by David Nobbs
Don’t, Henry. Don’t be a berk. Think of Hilary. Besides, there will be plenty of time for a drink afterwards, and it would be very unwise to indulge beforehand.
‘I honestly don’t think I dare,’ he said.
He hoped that she would believe that he was talking about the drink.
In his dressing room, which was actually somebody’s office, Henry told himself again and again, ‘You have a wonderful wife. You have a wonderful family. Don’t throw it all away. Don’t don’t don’t.’
Oh God, he wished it was over, his wretched fish stew forgotten, Sally and he parting with a chaste kiss. If he’d never met Hilary and yet had ended up here with Sally this evening – an unlikely scenario – he knew that she would have been the perfect woman for him. But he already had the perfect woman.
He had to accept, as he thought about Sally, that he was feeling sexier by the second. He didn’t fancy his chances of persuading himself to part with just a chaste kiss. This made him feel more and more tense.
Only one thing could release him from his tension and desire. He slid off to the loo, hoping nobody was watching. He felt as if he was back at Dalton College again, but even if he met somebody on the way, they wouldn’t know why he was going to the loo. Nobody need ever know.
There was no harm in imagining that he was doing it with Sally. Yes, there was!
He would do it with Hilary. He would feel all the better for that. Nobody would ever know, but it was important to him.
He thought about his first meeting with her, in Siena, about the times in Durham, about the reunion after he’d been to Peru, about moments when he had been bursting with love just as now he was bursting with lust.
He conjured up his beloved in all her grave beauty, and gave her a right old seeing to in that unlovely toilet in Brondesbury.
He felt happy.
He felt good.
He felt virtuous.
He felt far too knackered to even contemplate cooking a bloody fish stew.
*
It was only an unimportant little TV show.
Everybody he knew and cared about would see him making a complete fool of himself.
It would be the end of his TV career.
He didn’t care about his TV career.
It was rather fun, though.
Sally looked utterly composed.
The programme began. The opening credits and music were played on the sole monitor.
‘Good evening, and welcome to another edition of Here’s One I Made Earlier,’ said Dermot Wolfstone with a smile. ‘What a battle we have in prospect today. A battle between man and woman. A battle between – dare I say it? – professional and amateur. No insult intended, Henry.’
Henry forced a smile, a poor echo of Dermot’s.
‘A battle between a posh Michelin starred restaurant and a homely café. Ironically, the posh restaurant is in Dorset and the café is in Soho. It promises to be a fascinating contest. Ladies first. Sally Atkinson, of the Dorset Knob restaurant near Bridport, what delight are you making for us today?’
‘I had a difficult choice,’ said Sally. ‘Yes, I have a Michelin star but, as the name of my restaurant suggests, I don’t go for pretension. A Dorset knob is a local bread roll, Henry, in case you wondered.’
‘Well I did rather, I must admit,’ quipped Henry wittily.
‘I’ve decided, though, that I have to make something that shows reasonably advanced professional techniques,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve chosen a guinea fowl and pistachio galantine, with a tarragon and chablis reduction.’
‘Henry Pratt, of the Café Henry, in Frith Street in the heart of Soho, what have you chosen?’
‘Fish stew,’ said Henry in an exaggeratedly flat tone, timing it perfectly, relishing the contrast. A miracle had happened. The moment the camera was on him in earnest, all his doubts had fled. ‘I wanted to make something that you could easily make at home, with no special techniques required. The term fish stew doesn’t sound very promising, but I think my dish is very attractive: an English version of the great fish casseroles of central Italy or France. And of course you can use cheap fish or expensive fish; you can add smoked fish; you can have lots of shellfish or very little shellfish or indeed none at all; it can be an aristocratic dish or a peasant dish. The sauce is the thing that doesn’t change, and you must be generous with this sauce, generous with all the ingredients. This should be a rich, sumptuous sauce, not a thin little thing, and every ingredient should play a vital part. And use good wine – always.’
Why oh why had he worried? They were up and running. The contrast between their dishes, and their methods, and the enthusiasm of the two chefs, made this one of the finest editions of the programme. Sally worked with intense fine precision, Henry with largesse and vigour.
