Grievance. Marguerite Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ might be to those who have read his books, his own history commands respect. This generation of students hadn’t yet started primary school when his book on critical theory was published, at the beginning of the Thatcherite revolution. The left, disabled by defeat, had embarked on a long and acrimonious quarrel with itself, but Steve’s particular brand of Marxism – playful, subversive, disrespectful of authority – offered a new kind of Utopian vision. English lecturers were being hired and fired according to divisions Steve had helped to create. People subscribed to a belief in him as they might to a religion. His ideas, like the Falklands War, created opposing camps. And, of course, it went without saying that if you were in favour of Steve you were against British action in the Falklands.

      His status, however, is not just a matter of the theories promoted in his published work. He marched with the miners and was kicked by a policeman. This is a matter of record, captured by a BBC cameraman. And when he appeared on late-night arts programmes – for this was the beginning of his career as a minor television personality – he extended the academic debate into the public issues of the day, claiming, as he is now, that there is no distinction between critical and political practice.

      He is known to have turned down a chair at Oxford, where he started his career as an undergraduate, and although some of his colleagues have hinted – privately, to one or two favoured students – that Steve’s preference is to be as close as possible to the television studios, that he may even, at this moment, be turning his attention to Irish literature because, in the current political climate when ideology is felt to be a handicap, Ireland is the flavour of the month and an issue on which righteous indignation might still be expressed, many here prefer to believe that he rejected Oxford on the grounds of élitism.

      He is a star turn, and they are as mesmerised by his personal style as by what he has to say: the leather jacket, the desert boots, the motorcycle helmet on the desk, while the satchel that holds his papers is thrown casually onto the floor. And it isn’t as though the style has been cultivated to compensate for deficiencies in appearance, as is all too evidently the case with one or two of the younger lecturers. His black hair, brushed back from his face, is thick and only slightly greying, his mouth is full, red and sensual, his eyes, behind the wire-framed glasses, large, dark and – well, yes, brooding, as one or two of the girls concede to each other, cliché though it is.

      The mind of Phoebe Metcalfe is as likely as not to be preoccupied with such matters, so her friends are surprised when, instead of a note to that effect – enlivened, as her communications usually are, with a little drawing of a smiling face and other icons expressive of good cheer – she makes an intervention that shows she has been attending to the substance of Steve’s argument. He has just delivered his thoughts on the question of national character.

      ‘I must make clear, right at the outset,’ he has said, ‘that I don’t want any of the texts that we’ll be reading explained by a woolly reference to national character, as though that’s a fixed and mysterious essence that we all more or less understand. The Irish have suffered more than most from the stereotypes that other people have imposed on them. Like all national stereotypes, they tell us more about the prejudices of those who use them than about the Irish themselves.’

      He sounds genuinely indignant, and one or two remember that Steve is Jewish, which might account for his fellow feeling with another racially stereotyped group. He removes his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose and in that pause of temporary sightlessness he fails to see Phoebe, who is already bobbing excitedly up and down in her chair. His sight restored, Steve returns to his argument.

      ‘We’ve already had a contribution to that effect, of course. We used to see the Irish as commercially backward and God-fearing, one or both due to some flaw in the national character. Now, the Republic at any rate is an economic model for the rest of Europe and one of its coolest holiday destinations. Meanwhile, revelations of child abuse have undermined the hold of the Church in less than a generation. So, characteristics that once seemed fixed are vulnerable to changing circumstances.’

      Phoebe finally explodes: ‘Oh, but the Irish are special and, like, different?’

      Steve has been intermittently aware of her throughout the session, although so far he has restrained himself from showing annoyance. There is a general air of noise and bustle about her that suggests, to his trained eye, someone with poor concentration. Her chair seems to scrape every time she moves, which is a good deal more often than others find necessary. She has spent most of the class so far trying, and rejecting, a series of pens that are kept in an enormous carpet bag; and each time one is replaced by another, the bag is dragged from floor to lap and back again. And in the gaps allowed by her fidgeting, she has made a series of attempts – all, so far, unsuccessful – to engage the girl next to her in whispered conversation. Now, however, all her efforts are concentrated on developing her argument.

      ‘I mean, we all, like, know that the Irish are spiritual and charming and fantastic story-tellers, which is why they’re such brilliant writers? Why is that a stereotype? It’s, like, common sense? And if we need a reason for it, surely it’s because they’re Celts? And the Celts are amazingly imaginative and sensitive. And surely they have an oral tradition? You know what I mean?’

      While she’s speaking, the ripples of amusement throughout the room suggest that her views are known and affectionately tolerated. Steve takes in her long, crinkly red hair, pale freckled face and light blue eyes. She could be Irish or, since her accent – English public school overlaid by London demotic – doesn’t suggest that, of Irish descent. Whatever her racial identity, however, she favours a Camden Market ethnicity in dress. A sheepskin Afghan coat, which must take real dedication to wear on such a close, muggy day, is slung over the back of her chair, while a flowing Indian print dress, decorated with quantities of beads, scarves and silver bangles, covers her soft, full figure.

      Steve’s own particular brand of Irish romance (though it’s a term he’s reluctant to use), rooted as it is in historical reality, makes him particularly hostile to the one so aptly embodied in this flabby, messily eclectic girl.

      ‘It’s as well Phoebe doesn’t realise she’s just made his point for him,’ Nick says to Pete. ‘She’s told him pretty much everything he needs to know about her.’

      ‘He’s wondering whether he’s got an alien in the class,’ Pete whispers back. ‘Phoebe will challenge his rationalism, if anybody can.’

      What’s challenging Steve about Phoebe, however, is the niggling sense that he knows her from a different context. Then he remembers the scene under the chestnut tree and places her as the Dionysian figure in the summer dress, with the wreath of daisies in her hair, holding the jug of Pimm’s. The picturesque stillness of that moment, snatched from time and larger circumstance, evaporates in the human reality of this girl, who is mouthing clichés as though nobody has thought of them before.

      When he replies, he ignores Phoebe and addresses the group more generally. ‘The Celtic origins of Ireland were so distorted and sentimentalised in the nineteenth century that they exist for us as myth rather than useful historical reality.’

      While he is speaking, however, he thinks of the other girl, who claimed his attention for herself, not as an element in a larger picture, beautiful in any setting, her face enlivened more by thought than by the occasion. He glances quickly round the room, to see if she, too, is there, and as his eyes come to rest on her, the girl next to Phoebe, who has been keeping her head down, resisting her companion’s attempts to distract her, looks up. She is unmistakably the girl in the black jeans and white T-shirt.

      His eyes meet hers and, at this closer range, he sees their clear, dark blue, set in a small face of perfect symmetry. He notices, as he did before, a remarkable self-possession; that she is unusual in being able to look at another person without smiling. She seems to him complete and apart, isolated from СКАЧАТЬ