Pratt a Manger Read Free

fail. He is very old. Just … just look after him. I love him very much, you know.’
    ‘I know, and of course I will. You didn’t need to say all that.’
    ‘As I get older, Henry, and time runs out, I’d rather say what I didn’t need to say than risk not saying what I needed to say.’
    ‘That’s good. May I use that?’
    ‘I’d be flattered.’
    ‘Now … are you eating?’
    ‘Please.’
    Lampo looked towards the blackboard, and just for a moment he gawped. It was a triple whammy, thought Henry – a swear word, a social gaffe and a gawp – three firsts for Lampo in one day.
    ‘Hake Lampo?’
    ‘I sometimes name my inventions after very special friends.’
    ‘Henry!’
    Lampo reached out and kissed Henry full on the lips. Nicky smiled. Peter Stackpool flinched.
    ‘It’s hake the way I did it for your birthday.’
    ‘It was delicious. Memorable. Gorgeous. I’ll have the fennel casserole.’
    ‘Not your hake, after I called it after you? Not so delicious after all?’
    ‘Denzil thinks he knows how you made it, and makes it himself. He’s a magpie. Besides, I feel vegetarian today.’
    ‘Nicky’s having the fennel. Ask her how it is.’ Henry called out, ‘How’s the casserole, Nicky?’
    ‘Delicious.’
    ‘Good.’
    Lampo ordered the fennel casserole. Henry wrote, ‘It’s better to say what doesn’t need to be said than risk not saying what needed to be said’ on a piece of card, and pinned it on the wall just above Nicky. As he did so, he couldn’t help getting a really good view of the tops of her breasts.
    A few more customers filtered in, but it was still the quietest lunchtime that Henry could remember.
    When Nicky came up to pay, he said, ‘This really has been the quietest lunchtime I can ever remember.’
    ‘I believe you,’ she said.
    ‘No, it’s true,’ he said.
    ‘I said I believed you,’ she said.
    Just as Henry was wondering whether or not to charge Nicky, a very unglamorous couple came in, and the man said, ‘What would you like, Delilah?’ and the woman, who didn’t look remotely like a Delilah, said to Henry, ‘Have you got such a thing as a glass of white wine? Not too dry, not too sweet?’
    ‘Medium?’ suggested Henry.
    ‘Brilliant,’ said Delilah.
    Henry’s eyes met Nicky’s, and when Delilah and her partner had moved to a table, she said, ‘What a master of your craft!’
    He decided, even as he smiled at her gentle mockery, that he didn’t want anything personal to enter into their relationship, so in the end he did charge her.
    ‘I imagine you can get it all back on expenses,’ he said.
    ‘Maybe not if I have nothing to show for it,’ she said, ‘but I am going to have something to show for it, aren’t I?’
    He couldn’t understand why he didn’t say, ‘No, Nicky. You are not. Stop wasting your time.’
    But he didn’t.
    He fetched her leather coat, and tried hard but unsuccessfully to avoid peering down her cleavage as he helped her on with it almost suavely. He also couldn’t help admiring her pert, taut backside as she walked out. Then he couldn’t help catching sight of PS, who also couldn’t help admiring her pert, taut backside, and he thought, ‘What a horrible, dirty old man he looks.’
    Somehow the Café seemed duller after Nicky had left.
    But it seemed more interesting again after PS had left.
    When he’d finished his fennel casserole, Lampo came up to the bar for an espresso. You couldn’t imagine him with a cappuccino. There was nothing sweet or milky about Lampo, unlike Nicky’s breasts. Stop it!
    ‘She’s pretty,’ said Lampo, as if he could read Henry’s mind.
    ‘In a hard, media way, I suppose,’ said Henry, trying to persuade himself.
    ‘You on TV, though, that would be priceless.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    ‘My little fatty faggy chops, my inelegant Northern hick, a star.’
    ‘Don’t be stupid.’
    ‘Fun, though. One in the eye for Tosser.’
    Tosser Pilkington-Brick had been Lampo’s study