The Complete Pratt (61 page)

‘I’d like coffee,’ said Henry.

‘Well you stay and have some.’

‘But I’m taking you out.’

‘Well, thank you. Good night.’

‘But we’re celebrating my moving into your house.’

‘What a delightful prospect. Look, I’m tired. I need my beauty sleep more than some people.’ Ginny blushed. Helen didn’t. ‘Are you coming or not?’

To do Henry credit, he did try to stand up. In vain.

‘I want my coffee,’ he said.

‘Good night,’ said Ginny Fenwick.

Henry and Helen gave each other meaningful looks. Their coffee came.

‘This coffee’s undrinkable,’ said Helen. ‘Come home with me and I’ll make you some proper coffee.’

He wasn’t going to miss his chance this time. He called for the bill.

‘Let me pay my share,’ said Helen.

‘No. I insist.’ Let nobody say he was mean.

‘I earn as much as you.’

‘Oh all right, then.’ Let nobody say he was obstinate.

The waitress hobbled over with the bill.

‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Two coffees? What about our meals?’

‘Mr Ackerman has paid for all of you.’

‘I bet you wish you’d insisted a bit harder now,’ said Helen.

In the taxi she turned to him, rather disconcertingly, with her mouth opened wide in readiness, like a fledgling expecting food. They explored each other’s lips and mouths. Kissing that superb orifice was everything he’d hoped. He felt as virile as a volcano. He put his left hand on the right cup of her bra. She removed his hand. ‘Think of the driver,’ she whispered. How unexpectedly considerate she could be.

He tipped the driver generously, because of all the kissing.

Helen marched up the drive, as if she couldn’t wait to get into her house. She fumbled with the key, as if she was nervous.

Light flooded a neutral hall. She opened a door on the right,
and
entered ahead of him. He would be able to remember none of the contents of the room, except for Ted Plunkett.

‘Hello, darling,’ said Helen brightly. ‘I’ve brought Henry home for a coffee.’

On Thursday, January 26th, 1956, three million workers asked for pay rises, the big freeze was followed by floods, and Henry had his first page lead. He felt that his intro was a masterpiece of concentrated information and human interest. Imagine his chagrin when Terry Skipton read it aloud, scornfully. ‘A 76 year-old diabetic retired railway guard was making “a miraculous recovery” in Thurmarsh Royal Infirmary today after lying semiconscious in a rhubarb patch in near-zero temperatures for 10 hours only 300 yards from the council “pre-fab” where his invalid wife Doris and their Jack Russell terrier “Spot” were waiting anxiously for his return from a Darby and Joan hot-pot supper and whist drive.’ When the story appeared, the information was threaded through it with the parsimony of an investment manager hanging onto his bills till he got his second final reminders. Terry Skipton called him over and said gruffly, ‘Not a bad story, Mr Pratt. You’ll learn our style in time.’

Over his roast pork, roast potatoes and cabbage, with tinned pears to follow, Henry failed to tell Cousin Hilda that he had found a flat.

On Friday, January the 27th, the Queen flew over the Libyan desert on her way to Nigeria. Henry had battered cod and chips, with jam roly poly to follow, and failed to tell Cousin Hilda that he had found a flat.

At half past eight he slipped out, and went to the Devonshire in Commercial Road, three hundred yards up the hill towards Splutt, beyond the
Chronicle
and
Argus
building. Upstairs, on Fridays, there was a jazz club with a resident Dixieland band. There he met Colin, Gordon, Ginny, Ted and Helen. Ben had gone home to give the wife one.

Sid Hallett and the Rundlemen comprised trumpet, clarinet, trombone, piano, bass and drums. As Henry entered, they were playing ‘Basin Street Blues’. The room was large, dimly lit and
crowded
. Most people were standing. A buzz of conversation vied with the music. Sid Hallett jigged continually and smiled a lot. He had huge damp patches under his arms. Although not yet thirty, the trombonist and the bass players were developing paunches. All the band had pints of bitter in strategic places. Henry longed for fresh air.

