Pratt a Manger (33 page)

Nobody made any direct comment to him about the quality of the adverts. He fancied, though, several times, that he heard clucking noises from behind him on the pavement, and his local postmistress, while handing him his pension, said, ‘What a clucking nice day,’ and looked as if she thought herself recklessly bold.

‘What an eggs-hilarating morning,’ commented the local traffic warden, full of good humour on a day of thirty-seven bookings. ‘It’s egg-citing just to be alive.’

Henry returned to a silent house. Hilary was doing a book signing in Guildford.

‘Cluck off, the lot of you,’ he shouted in the emptiness of the kitchen.

He didn’t dare go to the Café for three days, which wasn’t unusual, due to all the pressure of his other work.

He didn’t even dare show his face at the supermarket.

It seemed that at last he had freed himself from Cousin Hilda’s sniff. Perversely, during those three days, he found that he was missing it. He would have liked it to have come back once at least, so that he could reassure himself that it hadn’t been too offended by his swearing.

On Wednesday, 28 August, 2002, Jaguar announced a four-day week due to slow sales of the new ‘Baby Jag’ X-type; Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith announced that he would go on the Countryside March with his family, stating, ‘This is all about freedom’; it was revealed that
British
commandos, sent secretly to Afghanistan by Tony Blair, were threatened with being shot by local forces because the Foreign Office had failed to get clearance for their arrival; and Henry Pratt decided that he was being absolutely pathetic.

He’d had ongoing reservations about his fame, but on the whole he had revelled in it. How could he let himself be defeated so easily by his first real setback? He would go to work at the Café Henry as if it was an absolutely normal day.

Usually, he liked mornings in the Café, when the atmosphere was quiet and warm, there was a smell of good coffee, and he still had time to talk to the customers. That day, however, he simply didn’t seem able to get out of the house. He wasn’t aware that he was inventing excuses for delay, he felt that he was hurrying, but he was fooling himself.

By the time he left it was already eleven forty-three. It was a pleasant summer’s day, and suddenly he felt that he had been worrying over nothing. The ads weren’t that bad, and probably very few people had seen them. When his friends watched ITV, most of them recorded the programmes so that they could fast-forward through the adverts. No, there was no problem.

He no longer drove to work. Even before the congestion charge he had decided that it was socially irresponsible to add to London’s congestion. He soon found a taxi.

‘Clucking good morning,’ said the taxi driver.

Henry’s good mood dissolved in an instant.

The driver was fast, even reckless.

‘Not scaring you, am I, guv?’ he asked. ‘Hope you aren’t … chicken!!’

He roared with laughter at his wit.

‘Please don’t lay no eggs in my cab,’ he said. ‘I’m not licensed for it.’

He roared again.

It seemed to take hours to get to Frith Street, despite the driver’s recklessness.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been cooped up so long,’ said the taxi driver on arrival. He was having a wonderful time.

It was a test of post-Seychelles Henry’s tolerance. He was very aware of it, and he passed with flying colours, smiling at the driver and tipping him generously.

‘Thank you very much. Cheep cheep at the price,’ said the taxi driver.

Henry almost asked for the tip back.

As he entered the Café, Greg was in full flow.

‘Good morning, sir. I see the West Coast main line is to be closed for forty miles for repairs. Forty miles!’ he was saying. ‘And how about the underwater cameras the Carmarthen Fishermen’s Federation has installed, eh? Anglers can check on their website for reports on the number, size
and swimming direction
of the fish. Poor old fish, eh? Don’t stand a chance. Nice turbot today, sir, in
beurre blanc
sauce, or what else can I get you?’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said the customer.

I must talk to Greg about his links, thought Henry.

As he was serving the customer with his drinks, Greg said ‘Hello, stranger’ to Henry.

Leave it out, Greg, thought Henry, but he didn’t say so. He smiled benevolently.

Another customer came in and greeted Greg warmly.

‘Morning, Greg.’

Henry realised with a sinking heart that, in his absence, his beloved establishment had become the Café Greg.

He went into the kitchen, and chatted to the chef, Karen. All was peace. All was calm. There were no temperaments on show, no eruptions.

It was a well-oiled machine, and there was nothing for him to do. This should have pleased him, and it did to an extent, but it also made him uneasy. He felt like a spare prick in his own genitalia.

