A Kind of Loving (34 page)

'Course, I couldn't swear to it, like ... I mean ...'

'I know what you mean,' she says. 'You don't have to go into
details.'

I bend over her and lift her face up to mine. I kiss her but she
doesn't respond much. 'I wish we could,' I say.

'Could what?'

'Go into details.'

'You want a lot, don't you?'

I keep my face down, talking soft into her ear as she goes on
turning the pages of the book, pretending to look to the end.
Then I take the book off her and put it away. I go round the
front of her chair and pull her to her feet by both hands and kiss her again. There's still not much coming back; and I thought she
was in a frisky mood. I'm mad for her now, though, and I'm
sure she can feel my heart pumping away against her. I've got
one hand between us, holding her through the blouse.

'You know how I am about you, Ingrid,' I say, spreading my
feet to balance us.

"That's the trouble,' she says. 'I don't know.'

'Nobody's ever got me this way before,' I tell her, and it's no
lie.

'But you don't always feel like this, do you? And then you're
not bothered about me.'

I'm a bit ashamed. What can I say to her?

'I don't know how I do feel half the time,' I tell her. 'I've
never been through this kind of thing before. I know I must seem
a louse at times, but I don't mean to be, and I'm not like that
really. It's just that sometimes I feel rotten about it all and then I
think it's not fair to either of us to carry on ... I did try to
break it off, y'know, when I found out it wasn't the same as I'd
thought

'But I came running after you ...'

I'm not liking this. We've managed pretty well without talk before, because I thought we both knew just how it was, and Ingrid seemed to have decided to make the best of it, even though it wasn't what she wanted. But at least tallcing does give me a chance to make some excuse for myself and show her I know how she must feel even if on the outside I just seem selfish and out for my own ends. The trouble is there's two sides to everybody and Ingrid brings out all the worst in me instead of the best.

It's hard to say, the mood I'm hi just now, but I reckon I
owe her the chance if she wants to take it. 'D'you want to pack it hi?' I say. 'I reckon I can't blame you if you do.'

She seems to think about it for a few seconds, standing close
up to me and looking at the floor by my feet. Then she says,
'No, I don't want to pack it in.' And when she lifts her face and
kisses me there's everything in it that she was holding back
before.

I start to unbutton her blouse up the front and she doesn't
object to this because it's no more than we've done before. It's
only when I start pulling it free of her skirt that she puts her
hand over mine to stop me.

'What's wrong?'

'Somebody might come.'

'You're not expecting anybody, are you?'

'No, but you never know.'

'Lock the door.'

'I already have.'

'Well if anybody does come you can pretend you were in the
bath or something,' I tell her, saying the first thing that comes
into my head.

'Oh, Vic...'

'C'mon, Ingrid, c'mon.'

'It's nothing, you know, really.'

'Not to you. You're a girl. It's a lot to me. I think about
nothing else sometimes. I lie in bed and imagine ...'

'Well I can't do it while you're here. You'll have to go out."

'Oh, c'mon. I'll do it for you.'

'No, I can't, Vic, honest. You'll have to go out.'

'Okay, then,' I say, thinking you can't expect everything at
once. 'I'll go up to the bathroom.'

'It's round the corner at the top of the stairs. You'll give me
time, won't you?'

I look at my watch. 'It's half past now. I won't come back till
twenty to.'

She switches on the standard lamp by the television set and
douses the main light. Then she goes to the fireplace and stands
with one hand on it, looking down into the fire.

I go out and along the passage and up the stairs. The
carpet's thick under my feet. The house isn't big but I'm impressed by the furnishings. It seems Mr Rothwell must have
spent a load of dough making it comfortable for Ingrid and
her ma while he's away on his travels. The bathroom has pink walls with black tiles to about chest height. Our bath
at home stands on four cast-iron rests like animals' feet but
this is one of the modern boxed-in efforts, in black to match
the tiles.

I wonder how I'm going to pass the next ten minutes and then I catch sight of myself in the glass over the washbasin and decide my hair needs combing; so I spend a bit of time on that, easing the waves in with my fingers till it's just right. Then I wash my hands with the piece of blue scented soap and hold my hand under my mouth and try to smell my breath. It's not a very good method but I'm not bothered because I don't think I have any trouble that way. I put the lid down over the lavatory and sit down. My watch shows another five minutes to go. I sit down and think about Ingrid downstairs and wonder just what she's doing. All at once I remember the Old Lady saying something to me a long time ago after I'd been in some kind of scrape -I can't remember just what it was. But I remember she said, 'Never do anything you'd be ashamed of your mother knowing about,' and I'm thinking Oh, Christ, if she could only see me now, because if it depended on what she's told me - or the Old Feller for that matter - I'd still be thinking you got babies by saving Co-op Cheques and that there isn't any difference between men and women except women grow their hair longer and don't have to shave. And then I get to thinking what a funny business it all is, this sex and blokes going mad over women and doing all sorts of daft things because of them. And it's been the same since the
world began and now here I am and it's my turn and it makes you wonder where it'll all end.

