Pratt a Manger (32 page)

‘Almost,’ said Henry foolishly.

‘My name is Jonathan Cwomarty. I’m Managing Director of Happy Fields Chickens. I expect you’ve heard of us.’

‘Well, no, actually. Sorry.’

‘No, no, not at all. No pwoblem. We’re quite a small outfit. No weason why you should have. No pwoblem at all. In fact it’s pwecisely because people like you haven’t heard of us that we’re appwoaching people like you.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not quite with you.’

‘No, no, not at all. No pwoblem. No, I haven’t exactly explained myself, have I? We’re a pwetty chicken fwiendly outfit here. Ecologically sound, as I think our name suggests.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well … Happy Fields. A picture of happy chickens. In the fields. Our chickens are utterly fwee-wange.’

‘I see. No, Happy Fields gave me an image of the
fields
being happy, and I’d guess that if fields could speak they’d say they’d be happy without chickens shitting all over them. I certainly would be, if I was a field.’

‘Oh. Ha ha. Yes. I see. Yes. Well … it’s a thought.’

‘So, I had an image of empty fields and sheds full of unhappy chickens.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear. No, no. No, no. Well, it’s a thought. It
is
a thought. Maybe I’ll … though I don’t see how we
can
change our name, to be honest.’

‘Of course not. Sorry. It’s just me being silly. I have a rather unusual mind, I’m afraid.’

‘Exactly! That’s it! And we don’t. Which is why we want you, Mr Pwatt. All of us. Unanimously. I don’t think you’ll mind my saying that my wife is tickled pink at the thought. Tickled pink. “He’s so … ” she said. “So …” Well, maybe I shouldn’t be saying this.’

‘Please. I’m not sensitive.’

‘ “So … cuddly”.’

‘Ah. Like a teddy bear, did she mean?’

‘Well … I don’t know about teddy bears. Pwobably she just finds you … er …’

‘Cuddly.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which is why she described me as cuddly, no doubt.’

Stop it, Henry.

‘Er … yes.’

‘Shrewd cookie, your wife.’

No!
Why are you treating this man like this, Henry? New Henry, post-Seychelles Henry, is responsible and courteous. What is it about this man that is making you be like this? Because he can’t say his Rs? That’s terrible. Get a grip.

‘So, this thought that your wife is tickled pink by, what is it exactly?’

‘Ah.
So
sorry. I haven’t made myself clear, have I? We would like you to spearhead our advertising campaign.’

‘Ah! Before you go any further I have to tell you that while I have been very happy to promote myself – quite ruthlessly, some would say – I have made a decision not to use my name to promote anything else.’

‘I know. I know. I’ve wead about it, and I wespect it, but, Mr Pwatt – or may I call you Henwy?’

‘Yes. Do. Please.’

‘Thank you. But we are diffewent. Weally diffewent. And we feel that you are extwemely us.’

‘Extw … extremely you?’

‘Yes. Extwemely. I mean, your business is intimate, individual, ecologically wesponsible. Happy. You positively ooze satisfaction.’

‘Good God. That sounds dreadful.’

‘Oh no. No, no, no. It’s your enthusiasm. Your love of food. Your happiness. And we’re all about happiness at Happy Fields Chickens. We’ve heard your comments on your show … your excellent show …’

‘Thank you very much.’

‘… about battewy chicken farming, which we find as howwendous as you do. Our food philosophies, Mr Pwatt, are identical. We can think of nobody better to foster our business image and at the same time speak out against cwuelty to chickens.’

‘Well, thank you.’

‘So this would be, as we see it, less the endorsement of a pwoduct and more a mowal cwusade.’

‘Well, yes, I can see that.’

‘We don’t have a vast budget, but with our image we think that your association with us could also benefit you, though not as much of course as it would benefit us.’

‘You’re very kind.’

Jonathan Cromarty emphasised that as they were such a small outfit the money would not be great, but the adverts would be filmed vewy swiftly and simply in one day in a studio, without the use of weal chickens, as that might cause hardship.

Henry liked the sound of it. He liked the idea of a moral crusade. He insisted on visiting Happy Fields Chickens Limited to inspect it, before lending his name to it, but told Jonathan Cromarty that, if the place satisfied his criteria on animal welfare, he would do it.

He visited on a fine day in late spring and was charmed by the place. A long drive led to a cheery, seventeenth-century, brick farmhouse with smiling windows and two picturesque gables. At the entrance to the farmyard, a discreet, modest sign proclaimed ‘Happy Fields Chickens. Please drive slowly. Beware chickens.’ Above the sign was a delightfully amusing picture of an alarmed chicken trying to get out of the way of a car.