None of the staff mentioned the adverts. Not once. It was inconceivable that none of them had seen them. Clearly an instruction had gone out, from Michelle probably (who was now larger than ever, and very happily married to the one non-lesbian who had written to her after her TV appearance, so that Greg now referred to her as ‘ecstatic of Edmonton’), ‘Don’t mention the adverts, whatever you do.’

How humiliating.

But none of the customers mentioned them either. Henry was convinced that customers and staff had conferred, had decided that the adverts were so awful that the subject must be avoided at all costs.

It was terrible. It would have been better if somebody had said, ‘Henry, what on earth were you doing agreeing to that crap?’ and he’d have said, ‘Well, it’s in a good cause and who cares?’ and they could all have had a laugh about it.

Henry realised that he had become the sort of restaurant proprietor that he despised – all smiles and no product. Good morning, sir. Good morning, madam. Lovely day. Is everything all right? Excellent. How was
Minorca?
Oh good. Just occasionally get a chance to serve a customer, from time to time manage to carry a plate so as not to look too idle.

Some of the regular customers had cottoned on to Greg’s hopelessness with acronyms, and deliberately made fun of him, fun of which he was totally oblivious. Just as Peter Stackpool entered, Henry heard a loss adjustor say, ‘What do you think of PVC, Greg?’ and Greg’s reply of ‘I dunno. I haven’t never been on French trains. Can’t afford it on my pay.’

This was Henry’s chance to serve somebody and look busy.

‘Peter!’ he said. ‘What’s it to be today? Let me guess. I know. Ham salad.’

‘Do you know,’ said Peter Stackpool roguishly, ‘I think I’ve been a bit of a stick in the mud. I think that today …’ Henry could see him plucking up his courage. ‘I think that today …’ He spoke with just a touch of devil may care brio. ‘… I just might go for the
beef
salad.’

This little incident filled Henry with a sense of the joyous absurdity of life. What did it matter if he had made himself look ridiculous? It had been in a good cause. That was what mattered. He felt happy, and at ease with the world. He wanted to laugh out loud at what Peter Stackpool believed to be his courage, but the phone rang and he answered it instead.

‘Good afternoon,’ he enthused. ‘What can I do for you this lovely day?’

‘Henry Pratt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fergus Horncastle,
Daily Smear
.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Horncastle?’ He handed the chitty ordering PS’s salad to a passing waitress.

‘Your adverts for Happy Fields chickens, Mr Pratt …’

The man was enjoying himself. Why was he enjoying himself?

‘What about them?’

‘We have it on good authority that the chickens at Happy Fields are battery hens kept in conditions of extreme cruelty.’

‘What???’

‘As an ex-journalist yourself you’ll be able to imagine the headlines. “Top Chef’s Goose is Cooked”, “Not So Clucking Happy After All, says Henrietta”, “Henry the Hypocrite in Henhouse Horror”, “Free Range Henry Faces Battery of Criticism”.’

Henry’s head began to swim. What was all this? Why did he believe immediately that it was true?

Because, he now had to admit to himself, something about Jonathan Cromarty had been nagging him.

The fact that he hadn’t known where the coffee was had been nagging him. He could see the man now, searching for it.

It hadn’t been his kitchen!

He looked round the Café, amazed that lunch was still proceeding so happily, so normally.

‘Are you still there, Henry?’

What makes you think you can call me Henry?

‘Yes. I’m still here, Magnus.’

‘Fergus. We have photographs, Henry.’

‘There must be two chicken farms called “Happy Fields”.’

‘We’ve thought of that. We’ve made exhaustive checks. We can find no trace of another one.’

‘How have you found out about this?’

‘A phone call.’

‘Who from?’

‘Anonymous. We rang 1471. The caller didn’t wish to leave his number.’

‘I bet he didn’t. My “Happy Fields” is in Sussex, near Battle.’

‘Ours is in Kent, near Tunbridge Wells.’

‘I’m going down there,’ said Henry. ‘Hold the front page.’

‘Real journalism isn’t like the films, Henry,’ said Fergus Horncastle.

It was late afternoon by the time Henry approached the farm in Sussex. He felt very nervous.

He had been duped. He knew he had. Jonathan Cromarty had been a fraud. There
was
no wife who found Henry cuddly. He felt disappointed about that. How vain he had allowed himself to become. New Henry couldn’t shed all this vanity straightaway. He would have to work at it.

