The Complete Pratt (118 page)

At last the long haul through the mill towns was over and they were in the open country. There were still a few patches of snow to the north of the dry-stone walls. A hundred thousand sheep proclaimed the joy of spring. They were nearly there, and Kate and Jack fell fast asleep.

Henry was aware, throughout the journey, of a great clash between his head and his heart.

Please find that Doris and Geoffrey have discovered true peace at last, said his head, because then there will be nothing more that you need to do.

Oh I hope they aren’t happy, said his heart. I’d love to see Doris and Teddy together again, whatever the difficulties.

Henry gave the casting vote to his heart.

‘Doris’s’ was dancing to the tune of spring. The bar windows were open for the first time that year. Balmy zephyrs stirred the pot plants on the piano top and the loins of young farmers at the bar. Shoppers dumped their carrier bags under the antique tables. Auntie Doris beamed.

They took their drinks into the garden, where Jack and Kate ran around and got very excited. It wasn’t quite warm enough for sitting, but they didn’t mind. Summer was coming to the high country. There was hope in their goose-pimples.

Auntie Doris sat with them for five minutes, but spent the whole time saying, ‘Ah, bless them, aren’t they lovely? Aren’t you lovely children? Oh, Kate is pretty, love her. Oh and Jack’s smile. That smile will turn women’s knees to jelly. Oh, bless him.’

When Henry went to get more drinks, he managed to get served by Auntie Doris and said, ‘On a lovely day like this, Auntie Doris, do you get the feeling, “My life is as wonderful as can be”?’ but all Auntie Doris said was, ‘No. I get the feeling, “Oh hell, I’m going to be rushed off my feet.”’

It was half past three before the last customers had left. They went into Doris and Geoffrey’s private quarters. Kate and Jack had eaten, but the adults were awash with drink and empty with hunger. Auntie Doris began to cook steak, fried onions and chips in her tiny kitchen. In their private living room, shabbier even than the pub and unadorned by antiques, Geoffrey Porringer snored obligingly, Hilary occupied the children with plasticine, and Henry went into the kitchen for a hurried chat with Auntie Doris.

‘So, how are you really?’ he enquired.

Auntie Doris looked at him in surprise.

‘What’s up with you today?’ she asked. ‘You’re very interested in whether I’m happy all of a sudden.’

Henry cursed himself for his mistake even as he was making it. ‘Well, Cousin Hilda asked me the other day if I thought you were happy. And this set me thinking about it.’

‘What’s it to do with her? I don’t want my mental state discussed by the Sniffer. It’s none of her business. Put some plates in the oven, there’s a good lad.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t going to tell her.’

But voluble, indiscreet Auntie Doris was doing an impression of a clam.

They stayed till half past seven. Henry disliked driving home in
the
dark, but the children would sleep and with luck they wouldn’t wake as they were carried to their beds back home.

Shortly before they left, in the quiet early evening bar, Henry said to Auntie Doris, in a low voice, ‘That trouble you had with Geoffrey and the waitresses. Does he still … you know … touch them up?’

‘I’m not telling you anything,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘You’re too friendly with the Sniffer. You may not mean to tell her, but I know you, things’ll slip out. Dried-up old cow.’

Henry felt that this was an implicit admission that things weren’t all right, but it wasn’t the definite answer that he needed. He realised, however, that he’d failed dismally in his secret investigations and he made a mental note not to set up a detective agency when at last he broke free from cucumbers.

He also felt that he couldn’t let Auntie Doris’s description of Cousin Hilda go unchallenged.

‘You’re unfair to Cousin Hilda,’ he said. ‘She’s kind and loving, in her way.’

‘I don’t deny it,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘She’s a kind, loving, dried-up old cow. Collect the empties for me, will you, there’s a good lad?’

Henry hadn’t thought of the possibility of seeking the truth from Geoffrey Porringer, but it was from Geoffrey that he learnt it.

