by David Nobbs
‘She wants to get home before her parents go to bed. She hasn’t seen them yet,’ explained Henry.
They walked down Commercial Road in silence.
In York Road, near the station, she said, ‘If you want a good sport, you should marry Ginny.’
‘Hilary!’ he said. ‘I thought you liked Ginny,’ he added.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t an insult.’
‘You seemed to like Ted,’ he said.
She didn’t say another word. There were no kisses, that night, in Perkin Warbeck Drive.
They were on a small chain ferry, gently caressing with entwined fingers. They were crossing a placid river. Brown trout trembled against the stream. Weeds bent gently before the lazy current. On the bank, the gnarled trees were heavy with marzipan and nougat.
The ferry scraped to a halt against the chalky stones. The ferryman turned from his winch, straightened his back and grimaced. He was vaguely familiar. He began to speak. He told them, with blinding clarity, in less than thirty words, all the secrets of life, of its meaning and its conduct.
He woke up. The words faded. He could hear them but not make sense of them. He asked her if she understood them. She wasn’t there. He was alone, and last night they had parted without a kiss.
Perhaps she wouldn’t come.
She came.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, too,’ he said.
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘Not a very good evening.’
‘We have to put ourselves through a bit more stress than we did at Christmas,’ she said. ‘I’m not your princess. You aren’t my prince. We can’t marry each other while we still seem too good to be true.’
For lunch they had bread and marmalade. He dropped a dollop of marmalade on her stomach, and licked it off. By the time they’d dragged themselves from the crumpled wreck of his narrow bed it was almost dark.
Their love was proof against the relentless rain. Darkness lent enchantment to the shining wet streets.
Cousin Hilda was making supper. She sniffed, and Henry wondered if she could smell sex on them. But the air was full of the aroma of imminent faggots, and her disapproval was for the inopportune timing of their visit.
‘You should have told me you were coming,’ she said. ‘If it was stew I’d make it stretch, but you can’t stretch faggots. Two faggots are two faggots, whichever road you look at them. It wouldn’t be fair to make my businessmen go short, who’ve paid.’
‘We can’t eat, thank you very much,’ said Hilary. ‘We’re expected at home.’
Cousin Hilda sniffed. ‘You could have been expected at this home,’ she said.
‘We didn’t want to be any trouble,’ said Henry.
‘Trouble!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘I suppose you’re above and beyond faggots, now you’re a journalist.’
‘Very much the reverse,’ said Henry. He met Hilary’s eyes and she smiled with the utmost decorum.
‘Hilary and I are engaged, Cousin Hilda,’ said Henry.
Cousin Hilda didn’t attempt to hide her hurt, but she couldn’t quite hide the delight behind the hurt.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Engaged! Well! And I’ve never even met her before. Well!’
Henry kissed her. Then Hilary kissed her. She received these kisses as her due.
‘Well!’ she said. ‘Mrs Wedderburn will be pleased. She’ll be right thrilled. She’s very fond of you.’ There were tears in Cousin Hilda’s eyes. She just managed to finish speaking without breaking down. ‘It’ll make Mrs Wedderburn’s day, will this.’ She hurried off into the scullery. ‘All this talk,’ she said. ‘I’m neglecting my faggots.’
Henry’s eyes were filled with tears too, damn it. And so were Hilary’s. This was intolerable.
‘Can I help?’ said Hilary, hurrying into the scullery.
To Henry’s astonishment, Hilary didn’t reappear. Cousin Hilda allowed her to help. No greater compliment could possibly have been paid by Cousin Hilda. Slowly, shamingly slowly, he was beginning to realize that he’d been blessed with the love of a quite extraordinary person. He was filled with astonishing warmth and joy. He sat and stared at the glowing stove. He could hear them clattering in the scullery. He heard Cousin Hilda say, ‘Mrs Wedderburn’s had a soft spot for Henry ever since she lent him her camp-bed.’ The tears were streaming down his face. He hurried upstairs to the lavatory, to hide this damning evidence of emotion.
