The Complete Pratt (35 page)

The boy turned right, along the Doncaster Road, past the end of Park View Road and into the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park. He walked diagonally across the park, skirting the bandstand and the pond, leaving the animal cages to his left, and plunged out into the maze of side roads in the north-eastern suburbs.

Henry followed him no further.

He simply hadn’t dared to approach him. How could he, here, in Thurmarsh?

It was the most important year of his academic life. In June he would sit his ‘O’ levels. The change of school could not but handicap him. It was doubly important to work hard this year, yet the lessons passed him in a fog.

Latin was taken by Mr Blackthorn, who would come in disgruntled every Monday morning and say, ‘Those damned Christians woke me with their bells again yesterday.’ Mr Blackthorn worked off all his aggressions on the Christians. With his pupils he was patient and charitable. Yet Henry sat there in a fog.

The Maths master, Mr Littlewood, had a boyish, sandy-haired enthusiasm. If anybody could bring Henry and calculus together, it was he. Yet Henry sat there in a fog.

The Geography master, Mr Burrell, had only one eye. Was a return to Thurmarsh inevitably also a return to somebody with one eye? Was the number of people with one eye in the town a constant? Mr Burrell’s glass eye, the left, was a fine piece of work, as these things go, and he laboured under the illusion that nobody realised that he only had one eye. He was therefore reluctant to turn his head more than would be natural in a man of two eyes.
Unfortunately
, there were two rows of fixed bench seats parallel with three walls of Mr Burrell’s class. The four boys at the end of these seats on Mr Burrell’s left were therefore totally invisible to Mr Burrell at all times. He knew they were there, of course, and in order to ensure that they received their fair share of attention, he moved the class around from time to time. At this particular time the four invisible boys were Astbury, Longfellow, Prziborski and Wool. They sat with false red noses or women’s hats on while the rest of the class behaved with total decorum. This added an exotic touch to a humdrum scene, yet Henry sat there in a fog.

The French master, Mr Telfer, had two eyes, but only one leg. He had lost the other one on active service in France, and this had confirmed him, if confirmation was needed, in his belief that the French were a chaotic, dirty and totally unreliable people who used sauces to cover up the fact that all their meat was horse and changed governments more often than their underclothes. Only a filthy nation would need so many bidets, he argued. Mr Telfer was sour and staccato. Teaching French was an act of masochism in the best puritan tradition. He taught it fiercely, coldly, by the book. No Arsène Lupin. No ‘Auprès de ma Blonde’. Just irregular verbs and suffering. Just occasionally, if he was feeling generous or frivolous, or it was near the end of the term, they might be permitted to study the works of Racine. The boys were in awe of him, but Henry sat there in a fog,
auprès de
his blond in his guilt-ridden mind.

Mr McFarlane, the History master, had two eyes and two legs, but only one idea. It was Marxism. It was amazing how relevant the theories of a man born in Trier in 1818 were to every single thing that happened in British history between 1066 and 1485. All this should have been grist to Henry’s dark, satanic mill, yet he sat there in a fog. Might catch a glimpse of the boy in the break. Oh, delicious prospect.

The final lesson of the day was English. The greatest of Mr Quell’s many literary passions was Chaucer. One of the set books was
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
. Mr Quell brought it vividly to life, yet Henry sat there in a fog, not even concentrating enough to be more than mildly disappointed that Mr Quell had said nothing especially welcoming to him on his return.

Good teachers, bad teachers. Happy teachers, sad teachers. Miss Candy’s great hope, who never knew that he was Miss Candy’s great hope, sat through all their lessons in a fog.

He hardly spoke to the other boys. His nerves were exhausted by all the new starts that he had made. He had nothing left to give to this school, and it was harder to readjust than to start from scratch.

Besides, he was busy. As soon as the lessons were over, he hurried out of school, tense, absorbed, tingling, determined that today he would talk to the fair-haired boy. Six times his courage had failed him. Today it mustn’t.

