A Kind of Loving (31 page)

'Hello, Ingrid. Are you better?'

'Yes, thanks. I'm going back to work on Monday.'

'Taken a fair while, hasn't it?'

'There were complications. It didn't set right the first time
and they had to break it again.'

'You'll have to take it easy a bit pounding the old typewriter.'

'I suppose I shall. I expect I've lost my speed and everything
now.'

'How did it happen? I never did get the proper tale.'

'Oh, I was wearing a new pair of shoes with high heels.' She
laughs. "That's what vanity leads to.'

'Anyway, so long as you're all right now.'

She looks okay, pretty much as usual, in fact. She's a bit
tanned, and maybe a wee bit thinner than before. But not much,
and not in the places that matter. I know, because I can't help looking. She's wearing a fawn short-sleeved jumper and the points of her threepenny bits are pushing the weave apart so you can see the white of her bra through.

'It was nice of you to send the chocolates.'

'Oh, that was nothing.'

'I'm sorry I couldn't write a note to thank you but it was my
left arm, you see.'

'That's okay, Pauline said thanks.'

She looks down the counter at Mr Van Huyten doing his
accounts and taking no notice of us. She opens her bag and takes
a bit of paper out.

' Have you any of these?'

I take the paper from her. My hand's not too steady what
with seeing her again so sudden like. There's the titles of three
popular records on the paper and down at the bottom she's
written 'When can I see you again?' Just for a second I think this is another record and then I catch on and, of all things to happen,
I start to blush. ,

I turn round to the shelf and get the boxes down and I can feel all the old excitement knotting up in me.

'We have the first two,' I tell her, getting the records out, 'and
we can get the other one in a couple of days.'

'I'll leave that one,' she says, and I notice that she's coloured up a bit as well and she can't look me in the face. 'Can I listen to the others, please?'

She's probably heard them both a million times apiece already
but I say, 'Sure,' and go round the counter and open the door
of one of the listening booths.

'How d'you like your new job?' she says when we're in the
booth.

'Oh, it's grand.'

'I was surprised to hear you'd left Whittaker's. A bit sudden,
wasn't it?'

'Oh, I don't know. I'd been a bit restless for some time. When
this chance turned up I took it.'

I'm putting the first record on the turntable and I'm thinking
that more than anything I want to see her again. I have to see her
however I might feel later. I say, 'Tonight; half past seven, the
park gates nearest your place.'

She says okay and I let the needle down on the record.
There's a brassy intro and then this bod starts to yawp, 'I can't
getchew out of my mind, What ever I do, oh baby, I find, I
keep thinking of ye-ew ...' It's crap, but if she likes it it's her
dough.

When she's gone I nip out back to the bog because my guts
seemed to have turned to water. It's no good though because it's
all excitement excitement at the thought of seeing her again
and ...

III

'Do you love me, Vic?' she says, and I put my face down in her neck where she can't see it. All I want now is to get away from
her because I feel as lousy as I ever did about it all. And to
think not an hour ago I didn't know where to put myself I was
so mad for her. If only she hadn't come into the shop I think now.
I was doing all right without her. I hardly ever thought of her.
But no, she has to come in and let me see her again and set me oif remembering what it's like to kiss her and hold her, remembering
how firm she is and how soft her skin is in places you can't see. The private places. And maybe that's half the attraction - they're
private to everybody bar me. In a way it's a gift the way she is
about me and somebody like Willy would be sure to say I was a
twerp if I passed up the chance...

But now she's got to talk about loving and I thought she'd
got the position about that straightened out long since.

I know she's waiting for me to say something and I can't tell
her a barefaced lie. And how can I say no, straight out, after
the way we've just been? I wonder if she'd understand if I could
explain it all - just how I feel. What I want is somebody to explain it to me! I wonder anyway if a girl could ever feel the
way I do, and I reckon women are different that way and they have to have love.

Well, she's asked me and now she's waiting for an answer.

'I don't know,' I say.

She waits a second or two, then she says, 'D'you love anybody
else?'

'No.' And that's a lie in a way, only not in the way she'd call
a lie because I don't suppose she means a bint I've never yet laid
eyes on, that exists only in my mind.

