by David Nobbs
‘I think you’re lovely and worth all those people put together and it makes me bloody livid that you can’t see it,’ said Hilary, and she slammed the bedroom door and locked herself in the bathroom and burst into tears.
Henry was very drunk, Hilary fairly drunk, Hilary crying in the bathroom, Henry pleading outside the bathroom door. Both utterly exhausted. Unpromising beginnings for a night of love.
Yet afterwards, when they counted, they were very nearly certain that it was on that night that Jack was conceived.
If Henry had written down his ideal list of guests for their first Christmas at home, it would not have consisted of Howard Lewthwaite, Nadežda Lewthwaite, Sam Lewthwaite, Cousin Hilda, Mrs Wedderburn, Liam O’Reilly and Norman Pettifer. After that dinner party at the Dower House, however, all social difficulties paled into insignificance.
They had roast turkey and all the trimmings, and everyone drank wine except for Cousin Hilda and Mrs Wedderburn. Cousin Hilda looked shocked when Norman Pettifer and especially Mr O’Reilly accepted, and Mr O’Reilly went puce with courage. Cousin Hilda even looked slightly shocked when Mrs Wedderburn said, in answer to Henry’s attempts at persuasion, ‘It’s not that I disapprove. I just hate the taste.’
Kate slept and fed and watched and smiled and just might have been dimly aware that it was a special day. Sam described everything as ‘grisly’, it was his word of the month, but everyone else enjoyed themselves and Henry and Hilary worked as a splendid team, having been too busy to be unhappy. Their happiness, and Kate’s, was toasted, and even Cousin Hilda raised her glass of water and almost smiled. Howard Lewthwaite occasionally looked sad and Nadežda occasionally looked distant and when the splendid cheese board was served Norman Pettifer made his only bitter remark of the day. ‘Not bought from Adrian, clearly,’ he said.
Everyone took turns at holding Kate, but Nadežda felt that she would be too heavy, and in the kitchen, as they made coffee, Hilary said, ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have let them all hold Kate. It’s brought her disability home to Mummy,’ and Henry said, ‘I think she must know it already, since she’s in a wheelchair,’ and then he apologised and kissed her and said, ‘We had to do it. It’s made Mrs Wedderburn’s day and Mr O’Reilly’s year,’ and the brief shadow passed.
As the light faded, Henry and Nadežda and Howard and Sam played a long game of Monopoly, and Hilary, Cousin Hilda, Mrs Wedderburn, Mr O’Reilly and Norman Pettifer contested many a hard-fought bout of Snap.
In the evening, they had cold ham and salad, while they watched Christmas Night with the Stars, introduced by David Nixon. Then they watched Harry Belafonte with the George Mitchell Singers, and Top Hat with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
As the News began, Cousin Hilda said, ‘Well, that were a right good night if you like singing and dancing.’
After the News there was a five-minute mental health appeal by Christopher Mayhew MP.
‘Where’s the sense of depressing us on Christmas Day?’ said Cousin Hilda.
‘Surely we can spare five minutes to think of those less fortunate than ourselves?’ said Hilary, and Cousin Hilda blazed with Christian shame.
Norman Pettifer snored several times during The Black Eye, with David Kossoff, but afterwards he said he’d enjoyed it.
When The Epilogue began, Henry moved to switch the set off.
‘You’re never switching The Epilogue off on Christmas Day!’ said Cousin Hilda.
‘No,’ lied Henry cravenly. ‘There was a fly on the screen. I was going to brush it off.’
After The Epilogue, Henry and Hilary saw their guests to the door. It was past midnight.
‘It’s been the best day of my life,’ said Liam O’Reilly. ‘Definitely.’
Hilary turned away, to hide the tears in her eyes.
The fierce winter of 1959 held the British Isles in its grip. In London there was a return of the killer smog, in which 3,000 people had died in four days in 1952, and all eight and a half miles of Britain’s first motorway were closed after just forty-eight days, due to rainwater and melted snow seeping under the surface.
In the Midlands, 10,000 girls who made nylon stockings took a twelve per cent wage cut to save jobs.
Tosser Pilkington-Brick phoned Henry and Hilary and said, ‘We’ve got a little girl.’
