The Complete Pratt (155 page)

How Henry hoped that Cousin Hilda would live to see him that evening. He loved her. He hadn’t seen her for several weeks. She was the last of her generation. He was going to feel very exposed. It was the end of an era. Each time the train slowed down he grew anxious. His legs became exhausted as they pushed forward to will the train on faster.

The last of her generation? Oh yes. Uncle Teddy had died almost two years ago. But don’t be sad, gentle reader. He died a perfect death. He simply didn’t wake up one morning. He’d come to live with them in 1989, a fortnight after they’d bought the five-bedroomed house overlooking Clapham Common. Gradually he’d learnt to live again, to sniff the ozone, to tell old codgers in pubs about his exotic past. Once a week he’d come with Henry to the Café Henry, ‘had a fruitcake among the fruitcakes’, as he’d put it, wandered the dirty streets of Soho, visited several pubs, glanced at the photographs of the strippers outside the sleazy clubs and sighed more for the human race than for himself, and slept noisily in the car home after his raffish afternoon. They’d been astounded to find that he was eighty-seven, and he’d died before he lost his faculties. Happy Uncle Teddy, not to wake up one morning. Sad Henry, to whom he hadn’t said goodbye.

Henry hoped that Cousin Hilda wouldn’t go without saying goodbye. Oh hurry up, lazy train.

They’d invited Cousin Hilda to live with them too. They’d taken her to the Post House for dinner in the restaurant where Henry had been a waiter. ‘Oh no,’ she’d said. ‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t live in London. I just don’t see the sense of its being so huge. No, it may be all right for the
hoi polloi
, but I’m the common herd.’ When Henry’d pointed out that
hoi polloi
meant the common herd, Cousin Hilda said, ‘Well there you are. That settles it. That’s what I’d get in London. Ridicule.’ She’d come close to panic, as if they were forcing her to go. ‘I don’t want to go. I want to die in my own bed,’ she’d said. And then, as if suddenly realising that she was being ungracious, she’d said, ‘Not that I’m not grateful for being asked. And for the meal. It were quite palatable, to say it were so messed about.’

And now she was getting her wish. She was dying in her own bed at the age of eighty-eight. Oh hurry, hurry, indolent train.

Everything on the train irritated Henry as it nosed past Kettering and Wellingborough and Leicester.

Middle-aged men with mobile phones irritated him. ‘Everything all right in the office, Carol? … Good. Sent that stuff off to Mr
Harkness
, have you? … Good.’ Unnecessary messages, given so that all the coach knew that they had mobile phones, when everybody knew that the truly powerful didn’t need mobile phones because the world waited on them.

Young people with Walkmans irritated him. They played them just loud enough for the underlying beat, if you could call it by so musical a word, to come crashing out in its endless monotony without any of the colour and detail that might have made it worth hearing.

The smoke from the cooling towers irritated him. Some people must be having to live under perpetual cloud in this brave land of ours.

The smell of hot bacon and tomato rolls and chicken tikka sandwiches irritated him. This nation of animal lovers was awash with chicken tikka, all made from chickens kept in disgusting conditions. He got out his slogan notebook, and wrote another slogan for the café. ‘
We can’t call ourselves a nation of animal lovers until
all
battery farming is outlawed
.’

The endless messages from the senior conductor irritated him. ‘Customers are reminded, on leaving the train, to take all your personal possessions with you.’ Yes, and why don’t you tell us to try walking by putting one foot in front of the other? Not his fault, of course, poor bastard. Instructions from on high. It irritated him that it had taken an interview with Tony Benn MP to reveal to him why passengers were now called ‘customers’. It was to get home yet again the message that if you haven’t any money, you don’t count.

Money, money, money, said the wheels of the train, and they said it with such a loud and increasing clank that at Derby engineers had to examine the train. ‘Welcome to customers boarding the train at Derby. This is your late-running 7.07 service to Chesterfield, Sheffield, Rotherham, Thurmarsh, Wakefield and Leeds. We apologise for the delay. This is due to technical problems with a carriage.’

Oh, please, engineers, please mend the carriage quickly. Cousin Hilda is dying.

Off they clanked again, money, money, money, not noticeably
less
noisily. Hilary slid her right hand into his left hand and entwined her long fingers round his chubby ones.

‘Relax,’ she said. ‘You can do nothing about it.’

