The Complete Pratt (84 page)

On Tuesday, December 11th, the IRA blew up a BBC relay system in Londonderry, the Postmaster-General, Dr Hill, announced that the BBC and ITV would be allowed to fill the 6–7 p.m. gap, hitherto sacrosanct so that children could be put to bed, Henry’s interview with Tommy Marsden appeared as the second in his series ‘Proud Sons of Thurmarsh’, and Tommy Marsden was transferred to Manchester United for £18,000, without telling Henry.

On Wednesday, December 12th, more Soviet troops moved into Hungary, where there was still a general strike ‘unique in the whole history of the labour movement’, and Henry reviewed the Splutt Vale Iron and Steel Company’s pantomime. Martin Hammond was Widow Twankey. He was terrible. Henry praised everybody. Truth was too precious to be wasted on such trivia.

On Thursday, December 13th, two Ulster barracks were bombed, 52 terrorists were held in Cyprus, there were angry demonstrations and arrests in Poland, double white lines were introduced on British roads, and Mr Matheson entered the lounge bar of the Winstanley with a paunchy, careworn, balding, middle-aged man who was threatening to burst out of a shiny suit in several places.

Henry approached them and said, ‘Hello, Mr Matheson. Can I get you and your friend a drink?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Mr Matheson, putting an affectionate arm on Henry’s shoulder. ‘We have a personal matter to discuss.’

‘Oh. Right,’ said Henry.

‘Let me get you one, though.’

‘No, thank you. Not if you’ve …’

‘… a personal matter to discuss,’ said the balding man in the disastrous suit.

‘I’m Henry Pratt, incidentally. I’m a reporter on the
Argus
.’

‘Nice to meet you, Henry.’ The balding man held out a limp, fat hand. It was like shaking an exhausted flounder.

There were several things Henry might have said. ‘What’s your name, you secretive swine?’ ‘Personal matter? That’s a laugh.’ ‘You think you needn’t worry about me, don’t you? Well, you’re wrong. Nobody muzzles Henry “The man nobody muzzles” Pratt.’

What he actually said was, ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you from your personal matter.’

On Friday, December 14th, the Queen Mary arrived in New York 17 hours late after making a detour because the Greek captain of a Panamanian cargo ship had a persistent nosebleed. Henry arrived at the Rundle Café more than two hours late after hanging around outside the Town Hall, in the cold of the gathering winter, hoping to see the balding official return from lunch, hoping to stalk him through the corridors of local power and identify him as he entered his office. In vain. At five past three, freezing and starving, he attacked his dried-up meat and potato pie with relish. He recognized the man having a cup of tea at the next table.

‘George Timpley, of Timpley and Nephews!’ he said. ‘I interviewed you on the night of the fire.’

‘By ’eck,’ said George Timpley. ‘I thought I knew you.’

‘How are you?’ said Henry, thickly, through overcooked pastry.

‘I’ve been condemned.’

‘You what?’

‘My shop. Condemned. By the council.’

Henry moved over to join him.

‘I say condemned,’ said George Timpley. ‘They haven’t actually
condemned
it as such. They’ve offered to buy it. If I don’t sell, they’ll make a demolition order on the grounds that it’s unsafe. That’s tantamount to condemnation, i’n’t it?’

‘It’s blackmail. What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to sell. What else can I do, next to a blackened hole? An empty site rubs off on neighbouring properties. Her in corner house on end’s selling an’ all.’

‘Corner house? What corner house?’

‘Next to me on me right, on t’ corner wi’ Rundle Prospect. They say she’s unsafe an’ all.’

Henry began to think seriously about the area around the Cap Ferrat. But still not seriously enough.

On Saturday, December 15th, the Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa got carried away by his role and punched Alec Guinness on the nose during the filming of
The Bridge on the River Kwai
. Alec Guinness accepted his apology and said, ‘I’m bleeding for my art.’ On the eve of petrol rationing, almost all petrol stations were closed. Henry bought Christmas presents, including a tea-cosy and tartan bedsocks for Cousin Hilda, a box of exotic honeys for Auntie Doris and cigars for Geoffrey Porringer. His other purchases were less inspired and need not detain us.

