The Complete Pratt (103 page)

‘I’ve never seen him take to anyone like he took to you,’ she said.

Baron Pratt, third Duke of Thurmarsh, was temporarily at a loss. He stood there, shorn of all pretensions, twenty-two years old and still not mature enough or good-hearted enough to fight off unkind thoughts about women’s moustaches.

Lampo Davey slid through the crowd, untouched by the increasing hubbub, carrying a large plate on which his single smoked salmon
beignet
looked aggressively ascetic.

‘What’s happened between you and Denzil?’ said Henry.

‘I broke her sugar bowl. Oh dear! Tragedy. Makes
Antigone
seem like a tiff about the funeral arrangements.’

‘Lampo? You aren’t going to end up hurting Denzil, are you?’

‘Quite possibly. Why?’

‘Please don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t forget I brought you together.’

‘You were the most reluctant matchmaker of all time,’ said Lampo.

‘I love you both,’ said Henry.

Diana was sitting beneath Stanier Class 5 No 45284, which was carrying a Manchester to Cardiff troop special through Craven Arms. She was enormous. The Hargreaves family stood around her. Henry bent down, and she gave him a huge wet kiss, and said she’d felt vaguely jealous when she’d seen Hilary.

‘A congenial stag night last night,’ said Paul rather stuffily. He was miffed because he wasn’t best man.

‘Did Nigel try to sell you things?’ said Diana. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Oh no! He’s awful,’ she said, but she said it indulgently. She loved Tosser! She was enormous. Mrs Hargreaves, who was as slender as a silver birch, kissed him graciously, and he blushed because he remembered that he’d once desired her, and he could see that she thought he was blushing because he still desired her, and this made him blush all the more and of course he couldn’t explain. Mr Hargreaves pumped his hand as if trying to bring it back to life. Judy kissed him coolly, and said, ‘I’m amazed. All this. Smoked salmon. Champagne. The hotel. That lovely church. In the north. I’m amazed.’

Nigel Pilkington-Brick, né Tosser, joined them, and Henry felt sad. Not because she was married. He wanted her to be married. Not because she was happy. He wanted her to be happy. Not because she was enormous. He wanted her to have children and, if that involved being enormous, he wanted her to be enormous. But … there was a Pilkington-Brick in there.

Colin Edgeley was wedged into a corner with Tony Preece’s fiancée, Stella. Colin looked drunk, dishevelled and desperate.
Stella
had gone to great lengths to look smart but had only succeeded in looking gaunt.

‘Has Tony named the day?’ said Henry.

Stella shook her head. ‘Last night his act went well, she said. ‘He was pleased. He said we must name the day.’ He asked her where Tony had been appearing. ‘Drobwell Miners’ Welfare,’ she said.

‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘What’s his new act?’

‘He calls himself Cavin O’Rourke, the Winsome Wit from Wicklow. He pretends to be very stupid. He thinks it may catch on.’

‘Good Lord. Stella? Go up to him now. Make him name the day, while romance is in the air.’

Stella set off, uncertainly, without confidence, towards her reluctant fiancé.

‘What’s wrong, Colin?’ said Henry.

Colin turned his glassy, pained eyes on Henry. ‘Glenda’s left me,’ he said.

‘Oh no,’ said Henry. ‘Why?’

‘I got drunk and stayed out all night.’

‘Oh no.’

‘With Helen.’

‘Oh no!’

‘I was so drunk I don’t even remember. She said I said she had the most beautiful legs I’d ever seen.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Can there be any value in an experience you can’t remember? Why are you staring at me?’

‘Because you can make fine philosophical points when your world’s collapsing around your ears. So what are you going to do?’

‘Go and try and get her back. I love her, Henry. I really love her.’ This discovery seemed to astound him. ‘I’d have gone this weekend, if it wasn’t for this.’

‘Colin!’ said Henry. ‘This isn’t important. You should have gone today.’

‘And missed your wedding, kid? You’re my mate,’ said Colin.

‘Colin! Why do you do these things?’

‘I have a strong streak of self-destruction. Like you.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do. Always having disasters. Always laughing about them.’

