The Complete Pratt

by David Nobbs

  ‘I wish I’d recorded it. It would have saved a lot of bother,’ he said. ‘I’ve said it in London. I’ve said it in Buxton. I said it in Skipton and Troutwick on the same day. I may as well say it in Siena. “I hope you’ll both be very happy.”’

  14 In Love

  DROPLETS OF DEW hung on every leaf and every blade of grass. Thin grey clouds scudded across a leaden sky.

  Ginny looked dreadful. Her face was blotchy. Her eyes were red and runny. She gave her nose a blow so gargantuan that he wanted to pretend he wasn’t with her.

  He put an affectionate hand on her muscular right arm.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘Why have you been crying?’

  ‘I haven’t been crying,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a cold.’

  ‘How’s Gordon?’

  ‘He’s got a cold.’

  The doomed tram groaned as it descended into the dim, sulphorous valley. How mean the streets looked. The traffic came to a complete halt outside Fison and Oldsworthy’s – the place for screws. Ginny sneezed like a Bofors gun. They crawled past the Popular Café, whose emptiness daily belied its name. On the right was a large bomb-site. Why did English towns never look finished?

  The newsroom was yellow, brown and grey. Yellow light on a grey morning. Yellow-brown fingers of chain-smokers putting yellowing paper into grey typewriters. Grey hair, yellow teeth and a brown jacket as Terry Skipton ordered him laryngitically to number three magistrates’ court. He had a cold. Ted and Helen asked him, nasally, about his holiday. They had matching colds. Everyone had colds, in this disgusting northern land.

  And yet … it was a magic land. For did it not contain Anna Matheson?

  The statue of Sir Herbert Rustwick in Town Hall Square was coated in pigeon droppings. The absurdly large Doric pillars of the court house were black with grime.

  A milkman had sold watered milk. A motorist had struck a police car after failing to look left. A displaced Pole had stolen back the seventy pounds he’d lost at poker. It was a morning of small defeats and petty betrayals.

  He’d lost touch with world events while he’d been at camp and in Italy. After lunch he went to the newspaper’s library, on the ground floor, behind the huge small-ads department, and read the back numbers.

  Egypt had expelled Britons. Britain had expelled Egyptians. A mission to Cairo, led by the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, had ended in deadlock. The plans of Mr Dulles, US Secretary of State, for an Anna users association – no, concentrate. A canal users association – had been described by the leader of the Labour Party, Mr Gaitskell, as so weak that a better name would be the Cape Users Association. In Cyprus, Eoka terrorists had resumed their activities. There’d been violence in Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas as black pupils were escorted to schools that had previously been all-white. Anna had broken the world water speed record at Lake Mead, Nevada. Not Anna! Donald Campbell. Russia had withdrawn from an athletics match against Britain after Anna Ponomareva – Nina Ponomareva – a discus thrower, had been charged with stealing five hats, worth £1 12s. 11d., from C & A Modes. Sir William Penney, director of the Anna Bomb Tests – Atom Bomb Tests – at Maralinga, had announced that, due to bad weather, Britain’s sixth atomic weapon might have to be exploded on a Sunday. In the end it had been exploded on a Friday. ‘Was there pressure?’ the Sunday Express had asked.

  That afternoon, Henry had a phone call.

  ‘It’s your friend from the world of industry.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘I’ve got a story for you. A scoop.’

  ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’

  ‘No. Sorry.’ Impossible to be excited about scoops, just now. Anna would be home from work in two hours’ time.

  They arranged to meet in the Pigeon and Two Annas.

  After work, trembling with excitement, Henry went to a phone box. Matheson T. J., Tudor Lodge, 17, Ullapool Drive. Thurmarsh 6782. He couldn’t ring it. Phones were so impersonal. Much better to call on her later, pretending that he was passing on his way home from his interview.

  ‘Cracking goal of Tommy’s Saturday week,’ said Martin Hammond. ‘Literally rocketed into the net.’

  The bar smelt of furniture polish. They sat below the picture of the great flood, and drank glasses of bitter.

  ‘I missed it,’ said Henry. ‘I was in Italy,’ he added, trying to sound blasé and much-travelled. ‘Good game, was it?’

