The Complete Pratt (67 page)

‘Well, yes. Under the circumstances. Compared with what he could have said. I mean, he could have said, “That bloody bitch! After what she’s done to me?”’

‘Henry!’

‘No! Auntie Doris! I’m not saying that, and nor is he, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, under the circumstances, wrong though it’d be, you could imagine somebody saying that. But they haven’t. I think that’s encouraging.’

The door opened and let in a blast of cold air and a well-bred couple who bred dogs well. They shook the drips off themselves with only marginally more consideration than the dogs they bred might have shown.

‘I don’t know that there’s any point in all this,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I don’t know that I could ever walk out on a man.’ She must have sensed the struggle Henry was having not to raise his eyebrows. ‘I never walked out on Teddy.
He
left
me
… because he had to. I just … couldn’t live without a man.’

Henry felt a twinge of his puritan conscience. He knew it to be hypocritical, in view of his own behaviour, but he was powerless to prevent it. Auntie Doris must have sensed it too. She had very acute antennae where her own affairs were concerned.

‘Oh, I’m not talking about the physical side,’ she said. She lowered her voice, just too late to avoid the interest of nearby customers. ‘I’m talking about security. Without a man to hold me together I disintegrate. Oh, I know I’ve never loved Geoffrey the way I loved Teddy, but … but he couldn’t run the hotel without me. He can’t keep staff. He’s been good to me, in his way. He needs me, and I need to be needed.’

The indignation exploded in Henry’s head. In his life Auntie Doris was a wall of make-up, a sudden gust of scent, a blaze of dyed hair, a spirit of romance all the more moving because it was never quite real. She deserved better than Geoffrey Porringer. He’d help her get it.

‘“Good to you”?’ he said. ‘The reason he can’t keep staff is because he can’t keep his wandering hands off them.’

‘Henry!’

‘Lorna told me. He rubs up against her. Touches her up and makes it look accidental. I’m sorry, Auntie Doris. Don’t look like that, Auntie Doris. I’m only telling you because … Uncle Teddy’s there. Waiting. Calling his club Cap Ferrat. Remembering.’

‘Arrange for me to see Teddy, will you, Henry?’ said Auntie Doris grimly.

Drunken Everton fans damaged a train taking them home from Manchester. Eoka terrorists blew up an airliner in Cyprus. The talks between Britain and Archbishop Makarios foundered over the question of rights for Turkish Cypriots. The police found no trace of Mr E. F. Crowther.

Henry met Uncle Teddy in the Cap Ferrat on Tuesday lunchtime. They sat at a table near the bar, with glasses of whisky. The room, which at night had been made to look tawdry by the presence of mild sinfulness, now looked even more tawdry because of its absence. In daylight, when the traditional mediterranean tablecloths hadn’t yet come back from the laundry, it was only too obvious that the traditional mediterranean tables had been mass-produced in Retford. Henry felt a sickening lurch of nerves. He’d burnt Auntie Doris’s boats. Supposing he’d got it wrong?

He hadn’t got it wrong.

‘Splendid,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Well, well. I’m going to ring her up, Henry. Strike while the iron’s hot. You’ve done a grand job. Just grand. You can leave it to me now. I’m going to invite her for a champagne dinner. Oh, Henry, Henry! Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘Yes.’ Henry had a terrible feeling that he was going to cry. Desperately he composed himself, so that he could say, without his voice breaking, the words that must be faced. ‘I love you both, you see.’

For an awful moment he thought Uncle Teddy was going to ignore this, but he didn’t.

‘I love you too, son,’ he said.

HE DRESSED RAPIDLY.
This time, if there was a scoop, he was going to be there.

He slammed the front door behind him. A startled cat knocked a dustbin lid off, and he could hear the hollow clanking of goods vans in the distant marshalling yards. Those were the halcyon days of shunting.

He hesitated. If Gordon didn’t leave his wife, it wouldn’t increase Henry’s chances with Ginny if he roared off in search of fame, leaving her asleep. Besides, he was fond of her. He wanted her to share the glory.

He went back inside, and knocked on her door.

‘What is it?’ she groaned, her voice coated in sleep.

‘There’ve been a tremendous number of fire engines. I think there’s a big fire.’

‘Thanks.’ She was wide awake immediately. She’d scented battle. ‘I’ll just jump into some clothes.’

He had erotic visions of the ample curves of her naked body as she leapt across the room into a pair of slacks.

