by David Nobbs
Fleet Street was their magnet. At forty, Ben knew he’d never make it. At thirty-four, Neil suspected he wouldn’t. At twenty-seven, Ted still hoped. At twenty-four, Colin had few doubts. At twenty-two, Helen had no doubts at all.
Henry bought his round, fighting his way through a burst of dutiful laughter at a joke cracked by Chief Superintendent Ron Ratchett. Helen was on gin and orange. He longed to kiss her slightly sticky tongue. No! Think of Friday night. Think of Lorna.
‘Do you have any good contacts, Henry?’ asked Ted.
‘Contacts?’ he said, puzzled.
‘People you know whom you can use to get stories off,’ explained Ted, as to a rather dim Argusnaut.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Yes. I see. No. Well, I’ve been away, in the army.’
‘Which Thurmarsh United player broke his leg in three places?’ said Ben, and although it was apropos of absolutely nothing, nobody seemed surprised.
Henry knew the answer, but kept silent. He sensed that Helen despised sport.
‘Reg Putson,’ said Helen.
‘Correct,’ said Ben. ‘Which three places did he break his leg in?’
‘Halifax, Barrow and Wrexham,’ said Helen.
‘Correct.’
It was like a double act. They were married.
‘You’re keen on football, Helen?’ said Henry, carefully hiding his surprise.
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ said Helen. ‘I support Stockport County.’
‘I’m a great United fan,’ said Henry. ‘I know Tommy Marsden.’
They all gawped at him.
‘You know Tommy Marsden?’ said Colin Edgeley.
‘We were at school together. We were in the same gang.’
‘Then you do have a contact,’ said Ted Plunkett pityingly. ‘Tommy Marsden.’
‘Rapidly rising star in the Third Division (North) firmament,’ said Ben Watkinson.
Tommy Marsden had been Henry’s one good social card. He had played it so ineptly that it had become a revelation of his journalistic naïvety. He fell silent, and another half of bitter appeared, just as he was about to go.
‘Time I was off,’ said Ben. ‘Got to go home and give the wife one.’
Joy and fear swept through Henry. Ben Watkinson was married to somebody else. Helen Cornish was free. Deeply though he loved Lorna Arrow, he couldn’t help acknowledging that Helen was more beautiful. She was also more sophisticated. She was also nearer. In fact their thighs were still touching, even though there was more room now Ben had gone.
He wanted to start a private conversation with her, but couldn’t think how. She did it for him. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters, Henry?’ she asked.
‘No. I’m an only child.’
‘What about family?’
‘My mother was knocked down by a bus and my father hanged himself in the outside lavatory.’
Oh no! At last they were talking, and he had produced the conversation stopper to stop all conversation stoppers.
She said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ and touched his thigh briefly. His leg tingled. He resisted an absurd temptation to say, ‘Why? It wasn’t your fault.’ He floundered on. ‘I was brought up by this uncle and aunt. Then he went to … er … Rangoon, and I went to this other relative.’ He asked her about her family and was too aroused to listen to her reply. He became aware that Ted was speaking.
‘Sorry, Ted,’ he said. ‘What was that?’
‘I said you seem to be getting on very well with my fiancée.’
Greenhorn reporter in fiancée blunder. Henry was terrified that he was going to blush. ‘I am,’ he said. His voice sounded small and far away. ‘She’s a lovely girl. You’re a lucky man.’