On Sunday, December 16th, the AA gave hundreds of stranded motorists enough petrol to get home. Henry, on foot, explored the area between Market Street and the river. The weather was cold, with a thin wind across the Rundle. Exhausted Siberian snow clouds dropped listless sleet over the silent Sunday town.

Three small streets, Canal View, Fish Hill and Rundle Prospect, ran eastwards down the gentle slope from Market Street to the river. Three small streets, Tannery Road, Malmesbury Street and Glasshouse Lane, ran at right angles to them. The whole area had an air of blight. Right at the centre of it was the great hole where the Cap Ferrat had been. There were other, smaller gaps in this neglected, stained mouth. Several teeth needed filling badly. Others were ripe only for extraction. The Old Apothecary’s House still had a gaping cavity, where old rubbish gathered. The Roxy Cinema, that yellowing old molar, no longer bothered to replace
posters
which wags had altered to Poxy. There were four empty cottages in Canal View. Several warehouses in Glasshouse Lane were boarded up, their trade gone when the Rundle silted. The Elite Guest House was elite no longer. The Old Gas Showrooms were used by Snugkoat Ltd as a store. Several tiles had slipped on the roof of the Paragon Surplus Stores. Outside number 11, Tannery Road, the board that announced ‘Tarpaulins Made, Hired and Repaired’ had come loose at one end and was hanging towards the uneven pavement. On the peeling shop front of number 6, Fish Hill, the sign announced ‘ontinental patisserie’. Nothing was quite right in these streets. In the Artisan’s Rest, the bitter tasted like liquid hair. The landlord said, ‘We don’t see strangers of a Sunday’ so accusingly that Henry almost said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go.’

And yet, in those modest streets, there were good simple buildings, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian. If they were improved, if the warehouses were restored, if the gaps were sensitively filled, it could become a delightful area. Henry Pratt, investigative journalist, would fight to discover the truth. Henry Pratt, proud son of Thurmarsh, would fight to preserve what remained of the heritage of his town.

On Monday, December 17th, Hilary rang him at the office. Canal View, Fish Hill, Rundle Prospect, Tannery Road, Malmesbury Street and Glasshouse Lane were forgotten.

HE ENTERED THE
gleaming back bar of the Pigeon and Two Cushions three minutes late. The Christmas decorations were rather sparse. She was already there, dressed in a black jumper and a rather demure check dress in two shades of green. He was no more nervous than any young man would be who was taking out a screwed up, repressed, depressed, high-minded, mentally ill problem girl with a horrible body.

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. He took off his duffel-coat and bought drinks. He glanced at her body. Its repulsiveness didn’t appear to be due to abnormality of shape. She was less thin than he’d remembered, and taller. As tall as him. She had a long, serious nose and a wide, really rather beautiful mouth. Her eyes were a deep brown. He sensed a wariness in them. She was extremely pale.

‘You’re very pale,’ he said. ‘Have you been ill?’

‘People are always asking me that,’ she said. ‘No. I’m as fit as a fiddle. I just am very pale.’

He asked if she’d eaten. She’d had enough not to starve if they didn’t eat, but not so much that she couldn’t shovel in a bit more if they did. This surprised him. He remembered her as a poor eater. He wondered if her mental illness consisted of bouts of starving herself and gorging herself. He went to the phone, with a decisiveness that surprised him, and rang Donny’s Bar. They had one table left. He booked it.

She asked him about his work. He spoke briefly about it, then changed the subject to her studies. She was reading English. He asked about her course. He was so busy sieving her replies for evidence of mental illness that their sense escaped him entirely. He hoped she hadn’t noticed, and tuned back in hurriedly. ‘But don’t let’s talk about me,’ she said. ‘I’m boring.’ It was a statement of fact, not a coquettish attempt to elicit a protesting ‘No, you aren’t!’

Oscar came on duty and smiled at them. Henry told Hilary
about
him, his colds and constipation. Strangely, considering how serious and high-minded she was, she laughed.