She joined him in less than three minutes. What a woman! He glanced at her face in the dim light of the hall. It was drowsy, blotchy, replete. He felt a stab of jealousy.

If only they’d had cars. Not many reporters did, in those days. They struggled through the misty, sulphurous night towards that distant glow. Down Winstanley Road, down York Road, round the back of the Town Hall, past the brooding court house with its absurdly large Doric pillars, across the deserted High Street into Market Street, two panting, unfit, overweight journalists, one sated with sex, the other weakened by the torments of frustration.

The fire sent a shiver down Henry’s spine. Fire was primitive. It raised echoes of atavistic superstition. He wondered, afterwards, if he’d already known that it was the Cap Ferrat that was burning.

Doors were open in the old, condemned, rat-infested houses in Canal View. In their curiosity, people were letting the world see
them
in their curlers and face creams, their thick corded pyjamas and dog-worn slippers.

They turned the corner of Malmesbury Street and gasped. The flames were shooting thirty feet into the air from the stricken club. Showers of sparks were leaping into the night and drifting slowly onto the vulnerable roofs of neighbouring buildings.

The street was jammed with fire engines and the police had erected cordons to keep the disaster-watchers at bay.

Henry and Ginny hurried forward. Henry showed his press card for the first time and croaked, ‘Press.’ A policeman gave them a hard look, then nodded them through.

Huge hoses were arcing impotently onto the crackling inferno. On the roof of the Thurmarsh Joke Emporium and Magic Shop, four firemen with breathing apparatus were trying to find a way into the burning nightclub. Oh god! Uncle Teddy might be in there. Henry ran towards the blaze, ran into a wall of shimmering, impossible heat. A fireman grabbed him.

‘It’s my uncle’s club,’ he shouted.

‘You can’t go in,’ said the fireman. ‘We’re doing our best. Keep out of our road, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Yes. Yes. Sorry,’ said Henry.

Ginny was busy without looking busy, asking firemen questions so casually that they were able to continue their work and didn’t think not to answer. Henry caught sight of a familiar face. Monsieur Emile, from Gay Charlesville-Mexières, small, dapper, moustachioed, staring fixedly at the ruins. Henry hurried over to him.

‘My uncle,’ he said. ‘Mr Braithwaite. The owner. Is he in there?’

‘No, no. I think no one is there. We all leaved. I seed Mr Braithwaite lock up. He leaved with Mr Vicarage.’

Henry’s knees trembled. He hadn’t known how worried he was until he realized how relieved he was. As the release swept over him, he heard a tiny, stubbornly pedantic corner of his brain say, ‘Parsonage. His name is Parsonage.’ He hardly listened to Monsieur Emile, rabbiting on among the flames. ‘I go home. I have a friend in Nice. Maybe we open a club there. For Thurmarsh, is bad. For Mr Braithwaite, is bad. For me, maybe I shouldn’t say so,
is
not so bad.’ Even as he spoke, there was a small explosion. A great bundle of flaming newspapers shot out of the Mandarin Fish Bar and landed among the firemen, scattering them briefly.

‘Come on,’ yelled Ginny, above the roar of the flames, her face shining in their glow. ‘I’ve got the basic facts. Let’s ring the nationals. We might just catch the late editions.’ Getting paid ‘lineage’ was an acceptable perk for local journalists. Ginny gave him a few phone numbers and the basic facts as they hurried to the phone booths in Tannery Road. They passed Ted and Helen, hurrying down Fish Hill towards the scene. Ted looked as if he’d been interrupted in coitus. Helen looked immaculate, not a hair out of place, as if she were rushing to a fire in an American film.

‘How many appliances are there?’ he asked, as they reached the phone boxes.

‘Seventeen. Twenty-two. Twenty. Eighteen.’

‘What?’

‘Vary it. Make it look as if the stories are coming from different sources.’

‘What about the truth?’

Ginny snorted and rang the
Daily Herald
.

Henry enjoyed phoning the nationals. John Carpenter, who worked for the
Thurmarsh Chronicle
, banged on the door with all the authority of his thirty years as a journalist and asked how long he’d be. He shrugged, and made a gesture which might have indicated that he’d be two minutes. Three calls later, when John Carpenter was angrily pointing to his watch, he sang out, ‘Only one more.’ He didn’t care. Uncle Teddy was safe. He was playing his part in the telling of a big story. John Carpenter had concentrated on him because he thought he’d be softer than Ginny. He was wrong. Henry was a hard man now. ‘All yours,’ he said generously as he left. John Carpenter, who had once been sent packing from Cousin Hilda’s because of his drinking habits, scowled. Henry grinned.

