The seminar room where Howard meets this weekly class, Socsci 4.17, is an interior room without windows, lit by artificial light. The room is a small one; on three of its walls are pinned large charts, illustrating global poverty, while the fourth wall is occupied by a large green chalkboard, on which someone has written, as people are always writing, 'Workers unite'. The room contains a number of tables with gunmetal legs and bright yellow tops; these have been pushed together in the centre to form one large table, where some previous tutor has been holding a formal class. In the room stand three students, positioned somewhere indeterminate between the tables and the walls; it does not do, at Watermouth, to take it for granted that a room arrangement that suits one teacher will ever suit another. Classes at Watermouth are not simply occasions for the one-directional transmission of knowledge; no, they are events, moments of communal interaction, or, like Howard's party, happenings. There are students from Watermouth who, visiting some other university, where traditional teaching prevails, stare in amazement, as if confronted by some remarkable and exciting innovation; their classes are not like that. For Watermouth does not only educate its students; it teaches its teachers. Teams of educational specialists, psychologists, experts in group dynamics, haunt the place; they film seminars, and discuss them, and, unimpressed by anything as thin as a manifestation of pure intellectual distinction, demonstrate how student C has got through the class without speaking, or student F is expressing boredom by picking his nose, or student H has never, during an hour-long class, had eye-contact with the teacher once. They have sample classes, where the faculty teach each other, sessions in which permanent enmities are founded, and clothes get torn, and elderly professors of international reputation burst into tears. So Howard comes into the room, and he looks around it, and he inspects the arrangement of the tables. 'I'm afraid this is what Goffman would call a bad eye-to-eye ecological huddle,' he says. 'We don't want these tables here like this, do we?'
'No, Dr Kirk,' says one of the students standing in the room, a big-boned girl named Merion Scoule, in a nervous way. Watermouth makes students nervous; you never know quite what to expect. There are classes where you have, on arrival, to eat something, or touch each other, or recount last night's dreams, or undress, in order to induce that strange secular community that is, in Watermouth terms, the essence of a good class, a class that is interesting. There are others where you have to sit and listen to tutors in self-therapy, talking about their problems or their wives or their need to relate; there are other classes where almost the reverse happens, and the students become objects of therapy, problem-bearers, and where an apparently casual remark about one's schoolboy stamp collection, or a literary reference to the metaphoric significance of colour, will lead to a sudden psychic foray from a teacher who will dive down into your unconscious with three shrewd enquiries and come up clutching something in you called 'bourgeois materialism' or 'racism'. Howard's classes are especially famous for being punitive in this way. Altogether, caution and courage are necessary, and a protean nature; there are so many roles for a student to perform. There are classes where the teacher, not wanting to direct the movement of mind unduly, will remain silent throughout the class, awaiting spontaneous explosions of intelligence from his students; there are classes, indeed, where the silence never gets broken. There are other classes where the teacher never appears in person at all, but materializes suddenly into existence on a screen in the corner of the room, beamed there from the audio-visual centre, mouthing sound that can be turned up, or down, or off, according to the dedication and whim of the class, while he is off lecturing for the British Council in Brazil. Anything can happen, except the normal, save that the very idea of innovation becomes customary; to experienced Watermouth students, like these, it is conventional for Howard to come into the room, as now, and make the students form pairs-Merion Scoule and Michael Bennard; Felicity Phee and Hashmi Sadeok, from Morocco, who, older than the others, is better at carrying tables-and hump the furniture out into the corridors.
When they have moved the tables, Howard has the students arrange their chairs in a neat little circle, near to but not at the precise centre of the room. 'Right,' he says, dragging his own chair into the circle, 'that should improve interaction. We can't see you properly, Hashmi. Move your chair forward about two feet.' Hashmi stares. 'A metre and a half,' says Michael Bennard. Hashmi smiles; the group, shapely now, relaxes. Felicity and Merion sit side by side, an anguished Watermouth pair, Felicity in her shirt and long skirt, Merion in incredible thicknesses of garment, including a skin waistcoat and a crocheted long cardigan. Michael Bennard is next to Felicity; he has a large black beard, and wears a frock coat and jeans. Hashmi is next to Merion; he has a fine splayed-out hairdo, and platform shoes. 'There's something wrong,' says Howard. 'Well, we're not all here,' says Merion. 'No,' says Howard, 'who's missing?'
'George,' says Michael, 'he's starting discussion.'
'Has anyone seen him?' asks Howard. 'He's always late,' says Hashmi. 'His congenital disease,' says Howard, 'just as it's mine to eliminate him from memory. I wonder what that signifies.' The class laughs. Howard says, 'Did he show up this term?'
'Well,' says Merion, 'he's not the kind of person we associate with.'
'He'll come,' says Michael Bennard, 'he always comes.'
'We could start without him,' says Merion, 'I expect we've all read the stuff.'
'No,' says Howard, 'I really think we ought to hear George exercise himself on the topic of social change. It should be quite an occasion.'
