The Complete Pratt (27 page)

‘That’s silly,’ said Diana.

‘Not if it’s what he wants,’ said Dr James Hargreaves.

‘It isn’t,’ said Diana. ‘He’s just saying it cos he can’t decide.’

‘Don’t I know you?’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

Henry’s heart sank. On its way down it passed his blood, which was rushing up towards his cheeks. He went into violent internal convulsions, pumping, throbbing, sinking, burning. He sneezed five times.

‘What on earth’s wrong?’ said Dr James Hargreaves.

‘What did you say your other name was? said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

Henry opened his mouth, but no sound came.

‘Pratt,’ said Paul.

‘I knew I knew you,’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham. ‘You were an evacuee at Rowth Bridge.’

‘I wasn’t an evacuee,’ said Henry, finding his voice. ‘I was staying with relations.’

‘Of course he was,’ said Paul, defending his friend. ‘His father was fighting the war.’

Belinda Boyce-Uppingham frowned slightly. Perhaps she had just remembered calling him an oik, thought Henry.

Paul Hargreaves frowned too. His friend wasn’t putting up a good show.

It was the memory of anger, not guilt, that had caused Belinda Boyce-Uppingham to frown. ‘You knocked me off my horse,’ she said.

‘You called me an oik,’ said Henry.

Belinda Boyce-Uppingham flushed.

‘Surely not?’ she said. ‘I mean…’

‘It’s frightening when you’re thrown off a horse,’ said Mrs Celia Hargreaves. ‘Do you ride, Henry?’

‘No,’ said Henry. How he wished he could have said ‘yes’, but he wasn’t going to tell any more lies. If he did say ‘yes’, he’d probably discover that a string of thoroughbreds had been laid on for their post-prandial delectation.

‘I think it was pretty rotten of you to remind Blin that she called you an oik,’ said Diana. ‘I think that
was
a bit oiky.’

‘Diana!’ said Dr Hargreaves.

‘I don’t agree,’ said Paul. ‘I mean you might forgive somebody for calling somebody an oik, if they were an oik, but not when they called you an oik and your father’s a famous test pilot, even if they did knock you off your stupid horse.’

‘Paleface was not stupid,’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham, tossing her head, perhaps in sympathetic imitation of her erstwhile mount.

‘I don’t agree,’ said Diana. ‘It doesn’t matter if you call somebody an oik if they obviously aren’t, but if they are it’s unforgiveable. Henry obviously isn’t, so Blin’s forgiven.’

‘I think this is becoming a rather silly conversation,’ said Mrs Hargreaves. ‘I think we’re all a little bit over-excited.’

‘I’d like to meet your father, Henry. I hear he’s fearsomely distinguished,’ said Dr Hargreaves, not without a trace of smugness, as if he knew that Henry’s father would have the utmost difficulty in being as distinguished as he was.

‘What is all this about your father?’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

‘He’s a famous test pilot,’ said Paul. ‘He tests all the new prototypes.’

‘Well who was that funny little man with the bandage?’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

‘He was not a funny little man. He was my father. And he’s dead,’ said Henry.

‘Your table’s ready,’ said the head waiter.

Henry found himself walking into the restaurant with the others, although he longed to run from the hotel. But he’d ordered, and social conventions are strong. Paul flashed him a
look
of fury, Belinda of scorn, Diana of encouragement. Dr and Mrs Hargreaves avoided his eye, which was easy, as he was avoiding everybody’s eye.

He found that he had ordered oxtail soup. Its heat made his nose stream. Paul sat glaring at him as he continually blew his nose. The noise was like an air-raid warning in this temple of starched white linen and watery food.

The soup was watery, the conversation formal and evasive, till Paul said, ‘For God’s sake stop blowing your nose.’

‘Paul!’ said Mrs Hargreaves, reproving Paul for not giving Henry an example of what gracious manners were.

‘Sorry,’ said Henry. ‘My cold’s come out.’

‘I wish you hadn’t,’ said Paul.

‘Paul!’ said Dr Hargreaves.

