by David Nobbs
‘It seems a complete sinecure. I’ve only met him twice and each time all he talked about was my kettle.’
‘Exactly. An easy job. A nice salary. A guaranteed smooth passage through this rocky existence. How is your kettle, incidentally?’
‘Fine. No problem.’
‘Good. I should have asked before. Mea culpa!’ Timothy Whitehouse leant forward across his desk, predatory nose pointing at Henry. He pulled his braces out as far as they would go, and smiled with all the magnetism that he could muster, and it still didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Withdraw your resignation, Henry. Please.’
This was it. The turning point of Henry’s life. He thought about his easy existence in the protection of the Cucumber Marketing Board. He thought about Diana. About the children. About the long search for work that might ensue, in the increasingly cold world outside. He thought how easy it would be to devote the rest of his working life to cucumbers. He thought about the excitement of existence, the privilege of existence, the brevity of existence.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’
‘Oh well,’ said the Director (Operations), letting his braces thwack back viciously against his chest.
‘I did it,’ said Henry. ‘I resigned.’
‘I knew you would,’ said Diana. ‘I don’t know why you bothered to consult me.’
‘Would you have rathered I didn’t consult you?’
‘No.’
‘Well then. Are you really very upset?’
‘I still love you, but yes, I am. Very upset.’
‘Oh, Diana. I … er … I rang Ginny. I’m going to have to see her later tonight.’
‘Of course you are!’
‘To give her my story!’
‘Not to Helen this time?’
‘Of course not. She made a fool of me.’
‘Still a woman, though. Always a woman.’
‘Diana! This isn’t like you. You’ve never said things like that to me before.’
Diana turned wearily towards him. She was wearing a Fortnum and Masons apron given to her by her mother. She held a half-peeled potato in her left hand.
‘I’ve never been deeply upset with you before,’ she said.
‘Oh God.’
Henry met Ginny Fenwick in the Winstanley, which was the nearest pub to her flat. She was forty-four now. She had never been beautiful, but there had been a sexuality in her appearance which had always attracted men. She was hiding her sexuality nowadays, dressing unattractively, not using make-up, so that men wouldn’t find her attractive, so that they wouldn’t, ultimately, reject her. What a delicate property is confidence.
Henry wished that he didn’t have a story to tell, that they could just sit and reminisce.
He also wished that she was more impressed with his story.
‘We’ve got a new editor,’ she said. ‘He’s a real weed. I don’t think he’d be impressed by your cucumber. As for your resignation, you aren’t a well-known figure. It’s a Leeds organisation, not Thurmarsh. It’s not got a great deal going for it.’
‘But they falsified results last year.’
‘You’ve no proof of that. You don’t have last year’s cucumber.’
‘Well of course not. It’d have rotted. People could be dying because they live near a nuclear power station.’
‘“Could be.” I need proof.’
‘Well go and find it. Dig.’
‘I’m on a local paper, Henry. This is a story for the nationals, or for the local papers in County Durham, not for us. Oh dear, you look so crestfallen.’
Henry was crestfallen. He accepted Ginny’s offer of a drink, but really he felt like running away to sea and never seeing anybody he knew again.
‘Won’t you do the story?’ he said.
‘Oh yes, I’ll do it. For you, Henry dear, I’ll do it. I’m just warning you that it may not get much of a spread.’
‘That’s a bit defeatist, isn’t it?’
‘I never got that job as war correspondent, as you may have noticed. Next week I’ll review my eleventh amateur operatic company production of Oklahoma. I feel a bit defeatist.’
‘Oh, Ginny.’
Ginny’s story didn’t make the paper. The local papers in County Durham were interested, and said that they’d monitor the situation. The Yorkshire Post was polite and took all the details. Some of the nationals expressed keen interest, and the Daily Express said, ‘We’re very grateful. It’ll help us build up our dossier.’ Nothing was ever printed.
Nothing had changed, except that Henry no longer had a job, he no longer had any confidence that he would get a job, and he no longer had any real confidence in his relationship with Diana.
Had it all been a dreadful mistake?