At this moment the door is jogged, and then it opens. In the aperture stands a student; he carries a large stack of books,. which reach from the level of his crotch to just under his chin. His chin holds the pile unevenly steady. From two of the fingers of his hands, which are clasped underneath the books, there dangles a shiny new briefcase. The established circle inspects the stranger, who appears confident. 'I'm sorry I'm late, sir,' he says, 'I've been working all night on my paper. Just this minute finished.'
'Get a chair,' says Howard, 'bring it into the circle.'
'Hold my books,' says the student, who is very neat, to Merion; he brings a chair, inserts it into the group, causing much scraping of the floor; 'Is that all right, sir?' he asks, 'can everyone see my face from this position?'
'Enough of it,' says Howard. 'Look, I asked you to prepare this class over the summer, not leave it until last night.'
'I wanted to be fresh,' says the student. 'Besides, I was shooting in the summer.'
'Who were you shooting?' asks Howard. 'I was shooting film in Scotland,' says the student. 'Bag any?' asks Michael Bennard. 'Come on,' says Howard, 'I want to get started. Theories of social change.'
'If you could just give me half a minute,' says the student, 'I just have to sort these books out. Would you mind if I had a table? There are some outside in the corridor.'
'We've just taken them out,' says Howard, 'and what is all this stuff, George?' The student has begun to arrange the large pile of books around his chair; each of the books has little bits of toilet paper protruding from its pages, no doubt to mark significant references. 'I've tried to be as scholarly as possible,' says the student, 'I wouldn't want to go off at a tangent with a crucial issue like this. Social change, sir.'
'It doesn't seem necessary to me,' says Howard, 'but we'll start off by giving you the benefit of the doubt. Now ate you ready?'
'One more tiny moment?' says the student; he reaches into his shiny leather briefcase, and brings forth a blue cardboard file. From the file he removes a fat document, written in very cramped, close handwriting, places it on his knee, and looks up. 'Ready to go now, sir,' he says.
The student's name is George Carmody; he has the reputation of being appalling. The group stare at him, question whether they can contain him; their tolerance is not easily strained, but something in Carmody strains it. They have been meeting together weekly, now, for two whole years; they have shared many experiences, been through dark purgatories of insight, together; they have acquired a cohesion, a closeness. They have changed together, passing through those utter transformations of personality which at Watermouth are an ongoing spiritual necessity: students here will suddenly acquire new modes of being, so that not only does dress, hairstyle, appearance alter utterly, but somehow the entire physiology and physicality. A neat, respectful public schoolboy has become irritable, proletarian Michael Bennard; a frail, bright teenager has become dark-eyed Felicity Phee. But to these transactions of spirit and belief Carmody has remained a stranger; he has changed most, and changed by not changing at all. Here he sits, in his chair, looking beamingly around; as he does so, he shines forth unreality. He is a glimpse from another era; a kind of historical offence. In the era of hair, his face is perfectly clean-shaven, so shaven that the fuzz of peach-hair on his upper features looks gross against the raw epidermis on his cheeks and chin, where the razor has been. The razor has also been round the back of his neck, to give him a close, neat haircut. From some mysterious source, unknown and in any case alien to all other students, he has managed to acquire a university blazer, with a badge, and a university tie; these he wears with a white shirt, and a pair of pressed grey flannels. His shoes are brightly polished; so, as if to match, is his briefcase. He is an item, preserved in some extraordinary historical pickle, from the nineteen-fifties or before; he comes out of some strange fold in time. He has always been like this, and at first his style was a credit; wasn't it just a mock-style to go with all the other mock-styles in the social parody? But this is the third year; he has been out of sight for months, and here he is again, and he has renewed the commitment; the terrible truth seems clear. It is no joke; Carmody wants to be what he says he is.
Now he looks at Howard, with bright eyes; he says, 'You asked me to look at theories about the workings of social change in the works of Mill, Marx and Weber. I hope this is a justifiable interpretation.' Howard looks at the intolerable figure; he says, 'I hope it is.' Carmody now dips his head, and draws the fat document from its folder; he begins to read the first sentence from the handwritten page. 'Wait a minute,' says Howard, 'are you proposing to read all that?'
'Yes, sir,' says Carmody. 'I'm not "sir",' says Howard, 'I don't want your deference. Now, what did I ask you to do?'
'You asked me to look at Mill, Marx and Weber, and make a report,' says Carmody. 'I asked you to go away and read their works, over the vacation,' says Howard, 'and then to make a spontaneous verbal statement to this class, summing up your impressions. I didn't ask you to produce a written paper, and then sit here with your head hanging over it, presenting formalized and finished thoughts. What kind of group experience is that?'
'You did say that, sir,' says Carmody, 'but I thought I could do something more developed. I've put in so much time on this.'
'I don't want it developed,' says Howard, 'I want development to occur in discussion.'
'I'm sorry, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'but I felt this was better. I mean, I felt I could sum this stuff up and get it out of the way so we didn't need to spend a lot of time going over and over it.'
'I want us to go over it,' said Howard, 'it's called discussion. Now put that script away, take it outside, and then tell us what impressions you've got from the reading I asked you to do.'
