Free Pratt a Manger by David Nobbs Page B

dead,’ said Henry.
    ‘Even if he is,’ said Diana.

5 Big Issues
    IN THE MIDDLE of the night, in the warm womb of their double bed, in the safety of their love, Henry listened carefully to Hilary’s breathing and decided that, like him, she was finding it difficult to sleep.
    ‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I was thinking about Benedict. Wondering if he has a bed to sleep in.’
    ‘I know,’ she whispered.
    ‘I’m going to try to find him. Really try. I’ve been telling myself that I’m not his real father, I’m no longer married to his mother, he isn’t my responsibility. It doesn’t work.’
    ‘I know.’
    Hilary reached over and squeezed his arm, then ran her hand up the inside of his legs.
    ‘I can’t remember if you’ve even met him,’ he whispered.
    ‘Only once. At the Hargreaveses’ one evening. He was only a baby and so were you that night. You were so rude.’
    ‘Don’t.’
    She slipped her hand on to his penis and stroked it, but in a friendly way rather than sexily. She didn’t expect any response, and she didn’t get any.
    ‘This needn’t concern you,’ whispered Henry. ‘It isn’t your battle.’
    ‘Of course it concerns me,’ she whispered. ‘If it’s your battle, it’s mine.’
    He put his hand on the top of her thigh and stroked her soft sweet skin absent-mindedly.
    ‘We’re very happy, aren’t we?’ he whispered.
    ‘Yes,’ she breathed.
    ‘Are we as happy as we were first time round?’
    ‘I don’t think that’s a sensible question to ask,’ she whispered.
    ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to ask it anyway.’
    She removed her hand.
    ‘You won’t get the answer you want.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘I think we’re doing very well. I think we really are pretty happy, on the whole, but our past history precludes the possibility of our being perfectly happy.’
    It sounded like a sentence from one of her novels.
    ‘Oh. I see.’
    Henry removed his hand from her thigh and for a few moments they lay side by side but not touching each other. A night bus roared past, muffled by the double glazing.
    ‘Why have we been whispering?’ he whispered. ‘We’re all alone in the house.’
    ‘I think it’s nice whispering,’ whispered Hilary. ‘It’s sexier.’
    She put her hand on his penis again and began to stroke it with rather more determination. Don’t you dare not to respond, said her insistent touch.
    *
    He arrived at the Café the next morning well before nine o’clock. He planned the dishes of the day, chalked them on to the blackboard, left notes for the staff, and locked himself in his office. Operation Benedict was under way.
    Henry’s office, at the back of the Café, was small; his office at the Cucumber Marketing Board had been small. There all similarity ended. That office had been neat, lifeless, dead. His desk had been almost bare. His desk here was cluttered with piles of paper – unpaid bills, paid bills, recipes, memos, invoices, outvoices, guide books. The walls were covered in more recipes, more memos, letters of praise from members of the public, government health warnings. There were further piles of paper on the floor, waiting to be filed. There were papers on the keyboard of his computer. He had to move several letters in order to get to the phone.
    He had several phone calls to make. His mood was strange. He had done his fourth recording of
A Question of Salt
. His fictional chef had been a man who opened a chain of fish and chip shops because his headmaster’s handwriting was bad and he had thought that his school report said, ‘Should do batter’. People seemed to like the absurd silliness of his contributions. He seemed to appeal to an innate childishness in the British character. Already his fifth recording was scheduled for the following Tuesday. Two weeks after that, his first appearance on the show would at last be transmitted to an astonished nation. He was feeling increasingly tense about his new career. Operation