It was a bright, rather hazy autumn afternoon. He walked past the old men’s shelter, the glass restored now between the wrought iron. It was octagonal. An octagonal bench ran round the interior. There was no law to say that only old men might use this shelter, but only old men ever did. It was tradition.

He wandered over to the bird cages. There were five guinea fowl, a macaw, two rather scruffy peahens, three Lady Amhurst pheasants, seven assorted doves and twelve sparrows which had got in through the mesh. In the animal cages there were two marmots, two unidentified small deer and an extremely listless ocelot. All the while, only half of Henry’s mind was occupied by this rich cornucopia of animal life. He was watching out for the fair-haired boy.

Here he came. If only he came over to the animals, Henry would be able to say, ‘Oh, hello, haven’t I seen you at Thurmarsh Grammar,’ and the thing would be started.

Yesterday, Henry had stood by the pond, and the boy had come past the cages. Today he came nowhere near the cages, but lingered by the pond. Tomorrow. He’d definitely try tomorrow.

The following day saw the fog thicken. It cleared slowly outside, but not at all in Henry’s head.

After school, he walked briskly to the park. This time he sat in the bandstand. It had a classical pillar at each corner and a green copper dome. The sun was a yellow plate riding through the mist, and a raw little breeze blew through the bandstand.

Here he came. Henry took deep breaths and his heart raced. This was it. Zero hour. He set off on an expertly timed walk which
brought
him across the boy’s bows.

Right up till the moment when he said it, he wasn’t sure whether he was going to say it or not. Out it came. ‘Hello. Haven’t I seen you at the grammar school?’

‘Aye. That’s right.’

The accent was broad Thurmarsh. That didn’t make the thing any more probable.

They were heading towards the pond. In the middle there was a small reedy island, with a few stunted trees. A colourful board gave names and pictures of all the ducks which might be found on the pond.

‘There’s a fine collection of ducks,’ said Henry.

‘They haven’t got half what they say on t’ board.’

The boy seemed calm. Had he any idea what Henry was thinking? Did Henry’s voice sound odd? Was the park keeper watching?

‘You what?’

‘They haven’t got pochard. They haven’t got shoveler.’

‘They’ve got tufted duck.’

‘Oh, aye, that’s what they mostly are, tufted duck. But they’re not very exciting, aren’t tufted duck.’

‘They’ve got teal.’

‘They haven’t got marbled teal. They haven’t got falcated teal. It’s only in t’ last week they’ve had mandarin.’

Close to, the boy’s features were not quite as fine as he had thought.

‘They’ve got wigeon,’ said the fair-haired boy.

‘Have they got pintail?’

‘Have they heck?’

‘You like birds, do you?’

‘Not really. I just look to see what it says on t’ board, and what they haven’t got. Then I complain to t’ park keeper.’

The park keeper limped slowly towards them, examining a line of bleak, rectangular rose beds.

‘Hey,’ shouted the fair-haired boy. ‘It says there’s shoveler. There isn’t.’

The park keeper approached them. He addressed himself to Henry.

‘I keep telling him,’ he said. ‘There’s been a war on. Ducks is in short supply, same as owt else.’

‘Shouldn’t be on t’ board if tha hasn’t gorrem,’ said the fair-haired boy stubbornly.

‘I’d better be getting home,’ said Henry.

And that was that. He walked away, as flat as a pancake. That was what his great homosexual passion amounted to, one discussion about the lack of duck on the park pond.

He couldn’t face smiling Liam, winking Tony and complaining Neville Chamberlain. He walked back into Thurmarsh, scuffing his shoes angrily against the pavements. The mist was closing in.

He’d been in love with a dream, a vision culled as much from literature as life. What a dreadful fool he would have made of himself, if anybody had noticed. Perhaps they had noticed.

He hadn’t disliked the fair-haired boy. But he was just a little pre-pubertal grammar-school kid, aggressively determined not to be short-changed by life. He’d have run a mile if Henry’d tried anything. Or he’d have demanded money. Henry shuddered. He imagined himself flinging himself on the boy, the boy resisting and fighting, the awful humiliation of it. He began to shake, a shuddering mixture of the cold and self-revulsion.

