The Complete Pratt (62 page)

‘She’s out.’

The anti-climax was shattering. She couldn’t be. She had no right to be.

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘Could be round the Luggs.’

‘Well could you give her a message? I’m staying at the White Hart. Could you ask her if she could meet me tomorrow morning? I could pick her up here round about ten.’

He wandered away. Should he call on the Luggs? He set off down the winding back lane towards their cottage. It was surrounded by more old cars, baths and prams than ever. He turned back abruptly, before anyone saw him. There were too many Luggs, and he particularly didn’t want to see Jane, built like a rugby forward, who’d been his childhood sweetheart before Pam Yardley, who’d been his childhood sweetheart before Lorna. If Lorna was ‘round the Luggs’, let her remain there undisturbed.

He heard horse’s hooves. Round the corner there came a magnificent creature, a real thoroughbred, perfectly groomed, highly strung, shining with health, a superb physical specimen produced by generations of careful breeding. The horse was nice too.

‘It’s Henry, isn’t it?’ The face smiled, a social smile from on high. Henry decided that he’d campaign to remove the Elgin marbles from her mouth and return them to Greece. He wished horses didn’t make him uneasy, wished she wasn’t so far above him, wished he could think of something better to say than ‘
Yes
. Hello, Belinda.’ He wished he wasn’t nine years old again.

‘Whoa, Marigold. Henry’s a friend,’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham, who had once called him an oik.

He heard a parody of himself say, ‘You’ve become a really beautiful woman, Belinda.’ Well, it’d be churlish not to admit it. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of thinking that he was still an oik.

‘What are you doing these days?’ she asked.

‘I’m working as a reporter on the
Thurmarsh Evening Argus
.’

‘Oh. Is that …?’ She couldn’t think of an adjective.

‘Interesting?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘
I
think so.’

He watched her brain whirring through all the connections, seeking new subject matter.

‘Have you seen Diana recently?’

He longed to say, ‘Yes. We made love last weekend.’ He hadn’t the courage. He said, ‘Yes. I saw her last week.’

‘Careful, Marigold,’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham. ‘Don’t frighten Henry. She’s all right, Henry.’

‘I’m sure she is. I’m not frightened.’ Why say that, when he longed to edge away from those towering, steaming, chestnut flanks.

‘Listen,’ said Belinda Boyce-Uppingham, with every semblance of real friendliness. ‘I have a nutty uncle near Thurmarsh. If I visit him and I can get away, will you show me the town? Are we on?’

‘Yes. That’d be smashing.’

‘Wonderful.’

He was getting an erection. She was so beautiful. Life was so unfair. If he made a move, would she leap off Marigold and lose her individuality with him on the muddy verge of the lane? Could he become the third D. H. Lawrence?

‘Well, lovely to see you, Henry,’ she said. ‘I mean that. So glad you’re … er …’ Again, she couldn’t find an adjective. What had she been searching for? Still alive? Not unemployable? Not totally physically repulsive? Getting erections at the sight of me?

When she’d gone, it was as if the light began to fade. He told
himself
that it wasn’t her fault that she was as she was. This was awful. Supposing, in one day, he found that he didn’t dislike either Geoffrey Porringer or Belinda Boyce-Uppingham? What would there be left to cling to?

He realized, to his relief, that the light really was fading from the steely winter sky. He walked over the hump bridge, past his old school, with its high Gothic windows and triangular gables. A car was approaching. He thumbed it. It sped him to Troutwick. By half past four he was asking the snooty receptionist for tea.

Auntie Doris brought it.

‘Auntie Doris?’ he said in a low voice. ‘I want to speak to you alone.’

‘Good Lord!’ she said. She thought swiftly. ‘Go to the Sun at six. I’ll try to slip out.’

The Sun was a dark, gloomy pub near the station. Auntie Doris, wafting in on a tide of scent, seemed totally out of place. She kissed him and bought him a beer.

