The Complete Pratt (86 page)

It was no contest.

‘Are you my sister’s new lover?’ said Sam.

There was uneasy laughter.

‘Shut up, pest,’ said Hilary.

Peter Matheson was there, with his tall, rather stiff wife Olivia. Well, that was to be expected. Less expected was the balding man
with
the catastrophic suit, who’d been discussing ‘a personal matter’ in the Winstanley with Mr Matheson.

Four middle-aged people were crammed into a large floral sofa. There were also three large floral armchairs, six Windsor chairs from the dining-room and a wheelchair. In the wheelchair was a pale woman whose face shone with the serenity of suffering accepted with dignity.

‘Meet my mother,’ said Hilary. ‘Mummy, this is Henry.’

Mrs Lewthwaite smiled gravely.

‘Hello, Henry,’ she said.

‘Hello, Mrs Lewthwaite,’ he said.

‘My name’s Nadežda,’ she said. ‘I’m Yugoslavian. Everyone in England ignores my beautiful name, and calls me Naddy.’

‘Then I’ll call you Nadežda,’ he said.

Hilary gave him a look as if to say, ‘Come on: There’s no need to put on too perfect an act.’ She didn’t explain why her mother was in a wheelchair.

Everybody praised his article on Peter Matheson, although Olivia seemed a little dry, saying, ‘I don’t know anybody whose opinion of himself needs bolstering less than Peter.’ She was trying to look relaxed, but maintained something of the air, among all these socialists, of a Victorian missionary looking for good qualities among cannibals.

‘Have you heard from Anna, Hilary?’ said Mr Matheson.

‘Yes,’ said Hilary. ‘She’s … er … in Toulouse, with this pen-friend.’

Henry was terrified that he was going to blush.

‘That’s what she told me,’ he said. ‘Apparently she’s going to become a nun. The pen-friend, not Anna. I can’t see Anna becoming a nun!’ He remembered that the Mathesons thought Anna led a sheltered life, and did blush.

‘We had a letter. Not very informative,’ said Olivia.

‘Eloquent with evasion,’ said Peter Matheson. He seemed as pleased with his phrase as he was worried about Anna.

‘And now you’re going out with Hilary,’ said Olivia drily.

‘Yes! I seem to be going through them in alphabetical order!’ Henry went scarlet as he realized the possible implications of his phrase. ‘I don’t mean … er …’

‘We didn’t think you did,’ said Olivia Matheson coolly. ‘I think we know Anna better than that.’

‘And Hilary too,’ said Peter Matheson, slightly too hastily, after slightly too long a pause.

‘Excuse us,’ said Hilary. ‘I must introduce Henry to everybody.’

She led him away.

‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘What made you say that?’

‘Embarrassment,’ he said. ‘I find embarrassment incredibly embarrassing.’ He remembered Diana Pilkington-Brick, née Hargreaves, saying that, years ago, on another embarrassing occasion.

She introduced him to the balding man in the disastrous suit, who on this occasion was wearing a disastrous sports jacket. He was Herbert Wilkinson, Chief Planning Officer. Henry’s spine tingled.

‘We met before,’ he said. ‘You were busy with a personal matter.’

‘No mystery about it,’ said Herbert Wilkinson. ‘Peter Matheson’s nephew is marrying our daughter.’

Henry felt a lurch of doubt at discovering that the two men really had been discussing a personal matter. Then he encouraged himself with the realization that he had uncovered opportunities for nepotism.

