by David Nobbs
The Blairs had got the children to school without any problems. Timothy Whitehouse sympathised over what Henry called ‘a little domestic upheaval’, and accepted his absence with equanimity. ‘The Cucumber Marketing Board will survive till you get things sorted out,’ he said. And a visit to the hospital soon established that there was nothing Henry could do there.
Henry and Howard sat in the draughty Main Reception.
‘She has pneumonia,’ Howard told him. ‘And a full-scale nervous breakdown.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘She’s in no physical danger. She recognises me, but doesn’t remember anything about that fateful night. The doctor thinks she will recover her memory when the shock wears off. To see you just yet would be far too dangerous.’
A man with his leg in plaster was wheeled through, and a woman with her arm in plaster said, ‘Hello, gorgeous, shall we go out and get plastered together?’
The receptionist coughed without putting her hand in front of her mouth.
‘Howard?’ said Henry.
‘Yes?’
Howard Lewthwaite’s tired face was cautious. He’d been alerted by Henry’s tone of impending confession.
‘Hilary didn’t sleep with Nigel Clinton.’
‘Well I told you she didn’t.’
‘I know.’
A yellow van pulled up with a screech, and a man in blue overalls hurried in through the swing doors with a red fire extinguisher.
‘All sorted,’ he told the receptionist, who smiled and sneezed without getting a handkerchief out.
‘Howard?’ said Henry.
‘Yes?’
‘All this is my fault.’
‘Henry! These things happen.’ Hilary’s father smiled wearily. There was no hostility in his smile, but no friendship either.
Henry collected the children from school. When they got home, he told them that their mummy was ill in hospital, and they would be able to see her when she was better. They looked very solemn, but didn’t cry.
Next morning, he took the children to school, and Fiona Blair, dark, tall, handsome and very Scottish, offered to take them home from school each evening and give them their tea, so that Henry could return to work.
‘That’s incredibly kind of you,’ said Henry.
‘What are friends for?’ said Fiona Blair. She touched his arm gently. ‘We’re so sorry. We love you both.’
Henry flinched from their love. He had caused so much pain. He needed self-abasement.
Nevertheless, he hoped he wouldn’t need too much self-abasement at Cousin Hilda’s.
He hurried round, to catch her before she went shopping.
As he walked up the gravel drive of number 66, Park View Road, he became a child again. His stomach sank with dread.
Cousin Hilda was very surprised to see him at five past nine in the morning.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said.
If only nothing had been wrong, and he could have said, ‘Why do you assume something must be wrong, just because I call at five past nine?’
The smell of Tuesday morning’s sausage and tomato filled the little basement room. The stove was dying now that breakfast was over.
‘We’ve had a bit of a tragedy,’ he said, sitting at the table, in his old place.
Cousin Hilda gave an anticipatory sniff, and Henry launched into his tale of woe.
When he’d finished, Cousin Hilda looked at him sadly and said, ‘How could you think owt like that of Hilary? She’s a grand lass, is Hilary.’
Henry wanted to say, ‘Why couldn’t you ever have said that to her face? It’s too late now,’ but all he said was, ‘I know.’
‘Mrs Wedderburn were saying to me the other day, “That woman is a saint. Henry has married a saint.” She’s never wrong about folk, isn’t Mrs Wedderburn, even if her tongue does sometimes run away with her.’
‘Anyway, I thought I’d come and let you know straight away,’ said Henry.
‘Thank you for that.’
Cousin Hilda made them a cup of Camp coffee, and they sat gloomily in the cooling room, no longer cheered by the warmth and glow of the stove.
She sniffed violently.
‘Satire,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Henry.
‘That’s what’s behind it all. All this satire. There’s no trust any more. That David Frost. Who does he think he is?’
‘Well I do think people don’t trust each other as much, and sometimes they’re right not to, because they don’t deserve trust, but I don’t think satire can be held to blame. My problems with Hilary aren’t caused by David Frost.’
