The Complete Pratt (12 page)

They went outside.

‘What’s up?’ said Henry.

‘I don’t go around wi’ evacuees,’ said Simon.

‘I’m not an evacuee,’ shouted Henry.

‘It’s Patrick,’ whispered Simon, and disappeared back into the shop.

School began again. The nit lady came. Pam Yardley had nits. Her brown hair was shorn and she was sent to Coventry and Henry didn’t dare speak to her and Simon came up to him in the playground, and Henry knew that Simon was only pretending not to be his friend because he was frightened of Patrick, so he thought everything might be all right now he wasn’t seeing Pam Yardley any more, but suddenly Simon’s face was twisted into hatred, and he shouted, ‘Pam Yardley’s got nits. Pam Yardley’s got nits.’

On account of his divided loyalties, Henry had ended up without a friend in the school. His little group of six had changed slightly. They had left Cyril Orris behind, and caught up with Lorna Arrow. Jane Lugg, Pam Yardley and Simon refused to speak to him at all. Henry Dinsdale was distant. Lorna Arrow, fair, tall, thin and toothy, tried to be friendly once on the way home, but he spurned her offer. ‘It’s nowt personal,’ he said kindly, ‘but girls are more bother than they’re worth.’

Montgomery defeated Rommel at El Alamein. There was no news of Ezra. His son, Henry, buried himself in his studies and his reading. He listened to his good friend, the wireless. He heard an all-star concert with Naughton and Gold, and Rawicz and Landauer, Music Hall with Elsie and Doris Waters, Randolph Sutton and Magda Kun. On ‘Children’s Hour’ there was ‘Stuff and Nonsense’, fun fare on the air concocted by Muriel Levy, with
Doris
Gambell, Violet Carson, Wilfred Pickles, Muriel Levy and Nan. But, without friends, there was no fun in his heart any more.

Christmas drew near. One day, as he reached the end of the village on his way home, he found his path blocked by Simon and Patrick Eckington, Freddie Carter and Colin Lugg. They took him to Freddie Carter’s.

Colin Lugg and Patrick Eckington grabbed him, and twisted his arms. Colin Lugg’s breath smelt of sick and Patrick Eckington’s breath smelt of freckles. They forced him to the lavatory, and thrust his head deep into the bowl, which was the creation of Cobbold and Sons, of Etruria. But Cobbold and Sons could not help him now.

The bowl was dark and smelt vaguely fetid. They held his head there until each boy had flushed the cistern, which took a long time to fill.

They let him go then, without a word. Simon Eckington couldn’t look him in the eye.

At the Christmas carol service, Belinda Boyce-Uppingham sang a solo of ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’ quite exquisitely. Henry fancied that she was inspired by the desire to humiliate him.

He refused to go to the children’s party in the Parish Hall. By all accounts he missed a treat. Coon songs were given by Mr Ballard, who also proved his ability with the banjo.

In April, news came that Ezra had been injured. He was on a troop ship, which would dock at Plymouth.

Ada set off to meet him. Henry wanted to accompany her, but was told that this was a crisis, not a treat. Nobody could be sure how badly Ezra had been injured.

On Troutwick Station, windswept among the high hills, Ada said, ‘Now tha’ll be a good, brave lad, won’t tha?’

‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘How many wheels does tha think t’ engine will have?’

The engine roared in and shuddered gasping to an exhausted halt.

‘It’s got ten wheels,’ he told her. ‘Two little ’uns and three big ’uns on each side.’

‘Oh aye?’ said Ada. ‘Now think on. Be a good lad.’

The train started with such a display of skidding and coughing from the engine that Henry felt sorry for the iron monster.

Some chickens which had arrived from Carlisle in a wicker basket protested volubly.

Ada waved until she was just a speck.

‘It had ten wheels,’ said Henry on the way home. ‘Two little ’uns and three big ’uns on each side.’

‘Oh aye?’ said Auntie Kate, who was determined not to give him too good a time, so that he would miss his mother. ‘Now remember what our Ada said. Be a good boy.’

The summer term began. Miss Candy asked them about their experiences in the holidays.

‘My dad’s been injured in t’ war,’ he said proudly.