Hilary was loading up the car with the children and all their paraphernalia, Henry was handing her things, including Jack, who was asleep, while also holding Kate’s hand so that she didn’t run into the road, and Geoffrey Porringer was watching them, with a soft smile on his face.

Auntie Doris leant out of the window and hissed, ‘Help them, Teddy. Don’t just stand there like a spare prick.’

‘The name is Geoffrey, Doris, not Teddy,’ hissed Geoffrey Porringer. He turned to Henry and said, ‘Shall I take her hand?’

‘No, no. It’s quite all right. We’ve nearly finished,’ said Henry.

‘I get it all the time,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘Do this, Teddy. Do that, Teddy. On her mind, you see. Dead for six years, and she still loves him. If I say, “I don’t like kidneys, Doris,” it’s,
“Teddy
liked kidneys.” If I say, “I’ve got catarrh,” it’s, “Teddy never had catarrh,” so I say nothing and it’s, “Teddy never sulked, I’ll say that for him.” The man was my friend, Henry, so I know what he was like. A self-centred, inconsiderate rogue. Now he’s a bloody saint. Death’s immortalised the bastard.’

An American spacecraft hit the moon, the last trolley bus ran in London and Coventry Cathedral was consecrated.

One Saturday morning towards the end of May, a couple of weeks before the publication of Hilary’s novel, they left the children with Cousin Hilda, who was always secretly thrilled to have them, and went shopping for clothes, followed by a drink in the Pigeon and Two Cushions, and a meal at Thurmarsh’s first Indian restaurant.

In the Pigeon and Two Cushions, Oscar welcomed Hilary ecstatically.

‘Oh, madam!’ he said. ‘Madam! I’ve missed you. I thought you were dead.
I
nearly died the other day. Chest pains. I thought, “Hey up, Oscar Wintergreen, this is it, owd lad, your number’s up, your time has come, the old ticker’s finally had its chips.”’

‘I presume it hadn’t,’ said Hilary, ‘since you’re still here.’

‘You deduce correctly,’ said Oscar. ‘Indigestion. Salami. Should have known better. Salami and me, we’ve never seen eye to eye. Anyroad, I were very sick. Oh sorry, madam. I shouldn’t have brought that up. Oops! No joke intended. Anyroad, within two hours, right as rain, I were here as per usual that selfsame evening. So, where have you been?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Hilary. ‘I’ve been having, and looking after, two children.’

Oscar’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged, as he realised that he had never endured any health problems in that area. All he could do, therefore, was to fall back upon the question which, for all the pleasure of their reunion, they were longing to hear.

‘What can I get you?’ he said.

Henry had two pints of bitter, and Hilary had a gin and tonic,
and
they laughed at the suitability of Oscar having a surname that was also an ointment.

In the Taj Mahal, which was dark and empty as always on a Saturday morning, they sat in front of an enormous photograph of the eponymous edifice, and ate onion bhajis, lamb dhansak and chicken dopiaza, and Henry suddenly realised that Hilary was about to broach a difficult subject.

‘Er…,’ she said.

‘Er?’ he said. ‘What “er”?’

‘The publishers want me to do a kind of promotional tour.’

‘I see.’

‘Just the major cities. London. Birmingham. Glasgow. Manchester.’

‘How long would you be away?’

‘A week.’

‘What about the children?’

‘Well that’s obviously a problem. I suppose you’d have to take a week off and look after them.’

‘But that’d mean using up my holiday.’

‘I know. Obviously if you don’t feel you can, there’s no more to be said.’

The waiter saw the look on Henry’s face, and approached hurriedly. He had a generous nature, a distinct talent on the sitar, a philosophical bent, a worrying pain in the left testicle, a desperate desire to be a doctor, fantasies about Petula Clark and a disturbing letter about the health of his mother in Hyderabad, but since all he said was, ‘Is everything all right?’ it is impossible, with the best will in the world, to reflect all these factors in dialogue.

‘Yes, yes, everything’s lovely,’ said Henry. ‘If I had a long face it’s just … a personal problem.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the waiter inappropriately.

