The Complete Pratt (52 page)

‘Oh aye?’ said the extremely burly man.

‘Yes. We ask the public a question about a topical issue and we print their answers along with photos of them.’

‘Oh aye?’ said the extremely burly man.

‘So I wondered if I could ask you the question we’re asking people today,’ said Henry.

‘Oh. Aye,’ said the extremely burly man.

‘Er … do you think Britain is being too lenient towards Archbishop Makarios?’ said Henry.

The extremely burly man thought long and hard.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m a stranger here.’

A magnificent ruse had freed Henry from the need to go home for his tea. He’d told Cousin Hilda that he was going to the Essoldo, with his new chums, to see Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in
My Friend Irma Goes West
, and that, prior to the entertainment, they would take solid refreshment at the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar.

‘Chinese meals!’ Cousin Hilda had snorted. ‘I don’t know.’

Henry wasn’t going to see
My Friend Irma Goes West
. He wasn’t even going to see Cornel Wilde and Yvonne De Carlo in
Passion
. He was going to drink glasses of bitter with his new chums, and then meet his contact from the world of industry.

They stood by the bar that evening, in the back room of the Lord Nelson, because nobody was staying long. Colin Edgeley had to get home before the kids went to bed. Henry was astounded to discover that he had children. Ginny Fenwick had to review a performance of
Candida
by the Rawlaston Players in the Drill Hall, Splutt Road, Rawlaston. Ben Watkinson was off to Sheffield to see the Wednesday play Charlton. There was no sign of Helen Cornish.

‘So how are you enjoying newspaper work?’ said Ginny. She was standing extremely close to him. Again there seemed, to his surprise, to be evidence that he was attractive to women.

‘Very much,’ he said feebly. Her lips were slightly too thick. Nothing wrong with that. Sensual?

‘I
love
it,’ she said, with an intensity that stirred his nether regions. This was, he decided, an extremely attractive person. Pity about the nose. ‘I long to get to Fleet Street,’ she said. Large,
uneven
teeth, slightly yellow, but not repulsively so. ‘In about five years, when I’m ready.’

‘Really?’ he said feebly. ‘What? As a fashion correspondent?’

Ginny Fenwick snorted. What a man I am, thought Henry, for making women snort.

‘That’s stereotyped thinking,’ she said. ‘No. I want to be a war correspondent.’

‘A war correspondent!’ he said, feebly. My god, I’m being feeble tonight, he thought. Yes, there was something Amazonian about her. He could imagine her, with her large thighs and broad buttocks, and her well-formed bust, striding round the battlefield, taking shorthand notes as the shells whizzed round her head. He felt a spasm of fierce desire. He had a brief glimpse of her, naked except for army boots and a helmet, holding out her hospitable arms to him. Stop it! Think of Friday night. No. Don’t think of Friday night. Talk about work, quickly, before you have an accident. ‘So you must feel pretty fed up about covering something like the Rawlaston Players,’ he said.

‘No!
Not at all
. Every job is important.’

‘Well, yes, I … er … I … er … yes.’ Every time he thought he had scaled the Himalayas of feebleness, he found new ranges of conversational ineptitude above them.

‘Think of
them
,’ said Ginny. ‘Think of
her
.’

‘Them?’ he said feebly. ‘Her?’

‘The Rawlaston Players. The girl playing Candida. What is she? A nurse? A teacher? Probably a teacher. They usually are. It’s a highlight in her life, Henry. She deserves my full attention. Have another drink.’

‘Thanks.’

She was magnificent! She must be fully twenty-five, but he liked older women. And he’d never had a big woman. Mind you, he’d never had a small woman either. Let’s face it, he’d only ever had one woman. Tall and slim. ‘Cheers, Ginny. That was quick.’

‘Cheers, Henry.’ Massive eye contact. Blue as a summer’s day, shining eyes of a warm woman. ‘Come with me. To
Candida
.’

‘Yes, I … er … I very well might, Ginny.’

Colin and Ben interrupted their growing intimacy. Colin
gave
Henry a meaningful look which meant ‘Get in there, kid.’ Ben said, ‘Name the four football league sides that have
x
in their names.’ Henry glanced at Ginny, uncertain whether she’d think better of him for knowing or for not knowing. In the end, he couldn’t resist the challenge. ‘Wrexham,’ he said. ‘Halifax. Exeter.’ He made a mental tour of the country. ‘Crewe Alexandra.’

