by David Nobbs
On the first part of the journey, Henry faced north. He had a window seat with his back to the engine. His thoughts faced north, too.
Unable to pay for the bridal suite and their expensive dinner, he’d crammed his washing things and clean underpants into the pockets of his duffel-coat, and shuffled guiltily out of the hotel. There was no point in pursuing Lorna. Not yet, anyway. He could hardly go home, when he was supposed to be visiting Paul. So, the obvious thing to do was to visit Paul. He’d phoned from the station. There’d been good news and bad news. The good news was that they had a spare ticket for the rugby international. The bad news was that Paul had phoned him last night, to invite him, and this had surprised Cousin Hilda quite considerably.
So he sat in that overheated train, worrying about Lorna and how she was feeling, about Cousin Hilda and how he would explain, and about the Midland Hotel and how he would avoid being arrested.
In the Midland lowlands, as the train approached Loughborough, he began to think about his national service. He’d spent five months in those parts, so now he faced sideways, looking out of the window, searching for landmarks.
There were fewer worries here. True, he had a disturbing sense of unfinished business, of a ghost that still had to be laid, but in the main the traumas of those times had already become amusing stories, told at his own expense.
As the train roared through Barrow-on-Soar, it passed under a bridge over which he had ridden silently, a tiny figure in the stillness of a vast dark night on a girl’s bicycle, his face blackened with burnt cork, in February, 1954. He’d been unit runner on night exercises, and had been given SQMS Tompkins’ daughter’s bike. It had been absurdly small for him, and had had no crossbar. His job had been to deliver vital coded messages from mobile HQ to uninterested groups of skiving, snoring squaddies. He remembered prodding a sleeping sergeant in a barn at first light. ‘Three red ferrets knocking on green door, sarge.’ ‘Fuck off.’ ‘Yes, sarge.’
At Leicester three people got out and he was able to bag a window seat, facing the engine. Bag! That word belonged to his southern days. He was facing south now and so were his thoughts. As the train snaked through the hunting shires, the rich farmland dusted with snow, he thought about Diana. Oh no. No more women, Henry. But he liked Diana, and there was no harm in thinking about her. In a purely platonic way. Almost. Down, boy.
He had different worries now. Would his friendship with Paul survive better than that with Martin? Would he make his usual provincial faux pas? Would Tosser have a good game? Would he still fancy the elegant Mrs Hargreaves, which was ridiculous? Would he manage to borrow fifty pounds off Dr Hargreaves, eminent brain surgeon, which was essential, if he was to pay his hotel bill?
They met outside the ground as arranged. Paul looked impatient and self-righteous. He was fair-haired and slight. National service seemed to have pared him to the bone. ‘The others have gone in,’ he said curtly, and Henry saw how he’d been as a second-lieutenant.
Henry had discovered how vulnerable the upper middle classes are to good manners. ‘Apologize and win’ was almost as sound a principle as ‘divide and rule’. So now he apologized. ‘Sorry I’ve cut it a bit fine,’ he said. Cut it a bit fine? You wouldn’t say that in Thurmarsh, you chameleon. ‘You know what trains are.’
It worked. ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Paul. ‘Sorry if I was a bit … er. I was afraid we’d miss the kick-off.’ They shook hands with unaccustomed formality. ‘Good to see you, old chum. Where’s your luggage?’
‘In my pockets.’
Paul shook his head in amazement at the latest eccentricity of his funny little northern friend, and they entered Twickenham, known the world over as Twickers. Henry felt that he ought to be watching Thurmarsh play Rochdale at Blonk Lane, known nowhere as Blonkers.
