by David Nobbs
I’m sorry not to have replied to your letter. I went skiing at Megeve over Christmas [So much for fings not being wot they used to be import–export, thought Henry wryly] and had a most unfortunate accident and broke two legs, one of which was mine. I had to hang around in hospital for quite a while, also I had to make sure the other man, a postman from Rouen, was all right before I left. Luckily, both our legs are mending well, though I don’t know how long it’ll be before he’s doing his rounds again.
Anyway, to business. I simply can’t give the promise you seek. I’ve had enough of broken promises. I’ve discovered that life is a miserable sod which can’t be trusted for a second. Rather like Geoffrey Porringer, really. What I do swear, on a bottle of the twenty-five-year-old Macallan, is that I love Doris very much, and I intend and want to commit myself to her till the old bastard of a reaper carries us to our respective destinations – her up, me down! If that’s good enough for you, we’re on with the great adventure. If not, well, common sense will have prevailed.
I’d like to return to England to live, with a new identity. I can get a false passport, no problem, in exchange for certain services.
Love to you all,
Uncle Teddy
Henry’s reply, written on Cucumber Marketing Board paper, when he should have been writing a report on ‘Late Cropping Ridge Cucumbers of the Solway Firth’ for the Vegetable Growers’ Gazette, was quite brief:
Dear Uncle Teddy,
Thank you very much for your letter. Sorry about the broken leg. Also about the postman’s broken leg, although, since I don’t know him and therefore can’t love him except theoretically, I’m not as concerned about his leg as about yours.
I’m thrilled you want to go ahead, and am happy with your assurances. They’re very honest and I respect that more than empty promises.
I have certain principles, boring though you may find them, and I have to ask you, before I go ahead, to promise that the ‘certain services’ that you can get a passport in exchange for are not addictive drugs, anything to do with armaments of any kind, or an introduction to the Masons.
With lots of love from us all as ever,
Henry.
John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, told the House of Commons that he’d committed no impropriety with a girl called Christine Keeler. Dr Beeching announced his solution to Britain’s traffic problem. He would close large numbers of railways. In April, Henry received his long-awaited reply from Uncle Teddy:
Dear Henry,
Again, sorry for the delay, but an opportunity came to mix business with pleasure in Barcelona, and I never look a gift horse in the mouth, in case all the others fall and it wins.
I wouldn’t touch drugs, I don’t have the contacts for armaments, and I never liked the Masons. All that rolling-up of trouser legs plays havoc with your creases. I’ll tell you what my little adventure consists of when we meet.
I can’t wait to see Doris again. Awaiting your reply eagerly, as ever.
Lots of love,
Uncle Teddy
PS Better meet in ‘the smoke’. Too many people know me in Yorkshire.
So there was no more reason to delay telling Auntie Doris. Waves of excitement and dread swept over Henry.
They met at the Fig Leaf, an expensive and enormously fashionable restaurant near Keighley, run by two retired furniture restorers, Daniel Westerbrook and Quentin Cloves, whose behaviour made Denzil and Lampo seem like heterosexual quantity surveyors. Only the fact that the wives of three senior police officers thought it the best food for fifty miles had saved them from investigation.
The place tinkled with prettiness. Cupids and cherubs abounded, private parts hidden by the eponymous leaves.
‘Doris!’ exclaimed Quentin Cloves, kissing her on both cheeks and some of her chins. ‘Darling! Wonderful to see a human face!’ He lowered his voice. ‘The briefcase brigade everywhere today. So boring. The soup of the day is chervil, the fish of the day is red mullet baked with rosemary, and the lamb with mustard and honey crust is, like Dante’s comedy, divine. And aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’
‘My nephew, Henry Pratt,’ said Auntie Doris.
‘Welcome to the Fig Leaf, Henry Pratt. You have a wonderful aunt,’ said Quentin Cloves.
All this didn’t make things any easier. Auntie Doris would have to give up all this celebrity if she went back to Uncle Teddy.
‘I’d never have thought you’d find a place like this in Yorkshire,’ said Henry.
