A Kind of Loving (5 page)

He's watching me, turning something over hi his mind. 'I'll
tell you what,' he says, 'I'll let you wear it whenever you like
at threepence a time. And you owe me threepence now for
tonight.'

'Why did I open my big mouth?' I fish in my pocket. 'I
haven't any change, only a bob.'

"That'll do. You'll have three more times to your credit.'

I chuck him the bob. 'You don't want to waste your time with medicine, laddie; you want to go into business. You'll be a millionaire by the time you're thirty.' I go over to him and stick my chin out. 'Do I need a shave, d'you think?'

'Save it till the Easter holidays,' he says.

'How d'you mean? I'm shavin' every day now.'

'If you want to go to all that trouble ... Are you going somew
here?'

'To a dance.'

'At this time?'

I look at my watch. 'Quart' to ten. The night's but young, me
boy.'

'Going out at this time to shuffle round a floor with a lot of
smelly people to a so-called band,' he says.

' You wind your head in an' get on with your Latin.'

' How do you know it's Latin?'

'I'll bet it's not
Lady don't turn over.'

'What's that?'

'Nevermind.'

'As a matter of fact,' he says, 'it's maths. And while you're here,
there's a bit I don't quite follow.'

'No use asking me.
It's
all Greek to me.' I realize I've made a
corny joke. 'Hpw's that, eh? Maths - all Greek to me.'

'Ha, ha,' Jim says, very sarcy. 'And you can knock it off, Vic.
Old Cartwright was on to me the other day. He said he expected
better maths marks from Vic Brown's brother.'

This is enough to bring me out of the mirror again. 'He said
that? Old Carthorse? I don't believe it.'

"Strue,' Jim says. 'I daren't let on who I am in the French
class but old Cartwright seems to think you were pretty good.'

Ah, well... who cares about lousy old French anyway?

I go back to the bed and pick Jim's exercise book up. 'What's the trouble, laddie?' I say, imitating old Carthorse's rumble.

'Here.' Jim points it out in his text-book. 'I can't get this one
out. I've been struggling with it for half an hour. I think the
book must be wrong.'

'I've never met one yet.' I go through his working out step
by step and spot it as soon as I come to it. I drop the book in his
lap. 'Try putting that last equation the other way up.'

He looks.' Gosh... Well fancy me not seeing that.'

'It's not seeing things like that 'at makes you fail exams.'

'All right, bighead.'

I rub my hand over my chin and fancy I hear the bristles rasp.
'Well, I haven't time for a shave anyway. I'm late enough.'

' Won't she wait?' Jim says.

'Who?'

'Who?' he says, grinning. 'Brigitte Bardot, of course; who else?'

For a second I wonder if he's found out. Then I realize he can't have because nobody knows but me. Even she doesn't
know yet. But she soon will now. She jolly soon will.

Outside it's sharp and clear, real clean winter weather. From
the look of the sky this morning we were in for some more snow
but now it's full of stars and the frost nips your cheeks. I think about it for a minute and then start walking instead of waiting
for a bus because it's too cold to hang about. In a minute I
hear a bus topping the hill behind me and I break into a trot
and beat it to the next stop. I get a threepenny into town. There's
nobody else upstairs and I get in the back seat and have another
butcher's at this book of pin-ups and nudes Willy Lomas lent me
before the holidays.
Cherie
it's called and it's French, with a
bint on the cover in a suspender belt and black nylons and nothing
much else but a you-know-what look. 'Lush,' Willy said, and he
was dead right. These Frenchies certainly know how to put a
book like this together. Your guts melt when you look at some of
these bints in there. There's some bkds in their underwear or
nylon nighties, just covered up enough to set your imagination
working and some others where you don't need any imagination at all. There's some writing as well that makes me wish I'd taken more notice in the French class at school because if it's anything
to do with the pictures it must be pretty hot stuff. When I'm looking at these tarts I wonder for the three-thousandth time
what It must be like, and I reckon I'd never manage to find out
with these birds because it would be all up with me if one of them
so much as came near me in the flesh.

The funniest thing though is I don't think about Ingrid this
way at all. Not that she isn't attractive, because she is; just about
the most attractive girl I know. Only the way I think about her is sort of clean and pure and soft, as though just to touch her
cheek would be better than anything these other bints could give
me.

Once I get thinking about Ingrid I forget about everything else and I overshoot my stop and have to walk back.

Walking down Illingworth Street I begin to feel pretty good about everything. I've got a good suit on and I'm clean and spruced up and my heels ringing on the pavement seem to give me more confidence, somehow. I know it'll be the interval at the dance so I call in at the Ram's Head, this pub up the street, for an odd one to put me right on top and a looksee if any of the lads are about. I go into the lounge. It's jam-packed with the interval trade from the Gala Rooms and I can see across the bar into the smoke room where the band boys are having a quick one in them nifty fawn jackets they wear with maroon bow ties. I scramble for a glass of bitter and when I look round who should I see but Willy Lomas waving to me from a corner table. I go over an' this lad he's with - Harry Something-or-other, his name is -
shoves up and makes room for me to sit down. They haven't got their coats on and I ask them if they've been in the dance.

