The Complete Pratt (19 page)

He wandered over to the waste ground in his scuffed shoes with soles flapping loose, socks full of holes, torn trousers, torn shirt,
and
heavily-stained pullover.

There, on the waste ground, stood Tommy Marsden, Chalky White, Billy Erpingham and Ian Lowson. For an awful moment, he thought that Martin, his one ally, was going to let him down. But then Martin came, slowly, owlishly, reluctantly.

The sun was a pale orb, still just visible through the returning mist.

Tommy Marsden got out a penknife, such as Henry’s father might have made, in his palmier days. He flicked one of its two blades open. There were crinkles in his black hair, and when he smiled he showed long, irregular teeth.

Henry stood with the river on his left and the canal on his right, facing the other five, who all looked very solemn.

‘Members of t’ Paradise Lane Gang,’ said Tommy Marsden. ‘Be silent for t’ president, me. Does anybody know owt why Henry Pratt should not be elected a member of the Paradise Lane Gang?’

Nobody spoke.

A train steamed past, invisible in the thickening mist.

‘Hold out thy left hand,’ commanded Tommy Marsden.

Henry held out his left hand.

Tommy Marsden advanced, holding out the knife in front of him.

Henry closed his eyes. Don’t shake, hand. Don’t faint, body. It’s up to thee. There’s nowt I can do.

‘Full name?’ said Tommy Marsden.

‘Henry Ezra Pratt.’

‘Age?’

‘Eleven.’

‘Say after me. I, Henry Ezra Pratt…’

‘I, Henry Ezra Pratt…’

‘Of this parish…’

‘Of this parish…’

‘Do agree…’

‘Do agree…’

‘To obey all t’ rules of t’ Paradise Lane Gang.’

‘To obey all t’ rules of t’ Paradise Lane Gang.’

‘I now make t’ cross of t’ Paradise Lane Gang on thy left hand,’ said Tommy Marsden.

Henry felt a searing pain in his left hand. It seemed to shoot right up his arm.

Then the pain came again.

He felt unsteady. He opened his eyes. Blood was trickling down his hand from the two incisions. He felt faint. He willed himself not to faint.

‘I, Thomas John Marsden, welcome thee,’ said Tommy Marsden, shaking Henry’s right hand.

‘Thanks,’ said Henry, holding his left hand out stiffly, with the palm turned up, so that the blood wouldn’t flow.

Ian Lowson came forward.

‘I, Ian Sidney Lowson, welcome thee,’ he said, shaking Henry’s hand.

Martin Hammond came forward.

‘I, Martin Ronald Hammond, welcome thee,’ he said.

Henry shook his hand.

In the distance, trucks were being shunted. The noise was resonant in the fog.

Chalky White came forward.

‘I, Benjamin Disraeli Gladstone White, welcome thee,’ he said, grinning sheepishly.

Billy Erpingham came forward.

‘I, Billy Erpingham, welcome thee,’ he said.

Henry had achieved what he had wanted for so long. He was a member of the Paradise Lane Gang.

He no longer wanted it.

He woke up at three o’clock the next morning. His hand was throbbing.

His father was screaming. He rushed into his father’s room.

‘Wake up, dad,’ he shouted.

His father sat up with a start. His ill-fitting dentures were in a glass at the side of the bed. With his empty mouth he looked hollow and ill and far older than his forty years. Both Henry’s grandmothers had died during June. It had added to his father’s gathering gloom.

‘What is it?’ said Ezra.

‘Tha were screaming,’ said Henry.

Sweat was pouring off Ezra’s face.

‘I had a nightmare,’ he said. ‘I were dreaming about t’ war.’

‘Were they trying to kill thee?’ said Henry.

‘Nay,’ said Ezra. ‘It were all the ones what I killed, coming back to haunt me.’

‘How many Germans did tha kill, dad?’

‘I don’t know. Tha never knows, tha knows. Leastways, not in t’ artillery. Tha fires in t’ general direction of ’em, like, and that’s about it.’

Henry had to strain to hear what his father was saying, without his teeth in.

‘It were their faces. It were their faces, Henry.’

Henry felt a tingle of horror. He didn’t want to know what their faces were like, and yet he did.

‘I didn’t recognise them at first,’ said Ezra. ‘Then it came to me who they were.’

‘Who were they, dad?’