‘Well done!’ said Ben, and Henry felt rather absurd, smiling his pride. Colin seemed proud of him too. Ginny looked as if she were trying to hide her amusement.

Neil Mallet entered with Denzil Ackerman, arts and show business editor. Neil’s carroty hair looked windswept, but Denzil was wearily immaculate. He was in his forties, had private money, a mews cottage in Chelsea, a pink bow-tie, a limp, a hand-carved Scottish walking-stick and a high-pitched voice. He only spent three days a week in Thurmarsh as he saw it as part of his job ‘to cultivate my intellectual garden and save you from your depressing provincialism, my quaint darlings.’ The middle pages were his domain. Some readers started at the front and others started at the back. It wasn’t clear how many reached the middle pages, and it didn’t seem to matter very much, in those halcyon days of the provincial press.

‘Ah! A fresh face!’ said Denzil Ackerman. He examined Henry as if he were a doubtful antique. ‘Really very fresh. One of those strange faces that ought to seem repellent but which one finds oddly attractive because one doesn’t find them repellent. Don’t you think so, Neil?’

Neil Mallet, whose sexual proclivities were a closed book to his colleagues, some of whom believed that he was only a dark horse because he had never entered a race, blushed slightly at being included in this assumption of homosexuality. Henry throbbed with fury. Ginny, with magnificent understanding, touched him sympathetically and said, ‘Denzil’s outrageous,’ as if this excused everything. Henry felt that it excused nothing. He was appalled at the depth of his immediate loathing for Denzil Ackerman.

‘I hear you’re one of the eight people in this philistine dump who’ve seen
Waiting for Godot
, Henry,’ said Denzil.

Henry decided that he must fight his loathing and his feebleness. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And I loved it, which for some stupid reason yesterday I wasn’t prepared to admit.’

Denzil gave Henry a warm smile, and began to talk pleasantly and unaffectedly about films and plays. Henry fought his loathing so successfully that he actually began liking the man. Ben Watkinson bought a round. ‘Pink gin, dear boy, since they haven’t
heard
of wine in this
hole
,’ said Denzil, and the landlord, Mr Bernard Hoveringham, who had also not heard of lasagne or chilli con carne, smiled.

Denzil talked about art, and Henry pretended to more knowledge than he had. Just as Denzil said, ‘And who are your favourite artists? Tell uncle,’ Ben handed Henry his drink and said, ‘Name all the English and Scottish teams that have Athletic in their name.’ Henry didn’t want to offend his friend of three whole days, who seemed to regard his talking to Denzil as a defection, and he didn’t want to offend his new friend of ten minutes, whom he had so recently loathed. Nor did he want to seem an artistic prig to Ben or a sporting lout to Denzil.

It isn’t easy to keep two conversational balls in the air at the same time.

‘Charlton,’ said Henry.

‘I don’t know him,’ said Denzil.

‘Charlton Athletic,’ said Henry.

Denzil looked bewildered.

‘Constable,’ said Henry.

‘Don’t you mean Dunstable?’ said Ben, ‘and I think they’re Dunstable Town anyway.’

‘Alloa,’ said Henry.

‘You’re pulling some obscure ones out of the hat,’ said Denzil. ‘Basque, is he? He sounds Basque.’

‘Klimt,’ said Henry.

‘Not including foreign teams,’ said Ben.

‘Gainsborough,’ said Henry.

‘I think they’re Town as well and I didn’t include non-league,’ said Ben.

‘Gainsborough, the painter,’ said Henry.

‘You like Gainsborough?’ said Denzil, shocked.

‘Not much, no, but I couldn’t think of anybody else,’ admitted Henry.

And then there came a sharp pain in the two balls that he wasn’t keeping in the air as Helen Cornish swept into the room, magenta skirt swirling, pert lips pouting. Podgy Sex Bomb Henry gasped with desire, and Ginny knew, and Henry blushed and said desperately, ‘Rembrandt. Bournemouth and Boscombe. Botticelli. Hamilton. No, they’re Academicals.’

