The Complete Pratt (138 page)

‘If I get another job first, I’ll be leaving as a career move, not as a matter of principle,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t principle matter to you?’

‘Well I suppose all life’s a compromise, Henry. I think it’s all very well having principles, but one has to eat, and how could we survive if you lost your salary?’

‘Oh, Diana!’

‘Hilary had her novels. I don’t have anything.’

‘Because you never wanted to have anything, and please let’s keep Hilary out of this.’

He plonked her coffee down on the plain, inelegantly knotted pine table, picked up cheap at auction.

‘I didn’t work because Nigel hated the idea of my working,’ said Diana coolly.

‘And what Nigel said went, because you don’t have a mind of your own.’

They stared at each other in silence.

‘I see,’ said Diana. ‘I thought I had an amazing marriage in which we never had rows. I thought we loved and respected each other. That’s what made living in Thurmash and having draughty houses and clapped-out cars and odd battered furniture picked up at auctions and skimping and scraping and not being able to see my schoolfriends and having to shop at Binns of Thurmarsh instead of Harrods and Harvey Nichols worthwhile. That’s why I never once complained. All for nothing. When the crunch comes, you’re no better than Tosser.’

Henry looked at her in horror.

‘I don’t want to argue,’ he said. ‘The last thing I want to do is
argue
. Oh my God, Diana darling, I didn’t realise you’d felt like that all these years.’

‘Because I didn’t tell you, because I loved you, so it didn’t matter. So I’m a not completely empty-headed person. I do have a mind of my own.’

‘I’m sorry. Of course you do.’

‘I care about people, Henry. You, the children, our friends, Auntie Doris, Uncle Teddy, Cousin Hilda. I care passionately about other people, and I don’t think I’m selfish.’

‘You’re not! Oh, darling, you’re not.’

He tried to kiss her. She wouldn’t have it.

‘No. Listen to me,’ she said. ‘Hear me out. I don’t think I’m capable of being roused by abstract issues. It isn’t in me. So I can’t be excited by matters of principle as you can. I’m just not made that way. Of course people shouldn’t be eating radiated cucumbers. You should try to do something about it. I agree. But not resign.’

‘Well, I’ll try, but I have to accuse the Director (Operations) of deceiving me, and that won’t go down well. It might end up with my being sacked. I’d rather resign than that.’

‘Well yes.’

‘I mean, what is life all about? Just to eat, sleep, make love, bring up children so they can eat, sleep, make love and bring up children to eat, sleep and make love? I’m forty. Shouldn’t I be ready to act like a man? Isn’t it important for you to know that your husband is strong and resolute?’

‘Not terribly, frankly. If it was I wouldn’t have married you.’

‘Diana!’

‘I loved you for your warmth, humour, generosity and sexuality, not necessarily in that order.’

The clock on the living room mantelpiece, bought cheap at auction, struck thirteen. Midnight already!

‘More coffee?’

‘May as well. I won’t sleep anyway.’

Over the next cup of coffee, Henry made the point that, if he did resign, he could tell the newspapers and become a bit of a celebrity. ‘That’d help me get other jobs.’

‘It might label you as a troublemaker.’

‘I can’t be as pessimistic and cowardly as that.’

‘You want your moment of glory, don’t you?’

‘Well I must admit I’d quite enjoy it. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Diana. ‘No, I really don’t think I would. I think I believe that glory is an illusion.’

They finished their coffee in silence. There didn’t seem to be any more to be said.

The Director (Operations) read the laboratory report on Henry’s cucumber and then leant forward, his expression grim, his nose more predatory than ever.

‘So you sent this to an outside lab,’ he said, ‘and not to us.’

‘Yes.’

The sun came out from behind a puffy little cloud and set the dust dancing in Timothy Whitehouse’s office. It was an inappropriately delightful early summer’s day.

‘Do you believe our labs to be inefficient, Henry?’

‘No.’

‘Do you believe our labs to be
dishonesty
, Henry?’

