A Kind of Loving (9 page)

'Wednesday, then,' she says, and I nod. 'Wednesday.'

Before the bus pulls into the station we've fixed up what time
we'll meet and where and everything. And to think, only this
morning I wouldn't have given a bent penny for my chances.
But that's how things work out sometimes.

Wednesday ... I just don't know how I'll live till then.

But course I do, and now here I am waiting on the corner at twenty-five to eight. She's late, but only five minutes, and I was here ten minutes early to make sure I didn't miss her so that makes it seem more. The weather's gone all soft all of a sudden. It's rained pretty hard today and though it's stopped now you can still feel it in the wind. The roads and pavements are shining in the lights and the car tyres sizzle as they go by. A black Super Snipe slides up to the kerb and I step back smartish as it throws water up out of the gutter. I look after this car and watch it stop and let a bloke out. Then I watch it pull away and pick up speed with exhaust smoke curling in the tail lights. Now if
I
had a car ... Dames go for bods with cars. It's only natural. And having a car would give you confidence, a sort of air, like. I imagine myself behind the wheel of a snappy little two-seater convertible - no need for anything big and swanky - rolling up to the kerb where Ingrid's waiting and enjoying the look on her face as I open the door and tell her to jump in. 'Where d'you fancy going tonight? What about nipping over to Leeds or Bradford to a show?'
That's
the way to take a bint out on a first date. And after the show, parked in some quiet spot and me with my arm round her listening to her say she's been mad about me all the time ... I can't even drive a car. I suppose I could learn soon enough, though. And I could probably afford to buy one if I saved up for about fifteen years and packed in smoking.

I'm all wrapped up in this and I don't see this other car whip
ping up for a stop till it goes by with a whoosh and shoots
water all over my shoes and trouser legs. Bang goes the shine I
spent so much time on till the Old Lady was getting suspicious.
I think the creases in my pants will be all right, though, because
my suit's Terylene, my new clerical grey that I got for Chris's wedding. And she won't notice my shoes in the dark. I'm pretty
presentable otherwise, I think. I saved my shave till after tea
and finished off with the after-shave lotion I paid six bob for on
the way home from work so's I'd smell nice. And I've taken special
care over brushing my teeth, making sure there was no tea-time
sausage and chips stuck in the cracks. I reckon I couldn't do more for Diana Dors.

Quarter to. She isn't coming. That's the trouble with dames:
you never know where you have them. Some blokes reckon that's
all part of the game but I'm the type that likes things settled. I
like to know where I stand. Like Chris and David do, for
instance. They've certainly got something I'd like to find, but
that's my secret and I don't tell anybody.

Ten to. You feel a bit daft standing on a corner with everybody
passing by and knowing you're waiting for a bird who's late. They must know because nobody ever arranges to meet somebody at ten to and so she must either be late or not coming. I
reckon a quarter of an hour's enough to give any bint but I'll
give her till eight seeing as this is the first time. Then I'll just
have to write it all off. Oh, but it's sickening the way you get all
built up and then knocked down again.

'Hello.'

I jump and turn round and catch the fresh clean smell of her.
Her eyes are sparkling in the lights and there's rain in her hair. Her lips are parted showing her teeth and she's breathing a bit fast as though she's been hurrying.

'I'm sorry I'm so late. I couldn't get away sooner ... I ran all the way... I felt sure you'd have given me up and gone.'

'No.' It's all I can think of to say I'm so busy looking at her.
Gosh, but she's a smashing piece, and she's run all the way to
meet me. She just said so.

'I knew you'd come,' I say at last, when I've had my fill of
looking at her for the minute. And when I say it it's just as
though I really did know all the time. 'You're not the sort of girl
to stand a bloke up.'

'Why should I do that?' she says. 'I could have said no in the first place if I didn't want to come, couldn't I?'

I give a nod, eating her up with my eyes again. I can't believe
it. I really can't. There must be a catch in it somewhere for this to happen to me.

'Well?' she says, and I realize I'm embarrassing her a bit
staring like I am. So I say, 'Righto,' and we walk along the road
to the picture house where the lights are blazing and the com
missionaire's leaning against the pay-box talking to the cashier
because there's nothing else for him to do. I reckon he'll be for the push any time now, the way things are.

'It's very quiet,' Ingrid says. 'I thought we might have to
queue.'

