The Complete Pratt (153 page)

As soon as Howard’s honeymoon was over, Henry and Hilary enacted what they saw as the final part of their wedding. They went to see Uncle Teddy and Auntie Doris.

Auntie Doris’s eyes were sunk deep into her face now, and her face had become pinched and hollow. Uncle Teddy had lost weight, was moving rather stiffly, and was slightly round-shouldered, but he’d worn better than her, and in fact they both thought that he’d worn incredibly well, considering the strain he’d been under.

After lunch, Uncle Teddy said he fancied a walk. Henry went with him. They walked past May Cottage, Old Cottage, the Old Thatcher’s Cottage, Christmas Tree Cottage, April Cottage, High Cottage, Jane Farthing Cottage, Oak Cottage and Little Pond Cottage to the river, and back up the green past a cottage called The Cottage, as if there were no other cottages, and Uncle Teddy breathed in the air and said nothing until, as they passed the church, he said, ‘Beautiful. All this air, Henry. I’ve been cooped up, you see. I can’t leave her.’

They walked for two hours. Soon after they got home, the sun went down over the yard-arm, and after their drinks Uncle Teddy
heated
up some tinned soup and Marks and Spencer’s cannelloni, and after their meal they settled down in the rustic little living room with its floral suite, and Uncle Teddy said, ‘I hope you weren’t expecting a game of Scrabble. Doris doesn’t like that any more.’

They assured him that they weren’t expecting a game of Scrabble.

‘What she likes best is the story of our life,’ said Uncle Teddy.

‘Oh yes,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘Tell me the story of our life.’

‘Do you mind?’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Only I tell her it every night, and she likes it.’

‘Of course we don’t mind,’ said Hilary.

‘We met in 1927,’ said Uncle Teddy.

‘1927!’ exclaimed Auntie Doris.

‘At the Mecca.’

‘Don’t you have to stand in a certain direction at the Mecca?’ said Auntie Doris. ‘Facing the South Pole or something?’

‘No, no. This was a dance hall,’ said Uncle Teddy. He leant across to Henry and Hilary and whispered, ‘Surprising what the old girl remembers sometimes. Quite surprises me.’

‘Can’t do much dancing if you’re all facing the South Pole,’ said Auntie Doris. ‘Bit inhibiting.’

‘No, no,’ said Uncle Teddy. ‘Mecca is a holy city, and Muslims face it when they pray.
The
Mecca is a dance hall.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Reginald Lichfield and his Boulevardiers used to play. It was packed Saturday nights in them days. Packed. Cigarette smoke everywhere. Through the smoke I saw this vision. Know what it was?’

‘Was it me?’ mouthed Auntie Doris.

‘Well done! It was you. Prettiest girl in all the hall.’

‘Was I?’

‘Curves in all the right places. Lovely legs. Beautiful lips. Bright red.’

‘Ee!’

Henry gave Hilary a wry grin. Auntie Doris hadn’t said ‘Ee!’ for over fifty years. It wasn’t posh.

‘I asked you to dance. You said, “I don’t mind.” All casual and offhand.’

‘Oh dear! Was I a little minx?’

‘You were a vixen! We danced. I asked you out. Within five weeks we were engaged.’

‘No! You were a quick worker, then?’

‘I’d say. Never met anyone like you. Had to be. Too many rivals to hang about!’

‘O’oh! Really? And then?’

‘We got married in St Matthew’s Church. A hundred and twenty guests.’

‘Ee! A hundred and twenty!’

‘Grand wedding. The Sniffer sniffing like mad. Face like a cupboard full of brooms.’

‘The Sniffer?’

‘Cousin Hilda. Mellowed now from what Henry tells me. Amazing what fear of the grim reaper can do. We bought a house in Dronfield. I went into import-export.’

‘We had children.’

‘No, Doris. We decided not to. We were good-time people.’

‘I’ve always liked a good time.’

‘Right. I did well.’

‘Did you, Teddy?’

‘Oh yes. Very well. Bought a big house. Called it Cap Ferrat.’

‘That’s a place.’

