by David Nobbs
‘Please, Martin,’ said Henry. ‘I mean … we’re friends.’
The waiter brought their drinks.
‘Have one yourself,’ said Martin grandly.
‘Oh, thank you very much, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘I’ll have sixpennorth with you.’ He hesitated, feeling that Martin’s largesse deserved some social response. ‘I’ve never known a cold like it,’ he confided. ‘Three weeks I’ve had it. Can’t seem to shift it.’
They sipped their beers slowly. It was very important to Henry to remain sober.
‘I thought you were a socialist,’ said Martin.
‘I am,’ said Henry. ‘I’m working from within to turn the paper leftwards.’
‘With stories about cats?’
‘Give me time. I’ve got to establish me credibility. Give me socialist stories, Martin.’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know. Workers with hearts of gold. Stupid bosses. I don’t know.’
‘They won’t print them.’
‘I’ll resign if they don’t.’
‘All right, then.’
Henry bought two more pints, to celebrate the recruitment of his contact from the world of industry. The men with shiny suits were talking about arses now. The one who seemed familiar winked. Henry remembered, and went over to him.
‘It’s Tony Preece, isn’t it? he said. ‘I’m Henry Pratt. From Cousin Hilda’s.’
‘By heck,’ said Tony Preece, who still had a bad complexion.
‘I’m working on the Argus,’ said Henry. ‘Could I have a word with you some time on a business matter?’
They arranged to meet on the following evening. Henry rejoined Martin. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘A little business matter.’ There was an uneasy pause. There was a gulf between them, a hole where his past should have been. ‘Got a girlfriend, have you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Martin. ‘What with work and night school and union meetings and party meetings, I haven’t got much time for all that.’
Poor miserable Martin, thought Henry. Poor miserable lucky enviable Martin.
Almost as soon as he’d boarded the strangely swaying tram, Henry realized that he desperately needed food. So he got off at the first stop.
‘Boring,’ he told the conductor. ‘Most boring tram I’ve ever been on.’
Those were the days before the proliferation of Indian restaurants. Even Chinese restaurants were a rarity in some parts. In Thurmarsh, in January 1956, after ten o’clock at night, the only place where you could get a sit-down meal was the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar, in Market Street.
Inside the Shanghai, the lights were dim, the tables were crowded, the cups were of glass, the coffee was frothy, rubber plants abounded, and the most beautiful woman in the world called out, ‘Henry!’
‘Hello, Helen.’ As in a dream, he drifted to his beloved’s side. She was sitting beside a brown-haired man with rugged features set in a slightly puffy face.
She introduced them. ‘Greetings,’ said Gordon Carstairs, who was thirty-six. He turned away from Henry, as from a troublesome fly. ‘You aren’t really going to marry Ted, are you, Helen?’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? Why not?? Helen!!’ Gordon Carstairs stopped, as if he had explained everything.
Henry ordered beef curry and coffee. The Shanghai had no licence.
‘Make that tea. The special tea,’ said Gordon Carstairs firmly.
‘Why?’ said Henry, bristling.
‘Because,’ said Gordon Carstairs. ‘Because, laddie. That’s why.’ He had a large, piercing nose, and there were deep bags beneath his bloodshot eyes. When we are drunk, the drunk don’t strike us as drunk. Henry had no idea that Gordon Carstairs was as drunk as he was.
He could feel a leg stroking him. He didn’t think it was Gordon Carstairs’s.
‘I thought you had flu coming on,’ said Helen.
‘I think it must have been one-day flu,’ said Henry.
‘More like one-hour flu,’ said Helen. ‘Gordon’s been covering a big story in Sheffield.’
‘Oh, you’re on the paper,’ said Henry. ‘What big story?’
Gordon Carstairs tapped the side of his nose and said, ‘Discretion.’ The Chinese waiter brought beef curry for Gordon, sweet and sour pork for Helen, and a pot of Chinese tea for Henry.
‘Whisky,’ whispered Gordon, and winked. Henry’s heart sank. More drink, and more winking. He needed these things like an enema.
He rubbed Helen’s leg and got a sharp kick. Had he rubbed Gordon’s leg by mistake?
‘How did you get the whisky?’ he whispered.
‘Precisely!’ said Gordon Carstairs, and Henry assumed that it was his fault, because he was drunk, that Gordon was making no sense.
