The Complete Pratt (96 page)

‘What’s all this?’ said Henry.

‘We’re all right upset because of thee.’

‘You what?’

‘You could have been killed today. We love you, kid.’

‘What?’

‘Well, I do. I’m almost crying, for God’s sake. I mean, Henry, I hope you’d feel like crying if I were almost killed.’

‘Course I would,’ said Henry.

He hugged Colin.

Of course! He realized why they were all being so nice to him, even Jill, who had probably been told to by Gordon, on whose words she still hung even though she didn’t understand many of them. It wasn’t any old evening. It was the ‘cheering up our Henry after one of the most disastrous days ever to befall a British provincial journalist’ evening. Be churlish to leave in the middle of it. Dennis Lacey wouldn’t be conscious yet, anyway, and he could see Howard Lewthwaite briefly after work tomorrow.

When the six of them walked to the Devonshire through the spattering rain, they were like six babies in one incubator, protected from the germs and hostility of the outside world.

The drink flowed. The timeless jazz rolled out in the crowded upstairs room, as if the rock-and-roll craze didn’t exist.

A huge man in a bright blue corduroy suit was pushing his way through the crowds towards them. He had black hair, but his bushy black beard was streaked with grey. At his side was a delicate-looking young lady, with a round, serene face and a flat, thin body. She reminded Henry of a barometer. Both their faces were registering ‘stormy’.

‘Is one of you guys Henry Pratt?’ said the huge man, loudly, in a North American accent.

‘I am,’ admitted Henry reluctantly.

‘Johnson Protheroe,’ said Johnson Protheroe.

Henry’s colleagues, and even Jill, closed round him, shutting the door of the incubator.

Johnson Protheroe’s loud voice battled effectively with the music. Sid Hallett and the Rundlemen were playing ‘Basin Street Blues’. It was beginning to dawn on Henry that their repertoire was not inexhaustible.

‘You’re the biggest ass-hole I’ve ever met,’ yelled Johnson Protheroe.

‘Johnson!’ It wasn’t an easy word to invest with love, but the girl managed it.

‘Listen, kid,’ said Colin, grabbing Johnson Protheroe’s lapel. ‘Nobody calls my mate an ass-hole.’

‘Colin!’ said Henry desperately. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Take your hands off me,’ shouted Johnson Protheroe.

‘Johnson!’ said the girl. Even when she raised her voice, she was barely audible.

‘Please!’ shouted Henry.

‘Shut up!’ shouted a jazz fan.

‘Shut up yourself!’ shouted a second jazz fan.

‘Bloody hell fire!’ shouted the first jazz fan. ‘I’m telling them to shut up. Don’t tell me to shut up.’

‘Shut up!’ shouted several more jazz fans.

Sid Hallett and the Rundlemen abandoned all hope of solos and played fast and loud to overpower the disturbance. The disturbance emitted a few drowning glugs and expired. The music and the set finished, to loud applause. Sid Hallett and the Rundlemen stomped off to the bar. Henry and his friends faced Johnson Protheroe and his friend in wary silence.

‘I never read such a load of crap as your article,’ said Johnson Protheroe.

Henry’s colleagues began to protest.

‘Please,’ pleaded Henry. ‘Allow me the dignity of defending myself.’

‘Oh!’ said Johnson Protheroe, in a scornful mock-English tone. ‘“Allow me the dignity of defending myself”! Blue seas under black clouds, my ass. Those were blue skies
above
the Rocky Mountains, you cretin.’

Henry’s colleagues allowed him the dignity of defending himself.

‘I … er … I … er … sorry,’ he said.

‘The barometer that you described so vividly was a portrait of Deborah here.’

‘Oh, I … er … I am sorry. You don’t look a bit like a barometer,’ lied Henry.

‘Thanks,’ said Deborah, in her low, sweet voice.

Henry’s head was beginning to swim, but he managed to focus on Johnson Protheroe. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I am the biggest ass-hole you’ve ever met.’

‘What?’ said Johnson Protheroe.

