The Complete Pratt

by David Nobbs

  It was impossible, walking in that great city, set among hills dotted with crumbling golden villas, silvery olive trees and lines of dark cypresses, to believe that at that very moment, in Thurmarsh, under a lowering sky, in a dusty newsroom, Terry Skipton was assigning reporters to magistrates’ and juvenile courts.

  ‘Podger!’

  A Pavlovian frisson ran down Henry’s spine. Only in the army had they called him Podger.

  Michael Collinghurst, tall, hook-nosed, with blue eyes and light brown hair, was crossing the dark, elegant Via Tornabuoni towards them, smiling from stick-out ear to stick-out ear.

  Henry’s face lit up at the sight of his old friend. Lampo Davey’s face darkened at the sight of Henry’s face lighting up. A dark-haired, older young man in fawn open-neck shirt, blue shorts, red socks and sandals crossed the road reluctantly to join them.

  ‘This is Father Ellis,’ said Michael Collinghurst.

  Father Ellis smiled austerely, carefully. He had very hairy legs and had shaved carelessly. Why should I be surprised when priests are hairy? thought Henry.

  They went to an open-air café in the Piazza della Signoria, studded with statues, dominated by the crenellated, machicolated Palazzo Vecchio, with its high, slim, boldly off-centre tower.

  Michael and Henry ordered extravagant ice creams with delight. Father Ellis ordered an extravagant ice cream with shame. Lampo ordered an espresso coffee.

  ‘Well, Henry,’ said Michael. ‘You are how?’

  ‘Bad not too, oh. Grumble mustn’t,’ said Henry.

  ‘To you again see, very it’s good,’ said Michael.

  ‘Too you,’ said Henry.

  Father Ellis and Lampo Davey looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s a little had we habit,’ explained Henry. ‘Words our orders unusual in putting.’

  ‘Hours military boring slight the easement of for,’ said Michael.

  Father Ellis and Lampo seemed pained at these juvenilia.

  ‘I’ve decided to become a Catholic priest,’ said Michael, with that sudden simplicity which Henry remembered so well.

  Henry realized that his dismay was discourteous to Father Ellis. He tried to smile. It was a failure. Lampo relaxed when he saw Henry’s dismay. The ice creams arrived. Lampo frowned.

  ‘I’m twenty-one years old,’ said Henry. ‘I like ice cream.’

  ‘Some Anglo-Saxons lose all restraint when they go south,’ said Lampo. ‘I like self-discipline and austerity. I think I’d make a good monk if I believed in God.’

  ‘If you can say that,’ said Father Ellis, through a mouthful of ice cream, ‘I think you’re very close to coming to God.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve had a narrow escape,’ said Lampo.

  Michael laughed. Father Ellis flushed and tried to look as if he wasn’t enjoying his ice cream.

  ‘How’s your religious state, Henry?’ said Michael. ‘I remember hearing all about your discovery and loss of faith in Thurmarsh.’

  ‘It’s lost for good, I think,’ said Henry.

  ‘Never say that,’ said Father Ellis.

  ‘I believe in good and evil,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t believe that there’s an actual being, shaping our destinies. I’ve never seen why there’s any difficulty in believing in good and evil without believing that they’re imposed from above. And even if God did exist, I don’t see why people should take his authority upon themselves in his name. The last thing we need, in our spiritual life, is a system that’s as authoritarian and hierarchical as the system we’re saddled with in our temporal life.’

  Henry felt exhilarated. This was European café life, and he was part of it! He attacked his ice cream with renewed relish.

  ‘Lunch together have we shall?’ said Michael.

  ‘Idea splendid a what,’ said Henry, before Lampo could make their excuses. He felt happy. In putting his words in the wrong order, Michael wasn’t simply fooling. He was telling Henry that their friendship could survive his entry into the priesthood.

  ‘Put don’t more any order wrong in words, Michael,’ said Henry.

  ‘Right quite,’ said Michael. ‘Sorry oh. Done I’ve again it!’

  Father Ellis frowned at his protégé.

  ‘You have a very frivolous side to your nature, Michael,’ he said.

  ‘Because he’s deeply confident about his basic seriousness,’ said Henry. ‘I think you aren’t confident enough about your seriousness to be remotely frivolous.’