Suddenly Gordon stood up and said, ‘My bill, please.’
A waiter hurried over. ‘You no like, sir?’ he said.
‘The Great Wall!’ said Gordon Carstairs. He drained his last cup of seventy per cent proof Chinese tea, and stalked out.
‘What was all that about?’ said Henry.
‘He’s too proud to fight you for me.’
Henry gawped. His beef curry arrived. In the dim light it looked vaguely green. He took an eager mouthful. The meat was stringy. The sauce was slightly sweet, faintly hot, thickly glutinous. It would be many years before he discovered the delights of real Chinese food.
‘Fight me for you?’
‘He knows he’d lose,’ said Helen Cornish.
Henry forgot his tea was whisky and took a big gulp which almost choked him. ‘You what?’ he said.
‘Come back with me,’ said Helen.
‘You’re engaged.’
‘I’m not married yet. Frightened?’
Yes. No. Well … a little, perhaps, of Ted, who was already an enemy. A little of Helen, perhaps, who was too beautiful. A little of himself, perhaps, who was too drunk. A little, perhaps, of what it would do to his one true love. Oh god! He’d forgotten! He had less than forty-eight hours to wait. What was he doing even thinking of going back with Helen? A wave of relief, mixed with just a little regret, broke over him.
‘Of course I’m not frightened,’ he said, ‘but I can’t go back with you.’ Suddenly his speech became slurred. ‘I’m schpoken for,’ he said, and burped.
‘Good night,’ said Helen Cornish coldly.
He was on his own at a table cluttered with congealing, half-eaten green and orange semi-Chinese meals, yet he didn’t feel lonely. He was on the verge of a sexy weekend, and he’d just turned down a beautiful woman. What strength. What coolth. No, there was no such word as coolth. He’d made new friends, tough, enigmatic journalists, limping queers from Chelsea. He was drinking whisky disguised as tea. He was sophisticated.
‘Finished, sir?’ said the waiter, indicating Helen’s plate.
‘Finished.’
He heard a familiar laugh, and there were two men walking past, solid, almost respectable.
‘Uncle Teddy!’
Uncle Teddy turned pale and gawped.
‘It’s me. Henry.’ Uncle Teddy hadn’t seen him since he was fifteen.
‘Henry! It’s Henry! Good God!’
‘Yes.’
‘Henry, this is a business colleague, Derek Parsonage.’
Henry tried to stand, tried to seem sober.
‘Please. Don’t stand,’ said Derek Parsonage. He was a big man, and his nose was festooned with blackheads, which puzzled Henry slightly.
‘On your own?’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘No,’ said Henry. ‘I’m with Gordon Carstairs and Helen Cornish, but they’ve gone.’
‘The selfishness of lovers,’ said Derek Parsonage. Stupid name. Stupid man. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m glad your nose is covered in blackheads, which puzzles me slightly.
‘Join me,’ said Henry. ‘Please. You must. After all, you’re my …’ He’d been going to say ‘father’. Well, Uncle Teddy had virtually been his father, for a
time. It was difficult to see Uncle Teddy clearly, in the half-light grudgingly conceded by the Chinese lanterns, through eyes blurred by drink, but he didn’t look quite as big as Henry had remembered. Was this due to the scale of childhood vision, the distortion of memory, or the effects of age and imprisonment? Of course! Imprisonment!
They joined him.
‘Henry is my …’ explained Uncle Teddy to Derek Parsonage.
Henry wished Uncle Teddy hadn’t found it so impossible to define their relationship.
‘Uncle Teddy took me in as his son,’ he said. ‘His house, Cap Ferrat, became my home. Not his fault he went to …’
‘Henry!’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘… Rangoon,’ said Henry.
‘Ah!’ said Uncle Teddy. When Uncle Teddy had gone to prison Auntie Doris had pretended that she and Uncle Teddy had gone to Rangoon. She ran a hotel now, with her lover, the slimy Geoffrey Porringer, who had blackheads. Of course! That was why Derek Parsonage’s blackheads had puzzled him. They were a historical echo.
‘Rangoon?’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘Have some tea,’ said Henry. ‘It’s whisky.’
‘I lived in Rangoon for a while with … er … before we split up,’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘I never knew that,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘Not a lot of people do,’ said Henry.
