The Complete Pratt (32 page)

On April 11th he saw the Mack Triplets, American close-harmony singers, sometimes saucy and always tuneful; Wee Georgie Wood, assisted by Dolly Harmer; Leslie Sarony; the Three Jokers, energetic knock-about comedians; Morecambe and Wise, amusing entertainers; Irene and Stanley Davis, clever dancers; Freda Wyn, who certainly knew the ropes; and Jackie, with extraordinary balancing feats.

Then there was Emile Littler’s
Waltzes from America
for two
weeks
, so that was a dead loss, but he did persuade Uncle Teddy to go once to the Thurmarsh Empire, where the bill was headed by Confidentially, from Variety Bandbox, Reg Dixon. The Two Valettos provided an exotic touch with Eastern dancing, the Allen Brothers and June tumbled and glided in a sophisticated comedy routine, and the Two Harvards cut college capers with verve. Aimee Fontenay and her partner provided thrills on the trapeze. Margery Manners sang with an intimate microphone manner that was more than pleasing. Saucy Iris Sadler and ventriloquist Roger Carne provided plenty of laughs, and Victor Seaforth, the man with a hundred voices, gave an electrifying interpretation of Charles Laughton’s
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
.

Henry loved it all. He had no idea that he was witnessing a dying art form, and that quite soon many of these theatres would be demolished for improvement schemes, and the rest would be given over to bingo.

He learnt a great deal. The successful comedians presented the audience with a false image of themselves. Not a true image of themselves, which might well be boring, or a false image without themselves, in which case there would be no contact. Contact was more important than the quality of the jokes.

But he still hadn’t got his act. He needed something more, an external element.

It came in the shape of the headmaster, Mr Lichfield.

The shape of the headmaster, Mr Lichfield, was oblong, with a sphere on top. He had no waist, very square shoulders, and vitually no neck. He looked like a message hoisted for sailors, sphere above oblong, meaning ‘easterly gales imminent’ or some such thing.

After house prayers, in the panelled dining room of Orange House, with its list of house rugby captains since 1838 (1949 E. L. F. Pilkington-Brick, 1950 E. L. F. Pilkington-Brick, the first since 1857 to be house rugby captain for two years) Dopy S announced that the following day the headmaster would visit all the houses to talk to them individually on a matter of the greatest importance. They would assemble at 8.25. Dopy S was so
concerned
about this that he forgot his rubber cushion, which he was carrying on account of an excruciating attack of piles which all the boys except Lampo Davey found hilarious. ‘The banal anal English,’ said Lampo sadly.

The following day, House assembled round the bare wooden refectory tables. The headmaster entered with the housemaster. Mr Lichfield carried his mortarboard in his right hand. Mr Satchel carried his rubber cushion in his left hand.

House stood.

‘Sit down, boys,’ said Mr Satchel.

House sat down.

Mr Satchel arranged his cushion, and also sat down. The cushion sighed gently, perhaps for Mr Satchel’s lost, unhaemorrhoidal youth.

Mr Lichfield remained standing, sphere over oblong. He looked very worried. He held his mortarboard in front of his private parts, as if he were naked.

He began to speak. He spoke slowly, slightly too loud, as if he had learnt the art of public speaking by numbers. He had a slight speech impediment, being unable to say a soft ‘s’ without aspirating. He seemed to be drawn to his impediment like a moth to a flame.

‘I want to shpeak to you today on a very sherioush shubject,’ he said. ‘Sheksh. In particular, the shin of homoshekshuality. Because it is a shin. Oh yesh.’

Henry stared fixedly at the table, through downcast eyes. This wasn’t out of shame, for he agreed with the headmaster. It was out of the fear that, if he so much as caught the eye of another boy, he would begin to shake with helpless hysterical laughter. Was it his fancy that he could sense a barely suppressed communal quivering all round him?

The idea struck him like a swing door. Here was the very thing he had been seeking. And he wasn’t even listening to it. He had missed a whole section of the headmaster’s talk. He forced himself to concentrate on the peroration.

