Pratt a Manger

by David Nobbs

  Mohammed El Bashir’s photographs were as good as ever, which wasn’t surprising as he still took hours over each one. A photograph of a lemon syllabub won second prize in the soft dessert category at the Strasbourg Foire de Photographie Gastronomique – the highest placing ever for a British dessert in France.

  When they went to The Old Manor House for a couple of days, Henry took his own book with him and read it from cover to cover. Hilary couldn’t believe it and asked him why he should read his own book. She didn’t find it easy to ask even this. Each day of success seemed to make him less and less approachable.

  ‘I read it in order to think of all those thousands of other people reading it, and in order to imagine what they think as they read it,’ he said. ‘I find that exciting. All right?’

  Hilary did not think it all right, but she didn’t say so. Her silence spoke volumes, however.

  ‘Getting jealous, are we?’ said Henry.

  Hilary went white. The remark was, in book terms, the equivalent of his having believed she was having an affair. Not as serious as that, but serious enough.

  Henry knew that he had gone too far, and said no more on the subject. Hilary didn’t deign to reply, and Henry couldn’t bring himself to apologise, so because it couldn’t be commented on the remark didn’t go away. It lay in the middle of the bed – ‘Getting jealous, are we?’ – separating them, forming an invisible verbal barrier that couldn’t be crossed. They didn’t touch each other now. They lived together, but apart. They were on different continents in the same bed.

  Barely a day passed without a proposition of some sort being put to Henry.

  He had laughed when his old priest friend Martin Collinghurst had sent him a postcard from Nicaragua suggesting a TV programme for the Catholic Church, called ‘I’m a Celibate – Get Me Out of Here’. Now Paradise Television suggested a far less wittily titled series called ‘I’m a Culinary – Get Me Out of Here’. They told him that they were also approaching Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsey, Jean-Paul Novelli, Bradley Tompkins, Sally Atkinson, Denise Healey and Simon Hampsthwaite.

  The thought of being in the jungle with Bradley nauseated him – he had taken great pains to avoid the man since his discovery of his double life.

  A sojourn in the jungle sharing maggotburgers with Sally Atkinson did tempt him for a moment, but the cameras would be on them all the time, so there would be no point, it would be agony.

  He decided not to do it. He could get enough publicity without discomfort. Only those who were celebrity junkies or who desperately needed to revive their flagging careers took part in things like that.

  In the event all the other chefs must have decided not to do it as well, since it never happened. Or perhaps the programme makers decided that even in the twenty-first century the swearing might have been excessive.

  Henry boasted that he never swore in his kitchen or his restaurant. He didn’t need to.

  Anaemia Television suggested a series in which he taught the lifers in a high security prison how to cook. Hilary thought he ought to consider that seriously.

  ‘I need it like a hole in the head,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but they might need it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. They’re criminals. They’re paying for what they’ve done.’

  Hilary thought this reply unworthy of the Henry she knew and loved.

  In the case of Thurmarsh United Football Club, it was Cousin Hilda who thought Henry’s reply unworthy of the Henry she knew and loved. The club asked him to ‘do a Delia’ – run a café in the Tommy Marsden Stand on match days and try to wean the crowd off pies and hot dogs.

  ‘What crowd?’ he asked loftily.

  He half expected the sniff. It rarely came when he expected it, but this time it did.

  Forgetting where we’re coming from, are we? it said. Forgetting our roots!

  ‘Not at all,’ said Henry. ‘I have them dyed every month.’

  Hilary looked at him in astonishment. He had forgotten that she was in the kitchen.

  ‘What on earth do you mean – you have them dyed every month?’ she asked.

  He looked at her in horror. What could he say? How could he explain?

  Well, he’d have to.

  ‘I hear Cousin Hilda sniffing sometimes,’ he said. ‘She haunts me, and I know what her sniffs mean. I was … replying to her sniff.’

  ‘You need help, Henry. Maybe you ought to see a psychiatrist.’

  ‘No!!’