It was his round. Forces which he couldn’t control engineered brief physical contact, as he asked Helen what she’d have. Ginny refused a drink. ‘I must go,’ she said. She didn’t repeat her suggestion that he accompany her. ‘Nice girl,’ said Denzil. ‘Pity she’s so unattractive.’ This was too much for Henry. ‘I don’t think she’s unattractive,’ he said, and Helen raised a delicious eyebrow, and Henry blushed again, and Denzil said, ‘No, dear, but I find all women unattractive. Present company excepted. Anyway, don’t worry your quaint little head over Ginny, she’ll make somebody a very good war correspondent.’ There was laughter. Henry glared and felt the loathing again. Then he realized that it was all right, because everyone knew that Denzil was outrageous, so he smiled feebly. Ben went off to his football. Denzil sought companions for dinner. Neil said he had to hoover and dust the flat. ‘How about the second D. H. Lawrence?’ said Denzil. ‘Strange ambition. I wouldn’t want to be the
first
D. H. Lawrence.’ Colin refused. He didn’t enjoy eating. Denzil left in a slight huff.

When only Henry and Helen and Colin remained, Colin said, ‘Where’s Ted?’

‘He’s covering the man who had his head cut off in a sawmill,’ said Helen.

Henry had a vision of a man in a sawmill, blood gushing, with his head lying at his side, perhaps registering a faint expression of surprise. He felt dizzy and faint. ‘Are you all right, kid?’ said a tiny voice from a vast distance. ‘Fine,’ he said, as he fainted.

He came round to see Helen’s pert lips and concerned eyes staring at him, and behind her Colin. They laid him on a bench seat, and he began to revive. The sweat poured off him. Helen wiped his forehead with a scented handkerchief, and kissed his cheek, and Henry said he thought he had the flu coming. He
didn
’t want to lie, but couldn’t admit that he was too soft for this hard world. Helen went to buy him a brandy. Colin said, ‘Are you sure you’re all right, kid?’ and Henry said, ‘I’m OK,’ rather angrily. Colin said, ‘I ought to get home, but I can’t leave you on your own.’ Henry said, ‘I won’t be on my own. I’ll be with Helen.’ Colin said, ‘Exactly!’ Henry didn’t want to leave Colin alone with Helen, but he had to, because a) he’d said he thought he had the flu coming and b) he had to meet his contact from the world of industry.

Martin Hammond was working as an overhead crane fitter at the Splutt Vale Iron and Steel Company. He lived with his family in a pebble-dashed semi in Everest Crescent. He was Henry’s best friend, and Henry was beginning to wonder if he liked him.

They sat in the back room of the Pigeon and Two Cushions, a small, quiet, almost sedate pub in Church Lane, with gleaming oblong tables studded with beer mats and ashtrays. On the panelled walls were cheerful sepia pictures of Thurmarsh disasters – the great flood, the great gale, the great snowfall, the great train crash. There were bells at frequent intervals, for waiter service. The waiter had a cold.

How on earth had slow, owlish, bespectacled Martin become a sergeant? They must have been short of candidates for promotion in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

‘I saw Tommy Marsden yesterday,’ said Henry. ‘He’s going to be my contact from the world of sport.’

‘Good old Tommy. What a player,’ said Martin, who had only once seen Tommy play.

At a table by the brick fireplace a group of pasty-faced men in slightly shiny suits were discussing breasts and bums. There was something familiar about one of them.

‘Will you be my contact from the world of industry?’ said Henry.

‘You what?’ said Martin.

‘Will you phone me up with stories?’

‘What stories?’

‘I don’t know! Anything. Impending strikes. Unusual industrial accidents. Lost cockatoos. Anything.’ Had Martin always looked so pompous?

‘I’m not keen on supporting your rag,’ said Martin. ‘Its editorial policy is slightly to the right of Genghis Khan. That’s what my dad reckons, anyroad.’

Henry realized that he hadn’t given much thought to the
Argus
’s editorial policy.

Martin pressed the bell, and ordered two more beers.

‘Please, Martin,’ said Henry. ‘I mean … we’re friends.’

The waiter brought their drinks.

‘Have one yourself,’ said Martin grandly.

‘Oh, thank you very much, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘I’ll have sixpennorth with you.’ He hesitated, feeling that Martin’s largesse deserved some social response. ‘I’ve never known a cold like it,’ he confided. ‘Three weeks I’ve had it. Can’t seem to shift it.’