  ‘Oh I didn’t go,’ said Martin. ‘But I always read the report. Because of Tommy. Because of the old days.’ Henry felt that Martin clung to memories of childhood because he needed to convince himself that he had once been a child. ‘Paradise Lane Gang! Those were the days.’

  ‘You hated them,’ said Henry.

  Martin ignored this. ‘What’s the minimum wage in Italy?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve no idea! Well, come on, then. What’s the story?’

  Martin leant forward and spoke in such a conspiratorial whisper that the scattered early evening drinkers all tried to listen.

  ‘A councillor is in cahoots with a council official to buy up property in the town centre.’

  ‘Which councillor?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Which official?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What property?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Martin. This is riveting news,’ said Henry. ‘Actually that wouldn’t make a bad title for the trade magazine of the riveting industry. Riveting News.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ said Martin.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Henry. ‘It’s just that it is the teeniest bit on the vague side.’

  ‘I thought you could burrow. I mean … you’re the journalist.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘It could take the lid off a steaming cauldron of corruption and incompetence. It could reveal the cancer in the municipal body politic.’

  ‘You’re right. Thanks, Martin. I’ll burrow. How did you come across the story, anyroad?’

  ‘I have my channels.’

  ‘It’s hard for me to burrow if you don’t give me any idea where I should burrow.’

  Martin sighed, then shed a layer of his self-importance.

  ‘I heard it on a crossed line,’ he said. ‘We’ve been getting crossed lines. I rang to complain and got this crossed line.’

  Henry laughed. Martin looked at him in surprise.

  ‘What did this man say on this crossed line?’ said Henry.

  ‘Summat about … er … the official could use his powers to get certain properties empty or summat. To tell you the truth I was that excited at what I was hearing that I didn’t listen that carefully. I got frightened they’d sense me there, listening. I think they may have done. One of them said they shouldn’t talk about it on the phone and could they meet in some pub after the council meeting.’

  ‘Would it be too much to hope that you’ve remembered which pub?’

  ‘I can as it happens. Summat to do with Dr Livingstone.’

  ‘The Livingstone?’

  ‘Could have been.’

  Henry ordered two more beers from the waiter, whose name, he had discovered, was Oscar.

  ‘What’s the status of shop stewards in Italy?’ asked Martin.

  Henry looked at him in astonishment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was looking at the most beautiful cities in the world. I wasn’t asking people about shop stewards.’ It was a shock to realize that he hadn’t had a single conversation about anything with an Italian. It was a shock to realize that he wasn’t confident that his attitude of amused superiority to Martin was remotely justified.

  ‘How are you today?’ inquired Henry, when Oscar brought the drinks.

  ‘Very well, thank you, sir,’ said Oscar. ‘It’s right ironical. I’m a shocker for colds, me, and now everybody’s got one and I haven’t!’ He walked away, sensed their disappointment, and returned. ‘I’ll t
ell you what I have got,’ he said, like a parent offering a child a consolation treat. ‘And it’s summat I never ever have. I’m usually the other way, if anything, if you take my meaning.’ He lowered his voice and produced his nugget. ‘I haven’t been for five days. Five days.’ He nodded twice and moved off.

  ‘How’s work?’ said Henry.

  ‘Ruddy awful today,’ said Martin. ‘Mr Templeton’s canary escaped and got into the mechanism. Charlie Fancutt risked his life to rescue it.’ Henry’s face must have revealed his astonishment. ‘Well, he’s managing director, is Mr Templeton. And he’s very attached to that canary. It’s a descendant of the canary that his grandfather sent down the pit so if the air was poisoned they’d find out when it died. Which it didn’t, presumably, or it wouldn’t have had descendants. Unless it died after it had had its descendants, of course.’

  ‘Now that is a story,’ said Henry.

  Tudor Lodge was a large, detached house with a pretentious curved gable, set back from the road up a steep drive. One curtained window was lit.

  If only he wouldn’t shake. What was wrong with him? And his legs weren’t steady. He’d drunk more than he’d intended.

  He rang the bell. It sounded harsh and obtrusive.

  He found himself facing a fairly tall, slightly overweight, rather good-looking, even potentially charming man. Should he wish to charm. Which, just then, he didn’t.

  ‘Yes?’ said Mr Matheson cautiously. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Is … er …’ His voice was trembling, and he was panting after the steep drive. ‘I … er … can I speak to Anna, please?’

