smallgayjew (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smallgayjew) wrote2011-07-17 04:42 pm
smallgayjew) wrote2011-07-17 04:42 pm
[Milliways]: On friends, exams, and Barbra Streisand
Posner is Hector’s boy.
He thinks.
Most of the time.
But he’s more and more coming to enjoy Irwin for company, for advice, for conversation. Irwin understands him on a level he doesn’t think Hector ever could. He’s a friend as much as a teacher.
Most of the time.
So it’s for Hector that Posner croons out, ‘Sing as We Go,’ but it’s Irwin who asks him:
“Do you tell them everything that goes on at school?”
“He’s old, my father,” Posner says thoughtfully. “He’s interested. I just said the Holocaust was a historical fact like other historical facts. It was my uncle who hit me.” The ice in Milliways had prevented most of the bruise, but there’s still a faint discoloration to his cheek.
Irwin frowns, the expression more teacher than friend. “I’m sorry. It was my fault. I was too… dispassionate, I suppose. The Holocaust is not yet an abstract question. Though in time, of course, it will be.”
He pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s as a friend, Posner thinks. “No more singing, too, I gather?”
That was the worst of it, really. The letter his father had written the headmaster was strongly influenced by his uncle, practically co-written. Posner didn’t mind the anger over the Holocaust. But this went too far. It was something he didn’t want to give up, didn’t see why he should.
“Not hymns,” he says, then smiles just enough to let Irwin know he’s joking as he adds, “They’re fine with Barbra Streisand.”
He pauses as well, and when he finally asks what’s been on his mind, he realizes that Irwin’s not the only one who slips back and forth between friendship and something more appropriate.
“Sir, sorry to keep on about it, but if the Holocaust does come up…”
“At home?” Irwin asks, clearly unprepared to answer that particular dilemma.
“No, as a question.”
“Surprise them,” Irwin says. “You’re Jewish. You can get away with a lot more than the other candidates. Equivalent would be Akthar singing the praises of empire. But…say what you think.”
He isn’t sure what he thinks. That’s the problem. Well, that and…
“They don’t send your papers home?”
[ooc: All dialogue is from Alan Bennett's play The History Boys.]
He thinks.
Most of the time.
But he’s more and more coming to enjoy Irwin for company, for advice, for conversation. Irwin understands him on a level he doesn’t think Hector ever could. He’s a friend as much as a teacher.
Most of the time.
So it’s for Hector that Posner croons out, ‘Sing as We Go,’ but it’s Irwin who asks him:
“Do you tell them everything that goes on at school?”
“He’s old, my father,” Posner says thoughtfully. “He’s interested. I just said the Holocaust was a historical fact like other historical facts. It was my uncle who hit me.” The ice in Milliways had prevented most of the bruise, but there’s still a faint discoloration to his cheek.
Irwin frowns, the expression more teacher than friend. “I’m sorry. It was my fault. I was too… dispassionate, I suppose. The Holocaust is not yet an abstract question. Though in time, of course, it will be.”
He pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s as a friend, Posner thinks. “No more singing, too, I gather?”
That was the worst of it, really. The letter his father had written the headmaster was strongly influenced by his uncle, practically co-written. Posner didn’t mind the anger over the Holocaust. But this went too far. It was something he didn’t want to give up, didn’t see why he should.
“Not hymns,” he says, then smiles just enough to let Irwin know he’s joking as he adds, “They’re fine with Barbra Streisand.”
He pauses as well, and when he finally asks what’s been on his mind, he realizes that Irwin’s not the only one who slips back and forth between friendship and something more appropriate.
“Sir, sorry to keep on about it, but if the Holocaust does come up…”
“At home?” Irwin asks, clearly unprepared to answer that particular dilemma.
“No, as a question.”
“Surprise them,” Irwin says. “You’re Jewish. You can get away with a lot more than the other candidates. Equivalent would be Akthar singing the praises of empire. But…say what you think.”
He isn’t sure what he thinks. That’s the problem. Well, that and…
“They don’t send your papers home?”
[ooc: All dialogue is from Alan Bennett's play The History Boys.]
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After that initial observation, of course, Posner's attention is all on Dakin, though he does manage a smile hello to Scripps as he comes in as well.
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And then he sees his mark.
"Shit! He never gives an inch, does he? 'Lucid and up to a point compleling but if you reach a conclusion it escaped me.'"
He looks at his friends with despair.
Scripps says, "Have you looked at your handwriting lately?"
Dakin looks. It looks like his handwriting. "Why?"
"You're beginning to write like him."
Dakin looks again. "I'm not trying to, honestly."
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"You're writing like him an' all!"
"No, I'm not," Posner protests primly, taking his essay. "Dakin writes like him. I write like Dakin." Important distinctions.
(And despite recent events, it is still Dakin who is most often on Posner's mind.)
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It's probably due to their last conversation that he chooses the conversational tack that he does. "It's done wonders for the sex life. Apparently I talk about him so much that Fiona gets really pissed off. Doing it is about the only time I shut up."
As he thought, Scripps wants to know about about that--living vicariously through him until he has a church-sanctioned marriage of his own, as Dakin sees it. "Would you do it with him?"
Dakin looks back at his essay as he says casually, "I wondered about that. I might. Bring a little sunshine into his life. It's only a wank, after all."
Scripps is skeptical. "What makes you think he'd do it with you?"
Dakin just smiles. Why wouldn't Irwin be among his hypothetical conquests?
"You complacent fuck."
"Does the Archbishop of Canterbury know you talk like this?" Dakin replies--yes, complacently.
Scripps is not telling the Archbishop of Canterbury anything. "So you broke through with Fiona. The Western Front."
"Broke through," says Dakin. "Had the Armistice. The Treaty of Versailles. It's now the Weimar Republic."
"Decadence?" asks Scripps, and Dakin nods happily.
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"Aren't you frightened it's all going to be over too soon?" he asks, curious as to how sex fits into a relationship for Dakin.
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He's seventeen. It's always over too soon.
Fortunately it starts over again quickly.
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Now that the Western Front is broken through, what more is there?
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"More of the same. You can't save it up."
He puts his essay away in his satchel.
"I like him. I just wish I thought he liked me."
He gives them both his complacent smile again and leaves the classroom.
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"How do you know?" Scripps asks.
"Because nor do I. Our eyes meet looking at Dakin." It's how he passes his time in class.
"Oh, Pos," Scripps says, shaking his head, "with your spaniel heart. It will pass."
"Yes, it's only a phase," Posner agrees. So many people have been telling him that. "Who says I want it to pass? But the pain. The pain."
"Hector would say it's the only education worth having."
Posner frowns, packing up his essay and slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I just wish there were marks for it."