by David Nobbs
Uncle Teddy came down to breakfast, and Henry’s brain seized up.
‘How’s young Henry?’ said Uncle Teddy, immaculate in his business suit.
‘All right,’ improvised Henry amusingly.
A wasp bore down upon the marmalade jar. Uncle Teddy crushed it with ease. Henry knew that if he’d tried it, it would have stung him. His body didn’t feel like a part of himself. It was an enemy with which he constantly had to wrestle. He’d finished his breakfast, but he didn’t dare get up until Uncle Teddy had gone, for fear of knocking the table over.
At last Uncle Teddy went, and Henry was free to go too. Auntie Doris gave him some sandwiches and a bit of extra pocket money. She was very good that way.
‘Don’t eat them too early,’ she said.
‘I won’t,’ he promised.
He said goodbye, hurried upstairs, and changed into scruffier clothes. He didn’t want to look like a snazzy dresser in the environs of Paradise Lane. He crept out of the house in his filthy garb. Auntie Doris was on the telephone and didn’t see him.
He walked down Wharfedale Road, past pleasant houses whose names suggested a conspiracy to pretend that the road was nothing to do with the city. Birchbrook. Beech Croft. Dane’s Oak. Coppice View. Marshfields.
He caught a bus to the city centre, then walked through the oven of the city, from the bus station, through Fitzalan Square, and waited for the Thurmarsh tram down by the markets. The sunlight was filtering palely through the industrial smog.
He meant to change trams at Rawlaston Four Roads, but on impulse he decided to carry on into Thurmarsh and eat his sandwiches before seeing Martin. Otherwise he’d have to share them.
The tram terminus was in Mabberley Street, by the public library. He walked past the library, past the tripe butcher’s, past the Thurmarsh branch of Arthur Davy and Sons, past Ted’s Café, which gave out a hot whiff of potato and armpit pie, past the Maypole Dairy and the offices of the Thurmarsh Chronicle and Argus. The newspaper placards announced, ‘Worse than darkest 1940 – Eden,’ and ‘My night of shame – Thurmarsh Councillor’.
He sat on a wooden bench in the little gardens opposite the Town Hall. The clock on the Town Hall said 11.07. He might as well eat his sandwiches. Exhausted sooty sparrows and dishevelled starlings eyed him hopefully. The sun beat down on him. He opened the packet. She’d given him Gentleman’s Relish again. What on earth had possessed him to pretend to like it when she had given it to him as a treat on the first day of the holidays? A fear of seeming unsophisticated, perhaps. An urge to shed his oikishness. Possibly, the reader will suspect, an hereditary streak of gastronomic masochism. His father, a dry meat man, had suffered his food to be drowned in gravy throughout his married life. For years all three of them had endured brawn together, each in the mistaken belief that the other two liked it. Now, a twelve-year-old boy with no relish for becoming a gentleman struggled through his Gentleman’s Relish on a seat stained by starling droppings.
He finished his sandwiches at 11.16, flinging a token crumb towards the birds. Three sparrows fought for it. A starling pushed them out of the way and ate it. A small cloud, barely visible in the haze, briefly obscured the sun.
Would he talk to Martin about the strange teachers at Brasenose College, about Miss Prune, the matron, who had nailed her flag to the mast of clean underwear, about the boys all calling him Oiky? Would they discuss the amazing form of Compton and Edrich, and the fortunes of Yorkshire cricket?
He caught the Rawlaston tram. They clanked past the end of Link Lane. Four men were washing a fire engine, but there was no life around the grammar school. How small it looked. How tiny the houses were, as the tram moaned wearily up the hill. They breasted the rise, and looked down into the hazy valley of the Rundle. On the right, Brunswick Road Primary School, Devil’s Island in a sea of brick. Their descent levelled out; the road swung right. On the left was the canal, smaller and weedier than in his memory. The canal swung away from the road, and the cul-de-sacs began. How minute they were. Everything was tiny except the vast, blank wall of Crapp, Hawser and Kettlewell. ‘Paradise,’ yelled the conductor. His legs wouldn’t move. The tram stopped. There was the corner shop. There was the chippy. How grimy it all was. He remained seated. A wave of relief swept over him as he realised that he wasn’t going to get off, and then as soon as the tram was on its way once more, and the last of the cul-de-sacs was left behind, and the vast world of Crapp, Hawser and Kettlewell became past history also, the relief changed to regret. He should have got off. He hadn’t. He wouldn’t.
