The Complete Pratt (132 page)

Auntie Doris came out to meet them, smiling broadly. Henry could see nothing wrong, except perhaps that her eyes had become slightly deep-set.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said, hugging Henry. ‘Hello, Hilary.’

‘It’s Diana, actually,’ said Henry.

‘Of course it is. Silly me. Would you like a cup of tea?’

They had tea in the garden. Blackbirds pinked, insects buzzed, fighter planes screamed, lawnmowers droned. Everything was as it should be, in the early days of summer.

‘It was just a slip of the tongue when I said Hilary,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I knew who you were.’

‘Of course you did,’ said Diana.

‘I was at your wedding,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I fainted, Henry fainted, that footballer passed out.’

‘Your memory’s very sharp,’ said Henry.

‘What do you mean?’ said Auntie Doris. ‘Why do you say that? You think it isn’t, don’t you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’d hardly be likely to forget three people passing out at a wedding, including the groom. That’s hardly evidence of a sharp memory. You’re humouring me.’

‘Not at all,’ said Diana. ‘Henry doesn’t humour people.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ asked Auntie Doris.

‘They’ve just had a cup of tea,’ said Uncle Teddy.

‘I know that,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I’m not stupid. I made it for them. I thought they might want another one. It’s a warm afternoon.’

After their second pot of tea, Uncle Teddy mooted a walk with Henry, and Henry realised that there was an ulterior motive for the suggestion.

Flower baskets hung from the thatched eaves of pink-washed and whitewashed cottages. The larger houses had magnificent brick chimney-stacks.

On the green that led up to the church, Henry stopped to read the notice on an old Victorian pump:
‘TAKE NOTE THAT BOYS OR OTHER PERSONS DAMAGING THIS PUMP WILL BE PROSECUTED AS THE LAW DIRECTS.
’

Uncle Teddy waited impatiently, and as soon as they moved on, he said, ‘Will you do me a small favour, Henry? Will you take some packages to Derek Parsonage for me?’

Henry’s heart sank.

‘What sort of packages?’

‘Oh, just odds and ends. Safer for you not to know what’s in them. Nothing illegal.’

‘What do you mean, “Nothing illegal”?’

‘Nothing stolen. Nothing harmful. Just things that, in this drearily bureaucratic world, should go through the customs, that’s all. Security for our old age. Security for Doris’s old age. Bit in it for you.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t want any money from it,’ said Henry, as they sauntered up the lane towards the open country.

‘You mean you’d do it, but only for nothing?’ said Uncle Teddy.

They stopped to look over a five-barred gate at a pleasant view over gently undulating farmland. A lone skylark was singing. Henry tried hard to refuse.

‘Yes,’ he found himself saying.

‘Good man,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Good man. Sorry it has to be so cloak-and-dagger, but Doris has an unfortunate habit of remembering things she’s not supposed to remember.’

‘I thought her memory was bad.’

‘Exactly. She forgets what it is she’s not supposed to remember. Calls me Teddy sometimes in front of other people. I just tell people that was her husband. Died in a fire. Won’t marry me because she’s still carrying a torch for him. Touching story. Gets people in tears down the pub.’

They set off, more briskly, for home. Uncle Teddy wasn’t interested in views and cottages now that he’d achieved his purpose.

As they approached Honeysuckle Cottage, Uncle Teddy slowed down and said, ‘Er … just one thing. We’ll probably play
Scrabble
this evening. Usually do. The old girl’s spelling’s not always too hot these days. Best not to point her mistakes out, I find.’

Auntie Doris offered to make a pot of tea. Uncle Teddy said the sun was almost over the yard-arm, so they had gin and tonic instead. Auntie Doris had cooked chicken-and-ham pie but had forgotten the ham, and she’d made rhubarb crumble with salt instead of sugar. ‘Bloody repulsive, but there’s no point in upsetting the old girl,’ said Uncle Teddy. They drank malt whisky and played Scrabble. Auntie Doris only made two spelling mistakes – Doezn for Dozen and Seequin instead of Sequin. She won, largely because, due to her mistakes, her Z and her Q both fell on triple letter squares. ‘Bit of luck for the old girl there,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Nice to see it. Deserves it after living with that arse Porringer. Wish I could run into the bastard again. I’d give him two black eyes to match his blackheads.’

