The Complete Pratt

by David Nobbs

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ he said.

  He undid the parcel slowly, partly because he had never fully unravelled the mysteries of string, and Cousin Hilda was not the sort of person in whose presence you did anything so wanton as to cut string, and partly because he dreaded the effort of pretending that it was just what he had always wanted.

  ‘You may have read it before,’ she said. ‘If you have, tell me. She said they could change it.’

  He longed for her to shut up. His nerves screamed for her to keep quiet. He hated her nervous, pathetic, silly twittering. She was pathetic. He couldn’t live with her.

  There was only one last knot to go. As he fumbled with it, he had an image of Lampo Davey on a rocky shore, pretending to be Sir Stafford Cripps in the underworld to a group of unshaven men in navy-blue sweaters. Was that really the sort of thing Crete wanted? He’d like to be there with Lampo Davey. He’d even let Lampo kiss him. What was he thinking?

  ‘Come on,’ said Cousin Hilda.

  Were there moments when he thought he might spend the rest of his life untying that parcel? Did he nourish a faint hope that Cousin Hilda would pass away peacefully of old age before he faced the embarrassment of hiding his contempt for her gift?

  ‘I hope it’s the right age for you,’ she said, as he completed the unravelling of the string at last. ‘It’s difficult to tell. She said if it was wrong they’d be happy to change it if it wasn’t soiled.’

  Shut up!!!!!!!!

  At last the paper was off. The book was revealed.

  It was Biggles Scours the Jungle.

  He looked across at Cousin Hilda. Her lips were working anxiously.

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much. It’s the best thing you could possibly have given me.’

  And it was, because his self-pity was swept away by a wave of compassion for Cousin Hilda.

  ‘Open it,’ she said.

  He opened it. There was a card inside. It read ‘Welcome home, Henry.’

  ‘This is your home now,’ she said.

  Several years later, at half-past ten that evening, Cousin Hilda’s ‘businessmen’ assembled in the basement room for their little supper.

  Since we last saw him, Henry had unpacked his trunk and hidden his books in the loft. He didn’t dare let Cousin Hilda see them. His literary tastes had changed, under the influence of Dalton in general and Paul and Lampo in particular. Paul had introduced him to Aldous Huxley, who had inherited the mantle of Captain W. E. Johns and Agatha Christie as the best writer in the history of the universe. It was also because of Paul that he had brought Women in Love and The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence. Lampo thought Huxley dreary and Lawrence phoney, and had recommended the works of Henry Miller. Henry had borrowed the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. In addition, he had brought The Loom of Youth by Alec Waugh, which was about homosexuality at a public school and therefore banned from Dalton, and therefore everybody read it.

  For supper, there was as much brawn as you could eat, with a segment of tomato, a tease of cucumber and a pickled gherkin. There was also bread and marge, and tea.

  ‘I seem to remember that you like brawn,’ said Cousin Hilda.

  ‘So do I,’ said Henry.

  ‘So do you what?’ said Cousin Hilda.

  ‘Seem to remember that I like brawn,’ said Henry.

  ‘If you don’t, your aunt left a jar of Gentleman’s Relish for you,’ said Cousin Hilda.

  ‘I love brawn,’ said Henry. ‘But I won’t have much tonight, because I had my tea late.’

  The first ‘businessman’ to arrive was Liam, a very shy bachelor Irish labourer in his late forties, with a slow mind and a slow smile. Liam was not the conventional image of an Irish labourer, being a virtual teetotaller and extremely quiet. He had a shiny red face, said, ‘Pleased to meet you. Hasn’t it been a grand day?’ and then remained silent, though he smiled a lot.

  Second to arrive was Tony Preece, an insurance salesman in his thirties, dark and quietly smooth, but with a bad complexion. He grinned broadly at Henry, and winked when introduced.

  Next came Neville Chamberlain, who was the South Yorkshire Regional Sales Officer for a well-known paint firm.

  ‘I nearly punched a man tonight,’ he said.

  ‘Neville Chamberlain!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Not in front of the boy.’

  Henry groaned inwardly. Was he to be used as a spectre, hovering threateningly over the conversation?

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like, having an awful name,’ said Neville Chamberlain.

  Oh yes I do, thought Henry.