‘At every boarding shchool there are isholated inshidents of thish short of shekshual mishbehaviour, which musht be dealt with on an individual bashish,’ the headmaster was saying. ‘But
here
, in thish corner of Shomershet, it has become an imposhible shituation. As I shee you shitting there, sho sholemn, sho shad, your expressions shuffused with shame, yesh, the shame shame that I myshelf onshe felt at my shchool, I confesh that my shpirits shag. I feel for you. The innoshent are at rishk from the guilty. However, I musht shay what has to be shaid. No shchool of which I am headmashter will be allowed to remain a shink of iniquity. Any boy found guilty of any kind of shekshual offenshe will be shacked.’

The headmaster’s face had gone purple with embarrassment and honest feeling. The boys’ faces had gone purple from their efforts not to laugh. Only the housemaster seemed unaffected. Mr Satchel’s smooth face remained totally innocent throughout.

House stood, and they departed, the headmaster with his mortarboard, the housemaster with his rubber cushion, and Henry with his act.

It was the first day of the first test match at Old Trafford. Debuts: England – R. Berry, G. H. G. Doggart; West Indies – S. Ramadhin, A. L. Valentine; Dalton College auditions for end of summer term concert – H. Pratt.

The auditions were held in a small, bare room at the back of the stage in Shant Shed. It had mustard-washed brick walls. Kington, the producer, sat back-to-front on a kitchen chair, his chin resting on top of the back of the chair.

If Henry felt nervous, he didn’t show it. Here at last was an area of life in which he was confident.

Kington watched his rough-hewn act, intently still, poker-faced, wanting to see how Henry reacted under pressure. Henry was concentrating so hard that he didn’t even notice that Kington wasn’t laughing.

‘It needs a lot of work on it,’ said Kington. ‘A lot of work.’

‘I know,’ said Henry.

Kington nodded. He seemed pleased.

‘You’re very young to do a solo,’ he said. ‘You’re still a fag. Don’t you think it would be more sensible to wait till next year?’

‘Yes,’ said Henry, ‘but who ever got anywhere by being sensible?’

Kington grinned for the first time.

‘You can go on after the mime,’ he said. ‘They’ll be so relieved that’s over that you’ll go down a bomb.’

The summer term passed pleasantly. His batting improved spectacularly. Scores of 0, 1, 1 not out, 0 not out, 2, 0, 0, 3 not out, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 not out, 0 and 2 gave him an average of 1, an all-time high. He just managed to pass his swimming proficiency test in the green, icy waters of the open-air pool. He began to feel that he belonged here. Next year, he wouldn’t be a fag, and would be able to open one button on his jacket. The year after, he would have a senior study, he would be able to open two buttons on his jacket, he would be fagged for.

It was pleasant that summer, as Ramadhin and Valentine swept through the English batting, to lie on Middle Boggle, hearing the thwack of leather on willow, feeling your cock harden against the warm grass as you dreamt idly of Diana Hargreaves and Patricia Roc, while you chatted to Paul Hargreaves, or explained the rules, with deliberate incomprehensibility, to Prince Mangkukubono of Jogjakarta. Two-fifths of your mind on cricket, two-fifths on sex, the other fifth always thinking about your act.

The longest day came and went. So did Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris. A visit! They took Paul Hargreaves out and went to Weston-super-Mare. The tide was out. Henry wished Auntie Doris’s perfume didn’t smell so strongly. Paul seemed to enjoy himself. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said at the end of the day, rather stiffly and formally. ‘I’ve had a thoroughly enjoyable day.’

When they left, Auntie Doris hugged Henry, and Uncle Teddy clasped his hand firmly and pressed it.

‘Well done, old chap,’ he said.

Henry impressed Sweaty W with the revelation that he was reading Baudelaire. The trouble was that it was very difficult to enjoy something that was untranslatable. It was impossible to enjoy a line like ‘
les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon
’ because, although it sounded good, it was in a foreign language, and when you had translated it as ‘the evenings lit up by the heat of coal’ it was still impossible to enjoy it because, although it was in your language, it sounded awful. Henry was reading Baudelaire in
preparation
for his second visit to the Hargreaves’s home in Hampstead. This time he meant to impress. He intended to keep a clean sheet and not to blot his copy-book.

