The History Boys (12 page)

Mind you, I did all the other stuff like Stalin was a sweetie and Wilfred Owen was a wuss. They said I was plainly someone who thought for himself and just what the college rugger team needed.

Dakin
In the room I stayed in there was a handbook to the colleges, list of previous undergraduates and that.

I looked you up only you weren't there.

Irwin
I'm surprised you were interested.

Dakin
I was kind of lonely. I thought it would be nice to see your name.

Irwin
You maybe looked at the wrong list.

Dakin
Corpus?

Irwin
No, I said I was at Jesus.

Dakin
You said you were at Corpus.

Irwin
No.

Dakin
You did.

Irwin
Corpus, Jesus. What does it matter?

Dakin
Because I went round to look at the fucking college, that's why it matters.

Because I imagined you there.

Pause
.

Irwin
I never got in.

I was at Bristol.

I did go to Oxford, but it was just to do a teaching diploma.

Does that make a difference?

Dakin
To what? To me? (
He shrugs
.)

At least you lied. And lying's good, isn't it? We've established that.

Lying works.

Except you ought to learn to do it properly.

Pause
.

Anybody else, I'd say we could have a drink.

Irwin
Yes?

I can't tonight.

Dakin
Tomorrow then?

Irwin
That's bad, too.

Dakin
Is that a euphemism? It is, isn't it?

Have a drink.

Saying ‘a drink' when you mean something else.

Only a euphemism is a nice way of saying something nasty. Whereas a drink is a nice way of saying something nice.

Irwin
I think that's a euphemism, too.

Dakin
Actually, forget the euphemism.

I'm just kicking the tyres on this one but, further to the drink, what I was really wondering was whether there were any circumstances in which there was any chance of your sucking me off.

Pause
.

Or something similar.

Pause
.

Actually that would please Hector.

Irwin
What?

Dakin
‘Your sucking me off.'

It's a gerund. He likes gerunds.

And your being scared shitless, that's another gerund.

Irwin
I didn't know you were that way inclined.

Dakin
I'm not, but it's the end of term; I've got into Oxford; I thought we might push the boat out.

Pause
.

Anyway, I'll leave it on the table. (
He is ready to go but
turns back
.) I don't understand this.

Reckless; impulsive; immoral … how come there's such a difference between the way you teach and the way you live?

Irwin
Actually, it's amoral.

Dakin
Is it fuck. ‘No need to tell the truth.' That's immoral.

Irwin
I could dispute that with you.

Dakin
Over a drink? Or whatever? No.

Why are you so bold in argument and talking but when it comes to the point, when it's something that's actually happening, I mean now, you're so fucking careful?

Is it because you're a teacher and I'm … a boy?

Irwin
Obviously that …

Dakin
Why? Who cares? I don't.

Irwin
You've already had to cope with one master who touches you up. I don't …

Dakin
Is that what it is?

Is it that you don't want to be like Hector?

You won't be.

You can't be.

How can you be?

Hector's a joke.

Irwin
No he isn't. He isn't.

Dakin
That side of him is.

Irwin
This … it's … it's such a cliché.

Dakin
Right. And you abhor clichés, don't you?

And you teach us to avoid them. Nothing worse. Nothing more likely to put the examiners off.

But in this subject there are no examiners.

And I'll tell you something. Clichés can be quite fun.

That's how they got to be clichés.

So give yourself a break. Be like everybody else for a change. On this one you don't have to be different.

Irwin
All right.

Dakin
All right what?

Irwin
All right, let's have a drink. (
He takes out his
diary
.)

Dakin
No. Don't take out your sodding diary.

Keep it in your head.

Or here. (
He points to his heart
).

Irwin
Maybe next week.

Dakin
Get this man. Next week? You can suck me off next week. I've heard of a crowded schedule but this is ridiculous. I bet you have a purse, don't you?

Irwin
Yes, I do, actually.

Dakin
God, we've got a long way to go.

Do you ever take your glasses off?

Irwin
Why?

Dakin
It's a start.

Irwin
Not with me. Taking off my glasses is the last thing I do.

Dakin
Yes? I'll look forward to it.

What do you do on a Sunday afternoon?

What are you doing this Sunday afternoon?

Irwin
I was going to be working, going through the accounts of Roche Abbey. It was a Cistercian house just to the south of Doncaster. Only I think I just had a better offer.

Dakin
I think you did. And we're not in the subjunctive either. It is going to happen.

Dakin
I just wanted to say thank you.

Scripps
So? Give him a subscription to
The Spectator
or a box of Black Magic. Just because you've got a scholarship doesn't mean you've got to give him unfettered access to your dick.

Dakin
So how would you say thank you?

Scripps
Same as you, probably. On my knees.

Dakin
Also – this is the big triumph – I had a session with Felix. I asked him what the difference was between Hector touching us up on the bike and him trying to feel up Fiona.

Scripps
You are insane.

Dakin
He was upset naturally, and the language was shocking, but eventually he took the point, and the upshot is, Hector is reprieved. He stays.

Scripps
So everybody's happy.

Dakin
I hadn't realised how easy it is to make things happen. You know?

Scripps
No.

Actually I shouldn't have said everybody's happy, as just saying the words meant, like in a play, that the laws of irony were thereby activated and things began to unravel pretty quickly after that.

Dakin
Now look, everybody. This is known as Posner's reward.

He hugs Posner
.

