by David Nobbs
On the morning of Friday, March 2nd, 1956, Henry made his rounds of hospitals and police stations for the last time. ‘Sorry, nothing for you today,’ was the general refrain. ‘Damn. Oh well, thanks anyway,’ was the reply of caring young humanist Henry Pratt on learning that the great Thurmarsh public had been so selfish as to refuse to lose important limbs in unusual ways for the gory delectation of their fellow citizens.
He lunched in the Rundle Café, on sausages, mash and beans. He sat opposite the assistant manager of the Halifax Building Society, whose eyes became moist during the treacle pudding, perhaps because the mortgage rate had gone up to 5½%, or perhaps because his trousers were too tight, or perhaps because he was overcome with emotion at the tale of Penelope, the Porcupine who hated being prickly.
He walked up Rundle Prospect, turned left into Market Street, then right into Link Lane. He approached the long, sober, brick-built school with its rows of regular, disciplined windows. The sky was the colour of cold, thin gravy. He tried to feel the carefree joy that he’d once imagined to be the permanent condition of all those who’d left school. It was no use. He felt all the cares of adulthood and also, beneath them, a residual echo of all the anxieties of childhood.
He went up the wide stairs to the first floor and along the clean, barren corridor which stretched towards the horizon, its emptiness broken only by fire buckets. His hollow footsteps rang out through the fragile calm of the working school. He knocked on the door of Mr E. F. Crowther’s study, and was surprised to find it opened by a bulky man with a square head and splay feet. No policeman had ever been concealed more uselessly in plain clothes.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve got an appointment to see Mr Crowther. What’s happened?’
‘When did you make this appointment?’ said the policeman.
‘Wednesday afternoon. On the phone.’
‘What time?’
‘Oh … about three, I suppose.’
‘Come inside.’ The burly policeman closed the door behind them. ‘We’re trying to do this discreetly,’ he said. ‘Our psychiatrist has warned of the danger of mass hysteria in schools.’
‘What’s happened?’ repeated Henry.
The study was light and airy. There were neat piles of books, and the three internal walls were covered with graphs and rosters.
‘Mr Crowther walked out of here at three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, and hasn’t been seen since. You may have been the last person to speak to him alive.’
‘Good Lord! I mean … headmasters don’t disappear into thin air.’ Henry was dismayed to find that, after the first shock, his thoughts were mainly for himself. This could kill off his series. They could hardly lash into educational incompetence if it turned out to be a tragedy. Henry ‘He probes the facts behind the facts’ Pratt would be strangled at birth. This gave him another thought. ‘I’m a journalist!’ he exclaimed. ‘Can I use the phone?’
‘No. Now then, this phone call to the headmaster …’
‘I have to ring my paper. I have to warn them to hold the front page.’
‘They’ve held the front page.’
‘What?’
‘It’s in the paper already. The disappearance was reported at 11.02.’
‘Where to?’
‘Darmley Road.’
‘Bloody hell! That must have been five minutes after I’d left.’
‘Anyroad up, I’m in charge of the investigation, and I’d like to hear about this phone call. All right?’
Everything went in the notebook. The bread van. Carting Blanche. Two feeble jokes given immortality by events. The police officer became taut with significance on hearing that Mr Crowther had said, ‘I have to go now. I have an appointment.’
‘Did he say anything that might have suggested a depressed state of mind?’ he asked.
‘You mean …?’
‘It’s a possibility. We’re dragging the river and the canal.’
‘No. Well … there was something odd.’
‘Yes?’
‘He said his joke had been a pathetic piece of tit for tat. He said he regretted it.’
‘I don’t see owt odd in that. He should have regretted it and all.’
‘You didn’t know him.’ Henry felt a stab of shock as he realized that he was assuming that Mr Crowther was dead. ‘I mean, that was practically an apology. I’d say it could indicate an unusual state of mind. Rather as if the Pope said, “Sorry. I’ve dropped a clanger. Well, nobody’s infallible, are they?’”
Colonel Glubb Pasha, the British commander of Jordan’s Arab Legion, was dismissed by King Hussein. The MCC apologized for an incident in which a Pakistani umpire sprained his shoulder while trying to avoid being doused with water by members of the England cricket team after a dinner. Henry travelled to Skipton to meet Auntie Doris.
