The Complete Pratt (130 page)

Jack’s deep good nature meant that he could endure an enormous amount of Benedict’s sarcasm without rising to the bait. This infuriated Benedict, who became taut with rage, and this amused Jack. Because Jack was so very tolerant, the argument could be pushed to quite an extreme point before his slow, slow fuse began to burn. If it ever did come to a fight, it would be a serious one. Benedict would have to back off, because he could hardly win any glory from beating a boy two years younger than himself, and he could conceivably lose, since Jack was a big, strong lad. To an extent, therefore, Jack had the upper hand. This infuriated Benedict, but it did give him a degree of respect for Jack.

It wasn’t clear what Jack thought about the relationship between Henry and Diana. He never spoke of it.

Henry and Diana felt that Camilla’s social arrogance was not nearly as deep as Benedict’s, and that she’d like to make friends with Kate if she could do so without incurring her brother’s scorn. She wasn’t at all hostile to Diana, blaming her father for the break-up to the point where if he hadn’t had a Jaguar and a big house with a swimming pool she might not have even wanted to visit him.

Kate was deeply protective of, and loving towards, Henry. She was also more developed intellectually than Camilla, and never ceased to point this out. She wasn’t doing this entirely for her own glory. She was doing it out of loyalty to Henry and Thurmarsh and the North of England and Winstanley Primary School and Mrs Williams, who was her best teacher ever. It was very upsetting,
therefore
, to be rebuked by Henry for saying, ‘I’m not surprised you like horses, Camilla. You’re pretty thick really,’ and it made it impossible for Camilla to show any friendly overtures to Kate.

Henry and Diana hunted for a larger house, but couldn’t afford one that cost a great deal more than Dumbarton House would fetch. This meant, inevitably, that, if it had five bedrooms, it would be in a worse area or fairly dilapidated. They put their names on the list of every estate agent in Thurmarsh.

HEALTH WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH COULD BE DISTRESSING TO ESTATE AGENTS OF A SENSITIVE DISPOSITION.

Three estate agents didn’t send anything. One sent everything twice, which was a shame, as all their details were of half-built three-bedroom bungalows in cul-de-sacs, and went straight into the bin. Another sent details of country mansions costing £25,000. From another they did get details of the right kind of houses, but only in Hull and Goole. Only one offered them the right house in the right place at the right price, but the details were sent to the wrong address, and the house was sold by the time Henry and Diana read about it.

They considered moving nearer to Leeds, but decided against it, because Kate and Jack were settled in their schools.

It has to be admitted that, loving parents though they both were, it was a great relief to them when Kate and Jack set off for their annual summer holiday with Hilary in Spain, and, a week later, Benedict and Camilla were taken to Menton by Tosser.

Left on their own in Thurmarsh, Henry and Diana led as civilised a life as their shortage of money would allow. Henry was very conscious that Diana had never been short of money before, and more than once made her angry by harping on the subject. She was upset that he should think money mattered to her, and stated how unimportant she found it, sometimes in words that pleased him – ‘I love you. I don’t care about wealth. You are my wealth’ – and sometimes in words that pleased him slightly less – ‘I’m a grown-up. I knew what I was letting myself in for.’

They ate an occasional modest meal at Sandro and Mario’s,
Thurmarsh
’s first Italian restaurant, and at the Taj Mahal – ‘You had a lovely lady. Now you have another lovely lady. What is the secret, please?’ Henry was always pleased to see Count Your Blessings.

They went to dinner with Alastair and Fiona Blair, with the Mathesons, though rarely now that Anna had emigrated to Canada, and with new friends from the Crescent, Joe and Molly Enwright. Joe was a teacher, Molly a painter.

Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. France exploded its first hydrogen bomb. Henry gave Diana her first full-scale Thurmarsh Friday night experience. First stop, the Lord Nelson. Helen sniffy, Ginny sad, Colin maudlin, Ted sarcastic and Ben astounded that Diana didn’t know
any
of the grounds of
any
of the teams in the second division. Second stop, the Devonshire. Sid Hallett and the Rundlemen wearing flowery shirts in distant homage to flower power, and longer grey hair in an attempt to look vaguely hippy. But the music was the same, and so were the damp patches under their arms. Third stop, the Yang Sing, Thurmarsh’s first proper Chinese restaurant, which had superseded the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar, now that the era of frothy coffee had ended.