  ‘The number of people who hold up a contract or a bill and say, “I have here a piece of paper”,’ said Neville Chamberlain. ‘And I don’t think I ever said that anyway.’ He went red, and corrected himself hastily. ‘I don’t think he ever said that anyway. You see. It’s getting to me. I work hard. I go out for a quiet pint.’

  ‘Neville!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Not in front of the boy.’

  Oh God.

  Tony Preece winked. Henry thought he probably quite liked Tony Preece, but he was allergic to being winked at.

  ‘Up comes this idiot. “Hello, Neville, How was Munich?” Hi…bloody…larious.’

  ‘Neville Chamberlain!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Wash your mouth out with soap and water.’

  ‘How was Munich?’ said Tony Preece, and he winked at Henry, his new ally.

  Oh God.

  Liam smiled.

  ‘Which of you’s the journalist?’ said Henry.

  ‘None of them. That’s Mr Carpenter,’ said Cousin Hilda.

  ‘Has Len Arrowsmith left then?’ said Henry.

  ‘He’s gone to meet the great French polisher in the sky,’ said Tony Preece.

  ‘Tony Preece!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘You know I don’t like that kind of talk.’

  ‘I saw a little baby in the park this evening, by the bandstand,’ said Tony Preece. ‘I thought, “I know you.” Then I realised who it was. Len Arrowsmith.’

  ‘Tony Preece!’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘I don’t believe in reincarnation myself, but Len Arrowsmith held his belief sincerely, and you’ve no cause to mock it.’

  Tony Preece winked at Henry, and the front door slammed.

  ‘Mr Carpenter!’ said Cousin Hilda grimly, and a tense silence fell on the gathering.

  There were heavy, uneven thuds on the stairs, the door opened, and a dishevelled, middle-aged man lurched into the room.

  ‘You weren’t in to dinner,’ said Cousin Hilda.

  ‘I was out,’ explained Mr Carpenter, swaying. ‘Out. Not in.’

  ‘Your tea is stone cold,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘I could heat it up, but I won’t. I could have kept it warm, but I didn’t. I will not serve you your dinner drunk.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were drunk,’ said Mr Carpenter. ‘So am I. Shall we go on somewhere? Make a night of it?’

  Henry took over Mr Carpenter’s room the following week. It was at the side, affording an excellent view of the side of number 67 Park View Road.

  He found himself following a young boy with golden fair hair. It was raining. He overtook the boy just before the turning into Link Lane, and turned his head to look at the boy’s face. He caught a glimpse of smooth skin, a delicate, sculpted nose and sensitive lips.

  He plunged into the busy, steaming confusion of the school, looking round for Martin Hammond, or Stefan Prziborski. Even Norbert Cuffley would do.

  He saw no one he knew.

  He entered the assembly hall and sat about two-thirds back, as he judged a fifteen-year-old should.

  The fair-haired boy’s hair, many rows in front, shone out in the wet autumn gloom.

  ‘Welcome back, old boys. Welcome to Thurmarsh Grammar, new boys,’ began Mr E. F. Crowther.

  All the other new boys were eleven, but Henry was fifteen.

  ‘You see before you our staff,’ said Mr E. F. Crowther, ‘as fine a body of men as can be found…in this building.’

  Mr Crosby had
heard this joke twenty-four times before, but he still laughed exaggeratedly at it.

  ‘Thurmarsh. It is not perhaps a name that resounds through the educational world.’

  Mr Quell stifled a yawn.

  ‘It is not an Eton or Harrow. It is not even a Dalton College.’

  There was laughter. It was nasty of Mr E. F. Crowther, Henry thought, to add that. But perhaps it was expecting too much of human nature to imagine that any king could ever forgive a subject who said ‘the bread van’ in the middle of his address to the nation.

  ‘But is it any the worse for that?’

  Again, Mr E. F. Crowther paused, as if challenging any wretched boy, but in this case particularly Henry, to say ‘yes’.

  It wasn’t his fault that he had left Thurmarsh. He hadn’t wanted to, any more than he wanted to be back here now.

  It would serve Mr E. F. Crowther right if he did say ‘yes’.

  He would say ‘yes’.

  Yes!

  No!!!!

  He began to sweat, but he didn’t say ‘yes’.