‘Terrific,’ said Henry. ‘What are you calling her?’
‘Camilla,’ said Tosser.
‘Well never mind,’ said Henry. ‘I do hope all goes well for you, anyway.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tosser. ‘Had any thoughts about pensions and insurance yet?’
Henry ‘Incapable of thinking about pensions and insurance’ Pratt caught the train from Thurmarsh to Leeds every morning, sent out more letters, collated more replies, produced a draft of a leaflet giving advice on the planting and care of indoor and outdoor cucumbers, accepted with simulated humility and gratitude Roland Stagg’s suggestion that it become two booklets, one for indoors and one for outdoors, negotiated a leaflet budget with Sid Pentelow, made a little work go a long way, kept a low profile, produced a set of encouraging statistics, accepted Roland Stagg’s suggestion that he make the statistics less encouraging, so that there would be more room for improvement and credit for the department later, felt that he was getting nowhere and that nothing whatsoever in the world of cucumbers had been changed one iota by his appointment to the Cucumber Marketing Board, and was warmly congratulated on his progress by the Director (Operations), the Head of Establishments and the Regional Co-ordinator, Northern Counties (Excluding Berwick-on-Tweed).
Neither Mr Tubman-Edwards nor Henry ever mentioned the dinner party at the Dower House.
Hilary discovered that she was pregnant, and Kate began to crawl, backwards at first, then forwards.
Russ Conway became a star, Cliff Richard’s career began, and Henry had three pieces of news, and all three depressed him, and it depressed him that they depressed him, and this disturbed him, and it disturbed him that so many things disturbed him.
The first piece of news was told him by Hilary, one late spring morning, while she was changing Kate’s nappy in front of the gas fire, in the still uncarpeted living room.
‘Darling?’ she said, with ominous seriousness.
‘Yes?’ Henry’s heart raced psychically.
‘I’ve finished my novel.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve sent it to an agent somebody recommended.’
‘Oh.’
‘Is that all you can say – “oh”?’
‘Of course not. Great. I’m thrilled.’
‘No, you aren’t. You’re jealous.’
‘Of course I’m not. I’m absolutely thrilled. I’m … I’m just surprised. I mean, you haven’t said a word about it for months.’
‘Because you get so jealous.’
‘I don’t. I’m just a bit annoyed because I would like not to have been so insulted by being kept in the dark.’
‘I couldn’t tell you. You make it impossible for me to tell you.’
‘I see. I’m impossible.’
‘I didn’t say that. You see, you’re angry.’
‘How can you say that? What sort of a person do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know any more.’
‘Oh. Great.’
They hardly spoke for the rest of the weekend. On Monday, in his office, looking out onto a courtyard full of offices full of people looking out at him, Henry felt deeply depressed and fought hard to find in himself the generosity to tell Hilary how much he hoped her book would be a success.
That evening, he did find the generosity.
‘I hope it’s a huge success,’ he said. ‘I hope it’s a best-seller.’
They kissed, and later they made love, and Kate was fun, and they were happy, except … Henry knew that he hadn’t found the generosity to mean what he said, and he suspected that Hilary knew this.
The second and third pieces of news that depressed him were both imparted in the heaving lounge b
ar of the White Hart, in which Kate was a sensation. Even hard-bitten seed merchants agreed that she was one of the most beautiful babies in the history of the human race.
As Henry struggled to the bar, he found his way blocked by the broad backs of a row of regulars, all taller than him. One of the backs, a member of the county set, turned to his neighbour and said, ‘I hear Belinda’s whelped,’ and as he pushed through to get served, Henry said, ‘Excuse me, are you referring to Belinda Boyce-Uppingham, by any chance?’
‘What’s it to you?’ said County Set unpleasantly.
‘I knew her well as a child.’
County Set looked as if he thought it unlikely.
‘Well, she’s had a little girl called Tessa,’ he said, and turned his back on Henry.
Why should it depress me, pondered Henry, that Belinda Boyce-Uppingham, that frontispiece for Country Life, whom I foolishly adored when I knew no better, has whelped?
