The Complete Pratt (74 page)

‘Of course they can’t.’

‘Only some of the lads said they can. I mean, with the canal and the oil and everything and that. Only it’s me dad’s shop, innit?’

‘We’re here for a fortnight, Gus. They
are
calling up a few special reservists. They don’t just call you in for a fortnight and then keep you. If there’s ever a general mobilization, it’ll be done later. And you’ll probably get exemption on compassionate grounds, because of your dad’s arse.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Honestly, Gus.’

‘I wish I knew fings. I wish I was an educated geezer like you.’

An educated geezer. He’d never thought of himself as that. Thought of himself as uneducated, because he hadn’t gone to university. Could probably have just about squeezed in, if he’d tried. Hadn’t ever really thought about it. Why not? Because nobody in the family ever had? Because he was frightened of not squeezing in? Because he was frightened of squeezing in and being so much worse than everybody else? Because he was in love with the romantic concept of ‘real life’? Too late to think about it all now, anyway.
Je ne regrette rien
. The Edith Piaf of the
Thurmarsh Evening Argus
.

They were told to get fell in. They got fell in. The late August rain continued. They marched four miles up sodden tracks. They were told to get fell out. They got fell out. They stood, in their capes, watching nothing. The rain eased off. A mobile canteen provided them with hot food. It was cold curry. ‘They said we’d ’ave ’ot food,’ said Gus Norris. ‘It is hot,’ said Henry. ‘Mine’s stone cold,’ said Gus Norris. ‘So’s mine,’ said Henry. ‘I fought you said it was ’ot,’ said Gus Norris. ‘It is,’ said Henry. ‘What are you on about?’ said Gus Norris. ‘The curry is a hot curry, even though it’s stone cold. We can’t get them on that one, the sods,’ said Henry. ‘I wish
I
was an educated geezer,’ said Gus Norris.

An officer addressed them through a megaphone. ‘Erm … hello, men,’ he said. ‘Erm … we were going to have a demonstration of … erm … flame-throwers, which I think you’d all have found very … erm … I know I would, but there you are, apparently there’s been a … erm … through no fault of ours, we’re rather in the hands of the flame-thrower chappies, so I’m afraid we’ll rather have to scrub round that one for the moment, which is jolly bad luck. However, never fear, we are hoping to arrange a … erm … and it
is
at short notice, so you’ll have to bear with us, a … erm … display of … erm … camouflage techniques, which should be jolly interesting. So … erm … for the moment … stand easy.’

Since they were all standing easy already, there was no response to this instruction. And at that moment Henry caught sight of Brian Furnace and understood immediately that the ghost which still had to be laid wasn’t Burbage, but Brian Furnace. The whole thing was such a shambles that there seemed to be no objection to walking about, so he wandered over towards Brian. A pair of grouse flew low over the moors towards them. Catching sight of several hundred soldiers, and knowing that it was after the glorious twelfth, they veered away, in understandable panic, and disappeared over the mist-drenched horizon. Henry walked up to Brian with a heart that was beating like a grouse’s wings.

‘Hello, Brian.’

Brian swung round and looked quietly astonished.

‘Henry!’

Brian looked so placid. Always so placid. His face still boyish, but his arms strong and muscular. He worked for his father, who was a builder in Fareham. Brian liked working with his hands. It was hard to believe that Brian’s heart had ever beaten like a grouse’s wings.

‘Yes.’

‘My God!’

‘Yes. We’ll go for a few drinks tonight, eh?’

A rendezvous arranged, Henry wandered back to his unit. The officer spoke again through the megaphone.

‘Erm …’ he said. ‘I’m afraid, men, I have bad news for you.’

‘They’ve found the flame-throwers,’ shouted a wag.

A volley of cries from NCOs rang out over the wet moors. More grouse flew off. Their cries of ‘Go back’ mingled with shouts of ‘Shurrup’ and ‘Belt up, that man’ and ‘Hold your tongue, the officer’s talking.’

At last order was restored sufficiently for the officer to continue talking.

