by David Nobbs
With Jack and Flick, Henry talked about simple things, about Thurmarsh United and Thai red curry, about holidays in Majorca and their children’s exam results, about cars and conservatories. Jack and Flick had no hang-ups. Conversation with them was peaceful.
There was something about Kate. Something about the way she was holding herself. Something slightly artificial about her face. Suddenly Henry realised what it was. She was trying not to look inappropriately happy.
He walked over to her, smiling.
‘You’ve found him, haven’t you?’ he said.
Her astonishment was comical.
‘ “Him”?’
‘The man who’s good enough for you.’
She winced.
‘You must have sixth sense, Dad.’
‘No, just experience. It … er … it is a man, is it?’
She laughed.
‘Oh yes. Oh … did you fear I was lesbian?’
‘No. Well not fear it, no, but I did wonder. I mean, you never know. On the way to the farm you said that you hadn’t found the right person, and I did wonder about the use of “person” instead of “man”. I hope it goes without saying that I wouldn’t have been upset.’
‘No, I don’t think you would. Yes, I … I think I … well, actually I pretty well know I have, Dad.’
‘So, what is he? An actor?’
‘No!’ She laughed at the intensity of her reaction. ‘No, he’s … don’t laugh at me … he’s a businessman. And he’s … this is so embarrassing … he’s really very well off indeed.’
‘Well, nobody’s perfect.’
‘It’s about time we watched Some Like It Hot together again.’
Celia Hargreaves made her apologies. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I don’t have the stamina for a lot of people any more.’
‘Of course,’ said Henry. ‘I understand.’
‘Hilary’s invited me to dinner next Tuesday.’
‘Fantastic.’
It was his turn to wince.
‘Oh dear. Why did you wince? Is the prospect that unattractive?’
‘No. No. Good heavens, no. No, I winced because I said, “Fantastic”. I’ve always thought of you as being rather fastidious over language.’
‘Oh dear. That doesn’t sound much fun. Maybe I am, though. Anyway, I think “fantastic” is the mot juste. I’m in my nineties and in good health, we all enjoy good food, no terrorist has blown any of us up, here we are. I think that is fantastic.’
‘Good. Well … yes. Yes, it is, isn’t it?’
‘You and Hilary are happy, aren’t you?’
‘Of course we are.’
Lampo’s sadness drew Henry towards him.
‘I made a big mistake, Henry,’ he said. ‘I went down to stay in that pub.’
‘The young waiter with the earrings?’
‘You noticed.’
‘I noticed.’
‘You notice more than one thinks you notice.’
‘Oh, you’ve noticed that.’
‘I … er … I tried …’ Lampo shook his head at the memory. ‘I forgot how old I am, Henry.’
They went out on to a narrow terrace that overlooked the Thames. A rowing eight was proceeding upstream against the ebbing tide, the cox urging them through their paces. The last of the mist was burning off. They watched the young oarsmen in silence, thinking about those whose lives were largely still in front of them, and wondering whether to envy or pity them.
‘Henry? Could I … have a word next week?’ said Lampo as if from afar, breaking through Henry’s thoughts.
‘Of course, but … why?’
‘I think I’m too old to run the Kensington Café.’
‘You made a mistake over that young man,’ said Henry. ‘Well it’s not the first mistake we’ve made over sex, you and I. You know the story of the little boy in the bath, and he looks down at his genitalia, and he says, “Mum, are those my brains?” and she says, “No, not yet.” It’s time we stopped being ruled by our pricks, Lampo. Don’t let sex colour your whole life. You only seem old because you try to be young. Just allow yourself to be your age, and you won’t seem old at all. Come and see me by all means, but … I warn you, I won’t accept your resignation. I need you.’
The cox’s exhortations were fading into the distance. Six swans were sailing majestically down the river.
Lampo turned and kissed Henry full on the mouth.
‘If only you’d allowed me to do that in Siena,’ he said.
‘ “If Only”!’ said Henry. ‘Mr If Only missed the tram.’
Henry barely noticed Lampo’s departure. He stood watching London’s river and thinking so many thoughts all at once that he wouldn’t have been able to tell you any of them if you’d asked. He became aware of somebody at his side. He knew, without looking, that it was Bradley Tompkins.
‘Difficult day?’
‘Yes. Thank you for coming.’
‘Well … couldn’t not. I heard … I heard some of what your dead friend said that night. I remembered what an old man once said to me: “Hatred’s a bum steer, Bradley.” I’ve always had hatred in me. Never known how to deal with it. I mean, I know that hatred destroys the person who hates more than it damages the person who’s hated, but that doesn’t help in practice. Mrs Scatchard doesn’t hate. That’s what I like about her. She’s my refuge from hatred. Actually, you know, I haven’t really hated you since I realised you were going to keep my secret. I was so grateful. But that night, outside your house, that was a big, big shock to me, Henry. I really felt for you.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. And I thought, “Not hating him isn’t sufficient. I have to do more.” I remembered watching one of those Michael Palin and Terry Jones things. On the box. What were they called? Topping Tales – that’s it. And a marvellous old actor – Richard Vernon – I looked up the name – he said, I mean, I can almost remember the words, he said, “Why can’t people be nice? The Butcher of Magdeburg, for instance. Why did he have to go around butchering all those people? Supposing he’d been nice to people. He would have gone down in history not as the Butcher of Magdeburg but as the Nice Man of Magdeburg.” I thought that was very wise.’
