A Kind of Loving (21 page)

That does it, all right. Conroy lets out a yell and rears up and breaks away. He shuffles off on his knees holding on to his crotch with both hands. 'Oh, me cods,' he says. 'Oh, Christ, me cods.'

Well, everybody's laughing fit to bust, bar me. I'm watching
Conroy and wondering if I've done any damage, because that wasn't where I intended to bite him at all, only he must have
moved.

The door opens and in comes Hassop. He stops when he sees
Conroy, still on his knees, holding his cods and moaning to him
self. I'm just getting up and everybody else is doubled up laugh
ing. Well, they all knock off laughing pronto when they see
Hassop and he looks down at Conroy who's kneeling right under him now, like he's begging from him.

'What's going on here?' he says, and Conroy looks up then
looks away again without saying anything. 'Have you been fight
ing, Brown?' he says to me.

'Just acting the fool a bit, Mr Hassop,' I say. I'm brushing my suit down with the flat of my hand and watching him, his face gone white, standing there as though he's trying to think up the best way to bawl us out. But he doesn't. He just twitches for a minute, then says, 'Well, this is neither the time nor the place. Get to your work, all of you, and let's have no more of it.'

He walks away to his own office and Conroy picks himself up
aad goes to his board where he pulls himself up on to his buffet
and sits with his head in his hands. I watch him for a minute then
go round to him. 'Are you okay, Conroy?' I say, and Conroy
says, 'Bugger off,' without looking up. So I go back to my board
and get on with my work. But I can't help looking over at him
now and again because I'm a bit worried, wondering if I've really
hurt him. My right ear tingles all afternoon.

Well if we were thinking it was done with we were wrong,
because next morning Hassop stops by Conroy's board and says,
'Mr. Althorpe wants to see you in his office, Conroy. You, too, Brown.'

Conroy lifts his big head up and stares Hassop out before
getting off his buffet and making for the door, with me following
him. 'You know what this is, don't you?' he says when we're out
in the corridor. 'Our pal Hassop's been telling tales again. He
hasn't the bloody guts to bawl us out himself so he gets Althorpe
to do his dirty work.'

'What are we going to say?' I ask him, wondering if we can
concoct a decent tale before we go in.

'Don't worry, mate,' Conroy says. 'If I know Althorpe we
shan't get a word in edgeways.'

We stop outside this big heavy varnished door with 'Chief
Engineer' painted on it in gold letters. 'Step through here,'
Conroy says, 'and you're in the presence of two thousand a year
... Here goes.' He raps with his knuckles and sticks his ear
against the door. A typist trots by and gives us the once-over. I
wink at her though I never felt less like winking at anybody.
I hear a voice shout in the office and Conroy turns the knob and
we go in.

Mr Althorpe is a big chap with smooth silvery hair that shines in the light coming through the big window behind his desk. He finishes the letter he's dictating and then tells the typist to scram
and she picks her notebook and pencil up and pads out across
the carpet through a connecting door. Mr Althorpe takes a cig
out of the packet of twenty Players lying on the blotter and lights
up. It's only eleven o'clock but the big desk ashtray's nearly full of dog-ends and matchsticks already. He waves us nearer and takes his heavy glasses off and puts them on the desk and gives
us a real keen look which he holds till
I
feel the last of my confi
dence vanish.

'Now then, you two,' he says. 'I hear you've been indulging in
a bit of horse-play in the office. Rolling about on the floor and
clouting one another.'

I wonder if he expects us to say something, but I wait for Conroy and he keeps mum and so I look out of the window
behind Mr Althorpe and watch a bright yellow fork-lift truck, unloaded, the forks sticking out like a circus clown's big feet,
come down the yard.

' Well I'm not having it, see?' Mr Althorpe says all at once, and he brings his hand flat down on the top of his desk, making me jump a foot off the carpet. 'If you've got differences and want to settle 'em that way, do it outside. I'm not standing for it in the office. You come here to work and get the job done. That's what you're paid for and if you don't like the arrangement you can take your hook somewhere else. I won't have the office turned into a monkey house. If I'd carried on like that when I was a lad I'd have been out in the street without any warning. But we valued our jobs in those days; they were harder to come by.'

I'm looking at Mr Althorpe's tie now which is a neatly knotted
blue with little white spots. I wonder if I'll ever sit behind a big desk with two thousand a year and tell a couple of bods off for
scrapping in the office. I think after that this was one of the times
when I knew I didn't really care one way or the other for the job.

'You're old enough to know better,' Althorpe's saying to
Conroy. 'You shouldn't have to be told these things; and it's up
to you older chaps to set a good example for lads like Brown here.
I've no complaints about your work, Conroy. You've got a good
engineering brain and we've always had high hopes of your
ability. It's time you grew up.'

He swivels his eyes to me and pins me like a butterfly on a board. 'I'm not so sure about you, Brown,' he says. 'Mr Hassop
hasn't been altogether satisfied with your work lately. You seemed a promising kd when you first came to us, but you haven't shown much sign of it recently. What's up, are you busy thinking about some lass when you should be watching what you're putting on your drawings!'