‘Well when I were a girl we didn’t have satire, and we did perfectly well wi’out it.’
‘You didn’t have motor cars either.’ Henry was briefly triumphant, believing that he’d scored a debating point.
‘Exactly!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘It’s bound to affect the brain, is carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s forced to.’
Henry remembered that, despite his troubles, he ought to continue to take an interest in Cousin Hilda’s life.
‘How are your gentlemen?’ he asked.
‘I’ve lost Mr Ironside. Well, it were only to be expected. His family have joined him up here. But I’ve lost Mr Pettifer and all.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘Aye, but it were only a stop-gap while he found a house, and he stayed eight years. The funny thing is, I were glad he was going, to say I’d had eight years of his bitterness. But now he’s gone I miss him. I’d give owt now to hear him running down young Adrian’s cheese counter and looking down on me because I never met Laurence Gielgud. I must be getting old. There’s too much change in this business.’
‘Who’ve you got now, then?’
‘Well Mr O’Reilly, of course. And a Mr Travis. He’s a widower and a liquidator.’
‘A liquidator?’
‘Bankruptcies and I don’t know what. Says he may be here a while if things go well, by which he means if things go badly.’ She sniffed. ‘My other two rooms are empty. Folk are renting flats and buying ready-made packet meals these days.’ She sniffed again. ‘They don’t want “digs” as such any more. An era is drawing to a close. Still, you have worse troubles.’
‘Well … we’ll get over them.’
‘Well I won’t rub it in. I know I can be a bit stern sometimes, but when folk are in trouble there’s no point in rubbing it in,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘You know you’ve been a complete and utter fool. There’s no need for me to tell you.’
Dr Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize, Harold Wilson’s new Labour government announced that prescriptions would be free of charge from February, the House of Commons voted to abolish the death penalty, and Hilary recovered slowly from her pneumonia and even more slowly from her nervous breakdown.
Shortly before Christmas, Howard Lewthwaite told Henry that the time was ripe for her to see the children.
‘But not me?’
‘Not you.’
The children were very subdued on their return from seeing their mother.
‘She’s very ill,’ said Kate, ‘but she’s getting better, isn’t she?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Why didn’t you come in too?’ asked Jack.
‘So that you could see her on your own,’ said Henry.
Jack considered this, and nodded.
‘We’re going again on Christmas Day, aren’t we?’ said Kate.
They spent Christmas with the Blairs. In the afternoon, they took the children to see Hilary. Henry waited outside.
On their return, the children were a little less subdued.
‘She’s getting better,’ said Kate.
‘You let us see her on our own again,’ said Jack.
‘She’ll be home soon,’ said Kate.
Henry often asked Howard Lewthwaite if he would take Hilary a letter, but he said it was too soon.
Towards the middle of January, he said that he thought the time was r
ipe.
‘Be tactful, won’t you?’ he said.
‘What do you think I am?’ said Henry.
Howard Lewthwaite didn’t reply. Henry felt that any reply would have been preferable to that telling silence.
His letter told Hilary that he realised that she had been completely innocent and he was deeply sorry and he loved her very much and the children were looking forward to her coming home.
Howard Lewthwaite called round at Dumbarton House a few days later, and handed Henry Hilary’s reply.
‘Not good news, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Read it when the children aren’t around.’
Henry put the children to bed, poured himself a large whisky, and settled down with Hilary’s letter. It was written in a shaky hand.
Dear Henry,
I’m sorry about my writing. I’m not very strong yet. I was grateful for your letter, and I’m glad you now know that I was completely innocent. I wish you’d come to that conclusion from your knowledge of me, rather than finding out from Nigel. I suppose that, if you had, we might have found some trust together again.
I’ve been very ill with pneumonia. Apparently I walked all night and was delirious. I remember nothing after walking out of our house. I’ve also had … they call it a nervous breakdown … just a total collapse of will and energy and hope. A blankness. I feel that there’s nobody inside me, yet my hand moves and the pen writes, so there must be. I told you what it was like before and this is as bad, but I won’t try to kill myself this time, because I’ll think of Mummy and Daddy and Sam and the children. Yes, and you, because I know you’d rather I was still alive. I’ll go and live in Spain and I hope the children will come and visit me in the holidays.
