“It was a French boy. Marcel.”
“Was he handsome?”
“Yes, very. He used to come and talk to me at night. He had a guitar and he would stand underneath my balcony and serenade me.”
She laughed, indulgently, proudly.
“It was very romantic. Really. On the last night he climbed up into my room. We slept together and he went the next morning. We still write to each other. He wants to know when I'm going back.”
“What happened, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in bed.”
“Oh, nothing. We just slept together. Nothing happened at all.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, come on. You mean to tell me that this garcon handsome Gaston spent the night with you and nothing happened? Under summer skies in Majorca? Balconies and all? Didn't his guitar get in the way?”
She turned on me, quietly venomous.
“You wouldn't understand. That's all you know. My God, I'm glad it wasn't you.”
“No you're not. You'd have liked it.” I smiled wildly.
“You conceited... you think everything has to come down to sex. That's all you think girls are for.”
“To coin a phrase: I don't think, I know.”
“I hope you won't say anything else. I really hope you'll have the grace to be quiet.”
She turned away from me and began walking. I rushed after her and took hold of her arm.
“My God. Listen, listen to me. I don't know why I said those things. I didn't mean to say them. They just happened.”
I tried to convince her by grinning.
“I don't understand you. Everybody knows what you're like, and yet you criticize me for just... just
sleeping
with someone.”
“I was jealous.”
“Why?”
“Because... because I like you. Because he was handsome.”
“All you want from a girl is to sleep with her.”
“That's true, with the others. Not with you. Believe me.”
She said nothing.
“Why should you worry anyway? I don't mean anything to you,” I said.
She said nothing.
“Listen,” I said. “Would it matter to you if that was all I wanted?”
“Of course, it would. I wouldn't go out with you otherwise.”
“But you just said you believed it to be true. And you still go out with me.”
“I'm not wholly certain. I ought to be.”
“In that case you think I could mean what I say.”
“I don't know.”
“Would it matter if I didn't mean it?”
“I don't know. Don't keep asking me.”
We walked along in silence. After a while I took her hand. “Believe me,” I said, “when I say that I think you're so nice and that I like you very much.”
We stopped walking.
“And I mean what I say,” I said.
She said nothing. All her previous fury had gone. She looked quiet and vulnerable again.
“See you on Monday then,” I said.
We were at the bus station. Her bus was ready to go. I felt awful. My chances seemed black, and there was no reason for things to change.
“I expect so,” she said. She moved toward the bus. I turned and began walking away suddenly aware of the uselessness of my staying. That's it, I thought. Over before it began. A bus hissed past me. I was being stoically bitter.
Then I sensed Janet behind me. I turned. She halted in mid step. She was smiling indulgently. My expression retained its bad mood. She put her hand forward and touched my arm.
“What is it?” I said. I must have sounded like a churl.
“I'll look forward to seeing you on Monday,” she said.
“Why?”
Her face dropped most of its indulgence.
“Because I enjoy going out with you. Even though it might be for the wrong reasons on both sides.”
“What's the wrong reason with you?”
“I enjoy going out with you in spite of
your
wrong reasons. Even though you do try and complicate things.”
“Thanks very much.”
“I mean it. It's very unusual going out with you.”
“That's me. Unusual.”
“I must go. My bus it going.”
“Don't miss the bus.”
“I'll see you on Monday.”
The bus choked into life. I said nothing.
“Thank you for taking me out,” she said.
“You'll miss it.”
“I must go,” she said.
“I don'tâI'll see you on Monday,” she said.
I smiled at last.
“I'll see you on Monday,” I said.
On Monday when it was raining hard and dirty, we were in the Art Gallery having a cup of tea on the balcony. Not very far above us the rain rattled drearily on the large translucent skylight. Below us, the gallery was quiet and gloomy and empty. The dark afternoon was all over the place.
“You're very quiet,” said Janet.
“It's the afternoon, I expect. It's the kind of afternoon that makes you feel quiet.”
She dropped a lump of sugar in her tea.
“You looked very young then,” she said.
“When?”
“While you were looking down into the gallery. When you were peering over the balcony.”
“Did I?” I laughed. “I'm not exactly an old man.”
“No, I meant you looked oh, fourteen or so. Like a schoolboy waiting for a train to go by.”
“I feel that old sometimes. Mostly when I'm with you.”
“You are funny.”
“The three Marx Brothers.”
“And serious. All the time one's conscious of your mind ticking over crazily fast, even when you're still and not looking at anything.”
“I wear myself out.”
“You usually get your own way, don't you? I mean, you're used to that, aren't you?”
“I expect so.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“Oh, nothing. A thought I had.”
“What was it?”
“Nothing. Vic, can I ask you something? Something I oughtn't to ask? Two things, really.”
“Yes, depending.”
“Well. I was surprised when you asked me to go out with youâ”
“You weren't really. You knew.”
“I knew on the afternoon, yes. I knew directly before you asked me. But honestly not before. Jenny and I used to discuss you sometimes and actually she thought you were going to ask her, not me. And so did I. And when you asked me instead, I really was surprised.”
“Go on.”
“Well, it's simple really. I've never met a boy like you before. Seriously, you're unknown to me. I don't mean that you're an alien
type
. Just an alien
person
. Oh, I'm saying this awfully. What I mean is, there's nothing about you that I'm used to. And all I wondered wasâwell, why? Why did you ask me?”
“What a question to ask. How am I supposed to answer that?”
“I don't know. I suppose I want to know what you think a person could offer a person like you. I'm a virgin, I'm dull, I haven't done the same things as you. I don't know, but it just seems strange.”