‘And now it’s time to introduce this week’s mystery celebrity,’ said Dermot Wolfstone with a smile. ‘A lady of great beauty and charm, as well as brains and talent. You may not recognise her from her appearance, but many of you will know her for her books. She has written five novels.’
It couldn’t be.
‘… witty, yet serious books that achieve an unusual double – they please the public and the critics.’
It couldn’t be.
‘Her latest will be out shortly.’
It couldn’t be. His beloved didn’t leap smiling through paper doors.
She did!
‘Yes, it’s Hilary Lewthwaite.’
And she leapt smiling through the paper door, as if she did that sort of thing every day.
If she had smiled every day as she smiled that day, she would have run Dermot a good race for second place in the Smiler of the Year competition. She might even have had Tony Blair looking to his laurels.
‘Hilary! It’s a great pleasure to have you on Here’s One I Made Earlier,’ smiled Dermot.
‘Thank you. It’s a great pleasure to be here,’ smiled Hilary.
‘Tell us a bit about your new book, Hilary,’ smiled Dermot. ‘What’s it called?’
‘Simpkins of the Argus,’ smiled Hilary. ‘It’s about a journalist on a local paper who uncovers a lot of municipal scandal that threatens the life of his wife’s crippled mother.’
‘Sounds fun,’ smiled Dermot Wolfstone. ‘Hilary, do you cook?’
‘Well, yes to a certain extent, but I let my husband do most of the cooking. He’s pretty good.’ She smiled.
‘Tell our viewers who your husband is, Hilary,’ smiled Dermot.
‘He’s … standing just there.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, Henry Pratt’s wife, Hilary Lewthwaite.’
Henry smiled and went over to Hilary and kissed her. He felt an absurd temptation to bring the show to a halt by saying, ‘I suppose a fuck’s out of the question’, but he managed to resist it.
‘Hilary?’ smiled Dermot Wolfstone. ‘Do you think your judgement of these two dishes can be unbiased?’
‘Absolutely not, Dermot,’ smiled Hilary. ‘I’ll probably bend over backwards to avoid charges of bias – and Sally’s dish does sound wonderful.’
Hilary gave Sally five out of five and Henry four out of five. Henry and Sally each gave the other five out of five. The three members of the public voted for Henry by eight votes to seven. It was a tie at seventeen each – the first tie in the series.
When there was a tie, Dermot Wolfstone had the casting voice. ‘I give the prize to Sally,’ he smiled. ‘She’s prettier than Henry.’
‘Hear hear,’ said Henry rather too loudly, smiling.
‘Well, thank you, Henry Pratt and Sally Atkinson and our faithful members of the public and of course our mystery celebrity, Hilary Lewthwaite,’ said Dermot Wolfstone with his last, best smile.
Everybody was smiling as the final credits rolled, but at least a part of Henry didn’t feel like smiling at all.
He felt weak at the thought of what might have happened if he had gone to Sally’s dressing room before the show, not knowing that his wife would soon be,
or indeed might already be, in the building.
He felt weak at the thought of what might have happened during the rest of the evening, if Hilary hadn’t been there. He had been hoping to prove, by walking away from Sally Atkinson, that at last he was a responsible, grown-up family man. That chance had been snatched from him.
Would he have walked away that night? We will never know, and neither will he.
10 Hooray, It’s Henry
EVERYONE IN THE television industry has a talent for something, if you look hard enough. Clive Porfiry was no exception. His talent was for lunch.
Some people said that he gave the best lunches in the business. In fact he often dined out on it. ‘My lunches are legends in my own lifetime,’ he often said.
He was equally brilliant at eating lunch and at giving it, having a rare combination of two contradictory qualities – greed and generosity. The only thing that he liked as much as eating a wonderful lunch was watching his guests eating wonderful lunches.
The BBC turned a blind eye to his enormous expense account, and he turned a blind eye to the relative smallness of his salary. What did he need a huge salary for? He had few pleasures beyond lunch, and that was paid for.
‘I want to take you to lunch,’ he told Henry on the phone. ‘You’re fast becoming a star. You’re growing too big for A Question of Salt. It’s time you had your own series. Do you know Il Mirtillo in Brewer Street? The osso buco is legendary.’