‘Auntie Doris?’ he said, when they’d settled in a dim corner near the darts board. ‘I met Uncle Teddy.’ He fancied that she paled, under all the make-up.

‘Where?’

‘In Thurmarsh. In the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar.’

‘Good Lord. I … knew he’d come out, of course. How was he?’

‘He seemed all right.’

‘You talked, did you?’

‘Oh yes. I … er … I was a bit drunk, though.’

‘Was he … er …?’

‘There was a man with him. Derek Parsonage.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He has blackheads.’

‘I’d need more to go on.’

He wished he hadn’t mentioned the blackheads. Did the subject have a fatal fascination for him?

‘Did he … er … say anything about me?’

‘No. It didn’t … you know … crop up.’

‘Ah. Did he … er … say anything about … anybody else there might be in his life?’

‘No.’

‘It didn’t crop up?’

‘No. But … er … there is one thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s opening a nightclub.’

‘Oh? And?’

‘Well … he’s calling it the Cap Ferrat. I mean, he wouldn’t name it after your house and the place where you spent your holidays if there was somebody else, would he?’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Auntie Doris? I suppose none of this is my business, really, but … I do love you, you know.’

‘I’m not sure I did know, no.’

‘Oh. Well I do.’

‘I’m not sure I deserve it.’

‘Well there you are. I do, anyway. And …’ He hoped she couldn’t see his blushes. ‘… obviously I wish you’d waited for Uncle Teddy and were still with him, because … you know … so anyway I thought I’d tell you anyway.’

‘You don’t like Geoffrey very much, do you?’

‘Well … you know.’

‘I like Geoffrey very much.’

‘Yes.’

‘I like Teddy very much.’

‘Yes.’

‘Life’s complicated.’

He judged it wise to leave it there. He’d sown the seed.

Auntie Doris slipped him thirty pounds.

‘Don’t tell Geoffrey,’ she said.

They went in to dinner fairly late, after the paying customers had ordered. The dining-room was small and unpretentious, with whitewashed walls. There was a fine Welsh dresser covered with good English plates. Lorna handed Henry the menu as if she’d never seen him before.

He ordered oxtail soup and grilled lamb cutlets. Geoffrey Porringer spent a long time choosing the claret. ‘You’ll like this one, young sir,’ he said, with a smile that was barely slimy at all.

The claret was nice. He thanked Lorna for his soup. He wanted to call her ‘Lorna’ but found it impossible. He thanked her for the lamb cutlets. He thanked her for the potatoes and the cauliflower and the carrots.

‘My word, young sir, you’re being very polite to our Lorna,’ said Geoffrey Porringer.

‘Geoffrey! Don’t draw attention to it,’ said Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. ‘He knows her,’ she mouthed.

At the end of the meal, Lorna caught Henry’s eye and nodded. She could have saved him a lot of tension if she’d done it earlier, but he didn’t blame her.

Over his bacon and fried eggs, Henry read the
Sunday Express
. An exchange of letters between Presidents Bulganin and Eisenhower was published. President Bulganin had tried to establish a 20 year American–Russian pact, which would completely ignore Great Britain. President Eisenhower rebuffed the suggestion and said that they already had such a treaty, if the Russians chose to make it work. It was called the Charter of the United Nations. In Troutwick, these sounded like voices from another world.

Geoffrey Porringer drove him to Rowth Bridge. It had rained in the night but the winter sun was breaking through, touching the great mass of Mickleborough with its faint warmth, shining palely on the glutinous fields. Henry’s mind went back to the last time he had travelled this road by car, before his national service, with his three best friends, Martin Hammond, Paul Hargreaves and Stefan Prziborsky. Now he wasn’t even sure if he liked Martin or Paul, and Stefan, the only Polish-born batsman ever to play cricket for Thurmarsh, had emigrated to Australia.

‘What are you doing in Rowth Bridge?’ Geoffrey Porringer’s voice plopped dully into his nostalgic melancholy.

‘Looking up an old friend.’

‘Girlfriend?’