‘And very funny.’
‘Funny? No, I didn’t … but then I have no sense of humour, as you know … but I thought, why don’t I try to be friendly? Why don’t I try to really like Henry?’
‘Well … that’s tremendous, Bradley.’
‘So I have tried.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’ve tried really hard.’
‘Ah.’
‘It wasn’t easy.’
‘No, I suppose it wouldn’t be.’
‘But I persisted.’
‘Good.’
‘And I actually found … I can’t put it into words, I’m not very good with words … but I think you’re … this is going to sound very pathetic and very English … I think you’re really quite nice … on the whole.’
‘Thank you, Bradley.’
They drove most of the way home in silence. They were tired. It had been a very emotional event.
‘I’ve invited Mrs Hargreaves to dinner next Tuesday,’ said Hilary at last.
‘I know. She told me.’
‘She squeezed my arm, and said, “You and Henry are happy, aren’t you?”.’
‘She said the same to me.’
‘We are, aren’t we? Happy.’
‘Of course we are.’
21 At Last
ON TUESDAY, 12 August, 2003, Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter who claimed that Downing Street had ‘sexed up’ a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, admitted to Lord Hutton’s inquiry that some of his reporting had not been perfect; Lady Diana Mosley died at the age of ninety-three; it was announced that by taking a single pill travellers could avoid Montezuma and his revenge; it was also announced that within three years every person in Britain would be able to see a dentist on the National Health Service; and the window clea
ner called at the Pratt home off Clapham Common.
The window cleaner was six foot three and had the unfortunate name of Sid Short. He was heartily sick of the feeble jokes people made about his name, jokes at which he was forced to smile, because ‘a businessman can’t afford to upset the punters, right?’
He liked Henry and Hilary because they paid with a smile, they treated him as a human being, and – above all – they never made jokes about his name.
He looked in on them as he did the kitchen windows that morning, and what he saw was two busy people utterly absorbed in opening and reading their mail. He stopped cleaning for a moment – he was glad of an excuse – and stood and watched. He wished that he got mail like that. He hardly ever got letters, only bills. He wished that he could write books. He wished that he was a television personality. He wished, suddenly, with all his heart, that he never needed to clean another sodding window. Sid hated Arsenal, Marmite, snobs and the French, but most of all he hated windows. Awkward.
It struck Sid, as he watched, that Henry and Hilary were cocooned in their individual worlds. Those weren’t the exact words he would use to Tess that evening. He would say, ‘They wasn’t taking no sodding notice of each other, know what I mean? I hope they aren’t drifting apart.’ To which Tess would reply, ‘Sid Short! Haven’t you got enough worries of your own without worrying about them?’ To which he would respond, ‘Got to think of something to take my mind off sodding windows, haven’t I?’
As soon as she’d finished her breakfast, Hilary stood up and said, ‘I’m going to have a bath and get ready.’
‘What time’s he picking you up?’
‘About eleven.’
Henry was no longer jealous of Nigel Clinton, who was now as bald as a politician’s ambition. He had been Hilary’s editor for all her working life, and he was now her publisher as well. He was retiring within a fortnight, and this would be his very last trip with Hilary. He was driving her to Cheltenham, where she was to give a talk on ‘The Seriousness of Comedy’. They would be staying the night in a hotel. Henry had once been dreadfully, disastrously, wrongly suspicious of Hilary and Nigel. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. It worried him not one jot that they would be staying in a hotel overnight.
He couldn’t go with her to Cheltenham. He was making his thirty-seventh appearance on A Question of Salt, now in its tenth year. He had ridden out the storm. His career was picking up again, though whether it would ever reach the old heights again was doubtful.
The clash no longer worried either of them. They were old hands in their respective fields. They were confident. They didn’t need support.
In truth, both of them had come to prefer to do these events on their own. Henry liked to show off a bit, make people laugh, tell stories which Hilary knew only too well. He could do without her eyebrows being raised in despair at the commencement of some tale. He could do without her dry, wry resignation at the onset of one of his sillier moments, even though it was a resignation tinged with affection.
Both Henry and Hilary had difficulties when he attended her book events. He was by now so much better known than her. He tried to shun the limelight, but it wasn’t in him. One couldn’t go so far as to say that Hilary was jealous of him, but it wasn’t easy not to feel humiliated at times by the fact that The Pratt Diet had sold twenty times more than Carving Snow.
Nevertheless, Henry didn’t go off to the Café until Nigel had picked Hilary up. He carried her overnight bag to the car. He kissed her affectionately and said, ‘Good luck, darling.’ It was a pity Sid Short wasn’t there to see it.
After a busy lunchtime at the Café, Henry went home, had a bath, changed, picked up the shirt and jacket carefully selected by Hilary, and set off by taxi to the BBC Television Centre.