I forgive you for your lack of trust. I can’t pretend it didn’t cause me deep pain and agony. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for reading my private mail. I expect you wonder why I kept that letter. Because I’m vain. I accepted your love as natural because I thought we were made for each other and that’s how the miracle of love works. But if another man also loves me, I must be attractive. I’d never thought so, so it pleased me, so I kept it, so I deserve what I got.
I am feeble, Henry. I am sick. I have a fragile grasp of mental stability. Not so fragile that I can’t write about it, I was a novelist after all, but fragile nevertheless. Sometimes I’ve seemed to people to be strong, but that’s the way I’ve had to be to cover my weakness. But I’ve always known that I wasn’t good enough for you.
Imagine the shock, therefore, when I discover that you aren’t good enough for me! Your sexual suspicion and jealousy, though horrible, are perhaps forgivable as a temporary madness. Your jealousy of my books was the real problem and although I won’t write any more I could never cope with all that.
How can we live happily together if we’re both not good enough for each other? I don’t want you to feel that I hate you, but I know that I couldn’t bear you to touch me and how could we live like that?
What it is really, darling – I hope you don’t mind me still calling you darling – is that we had wonderful times and because of how it was and because it couldn’t be like that again I think it’s best if it isn’t at all.
I’ve thought about trying for the children’s sake and you must understand that I can’t. It’s a fact rather than a decision. That they will be happier with one hopefully happy parent than with two unhappy parents is probable, but not certain. What is certain is that I couldn’t do it. Don’t be fooled by this letter into thinking that I’m really all right. I can cope with letters. They don’t speak back. I’m still very ill. I couldn’t face going out of doors even yet. The doctors say I couldn’t have the children, so you’ll have to have them, and I’m sure that you want to and I know that you’ll be a good father.
They say it’ll be very slow but that I will make a full recovery. I don’t actually want to. I don’t want a man again and I don’t want to write a novel ever again. I think I’ll pretend to make a full recovery.
Please don’t feel guilty. You gave me a better life than I ever dreamt of and made me strong enough to know that I won’t kill myself this time and maybe will even be at least sort of happy eventually. My poor mother will be sad for my sadness but, more so, happy to have my company. Ditto Dad.
I’ll divorce you for mental cruelty, but that’s really just legal, I don’t mean it.
I hope you’ll find somebody else and find something more worthy of your life than cucumbers. You’re still very special, despite everything.
With love,
Hilary.
He found that he hadn’t touched his whisky.
Henry wrote two more letters, but Hilary refused to accept them. Sir Winston Churchill died at the age of ninety. Hilary wasn’t allowed newspapers. She couldn’t read about the long, inexorable deepening of the conflict in Vietnam. America seemed determined to wipe communism off the face of the earth even if the face of the earth had to go with it. She couldn’t read how in Alabama State troopers used tear-gas, night sticks and whips to break up an attempted Negro march from Selma to Montgomery or how President Johnson asked Congress for support for a new civil rights bill that would guarantee every Negro citizen the right to vote in all elections. She was still too frail to be fed the slow drip of history.
Winter gave way to spring with bad grace.
Henry’s thirtieth birthday passed without celebration.
Six days after Henry’s thirtieth birthday, Howard Lewthwaite took Hilary back to Spain with him.
Henry had to tell the children that their mummy wouldn’t be coming home again.
He sat them at the kitchen table, and he sat down with them. He needed courage to launch himself into it. It was harder than doing a comedy act in front of all the boys in Dalton College.
