The Complete Pratt (127 page)

‘Not at all, except that I was sorry for you. It’s never nice to see a good man disappearing up his own arse-hole.’

‘I … er … I’m sorry if I said anything untoward to your wife.’

‘I don’t think you did.’ Roland Stagg seemed puzzled. ‘I said you’d disgraced yourself all round and she said, “Well, he said some very nice things to me.”’

‘Oh! Ah! Yes! Sorry! That’s right.’ Henry floundered wildly. ‘Yes, I remember now. It was someone else’s wife I said awful things to. That’s right.’

At half past two, the Director (Operations) sent for him.

Timothy Whitehouse twitched his predatory nose, gave a half-smile and said, ‘Don’t look so miserable.’

‘I am miserable,’ said Henry. ‘I said some awful things last night.’

The Director (Operations) swivelled in his chair and sought solace in his reproduction of Albrecht Dürer’s little-known masterpiece, ‘The Cucumber’.

‘I’m not inhuman,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t hold what people say at parties against them, otherwise nobody would come to our parties and I enjoy our parties. I note that you are upset at not being given Roland’s job. I’m not so naïve as to believe that I’m never referred to
as
Shitehouse, but in your case I shall assume that it was a slip of the tongue caused by hearing lesser men use the expression about me. Is that correct?’

‘Absolutely. Oh, absolutely.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. I’ll attempt to forget that you said it although, since no one has ever said it to my face before, that will be difficult.’ The Director (Operations) swivelled round again, this time to look Henry straight in the eye. ‘In ten years’ time, when I hope you will still be with us, we’ll look back on Roland’s retirement party, and we’ll split our collective sides. I hope that’s a comfort.’

‘Well it is, Mr Whitehouse, and I think you’ve been very generous, Mr Whitehouse, but … er … may I say something, Mr Whitehouse?’

‘Of course. Didn’t I advise you always to be your own man, stick to your guns and be fearless? Although I should have qualified that. I should have advised you to be your own man, stick to your guns and be fearless
when sober. Mea culpa
. So, what is it? Ask away.’

‘I’m not sure that I want to be here in ten years’ time.’

‘I know. You’ve applied for other jobs. I’ve supplied references. You haven’t got them. Bad luck.’

‘I wouldn’t want to stay unless … unless I felt it was worth my while.’

‘Bravely spoken, for a man who said the things you said yesterday, which of course I’ll try to forget. I understand. Point taken. Henry, my advice is this. Cease looking for other jobs, commit yourself fully to us, avoid saying the sort of things you said yesterday, which of course I’ll try to forget, and be patient. Your hour of glory is at hand.’

‘That’s what Mr Tubman-Edwards and Mr Stagg said.’

‘Well why don’t you believe us?’ said Timothy Whitehouse. ‘We are Englishmen, after all.’

Henry found himself dismissed rather abruptly. He steeled himself to call on John Barrington.

John Barrington had only been in his office for six hours, but already he had plastered it with photographs of his family. Henry could see them canoeing, sailing, surfing, skiing. He felt even more unathletic than usual.

John Barrington ushered him into a chair rather offhandedly.

‘I must apologise for what I said last night,’ said Henry.

‘Yes, I think you must,’ said John Barrington.

‘I hope we
can
work well together,’ said Henry.

‘Well so do, I, Henry. So do I.’ John Barrington just happened, as if by chance, to pick up the bronze gherkin given him by the Gherkin Growers’ Federation as Gherkin Man of the Year for 1962. He fingered it delicately. Henry wondered who on earth they had found to be Gherkin Man of the Year for 1963 and 1964. ‘I’ll lead by example, I’ll ask for your help when required, and if you give it we’ll have no problems. Now I am rather busy, if you don’t mind. My first day. I’m sure you’ll understand.’

1965 drew towards its close. The largest power failure in history blacked out New York City, parts of eight North Eastern states, and parts of Ontario and Quebec. Henry wondered if it had also disconnected his phone.

He sought an interview with John Barrington and was granted one.

