by David Nobbs
‘Do you really know anything about Canadian artists, Henry?’ he was asking.
‘Not a jot,’ Henry admitted. ‘I looked the names up in the library.’
Johnson Protheroe’s mood changed again. ‘Typical bloody British insularity,’ he growled. ‘Canada’s full of hick towns like this full of ignorant people full of crap, but at least they know there is a world outside. Exciting things are happening back home.’ He began to shout. ‘Nobody here gives a damn.’ Everybody pretended not to hear. ‘You see!’ he roared.
The food arrived. Henry seemed to have ordered a prawn curry. Johnson Protheroe’s beef curry did nothing for his mood. He slammed a pile of coins on the table, shouted, ‘This food is dreadful. Come on, Deborah,’ and hurried to the door. He turned to face the crowded room and shouted, ‘You’re all ass-holes, especially Henry Pratt.’
He lurched out into the street. Deborah hurried back to their table and said, softly, ‘I’m sorry. I hardly ever get to eat these days. Somebody once told Johnson that his name sounded like a firm of merchant bankers. Ever since then he’s been trying to be wild and Bohemian. What an artist he could be if he didn’t waste all his energies being what he thinks an artist ought to be. It’s been lovely meeting you. I think you’re sweet people.’
Henry returned to his prawn curry. He was ravenous.
Ben and Colin discovered how late it was. Gordon said he and Jill must be going too. Everybody said nice things to Henry. Jill even kissed him, saying ‘Mmmmm!’ as if to convince herself that it had been a pleasant experience.
‘Ted won’t be back tonight,’ said Helen. She put her hand on his thigh. He put his hand on her thigh. She took his hand down towards her knee and lifted it up under her skirt. He felt that something was wrong. He couldn’t remember what.
They were outside. Presumably they’d paid. How nice it was to go beautiful with a home woman.
They kissed each other. She slid her tongue into his mouth like a paper-knife. Something was wrong. He couldn’t remember what.
She hailed a taxi, and it stopped. She was flushed with triumph. Taxis had been hard to come by since Suez. She’d protested about Suez. Well, not this she. Not what’s-her-name. The other she. Hilary. Hilary!!!
She got into the taxi. He shut the door.
‘Good night,’ he said.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Can’t come back with you,’ he said. ‘Hilary.’
Her pert lips pouted. She went pink. She was breathing very hard. He couldn’t worry about her. He turned away. He heard her taxi drive off.
He felt awful. He tried gulping fresh air but it didn’t help. He dimly remembered that he oughtn’t to be being careless and lurching around the town, drunk and alone. He couldn’t remember why.
He slipped and fell. He struggled to his feet and hurried into a narrow alley that ran from Market Street through to Church Street. He didn’t want any policemen seeing him while his legs weren’t working. At the junction with another alley, in a tiny square dimly lit by one feeble lamp, a scared cat passed him, screeching. Scared of what?
Scared of the six youths who blocked his path, six youths with bleak, tense faces, six youths with bicycle chains. Maybe the idea was to beat him to a pulp, terrify him, scare him off.
He swung left into the other alley, which led to Bargates, where Henry had spent so much time in the now defunct Paw Paw Coffee Bar and Grill. Six youths blocked his path, six youths in drainpipe trousers and Edwardian jackets, six youths with knives and razors. Thurmarsh’s first Teds. Today Thurmarsh, yesterday the world. So this was it. The end of twenty-one years of struggle towards a manhood dimly perceived, he was a well-nourished young man of below-average height, his stomach bore the mainly undigested remains of a prawn curry, he had drunk the equivalent of …
He turned, and tried to walk back the way he’d come, into Market Street. He expected to see six more youths blocking his way. There was nobody.
He walked away with a calmness he didn’t feel. His legs screamed to him to break into a run. He refused. He’d only inflame their insults by showing his fear.
He began to get the feeling that nobody was following him. With the return of hope came the fullness of fear, neck-pricking, scalp-crawling, sweat-drenching fear. He had to turn and look. He mustn’t. He did. There was nobody.
