Pratt a Manger

by David Nobbs

  ‘I see. Well … good for you,’ said Nigel. ‘I really do have to go now, Henry. My client’s due. Well … thank you for telling me, and … good luck.’

  ‘What??’

  ‘Don’t you want me to wish you luck?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I want you to say you’ll come and help.’

  ‘Help? Oh. Ah. Well … erm … now then … tomorrow, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t do tomorrow, I’m afraid. We’re at the Harmisons’, for dinner.’

  ‘Oh well.’

  ‘Well, I can’t let the Harmisons down.’

  ‘Heaven forfend.’

  ‘Well I can’t.’

  ‘Nobody would want you to. Without your sparkling repartee the party would be an abysmal flop.’

  No, Henry. Wrong. No sarcasm.

  ‘Well, that’s probably true, actually, as a matter of fact,’ said Nigel. ‘Well, there we are. Oh, what a shame,’ he added unwisely.

  ‘Well, there’s always Thursday.’

  ‘Thursday?’

  ‘If we don’t find him on Wednesday.’

  There was a pause. A long pause.

  ‘I suppose I could do Thursday.’

  ‘I’d very much appreciate it, Nigel. We are both deeply involved in the mess that Benedict’s life became. I think we have to take some kind of moral responsibility.’

  ‘I’ve said I’ll come. I’m not too keen on getting a lecture as well. I can’t ask Felicity. She’s … frail. Where shall we all meet?’

  ‘Here. The Café. Six o’clock.’

  ‘Fine.’

  There were two messages on the answerphone. Kate would come and so would Jack. He’d squared it with Flick.

  His telephone shrilled. It was Camilla. She’d been painting, and had been in the middle of a fetlock. ‘I don’t answer the phone when I’m in mid-fetlock,’ she explained. ‘They seem so unimportant, but I have the devil’s own job to get them right. They’re my Achilles heel, fetlocks.’

  Henry told her his plans. When he had finished there was silence.

  ‘Are you still there?’ he asked.

  ‘I was crying,’ sobbed Camilla. ‘Of course I’ll come.’

  Operation Benedict was fast becoming a reality.

  On Wednesday, 18 October, 1995, the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, faced calls for his resignation over the controversial sacking of Derek Lewis, Director General of the Prison Service; Red Rum, winner of three Grand Nationals, was buried at Aintree; it was revealed that a paedophile who had served two prison sentences for sex offences was listed in a national directory of music teachers used by parents seeking tutors for their children; and eight people were summoned to the Café Henry in Frith Street at 1800 hours.

  Henry and Hilary were seated at the large round table before five to six. Henry had piles of paper to give out.

  He had suggested that they all dress down somewhat, so that they wouldn’t look too much like a delegation of dogooders as they explored the hostels and back alleys and cardboard cities of Central London. He was wearing his old faded gardener’s denims, and Hilary was in old jeans and the crumpled, stained, battered leather jacket that she usually reserved for meeting writers less successful than herself.

  Kate and Jack entered together, Jack’s untidy great body dwarfing her carefully concealed, spare, elegant frame.

  ‘Look at our children, Hilary,’ said Henry affectionately. ‘I ask them not to look out of place among London’s low life, and they come in their working clothes and look perfect.’

  It was true. Kate had come straight from the theatre in the torn, frayed, hole-studded jeans that were her everyday garb, while Jack was wearing stout muddy boots, thick muddy jeans and a thick old bomber jacket. The jeans were on the large side and were slipping, the jacket was on the small side and rising, Frith Street hadn’t seen a better example of a builder’s bum for many moons. Henry was commenting on this as Gunter and Diana arrived, irredeemably scrubbed and clean, despite their best efforts, and Gunter overheard him. After the kissing and shaking of hands were over, and the six of them were happily seated round the table with their glasses of wine, Gunter said, ‘So, what is this bum of the builder of which you speak, Henry?’

  ‘Builders’ clothes never quite fit their huge frames,’ said Henry. ‘When they bend down the jeans drop, the shirts rise, you get a vision of the soft, fat flesh of their backsides.’

