A Kind of Loving (45 page)

'Well, how's life, me old sweat?' he says. 'I haven't seen you
around lately.'

The honest answer to this is 'bloody awful', but I give him
the stock reply: 'Oh, just steady, y'know.'

'Still pushing a pencil?'

'No, I'm in a shop now. What about you?'

Percy empties his tankard and signals the blonde. He's fishing
a fistful of silver out of his pocket. 'Same again?' I say thanks.

'I'm in the business, old lad,' he says when he's ordered the
drinks. 'Finally capitulated. They're trying to make a salesman
out of me. I think they'll do it too. I like beetling about the
countryside flannelling people into placing orders. Just up my alley. Plenty of strange pubs. Bags of expenses.' He touches the
bit of fair down on his top lip. 'That's why I'm growing the
tash. People don't like to think they're dealing with a lad.'

The blonde puts the new drinks in front of us and Percy pays.

'Cheers.'

'All the best.'

Percy gets his cig case out and we light up. 'What's on the
board tonight?' he says. 'Just passing an hour on?'

'Something like that.'

'You don't look too chirpy to me, Vic. Have you got the
miseries or something?'

I admit I'm feeling a bit cheesed. 'You know how you get
sometimes.'

'Hmm,' he says, as though he's never felt cheesed in his life
but has to be polite. 'Started courting yet?'

Well, there's no getting out of it now.

' I'm a bit past that, Percy, lad.'

'Past it?'

"Aye, I'm married.'

Percy stares at me. 'You never are! Well you old dark horse,
you. When did all this take place?'

'About six months since.'

'And you're sitting in pubs moping already?' He shakes his
head. 'It's amazing what marriage will do to a good man.'

'Oh, wrap it up, Percy.'

'Takes away your sense of humour too.'

'I can laugh like bloody hell when I feel like it,' I tell Mm,
'only I don't feel like it tonight.'

'Proper browned off, eh?'

'To the back teeth.'

'Well, well...' He takes a swig from his tankard and reckons
to wipe froth off his tash. 'I consider it me bounden duty to hoist
an old school churn out of the doldrums,' he says. 'I'm at a bit of a loose end myself tonight. A date I had fell through at the
last minute. What say we embark on a small crawl, eh?'

It sounds like a good idea. Not long ago I was wondering where
my mates might be and now here's Percy -just the one to take
me out of myself, if anybody can. I take my wallet out and check.
I see I have a quid note in there.

'Righto, Percy, you're on.'

'Right,' Percy says. He swigs the last of his beer and waits for
me to finish mine. 'Step this way,' he says, slapping me on the
shoulder. 'The carriage awaits.'

Outside on the cobbles there's a two-seater sports job of a
make I can't identify in the dark. 'Nice car,' I say as we get into
these low bucket seats.

'Like it?' Percy says with pride in his voice. 'Triumph T.R.3.
I talked the Old Man into buying it when I went out on the
road. He wanted me to have a Humber or an Austin. More
dignified, he said; but I won him over.'

Like you've been winning him over all your life, you old so and
so, I think. But it certainly is a nice car...

He starts her up and she coughs and growls as though they've got a tiger down in the pub cellar. I feel a thrill in my guts at all
this power, and I'm a bit jealous that it's Percy and not me
behind the wheel.

'Ever been to the Monks' Rest?' he says, and I say no.

'New place out on the way to Bradford... La Posh... Right, that's the first stop.' He revs up fit to bust the windows. 'Hold your hat on.'

It seems to me we sample the beer in half the pubs in the
West Riding hi the next three hours: two here, an odd one some
where else, and always Percy with his hand on my arm, saying,
'C'mon, let's move on.' Until I lose count of the bars we've leaned
against, the people we've talked to, the brews of ale we've tasted,
and the Gents we've got rid of it in. In one place in Leeds Percy
nearly fixes us up with a couple of hard-faced gin-drinking bints
who like his line in dirty tales and his easy way with his brass; and he only breaks it off when, he remembers his car's only a
two-seater and anyway I'm married and not my own man any
more.

'P'haps I should ha' got the Humber after all.' he says as we go out and get into the car on the way to another port of call.

Closing-time finds us in a floodlit rpadhouse full of yellow
wood and shiny chrome fittings somewhere Harrogate way. We
walk out down the steps and weave our way between the cars in
the park. Neither of us is too steady now and as Percy settles himself in his seat and slams the door he suddenly bursts out
laughing. Not loud, but that quiet, helpless kind of laughing
like when you don't know what you're laughing about but you
just can't help it.

' How're you feeling, Vic?' he says.