He inched carefully away from Helen. The loneliness flooded over him again. For two years he had counted the days till the end of his national service. And then, ever since it had ended, ever since Cousin Hilda had met him at Thurmarsh (Midland Road) Station, sniffing with suppressed love like a truffle-hound with a bad cold, how he had missed them. Not only Brian Furnace. Not only Michael Collinghurst. All of them. Taffy Bevin, Lanky Lasenby, Geordie Stubbs. Even Fishy Fisk, who smelt of herrings. He’d been counting the hours till the nakedness of Lorna Arrow, and Cousin Hilda had whisked him away to a boarding house in Bridlington! She’d meant well. The rain had never kept them in all day, Mrs Flixborough had three jigsaws with very few pieces missing, the white horses breaking over the groyne had been really rather spectacular, and Cousin Hilda had been right to rebuke him for his meanness in laughing when the floral clock had flooded. Then, at last, Lorna. Husky, lisping, toothy Lorna. Brief moments in the hay, in Kit Orris’s dry-stone field barn. Shyness. Doubts. Climaxes. Anti-climaxes. Desolate rattling train journeys from Troutwick to Cousin Hilda, changing at Leeds. A visit to London to see Paul Hargreaves, his old chum from Dalton College. No Diana. Paul’s luscious, chunky sister Diana was skiing at Davos. ‘What play would you like to see, Henry?’ The sophisticated Hargreaveses had scorned his suggestion of Separate Tables. They’d gone to Waiting for Godot. Several people had walked out, but Dr Hargreaves had said, ‘Beckett is a giant, sweeping theatrical realism under the carpets of the bourgeoisie. Rattigan is only fit to wait at the table where Beckett eats,’ and Henry had said, ‘Is Rattigan waiting for Godot at the separate tables where Beckett eats?’ and everybody had laughed, but not quite enough, at Paul’s funny little northern friend. Waiting for Godot, La Strada, daube Provençale, and sexual frustration. Then more Lorna. But his two years in the army had begun to institutionalize him, and the loneliness had lurked throughout those last, long months of 1955.
Ted’s lovely fiancée bought him a drink, so he couldn’t refuse that, and she looked him straight in the eyes, almost as if she were regretting being engaged, and Ted gleamed dangerously under his mass of black hair behind his cool, firm glass of beer. Henry hurried off to the toilet, to read again the letter from Lorna, and relieve himself of his desire for this new, dangerous, unavailable woman.
Podgy Sex Bomb Henry sat in the icy cubicle. On the door a closet wit had written: ‘God is alive and well and working on a less ambitious project.’ Henry liked that.
Dere Henry [he read]
I carn’t wate for Friday nite. I’m rite excited. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever done it in a hottel and it’ll be nice singing in as mister and misses! It were luvly in the barn but it’ll be grate not having all that hay being verry tickellish as you now. I’ll be on the 5.40 from Leeds so I’ll be their at 6.32 as you said. Eric Lugg’s got leave from the Cattering Corpse and wants me to go out with him this weakened. Tuff luck! Sorry Eric I’ve better things to do! This is quiet a long letter for me so I’ll stop now.
With luv and kisses as ever
You’re Lorna
It didn’t matter if Lorna couldn’t spell. It didn’t matter that all the journalists would laugh if they read her letter. He hated snobbery and it was a luvly letter. ‘Oh, Lorna, Lorna,’ he moaned silently, but it was no use, it was Helen Cornish whose superb pointed breasts hung down towards his naked body as they writhed in ecstasy on the subs’ table, in the vast, empty newsroom of his mind.
He returned, a little calmer, a little wearier. He sipped his beer. He remembered, with muffled alarm, his waiting tea. Ted and Helen set off for the Shanghai Chinese Restaurant and Coffee Bar, which served glutinous curries, haystacky chop sueys and frothy coffee. Now the lights in the pub seemed dimmer than ever.
He accepted a drink off Neil. Well, if he left as soon as Helen had gone, it would look a bit obvious, it would be a bit rude to Neil and Colin.
‘I must go in a minute,’ said Neil. ‘I’ve some laundry to do.’
Henry, who had never left licensed premises because he had laundry to do, gave Neil a look of sheer astonishment. ‘I must go too,’ he said. If he missed that cue, he’d be stuck for the night.
‘So must I,’ said Colin, ‘or Glenda’ll kill me.’
‘Glenda?’
‘My wife.’
Henry was surprised to discover that Colin was married.
Suddenly Colin spoke in a low, tense voice, dramatic and excited. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Don’t look now, but there’s a feller by t’door that got put away because of my evidence. He’s sworn revenge. Mick Tunstall. He’s gorra knife.’
‘Oh I say,’ said Neil.
Henry looked towards the door. Two Neanderthal giants with prison haircuts were sitting there. All the police had gone.
‘Don’t look,’ hissed Colin. ‘That man is a bonfire of hatred, and he’s tinder-dry. One spark, that’s all it needs.’
Henry wondered if he looked as pale as Neil.
‘Right,’ said Colin. ‘What we do is, we walk out together, looking normal. We don’t look at Mick. Then we walk down the alley into Albion Street, not hurrying. If he sees you’re scared … and don’t worry, kids.’ He opened his right fist, revealing a handful of sharp-edged coins. A thin line of sweat had broken out on Neil’s forehead. It looked as if it were seeping through a fault in his skin’s crust.