‘You’re sick,’ he told himself.

Oh God.

He caught the Rawlaston tram, barely conscious of what he was doing, certainly not responsible for his decisions.

The tram climbed past the end of Link Lane. New slums were being built on one of the bomb sites.

They breasted the rise like an immensely slow big dipper and groaned down into the Rundle Valley. There, on the right, looming like a battleship in the mist, was the fortress of Brunswick Road Primary School. Had he really been there; he, Henry Pratt, the same person as this?

In the Rundle Valley it wasn’t mist. It was fog. The tram went into it so suddenly that Henry expected a collision. It was rank and sulphurous.

He could tell by the flattening out that they had reached the valley floor. They were swinging right. The canal would be on his left.

‘Paradise,’ said the conductor.

He got off. This was what he had come back to do. Visit his roots.

There wasn’t a breath of wind. The factories were pumping filth into the autumn mists. It was almost as dark as night, but yellow instead of black.

He struggled along the pavement to the corner of Paradise Lane. The frail and the elderly walked with handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses, the home-made gas-masks of peace.

Footsteps rang hollow. Cars crawled. A man spat quite close to him. It was ridiculous. What was the point of revisiting old haunts when you couldn’t see them?

It was perfect! The real trip was in his memory, anyway, and he certainly didn’t want to be seen.

He felt his way up to the terraced houses. Visibility was about a foot and a half. He passed the entry to a yard. Number 15. 17. 19. 21, where she’d been on the game. 23. They’d got a new door with curved, patterned, frosted glass. It removed the only architectural merit the row could ever have been said to possess – simplicity.

‘I don’t like that door,’ he said.

‘Give over,’ said Ezra. ‘It’s their one little chance of being individual. Would you deny them that?’

He jumped out of his skin. He looked round. If his father had been there, he wouldn’t have been able to see him.

The sweat came out hot and cold all over him.

He was hearing voices now.

Oh God.

Yes?

What?

I am with you, my son.

He stumbled and fell, gashing his knee. No matter.

He had heard it.

Are you there?

Nothing.

If this was a blinding vision, it was strictly West Riding style. Two short sentences, in thick fog, on the Road to Nowhere instead of the Road to Damascus. He thought of Lampo Davey, who had said, ‘Tosser has absolutely no religious feeling
whatsoever
. He thinks the Road to Damascus is a film with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.’ And Lampo Davey in Paradise Lane brought out the guilt – streaming, shuddering, dreadful guilt.

The fog began to swirl about him. It was turning into the faces of the ogglers and tackies, back at Shant. Ogglers was Shant rant for the waiters who served them at dinner. Tackies were maids. The boys never spoke to the ogglers and tackies as if they were human beings. It simply wasn’t done. And now they were all about him, hideous, vaporous caricatures, reminding him, accusing him. And there was his father, a cadaver of fog, pointing an accusing foggy finger. You betrayed me, Paradise Lane, your own past, just to get laughs.

He stepped through the gate. It was a gate onto a canal towpath. It was a door into a world full of capital letters.

Guilt. Shame. The Scylla and Charybdis of Henry’s voyage.

It was a perilous journey, along the towpath in the thick fog. There was a muffled explosion as a train detonated a fog signal.

He almost missed the bridge, where the towpath crossed the canal. He clambered carefully up, and down the other side onto the waste ground. He was shaking. It was the cold. Plus the Guilt. And the Shame.

He had heard Him. God had spoken to him. Of that he had no doubt.

He knelt on the waste ground and closed his eyes. He saw his dad, as he had been in the last days, shrunken, embittered, soon to die in an outside lav. He saw himself, standing in front of seven hundred boys, saying, ‘“Henry,” he said. “I’ve gorra pain in me eye.” I didn’t ask him which one, cos he only had the one. He couldn’t afford two.’