He kissed her lovely mouth, felt for her lovely tongue, drew his tongue across her lovely teeth, and relaxed. Dusk lent enchantment to the rich countryside north of Derby and drew a tactful veil over the derelict areas where once the drama of the great steelworks had lit the skies. Now the genteel tracery of the lights around the Meadowhall Centre, an ocean cruiser going nowhere, were the only bright spot in the gathering sodium gloom.

At last the train was jerking towards its ignoble halt at Thurmarsh. It was thirty-seven minutes late. A fine drizzle was falling. You will be proud to learn, gentle reader, that Henry ‘Your Obedient Customer’ Pratt and his lovely wife Hilary remembered to take all their personal possessions with them
and
, for their own safety as well as that of other customers, did not open the door until the train had come to a complete stand.

There weren’t any taxis. There never are when you need them, except in films.

At last a taxi came. Past the gleaming Holiday Inn, which had once been the Midland Hotel, they went. Oh, why had they got such a polite driver? He stopped at a pedestrian crossing for a teenage girl, who pouted slowly across the road. Please, please, hurry.

They met two sets of roadworks. The fabric of Britain’s roads was crumbling under the weight of ever bigger lorries and increasing car ownership. One day, the whole nation would grind to a halt.

At last the taxi crunched gently to a stop outside 66, Park View Road. The house looked dark and gloomy, as if its owner was already dead.

Mrs Langridge opened the door before they’d even knocked, a bent little woman with bow legs and a floral headscarf.

‘She’s been asking for you,’ she said.

Relief took all the strength from Henry’s legs. Hilary took his arm and supported him.

They sped through the dark hall. ‘Wet and windy,’ threatened
the
barometer. As they descended the narrow stairs to the basement where Henry had so often been wet and windy, Mrs Langridge stopped, turned to them, and whispered, ‘The doctor wanted her moved to hospital. She were adamant. Adamant. “I want to die in my own bed, doctor.” She could be right adamant when she wanted, but I’ve never seen her as adamant as that. “Will she get better if she goes to hospital, doctor?” I asked. “No,” he said. “She’s had enough. Her body’s had enough.” “Then leave her here, doctor,” I said. I hope I did right.’

‘You did absolutely right, Mrs Langridge,’ whispered Henry.

Cousin Hilda was lying in bed, breathing heavily. She opened her eyes when they entered and gave them a faint smile, the sort of smile you might have attributed to wind if a baby had given it.

‘Hello, Henry. Hello, Hilary. Well, this is a rum do,’ she said in a weak voice.

They both kissed her on the cheek. Her cheek was very cold.

‘You’re doing fine,’ said Henry. ‘You’ll be up and about in a few days.’

Cousin Hilda sniffed.

‘I suppose it’s habit,’ she said.

‘What is?’ said Henry.

‘Lying,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘You’ve told me so many. Drinking, girls, Miles Cricklewood, liking spotted dick. Lies.’

‘I do like spotted dick.’

‘There’s no point in lying now,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Does he like spotted dick, Hilary?’

‘Not very much,’ said Hilary. ‘And we’re so glad we got here in time.’

They sat very close to Cousin Hilda, in two hard chairs. Her breathing was laboured and her voice was faint. They leant forward.

‘I want Mrs Langridge to have my barometer,’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Mrs Wedderburn herself couldn’t have done more.’

‘That’s quite a tribute,’ said Henry. ‘She shall have it.’

Cousin Hilda closed her eyes and for a moment they thought that she had gone. Then she opened them wide.

‘I’d like my bloomers to go to Bosnia,’ she said. ‘Not that I usually believe in helping foreigners till we’ve helped our own. But what man has done to man in that benighted land is unbelievable. And it snows a lot.’

‘Your bloomers will be sent to Bosnia, post-haste,’ promised Henry.

‘Hilary?’ said Cousin Hilda. ‘Henry lies, so I’m asking you. Are you both happy?’

‘Very happy,’ said Hilary. ‘Very happy indeed.’

Cousin Hilda put one thin, veined, wizened hand on Hilary’s hand and the other on Henry’s, and tried to squeeze, but she had no power left.

‘Then I shall die happy,’ she said. ‘So don’t be sad about my dying. Hilary won’t be, she’s sensible, but you, Henry, don’t grieve. I’ve lived long enough, and it isn’t the end of the world, isn’t dying.’ She paused, breathing heavily, exhausted. ‘I’ll be joining Mrs Wedderburn in a better place. She always had a soft spot for you, did Mrs Wedderburn. I could list the number of people she’d have lent her camp-bed to on the fingers of one hand.’