The third piece of news was that the baby of Lorna Lugg, his childhood sweetheart, was called Marlene.
Two monkeys, fired into space by the Americans, returned to earth safely. Four mice were less lucky, and circuited the earth until they died.
Golden summer covered Britain in a gentle haze. Henry chugged around his Northern Counties under skies of an unbroken pale blue. He spent little time in the more spectacular regions. Few cucumbers were grown in the Lake District, on the Cumbrian fells, on the sheep-rich Cheviots, in the Trough of Bowland and the Yorkshire Dales. But in flatter lands, in the Vale of York, County Durham, West Lancashire, Western Westmorland beyond the lakes, and around the Solway Firth, Henry would grind to a squeaky halt and hear folk hiss, ‘It’s the man from the Marketing Board. I’m out.’ With sinking heart he doled out advice that wasn’t wanted to folk who knew better. With sinking heart he rattled home to a house that was filled with the loud silence of unasked questions. ‘What did the agent think of your novel?’ And even, ‘Do you love me?’
Abandoned villages appeared in the middle of shrinking reservoirs. Moorland fires clothed the Western suburbs of Sheffield in acrid smoke which could be smelt even in Thurmarsh. The House of Fraser acquired Harrods. The Manchester Guardian became the Guardian. Kate took her first step, said her first word. It was ‘Mama’. Innocent, tactless Kate.
Henry couldn’t have his holidays until September, and they decided that France would have to wait another year. The sun still blazed, they took a cottage near Helmsley, Kate loved the countryside and saved their holiday.
On Sunday, September 27th, 1959, the Ministry of Labour announced that 4,747,000 working days had been lost to strikes in the first eight months of the year, singing star Shani Wallis dashed into the sea in Brighton in a fifty-guinea dress to save a man from drowning, and Jack Pratt was born. They had christened him (in case he turned out to be religious) before they realised that at school he would be known as Jack Sprat.
Jack was big. Quite big even when he was born. The sight of him, the thought of his passing through Hilary’s womb and vagina, caused Henry pain, but not with the same intensity that had attended Kate’s birth. Poor second child. Already the incredible, the absurdly brilliant miracle of conception, development and birth had become commonplace.
It was impossible for anyone to say that Jack was beautiful. He was fat, bald, red and greedy. Kate had hated soiling her nappies. Jack adored soiling his. Kate had been difficult to feed. Jack proved impossible to stop feeding. Yet there was very soon about him, turning his ugliness into beauty, a natural good humour that warmed the embers of his parents’ flickering fires. He cried, but he never whined. Kate, knowing that he was ugly, sensing that he was deeply loved, grew intermittently querulous, though her growing vocabulary and evident intelligence thrilled them.
Hilary and Henry hosted another massed Christmas at Paradise Villa, because to have gone to the Lewthwaites’ would have been to have been obliged to go to Cousin Hilda’s the following year.
In Capetown, Harold Macmillan spoke of the ‘wind of change blowing through Africa’. Jack went onto solids, and in Paradise Villa the wind of change acquired a less inspiring meaning. Dr Barbara Moore walked from Land’s End to John o’ Groats in twenty-three days. Jack crawled from the nest of tables, across the new green carpet, almost to the door, in one minute eleven seconds. Togo became independent. Kate yearned for independence and learned to use colouring books quite accurately.
On Saturday, June 28th, 1960, Henry and Hilary set off for France.
Slowly, the faithful Standard Eight slipped south. The Great North Road. The Dartford Tunnel. The Dover Road. The night ferry. Romantic words, monotonous reality. They chugged through ascetic old towns full of cafés and restaurants that they couldn’t afford to enter, past vibrant games of boules under peaceful avenues of plane trees. As the road curved endlessly among the sunburnt hills of Provence, Kate grew restless. They’d promised her the sea, and although she wasn’t quite sure what the sea was, she became deeply impatient to see it. Late on the second afternoon she did see it, but it was too big and too empty for her, and she felt betrayed, and cried bitterly.
But she liked Cap Ferrat, the glimpses of sea and mountain, the stunning villas, the huge, immaculate gardens.