He’d avoided speaking to Ted and Helen since Wednesday night. Now he tried to be casual, saying, ‘Oh! Thanks for the coffee, incidentally.’ He must have succeeded, because they looked rather sheepish. He thought longingly of the Upper Mitherdale fells.

He tried to have a quiet word in Ginny’s ear. It wasn’t easy, during ‘South Rampart Street Parade’.

‘Nothing happened on Wednesday night, you know,’ he said. ‘I just had a coffee. Ted was there.’

‘Ah! Shame!’ said Ginny.

‘I’m cured of Helen, Ginny.’

‘Congratulations. What has this to do with me?’

‘Well, I’m … er … moving into the house where you live.’

‘So?’

He was suddenly overwhelmed with affection for Lorna Arrow. He longed to see her. If only he wasn’t working tomorrow, on the football paper,
The Pink
’
Un
. (When Denzil had seen everybody reading pink papers last Saturday evening, he’d said ‘Good Lord! Why are they all reading the
Financial Times
?’) He sighed deeply. Colin asked him what was wrong. He told him. Colin offered to work tomorrow instead of him. Glenda wouldn’t mind. She was all right, was Glenda. Henry telephoned Auntie Doris and invited himself to stay. She was thrilled. The band played ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’. Henry thought about sweet Lorna Arrow.

He crept into the house at 11.43. Not late. Not really. Not drunk. Not very. Better if he didn’t meet Cousin Hilda, though. She might not understand that you could have hiccups without being drunk.

She materialized at the top of the basement stairs.

‘Henry!’ she said grimly.

He decided to tell her that he’d found a flat, now, when he
wasn
’t drunk, not really, but while his courage was fortified by alcohol.

‘I’ve got something …’ He swallowed a hiccup brilliantly. ‘… to tell you,’ he said.

‘Come downstairs,’ commanded Cousin Hilda.

‘It won’t take …’ Another hiccup was skilfully stifled. ‘… a moment.’

‘I’m not having you waking the whole house with your hiccups.’

Damn!

‘You’re drunk again,’ she said, as they entered the basement room. The stove was low. There was a lingering aroma of potted meat.

‘You can have hiccups without being drunk,’ he said. ‘Babies have hiccups.’

‘You aren’t a baby,’ she said, as if that proved that he was drunk. He knew that there was a fault in her logic, but couldn’t pin it down.

‘I’m … er … I’m going away for the weekend,’ he said.

Cousin Hilda sniffed.

‘You went away last weekend,’ she said.

‘I’m going to see Auntie Doris.’ Cousin Hilda sniffed. ‘I mean … after all, she is my … I mean … my auntie … isn’t she? And I … er … I should have told you before, but I thought you’d be cross.’ The tension had cured his hiccups. ‘I met Uncle Teddy in the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed twice, once for Uncle Teddy and once for Chinese food. ‘Why should I be cross?’ she said.

‘Well, not cross,’ he said. ‘Upset. I know you don’t approve of them.’

‘It beats me why
you
do,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been one for running people down, especially my own flesh and blood, but what did they ever do for you? The minimum. I gave you a good home and was ready to earlier if asked.’

‘I know. And I’m grateful.’

‘I didn’t do it for you to be grateful.’

‘I know. But you’ve got to let people be grateful if they want to. So I’m going to see Auntie Doris and tell her I saw Uncle Teddy. I’m going to bring them together again.’

‘Henry!’

‘I’d have thought you’d have thought the marriage tie was sacred.’

‘I do. But it’s none of your business, is it?’

‘They love each other. It’s just about the only good thing about them.’

‘Well, it’s your life,’ said Cousin Hilda.

‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘It is. Cousin Hilda? I’ve … er … I’ve found a flat. I’m moving in next weekend.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed. She said nothing. He felt that any remark would have been better than her silence.

‘Cousin Hilda?’ he said. ‘I love you. I love you very much.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed.

AS THE TRAIN
clattered through the stolid Airedale towns out towards the high country, Henry’s spirits soared. On the southern edges of the dewy fields, banks of snow lay against the dry stone walls.

Few people got off at Troutwick. The air carried promises of spring. The breeze carried memories of winter. The sun scoffed briefly at the breeze’s warnings. A few drops of rain, mocking the sun, spattered onto the frost-broken streets of the quaint, narrow, stone and whitewash town.