‘It’s just the beginning,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘In the years to come, the broad acres will be awash with fashionable food.’
In the chummy bar, which was like an antique shop with drinks, Henry found it impossible to give his staggering news without being overheard, but as soon as they were at their table, he began.
‘Auntie Doris?’ he said. ‘I asked you out to tell you something.’
‘O’oh! I’m intrigued.’
‘We must keep our voices down. Nobody must hear.’
‘I’m very intrigued.’
‘What I’m going to say may shock you.’
‘You’re not leaving Hilary for Quentin Cloves!’
‘It’s … it’s about you, and it’s … something very difficult to say.’
‘I’m nervous, Henry. That’s why I’m trying to joke.’
‘There’s no need to be nervous. It’s not bad news.’
‘Well thank God for that.’
‘It’s about Uncle Teddy.’
‘Uncle Teddy? What news can there be about him? He’s been dead seven years.’
‘Yes, well … that’s the point, you see. He … er … what? Oh the terrine … Thank you.’
Auntie Doris was giving him a strange, intense look. Had she guessed? He realised that, nervous though he was, he was enjoying being in possession of a sensational secret. He hadn’t wanted her to guess. Damn the waitress.
As soon as the waitress had gone, he told her.
‘He didn’t die in that fire. He’s still alive.’
‘What? But they found the body.’
‘That was … somebody else. Nobody you know.’
‘Well where is he?’
‘Cap Ferrat.’
‘Cap Ferrat? That was our place.’
‘Exactly. I think he’s loved you all along.’
‘Why are you telling me this now?’
‘He wants you back, Auntie Doris. And so do I.’
‘Good Lord! Well, I … Good Lord!’ Auntie Doris took a mouthful of her ballottine of lobster, and chewed like an automaton. ‘I feel dizzy,’ she said. ‘I feel faint.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ said Henry. ‘Drink some wine.’
Auntie Doris took a gulp of Pouilly-Fuissé.
‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘I thought I was going to pass out. I thought, “I wish Henry was telling me this outside, on the moors, in the wind.” I felt …’
‘Claustrophobic.’
‘Yes. You are serious, aren’t you?’
‘Would I joke about something so important?’
‘So … why did he do all this?’
‘It was all…,’ Henry lowered his voice still further, ‘financial shenanigans. Property.’
‘I told him he should get into property.’
‘Well he did.’
‘So whose was the body in the Cap Ferrat?’
‘I can’t tell you. People still living might get hurt. Nobody you know.’
Auntie Doris raised another piece of the ballottine to her mouth. Suddenly her fork stopped, and she asked the question Henry had dreaded. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’
‘He … er … I think I’d better tell you the whole truth.’
‘People usually say that when they’re about to tell you half the truth.’
‘Well I’ll tell the whole truth. There was a woman.’
‘A younger woman?’
‘Er … slightly.’
‘Who was this slightly younger woman?�
�
‘Oh Lord. I can’t tell you that either.’
‘People still living might get hurt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she dead too?’
‘Oh no. She left him … with her tail between her legs after he’d thrown her out.’
‘I see.’
‘You’re the only person he’s ever loved, Auntie Doris.’
‘Well, he’s the only person I’ve ever loved, Henry. Have you seen him?’
‘Yes, we stayed with him in Cap Ferrat just after this slightly younger woman had … been thrown out.’
‘So! He took her to Cap Ferrat! That was our place. He shouldn’t have taken her to Cap Ferrat.’
‘A psychiatrist would say he took her there because subconsciously he wished she was you.’
‘I’m sure he would if you paid him enough.’
‘He has a nice villa, a good life, many friends, a thriving … import-export business. He wants to give all that up, and come back to England … and you.’
‘Well!’
‘I wish he could. I love you both, you see.’
‘I still can’t think why.’
‘Neither can I, but we won’t go into that.’
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Meet him in London. See how it develops. Find out what you feel about him.’
‘What’ll I tell Geoffrey?’
‘Shopping trip with Hilary.’
‘You’re a very resourceful liar.’
‘Must have been my upbringing.’
