the system, sir. Time out. Nobody’s business. Useless knowledge.

  Can I go, sir?

  Irwin Why didn’t you ask Mr Hector about Dakin?

  Pause.

  Posner I wanted advice, sir.

  Mr Hector would just have given me a quotation.

  Housman, sir, probably.

  Literature is medicine, wisdom, elastoplast.

  Everything. It isn’t, though, is it, sir?

  Scripps Posner did not say it, but since he seldom took his eyes off Dakin, he knew that Irwin looked at him occasionally too and he wanted him to say so. Basically he just wanted company.

  Irwin It will pass.

  Posner Yes, sir.

  Irwin And Posner.

  Posner Sir?

  Irwin You must try and acquire the habit of contradiction. You are too much in the acquiescent mode.

  Posner Yes, sir.

  No, sir.

  Posner accompanied by Scripps sings the last verse of ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’.

  Dakin So all this religion, what do you do?

  Scripps Go to church. Pray.

  Dakin Yes?

  Scripps It’s so time-consuming. You’ve no idea.

  Dakin What else?

  Scripps It’s what you don’t do.

  Dakin You don’t not wank?

  Jesus. You’re headed for the bin.

  Scripps It’s not for ever.

  Dakin Yeah? Just tell me on the big day and I’ll stand well back.

  Scripps I figure I have to get through this romance with God now or else it’ll be hanging around half my life. But I don’t see why I should wish it on any other poor sod.

  The parents, of course, hate it. So ageing.

  Drugs they were prepared for, but not Matins.

  Some of it, though, I still don’t get. They reckon you have to love God because God loves you. Why? Posner loves you but it doesn’t mean you have to love Posner. As it is, God’s this massive case of unrequited love. He’s Hector minus the motorbike.

  God should get real. We don’t owe him anything.

  Dakin Good thing to say at Cambridge, that.

  Scripps No.

  Dakin Why? It’s an angle.

  Scripps It’s private.

  Dakin Fuck private.

  Scripps Don’t let Hector hear you say that. You’re his best boy.

  Test me.

  Dakin What on?

  Scripps T. S. Eliot.

  ‘A painter of the Umbrian School

  Designed upon a gesso ground

  The nimbus of the Baptised God

  The wilderness is cracked and browned.

  ‘But through the waters pale and thin

  Still shine the unoffending feet

  And here above the painter set

  The Father and the Paraclete.’

  Dakin This is the one about the painting in the National Gallery.

  Scripps Yes.

  Dakin Don’t tell me.

  Piero della Francesca.

  Actually, you know what?

  We are fucking clever.

  Scripps (laughs) Do you know how to seem cleverer still?

  Don’t say Piero della Francesca. Just say Piero.

  Dakin Yes?

  Scripps Apparently.

  Dakin Like Elvis.

  Scripps You’ve got it.

  Dakin The more you read, though, the more you see that literature is actually about losers.

  Scripps No.

  Dakin It’s consolation. All literature is consolation.

  Scripps No, it isn’t. What about when it’s celebration?

  Joy?

  Dakin But it’s written when the joy is over. Finished. So even when it’s joy, it’s grief. It’s consolation.

  That’s why it gets written down.

  I tell you, whatever Hector says, I find literature really lowering.

  Scripps Do you really believe this?

  Dakin Yes.

  Scripps You’re not just doing a line of stuff for the exam? Original thoughts?

  Dakin No.

  Scripps Because it’s the kind of angle Irwin would come up with.

  Dakin Well, it’s true he was the one who made me realise you were allowed to think like this. He sanctioned it. I didn’t know you were allowed to call art and literature into question.

  Scripps Think the unthinkable. Who’s going to stop you?

  Only don’t mention it to Hector.

  Dakin No.

  Scripps But if you reckon literature’s consolation, you should try religion.

  Dakin Actually it isn’t wholly my idea.

  Scripps No?

  Dakin I’ve been reading this book by Kneeshaw.

  Scripps Who?

  Dakin (shows him book) Kneeshaw. He’s a philosopher. Frederick Kneeshaw.

  Scripps I think that’s pronounced Nietszche.

  Dakin Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Scripps What’s the matter?

  Dakin I talked to Irwin about it. He didn’t correct me.

  He let me call him Kneeshaw. He’ll think I’m a right fool. Shit.

  Irwin and Hector.

  Irwin
It’s just that the boys seem to know more than they’re telling.