‘My grandad was hurt in t’ Dardanelles,’ announced Henry Dinsdale.

‘Does anybody know where the Dardanelles are?’ said Miss Candy, ever the improviser.

‘Just above the knackers,’ said Jane Lugg. Everybody giggled.

‘That’s a bit silly, Jane,’ said Miss Candy. ‘And it’s not the sort of thing we laugh at.’

Miss Forrest entered the classroom without knocking, which irritated Miss Candy, because if she had ever entered Miss Forrest’s classroom without knocking there would have been ructions.

‘Your great-uncle’s here to see you, Ezra,’ said Miss Forrest.

Uncle Frank stood in the corridor, in his battered green tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. He was twisting his hat in his hands. His face was as old as the hills and as dry as a stone wall. He put his hand on Henry’s shoulder and led him out into the playground. It surprised Henry that the sun was shining.

So his father had died! He couldn’t really feel much. He had almost forgotten his father.

Uncle Frank led him towards his car. Pleasure motoring was forbidden now, but this journey had not been for pleasure.

His father got out of the car with difficulty, and hobbled to meet him. His left leg was in plaster. He looked gaunt and old.

‘She stepped straight in front of a bus,’ he said. ‘She never knew what hit her.’

*

His father’s injuries had healed. He was going back to the war. Henry was glad, although he knew that he must never say so.

They sat beside the infant Mither. It worried away at its stones. Three months of its ceaseless efforts had passed since Henry had learnt of his mother’s death.

They had so little to say to each other, father and son. It was nearly harvest time, and the sky promised rain again. There was to be bad weather for the harvest of 1943, although the hay crop had been good, and prices for sheep and calving cows had been good all year.

Henry dived off the top board of the pool of silence that separated them.

‘Why does God kill people?’ he asked.

Ezra had longed for, yet dreaded, some question such as this.

He would never tell Henry about the funeral. She’d gone to Bristol, on her way to Plymouth, to visit his sister, who had married a bus driver, and to arrange for them to break their journey there on the way back. She’d gone shopping. Perhaps she’d been dreaming of his return. The driver hadn’t stood a chance.

His sister and her husband had gone to Plymouth to meet him. Her husband had said, ‘I’m only glad it wasn’t my bus.’ They hadn’t been churchgoers, and there had only been three mourners at the funeral. Ezra, his sister and her husband. The harassed vicar had referred to Ada as ‘our dear departed brother’. They hadn’t told anybody at Rowth Bridge, because they might have felt obliged to come, and there was no point, and it was best that Henry should be told by his father.

‘He doesn’t kill people,’ said Ezra at last. ‘He lets them get on wi’ things, and if they happen to get theirselves killed, well, that’s it. He looks at them, and if they’ve been good, he takes them to a better place.’

‘Was my mam good?’

‘Aye. Very good.’

‘Has she gone to a better place?’

‘Oh aye. Happen.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Up there. In heaven.’

Henry looked up at the scudding clouds. Sometimes the sky was blue and you could see that it was empty. He found it difficult to believe that his mother could be up there.

He felt a spot of rain.

‘Is rain t’ people up there crying?’ he said.

‘I don’t reckon so,’ said Ezra. ‘They’re happy up there.’

‘Doesn’t she miss us?’

‘Oh aye. She misses us. But she hopes she’ll see us one day. That’s why it’s so important for thee to be good.’

Ezra was quite proud of that, and also a little ashamed.

‘Tha’s a lucky lad to be wi’ Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate,’ said Ezra. ‘I doubt this war’ll go on while next Christmas or more. Owt can happen to me, tha knows. Look at it this road. Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate, they’re thy parents now.’

‘I don’t reckon there is a God,’ said Henry. ‘If there was, he wouldn’t have killed me mam.’

Henry exchanged a big mother and a small father for a small mother and a big father, and life went on. At first, the nights were the worst times. His bed, which had been a womb, had become a prison. Perhaps, when your mother had died, you could no longer go back to wombs.

One day, not long after it had happened, he saw Simon and Patrick Eckington waiting for him, on his road home from school, and his blood ran cold.

Patrick Eckington’s freckled face was blazing. He thrust a brown paper parcel into Henry’s hands.

‘Peace offering,’ he mumbled.