‘That kind of thing.’

‘Jolly good. Keep at it.’

‘Yes.’

That was the kind of fatuous conversation he had with Geoffrey
Porringer
. He wondered if Geoffrey Porringer suspected that the girl was Lorna.

When they reached Rowth Bridge, Geoffrey Porringer slipped him thirty pounds. ‘Don’t tell Doris,’ he said. Only later did Henry wonder if it was hush money, because Geoffrey Porringer suspected that Lorna had told him about the rubbing against her.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I had to wait for Geoffrey Porringer.’

Lorna snorted.

They walked slowly, past the jumbled stone houses and cottages, in the watery sunshine.

He felt a stab of horror as he realized that they were approaching the church. He didn’t want to run the gauntlet of the village churchgoers, holding hands with Lorna Arrow.

He tried, gently, to remove his hand. She clasped it firmly. He saw people out of the corner of his eye.

The Boyce-Uppinghams were arriving! Lorna squeezed his hand, so hard that it hurt. He could hardly wrench their hands apart. His cheeks blazed. He hoped neither Lorna nor Belinda would see his blazing cheeks. He squeezed Lorna’s hand and carried on up the road. He didn’t look round.

They were going towards Kit Orris’s field barn. She let go of his hand, now that it no longer mattered.

It had always been wonderful, in Kit Orris’s field barn. She walked straight past the gate that would have led them to the barn. Had she engineered the whole walk? Was it her revenge? He couldn’t blame her.

Belinda would never contact him in Thurmarsh now. Well, he ought to be grateful to Lorna for that.

He couldn’t stand the silence any more. ‘I was very surprised in the hotel, when I got your note,’ he said.

‘Were you?’ she said.

‘I’m sorry about all that.’

‘You were ashamed of me.’

‘No. No, Lorna.’

‘You were ashamed of me, just now, in front of ’er.’

‘Her?’

‘Bloody Belinda. You were as twined as me arse. You never could walk past ’er wi’out blushing when we were bairns.’

‘Give over, Lorna. It’s rubbish, is that.’

‘I ’ave to go now, Henry.’

‘Go?’

‘I’m meeting someone.’ She couldn’t hide a flash of triumph.

‘Oh? Who?’

‘Eric Lugg.’

‘Eric Lugg? He’s got leave from the Cattering Corpse, has he?’ He closed his eyes, as if that would wipe out his sentence.

‘All right, I know I can’t spell,’ she said. ‘I know I’m a right ignorant pig. Well so’s Eric, so it’s all right.’

‘It isn’t all right,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m sorry I said that. I was …’ Upset at the thought of your slender, lovely body being pawed by a Lugg. ‘… upset. Jealous, I suppose. I mean … do you … er … know Eric well?’

‘Course I do. He lives in t’ next lane.’

‘No. I mean … you know … have you been … out with him?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘While I was in the army?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘I see. So I was being lied to.’

‘I suppose you just sat in your barracks and thought about me.’

‘I never went out with another woman, Lorna. Not once.’

Lorna shrugged. ‘We didn’t do owt,’ she said. ‘Not when there was you. Yesterday was the first time.’

And he’d nearly called on them! A dreadful thought struck him.

‘You didn’t do it in the barn, did you?’

‘Course we bloody did. It’s like Piccadilly Circus in our ’ouse.’

‘I wish you hadn’t done it in the barn.’

‘Ruddy ’ell,’ said Lorna. ‘You’re a funny one.’

They turned back, and walked in silence. The sun had disappeared.

‘It’s just … well … Eric Lugg!’ he said. ‘Lorna! You’re special. Spelling doesn’t matter. Education doesn’t matter. What matters is … you’re special. Eric’s a lout.’

‘He’s norra lout. He’s a cookhouse instructor. You ’ardly know
’im
, ’ow can you say ’e’s a lout? ’e’s a bit rough, a bit uncouth, bur … ’e’s all right, is Eric.’

‘Is that enough for you, Lorna – “all right”?’