by David Nobbs
They met in the Labour Club, of which Tommy was an honorary member. Henry bought two halves of bitter. They sat in a discreet corner, beneath a portrait of Ramsay MacDonald. They could hear the clunk of snooker balls from the back room. The carpet was red.
Tommy unveiled his second scoop. The team was going to make a record, to play to a small boy who was in a coma.
‘Terrific,’ said Henry. ‘Who says footballers have no heart?’
Tommy Marsden looked at him suspiciously.
‘I may have another scoop an’ all soon,’ he said.
‘What sort of a scoop?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say anything yet.’
‘Give over, Tommy,’ said Henry. ‘We’re friends. Former members of the Paradise Lane Gang. You can trust me.’
Tommy looked at him doubtfully.
‘Have a drink,’ said Henry.
He bought two glasses of bitter.
‘I may be going on t’transfer list,’ said Tommy. ‘You’ll be t’first to know if I do.’
‘Leave Thurmarsh?’ said Henry.
‘Can Muir and Ayers give me the through balls I need if I’m to utilize my speed? Can they buggery? I’ve got the scoring instincts of a predatory panther, and I’m being sacrificed on the altar of mid-table mediocrity.’
‘You’ve been reading too many press reports.’
‘You what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’ve got a lethal left foot.’
‘Your right arm’s not too bad either.’
‘You what?’
‘Nothing. Have a drink.’
Henry bought two glasses of bitter.
‘What about loyalty to the team that made you?’ said Henry. ‘What about loyalty to the town that took an urchin off the streets and turned him into a star?’
‘You’ve been reading too many press reports,’ said Tommy. ‘Listen. Only last night I heard about one of t’directors, who’s buying up half t’town centre dirt cheap so he can redevelop it at vast profits. Loyalty to Thurmarsh? Don’t make me laugh.’
‘Which director?’ said Henry.
‘I’ve told you too much already,’ said Tommy.
Henry bought two glasses of bitter. This time it didn’t work.
It didn’t matter. His spine had tingled again. He had his gut feeling again. This tied up with Mr Matheson and the corrupt council official, or he wasn’t Henry ‘The man nobody muzzles’ Pratt.
In Hungary there were acute food shortages. Ten million people refused to go to work. The future of the Soviet puppet régime of Mr Kadar hung in the balance.
It would take months to clear the ships that were blocking the Suez Canal. The Anglo-French forces and the Israelis refused to retreat until a United Nations peace-keeping force was installed. Colonel Nasser refused to behave as if he’d been defeated.
On the evening of Thursday, November 16th, Henry ‘The man nobody muzzles’ Pratt installed himself in a corner of the large, over-furnished, over-decorated, surprisingly Caledonian lounge bar of the Winstanley, in the hope that Mr Matheson was a creature of habit, and would again meet the corrupt council official after the council meeting.
He sipped his beer slowly, and read Anna’s letter for the fifth time. It belonged to the ‘anyway’ school of letter-writing.
Dear Henry [she’d written]
Thank you for your letter, and I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to reply. You know how things are. Anyway, I’m writing at last.
Frankly, I think I must have had a bit too much to drink that night. Anyway, I’m sorry I did what I did and I certainly don’t blame you for what happened. Or didn’t happen! Thank you for taking me out and for asking me out again.
Anyway, I’m afraid I’ll have to say no, because something has cropped up. A man I’ve known for some time has asked me to live with him. He’s quite a bit older than me, but very kind, and I like him. Anyway, after much soul-searching I’ve decided to go. Who knows if it’ll work, but then I’m not sure if I’m ready for marriage and babies and all that just yet. If ever! Squealing brats I call them. Anyway, we’ll see.
Anyway, Henry, there’s one thing I’d seriously like to say. It’s none of my business, of course, but I honestly think you went for the wrong one that day in Siena. Old Hillers is pretty desperate for a man, though unfortunately she doesn’t realize it. She’s very serious and high-minded but I think you are too. You’re both fairly screwed up (in the nicest possible way!) and I think your repressions might be made for each other. I hope you don’t mind me saying this.
Anyway, all the very best for the future, and I’m still glad I met you and that you asked me out.
