The Complete Pratt (85 page)

They nursed the remainder of the wine and chatted pleasantly, though they sometimes had to shout to make themselves heard above the shrieking of the festive party.

‘I’m sorry about them,’ he said.

‘For goodness sake,’ she said. ‘They’re enjoying themselves. They’re briefly unhierarchical. It’s intoxicating.’

‘What?’

‘The rigid class system in their office is suspended for the duration of the festivities. They’re hysterical. They’re free, after twelve long months in a straight-jacket. I know how they feel.’

Oh no. Did she mean she’d been in a straight-jacket? He had to find out, without arousing her suspicion. It would need subtlety.

‘I … er … I should think it’s … er … pretty awful in a straight-jacket,’ he said.

She looked at him in astonishment.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Being in a straight-jacket. I shouldn’t think it’s very nice.’

‘I heard what you said. It was just that it sounded as if you thought I had first-hand experience of it.’

‘What?’ he said. ‘No. No! Why on earth should I think you’d been in a straight-jacket?’

‘I don’t know.’ She laughed. ‘Can we change the subject? It’s becoming a bit of a straight-jacket.’

He searched for a change of subject.

‘You must have arguments with your father about the class system,’ he said.

She looked puzzled. ‘Why?’ she said.

‘Well, you obviously hate it, and he’s a Tory councillor.’

‘He is not. He’s a lifelong socialist. Why did you think he’s a Conservative?’

‘Well … he’s a draper.’

‘I don’t think it’s compulsory for drapers to be Conservative.’ There was a dryness in her tone. She smiled, to take the sting out of it.

‘He’s a friend of Councillor Matheson.’

‘Outside the council chamber. Conservatives
are
human beings, you know. Fellow citizens of the British Isles. It’s a kind of love-hate relationship with Uncle Peter anyway.’

Uncle Peter! It
was
going to be difficult to tell her about his investigations.

And what about his evening with Anna? Should he mention that?

‘I … er … I took Anna out,’ he said.

‘Yes. She told me. I wondered if you’d mention it.’

Thank goodness he had. He wondered how much Anna had told her about it. Could he ever tell her the whole story?

‘I thought she was the one I fancied,’ he said. ‘I can be remarkably stupid sometimes.’

He was astounded to hear himself say this. She said nothing. He thought she might have responded to his implied compliment to her, or argued against his harsh assessment of himself, but she did neither.

He asked her if she’d heard from Anna.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I had a dreary letter from Toulouse. She’s staying with a pen-friend who’s going to become a nun.’

‘Yes,’ he said. No. He mustn’t have secrets from Hilary. ‘That’s the official story. She’s actually living with an older man.’

‘I knew she was lying,’ said Hilary. ‘Oh, I do find that depressing.’ Ah. A clue? ‘I find it all so depressing.’ Ah. ‘Going to Italy with her was depressing.’ Ah.

‘Why?’

‘We just drifted apart, inch by inch.’ Ah. ‘I’m not blaming her. It was mainly my fault.’ Ah.

‘What do you mean, your fault?’

‘Do we have to talk about that? Do I have to endure cross-examination?’

‘No. Of course not.’

The office party shrieked at something the accounts manager had said. Henry and Hilary looked at each other rather forlornly, as the waves of laughter crashed around them.

She wanted to pay her share. He refused.

As they left, the Christmas party apologized insincerely for the noise. ‘It’s been fun,’ said Hilary. ‘Go home and have one for me,’ said an intoxicated head cashier. ‘It’s the only one you’ll get tonight,’ responded a tipsy typist. Everybody shrieked. Henry and Hilary hurried out, embarrassed that the subject had been raised.

It had stopped raining. There were queues for the buses and trams, and no taxis to be seen. Buses and taxis had been reduced, due to the petrol crisis. The doomed trams seemed to say, ‘I told you so,’ as they clattered towards extinction.

‘I’d much rather walk really,’ said Hilary.

Claustrophobia? Cabophobia? Busophobia?

‘I love walking,’ she said. ‘I love fresh air.’

Agoraphilia?

They walked along York Road, past the junction with Winstanley Road, up out of the grime into the desirable suburbs. They turned left into Lambert Simnel Avenue, and right into Perkin Warbeck Drive. It seemed a very Conservative area for a Labour councillor.

