The Complete Pratt (87 page)

Henry summoned up his courage. On Thursday, January 3rd, he told Hilary of his investigations. She said they must tell her father. He’d know what to do.

Gertie Gitana, who’d become synonymous with ‘Nellie Dean’, died at the age of 68. The Egyptians refused to let United Nations troops move ships out of the canal. They wouldn’t negotiate with Britain and France until new governments came into power, and then only if they apologized for the deeds of their predecessors.

Howard Lewthwaite walked to the Midland Hotel on the following Tuesday, and gave Henry and Hilary lunch. None of them had the
pamplemousse
. They talked of Suez. ‘What have we got,’ asked Hilary, ‘in exchange for splitting the nation, weakening the Commonwealth, the Atlantic alliance and the United Nations, diverting the world’s attention from the Russian atrocities in Hungary, and harming for ever our capacity to take a credible position of moral leadership in the world?’ ‘Nothing,’ said Henry. ‘As much as that!’ said Howard Lewthwaite. They laughed. Lowering his voice, even though the nearest customer was twenty feet away, Henry told Hilary’s father about his
suspicions
. Howard Lewthwaite went quite white, and shook his head several times. He waved a waiter away, brusquely. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘but I’m perfectly capable of pouring wine.’ He promised to look into the matter immediately.

Sir Anthony Eden resigned, due to ill health. Harold Macmillan became Prime Minister. Oil promised by America still hadn’t materialized.

He met Hilary in the Winstanley at noon. It was the last Sunday before her return to Durham. The proximity of the Winstanley to his flat was not accidental. She arrived with her father, on foot. Howard Lewthwaite was keen to be seen not wasting petrol by as many voters as possible.

He bought the youngsters a drink. They sat in a quiet corner.

‘I’ve had one meself,’ said Howard Lewthwaite.

‘One what?’ said Hilary.

‘An offer from the council. For Lewthwaite’s. I haven’t told Naddy yet. I daren’t tell her till the spring. She’s so frail in winter these days.’

‘You’ll refuse the offer, of course,’ said Hilary.

Her father stared at his glass of beer. ‘I don’t know as I can,’ he said. ‘Drapery as we know it is finished. The east side of Market Street as we know it is finished. I’m in trouble. The offer is strictly fair, if mean. Doesn’t cheat me or the ratepayers. I don’t know if I
can
refuse it, Hilary.’

‘But Lewthwaite’s!’

‘All things come to an end, Hilary.’

‘But this is wicked manipulation,’ said Henry.

‘Is it?’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘I’m at liberty to refuse. I choose not to. What’s wicked about that?’

‘But you’re a councillor.’

‘Exactly. And I still only get a very basic price. Doesn’t sound like corruption, does it?’

‘Well, what about the tobacconist?’ said Henry. ‘Did you ask the planning officer about that?’

‘I did. He said the house is no longer safe, now it’s next to a gaping black hole.’

‘It looks safe to me,’ said Henry.

‘Herbert says the foundations are undermined. Would you guarantee its safety?’

‘No, but what about the woman on the end. Her house isn’t next to a gaping black hole.’

‘It will be, when the tobacconist’s is gone.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it? The woman doesn’t want to stay there, a little house beside a gaping black hole. She wants to be rehoused. Nobody is suffering, Henry.’

‘Thurmarsh is. Those streets are full of good old buildings. What’ll we get in their place?’

‘A brave new world, perhaps,’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘How conservative with a small
c
you are.’

‘Are you saying there are no secret plans for redevelopment?’ said Henry.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘But what about Fred Hathersage? He’s buying stuff up all over the area.’

‘Have you proof of that?’

‘I’ve been told.’

‘Maybe he thinks the area is ripe for development. He has eyes. We can’t stop him seeing. Properties become available. We can’t stop him buying.’

‘I don’t understand this,’ said Henry. ‘You’ve got deadly political ammunition against the Tories, and you pooh-pooh it.’

Hilary and her father gave Henry long, rather sad looks.

‘It’s a Labour council, darling,’ said Hilary.

Of course it was. He’d been concentrating on Peter Matheson so much that he’d quite overlooked the fact.