‘Absolutely spot on. A very nice place where we had our holidays. Then war came. Then after the war …’

‘Don’t you usually tell me more about the war? Summat brave that you did somewhere.’

‘Absolutely right, Doris. You’re in good form today.’ He looked at Henry and Hilary uneasily. ‘I’m shortening it tonight. We have guests. Our Henry, our nephew, and his wife Hilary. Henry’s mother died, you see.’

‘Oh no!’

‘And his father hanged himself.’

‘Oh no!! What a tragic boy.’

‘Yes. So we took him in as our son.’

‘Oh! Lovely!’

‘Yes, he was.’

Henry smiled sheepishly.

‘He was,’ continued Uncle Teddy. ‘But I was a naughty boy. I went to prison.’

‘Teddy! What for?’

‘Oh, just technical offences. Tax evasion. Evading currency restrictions. Fraud. Nothing criminal.’

‘Good. That’s good. How long did you get?’

‘Three years.’

‘Three years! That’s hard.’

‘It was hard. It was hard for you, too. You were lonely. You couldn’t manage without a man. You took up with a business friend of mine. Geoffrey Porringer.’

‘I didn’t! Naughty me.’

‘Well! Partly my fault.’

‘Was he nice?’

‘He had blackheads.’

‘Oh dear. I don’t like the sound of him one bit.’

‘I came out of prison. You were with Geoffrey. I was … upset. I took up with a … slightly younger woman.’

‘You rogue!’

‘Yes. I pretended to be burnt in a big fire, and you had a funeral for me.’

‘No! Teddy!’

‘And I lived in the South of France and married this … slightly younger woman, and you married Geoffrey.’

‘Teddy! We were both rogues then?’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘Well!’

‘Anyway, Anna … the slightly younger woman … we parted, and I realised that I’d loved you all the time.’

‘Teddy! All the time?’

‘All the time. And you didn’t love Geoffrey Porringer. So, you left Geoffrey and I came back to England and we bought this cottage.’

‘Well!’

‘But because I’m supposed to be dead, I have to live as Miles Cricklewood, a retired vet, in Suffolk, where nobody knows me.’

‘And we lived happily ever after.’

‘Well, no, nobody does that. But almost.’

‘And all this happened to us?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, we’ve lived a bit, Teddy.’

‘We certainly have.’

‘We’ve given them a run for their money.’

‘We’ve cut the mustard.’

‘We certainly have. Well, thank you, Teddy, that was lovely. I remembered bits of it, of course.’

‘Of course. But not all.’

‘No. Not all. I think you’re very kind to me, Teddy.’

‘I think I probably am, now.’

They said goodbye to the bottle of port and went to bed and they all slept like tops.

HIS EMPLOYERS AT
the Post House were pleased with Henry’s performance as a waiter. At last there’s something I definitely do well, he thought wryly. He even invented a character for himself. He’d been on the ocean liners. ‘When I was on the ocean liners …,’ he’d begin. It wasn’t truly a fantasy. He hadn’t lost touch with reality, and he said it even to people who knew it wasn’t true. But he enjoyed the performance, and avoiding being caught out in contradictions kept his mind sharp. ‘I’ll never forget – sixty miles off the Azores – a force six easterly – I slopped mulligatawny soup all over the dress tunic of a colonel in the New Zealand army … Ructions? I’ll say there were ructions!’

One day, towards the end of 1984, Henry came home to find Hilary somewhat tense and her father watching television.

‘Henry?’ she said.

‘I’ll go,’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘My room isn’t really terribly cold.’

‘What?’ said Hilary.

‘You’re going to say something serious,’ said Howard Lewthwaite. ‘I don’t want to be in the way.’

‘You aren’t in the way. I think you should hear this.’

‘Oh. Because I don’t want to be a nuisance.’

‘You’re only a nuisance when you keep saying you are.’

‘Well I am. I’m stopping you saying what you want to say.’

‘Well shut up, then.’

‘You see. I am a nuisance.’

‘You aren’t! Please stay!’

‘You’re angry now.’

‘Daddy! Shut up!’

