The Complete Pratt (146 page)

‘I’ve an appointment with Mr Snaithe,’ he told the porter, hoping he sounded confident.

‘He’s not here yet. He’ll meet you in the reading room. First floor. Top of the stairs. Straight ahead.’

He walked up the long, broad, shallow staircase, between innumerable pictures of past members, most of whom were no oil paintings and should have been allowed to remain so.

At the top of the stairs there was a large mirror. The forty-six-year-old Henry Pratt who walked towards him out of the mirror had receding, greying hair, a distinct paunch and a suit that looked cheap and crumpled in these distinguished surroundings. Henry wondered, uneasily, whether he would give this man a job.

He entered the Reading Room. There were two other occupants, both holding copies of
The Times
. He didn’t know what the form was. Should he say anything? He ventured a hesitant ‘good morning’. One man, who looked about ninety, lowered his paper, gave a strangled grunt that might have been ‘good morning’ and raised his paper again. The other man, who looked somewhat older, didn’t move a muscle. Henry assumed that he was deaf, or possibly dead.

He picked up the
Spectator
and looked through it, seeing nothing.

At last Mr Snaithe entered. He was tall – why was everybody so tall? – and slim and had a distinguished streak of grey in his jet-black hair.

‘Henry Pratt?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Splendid.’

They shook hands.

‘Let’s repair to the bar.’

‘Terrific.’

Henry chose a dry sherry.

‘An excellent choice. I’ll join you,’ said Mr Snaithe.

The bar began to fill up. All the members were men and none of them were under forty. Mr Snaithe chatted about cricket and London restaurants and France. Henry longed to get down to business, but it wasn’t for him to broach the subject.

A man whom he vaguely recognised detached himself from the throng and approached their corner.

‘It’s Henry Pratt, isn’t it?’ he ventured.

Henry stood up, thrilled to know somebody, but wishing that he knew who it was that he knew.

‘Roger Wilton. We lived next door to you in Thurmarsh.’

‘Oh! Yes! How are you?’

‘Fine. Fine. And you?’

‘Fine.’

‘Good. I’ll never forget that night when you’d been pushed in the Rundle and came home covered in sewage. What a sight.’ He laughed.

‘Absolutely. Huh! Most amusing.’ Henry laughed mirthlessly, and glanced uneasily at Mr Snaithe.

‘I’m sorry. I think I’m embarrassing you,’ said Mr Wilton.

‘No, no. No, no,’ said Henry, but he didn’t introduce the two men, and Mr Wilton returned to his friends in some confusion.

Henry gave Mr Snaithe a rather sickly smile. He didn’t feel that the encounter had done wonders for his status in his prospective employer’s eyes, and suddenly he wanted to go to Peru with a desperation that frightened him.

‘Let’s go and eat,’ said Mr Snaithe.

‘Terrific.’

He must stop saying ‘terrific’. He’d caught a bad dose of the word.

The dining room was huge and high-ceilinged. Portraits of long-gone judges, cabinet ministers and explorers adorned the walls.

Henry chose oxtail soup and boiled lamb with white caper sauce.

‘Make sure you leave room for the spotted dick,’ said Anthony Snaithe. ‘It’s formidable.’

‘Terrific.’ Damn.

‘How do you like the club?’ asked Anthony Snaithe.

‘It’s very impressive. I can understand the appeal of tradition. But I personally would miss the presence of women.’

‘Ah. You still have an appetite for them, despite all the problems you’ve had with them?’

‘How do you know about my problems?’

‘Everything’s on file. Privacy is an outdated concept. The computer tells me there’s nobody to detain you in England at the moment.’

‘Unfortunately, no.’

‘Though that may be fortunate for me?’

‘I hope so.’

Henry hoped that they were about to get down to business, but the soup arrived and Mr Snaithe veered off the subject.