Henry took it as if he had been handed a bomb. He opened it cautiously. It was a book about birds and animals. On the fly-leaf, there was written, ‘To Henry, from his friends Simon and Patrick.’

‘Thanks,’ said Henry.

‘Are we friends again, then?’ said Simon.

‘Happen,’ said Henry.

One day, Henry and Simon climbed Mickleborough. On the way up, they saw a peregrine falcon. At the top they knighted each other. First Henry knighted Sir Simon Eckington of that Ilk (they knew now it wasn’t Ilkley). Then Sir Simon knighted Lord
Pratt
of Mitherdale (Thurmarsh was forgotten) and explained that he had never wanted to be beastly to his chum, but had been forced to, owing to the threats of his elder brother, Sir Freckle de Fish-face, who had regarded Lord Pratt of Mitherdale as a filthy swot, and a silly twerp to boot. Sir Simon apologised. Lord Pratt accepted. They became friends again, a little awkwardly at first perhaps, never quite the same again perhaps, but friends.

Miss Candy gave Henry special attention without the other children realising it. Even Jane Lugg and Pam Yardley declared an unspoken, uneasy truce. Lorna Arrow made passes at him. (Can it be that our podgy hero is going to turn out to be attractive to women? Women are strange in these matters. We have seen on what dross the lovely Turnbull sisters threw themselves away.) Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate no longer felt that they had to hold back to avoid stealing a mother’s love. Not that they spoilt him. Food wasn’t too short up here. You had your own pig, and you used every bit bar t’ squeak. But thrift was still the order of the day. Auntie Kate put a bottle of borax by the wash-basin to add to the water in order to use less soap (even if at the cost of using more borax, a perfectionist might complain). She washed plum and prune stones, cracked them and retrieved the kernels. She made buttons out of small circles of calico. She encouraged still greater effort in the saving of scrap metal and waste paper. (Luckily she never knew that Jackie kept all her love letters
and
bound them with elastic bands.) Nevertheless, they treated Henry now as if he was the son they had never had. Love and attention were not spared. And the welcoming wireless thundered on. Gwen Catley singing. Sandy Macpherson at the theatre organ. Felix Mendelssohn and his Hawaiian Serenaders. ‘Hi, Gang’ with Bebe Daniels, Vic Oliver and Ben Lyon. ‘The Happidrome’ returned with Ramsbottom, Enoch and Mr Lovejoy, and guests with magical names like Flotsam and Jetsam and Two Ton Tessie O’ Shea. He loved them all, utterly without discrimination. He had loved his mother, but he was eight years old, and gradually it became like trying to commemorate a drowned woman by preserving a hollow in the ocean where she had plunged. Life closed slowly over Ada’s head.

The United States were leading the allies’ effort now. In the
Dandy
and the
Beano
, more stories had American settings. Big Eggo was as likely to catch a Jap as a Hun, and Musso the Wop had long since been put on-a-da scrapheap, his propaganda value exhausted. The allies’ shipping losses were plummeting as the battle against the ‘U’ boats took a ‘U’ turn. It was permissible to talk about eventual victory. Men’s minds turned to thoughts of the kind of world that victory would bring. Sir William Beveridge was planning for universal social security. Poverty and mass unemployment were to be things of the past. R. A. Butler was preparing his plans for equal opportunity of education for all. Was it too much to hope that this time men would get it right after the war?

‘“I feel a bit of a frost, Mr Barrett – always catching colds and letting the office down,”’ read Henry. He had developed the habit of reading aloud from the newspapers, to prove how proficient he had become. Today it was the turn of the adverts. ‘What’s “a bit of a frost”, Auntie Kate?’

‘Somebody who lets the side down,’ said Auntie Kate. ‘Like tha’ll be if tha doesn’t go to Leeds with Miss Candy.’

Miss Candy wanted to take Henry to Leeds on Saturday. He didn’t want to go. It wasn’t what schoolteachers did. There was bound to be a catch in it.

‘Why does she want to take me to Leeds?’ he asked.

‘Happen she reckons thee,’ said Auntie Kate.

He agreed to go. He could hardly refuse after they’d said he could go to Troutwick on Jim Wallington’s bus
on his own
.