Lots of love
Anna
PS If you run into my parents, please don’t tell them all this. They think I’m staying with my pen-friend, a dreary girl who wants to become a nun! Ugh!
The thought of pale, repressed, mentally ill Hilary, with her horrible body, appalled him. Anyway – oh god, Anna’s style must be catching – he resented being described as screwed up and regarded as a last resort for lost girls who were desperate for a man.
The bar was filling up steadily, with the pipe-smoking, dog-owning populace of the neighbourhood. Ginny Fenwick and Gordon Carstairs entered. They joined him, which was awkward, but he could hardly object. Besides, he was always happy to be in close proximity to Ginny. She might yet become his lover when she finally accepted that Gordon would never leave his wife.
‘May I tell Henry?’ she asked.
‘Burgess and Maclean,’ replied Gordon.
Ginny interpreted this as meaning ‘yes’. ‘Gordon’s wife has left him,’ she said.
Henry felt absurdly depressed by this news. And he didn’t know what to say. ‘Congratulations,’ seemed unfair to Hazel. ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ was clearly inappropriate. He settled on ‘Ah!’ There was a pause, as if they expected more. They weren’t going to get it. After all, he didn’t even know if he was supposed to know that Gordon had been intending to leave her. And already his mind was whirring with the possible implications on his domestic peace. Would there be more or less amorous couplings above his head?
‘Er …’ he said. ‘Will you … er … er … live in your house, then, Gordon?’
‘No,’ said Gordon. ‘Kippered walls.’
‘He means it’s dripping with evidence of marital bitterness,’ said Ginny. ‘The walls are stained with smoked fish thrown in anger.’
‘Ginny’s got it!’ said Gordon.
‘So, you’ll … er … live in the flat, then?’
‘Tick tock,’ said Gordon. ‘Tick tock.’
‘My flat is a place of clock-watching, of snatched moments, soured by tension and insecurity,’ explained Ginny.
‘Ginny’s got it!’ said Gordon.
Henry was forced to say, yet again, ‘I hope you’ll both be very happy.’ He added a mordant rider: ‘I always thought Ginny’d make somebody a very good interpreter.’
Gordon laughed, said, ‘Fifteen, love!’ and chalked up a score on an invisible blackboard.
‘So you’ll find somewhere else to live?’ Henry asked.
‘Somewhere that’s totally ours,’ said Gordon with surprising clarity.
Ginny smiled proudly. Suddenly Henry no longer felt crabby and jealous. He kissed her warmly and said, ‘I hope you’ll be very happy, love,’ in a voice that only just avoided cracking.
He bought them a drink.
It was almost closing time when Mr Matheson entered with a thick-set, grey-haired man with a long nose and a heavily lined face. Could he be the council official? Henry’s heart was pumping. He offered Ginny and Gordon another drink. ‘I buy the drinks tonight,’ he said. ‘To show how happy I am for you.’
‘Game, set and match to Pratt H.,’ said Gordon.
Henry almost blushed. How he wished that were his real reason, rather than the only way he could think of for meeting Mr Matheson’s contact without arousing the curiosity of his two colleagues.
‘Hello, Mr Matheson,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to stop meeting like this.’
Mr Matheson looked as if nothing would please him more. Then his good manners took over. ‘Henry Pratt!’ he said. ‘Hello!’
‘I’m a reporter on the Argus,’ said Henry to the grey-haired man, in a tone which he hoped would sound a little threatening if he was corrupt, but not too rude if he wasn’t.
‘Howard Lewthwaite,’ said the grey-haired man.
‘Hilary’s father! Good lord!
‘Councillor Lewthwaite,’ said Mr Matheson.
Councillor Lewthwaite smiled at Henry as if to suggest that he would never dream of pulling rank.
Henry felt disappointed. The man was a councillor, so he couldn’t be the corrupt official.
‘Hilary’s father?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Good Lord. What a coincidence.’
‘Not really,’ said Mr Matheson. ‘It’s through our friendship that our daughters met.’
‘I met Hilary and Anna in Siena,’ explained Henry to Mr Lewthwaite.
‘Yes. Hilary mentioned it,’ said Mr Lewthwaite. ‘I think she liked you.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Henry and Mr Matheson.