  ‘I see,’ said Gunter. ‘This bum of the builder does not happen in Switzerland. Nobody would wish to see such unpleasant things on our construction sites.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Henry.

  ‘I put on a play about builders once,’ said Kate. ‘I was young and naïve and thought that builders would flock to see it. I don’t think we had one builder come to the whole run.’

  ‘Terrific of you to take part, Gunter. Terribly game,’ said Henry, putting his arm round him affectionately. ‘Giving up all those nice holiday dinners.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Gunter, smiling shyly. ‘We are in London anyway, and I love Diana. Her son is naturally important to me, therefore. Besides, we had a nice lunch. I prefer lunch. It is better for the digestion. Now Jack here, he has come down specially. He has taken …’ There was awe in Gunter’s voice. ‘… more than one day off work.’

  ‘It’s pretty convenient, actually,’ said Jack. ‘We’re almost up to date with our jobs. It’s really embarrassing.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Henry.

  ‘A builder gives an estimate of when he’ll start,’ explained Jack. ‘And when he’ll finish. He’s always late starting, and he always has to go off to do bits of other jobs, so he’s even later finishing. The punters would get worried otherwise. They’d think he wasn’t busy. They’d think he wasn’t any good.’

  ‘In Switzerland tradespeople start when they say they will and finish when they say they will,’ said Gunter.

  ‘It’s difficult at first,’ said Diana, ‘but you get used to it.’

  Camilla and Guiseppe arrived full of apologies just after six fifteen. They had tried to look down-market, but had only been partially successful. They looked like two members of the Armani family who had fallen on slightly hard times.

  Once they were all there, Henry took command.

  ‘I’m assuming, for the purpose of this operation,’ he said, trying hard not to sound like Field Marshal Montgomery, ‘that Benedict is in London. If he isn’t, I’m afraid that there is nothing we can do. We can’t scour the whole world. But I promise you this. If he is in London, we’ll find him. And I think he will be. The homeless gravitate towards London. They don’t move away. There is no reason for him to be anywhere but London.

  ‘Now, I’ve divided us into four groups.’ His attempt not to sound like Monty was getting less successful by the minute. ‘If we descend on hostels en masse we’ll look like a delegation of Albanian social workers. I think the pairings are pretty obvious. Me and Hilary, Jack and Kate, Diana and Gunter, Camilla and Guiseppe. I’ve got photos of Benedict for you all, and I’ve photocopied and enlarged the A to Z, so I’m giving each couple a marked up area which I think you ought to be able to cover. The areas aren’t large, I want to be thorough, and I’ve made lists of hostels and hospitals. I hope it’s comprehensive. I have consulted the social services and the charities for the homeless, in fact I’ve been pretty busy.’

  ‘Bless him,’ said Jack affectionately. ‘He’s the Cucumber Man again.’

  ‘Jack, I’m not doing this for fun. This is serious. Far more serious than cucumbers ever were.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jack. ‘I went to see him once when he was Chief Controlling Officer (Diseases and Pests, Excluding Berwick-on-Tweed). He showed me his operations room. He had a huge map in the basement, full of different coloured flags for each disease – scab, wilt, cucumber flu, the lot. He looked like Winston Churchill in the War Room.’

  ‘It shows how much you remember,’ said Henry, trying to be dignified, tryi
ng not to laugh, ‘but when I was Chief Controlling Officer it did not exclude Berwick-on-Tweed. When I was Assistant Regional Co-ordinator (Northern Counties, Excluding Berwick-on-Tweed) it did exclude Berwick-on-Tweed.’

  ‘As the name suggests,’ said Hilary.

  ‘But when I became Chief Controlling Officer I was given Berwick-on-Tweed as well by implication.’

  ‘I’m sure they slept better after that,’ said Kate.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Berwick-on-Tweeders.’

  ‘OK. Fun over,’ said Henry. ‘Family laughing at Henry over. Time to be off. We will rendezvous here at 22.30 hours for a late supper. Four hours is enough, and even tramps need their beauty sleep.’

  ‘What do we do if we find him?’ asked Jack.

  Henry looked stunned.

  ‘Do you know, I hadn’t thought of that,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that awful? Somehow I’ve been thinking of it as a desperate, doomed quest.’