‘I feel I’m being under-used,’ he said. ‘I feel I’m being victimised for an unwise drunken remark at a party.’

John Barrington picked up his award. As a dummy is to a baby, so was his bronze gherkin to the new Regional Co-ordinator, Northern Counties (Excluding Berwick-on-Tweed). ‘I’m not a petty man. The fact is, my predecessor ran a lazy ship. Too much devolved on you.’

‘I didn’t mind it devolving on me.’

‘That does you credit, but it doesn’t make it right. I run a tight ship. The responsibilities are mine.’

‘I realise that, but I get nothing to do whatsoever. Sometimes I wonder why I’ve got this job at all.’

‘I shouldn’t speculate along those lines out loud, if I were you,’ said John Barrington.

Henry intended to take the matter up with the Director (Operations), but then the children got flu, and then he got flu, and then the Director (Operations) got flu, and then it was too near Christmas.

The children went to Spain for Christmas, and Henry considered all the poverty in the world and thought, ‘There are millions of people who’d be grateful for roast turkey and ginger cordial and three hours of Snap in a stifling basement room with Cousin Hilda and Mrs Wedderburn and Liam O’Reilly.’

That Christmas night Henry cried for Hilary as he had never cried before.

The children returned, life resumed its even keel, and Henry told the Director (Operations) of his displeasure at his inactivity.

‘I’ll have a word with John Barrington,’ said Mr Whitehouse. ‘Delegation is not weakness.’

Britain announced a complete trade ban against Rhodesia, the Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 made a soft landing on the moon, and the word that Timothy Whitehouse had with John Barrington produced only a marginal increase in Henry’s workload.

My life is draining away, he thought. I’ll be thirty-one soon.

Sales of the paperback of
All Stick Together
had suddenly accelerated over the Christmas period. The publishers told Henry that Hilary’s book was a big success, but they were getting no reply to their letters. He wrote and begged her to write to them. They told him that she had written to say that she was very pleased on the author’s behalf but that she no longer considered herself the author.

She didn’t write to Henry.

In the early hours of Sunday, March 13th, 1966, Henry had a disturbing dream. He dreamt that he was in a glorious, baroque opera house, but all the seats were on the stage, and all the scenery was in the auditorium. And there was only one person in the twelve rows of seats on the stage. Henry, in immaculate evening dress, was sitting in the third seat from the left in the third row.

He looked down on magnificent painted sets which suggested that the performance was to consist of a cross between
Swan Lake
and
The Barber of Seville
.

Into the auditorium came Helen Plunkett, née Cornish. She was naked. She smiled at Henry and took up a stilted theatrical pose. Her legs were magnificent.

Next came Diana, also naked, chunkily sexy. She was accompanied by Benedict and Camilla, who were dressed as page boys. Diana waved at him cheerily, but the faces of Benedict and Camilla broke into derisive smiles.

Next came the eighteen-year-old Lorna Arrow, also stark naked. She smiled shyly at Henry. Her four children, Marlene, Doreen, Kevin and Sharon, ran on behind her, all dressed as Beefeaters, and she turned into the Lorna Lugg who had lost her looks, breasts sagging and stretch marks forming like cracks on a mirror.

Helen’s naked sister Jill followed with her three boys, dressed as Chelsea pensioners. Then came Mrs Hargreaves, also naked and extraordinarily well-preserved, with a fifteen-year-old Paul and a fourteen-year-old Diana, both dressed as onion sellers. Young Diana blew a kiss to present-day Diana.

Next came Ginny Fenwick, stark naked, sturdy, running to fat, and carrying a Bren gun. She was followed by Anna Matheson, who slid on, seated naked on the very armchair on which she had been naked for Henry all those years ago.

Belinda Boyce-Uppingham was posing as a frontispiece for
Country Life
, except that frontispieces for
Country Life
wear clothes. Tessa and Vanessa wore jodhpurs and carried riding whips.

And out of the lake there arose Boadicea’s chariot, and on it, naked and palely lovely, was Hilary, with Kate and Jack at her side, dressed as bullfighters.