‘Are you drunk?’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘This tea’s whisky, you see.’
Uncle Teddy and Derek Parsonage ordered chicken chop suey and another pot of Chinese tea.
Henry wished he’d gone to see Uncle Teddy in prison. It was odd. Martin Hammond was his best friend and he didn’t like him. Uncle Teddy was a crook and a liar and had sent him to boarding schools to get him out of the way, and now Henry found that he loved him almost as a father and craved his respect.
‘Helen asked me to go to bed with her,’ he said, ‘but I refused. I’m meeting my lover at the weekend, you see.’
‘What a life you lead,’ said Uncle Teddy. Derek Parsonage gave a little grin of disbelief, and Uncle Teddy looked worried, as if he thought Henry’s fantasizing was the result of the bad upbringing to whose shortcomings Uncle Teddy had contributed more than his share.
‘It’s true,’ said Henry indignantly.
‘Of course it is,’ said Uncle Teddy.
Henry poured himself some more whisky. The pot was inexhaustible. Uncle Teddy sniffed it. ‘It is whisky,’ he said.
‘Course it is,’ said Henry. ‘I’m not a liar.’ He felt that Uncle Teddy looked at him with fresh eyes, perhaps even with respect. He felt another wave of guilt. He could have been brave enough to visit Uncle Teddy once. They’d said that Uncle Teddy would feel ashamed of being seen by him, but that was nonsense, which he’d leapt at with relief. ‘Uncle Teddy?’ he said, desperately trying to sound sober, ‘I really am very sorry I never visited you.’
‘What?’ said Uncle Teddy anxiously.
‘In Rangoon.’
‘My dear boy, how could you?’
‘I know. I know. But still … you know … I wish I had.’
Uncle Teddy’s eyes held Henry’s for a moment. Henry felt that there was almost a feeling of father and son between them. Then the effort of fighting the drink began to tell. His head swam and he hiccuped.
‘I’m working on the Argus,’ he said. ‘I’m a journalist. I did my national service. I was a soldier in that.’ He wanted to say how sorry he was that Auntie Doris had gone off to live with Geoffrey Porringer, but it wasn’t a subject he could safely broach, especially while hiccuping. He wasn’t sure if he should mention Auntie Doris and he felt that he definitely shouldn’t mention Geoffrey Porringer. It had all gone so dark. The lighting was so drunk, and he was so dim. Blast those hiccups. Dignity. Derek Parsonage found the hiccups amusing. God, he hated Uncle Teddy’s choice of friends.
‘Fancy you two running into each other here,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘Not really,’ said Henry. ‘Where else is there at this time of night to run into anybody at anywhere anyway? There isn’t.’
‘Exactly,’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘Precisely,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Henry.
‘Night life,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘There isn’t any.’
‘In twenty years’ time,’ said Derek Parsonage, ‘this town will be awash with clubs.’
‘We’re getting in first,’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘We’re bringing sophistication to this dump,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘Lightening the grey skies with a touch of mediterranean colour,’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘Bringing continental elegance to the Rundle Valley,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘The Cap Ferrat opens next month,’ said Uncle Teddy.
Their food arrived. So did their tea which, to their disappointment, was tea.
‘This tea’s tea,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘You need contacts,’ said Henry. ‘I have contacts.’ He tried to pat the side of his nose knowingly, but missed and poked his finger into his eye. ‘Ouch!’ he cried, and hiccuped. ‘I have contacts with boot-lickers. No, arse-leggers. No.’ He poured himself some more whisky.
‘You’ve had enough,’ said Uncle Teddy, and he grabbed Henry’s cup. Henry grabbed it back.
‘You can’t start playing my father just when it suits you,’ he said. ‘And as for your friend, with his bloody blackheads. You know what he is, don’t you? A Geoffrey Porringer substitute.’
He was on the verge of being told, in a few blindingly simple words, all the secrets of life, its purpose and its conduct. His head ached from the effort of listening and concentrating, as at last the words came.
Then he woke up. His head still ached, but the words, the secrets, were tantalizingly out of reach, unremembered, dissolved. And he was a young man with a bad hangover, lying in a lumpy bed converted from a lumpy sofa.