'You think I haven't done the reading, sir?' asks Carmody. 'I don't think that at all,' says Howard, 'I think you've made a heavy, anal job of this, because you're a heavy, anal type, and I want you to risk your mind in the insecurity of discussion.'
'Well, I'm sorry, sir, but I can't,' says Carmody. 'Of course you can,' says Howard. 'No,' says Carmody, 'I just don't think like that, work like that. I am an anal type, you're right. It's not all easy. If you like, I'll go over to Counselling Service and get them to write me a note to that effect. They know I can't think like that. They know I have a linear mind, Dr Kirk, I'm afraid.'
'A linear mind,' says Howard, 'is that what they told you?'
'Yes, sir,' says Carmody, 'it's a mental condition.'
'I'm sure it is,' says Howard, 'I'm trying to cure it.'
'Oh, they wouldn't like that, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'I'm under treatment for it. Please let me read my paper.'
'Well,' says Howard, 'it's up to the rest of the class. I'm not going to accept anything like this from them. But it's a democratic class. We'll vote on it, and you'll have to accept their decision. Right, Mr Carmody wants to submit a written paper; those who are prepared to hear it?'
'How long is the paper?' asks Merion Scoule. 'No discussion, just vote,' says Howard. 'In favour?' Three hands go up. 'Against?' Two go up, one of them Howard's. 'Well,' says Howard, 'you've got the consent of these tolerant people. Go ahead and read your formal paper.' Carmody casts a fast, uneasy glance at Howard, as if mystified by his good luck. Then he coughs, ducks his head down, and begins to read again, in the same careful voice. It is dull, dogged stuff, an old scheme of words, a weak little plot, a culling of obvious quotations surrounded by obvious comments, untouched with sympathy or that note of radical fire that, in Howard's eyes, has so much to do with true intellectual awareness. Occasionally Carmody picks up the books from beside his chair, and reads from them; occasionally he tries a rhetorical flourish; occasionally he glances, uneasily, up and around. The clock, on the wall above the greenboard, ticks and turns; the circle of people is bored; Michael Bernard, that irritable Marxist, draws large black crosses on a notepad, and Merion Scoule is blank-eyed, withdrawn into thoughts that take her elsewhere. Felicity is looking expectantly at Howard, awaiting his anger, his interruption. But Howard does not interrupt. The paper is like an overripe plum, collapsing and softening from its own inner entropy, ready to fall. It is the epitome of false consciousness; its ideas are fictions or pretences, self-serving, without active awareness; it moves towards its inevitable fate. Now the class follows Carmody's eyes as he tracks through his writing, moves towards the bottom of a page. He knows this; he fumbles the turnover, lifting two pages instead of one. He sees this, pauses, turns back one sheet. Merion Scoule says, 'Can I ask a question?'
Carmody looks up, his neat cropped head staring at her. He says, in a precise, judicious manner: 'If it's a point of detail. I'd prefer general issues to wait to the end, when the argument is clear.'
'It is a general issue,' says Merion. Howard says, impersonally: 'I think a little discussion would clear the air.'
'Well,' says Merion, leaning forward, 'I just want George to explain the methodology of this paper. So that I can understand it.' Carmody says, 'Isn't it evident? It's an objective summary of my findings.'
'But it doesn't have any ideology, does it?' asks Merion. 'It's filled with it,' says Michael Bernard, 'The ideology of bourgeois self-justification.'
'I meant ideological self-awareness,' says Merion. 'Oh, I realize it doesn't agree with your politics,' says Carmody, 'but I think someone ought to stand back and look critically at these critics of society for a change.'
'It doesn't even agree with life,' says Michael Bennard. 'You're seeing a society as a consensus which bad people from outside set out to upset, by wanting change. But people desire and need change; it's their only hope, not some paranoid little deviance.'
'That's pure politics,' says Carmody, 'may I get on with my paper?'
'It won't do, George,' says Howard, intervening, 'I'm afraid this is an anal, repressed paper in every way. Your model of society is static, as Michael says. It's an entity with no internal momentum and no internal conflict. In short, it's not sociologically valid.' A redness comes up Carmody's neck, and reaches his lower face. He says, insistently, 'I think it's a possible point of view, sir.'
'It may be in conservative circles,' says Howard, 'it isn't in sociological ones.' Carmody stares at Howard; some of the polite finish begins to come off him. 'Isn't that debatable, Dr Kirk?' he asks, 'I mean, are you sociology?'
'Yes,' says Howard, 'for the present purpose, I am.' There is discomfort in the room; Merion Scoule, humanely trying to soften the atmosphere, says, 'I think you're just a little hung up, George. I mean, you're too much involved; you're not standing outside society and looking at it.' Carmody ignores her; he looks at Howard; he says, 'Nothing I say could ever please you, could it?'
'You'd certainly have to try harder than you do,' says Howard. 'I see,' says Carmody, 'Do I have to agree with you, Dr Kirk, do I have to vote the way you do, and march down the street with you, and sign your petitions, and hit policemen on your demos, before I can pass your course?'