  ‘Anna doesn’t live here any more.’ He made it sound like the title of a tragedy.

  ‘Oh … er … I see. Well … er … could you tell me where she does live?’

  ‘I could, yes,’ said Mr Matheson. ‘The question is, should I?’

  Oh no. A headmaster.

  ‘I want to see her. I’m a friend. Could you please tell me where she lives?’ he panted.

  ‘Well now,’ said Mr Matheson. ‘I have to ask myself whether it’s safe to give my daughter’s address to a trembling, panting, remorselessly monosyllabic young man who arrives at my door after ten o’clock at night, dressed like a bad journalist and considerably the worse for drink.’

  Anger gave Henry pride. He drew himself up to his full height, a gesture which would have been more impressive if he hadn’t still been three inches shorter than Mr Matheson. ‘Mr Matheson,’ he said. ‘I met your daughter in Italy. I like her very much. I had the depressed instinction that she liked me. I know she’d like to see me.’

  Mr Matheson switched on his charm. His voice relented. ‘I dare say she would,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell her you called and ask her to get in touch with you. All right?’

  ‘Well … yes. Thank you,’ said Henry. ‘Thank you.’

  He turned away. Mr Matheson coughed discreetly.

  ‘Er … don’t you think you ought to give me your name and address?’ he said. ‘Anna isn’t a mind-reader.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Sorry.’ Henry emitted a strangulated laugh. He longed to say that he was Jasper Phipps-Ockington, but it would defeat the object of the exercise. ‘I’m Henry Pratt. I live at 239, Winstanley Road. I’m not on the phone.’

  ‘No.’ Meaning, ‘You wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Or she could phone me at … er … the Argus.’

  ‘Ah.’

  As he slithered down the drive, Henry felt that it had not been a wildly propitious first meeting with his future father-in-law. Would they laugh about it, over the port, at family Christmasses to come?

  Next day, Anna didn’t ring. Terry Skipton liked the canary story.

  On Wednesday, Anna didn’t ring. Nor did Mr Gaitskell, the Queen, Cousin Hilda, Auntie Doris, Sir Leonard Hutton or any of the population of the West Riding.

  On Thursday, October 4th, 1956, at 3.27 p.m., Henry’s phone burst into heart-stopping life. He let it ring five times, so as not to seem too eager, then grabbed it in panic, in case she should ring off.

  The male voice disconcerted him totally.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I missed that.’

  ‘It’s your contact from the world of sport. I’ve got a story for you.’

  She was never going to ring. He’d been a brief Italian fantasy, a good idea on a hot day, long forgotten.

  He arranged to meet Tommy in the Winstanley at seven.

  Ginny approached his desk rather tentatively.

  ‘Are you in tonight?’ she croaked.

  ‘Yes and no,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘I’m really fed up with this cold. I felt like popping over to the Winstanley for a few drinks.’

  ‘I’m meeting one of my contacts there at seven,’ said Henry grandly. ‘I’m sure we’ll be through by … oh … shall we say eight-thirty?’

  Tommy didn’t turn up until twenty to eight. He didn’t apologize.

  His scoop was hardly earth-shattering. The whole team was going to autograph the plaster of a seventeen-year-old girl who’d broken her leg when she’d fallen down a flight of steps at the match against Mansfield Town. But Henry rewarded him by buying another round.

  ‘’ey oop, our Tommy,’ said a passing customer. ‘If tha doesn’t score Saturday we’ll know why, won’t we? ’cos tha’s been supping.’

  Tommy sighed. ‘It’s no use me coming in places like this,’ he said.

  ‘He was only joking,’ said Henry.

  ‘He was joking if we win,’ said Tommy. ‘He wasn’t if we lose.’

  ‘Would you like another drink?’ said Henry.

  At the bar, Henry found himself standing beside Mr Matheson. This was his chance to redeem himself.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Matheson,’ he quipped wittily.

  Anna’s father stared at him politely but blankly.

  ‘Henry Pratt,’ he said. ‘I called on Monday night.’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes.’

  ‘Did you give Anna my message?’

  ‘Oh blast. I forgot. I’m so sorry. My memory!’ said Mr Matheson. ‘I’ll ring her tomorrow.’ He smiled. It was a charming smile. Henry wanted to glare. The man’s lack of consideration had caused him three days of mental anguish. But he didn’t feel like glaring, because this news meant that Anna hadn’t been neglecting him, so he smiled back.

