The Complete Pratt

by David Nobbs

  Henry made no reply.

  ‘I am speaking to you, boy,’ said the headmaster.

  Henry froze behind his mask.

  ‘Me, sir?’ he said.

  ‘You, sir,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Sorry, sir, what was the question?’ said Henry.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ said Mr E. F. Crowther.

  ‘Learning Geography, sir,’ said Henry.

  ‘Take that imbecilic thing off,’ said Mr E. F Crowther.

  Henry removed the mask.

  The headmaster gazed at Henry’s pale, religious face.

  ‘It’s Oscar Wilde,’ he said. ‘Any new goodies for me?’

  ‘Excuse me, headmaster,’ said Mr Burrell, who had been forced to turn his head to see what was happening, and could hardly admit that he hadn’t known that Henry was wearing a mask.

  ‘What is it, Mr Burrell?’ said the headmaster impatiently.

  ‘It was my idea that Pratt should wear the mask, headmaster,’ said Mr Burrell.

  ‘To what end, Mr Burrell?’ said the headmaster.

  ‘To an imaginative end, headmaster,’ said Mr Burrell. ‘We were considering the interior of Africa, headmaster, and I thought, headmaster, that Pratt might play the part of an African tribesman to…er…bring home to him, headmaster, what it’s like to live in the interior of Africa, headmaster.’

  ‘You don’t need to address me as headmaster five times a sentence, Mr Burrell.’

  ‘Sorry, headmaster.’

  ‘Come on, then Pratt. I’ll stay and watch this,’ said Mr E. F. Crowther.

  Henry put the mask back on and thanked God that Cousin Hilda had given him Biggles Scours the Jungle. Truly, everything, however apparently trivial, had its place in the Scheme of Things.

  ‘My goodness, what a swamp,’ said Henry. ‘What a place full of jungle and rotting vegetation and big trees that blot out the sun, and poisonous snakes and deadly spiders, and muddy streams where logs are crocodiles. What a foul stench emanates from the stagnant waters. It’s hard to believe that people actually live here, Algy.’

  ‘Algy?’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Algae, green, slimy, cling to the rotting trunks of dead trees. I wish I could escape, but I do not have big metal bird like white man, sir.’

  ‘Carry on, Mr Burrell,’ said Mr E. F. Crowther. ‘We’ll have a chat about your educational theories later.’

  ‘A pleasure, headmaster,’ said Mr Burrell.

  The headmaster left the room.

  ‘You can take it off now. He’s gone,’ said Mr Burrell.

  Henry took his mask off.

  ‘I wonder what he came in for,’ said Mr Burrell.

  After that, Mr Burrell tacitly acknowledged that he had only one eye, and nobody needed to feel obliged to take advantage. They were free to concentrate on working for their ‘O’ levels.

  Henry was convinced it was the work of God.

  It was the proudest day of his life, and the happiest day of Cousin Hilda’s life, when the Archbishop of York laid hands on him. He was at peace.

  Why then did he find it difficult to concentrate on his ‘O’ levels? He could manage straightforward questions like, ‘Give an account of the development of Parliament in the reigns of Henry III and Edward I’ or ‘Write an essay on the geographical aspects of the major contrasts in the world’s grasslands and their more intensive future cultivation’ or ‘Simplify (p+1)3–3(p+1)2+2’ or even ‘Define the latent heat of vaporization of a liquid. Describe how you would determine the latent heat of vaporization of water.’ He could translate into Latin, ‘If we had started yesterday, we should not have been hindered so much by the contrary wind.’ And ‘Do you think Martial or Catullus is the more successful writer of light verse? Give reasons and examples,’ was a gift. But it only needed the slightest connection with his own life to send him off at a tangent. When he tried to translate into French a passage beginning, ‘When we lived in the country, we often went to the farm to buy cheese and eggs,’ he found himself fighting against memories of collecting eggs with Billy, the half-wit. ‘Write an answer to a person who asks, “Why waste your time reading poetry?”’ sent him straight into Mr Mallender’s classroom at Brasenose, desperately copying out Keats’ ‘Endymion’ and being called Oiky by everybody.

