The Complete Pratt (59 page)

Mr Hargreaves took him to his study. Over his desk was an enormous diagram of the human brain, which struck Henry as sheer affectation. The man must know his way round the brain by now, unless, ghastly thought, he needed a quick refresher after breakfast.

If Henry was tense and nervous, so was Mr Hargreaves. This made Henry all the more furious that he had to ask to borrow money off the man.

‘Er … I’ve got myself in a very small financial jam,’ he said.

‘What? Oh!’ It took Mr Hargreaves two seconds to realize that
good
manners demanded that he attempt to hide his immense relief. ‘What sort of a jam, Henry? And how small?’

‘Well … er … not really a jam exactly. I just have a bill, and no money to pay it.’

‘That is, in my estimation, a jam.’

Snow had begun to settle on the little walled town garden. They both noticed it at the same moment. It’s hard to say which of them was more appalled at the possibility of Henry being snowed in there.

‘How much are we talking about?’ asked Mr Hargreaves.

‘Well … er …’ It sounded such a lot. ‘Fifty pounds, actually.’

Mr Hargreaves relaxed, and Henry realized what a small sum it seemed to him.

‘Of course, Henry.’

‘I could pay you back at two pounds a week.’

‘Do you mind my asking how much you earn?’

‘Seven pounds ten a week.’

Mr Hargreaves stared at him in amazement.

‘Good Lord! That’s not very much,’ he said.

‘I know a lot of people who earn less,’ said Henry. ‘People who do unpleasant, essential jobs.’ Shut up! Not now! Don’t pollute the reservoir of goodwill you’ve built up by not getting engaged to Diana.

‘Yes … well … I think a pound a week would be more practical, don’t you?’ said Mr Hargreaves smoothly. ‘We don’t want you failing to keep up the payments.’

‘I’d rather die than fail to keep up the payments, Mr Hargreaves.’

Mr Hargreaves gave Henry a look, then nodded briskly.

His train was seventy-seven minutes late, due to snow. If he’d waited till the last train, he wouldn’t have got back that night.

He looked at Thurmarsh as if he were a Londoner arriving for the first time. How cold it was. How bleak the station looked. How small, dreary and ill lit the ticket hall was. He felt ashamed.

The town was muffled by snow and almost deserted. There weren’t enough taxis, and a queue was forming. Henry trudged
across
Station Square through several inches of snow. The Midland Hotel had become an enchanted castle.

Why did he feel so nervous? It didn’t matter what they thought of him here. He explained the situation to the duty manager, who produced his bill with minimal politeness. He looked the sort of man who’s frightened of catching VD off lavatory seats, and handed Henry his battered case as if fearing that it might be contaminated. Henry wondered what he expected to catch off it. Chronic gaucherie? Terminal podginess? Poverty?

He struggled along York Road and turned right into Commercial Street, which ran behind the Town Hall, across decaying Merrick Street. As he walked east, Commercial Street became Lordship Road and began to go up in the world. By its junction with Park View Road it was thoroughly respectable, though already struggling for survival. Two houses had been turned into private hotels. They were called the Alma and the Gleneagles.

Henry’s footsteps violated the smooth whiteness of Cousin Hilda’s front garden. Inside the house it was raw and dim and silent.

He put his head round the door of the basement room. The ‘businessmen’ were just finishing the little supper which Cousin Hilda gave them each evening. It was a shock to see them there, in mid-brawn, as if nothing had happened during the last three days.

‘My feet are soaked. I’ll be down in a minute,’ he announced.

The ‘businessmen’ had gone by the time he returned. The room smelt of greens’ water, warm wool and cold brawn. A warm fire burnt in the blue stove with the cracked panes. Cousin Hilda looked beyond the reach of warm fires.

‘Where have you been?’ she said.

He looked at her in carefully simulated astonishment.

