The Complete Pratt (129 page)

Belinda Boyce-Uppingham tried hard to look impressed.

‘I am solely responsible for the nationwide fight against diseases of the cucumber. Did you know that there are more than forty major diseases of cucumbers?’

‘Golly!’

‘“Golly!” indeed!’

Henry was a bit worried about Tommy Marsden, who was knocking back the champagne. He hoped what they said in the papers wasn’t true.

‘Hello, Tommy,’ he said. ‘Far cry from the Paradise Lane Gang.’

‘Too right,’ said Tommy Marsden.

‘Is everything all right with you still?’ asked Henry.

‘You mustn’t believe what you read in the papers,’ said Tommy Marsden. ‘I got pissed and slept in once. If you believe the papers, I never train, I play when I’m drunk, and I’ve thrown a boot at the manager. I’d be out, wouldn’t I, if I did? All that business with that tart in Bratislava was set up, too. They just wanted us out of the European Cup. Hey up, here’s another member of the gang. Martin Fucking Hammond.’

‘Please, Tommy, great to have you here, but can you avoid saying “fucking”,’ said Henry.

‘Henry!’ said Cousin Hilda, passing by in search of more pineapple juice.

‘You two allus were stuck-up bastards,’ said Tommy Marsden. ‘I’m a footballer. They expect me to be uncouth. The chicks like me to be uncouth.’

Tommy Marsden moved on, and Henry knew that if he caused an embarrassing scene it was his fault for asking him; he’d asked him because he’d get some kudos from having such a famous friend.

‘Hello, Martin. Hello, Mandy,’ he said. ‘How’s married life?’

‘Very life-enhancing,’ said Mandy Hammond, née Haltwhistle.

‘Good. I’m pleased to hear that.’

‘This do could feed a whole province in Guatemala,’ said Martin.

‘Oh, Martin, I wouldn’t have invited you if I’d known you were going to depress me,’ said Henry.

‘Just joking,’ said Martin Hammond. ‘I know you think I’m a bore. I thought I’d show you I can let my hair down when the occasion demands it.’

The gathering drifted
en masse
to the main room, which exactly suited the size of the guest list. The ceiling was high and had impressive mouldings, and there was a lovely chandelier which, if it fell, would crush Cousin Hilda, who was giving occasional uneasy looks towards it, not being used to sitting under chandeliers. The whole do was elegant enough to pass muster in a brain surgeon’s world, but modest enough to suit what was a second marriage for both parties.

The top table, while following the rules of etiquette, had a somewhat eccentric look, since Henry’s parents were represented by Cousin Hilda and Auntie Doris. Since there were two bridesmaids, Kate at one end and Camilla at the other, there were at the table six females, two of them children, and only three males, one of them homosexual.

The meal was cold, but delicious. Rough pâté, followed by Scotch salmon and tarragon chicken with new potatoes and various salads, and strawberries and cream. There was good flinty Mâcon Blanc, rather than the Chablis that a doctor’s son would have merited.

Henry, seated between Diana and her mother, knew that he’d got the best of the table arrangement. Mrs Hargreaves told him how happy they were to welcome him as a son-in-law, although Mr Hargreaves flirted dangerously with tactlessness when he leant across and said, ‘We were disappointed in Nigel. We had such high hopes. With you, I have a feeling it’s going to be the other way about.’

The salmon was the proper stuff, not the farmed kind that poisons lochs and dulls taste buds. The chicken had enjoyed the open air and the fields of Sussex. The tarragon sauce was delicious. Henry wished that he could relax, wished that he didn’t feel so anxious about his surrogate parents, about whether the Director (Operations) and the Regional Co-ordinator, Northern Counties (Excluding Berwick-on-Tweed) and their wives were enjoying themselves, about whether Tommy Marsden would disgrace himself, about whether Kate and Camilla would behave with dignity, and whether Benedict and Jack would come to blows at the children’s table over at the far right.

He felt Diana’s hand on his.

‘Happy, darling?’

‘Very happy.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly.’

‘
I
am.’

‘What?’