  ‘I am proud to be headmaster of Thurmarsh Grammar,’ the headmaster continued at last. ‘Perhaps I am biased, because I am Thurmarsh born and Thurmarsh bred.’

  Henry felt a ridiculous compulsion to interrupt again. Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no no no.

  ‘We are still only beginning to rebuild the fabric of our civilisation after the recent war which stretched it to breaking point,’ said Mr E. F. Crowther. ‘In the war, Old Thurmarshians were up there in the front lines with Etonians, Harrovians and Daltonians. In the years to come, in the never-ending war against the enemies of liberalism and democracy, in the war against the self-destruction of the human race itself, I have no doubt there will also be Thurmarshians in the van.’

  Was it just his fancy, or was the headmaster looking straight at him? Was half the school looking straight at him? Sweat poured off him. He tried to hold the words back. They were there, like a lump in his throat. He mustn’t say them. Not again.

  The tension eased. He wasn’t going to. The temptation was over. The headmaster, perhaps relieved, perhaps disappointed, perhaps both, resumed his theme.

  Henry found himself looking at the back view of the fair-haired boy. Just then, as if aware of Henry’s gaze upon him, the boy turned round. He seemed to be looking straight at Henry. He really was remarkably beautiful.

  He was getting an erection! Oh God. How often had he yearned after these elongations. Now they were cropping up at the most embarrassing moments. He had to get rid of it before they stood for the hymn. The whole row would notice it. It would be visible to the masters through a narrow gap in the standing ranks. Gradually the attention of the whole school would be drawn to it. Go away. Shove off. Concentrate on Mr E. F. Crowther. All be sorry to hear that poor old Mr Budge had passed away. Well, sorry to be callous, but never mind Mr Budge passing away. How about Mr Bulge passing away?

  Concentrate. Extensive repairs to the boiler room, eh? Sounds good. Face the winter with more confidence. That’s the ticket.

  A boy? It wasn’t possible. He’d spent two years at Dalton College being horrified by it. His working-class prudery, Lampo Davey had called it. Don’t think about Lampo Davey! Concentrate. Improvements in the gymnasium! Two new ropes! Excellent news. The fair-haired boy’d look nice climbing a rope. Smooth legs, covered in downy fair…stop it! Count the windows. Sixteen, their top halves all open at an angle of twenty-five degrees, held in place by cords tied to cleats on the wall. Roof. Flat, dull, off-white. Lighting, strip. Like to see the fair-haired boy str… no! No!

  Had Dalton College finally corrupted him? Had he fought it where it was rife only to succumb to it where it was taboo?

  Oh God.

  They sang a hymn. He managed to conceal it under his hymn book. Slowly, under the influence of the hymn, it went away.

  A prayer followed. How drab and unimpressive it all was, after Dalton. Don’t even think like that!

  As they filed out of assembly, on a tide of talk, he came face to face with Martin Hammond and Stefan Prziborski. How big they were. He hardly recognised them. Martin looked more like an owl than ever, a solid, robust owl. Stefan was medium-height, medium-build and had brown hair, and yet there was nothing average or dull about his appearance at all. There was a hint of foreign parts, of exotic sensitivity, in the rubbery mobility of his face.

  ‘Hello,’ said Martin.

  ‘How do, then?’ said Stefan, in his semi-pretend Yorkshire.

  ‘Hello,’ he croaked.

  His voice sounded dreadfully middle-class and false, and he felt that the remark had not been a great success.

  ‘How’s things then, our Martin?’ he said. ‘How’s t’ football, our Stefan?’

  It came out like his music-hall voice. It sounded false. It was false.

  ‘Much the same,’ said Martin.

  Henry knew what Martin meant. He meant, ‘Some of us have made the best out of our boring, unglamorous, routine lives while others have been gallivanting around chasing false gods, mocking their heritage, being corrupted by the sink of iniquity which is upper-middle-class life, learning to drink claret, put the milk in afterwards, cheer when the chaps scored a try, and betray their class, their family, their upbringing and their friends.’

  If only Martin could have actually said it, instead of bottling it up.

  Some of the boys mocked his altered accent. He soon acquired the soubriquet ‘Snobby’. It was even more hurtful than ‘Oiky’. It had not been his fault that he had been oiky, and at least he had had his anger and sense of injustice to sustain him. But he deserved to be known as ‘Snobby’.