Jonathan Cromarty emerged from the front door, smiling broadly, holding out an expansive hand of welcome. He was thin and extremely tall – about six foot five – and he towered over Henry.

‘It’s an honour to have you here,’ he said. ‘My wife is so disappointed.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Not to be able to be here. Alas … family.’

‘Quite. So she’ll never know if I’m cuddly in the flesh.’

‘What?’

‘You said she thought I was cuddly.’

‘Ah. Yes. Sorry. Ha ha. Yes. No. Quite. So … let me show you wound.’

The happy fields were drenched with ecstatic dew, and studded with jolly apple trees amongst which large numbers of cheerful chickens clucked and fed. A gaggle of gladsome guinea fowl ran away from them, their heads bent, their little legs scurrying in awkward small steps, like diminutive nuns who were late for matins. The sheds where the birds spent the night were spacious and clean. There was a smell of healthy rot and warm straw.

Perversely, Henry felt rather depressed. Even in these ideal circumstances, it wasn’t much of a life, being a chicken.

Jonathan Cromarty led him into a pleasant farmhouse kitchen, its table cheerfully over-run with newspapers and magazines. He offered him a coffee, then had some trouble finding the jar.

‘Sowwy. What a give-away. My wife always does the honours. I’m no host,’ he said. ‘My wife makes wonderful coffee. Such a shame.’

Over Jonathan Cromarty’s rather less than wonderful coffee, Henry agreed to do the adverts. A date was fixed. Jonathan Cromarty handed him a contract.

‘I’m not twying to wush you,’ he said. ‘No need to sign it now. Better get your agent to have a look at it.’

‘I don’t have an agent,’ said Henry.

He flicked through the contract. Everything seemed in order. The fee was as agreed. He liked the place. A man who was so kind to his chickens wasn’t going to cheat him. He signed.

The filming was done in a small studio in Limehouse.
Henry
hadn’t realised how dotted London was with small studios.

He also hadn’t realised that he would have to wear a yellow chicken costume.

‘You didn’t mention anything about dressing as a chicken,’ he said. ‘I’m sure there wasn’t anything in the contract about it.’

‘There wasn’t anything excluding it either,’ said Jonathan Cromarty. ‘There’s a clause stating that you agwee to accept editowial decisions within weason. If you think this is unweasonable, fair enough, but I had you down as a man with a sense of fun, a man who doesn’t take himself too sewiously, a man who put animal welfare above his own dignity.’

‘Well, that’s true, of course.’

‘I actually think Henwietta will be a huge success.’

‘Henwietta?’

‘Henwietta the Happy Hen. That’s you.’

‘Oh.’

‘I mean fwankly my scwipts won’t work vewy well without the costume,’ said Jonathan Cromarty.

‘You wrote the scripts?’

‘Tom Stoppard wasn’t available. Ha ha. No, we’re a family business, keep it in the family. And I have to admit I’ve always wanted to be a witer. I mean, if you do wefuse, we’ll have wasted Paul’s day. Paul’s our diwector.’ Paul was a young man who looked about twenty. ‘And we’ll have wasted Vince’s day. He’s our camewaman.’ Vince was aged about fifty, and had a straggly beard with egg stains on it. ‘But, if we have to, so be it. I want you to be happy.’

Henry knew that he had to agree. Vince and Paul were listening. He couldn’t stand on his dignity and waste their day. He was New Henry now. New Henry couldn’t stand on his dignity. He didn’t have any dignity to stand on. He had to agree, but he wasn’t going to make it too easy.

‘I think I’d better look at the scripts,’ he said.

‘Of course,’ said Jonathan Cromarty. ‘I only wote them. You have to say them, so you outwank me.’

Henry decided, before he began looking at the scripts, that he would read them without a flicker of amusement. There was something about Jonathan Cromarty that encouraged him to do this.

There were five scripts for five different adverts. The first was quite straightforward. ‘Hi, I’m Henrietta the Happy Hen. Why am I happy? Because I live at Happy Fields. How happy I am in the happy fields of Happy Fields. It’s a clucking good life for a hen. That’s why I lay such gorgeous eggs.’

In the second advert, Henrietta laid an egg. This required just a bit of acting from Henry. ‘Oh, isn’t it eggciting. I think I’m going to lay an egg. O’ooh! O’ooh! Aaaargh! That was painful. It’s such a big egg. An egg-strordinarily big egg. That’s because I’m fed so well at Happy Fields. That’s why all our eggs taste so clucking good.’ The script required Henry to bend down and pick up a huge egg. ‘Oh, what a whopper.’