‘It’s the first art exhibition I’ve ever reviewed. I was standing in for our arts editor. I imitated his style. I’ll never do that again in my life, especially as I happen to believe that critics should be widening the understanding of art, not narrowing it.’

‘Oh … well … spoken like a man!’ said Johnson Protheroe.

‘I do a good imitation,’ said Henry.

‘Do you have football as we know it in Canada?’ asked Ben.

Henry couldn’t remember how they got to the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar. The evening had become a warm blur. They were all in the incubator together now, even Johnson Protheroe, who had become a harmless bear.

‘Do you really know anything about Canadian artists, Henry?’ he was asking.

‘Not a jot,’ Henry admitted. ‘I looked the names up in the library.’

Johnson Protheroe’s mood changed again. ‘Typical bloody
British
insularity,’ he growled. ‘Canada’s full of hick towns like this full of ignorant people full of crap, but at least they know there is a world outside. Exciting things are happening back home.’ He began to shout. ‘Nobody here gives a damn.’ Everybody pretended not to hear. ‘You see!’ he roared.

The food arrived. Henry seemed to have ordered a prawn curry. Johnson Protheroe’s beef curry did nothing for his mood. He slammed a pile of coins on the table, shouted, ‘This food is dreadful. Come on, Deborah,’ and hurried to the door. He turned to face the crowded room and shouted, ‘You’re all ass-holes, especially Henry Pratt.’

He lurched out into the street. Deborah hurried back to their table and said, softly, ‘I’m sorry. I hardly ever get to eat these days. Somebody once told Johnson that his name sounded like a firm of merchant bankers. Ever since then he’s been trying to be wild and Bohemian. What an artist he could be if he didn’t waste all his energies being what he thinks an artist ought to be. It’s been lovely meeting you. I think you’re sweet people.’

Henry returned to his prawn curry. He was ravenous.

Ben and Colin discovered how late it was. Gordon said he and Jill must be going too. Everybody said nice things to Henry. Jill even kissed him, saying ‘Mmmmm!’ as if to convince herself that it had been a pleasant experience.

‘Ted won’t be back tonight,’ said Helen. She put her hand on his thigh. He put his hand on her thigh. She took his hand down towards her knee and lifted it up under her skirt. He felt that something was wrong. He couldn’t remember what.

They were outside. Presumably they’d paid. How nice it was to go beautiful with a home woman.

They kissed each other. She slid her tongue into his mouth like a paper-knife. Something was wrong. He couldn’t remember what.

She hailed a taxi, and it stopped. She was flushed with triumph. Taxis had been hard to come by since Suez. She’d protested about Suez. Well, not this she. Not what’s-her-name. The other she. Hilary. Hilary!!!

She got into the taxi. He shut the door.

‘Good night,’ he said.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Can’t come back with you,’ he said. ‘Hilary.’

Her pert lips pouted. She went pink. She was breathing very hard. He couldn’t worry about her. He turned away. He heard her taxi drive off.

He felt awful. He tried gulping fresh air but it didn’t help. He dimly remembered that he oughtn’t to be being careless and lurching around the town, drunk and alone. He couldn’t remember why.

He slipped and fell. He struggled to his feet and hurried into a narrow alley that ran from Market Street through to Church Street. He didn’t want any policemen seeing him while his legs weren’t working. At the junction with another alley, in a tiny square dimly lit by one feeble lamp, a scared cat passed him, screeching. Scared of what?

Scared of the six youths who blocked his path, six youths with bleak, tense faces, six youths with bicycle chains. Maybe the idea was to beat him to a pulp, terrify him, scare him off.

He swung left into the other alley, which led to Bargates, where Henry had spent so much time in the now defunct Paw Paw Coffee Bar and Grill. Six youths blocked his path, six youths in drainpipe trousers and Edwardian jackets, six youths with knives and razors. Thurmarsh’s first Teds. Today Thurmarsh, yesterday the world. So this was it. The end of twenty-one years of struggle towards a manhood dimly perceived, he was a well-nourished young man of below-average height, his stomach bore the mainly undigested remains of a prawn curry, he had drunk the equivalent of …

He turned, and tried to walk back the way he’d come, into Market Street. He expected to see six more youths blocking his way. There was nobody.