The White Hart stood, white-painted in a dark, stone square, facing the awnings of the Saturday Market. The AA sign, with its two stars, swung squeakily. Behind it, the eponymous beast was frozen in wary pride.

The lobby was dark and leathery, its old oak table strewn with
Country Life
and
The Field
, its notice-board plastered with news of Conservative coffee mornings. It was steeped in a feudal respectability to which neither Auntie Doris nor the slimy Geoffrey Porringer had any right.

The receptionist had been hired for her snootiness, and gave full value. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she said, as if the possibility was remote and the ‘sir’ apocryphal.

‘I ’ope so, luv,’ said Henry, rediscovering the full Yorkshire tones that his southern schools had weakened. ‘I’m Henry.’

‘Do you have a reservation, Mr Henry?’

‘No, luv. I’m not a Red Indian.’

She didn’t laugh, and it
did
cross Henry’s mind that this might be because it wasn’t funny.

Auntie Doris emerged from the staff quarters behind the desk. She was in her mid-fifties now. Age wasn’t withering her charms. It was just making it more expensive to maintain them.

‘Henry!’ she cried.

‘Auntie Doris!’

They embraced. It was like kissing an oil painting. Her hair was
blonder
than ever. Henry threw the receptionist a triumphant glance, which would have been more effective if he hadn’t been covered in Auntie Doris’s lipstick and powder, so that he looked like a clown in a decadent thirties nightclub in Berlin.

Geoffrey Porringer, sensing emotion from which he had been excluded, oozed onto the scene, clasped Henry’s hands and said, ‘Welcome, young sir.’ Henry peeped surreptitiously at his blackheads. Still a forest of them. Excellent!

They entered the lounge bar, warm, full of antiques, bustling with measured market-day bonhomie. Auntie Doris served them, while Geoffrey Porringer sat beside him and drank.

‘We’ll have sandwiches this morning,’ he said, ‘because we’re working.’ We? I don’t see you doing much. ‘Tonight we’ve got the bar fully staffed, so we’ll have dinner.’

Conversation with Geoffrey Porringer wasn’t easy. Henry couldn’t bring himself to mention Lorna, up against whom the man habitually rubbed. He asked if his old teacher, Miss Candy, still drank there. It was a shock to learn that she was dead. People like Miss Candy didn’t die, any more than Matterhorns fell down. Her death made him feel sad. ‘Yes, she was a good old stick,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. He greeted each new arrival loudly. ‘Good to see you, young sir.’ ‘Trust the better half’s flourishing, young George?’ ‘Morning, Arthur. Can’t make up its mind, can it?’ It began to dawn on Henry that Geoffrey Porringer didn’t find it easy to fill the role of mine host, and had constructed a labyrinth of verbal camouflage to protect himself. It began to dawn on him that Geoffrey Porringer hadn’t wanted to be slimy, to have a nose festooned with blackheads, and that it was no more his fault than Auntie Doris’s that she hadn’t waited for Uncle Teddy. Perhaps his rubbing against Lorna
had
been accidental. These thoughts worried him. He’d feel the loss if he couldn’t continue to hate Geoffrey Porringer. Supposing becoming a mature adult meant sympathizing with
everybody
? Henry shuddered.

Geoffrey Porringer didn’t make disliking him any easier by leaping into action and doing his bit behind the bar. Conversation grew louder. Sandwiches arrived and were consumed. He must go and see Lorna. It’d be awful if, at their next meeting, she was serving him dinner.

He caught the bus to Rowth Bridge. It growled up the narrowing dale, towards the high fells, crossing and recrossing the laughing little river Mither. There were eight houses now, in the hamlet of Five Houses, where Sidney Mold lived, into whose sticky hand Henry had once dug his fingernails.

He grew nervous. What would he say to her? Did he want to take her to Kit Orris’s field barn? Did he want to marry her and open her eyes to a wider world? Did he want to marry her and live in Rowth Bridge?

The bus swung past the school, past the Parish Hall, and dropped him by the hump bridge. He walked briskly towards Lorna’s parents’ council house.