‘I thought tha wanted Paradise,’ said the conductor.
‘I’ve changed me mind,’ he said.
Steam escaped from the slender chimneys of the steelworks. Steam drifted out of gaps in the walls. Steam rose from innumerable shunting engines. A steam train roared along the line to Henry’s left. The hills drifted steamily in the weak sun. Henry was adrift in a steamy world. These were the doldrums.
He got off the tram at Rawlaston, because it went no further. He was parched. He didn’t know what language to use, even to himself. He was in a linguistic no man’s land. ‘Ee, I’m fair clammed,’ had been left behind. ‘Gosh, I’m absolutely Hairy Mac Thirsters,’ had not yet arrived. He bought a bottle of Tizer, a newspaper, a packet of Nuttall’s Mintoes, and a lucky bag.
He sat on a wall, behind which there would soon be a building site. He could smell a nearby chippy. He sipped his Tizer and examined the contents of his lucky bag. It contained sherbet, a little saying and a trick. The saying blew away in a sudden gust of hot wind, and the trick fell into the building site as he tried to rescue the saying.
He’d bought the paper to find out the cinema programmes. Fool that he was. It was a national paper. He skimmed through the headlines, for want of anything better to do. ‘Attlee may sack five ministers.’ ‘Lords told “Rule or Quit Palestine”.’ ‘Cannot call barrow boys crooks – Isaacs.’ ‘August heat above normal.’ ‘Julius napped at Haydock.’ One of the adverts showed a man with a far-away look. The caption read, ‘He’s dreaming of the days when Vantella Shirts and Van Heusen Collars Are Easy to Get Again (with curve-woven semi-stiff collars and cuffs!)’ Could anyone really dream of things like that? He crumpled the paper up and tossed it into the building site. A middle-aged woman said, ‘Now then. Tha shouldn’t throw litter, tha knows.’ ‘Why don’t you drop dead, you fat cow?’ he shouted. ‘Young people today. I don’t know,’ said the woman, continuing on her way. He took a swig of lukewarm Tizer and dropped down off the wall. He deliberately barged into a woman shopper. ‘Look where you’re going,’ she said. ‘Oh go home and stew yourself in your knickers,’ he riposted wittily. The mood passed. He finished his Tizer, caught a tram to Sheffield, and bought a copy of the Star.
Most of the films were ‘A’ or ‘X’. He had used up all his bravado, and, in any case, there was no way he could pretend to be sixteen.
The only ‘U’ films were Elizabeth Taylor in Courage of Lassie at the Roscoe, Deanna Durbin in I’ll be Yours at the Gaumont, Norman Evans, Nat Jackley and Dan Young in Demobbed at the Forum, Southey, The Jolson Story at the Lyric, Darnall, Old Mother Riley Detective at the Hillsboro’ Kinema, Abbott and Costello in The Time of Their Lives at the Paragon, Firth Park, and My Brother Talks to Horses at the Rex, Intake. After ten minutes of agonised debate, he realised that he probably hadn’t enough money to go to any cinema which involved an extra bus ride. He checked on the state of his finances.
All he could afford was the News Theatre in Fitzalan Square. He saw the news, a Laurel and Hardy comedy, two cartoons, one of which was a Donald Duck and the other of which wasn’t, a semi-humorous feature on dogs, a film about ice sports, the news, a Laurel and Hardy comedy, two cartoons, one of which was a Donald Duck, and the other of which wasn’t, a semi-humorous feature on dogs, a film about ice sports, the news, a Laurel and Hardy comedy, and two cartoons, one of which was a Donald Duck and the other of which wasn’t. The best programme begins to lose its savour
when you’ve seen it two and a half times, and he emerged blearily into the glaring, late-afternoon furnace that was Sheffield, city of steel.
It was still only twenty to five when he arrived back at Wharfedale Road. The tar in the road was tacky. His legs were stuck. The pavement was made of glue. He was walking, yet hardly moving, as in a dream. He would never reach Cap Ferrat.