‘Rawlings: Thong, Ibbotson: Salter, Cedarwood, Smailes: Ellison, Bunce, Gravel, Thompson and Hatch.’

One never-to-be-forgotten evening, at the beginning of October, 1946, two events occurred. One of them marked the end of an era. The other, although Henry didn’t recognise this at the time, marked the start of what was quite soon to become the beginning of an era.

The evening began with the end of an era, and ended with the start of the beginning of an era.

Henry and Martin had been leading a double life. By day, studious young citizens, beginning to unravel the mysteries of Latin, French, Geometry, Physics, Chemistry, Geography and History. By night, members of the Paradise Lane Gang.

Their activities were relatively innocent.

They went to the pictures, to see Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone in
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
, and by means of those who had already gone in coming out and handing tickets to the others in the lav, they managed to get the six of them in on three tickets. The cinema was still a novel, exciting experience to Henry, and he wished that he could enjoy the film and forget about manking about.

They sat in different parts of a tram and all pretended to be Polish refugees who didn’t understand English, thus driving the conductor into a frenzy.

They went to see Thurmarsh United play Gateshead. The Reds won 4–1, over-running the Redheugh Park side with goals by
GRAVEL
(2),
BUNCE
and
HATCH.
After the match, they locked themselves into the gents and waited there for over an hour, and then they went out and played on the pitch. Henry went in goal. He was actually between the posts, in the Blonk Lane stadium, with shots being rained at him from all angles. He even saved two (both from Martin). Then men came running after them and they scattered to all parts of the ground, shinning up walls and managing to get everybody out of the ground safely, except Henry. A phrase that he had read came to him in the nick of time and he said, ‘We just wanted to play on t’ sacred turf,’ and the man let him go with just a gentle clip round the ear-hole.

Then came that October evening. The end of an era. The final act in the saga of the Paradise Lane Gang.

They met on the waste ground as usual. Tommy Marsden led them over the river, over the railway and into the rows of semi-detached houses that wound up and over the hills, as far as the eye could see. He led them to a small row of shops – a grocer’s, a greengrocer’s, a butcher’s, a newsagent’s and a little sub-post office. Opposite them was a trolley-bus terminus, and here there was a tiny public garden. It was almost completely dark, the garden was deserted, and there was no trolley-bus due for thirty-five minutes. Street lighting was dim. Tommy Marsden got out a catapult, and asked Martin Hammond to break one of the shop windows. Martin refused, unless Tommy Marsden did so first. Tommy Marsden promptly catapulted a stone and shattered the butcher’s window, sending glass splintering all over the empty slab. They ran away by different routes, silently, with orders to meet up again on the waste ground. They did meet up on the waste ground. Tommy Marsden told Martin Hammond that it was his turn next. Martin Hammond refused.

‘We never broke windows before,’ he said.

‘We were nobbut kids,’ said Tommy Marsden.

‘Knocking on doors and running away, fair enough,’ said
Martin
Hammond.

‘Kids’ stuff,’ said Tommy Marsden. ‘Even breaking windows is kids’ stuff really.’

‘What isn’t kids’ stuff?’ said Henry.

‘Stealing,’ said Tommy Marsden.

There was a brief silence.

‘I’m not stealing,’ said Martin Hammond, chucking a stone into the canal in a gentle parabola.

‘Bloody nesh grammar-school cissy,’ said Tommy Marsden.

‘That’s right,’ said Billy Erpingham.

‘Bloody stuck-up, snotty-nosed snob,’ said Chalky White.

‘That’s right,’ said Billy Erpingham.

‘Henry,’ said Tommy Marsden. ‘Tha’s t’ newest member. Thursday, bring us stolen bread, jam and apples for us tea. And I need a watch.’

‘I’m not stealing either,’ said Henry.

Tommy Marsden grabbed his arm and twisted it.

‘Tha promised to obey,’ he said.

‘Give over, Tommy,’ said Ian Lowson. ‘Let him be.’

‘Tha promised to obey,’ said Tommy Marsden.

‘So did everybody else,’ said Henry.

‘No, they didn’t,’ said Tommy Marsden. ‘We never had no initiation ceremonies before.’

‘It’s just a put-up job,’ said Henry. ‘It’s not our fault we’ve gone to t’ grammar school.’

‘That’s right,’ said Billy Erpingham.