'Pissed, Percy lad,' I say. 'Pissed as a flamin' newt.'

And then all at once I'm at it as well and we're both lolling back in our seats gurgling like drams, going on and on till it
hurts across the middle under the ribs.

Eventually we get over it and Percy says, 'Well, I reckon we
shall have to be heading for home. Where are we?'

'Somewhere near Harrogate, I think.'

'Never heard of it,' Percy says and I begin to feel a bit uneasy as he starts the car and lets it roll down on to the road.

'Are you okay, Percy?' I ask him. I'm thinking that this is all
very well but we're in a powerful car and Percy's a bit on the
mad side at the best of times.

'Never felt better,' he says. He's leaning forward with the neb
of his cap touching the windscreen.'Which way?'

'I don't know.'

'Which way did we come in?'

'From the left, I think.'

'Okay, we'll go to the right. It's as good a way as any.'

He swings the car out into the road, changes up and puts his
foot down hard. I feel as though a big hand pushes me back into
the seat as we zoom away up the road. It's when I begin to
feel scared that the effects of the booze start to lift. I've never been scared in a car before but I am now. I stick it for a bit,
clenching my teeth and stiffening my legs against the bulkhead,
but then I have to say something.

' Take it easy, Percy.'

'What?'Percy says.

'I said take it easy. It isn't daylight, y'know.'

Percy laughs and twitches the car under the tail of a big long
distance lorry. For a second I'm ready to swear we went right
underneath between the wheels. We roar up a narrow country
lane with stone walls on both sides.

'Any idea where we are?' Percy says.

'Have I hell,' I say, startled. 'Don't
you
know?'

'I haven't known for the last ten minutes,' he shouts, full of good cheer. 'Took a wrong turning somewhere back yonder.'

'Well, we'll be in Scotland afore we know where we are, going
at this speed. I might have been feeling a bit low earlier on but
I'm not ready to snuff it yet.'

I think of Ingrid waiting up for me and me not turning up. The police going and breaking it to her. I wonder if she'd cry.
Then there's my mother and dad and Chris ...

'Snuff it?' Percy says. 'What're you talking about? You're
not scared, are you?'

'Yes, I am. It's dark, man, for Christ's sake, and you don't
know the road.'

'We've got good lights,' is all he says, and on we go belting into the dark.

Well the headlights are powerful enough, admitted; but the
dark's funny and shadows can look like real things and real things
like nothing at all...

I catch a split-second glimpse of a sign. 'For Christ's sake,
Percy, watch the bend. It's a right angle -' And then I can't
talk, only shut my mouth and my eyes tight and brace myself for the smash as a tall drystone wall rushes at us up the beam
of the headlights. I feel the sideways drag as Percy pulls the car
round and hear the screech of stone on metal on my side of the car. Then we stop.

I stay like I am for a few seconds, with my head down. My
heart's going like a donkey engine and my hands are trembling
like leaves in the wind. We've no business to be unhurt and I
can hardly believe we are.

Percy's jumped out as soon as we've stopped and run round to my side. He comes back now and gets in. 'A foot,' he says. 'Just another ruddy foot and we'd have made it.'

I say nothing. He starts the car up and puts it into reverse
and pulls back clear of the wall. Then he gets out again. He taps
on my window and I wind it down.

'Made a lousy mess of this wing,' he says.

I'm not bothered about Percy's wing, just my own skin.

'Could be worse, though. At least the wheels still go round.'
He comes back round the other side and gets in again. 'We'd better beat it before we have parker trouble.'

I stop his hand as it reaches for the starter.

'Look, hold on a bit. I'm not ready for any more of that just yet.' I give a false kind of laugh. 'What time does the next bus
go from here?'

Percy gives a short polite laugh and falls to drumming his
fingers on the steering wheel.

'A foot, though,' he says in a minute. 'Another foot and we'd have cleared it. What lousy luek!'

'I call it bloody good luck,'
I
tell him. 'A foot the other
way and they'd have been scraping me off the wall in the
morning.'

Percy turns his head and looks at me. 'You really are in a state, aren't you?'

'I thought that was it, Percy. I don't want to come as near
as that again for a long, long time.'

Percy feels in the door pocket on his side. 'Hang on a tick. I've got the very thing ... Have I? Yes, here it is.' He's holding
a metal flask and he unscrews the top before handing it to me.
'Have a pull at that.'

'What is it?'

'Brandy.'

'I think I've had enough to -'

'Go o-on. Do you good.'

I lift the flask and as I'm taking a swig Percy tilts it up so the
stuff pours down my throat. I splutter and cough.