There is a pause in the class, a tiny, uneasy movement of furniture. Then Howard says: 'It's not required, George. But it might help you see some of the problems inside this society you keep sentimentalizing about.'
'I think, George,' says Merion, 'the trouble is that you don't have a conflict model of society.'
'Don't let him off the hook,' says Howard, punitive. 'There's a lot more missing than that. All of sociology and all of humanity as well.' Carmody's entire face is red now; his eyes glare. He pushes his paper savagely back into his shiny briefcase, and says, 'Of course you all do have a conflict model. Everyone's interest conflicts with everyone else's. But better not conflict with Dr Kirk. Oh, no, it's not a consensus model for his classes all right. I mean, we're democratic, and we vote, but no dirty old conservative standpoints here. Sociology's revolutionary, and we'd better agree.'
'I'm going to have to cool this down,' says Howard, 'I don't think you're in a state to understand anything that's being said to you. We'll forget the paper, and start in on this Mill, Marx, Weber topic from the beginning.'
'Do what you like,' says Carmody, 'I've had enough.' He gets off his chair and kneels on the floor, picking up his pile of books. His hurt, angry face looks up at Howard as he does this. Then he stands, captures his briefcase with his fingers, and walks out of the circle, towards the door. The door is difficult to open, with his burden of books, but he manages it; he hooks a foot round it to bring it slamming to as he leaves. The circle of people stare after him; but to these 'habitués of the seminar as an event, this is a fairly modest outrage, a simple pettish hysteria, not at all as fancy as many of the intense psychodramas that develop in class. The door bangs, and they turn inward again, and resume their eye-to-eye ecological huddle. Howard leads them through a discussion of the issues that, in Carmody's gloss of nineteenth-century thought and society, had not existed: the compelling machine of industrialism, the fetish of commodity, the protestant ethic, the repression of the worker, the revolutionary energies. Carmody wanders somewhere else, forgotten; the class generates its rightful work and then its excitement, for Howard is a busy, compelling teacher, a man of passion. The faces wake, the hour turns in no time at all.
And then the stable clock chimes; the class gets up, and carries the tables back from the corridor into the room again. It is Howard's custom to take his class for coffee afterwards, and now he leads them, a little group, down in the lift, across the foyer, through the Piazza. They go into the coffee bar in the Students' Union, overlooking the lake. The noise level is high; in a corner a pin-table pings on different notes, in serial composition; people sit at table arguing, or reading. They find a booth by the wall, littered with cups and cigarette packets, and sit down, squeezing into the circular bench; Merion and Michael go off to join the queue at the counter to bring back coffee. 'Wow,' says Felicity, pushing in next to Howard, and resting her knee against his leg, and looking up into his face, 'I hope you never decide to destroy me like that.'
'Like what?' asks Howard. 'The way you did George,' says Felicity, 'If he wasn't such a reactionary, I'd feel sorry for him.'
'It mystifies me,' says Howard. 'It's as if he invites it, as if he's set himself up as masochist to my sadist.'
'But you don't give him a chance,' says Felicity. 'No chances for people like that,' says Hashmi, 'he's an imperialist fascist.'
'But you are a sadist,' says Felicity 'The trouble with George,' says Howard, 'is that he's the perfect teaching aid. The enemy personified. He almost seems to have chosen the role. I don't even know whether he's serious.'
'H(is,' says Felicity. The others join them, with the coffee. 'Coffee, coffee, what they here call coffee,' says Hashmi. 'Oh, Hashmi,' says Howard, 'Roger Fundy tells me Mangel's coming here to lecture. The man who did that work on race.'
'But you can's have him,' says Hashmi, 'I shall tell this to the Afro-Asian Society. This is worse than Carmody.'
'It is,' says Howard. He drinks his coffee, quickly, and gets up to go. As he leaves the table, squeezing over Felicity, she says, 'What time shall I come tonight, Howard?'
'Where?' asks Howard. 'I'm babysitting for you,' says Felicity. 'Oh,' says Howard, 'can you get there just before seven-fifteen?'
'Fine,' says Felicity, 'I'll come straight there. You won't even have to pick me up.'
'Good,' says Howard.
He goes back to the Social Science Building; getting out of the lift, at the fifth floor, he can distantly see a figure waiting outside the door of his study. From this standpoint, Carmody looks like a creature at the end of a long historical corridor, back in dark time; Howard stands, in the brightness of the emancipating present, at the other. Carmody has shed his books; he carries only his shiny briefcase; he has a dejected, saddened look. As Howard gets nearer, he glances up, and sees him; his demeanour stiffens. 'I think I ought to have a talk with you, sir,' he says to Howard, 'can you give me some time?'
'A minute or two,' says Howard, unlocking his door. 'Come in.' Carmody follows Howard through the doorway and then, just inside the room, he stops, his big body ungainly, holding his briefcase. 'Sit down, George,' says Howard, placing himself in the red desk chair, 'What's this about?'
'I want to discuss my work,' says Carmody, not moving from his position, 'I mean, a really frank discussion.'
'All right,' says Howard. 'I think I'm in trouble,' says Carmody, 'and I think you've got me into it.'