They stood up, selfconsciously.
‘Look normal,’ whispered Colin.
Henry tried to walk out normally, at normal pace, with head held high, but not abnormally so. His heart was thumping. He felt sure that they looked so abnormally normal as to be utterly ridiculous. He walked down the dark, narrow alley into Albion Street, longing to break into a run. Then he looked round, with failed nonchalance. Nobody was following them. Nobody saw his failed nonchalance.
‘Well done!’ said Colin.
Neil hurried off, towards his laundry. Henry and Colin walked down Albion Street. The night was cold. The street lamps cast a dim, mournful light over the dirty stone and brick of the Victorian shops and offices. Above the ground-floor displays, the rows of small, regular grime-streaked windows were dark. Nobody lived in Albion Street.
‘How about a quick one at the Globe and Artichoke?’ suggested Colin.
Henry tried to say, ‘I’m hours late for my tea,’ but, since Colin might say, ‘In that case a few minutes more won’t make any difference’ he said, ‘What about Glenda?’ When Colin said, ‘Glenda won’t mind. She’s all right,’ Henry felt that he’d been outmanoeuvred. He was glad he’d been outmanoeuvred.
They turned into High Street, between piles of discoloured snow, and entered a yellow-painted pub. There were dirty red walls, and the frayed flock-paper was almost covered in theatre bills. A few customers were reading the Argus. Colin talked about his novel. Denzil Ackerman, the arts editor, had read the first five chapters and thought he could be the second D. H. Lawrence. Henry felt happy, although he was a little disappointed that none of the readers of the Argus said, ‘Good Lord! Thives have broken into the home of Mrs Emily Braithwaite.’ But then none of them said, ‘Hello. I see Hussein has pledged Jordan to Arab unity’ either. He was also disappointed when Colin said, ‘Sorry about that business with Mick, but don’t worry. You’re all right with me, kid. I’ll look after you.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to be looked after, Colin. I’m norra kid.’ He talked about when he was a kid. He felt vaguely guilty about revealing what should have been deeply private, about feeling pride in relating what should have been purely tragic. Colin got quite excited when he learnt that Henry had drunk with Tommy Marsden in a pub from which his father had earlier been banned for life.
‘That’s the stuff,’ he said. ‘Come on.’
Henry found himself in the street. Colin yelled, ‘Taxi!’ A taxi slithered towards them over the crumbling grey town-centre snow.
‘The Navigation,’ said Colin.
On the one hand, a dried-up tea and duty. On the other hand, adventure, spontaneity, friendship with the second D. H. Lawrence, the Bohemian life, Thurmarsh style. No contest!
The polluted and fetid courses of the River Rundle and the Rundle and Gadd Navigation took a great loop on the south-eastern side of the town, but the main Rawlaston road went straight up out of the valley, past the great fortress of Brunswick Road Primary School, which Henry had once attended. The taxi breasted the rise and slithered down again, past a stranded trolley bus, past the Pineapple and other small, friendly pubs, back towards the river and the canal, back towards Henry’s past.
Henry paid for the taxi. It was Monday, and already Colin was broke.
How small the Navigation Inn was. In his memory it had been a world. They stood at the bar, in the little snug, with their backs to the smoked-glass Victorian window. The tiny fire roared. There was the peaceful clack of dominoes. The green upholstery that Henry’s father had so resented had gone. The bench seats were red now, and they squeaked.
They ordered glasses of Ward’s Malt Ales, and whisky chasers.
‘Where did Tommy sit?’ whispered Colin.
Henry pointed to an empty seat. Colin sat in it, gave an almost shy, gap-toothed smile, and sighed contentedly. His dark brown hair was receding. His face already bore the coarsening ravages of life, but when he smiled he looked like a child.
Henry recognized Sid Lowson and nodded to him. Sid Lowson nodded back, his face as blank as the domino with which he closed up the game, to the unconcealed chagrin of Fred Shilton, the lock-keeper. Nowhere do we feel such strangers as in our own pasts.
Yet somebody almost remembered Henry. ‘Don’t I know you?’ said Cecil E. Jenkinson, the landlord, towering paunchily over them.
‘I’m Henry Pratt,’ said Henry. ‘I’m Ezra’s boy.’