The great stands were crowded. They made slow progress up stairs, down gangways. A roar announced the appearance of the teams. Alcohol fumes eddied in the raw wind. They edged along their row, disturbing knees covered in rugs, clambering over hampers, causing hip-flasks to be removed from chapped lips. ‘Hello, Diana.’ Shapeless and bulky in several layers of clothes, she looked more like a Cossack on guard duty than an attractive girl. He ought to have felt pleased, not disappointed. ‘Hello, Dr Hargreaves. Hello, Mrs Hargreaves.’ Mrs Hargreaves still looked elegant, in five layers of clothes. Dr and Mrs Hargreaves were looking at him oddly. He must look strange, in his old, stained duffel-coat, with crumpled underpants peeping out of the pockets. Hardly comme il faut! A tall, rather stern girl raised cool eyebrows at him. ‘Judy, this is Henry, an old friend. Judy Miller, my girlfriend.’ ‘Hello, Judy.’ ‘Judy’s at Girton. She’s reading law.’ How incredibly dreary. ‘Oh. Smashing.’ Oh god, I’m sitting between Diana and Mrs Hargreaves. I’m a small piece of podge entirely surrounded by desirable women. A cool, elegant, perfumed kiss on the cheek from Mrs Hargreaves. Why didn’t age touch her like it touched everybody else? A huge, hot, wet kiss from Diana, a tidal wave of affection, red wine and garlic. Stirrings of desire, despite her shapelessness. National anthems. Incredible noise. Fervent Welsh singing, absurd among the trim residential streets of South-West London.
How small Tosser Pilkington-Brick looked. Well, not small. Normal-sized. At school he’d seemed enormous. Here all sixteen forwards were bigger than him, and some of the backs as well. Henry felt absurdly nervous for him. Well, was it that absurd? Tosser had been his hero. He’d fagged for him, and had felt a wet warm feeling when Tosser had spoken nicely to him, and Tosser had spoken nicely to him more than once.
England attacked from the start. Their forwards won plenty of good ball. The first time Tosser got the ball, he dropped it. The second time, he managed to catch it, but sent a wild pass which was intercepted by Brace. Towards half-time, M. J. K. Smith made a half-break, Tosser tried a dummy, slipped, and crashed into Cliff Morgan, amid hoots of derision. Henry couldn’t believe it. His hero was nervous. He was having a stinker. Diana fell silent. When Tosser knocked on yet again, just before half-time, she clutched Henry’s hand very tightly.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘He’s playing so badly.’
She was identifying with his hero! What a magnificent girl she was! But he would like his hand back.
‘Er … you’re hurting my hand,’ he said.
‘Oh, sorry.’ She released his hand, stroked it, looked at him thoughtfully, kissed him, and said, ‘It is good to see you.’ Was it Henry’s imagination, or did Paul frown?
Henry tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, it served Tosser right. Lampo Davey, for whom he had also fagged, had been right to scorn all this. Hero-worship belonged to childhood. It belonged to the rejected part of his life, at Dalton College. He shouldn’t be here, he belonged with Lorna in Rowth Bridge. It was no use telling himself these things. Every time the ball came to Tosser, Henry’s heart raced.
At half-time, Dr Hargreaves poured whisky into real glasses from his hip-flask and Mrs Hargreaves handed round rolls spread with home-made anchovy paste. Nobody mentioned Tosser Pilkington-Brick.
In the second half Tosser played a little better, without covering himself with glory. England won the scrums 18–10, and led in the line-outs 55–18, but the backs squandered chances galore and, as the final whistle approached, they were losing 3–4.
‘Henry?’ said Mrs Hargreaves suddenly, as England surged into a last assault. ‘Do you remember the name of that little restaurant near Concarneau where you tried langoustine for the first time?’ The impossibility of his predicament! Reluctant to be rude, and being asked to recall a Breton fish restaurant at the climax of a great sporting event. ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue,’ he lied.
The ball was passed to Tosser only three yards from the Welsh line. He was going to score the winning try. Pilkington-Brick atones for early errors. Thrilling late winner from England ‘newboy’.
And Tosser dropped it. The great, incompetent, unimaginative oaf couldn’t catch a ball and run three y
ards with it. Fury shook Henry’s podgy frame. Diana clutched his left hand sympathetically. Mrs Hargreaves grabbed his right hand triumphantly.
‘Au Chêne Vert,’ she said.
‘What?’ said Henry blankly.
‘The restaurant where you first tried langoustine,’ said Mrs Hargreaves, as if speaking to a mental defective. ‘That is a weight off my mind. I’ve been worrying about that for days.’
Lucky you, if that’s all you’ve got to worry about, thought Henry.