He heard the first sounds of battle, the swish of bicycle chains, the ring of iron boot, the scream of a razored face. They were fighting each other, not him! Relief buckled his knees. At first it seemed as if he were running in a dream, stuck fast, not moving, but then he was tearing down the alley, he was in Market Street, there was the dark drapery store. Hilary lived, he lived, life stretched before him. It crossed his mind that the day, which had begun with a story which he hadn’t recognized, was ending with another one. Gang warfare in town centre. He listened to the sounds of distant battle, and scurried off as fast as his little legs could carry him.
By the time he got home, his head was throbbing and his stomach was heaving. He’d had a traumatic day. He’d had too much to drink. His resistance to prawn curry had been fatally weakened.
23 In which Our Hero Makes Two Identifications
THE FIRST OIL went into the Suez Canal since the fighting ended. Henry struggled to work, unsure where his food poisoning ended and his hangover began. He was so ill that he was sent home. There was no possibility of his going to see Howard Lewthwaite, let alone travelling to Durham. He spent the best part of that Saturday in bed. We’ll draw a veil over where he spent the worst part of it.
On Monday, February 11th, a mild earthquake, centred on Charnwood Forest, caused pit props to shake in Drobwell Main Colliery, brought about a fall of masonry in the remains of the Old Apothecary’s House and distracted Henry from the immortal words, ‘Hello, boys and girls. May I remind all Argusnauts living in the Winstanley area about a beetle drive to be held next Saturday at the home of 12 year-old Timothy Darlington. Timothy called at our offices last week with the grand total of £17 raised at a similar function, and I was very sorry indeed to miss him.’
A mild earthquake, centred on the editor’s office, shook every bone in Henry’s body when he was forced to admit that, due to prawn curry poisoning, he’d not been able to tell his beloved of his great scoop, and requested a further stay of what was seeming more and more like execution. A final delay of one week was reluctantly granted. Mr Andrew Redrobe also gave up over the great education controversy. There had still not been a single letter from the general public. Beneath Colin’s third letter, signed ‘Second Angry Schoolmaster’, there appeared the message, ‘This correspondence is now closed, due to lack of space-Ed.’
Later that morning, Henry was sent to get a local angle on the shooting of a major feature film.
He caught the Rawlaston tram. It rumbled out of the valley, breasted the summit by Brunswick Road Primary School and dropped down again into the smoky valley. The road swung right. On the right was the vast, blank wall of Crapp, Hawser and Kettlewell. On the left, the tiny, grimy, cobbled culs-de-sac, among which Henry had been born.
‘Paradise,’ sang out the conductor.
Henry stepped off the tram, looked round anxiously but saw nobody who appeared to be about to kill him.
Paradise Lane was completely blocked by generators and film unit vans, which were almost as high as the wine-red terraces. A mobile catering van had been parked right outside number 23. Henry longed to say to the waiting technicians and extras, ‘Forget your curried lamb. Never mind your plum duff. Twenty-one years ago, in that little house on which you’re turning your backs, a parrot ended its life and I began mine.’
Cables snaked through the gate onto the muddy towpath of the Rundle and Gadd Navigation. They ran along the towpath, and up onto the elegant brick hump bridge over the cut. Standing on the bridge, among a crowd of sightseers, were Angela Groyne and the man whom Henry suspected of trying to kill him. He didn’t want Bill Holliday to know he was afraid, so he joined them, but
took care not to stand too near the edge.
The muddy waste-ground between the insalubrious cut and the equally unsavoury river was crowded with film men and their equipment. The lights and the camera were angled towards a man with a huge green head and tentacles, who was standing in a spring-like contraption on the river bank.
‘He’s a monster from outer space,’ explained Angela Groyne in a whisper. ‘From some strange planet or summat. ’e ’as these incredible powers, like ’e can jump across t’ Rundle.’
‘They’ve built this special spring,’ whispered Bill Holliday. ‘They’ve tried it four times. He’s landed in bloody river each time.’
‘OK. We’re going for a take,’ shouted an assistant director. ‘OK. Absolute hush, everybody.’
‘337, take 5,’ shouted the clapper-boy.
A special-effects man operated the spring. The green-tentacled monster leapt into the air, and landed in the middle of the river.