  Father Ellis’s unevenly shaven face flushed. Henry realized that, if you were going to be rude to people, you had to be careful not to hit upon the truth. He’d have to fight against the dangerous intellectual confidence which this beautiful city was imparting to him.

  They strolled along dark streets that smelt of heat and cats and peppers and distant drains. They wandered through noisy markets, full of people with caustic yet gentle faces. In the church of San Lorenzo, they gazed in awe at sculptures by Michelangelo. They were massive, yet delicate. They were vibrant with individual life, yet steeped in universal meaning. How Henry hoped that, in the face of this most supreme art, which couldn’t be described in words because otherwise it wouldn’t have needed to be created in marble, nobody would say anything.

  ‘Amazing,’ said Father Ellis. ‘Truly incredible. What an artist.’

  They ate in a restaurant in a tiny, dark square called the Piazza dei Maccheroni. They ate outside, under an unnecessary awning. The wine flowed. Michael drank with all his old gusto. Father Ellis drank with less gusto, but even greater capacity. Lampo drank sparingly. Henry was glad to be in the presence of people who were greedier than Lampo. Four days of Lampo’s company had made him feel almost bestial.

  ‘I wonder if people ever thought all these buildings were too new,’ said Lampo. ‘All this dreadful modern development. Appalling.’

  ‘I think there was a much clearer consensus about what was beautiful in those days,’ said Michael. ‘But I think when we gaze at them now we’re much too romantic and forget why they were built. No doubt there were boards in front of them announcing, “Another Prestige Development for the Medici Family”.’

  Father Ellis gave Michael a look, as if realizing that he was going to be a troublesome priest.

  Henry and Michael ate pasta and saltimbocca. Father Ellis plumped for minestrone and steak florentine. Lampo ate only one course – Parma ham and fresh figs, lightly spattered with black pepper.

  ‘We’re going to Siena tomorrow,’ said Michael. ‘Why don’t you come too?’

  Lampo was planning to take him to Siena the next day. He knew that Lampo wanted them to be alone together, in Siena. This casual lunch in the Piazza dei Maccheroni had been a revelation. Childhood friendships had failed him. New friendships had puzzled him. Close friendships with homosexuals filled him with tension. But here, in Michael Collinghurst, with whom he hadn’t communicated since his army days, he knew that he’d found true friendship, beyond all sexuality, friendship cemented by humour, friendship for life. He didn’t need to prove it by going to Siena with Michael. He could afford to be generous to Lampo. ‘Sorry,’ he lied. ‘We can’t tomorrow.’

  If they hadn’t gone to Siena later than planned, Henry might never have met the young woman who would become his wife.

  An old woman with black clothes and a sunny heart showed them to a large, rather bare back room with a double bed. Henry threw back the creaking shutters and gazed out. Swifts shrieked over the jumbled tiled roofs of Siena. The stern, narrow, shady medieval streets plunged into a deep valley and marched up the other side towards the cathedral. The great brick building, with its marble bell-tower, seemed huge against the darkening sky. Henry sighed. He sighed because you can’t hold beauty in your hands and feel it. He sighed because of the double bed.

  That night he lay so close to the right-hand edge of the bed that there was a danger of his falling out.

  Lampo laughed. ‘I’m not intending to ravish you, you know,’ he said.

  Lampo slept as delicately as
a cat, on that still, hot night, naked under a single sheet, in that lumpy, twanging Italian bed. Henry lay still, stiff as a board, listening to the lone mosquito. At first light Lampo woke, padded across the room and opened the shutters, which didn’t creak for him. Henry pretended to be asleep. It seemed eternal, that night, and Henry thought about people who are imprisoned for thirty years.

  In the morning, Henry had five inelegant bites. Lampo had none. Perhaps the lone mosquito liked the taste of tension.

  It was a surprise to find that the city was alive, and not frozen in time. They climbed through streets that were seething with humanity. Tiny vans were delivering trays of bread and figs. The cries of vendors mingled with the ecstatic greetings of people who were meeting for the first time since the previous evening.

  Henry gazed in awe at the rich, decorated façade of the cathedral, a Gothic fantasy resting on three Romanesque portals. The interior, with its forest of striped black and white marble pillars, was stunning. The floor of the huge, bare nave was marble also, and covered in decorated paving showing Bible stories. An Englishman was reading a guidebook in a loud hiss. ‘The interior may seem over-elaborate to many with more spare northern tastes.’ No! Not to this northerner. Henry tried to close his mind to all words, to see only shapes and colours and patterns. A baby doesn’t wonder at the world any the less because it hasn’t yet got any words with which to describe it.