‘A lot of men like to get away from women,’ he said. ‘Some are homosexual. Some are frightened of women. Some are frightened of their wives, who’ll be much happier about their wasting their afternoon in a place where women aren’t permitted than outside in the real world. And you know, Henry, the conversation of women can be really rather boring. Only last week I had a three-hour chat in this very room about Gloucestershire cricket. Impossible with a woman.’

The room hummed with the vicious gossip that men only feel free to indulge in when there are no women around to point out what an illusion it is that only women gossip. Throughout the boiled lamb with white caper sauce Mr Snaithe talked about life and literature and travel and painting and gardening and the art of relaxation, and Henry couldn’t relax because he was convinced that his every word was being examined under Mr Snaithe’s social microscope.

When the waiter brought them the dessert menu, Mr Snaithe waved it away. ‘No need for that. We’re looking no further than the spotted dick.’

Henry would never know how he managed to finish what would surely be his last spotted dick ever, especially if he went to Peru, but he felt that it was a condition of the job that he did finish it.

At last, over a glass of madeira, Mr Snaithe turned to business.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now this little job. You’ll have a team of six people, whom you’ll help to appoint. When you get to Peru you’ll recruit six Peruvians in preparation for the day when you withdraw and leave them to run the whole caboosh themselves. We’ve got twelve Range Rovers lined up, which will be shipped out to you. You’ll be based in the Cajamarca Valley, which is a delightful corner of northern Peru. We’re offering you a salary of £17,000, and after two years there’s an option on both sides. How does that strike you?’

‘Well, it’s amazing,’ said Henry. ‘Absolutely terrific.’ Damn! ‘Er … the only thing is … what exactly is the scheme?’

‘Cucumbers. We plan to cover the Andes with cucumbers. Why do you think we’ve picked on you?’

He took Jack for a meal at La Bonne Étoile, Thurmarsh’s first French restaurant, and broke the news to him over the
moules marinières
.

Jack looked quite shaken, to Henry’s surprise. He seemed such an independent soul.

‘You’ll be all right,’ Henry said. ‘We hardly see each other, anyway.’

‘I know, but … I’m used to knowing you’re there, if I need you.’

‘You won’t need me.’

‘No. By the time you get back I’ll have set up on my own.’

‘Terrific.’

‘We should see more of each other.’

‘Yes. It’s my fault.’

‘It’s a two-way process, Dad.’

‘True.’

‘We only appreciate things in life when we haven’t got them, don’t we?’

‘My word. You’re quite the philosopher.’

‘Sometimes I think you think I’m as thick as two short planks, just because I’m not arty.’

‘Jack! I don’t! Did I sound like that just then? Perhaps I did. If so, I’m sorry. This sauce is too creamy.’

‘I do them without cream.’

‘You cook
moules marinières
?’

‘Yes. Your builder son is not entirely uncivilised. Surprise surprise.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I’m a very good cook. Tell you what, Dad, come to dinner before you leave.’

‘Terrific. We don’t know enough about each other, do we?’

‘No.’

‘Jack? I go and see Cousin Hilda regularly, though not as often as I should. She’s going to miss me very much.’

‘I always mean to. I mean, I like her. I’m always going next week. Next week never comes.’

‘Everything all right, sir?’ enquired the waiter.

‘Very nice, thank you,’ said Henry.

‘Why didn’t you say the sauce was too creamy?’ said Jack.

‘Because I’m English. Maybe Peru will change all that.’

‘Oh, Dad! Peru’s so far away!’

‘Jack!’

Their main course arrived. Henry had chosen
coq au vin
, Jack steak
au poivre
.

‘Will you promise to go and visit Cousin Hilda while I’m away?’ said Henry. ‘Regularly. You don’t need to stay more than an hour, but she’ll appreciate it.’

‘I promise. Have you told her yet?’

Henry made a face.

The waiter saw and hurried over.

‘Is something wrong, sir?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘I’ve got to go and tell Cousin Hilda tomorrow that I’m going to Peru.’