I deliberately wait two minutes over the ten I said before I go down. Then my legs are like jelly on the stairs.

III

A few days after, the first real snow of the winter arrives. It
falls during the night and by the time people are up and getting
on their way to work the snow ploughs have been busy clearing
the roads. The snow lasts for nearly a fortnight and even after
it's gone there are still grubby patches of it in the fields and the
corners where nobody walks. And it stays cold. In fact it's colder
than when the snow was here. Everything gets frozen up and the
way the frost bites at you makes you wonder if it'll ever turn warm again. This is the worst time of the year for open-air
courting and Ingrid and I mostly go to the pictures on our night out. But now and again we just have to go into the park, even if
it's only into a shelter. Nights like this, when your hands are like blocks of ice, I think about their comfy dining-room and the fire
and the couch. But we never get a chance like that again.

And now something's changed. One time I'd never have
thought of going all the way with Ingrid, like a bloke short of
money wouldn't think of robbing a bank. It'd be just asking for trouble. But since I've seen her and know just what she's like,
how gorgeous she really is, there's always temptation like a little
chap sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear, 'Go on,
find out what you want to know. Twenty-one years old and you've
never done it with anybody. You've gone so far, why not go that little bit further? It's okay, thousands are doing it all the time, and she's willing.' Well, one night when the freeze is
suddenly over and everything's mild again we go to our old spot
under the trees. This little chap is extra persuasive and it seems
like either him or a mate of his is talking to Ingrid as well, because
it happens. I don't have to force her or even persuade her really;
she seems as ready as I am; and it's not till after that we stop and
think about it.

'It'll be all right, Vic, won't it?' she says in a whisper.

'What? Course it will.' How the hell should I know? I'm
thinking. It had better be, that's all.

'But we won't risk it again, will we?'

'No; I'll get something.' When I'm in the mood again I'll
see about getting something. I don't know just how. I can't see myself walking into a shop like buying a packet of fags. But I
can ask Willy and he'll know. Just now I couldn't care less if we
never do it again. Now that it's over I'm wondering what all the
fuss is about and wishing we'd played safe and had our fun
without any risk like we've always done.

But a couple of days later I'm all for it again and feeling quite
a lad about it. I. feel like a proper man of the world with a
willing bint laid on like this. So I keep an eye open for Willy, but
somehow now I want him specially he doesn't seem to be about.
One night I set off to call for him and see if I can catch him that
way. I've only ever been to Willy's house once and I didn't like it.
It's a terrace house hi a ropy street off Gilderdale Road where
there's always a crowd of snotty-nosed kids hanging about with their britches' behinds hanging out. Willy's brothers are a crowd
of roughs and always on the booze and his ma's a bit of a slut.
My
mother's broad-spoken and all that, but she'd have no room for Willy's old lady and her mucky ways.

A kid comes out of an entry bawling as I go up the street. He's
maybe five or six and real grubby. It's the way he's blubbing,
though, that gets me. I mean kids are always roaring about some
thing but there's crying and crying and this kid sounds real
heartbroken. I've never heard such misery in a kid's crying before
and it fair turns me over.

Willy isn't in when I get to their house and I ask his mother if
she knows where he is. 'Nay lad,' she says, standing on the step
with her arms folded over this mucky apron, 'how should I
know? He never tells me where he's goin'. Have yer tried t'pubs
he usually goes to?'

'I haven't tried anywhere. I came straight here.'

'D'yer know which they are?'

'I know one or two places he likes a drink.'

'Aye, well try them. Or he could ha' gone fo t'pictures. Spends
half his time in t'pictures, our Willy does. He'll ruin his eyesight afore he's finished. I've told him so time an' time agen.'

'I'll have a look round, then.'

'Aye, you do that, lad.' She eyes me up and down, looking at my clothes. I can tell she doesn't remember seeing me before.
'War it owt important yer wanted him for?'

'Oh, no. I'm a mate of his. I haven't seen him for a bit so I thought I'd look him up.'

She nods. 'I see. Aye, well you go an' look in one'r two pubs.
You'll happen run across him.'

I walk off down the street and she watches me from the step. I haven't gone far when she calls me back.

'It's just come to me,' she says. 'I believe he did say summat about havin' a game o' billiards. D'yer know where t'saloon is?'

I tell her yes, and I'll try there first. Then I go off, thinking she doesn't care a damn where
Willy is as long as he isn't hanging
about under her feet. I wonder what it must be like to have a
mother like that and think I'll take mine every time, even if she
does want to know a bit too much at times.