I blush and open my mouth, thinking he wants an answer. Then
I shut it again when he carries straight on talking.

'Just get your ideas straight and look to your work if you want to stay with us.' He picks his glasses up again and puts them on.
'I don't know what you were scrapping about and I don't want to know. But don't let me hear any more of it.'

He looks down at his papers and I know he's finished. I'm
just thinking it hasn't been too bad and let's get out of here when
old Conroy, who hasn't said a dicky bird so far, says something
that makes my spine go cold, and Mr Althorpe takes his glasses
off again.

' What was that?' he says.

'I said I don't know what all the fuss is about,' Conroy says.
'A bit of alecking about in the office. I don't see why it couldn't
have been dealt with in the office for what it was worth.'

Now this is as good as saying Hassop's a tale-telling bastard and I watch Mr Althorpe's face go pink and his eyes stare as he
throws his specs down and stands up to lean forward on his hands.

'Are you telling me how to deal with my staff, Conroy?' he
says. And then he begins again and says all he's already said and
more besides only this time he decorates it with words that
make me look away and wish a hole would open up in the floor,
I'm so embarrassed. It sounds to me nearly as bad as if the Old Feller had come out with a mouthful. Maybe he thinks it's the
only kind of language we understand but I reckon a man in Mr Althorpe's position shouldn't use language like that and I know
I'll never have the same respect for him again. Once I sneak a
sideways look at Conroy and see him standing there, his mouth
set, and not knuckling under at all to what Althorpe's saying.

'Now clear out,' Althorpe says; 'both of you.' And he drops
back into his chair and reaches out for
his glasses again.

Conroy's doing some swearing himself when we get out into the corridor. He's nearly climbing the walls, he's so mad. As for
me, I'm trembling all over and my heart's bumping away.' Christ'
I say, 'I could have dropped through the floor when he started effing and blinding it.'

'He knows all the words, doesn't he?' Conroy says. 'One
thing about him, he has the guts to use 'em and speak his mind.'

'You know, I reckon this is all my fault for cracking at you
the way I did.'

'Hassop's fault, more like. I'd like to smash his yellow teeth in, the snivelling little sneak.'

I'm looking at Conroy and I'm nearly liking him, and I'd never have thought that. I know I'll always remember how he stood up
to Althorpe, anyway.

'I'm sorry I bit you, Conroy,' I tell him; 'only, you were giving
me a real leathering.'

'Oh, forget it,' he growls. 'I thought for a minute you'd
blighted me efficiency. Anyway, I reckon we're even now. I got
your back up before that with what I said about that bird... You
won't be seeing much more of me around this place, I can tell
you. I've had my bellyful of this shower. Be damned if I'll stick
here and be talked to like a labourer off the shop floor.'

He hits the office door with the flat of bis hand and barges in.
The door swings back on the spring and I have to put my arm
up quick to stop it hitting me in the face. Conroy walks straight
up the aisle till he gets to Whymper, a little middle-aged draughts
man, and a wage-slave if ever there was one.

'Where's that
Manchester Guardian
of yours?" he says in a
voice everybody can hear.

'You can look at it at lunch-time, by all means,' Whymper
says, giving a startled look up at Conroy standing over him
glowering.

'Bugger that,' Conroy says. 'I want it now.'

Whymper shrugs. 'If you insist.' He opens a drawer on bis left
and looks away and carries on with his work.

Half the office is watching when Conroy takes the paper back
to his own board and spreads it out and starts turning the pages just as if he's in the reading room at the public library. When he
gets to the situations vacant pages he stands there reading and running his finger down the columns.

In a minute or two Hassop cottons on that something's up and
he comes out and soft-foots it down the office to Conroy, who
takes not one bit of notice of him at all. 'Do you have to read the
paper during office hours, Conroy?' he says, sarcy as can be; and Conroy goes on reading as though he doesn't know he's
there. 'I'm talking to you, Conroy,' Hassop says, getting his
rag out a bit.

Conroy turns his head and looks at Hassop. 'I'm looking for a job,' he says. 'And if I don't find anything in here I'll look in the
Yorkshire Post
an' all.' He starts warming up. 'I've had enough of this bloody lot, Hassop, and I'm getting out. I'm not one of
your frightened little time-servers cowering over his board every
time he hears the boss's voice. I'm a lad 'at knows a thing or two
and I'm taking me talents elsewhere. I shan't have to look long,
either; there's plenty of firms crying out for blokes who can
think jobs out on their own. And they're paying more brass than
this bloody sweat-shop an' all!'

Well, this is telling him, and no mistake, and everybody's strain
ing so's they don't miss a word and waiting to see what'll happen. That Conroy, I'm thinking, he's a buggeroo if ever there was one.
There's no stopping him when he gets his dander up. Old Hassop's
face is as white as lard and his
mouth is twitching away like it
always does when he's worked up. 'You'll be applying for a new
job sooner than you think, Conroy, if you carry on like this.'