A sharp shower soaked him as he walked from the station to the Craven Tea-Rooms, in a cobbled yard off the wide main street of the pleasant, stone-built market town.
Inside the tea-rooms, the smell of fresh coffee mingled with the faintly rotten fug of drying clothes. Pots, cups and people steamed.
‘I … er … I saw Uncle Teddy,’ said Henry.
‘Oh?’
‘He … there … er … isn’t anybody else.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well!’
‘Quite. I … er … I asked him if he’d ever thought of … er … I mean it just cropped up, I didn’t say you’d said anything, well I couldn’t, you hadn’t … if he’d ever thought of … er … trying to get you back. He was very encouraging. Very encourageing indeed.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. He changed the subject.’
‘You call that encouraging?’
‘Well, yes. Under the circumstances. Compared with what he could have said. I mean, he could have said, “That bloody bitch! After what she’s done to me?”’
‘Henry!’
‘No! Auntie Doris! I’m not saying that, and nor is he, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, under the circumstances, wrong though it’d be, you could imagine somebody saying that. But they haven’t. I think that’s encouraging.’
The door opened and let in a blast of cold air and a well-bred couple who bred dogs well. They shook the drips off themselves with only marginally more consideration than the dogs they bred might have shown.
‘I don’t know that there’s any point in all this,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘I don’t know that I could ever walk out on a man.’ She must have sensed the struggle Henry was having not to raise his eyebrows. ‘I never walked out on Teddy. He left me … because he had to. I just … couldn’t live without a man.’
Henry felt a twinge of his puritan conscience. He knew it to be hypocritical, in view of his own behaviour, but he was powerless to prevent it. Auntie Doris must have sensed it too. She had very acute antennae where her own affairs were concerned.
‘Oh, I’m not talking about the physical side,’ she said. She lowered her voice, just too late to avoid the interest of nearby customers. ‘I’m talking about security. Without a man to hold me together I disintegrate. Oh, I know I’ve never loved Geoffrey the way I loved Teddy, but … but he couldn’t run the hotel without me. He can’t keep staff. He’s been good to me, in his way. He needs me, and I need to be needed.’
The indignation exploded in Henry’s head. In his life Auntie Doris was a wall of make-up, a sudden gust of scent, a blaze of dyed hair, a spirit of romance all the more moving because it was never quite real. She deserved better than Geoffrey Porringer. He’d help her get it.
‘“Good to you”?’ he said. ‘The reason he can’t keep staff is because he can’t keep his wandering hands off them.’
‘Henry!’
‘Lorna told me. He rubs up against her. Touches her up and makes it look accidental. I’m sorry, Auntie Doris. Don’t look like that, Auntie Doris. I’m only telling you because �
�� Uncle Teddy’s there. Waiting. Calling his club Cap Ferrat. Remembering.’
‘Arrange for me to see Teddy, will you, Henry?’ said Auntie Doris grimly.
Drunken Everton fans damaged a train taking them home from Manchester. Eoka terrorists blew up an airliner in Cyprus. The talks between Britain and Archbishop Makarios foundered over the question of rights for Turkish Cypriots. The police found no trace of Mr E. F. Crowther.
Henry met Uncle Teddy in the Cap Ferrat on Tuesday lunchtime. They sat at a table near the bar, with glasses of whisky. The room, which at night had been made to look tawdry by the presence of mild sinfulness, now looked even more tawdry because of its absence. In daylight, when the traditional mediterranean tablecloths hadn’t yet come back from the laundry, it was only too obvious that the traditional mediterranean tables had been mass-produced in Retford. Henry felt a sickening lurch of nerves. He’d burnt Auntie Doris’s boats. Supposing he’d got it wrong?
He hadn’t got it wrong.
‘Splendid,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Well, well. I’m going to ring her up, Henry. Strike while the iron’s hot. You’ve done a grand job. Just grand. You can leave it to me now. I’m going to invite her for a champagne dinner. Oh, Henry, Henry! Everything’s going to be all right.’
‘Yes.’ Henry had a terrible feeling that he was going to cry. Desperately he composed himself, so that he could say, without his voice breaking, the words that must be faced. ‘I love you both, you see.’