He entered through the French windows, forgetting that he had secretly changed into scruffy clothes before leaving.
Geoffrey Porringer was sitting beside Auntie Doris on the settee. They were drinking China tea.
‘What sort of day have you had, young sir?’ said Geoffrey Porringer.
‘Very nice,’ said Henry, but he didn’t elaborate.
Quite soon Geoffrey Porringer stood up and said, ‘Well. I’m sorry I missed Teddy,’ and Auntie Doris said, ‘What is it I’m to tell him?’ and Geoffrey Porringer said, ‘Tell him Bingley can’t cope. We’ll have to explore other avenues,’ and then he nodded at Henry, said, ‘Don’t worry, Einstein, it may never happen,’ and departed through the French windows.
Henry went upstairs and had a lukewarm bath and still didn’t feel clean and lay on his bed, dressed only in his pants, as the evening slowly began to cool.
He dressed, and went down for dinner. He was a far cry from any boy who might have been in Rawlaston earlier that day saying, ‘Why don’t you drop dead, you fat cow?’
He was resolved to make more of a conversational show than he had managed heretofore.
An opening gambit lay ready to hand.
‘Don’t forget Geoffrey Porringer’s message,’ he reminded Auntie Doris.
‘Geoffrey Porringer?’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Has he been here?’
‘He popped in this afternoon,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘With a message.’
‘Why couldn’t he ring me at the office?’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘I don’t know,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I’m not a mind reader.’
‘Perhaps it was secret. It sounded pretty secret,’ said Henry.
‘What was this message?’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘I can’t remember,’ said Auntie Doris.
‘He brings me a message so secret and important that he can’t phone me at the office, and you forget it!’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘I remember it,’ said Henry. ‘He said, “Bingley can’t cope. We’ll have to explore other avenues.”’
‘I don’t understand it,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘What the hell does he mean? Bingley?’
‘It’s probably in code,’ said Henry.
Uncle Teddy glared at Auntie Doris, then turned to Henry.
‘That’ll be it,’ he said.
‘Pretty useless code,’ said Henry, ‘if nobody knows what it means.’
Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris said little after that, giving Henry a golden opportunity, over the bread and butter pudding, to raise a subject that had been worrying him.
‘I think you’ve been done at Brasenose,’ he said.
‘Done?’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘You’re paying lots of money, but the education’s worse than at Thurmarsh, which is free.’
He hoped that Uncle Teddy would be so upset that he would remove him from Brasenose immediately. But it didn’t work.
‘It’s what we call a preparatory school,’ explained Uncle Teddy. ‘You aren’t there to be educated. You’re there to be prepared.’
‘What for?’
‘Dalton.’
Henry looked at Uncle Teddy blankly.
‘Dalton is one of the best public schools in the country,’ said Auntie Doris.
‘Where is it?’ said Henry.
‘In Somerset,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Rather a long way away. That’s the only fly in the ointment.’
‘I’m Labour,’ Henry said.
There was a horrified silence in the dorm.
The financial crisis of 1947, even thought it was largely a result of the nation having bankrupted itself in order to win the war, was proof to all the boys of Brasenose College, except Henry, that Labour were unfit to run the country. 1947 saw the nationalisation of railways, canals, road haulage and electricity. It saw the school-leaving age raised to fifteen (not a good selling-point at Brasenose). It saw the final transfer of power in India to India. All this was regarded as unarguably awful by all the boys of Brasenose College, except Henry.
Why had he told them, thought Henry bitterly after lights-out in the bare-boarded, uncurtained, Spartan dorm, with its row of wash-basins down the middle? How could he establish any relationship with them? How could he ever talk to them about his past? What could he ever tell them about it? That he had lived in a rat-infested, back-to-back terrace with a one-eyed, retired parrot-strangler?
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The answer was so simple that he couldn’t believe that he had been too stupid to see it before. There was no need of any grocer from Abergavenny here. He had himself. He would mock himself before they did.
He began to call himself ‘Oiky’. ‘Shut up, Oiky,’ he’d say, or ‘Come on, our Oik.’ One day, at dinner, he convulsed the table by gazing at his plate and saying, ‘It’s months since I ’ad rat.’ For years he had envied comedians their catchphrases. Now, he had one of his own. It was a good ’un and all. ‘It’s months since I ’ad rat.’