"Three or four years ago, mebbe,' I say; 'but not nowadays.
Cinema owners are on their beam ends. Why pay to see a bad
picture when you can see one on television for nothing?' I've
read this somewhere but she laughs and I let her think I've made
it up. I'm wondering where she wants to sit and I don't like to
ask her for fear it's the best seats and she won't like to say. I
get two tickets for the back circle, the next to the best. Now she
won't think I'm showing off and I shan't have started something
I can't keep up if this turns into a regular thing. When the bint
with a torch sees the two of us she flashes us up into the back
where the courting couples are snogging away among the empty
seats. I'm surprised when Ingrid goes up past a lot of empty rows
and leads the way on to the very back row. We push past a couple
sprawled out holding on to one another and they take no notice
of us. We sit down in a double seat with no arm rest between us, which I think is a bit of all right. Ingrid decides in a minute she'd
like her coat off and I help her with it. I have to put my arm round her to do this and I wonder if I dare keep it there. But I think it'll be rushing things a bit and that would be a pity after
we're off to such a promising start.

There's a snap like elastic breaking from the couple on the row
and the bint giggles and wrestles with the bloke.

'I feel like the psychiatrist who went to the Folies Bergere
and spent all his time watching the audience.'

'What?' Ingrid says, and I don't know if she hasn't heard
me or not got the joke.

'Skip it.' I feel for my cigs. 'Smoke?'

'Here.' She fumbles in her handbag. 'Let's eat this first.' She brings out a bar of chocolate and breaks it into pieces and puts
them on her knee. We munch away and watch the picture. Fruit
and nut, it is, and I'm very partial to it next to coffee cream.

We've come in near the end of the feature and I can't make
much sense of it. The stories of most musical pictures are pretty
silly, anyway. You nearly always have a hard-up company hoping
their luck will change and somebody will put up the cash so's
they can do this terrific show on Broadway. There's always a
nice young producer chap who's in love with the sweet young
bint and doesn't know it because the second fern lead, who's a
regular bitch even if she has got bags of talent, has her hooks
in him. And you always come to the place in the picture where
somebody looks round this barn or whatever dump it is they're
holing up in and says, 'But say, why can't we put the show on
right here?' And from then on it's all plain sailing because there's sure to be a stinking rich backer in the audience on the night and
while he's busy signing the cheque the nice young producer is
backstage realizing all of a sudden how much he loves the sweet
young bint and singing her a song to tell her so. Every so often
you get one that's a cut above all this, but this one we're watching
now isn't one of them. Not that I care, mind. I could watch
Rin-tin-tin tonight because what I'm interested in isn't up on the screen, it's right here beside me. She's so near I'm dizzy with it,
and I'm sneaking little looks at her all the time and wondering
if she's really all eyes and ears for the picture like she seems, and
how soon I can put my arm round her.

Now there's a few schools of thought about how you should
carry on on a first date. Some say you shouldn't put a finger
out of. place, and patience pays. At the other end of the line
there's the caveman school. I reckon their methods only apply
when you're out with a certain kind of bint who knows why you've
asked her and comes expecting it. Then there's the middle-of-the-
road boys who reckon you should at least show you know the
difference between boys and girls and that you're interested in it.
It depends what you're after, I always think. There's no doubt what the bloke on the row's after, for instance; and from the
way the bint's holding him down it looks like he'll get it. But
that's not the way I feel about Ingrid. I only want her to like
me and let me be good to her. I want to be kind and gentle to
her so bad it gushes up in me like a fountain whenever I think
about her. And now, with her here, so close, in the dark ...

Well the way it happens is that the lights go up in the interval
and the ice-cream comes round. I ask her if she wants some and
she says no, so I don't bother myself either. I put my elbow up
on the back of the seat while I'm talking to her and when the
lights go down again all I have to do is drop my hand and it's
where I want it to be. She's very cooperative, because as soon
as she feels it on her shoulder she comes over and tucks herself
away under my armpit and her hair's in my face and I've got
this lovely smell of a high-class chemist's shop all round me. The
next thing we know we're kissing for the very first time and it's
marvellous.

There's quite a cold wind blowing when we come out of the
pictures. We walk along the main road for a bit then turn off
up the hill to where Ingrid lives. Neither of us says much. I
want to say something that will fix what's happened in the pictures; only out here in the cold it's as though we've left it
behind in the warmth and the dark and we might never find it
again.

'I'm glad we came out together,' I say.

'You're not disappointed, then?' she says, and I feel like gaping at her. Disappointed!

'P'haps you'd like to try it again?' I say. 'What about the
week-end?'

'If you like.'

And what if I don't like? Does it matter to her either way?
What's a kiss on the back row of the pictures after all? It doesn't
mean we've signed an agreement or something.

'No need to if you don't want,' I say, and I'm horrified at the
way I'm inviting her to turn me down.

'I'd like to,' she says.

Well, that's okay, then. We stop at the end of their avenue.
It's certainly a cold wind. I shove my hands down into my
pockets and hunch my shoulders up. It's going, all that in the
pictures. I can feel it slipping away. For all I know it might have
gone for good ... If I could kiss her, though, maybe I'd catch a little bit of it to carry till next time. But here in the open we're
like strangers again. I couldn't do it easy and natural the way
it was in the pictures. It'd be like making a pass out here.