Cousin Hilda insisted that they stayed. Hilary must meet her businessmen. She even offered them a cup of tea! So Hilary was introduced to Liam, who adored her instantly, and to Norman Pettifer, who tried to take a jaundiced view of her and failed, and to Mr Peters, who thought she was a fine thing and told her of other fine things to which he had become used. They sat and chatted, as the three men demolished their faggots, their mashed potatoes, their peas, their tinned pears to follow.
Oh joy of youth, it was still raining, and, as they walked to Perkin Warbeck Drive, they were able to demonstrate again that rain couldn’t hurt them.
The sight of Howard Lewthwaite brought Henry back to the reality that he’d had to hide from Hilary. How could they lose each other now, after the bonds they had forged that day? And now he made sure that the bonds were even more closely forged. He suggested that they fix the wedding date. They did. Saturday, July 20th. Nadežda cried. Sam asked if they’d had their oats that morning and had it been better than cornflakes? Henry met Howard Lewthwaite’s eye and his look tried to say, ‘Yes. We’ve made love. We love each other deeply and respect each other totally and believe our love is a most beautiful and moral thing.’ Howard Lewthwaite gave him a look which might have meant, ‘I understand and I’m not angry’ but might also have meant, ‘What on earth is that look of yours supposed to mean?’ Henry gave him a look which was supposed to mean, ‘Can you give me any hint regarding the progress of your investigations into the dire matter which hangs over this touching domestic scene like a thundercloud over the sweet cow-dunged water meadows at the end of a midge-mad July day?’ and Howard Lewthwaite gave him a look which might have meant, ‘I haven’t found out anything definite,’ but might also have meant, ‘Since neither of us has the faintest idea what each other’s looks mean, it looks as though we ought to stop giving each other these looks.’
‘Don’t mind me,’ said Auntie Doris through her tears, as the wind rattled the windows of the lounge bar of the White Hart. ‘I’m just a silly, feeble-minded old woman.’
‘Yes, you are,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘So shut up.’
‘Geoffrey!’ said Auntie Doris.
‘Joke!’ said Geoffrey Porringer.
‘Jokes are supposed to be funny, Geoffrey,’ said Auntie Doris.
Over late lunch in the hotel’s deserted restaurant, she wanted to know every detail of their courtship. ‘Italy!’ she said. ‘How romantic! And then the long quest before you met again. Isn’t that a lovely story, Geoffrey?’
Geoffrey Porringer nodded and said, ‘Lovely. Let’s crack another bottle.’
While Geoffrey Porringer cracked another bottle, Auntie Doris said, ‘Does this mean you won’t come to Cap Ferrat?’
‘Do you want me to come?’ said Henry.
‘More than anything in the world,’ said Auntie Doris, who was no stranger to hyperbole.
‘I’ll come for a week,’ said Henry, who was. Auntie Doris looked so gratified that he wished he hadn’t already begun to add, ‘I have to take my third week before the end of March anyway.’
When Auntie Doris went to see a man about a dog, Geoffrey Porringer said, ‘She’s excited, Hilary. I don’t want you to think she’s always like this.’
‘Everything’s fine,’ said Hilary. ‘I’m enjoying myself.’
‘Sometimes when she’s happy, she gets carried away, and doesn’t realize how much she’s drinking,’ said Geoffrey Porringer.
When Hilary went to see a man about a dog, Geoffrey Porringer said, ‘She’s lovely, Henry. S
he really is. I can’t get over it.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ said Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. ‘It makes it sound as though we wouldn’t expect him to make a decent catch.’
‘Decent catch!’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘He’s landed in the middle of a shoal of mackerel.’
When Henry went to see a man about a dog, he didn’t know what they talked about, but they were all laughing when he returned, and he was a little disturbed to find how richly entertaining life without him was.
‘It’s a nice hotel,’ said Hilary.
‘How the conversation descends to the banal when I return,’ said Henry.
‘I’ll show you the brochure, Hilary,’ said Geoffrey Porringer.
‘Geoffrey!’ said Auntie Doris. ‘Young people in love aren’t interested in brochures. They’ve other things on their minds.’
‘She’s got a tongue in her head,’ said Geoffrey Porringer. ‘Hilary, would you like to see the brochure?’
‘Very much,’ said Hilary.
‘You see!’ said Geoffrey Porringer.
‘She could hardly say, “God, no! How tedious,’” said Auntie Doris.