  ‘Or at least the doctor, Henry.’

  ‘No! I do not need a doctor.’

  ‘You know who you sound like when you grit your teeth,’ said Hilary sadly. ‘Your Uncle Teddy and your Auntie Doris. The teeth gritters.’

  ‘Please don’t mock my relatives, Hilary,’ said Henry coldly.

  Hilary gave him a sad look, then changed the subject.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let me give you a treat. Let’s go to dinner at Bartholomew’s.’

  He liked that idea. He liked Bartholomew’s. The food was fairly good, the atmosphere was very good, and it was just across the common from the house.

  They walked over just as the light faded and the headlights of the cars were being switched on. Hilary slipped her hand into his, not very confidently. He stroked hers and she squeezed his. All around them were endless streams of headlights moving round the common as if on a giant roundabout, and, in the middle, Henry and Hilary swished through the grass together, hand in hand. It was as if London was a storm and, just for a moment, they were its still, peaceful eye.

  Just for a moment.

  ‘I’m sorry. We’re full,’ said a man whom they had never seen before at the restaurant.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Henry. ‘Surely you can fit us in.’

  ‘How can I?’ said the man, false regret buttering his voice. ‘I’ve told you. We’re full.’

  ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ exploded Henry angrily.

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference who you are, sir,’ said the man smoothly. ‘We’re full.’

  ‘Right. That does it,’ said Henry. ‘I’m never ever coming here again. Sod you. Come on, Hilary.’

  He reached for her hand, but she refused to give it.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t what?’ he said, still angry.

  ‘You said, “Don’t you know who I am?” Well, I don’t. Not any more.’

  She set off, across the common, away from their home. A cold panic swept over him. He was remembering the dreadful day in Thurmarsh when she had stormed off into the night. It had taken nineteen years to get her back then. It wouldn’t take that again. Would it?

  He should go after her.

  His legs wouldn’t move.

  He should plead with her.

  It was better not to go. He should leave her to cool down. She’d be back. They were different now. They were mature.

  He had made a monstrous accusation on that occasion. There was no such thing this time. This was trivial.

  Nothing is trivial in human relationships.

  His legs wouldn’t move.

  He flinched just before the sniff came, so he must be developing powers of anticipation.

  Now you’ve done it, said Cousin Hilda’s sniff. ‘Leave me alone,’ said Henry. ‘Fucking well leave me alone.’

  He stormed home, across the sad grass, fury making him look like a madman.

  It was a long, long, lonely evening. The house was so quiet. The air in the house was stale. He opened the side door to get fresh air in, although the air that came in was heavy with fumes and poison.

  He made one of the Café’s staple meals, prawn Doris, a spicy prawn and leek dish, not quite a curry, simple yet delicious. He sliced the leeks very thinly and cooked them slowly in butter. He cooked the prawns in white wine, with sun-dried tomato paste, fish stock, ginger, cayenne and chilli. Then he thickened the sauce with cream and rice flour, and added the leeks at the last moment.

 
He laid the kitchen table for two. He listened for her footsteps. There were none.

  He ate a portion of the prawn Doris, with a mixture of wild rice and red Camargue rice. He left a portion for Hilary.

  It was delicious, subtle and spicy, yet gentle – Auntie Doris would have been so pleased if she could have known that he had called it after her – but tonight he couldn’t taste it at all.

  When he had finished his meal, he sat at the kitchen table, almost motionless. That night, he was more distressed than the table. He had a glass of red wine in front of him, but he didn’t touch it. Getting drunk wouldn’t help.

  She would come back eventually. If he was drunk it would just make matters worse.

  She would never come back. He had blown his marriage for the second time. He had lost this wonderful woman for the second time.

  Had a greater fool ever been born?

  Eleven o’clock passed. Eleven-fifteen. Half past eleven. A quarter to twelve. Time passed so slowly, and yet so fast.

  If Hilary did come back, he would be utterly and totally honest and open in every aspect of life at all times.