‘I only laugh at them in order to cope with them,’ said Henry. ‘I’d love to be a success, talking about my successes. And I will. So belt up about self-destruction and go and get Glenda and the kids and show them that you love them.’

‘What’s happened to you?’ said Colin.

‘Hilary. She’s changed me. Do you know what I’ve become at last?’ said Henry. ‘A man.’

OH NO! NOT THAT AGAIN.

The hububble of noise and champagne was rising to a crescendo. They were trapped, by the wall, between the buffet and the drinks: Cousin Hilda, Auntie Kate, Mrs Wedderburn, and, nearest to the drinks, Auntie Doris and Geoffrey Porringer. Michael Collinghurst, the best man, was charming them.

They smiled as Henry approached, even Cousin Hilda. Auntie Doris was trying not to cry and ruin her mascara. Geoffrey Porringer was trying not to cry and ruin his reputation. Cousin Hilda was sniffing furiously. Even Mrs Wedderburn had moist eyes.

Michael Collinghurst came forward, touched Henry’s hands, smiled shyly, said, ‘Lovely. She’s a lovely girl,’ and then stood to one side, smiling, as if conducting, with the baton of his goodness, the symphonic variations of Henry’s relations with his family. It was the first time they had met since Florence. Henry’s telegram had read ‘Man best my you be like I’d to.’ The clerk had queried it. Michael’s reply had read, simply, ‘Pleasure with accept I.’ Now such childish things were behind them. Henry smiled at Michael’s smile and wondered if, even on this day, he had no regrets about committing himself to celibacy.

Auntie Doris hugged him, and the tears streamed, ruining her mascara, and she said, ‘I wish Teddy were here to see this day.’ Geoffrey Porringer twitched. Cousin Hilda sniffed. Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them, said, ‘There’s no need to sniff, Hilda, just because I mention Teddy. He’s still alive, you know. He’s not dead.’

Henry went rigid with shock. He felt that his hair was standing on end. He heard Cousin Hilda say, ‘What do you mean by that?’ He heard Auntie Doris say, ‘In my heart. He lives on, in my heart.’ His hair subsided. His legs felt weak. He hoped nobody’d noticed anything. ‘Geoffrey knows that,’ continued Auntie Doris. ‘Geoffrey understands that. Geoffrey accepts that.’

‘Geoffrey doesn’t have much choice,’ muttered Geoffrey Porringer. He turned to Henry and said, ‘Well done. I always knew you had it in you.’

It was the moment to be generous. It was the time to show his mettle. ‘Thank you, Uncle Geoffrey,’ he said.

‘Oh, I say,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘Oh, I say. Uncle Geoffrey, eh?’ He put his arm round Henry. ‘It’s a happy day for us all, young sir,’ he said.

Henry kissed Cousin Hilda. She sniffed. ‘Are you having a good time, Cousin Hilda?’ he asked. She said, ‘I thought the bridge rolls were a little on the dry side.’ Henry realized that, if she’d continued, she’d have said, ‘Everything else was perfect.’ You detected Cousin Hilda’s praise by taking map references on the points where she had not imparted blame.

He kissed Mrs Wedderburn. ‘It was right nice of you to invite me,’ she said. He heard himself saying, ‘One good turn deserves another, Mrs Wedderburn.’ ‘Good turn?’ said Mrs Wedderburn. ‘You lent me your camp-bed. Now your gift horse has come home to roost,’ said Henry. But he knew, with a twinge of shame, that he’d invited her because he wanted to search, beneath Cousin Hilda’s widowed neighbour’s plump exterior, for the naughty schoolgirl who’d done it behind the tram sheds with Uncle Teddy.

He kissed Auntie Kate. She explained that Fiona hadn’t been able to come because her one-legged husband was having ‘one of his turns’. It was the first Henry had ever heard of these ‘turns’. ‘May I bring Hilary to Skipton often?’ he said. ‘She won’t want to see a dreary, faded old lady,’ said Auntie Kate. ‘She will! You don’t know Hilary,’ he protested. By the time he realized that he should have said, ‘Auntie Kate! You aren’t a dreary, faded old lady’, it was too late.

Michael Collinghurst, smiling shyly, bowed ever so slightly, as if laying his benediction on them all.