‘Erm …’ he said. ‘Efforts to locate the camouflage team at short notice have unfortunately failed. Perhaps they … erm …’ His voice took on an exaggeratedly jocular tone, signalling and destroying the joke. ‘… perhaps they were too jolly well camouflaged, what?’ The sergeants laughed uproariously. The corporals smiled. They only laughed uproariously at the sergeants’ jokes. The men didn’t laugh at all. ‘So … erm … let’s all get fell in and see if we can have a jolly good march back to base.’

They had a jolly shambolic march back to base. Once, in Germany, that creep Tubman-Edwards had said, ‘Any complaints?’ and Lanky Lasenby had said, ‘Yes, sir. There’s an awful smell of shambolic in the bogs’ and Tubman-Edwards had said, ‘Don’t you mean carbolic?’ and Lanky Lasenby had said, ‘Have you been in the bogs recently, sir?’ and everybody had laughed and the great lump of blackmailing yak turd had decided to find it amusing too so as not to lose face and Lanky Lasenby had got away with it as usual.

After their jolly shambolic march, they had a jolly disgusting tea – what
did
Eric Lugg teach them? – and then Henry and Brian walked five miles, on a bitterly cold and grey but no longer wet summer evening, to the Red Lion at Scunnock Head, an old copper miners’ pub, the third highest in Britain. There, in the flagged bar, at a bare wooden table, in front of a fire that was roaring even in August, Henry and Brian drank good, strong Stones’s bitter and talked of everything except what mattered.

They laughed about the method of marching that Lanky Lasenby had invented. The front ranks took huge steps, the back ranks took tiny steps, the squad elongated like a concertina, and they could never find anybody to blame.

They laughed about the language of Corporal Pride. Cousin Hilda, whose look could strangle swear words at birth, approved of national service as character-building. Henry wished she could
have
met Corporal Pride. He hadn’t been a man of many words, but a man of one word said many times. He used it as adjective, noun and verb. They laughed as they recalled him saying, ‘Wot you done to this rifle, Pratt? The fucking fucker’s fucked.’

What they didn’t talk about was their night-time embraces in German haystacks, their nights in a back street hotel in Aachen, with the church bells ingrained upon their guilt.

Henry had decided what he’d say. He’d say, ‘Brian. I’m sorry I didn’t write. But … it’s over, you see. It was just because the sergeant warned us of the dangers of the
Fräuleins
, and Lorna was so far away, and there I was, awash with youthful sexuality, in that strange, masculine, military world. And I liked you. But I’ve found out now that I’m completely heterosexual. Sorry, Brian.’

He’d say it on the long, dark walk back, when Brian couldn’t see his face.

They set off, briskly, through the raw night.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t write,’ said Brian, just as Henry was going to say ‘I’m sorry I didn’t write.’ Which left Henry saying the infinitely less impressive: ‘Yes. So am I.’

‘I’m engaged,’ said Brian.

‘What?’ said Henry.

‘To this nurse from Truro.’

‘Ah. Great.’

‘It was just … you know … the sergeant warning us about the
Fräuleins
and everything.’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry, Henry.’

‘What?’

‘You’re upset, aren’t you?’

‘No. It’s just that … I was going to say the same thing to you.’

‘What?’

‘About us. And the sergeant and … er …’

‘Oh. Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. I’m engaged too. She’s called Jill Cornish. She’s an air hostess.’

They would avoid each other for the rest of the fortnight and, when they’d gone home – Gus Norris’s fears were unfounded – Henry would never hear again from his national service lover.

He crawled onto his palliasse, utterly exhausted, and was soon asleep.

Sergeant Botney was waiting.

‘Right, you ’orrible little man,’ he said. ‘I’ve got you where I want you now. You’re going to be sorry you ruined my wedding anniversary, Signalman Henry Pratt. You’ve signed on while pissed, sunshine. I’m going to ruin your next fifteen years.’

THE FAMOUS LANDMARKS
of Florence floated like islands above a sea of red roofs. Around those great domes and bold elegant towers, those soaring triumphs of individual inspiration, lay the unified dignity of the city, the classical lines of the stark palaces, the genius of communal restraint. It was as if the eternal clash between the freedom of the individual and the discipline of the state had been frozen, in stone and marble, here on the banks of the Arno.