‘Of course not,’ said Martin Hammond, pompous, self-righteous, somewhat tedious Martin Hammond, who was now his only contact with the Paradise Lane Gang. ‘Of course not. Not if you feel better in yourself.’
‘I do and I don’t,’ said Henry. ‘I feel worried. I lack confidence. Yet I feel I have a new inner strength.’
‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ said Martin Hammond, in the Oscar-less bar of the Pigeon and Two Cushions.
‘It’s not much use if I can’t do anything with my new inner strength,’ said Henry. ‘What can I do with it?’
‘Go into politics,’ said Martin Hammond.
13 Wider Prospects
ON NEW YEAR’S Day, 1976, an unemployed, perhaps unemployable Socialist called Henry Ezra Pratt awoke with a severe hangover and wouldn’t have believed anyone who’d told him that within three years he’d have been adopted as Liberal candidate for the Parlimentary Constituency of Thurmarsh.
Nor would he have believed, as he crawled out of the bed from which his wife had long departed, and staggered ashen and ashamed into the bathroom, where he took twice the recommended dose of paracetamol, turned on the stiff cold water tap with great difficulty, and drank seven toothbrush mugs of fluoride and chlorine into which a little water appeared to have filtered accidentally, that within a week he would have been offered a job for which he hadn’t even applied.
And, as he attempted to find in his right wrist enough strength to turn off the stiff cold-water tap in the ugly cold bathroom of his new and unloved home, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to guess what the job would entail, and, if he had guessed, he’d have been astounded if he could have foreseen that he’d accept it.
A new and unloved home? Financial circumstances had forced them to sell the large, crumbling house in Lordship Road and buy a much smaller characterless box in Splutt Prospect, high above Commercial Road. What town other than Thurmarsh could possibly boast a street that afforded a view of Splutt?
A bed from which his wife had long departed? Diana had gone to bed white with anger and had fizzed out of bed like a firework while he was still pretending to be asleep. She’d said nothing unpleasant to him throughout his long fruitless search for a decent job. She’d supported his rejection of the post of attendant at the magnificent new gents’ toilet in the bus station. She’d accepted, with quiet misery, that a bedroom for Benedict was no longer a necessity and they must move to a smaller house. It might have been easier if she’d fulminated furiously against her humiliation. Henry knew that she’d never allow her parents, or Paul and Christobel, to see 22, Splutt Prospect. She was becoming even more of an exile from her family.
Ashen and ashamed? All the frustrations and agony of his disappointments had come to the surface last night. Henry had wept – oh God, it was all coming back. He’d told her he’d have more respect for her if she showed anger – oh God, it was all coming back, that had been so unfair. He’d eaten all the Brie and practically demolished the bottle of calvados that Paul and Christobel had brought them from France. Oh God, it was all coming back. He hurried to the ugly cold bathroom and got there just before it all came back.
A bedroom for Benedict was no longer a necessity? Nothing had been heard of him by anybody. His disappearance
was with them every day.
Kate was sad but staunchly supportive. ‘Cheer up, Dad,’ she’d say. ‘Surroundings don’t matter. Being a happy family is what matters.’
Jack had left school at sixteen, was working for a builder, learning the trade, and Henry hadn’t the heart to blame him if he spent more time in the Golden Ball than in Splutt Prospect.
Camilla hadn’t left Benningdean or changed her name to Pratt. She loved her mother and Henry. She didn’t love Splutt Prospect. She loved Tosser’s splendid house in Virginia Water. She didn’t love Tosser or Felicity. She had a boyfriend in Chichester. She loved Chichester. Tosser paid for her to travel to Thurmarsh and school and Virginia Water, but not to Chichester. Her boyfriend’s father was a butcher.
Kate had gone to Brian’s for New Year’s Eve, and Camilla to Chichester. Jack had been at a party. Joe and Molly Enwright had invited Henry and Diana to a party, but they couldn’t face social gatherings just then. The Blairs had cooled towards them since Henry’s resignation. Every life crisis attracts its unexpected defections.
It was twelve o’clock before Henry felt well enough to stagger downstairs.
Diana looked at him sadly over her mug of coffee.
‘I’m very, very sorry,’ he said. ‘A new year. Shall we make it a new start?’