Henry arrived at the gleaming, immaculate little restaurant before his host. The decor was modern and airy, but the walls were dark from the cigarettes of decades. This was not some trendy upstart of a restaurant. This was a place matured by twenty-two years of giving pleasure. It was therefore ignored by the trendy and the pretentious. He felt at home here from the start.
As he waited for his host, Henry reflected on his wisdom in turning down the offer to replace Simon Hampsthwaite as team captain. It had been an instinctive decision, and, on this occasion, unlike on so many other, his instincts had been correct.
He recognised Clive the moment he stepped through the door. He was a large, shambling man with a shining bald head and a very hairy chest, so that he looked as if he’d been born with a head of hair in the wrong place. He wore an open neck maroon shirt and a beige suit one size too small for him, as befitted a luncher.
Henry had taken the liberty of ordering an aperitif.
‘Henry!’
Clive Porfiry clasped Henry’s hand gently in his huge hands, as if it was a sick dormouse.
‘What’s that you’re drinking?’
‘Punt e mes. I hope you don’t mind my starting.’
‘Not at all. Splendid idea. I’ll have the same.’
Clive Porfiry liked every alcoholic drink that had ever been brewed, distilled, blended or matured anywhere in the world, so he always had the same as his guests, which made his guests feel that they were arbiters of taste. What would he do if his guest chose something non-alcoholic? He didn’t know. It had never happened. He chose his guests carefully.
When he had got his double punt e mes, Clive Porfiry raised his glass, clinked it with Henry’s, and smiled expansively.
For the next two and a half hours, life will be really quite extraordinarily pleasant, said Clive Porfiry’s beaming smile.
They studied their menus in contented silence. The Head Waiter appeared suddenly and silently at their table as if summoned from a bottle by magic.
‘Have you decided, gentlemen?’ he asked.
‘I’m rather tempted by the osso buco you mentioned on the phone, Clive,’ said Henry. ‘And the linguine alla aragosta sounds irresistible.’
‘An excellent choice. I’ll have the same.’
Clive Porfiry liked every dish that had ever been roasted, boiled, fried, steamed, grilled, baked or cured by any chef anywhere in the world, so he always had the same as his guests, which made his guests feel like men or women of the world. What would he do if his guest turned out to have a small appetite and a leaning towards salad? He didn’t know. It had never happened. He chose his guests carefully. He ordered bottles of white and red wine and said, ‘Now. This series of yours. I thought perhaps seven half-hours, and studio-based. I’ve seen you work so well in studios. Do you have any ideas? Have you had a chance to think?’
‘Well, I did have the thought of recording it in my Café, actually,’ said Henry diffidently. ‘I thought maybe we could close it every Sunday … we aren’t really a Sunday place … invite some guests and … er … cook and eat a meal.’
‘Marvellous idea,’ said Clive Porfiry. ‘When I said, “studio-based” I meant of course that I didn’t see you going “on the road”. No, your Café would be perfect. It’ll become the studio. Excellent. And doing it on Sundays will mean lots of celebrities will be available.’
‘I didn’t think of using too many celebrities, actually,’ said Henry. ‘I was thinking more about people from real life.’
‘Real life!’ Clive Porfiry looked a little shocked, but luckily the wine arrived and he tasted the white very carefully and forgot his shock.
‘Excellent.’
‘You see I sort of thought that every programme might have a theme,’ said Henry.
‘A theme! That’s good. No, that is good. The controller likes themes.’
‘The controller?’
‘I can’t get this through on my own. I’ll have to put it through several layers of management.’
Henry’s face fell just as the lobster linguine arrived.
‘Oh, don’t worry. It’ll go through all right.’
Henry’s burly host gave a confident, encouraging smile, but then he suddenly looked worried, as if he’d thought of a major snag.
‘Is the wine to your liking?’ he asked.
‘Sensational.’
Clive Porfiry relaxed.
‘What sort of themes?’ he asked.
‘Themes based on people and events in my life. The personal touch. A kind of autobiography in food.’
‘An autobiography in food! Brilliant.’
Worry returned to Clive’s face. What now? thought Henry.
‘Are you enjoying the linguine?’ Clive asked anxiously.
‘Lovely.’
Relief swept over the corpulent executive.