For an awful moment he thought Uncle Teddy was going to ignore this, but he didn’t.
‘I love you too, son,’ he said.
9 The Closing of the Cap Ferrat
HE DRESSED RAPIDLY. This time, if there was a scoop, he was going to be there.
He slammed the front door behind him. A startled cat knocked a dustbin lid off, and he could hear the hollow clanking of goods vans in the distant marshalling yards. Those were the halcyon days of shunting.
He hesitated. If Gordon didn’t leave his wife, it wouldn’t increase Henry’s chances with Ginny if he roared off in search of fame, leaving her asleep. Besides, he was fond of her. He wanted her to share the glory.
He went back inside, and knocked on her door.
‘What is it?’ she groaned, her voice coated in sleep.
‘There’ve been a tremendous number of fire engines. I think there’s a big fire.’
‘Thanks.’ She was wide awake immediately. She’d scented battle. ‘I’ll just jump into some clothes.’
He had erotic visions of the ample curves of her naked body as she leapt across the room into a pair of slacks.
She joined him in less than three minutes. What a woman! He glanced at her face in the dim light of the hall. It was drowsy, blotchy, replete. He felt a stab of jealousy.
If only they’d had cars. Not many reporters did, in those days. They struggled through the misty, sulphurous night towards that distant glow. Down Winstanley Road, down York Road, round the back of the Town Hall, past the brooding court house with its absurdly large Doric pillars, across the deserted High Street into Market Street, two panting, unfit, overweight journalists, one sated with sex, the other weakened by the torments of frustration.
The fire sent a shiver down Henry’s spine. Fire was primitive. It raised echoes of atavistic superstition. He wondered, afterwards, if he’d already known that it was the Cap Ferrat that was burning.
Doors were open in the old, condemned, rat-infested houses in Canal View. In their curiosity, people were letting the world see them in their curlers and face creams, their thick corded pyjamas and dog-worn slippers.
They turned the corner of Malmesbury Street and gasped. The flames were shooting thirty feet into the air from the stricken club. Showers of sparks were leaping into the night and drifting slowly onto the vulnerable roofs of neighbouring buildings.
The street was jammed with fire engines and the police had erected cordons to keep the disaster-watchers at bay.
Henry and Ginny hurried forward. Henry showed his press card for the first time and croaked, ‘Press.’ A policeman gave them a hard look, then nodded them through.
Huge hoses were arcing impotently onto the crackling inferno. On the roof of the Thurmarsh Joke Emporium and Magic Shop, four firemen with breathing apparatus were trying to find a way into the burning nightclub. Oh god! Uncle Teddy might be in there. Henry ran towards the blaze, ran into a wall of shimmering, impossible heat. A fireman grabbed him.
‘It’s my uncle’s club,’ he shouted.
‘You can’t go in,’ said the fireman. ‘We’re doing our best. Keep out of our road, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Yes. Yes. Sorry,’ said Henry.
Ginny was busy without looking busy, asking firemen questions so casually that they were able to continue their work and didn’t think not to answer. Henry caught sight of a familiar face. Monsieur Emile, from Gay Charlesville-Mexières, small, dapper, moustachioed, staring fixedly at the ruins. Henry hurried over to him.
‘My uncle,’ he said. ‘Mr Braithwaite. The owner. Is he in there?’
‘No, no. I think no one is there. We all leaved. I seed Mr Braithwaite lock up. He leaved with Mr Vicarage.’
Henry’s knees trembled. He hadn’t known how worried he was until he realized how relieved he was. As the release swept over him, he heard a tiny, stubbornly pedantic corner of his brain say, ‘Parsonage. His name is Parsonage.’ He hardly listened to Monsieur Emile, rabbiting on among the flames. ‘I go home. I have a friend in Nice. Maybe we open a club there. For Thurmarsh, is bad. For Mr Braithwaite, is bad. For me, maybe I shouldn’t say so, is not so bad.’ Even as he spoke, there was a small explosion. A great bundle of flaming newspapers shot out of the Mandarin Fish Bar and landed among the firemen, scattering them briefly.