Henry gulped. The moment he’d dreaded had arrived. Be brave, Henry.

‘Yes.’

‘I see. Oh dear,’ said Mr Whitehouse gravely. ‘Well now! In that case …’

‘I resign.’

‘What?’

‘I resign.’

‘That’s a bit hasty, isn’t it?’

‘Well, I thought you were going to sack me, and I thought I’d better get my resignation in first.’

‘Sack you?’ The Director (Operations) smiled. ‘No, no. I wasn’t going to sack you.’

‘You weren’t?’

‘No!’ A laugh played briefly on the Director’s thin lips, then disappeared. ‘We hardly ever sack people, Henry. It can mean such
trouble
. Tribunals, lawsuits, strikes, compensation. Oh dear no. I suppose if I found that a member of my staff was systematically murdering his … or her, we mustn’t be biased … colleagues, I might seriously consider dismissal. In your case, no!’

‘Oh. Well … er … what … er … what
were
you going to say?’

‘I was going to say, “Well, in that case I don’t see how I can recommend you as my deputy.”’

‘What? I didn’t think you had a deputy.’

‘I don’t. But our masters in Whitehall have calculated that since the Board was created the paperwork has increased by 142 per cent, and three new posts need to be created. One of them is my deputy. In seven years’ time I will retire. You would have been the man
in situ
. I can’t say you’d have succeeded to my post. I can only say it would have been likely.’

Henry swallowed. Be brave, Henry.

‘Why should I believe you?’ he asked.

‘Don’t you trust me?’

The sun went behind another inoffensive little cloud. The room became dark and grim.

‘You told me not to trust you,’ said Henry stoutly.

‘So I did. So I did.
Mea culpa
!
Mea culpa
! I should have told you not to trust me
over small and personal matters
. Over the great issues of our business I am probity personified. Oh dear, Henry. This is all a storm in a tea-cup.’

The sun streamed into the office again. ‘Henry!’ Mr Whitehouse’s tone became deeply persuasive. ‘One cucumber has shown evidence of radiation. One grower has vegetables that are affected. Cucumbers are distributed centrally. If one person ate a hundred of these cucumbers, I agree, wooden box time. Nobody will! Nobody is in danger. So why alarm the inhabitants of a whole region, of the whole nation, threaten a whole industry, on which so many jobs depend, because of one cucumber?’

Mr Whitehouse paused, waiting for Henry to speak. Henry hesitated. Oh yes, he did hesitate. And, because he hesitated, Mr Whitehouse felt compelled to continue.

‘Between you, me and the mythical G.P., Vincent Ambrose retires in six years. It’s not in the realms of fantasy that you might end up as Chief Executive.’

‘Me, Chief Executive!’ scoffed Henry. ‘I haven’t even been to university.’

‘The tides of egalitarianism are licking at the saltmarsh of privilege even here, Henry. How would you like to be Chief Executive?’

‘It seems a complete sinecure. I’ve only met him twice and each time all he talked about was my kettle.’

‘Exactly. An easy job. A nice salary. A guaranteed smooth passage through this rocky existence. How is your kettle, incidentally?’

‘Fine. No problem.’

‘Good. I should have asked before.
Mea culpa
!’ Timothy Whitehouse leant forward across his desk, predatory nose pointing at Henry. He pulled his braces out as far as they would go, and smiled with all the magnetism that he could muster, and it still didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Withdraw your resignation, Henry. Please.’

This was it. The turning point of Henry’s life. He thought about his easy existence in the protection of the Cucumber Marketing Board. He thought about Diana. About the children. About the long search for work that might ensue, in the increasingly cold world outside. He thought how easy it would be to devote the rest of his working life to cucumbers. He thought about the excitement of existence, the privilege of existence, the brevity of existence.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’

‘Oh well,’ said the Director (Operations), letting his braces thwack back viciously against his chest.

‘I did it,’ said Henry. ‘I resigned.’