‘Well, honestly, he’s made me feel such an ass,’ said Paul. ‘He told me his father was a test pilot.’

‘Yes, well,’ said Dr Hargreaves, meaning, ‘You feel an ass? What about him?’

The waiter advanced slowly, like one bad smell approaching another. They remained totally silent while he cleared the plates, as if it was of vital importance that he should know nothing about the matter.

Henry screwed himself up to provide some sort of explanation.

‘Everyone at Brasenose called me Oiky,’ he said. ‘I hated being called Oiky. It wasn’t my fault.’

It was Belinda Boyce-Uppingham’s turn to go scarlet.

‘Isn’t embarrassment embarrassing,’ said Diana. ‘This is the most embarrassing meal I’ve ever been to.’

‘Shut up, Diana,’ said Paul.

‘It really was mean of you actually, Blin, to call Henry an oik, because he really isn’t,’ said Diana.

The waiter ambled over with food that might have been hot when it left the kitchens. Henry found that he had ordered
le pâté de la maisonette
(cottage pie)
avec les choux du Bruxelles
(watery)
et les carottes
(tasteless).

‘Waiter!’ summoned Dr Hargreaves, as the waiter wandered off.

‘Sir?’ said the waiter.

‘Tell the chef he does some amazing things with water,’ said Dr
Hargreaves
.

‘James!’ said Mrs Hargreaves.

The waiter sauntered off, mystified, across the half-empty room.

There was nothing Henry could have done to make matters worse, except to parody a clumsy young man in a restaurant by losing the top of the salt cellar and pouring all its contents onto his food. And that is exactly what he did.

‘Never mind,’ said Diana. ‘It’s horribly underseasoned actually.’

Henry scooped off what salt he could, and ate his meal bravely, although it did cause him to suffer a severe coughing fit just as his nasal flood had finally come to an end.

After the meal, as they were leaving the hotel, Diana pulled Henry back in.

‘I don’t think you’re an oik,’ she said, ‘Knocking Blin off her horse like that, and pretending your father was a test pilot. I think it’s a hoot.’

In the morning, there was a fire practice at Orange House. They descended down a canvas chute from their dormitory windows. South Africa dorm was on the second floor, and it was quite a long way down to the gravel. Runciman and Cranston held the chute rather high off the ground, and Henry took a nasty, scraping fall on the gravel.

‘Terribly sorry,’ said Runciman and Cranston in unison.

Henry caught sight of Paul, standing among a group of boys who had made their descent, grinning broadly.

‘I paid them to do that,’ said Paul. ‘Serve you right for yesterday.’

They wandered along the path that led to the extensive vegetable garden.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ said Henry.

‘I won’t tell anyone,’ said Paul. ‘Everyone will think your father’s a test pilot except me.’

‘But…’

‘I’m your friend, aren’t I?’

But for how long, thought Henry. Maybe Paul really was such a smashing bloke that his feelings wouldn’t be undermined by the power he had over Henry, but what about Henry? Would his
feelings
of friendship survive the guilt and gratitude that he would always feel in Paul’s presence?

The answer was ‘no’. The fourth and final link in the chain was therefore inevitable.

The opportunity arose the following day, when the English master, Mr Foden (Foggy F), set them an essay on the subject of ‘A building that’s important to me’. Seven long days later, the essays were handed back by Foggy F. He approached Henry, his slightly vacant face grave with disapproval.

‘Not an inspired effort, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘You look an imaginative enough boy, Mallender, but this is dead prose. Correct, organised, dead as a doornail.’

‘But, sir…’ Henry began.

‘Don’t argue, Mallender,’ said Foggy F. ‘You must be able to take criticism.’

‘But, sir…’

‘Silence. You haven’t shown any finesse in your approach. Imagine me, the reader, approaching your work. You’ve held nothing back. Your first paragraph reveals all, making the rest of the essay almost redundant. You should tempt me. You should lead me up a figurative garden path.’