‘Mummy isn’t going to come home,’ he said. ‘She’s going to live in Spain with Granny and Grandpa Lewthwaite, because she’s been ill. You’ll be able to go to Spain to spend your holidays with her and you’ll be by the sea and it’s much warmer than Filey so it’ll be very nice. And the rest of the time you’ll be here with me and we’ll do all sorts of nice things at weekends. I love you very much and Mummy loves you very much and you’ll go on aeroplanes and it’ll all be very nice.’
Excitable, highly strung six-year-old Kate remained passive and pale-faced and stared at him solemnly out of her deep dark eyes that reminded him so much of Hilary. It was burly, phlegmatic, ruddy-faced five-year-old Jack whose lower lip began to quiver. Oh please don’t cry, thought Henry.
‘Will Mummy come home when she’s really better?’ asked Kate.
Oh Lord.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid she won’t.’
Jack’s lip quivered again.
‘Mummy and Daddy want to do different things now. Mummy wants to live in Spain and Daddy has his work with the cucumbers. People sometimes do still like each other very much but don’t want to be together all the time.’
‘But you don’t want to be together any of the time,’ said Kate.
‘Well … look … sometimes people, even grown-ups, especially grown-ups, do very silly things. Your daddy did a very silly thing and your mummy got cross. Mummy isn’t cross any more but … she’s decided she doesn’t want to live with me any more.’
Jack’s lip quivered again, but he still didn’t quite cry.
‘Did you throw a kipper at her?’ asked Kate.
‘Good heavens, no,’ said Henry. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Sally Cranston’s daddy threw a kipper at Sally Cranston’s mummy.’
‘Oh dear. No, I didn’t throw a kipper.’
‘Was what you did as silly as throwing a kipper?’
Sometimes he cursed Kate’s powers of persistence.
‘It was much sillier.’
Jack’s eyes widened in astonishment, and he forgot completely about his quivering lip.
‘Much sillier than throwing a kipper!’ he said, with deep awe. ‘I can’t imagine anythin
g that’s much sillier than throwing a kipper.’
Lucky you, thought Henry. I can, and I’m going to have to live with it for a very long time.
In May, Mr Tubman-Edwards reached retirement age. His retirement party was held in the Board Room on the third floor. One of the periodical economy drives was in full swing. The food was provided by the wives of staff members and brought in by car.
‘Be very careful tonight,’ Roland Stagg warned Henry. ‘Many a promising career’s been nipped in the bud because a copy-book was blotted at a retirement party.’
‘Do I have a promising career?’
‘Oh yes. You just have to be patient. Your hour of glory is at hand.’
Balloons in the shape of cucumbers, custom-made by Brighouse Balloons Limited, adorned the otherwise austere Board Room, whose walls were bare save for framed certificates of trophies won at international fairs by British cucumbers.
Three of the wives had made chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents.
‘Typical of this lot. No consultation,’ grumbled Maurice Jesmond, Head of Facilities.
The room soon filled up with cucumber folk and their better halves, but during the early stages of the party the atmosphere was rather stiff and formal. This was because of the presence of several members of the Board of Directors: mysterious men whom one met occasionally in the lift, farmers, growers, wholesalers and retailers of cucumbers.
The guests began to attack the food with gusto. Two trays of chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents went rapidly. The other hung fire.
Henry, aware of his depressed state of mind, drank sparingly even after the Directors had all made an early departure. He was determined not to blot his copy-book.
He attempted to be extremely charming to Mrs Tubman-Edwards.
A wasted effort!
His opening remark of, ‘I should have written to thank you for a delightful dinner party,’ was flung back at him with, ‘I should have known you were stupid if you had. It was a nightmare. I have endured fifteen years in this city, because of cucumbers.’ His, ‘I believe you brought some vol-au-vents. They’re lovely,’ elicited the response of, ‘Mine are the ones that aren’t lovely. Mine are the ones that are being left.’ But his pièce de résistance was undoubtedly, ‘I expect you’ll be glad to have Mr Tubman-Edwards at home more.’ This was greeted by a snort of derision that resembled a rhinoceros attempting to clear a particularly nasty dose of catarrh.