‘There is a mood afoot …’ he said, through a mouthful of linguine, ‘… yes, it is good, isn’t it? … there is a mood afoot, in some quarters …’ he took another mouthful ‘… to recognise that we are failing our core audience of the …’ another mouthful ‘… mature and elderly. You can fill that gap.’
‘I don’t want to be a grey icon,’ said Henry.
‘Heavens, no. But you can be a standard bearer for the mature.’
‘I agree with what you say, but I don’t want the programme to be …’ Henry took a mouthful ‘… in any way ageist. The way to combat ageism, as I see it, is to have all ages on, grannies, children, students, the lot, and never …’ he took a mouthful ‘… refer to their ages.’
‘Oh absolutely. We’re singing from the same hymn book.’
Apart from moments of concern over whether Henry was enjoying the osso buco and the red wine, the meal proceeded calmly and smoothly until, as they finished their main courses, Clive Porfiry began to look really anxious.
‘Er … do you think we could manage another bottle?’ he said.
‘Oh, I think so.’
Clive Porfiry gave a deep sigh of relief, and beamed.
‘I have a very good feeling about this project,’ he said. ‘ “Project”. Can’t just call it that. We need a title. I did think … see what you think of it … “A Pratt Among the Pans”. Thirteen episodes of “A Pratt Among the Pans”. Sounds good to me.’
Henry tried to hide his horror.
‘I’m a bit tired of people making jokes about my name, to be honest,’ he said.
‘Fair enough. I thought a bit of self-mockery might be appealing, but if that’s how you feel, fair enough.’
They ordered Gorgonzola cheese followed by the eponymous whortleberry semi-freddo. Clive Porfiry ordered a half bottle of dessert wine. Only then did he return to the thorny question of the title.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘How about just plain “Pratt and his Pans”?’
‘I really would prefer not to use my surname,’ said Henry. ‘I’d be very happy to use Henry, but not Pratt.’
‘“Henry and his Pans”,’ mused Clive Porfiry. ‘Yes. That sounds all right.’
‘I’m not sure about the pans, that’s the only thing,’ said Henry. ‘I wonder if they lose a bit of their oomph when we’ve no longer got the alliteration.’
‘Good point. Good point. Probably lose quite a bit of their oomph, actually, and who wants oomphless pans? Henry and his … Henry and his … Henry and his … Ah!’
The Gorgonzola had arrived.
‘In an hour or two it’d have begun to go walk-about, but at this moment in time it’s sheer perfection,’ said Clive Porfiry. ‘Henry and his … Henry and his … I’m damned if I can think of anything in cookery beginning with H.’
‘I did think,’ began Henry diffidently, ‘because it’s what we hope people will say, I did think of “Hooray, It’s Henry”. I mean it has an appealing little alliteration, and there’s an echo of Hooray Henries, one of which I am definitely not, so it could seem a bit ironic or even postironic.’
‘ “Hooray, It’s Henry”.’ Clive Porfiry rolled the suggested title round his mouth, as if it was a sip of wine. ‘ “Hooray, It’s Henry”.’ He took a sip of wine, and rolled it round his mouth as if it was a suggested title. ‘Do you know I think we may just have got it, between us? “Hooray, It’s Henry”. I can feel it. I can sense it. I can hear it. Twenty-six episodes of Hooray, It’s Henry – an autobiography in food. Henry, we’ve cracked it. This merits a large grappa, I think.’
Later, when the series was commissioned and recorded, and proved a success, Clive Porfiry claimed the credit for every suggestion that Henry had made.
Henry didn’t protest, for fear that he would never be given another lunch.
Clive Porfiry was very good at lunch.
Paul McCartney was knighted; the Queen opened the royal website; Labour won the 1997 General Election with a majority of a hundred and seventy-seven; William Hague succeeded John Major as Leader of the Conservative Party; Tony Blair announced that the Government would no longer supply free university education in Great Britain; Diana, Princess of Wales, and her friend Dodi were killed in a car crash in a Paris highway tunnel; Mother Teresa died; the exchange rate of the Malaysian ringgit reached a twenty-six-year low; the Little Mermaid was decapitated in Copenhagen; President Clinton said, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’; and all the time Henry Ezra Pratt was involved in the preparing and making of twenty-six editions of Hooray, It’s Henry.