‘Oh God. Were we totally awful? Henry, I heard your friend Tommy Marsden on the telly, saying, “It hasn’t really sunk in yet.” I thought, “God, you must be thick, if you don’t realise you’ve scored the winning goal in the Cup Final.” I see what he meant now. This hasn’t sunk in. So many questions. What about Geoffrey? Where would we live?’
‘Would you feel bad about giving up the White Hart?’
‘Bad? I’d be thrilled. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved it. It’s done wonders for my self-confidence. But you’ve heard the phrase, “A legend in his own lunchtime.” Well I have to drink the lunchtimes of my legend, and it’ll kill me. Oh my God!’
‘What?’
‘Teddy can’t see me like this, with all these chins. Oh my God.’
‘He won’t mind. He’s got a paunch and his legs are going thin.’
‘No, but … has he? Oh, poor Teddy. No, but I’m huge. It’s served its purpose. I have to lose weight. Teddy will mind.’
‘What do you mean, “It’s served its purpose”?’
‘Kept the customers happy – they think I’ve a huge personality because I’m huge – and put Geoffrey off sex. I don’t like sex with Geoffrey any more. I keep thinking of those waitresses. And the blackheads are getting worse.’
‘Well there you are, then.’
‘Yes.’
Quentin Cloves had a curious ability to walk across a room without seeming to move his legs. He floated towards them now.
‘And how was the famous Fig Leaf ballottine d’homard?’ he asked.
‘Wonderful,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘Magnificent. Supreme.’
Quentin Cloves looked gratified. But when he’d gone, Auntie Doris said, ‘The sad thing is, what with all this, I just didn’t taste it at all.’
Henry waited three weeks before replying to Uncle Teddy, to give Auntie Doris time to go to a health farm.
Her visit was an enormous success, or rather a ceasing to be enormous success, and she followed her strict regime impeccably even after her release, a day early, for good behaviour. But, as her weight dropped off, her face became gaunt. She aged, through dieting too quickly, and she lost energy. Geoffrey Porringer, at first enthusiastic over the venture, didn’t enjoy its fruits, and the more fickle among the customers felt the place wasn’t what it was, the beer wasn’t kept as well, it wasn’t as clean, service was more surly, it was resting on its laurels, when in fact nothing had changed except Auntie Doris’s weight.
Auntie Doris was pleased, if also slightly offended, that Geoffrey Porringer’s sexual appetite didn’t increase as expected.
Then there was a delay before Uncle Teddy’s reply – ‘Sorry I didn’t write sooner but an opportunity to visit Italy came up.’
In the meantime, Hilary was getting on well with her second novel. Although sales of In the Dog House had been modest, and the advance on All Stick Together hadn’t been sensational, these sums, added to Henry’s utterly secure if not startlingly large salary, had given them the confidence to make an offer for a larger house, with three bedrooms.
Dumbarton House was a 1930s property, more modern Georgian than mock-Georgian, in Waterloo Crescent, off Winstanley Road, slightly too near to the town centre to be truly part of the posh suburb of Winstanley, where they brought their fish and chips home in briefcases. Neither of them liked it as much as Paradise Villa, but it had the extra bedroom they needed, and a secure garden, and Cousin Hilda said, ‘Mrs Wedderburn said, “It’ll be further away for them.” I said, “Yes, Mrs Wedderburn, but old houses just aren’t synonymous with small children.” “They’ll still visit you regularly, though,” she said. “Oh yes,” I said, “though Henry has his cucumbers, which keep him right busy, and bringing up children is a full-time job even if you aren’t writing a novel as well.” She said, “I can’t understand why she writes novels, a nice girl like her. I prefer biographies, me. At least you know they’re true.” She’s very direct, is Mrs Wedderburn, but she has a heart of gold. Where I’d ever have found another friend like her I do not know.’