‘The Hargreaveses’,’ he said. ‘I told you. Oh, I suppose you were worried by Paul’s phone call on Friday night. I wanted to surprise them, so I didn’t tell them I was going. I phoned them when I got to St Pancras, but there was no reply. They’d gone out to dinner.’ Cousin Hilda couldn’t resist sniffing at this extravagance, even though she didn’t entirely believe in it. ‘So I stayed in a little hotel near King’s Cross, and rang them in the morning. It’s called the Caledonian. You can check if you don’t believe me.’ He knew she
wouldn
’t. How could she, without sounding vaguely disreputable? He resented life for providing so many reasons for turning a young man of honest intent into an accomplished liar. He gave her an edited version of the weekend, and felt indignant because he suspected that she didn’t even believe the bits that were true.

‘What an exciting life they all lead,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘How drab all this must seem.’

He attacked his brawn bravely. What a terrible cue she had given him. He couldn’t say, ‘Yes, it is drab. Horribly drab. I’m leaving.’ He said ‘No’ again, although each time he said ‘No’ it made it harder for him to say that he was leaving. And leave he must. ‘No!’ He meant it. He’d much prefer to live here than with the Hargreaveses. Well, say that. ‘I’d much prefer to live here than with the Hargreaveses. But, you see, Cousin Hilda, I …’ He swallowed. Why did he find it so incredibly difficult to say it? ‘I’m going to get a flat.’ Her lips were beginning to work, with the distress. ‘I’ve been happy here. I regard it as my home. But I’ve got to live in my own place and lead my own life and find my own feet if I’m to compete in the hard world of the press.’

‘Journalists!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Giving you airs! I don’t know!’

‘
HOW WAS THE
weekend, kid?’ said Colin Edgeley.

Henry shrugged.

‘You’ve got a good kid there. You stick with her.’

Colin raised a questioning eyebrow at the failure of Henry’s attempted smile.

Henry stuck a sheet of coarse, cheap paper into his ancient, clattering typewriter. He typed slowly, with two fingers: ‘Iceland-1.’ This identified the story and the page, and exhausted his inspiration.

He turned, as he’d been hoping not to do, to have a quick peep at Helen. He met Ted’s dark, deep, ironic eyes and turned away hurriedly. ‘Iceland is a country of beautiful women, according to an Icelandic visitor to Thurmarsh.’ Rubbish. He tore the sheet out, replaced it, and typed: ‘Iceland-1.’ He knew that Ginny’d seen him looking at Helen. He leant across to speak to her.

‘Do anything exciting this weekend, Ginny?’ he said.

‘No.’

Good. ‘Oh dear.’

The conversation fizzled out after this misleadingly sparkling exchange. ‘Hot geysers have a very different connotation from in Thurmarsh …’

Gordon Carstairs struggled in, his eyes set deep in his baggy, insomniac’s face. ‘What sort of a time do you call this?’ said Terry Skipton. ‘Twenty past nine,’ said Gordon with less than his usual obscurity. But when Henry said, ‘Morning, Gordon. Nice weekend?’ Gordon exclaimed, ‘Penalty!’ Henry deduced that it hadn’t been a nice weekend.

His disobedient head was swivelling round again, to take a sip of Helen’s loveliness. She smiled sweetly and returned to her forecast of a revolution in ladies’ undergarments. He switched off her loveliness with a sigh, and stepped back into the dark world of his journalistic inexperience.

He finished the story and handed it to Terry Skipton, who began to read it with a face as long as a Sunday in Didcot.

‘“Connotation”!’ he said. ‘What’s the meaning of “connotation”?’

‘Meaning,’ said Henry.

This is what I say,’ said Terry Skipton. ‘What’s the meaning?’

‘No,’ said Henry. ‘You’ve mistaken my meaning. When I said “meaning” I was meaning that the meaning of connotation is meaning.’

‘Well, if you mean “meaning”, say “meaning”. They won’t understand “connotation” in Splutt. Anyroad, I must read on. I’m riveted.’ Terry Skipton read on, with darkening brow. ‘It’s all about Iceland,’ he said.

‘He’s
from
Iceland.’

‘I told you to find out his views about Thurmarsh. I mean, what are we, the
Thurmarsh Argus
or the
Trondheim Argus
?’

‘Trondheim’s in Norway.’

‘Is it? Well, if you’re such a Clever Dick you ought to know better than write rubbish like this. I want stuff about Thurmarsh.’

‘But Thurmarsh people know about Thurmarsh.’