  He was filled with joy. He could flower under this southern sun. There was more to life than he’d ever dreamt. There was more to himself than he’d ever believed. In that great religious building Henry, who had no religion, felt in a state of grace. He felt good. He felt strong. He felt pure.

  After two hours of feeling good and strong and pure, he felt extremely hungry.

  They wandered, through curving shaded streets, past pinky-red Gothic palaces, towards the Piazza del Campo, the great central square of that most female of cities. In front of them were two bare-legged young women in cotton dresses. The one in the white dress had thin, vulnerable legs. The one with the yellow and white horizontal stripes had slightly fleshy legs.

  Gently curving, gently sloping, shaped like a scallop, vast in scale, surrounded by pink palaces with curving façades, dominated by the vast Palazzo Publico and its pencil-thin tower, the Piazza del Campo could turn even an itching, sweating, frustration-soaked, mosquito-ravaged, immature, repressed English podge-clot from thoughts of slightly fleshy legs.

  But not for long. The moment he looked round, he saw that yellow and white striped dress being helped into a chair by a suspiciously attentive waiter in the nearest of several restaurants with outdoor terraces.

  ‘Let’s eat there,’ said Henry. He hurried across to the restaurant and, before Lampo could stop him, sat at the table next to the two girls.

  Lampo frowned.

  The moment he heard the girls speak, Henry leant across and said, ‘Ah! You’re English.’

  The gaunt one frowned, as if to say, ‘If we’d wanted to meet English people we’d have gone to Southwold.’ Fleshy legs smiled. Her mouth was crowded with big, strong, white teeth, which protruded slightly. She had sandy hair.

  Henry introduced himself and Lampo, who smiled with suspiciously immaculate politeness. The one with sandy hair was called Anna Matheson. The gaunt one was Hilary Lewthwaite.

  ‘Lewthwaite,’ said Henry. ‘The only Lewthwaite I know is a clapped-out draper’s in Thurmarsh.’

  ‘That’s our shop,’ said Hilary Lewthwaite.

  ‘When I say clapped-out,’ said Henry, ‘I mean I really like it. I love old-fashioned shops. When I was a kid, Lampo …’ He dragged Lampo into these reminiscences as if he were a recalcitrant mule. ‘… I used to be absolutely fascinated by the thing they had that whizzed the change around on wires.’

  ‘The Lamson Overhead Cash System,’ said Hilary.

  A waiter brought menus to both their tables.

  ‘Where are you from, Anna?’ said Henry, leaning across towards her.

  ‘Ullapool Grove,’ said Anna Matheson.

  ‘In Thurmarsh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look … why don’t we share a table?’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Anna Matheson.

  She explained to the waiter.

  ‘He won’t understand you just because you speak louder,’ said Hilary.

  Lampo explained, icily, in impeccable Italian.

  ‘Ah! You share table. Is good,’ said the waiter. He seemed pleased for the girls, and held their chairs out for them with a pleasant smile. Lampo had a pleasant smile too, but Henry knew that beneath it he was seething. Hilary had flashed a quick look at Anna, beseeching her not to move. Now she smiled thinly, grimly. She was as pale as a barn owl, while Anna was golden brown.

  ‘Ullapool Grove!’ said Henry. ‘I can’t get over it.’

  ‘Do try,’ said Lampo.

  ‘No, but … I mean … it’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lampo. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Where do you live, Hilary?’ said Henry.

  ‘Perkin Warbeck Drive,’ said Hilary.

  ‘Where’s that?’ asked Henry.

  ‘It runs from Lambert Simnel Avenue through to Wat Tyler Crescent,’ said Hilary reluctantly.

  ‘Has anybody got a street map of Thurmarsh?’ said Lampo. ‘No? What a shame. It would have eased the monotony of looking at Siena.’

  ‘Siena’s lovely,’ said Henry hastily. ‘It’s like a beautiful, gentle, passionate woman.’ He looked into Anna Matheson’s eyes. They were blue and, he fancied, hungry. He liked what he saw in Anna Matheson’s eyes. He was trying not to tremble. He’d always known that, when love came, it would come like this, as quick and joyous as a swift on the wing.