  ‘Please, God, help me concentrate,’ he begged.

  A section of an ordnance survey map came with the Geography exam. It showed the Clyde estuary from Port Glasgow and Cardross to Clydebank, with Dunbarton and the Kilpatrick Hills, and ‘Renfr’ right on the edge. At the top of the map was the bottom of Loch Lomond. It would be nice to take Mabel Billington to Loch Lomond. There’d be steamers, and the skirl of the pipes…and get on with it! Your future depends on this.

  When he addressed himself to the problem, ‘A car of mass 2 tons, which is travelling due south at 45 mph, collides with a lorry of mass 8 tons, which is travelling in a direction 30° south of west at 20 mph. If the car and the lorry lock, find their speed and direction of motion immediately after the collision,’ he found himself worrying about the drivers, especially the driver of the car, who had met this mad lorry driver, who wasn’t following the road, but making sure that he travelled 30° south of west. A retired sea dog, with a compass in his cab, he followed his course across road, moor and peat bog, demolishing crofts and disturbing the grouse. Stop it, you fool. Answer the question.

  What sober, mature, religious, well-adjusted, socially responsible, healthily ambitious student, when asked, ‘What do you know of the following: a) Black Friars and Grey Friars; b) Anti-papal laws passed during the reign of Edward III; c) The reforms in the church advocated by Wyclif; d) The persecution of the Lollards?’ had to fight hard to resist the temptation of replying, in his vital ‘O’ level examinations. ‘Not a lot’?

  11 Oh Mammon

  ONE DAY IN early September, 1951, Henry sat on top of a hill in the Peak District. He was alone with his maker and Mabel Billington. He was thinking more about Mabel Billington than about his maker. He was trying to think more about his maker than about Mabel Billington. The more that he tried to think more about his maker than about Mabel Billington, the more he found himself thinking more about Mabel Billington than about his maker.

  In the eleven weeks since he had taken his ‘O’ levels, he had been to church thirty-three times, making eleven visits to holy communion, eleven to mattins and eleven to evensong. He had attended the church youth club eleven times. He had played twenty-seven games of table-tennis. He had lost twenty-six games of table-tennis. He had learnt that he had got nine ‘O’ levels. He had been to tea with the Quells three times, consuming four and three-quarter rounds of bread and butter, five slices of Battenburg cake, and one piece each of cream sponge cake, coffee cream cake and Madeira cake. He had written one letter to Paul Hargreaves. He had received two letters from Paul Hargreaves. He had had eight wet dreams.

  A few details will help to flesh out these statistics.

  ‘O’ levels: his nine passes were in Latin, Maths, Advanced Maths, English Literature, English Language, Geography, History, French and Physics.

  Table-tennis: his solitary victory had been over Derek Nodule, who was twelve, and had cried, saying, ‘Even Henry beats me.’

  Battenburg cake: twice it had been stale. Twice Mrs Quell had correctly guessed the colour of the squares. Once she had failed. Ironically, the time when she had failed had also been the time when the cake had not been stale, turning the eating of Battenburg cake that day into a pretty exceptional experience all round

  His one letter to Paul Hargreaves: this had been more of an epistle than a letter, being a detailed description of his discovery of God, of the difference it had made to his life, of the difference a similar discovery could make to the lives of Paul and Diana, and of how he could help Paul and Diana to make that discovery.

  Paul Hargreaves’s two letters to him: the first letter, which preceded Henry’s letter, was an invitation to come to France with the
m for a fortnight, and to visit the Festival of Britain in Battersea Park. The second letter, which followed Henry’s letter, was a withdrawal of that invitation, due to changed circumstances.