  Hector Don’t most boys?

  Diffidence is surely to be encouraged.

  Irwin In an examination?

  They seem to have got hold of the notion that the stuff they do with you is off-limits so far as the examination is concerned.

  Hector That’s hardly surprising. I count examinations, even for Oxford and Cambridge, as the enemy of education. Which is not to say that I don’t regard education as the enemy of education, too.

  However, if you think it will help, I will speak to them.

  Irwin I’d appreciate it.

  For what it’s worth, I sympathise with your feelings about examinations, but they are a fact of life. I’m sure you want them to do well and the gobbets you have taught them might just tip the balance.

  Hector What did you call them?

  Gobbets? Is that what you think they are, gobbets?

  Handy little quotes that can be trotted out to make a point?

  Gobbets?

  Codes, spells, runes – call them what you like, but do not call them gobbets.

  Irwin I just thought it would be useful …

  Hector Oh, it would be useful … every answer a Christmas tree hung with the appropriate gobbets. Except that they’re learned by heart. And that is where they belong and like the other components of the heart not to be defiled by being trotted out to order.

  Irwin So what are they meant to be storing them up for, these boys? Education isn’t something for when they’re old and grey and sitting by the fire. It’s for now. The exam is next month.

  Hector And what happens after the exam? Life goes on. Gobbets!

  Headmaster and Irwin.

  Headmaster How are our young men doing?

  Are they ‘on stream’?

  Irwin I think so.

  Headmaster You think so? Are they or aren’t they?

  Irwin It must always be something of a lottery.

  Headmaster A lottery? I don’t like the sound of that, Irwin. I don’t want you to fuck up. We have been down that road too many times before.

  Irwin I’m not sure the boys are bringing as much from Mr Hector’s classes as they might.

  Headmaster You’re lucky if they bring anything at all, but I don’t know that it matters. Mr Hector has an old-fashioned faith in the redemptive power of words. In my experience, Oxbridge examiners are on the lookout for something altogether snappier.

  After all, it’s not how much literature that they know. What matters is how much they know about literature.

  Chant the stuff till they’re blue in the face, what good does it do?

  Dorothy.

  Mrs Lintott has appeared and the Headmaster goes.

  Mrs Lintott One thing you will learn if you plan to stay in this benighted profession is that the chief enemy of culture in any school is always the Headmaster. Forgive Hector. He is trying to be the kind of teacher pupils will remember. Someone they will look back on. He impinges. Which is something one will never do.

  Irwin But it’s all about holding back. Not divulging. Something up their sleeve.

  Mrs Lintott I wouldn’t worry about that. Who’s the best? Dakin?

  Irwin He’s the canniest.

  Mrs Lintott And the best-looking.

  Irwin Is he? I always have the impression he knows more than I do.

  Mrs Lintott I’m sure he does.

  In every respect. He’s currently seeing (if that is the word) the Headmaster’s secretary.

  Irwin I didn’t know that.

  Mrs Lintott Which means he probably knows a good deal more than any of us. Not surprising, really.

  Irwin No.

  Mrs Lintott One ought to know these things.

  Irwin Yes.

  Mrs Lintott Posner knows, I’m sure.

  Scripps About halfway through that term something happened. Felix in a bate, Hector summoned, Fiona relegated to the outer office.

  Hector I am summoned to the Presence. The Headmaster wishes to see me, whose library books, we must always remember, Larkin himself must on occasion have stamped. ‘After such knowledge, what forgiveness?’

  Headmaster You teach behind locked doors.

  Hector On occasion.

  Headmaster Why is that?

  Hector I don’t want to be interrupted.

  Headmaster Teaching?

  Pause.

  Hector I beg your pardon?

  Headmaster I am very angry.

  My wife, Mrs Armstrong, does voluntary work.

  One afternoon a week at the charity shop.

  Normally Mondays. Except this week she did Wednesday as well.

  The charity shop is not busy.

  She reads, naturally, but periodically she looks out of the window.

  Are you following me?

  The road. The traffic lights. And so on.

  Pause.

  On three occasions now she has seen a motorbike.

  Boy on pillion.

  A man … fiddling.

  Yesterday she took the number.

  For the moment I propose to say nothing about this, but fortunately it is not long before you are due to retire. In the circumstances I propose we bring that forward. I think we should be looking at the end of term.

  Have you nothing to say?