“I can't explain either, except that I think it has something to do with your being so very much different to me. I don't know. Listen, I like you. That's why.”
“But I don't know
why
. Look, I'm so ordinary.”
“So am I. Be quiet. Look, we're both ordinary to our mutual friends, but different to each other. Right?”
She didn't reply.
“But it doesn't get me anywhere,” I said.
“That was the second thing I wanted to ask you. It's even more unusual, knowing what I do know of you, although it's not very much, that as you know we're not going to be more than friends, why you still want to see me? You have other people as friends much more interesting and entertaining than I am.”
“Yes. I know George Jessel and Ethel Merman and Morecambe and Wise to name only several. Look, I'm not going to answer. I told you: I like you and I really mean that. I may want more, but you don't. But that doesn't stop me liking you, for Christ's sake.”
“It'sâI haven't been told that I'm liked before. I always feel too ordinary to be liked. It's nice of you to say so.”
“I've said it before.”
“I know, but I suppose I didn't believe you before.”
“And now that you do?”
“It's just nice to know.”
“I see.”
“Iâ”
“As I said, it doesn't get me anywhere.”
“I'm sorry.” She looked down into the gallery. “Vic, remember, I'm only seventeen. I've only been away from school a few months. It'sâanyway, it doesn't matter.”
“I'm sorry, too. I expect, oh, I don't know. You had a right to ask what you did. Look, if you'd rather not see me or anything, I meanâ”
“No, honestly, I like seeing you.”
“âjust say. You only have to say.”
“No really, I wouldn't be here if I honestly didn't want to be.”
“I don't know why you want to be.”
“That's what I said, remember.”
I laughed.
“Now it's your turn to answer me, then,” I said.
“Oh, no.”
“No, you'd better not. The day's depressing enough as it is.”
The rain continued its dismal rhythm on the skylight. We were quiet again. The afternoon got darker and the Art Gallery gloomier.
Tuesday night at the Kelvin Ballroom. The last chord of “Travelling Blues” echoed out onto the dance floor, everybody stopped dancing, and Don said: “Okay lads. Quarter of an hour.”
I closed the chord book and put it under the lid of the grand piano. Don announced the interval into the microphone. Harry rested his trombone on his seat and came over to me.
“Quickies?” he said. “Round the corner?”
“Aye, all right then,” I said. We got down off the stage. Paul Markham the fixer, our manager, slouched over to the stage, his unheeded bird trailing after him.
“Quick big ones all round, then? Seeing as you're playing all right.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said. “Hey up Harry, I reckon Paul's not telling us how much we're being paid. Knocking a quid off what you've been given for us, then, seeing as you're buying?”
“Bollocks.”
So Harry and Paul and Hamish, the bass player, and Don and Paul's girl and me went out of the Kelvin into the cool of the night across the market and past the skeleton stalls over to the old Black Boy. High white clouds moved quietly across the dark sky.
We went into the Public because that door was nearest, and Paul bought the drinks. We chatted a bit, and Paul's girl gave everybody the eye, and then Paul said :
“How are you getting on with Janet, then, Thinstuff?”
“All right, why?” I said.
“Just wondered. Knocked her off yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“I should get on with it, then.”
“I'm playing the way I think fit. Building up her confidence.”
“Confidence? In you? Give over.”
“It's the only way in this case.”
“She'll get fed up of waiting for it,” said Don.
“I agree,” said Harry. “He hasn't even touched her up yet.”
“How would you like that, Stella?” asked Paul. “Supposing I hadn't touched you for two months when I started taking you out?”
“Oh, Paul, you are awful,” said Stella, looking from one of us to the other.
“Do you reckon she's a virgin, then?” asked Don.
“I think so,” I said. “You never can tell.”
“There's one way,” said Hamish. Then he pealed with coarse laughter, as he always did.
“No, you see, Hamish, what it is, Vic's in love, you see,” said Don.
“Oh. Oh, well, that's different. I mean, when people feel like that, they don't, well, do they? It's so sordid, isn't it.”
“Yep,” said Don. “When it's the real thing you've got to keep it in your pocket. It's not nice.”
“Knock it off,” I said.
“No, Vic,” said Paul. “You see, that's what you should be doing.”
“Don't worry,” I said. “I will, in time.”
“Time's a-wasting,” said Harry. “Get on with it.” He took a drink. “Or else some bugger else will.”
I had to find out about this present boyfriend of hers, Randolph; I toiled about it during the week after the pier scene. It was Thursday when I made a move.
We were sitting on a bench in Kings Gardens. They were near the docks, and the gardens themselves had been built on top of a dock which had been filled in after it had somehow become redundant. We could see the Art Gallery next to masts of unseen ships in the neighbouring dock. A thin early winter sun glinted on steel hawsers. It was lunchtime, and the ships' masts and the art gallery were made dark, undetailed grey by the midday sun behind them. The atmosphere of the day seemed rarified. Our breath curled visibly into the pale sky.
Janet was still keeping me at arm's length. We were more relaxed together than we had been, but it was as if she had drawn an invisible line past which I was not meant to go. My feelings were becoming more intense as each day passed. Although she sometimes seemed old beyond her years and sometimes became bright and gay and demonstrated a sharp sense of humour, mainly she was a girl of deep silences, of quietly dignified yet uncertain bearing. Above all, the aura of unfledged innocence was the thing which made her unique to me.
“Janet,” I said, “how often do you see Randolph?”
“Not often nowadays. He's at boarding school most of the time. I see him when he comes home some weekends.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Oh, about four years.”
“Been going out with him long?”
“Quite some time. I suppose about six months, more or less. Why?”
“Are you
very
keen on him?”
“I like him very much.”