It was impossible, walking in that great city, set among hills dotted with crumbling golden villas, silvery olive trees and lines of dark cypresses, to believe that at that very moment, in Thurmarsh, under a lowering sky, in a dusty newsroom, Terry Skipton was assigning reporters to magistrates’ and juvenile courts.

‘Podger!’

A Pavlovian
frisson
ran down Henry’s spine. Only in the army had they called him Podger.

Michael Collinghurst, tall, hook-nosed, with blue eyes and light brown hair, was crossing the dark, elegant Via Tornabuoni towards them, smiling from stick-out ear to stick-out ear.

Henry’s face lit up at the sight of his old friend. Lampo Davey’s face darkened at the sight of Henry’s face lighting up. A dark-haired, older young man in fawn open-neck shirt, blue shorts, red socks and sandals crossed the road reluctantly to join them.

‘This is Father Ellis,’ said Michael Collinghurst.

Father Ellis smiled austerely, carefully. He had very hairy legs and had shaved carelessly. Why should I be surprised when priests are hairy? thought Henry.

They went to an open-air café in the Piazza della Signoria, studded with statues, dominated by the crenellated, machicolated Palazzo Vecchio, with its high, slim, boldly off-centre tower.

Michael and Henry ordered extravagant ice creams with delight. Father Ellis ordered an extravagant ice cream with shame. Lampo ordered an espresso coffee.

‘Well, Henry,’ said Michael. ‘You are how?’

‘Bad not too, oh. Grumble mustn’t,’ said Henry.

‘To you again see, very it’s good,’ said Michael.

‘Too you,’ said Henry.

Father Ellis and Lampo Davey looked puzzled.

‘It’s a little had we habit,’ explained Henry. ‘Words our orders unusual in putting.’

‘Hours military boring slight the easement of for,’ said Michael.

Father Ellis and Lampo seemed pained at these juvenilia.

‘I’ve decided to become a Catholic priest,’ said Michael, with that sudden simplicity which Henry remembered so well.

Henry realized that his dismay was discourteous to Father Ellis. He tried to smile. It was a failure. Lampo relaxed when he saw Henry’s dismay. The ice creams arrived. Lampo frowned.

‘I’m twenty-one years old,’ said Henry. ‘I like ice cream.’

‘Some Anglo-Saxons lose all restraint when they go south,’ said Lampo. ‘I like self-discipline and austerity. I think I’d make a good monk if I believed in God.’

‘If you can say that,’ said Father Ellis, through a mouthful of ice cream, ‘I think you’re very close to coming to God.’

‘Yes, I’ve had a narrow escape,’ said Lampo.

Michael laughed. Father Ellis flushed and tried to look as if he wasn’t enjoying his ice cream.

‘How’s your religious state, Henry?’ said Michael. ‘I remember hearing all about your discovery and loss of faith in Thurmarsh.’

‘It’s lost for good, I think,’ said Henry.

‘Never say that,’ said Father Ellis.

‘I believe in good and evil,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t believe that there’s an actual being, shaping our destinies. I’ve never seen why there’s any difficulty in believing in good and evil without believing that they’re imposed from above. And even if God did exist, I don’t see why people should take his authority upon themselves in his name. The last thing we need, in our spiritual life, is a system that’s as authoritarian and hierarchical as the system we’re saddled with in our temporal life.’

Henry felt exhilarated. This was European café life, and he was part of it! He attacked his ice cream with renewed relish.

‘Lunch together have we shall?’ said Michael.

‘Idea splendid a what,’ said Henry, before Lampo could make
their
excuses. He felt happy. In putting his words in the wrong order, Michael wasn’t simply fooling. He was telling Henry that their friendship could survive his entry into the priesthood.

‘Put don’t more any order wrong in words, Michael,’ said Henry.

‘Right quite,’ said Michael. ‘Sorry oh. Done I’ve again it!’

Father Ellis frowned at his protégé.

‘You have a very frivolous side to your nature, Michael,’ he said.

‘Because he’s deeply confident about his basic seriousness,’ said Henry. ‘I think you aren’t confident enough about your seriousness to be remotely frivolous.’