All the women held out their arms towards Henry, and all the children smiled. The band struck up ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and they all sang, ‘Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday, dear Henry, Happy birthday to you.’ Then all the women’s breasts sagged and stretch marks formed on all their thighs and five hundred balloons shaped like cucumbers descended from the ornate ceiling, and the flesh fell off all the women to whom Henry had ever been deeply attracted, and the clothes and the flesh fell off all the children that they had borne, and they all became horrible smiling skeletons.

Henry awoke, drenched in sweat, to hear the telephone ringing with tinny insistence in the deep silence of the house. And he
knew
, with utter certainty, that it would be Hilary, disturbed by the aura given off by his dream, ringing to say that she still loved him. As he rushed to the phone, at ten past three on his thirty-first birthday on the 13th, having dreamt that he was the only one on the stage sitting in the third seat in the third row, the numbers three and one had sharp and lucky significance for him. He dived for the phone, terrified that she would ring off.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Dyno-Rod?’ said a deep male voice. ‘Sorry to ring you at this unearthly hour, but I’ve got water pouring through my back passage.’

Two months later, Henry’s phone rang again at ten past three in the morning. He felt certain, even though he no longer had any belief in his psychic powers, that it would be another crossed line for Dyno-Rod.

‘Hello,’ he said wearily.

‘Henry?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Diana. Are you alone?’

‘Of course I’m alone.’

‘I’m sorry to ring you at this unearthly hour. Tosser’s left me and you’re the only person I can talk to.’

ON SATURDAY, JUNE
10th, 1967, the Middle East War ended after just six days with a cease-fire between Israel and Syria, Spencer Tracey died of a heart attack, and Dr Paul Hargreaves married Dr Christobel Farquhar.

The reception was held in a huge marquee in the vast garden of Brigadier and Mrs Roderick Farquhar, near Alresford in Hampshire.

The sun glinted in the grey streaks that were beginning to fleck Henry’s slowly thinning hair. He was standing with Diana in a queue outside the marquee, waiting to tell the happy couple that they looked wonderful and it had been worth waiting almost two years to get Winchester Cathedral on a Saturday in June.

Behind them were a close friend of the bride, the lovely Annabel Porchester, and her fiancé, the unlovely Josceleyn Tubman-Edwards, of the merchant bankers, Pellet and Runciman.

‘It’s Henry!’ said Josceleyn Tubman-Edwards. ‘Good Lord! Darling, this is Henry Pratt, a chum of mine. We were at Dalton College together, and then Henry got a job with my father at the Cucumber Marketing Board. Henry, this is Annabel Porchester. She’s one of the Suffolk Porchesters.’

‘I always thought they were a breed of pig,’ said Henry.

Diana giggled. It was one of her most endearing qualities that she had never quite grown up.

‘I should have warned you that Henry is awful,’ said Josceleyn Tubman-Edwards.

‘Henry has a dreadful thing about posh social events,’ said Diana. ‘They make him panic and he fights back by being incredibly rude. He hasn’t even introduced me.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ said Henry. ‘Diana Pilkington-Brick. Paul’s sister. She married Tosser Pilkington-Brick, who was also a “chum” at school. You remember Tosser, don’t you, Josceleyn?’

Josceleyn Tubman-Edwards tried to smile. A piece of saliva remained attached to both his lips even as they parted, but they didn’t part very far.

‘Yes, I … er … I remember Pilkington-Brick,’ said Josceleyn. ‘Is … er … I mean … er …?’

‘We’re separated,’ said Diana. ‘I’m divorcing him for adultery.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Josceleyn.

‘I’m not,’ said Diana. ‘I’m going to marry Henry.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Josceleyn. ‘I mean, congratulations.’

‘Yes, congratulations,’ said Annabel.

‘What do you do, Annabel?’ asked Henry.

‘Not a lot. I only came out last year,’ said Annabel.

‘Really! What were you in for?’

‘Henry!’ said Diana.

They edged slowly forward, a queue of hats wilting in the summer sun. It was so boring. They couldn’t wait for the champagne and the food.

‘So where will you get married?’ asked Josceleyn.