She closed her eyes again. Again they wondered if she had gone, but she was merely getting her strength back after her long speech.

Suddenly her eyes were quite bright and she gave a curious little smile.

‘And if I’m wrong, and if there is no heaven, I’ll never know owt about it, will I?’ she said.

She closed her eyes. They looked at each other. This time they were certain that she had gone.

But then her eyes opened and she looked straight at Hilary, who had always been her favourite, perhaps even more than Mrs Wedderburn.

‘Hilary?’ she said. ‘I never gave myself to a man. Did I miss the best thing in life? Or was I lucky?’

Cousin Hilda closed her eyes again, and Hilary thought long and hard about her answer. She needn’t have worried. This time, Cousin Hilda’s eyes did not reopen.

Next day, Hilary aired and cleaned the house, and Henry began to sort out what it would be an exaggeration to call Cousin Hilda’s estate.

In the evening, they went to the Lord Nelson and met Henry’s old journalist colleagues for what might well be the last time.

The Lord Nelson had been knocked into one big bar and managed, somehow, to be both garish and gloomy. It no longer felt like a cosy watering hole.

Colin Edgeley, aged sixty-two, was white-haired and retired, living in his little house with Glenda and not knowing what to do with the rest of his life. He reminded Henry of a fine old cart-horse that has pulled the brewery dray with pride and is now in a home for elderly horses.

Ginny Fenwick, aged sixty-three, was soldiering on. She’d sought to become a Kate Adie, but had found only local battlefields on which to report.

Helen Plunkett, aged sixty, who had dreamt more of becoming a Lynda Lee-Potter, had also found her star shining only over a very small pond. Ted, aged sixty-five, was almost entirely bald now, and working on the subs’ desk. He would retire in September. Helen remained glamorous, if lined. Ted had become the oldest swinger in town, and rumour had it that they were still trying to persuade people to ‘have a bit of fun’.

Seventy-eight-year-old Ben Watkinson had left Cynthia for a retired florist who had represented Lancashire at hockey and lacrosse, and who knew the answers to some obscure sporting questions. He still toddled down to the pub on the occasional Friday night.

‘Have we another glittering novel ready for our delectation, Hilary?’ Ted asked.

‘Careful, Ted, your jealousy’s showing,’ said Helen, thus ensuring that Ted’s spleen was vented on her for the rest of what turned out to be a very short evening.

Colin punched Henry vigorously on the arm and said, ‘Great to see you again, kid. What times we had, eh?’

But nobody took him up on his invitation to nostalgia. The
events
they were invited to recall had happened too long ago. Time is a great healer, but also a great destroyer. Nobody took up Ben’s challenge either. Perhaps naming the runners up in the last thirty years of the Currie Cup cricket tournament in South Africa was just too difficult, or perhaps they were just growing old.

The pub began to fill up with noisy young people who drank their beer from the bottle. The jukebox played loudly. But it was still a surprise when Ted said, ‘Well, we ought to be pushing on. Must get to Sainsbury’s before they close.’ Helen said, ‘I thought we were all going to have something to eat,’ and Ted said very firmly, ‘You know we always do the weekend shopping on a Friday night, Helen,’ and Helen sighed and said, ‘So exciting, my husband. Shopping Friday night, swapping Saturday night, yawn yawn,’ and Colin said, ‘Well, I must be off soon too. Glenda comes first now. We all grow up, don’t we?’ Quite soon Ben said, ‘Well, it’s time to go home and give the mistress one,’ and Henry and Hilda were left alone with Ginny. Henry said, ‘You’ll come and eat with us, won’t you, anyway, Ginny?’ and she said, ‘Honestly, no, it’s very kind of you, but I get very tired by the end of the week nowadays,’ and Henry and Hilary went to the Yang Sing, and Henry sighed, and Hilary said, ‘Depressed?’ and Henry said, ‘A bit,’ and Hilary said, ‘They’re almost old now, and I suppose that brought home to us that we are too,’ and Henry said, ‘I don’t mind too much about that. I’m going to enjoy being old. It’s just that our little group on the paper seemed like real friends, but it was more habit than true affection,’ and Hilary said, ‘It’s because I was there tonight, not only an outsider but a successful outsider. You should have gone on your own,’ and Henry said, ‘I didn’t want to. I love you,’ and Hilary said, ‘I’m glad you do, but you must learn to expect a reduction in warmth from the rest of the world because you do,’ and Henry said, ‘No! I don’t and I won’t,’ so fervently that several people looked round.