The Complete Pratt

by David Nobbs

‘Don’t make it sound like a last resort,’ said Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. ‘We’ll have him because we want him.’

  Henry wanted to cry. He didn’t want to live with Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris. Once again his destination was being discussed as if he were a parcel. It wasn’t fair. Sometimes eleven seemed so grown-up, compared to all his past life. Then suddenly it was almost a babyish age, compared with all the growing up he still had to do.

  Uncle Teddy drove them to Paradise Lane. They made a detour to pick up Cousin Hilda.

  ‘If we don’t involve her, there’ll be ructions,’ said Uncle Teddy.

  ‘I can understand that,’ said Mr Quell. ‘I was born into a family myself.’

  They drove through the centre of Sheffield. The cinema queues were hunched into their coats against the rising January wind.

  Uncle Teddy drove under the Wicker Arches, and up out of the Don Valley on the long Thurmarsh road. He was weaving inside and outside the trams in expert fashion.

  In the back, Auntie Doris put an arm round Henry until she realised that he didn’t want it. She withdrew the arm a bit at a time, as if hoping that Henry wouldn’t notice that she was being forced to do it.

  They dropped down into the smoking, glowing heavy industry of the Rundle Valley. A left turn would have taken them to Rawlaston and the Barnsley road. A right turn would have taken them to Paradise Lane. But Uncle Teddy drove straight on up the hill towards Thurmarsh.

  ‘Are you a reading man, sir?’ asked Mr Quell.

  ‘I like a good book,’ said Uncle Teddy.

  ‘The boy has the spark,’ said Mr Quell. ‘He definitely has the spark. Yes, sir. Henry Pratt is a young man who can make you feel proud of him. Do you think it will snow?’

  Uncle Teddy went into number 66 Park View Road and emerged a few minutes later with Cousin Hilda. Her face was grave.

  ‘Well well well,’ she said, and sniffed. On this occasion her disapproval was for herself. ‘I’ve been remiss. But my businessmen take up so much of my time.’

  Uncle Teddy drove even faster, now that Cousin Hilda was in the car, because he knew it frightened her. She had once accompanied them, on an outing, when Henry was two. She had kept up a stream of propaganda, aimed at Uncle Teddy, in the guise of a running commentary, aimed at Henry. ‘Uncle Teddy’ll slow down in a minute, because of the corner.’ ‘Watch Uncle Teddy put on the brakes, in case that car pulls out.’ She could hardly do that now.

  The car was spacious. There was no squeeze, even with three of them in the back.

  ‘You have a pleasant prospect overlooking the park,’ Mr Quell told Cousin Hilda, turning his huge, square-topped head.

  They all fell silent as they approached Paradise Lane. Uncle Teddy drove very slowly over the cobbles.

  The little terrace house was empty. The fire in the range was low. Its heat made little impression on the icy air. Mr Quell went down into the cellar and fetched more coal.

  ‘Where’ll he be, Henry?’ said Uncle Teddy.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Henry.

  ‘In the pub?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Which pub does he use?’

  ‘He uses t’ Navigation a bit, but he doesn’t stay long. He goes up t’ hill mainly. There’s t’ Pineapple and two or three others. Try t’ Tennants houses first.’

  Mr Quell and Uncle Teddy set off in search of Ezra.

  Cousin Hilda made a pot of tea. ‘It’s mashing,’ she announced, and sighed and sniffed at the same time. ‘I’ve failed you, Henry,’ she said. ‘I were satisfied with the answers you gave, because I wanted to be satisfied. I pretended everything were all right. And I call myself a Christian.’

  ‘We had no idea anything like this was going on,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘The state of the place. Poor boy.’

  ‘He were all right till Uncle Teddy sacked him,’ said Henry.

  ‘Uncle Teddy offered him a job out of the goodness of his heart,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘He had no need to. He kept him on as long as he possibly could. But he runs a business, not a charity. Your father didn’t help himself either, the things he said about your Uncle Teddy’s war effort.’

  Cousin Hilda sniffed.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Auntie Doris.

  ‘What?’ said Cousin Hilda.

  ‘That sniff,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I distinctly heard you sniff.’

  ‘I were breathing,’ said Cousin Hilda, flushing blotchily. ‘I’ll try not to do it in future, if it upsets you.’