Dr Hargreaves nosed the Bentley through the slow-moving traffic, in the deepening night, past rows of snug, smug houses, past lines of trim, prim pollarded trees. Henry tried not to feel superior to the hordes who were streaming on foot towards buses and trains. It wasn’t easy. He felt a disturbing flicker of sympathy with the arrogance of the rich. Well, it was rather nice, sensing how much Diana was enjoying being squashed against him, sensing how much Judy wasn’t enjoying being squashed against him. He let his body fall against Judy’s tubular hardness as Dr Hargreaves swung into the main road with the assumption that Bentleys took precedence over Morrises and Singers.
In the Hargreaveses’ narrow, four-storey Georgian town house in Hampstead, everyone went to change. Henry’s change, in his little room, with an original Klimt above the bed – just how rich were they? – consisted of putting on his crumpled, clean underpants.
Diana looked mature and almost elegant, if slightly lumpy, in black and gold.
They drank dry sherry. Judy said, ‘Thank you very much for inviting me. It was a super game.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Henry hastily, partly so as not to be left at the post in the good manners stakes, but also to establish publicly what had never actually been made clear, that he was invited and wouldn’t be expected to pay. It was important that he be at his best that evening so that, when mellowness had set in, he could ask to borrow fifty pounds. He’d have to be particularly careful to hide his hostility to Judy. But really! Calling it a super game, when it would go down in history as the day Pilkington-Brick lost the match for England!
‘Poor Tosser,’ said Diana, as if she could read his thoughts. Her legs began widening below the knee instead of waiting, as legs should, till they were out of sight. How endearing her slightly fat knees were.
If mellowness never did set in that evening, no blame can be attached to anyone but Henry.
The moment he entered the Ristorante Garibaldi, with its pale blue walls, pink tablecloths and scalloped pink napkins – no fishermen’s nets, hanging Chianti bottles and empty wine bottles covered with stalactites of candle-grease for Dr and Mrs Hargreaves – he thought: Oh dear. I’m going to behave badly tonight.
Did he fight against it? Oh yes. After his somewhat unfortunate opening remark of ‘What poncy serviettes’ he remained silent for several minutes. He behaved moderately well while eating his tagliatelle al pesto, but its elegant greenness reminded him of the less elegant verdancy of the glutinous curries at the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar. He felt ashamed of the gastronomic desert that was Thurmarsh. The shame made him feel defensive. His mood wasn’t improved when he thanked Dr Hargreaves for the salt and Paul said, ‘Henry? Tiny point. Dad’s a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. They call themselves Mr, not Dr.’ Terrific, thought Henry: Lets me get it wrong for six years, then corrects me in public. Which may have been why, when the conversation turned to national service and Judy assumed that he’d been an officer, he said, ‘No. And I’m glad.’
‘Really?’ said Paul, unable to resist the bait. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Do you remember Tubman-Edwards who blackmailed me at Dalton?’
‘God, yes. What a monster.’
‘He was a second-lieutenant in the Signals. I was on cookhouse fatigues.’ He broke off to thank the waiter for his sea bass with Livornese sauce. ‘I was at a huge sink full of vast cooking-tins covered in grease and I had to wash them in cold water. That was the sort of merry jape they used to think up to help build our character. Tubman-Edwards was orderly officer. He said, “It’s Pratt, isn’t it?” I said, “Yes, sir.” Sir! He said, “How are you enjoying the army, Pratt?” I said, “Very much, thank you, sir.” He said, “Jolly good.” That’s why I wouldn’t have wanted to be an officer.’
‘I fail to see the point,’ said Paul.
‘That’s why you could be an officer,’ said Henry. Mr and Mrs Hargreaves frowned at his bad manners but, since he was a guest, they said nothing. ‘I couldn’t accept a system in which I had to say stupid things like “How are you enjoying the army?” to men washing greasy tins in cold water.’
‘Isn’t the truth of the matter that it was you who was forced to say something stupid?’ said Judy.
I can imagine you in court, thought Henry, with your sallow cheeks, your long, thin nose and your determined mouth, but I cannot imagine you in bed with Paul.
‘How come?’ he said lamely.
‘Well, you replied “Very much, thank you” instead of “Not at all, you stupid twit, can’t you see I’m covered in cold grease?”’
‘I’d have been on a charge.’
‘Precisely. So you took refuge in a cowardly lie.’
‘Cowardly lie? What you’re suggesting would have been suicidal idiocy,’ said Henry. ‘All right. I amend what I said. I’d have hated to be an officer and been forced to force people like me to say stupid things like I was forced to say.’