  They found that between them they had four mobile phones, so each couple was able to take one. It was agreed that if Ben was found they should all rendezvous at the Café, if he was fit to be taken there, and at the place of discovery, if not.

  The mood in the Café had been quite heady. They’d felt a bit like the Knights of King Arthur at their round table. They were having a great family reunion, the wine was good, and they had a common purpose. The idea, the hunt for a lost soul, and, at the same time, the redemption of their own souls, was attractive, even glamorous.

  The reality was sadly different, however, right from the outset. The eight of them stood on the pavement outside the Café, reluctant to face the moment.

  ‘Well, here goes,’ said Jack bravely, putting an arm round Kate and setting off towards Soho Square.

  The other three couples went south towards the junction with Old Compton Street, where Henry and Hilary turned right while Camilla and Guiseppe turned left and Gunter and Diana continued towards the river.

  There was a cool breeze from the north, and it was bringing a few spits of rain. The warmth of the Café and the wine didn’t last long, and the vastness of London soon overwhelmed them.

  They peered at bundles in doorways and subways. They explored dark alleys that stank of urine. They gently turned over foul-smelling meths-ridden lumps that had once been somebody’s baby boy or girl.

  They descended into graffiti-ridden subways, silent except for the clattering footsteps of nervous women and the faint sound of distant buskers. Elsewhere, great bundles of dirty blankets and rags lay outside expensive, exclusive shops. Occasionally, a bundle stirred.

  Some of the people were awake and begging, begging for money or drink, not interested in a photograph of a young man in his arrogant prime. Others had to be prodded and woken, to stare blindly, resentfully, at this meaningless image from another world. By the end of the first evening, Henry knew the words for ‘fuck off’ in five new languages.

  They showed their photographs of Benedict to wardens in hostels, to drunks, druggies, buskers, policemen, traffic wardens, social workers, charity volunteers, prostitutes, pimps, kerb crawlers and sellers of the Big Issue. Their hearts began full of hope, but long before the end their hearts had joined their heads in believing that this was a lost cause. It would be a miracle if anybody recognised modern-day Benedict from these photos.

  Henry couldn’t believe how many unlovely corners there were in this great city, how many back alleys and back passageways, how many dark arches and sordid access areas. There didn’t seem to be such things when you went to Scandinavia or Italy or France or Spain.

  Hilary longed to know the unknowable, to trace the tragic paths that had led each of these people to become so lost. Her humanity was appalled at the suffering, but the novelist in her was excited. The humanist in her was appalled by the novelist’s excitement.

  Kate told Jack that it was time for another great play about homelessness, another Cathy Come Home. Jack said that Cathy Come Home didn’t seem to have achieved anything. Art was just pissing in the wind. Kate was upset, and Jack was mortified at having upset her.

  Diana was ashamed of her capital city, in Gunter’s presence, and Camilla felt the same way with regard to Guiseppe. Gunter assured Diana that they had beggars in Switzerland too, and Guiseppe tried to comfort Camilla with the uncomfortable words, ‘Misery and degradation know no boundaries.’

  And then the thing that Henry had hoped might happen did happen, shortly before ten o’clock, on the steps of a hostel for the homeless. A young woman of about thirty, too weary to look attractive, was walking down the steps. As she passed Henry, she looked at him, stopped and said, ‘Are you Henry Pratt?’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Henry cautiously. ‘I … er …’

  ‘You won’t know me. I was in the studio audience for A Question of Salt.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘You were fabulous.’

  ‘Oh!!’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘Oh!!!’

  ‘Shall I go in and show the photos?’ asked Hilary drily.

  ‘Yes. Yes, darling. Good idea. I … I won’t be long. I can’t … I must …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’re looking for my lost step-son,’ said Henry to the young woman. He explained the story briefly, once Hilary had gone.

  ‘Oh, how sad,’ she said. ‘Might I see a photo? I’m a social worker. You never know.’

  He showed her the photo.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘Ah well.’

  ‘I’m keeping you.’

  ‘No, no. No, no.’ He mustn’t sound too eager. ‘No, actually, you’re the first person who’s … er … you know. So, you thought I wasn’t too awful, then?’

