A Kind of Loving (12 page)

Anyway, now I've finished sorting the new records and I take
a look round the shop. One time the customers used to listen
to records on any old gram that was handy, but now there's a
couple of soundproof listening booths at one end of the shop.
Even these aren't enough some Saturdays, though, and I'm
thinking about something I've seen in Leeds: a kind of arrange
ment of turntables and earphones so's you can listen in private right out in the shop. I wonder if Mr Van Huyten would be
interested in this idea and I think I'll mention it to him some day
soon.

II

'Hello,' she says. "I've brought my friend along. I hope you don't
mind.'

'Oh, no ... no,' I say, like a clot. But what else can I say, for
Pete's sake? My heart's dropped down into my boots with a
thud because I know straight off my number's up. This is one
way of doing it, giving you the shove. They don't refuse the date
but they bring a girl friend along to keep you at arm's length;
and if you don't ask them again, well, that's okay, because that
was the idea in the first place.

I look at them standing arm-in-arm under the lamp: Ingrid
all neat and clean and fresh-smelling as usual, and this plain Jane
with a muddy complexion, a big nose, and a mouth like a crack
in a pie. I often wonder what it is makes bints pair off like this, one lovely and one horrible. You see it all the time and it must
have turned more lads against one another than nearly anything
else because if you're hunting in pairs somebody's got to have the
horror. As it is, it looks as if I've got both of them and neither.
And if the fact that she's here isn't enough the look this girl
friend's giving me says a mouthful.

Tonight's Sunday and we were out together for the second time last night. It wasn't like the first time, though. We went to
a plushy cinema in the middle of town and all we could do was
hold hands. Well that wasn't bad but once we were outside
again we
seemed to lose all the headway we'd made, just like we
did on Wednesday night. So it was my idea to go for a walk
tonight and see how we'd make out outside all evening.

And now this. This is a brush-off if ever I've seen one.

'This is Dorothy,' Ingrid says. 'And this is Vic.'

She was a nice girl as nice girls go and as nice girls go she went.
This Dorothy says nothing but carries on giving me the look
till I feel like asking her what she's got on her mind. There we are,
standing under the lamp; three of us, one too many, and that one
is me, Joe Soap.

'Do you know a girl called Mary Fitzpatrick?' this Dorothy
asks me all at once.

This is plain bints all over, the way they shoot questions at you
that seem to have all sorts of things hidden in them. It makes me
think she knows something nasty about me and I start to try
and think what it can be. Plain bints know they can't blind you
with their looks so they have to get at you some other way.

'Yes, I know her.'

'You don't know me, though, do you?' she says, and the way she says it makes it sound like 'But you'll wish you did in a minute!'

'I've never seen you before that I know of,' I tell her.

'But I know you,' she says, 'and I know Mary Fitzpatrick.'

'Give her my love next time you see her,' I say. What the hell's she getting at? I wonder.

'You used to give it to her yourself at one time, didn't you?'

'Me and Mary Fitzpatrick? I don't know what you're talking
about.'

Me and Mary Fitzpatrick used to live in the same street and
I can remember dancing with her one time and another time
walking her home because she was on her own and I was going
the same way anyway. That's all, and it's a fact; because though
I think she quite liked me she wasn't my type and anyway she was
a Catholic and I'm C. of E. when I'm anything and it's no use
letting religion in to balls things up. From the way this Dorothy's
talking though you'd think I put Mary Fitzpatrick in the
family
way.

'I hardly knew her,' I say and I wonder if Ingrid will believe
this. But what does it matter now whether she believes it or not?
She's looking from one to the other of us like she's taking it all
in and I feel like slapping this Dorothy across the face because
I know just what type she is now and it's a type I don't like a bit.

'Well,' Ingrid says, 'which way shall we go?'

'Any way you like,' I say. The walk doesn't seem like a good
idea any more. It just makes me look too skinny to take her to the
pictures again.

' Shall we go this way, then; up towards the park?'

'If you like.'

At least that's going away from the centre of town and cuts
down the risk of anybody I know seeing me with the two of them..

So we walk up the hill and they're still linking on the pavement, holding on to one another as if they expect somebody to
jump on them from round the corner. There isn't enough room on
the pavement for three abreast so I have to walk in the gutter. This seems to cut me off from Ingrid more than ever and I get a real strong feeling that I'm not wanted round these parts. I
wonder how long I can stick it before I make an excuse and blow.
It's a grand night, though. As we come up > over the hill where
there's houses on one side only we can see over the edge of the
cliff to all the lights in the valley and up the opposite side where
the road goes over the top to Calderford. It's just the kind of
night I was wishing for, hard and dry, just the night for walking
and talking and getting to know somebody better. As it is, it's all
gone wrong and I'm getting nowhere. I haven't said a word in
over five minutes. This Dorothy cramps my style no end, and
there's not much point in making an effort anyway now all the
signs are out. I'm not the brightest geezer in the world but I
can read the writing on the wall as well as the next man.