A waiter opened two of the frosted-glass windows, allowing the sun to stream into the Sir William Stanier Room and the cigarette and cigar smoke to stream out into the cool, tramless town.

Henry and Hilary found themselves together at last, holding hands.

‘Love you,’ he said.

‘Love you,’ she said. She looked round and lobbed a great grin across the room towards her family. Her parents smiled back. Sam stuck his tongue out. ‘I haven’t seen my parents look so happy since the illness,’ she said.

There were moments when Henry believed that he had been utterly right not to reveal his scoop. This was one of them, until he looked into Hilary’s smiling face and wished again that there wasn’t this great secret between them.

‘We ought to be off,’ he said.

‘Right. Let’s step out into the great adventure of our life together,’ she said.

But, before they could step out into the great adventure of their life together, a man stepped rather shyly towards them. He was vaguely familiar. With a shiver Henry realized that it was the man from his dreams, who told him, in a few blindingly simple words, all the secrets of life and of its conduct. For an agonizing moment he wondered if it was all a dream. Had he known, all along, that it was too good to be true? He broke into a clammy sweat. In a moment the Sir William Stanier Room would disappear, the late afternoon sunshine would disappear, the roar of animated chatter would be silenced, Hilary would fade into the ether, all his happiness would disappear for ever, and he’d wake up in a crumpled bed … where? Which part of his life was not a dream?

‘I seem to recognize that man,’ said Hilary.

She could see him too! He was real. She was real. He hugged her in his relief. She looked at him in astonishment.

‘It’s the man in my dreams,’ he said.

‘It can’t be,’ she said.

‘Don’t you recognize me?’ said the man.

Of course! ‘Oscar! From the Pigeon and Two Cushions!’

Oscar beamed.

‘Nice bit of extra, this, for me,’ he said. ‘Congratulations, sir. Congratulations, madam.’

They thanked him. He began to gather up empties. He walked away, then turned back towards them. He had the same expression as he did in Henry’s dreams. It was the expression of a man who is about to divest himself of momentous information. Henry realized that Oscar was the unlikely agent who would tell them, in a few blindingly simple words, the meaning of life and the secret of its conduct. He shivered with fear and excitement. Hilary shivered too. They clutched each other’s hands tightly. Oscar came up very close to them.

‘I’ve had this summer cold,’ he said. ‘It’s right ironical. One nostril’s completely blocked up, and the other nostril isn’t blocked up at all.’

The Cucumber Man

The third Henry Pratt novel

THERE WAS FULL
employment in 1957, but there is an exception to every rule. The exception to this particular rule turned to his wife Hilary and said, ‘Do you think I’ll ever get another job?’

Henry Pratt was sitting on the lower end of a sadly subsiding settee in a rented ground floor flat in Stickleback Rise. He was twenty-two years old, pale, five foot seven tall, on the podgy side, and wearing reading glasses. It was Monday, September 30th. There were 11.72 1/2 marks to the pound, winter fares for flying small cars across the English Channel had been reduced to £3 10s, paratroopers were on guard as black pupils attended the High School in Little Rock, Alabama, and it was raining in Thurmarsh.

That morning, a letter had arrived from the BBC, informing Henry that he had not got the researcher’s job for which he had applied. In the last week he had also failed to become a public relations officer for ICI, and a reserves manager with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Nevertheless, Hilary still had faith in him. ‘Of course you’ll get a job,’ she said. She kissed him, and the springs went ‘boing’. The settee, like Henry’s career, was proving a disappointment.

An occasional car whooshed along the wet road, a tram rattled past on its way to Thurmarsh Lane Bottom, and, on the mantelpiece, above the hissing gas fire, the elegant art deco clock struck eight soft chimes. A wedding present from Lampo Davey and Denzil Ackerman, it provided the only touch of style in the unremittingly brown, bulkily furnished flat.

To add to Henry’s feeling of inadequacy, Hilary had got the first job for which she had applied. From January she would be teaching English at Thurmarsh Grammar School for Girls, where she had been a repressed and depressed pupil less than five years ago.

She snuggled closer to Henry and kissed him again. ‘Boing’, went the springs. ‘You’re still my lovely lover,’ said Hilary.