  Well, no, not quite. He must never tell her that he had used the F word to Cousin Hilda’s sniff.

  He called out to Cousin Hilda’s sniff.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Come back and tell me you aren’t offended. Please.’

  A man in his late sixties sitting at a kitchen table apologising to a dead woman’s sniff. Was this madness?

  There was only silence. How could there be anything else?

  Midnight came and went, and with it all his hopes. He might as well get drunk. He might as well get seriously drunk. He raised his glass to his lips.

  No. If he got drunk she would never come. He would never see her again.

  This was ridiculous. There could be no connection between his drinking and her returning home.

  Nevertheless, he put the glass down without taking even a sip.

  And she came. At seven minutes past twelve she came. He almost fainted with relief.

  ‘I was worried,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  And that was all they said. It was grotesque. He had spent the evening longing for her to be there, full of remorse, bursting to open his heart to her, and all he could say was, ‘I was worried.’

  They undressed in silence. They washed and cleaned their teeth in separate bathrooms, as they usually did, but he feared that they would sleep that night in separate bedrooms.

  When he saw that she had got into their bed, his legs almost buckled with relief.

  She seemed to have gone straight to sleep, but he was certain that she was feigning this.

  He crept in quietly beside her.

  In the early hours inhabited by returning drunks and urban foxes, in the silence of their bedroom, Henry sensed that Hilary was awake, and there, in the dark, he apologised for his arrogance, asked her for her help, and promised to be a better human being. He also told her that he knew, deep down, that she wasn’t jealous of his success. Now Hilary could hold him close. The barrier had been removed from their bed. It was a pity, she felt, that he couldn’t yet say these things with the light on, but she was very grateful that he could say them at all.

  He agreed that he needed a rest, and in the morning set about cancelling future engagements so that they could have a whole month off. Now, all the tiredness that he had been refusing to acknowledge swept over him. That night, at supper, he could hardly keep awake.

  Hilary leant over and squeezed his hand.

  ‘It’s time for something that we haven’t had too much of recently,’ she said teasingly.

  Suddenly he felt very nervous.

  ‘I’ll make it,’ she said.

  He was conscious of a great feeling of shock. Not because she was talking about cocoa, but because he was relieved that she was talking about cocoa.

  It took a month in the Seychelles to give him the breathing space he needed. They lazed, read, ate, swam, snorkelled, and he came home feeling stronger and better than he had felt for many years. He thought that he was himself again. The new front man at Bartholomew’s might not know who he was, but he did.

  People say that they feel a new man, but they don’t mean it literally. Henry almost did. Old Henry had become conceited, grumpy and arrogant. New Henry would be mature, compassionate and modest.

  He had a feeling that all his troubles were over. Poor Henry. How wrong could he be? They were just about to begin.

  14 A Hen is Born

  ‘HENRY PWATT?’ THE man on the phone enquired.

  ‘Almost,’ said Henry foolishly.

  ‘My name is Jonathan Cwomarty. I’m Managing Director of Happy Fields Chickens. I expect you’ve heard of us.’

  ‘Well, no, actually. Sorry.’

  ‘No, no, not at all. No pwoblem. We’re quite a small outfit. No weason why you should have. No pwoblem at all. In fact it’s pwecisely because people like you haven’t heard of us that we’re appwoaching people like you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not quite with you.’

  ‘No, no, not at all. No pwoblem. No, I haven’t exactly explained myself, have I? We’re a pwetty chicken fwiendly outfit here. Ecologically sound, as I think our name suggests.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well … Happy Fields. A picture of happy chickens. In the fields. Our chickens are utterly fwee-wange.’

  ‘I see. No, Happy Fields gave me an image of the fields being happy, and I’d guess that if fields could speak they’d say they’d be happy without chickens shitting all over them. I certainly would be, if I was a field.’

  ‘Oh. Ha ha. Yes. I see. Yes. Well … it’s a thought.’