'What does that mean?' asks Howard. 'Well, this is my third year in your course,' says Carmody. 'I've written about twenty essays for you. They're here, in my bag. I wonder if you'd go over them with me.'
'We've been over them,' says Howard. 'I wonder if we could look at the marks,' says Carmody, 'it's a question of the marks.'
'What about them?' asks Howard. 'Well, sir, they're not very good marks,' says Carmody. 'No,' says Howard. 'They're mostly fails,' says Carmody. 'Yes,' says Howard. 'I mean, I could fail this course,' says Carmody. 'It rather looks as though you might,' says Howard. 'And that's all right with you?'
'It's the inevitable consequence of doing bad work.'
'And if I fail your course I fail my degree,' says Carmody, 'because if you don't pass in your subsidiary subject you can't get a degree.'
'That's right,' says Howard. 'You think that could happen?' asks Carmody. 'I do.'
'Well, in that case,' says Carmody, 'I have to ask you to look at these marks again, and see if you think they're fair.'
Howard examines Carmody's expression; it is civil, serious, rather nervous. 'Of course they're fair,' says Howard. 'Are you telling me I don't mark fairly?'
'Not exactly,' says Carmody, 'I don't think they're consistent.'
'Of course they are,' says Howard, 'Consistently bad. They're about the most consistent marks I've ever given.'
'Not consistent with my marks in other subjects,' says Carmody. 'My major's English; I get As and high Bs in that. I have to do Social History; I get mostly Bs there. And then there's Sociology, and that's all Ds and Fs.'
'Isn't the' obvious deduction that you're working seriously in English and History, and not in Sociology?'
'I admit I'm not attracted to Sociology,' says Carmody, 'especially the way it's taught here. But I do work. I work hard. You admit that in your comments on the essays. I mean, you say there's too much work and not enough analysis. But we know what that means, don't we?'
'Do we?' asks Howard. 'It means I don't see it your way,' says Carmody. 'Yes,' says Howard, 'you don't see it sociologically.'
'Not what you call sociologically,' says Carmody. 'You have a better sociology?' asks Howard, 'this Anglo-Catholic classicist-royalist stuff you import from English and want to call sociology?'
'It's an accepted form of cultural analysis,' says Carmody. 'I don't accept it,' says Howard. 'It's an arty-farty construct that isn't sociology, because it happens to exclude everything that makes up the real face of society. By which I mean poverty, racialism, inequality, sexism, imperialism, and repression, the things I expect you to consider and account for. But whatever I do, whatever topic I set you, I get this same old stuff rolled out.'
'In that case,' says Carmody, 'isn't it fairest to accept that we disagree? And perhaps move me to another sociology teacher, one who might accept that there is something in this approach?' There is sweat standing out on Carmody's brow. 'Ah, I see,' says Howard, 'you think you could get better marks from someone else. You can't con me, but you might swing it with someone else.'
'Look, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'I can't ever satisfy you, I can't ever be radical enough to suit you. I have beliefs and convictions, like you. Why can't you give me a chance?'
'And what are these beliefs and convictions?' asks Howard. 'I happen to believe in individualism, not collectivism. I hate this cost-accountancy, Marxist view of man as a unit in the chain of production. I believe the superstructure is a damned sight more important than the substructure. I think culture's a value, not an inert descriptive term.'
'Beliefs, in short, incompatible with sociological analysis,' says Howard. 'I'm not moving you. You either accept some sociological principles, or you fail, and that's your choice.' Carmody's head ducks; and in the light coming into the room from behind Howard it is suddenly apparent that there is a dangerous wetness in Carmody's eyes. He reaches his hand into the pocket of his pressed trousers, takes out a very neat handkerchief, unfolds it, shakes it, and blows his nose into it. When he has done this, he looks at Howard. He says, 'Dr Kirk, you're not being either frank or fair. You know you don't like me. I don't hold the right opinions, I don't come from the right background or the right school, I don't look right for you, so you persecute me. I'm your victim in that class. You've appointed me that. And you turn everyone there against me.' Howard swings in the red chair. He says: 'No, you're self-appointed, George. Look at the way you behave. You always come in late. You never do quite what you've been asked to do. You break up the spontaneity and style of the class. If I ask you to discuss, you read; if I ask you to read, you discuss. You bore people and offend them. There's a chill round you. Why do seminars with you in them grind away into the dust? Have you ever asked why?'
'Oh, you get me every way, don't you?' asks Carmody, leaning his back against the door, 'I fit in, or I fail. And if I try to fight back, and preserve myself, well, you're my teacher, you can tear me to pieces in public, and mark my essays down in private. Can't I exist as well?'
'You can,' says Howard, 'if you're capable of changing. Of learning some human sympathy, some contact with others, some concern, some sociology.'
'You see,' says Carmody, 'it's not my work, it's me. You're marking me. F for fail. Why won't you say it? You just don't like me?'
'What I think of you isn't the issue,' says Howard, 'I can dislike' someone's work without disliking them.'
'But it's both with me,' says Carmody, 'so why won't you let me have someone else's judgment? Someone who doesn't dislike me like this? A different teacher?'