They both nod, and Willy says, 'Packed out. Everybody dancin'
on your feet.' He's looking about
as cheerful as he always does.
I think it's his face that does it. It's long and white, like a clown's,
and his hair's jet black and slicked back without a parting, smooth and shiny as your shoe toecap. He lifts his leg up and
shows me a torn turn-up.

'Put me leg out in a quickstep,' he says. 'Next thing I know
some tart has her heel in me trouser bottom. Nearly went arse over tip.'

'Any interestin' talent?'I say.

'Usual crowd,' Harry says, which tells me nothing that I want to know. Anyway, I don't think they know Ingrid.

'I rather fancy that singin' bit they've got,' Willy says.

'A bit out o' your class in't she, Willy?' Harry says, 'It'd
cost you a fortune to keep her in stockings.'

' Well I can fancy it free, can't I?' Willy says.

'Anyway, she's married,' I say.

'How d'ye know?' Willy says.

'Because she wears a wedding ring, clot, that's how.'

'I sometimes think the married 'uns are the best in the long
run,' Harry says. 'Least, they know what you're after and you
don't have to break 'em in.'

'I don't want any fifteen-stone husband breathing down my neck,' Willy says. 'Give me the single 'uns every time. What I
like is a nice willin' little virgin who's grateful to you for showing
her how nice it is.'

He's bragging now and I grin at Harry as he gives me a sly wink.

'Trouble is', Willy says when he's had a pull at his pint,
'every bird I take a fancy to's either wed or courtin'. You know,
I picked one up at the Trocadero the other week. Smashin' bit
she was and she had that look about - y'know, no limit for
the price of a bag offish an' chips. She let me walk her to Green-
ford - two mile - an' then when I tried to steer her into a shop doorway to do a spot o' neckin' and fix up for another time, what d'you think she said? "Me fiancy wouldn't like it," she
said. Her fiancy! Four mile I walked that night, for damn all!'

I laugh. I have a theory about Willy. I think he'll end up
married to a tart six-foot tall and as plain as the side of a ware
house and be bossed about for the rest of his life.

'Aye, women are murder,' Harry says, so it looks like he's got troubles too. 'I wa' goin' steady with a bint some time back. Twelve month I'd been courtin' her an' we were even thinking about getting engaged. She was allus on about it. " When're we goin' to get engaged, 'Any?" she says. Allus on about it.'

'Oh, I've never thought about that,' Willy says, and I have a quiet grin thinking about this six-foot tart who's about some
where waiting for him.

' Well, I didn't mind,' Harry says.' She wore me down like. I wa'
ready to give in for a bit o' peace an' quiet. Then one week-end she goes over to stay with a cousin of hers in Warrington. Next
thing I know she's over there every week-end an' I'm ditched for a bloody Yank.'

'Aye, uniforms an' brass,' Willy says. 'You can't compete with
'em.'

'Have to get yourself a bus conductor's job,' I say. I'm thinking I'll be as miserable as them if I stop here much longer. As it is, I'm all a-bubble inside from the thought of seeing Ingrid.

It's quieter in the pub now and when I look round I can't
see any sign of the band boys so the interval must be over. I'm
wasting good time.

'Oh, by the way, Willy...' I fish out
Cherie
and pass it to him,
covering the tart on the front with my hand. 'Thanks.'

Willy pockets it like a conjurer. "Think to it, Vic?'

'Very nice. There's one or two in there I wouldn't mind getting
friendly with.'

'I'll say,' Willy says. 'By, but I'll have me a holiday in Paris
next year - and to hell with Blackpool. Just see if I don't.'

' You don't think they walk about streets wi' nowt on, do you?' Harry says.

' Course not,' Willy says. He leans over the table and lowers his
voice. 'But I'll tell you what, though: there's wenches over there
'at open their coats when they see you comin' an' they've got nowt on underneath.'

I, start grinning and Harry says, 'Gerraway!'

'It's right,' Willy says. 'I know a bloke what goes over reg'lar:
one of the travellers at our place. He's had it with more different
bints than a lodging-house cat. An' besides they've got knocking-
shops on every corner, run by the gover'ment. All above board.
You walk in, pay your money, an' take your pick. Just think if
we had one'r two here in Cressley. We shouldn't need to run after
bints in dance halls: we could go an' get what we wanted when we wanted it.'

'I'm all for it,' Harry says; 'but you're a bit late about Paris,
Willy. They've shut 'em all up.'

'Eh?'Willy says.'How d'ye know?'

'I read it in a book a bit back. They closed 'em just after the war.'