There were too many people to constitute a group, but not enough to make a successful party. It was all slightly dull, and Henry was so glad that he was there. Little pieces of party food were handed round. There was too much food for snacks, and not enough for a meal, and the food was rather uninspired, and Henry was so glad that he was there. The drink flowed just fast enough to make him wish that it was flowing faster. At midnight they listened to the chimes of Big Ben. They all stood up, except for Nadežda. They linked hands, and formed a large circle among the chairs. Hilary and Howard Lewthwaite were at the side of Nadežda’s chair, leaning down to bring her into the circle. They sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ without quite enough conviction, as if they thought it absurd, when life is so short, to welcome the end of an old year and naïve, when life is so brutish, to welcome the beginning of a new one. Not all of them knew the words, and it
was
all vaguely embarrassing, and Henry was so glad that he was there. Then, rather absurdly, they clapped, and stopped clapping too soon, as if they realized that it was absurd. There were no silly hats, no squeakers. They moved around, in slow rotation, and kissed each other, rather formally, wishing each other a happy 1957. Olivia Matheson presented her cheek as if it were a rare privilege. Henry said, ‘Happy New Year, Mrs Matheson,’ and added, silently, ‘in which your husband will be ruined.’ Henry and Hilary hugged each other, and he said, ‘Happy New Year, my love.’ My love! It was the first time he’d used the word ‘love’. He gasped at the revelation. He bent down and kissed crippled Yugoslavian Mrs Lewthwaite. How cold her cheek was. She said, ‘Be careful with Hilary.’ His eyes filled with tears and oh no here was Sam approaching. If Sam saw his tears! He fought the flood back and said, ‘Hello, pest.’ Sam nodded his approval curtly and said, ‘You’re better than any of the last eight. Maybe you’ll last.’ Howard Lewthwaite clasped Henry’s hands in his, and said nothing. Henry told Hilary that he must talk to her.

‘That sounds ominous,’ she said. ‘I know the perfect place. But it’ll be cold.’

‘I don’t mind,’ he said.

They put their coats on and wandered out, away from that anti-climactic gathering of middle-aged people who didn’t quite know what to do now that it was 1957. The rain had almost stopped. They walked off, away from the faint light filtering through the cosy, curtained windows, into the vast black universe beyond. Hilary guided him across the squelching lawn to a rustic wooden summer house. It was milder than of late, but still cold. And there, sitting on a circular bench that ran round the inside of the summer house, on that winter night, they talked.

At first it was difficult. He wanted to ask her about those remarks that people kept making, about her mental illness, about her being a problem. But he didn’t know how to begin.

She shivered.

‘You’re cold,’ he said, putting his arm round her.

‘Not really. More frightened,’ she said.

‘Frightened? Of me?’

‘Of me. Of me and you and the world.’

‘Are you having sexual intercourse in there?’ called out Sam.

‘Shove off, object,’ said Hilary.

‘You’ll get splinters,’ warned Sam.

‘Belt up, monster,’ said Hilary.

Sam belted up and shoved off.

‘He likes me to be rude to him,’ said Hilary. ‘It’s the only kind of affection he can deal with at the moment.’

‘I know.’

‘You know a lot.’

‘Not enough. Not nearly enough.’

‘You want to, don’t you? Make love.’

‘Very much.’

She told him why she was frightened. She told him of the man she had loved, who had left her for another. She told him how she had fought her despair, and sought consolation, after a few drinks, after a party, with a man she hardly knew. And how the man had gone too fast, and she had tried to draw back. She couldn’t look at Henry as she told him how the man had raped her. She told him how the man had got away with it, because if a woman had a few drinks, was pleasant to a man, flirted a bit with him, the world said she was asking for it. She told him what it was like to wake up in a hospital ward, among total strangers, not knowing where you were, and to realize, gradually, that this was the same old you, the same old earth, the fight had to go on, you hadn’t taken a large enough dose, you’d been found too soon, by people who would always wonder whether you’d meant to be found, when you’d yearned for the peace of eternal blackness. She told him what it was like to face the distress of those you loved and realize that you had almost killed your crippled mother. She told him what it was like to realize that you had no alternative but to try not to do it again. ‘I’m permanently diminished by the disgust I feel,’ she said. ‘I think you ought to go.’

‘I’ll never go,’ he whispered.

She kissed him gently, on the lips.

‘I don’t know if it can work,’ she said.

‘Of course it can,’ he said. ‘You know it can. You’ve known these last few days.’

‘I’ve known I hope it can,’ she said. ‘You’re the first man I’ve felt even remotely safe with since it happened.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,’ he said.

‘It’s meant to be the greatest compliment I’ve ever paid to anyone.’

They clutched each other, and sat motionless and silent.

‘Anna said …’he said at last.

‘Anna said what?’

Could he? Should he? ‘Anna said … you were mentally ill.’