That term, Henry discovered that he was as bad at rugby football as he was at cricket. He never once managed to repeat the successful tackle he had made on Pam Yardley. When he kicked the ridiculously shaped ball, he never knew where it would go. He even managed to achieve the near impossible by slicing it over his own goal-posts. Everyone collapsed with laughter, even Mr Lee-Archer, the referee, who wasn’t sure whether you could score an own dropped goal at rugby. Henry stood there, looking sheepish. As the laughter died down, he knew that it was time for him to use his catchphrase.
‘It’s months since I ’ad rat,’ he said.
It went down like a plate of cold sick. Why? Why?
Because it was inappropriate! Brilliant though his catchphrase was, the opportunities for its use were too limited.
He needed something of more general application.
A catchphrase must be ordinary. You couldn’t imagine Oscar Wilde touring the halls and producing loud laughter every time he said, ‘Fox hunting is the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.’ A witticism constantly repeated becomes a stale witticism. A catch phrase is, ‘I won’t take me coat off. I’m not stopping,’ or ‘It’s agony, Ivy.’
Henry’s came out by accident after he’d put his foot on the edge of his porridge plate while clambering to his place over the top of the bench. The plate tilted, and his portion of porridge flew through the air, like a slightly soggy discus, into his face. When the laughter died down, he said, ‘E, by gum, I am daft.’ It fitted him. It was comfortable. It was his. It was appropriate on all occasions. He was Henry ‘Ee, by gum, I am daft’ Pratt.
In the Christmas holidays, Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris gave him a model railway, and he began to sample the delights of regular cinema-going. In the Easter term he discovered that he was as bad at hockey as at cricket and football. Mr Trench returned, having made an amazing recovery. He was helped by the fact that the boys never mocked him. In their eyes, a schoolmaster who ran naked through the woods had a certain heroic quality about him. Henry was past page fifty of Keats’ ‘Endymion’ now, and if his French was a trifle sketchy, he could no doubt have had a shot at a simple appendectomy, had the need ever arisen.
One day, while Mr Hill dozed, Henry tried not to meander while reading why rivers did. So effective was he in this effort that once again he didn’t know that Mr Noon was in the room until he received his old chum, the clip round the ear-hole.
‘Why didn’t you stand up when I came in the room?’ said Mr Noon.
‘I didn’t hear you, sir,’ said Henry. ‘I was concentrating on my work.’
‘Nonsense, boy, you were in a brown study,’ said Mr Noon.
; ‘No, sir. I wasn’t,’ said Henry.
‘Come and see me in another brown study at the beginning of break,’ said the headmaster.
‘That’s not fair, sir,’ said Henry.
‘Tut tut! Tut tut!’ said Mr A. B. Noon B.A. palindromically. ‘Not fair, eh? We’ll see about that.’
In the break, Henry made the long trek to the headmaster’s study, past the burgeoning sweat of rissoles, through the green baize door, past the acrid common-room fug.
‘I really didn’t know you were there, sir, because I was working so hard,’ said Henry.
‘I don’t accuse you of lying,’ said the headmaster. ‘I merely say this. If you are lying, you deserve to be thrashed. If you aren’t, then your thrashing will be unfair, and that will be an excellent preparation for life, because life is unfair, and it would be unfair of me to give you the impression that it isn’t, so I shall thrash you anyway.’
Mr Noon gave him six of the best.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.
Back in the dorm that night, a bit of a hero because of his unjust thrashing, having shown his weals to the admiring throng, Henry was asked by Bullock, ‘You’ve turned out not to be too bad a chap at all, Oiky. Are you honestly Labour?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry.
‘Why?’ said Bullock.
Now this was a shrewd question. Being Conservative or Labour didn’t really have anything to do with politics. It was simply what one was. One was either Oxford or Cambridge, and similarly one was either Conservative or Labour, except that one was never Labour. Henry had accused them of being Conservative because they were sheep. Was he himself any better?
‘Come on, Oiky. Why?’ said Price-Ansty.
‘I just don’t think it’s fair that some people should have so much more than others,’ he said. He thought it sounded pretty lame, but it was the best he could do.