The Complete Pratt Read Free Page A

know what to do with them. He’d been sick all over Uncle Teddy, just beyond Driffield. Uncle Teddy had been upset, but Auntie Doris had been very understanding, and had said that it had been Uncle Teddy’s fault for driving too fast. On the way home Uncle Teddy had driven with exaggerated care, and Henry had been sick all over Auntie Doris, just beyond Goole.
    That day, in his fourteenth summer, as Henry sat on Uncle Teddy’s settee, facing the open French windows, looking at his unremembered youth, Uncle Teddy said: ‘Now then, Henry. Doesn’t my Doris look a picture in that two-piece bathing suit?’
    ‘She certainly does, Uncle Teddy,’ said Henry, who could never think of anything interesting to say in Uncle Teddy’s presence.
    ‘Interested in girls yet, Henry?’ said Uncle Teddy.
    ‘Give over, Teddy,’ said Auntie Doris.
    ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Uncle Teddy, stabbing at the old snapshot with a nicotined finger. ‘Look at that bust. You don’t get many of those to the pound.’
    ‘Teddy!’ said Auntie Doris.
    Henry blushed, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of confusion at being seen to be blushing.
    ‘It’s part of his education, looking at a fine pair of Bristols,’ persisted Uncle Teddy.
    Henry felt the blood rushing to his face. He felt humiliatingly crimson. He wished he was two again, at Bridlington.
    ‘Teddy!’ hissed Auntie Doris, who always made things worse by protesting about them. ‘Bristol was where it happened.’
    ‘Oh Lord,’ said Uncle Teddy, reddening in his turn. ‘Oh Lordy Lord.’
    Henry rushed through the French windows, hurtled across the lawn, tripped over the tortoiseshell cat, and fell into the goldfish pond. It wasn’t the last pond that he would fall into, but it was infinitely the most humiliating
    1938 was represented by a picture of Henry with Cousin Hilda, by the river at Bakewell. He was clinging to her hand, and she was looking down at him, her face radiant with affection, all sniffing forgotten.
    Later still, when he was sixteen, and living with Cousin Hilda, he showed her this photo. She gave a stifled sob and rushed from the room. It was years later still before he realised why.
    She was looking at herself as she might have been, if she had been born into a different time.
    But I anticipate.
    All the pictures of young Henry Pratt showed a distinctly podgy child. Since he was of a lively and nervy disposition, everyone knew that he would soon grow out of his podginess. But everyone was wrong. He never did.
    When he looked at these pictures, Henry tried to fill in the gaps. He could summon up the old living room without too much trouble. The flagstone floor was covered with a brown carpet square, and lino edges. The rag rug stood in front of the leaded range, with oven, coal fire and hob. In one corner, behind a faded curtain, there was a sink with a square Ascot geyser. The window was over the oak dresser, and the street door led straight into the room. An army blanket hung over this door, to keep out the draught. Another door led down into the cellar. A tin bath with a handle at each end hung on this door. There was a battered mahogany sideboard, and an anonymous table. Over the mantelpiece there fitted an over-mantel. It was decorated with oak leaves and acorns. There were cracks in the walls and loose plaster hung threateningly from the ceiling. Condensation and rats were frequent visitors.
    He could summon up Paradise Lane, the uneven cobbles, the two rows of brick terraces, wine-red, grimy. The cul-de-sac ended in a brick wall, beyond which was the canal. Between numbers 25 and 27, a narrow alley led to the yard, which was surrounded by blackened brick walls. At each side of the yard there were two lavatories, with a midden between them. Two houses shared each lavatory. You poured your rubbish in the midden, and when the midden men came they stood in the midden and scooped the rubbish out. The yard smelt of refuse, and the rats liked