When Geoffrey Porringer had gone to fetch the brochure, Auntie Doris said, ‘Henry had been interceding on my behalf with his Uncle Teddy, hadn’t you, Henry?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Henry. ‘Yes, I had.’
‘Until he was incarcerated in the ruins of his life’s dream,’ said Auntie Doris.
‘I heard about that,’ said Hilary. ‘It was tragic.’
It could be more tragic than you know, thought Henry.
‘It was, Hilary,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘That’s exactly what it was. And at the time, when it happened, Henry, I think you felt there was a chance, didn’t you?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Henry. ‘Yes, I did.’
Geoffrey Porringer returned, waving the brochure.
‘There we are, Hilary,’ he said. ‘One brochure.’
Hilary studied the brochure with as much interest as she could muster.
‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘Very reasonable.’
‘We like to think so,’ said Geoffrey Porringer.
In the train, on the journey from a fading evening of sodden sheep to a sodium night of glistening roofs, Hilary said, ‘I thought you were exaggerating, but they’re every bit as bad as you said.’
‘Auntie Doris and Geoffrey Porringer?’
‘No. His blackheads.’
At Leeds, she caught the train north and this time she didn’t turn away abruptly. She leant out of the window. He walked beside her. ‘Love you,’ she said. ‘Love you love you love you.’ He began to trot, he was out beyond the canopy, in the rain again. ‘Love you,’ she yelled again. He stopped right at the end of the platform, where it narrowed to a wedge. Smoke from the engine swirled around him, but every now and then it cleared and there she was, moving furiously, unashamed of love, of sentiment, of intensity, of banality, of childishness, unable to be hurt by any separation that was merely geographical. He watched until the last of the twelve bogies was invisible, and then he turned away. Rain streamed down his face. Tears streamed down his face. Never had his face been bombarded by so much water in one weekend.
President Eisenhower spoke of the ‘abiding strength’ of the Anglo-American alliance. Israel continued to refuse to withdraw her forces from Gaza. Canada refused to support demands for Israel to withdraw, and threatened to withdraw her troops from the emergency force unless the United Nations force was empowered to patrol the Israeli–Egyptian border and to remain to keep the peace after the Israeli withdrawal. Workers at Briggs Motor Bodies voted to defy their union and continue their strike.
‘Hello, boys and girls,’ typed Henry, bashing the keys angrily. ‘Some of you Argusnauts are already making contributions to next Christmas’s toy fund, so that less fortunate children can have a treat. Well done, each and every one of you.
‘Special thanks this week for Dora Pennyweather, aged 11, who made six super teddy bears. I’m so sorry I couldn’t meet her when she handed them in at our office.’
That afternoon, he interviewed Bill Holliday for ‘Proud Sons of Thurmarsh’. He felt that this would make him the laughing stock of the whole town.
The dun-coloured bus growled irritably through the southern suburbs. Rows of semi-detached houses breasted the sweeping hills. Some had dark red brick ground floors and stucco above. Some had brick centres and stucco edges. Some had bay windows topped by tiny tiled roofs. Some had decorated brick arches round the doorways. These brave attempts at individuality only emphasized the sameness of it all. Towns didn’t grow organically any more. They were planned by bureaucrats, and people were moved around to fit the plans. Society would pay for all this deadness, thought Henry, as the inexorable bus took him nearer and nearer to Bill Holliday, whom he was convinced was at the centre of all the dirty work surrounding the development plan.
Bill Holliday’s office was a glass island in a sea of cars. In front of it, rows of used cars. What mechanical horrors did the gleaming, seemingly innocent bonnets conceal? Behind the office, on the rolling slopes of what had once been prime farmland, an alp of rust rose out of a glistening porridge of mud. The office had wide windows on both sides, as if Bill Holliday actually wanted to see all this. It had a fluffy white carpet and two soft armchairs covered in imitation tiger skin. There was a glass-fronted drinks cabinet.
‘Brandy?’ said Bill Holliday.
Refusals crunched round Henry’s brain like old cars under a bulldozer. I don’t while I’m on duty. It might affect my judgement. I wouldn’t soil my gullet with your ill-gotten gains, you murderous bastard.
He finally decided upon, ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Cigar?’
Ditto.