The road dipped into a valley, shimmering silently in the heat.

He knew he’d been fooled, yet he still hoped that everything would be the same on this sultry afternoon as it had been on that fresh early summer morning, before the sun’s breath had become stale.

It was the same. The lane fringed by smart white fencing. The orchards. The fields.

Only the name board at the entrance to the farmyard
was
different. ‘Martin Wildblood Farms – Organic is our Middle Name.’

He parked in the yard and walked to the front door with crunching steps and a thudding heart.

He half expected the door to be opened by Jonathan Cromarty, or the man who called himself Jonathan Cromarty.

Nobody opened the door.

He went round the side, where the immaculate frontage gave way to chaos – old bits of rusted metal, dogs’ bones, a chewed tennis ball, frayed shirts on a line, an empty fuel drum on its side.

He knocked at the kitchen door and it opened immediately.

It wasn’t Jonathan Cromarty. It was a woman, a farmer’s wife, middle-aged, chunky, cheeks chapped by the wind.

‘Yes?’ she said suspiciously.

‘My name’s Henry Pratt.’

‘Oh?’

It meant nothing to her. He felt a stab of irritation. What was the point of being well-known if nobody had heard of you?

He fought off the irritation. New Henry didn’t think such things. New Henry was modest. New Henry found it refreshing to be unknown. New Henry knew that it was good for him to be brought down to size.

Absurdly, though, he wanted this very real woman to find him cuddly, as the invented farmer’s wife had. He was certain that this woman was not married to Jonathan Cromarty. They didn’t go together.

He told her his story. Her mouth dropped open. She rang her husband’s mobile. He came immediately.
His
mouth dropped open. Henry took them to the board with the name of their farm. He told them what the board had said on his previous visit. They stared at the board as if it might provide an answer to the mystery.

‘It said “Happy Fields Chickens”?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand it.’

They went back to the kitchen. Martin’s wife, whose name was Marie, offered Henry a coffee. She found the jar without difficulty. Martin found the date of Henry’s visit in his diary without difficulty too.

‘We were in Majorca,’ he said.

Marie smiled briefly at the memory, then realised that holidays in Majorca didn’t fit easily with their hardworking image.

‘Just for a week,’ she said. ‘Our first holiday for five years.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Henry. ‘I know how hard farmers work.’

She softened. Henry felt sure she was beginning to find him cuddly.

‘We left our man in charge,’ said Martin.

‘We only have one man now,’ said Marie.

‘There were eighteen at harvest time in that old photo above the settle,’ said Martin. He sighed. ‘I’d have trusted Colin with my right arm.’

‘I wonder how much they paid him,’ said Marie.

‘Can I speak to him?’ asked Henry.

‘He’s in Madeira. Three weeks. We have to give him proper holidays.’

‘What was the man like?’ asked Martin.

‘Very thin,’ said Henry. ‘Very tall. Six five, I’d say.’

‘Don’t know anyone like that.’

‘He called himself Jonathan Cromarty. He couldn’t say his Rs.’

‘Like Jonathan Ross,’ said Martin. ‘We watched him the other day. I fell asleep. Well, I work hard. You enjoyed him, didn’t you, Marie?’

‘You’ve got it, Martin,’ said Marie.

‘What?’

‘He was phoney. Ross and Cromarty used to be a county in Scotland. We were on holiday there once. Must be twenty years ago,’ she added hurriedly. ‘As I say, we can’t find time for many holidays.’

‘I’m not with you,’ said Martin. ‘What are you on about?’

‘He was imitating Jonathan Ross and calling himself Jonathan Cromarty.’ Marie tried not to sound as if she was talking to idiots.

Henry felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

‘Good God!’ he said. ‘Bloody hell! Jonathan Cromarty! Couldn’t say R! They must think I’m really stupid if they thought I’d fall for something as obvious as that.’

‘But you did fall for it,’ said Marie gently, as to one she found cuddly.

‘Well, I know,’ said Henry. ‘Because I had absolutely no reason to be suspicious. I don’t go through life expecting that everything that happens is going to turn out to be a complete con. No, I’m not so upset at falling for it. What I
am
upset about is that they
knew
I’d fall for it.’