‘I’ve had a lot of depression,’ she said. ‘And I tried to kill myself. And I went very inward. If that’s mental illness, I’m mentally ill.’

He clasped her left hand. It was icy. He had to fight the temptation to tell her that her tiny hand was frozen.

‘Every day I hear the screams of the world,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘My parents taught me how to care, and now I can’t stop. I hear the agony of people imprisoned without trial. I hear the repression of minorities. I hear the knock on the door in the middle of the night. I hear the screams of the wounded in obscure border wars between countries whose names I can’t pronounce. Not all the time. But every day … somewhere … some time … If that’s mental illness, I’m mentally ill.’

He laid his cheek upon her cold cheek. Mother Nature, that old softie, sent a shaft of moonlight across the trim suburban lawn. Hilary shuddered.

‘I love you,’ she said.

He couldn’t speak.

‘I never thought I’d hear myself say that again,’ she said.

He couldn’t speak.

‘What a responsibility,’ he sobbed at last. His tears streamed. She massaged his hands gently. ‘I’m so happy,’ he moaned absurdly.

She lent him a small white handkerchief. He felt brutish, violating it.

‘You’re a complete fool, you know,’ he said. ‘I’m clumsy, insensitive, thoughtless, hopeless. I’m a case.’

How they talked, as the clouds drifted back across the moon, as
if
to say that they shouldn’t expect too much from 1957. He told her about his childhood, all his schools, all his humiliations. He told her about Denzil and Lampo, in Siena. She laughed.

Suddenly she gave a screech of laughter. ‘You
did
think I’d been in a straight-jacket,’ she said. ‘Poor Henry. How brave you’ve been, waiting for the eruption of madness every second of every day.’ She laughed till the tears ran. He joined in sheepishly. She talked again about what a mistake her holiday with Anna had been. And yet something had been achieved, something of the spirit of Italy had entered her soul. She’d begun, slowly, to enjoy life again, in Durham. She’d begun to hope, to her surprise, that she would see, in Thurmarsh, the funny little journalist she’d met in Siena. She talked about her girlfriends in Durham. She talked about going to London, with Clare and Siobhan, to protest about Suez. Oh god, he wished he’d been there. What did you do in the Great War, Daddy? I admired biscuit tins, son.

She talked about the dreadful days of her mother’s polio attack, two years after Sam was born. She talked about the bronchial days, towards the end of winter, when each year grew more dangerous for her mother. Then they put their tongues in each other’s mouths and kissed and kissed and kissed. The saliva grew cold on their slurpy faces, and their tongues grew slow and gentle, slower and gentler, and more sensitive, and then they removed their tongues and hugged each other.

Her father banged on the door.

‘Are you coming in?’ he said.

‘We’re coming,’ she said.

In they went, through the French windows, creeping, whispering, so as not to wake her mother or the object.

‘We were talking,’ she whispered. ‘Talking and kissing.’

Howard Lewthwaite touched Henry gently on the shoulder.

‘Would you like to stay?’ he said. ‘On the sofa?’

‘It’d be lovely to know you’re there,’ said Hilary. ‘It’d be lovely to start 1957 by waking up in the same house as you.’

Howard Lewthwaite touched Henry gently on the shoulder.

Oh, the bitter-sweet evenings of talk and beer and desire and frustration and the continuing steady improvement of Oscar’s
haemorrhoids
. Oh, the lingering good night kisses in Perkin Warbeck Drive.

Oh, the difficulty of having to investigate Hilary’s so-called Uncle Peter, who was her father’s friend, not to mention Herbert Wilkinson, who was also her father’s friend. Howard Lewthwaite would hardly relish being told, by a twenty-one-year-old, that his choice of friends was unwise, that he was naïve. If only he had more courage. If only Hard Man Henry hadn’t become a ghost.

Stanley Matthews and Donald Campbell were given CBEs. C. P. Snow was knighted. A leftwing government under a military dictator was formed in Syria. Egypt abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1954, denying the basis on which Britain could use the Suez Canal in time of war. John Foster Dulles, who had done so much to turn a disastrous Anglo-French victory into an even more disastrous defeat, said that the US had a major responsibility to help prevent the spread of Soviet imperialism in the Middle East. The pleas of road haulers for more fuel were rejected.