When the waiter had gone, Hilary said, ‘I mean, I’d like to go, simply because they’ve put all their effort into my book and how can I expect them to do it if I’m not prepared to?’

‘Not because you’d enjoy it?’ said Henry as drily as a bhuna curry.

‘Of course I’d enjoy it,’ said Hilary. ‘I love you very much, but it’s only one week and it’d be interesting and, yes, I’d love to go.’

Henry grinned. ‘Then you must go,’ he said. ‘It’s a wonderful book and you deserve it.’

Hilary leant across and kissed him. The waiter beamed.

So Hilary went to London and Birmingham and Glasgow and Manchester and Henry got the children up and praised Jack for his success on the potty and dressed them and played with them and read them stories and Kate drew and painted and acted out little scenes she’d made up, and Jack put increasingly elaborate things together and pulled them to pieces again and laughed, and Henry cooked fish fingers and beans and dreamt of Hilary in French restaurants, and he said to himself, ‘I am not jealous. I am not jealous. I am not jealous,’ and sometimes it worked.

In the mornings he took the children to the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park, and it was there, sitting on a bench, watching them playing happily on the swings and roundabouts, that he fell into conversation with the Indian waiter.

‘Have a sweet,’ said the waiter. ‘Indian sweet. Very sweet.’

‘Thank you,’ said Henry, taking the proffered delicacy. ‘Oh yes. Very sweet.’

‘Very sweet sweet.’

‘Yes.’

They laughed.

‘Life is an odd one, yes?’ said the waiter.

‘Well, yes. Very. Actually a very odd one.’

‘Quite so. This morning, for instance. I have breakfast. I practise on the sitar.’

‘Oh. You play the sitar?’

‘Not very well.’

‘I bet you do.’

‘Well I suppose I have a talent. I play. I am happy. Then “ouch”.’

‘Ouch?’

‘Back comes the worrying pain in my left testicle. I play a happy tune and I think, “Oh, if only I didn’t have this pain,” and I am happy and sad at the same time.’

They watched the children in silence for a few moments.

‘Do you like being a waiter?’ asked Henry.

‘Not much. It is dreary work and many people are not like you. Many people are pigs,’ said the waiter. ‘I would much like to be a doctor.’

‘One day, perhaps,’ said Henry.

‘Maybe, if I work hard. Your children?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very fine children.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I would love to have children by Petula Clark.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘I know, but she is a fine woman. I like Western women. Eastern women too. All women.’

‘Sexy beast.’

‘Alas, yes. But I ought not to wish for children by Petula Clark. It is impossible.’

‘Unlikely, certainly.’

‘One should never seek to attain the unattainable.’

‘You have a philosophical bent.’

‘Thank you.’

Kate fell and almost cried, but didn’t, so Henry didn’t interfere.

‘Did you see me fall, Daddy?’ she shouted.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see me not cry?’

‘Yes. Brave girl.’

‘I inherited it from my mother in Hyderabad,’ said the waiter.

‘Sorry. What?’ said Henry.

‘My philosophical bent. She has eight children. Brings them up well. Her life is work. Work work work. In old age she gets her reward. Arthritis.’ He stood up and shook Henry’s hand. ‘Count your blessings, my friend.’

IT WAS NATURAL
that on Hilary’s return, the children should run to her with squeals of uninhibited delight, ignoring totally the person who’d looked after their every need for six long days. How wonderful, thought Henry, to be so oblivious of one’s effect on other people.

‘Tell me how helpful you’ve been to your wonderful daddy,’ said Hilary.

Henry felt humiliated by her need to include him with such blatant tact. She was nervous, and this made him feel grumpy. The words that he’d planned – ‘Oh, darling, I’ve missed you so much’ – stuck in his craw. How often this seemed to happen to him.

‘You’re nervous,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘I was frightened you might be grumpy. And I was right to be frightened. You are grumpy.’

‘I’m only grumpy because you didn’t trust me not to be grumpy,’ growled Henry.