  In the square, beyond the awning, toddlers chased pigeons and a soldier gazed into the fountain with his sweetheart. The waiter took their orders.

  ‘This is a bit different from the Rundle Café,’ said Henry.

  ‘You don’t eat in the Rundle Café?’ said Anna.

  ‘Sometimes,’ admitted Henry. ‘The Rundle Café’s a café in Thurmarsh, Lampo.’

  ‘No!’ said Lampo. ‘You amaze me. It has such a Parisian ring.’

  ‘I had a holiday job there once,’ said Anna. ‘You wouldn’t eat there if you could see their kitchens.’

  ‘You wouldn’t eat there if you could see their food,’ said Henry.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ said Lampo. ‘Here we are in the most beautiful square in Europe, and you’re talking about a bloody awful café in Thurmarsh.’

  ‘You’ve eaten there, Lampo?’ said Henry. ‘It is bad, isn’t it?’

  Lampo stared at Henry coldly. Hilary snapped a bread stick in half as if it reminded her of a man she’d hated.

  ‘You’re very quiet, Hilary,’ said Henry.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ said Hilary.

  Anna gave Hilary a beseeching look. The waiter brought their starters – melon for Lampo, soup for the girls, antipasto alla senese for Henry. Henry put his left hand on Anna’s right knee, under the table. She slid his hand up under her dress, laying it gently on her warm, bare thigh. Their eyes met.

  ‘When you say a holiday job,’ he said, ‘where were you on holiday from?’

  ‘Thurmarsh Grammar.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ said Lampo. ‘What more natural if one lives in Thurmarsh?’

  ‘You too, Hilary?’ said Henry.

  Hilary nodded, as if finding it disagreeable to remember Thurmarsh Grammar School for Girls.

  ‘I was at Thurmarsh Grammar School for Boys,’ said Henry. ‘I founded the Thurmarsh Grammar School Bisexual Humanist Society. Did you know Karen Porter or Maureen Abberley?’

  Each ringing Thurmarsh name thudded into Lampo like a harpoon into a whale. He thrashed around in disbelief. ‘Do let’s forget the beauty of Tuscany,’ he said. ‘Thank goodness there’s no danger of our discussing the art gallery and its treasure che
st of Siennese painting. Come on. Let’s talk some more about Karen Porter and Maureen Abberley.’

  ‘They’re very beautiful,’ said Hilary.

  ‘Karen Porter and Maureen Abberley?’ said Anna.

  ‘The paintings,’ said Hilary grimly.

  ‘My God, they’re doing a double act now,’ said Lampo. ‘The Elsie and Doris Waters of Siena.’

  ‘They’re just a couple of prick teasers,’ said Henry.

  ‘Elsie and Doris Waters?’ said Anna.

  ‘Karen Porter and Maureen Abberley,’ said Henry.

  Lampo groaned. The waiter brought their main courses. Anna removed Henry’s hand from her thigh, stroking it gently with one nail before she gave it back to him. Anna and Henry attacked their food with gusto. Lampo and Hilary picked at theirs. If Lampo had been heterosexual, there would have been two perfect pairings. But how was he to arrange an assignation with Anna without upsetting Hilary and, more important, upsetting Lampo, his friend and host?

  ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ he asked.

  ‘The cathedral,’ said Hilary hastily.

  ‘The cathedral, it seems,’ said Anna.

  ‘Well, I mean, we decided that,’ said Hilary.

  ‘What would you rather do, Anna?’ said Henry.

  ‘I don’t know. Do you have any suggestions?’ said Anna.

  ‘We’re going to the art gallery,’ said Lampo hurriedly.

  ‘We’re going to the art gallery,’ said Henry.

  ‘Well, I mean, we decided that,’ said Lampo.

  ‘I just said we’re going there,’ said Henry. ‘So what are we arguing about?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind going to the art gallery again,’ said Anna.

  ‘Again?’ said Hilary, and Henry couldn’t decide whether she was being dim or awkward. ‘You said you found religious paintings depressing.’

  ‘I do,’ said Anna, ‘but, as you said, they’re very beautiful, very spiritual. You kept telling me what an important stage in the development of perspective they illustrated. I’d quite like to have a look at that aspect of them again.’