‘Well, what did you think?’ asked Henry as they undressed in the silent house.

‘It’s a bit different from Hampstead,’ was Diana’s Delphic reply.

For three hectic days they had all the children with them, brown with memories, sullen in the Thurmarsh monsoon. Then Camilla was off to St Ethelred’s in Devizes, and Benedict to Brasenose College in Surrey, both paid for by Tosser, who insisted on continuing their private education. Henry thought that at eleven and nine they were too young to go to boarding school, but he had to admit that he was glad they did and, to his slight shame, he didn’t attempt to persuade Tosser to change his mind.

Benedict and Camilla were glad to leave the overcrowded house and meet their friends and be in their proper environment again, but they resented the fact that Kate and Jack would still be enjoying home comforts when they weren’t, and in a house that was no
longer
overcrowded. Kate and Jack were happy to be staying at home, and fiercely loyal to the schools of Thurmarsh, but also resentful that so much money was being spent on Benedict’s and Camilla’s education, and feeling diminished by being excluded from their adventure in the great world outside.

In that great world outside, US officials in Saigon announced that defoliation in South Vietnam had produced no harmful results, and Mickey Mouse was forty. There was not necessarily any connection between the two events.

Henry and Diana’s life settled into the next pattern, of Henry travelling to Leeds and of Diana taking Kate and Jack to school and fetching them home again. They gave occasional dinner parties. Diana was both a plainer and more confident cook than Hilary. Where Hilary would have produced delicious tandoori chicken with diffidence, Diana plonked down a decent but uninspired steak and kidney pudding as if it was ambrosia for the gods.

Henry forswore comparisons, and found himself making them all the time.

In his bunker in the basement of the Cucumber Marketing Board, Sir Winston Pratt prepared his strategy for 1969’s attack on the diseases of the cucumber. Graphs were made, correlations were pursued, comparisons were studied. Did the level of acidity in the soil affect the incidence of angular leaf spot? Was there any discernible connection between altitude and grey mould? So many questions. So few answers. Such a challenge.

‘Mrs Wedderburn’s not been herself lately.’

‘Oh dear. What’s wrong?’

‘It’s nothing you can put your finger on.’

Henry felt ashamed of thinking that there wasn’t much of Mrs Wedderburn that he would want to put his finger on.

‘She’s just a bit off colour, I suppose.’

‘Oh dear.’

This was just one of the many sparkling exchanges between Cousin Hilda, Henry and Diana, in the stifling little blue-stoved,
pink
-bloomered basement of 66, Park View Road. Autumn had moved all too readily to accommodate winter.

Henry and Diana were engaged in a difficult task.

‘Er … about Christmas,’ said Henry.

Cousin Hilda sniffed psychically.

‘Er … we … er … obviously this is our first Christmas, and … er … obviously things aren’t entirely easy with the two different lots of children.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed again. ‘If you can’t stand the heat, don’t move into the house,’ her eloquent sniff announced.

‘And … er … we … er … obviously we … er… want to give the children a very good Christmas. They are the top priority. And it isn’t a large house. Not when you’ve four children in it.’

Cousin Hilda remained silent. ‘Spare me the excuses,’ her telling silence screeched.

‘So, the thing is … er … we … much as we’d like to normally … and hopefully in other years … and if we get the house we’re going for … we …’

Cousin Hilda sniffed yet again.

‘What house?’ she said. ‘I don’t know owt about a house.’

‘Oh, didn’t we tell you?’ said Diana. ‘We meant to. We’ve seen a house, in Lordship Road, a big Victorian house, and nearer here than we are now. We’ve made an offer.’

‘Lordship Road!’ Cousin Hilda sniffed. ‘Which end of Lordship Road?’