*
He couldn’t really believe it. He’d hoped it would be so, of course; he’d feared it would be so, of course; but when he saw her, his heart almost stopped. She was the best part of ten years older than when they had first met, her face was a little more lined, but he could feel the blood rushing to his prick, and his heart was thudding, and just for a moment he thought that he would pass out.
He hardly noticed Bradley Tompkins at first, but then he realised that the man was smiling at him, and the smile looked genuine – he was a rotten actor anyway, so it must be genuine.
After the brief run-through he went to his dressing room and had a shower, washing himself very thoroughly, cleaning his teeth very thoroughly, using his dental floss very thoroughly. Then he dressed very carefully, and brushed his hair very carefully, even though he would be having it done again in Make-up.
All the other chefs were already in the Green Room when he entered. Unusually, Sally was wearing a skirt, and it was quite short. He just couldn’t believe how lovely her legs were. He joined the group, kissed Denise Healey, even though he had kissed her earlier, kissed Sally, even though he had kissed her earlier, gave her a meaningful look, although he would have been hard pressed to say what the look meant, received a meaningful look from her, although he would have been hard pressed to say what her look meant, shook hands with Simon Hampsthwaite, even though he had shaken hands with him earlier, and shook hands even more warmly with Bradley Tompkins, even though he had shaken hands with him even more warmly earlier. Whatever happened, he didn’t want to go back to enmity with Bradley again. Life was too short.
‘May I have a word, Henry?’ Bradley asked.
‘Absolutely.’
Sally raised an eyebrow as Henry trotted off to a corner quite happily with his red wine and Bradley.
‘They’ve brought that stupid fictional chef round back,’ said Bradley.
‘I know.’
‘I can’t think of anything. I’m absolutely panicking. I just wondered if … it’s asking a lot, I know … if you had any … I don’t know … just thoughts … anything.’
Henry realised that it no longer mattered to him whether he got audience laughter that night or not. He was beyond all that.
‘You can have the one I was going to do,’ he said.
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Yes, you can. I want you to.’
‘Well, thank you.’
‘If you think it’s funny, of course.’
‘I won’t know if it’s funny.’
‘Well, it isn’t another Anonymous Borsch. It’s much more acceptable to the punters. It’s a chef who specialises in cooking with herbs. Antony Sorrel Thompson. I was going to say that he’d had a long-term relationship with another herb specialist, a very very nice man known to everyone as Sweet Basil.’
‘Is that funny?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think one ever really knows. Humour is always a leap in the dark, Bradley.’
‘Oh God. Why do we do it?’
When they went back to join the others, Henry found himself standing next to Sally. He felt a touch on his arm. Could she really feel for him as he did for her? Was it possible?
‘Is the lovely Hilary not with you?’
It could be a perfectly innocent enquiry.
‘No. Not tonight. She’s giving a talk in Cheltenham.’
‘You must be very proud of her.’
‘Yes, I … I must. I mean I am. Are you driving back afterwards?’
‘No, no. They’ve booked me into a hotel.’
‘Ah.’
‘Well, I don’t like night driving.’
‘No. Nor do I. Horrible.’
‘Absolutely.’
Were they having a meaningful conversation or were they just making social noises? Henry didn’t know.
‘How long is it since we first met on this?’
‘Eight years?’
‘Must be – at least.’
‘Long time.’ Henry wished he hadn’t said that. It didn’t add much to the sum of their knowledge.
‘Yes. We’re a bit older.’
Not one of your most intelligent comments either, Sally.
‘You don�
�t look it, Sally.’
‘Nonsense. You don’t. I do.’
‘I see it the other way round.’
‘I had a Michelin star then.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that.’
‘I’m not. It was a burden. People expected too much.’
‘Well, good luck. See you later.’
See you later! Everyone said that. It could be as meaningless as ‘There you go.’ On the other hand it might not be. He wondered how much of her he would see later. He wondered how much of her he wanted to see later.
Hilary would be just about ready to start. How could you talk about ‘The Seriousness of Comedy’? Dear God!
They trooped down to the studio. The warm-up man introduced them. He called Henry ‘a controversial figure’.
The applause for Henry was not as warm as it had been in his heyday. He had been involved in too many controversies. Mud sticks.
He wondered if he ought to be feeling nervous. Maybe top executives would be watching him very carefully, to see just how popular he still was, before making a decision on whether to go ahead with a prospective television version of his prospective book about a chef’s tour of Europe.
Sally naked beneath him in a bed in Dubrovnik.
Sally naked above him in a bed near Lake Bled.
Sally beside herself beside him in a bed beside Lake Como.
Don’t even think about it.
The programme began. Henry didn’t feel remotely nervous. That was bad. You had to be nervous in order to perform.
‘Good evening and welcome to another edition of A Question of Sport. Oh shit!’ said Dennis Danvers.
The audience roared. The panellists had to mime being helpless with laughter. Oh God. This was the thirty-seventh time Henry had heard it, and still he had to laugh.
When it came to the round of the fictional chefs, Dennis Danvers said, sarcastically, ‘Bradley Tompkins, what is your inspired piece of invention tonight?’
Henry could hardly bear to listen. He didn’t mind if he got laughs or not, but if Bradley died a death …