He walked away with a calmness he didn’t feel. His legs screamed to him to break into a run. He refused. He’d only inflame their insults by showing his fear.

He began to get the feeling that nobody was following him. With the return of hope came the fullness of fear, neck-pricking, scalp-crawling, sweat-drenching fear. He had to turn and look. He mustn’t. He did. There was nobody.

He heard the first sounds of battle, the swish of bicycle chains,
the
ring of iron boot, the scream of a razored face. They were fighting each other, not him! Relief buckled his knees. At first it seemed as if he were running in a dream, stuck fast, not moving, but then he was tearing down the alley, he was in Market Street, there was the dark drapery store. Hilary lived, he lived, life stretched before him. It crossed his mind that the day, which had begun with a story which he hadn’t recognized, was ending with another one. Gang warfare in town centre. He listened to the sounds of distant battle, and scurried off as fast as his little legs could carry him.

By the time he got home, his head was throbbing and his stomach was heaving. He’d had a traumatic day. He’d had too much to drink. His resistance to prawn curry had been fatally weakened.

THE FIRST OIL
went into the Suez Canal since the fighting ended. Henry struggled to work, unsure where his food poisoning ended and his hangover began. He was so ill that he was sent home. There was no possibility of his going to see Howard Lewthwaite, let alone travelling to Durham. He spent the best part of that Saturday in bed. We’ll draw a veil over where he spent the worst part of it.

On Monday, February 11th, a mild earthquake, centred on Charnwood Forest, caused pit props to shake in Drobwell Main Colliery, brought about a fall of masonry in the remains of the Old Apothecary’s House and distracted Henry from the immortal words, ‘Hello, boys and girls. May I remind all Argusnauts living in the Winstanley area about a beetle drive to be held next Saturday at the home of 12 year-old Timothy Darlington. Timothy called at our offices last week with the grand total of £17 raised at a similar function, and I was very sorry indeed to miss him.’

A mild earthquake, centred on the editor’s office, shook every bone in Henry’s body when he was forced to admit that, due to prawn curry poisoning, he’d not been able to tell his beloved of his great scoop, and requested a further stay of what was seeming more and more like execution. A final delay of one week was reluctantly granted. Mr Andrew Redrobe also gave up over the great education controversy. There had still not been a single letter from the general public. Beneath Colin’s third letter, signed ‘Second Angry Schoolmaster’, there appeared the message, ‘This correspondence is now closed, due to lack of space-Ed.’

Later that morning, Henry was sent to get a local angle on the shooting of a major feature film.

He caught the Rawlaston tram. It rumbled out of the valley, breasted the summit by Brunswick Road Primary School and dropped down again into the smoky valley. The road swung right.
On
the right was the vast, blank wall of Crapp, Hawser and Kettlewell. On the left, the tiny, grimy, cobbled culs-de-sac, among which Henry had been born.

‘Paradise,’ sang out the conductor.

Henry stepped off the tram, looked round anxiously but saw nobody who appeared to be about to kill him.

Paradise Lane was completely blocked by generators and film unit vans, which were almost as high as the wine-red terraces. A mobile catering van had been parked right outside number 23. Henry longed to say to the waiting technicians and extras, ‘Forget your curried lamb. Never mind your plum duff. Twenty-one years ago, in that little house on which you’re turning your backs, a parrot ended its life and I began mine.’

Cables snaked through the gate onto the muddy towpath of the Rundle and Gadd Navigation. They ran along the towpath, and up onto the elegant brick hump bridge over the cut. Standing on the bridge, among a crowd of sightseers, were Angela Groyne and the man whom Henry suspected of trying to kill him. He didn’t want Bill Holliday to know he was afraid, so he joined them, but took care not to stand too near the edge.

The muddy waste-ground between the insalubrious cut and the equally unsavoury river was crowded with film men and their equipment. The lights and the camera were angled towards a man with a huge green head and tentacles, who was standing in a spring-like contraption on the river bank.