Dorothy's on the far side of Ingrid and she's saying something I can't hear. It sounds like some private joke from the way she's
keeping her voice down and when she stops they both giggle. I feel
they're making cracks about me, and even if they're not it's
rotten manners to carry on like that.

Then Dorothy lifts her voice and says, 'Look, that's where
Ralph Wilson lives now.' There's some pretty posh houses up on
this side of the park and she's pointing to this big place standing
back behind some trees. I catch a glimpse of a car, maybe an Armstrong Siddeley, standing in the drive.

'I didn't know they'd moved,' Ingrid says.

'Oh, yes, they've been up here a bit now,' Dorothy says.
'Proper stuck-up, he is, as well, since they went to live in a big house. He hardly speaks when he sees you.'

It sounds to me as though this Ralph Wilson's a man after
my own heart as far as Dorothy's concerned.

'I don't see why he should get stuck-up all of a sudden,' Ingrid
says. 'That house they lived in before was big enough and his
family was always well-off. Anyway, he's always friendly enough
with me when I see him.'

'Well, I think he should be friendly with you, if anybody,'
Dorothy says, and she's got that tone of voice out again, like she
knows a lot more than she's saying. But Ingrid takes her up on it.

'What d'you mean?'

'I mean after that time at the tennis club when you and him
were locked in the changing-rooms
and nobody could get in.'

'You know very well it was Harry Morris who did that. He
had the key all the time.'

'Oh, I know; but I'm talking about what went on inside. You didn't seem so bothered about getting out so quick, either of you.'

'Just what everybody wanted, wasn't it, for us to make a fuss?'

'Everybody except Ralph Wilson. I think he put Harry Norris
up to it in the first place.'

'Well he didn't get anything out of it if he did.'

'That's not what he said after. I heard some of the things he told the lads.'

'I don't know why you have to bring all this up,' Ingrid says. 'I'm sure Vic isn't interested in old gossip like that.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Dorothy says.

'You're everybody's best friend, aren't you?' I say.

'What d'you mean by that?' Dorothy says.

'You know what I mean. First off you try to make out some
thing about me, and now it's Ingrid.'

I've had enough of this and I've a feeling I'll say something
any minute that'll gum the works up good and proper. But I'm
past caring. If this Dorothy's spoilt our date she's not going to
get
off
scot free.

'Who d'you think you are, anyway?' she says to me. 'I know things about you that you wouldn't like spreading about.'

We've stopped walking now and I look her straight in her horrible clock. 'You can't scare me with that kind o' talk,' I tell
her.' You don't know anything about me that nobody else knows.
And if you're thinkin' o' making something up you'd better
think again.'

'Why, what will you do?' she sneers, ever so clever.

Well I've got my rag out now and no mistake. I think of all
the time I've been wanting Ingrid and the way I hoped we'd be
tonight. And now she's here spoiling everything with her mucky talk. So I let her have it, and to hell with everything.

'I'll take your pants down and slap your bloody arse,' I tell her. 'A pity nobody ever did it before.'

'You lay a finger on me and I'll have the police on you.'

'After you've wiped the grin off your face.'

'How d'you mean?'

' I mean any bloke who laid a ringer on you 'ud deserve a medal.

He'd have to have a sack over his head before he'd take you
into a tennis pavilion.'

I think for a second she's going to fly at me biting and scratch
ing and I step one pace back and half lift my hands to keep her
off. Then all at once she turns her back and bursts out crying like
a kid.

'You shouldn't have said that,' Ingrid says.

'Oh, what the hell,' I say. 'Why should she have it all her own
way?'

Dorothy begins to walk away up the road, still blubbing, and
Ingrid looks after her. 'Look, she's going.'

'Well, what are you going to do?'

'I can't leave her now.'

'After what she tried to make out about you?'

'You don't know her. That's just her way. She didn't mean anything.'

'That's what they all say, all these old gossips who go about making trouble. They never mean anything.'

'You don't know her.'

'I don't want to know her. I've seen enough of her.'

She stands on the edge of the pavement like she can't make up
her mind what to do, and I wonder why she keeps up the pretence.