Mr Hargreaves gave Henry a tiny nod, acknowledging a good point scored. Henry didn’t want to score points. He wanted to give his deeply felt views. He knew he should stop. He couldn’t.
‘I’ll make you a prediction,’ he said. ‘In twenty years’ time, national service will have been abolished, authority and discipline will be breaking down and Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells will be saying “Bring back national service. Give them some discipline.” Well, I believe that one of the reasons why authority and discipline will be breaking down will be because a whole generation will have learnt to say “Thank you very much, sir,” while meaning “Oh sod off, you stupid twit.” They’ll also, incidentally, have become deeply imbued with every four-letter word except work.’
There was a loud silence, then Mrs Hargreaves said, ‘There’s a very interesting exhibition of Portuguese art at the Royal Academy. One knows so shamefully little about Portuguese art,’ and Henry wanted to laugh. Suddenly he felt in a good mood. He would redeem himself. ‘This sea bass is delicious,’ he said, and then he remembered that talking about food while eating it was not considered good form in the Hargreaveses’ circle, as he’d discovered when he’d said, ‘This stew’s nice,’ when it was boeuf bourgignon anyway, and the memory of that humiliation swept over him, and he no longer felt in a good mood, and Mr Hargreaves said, ‘Do you think Wales will beat the French?’ and Diana said, ‘Northern Fiji is highly populated, I hear,’ and everybody stared at her in astonishment; and she said, ‘The last four remarks were about sodding twits, Portuguese art, sea bass and rugby, so I assumed this was the new style of witty table talk, with every sentence on an entirely new subject,’ and Henry looked at her in astonishment – was it possible that she was on his side? – and he said, ‘Oh, I agree. Double glazing’s the thing of the future,’ and she said, ‘Ah, but are the Peruvian Indians happy?’ and he said, ‘Well, let’s put it this way, a masochist is a person who likes bashing himself against a wall because it’s so nice when it starts,’ and Henry and Diana laughed but nobody else did, and what might on another occasion have been an amusing conversational fancy was edged with tension. Mr and Mrs Hargreaves looked as if they were being asked to play a new game but hadn’t been told the rules. Paul and Judy knew that it wasn’t a game and Henry, knowing that he was being foolish, said, ‘Being an officer has changed you, Paul. You look as if you’d like to arrest me for conduct prejudicial to good restaurant order and discipline, filthy and idle while eating a sea bass, sir,’ and after that, although the zabaglione passed off without incident, it clearly wasn’t possib
le to ask Mr Hargreaves for fifty pounds that night.
His bedroom door was opening. It squeaked slightly. He sat bolt upright.
‘It’s me,’ whispered Diana.
‘Good God,’ he said.
‘S’sh!’ she whispered as she closed the door.
She removed her dressing-gown and slipped naked into his bed.
‘Move up,’ she whispered.
He moved up. He was putty in her hands.
‘You’re tense,’ she whispered. ‘Relax.’
Yes, yes. Come on, Henry. Rise to the occasion. As it were. It’s what you’ve always wanted. Yes, but not now. If only it wasn’t the night after I’d decided I’m no good at the only thing I’m good at. If only it wasn’t at the end of the day on which I decided to give women up for ever, for their sakes as well as mine. If only I hadn’t had so much to drink yet again. If only she hadn’t had so much garlic. There was something to be said, perhaps, for the gastronomic desert that was Thurmarsh. If only they weren’t in the room next to her parents.
‘Relax,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t wriggle. What’s wrong?’
‘They’ll hear.’
‘Oh, Henry. You sounded so rebellious tonight. Was all that just talk?’
‘No, but … your family … I mean …’
‘Do you want to be like Paul and Judy, carefully not sleeping together tonight out of good manners?’
‘No.’
‘Everyone does it these days. This is 1956.’
‘I know.’
He pressed himself against her naked body. She put her tongue in his mouth. He ran his hands over her warm, chunkily generous body.
‘You’re lovely,’ he said. ‘You’re so beautiful.’ He found himself responding to his own words. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I love you with all my heart, darling. Oh, Diana, Diana, I love you.’ Slowly, and entirely forgetting to be quiet, he began to rise to heights of feeling and desire, on a tide of words which he didn’t mean.