‘But, sir…’

‘There are no buts about it, Mallender. Now Pratt here…’

Foggy F turned towards Mallender.

‘But, sir…’ began Mallender.

‘Don’t argue,’ said Foggy F. ‘I’m about to praise you. You, Pratt, you may sit there looking about as imaginative as a pumice stone, but, inside that sponge-like edifice which passes for your brain, you are actually thinking.’

‘Please, sir…’ said Mallender.

‘Silence, Pratt. You’ll get nowhere if you’re embarrassed by praise. You paint a picture of a world, a world of back-to-back terraces in industrial Yorkshire. The building you describe was jerry-built in the industrial revolution. It’s infested with vermin. It’s probably condemned by now. Do you live there? No. In your last paragraph you tell us why it’s important. Not the first paragraph, Mallender. The last. That house is important to you
because
you do not live there, because it makes you appreciate the running water, the fitted carpets, the electric light of the house where you do live.’

‘But, sir,’ said Henry. ‘I’m Pratt.’

‘Mallender, for the last time…you’re Pratt? Well, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I tried, sir.’

‘Well, anyway, Pratt, it’s a fine piece of work. As for you, Mallender, sitting there accepting credit for work you didn’t do, I hope you’re ashamed. Now, I want everyone to read Pratt’s essay. It’s a thoroughly imaginative…’

‘It isn’t imagination, sir,’ said Henry. ‘I lived in that back-to-back terrace.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Foggy F. ‘I understood your father was a brain surgeon.’

‘No, sir. My father’s a brain surgeon,’ said Paul Hargreaves. ‘His father’s a test pilot.’

‘Thank you, Fuller,’ said Foggy F.

‘My father isn’t a test pilot,’ said Henry. ‘I made that up. My father made penknives, and he died sitting on the outside lats.’

The relief was intense. The truth was out at last. The future wouldn’t be easy, but now his real life at Dalton College could begin.

The future wasn’t easy. The news of his true origins swept Orange House. As an hors d’oeuvre, on Friday evening, he met an old chum, the noddle down the porcelain bowl. This bowl was made by Bollingtons of Tunstall, just up the road from Etruria. The incident linked the little village school at Rowth Bridge with the great public school of Dalton, and might have been said to be the only evidence Henry ever received of true equality of opportunity in education, had it not been for the fact that, due to the primitive toilet arrangements at Rowth Bridge school, even that had been an extra-mural activity.

The main course took place on Saturday evening. Cranston and Runciman grabbed him as he was collecting his clean pants, vest and socks from matron’s cupboard under the stairs, with its overpowering smell of ironing. They led him out, through the
back
door, into the dark November night. A thin drizzle was falling, and there was a light wind from the east.

Waiting outside were Shelton, Holmes, Philpot A. E., Philpot W. F. N. and Perkins. Philpot A. E. and Shelton carried coils of rope. Henry was led into a small corner of the gardens. The gardener had complained that the gardens were too much for him, and Dopy S had agreed to make his task easier by leaving a section as a nature reserve. It was known as ‘The Dell’. They tied Henry to a tree in ‘The Dell’ with one of the ropes, the one carried by Philpot A. E. Then each boy gave him eight strokes with the other rope, doubled up. It hardly seems necessary to tell you that this was the rope carried by Shelton.

Eight strokes each from Cranston, Runciman, Shelton, Holmes, Philpot A. E., Philpot W. F. N. and Perkins. Fifty-six strokes with a doubled-up rope. They thudded into his backside until pain was an irrelevant word. He made no movement. He made no noise. He would die before he gave them the satisfaction.

They untied him, and led him back into the changing room.

‘Did you have anything on, under there, for protection? said Perkins.

Henry shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

They made him take down his shonkers, and examined his backside. They seemed awed by what they saw.

‘Pull them up,’ said Holmes flatly.

They seemed curiously subdued, almost crestfallen.

Henry decided that he must trust himself to speak. He must take a leaf out of the Brasenose book.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

And for dessert? There was no dessert. The bullying of Henry ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Not everybody was nasty to Henry.