  ‘You were insinuating that Teddy wasn’t ready to do his bit,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘You were insinuating that his flat feet were a fraud.’

  ‘There’s lots I could say,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘I could make some comment about guilty consciences. But I won’t. I’ll hold my tongue. I’ve been un-Christian enough already.’

  Mr Quell and Uncle Teddy returned empty-handed.

  ‘I need the smallest room in the house,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘’Ti’n’t in t’ house for a kick-off,’ said Henry, fetching the torch. ‘Tha goes up t’ entry two doors away into t’ yard. Ours is t’ second one on t’ left, beyond t’ midden.’

  Uncle Teddy shook his head, as if amazed that people could choose to live like that, as if he really believed that they did choose it. Then he put on the overcoat which he had just taken off, and set off into the street.

  ‘It’s starting to snow,’ said Mr Quell. ‘Do you think it’s the harbinger of prolonged severe weather?’

  Cousin Hilda smiled at Henry.

  ‘I’ll come and build a snowman with you, if it is,’ she said.

  Uncle Teddy came back in, very slowly. His face was white. He forgot to switch the torch off.

  ‘What’s the matter, Teddy?’ said Auntie Doris. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Switch the torch off,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘There’s no point in wasting batteries.’

  ‘I’ve found him,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘He’s in the toilet. He’s dead.’

  The snow began in earnest that night, and Henry began his life at Cap Ferrat, the home of Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris, in Wharfedale Road, in the salubrious western suburbs of Sheffield, among the foothills of the Pennines.

  It was a substantial stone house, built in 1930. It had charmingly irregular gables, and to the right of the porch there was a tall, narrow window, in pale imitation of the high windows of a baronial hall.

  In the morning, waking up in a sizeable bedroom, he couldn’t think where he was. Then it all came back to him. His father was dead. Life stretched bleakly ahead of him. There was no point in getting up.

  School! He got out of bed automatically. It was nice to feel a fitted carpet beneath your feet. If life was going to be bleak and awful, it might just as well be bleak and awful with fitted carpets.

  He pulled back the curtains and gazed open-mouthed at a wonderland of white. The branches of huge trees sagged with the snow. It lay piled on the roofs of the substantial houses that rose and fell with the pleasant white hills. It was impossible to tell where lawns ended and flower beds began, and there would certainly be no school that day.

  How could he be excited? His father had died. His poor, sick father had collapsed and expired in the outside lavatory they shared with number 25. And he had betrayed his father in his essay. One week more, and there would have been no need to betray him.

  He didn’t want to live with Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris. His brain seized up totally in their presence. But there was no point in pretending that he disliked their bathroom. Soaking in the luxurious, fitted bath, with his face flannel lying beside the pumice stone on the rack that fitted onto the bath, it was impossible not to feel that this was the life. Not one inside lavatory, but two. He resented Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris, of course. It was outrageous that some people should have two inside lavatories, one upstairs and one downstairs, while others had none. That was what Reg Hammond said
, any road. But if you happened to live in a house with them, why not use them? Henry used them alternately, because they were there.

  They gave him a wireless of his very own! It was one thing to resent Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris and their eccentric lifestyle – they had dinner in the evening, and a meal called lunch at one o’clock. But, if you were there, you might as well enjoy the good food, the fitted carpets, the comfortable armchairs and settee, the view over the snowy garden through the French windows, the steaming baths, the luxurious lavatories, the bedroom which made such a deeply satisfying womb. A womb with patterned curtains, in russet and olive-green, a darker green carpet, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a reproduction of ‘The Hay Wain’. A womb with a view.

  One night Henry had a dream, in which a naked Lorna Arrow – he couldn’t remember her body, when he woke up, but he remembered she was naked – said, ‘Which do you prefer – your father or ninety-three thousand miles of fitted carpet?’ And he didn’t know the answer! He woke up all clammy and disorientatedly uneasy and not quite fitting the inside of his head. It was true, even when awake. He didn’t know the answer. He had tried to be loyal to his father, and, until just before the end, he had been. But he’d never really liked him. He’d always been frightened of him. He’d spent several formative years apart from him. It was very difficult to feel any grief. Normal children grieved for their father. He didn’t. Therefore he wasn’t normal. Q.E.D.