Last night! Oh no! He sat up abruptly and wished he hadn’t. But he hadn’t run into Cousin Hilda. She hadn’t seen how drunk he was. There was hope.
Then he heard her voice. Fiat. Too upset for anger. ‘He’s been sick on the stairs.’
He crawled out of bed, staggered across the room, opened the window, breathed in the icy morning air and heard her say, ‘He’s been sick on the lawn!’
He vaguely remembered going round the back, not going inside, because he’d felt ill.
She turned, and he moved away from the window.
‘Oh no!’ This time there was anger. Icy anger. ‘He’s been sick on the coal!’
She was hunched with hurt as she banged his breakfast down. Liam’s smile froze like condensed breath. Barry Frost stopped humming. A cardboard egg refused to go past the brick in Henry’s throat. Only Norman Pettifer seemed oblivious.
‘It’s going to be a Camembert day today,’ he said. ‘I just know it.’
As the tram clanked along Doncaster Road towards the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park that evening, Henry held his copy of the Argus with pride. Other men were merely reading it. He’d helped to produce it.
He read his story again.
Arthur Bollard, aged 27, of Snowdon Grove, Thurmarsh, was struck in the throat by a pair of tongs at work today, and was detained at Thurmarsh Royal Infirmary.
When he fell from a ladder at Johnson and Johnson Rolling Mills, 34 year-old Benjamin Whateley, of Smith Street, Rawlaston, received injuries to legs, back and hand. He was treated at Thurmarsh Royal Infirmary.
Also treated there was Samuel Willis, aged 15, of Derwentwater Crescent, Splutt, who trapped three fingers in a haulage chain at Drobwell Main Colliery.
Not spectacular, perhaps, but even Martin would have to agree that it was good socialist stuff. To anyone with an ability to read between the lines it must be significant that no bosses were injured that day when struck by falling agendas, choking on fillet steaks or burning fingers on cups of scalding coffee. That was the way to turn the p
aper leftwards – by stealth.
In Cousin Hilda’s basement room the blue stove with the cracked panes roared and crackled. ‘Bring me some men, some stout-hearted men,’ commanded Barry Frost under his breath. Norman Pettifer confirmed that it had indeed been a Camembert day. Cousin Hilda remained silent, stiff with disappointment and accusation. The pork was stringy, the roast potatoes were like bullets, the cabbage was overcooked. Cousin Hilda gave Henry two halves of tinned pears, while everyone else had three. He hurried out before she could get him on his own, and was in the Pigeon and Two Cushions ten minutes before Tony Preece.
While he waited he read that morning’s national papers. Would he ever be working for them?
The big story was the controversy over the government’s sale of tanks and arms to Israel and Egypt. The government had pointed out that the tanks ‘had been so old that they would have no military value’. They were ‘obsolete, ineffective and unreliable for war’. The British government had tried – and would continue to try, as far as lay within its power – to prevent an arms race in the Middle East. By selling obsolete tanks to both sides, presumably. ‘Our tanks don’t work.’ ‘Nor do ours.’ ‘Oh let’s give up.’ But wouldn’t they be angry about being sold useless weapons? thought Henry.
The sniffing waiter – ‘It’s gone to me sinuses now’ – brought them two pints of Hammonds’ best bitter.
‘So, what’s this business matter?’ said Tony Preece.
‘Well … are you still doing your act round the clubs?’
‘Oh yes. I couldn’t give that up. I’m addicted. You wouldn’t recognize the act now, though. I’ve changed it completely.’
‘Oh good,’ said Henry. ‘Sorry,’ he added. ‘Are you still … er …?’
‘Still with Stella, yes.’
‘How is she?’
‘Older,’ said Tony Preece gallantly. ‘So come on. Am I about to earn some extra money?’
‘Well, I can’t actually offer you any money, as such,’ said Henry, ‘but maybe I could give you some publicity, write a feature about your Jekyll and Hyde existence – by day, ordinary drab insurance man – at night, laughter-maker extraordinaire. If you’d … er … be my contact from the world of showbiz.’
He was rather hurt when Tony Preece laughed. Somehow he was getting the feeling that nothing very useful was going to come to him out of his contacts from the worlds of sport, industry and show business. In this he was wrong, but then he was to be wrong about so many things, during his career with the Thurmarsh Evening Argus.