Posner
Is that it?

The longed-for moment?

Dakin
What's wrong with it?

Posner
Too fucking brief. I was looking for something more … lingering.

The boys hoot for more so Dakin does it again
.

Posner
And is that Hector's reward?

Dakin
I thought I would. It's only polite. Just for old time's sake.

Scripps
Just don't let him go past the charity shop.

Hector comes in, clad in his leathers and cheerful now
that he has been reprieved
.

Rudge
Sir. Is the jackpot still going?

Hector
Why?

Rudge
I've got something.

Hector
Just you?

Rudge
Yes.

Hector
I'm listening.

Rudge sings a verse of a song (The Pet Shop Boys'
‘It's a Sin')
.

Rudge
(
sings
)

‘At school they taught me how to be

So pure in thought and word and deed

They didn't quite suceed

For everything I long to do

No matter when or where or who

Has one thing in common too

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin

It's a sin.'

Timms
He doesn't know that.

You can't expect him to know that.

Rudge
I do.

Timms
And anyway it's crap.

Rudge
So is Gracie Fields. Only that's his crap. This is our crap.

Hector
Excuse me, children. Easy though I am to overlook, I am here. Unsurprisingly, I do not know the song in question.

Akthar
Pop is the new literacy, sir. I read it.

Hector
In which case, I am now illiterate. But Rudge is right … his crap or my crap, it makes no difference. So, in another reference to our ancient popular culture, I say, ‘Give him the money, Barney!'

Headmaster comes in
.

Headmaster
What is this?

A boy in a motorcycle helmet?

Who is it? Dakin?

No, no, no.

Under no circumstances.

Hector, I thought I'd made this plain.

Hector (whose fault it isn't, after all) just shrugs
.

Take somebody else … take …

Scripps
And here history rattled over the points …

Irwin has come in
.

Headmaster
Take Irwin.

Hector
Irwin?

Irwin
Sure, why not?

Dakin gives him the helmet
.

Dakin
Hang on to your briefcase.

Irwin
Fuck.

Off. Fuck right off.

Scripps
There are various theories about what happened, why he came off. It's inconceivable he ever touched Irwin, who would in any case have been clutching his briefcase. Or it may be Hector was so used to driving with one hand while the other was busy behind him that driving with two made him put on speed.

These explanations are a touch obvious which, if he taught us anything, Irwin taught us not to be. So I think that, since Irwin had never been on the back of a bike before, going round the corner he leaned out instead of in and so unbalanced Hector. That would be appropriate, too. Trust Irwin to lean the opposite way to everyone else.

Irwin
(
now in a wheelchair
) With no memory of what happened I am of no help. I only know what I have been told, my last memory Dakin asking me for a drink.

Something we never did, incidentally.

Dakin
No. It was the wheelchair. That's terrible, isn't it?

Afterwards I couldn't face the wheelchair. Still. At least I asked him. And barring accidents it would have happened.

Rudge
There is no barring accidents. It's what I said. History is just one fucking thing after another.

Scripps
Someone dies at school and you remember it all your life.

The staff, Irwin in his wheelchair and the boys, who sing
a verse of ‘Bye Bye, Blackbird', during which we see on
the video screen photographs of Hector as a young man.

Headmaster
If I speak of Hector it is of enthusiasm shared, passion conveyed and seeds sown of future harvest. He loved language. He loved words. For each and every one of you, his pupils, he opened a deposit account in the bank of literature and made you all shareholders in that wonderful world of words.

Timms
Some of the things he said … or quoted anyway, you never knew when it was which:

‘We are mulched by the dead, though one person's death will tell you more than a thousand.'

Lockwood
There was the time he put his head down on the desk and said, ‘What am I doing teaching in this godforsaken school?' It was the first time I realised a teacher was a human being.

Akthar
There was a contract between him and his class. Quite what the contract was or what it involved would be hard to say. But it was there.

Crowther
He was stained and shabby and did unforgivable things but he led you to expect the best.

Even his death was a lesson and added to the store.

Mrs Lintott
Hector never bothered with what he was educating these boys for. They become solicitors, chartered accountants, teachers even, members of what used to be called the professional classes.

Two of these boys become magistrates.

Crowther and Lockwood put up their hands
.

One a headmaster.

Akthar puts up hand
.

Pillars of a community that no longer has much use for pillars.

One puts together a chain of dry-cleaners and takes drugs at the weekend.

Timms puts up hand
.

Another is a tax lawyer, telling highly paid fibs and making frequent trips to the Gulf States.

Dakin acknowledges
.

Dakin
I like money. It's fun.

Mrs Lintott
One is a builder who carpets the Dales in handy homes.

Rudge does not put his hand up
.

Rudge
Is that meant to be me? I'm not putting my hand up to that. Like them or not, Rudge Homes are at least affordable homes for first-time buyers.

Mrs Lintott
All right, Rudge.

Rudge
Death, it's just one more excuse to patronise. I had years of that.

Mrs Lintott
Same here.

If I may proceed?

Hector had seen Irwin turning his boys into journalists but in the event there is only one … and on a better class of paper, a career he is always threatening to abandon in order, as he puts it, ‘really to write'.

Scripps puts up his hand
.

Irwin
Hector said I was a journalist.

Mrs Lintott
And so you were. Briefly at the school and then on TV. I enjoyed your programmes but they were more journalism than history. What you call yourself now you're in politics I'm not sure.