‘They want to know what
he
thinks about Thurmarsh. They couldn’t care less about Iceland. It’s thousands of miles away. They’ve never been there. They’re never going to go there.’

‘I didn’t realize people were so parochial,’ said Henry.

‘I’m deeply sorry that mankind fails to come up to your high standards, Mr Pratt,’ said Terry Skipton. ‘You’ll rewrite that story this afternoon. In the meantime, get round them hospitals and police stations. There’s been snow and ice. There’ll be accidents. And, regrettable though our parochialism is, please try not to ask the desk sergeant at Blurton Road police station for his views on tribal dancing in Timbuctoo.’

As he walked away, Henry was already regretting making an enemy of Terry Skipton. His new friends were looking at him aghast. Only Gordon spoke. ‘Change ends. More lemons,’ he said. He sounded as if he meant it to be encouraging.

Henry trudged along pavements swept and pavements unswept. He phoned through a whole crop of minor accidents. He lunched alone, in the Rundle Café. A quantity surveyor, enjoying a cup of
coffee
after his braised steak, concealed himself behind the
Sporting Chronicle
to hide the moisture in his eyes as he Listened with Mother to the story of Gerald the Shy Guards Van.

That afternoon, Henry bashed out his story.

Mr Gunnar Fridriksen, from Iceland, likes Thurmarsh [he wrote]. In particular, he likes our grime!

Grime gives the buildings real atmosphere, he avers: ‘We just do not have this grime in Iceland. Iceland is so clean, so new.’

Another aspect of our life which wins praise from Mr Fridriksen, who runs an old people’s home in the Icelandic capital, is our draught beer. ‘It’s an acquired taste,’ he jokes. ‘I have acquired it!’

Mr Fridriksen, aged 43, also likes our gardens – front and back.

The kindness of the ordinary man – and woman! – in the street is another source of praise from the blond Icelander.

And he enjoys our toast. In fact, when he goes home Mr Fridriksen will take a very practical souvenir for his wife. Yes, a toaster!

The unprepossessing news editor read the story in grim silence.

‘We’ll make a journalist of you yet,’ he said.

That evening, at number 66, Barry Frost bolted his liver and bacon, hummed that his desert was waiting so fiercely that he sprayed rhubarb crumble over his fellow ‘businessmen’, said, ‘Dress rehearsal tonight,’ and handed them all tickets for the first night. Liam’s shining face reddened with excitement. Norman Pettifer talked about Sibyl Thorndike’s St Joan. Cousin Hilda affected disapproval, but Henry sensed that she too was excited.

He looked at two flats that evening, but they were awful. He felt like going to the pub, but hurried home and watched
Come Dancing
with Cousin Hilda. Half of him affected lofty scorn. The other half danced to exotic Latin-American rhythms with Helen Cornish, who had sewn all the sequins herself.

On Tuesday he finished his calls quickly, bought the first edition of the paper and had a quick beer in the Pigeon and Two Cushions. There it was, on page 5, under the headline ‘He likes our grime’. Three other customers had early editions. One of them said he’d have fancied Ginger’s Delight in the one forty-five at Beverley if racing hadn’t been snowed off. Another said, ‘We should bomb that bugger Makarios.’ None of them said, ‘By ’eck, there’s an Icelander here likes our grime.’

He lunched in the canteen. He announced that he was looking for a flat. Ginny said, ‘There’s a flat to rent in my house.’ Helen said, ‘That’d be cosy.’ Gordon stared glumly at his toad-in-the-hole and said, ‘He was a well-nourished man of average height.’ Henry told Ginny that he couldn’t see the flat that night. He was seeing
The Desert Song
. Ginny said she was reviewing
The Desert Song
. Helen said, ‘That’ll be cosy.’

The foyer of the Temperance Hall, in Haddock Road, was drab, draughty and bare save for admonitions against drink. But they had arranged to meet Barry Frost there after the performance.

Cousin Hilda and Mrs Wedderburn looked flushed by their exposure to the wanton world of show business. Liam O’Reilly looked exalted. Norman Pettifer looked vaguely disgusted, as if disappointed not to have seen Edith Evans.

Ginny approached them. Henry noticed for the first time that her legs were slightly bowed.