He dreaded arriving at her house. He had no idea whether to kiss her or not.

‘This is it,’ she said, outside a pleasant brick house. One light still shone, as if they were waiting up for her to see if she was all right.

She kissed him and was gone, without even saying good night. She didn’t turn to wave. They’d made no plans to meet again.

In Eastbourne, Dr John Bodkin Adams was accused of murdering a rich widow. Lord Radcliffe’s proposals for Cyprus were published.
There
would be a period of self-government under British sovereignty, with 6 of the 36 members of the legislative assembly nominated by the Governor. Later, when self-determination came, partition between Greek and Turkish Cyprus was a possibility. Nobody seemed to regard these proposals as a Christmas present.

Henry couldn’t bear even to look at his article on Peter Matheson. The glory which he hoped to win from his exposure of municipal corruption would be considerably reduced if every rogue whom he exposed had been praised to the skies by him as a ‘Proud Son of Thurmarsh’.

When he drew back the curtains from his absurdly positioned French windows on Christmas morning, he was surprised to see a covering of snow, turning the shared front garden into a Christmas card.

He didn’t feel Christmassy. His head ached unpleasantly. His eight cards sat sadly on the mantelpiece. They were from the Hargreaveses, Auntie Doris and Geoffrey, Cousin Hilda, Mrs Wedderburn(!), Martin Hammond and family, Lampo Davey, Ginny, and Ted and Helen, with seven kisses naughtily added beneath Helen’s name. Ginny had put one kiss.

The house was silent. Ginny had gone to her family. Gordon and Hazel were spending Christmas together, for the sake of the children, though in separate beds. Ginny was terrified that there’d be a reconciliation. She was terrified of this insight into her own heart – terrified that she wished that those young children, who needed love and stability, should be denied them so that she could have her man. She’d told Henry this, beneath tartan shields draped with holly, in the thronged, frenzied lounge bar of the Winstanley, awash all around them with goodwill for all men, including, Henry hoped, those sorts of men who were never seen in the Winstanley, such as blacks, gypsies, queers, communists, Jews and foreigners. She had cried, and blown her nose while others blew squeakers.

He went into the cold, bleak hall, the no-man’s-land of the rented sector, and found it. His ninth card. Underneath the printed message there were no easy kisses, no biro love, no postal coquettishness, but a single, simple sentence, written in an
elegant
but perhaps too careful hand. ‘Thank you for a really enjoyable evening. Hilary.’

The silence of the house became peaceful. It was extraordinarily pleasant to telephone the Lewthwaites, from a really rather delightfully proportioned telephone box, and ask for Hilary. It was delightful to listen to her warm, semi-northern voice, to wish her a happy Christmas, and arrange to meet her in the Pigeon and Two Cushions on the 28th. It was singularly stimulating to crunch the snow in the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park, to say ‘Happy Christmas’ to the ocelot and the marmot and the three mangy barn owls, to sit in Cousin Hilda’s stifling basement and drink Camp Coffee and
two
glasses of sweet sherry, what a momentous concession to the season, delivered with just two mild sniffs, one for each glass. What could be nicer than dry turkey, black gravy, undercooked streaky bacon and burnt chipolatas, with bullet-like roast potatoes, watery sprouts, soft red carrots, and stuffing from two different packets? What did it matter if Liam O’Reilly didn’t have the conversational sparkle of a Wilde or Shaw? His pleasure at this feast was Henry’s pleasure. Cousin Hilda’s pleasure at Henry’s pleasure was Henry’s additional pleasure. What did it matter if Norman Pettifer’s heroic efforts to conquer his jaundiced view of life for the sake of the party were only intermittently successful? Liam had a green hat with two crowns, in his cracker. Norman Pettifer had a clockwork frog. He watched it, with his bemused, disappointed grocer’s face, as it hopped across the table. Liam got the threepenny bit in the pudding. Cousin Hilda smiled at Henry because he wasn’t disappointed.

It would be untrue to suggest that the day was entirely free from tedium. The most lively game of Snap loses some of its sparkle after the first two hours. A purist might complain that the switch to Happy Families came too late. But this was a small price to pay for seeing Cousin Hilda happy.