The day of the end of term concert approached.

He sat in his partition in the junior study, a small piece of land entirely surrounded by pictures of Patricia Roc. He had a severe attack of nerves. What a fool he had been to think he could make the whole school laugh.

He brought his stamp album up to date, for something to do. Auntie Doris had sent him five Canadian stamps. He could hardly control the hinges in his shaking fingers.

He counted the number of stamps in his album, to pass the time. There were 112. 57 of them were Canadian. 28 of them were identical.

Lampo Davey put his head round the door.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said. ‘They’ll be in such a good mood after my mime, they’ll laugh at anything.’

He was sick. He walked to main school, head throbbing, saying to himself, ‘It is funny. It is. No, it isn’t. Yes, it
is
.’ He was sick again, in the Shant Shed lats. Oh, presumptuous oik.

It
is
funny. Far funnier than the Celtic Droll. Nobody’ll laugh at all. Everybody’ll be in stitches.

He put on his dark suit, his comedy glasses and his mortarboard, ready for the dress rehearsal.

He felt better.

He went on for the dress rehearsal. He had refused to do his full act on this occasion, having read that this was what real comedians did. What did he mean, ‘real comedians’? Wasn’t he real?

‘Ow do, I’m t’ new headmaster waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle waffle Moss Bros. Goodnight,’ he said.

He felt much better.

He felt awful.

He was sick.

He gargled and cleaned his teeth.

The concert began. He became convinced that he would forget all his words.

Kington obviously thought he could do it. Or did he? Was it a deliberate plot to humiliate him in front of the whole school? That was it. He’d show them. No, that wasn’t it. And he wouldn’t show them. Yes, he would.

He heard the early acts as if from very far away. A parody of the school song. A sketch, with quite a few laughs. Another song. Warm applause. Then silence.

‘Five minutes,’ Kington told him. ‘Davey’s just doing his mime.’

Henry joined Kington at the side of the stage. The silence was total. His legs were leaden. He was shaking.

‘He’s dying on his arse,’ whispered Kington. ‘He’s dying on his arse out there. You’ll be terrific after this. A wow. A two hundred per cent copper-bottomed wow.’

There was a dribble of polite, bewildered applause for Lampo’s mime. He came off fuming.

‘Peasants,’ he said.

Henry stood transfixed.

‘Good luck,’ whispered Kington. ‘You’ll slay them. If you’re dying on your arse, get off quick.’

Kington pushed him. He walked forward as in a dream, feverish and disembodied.

They roared at the sight of him, fifteen-year-old Henry Pratt, dressed as the headmaster. After several minutes in which most of them hadn’t even realised that they were watching the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the underworld, here was something they could understand.

All Henry’s nerves left him. He felt the amazing, steadying presence of power. His neck disappeared. He became the headmaster, sphere over oblong. He waited for the laughter to die down, then waited a little longer, to show that he was in charge, to build up the tension, ready to defuse it with the next laugh. He knew about this. Amazingly, instinctively, he was a master of his craft.

‘’Ow do, I’m t’ new headmaster, tha knows,’ he said.

They laughed. It wasn’t a joke, yet they laughed. He’d got them!

His voice was slightly silly, but not too silly.

‘I want to talk to you tonight about summat very important
what
I don’t like and what there’s too much of. Sex.’

They roared and applauded. He stood immobile, facing seven hundred laughing boys, and beyond them the masters, who might or might not be laughing.

‘What is sex? It’s what you snotty-nosed lot bring the coal home in.’

Yes, already he was not too proud to use old jokes.

‘Another thing that there’s too much of in this knacker’s yard – sorry, school, that was my last job – another thing there’s too much of is…er…homo…wait. I haven’t finished. Don’t laff just cause I say homo. Wait till I’ve finished… Sapiens. Far too many boys. Have to shack a few, I think. Now I’m a bit worried over t’ acoustics of this converted abattoir, and whether I can be heard proper and all. If you can’t hear me, shout out, and I won’t hear you. I said I’m a bit worried over…never mind. Ee, by gum, I am daft.’