Howard Lewthwaite sat solemnly, looking hurt.

‘Henry?’ said Hilary. ‘I’ve something to tell you.’

‘Oh?’

Henry could feel his heart thudding.

‘I started a novel today.’

‘Darling! Oh, I
am
glad!’

He hugged her and kissed her.

‘Are you really?’ she said.

‘Utterly,’ he said. ‘Totally.’ Hilary was smiling and Howard was smiling and Henry couldn’t bear being the recipient of so much warmth, so he said, ‘Well, I’m fed up with living off my tips.’

All through 1985, Hilary wrote; Howard said, ‘I’m in the way, I’m under your feet’; and Henry proved how right the Director (Operations) had been all those years ago, when he said, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’

The miners’ strike ended after almost a year, French security agents set off two explosions on the Greenpeace ship,
Rainbow Warrior
, which was aiming to disrupt French nuclear tests in the South Pacific, the wreck of the
Titanic
was found in the North Atlantic, and Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev achieved very little in Geneva in the first US–Soviet summit for six years.

Nearer home, a Leeds art dealer was gaoled for selling forged paintings. His crime came to light when Timothy Whitehouse’s successor at the Cucumber Marketing Board realised that his office was full of reproductions of non-existent old masters. To the relief of Derek Parsonage, Henry, Uncle Teddy and the forger, the art dealer refused to reveal his sources. He might need their help again.

One night Henry arrived home full of excitement: ‘I’ve served eleven lobster thermidors. Eleven in one night!’ to be comprehensively upstaged by Hilary: ‘I’ve finished my novel.’

Howard Lewthwaite said, ‘This is a great moment for you. You’ll want to be alone,’ but didn’t move.

Henry read Hilary’s book. It was called
Towards the Light
and was a story about the conquering of depression. He found it deeply moving, but with a caustic wit. Nigel Clinton loved it and scheduled publication for October 1986, and Hilary met him for rewrites, and Henry went to the Post House and said, ‘The
Mauretania
was a bugger for serving
zabaglione
. Something about the stabilisers, I suppose,’ and came home tired and made himself a
light
supper, and didn’t mind about Nigel Clinton or about Howard Lewthwaite saying, ‘You want a quiet snack, a moment to yourself, you’re tired, it’s natural, you don’t want to listen to an old man rabbiting on, I understand,’ and not going.

The book was an instant success. Henry opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the good reviews, and said how thrilled he was, and meant it, and Howard Lewthwaite said, ‘No, no. I’ll go to my room. You share the bottle. I don’t want to be in the way,’ and Henry said, ‘Have some champagne, Howard, and enjoy your daughter’s success. That’s an order,’ and they all laughed, and another summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, this time in Iceland, ended in bitter disappointment after seeming to promise so much, and a chemical spill in Switzerland threatened to destroy all life in the River Rhine, and one evening, early in 1987, on Henry’s night off, as the three of them were watching television, Howard Lewthwaite suddenly gave a gasp of pain.

‘What is it?’ said Hilary.

‘Nothing,’ said Howard Lewthwaite in a strangled voice. ‘I don’t want to spoil your programme.’

His face was contorted with pain. He tried to stand. Hilary rushed over to him. Henry switched the programme off with the remote control. Howard Lewthwaite died in his daughter’s arms.

Councillors and council officials and Labour Party workers and his new-found cronies from the Mulberry Inn, Rawlaston turned up in force for Howard Lewthwaite’s cremation. Peter Matheson flew back, leaving Olivia in Albufeira. Sam discovered that the world wouldn’t end if he didn’t think up any new soups for three days, and came to support his sister. After the brief, impersonal service, Henry and Hilary and Sam and his girlfriend Greta stood among ageing men and women with watery eyes, and there was much talk about the end of an era, and there not being many of us left, and they don’t make them like that any more. The landlord of the Mulberry told Hilary, ‘The moment he walked in I knew he were a gentleman. He stood out.’ Hilary had as many as she could back to the house, and after they’d all gone she flopped exhausted into a chair and let Sam and Greta make a fish pie for supper.