  ‘Not at all!’

  ‘Excellent. Well, thank you. Not that it seems very important compared to all this … misery.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the social worker, who had black bags under her eyes and a black briefcase under her arm. ‘We all need cheering up. I … er … I … would you think it awfully silly if I asked you for your autograph?’

  ‘No. No! No, I … I’d be glad.’

  ‘Have you any paper?’

  ‘Well, I … I have this enlarged map I photocopied from the A to Z. We’ve just about finished for tonight. I could sign the back of that.’

  ‘That would be fine.’

  ‘Do you have a pen? I wasn’t expecting …’

  ‘Of course.’

  She handed him a pen.

  ‘Shall I … shall I put a name?’

  ‘You could put … “To Jenny”. It’s Jenny. Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘This is stupid,’ said Henry. ‘I’m shaking. This is my first autograph.’

  ‘Not your last,’ said Jenny.

  Henry looked round, up at the windows of the grimy hostel, hoping Hilary wasn’t watching, and down the dirty, sordid street, hoping somebody was watching, but nobody was.

  To Jenny, he wrote, With very best wishes. And thank you. Henry Pratt.

  He gave her a quick, shy kiss on her tired, icy cheek.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  He hoped that in the dark she hadn’t seen the momentary blankness in his eyes. Good luck with what? He had forgotten, just for a moment, all about Benedict. He felt a sharp stab of shame, shook his head as if to bring himself back to his senses, and entered the hostel, which smelt of stale cabbage and human wind.

  They drew a blank, as Henry expected them to.

  ‘Why do you look so embarrassed?’ asked Hilary.

  ‘She asked for my autograph. I signed the back of the map.’

  ‘Oh, Henry.’

  She kissed him.

  ‘Either turn your back on your coming fame, or relish it,’ she said. ‘Don’t let your guilt complexes give you the worst of all worlds.’

  She kissed him again.

  The rain didn’t come to much, but the evening grew steadily colder, as evenings do. Four hours seemed a long, long, long, long time. All eight o
f them, even big, strong, outdoor Jack, were frozen by the time they got back to the Café. The search had brought home to them how awful it must be not to have a roof over one’s head. If four hours is a long time, then a night is an eternity. If a night is an eternity, then every night for a week, for a month, for a year … it just didn’t bear thinking about.

  Diana and Gunter were at the bar buying wine when Henry and Hilary entered. Henry rushed up and insisted that the wine was on the house.

  ‘What exactly is “effing knackered” meaning?’ enquired Gunter.

  ‘Very, very tired. Why?’

  ‘That’s what your barman said I must be.’

  ‘Poor Greg. I’m giving him lessons in conversation. It’s early days.’

  The others soon arrived. Kate and Jack looked windswept, but Camilla and Guiseppe still looked immaculate.

  They formed a weary and subdued little group, at their round table but no longer knights of it. Gradually, though, the Argentinian merlot did its work, and they all found that they were ravenous. The dishes of the day were pork aphelia, duck Benedict, herrings in oatmeal and stuffed marrow.

  ‘That must be the marrow I’m chilled to,’ said Kate.

  ‘Duck Benedict?’ exclaimed Guiseppe.

  ‘I thought if we did find him he might appreciate it,’ explained Henry.

  The thought brought them back to the failure of their mission.

  ‘What is it, anyway?’ asked Camilla.

  ‘It’s duck roulade stuffed with lobster, in a champagne and caviar sauce, with fried foie gras. Well, he loved luxury.’

  ‘Silly silly boy,’ said Camilla regretfully, lovingly. ‘Silly silly silly silly boy.’

  Diana leant over and squeezed Camilla’s hand.

  ‘What’s pork aphelia?’ asked Jack, anxious to get off the subject of Benedict.

  ‘It’s a dish I had a couple of times in Greek restaurants in the sixties,’ said Henry. ‘Pieces of pork with coriander seeds – it’s delicious, but it seems to have disappeared even from Greek cookbooks. I tried to find it in Greece and nobody had heard of it.’

  ‘It’s the Benedict of the food world,’ said Kate, and she immediately wished she hadn’t. It brought them back to the failure of their mission yet again.