‘Happy.’

‘Good. But why do you say, “
I
am,” as if I’m not? I am.’

‘You don’t look happy.’

‘I’m just anxious, that’s all. I want everything to go well.’

‘It will. And if it doesn’t it’s not your fault. You’re too self-important.’

‘Self-important? Me?’

‘You take responsibility for the whole world.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘Don’t look so hurt. It’s one of the reasons why I love you.’

‘What are the others?’

‘I can’t tell you in public. Do you love me?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Then tell me.’

‘I love you.’

‘No regrets?’

‘No regrets.’

He did try not to worry. He could hear Mrs Hargreaves asking
Auntie
Doris all about Miles Cricklewood, where he’d been a vet, what size of practice he’d had, about his parents and his family home. She was showing her broad-mindedness about what was still fairly unusual even in 1968, two mature adults living ‘in sin’. Auntie Doris didn’t have time to worry about the moral aspects. She was too anxious not to contradict herself with the mythical
curriculum vitae
she provided for her absent vet. She couldn’t remember if she’d placed his practice in Surrey or Sussex. Her memory wasn’t quite what it had been, and it was all too difficult.

Cousin Hilda, on Henry’s other side, between Mr Hargreaves and Lampo, was putting up a surprisingly animated show. She was appalled that Henry was marrying for the second time – she had sniffed several times when he’d told her, and hadn’t known how she would tell Mrs Wedderburn– but now that the event was upon them she would do her level best not to show him up, even if her motivation was largely not to show herself up, her limestone grit coming out in the face of all this soft southern soil. Unfortunately she had no idea what were considered interesting conversational topics in the big world. Every now and then Henry could hear Mr Hargreaves responding with excruciating politeness to her remarks. ‘Moved from the cheese counter to tins! How distressing.’ ‘Well, if they don’t like spotted dick they needn’t be in for tea on a Tuesday, need they?’ and he went hot under the collar at Mr Hargreaves’s boredom, though knowing perfectly well that Mr Hargreaves could cope.

For a while, both Diana and Mrs Hargreaves were speaking to their neighbours and there was nobody for him to speak to. He looked down at the buzzing, cheery room. People were enjoying themselves at all the tables. Nobody was interested in him or in whether he had anybody to speak to.

Shortly before the end of the main course, Auntie Doris passed out and had to be brought round with a cold dishcloth. She couldn’t tell Mrs Hargreaves that the strain of her questions about Miles Cricklewood had been the cause. She blamed the heat.

Nobody blamed the heat when Tommy Marsden passed out. Henry leapt to his feet, and hurried out into the heart of the
reception
, determined not to look embarrassed. He and Martin Hammond carried Tommy Marsden out, the two members of the Paradise Lane gang who had gone to the grammar school helping the one who didn’t.

Henry returned to his seat and tried to look natural, as though his friends passed out around him every day.

‘I hope nobody else passes out,’ he said. ‘Only they say things go in threes.’

Just after he’d sat down, he heard Cousin Hilda say to Mr Hargreaves, ‘I know very little about brain surgery,’ and throughout the strawberries and cream he could hear Mr Hargreaves talking about brain damage, and defunct areas of the brain, and he could see Cousin Hilda nodding sagely, as if she understood, and he had visions of horrible accidents, of Diana lying with her head smashed, of knives in brains, and he felt faint. The sweat was pouring down his back. Diana from a long way off asked him if he was all right, and he said, ‘Kiss me. Please, kiss me,’ so urgently that Diana gave him a passionate kiss, and he kissed her back. They kissed long and hard at the top table in front of all their guests, as though they were on their own, and people laughed and clapped and Lampo cried, ‘Bravo!’ and Paul shouted, ‘Dirty beast!’ and Cousin Hilda looked horrified, and Jack looked at Benedict and said, ‘Yuk!’ and Benedict said, ‘Double yuk!’ and Jack said, ‘Twenty-seven thousand four hundred and ninety-third yuk!’ and Benedict said, ‘Thirteen trillion four billion seven million three hundred and ninety-fifth yuk!’ and just for a moment it looked as if it might be possible for them to become friends.