Henry felt insulted that Mr Matheson had also said, ‘Good Lord!’ But Mr Lewthwaite explained.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t have a good word for many men.’ He sighed. ‘She’s a problem.’
As Henry bought his round, he had to fight against his desire to accept that, because Mr Lewthwaite was not a corrupt council official, Mr Matheson was innocent. And this because the man had smiled at him twice! Pull yourself together, he told himself. Fight his charm. Never trust a man who smiles too much. Otherwise, you won’t be worthy of being called Henry ‘The man nobody muzzles’ Pratt.
Henry began to realize how difficult it is to conduct an investigation when your employer, your colleagues, and – most difficult of all – the objects of your investigations mustn’t know about it.
A minor inspiration attended his next move, however. He met Ben Watkinson in the Blonk, after the match, in which Thurmarsh beat Workington 3–1 with goals from MUIR, AYERS and GRAVEL, who didn’t look, respectively, yellow, thick and knackered. Indeed, they all had better games than Tommy. The embers of hero-worship were cooling, as surely, if more slowly, than they had cooled for Tosser Pilkington-Brick.
The Blonk was a large, brick-built road house at the junction of Blonk Lane and Doncaster Road. It was a cold, bare cathedral of booze. Yet sometimes, before matches, when it was thick with smoke and laughter and the good humour of the visiting supporters, it was possible to sense, in that badly heated barn, a throbbing vitality, a good-natured tolerance, a sharpness of cheerfully cynical humour which still made Britain, at times, to Henry, in 1956, an exhilarating place in which to live.
There was a hint, in the air, of the cruel power of a northern winter, but the memory of victory kept the supporters warm as they attacked the smooth, silky Mansfield bitter.
‘Name all the Club’s directors and their occupations,’ said Henry.
Ben’s eyes lit up. ‘Clive Woodriffe, solicitor,’ he said. ‘Ted Teague, funeral director.’
‘Correct,’ said Henry, who had no idea whether it was.
‘Laurie Joyce, road haulage contractor. Colin Gee, property developer.’
Ah! ‘Correct.’
‘Sid Kettlewell, steel baron. Roland Padgett, cutlery magnate. One more.’ Ben stared at his beer, brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Sorry. It’s gone. Put me out of my misery.’
This was awkward. ‘I can’t.’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘No. No! What I mean is … I don’t want to see you defeated. I’ll give you five minutes.’
For four minutes they both suffered. ‘It begins with G,’ moaned Ben. ‘I know it begins with G.’ Then his eyes shone with triumph. ‘Fred Hathersage, property developer.’
Oh no! There were two property developers.
They met in the Liberal Club, of which Tommy was an honorary member. Henry bought two glasses of bitter. They sat in a quiet recess, below a portrait of Asquith. They could hear the clunk of snooker balls from the back room. The carpet couldn’t decide whether to be orange or green.
Henry said he thought Muir, Ayers and Gravel had played well.
‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer,’ said Tommy.
No, thought Henry, but three swallows make an empty glass. ‘Same again?’ he said.
‘No, I’ll get you a drink,’ said Tommy.
‘Oh. Thanks.’ Henry tried not to sound surprised.
Tommy didn’t move.
‘About that business you were telling me about,’ said Henry. ‘Which bit of Thurmarsh is Colin Gee getting his hot little hands on?’
‘It isn’t Colin Gee,’ said Tommy. ‘He’s all right, Colin.’
So it was Fred Hathersage. Henry felt ashamed of his ruse, now that it had succeeded so easily. Magnanimous in victory, he said, ‘Same again, is it?’
‘I’ve said … I’ll get you a drink,’ said Tommy.
‘So which bit of Thurmarsh is Fred Hathersage getting his hot little hands on?’ said Henry.
‘I’ve told you too much already,’ said Tommy Marsden.
Henry couldn’t bear their empty glasses any more.
‘Look, let me get the drinks,’ he said.
‘I’ve told you. I’m getting you a drink,’ said Tommy.
A middle-aged man emerged from the snooker room, with two empty glasses. His eyes lit up as he saw Tommy.
‘Tommy Marsden!’ he said. ‘By ’eck, that were a cracker you scored against Oldham. What are you having?’
‘Oh. Ta very much, Mr Grout,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll have a pint of bitter. And so will my friend Henry.’
Tommy Marsden smiled.