In the third advert, a stern voice spoke to Henrietta out of vision. ‘Henrietta Hen, aged one, of Hut Three, Happy Fields, England, you are up before the beak because you told the manager of your farm to cluck off. How do you plead?’ ‘Not guilty,’ said Henrietta. ‘I’d been dreaming.
I’d
dreamt I was in a great big shed with thousands of other chickens all in the dark with our beaks cut off and unable to move and the smell was horrible and I thought I was still there when I said, ‘Cluck off.’ Oh, please, Mr Beak, let me go back to Happy Fields, where we are not like those chickens, our sad sad battery brothers.’

The fourth advert required Henry to attempt an American accent. ‘Hi-dee yokes, I mean folks. Here on the range life is clucking good because this is the free-range range. Hey, you guys, do you have a range in your kitchen? If you do, get our chickens, because, like me, they’re free range, and we’re fed on corn, and I don’t mean no BBC sitcoms, so we taste clucking good.’

The fifth and final advert required Henry to make mechanical movements and clucking noises which gradually slowed down and stopped – quite a challenge to his acting ability. A man rushed in with two huge batteries. ‘What are those?’ asked Henrietta. ‘Your new batteries.’ ‘Where are you going to put them?’ ‘Up your …’ ‘No! I don’t need batteries. There are no battery chickens at Happy Fields.’

Henry put the scripts down very slowly. He could have wished that it had not been quite so easy for him to read them without showing a flicker of amusement. He looked Jonathan Cromarty full in the face.

‘Well Tom Stoppard it isn’t,’ he said.

‘No, no. Quite. Ha! But … will you do it?’

What could he say? What could he do? He’d agreed. He’d signed the contract. He would have to go through with it, and if the scripts lacked the cutting edge of a Waugh or a Wodehouse, at least their heart was in the
right
place. What did it matter if he made a complete arse of himself in a good cause? It was all just a bit of fun, wasn’t it? New Henry didn’t mind being mocked.

He did feel, though, that he must insist on one or two changes, so as not to look like a complete wimp in front of these people – and there was one thing to which he genuinely objected.

‘I don’t swear,’ he said, ‘and I won’t say “cluck off”. I’ll accept “clucking”, that’s comparatively harmless, but “cluck off” is too blatant.’

‘Fair enough. It’s the main gag in the piece, and nothing else will have the same wing to it, but never mind. Your second point?’ said Jonathan Cromarty with bad grace.

‘I don’t think an American chicken would make a crack about BBC sitcoms. It wouldn’t have heard of the BBC. Could we say TV sitcoms?’

‘It’s only a bit of nonsense and if we’re being pedantically logical I have to say I don’t think a chicken would have heard of TV at all, but if it makes you happy, that’s the main point,’ said Jonathan Cromarty with more bad grace.

It was a long day. Jonathan Cromarty, stung by Henry’s criticisms, didn’t always agree with his interpretations.

‘Watch your motivation,’ he would say. ‘Focus on the motivation.’

Henry focused on the motivation for nine long, hot hours.

15 Unhappy Fields

ALTHOUGH HE HAD
accepted that he would seem ridiculous, and although he had decided that in the strength of his belief he would not mind seeming ridiculous, Henry felt terrible during the days that followed the first transmissions of his chicken ads.

He imagined that
everybody
was laughing at him.

He imagined the scorn of his former colleagues on the
Thurmarsh Evening Argus
and the Cucumber Marketing Board. He imagined them phoning each other: ‘Did you see Henry? What was he playing at?’

He imagined Sally Atkinson thinking, ‘My God, and I almost fancied him.’

He imagined all sorts of people whom he admired – Helen Mirren, Steve Davis, Michael Vaughan, Harold Pinter, Paula Radcliffe, David Hockney – saying, ‘Good God. What a wanker.’

He imagined Lampo Davey and Tosser Pilkington-Brick saying, ‘Once a silly little fatty-faggy-chops, always a silly little fatty-faggy-chops. We must have been out of our minds to take jobs under him.’

He imagined Celia Hargreaves watching with open mouth, her astonishment leading her into the first really graceless expression she had ever shown.

He imagined – and this was the worst image of all – Bradley Tompkins jumping up and down with glee, or, if
he
was being Mrs Scatchard at the time, lying back and kicking his legs with childlike delight, quite happy to reveal his scarlet knickers to his bisexual bicycle repairer from Bicester.