‘Come on,’ yelled Ginny, above the roar of the flames, her face shining in their glow. ‘I’ve got the basic facts. Let’s ring the nationals. We might just catch the late editions.’ Getting paid ‘lineage’ was an acceptable perk for local journalists. Ginny gave him a few phone numbers and the basic facts as they hurried to the phone booths in Tannery Road. They passed Ted and Helen, hurrying down Fish Hill towards the scene. Ted looked as if he’d been interrupted in coitus. Helen looked immaculate, not a hair out of place, as if she were rushing to a fire in an American film.
‘How many appliances are there?’ he asked, as they reached the phone boxes.
‘Seventeen. Twenty-two. Twenty. Eighteen.’
‘What?’
‘Vary it. Make it look as if the stories are coming from different sources.’
‘What about the truth?’
Ginny snorted and rang the Daily Herald.
Henry enjoyed phoning the nationals. John Carpenter, who worked for the Thurmarsh Chronicle, banged on the door with all the authority of his thirty years as a journalist and asked how long he’d be. He shrugged, and made a gesture which might have indicated that he’d be two minutes. Three calls later, when John Carpenter was angrily pointing to his watch, he sang out, ‘Only one more.’ He didn’t care. Uncle Teddy was safe. He was playing his part in the telling of a big story. John Carpenter had concentrated on him because he thought he’d be softer than Ginny. He was wrong. Henry was a hard man now. ‘All yours,’ he said generously as he left. John Carpenter, who had once been sent packing from Cousin Hilda’s because of his drinking habits, scowled. Henry grinned.
He hurried back to the scene of the fire. The hoses were still gushing mightily, but the flames continued to roar their defiance. Henry found himself wondering what would happen to Alphonso Boycott and his Northern Serenaders, the legendary Martine and the Côte d’Azur Cuties.
‘Oh my God!’ moaned a pale man at his side.
‘I know,’ said Henry. ‘And it only opened two weeks ago.’
‘I’m not insured,’ said the pale man. ‘I forgot to renew the insurance.’
‘You what?’
‘On Timpley’s. That’s mine, the tobacconist’s. Next to t
he magic shop. That’s my livelihood there. That’s thirty-three years. They say the whole block may go.’
A shower of sparks landed on the roof of Timpley and Nephews. George Timpley shuddered and said, ‘Oh my God’ again. Henry flinched too as the sparks danced on the roof like ducks on a hot plate.
Then he realized that he was standing next to a story. Never mind Ginny and Ted and Helen charging around. He had a human interest story all to himself. One man’s night of fear. I shared the agonizing vigil of Thurmarsh tobacconist George Timpley, aged?, as he watched the sparks landing on the roof of his tobacconist’s.
It would be a good story if the building were saved, but it would be a better story if it burnt down. Don’t even think like that! But I have to. I’m paid to. I’m a journalist. Good news is no news.
A tobacconist watched as his life’s work went up in smoke. No! Stop it! Oh god, if you exist, which I doubt, let Timpley and Nephews survive this night. The man didn’t even have any sons. That ‘and Nephews’ pierces my heart. This may be just a little back street tobacconist’s to me, but to him it’s his dream. Tobacconist’s pipe-dream goes up in smoke. No!
George Timpley gave Henry his life story. It poured out compulsively. Henry scribbled surreptitiously, hoping some of what he wrote would be legible. George Timpley never even noticed. He was staring fixedly at his little shop. He was every fireman, every hose, every jet of water, every spark of fire. He seemed puzzled when Henry asked how old he was.
‘Fifty-seven,’ he said. ‘Why?’
An explosion ripped out part of the wall of the Thurmarsh Joke Emporium and Magic Shop. Glass tinkled into the street. Fake cakes, bottomless tumblers, diminishing Woodbines and impossible spoons were hurled high into the sky. The air was full of sneezing powder, itching powder and electric snuff. Whoopie cushions, goofy teeth, joke spiders and pop-up ties rained down on the bewildered firemen. A large cardboard box of Naughty Fido dog turds, ordered but not yet collected by the Winstanley Young Conservatives, soared into the air, hovered, burst, and showered its unsavoury contents all over Malmesbury Street. Brightly coloured snakes burst from posies of flying flowers.