‘Told you I’d get you a drink,’ he said.
There were at least 49 obstacles blocking the Suez Canal, and almost as many obstacles blocking a political solution of the crisis. The Prime Minister cancelled all engagements, due to overstrain. In Hungary, the régime was having great difficulty in persuading a hostile populace to go back to work.
Henry telephoned Fred Hathersage from a telephone box in Market Street, opposite Howard Lewthwaite’s drapery shop. Not that he had any interest in Hilary, having no great yen for screwed up, repressed, high-minded, mentally ill problem girls with horrible bodies.
‘I’ll see if Mr Hathersage can speak to you,’ said his secretary. ‘He is in conference.’
Henry noticed two gaping holes on the eastern side of Market Street, both quite close to Lewthwaite’s. You don’t go up to somebody with several teeth missing and say, ‘My word! Your remaining teeth are magnificent!’ The gaps discredit the whole mouth. So it was with the eastern side of Market Street.
‘Mr Hathersage could see you next week,’ said his secretary.
A young woman of about Hilary’s height emerged from Lewthwaite’s and crossed the road. But it wasn’t her.
‘Would that be all right?’ said Mr Hathersage’s secretary.
‘Fine. I’ll see him then, then,’ he said.
He had to ring back to find out that his appointment was for 3 p.m. next Wednesday. Could the sight of a girl who might have been Hilary throw him into such confusion? That was ridiculous.
The first Hungarian refugees arrived in Britain. Petrol was to be rationed to 200 miles a month from December 17th. The Prime Minister left for three weeks’ complete rest in Jamaica, on doctor’s orders.
It was not without trepidation that Henry ‘The man nobody muzzles’ Pratt approached Construction House, an unprepossessing raw concrete block set back off Doncaster Road, and fronted by an area of dead, sodden grass, pitted with worm casts. He was faced again with the recurring problem that he couldn’t ask the questions he wanted to ask without revealing that those were the questions that he wanted to ask.
Fred Hathersage’s office was on the th
ird floor. ‘Mr Hathersage is in conference,’ said his secretary, who had scarlet nails. She flashed him his ration of smile – three-quarters of a second.
After seven minutes, during which nobody emerged, Henry was ushered into a large room from which there was no other exit. Fred Hathersage was alone, seated behind a huge, heart-shaped desk. It seemed that, after their conference, his colleagues must have been lowered to the ground by window-cleaner’s cradle.
Fred Hathersage was bulky and bald. When he stood up, Henry couldn’t quite hide his surprise at finding that he was only five foot two. Fred Hathersage couldn’t quite hide his displeasure at the surprise that Henry hadn’t quite hidden. But he said, ‘Mr Pratt!’ as if Henry’s appearance in his office was the culmination of a lifetime’s ambition. The handshake was vicious, though.
Henry sat in a chair which dwarfed him.
‘I’m … er … planning a series of articles called “Proud Sons of Thurmarsh”,’ he said. ‘I wanted to produce a dummy article first.’
‘And you thought I’d be a suitable dummy.’
‘Yes. No! I mean … I thought you’d make a good guinea-pig. I mean, an article on you would help sell the series to the editor.’
Fred Hathersage was flattered. He talked freely. He’d begun life on a building site. (Childhood was discounted entirely, since it had earned him nothing.) He’d worked his way up, founded his own company, gone into armaments. Regretfully, he’d decided that his skill in making armaments would be more use to his country in war than his less proven ambition as a fighting man. After the War he’d made it his mission to help repair the damage caused by the Luftwaffe. A new Thurmarsh. A better Thurmarsh, rising from the ashes like a phoenix, he said, waving his arms excitedly in the direction of a photograph of the south elevation of the controversial new Splutt ambulance station, which had risen from the ashes like a controversial new ambulance station. If he could die feeling that he’d embellished Thurmarsh and its environs, he’d die a happy man.
When he stopped – he was panting considerably, and probably had to stop, for medical reasons – Henry took a deep breath, stared at a photograph of the north elevation of the controversial new headquarters of the Thurmarsh and Rawlaston Building Society, which couldn’t possibly embellish any environs, and said, ‘Do you have any large-scale plans with regard to Thurmarsh town centre, Mr Hathersage?’