The Complete Pratt (123 page)

He wheezed on sore feet and jellied legs, up Brunswick Road, down the hill to the town centre, past the lit windows of Premier House, where production of the morning’s
Chronicle
was in full swing, and along York Road, parts of which were as smelly as his clothes. Stragglers of the night gave him looks as dirty as his trousers. A drunk, urinating in the gutter, stared at him as at an inferior being.

As he limped up the garden path, he had a wild hope that Hilary would be there, remorseful. But she wasn’t. The Wiltons greeted him as if his was the only way to dress, and left only reluctantly and after assurances that he would phone them if necessary.

He phoned the police, had a whisky, and a bath, and went to bed to toss through a long, lonely night.

In the morning, he told the children that Hilary had gone to see a friend, but they sensed that something was wrong, and were fractious.

The police phoned at nine forty-five. She’d been found wandering near Hoyland Common. She’d been taken to the General Hospital. She was suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia. She didn’t know who she was.

She looked at Henry and showed no sign of recognition. She looked feverish. Her eyes were hot but blank. He tried to hold her hand, but she wouldn’t let him. He phoned Howard Lewthwaite in Spain, and within half an hour he had booked himself on a plane to London that evening.

Even facing Howard Lewthwaite was better than inactivity. Henry told the children that Mummy had been taken ill, but would be all right. He arranged for them to spend the night with Alastair and Fiona Blair, who had become good friends, and he drove to London to meet Howard Lewthwaite off the plane.

Hilary’s father looked old and ravaged beneath his suntan. Henry told him what had happened. It seemed the only course.

‘I simply can’t believe it,’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘She wouldn’t.’

‘I thought that,’ said Henry. ‘But she did.’

‘Have you any proof?’ asked Howard Lewthwaite.

‘There was the letter,’ said Henry, flicking the wipers on.

‘That was him telling her that he loved her. You haven’t seen a letter from her telling him that she loved him.’

This simple truth was a revelation to Henry. He realised that what he’d taken as proof was no kind of proof at all. But he couldn’t yet face the implications of even the possibility that he’d been wrong.

‘Then why did she keep the letter?’ he said.

Howard Lewthwaite didn’t reply.

Henry didn’t tell him that before he’d seen the letter he’d been certain that she and Nigel were having an affair. The intensity of his jealousy was a very personal shame.

‘When I showed her the letter she went absolutely white,’ he said. ‘I didn’t need to ask her anything more.’

It was four in the morning when they reached the hospital. Henry realised that Howard Lewthwaite didn’t want him to stay. So he went home and tried to sleep. He was utterly exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. It was true, he hadn’t got proof. For Hilary to be unfaithful was deeply painful, but if he’d got it wrong his guilt would be even more painful. He needed proof.

At half past six, unshaven and hollow-eyed, having had barely a wink of sleep for forty-seven hours, he set off for London again. There wasn’t much on the roads that Sunday morning. He drove fast, barely conscious of the mechanics of driving, going through the events of the last two days again and again.

He found Nigel Clinton’s flat in Highgate without difficulty. Hilary’s editor was very surprised to see him, and shocked at his appearance.

‘What on earth’s up?’ he said. ‘You look awful. Has something happened to Hilary?’

Henry sank into an armchair and an enormous feeling of exhaustion swept over him. He’d intended to have an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation, but since he was several inches shorter than Nigel it was perhaps just as well that he was seated, with Nigel towering over him, as he said, ‘Have you been having an affair with my wife?’

‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Nigel. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

‘Did you write to her, saying, “Dearest Hilary, I love you so much, darling”?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I loved her. Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have. I loved her from the first moment I met her, but I never stood a chance.’

‘What?’

‘She loves you. She’s utterly faithful and always will be. I was so jealous that Saturday when I saw you all together. I’ve taught myself, with great difficulty, not to love her. I’m free again now.’

All his life Henry had experienced conflicting emotions, but in that flat, of which he would take away not the slightest visual memory, he was almost torn apart by them. Joy, relief, pain, shame, despair.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He stood up. He went dizzy, and felt that he was going to faint.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Nigel.

‘Yes. Just very tired and very hungry.’

‘You aren’t going to hit me, then?’

‘Why should I? You’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘I tried, though. I tried hard to do something wrong. You look very pale.’

‘I’m going to have to sit down again.’

‘I only cook spaghetti bolognese. But I cook a very good spaghetti bolognese.’

Henry’s return journey was horrific. It was the fourth time he had driven between London and Thurmarsh in two days, and he’d had no sleep at all during that time. He had cramp, backache, arm-ache, a headache, and a sense that his brain was too small to fit his head. He’d gone to London to make Nigel Clinton eat humble pie, and instead he’d eaten Nigel Clinton’s spaghetti bolognese. And he’d made the worst mistake that he’d ever made in his life.

He recognised now that Hilary was innocent and his jealousy had been the mental illness of a possessed man. He realised now that when she’d gone white it was with anger at his hunting through her pockets and reading her mail and with disgust at his lack of trust.

The nights were drawing in, and the light faded early on that suitably sombre October evening. The clouds were heavy, but there was no rain. Smoke from wood fires rose straight into the still sky, and curls of mist licked the hedgerows. Half the time Henry was unaware that there was a road and that he was in his Mini. He was in the summer house in Perkin Warbeck Drive, with Hilary telling him of the boy who had left her and the man who had raped her. She’d told him what it was like to wake up in a hospital ward, among strangers, not knowing who you were, and to realise gradually that this was the same old you, the same old earth, the fight had to go on, you hadn’t taken a large enough dose. Anna had told him that Hilary was mentally ill. ‘I’ve had a lot of depression,’ she’d said that night. ‘And I tried to kill myself. And I went very inward. If that’s mental illness, I’m mentally ill.’