'For the obvious reason,' says Howard, 'because I don't admit your charge. That my marking of you is unfair. That is your charge, isn't it?'
Carmody puts his head down. He says, 'I didn't come for that. You're making me say what I don't want to.' Howard gets up and looks out of the window. He asks, 'What did you come for, George?'
'I came because I've got a new tutor in English, and she looked back over all my marks and saw I was failing. I didn't know. And she told me to come and talk to you about it.'
'I presume she didn't suggest you make these accusations?'
'No,' says Carmody, 'she thought you'd help me. She doesn't know you very well, does she?'
'I don't think you do, George,' says Howard. Carmody steps forward, and puts his hands on the back of the grey chair. 'I know more about you than you think,' he says. Howard turns and looks at Carmody. 'What does that mean?' he asks. 'All right,' says Carmody, 'you're making me say this. But what do you think people outside universities would say if they knew the kinds of things you do?'
'What things?'
'Teaching politics in your classes,' says Carmody. 'Getting all the radical students to your parties, and feeling them up, and getting them involved in causes and demos, and then giving them good grades. But the ones who won't play your game, the ones like me, you give them bad grades. I've got my essays here, in my bag. I've got the things you've scribbled all over them, "pure fascism", "reactionary crap". I want to know if it's right to treat me like that, treat anyone like that.'
'You've made it quite clear now, haven't you?' says Howard, 'You are accusing me. Let's be explicit.'
'I don't want to,' says Carmody, 'I just want fairness.' Howard sits on his desk and looks at Carmody. He says, 'There are many things you fail to understand, George. One of them is the right to intellectual freedom.'
'I don't know how you can say that,' says Carmody, red with anger, 'doesn't that include me? Don't I get any? That's all I'm asking you for.'
'No, you're not,' says Howard, 'you're accusing me of political bias in my marking, and threatening me with exposure if I don't improve your marks. Aren't you?' Carmody stares. He says, 'Look, give me a chance. That's all I want.'
'No,' says Howard, 'you're blackmailing me. I never want to see you in my classes again.' Carmody's eyes fill with tears. 'I'm not blackmailing you,' he says quietly. 'Of course you are,' says Howard, 'I've given your work the marks it's worth, you can't accept the judgment, so you come to me, and accuse me, and threaten me, and question my fairness and competence in every possible way. We call that blackmail.'
Carmody's hands clutch oh the back of the grey chair. He says: 'I was just asking for a chance. If you won't give it me, I'll have to ask Professor Marvin for it. I want someone else to read these essays, and see if these marks and comments are right and fair. That's all I want.'
'Well, you go to Professor Marvin,' says Howard. 'Make your complaint, and I'll make mine, and advise him about this blackmail attempt, and we'll see how it all comes out.'
'Christ,' says Carmody, 'I don't want to complain about you. You've pushed me this way.'
'But I do want to complain about you,' says Howard. Carmody bends down and picks up his briefcase. He says, 'You're crazy. This'll look just as bad for you as it does for me.'
'I don't think so,' says Howard. 'Now get out. And don't ever come to a class of mine again.'
'I think you're obscene,' says Carmody, turning and opening the door. 'George,' says Howard, 'who is your tutor in English? I'll have to advise her you're not getting any more sociology, and therefore have presumably already failed your degree.'
'You're destroying me,' says Carmody. 'I need her name,' says Howard. 'It's Miss Callendar,' says Carmody. 'Thank you,' says Howard. 'Don't bang the door when you shut it.' Carmody drags himself out of the room; the door, predictably, bangs behind him. Howard gets up off the desk, and walks to the window. After a moment he goes back to the desk chair and sits down, pulling open the second left-hand drawer of the desk, and taking out a slim book. He opens the book, finds an entry that says 'Callendar, Miss A', and opposite it a telephone number. He pulls the handset towards him, and begins to dial the number; but then a thought crosses his mind, for he stops, replaces the receiver, and gets up from the chair again. He crosses the room to his bookshelves, and finds, among the routine paperbacks on sociology, a, slim Penguin. He takes it to the desk, thumbs through its pages for a while. Then he picks up the receiver, and dials Miss Callendar's number. The telephone rings along the line; 'Callendar,' says a sharp voice at the other end. 'Hello, Callendar,' says Howard, 'Kirk.'
'Och, yes, Kirk,' says Miss Callendar, sounding very Scots, 'I've got a class in my room. I can't engage in casual conversation.'
'Oh, it's not casual,' says Howard, 'it's a serious matter of university business.'
'I see,' says Miss Callendar, cautiously, 'Of an urgent kind?'
'Very,' says Howard, 'A serious problem has arisen with one of your advisory students.'
'Could you ring me again after lunch?' asks Miss Callendar. 'I presume you take your responsibility to your students seriously?' says Howard. 'I do,' says Miss Callendar. 'I think we ought to deal with it now, then,' says Howard. 'Just a minute,' says Miss Callendar, 'I'll ask my class to step outside.' There is a small babble at the other end of the wire; then Miss Callendar returns onto the line. 'I hope this isn't part of your seductive campaign,' says Miss Callendar, 'we were right in the middle of The Faerie Queen.' 'I think you'll see this is serious,' says Howard. 'You have an advisee called George Carmody.'