‘I could get you something else, sir,’ said the waiter.

Jack grinned.

Henry realised how much he was going to miss him, and how big a thing it was to be going to Peru.

‘I’m leaving Thurmarsh, Cousin Hilda.’

‘Leaving Thurmarsh?’ She sounded appalled at such geographical recklessness.

‘Yes. I’ve … got another job.’

‘I see.’ Cousin Hilda’s lips were working with anxiety. ‘Is it far away?’

‘Er … quite far.’ There are moments when death doesn’t seem such a bad option. ‘It’s … er … well … Peru.’

‘Peru??’

‘Peru.’

‘But that’s abroad.’

‘South America. But not for several months yet, and it may only be for two years and I’ll get holidays.’

Cousin Hilda’s hand flapped towards the coal skuttle, but the stove was out, so her favourite displacement activity in times of stress wasn’t possible.

‘Who’ll bury me if I die when you’re away?’ she said.

‘Oh, Cousin Hilda. Don’t be so morbid.’

‘It’s not morbid. I’m seventy-five.’

‘I’m sure you won’t die, Cousin Hilda. But if you do, I’ll fly back. I wouldn’t let them bury you without me.’

She nodded, as if this was some slight reassurance.

‘What does tha want to go to Peru for, anyroad?’ she said in a disparaging tone.

‘It’s a fine country.’

‘I’m sure it is, if you’re Peruvian. You aren’t Peruvian.’

‘No. It’s a British government scheme.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed.

‘Governments!’ she said disparagingly.

‘I’m … er … I’ll have twelve people under me. And twelve Range Rovers. And it’s all in aid of the Third World. We’re going to grow cucumbers all over the Andes.’

‘How’s that going to help the Third World?’ asked Cousin Hilda. ‘Do they like cucumbers? Don’t they have their own cucumbers? They have potatoes. Potatoes came from Peru.’

Henry didn’t dare tell her that he hadn’t asked these questions,
that
he’d been so relieved to be asked to do something important that he’d taken it all for granted. He was astounded by her sharpness.

‘They’ll have researched all that,’ he said feebly.

‘You’d think they’d have learnt their lesson with groundnuts,’ said Cousin Hilda.

Henry sold his flat and rented a bed-sitter in West Hampstead. Almost every day he saw Anthony Snaithe or his assistant. They held interviews, and sent the first two appointees to Peru to find accommodation and generally set things up.

Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in St Paul’s Cathedral, South Africa invaded Angola, Voyager 2 found that Saturn’s rings were numbered in thousands, and in Chile, which was disturbingly close to Peru, President Pinochet banned all political activities for eight more years.

As the date for his departure drew near, Henry had a series of moving farewells.

His heart was heavy as he drove down to Monks Eleigh. It was quite likely that this would be the last time he saw Auntie Doris.

As usual, on his arrival, Uncle Teddy rushed out to meet him.

‘It’s one of her better days,’ he said. ‘She knows you’re coming. She knows who you are. But, Henry, I suggest you don’t mention Peru. Best she never discovers that you’re away.’

Auntie Doris came down the path towards them, tottering slightly. There was a staring look in her eyes, and she was slowly losing weight. One side of her hair appeared to have been severely hacked.

‘Hello, Auntie Doris. How are you?’ he said.

‘Oh, not so bad, Henry. Not so bad.’

‘She cut her own hair yesterday, didn’t you, Doris?’ said Uncle Teddy.

‘It’s very nice,’ said Henry.

‘Oh, do you think so?’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I wasn’t sure. It’s not easy.’

‘You’re a clever girl,’ said Uncle Teddy.

‘Get him some tea,’ said Auntie Doris.

‘Right.’

Henry sat with Auntie Doris in the garden. It had been raining, but the sun was shining now, and steam was rising from the ground all around them. There were very few plants left in the garden, as Auntie Doris kept picking them all.

‘How’s Hilary?’ she said.