Henry kicked Tommy Marsden, and suddenly it was all flying fists and boots. Henry and Martin had no chance. They were outnumbered two to one, even though they suspected that neither Ian Lowson nor Chalky White felt particularly vicious towards them, and Billy Erpingham only did what he did because he always did what Tommy Marsden did.

Henry flailed and pummelled and scratched. He received one tremendous blow on the nose, which started to bleed. He only got in one decent blow himself. Unfortunately, it was on Martin Hammond. Boots crashed against his knees and back. An elbow thudded into his private parts with squelching venom. His ears rang. He could hardly breathe. Blood was pouring from his nose.

‘Give up?’ said Tommy Marsden.

‘No,’ he shrieked, desperate to give up, but unable to.

All six of them were writhing in the mud. He was pinned beneath the heap, trapped, dying, getting smaller and smaller and falling, falling, falling into the arms of death. He heard Tommy Marsden, a million miles away, say ‘Give up?’, almost beseeching them to surrender, but he couldn’t have said ‘yes’ if he’d wanted to.

Then the heap just rolled slowly over and lay panting all around him, and he slowly came back to life and managed to roll over onto his back so that his nose wouldn’t bleed so much.

Chalky White was being sick into the canal, having been inadvertently punched in the stomach by Tommy Marsden. Martin was gasping for breath. Billy Erpingham and Ian Lowson sat calmly, waiting for their leader to speak.

‘That’s that,’ said Tommy Marsden.

They limped to their various homes in the cul-de-sac. The Paradise Lane Gang had met for the last time. An era had ended.

The start of the beginning of an era (although he didn’t recognise it as such at the time) occurred when he got home.

A man sat slumped at a kitchen table in a decaying back-to-back terrace in south Yorkshire. He had a quarter-full bottle of whisky in his hands. His speech was slurred. A boy entered the room and collapsed into the other chair at the table. His lips were puffed up, there were cuts on his face and arms and legs. His clothes hung in tatters. Bruises were breaking out all over him. He held a grubby, scarlet-speckled handkerchief to his nose. His face was deathly pale. Every now and then he gave a rasping cough and winced.

‘Bastard,’ said the man. ‘Bastard. Bastard sacked me. Bastard. Own wife’s sister’s husband. Absenteeism. “I’ve been badly,” I said. “Badly?” he said. “Hangovers more like.” “That’s a bloody lie,” I said. Told me I can’t handle heavy loads. “Nor would tha,” I said. “Nor would tha if tha’d been marching through bloody desert day after day, fighting t’ might of Rommel’s army, instead of getting thisen rich on bloody black-market Australian minced loaf.” Bastard.’

The man seemed to grow dimly aware that all was not well with
the
boy.

‘Hast tha been drinking?’ he said. ‘Bloody hell. Have a drop o’ this.’

The man pushed the bottle across the table towards the boy. The boy took it, as in a dream, and put it to his lips.

The boy thought his life had ended. He choked and gasped and spluttered and pushed the bottle back to the man.

‘Bastard,’ said the man. ‘Bastard sacked me. Bastard.’

‘I want to discuss your essay with you, Pratt,’ said Mr Quell, who was Irish, and a lapsed priest. ‘Come and see me afterwards.’

After the lesson, Henry went up to Mr Quell’s desk. Mr Quell raised his glasses so that they rested on the top of his massive forehead, and looked at Henry quizzically.

‘It’s Henry, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Let’s go and sit down and look through your essay a bit,’ said Mr Quell.

Mr Quell sat in Mick Tunnicliffe’s desk. Henry sat in Stefan Prziborski’s desk, and was tempted to pretend he was Prziborski. He envied Prziborski deeply. At first everyone had laughed at Prziborski, like they laughed at Oberath, because they had foreign names. Unlike Oberath, whose German name and sullen disposition condemned him to endless torment, Prziborski soon won popularity by his skill on the football field. It wasn’t fair. Henry loved football, and went to every home game at Blonk Lane, but he was hopeless at it. He concealed the fact that this grieved him deeply, by laughing at himself before everyone laughed at him. ‘I reckon I know what it is I lack,’ he said. ‘Skill, control, strength, accuracy and speed,’ or ‘At least I’m not one-footed like some folk. I’m no-footed.’ All this flashed through his mind as he sat in the desk of the great Prziborski.