In the summer of 1963 the Profumo affair swept away old certainties about the probity of British public life. By the end of the summer, a society osteopath called Stephen Ward had revealed the truth about John Profumo’s relationship with Christine Keeler. By the end of the year, Profumo would have resigned, Ward would have been found guilty of living on immoral earnings and died of a drugs overdose, the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would have been succeeded by Sir Alex Douglas-Home, and Christine Keeler would be in prison for perjury over the trial of her West Indian associate, Aloysius ‘Lucky’ Gordon.
In the midst of all this, Henry ‘not so lucky’ Pratt sat at his desk on a sultry August day, and found no enthusiasm for his task – the preparation of the first draft of a consultative document to be presented to Roland Stagg (to be rejected by him if bad, and claimed as his own if good) under the snappy title ‘The Way Forward – Cucumber Distribution in the Seventies. A centralised chilled store for the Northern Counties – a Study of Feasibility and Location.’ On this summer dog day this podgy and exhausted young dog couldn’t even summon up enthusiasm for his other great task – the scouring of the Situations Vacant columns for alternative employment.
This was because, in his mind, he was elsewhere.
Where was he, in his mind?
He was in the restaurant of the Hotel Magnifique, in London, with Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris.
The Hotel Magnifique no longer exists, mercifully, but in 1963 it was the ideal venue for a romantic encounter. The restaurant was so large, and the customers were so few, and the service was so slow, that one achieved almost total privacy. The lights were so dim that the lines on ageing faces were invisible. The food was so bland that it couldn’t possibly interrupt any train of thought or emotion. The bill was so enormous that the lady could never accuse the gentleman of meanness again.
Uncle Teddy gave a nervous, stiff smile, as if for a photograph he didn’t want taken, and said, ‘You look wonderful, Doris.’
‘I don’t,’ said Auntie Doris, ‘but thank you. But you do look wonderful.’
‘I don’t either, but thank you,’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘So, I’m a bigamist, like you, to add to my other crimes.’
‘My God, I suppose you are. What other crimes?’
‘Receiving stolen goods. Smuggling. Tax evasion. Fraud. All the things that came with living with you.’
‘Doris!
’
‘Anyway, I’ve got a good defence if I’m ever arrested for bigamy. The fact that you were certified dead by a Coroner’s Court should get me off.’
An elderly waiter limped towards them across the cavernous restaurant, which had the look of a ballroom on a liner. He carried menus which had the wingspans of giant condors.
‘At last!’ said Uncle Teddy.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ said the waiter.
‘You aren’t exactly Speedy Gonzales, are you?’
‘Geoffrey!’ hissed Auntie Doris. ‘Tact.’
‘The name is Teddy, Doris. And why are we Teddying, anyway?’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Two minutes together and already I’m being Teddyed.’
‘Well, honestly,’ said Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. ‘Fancy complaining about the speed of service to a man with a deformed foot.’
‘Doris!’
It was as if Uncle Teddy had never gone to prison and come out to find Auntie Doris living with his best friend and pretended to be killed in a fire and gone to live in France with a slightly younger woman, aged nineteen, while Auntie Doris married his best friend. There were no great statements of love and regret, of guilt and shame. They just slipped back into the old ways, they Dorised and Teddyed together through a long, bad meal, and knew that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.
As the summer died, so did Henry’s enthusiasm for finding another job. He was simply too busy. In the evenings and at weekends, he kept the children amused while Hilary finished her novel. Jack was almost four now, and soon he’d be as good at football as Henry. Kate rode her bicycle round the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park at a pace which terrified him. Jack climbed with ease trees that other children and cats and firemen found difficult. Both children courted serious accidents and defied warnings. Neither ever suffered anything worse than grazed knees and elbows, but Henry’s nerves were shattered. And when the children fell exhausted into bed, he fell exhausted into redecorating Dumbarton House. Small wonder that he was having difficulty concentrating on the second draft of ‘The Way Forward – Cucumber Distribution in the Seventies. A centralised chilled store for the Northern Counties – a Study of Feasibility and Location.’ They had a new car now, well a new used car, a Mini. It nosed its way to York and Tyneside and Wearside, to Lancaster and the Solway Firth, so that its proud owner could examine the nine possible sites that had been shortlisted for the projected chilled store.