‘Peter Matheson’s leader of a minority,’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘Unless there’s corruption on our side, too, he won’t get anywhere, even if he is corrupt.’

‘Could there be corruption on your side?’ said Henry.

‘I hope not. It wouldn’t say much for me as deputy leader.’ Howard Lewthwaite looked at his watch. ‘I must be getting off,’ he said. ‘Got to put the veg on for Naddy’s dinner. Look, I’ll keep digging. I promise. Be good.’

The weight of their discussion faded slowly, like a shadow on a
recovering
lung. By the time they left the Winstanley, all that was forgotten.

It was a mild, spring-like afternoon. There was very little traffic in Winstanley Road. The petrol shortage was giving the town back to pedestrians.

‘My … er … flat’s close by here,’ he said.

‘Is it really?’ said Hilary drily.

He intended to be oblique, ask her if she’d like to see it, offer her a sandwich. She wasn’t a person to whom it was easy to be oblique. ‘Come on, eh?’ he said.

She nodded bravely.

He didn’t dare speak, for fear she would change her mind.

‘It’s usually me goes too fast,’ she said. ‘Slow down. I’m not going to back out. I’ve gritted me teeth.’

They crossed the road, hand in hand, he in an ecstatically ambiguous state between excitement and fear, and she with gritted teeth. A robin scolded them for their immorality. Henry had never felt less immoral.

He hurried her through the sterile entrance hall, and lit the gas fire in the living-room. She laughed at the French windows.

‘The other half of them’s through here, in the … er … bedroom,’ he said.

‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ she said. ‘You must come and see my French windows.’

He led the way into the bedroom. He lit the gas fire in there, too. She began to undress and he remembered, with a thud of fear, what he’d completely forgotten in the excitement of their growing love. She had a horrible body. Never mind, he told himself, as she undressed tensely, determinedly, as if for a medical, with her back to him. Never mind. Men are far too influenced by physical appearance. I love you, Hilary, the person, the woman. The body is unimportant.

She hopped into the narrow, single bed and covered herself with the bedclothes. But he had seen, in that brief moment, when he hadn’t dared to be seen to be looking, that her body was not horrible at all, but more beautiful than he could have dared to hope. He climbed in beside her, feeling hot and cold and awkward and ardent.

And so, in the cramped atmosphere of his tiny, unattractive bedroom, on a mild Sunday afternoon in January, in a flat in a converted mock-Tudor house in respectable Winstanley Road, Henry Ezra Pratt and Hilary Nadežda Lewthwaite embarked upon a journey that might, with luck, take them from gritted teeth to ecstasy.

‘There’s no hurry whatsoever,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter if nothing happens. Cuddling is enough.’ But it wasn’t. It wasn’t nearly enough.

His patience and gentleness surprised him. Slowly, Hilary ungritted her teeth. Eventually he took her, rather swiftly, unsatisfactorily, messily. She was too tense to have an orgasm. That was what it was, a taking. Bad. Bad. Taking wasn’t loving.

The daylight faded. The gas fire produced a low, red glow. She began to stroke him. Slowly, together, they sailed away from the land of gritted teeth. In the cave of his room, in the cave of his bed, in the cave of his arms, in a cave within a cave within a cave, Hilary found a place that was safe enough for her. This time, they gave instead of taking. Hilary uttered one single gasp. A gasp of incredulous joy. Outside, people were walking to evening service, down Winstanley Road.

‘Hilary Lewthwaite?’ Henry whispered into her left ear. ‘Do you think that, when your exams are over, you could bear to become Mrs Henry Pratt?’ And then he had an awful worry, a terrible fear that he’d dreamt it all. Because he could have sworn that Hilary Lewthwaite replied, ‘I don’t think I could bear not to,’ and people didn’t say things like that, in real life, on Sunday evenings, in one-bedroom flats in Winstanley Road, to people like Henry Pratt.

After ecstasy, tea. He padded carefully across discarded clothes and shoes. He closed the curtains and switched on the light. She blinked, and smiled, and he realized that, when she was happy, she had the most beautiful face that he had ever seen and that his inability to recognize this possibility in Siena made him irredeemably unworthy of her.