He had sobbed, ‘What a responsibility.’ He had said, ‘You’re a complete fool, you know. I’m clumsy, insensitive, thoughtless, hopeless. I’m a case.’ He was, and he’d failed utterly in his responsibility. The tears streamed, the mist turned to fog, the journey became a nightmare.

He reached the General Hospital at ten fifteen that night. He was told that Hilary was under sedation. Such was his physical state that a suspicious and brave nurse accompanied him to the car park and watched until she was certain that he had really left the area.

Henry slept for thirteen hours, had horrendous nightmares, and woke to realise that he had completely forgotten about his own children and was already three and a half hours late for work.

The Blairs had got the children to school without any problems. Timothy Whitehouse sympathised over what Henry called ‘a little domestic upheaval’, and accepted his absence with equanimity. ‘The Cucumber Marketing Board will survive till you get things sorted out,’ he said. And a visit to the hospital soon established that there was nothing Henry could do there.

Henry and Howard sat in the draughty Main Reception.

‘She has pneumonia,’ Howard told him. ‘And a full-scale nervous breakdown.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘She’s in no physical danger. She recognises me, but doesn’t remember anything about that fateful night. The doctor thinks she
will
recover her memory when the shock wears off. To see you just yet would be far too dangerous.’

A man with his leg in plaster was wheeled through, and a woman with her arm in plaster said, ‘Hello, gorgeous, shall we go out and get plastered together?’

The receptionist coughed without putting her hand in front of her mouth.

‘Howard?’ said Henry.

‘Yes?’

Howard Lewthwaite’s tired face was cautious. He’d been alerted by Henry’s tone of impending confession.

‘Hilary didn’t sleep with Nigel Clinton.’

‘Well I told you she didn’t.’

‘I know.’

A yellow van pulled up with a screech, and a man in blue overalls hurried in through the swing doors with a red fire extinguisher.

‘All sorted,’ he told the receptionist, who smiled and sneezed without getting a handkerchief out.

‘Howard?’ said Henry.

‘Yes?’

‘All this is my fault.’

‘Henry! These things happen.’ Hilary’s father smiled wearily. There was no hostility in his smile, but no friendship either.

Henry collected the children from school. When they got home,
he
told them that their mummy was ill in hospital, and they would be able to see her when she was better. They looked very solemn, but didn’t cry.

Next morning, he took the children to school, and Fiona Blair, dark, tall, handsome and very Scottish, offered to take them home from school each evening and give them their tea, so that Henry could return to work.

‘That’s incredibly kind of you,’ said Henry.

‘What are friends for?’ said Fiona Blair. She touched his arm gently. ‘We’re so sorry. We love you both.’

Henry flinched from their love. He had caused so much pain. He needed self-abasement.

Nevertheless, he hoped he wouldn’t need too much self-abasement at Cousin Hilda’s.

He hurried round, to catch her before she went shopping.

As he walked up the gravel drive of number 66, Park View Road, he became a child again. His stomach sank with dread.

Cousin Hilda was very surprised to see him at five past nine in the morning.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

If only nothing had been wrong, and he could have said, ‘Why do you assume something must be wrong, just because I call at five past nine?’

The smell of Tuesday morning’s sausage and tomato filled the little basement room. The stove was dying now that breakfast was over.

‘We’ve had a bit of a tragedy,’ he said, sitting at the table, in his old place.

Cousin Hilda gave an anticipatory sniff, and Henry launched into his tale of woe.

When he’d finished, Cousin Hilda looked at him sadly and said, ‘How could you think owt like that of Hilary? She’s a grand lass, is Hilary.’

Henry wanted to say, ‘Why couldn’t you ever have said that to her face? It’s too late now,’ but all he said was, ‘I know.’

‘Mrs Wedderburn were saying to me the other day, “That
woman
is a saint. Henry has married a saint.” She’s never wrong about folk, isn’t Mrs Wedderburn, even if her tongue does sometimes run away with her.’

‘Anyway, I thought I’d come and let you know straight away,’ said Henry.

‘Thank you for that.’

Cousin Hilda made them a cup of Camp coffee, and they sat gloomily in the cooling room, no longer cheered by the warmth and glow of the stove.

She sniffed violently.

‘Satire,’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Henry.

‘That’s what’s behind it all. All this satire. There’s no trust any more. That David Frost. Who does he think he is?’

‘Well I do think people don’t trust each other as much, and sometimes they’re right not to, because they don’t deserve trust, but I don’t think satire can be held to blame. My problems with Hilary aren’t caused by David Frost.’

‘Well when I were a girl we didn’t have satire, and we did perfectly well wi’out it.’

‘You didn’t have motor cars either.’ Henry was briefly triumphant, believing that he’d scored a debating point.

‘Exactly!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘It’s bound to affect the brain, is carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s forced to.’

Henry remembered that, despite his troubles, he ought to continue to take an interest in Cousin Hilda’s life.

‘How are your gentlemen?’ he asked.

‘I’ve lost Mr Ironside. Well, it were only to be expected. His family have joined him up here. But I’ve lost Mr Pettifer and all.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘Aye, but it were only a stop-gap while he found a house, and he stayed eight years. The funny thing is, I were glad he was going, to say I’d had eight years of his bitterness. But now he’s gone I miss him. I’d give owt now to hear him running down young Adrian’s cheese counter and looking down on me because I never met Laurence Gielgud. I must be getting old. There’s too much change in this business.’

‘Who’ve you got now, then?’