Puffing, choking, sipping, choking, at three-fifteen on a grey afternoon, Henry felt a bit of a villain himself. And liked the feeling, which was alarming. He apologized for the misprint. Bill Holliday laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘“Ow”! It just about sums up our engagement.’ He sighed. ‘She wants me for my money. The jewellery I buy her. I want love.’ Love? You? Mr Scrap? The man you wouldn’t buy a used car from? Love? ‘People laugh when I say this, but I’m a deeply loving person. I love kids. Angie doesn’t want kids. Tell you who I’d like to meet on your rag. Oops, sorry. Paper.’ He roared with laughter. ‘Uncle Jason. Loves kids, that bastard. White-haired old bugger, is he?’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘Yes. White-haired old bugger.’
‘Grand. I’m an unashamed sentimentalist. They don’t make them like that, any more.’
Henry took a deep breath and plunged in, hoping to catch Bill Holliday off guard.
‘My Uncle Teddy ran the Cap Ferrat,’ he said. ‘You knew him, didn’t you?’
‘Oh aye. Angie and I went there, oh, what, must have been four times.’
‘Are you sure it wasn’t five?’ Henry tried not to sound terrified. ‘Are you sure you didn’t go there once more, without Angie?’
‘What?’ Bill Holliday looked more puzzled than alarmed. ‘On me own? I wouldn’t have dared go without Angie.’
Henry had the uneasy feeling that all avenues led to brick walls. He began his interview. Bill Holliday defended his line of business. ‘Folk think it’s a dirty business, ’cos of t’great mounds of cars. What silly buggers don’t realize is, if it weren’t for my mounds, where’d cars be? Eh? All over t’bloody town. All over t’bloody Dales. Right?’ He defended greyhound racing. ‘When have six dogs had to be destroyed after pile-up over Bechers? Eh? Sport of kings? Piss off. Give me dogs any day.’
He refilled Henry’s glass and led him to the window. They gazed in awe at the pile of rusting Fords, Morrises, Humbers, Standards, Armstrong-Siddeleys. At the top of the pile, an Austin Seven was lying across a Daimler.
‘Equal, at last, in death. Like folks,’ said Bill Holliday.
Henry looked at him in surprise.
‘This is just a molehill, compared to what’s to come,’ said Bill Holliday. ‘Motoring will increase tenfold. Old cars will increase tenfold. It’ll be folk like me what saves the world from choking. Does the world thank us? Does it buggery.’
Henry watched a beautiful old Riley being crushed flat. He shuddered.
‘How would tha like to be crushed like that?’ said Bill Holliday. ‘Wouldn’t be much fun, eh?’
He roared with laughter.
Henry didn’t.
A patrol of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders was ambushed by mountain tribesmen in the Western Aden Protectorate. Fighting flared up on the Aden frontier, threatened by 4,000 Yemenis. Security forces arrested 189 men in 4 days in the mountains of Western Cyprus. In Thurmarsh a crate of surgical trusses fell from a crane and nearly killed Uncle Jason. These were dangerous days.
He was on his way to catch the bus to Hexington, where he would interview Colonel Boyce-Uppingham, Chief Torch Bearer of the Arc (?) of the Golden Light of Our Lady, in the Athenaeum Club in Doncaster Road. Being early, he’d gone to have another look at the planned development area. The southernmost warehouse in Glasshouse Lane was still in use, although it was lorries now, not boats, that used its wharf. Pleased to see some life in this dying area, Henry watched as a crane slowly manipulated a crate, which contained, though he didn’t yet know it, a consignment of surgical trusses for export to Portugal. One moment he was looking up into a blue sky streaked with mackerel clouds. The next moment he was watching a crate falling towards him, growing larger and larger. He hurled himself to the right, tripped and fell. The crate smashed into the pavement, inches from his head. It burst open. Wood and splinters filled the air. Surgical trusses, intended for the hernias of Lisbon and Oporto, rained down on a terrified young English journalist.
He sat up. He stood up. His heart was thumping. His legs felt weak. He leant against the warehouse wall. The crane driver yelled out, pitifully inadequately, ‘Sorry!’
The landlord of the Artisan’s Rest hurried over. ‘I saw that,’ he said. ‘Tha were lucky!’