‘Get out of here,’ said Cecil E. Jenkinson, licensed to remember old grudges. ‘You’re the bastard who got me banned for allowing under-age drinking. Out! You’re banned for life, sunshine.’
Cecil E. Jenkinson lifted Henry out of his seat and began to propel him towards the door. Colin rushed to the rescue. ‘Take your hands off my mate,’ he said, grabbing the landlord’s lapel. ‘Nobody pushes my oppo around.’
‘Colin!’ said Henry. ‘It’ll be in the paper.’
‘Good. I’ll write it meself,’ said Colin.
Colin began to pull Cecil E. Jenkinson off Henry.
‘Barry!’ thundered the landlord.
Barry Jenkinson, the landlord’s far from brilliant but unquestionably bulky son, was soon at his father’s side. They bundled the flailing young journalist out of the pub together, paunchy father and massive son. Henry followed willingly, shaking his head at Sid Lowson, indicating that reinforcements wouldn’t be needed. Henry felt no anger, as if Colin were angry enough for both of them. Besides, these were old battles, fought and lost for ever long ago.
The Jenkinsons threw Colin down onto the snow-covered cobbles. They wiped their hands in unison, as if removing contamination. They glared at Henry, and returned to their tiny kingdom.
‘Bastards!’ shouted Colin. ‘I’ll get you!’
‘Come on,’ said Henry. ‘Let’s go home.’
A thin yellow mist was rising over the valley as they waited for a tram under the great blank wall of Crapp, Hawser and Kettlewell, the huge steelworks, opposite the tiny cul-de-sac of wine-red back-to-back houses, where Henry had been born.
‘Dinna thee worry,’ said Colin, as they staggered up the narrow stairs of the tram. ‘I’ll look after you, kid.’
‘I’ve told you,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t want to be looked after. I’m norra kid.’
‘OK,’ said Colin. ‘OK. I’ll make sure nobody looks after you. Anybody tries to look after you, I’ll punch him on the nose.’
Colin just caught the last bus to Glenda. Henry walked home from the tram terminus, in Mabberley Street. He felt that the sharp, raw air would sober him up. In this he was mistaken.
He weaved his way through the frozen gardens in front of the pseudo-Gothic town hall, Victorian confidence and plagiarism writ large in soot. Puffed up pigeons slept uneasily on ledges coated with frozen droppings. Henry stumbled along the deserted Doncaster Road. A red light warned of a hole in the road. He picked it up. This was another mistake.
‘Now then,’ said the police officer. ‘What’s all
this?’
‘It’s dark up my road,’ said Henry. ‘The street lighting is frankly abdominable. Need the light, see where I’m going.’
‘Name?’ said the officer.
‘Plunkett,’ said Henry. ‘Ted Plunkett.’
‘Address?’
‘The Thurmarsh Evening Argus, Thurmarsh.’
‘A journalist!’
‘Your powers of deduction are staggering.’
‘So are you. Come with me.’
At the police station, while Henry was again giving Ted’s name and address, an emergency broke out. Officers hurried off, their boots ringing on the stone floor. Panic and urgency reigned. Suddenly, Henry was alone. He walked out, a free and forgotten man.
As he approached the Alderman Chandler Memorial Park, he passed a small, whitewashed, detached late-Georgian pub called the Vine. It was set back from the road, and in the rutted snow in front of it three police cars were parked. He wondered whether to go in and say, ‘Excuse me. I’m a journalist. What’s going on?’ He decided against it. He was tired. He was too inexperienced. He didn’t want to meet the police again. A shrewd observer might notice that he was slightly inebriated. And it was probably only a late drinkers’ brawl, anyway.
He fell over, and realized for the first time how drunk he was.
Number 66, Park View Road was a stone, semi-detached Victorian house, with a bay window on the ground floor. It looked blessedly dark as Henry crunched carefully through the snow on lurching tiptoe.
He turned the lock in the key … no, the key in the lock … why was he so drunk? He opened the door quietly and entered the dark, cold hall, which smelt of cabbage and linoleum. The wind must have caught the door, although there was no wind, because it slammed behind him. The hall became as flooded with light as a sixty-watt bulb could manage. The barometer said ‘Changeable’. Cousin Hilda’s face said ‘Stormy’. She sniffed, loudly, twice.