‘I think we’ll have to,’ said Diana.
It was Henry’s habit, in those long days without work, to trudge the streets of Thurmarsh every afternoon. A few days into January, as he was struggling up Commercial Road with a cruel easterly blowing him homewards and lifting the flap of what Jack called his ‘flasher’s mac’, Henry met Derek Parsonage struggling down the hill but into the wind.
‘Henry Pratt!’ said Derek Parsonage. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘It’s half past three. They’re closed,’ said Henry.
‘I’m a member of a drinking club.’
‘Well I really ought to be getting home,’ gasped Henry, the wind plucking the words from his mouth.
‘Not yet sunk to drinking with villains?’ said Derek Parsonage.
Any suggestion of priggishness was anathema to Henry, and within minutes he was being signed in, in almost pitch darkness, to a basement den called the Kilroy Club, in Agincourt Lane.
The bar room of the Kilroy Club was only slightly lighter than the lobby. Thick, dark curtains covered the windows. The lights were dark red and feeble. This was a room for those who were allergic to daylight.
There were only three customers, a villainous-looking trio seated in a corner with pints of John Smiths.
Henry recognised the owner immediately. He was Cecil E. Jenkinson, formerly of the Navigation Inn. He was badly shaven, had bloodshot eyes, a thin strand of greasy grey hair on an otherwise bald pate, a gap in his teeth and a huge paunch. He’d gone to seed.
But his brain was still sharp. ‘Henry Pratt, may the gods preserve us,’ he said.
‘Yes. Sorry,’ said Henry.
Cecil E. Jenkinson had banned Henry’s father because he upset the other customers by going on about the war. Later, Henry had shopped him for allowing under-age drinking, and he’d banned Henry as well.
‘Oh, what the hell?’ he said. ‘That’s water under the bridge. What’s your pleasure, gentlemen?’
‘Something you can’t provide, but while we’re dreaming about it we’ll have two large whiskies,’ said Derek Parsonage, whose blackheads were worse than ever.
Cecil E. Jenkinson handed them their whiskies with a smile, but his eyes told Henry that he would never be forgiven.
‘I’ve seen one of those men in the corner before,’ said Henry in a low voice.
‘Police,’ said Derek Parsonage. ‘Watching.’
‘Watching?’ said Henry.
‘Villains,’ said Derek Parsonage. ‘Most of the villains in Thurmarsh get in here.’
‘They look like villains themselves,’ said Henry.
‘Camouflage,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘Camouflage?’ said Henry.
‘So that they look like villains and blend into the background.’
‘There aren’t any villains.’
‘If there were they’d look like them and blend into the background.’
‘Henry Pratt,’ said one of the policemen.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Henry.
‘Bloody hell, everybody knows him,’ said Derek Parsonage, seeming put out by this phenomenon.
‘I took you home when you’d immersed yourself in the Rundle,’ said the policeman.
‘Oh yes!’
‘Barely out of short trousers, you were, and very religious. But the second time I took you home you were a piss-artist.’
‘How are the mighty fallen!’ said a second policeman.
The three policemen laughed.
A huge man with orange hair and a scar down his cheek entered.
‘A villain,’ mouthed Henry.
‘Police,’ whispered Derek Parsonage.
The huge man sat at the other side of the bar from the trio.
‘Why aren’t they talking to each other?’ whispered Henry.
‘They’re at loggerheads,’ whispered Derek Parsonage. ‘He’s Rotherham. They’re Thurmarsh. There’s bad blood. Will you take a very important package to Teddy on Saturday?’
‘Derek! The place is crawling with police!’
‘Don’t worry. They wouldn’t recognise a crime if it leapt up and bit them in the arse.’
‘Oh all right. I suppose so.’
‘Good man.’
Bill Holliday entered.
‘Henry Pratt, or I’m a Dutchman,’ said the scrap king.
‘Bloody knows everybody,’ grumbled Derek Parsonage.
‘It’s called personality,’ said Henry.
‘Well, well, well,’ said Bill Holliday. He slapped Henry on the back, bought him a double whisky, and lit a big cigar.
‘I thought you were trying to kill me once,’ said Henry.