'A big, fairhaired boy who wears a blazer?' says Miss Callendar. 'An unmistakable boy,' says Howard, 'the only student in this university with a trouser press.'
'I know him,' says Miss Callendar, with a giggle. 'You sent him to see me,' says Howard. 'I did,' says Miss Callendar, 'I saw him yesterday, for the first time, I looked through his marks, and found he was failing your course. I'm afraid he'd not seen his situation. I told him to come and talk to you. I said you'd assist him in every way possible.'
'Well, he came,' says Howard, 'and he tried to blackmail me.'
'My goodness,' says Miss Callendar, 'he wants you to leave some money in a phonebox?'
'I hope you're taking this seriously,' says Howard, 'it is serious.'
'Of course,' says Miss Callendar. 'What did he do?'
'He claimed that he was failing because I marked with a political bias,' says Howard. 'He didn't!' says Miss Callendar,'I'm afraid that's very rude of him. I'll urge him to apologize to you.'
'That's no use,' says Howard, 'it's gone much further than that. I, of course, refused to reconsider his marks. So he proposes to see my head of department and complain.'
'I'm afraid we live in an age of dreary legalism,' says Miss Callendar. 'Isn't the best thing for us all to sit down and talk it over?'
'Oh, no,' says Howard, 'I want him to complain. I want the man to expose himself. I want him out of this university.'
'Oh, Dr Kirk,' says Miss Callendar, 'isn't that a bit harsh? Aren't we all making a mountain out of a molehill?'
'You say you don't know this man very well?' asks Howard. 'I don't,' says Miss Callendar, 'I'm new here.'
'I think I do,' says Howard. 'He's a juvenile fascist. He's both incapable and dishonest. I mark his work for what it is, totally devoid of merit; he then tries to solve his problems by accusing me of being corrupt. I think we need to make the real corruption here quite visible. It's the classic syndrome; arrogant privilege trying to preserve itself by any means once it's threatened.'
'Is it like that?' asks Miss Callendar, 'Isn't he just being rather pathetic and desperate?'
'I hope you're not excusing him,' says Howard. 'After all, he's just gone to see my professor and challenge my professional integrity.'
'Yes,' says Miss Callendar, 'but who'll believe him?'
'Oh, many would like to,' says Howard. 'Of course they daren't. He wants to destroy me; in fact he's already destroyed himself. He'll get no more sociology teaching, so he won't get a degree. And I think our regulations permit us to get rid of him.'
'You make me feel sorry for him,' says Miss Callendar. 'I thought you might feel sorry for me,' says Howard. 'Here's a student of yours putting my career at risk. I have the rights of the victim.'
'I'm sorry for both,' says Miss Callendar. 'I've been looking at his file while you're talking. His father died. He had a period of depression and psychiatric counselling. He's kept up his work well. His tutors in English and History give him quite favourable reports.'
'He said he'd been getting As and Bs in English,' says Howard, 'I find it hard to believe.'
'Well, Bs and As,' says Miss Callendar. 'He's said to have a good critical intelligence. There's a person here, and a background. Oughtn't we to go into it?'
'I don't think I want to go into it,' says Howard. 'But you do take your responsibility to your students seriously?' asks Miss Callendar. 'What are you proposing?' asks Howard. 'Can't we talk about it?' asks Miss Callendar. 'I don't know,' says Howard. 'When?'
'I could come to your room this afternoon, or one afternoon this week,' says Miss Callendar. 'I've a department meeting today,' says I-toward, 'and a very full diary.'
'Isn't there any other time? asks Miss Callendar. 'I did ask you to have dinner with me,' says Howard, 'we could discuss it then.'
'Oh,' says Miss Callendar, 'I hope this isn't a scheme.'
'Oh, Miss Callendar,' says Howard, 'can we make it Thursday night?'
'All right,' says Miss Callendar. 'Try and be hungry,' says Howard. 'Oh, can I just check a literary reference with you?'
'My class is rioting outside,' says Miss Callendar. 'It won't take a second,' says Howard, 'I'm looking at the Penguin Poets William Blake, page 98, "Proverbs of Heaven and Hell". Here's a quotation from the Proverbs of Hell: "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires".'
'Yes,' says Miss Callendar, 'what's your question?'
'How you came to reverse it when we talked this morning?'
'Ah,' says Miss Callendar, 'I did it via the instrument of literary criticism.'
'This is your good critical intelligence,' says Howard. 'That's it,' says Miss Callendar, 'you see, I was offering a paraphrase of its implicit as opposed to its surface meaning. You see, read the lines carefully, and you'll find the fulcrum is a pun around the words "infant" and "nurse". The infant and the desires are the same. So it doesn't mean kill babies if you really have to. It means it's better to kill desires than nourish ones you can never satisfy.'
'I see,' says Howard, 'so that's what you people do over there in English. I've often wondered.'