At first, Henry believed that the weather had played the major role in the creation of the cucumber mountain. His natural modesty and lack of self-confidence led him to underestimate his part. But as the summer of 1970 drifted on, evidence began to pile up which suggested that the major responsibility belonged to him. Rot was rare, wilt was minimal, mildew was almost entirely confined to the Celtic fringes. As for the glasshouse red spider mite and the glasshouse whitefly, the little bastards didn’t know what had hit them.

The dual northern chilled stores at Preston and Darlington were overflowing.

When Henry was summoned before the Director (Operations), he expected praise for his achievements.

‘You look strangely contented,’ said Timothy Whitehouse.

‘Well, I … er … yes.’ The Chief Controlling Officer (Diseases and Pests) was puzzled. ‘Yes, I … er … yes.’

‘I see,’ said Mr Whitehouse, somewhat surprisingly. ‘Henry, we have a glut of cucumbers. A cucumber mountain.’

‘Or, since they’re ninety per cent water, a cucumber lake.’

‘This is no time for levity.’ Timothy Whitehouse looked at Henry sadly. ‘We have a disaster on our hands.’

‘How can that be? There are millions of cheap cucumbers around.’

The Director (Operations) gave Henry another sad look and, as if he couldn’t bear to look at him any more, swung round and gazed at Rembrandt’s little-known and deeply compassionate ‘Old woman with cucumber’.

‘How can you be so naïve?’ he said. ‘Who are we responsible to?’

‘The public?’

‘No!!! They have no voice. They’re amorphous. They don’t, in the final analysis, exist.’

‘The growers?’

‘Better. They have a voice. We have to make sure they’re reasonably contented and don’t go dumping cucumber mountains outside Number Ten. Not that it’s likely. They aren’t French. But no, we as employees are ultimately responsible to our Board of Directors. And who are they responsible to? The government. They are our pay-masters. Have you heard of support buying?’

‘Well, yes, of course. Can you remind me how it works?’

‘Can I remind you? How long have you been with us?’

‘Er …’

‘Never mind. I haven’t time to wait for your brain.’ The Director (Operations) pulled his braces to their full extent and let them thud back into his chest. ‘We’re desperately buying up cucumbers, using up our budget, and destroying them to keep up the price. They don’t burn very well.’

‘Can’t we persuade people to buy more cucumbers?’

‘Well there is a limit. It’s their crisp freshness that appeals. They don’t freeze well.’

‘You can freeze cucumber soup.’

‘Take a walk through Holbeck. Take a walk through Beeston. Take a walk through Seacroft. Look at the people. Are they going to freeze cucumber soup?’

‘I think that’s a rather degrading cultural assumption.’

‘It’s not necessarily criticism. Maybe they aren’t poncey enough to freeze cucumber soup. We have a catastrophic glut, and I hold you responsible.’

‘Doesn’t the weather have something to do with it?’

‘Very possibly, but God is not within my remit and you are.’

‘I thought I was supposed to control diseases and pests.’

‘You are. But not eliminate them overnight. What we seek to achieve, Henry, as I thought you understood, is equilibrium. Stability. Stable levels of production. Stable incomes. Stable prices.’

‘So, I’m just to sit there and do nothing.’

Timothy Whitehouse leant forward, and Henry realised that he was about to receive one of those smiles that didn’t reach the eyes. ‘Who knows what the future holds in store? Some vast new cucumber plague, perhaps. Dutch cucumber disease. French rot. German measles. If that day comes, you will stand alone between us and annihilation.’ He smiled again, persuasively, comfortingly, patronisingly.

‘And if that day never comes?’

‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’

‘But you told me to be my own man, stick to my guns, and always speak the truth.’

‘How old are you, Henry?’ asked the Director (Operations).

‘Thirty-five,’ said the Chief Controlling Officer (Diseases and Pests).

‘And you still believe what the authorities tell you.’ Timothy Whitehouse shook his head sadly.