  Wet dreams: These had occurred on June 22nd, July 11th, July 25th, August 8th, August 17th, August 25th, August 31st and September 4th. They caused Henry deep distress, especially as they were getting more frequent. A simple calculation (to one who has passed Advanced Maths, even if by only one mark, though he never knew that) using graphs, led him to the conclusion that at this rate he would be having a hundred and sixty-three wet dreams an hour by Christmas. If he lived that long. Wet dreams were unfair. They weren’t his fault. He couldn’t help them. But they made him feel profoundly ashamed, and all the more determined to atone. On six of the eight occasions he had remembered whom he had been dreaming about. They were, in chronological order, Diana Hargreaves, Patricia Roc, Mrs Hargreaves, Len Hutton, Mrs Hargreaves again and Mabel Billington. It was shortly after the dream about Mabel Billington that, on an impulse which he had almost immediately regretted, he had invited her out for a day in the Peaks.

  She had turned up wearing hiking boots, orange socks, hiking shorts, a bright yellow oilskin jacket and a large rucksack, which contained a bottle of Tizer, two Double Gloucester doorstep sandwiches, two apples, a first aid kit and a Bible.

  The bus from Sheffield had passed the end of Wharfedale Road. There were new people in Cap Ferrat now, and Henry felt ashamed of his nostalgia for its comforts.

  They had walked for what seemed to Henry to be about twenty miles, but was actually nearer five and a half. Then they had collapsed onto the grass. Below them was a splendid view of valleys and hills. A river wound through a curving dale, a miniature green canyon. A tiny train came out of a tunnel and its smoke gave Henry a vague feeling of déjà vu, which he dismissed as an illusion, although it was thoroughly justified, for this was the very spot where he had sat with his father, when he was three, on the day when he had believed that his father was going to abandon him.

  Earlier on this day he had felt like abandoning Mabel Billington. She had looked ridiculous in her gear, especially as her sturdy legs went a blotchy red when she walked. He had been unable to think of a single thing to say to her. When she had commented on the silence, he had come out with the old chestnut about true friends not needing to talk.

  Now he was pleasantly warm, his weariness alleviated by the rest, his hunger assuaged by a Double Gloucester sandwich of massive proportions, his thirst half-slaked by warm Tizer. The slumbering giant in his trousers was stirring lazily with desire for Mabel Billington. Religion and sex were not mutually exclusive. Mr Quell had said so.

  She looked at her best with her boots and yellow oilskins off. Even when she was lying on her back, her breasts bulged in her white shirt.

  He rolled over and examined her. Her face was sturdy. It had character. It had grit. It was the face of a girl who was capable of taking God to Africa.

  ‘Mabel?’ he said, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Let’s take God to Africa together.’

  She smiled.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll travel up the rivers by boat.’

  ‘We’ll come to a village,’ he said. ‘The natives have blowpipes, but they’re friendly.’

  ‘They’ve never heard of Christianity,’ she said.

  ‘The women have bare breasts,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll soon put a stop to that,’ she said.

  ‘They’re sacrificing a goat,’ he said. ‘It’s their fertility rites.’

  ‘We’ll save them from all their primitive rituals,’ she said.

  Henry’s excitement was growing. He wanted Mabel Billington. Nothing else mattered, except that he should lose his virginity with Mabel Billington. He had no idea how she would react. She was religious. But then, so was he.

  He decided to test the ground.

  ‘Then, after a hard day’s saving, we’ll go back to our own hut,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to bed early.’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Mabel Billington. ‘I need my eight hours.’

  ‘We’ll go to bed at ten and get up at seven,’ he said.

  He watched a plane making a vapour trail as Mabel, who had not taken Advanced Maths, worked it out.

  ‘That’s nine hours,’ she said.

  ‘We need an hour before we go to sleep,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ she said.

  ‘You know,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Reading the Bible.’

  ‘In that case, we’ll have to go to bed at nine,’ he said.

  He leant over and began to kiss her knees. He moved his lips up, over her fleshy thighs.

  She brought her rucksack down with a tremendous crash on his head.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ he said.

  ‘What were tha doing?’ she said.

  ‘I fancy you.’

  ‘I thought tha were religious.’

  ‘I am religious. I’m also a man. God wants me as I am, not some wax image of how I think I ought to be. Religious people have sex, you know.’

  ‘I never will,’ she said. ‘I’m saving my body for God. It’s a sin, any road, if tha’s not married.’