Henry felt better. The glasses were charged for the toasts. Lampo stood up and began to read the telegrams.

‘“My love, my blessing, and my hopes for your happiness – Hilary,”’ read Lampo.

Henry passed out.

IF YOU’VE NEVER
driven an elderly Mini from London to Thurmarsh with four children between the ages of eight and eleven crammed into the back, two of whom have the natural arrogance of southern prep-school children, and one of whom might eat the chip on her shoulder if she wasn’t feeling car sick, you’ll have to imagine the first day proper of Henry and Diana’s marital idyll.

‘Haven’t seen anybody spitting on pavements yet,’ said Benedict, just after they had passed through Newark.

‘Just because it’s all horrendously sordid doesn’t mean we’re in the proper North yet,’ said Camilla.

Kate began to hit out at Camilla, losing control and yelling.

Jack put a calming hand on Kate, but she hurled his gesture back at him.

‘Won’t bloody try to help in future,’ he grumbled.

Diana shouted, ‘Shut up, the lot of you,’ and Henry stopped the car with a jerk. Camilla was shoved forward, and banged her head, precocity dissolving into tears straight away, and Kate clambered miserably out of the car and was violently sick on the verge.

Diana wanted Kate to sit in the front after that, but she refused, knowing what hostility such a favour would arouse.

‘Don’t want her in the back,’ said Benedict. ‘She smells of sick.’

Diana leant across and hit Benedict, harder than she intended.

Henry winced.

Benedict went very quiet, but Henry and Diana could sense his fury and himiliation.

Henry wished the sun was shining. The countryside looked grey and drab, the houses poor and dusty. He longed for his beloved North Country to shine, but it refused. They sidled in, between collieries and clapped-out steelworks, through a land in limbo
between
an ugly, virile past and a flat, uncertain future. How he wished that there were just himself and Diana and his beloved Kate and Jack in the car, and not these two southern children with their assumptions about lifestyles, their contempt for his old car, their scorn of the North. He wondered if Diana was wishing that there were just herself and Henry and her beloved children, and not highly strung, super-sensitive, carsick Kate and infuriatingly placid Jack. How well did they really know each other? Was this a dreadful mistake? Had they rushed in too quickly, on the rebound? He looked at Diana’s strained face, and wondered if she was thinking the same thing, and panic gripped him.

The puncture was the final humiliation.

‘How quaint,’ said Benedict. ‘I didn’t realise people actually
had
punctures any more.’

How good it was, in that difficult time, to fight the diseases of the cucumber. Henry’s new office was in the basement with no carpet and no windows, but there was no sense of demotion in his move underground. Here in this large, bunker-like room he was king. How exciting it was, in those first stressful weeks of his new marriage, to stick flags in a large relief map of the United Kingdom. Basal rot in Myton-on-Swale. Green mottle mosaic intermittent from Beverley to Market Weighton. Downy mildew prevalent around Kettering. Fusarium wilt particularly common from Wimborne to Dorchester.

Henry knew that his enthusiasm was at least faintly ridiculous. He wasn’t at all surprised when John Barrington wandered into his long, low-ceilinged basement room, looked at all the flags with the diseases written on them, and said, ‘How’s the war going, Winston?’

‘Pretty damn well, John,’ he said. ‘Pretty bad genetic yellowing in parts of Essex, casualties are inevitable, but some of the cucumbers’ll get through.’

‘Damn good show,’ said John Barrington, and Henry smiled a slow, half-pleased smile.

Jack and Benedict shared one bedroom, Kate and Camilla another. The children were too old for mixed-sex sharing, and in any case they were anxious not to polarise the southern and the northern children.

Benedict had been imbued with the social assumptions of Tosser Pilkington-Brick. White upper-middle-class Conservative rugby-playing English males were superior to every other form of intelligent and unintelligent life. Whippet-fanciers, miners, socialists, Henry, immigrants and women were on a par with maggots. He felt hostile to Henry, but even more hostile to Diana, who had betrayed him and his beloved father.