On Tuesday, September 1st, 1970, Concorde boomed over Britain for the first time. The damage was not as great as had been feared. A fluorescent lighting tube fell from the ceiling of a house in Wales, and two pencils, placed on a bridge by scientists in Oban, fell over. No other incidents were reported.

On the same day, King Hussein of Jordan escaped an assassination attempt, Benedict and Camilla returned home from Mykonos, US senators voted fifty-five to thirty-nine against ending the Vietnam War, Henry took two large parcels to Derek Parsonage’s exotic brothel in Commercial Road, Britons were criticised for buying millions of useless vitamin pills, and Mrs Wedderburn died.

Derek Parsonage’s brothel was situated in a Victorian town house that was marginally more decrepit even than 83, Lordship Road. A brass plate at the side of the door announced, ‘World-Wide Religious Literature Inc.’

The entrance hall was piled with religious literature, and gave no hint of the female underclothes, chain-mail, black bags, whips, studded belts, schoolgirls’ uniforms, harnesses, electric leads, dustbins, oranges, nooses, trapdoors, soft brooms, hard brooms and water hoses that lay in wait for the deviant men of Thurmarsh.

Derek Parsonage came out of his office and greeted Henry warmly, if sanctimoniously.

‘So good to see you, Henry,’ he said. ‘Come into my office.’

When they were in the office, he said, very unsanctimoniously, ‘I didn’t realise you were into this kind of thing. What is your preference?’

‘Oh no,’ said Henry, feeling insulted yet also slightly flattered. ‘I’ve seen Uncle Teddy and I’ve got a couple of parcels.’

‘Say no more,’ said Derek Parsonage, whose blackheads had got worse. ‘Just drive them round the back. How is the old rogue?’

‘Very well,’ said Henry. ‘Playing a lot of Scrabble.’

Uncle Teddy’s old partner in crime, whose brothel had been involved in the deception over the burnt-down Cap Ferrat, gawped at this news.

As Henry drove his car round the back, he was horrified to see a police car lurking in the alley between the Pet Boutique and the Commercial Café.

As he opened the front door of number 83 after delivering his parcels, Henry could hear the phone ringing. ‘I wonder if you’d come down the station of your own free will and save us all a lot of trouble, sir.’ When he heard Diana say, ‘Oh hello, Cousin Hilda,’ Henry’s relief was so great that he said, ‘Hello, Cousin Hilda,’ so heartily that her ‘Hello, Henry. Bad news, I’m afraid. Brace yourself,’ rocked him on his heels and he said, ‘What is it?’ in a croak, and when she said, ‘Mrs Wedderburn’s dead,’ he felt such a wave of relief and such appalling guilt at feeling relief, that when she said, ‘The cremation’s on Wednesday. She were right
thoughtful
lending you that camp-bed. You will come, won’t you?’ he said, ‘Of course we will,’ without hesitation or annoyance.

Henry feared that he, Diana and Cousin Hilda would be the only mourners. He’d forgotten that Mrs Wedderburn had three sons. Judge then of his astonishment when there were in the gleaming, spotless clinical chapel of Thurmarsh Crematorium, off the Doncaster Road, not only the three sons and two of their wives, but also a sister, a sister’s husband, two cousins, a nephew, nine people from her church, three from her sewing circle, two neighbours, her whist partner, her medium and her chiropodist.

‘Quite a send-off,’ said Cousin Hilda.

After the service, as they stood outside the chapel, not liking to rush away, but not wanting to talk to anybody, Henry found himself beside Mrs Wedderburn’s sister, a small plump lady in black.

‘A sad day,’ said Mrs Wedderburn’s sister.

‘Very sad,’ said Henry. ‘A generous woman, who lends you her camp-bed with no strings attached, all her life to live for, gets crushed beneath a JCB. It makes you wonder what life is all about.’

‘It’s the driver I’m sorry for,’ said Mrs Wedderburn’s sister. ‘He’s going to have to live with that for the rest of his days.’

As they drove away from the crematorium, Cousin Hilda gave a deep sigh. It was the only emotion she allowed herself to show at the death of her one close friend.

‘You made a hit with Mrs Wedderburn’s sister,’ she said. ‘“What a nice young man,” she said.’

It was her way of thanking them for coming.