He ordered drinks, introduced Hilary, and asked Oscar how he was.

‘I’ve had a touch of flu. Otherwise, mustn’t grumble,’ he said. ‘Except for my little trouble.’

‘Your little trouble?’

‘Summat I wouldn’t like to discuss in front of a lady.’

Hilary ordered the next round and even offered Oscar a drink. He beamed his approval of her. Henry felt puzzled. No sign of mental illness so far. ‘I’m boring,’ was the only slightly odd thing she’d said.

She paid for the drinks. Oscar moved away, and then turned round, just as she said, ‘I need the Ladies. Where is it?’

‘It’s round the back,’ said Oscar, in a near-whisper, as if finding it indelicate to talk about the Ladies in front of a lady.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and hurried off. She was wearing flat shoes, which made her legs look thin.

‘“Thanks”?’ said Oscar, puzzled.

‘For telling her where the Ladies is.’

‘What?’

‘She asked where the Ladies is. You said, “round the back.”’

‘Oh! No! No! My little problem that I couldn’t mention in front of a lady. I knew you’d be worrying about it and I thought, if I said “round the back,” that might take away uncertainty without causing offence.’

Hilary returned.

‘I can’t find it,’ she said.

‘It’s in t’ corridor on t’ right,’ said Oscar.

Hilary stared at him.

‘It’s his problem that’s round the back,’ said Henry.

Hilary gave them a rather wild look, then hurried off.

They found it hard to avoid bursting into giggles every time they thought of Oscar. He asked her about Durham and she told him how beautiful it was. Of course her nose was too long, but when her face shone with pride, Henry felt that she was beautiful. He said, ‘I’d like to see Durham,’ and there was silence where her reply of, ‘You must come and see me’ might have been.

With every second of normality, his anxiety grew. Would she suddenly throw a fit or reveal that she thought she was Florence Nightingale? What would he do if she suddenly rolled around, frothing at the mouth, or shouted, ‘Put that light out! Don’t you know there’s a war on? And get me some lint.’

She did neither of these things.

They walked the short distance to Donny’s Bar. It was raining hard. As soon as they were out of earshot of the pub, they burst into laughter over Oscar’s piles. He hugged her and tried to kiss her. She struggled free. ‘No,’ she said.

Was it starting? Would she start screaming?

Nothing happened, except that she strode so fast, through the pinging rain, that he could hardly keep up.

‘Don’t go so fast,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

She touched his hand.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

They entered by the side door and went up the stairs to Donny’s Bar.

‘You’re soaking,’ he said.

‘I won’t melt.’

She couldn’t meet his eyes. Was she sinking into a private world of madness? Would she sit motionless at the table, in a catatonic trance, to the embarrassment of the Christmas revellers?

Donny’s Bar was heavily festooned with paper chains, and there was a large party, wearing paper hats, seated at five tables that had been pulled together. The waiter apologized for them.

‘It’s nice,’ said Hilary.

Henry felt almost weak with relief at her normality.

‘It’s nothing special here,’ he warned, when they’d got their menus.

‘It’s fine.’

They ordered rump steaks, with onion rings extra, and a bottle of red wine. Hilary clasped his hand and gave it a quick squeeze, but she wasn’t fully relaxed. Twice she looked round rather anxiously. Paranoia? Did she believe she was being followed, by little green men or the CIA?

She asked again about his work, and he abandoned his attempt
not
to be self-centred, in the interest of keeping her happy. Their steaks arrived. She ate heartily, and laughed at his disasters. How few fillings she had. How he wished, despite her laughter, that his career so far had been more of a triumph. Well, soon it would be. Then he remembered that her father was a great friend of Councillor Matheson. There could be problems ahead, if … if what?

She examined the list of desserts at greater length and with more intensity than it deserved. He had another sharp stab of fear. Perhaps it was schizophrenia. Would she say, ‘
I’ll
have the strawberry ice, and
I’ll
have the apple pie.’?

She said, ‘Nothing for me, thanks. I’m full.’ He almost loved her for her normality.