  ‘God is forgiving. Redemption and Atonement are beautiful.’

  ‘That’s not supposed to be an excuse for sinning all over the place. I think all that stuff’s awful, any road. I were nearly sick during sex education.’

  ‘But God created all that. He wouldn’t have created it if He meant you to be nearly sick during sex education.’

  ‘He didn’t mean it for having fun,’ she said. ‘It’s for having babies. If He’d meant it for fun He’d have designed it all a lot better than what He did.’

  ‘We’d better be going,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t imagine anybody wanting to do things like that for fun,’ said Mabel Billington.

  When she stood up, in her hiking boots, orange socks and yellow oilskin jacket, with her knobbly knees and sturdy, blotchy legs, nor could he.

  Mr Quell was in Ireland. Henry would find it difficult to speak of such things to the vicar of St James’s, and he certainly couldn’t mention them to Cousin Hilda. All he could do was pray.

  That night, after a quiet supper with Cousin Hilda and Liam (Tony Preece performing at Togwell Miners’ Social, Neville Chamberlain in Munich. ‘Well, so many people have joked to me about it. I thought I’d see what it was like.’), he knelt down, in his ascetic bed-sitting room, with its view of the blank wall of number 67. He knelt in front of the settee, his head resting on its cushions, and prayed.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘I wish I could convert myself into a good person as easily as I can convert this settee into a bed. I lusted after Mabel Billington today. I used you to try and persuade her to let me do things with her. I know that you have given me my sexuality in order that I may learn to control myself and put spiritual values above bodily ones. Help me to be strong, and concentrate on my studies, and be kind to Cousin Hilda, and redeem myself for the dreadful wrongs that I have committed. Help me to think about other people more than about myself, and to be thoughtful and kind and generous. Amen.’

  He converted the settee into a bed. The room seemed suddenly to shrink. He thought of Lampo Davey, imagined Lampo looking down on him as he got ready for bed. How Lampo would laugh at him. And how proud he would be to be laughed at. How fervently, how utterly, he rejected the false idols of the sophisticated.

  Before he went to sleep, he applied the principle of thinking more about other people than about himself. He wrote a letter to Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris.

  It was six days since he had received Auntie Doris’s letter. He should have replied sooner.

  Dear dear Henry [Auntie Doris had written],

  It’s far too long since we wrote. We are awful!!! Life in Rangoon is colourful, but smelly. We love our little flat, overlooking the waterfront, but we are often homesick for our lovely Yorkshire. We miss the dusk. You don’t get
a proper dusk out east. As you can imagine, the price of whisky is another ‘bone of contention’. We also miss the lawns. Uncle Teddy says you can’t get a decent lawn south of Dover. It’s something to do with the weather or the soil or something. As for the bars, well…your Uncle Teddy always said there wasn’t a decent pub south of Newark. There is an English bar, complete with steak and kidney pud, but Uncle Teddy refuses to behave like a typical ex-pat! So he won’t go out, and I like company. Next week I’m dragging him out to see the Rangoon Amateur Dramatic Association (Rada) doing Major Barbara. It’s a British company, of course. Teddy hates it. He says the bar prices are ridiculous. I wish they’d do my lovely Noël Coward. I don’t like Shaw. Still, you can’t have everything, as they say! (Who’s ‘they’, I wonder?) Oh yes. Guess who we ran into last week. Geoffrey Porringer, of all people. He’s out here on business, sends his love. He always had a soft spot for you. Our business is so-so, no more. But I’m not writing to tell all this gossip. I’m writing to say we are sorry for not being good parents to you. Henry, my dear dear boy, we are a selfish old couple, but we love you. We hardly ever took you anywhere and never properly on holiday at all. If we were wicked, now we are paying with remorse. Truly. Anyway, you are better off with Cousin Hilda who is A SAINT. When I think what we sometimes said of her. So you be good to her and remember money and material things don’t matter, it’s love that makes the world go round, as they say.

  Your mother was the good one, Henry. I’m the rotten one.