And then he went to Troutwick and saw Auntie Doris happy. The train was an hour late, due to snow. The great hills shone white all around. They ate roast pheasant with game chips, and not even Geoffrey Porringer’s blackheads could spoil the perfection of the day. Henry was staying in a cottage owned by a Mr Cadge, a man of few words and fewer blankets.

When the last exhausted resident had staggered to bed, Henry sat between Auntie Doris and Geoffrey Porringer on stools at the empty bar. Auntie Doris leant across Henry’s back and whispered something. Geoffrey Porringer said ‘Yes’ and turned to Henry. He smiled with a not totally successful attempt at avuncularity. It was unsuccessful, partly because he was drunk and partly because he had no feel for the avuncular even when sober. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘you’re a little belter. Where are my children this Yuletide? Eh? But you. You’re a horse of a very different kettle.’ He breathed whisky over Henry. ‘Doris, your auntie, my beloved, my little … chickadee …’ He tried to resemble W. C. Fields. Only the nose succeeded. ‘My little angel wishes you to come on holiday with us. We’ve hired a villa. They
call
it a villa. Bungalow, I expect. View of the sea. In February. And Doris said, “I want Henry to come. He’s the son I never had.” Those were her very thingummies. “Ask him yourself,” she said. “Otherwise he may think you don’t want him.” I mean, it’s not a honeymoon or anything. You won’t be
in the way
.’ Geoffrey Porringer winked. ‘February. Can you make it?’

‘Where?’ said Henry.

‘Cap Ferrat,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘Very attached to Cap Ferrat, my little chickadee. Been there a lot. Knows it well.’

‘Shut up about all that, Geoffrey. You don’t want to remind Henry of all the good times he and I had with Teddy, do you?’ said Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. She kissed Henry, enveloping him in scent and powder and lipstick and brandy. ‘Please come, darling,’ she said.

‘For you, Auntie Doris, I’ll even tolerate the rigours of the Côte d’Azur,’ said Henry.

He wriggled free, wished them good night and went across the cobbled square to sleep, in his duffel-coat, in Mr Cadge’s cottage.

She kissed him as before. No more. No less. Again, she was wearing flat shoes. She had a tiny blood blemish on her chin. They discussed their Christmasses. Oscar arrived, smiled, pointed at his backside and gave a thumbs-up. A table of strangers stared at him in astonishment. Henry felt very close to Hilary, as they fought together against hysteria.

Snow and ice covered 80% of main roads. In Hungary there was a wary truce as the nation awaited reforms. There were as many stories about the Suez Canal as there were spokesmen. It would be open in seven weeks/ten weeks/fourteen weeks. British salvage ships would/would not be allowed to work with British crews. The clearance was going well/badly/not at all.

On December 29th, Henry and Hilary sat in the Pigeon and Two Cushions and talked about life. On the 30th, they sat in the Pigeon and Two Cushions and talked about life. Talk. Desire. Kisses. A few seconds longer each night. On the 30th, in Perkin Warbeck Drive, her tongue was briefly, luxuriantly, inside his mouth. Like a snake. Then she was gone. Like a snake.

On New Year’s Eve, in Paris, a Bolivian tourist wrote a postscript to the year. He threw a stone at the Mona Lisa. He explained, ‘I had a stone in my pocket and was seized with a desire to throw it.’ He didn’t explain why he had a stone in his pocket.

The rain and the petrol rationing made it the quietest New Year’s Eve in London for many years.

In Thurmarsh there was rain also, and Henry was invited to two parties. A bottle party at Ted and Helen’s. A small gathering of family and friends at the Lewthwaites’.

Ted and Helen’s party would be fun. Three women for whom he had felt great stirrings would be there. Helen, playful with him whenever she felt she had a rival. Ginny, relieved and ashamed because Gordon had come back to her. Jill, scornful. Ben would sit beside his shy, petite Cynthia all evening. Colin was said to be bringing Glenda. That would be an event. There’d be lots of drinking and lots of laughter.

The Lewthwaites’ party would be quite dull, Hilary said, and fairly embarrassing. The only other person under forty would be her obnoxious fifteen-year-old brother, Sam.