  Hector

  ‘The tree of man was never quiet.

  Then ’twas the Roman; now ’tis I.’

  Headmaster This is no time for poetry.

  Hector I would have thought it was just the time.

  Headmaster Did I say I was angry?

  Hector I believe you did, yes.

  Headmaster Did you not think?

  Hector Ah, think.

  ‘To think that two and two are four

  And never five nor three

  The heart of man has long been sore

  And long ’tis like to be.’

  Headmaster You are incorrigible.

  I am assuming your wife doesn’t know?

  Hector I have no idea. What women know or don’t know has always been a mystery to me.

  Incidentally, she helps out at the charity shop, too.

  They all seem to do nowadays.

  Philanthropy and its forms.

  Headmaster And are you going to tell her?

  Hector I don’t know.

  I’m not sure she’d be interested.

  Headmaster Well, there’s another thing.

  Strange how even the most tragic turns of events generally resolve themselves into questions about the timetable. Irwin has been badgering me for more lessons. In the circumstances a concession might be in order. In the future, I think you and he might share.

  Hector Share?

  Headmaster Share.

  Your teaching, however effective it may or may not have been, has always seemed to me to be selfish, less to do with the interests of the boys than some cockeyed notion you have about culture.

  Sharing may correct that. In the meantime you must consider your position. I do not want to sack you. It’s so untidy. It would be easier for all concerned if you retired early.

  Hector is going.

  Hector Nothing happened.

  Headmaster A hand on a boy’s genitals at fifty miles an hour, and you call it nothing?

  Hector The transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic act. In the Renaissance …

  Headmaster Fuck the Renaissance. And fuck literature and Plato and Michaelangelo and Oscar Wilde and all the other shrunken violets you people line up. This is a school and it isn’t normal.

  Hector has just seen the Headmaster and, having got into his motorcycle gear, is sitting alone in the classroom.

  Posner comes in.

  Hector Ah, Posner.

  No Dakin?

  Posner With Mr Irwin, sir.

  Hector Of course.

  Posner They’re going through old exam papers. Picking out questions.

  Hector Ah.

  Pornography.

&nbs
p; No matter. We must carry on the fight without him.

  What have we learned this week?

  Posner ‘Drummer Hodge’, sir.

  Hardy.

  Hector Oh. Nice.

  Posner says the poem off by heart

  ‘They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest

  Uncoffined – just as found:

  His landmark is the kopje-crest

  That breaks the veldt around;

  And foreign constellations west

  Each night above his mound.

  ‘Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –

  Fresh from his Wessex home –

  The meaning of the broad Karoo,

  The Bush, the dusty loam,

  And why uprose to nightly view

  Strange stars amid the gloam.

  ‘Yet portion of that unknown plain

  Will Hodge for ever be;

  His homely Northern breast and brain

  Grow to some Southern tree,

  And strange-eyed constellations reign

  His stars eternally.’

  Hector Good. Very good. Any thoughts?

  Posner sits next to him.

  Posner I wondered, sir, if this ‘Portion of that unknown plain / Will Hodge forever be’ is like Rupert Brooke, sir. ‘There’s some corner of a foreign field …’ ‘In that rich earth a richer dust concealed …’

  Hector It is. It is. It’s the same thought … though Hardy’s is better, I think … more … more, well, down to earth. Quite literally, yes, down to earth.

  Anything about his name?

  Posner Hodge?

  Hector Mmm – the important thing is that he has a name. Say Hardy is writing about the Zulu Wars or later the Boer War possibly, and, these were the first campaigns when soldiers … or common soldiers … were commemorated, the names of the dead recorded and inscribed on war memorials. Before this, soldiers … private soldiers anyway, were all unknown soldiers, and so far from being revered there was a firm in the nineteenth century, in Yorkshire of course, which swept up their bones from the battlefields of Europe in order to grind them into fertiliser.

  So, thrown into a common grave though he may be, he is still Hodge the drummer. Lost boy though he is on the other side of the world, he still has a name.

  Posner How old was he?

  Hector If he’s a drummer he would be a young soldier, younger than you probably.

  Posner No. Hardy.

  Hector Oh, how old was Hardy? When he wrote this, about sixty. My age, I suppose.

  Saddish life, though not unappreciated.

  ‘Uncoffined’ is a typical Hardy usage.

  A compound adjective, formed by putting ‘un-’ in front of the noun. Or verb, of course.