‘Bugger,’ shouted the director.
‘OK. Lunch. Back at 2.23,’ shouted the assistant director.
‘Does tha fancy a pint?’ said Bill Holliday.
‘Not in the Navigation. I’m banned from there,’ said Henry proudly.
‘Not in my company, tha’s not,’ said Bill Holliday, and Henry shuddered at the man’s power.
And so Cecil E. Jenkinson was forced to serve Henry with a pint of bitter, and Henry was forced to drink it in the company of a man who was probably trying to kill him.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Angie’s in it,’ said Bill Holliday proudly.
‘Oh! What do you play?’ he asked.
‘A corpse,’ said Bill Holliday. ‘She plays a corpse.’
Henry shuddered, in that tiny snug heaving with film folk.
‘Well, it’s mainly corpses, really,’ said Angela Groyne. ‘There’s this deadly gas or summat, so nobody can go out, but I was out already so I’m dead.’
‘Two bloody great monsters turn her over and examine her,’ said Bill Holliday. ‘First monster says “Hey up, she’s copped it,” or words to that effect. Second monster says “Aye, and it’s a right shame an’ all because she looks a right tasty piece at that,” or words to that effect.’
Henry wished they wouldn’t go on and on about death.
‘There’s a long lingering close-up of her dead,’ said Bill Holliday.
‘You might think it’s dead easy just to lie there dead, but it’s not, it’s dead difficult,’ said Angela Groyne. ‘You have to be right careful not to breathe in or out or owt.’
Henry managed to turn away and talk to an assistant to the design assistant, who said, ‘Fabulous area, this.’
‘You like it?’ said Henry. ‘Great. I was born here.’
‘Fabulous,’ said the assistant to the design assistant. ‘We needed a grimy, wretched, dying earth, and a noxious outer space full of dust, swirling fog and poisonous gases. We’ve found every location we need within a mile of here.’
Henry bought drinks for Bill Holliday and Angela Groyne. His bladder was getting full, but he didn’t dare go, for fear Bill Holliday would spike his drink.
The stuntman came in. He’d removed his head, but still created quite a stir with his tentacles and green body. His name was Freddie Bentley, he came from Wath-on-Dearne, and Henry knew that he’d got his story. South Yorkshire stuntman jumps to stardom. As he interviewed him, Henry began to feel that he’d met him somewhere before. Freddie Bentley became wary, and denied it with unnecessary fervour. And Henry remembered. Of course! Freddie Bentley must have been driving the lorry for Bill Holliday! And now here he was, in front of Bill Holliday, talking of seeing Freddie Bentley before! He might as well sign his own death warrant. Another drink appeared. Was it spiked? ‘Drink up,’ said Bill Holliday. Nervously, he drank up. His bladder was aching. He’d have to go.
Bill Holliday followed him. If Henry felt relieved that Bill Holliday couldn’t be slipping anything into his drink, he didn’t feel relieved to be relieving himself beside Bill Holliday in an otherwise deserted urinal. He half expected to feel a knife twisting in his stomach. Nothing happened. He felt a trickle of returning courage. He decided to fight back. As they returned to the crowded bar, he said, ‘Seen any good trusses lately?’
Bill Holliday went pale. ‘How did you guess?’ he said.
‘It was obvious,’ said Henry.
The trade gap widened to £103.6 million. The government increased local rates in order to give councils more freedom of choice over expenditure on education, child care, fire brigades and health. The unemployment figures had increased to 382,605.
On Tuesday, February 12th, Henry interviewed Mr Gibbins for ‘Proud Sons of Thurmarsh’. Mr Gibbins had completely forgotten that, eleven Februaries ago, in his classroom, Henry had been the author of a phenomenal amount of wind. Henry had mixed emotions of relief and hurt pride.
The head offices of Joyce and Sons had no record of drivers named Freddie Bentley or Dave Nasenby. Henry must have been mistaken about his old friends.
That evening, shortly before nine o’clock, the doorbell rang loudly, insistently, aggressively. He hurried out with pumping heart. Was it Bill Holliday? Or Stan Holliday? Or Fred Hathersage? Or all three?