  He had betrayed them all.

  He avoided the company of Martin and Stefan, partly in order to spare himself the indignity of being snubbed by them, and partly also because he had something more important to do.

  He had to establish a relationship with the fair-haired boy.

  On the second day of term, he found himself walking out of the school behind the fair-haired boy, who was alone. He followed him down Link Lane, past the fire station. The boy turned right, towards the town centre, where he took another right turn into Bargate. He popped into the sweet shop beside the Paw Paw Coffee Bar and Grill. He was buying sweets, which would ruin his teeth, silly boy. Henry stared at three-piece suits in the window of Dunn’s till the boy emerged. He followed him as he turned left into Church Street, towards the Town Hail, which was streaked with pigeon droppings.

  The boy turned right, along the Doncaster Road, past the end of Park View Road and into the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park. He walked diagonally across the park, skirting the bandstand and the pond, leaving the animal cages to his left, and plunged out into the maze of side roads in the north-eastern suburbs.

  Henry followed him no further.

  He simply hadn’t dared to approach him. How could he, here, in Thurmarsh?

  It was the most important year of his academic life. In June he would sit his ‘O’ levels. The change of school could not but handicap him. It was doubly important to work hard this year, yet the lessons passed him in a fog.

  Latin was taken by Mr Blackthorn, who would come in disgruntled every Monday morning and say, ‘Those damned Christians woke me with their bells again yesterday.’ Mr Blackthorn worked off all his aggressions on the Christians. With his pupils he was patient and charitable. Yet Henry sat there in a fog.

  The Maths master, Mr Littlewood, had a boyish, sandy-haired enthusiasm. If anybody could bring Henry and calculus together, it was he. Yet Henry sat there in a fog.

  The Geography master, Mr Burrell, had only one eye. Was a return to Thurmarsh inevitably also a return to somebody with one eye? Was the number of people with one eye in the town a constant? Mr Burrell’s glass eye, the left, was a fine piece of work, as these things go, and he laboured under the illusion that nobody realised that he only had one eye. He was therefore reluctant to turn his head more than would be natural in a man of two eyes. Unfortu
nately, there were two rows of fixed bench seats parallel with three walls of Mr Burrell’s class. The four boys at the end of these seats on Mr Burrell’s left were therefore totally invisible to Mr Burrell at all times. He knew they were there, of course, and in order to ensure that they received their fair share of attention, he moved the class around from time to time. At this particular time the four invisible boys were Astbury, Longfellow, Prziborski and Wool. They sat with false red noses or women’s hats on while the rest of the class behaved with total decorum. This added an exotic touch to a humdrum scene, yet Henry sat there in a fog.

  The French master, Mr Telfer, had two eyes, but only one leg. He had lost the other one on active service in France, and this had confirmed him, if confirmation was needed, in his belief that the French were a chaotic, dirty and totally unreliable people who used sauces to cover up the fact that all their meat was horse and changed governments more often than their underclothes. Only a filthy nation would need so many bidets, he argued. Mr Telfer was sour and staccato. Teaching French was an act of masochism in the best puritan tradition. He taught it fiercely, coldly, by the book. No Arsène Lupin. No ‘Auprès de ma Blonde’. Just irregular verbs and suffering. Just occasionally, if he was feeling generous or frivolous, or it was near the end of the term, they might be permitted to study the works of Racine. The boys were in awe of him, but Henry sat there in a fog, auprès de his blond in his guilt-ridden mind.

  Mr McFarlane, the History master, had two eyes and two legs, but only one idea. It was Marxism. It was amazing how relevant the theories of a man born in Trier in 1818 were to every single thing that happened in British history between 1066 and 1485. All this should have been grist to Henry’s dark, satanic mill, yet he sat there in a fog. Might catch a glimpse of the boy in the break. Oh, delicious prospect.

  The final lesson of the day was English. The greatest of Mr Quell’s many literary passions was Chaucer. One of the set books was The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Mr Quell brought it vividly to life, yet Henry sat there in a fog, not even concentrating enough to be more than mildly disappointed that Mr Quell had said nothing especially welcoming to him on his return.