  At first he didn’t go to school because of the snows. It was a long way to Thurmarsh Grammar, and the country was almost paralysed by the snow. Then came his mumps. By the time he was better, it was close to the end of term, the nation was facing a severe fuel crisis, the boilers at Thurmarsh Grammar had finally packed up completely, and there was no point in going back that term.

  He read books about children who went sailing, children who went camping, children who went riding, and they were all good eggs. He read books about otters that talked, foxes that talked and birds that talked. They were all pretty good eggs too. Henry wished that he was a good egg, but if you weren’t a good egg, the next best thing was to read about good eggs.

  And his wireless poured forth its magic. ‘Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh’, in which people said ‘Was there something?’ and ‘Not a word to Bessie’ and ‘When I was in Sidi Barrani’, and everybody laughed. Henry wished he had a catch phrase. There was ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’ with Harold Berens and Gladys Hay. He could follow Dick Barton at last. There was Michael Miles in ‘Radio Forfeits’. International boxing brought him Jackie Paterson v Cliff Anderson and Freddie Mills v Willi Quentemeyer. F. N. S. Creek gave hints about lacrosse. They might come in handy one day, or they might not, what did it matter? There was a new serial called ‘Bunkle Butts In’ on ‘Children’s Hour’. Who needed real-life friends?

  Henry did. Soon the summer term would begin, and he would see Martin Hammond again, and Stefan Prziborski. The thaws came, and with them the floods. The floods eased, and it was spring, and he couldn’t wait to go back to school.

  7 Oiky

  ‘OI. OIKY,’ YELLED Tubman-Edwards.

  Henry turned and thumped Tubman-Edwards on the side of the head.

  Tubman-Edwards knocked him flat.

  ‘I thought you oiks could fight,’ said Tubman-Edwards, walking away, but Henry was unconscious and didn’t hear him.

  When Henry came round, he couldn’t remember where he was. It seemed to be becoming a frequent experience. What were these playing fields among the pine woods and rhododendrons? What was that large, brooding, ivy-covered mansion?

  It came back to him with a thud only marginally less sickening than that dealt out by Tubman-Edwards. He was lying on the playing fields of Brasenose College, a preparatory school for boys, so named by its palindromic headmaster, Mr A. B. Noon B.A., in the hope that some of the educational glitter of the Oxford College of the same name would adhere to his crumbling pile among the rhododendrons (rhododendra? Mr Noon was nothing if not a pedant).

  Mr A. B. Noon B.A. was approaching now, accompanied by his equally palindromic twin daughters, Hannah and Eve, who ran a riding school in Bagshot.

  ‘What are you doing lying on the ground, laddie?’ said Mr Noon, peering down at Henry.

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ said Henry.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Mr Noon. ‘You evaded my little trap.’

  Henry struggled to his feet. He felt dizzy and his legs were rubbery. He had no idea what little trap he had evaded. Luckily, Mr Noon explained to his daughters.

  ‘I didn’t ask him why he was on the ground,’ said Mr Noon. ‘I asked him what he was doing on the ground. He understood my question and replied, “Nothing”. I have every reason to believe that he was speaking the truth.’

  ‘Is he all right?’ asked Eve anxiously.

  ‘What?’ said Mr Noon, a little irritated at this interruption of his linguistic flow. ‘Are you all right, boy?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Henry.

  Mr A. B. Noon B.A. was – and maybe still is – a tall, shambling man with a long nose and a slight stoop.

  ‘I shall now ask you the question which a less alert boy would already have answered,’ he said. ‘Why were you lying on the ground?’

  ‘Tubman-Edwards knocked me out, sir.’

  ‘Gentlemen don’t tell tales,’ said Mr Noon reprovingly.

  ‘I’m not really telling tales, sir,’ said Henry. ‘He only knocked me out cos I hit him first.’

  ‘You’re Pratt, the new boy, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why did you hit Tubman-Edwards, Pratt?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, sir.’

  Mr Noon raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Gentlemen don’t tell tales, sir.’

  It was just about the first good moment that Henry had experienced since coming to Brasenose.

  Eve Noon, a tall, shambling girl with a long nose and a slight stoop, actually smiled.