He hurried back to the scene of the fire. The hoses were still gushing mightily, but the flames continued to roar their defiance. Henry found himself wondering what would happen to Alphonso Boycott and his Northern Serenaders, the legendary Martine and the Côte d’Azur Cuties.

‘Oh my God!’ moaned a pale man at his side.

‘I know,’ said Henry. ‘And it only opened two weeks ago.’

‘I’m not insured,’ said the pale man. ‘I forgot to renew the insurance.’

‘You what?’

‘On Timpley’s. That’s mine, the tobacconist’s. Next to the magic shop. That’s my livelihood there. That’s thirty-three years. They say the whole block may go.’

A shower of sparks landed on the roof of Timpley and Nephews. George Timpley shuddered and said, ‘Oh my God’ again. Henry flinched too as the sparks danced on the roof like ducks on a hot plate.

Then he realized that he was standing next to a story. Never mind Ginny and Ted and Helen charging around. He had a human interest story all to himself. One man’s night of fear. I shared the agonizing vigil of Thurmarsh tobacconist George Timpley, aged?, as he watched the sparks landing on the roof of his tobacconist’s.

It would be a good story if the building were saved, but it would be a better story if it burnt down. Don’t even think like that! But I have to. I’m paid to. I’m a journalist. Good news is no news.

A tobacconist watched as his life’s work went up in smoke. No! Stop it! Oh god, if you exist, which I doubt, let Timpley and Nephews survive this night. The man didn’t even have any sons. That ‘and Nephews’ pierces my heart. This may be just a little back street tobacconist’s to me, but to him it’s his dream. Tobacconist’s pipe-dream goes up in smoke. No!

George Timpley gave Henry his life story. It poured out compulsively. Henry scribbled surreptitiously, hoping some of what he wrote would be legible. George Timpley never even noticed. He was staring fixedly at his little shop. He was every fireman, every hose, every jet of water, every spark of fire. He seemed puzzled when Henry asked how old he was.

‘Fifty-seven,’ he said. ‘Why?’

An explosion ripped out part of the wall of the Thurmarsh Joke Emporium and Magic Shop. Glass tinkled into the street. Fake cakes, bottomless tumblers, diminishing Woodbines and impossible spoons were hurled high into the sky. The air was full of
sneezing
powder, itching powder and electric snuff. Whoopie cushions, goofy teeth, joke spiders and pop-up ties rained down on the bewildered firemen. A large cardboard box of Naughty Fido dog turds, ordered but not yet collected by the Winstanley Young Conservatives, soared into the air, hovered, burst, and showered its unsavoury contents all over Malmesbury Street. Brightly coloured snakes burst from posies of flying flowers.

Then the smells came. The burning of rubber. Rubber doves, rubber eggs, rubber coat-hangers, rubber ears. The burning of plastic billiard balls and wobbly cheese. And, over and above it all, the stench of the stink bombs.

The roof slowly caved in. The chimney crumbled. The vanishing cigars vanished. The vanishing ink vanished. For its last and greatest trick, the shop itself vanished. There was a gaping hole, beside Timpley and Nephews where, a minute before, the Thurmarsh Joke Emporium and Magic Shop had stood.

The hard-pressed firemen donned breathing apparatus, to protect them from the stench of blocked drains and rotting greens unleashed by the stink bombs. They trod on farting cushions as they fought to quell the blaze. Hoses shook, sending water zig-zagging through the sky, as men sneezed violently, scratched desperately, or ducked to avoid being hit by false noses.

Henry ducked to avoid a flying, melting dog turd, which struck George Timpley full in the face. Helen approached him, still immaculate. Suddenly her dignity was assailed from all sides. She was racked by a fit of violent sneezing. She slipped on a plastic fried egg which her watery eyes couldn’t see. She fell over, backwards. She subsided, still sneezing, her superb legs swinging in the air, her tempting thighs visible to a world that wasn’t interested, onto a pile of top hats, seamless sacks and whoopie cushions, which gave off a gentle volley of soft, mournful farts. And Henry laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed for a dozen Young Conservatives. Hysteria had him in its grip.