‘I knew you would,’ said Diana. ‘I don’t know why you bothered to consult me.’

‘Would you have rathered I didn’t consult you?’

‘No.’

‘Well then. Are you really very upset?’

‘I still love you, but yes, I am. Very upset.’

‘Oh, Diana. I … er … I rang Ginny. I’m going to have to see her later tonight.’

‘Of course you are!’

‘To give her my story!’

‘Not to Helen this time?’

‘Of course not. She made a fool of me.’

‘Still a woman, though. Always a woman.’

‘Diana! This isn’t like you. You’ve never said things like that to me before.’

Diana turned wearily towards him. She was wearing a Fortnum and Masons apron given to her by her mother. She held a half-peeled potato in her left hand.

‘I’ve never been deeply upset with you before,’ she said.

‘Oh God.’

Henry met Ginny Fenwick in the Winstanley, which was the nearest pub to her flat. She was forty-four now. She had never been beautiful, but there had been a sexuality in her appearance which had always attracted men. She was hiding her sexuality nowadays, dressing unattractively, not using make-up, so that men wouldn’t find her attractive, so that they wouldn’t, ultimately, reject her. What a delicate property is confidence.

Henry wished that he didn’t have a story to tell, that they could just sit and reminisce.

He also wished that she was more impressed with his story.

‘We’ve got a new editor,’ she said. ‘He’s a real weed. I don’t think he’d be impressed by your cucumber. As for your resignation, you aren’t a well-known figure. It’s a Leeds organisation, not Thurmarsh. It’s not got a great deal going for it.’

‘But they falsified results last year.’

‘You’ve no proof of that. You don’t have last year’s cucumber.’

‘Well of course not. It’d have rotted. People could be dying because they live near a nuclear power station.’

‘“Could be.” I need proof.’

‘Well go and find it. Dig.’

‘I’m on a local paper, Henry. This is a story for the nationals, or for the local papers in County Durham, not for us. Oh dear, you look so crestfallen.’

Henry was crestfallen. He accepted Ginny’s offer of a drink, but really he felt like running away to sea and never seeing anybody he knew again.

‘Won’t you do the story?’ he said.

‘Oh yes, I’ll do it. For you, Henry dear, I’ll do it. I’m just warning you that it may not get much of a spread.’

‘That’s a bit defeatist, isn’t it?’

‘I never got that job as war correspondent, as you may have noticed. Next week I’ll review my eleventh amateur operatic company production of
Oklahoma
. I feel a bit defeatist.’

‘Oh, Ginny.’

Ginny’s story didn’t make the paper. The local papers in County Durham were interested, and said that they’d monitor the situation. The
Yorkshire Post
was polite and took all the details. Some of the nationals expressed keen interest, and the
Daily Express
said, ‘We’re very grateful. It’ll help us build up our dossier.’ Nothing was ever printed.

Nothing had changed, except that Henry no longer had a job, he no longer had any confidence that he would get a job, and he no longer had any real confidence in his relationship with Diana.

Had it all been a dreadful mistake?

‘Of course not,’ said Martin Hammond, pompous, self-righteous, somewhat tedious Martin Hammond, who was now his only contact with the Paradise Lane Gang. ‘Of course not. Not if you feel better in yourself.’

‘I do and I don’t,’ said Henry. ‘I feel worried. I lack confidence. Yet I feel I have a new inner strength.’

‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ said Martin Hammond, in the Oscar-less bar of the Pigeon and Two Cushions.

‘It’s not much use if I can’t do anything with my new inner strength,’ said Henry. ‘What can I do with it?’

‘Go into politics,’ said Martin Hammond.

ON NEW YEAR’S
Day, 1976, an unemployed, perhaps unemployable Socialist called Henry Ezra Pratt awoke with a severe hangover and wouldn’t have believed anyone who’d told him that within three years he’d have been adopted as Liberal candidate for the Parlimentary Constituency of Thurmarsh.