Uncle Teddy’s villa was set behind a row of colour-washed fishermen’s cottages. It was just over three years since Henry had been there, on that momentous journey of discovery, when his whole world had seemed to turn upside-down. Now he could approach it calmly, happily, in holiday mood.
He pulled up neatly on the gravel outside the gate, got out of the car and gave himself a luxurious stretch.
Enjoy that stretch, Henry. Make it last. Your mood is about to change.
Uncle Teddy was at the door already, and Henry and Hilary both knew, before he opened his mouth, that something was very wrong.
‘Anna left me yesterday,’ he said.
5 A Difficult Holiday
IT WAS COOL and dark in the shuttered villa. Uncle Teddy opened the shutters and let in the smell of the South, the salty lethargy of the sea, the stale breath of the afternoon sun, and the herb-scented freshness of the evening breeze.
He flinched from the cruel light, which was merciless towards his greying hair, his ashen face, his hollow sleepless eyes, his thin ageing legs and his unlovely paunch. He smiled and said that he was fine. He showed them their room, large and cool, with shutters on to a balcony, and two hired cots. He tickled Jack’s chin and made awkward remarks to Kate, who stared at him solemnly as if he frightened her. He made tea in the marble kitchen, and said, ‘I thought we’d eat out tonight. I haven’t been able to get myself organised to shop.’
‘Of course not,’ said Hilary. ‘We’ll shop and cook.’
Uncle Teddy handed them an envelope.
‘She left a letter for you,’ he said.
They read it in turn:
Dear Henry and Hilary,
I know this will come as a great shock to you, and I feel really bad about spoiling your holiday, but my first thought must be for Teddy. Don’t give that hollow laugh. I mean it. I’ve known for some time that I’ve got to go. I just haven’t got it in me to stay with an old man and I owe it to Teddy to get out before he becomes old. He still has a chance of somebody much more suitable than me, some rich widow or something, he’s a sexy man and fun quite a lot of the time, but he’s never really tried to understand me and how I tick. I really think the only woman he’s ever really been interested in is Doris. He wanted a fling and an adventure. He wanted to seem to be a bit of an old rogue. He’s done it and that’s it.
Anyway, I can’t feel too guilty because it was great fun while it lasted and we both have some fantastic memories. Well, all right, I shouldn’t have gone with him, but I did and that’s all there is to it. There isn’t anybody else, no Jed or anybody, so I’m looking for Mr Right! Anyway, the point is, if I’d left him at any other time he’d have had nothing to occupy his days and I know you and the kids’ll cheer him up for a couple of weeks and by then
the worst’ll be over. So I’ve done it at the best time, even though I feel rotten about it.
Washing stuff et cetera under the sink, foodstuffs fairly self-explanatory, brushes and mops in an outside cupboard at the back next to the third shower and loo.
I’ll miss seeing you all very much. This isn’t easy for me either.
With love,
Anna
PS Not a word to Daddy. I’ll just tell them I couldn’t cope with life as a nun. Anyway, they’ll be so relieved that they won’t ask too many questions.
Hilary said that the children were too tired to eat out that night, so they bought food in, and Hilary made chicken provençale, because if the food wasn’t Mediterranean, they might as well have been in Thurmarsh.
When he came in for pre-dinner drinks, Henry caught Uncle Teddy holding a photograph of himself and Anna, and there were tears in his eyes. He put it down hurriedly as soon as he heard Henry, and gave a watery smile.
‘We were happy that day,’ he said.
‘Would it be better to put the photos away?’ suggested Henry.
There were photos of a scantily clad Anna all over the villa.
Uncle Teddy shook his head. ‘I’ve only just lost her,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t cope with losing the memory of her as well.’
Over their dinner, which he hardly tasted, Uncle Teddy said, ‘Never should have done it, I suppose. Should have known better.’
‘There’s no point in thinking that,’ said Hilary.
‘I don’t regret it, though. Not a moment of it.’
‘Well, then.’
After the meal, as they sipped wine on the terrace, with the incessant clattering of ten thousand crickets challenging the velvet stillness of the southern night, Uncle Teddy said, ‘How is Doris?’
‘She’s very well,’ said Henry. ‘She’s put on quite a lot of weight.’