He went through into the living-room, and closed those curtains too. She joined him. The gas fire threw a dim red glow over
her
lovely body. She put her bare feet on his bare feet. She was taller than him now. She kissed him.

He switched the light on, and went into the kitchen.

The front door slammed. Heavy footsteps trudged across the hall. There was a loud knock on his door.

‘Can I come in?’ It was Ginny. Her voice sounded urgent.

He raised a questioning eyebrow. Hilary nodded. He almost wished that he didn’t love her, so that he could fall in love with her at this moment.

‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m not dressed. Come down in a few minutes.’

They tried to dress quickly, but he wanted to kiss her again and again before she disappeared into the commonplace world of the clothed. ‘Thanks for agreeing,’ he whispered. ‘She sounded desperate,’ she whispered. They weren’t quite sure why they were whispering.

Ginny’s eyes and nose were red. She gave a gasp when she saw Hilary. What a day it was, for the gasps of women.

‘This is Hilary,’ said Henry.

‘Gordon has gone off with Jill,’ said Ginny.

‘Oh, Ginny!’ said Henry. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Ginny.’ Often he’d failed to find emotions to go with his expressions of sorrow. Now it was the word that was pitifully inadequate for what he felt.

‘I was good enough to be his bit on the side when he was married. I’m not pretty enough for him to spend the whole of his life with,’ said Ginny. ‘There she is, practically straight out of school, ripe to be astounded at his virility, ripe to be impressed by his knowledge of life. No wonder he couldn’t resist her.’

Henry tried to put a comforting arm round her, but she shook it off.

‘Men are such bastards,’ she said. ‘I should regard myself as lucky to get away. What an escape I’ve had.’

The last thing Henry wanted, now that he’d won Hilary’s delicate confidence, was an eloquent tirade against the shortcomings of men. He could think of no other way of shutting Ginny up, except to say, ‘Hilary and I are engaged.’

Ginny burst into tears. Hilary rushed to her, put her arm round her and held her. Henry felt absurdly redundant.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ginny. She sniffed, searched for a handkerchief, couldn’t find one. Hilary lent her one quite inadequate for her purposes. She blew her nose as prodigiously as she could.

Henry had said it so often. Now, at last, but not in the circumstances that he would have chosen, it was said to him.

Ginny kissed Hilary. Then she kissed Henry.

‘I hope you’ll both be very happy,’ she said.

The next morning Ginny was at her desk as usual, looking indestructible, larger than life. Gordon slunk to his desk, looking smaller than life. Ginny made no mention of Henry’s engagement. Nor did he. He didn’t yet feel sufficiently sure that it had happened.

It was Hilary’s last day before her return to Durham. They met in the Pigeon and Two Cushions. They were both nervous, wondering whether they could ever live up to yesterday.

Oscar came straight over to them, and handed them a note. Could he be congratulating them? Was he psychic? No. The note read, ‘Acute laryngitis.’ They met his gaze, and he nodded solemnly. They fought to maintain control of themselves. They looked deep into each other’s secretly laughing eyes and were enveloped once again in the certainty of their love. Good old Oscar. When he bought the next drink, Henry offered him one. Oscar mimed that he’d have sixpennorth with them, he’d pour it later, and would gargle with it.

‘Shall we go home and tell my family?’ she said.

They went home and told her family. Henry bent down to kiss her mother’s cold cheek. Nadežda’s eyes were filled with tears, and he didn’t know whether they were tears of joy or sorrow. Was she overjoyed at Hilary’s capture of a young man of such warmth, kindness and character, or had she hoped for something better than a short, fat, provincial journalist? Howard Lewthwaite seemed caught in the grip of contradictory emotions – half pleased, half worried. Henry was disappointed at his reaction. Sam said, ‘Have you had it off yet, and if so where have you put it?’ Henry said, ‘Belt up, horror.’ Sam smiled, well content. Howard Lewthwaite produced the bottle of champagne they’d have drunk
if
Labour had won the last election. Yet he still didn’t seem as pleased as Henry had expected.