We're lying on my raincoat under some trees up the top end of
the park where nobody ever goes except couriers. It's a fine night
for a change; the sun's warm and there are leaf-shadows on the
grass round us. I'm looking away down the slope and it's nearly
as though Ingrid reads my mind when she says, 'D'you remember
that night on the seat down there and what you said?'

'Yes... I remember.'

'Did you mean it then, Vic?'

'Well, I must have done or I wouldn't have said it. I was a bit carried away.'

'You meant it then,' she says. 'I know you did. You
didn't want to see me then just for what you could get, did
you?'

Put like that it's a bit straight from the shoulder and I feel
myself colouring up. It's one thing feeling you're a bit of a louse
at times and another being as good as told you are. And the
thing is, I'm not
like
that really. I'm not. I don't want to be rotten
to her or anybody else. I don't want to hurt her. But she wants me to go out with her, doesn't she? And as for all this - she started it, didn't she?

'I'd never have gone as far as I did that night if you hadn't
let me know you wanted me to.'

'Let you know?' she says.' How did I let you know?'

'Kissing me that way ... You know ... with your tongue. I
thought you were inviting me ...'

'I didn't know it meant that. I just wanted to kiss you properly ... You'll have been thinking all this time I'm easy, then?'

'No, I haven't. I didn't think so then and I don't now. I... oh,
I can't explain, that's all: I just can't explain.'

I want to tell her I know she loves me and that's what makes
the difference; but how can I come out with a thing like that
without sounding conceited? And anyway, it would make me seem to be taking advantage more than ever.

'You didn't believe all those things Dorothy said that time, did you, Vic? You don't think I've done all this with anybody else, do you?'

'No, course not.'

I don't really care. I don't think for a minute I'm the first bloke
who's had his hand up her skirt, but maybe that's all. And she'd
have to think a lot about whoever it was to let him that far. She's
that sort of girl.

She slides her arm up round my neck and pulls me down to
her. 'You know I like you, don't you, Vic? I've liked you since
before you asked me out.'

And that's one of the funniest things about it: the way the
whole thing's switched since the beginning. Well, I have to kiss
her when she says this but it's a dead loss as far as I'm concerned.

A couple saunter down the slope not far from us and I say,
'C'mon, we'll have the park-keeper after us.'

'Why should he bother us?'

'Anyway, it's getting late.'

She sits up and take her powder compact and lipstick and comb out of her handbag and starts titivating herself up. I lie
there and watch her, wishing she'd make it snappy so's we can go.
I can't understand it. I just can't understand what goes on inside
you to make you change like this. She checks that all her buttons
and zips are fastened and I tidy myself up, itching for her to get a move on.

'How's everything at Whittaker's?' I ask her for something to say as we walk down to the gate.

'Oh, pretty much as it always was.'

We reach the gate where she goes down the road to her house
and I cut back down the edge of the park to ours. She looks at
me and I know she's waiting for me to say something.

' Can you take phone calls?
'

She nods. "The best time's during the dinner hour. About
twenty past one when we're back from the canteen.'

'Well I'm pretty busy just now. I don't know when it'll be,
but I'll give you a ring one day next week. Okay?'

'If you like.'

I can tell from the look on her face that she's thinking I don't
mean it. Maybe it's just as well. Maybe if she was to turn round
on me right now and tell me to take my hook for good it would be the best thing that could happen.

But she doesn't. She says okay, and we say good night and I watch her walk away down the avenue. I can tell she's feeling
pretty miserable and I don't feel exactly on top of the world
myself.

IV

And that's the way we go on right through the last of the summer
and autumn and into whiter again. Sometimes I'll see her twice
a week and other times a fortnight might go by. Then she either
rings me or I'll ring her and we're off again. She never talks about love again and it seems we've both come to accept things the way
they are. She wants me as she's got me if the only other way is
not having me at all; and as for me, there's times when I feel
I never want to see her again and others when all I want is to
take all her clothes off and roll her on a bed. Only we don't go
that far. I don't know what she'd say if I offered and I'm not
daft enough to take the risk if she was willing. Only I can't help
thinking about it.

I have my twenty-first birthday in October and I start paying
my board at home, I think the Old Lady's always fancied throwing
a party for me, but I'm not in the mood, so her and the Old Man
buy me
a gold wrist watch, a real beauty.

I see Ingrid a day or two after. She's sent me a card and I thank her for it, though I wish she hadn't done it because
naturally the Old Lady was on to it like a shot.