‘This end,’ said Diana. ‘It’s between the Alma and the Gleneagles.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed twice, once for each private hotel.

‘The Gleneagles used to be good,’ she said, praising the Alma by omission.

Silence fell. The subject of Lordship Road had been exhausted. Henry would have to return to his main theme, and he received no help from Cousin Hilda or Diana.

‘So … er … the thing is …’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to invite you this year.’

‘There’s no reason why you should,’ said Cousin Hilda sharply.
‘Diana’s
children are used to posh people. They wouldn’t want to spend Christmas with me. Anyroad, I’ve got Mr O’Reilly to think of. He’d be a square peg out of water on Christmas day wi’out me. And I couldn’t neglect Mrs Wedderburn. Not when she’s off colour.’

They chatted briefly of other things after that, of the spiralling cost of crackers, the demise of the tram, and the golden age of corsets.

‘Don’t forget to send a card to Mrs Wedderburn,’ said Cousin Hilda as they left. ‘And if it isn’t too much trouble, pop in a few words. She were right thoughtful that time lending you her camp-bed like that.’

Henry felt deeply ashamed of wishing that he could shove the camp-bed up Mrs Wedderburn’s backside. What sort of person am I, he thought.

Henry helped Kate and Jack choose presents for Benedict and Camilla, and Diana helped Benedict and Camilla choose presents for Kate and Jack. All the children had stockings, filled with things of such careful originality that it didn’t strike even Benedict how cheap they were. Christmas dinner was good, and the children played Monopoly, which goes on a long time, which was a good thing. Benedict won, which was fortunate, as he was the one to whom it was most important to win. Major incidents and tears were miraculously avoided, and in the evening they watched
Christmas Night With the Stars
, which went on a long time, which was a good thing, and included Petula Clark, which set Henry wondering what sort of Christmas Count Your Blessings was having. Then they had cold ham and turkey, and then they watched
Some Like It Hot
, which went on a long time, which was a good thing.

The newsroom of the
Thurmarsh Chronicle
and
Argus
throbbed with painful memories. The reporters attacking their typewriters with feverish urgency, the shirt-sleeved sub-editors searching for snappy headlines round the subs’ table, the news editor isolated like the conductor of an orchestra at his paper-strewn desk between the
reporters
and the subs. The long rows of windows were as streaked with grime as ever, save for one. A window-cleaner on a cradle was just about to attack a second window. Henry couldn’t imagine what the room would look like without its grimy windows.

An impossibly young reporter was seated at his old desk. It wasn’t only policemen who were looking younger, now that Henry was thirty-three.

He made a drinking mime to Ted and Colin as he passed through, and they nodded enthusiastically.

He entered Interview Room B. Helen was wearing a short skirt and had her legs crossed. The blood had drained from her right knee.

‘Sorry I’m a bit late,’ he said. ‘Anthracnose at Maltby.’

‘What?’

‘I have a new job. I thought it might interest you.’

‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’

‘Oh … er … here?’

‘Nobody’s watching except the pigeons.’

Henry tried to give Helen a polite kiss on the cheek. She reached for his mouth and plonked a great kiss on it, lips working hungrily. She’d been eating butterscotch.

A row of pigeons, puffed up against the approaching night, watched from a slate roof sprinkled with snow and showed no curiosity whatsoever.

‘That’s better,’ said Helen. ‘I wondered if you’d gone off me.’

‘I’m a happily married man,’ said Henry.

‘I know. I’ve met your wife.’

‘You were pretty sniffy that night.’

‘Was I? Maybe I was disappointed that you hadn’t turned to me after your marriage broke up. You know I’m not happy with Ted.’

‘What? I did turn to you, and you said you weren’t suddenly going to be available when I was on my own. “A girl has her pride,” you said.’

‘Well, exactly. I wanted to be wooed, and chased. You could have pursued me.’

‘I like Ted.’

‘Ted would have been thrilled if I’d gone off with you. He’d have married Ginny, which he should have done all along, and everyone would have lived happily ever after. Too late now.’