  ‘Touché,’ said Mr Noon. ‘Well done, boy. However, I, your headmaster, am now enquiring into an incident that happened at my school, so you will no longer be telling tales, you will be helping the authorities to arrive at the truth, and that is a very different matter. Why did you hit Tubman-Edwards?’

  ‘He called me “Oiky”, sir,’ said Henry.

  ‘Boys can be very cruel,’ said Mr Noon.

  The three Noons walked away, and a high-pitched roar came as a wicket fell in a junior cricket match. Hannah and Eve Noon, known to the boys as Before and After, turned and looked back at Henry. Hannah, a tall, shambling girl with a long nose and a slight stoop, looked at him as if she thought he was an oik, but Eve winked.

  That night, in the dorm, when everyone else was asleep, Henry allowed himself to cry a little. He had felt like crying every day since Uncle Teddy dropped his bombshell.

  It had been early evening in the living room of Cap Ferrat. The sun had set over the yard-arm, and Uncle Teddy had been enjoying his first whisky.

  ‘You aren’t going back to Thurmarsh Grammar,’ he had said casually.

  Henry had felt as if he was in a collapsing, plunging lift.

  ‘It’s too far away for you to go there every day,’ Uncle Teddy had explained.

  ‘Where am I going?’ Henry had said.

  ‘Brasenose College.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘In Surrey.’

  Henry had stared at Uncle Teddy in astonishment.

  ‘It’s a boarding school,’ Uncle Teddy had explained. ‘You come home during the holidays.’

  Henry had protested that he didn’t want to go to Brasenose College in Surrey. Uncle Teddy had explained that he was paying, out of his own pocket, to give Henry the privilege of private education. Some people had no choice. Others were lucky enough to have made enough money to be able to give the youngsters in their care opportunites that otherwise they would not have had. Maybe the system was wrong. Uncle Teddy didn’t know. He was a businessman, not
an educationalist or a politician. But, while the system existed, it would be very unfair of him not to give Henry all the opportunities he could, within that system.

  ‘I’m your father now,’ Uncle Teddy had said, as he poured his second whisky. ‘You’re my son. I’m sending you to boarding school. You’re a lucky lad.’

  Henry didn’t feel like a lucky lad, lying in the dorm, listening to the ivy tapping gently against the windows, and the gurgling of a pipe somewhere in the water system, and the breathing of eleven sleeping boys.

  Correction. Ten sleeping boys. Lush was awake.

  ‘Oiky?’ whispered that young worthy.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Are you asleep?’

  ‘How can I be if I answered you?’

  ‘Were you casing?’

  Casing was Brasenose for crying.

  ‘Course I wasn’t.’

  ‘You don’t like being called Oiky, do you?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘I can’t call you Pratt.’

  ‘How about Henry?’

  ‘O.K. I’m Gerald. I’ll tell your fortune tomorrow if you like.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Night, Henry.’

  ‘Night, Gerald.’

  The craze in the school at the time was for fortune-telling. The method of telling fortunes was fairly primitive. You wrote out an enormous list of occupations, with numbers, and you asked the person to give you a number, and you looked the number up on your list, and told him what he was going to be when he grew up. The reader can no doubt imagine the many humorous incidents that resulted, especially when some of the occupations listed were of a somewhat ribald nature! Nevertheless, the craze only lasted for about ten days. After that, it was the most boring thing in the world, and all the lists were thrown away.

  The conversation between Henry and Gerald took place during the height of this brief craze. He went to sleep feeling happier than at any time since he had discovered that he wasn’t going back to Thurmarsh.

  He had written to Mr Quell, telling him that he had been sent away to school. He had also written to Martin Hammond. He had imagined Mr Quell marching up to Uncle Teddy’s house, and saying to Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris, ‘This nonsense must stop. The boy has the spark. I want to teach him. Brasenose College is useless. Thurmarsh Grammar is in the van. The boys have handed me a petition. “Get Bread Van back.” They all signed it. Even Oberath. They chant it during morning assembly. “We want Bread Van. We want Bread Van.” You’ve got to help us. Let him come back, and save our school.’ He had received a reply from Mr Quell ten days later. He wished him luck and was sure that he would do well. Martin Hammond wrote to say that Mick Tunnicliffe had broken a leg, Oberath was believed to be a spy, and people of working-class origins who gave their children private education were traitors. That was what his dad said, any road.