  ‘So, I had an image of empty fields and sheds full of unhappy chickens.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. No, no. No, no. Well, it’s a thought. It is a thought. Maybe I’ll … though I don’t see how we can change our name, to be honest.’

  ‘Of course not. Sorry. It’s just me being silly. I have a rather unusual mind, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Exactly! That’s it! And we don’t. Which is why we want you, Mr Pwatt. All of us. Unanimously. I don’t think you’ll mind my saying that my wife is tickled pink at the thought. Tickled pink. “He’s so … ” she said. “So …” Well, maybe I shouldn’t be saying this.’

  ‘Please. I’m not sensitive.’

  ‘ “So … cuddly”.’

  ‘Ah. Like a teddy bear, did she mean?’

  ‘Well … I don’t know about teddy bears. Pwobably she just finds you … er …’

  ‘Cuddly.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which is why she described me as cuddly, no doubt.’

  Stop it, Henry.

  ‘Er … yes.’

  ‘Shrewd cookie, your wife.’

  No! Why are you treating this man like this, Henry? New Henry, post-Seychelles Henry, is responsible and courteous. What is it about this man that is making you be like this? Because he can’t say his Rs? That’s terrible. Get a grip.

  ‘So, this thought that your wife is tickled pink by, what is it exactly?’

  ‘Ah. So sorry. I haven’t made myself clear, have I? We would like you to spearhead our advertising campaign.’

  ‘Ah! Before you go any further I have to tell you that while I have been very happy to promote myself – quite ruthlessly, some would say – I have made a decision not to use my name to promote anything else.’

  ‘I know. I know. I’ve wead about it, and I wespect it, but, Mr Pwatt – or may I call you Henwy?’

  ‘Yes. Do. Please.’

  ‘Thank you. But we are diffewent. Weally diffewent. And we feel that you are extwemely us.’

  ‘Extw … extremely you?’

  ‘Yes. Extwemely. I mean, your business is intimate, individual, ecologically wesponsible. Happy. You positively ooze satisfaction.’

  ‘Good God. That sounds dreadful.’

  ‘Oh no. No, no, no. It’s your enthusiasm. Your love of food.
Your happiness. And we’re all about happiness at Happy Fields Chickens. We’ve heard your comments on your show … your excellent show …’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘… about battewy chicken farming, which we find as howwendous as you do. Our food philosophies, Mr Pwatt, are identical. We can think of nobody better to foster our business image and at the same time speak out against cwuelty to chickens.’

  ‘Well, thank you.’

  ‘So this would be, as we see it, less the endorsement of a pwoduct and more a mowal cwusade.’

  ‘Well, yes, I can see that.’

  ‘We don’t have a vast budget, but with our image we think that your association with us could also benefit you, though not as much of course as it would benefit us.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  Jonathan Cromarty emphasised that as they were such a small outfit the money would not be great, but the adverts would be filmed vewy swiftly and simply in one day in a studio, without the use of weal chickens, as that might cause hardship.

  Henry liked the sound of it. He liked the idea of a moral crusade. He insisted on visiting Happy Fields Chickens Limited to inspect it, before lending his name to it, but told Jonathan Cromarty that, if the place satisfied his criteria on animal welfare, he would do it.

  He visited on a fine day in late spring and was charmed by the place. A long drive led to a cheery, seventeenth-century, brick farmhouse with smiling windows and two picturesque gables. At the entrance to the farmyard, a discreet, modest sign proclaimed ‘Happy Fields Chickens. Please drive slowly. Beware chickens.’ Above the sign was a delightfully amusing picture of an alarmed chicken trying to get out of the way of a car.

  Jonathan Cromarty emerged from the front door, smiling broadly, holding out an expansive hand of welcome. He was thin and extremely tall – about six foot five – and he towered over Henry.

  ‘It’s an honour to have you here,’ he said. ‘My wife is so disappointed.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Not to be able to be here. Alas … family.’

  ‘Quite. So she’ll never know if I’m cuddly in the flesh.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said she thought I was cuddly.’