Ginny hurried downstairs, in blue slacks and an off-white shirt stretched tight over her large breasts.
‘Who is it?’ he called, anxiously.
‘Police.’
They looked at each other. He opened the door. There were two officers.
‘Henry Pratt?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve found the driver of the Standard Eight. Do you think you’ll be able to identify him?’
He had to try. Ginny insisted on coming, to lend him moral support. How could he tell her that they might not be real policemen, they could be Bill Holliday’s boys? Besides, if they were, a young woman of her build might be distinctly useful.
They weren’t Bill Holliday’s boys. They drove to York Road Police Station.
Ginny sat in the waiting-room beside a large, square, stony-faced woman with a pile of copies of the Watchtower. She looked like a sculpture on which naughty boys had painted a moustache.
An officer led Henry towards a dark grey door. At the door he said, ‘There’s six people lined up in there. Walk up and down the line carefully. Take your time. Make absolutely sure. Say nowt unless you can positively identify the man. In which case, when you’re sure, point at him very clearly, so there’s no possibility of mistake, and say “That’s ’im. The third one from my right.”’
‘What?’ said Henry.
‘That was just an example,’ said the officer hastily. ‘I’m not saying that’s where he’ll be. He could be fourth from your left or owt.’
‘Fourth from the left is the same as third from the right,’ said Henry.
The officer worked it out.
‘Oh aye, so it is,’ he said.
Henry felt nervous. It isn’t easy to come face to face with a man who’s tried to murder you. He took a deep breath, stepped through the grey door, approached the line of people, looked up and found himself staring straight into the impassive face of Terry Skipton.
Terry Skipton? Could it be? Until Friday he’d believed that Terry Skipton didn’t like him, but … until Friday! If Terry Skipton had tried to kill him, and had wondered if Henry’d seen him, that might account for his sudden change of attitude. He remembered that rather hunched, almost deformed impression the driver had made on him. Terry Skipton! But he couldn’t identify him positively. And they never put the suspect on the end, did they? Better move on. He hoped none of these thoughts were visible to Terry Skipton.
He moved on. He found himself gazing into an evil, guilty face. He could hardly spend less time looking at any of them than he’d spent looking at Terry Skipton, so he had to continue to look at the man long after he knew it wasn’t him.
With pumping heart he looked at the man who was third from
the right and fourth from the left. Had the officer been hinting? Another evil, guilty face, certainly, but no, it wasn’t him.
He moved on. Another evil, guilty face. Did all men look evil and guilty when placed in a police line-up? Would St Francis of Assissi have looked like a flasher, in an identification parade?
He moved on again, and looked into the face of the man who’d tried to murder him. A shiver ran right through him. His certainty was total. That slightly twisted neck, the white face set at a slight angle, hunched into a mass of knobbly shoulder. The sense that the man was in the car, driving straight for him, was so strong that he had to force himself not to jump out of the way.
Even though he was absolutely certain, he felt obliged to move on and examine the sixth suspect. If a man gave up his time, during licensing hours, to stand in an identification parade, it was only polite that you should take the trouble to stare suspiciously at him through narrowed eyes for thirty seconds.
He returned to the second man from the left, and again he knew. And the man knew that he knew.
‘That’s the man,’ he said, pointing. ‘The second one from my left.’
They led Henry back, out of the bare cold room into the warmer parts of the building.
‘Thank you,’ said the officer. ‘You picked the right man. You thought I were hinting before, didn’t you?’
‘Well … I … er …’
‘It’s just that I’m thick.’
‘Well … I … er …’
‘Now, are you absolutely sure? ’cos in court they’ll say you didn’t have time to see him properly.’
‘Absolutely sure. The horror of it’s etched in my mind.’
‘Good man.’
The officer led him into the waiting-room, where Terry Skipton was standing beside the moustachioed lady with the Watchtowers.
‘My wife Violet,’ he said gruffly.
Henry’s legs began to wobble. He sat down hurriedly.
‘Are you all right?’ said the officer.
‘Oh yes,’ said Henry. ‘It’s just a bit of a shock gazing into the face of the man who tried to murder you.’