‘So I was told,’ said Bill Holliday. ‘I laughed. Thought I’d die. I’m not one of the real villains, am I, Derek? We all know who they are.’
Derek Parsonage flushed.
‘Please, Bill,’ mumbled Derek Parsonage. ‘This place is crawling with police.’
‘Spice of life, a bit of danger,’ said Bill Holliday.
A red-faced, rather bloated man entered. Henry knew that he knew him, but he didn’t know how he knew him.
‘It’s Henry Pratt,’ said the bloated man.
‘Bloody hell, I don’t believe it,’ said Derek Parsonage.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ said the bloated man.
‘No. Sorry,’ admitted Henry.
‘Market Rasen Market Garden,’ said the bloated man. ‘Eric Mabberley. You’re with the Cucumber Marketing Board.’
‘Was’ said Henry. ‘I resigned on a matter of principle.’
‘Good for you,’ said Eric Mabberley. ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Drinking,’ said Henry.
‘Nice one,’ said Eric Mabberley. ‘Have a whisky.’
‘Well, thank you.’
‘Large whisky for my friend Henry,’ said Eric Mabberley.
‘Quite a character, our Henry,’ said Bill Holliday. ‘Knows everybody who’s anybody.’
Derek Parsonage sulked.
Henry’s head began to swim, but it was nice to be a bit of a character. Life was strange. Sometimes you were a nobody, and knew nobody, and sometimes you turned out to be a bit of a character, who knew everybody who was anybody.
‘Fancy a job with us?’ said Eric Mabberley.
‘Are you serious?’ said Henry.
‘Very much so. We’ve just bought Market Weighton Market Garden, we need new staff, and I like the cut of your jib.’
‘Well, that’s very nice of you.’
‘Besides, you have the one thing we lack.’
‘Oh,’ said Henry, pleased. ‘What’s that?’
‘Knowledge of cucumbers,’ said Eric Mabberley.
‘We need a cucumber man.’
So Henry was reunited with the only things that he knew about – cucumbers. But it was pleasant work, with plenty of fresh air, and there was the challenge of the opening of the Market Weighton Market Garden, and it was pleasant to be a member of a smaller and less bureaucratic organisation.
They moved from 22, Splutt Prospect after only a year, buying a pleasant if simple stone cottage on the outskirts of Nether Bibbington, a hamlet to the east of Thurmarsh. ‘We’ll be able to invite your parents here,’ said Henry to Diana, and she smiled, grateful that this was the nearest he’d ever come to acknowledging that she’d been ashamed for them to see 22, Splutt Prospect. The cottage’s setting scarcely justified its name of Waters Meet Cottage, the meeting waters being little more than wet ditches, but the prospect was infinitely more pleasant than that of Splutt.
Kate could still get to Thurmarsh quite easily, and Jack lodged with his boss during the week and came back for weekends. In the summer he played cricket for Upper Bibbington, and there were riding stables nearby, and Camilla took up riding again in the school holidays.
It was a wonderful summer. The temperature reached the nineties on more than one occasion, and they often ate outside. Kate took her A levels on magnificent summer days, the like of which Britain rarely sees. There was a water shortage, and it was a trying time for cucumber growers, but the Cucumber Marketing Board stepped in with subsidies to prevent the price becoming uneconomic. Henry’s attitude to the Board was much more positive now that he was on the growing side of things. He realised at last how right the Board was to be more on the side of the growers than of the public.
There was still no news of Benedict, and when they visited Monks Eleigh they lost heavily at Scrabble, Auntie Doris being able to make several unusual words, including Crunk, Yaggle, Zomad and Anquest, but all in all it was a good summer for the Pratts. And yet …
And yet, things weren’t quite the same between Henry and Diana. There were no more serious arguments, there were happy times, but the closeness never quite came back. Their relationship had become a framework within which their separate lives could flourish, rather than being the centre into which all their other activities flowed.
Kate got her three A levels and was accepted by Bristol University. Diana took bridge and needlework lessons. Henry, never before a pub husband, became part of the early evening crowd at the Lamb and Flag in Upper Bibbington. Often, he’d get home just as Diana was going out to her evening class. It wasn’t a bone of contention, and yet …