'I'm only saying it's not the seducer's charter you took it for,' says Miss Callendar, 'and as for an interest in the substructure, I don't think that's confined to English.'
'It's hardly the same substructure,' says Howard. 'We're concerned with exposing the true reality, not with compounding ambiguity.'
'It must be nice to think there is a true reality,' says Miss Callendar, 'I've always found reality a matter of great debate.'
'Well, we obviously disagree,' says Howard, 'you keep your Blake, and I'll keep mine. You may find mine has something to offer.'
'I doubt it,' says Miss Callendar, 'but to quote again from the same source, "Opposition is true Friendship". Goodbye, Dr Kirk.'
Howard hears the telephone click at the other end; he puts down the receiver. He gets out his diary, and makes a note in it; Miss Callendar, Thursday, dinner. As soon as he has finished doing this, the telephone rings again. 'It's Minnehaha Ho,' says the voice, 'Professor Marvin for you, Howard.' The equipment clicks; there are mumblings; another voice says 'Howard?'
'Hello, Professor Marvin,' says Howard. 'Ah,' says Marvin, 'are you, er, alone?'
'I am,' says Howard. 'Good,' says Marvin, 'I've got here a matter of exceptional delicacy.'
'Oh, yes?' says Howard. 'A student of yours has just been to see me,' says Marvin, 'I've just had a very tearful session with him.'
'I take it the tears were his?' asks Howard. 'Oh, yes,' says Marvin. 'His name is Carmody.'
'Ah,' says Howard, 'I was just going to ring you about him. To lodge a formal complaint.'
'Oh, dear, dear,' says Marvin. 'He was complaining about you, you see. He thinks you've marked him rather harshly.'
'Did he tell you he'd attempted to blackmail me?' asks Howard. 'No,' says Marvin, 'he didn't say that. He did say that you and he didn't get on, and that he'd like to be taught by someone else.'
'He doesn't seem to have told you very much at all,' says Howard. 'He's failing, of course, and he wanted his marks raised. His way of trying to obtain this was not by doing passing work, the way of most of our students. No, he was going to expose the political bias of my teaching, unless I cooperated. He visited you because I didn't.'
'Oh,' says Marvin. 'Urn, um.'
'I hope you kicked him out,' says Howard. 'No, I didn't kick him out,' says Marvin, 'I gave him a glass of sherry.'
'I see,' says Howard. 'He told you he wasn't satisfied with my marking, so you sat him down and gave him sherry.'
'Yes,' says Marvin. 'As head of department, I think I have a duty to do him the fairness of listening.'
'To unfair nonsense,' says Howard. 'He came with a sense of injustice,' says Marvin, 'I felt it my duty to explain to him how we work here. The concept of academic disinterestedness.'
'I hope that impressed him,' says Howard. 'If so, it would be the first concept he'd ever grasped.'
'Can you kindly tell me how this situation has got this far?' asks Marvin, 'He tells me you refuse to teach him.'
'I do,' says Howard, 'I don't teach blackmailers.'
'Oh, look, Howard,' says Marvin, 'can't we resolve this as between gentlemen?'
'How do you think we should do that?' asks Howard. 'He accepts his grades,' says Marvin, 'you take him back, and do all you can to bring his work up to passing level.'
'You may be a gentleman,' says Howard, 'but he isn't, and in another sense nor am I. I come with a sense of injustice too. He made a corrupt accusation, and I won't teach him.'
'Then I'll have to move him to someone else,' says Marvin. 'Oh, no,' says Howard, 'I can't accept that either.'
'I don't understand,' says Marvin, 'someone has to teach him.'
'No,' says Howard, 'I want him banned from the department. I want him disciplined.'
'Howard,' says Marvin, 'I hoped we could cope with this informally. You're forcing an issue.'
'Yes,' says Howard, 'it is an issue.'
'There are two sides to every case,' says Marvin, 'I shall have to listen to his.'
'But there aren't two sides to every case,' says Howard, 'you'll just sink into your liberal mess, if you accept that.'
'I have to accept it,' says Marvin, 'I shall need both your complaints in writing, please. And then I shall have to read those disputed essays.'
'That won't help,' says Howard. 'I think it might,' says Marvin. 'No,' says Howard, 'why should your judgment be better than mine? In any case, the marks aren't just for what he's written. We try to take everything into account here, don't we? Isn't it our ideal to judge the man in as many ways as possible?'
'I agree we try in marking to take some account of seminar performance,' says Marvin, 'I shall take that into consideration. But I have to read those essays. Unless, of course, you think there's still an informal solution?'
'Oh, no,' says Howard, 'by all means, let's have an issue.'
'That doesn't delight me,' says Marvin, 'it can only open many doors better kept shut.'
'I'd like them open,' says Howard. 'I've never understood your taste for confrontation,' says Marvin. 'As Blake says,' says Howard, '"Opposition is true friendship".'
'I haven't noticed the note of friendship,' says Marvin, 'but so be it.' The telephone goes down at the other end. Howard replaces his receiver; then he walks to the window, and looks out, with pleased regard, on the wet campus.