  ‘I’m buying a drink for Tommy Marsden,’ he said. ‘He’s giving me a story.’

  ‘Jolly good,’ said Mr Matheson. ‘Well … keep at it. Nose to the grindstone.’ Mr Matheson’s nose didn’t look as if it had ever been anywhere near a grindstone.

  Tommy waxed ungenerous about his team-mates. Muir was yellow. Ayers was as thick as two short planks. Gravel was shagging himself to death.

  The sparkling level of the conversation didn’t survive the arrival of Ginny.

  ‘I’m a colleague of Henry’s,’ she said. ‘On the paper,’ she added, as if not trusting Tommy’s intelligence, and perhaps she was justified in view of Tommy’s next remark. ‘What, writing and that?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. What do you do, Tommy?’ inquired Ginny.

  Henry kicked her under the table. She glared at him.

  ‘Tommy’s the star of Thurmarsh United,’ hissed Henry.

  ‘Oh yes! I remember now,’ said Ginny. ‘I read about you. You saved a penalty, didn’t you?’

  ‘Tommy’s the centre forward,’ said Henry.

  Ginny sneezed. It was like the eruption of a human Etna. She turned towards Tommy, who recoiled. ‘I’m one of those people who’re never ill,’ she said. ‘So when I am, I get it really badly.’

  Tommy searched vainly for a reply.

  Ginny sneezed again.

  Henry glared. ‘Ginny lives in the flat above me,’ he said.

  Tommy looked at his wrist. He wasn’t wearing his watch, but he didn’t allow this to put him off. ‘Time I was off,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no need to go on my account,’ said Ginny.

  ‘Nothing personal,’ said Tommy. ‘But
Mr Mackintosh says it’s unprofessional to expose ourselves to germs unnecessarily.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Ginny, when Tommy had gone.

  ‘What for?’ said Henry.

  ‘Disowning me. “Ginny lives in the flat above me.” Meaning, “This monstrosity isn’t my girlfriend.”’

  Henry said, ‘Ginny! I wasn’t disowning you.’ After a pause he added, ‘And you aren’t a monstrosity.’ If he could have started the conversation again, he’d have put these two comments in the opposite order.

  Ginny began to cry, silently.

  ‘Ginny, love! What is it?’ he said.

  ‘Gordon’s never going to leave his wife.’

  Henry felt an immense tenderness towards her. He grasped her hand. He wanted to say something really nice. ‘I think you’re a smashing journalist,’ he said. ‘Thanks. What every woman wants to hear,’ she said. He leant forward and licked the salt tears off her cheek. ‘I’ve got to blow my nose,’ she warned. ‘I don’t mind,’ he said bravely. And then he saw Mr Matheson staring straight at him. He shrank from her. ‘My nose-blowing revolts you,’ she said. He said nothing. What could he say? ‘No. I like it.’? ‘Well, you are a pretty horrific performer on the old hooter.’? ‘It’s nothing to do with your nose. The father of my future fiancée is staring at me, and I’m embarrassed.’?

  When Mr Matheson went to the Gents, Henry tried not to follow him. But he had to explain himself.

  He stood next to Mr Matheson, at the urinals.

  ‘The young lady I’m with is not a girlfriend, Mr Matheson,’ he said. ‘She lives in the flat above me. She has a bad cold, and she’s depressed, and she believes that the man she loves, who also has a cold, incidentally, will never leave his wife. I’m trying to cheer her up.’

  Mr Matheson stared at him in astonishment. ‘What an angel of mercy you are,’ he said.

  As he walked out of the Gents, Henry felt that it had not been a wildly propitious second meeting with his future father-in-law. Would they laugh about it, over the port, at family Christmasses to come?

  The weather was cold, with snow as far south as Leek, in Staffordshire. The Middle East crisis was debated in the United Nations, amid rumours that Mr Dulles was ‘de-toughening’. 21 soldiers were arrested in Cyprus after demanding an assurance that they’d be home by Christmas. 15 guardsmen in Malta protested about a rumoured kit inspection. 250 reservists complained about bad food and army ‘bull’ at an RAMC Depot in Cookham.