A Kind of Loving (33 page)

comes
another Christmas. The day we shut the shop for the
holidays Mr Van Huyten has a little chat with me and tells me
how pleased he is with the way things have worked out. It's nice to know you're
giving satisfaction somewhere, anyway, I think.
Mr Van Huyten gives me a Christmas bonus of five pounds and I
go out and blue three-ten of it on a powder compact for Ingrid.

On Boxing Day Chris and David invite us over to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. It doesn't seem possible that it's
a whole year since they got married, and still, when I think of all
that's happened to me
...
The Old Man's full of corny jokes
about the first seven years being the worst and. they've only another six to go. They laugh this off like they do the way the
Old Lady's always talking about the kids they'll be having,
though there isn't a sign yet. I wonder if they're having trouble
in this direction and then think they've only been married a year
anyway and when they have kids and how many is their business
and nobody else's. It's typical of the Old Lady, though. First she couldn't wait to get Chris married and now she's all agog to be a
grandmother. I don't know what she'll pester about after that.
Me, I suppose. She'll be dropping hints in my direction any time.
Not that I'd mind if I could find the right girl and be sure she was the right one and not just a passing fancy like Ingrid. It
seems to me being married must be something special if you can
look as happy as Chris and David do after a year of it. As it is,
seeing the way they are only shows up the difference between the
way I thought of Ingrid a year ago and the way I am with her
now.

One morning in January there's a letter by my plate when I
come down to breakfast. I recognize Ingrid's writing on the envelope and as I sit down and pick it up I feel the Old Lady watching me through that second pair of eyes she has in the back of her head.

'From your girl friend?' she says.

'What girl friend?'

'What
girl friend?' There's the sizzle of the eggs as she breaks
them into the frying pan. 'That lass you're knocking about with,'
she says. I think for a minute she's seen me with Ingrid, then she
says, 'That lass 'at sent you the card for your twenty-first and
bought you the cigarette case.'

'Oh,
that.
That was months ago.'

'Don't you see her nowadays, then?'

I don't know how much she knows. You can never be sure
with the Old Lady. 'Oh, on an' off. We're friendly like.'

'Well then, what are you goin' all round the houses about it
for?' she says. 'Are you ashamed of her or summat?'

She turns round and I keep my face down over my cornflakes.
'I just don't want you to get the wrong idea, that's all.'

She turns her face away again and splashes fat over the eggs.

' What sort o' wrong idea?'

'That it's serious or anything.'

She shakes her head. 'I don't know how it is wi' young fowk
nowadays; they don't seem to know their own minds. Just want to play fast an' loose with one after the other. In my young days
we either courted properly or left it alone.'

She brings the frying pan over from the cooker and lifts the eggs out on a knife - one on to Jim's plate and one on to mine.
She shares the bacon out as well, then puts the pan back on the
cooker and turns the gas off. She picks her cup up and has a
drink of tea, watching the two of us tuck into the bacon and eggs.

'It's different now,' I tell her. 'Times change. You know what
they say nowadays - Play the field before you get married and you won't want to after.'

"There's a lot o' fowk got married quicker than they thought
they would through playin' t'field,' the Old Lady says.

I haven't liked this conversation from the start and I like it
even less the way it's going now, so I shut up and say no more.
The minutes tick away as we go on eating, and after
a
while the
Old Lady says, 'Well — aren't you goin' to open your letter?'

'Read the letter, Vic, there's a good lad,' Jim says; 'then you
can tell us all the news.'

'You'll get a good clout if you don't hold your tongue,' the Old Lady says;' and there's a bit o' news for you!'

Jim's sitting with his back to her and he pushes his tongue
down between his bottom teeth and his
lip, tucks his chin down
into his neck, and rolls his eyes.

'I can read it on the bus,' I say, trying not to grin and bring the Old Lady down on Jim. 'It isn't important.'

'It can't be,' the Old Lady says, real dry, 'or she wouldn't have
bothered to write to you.'

Well, she does her best, but I'm not having any, and the letter's
still sealed in its envelope when I leave the house and walk down
the hill to the bus stop. I'm pretty mad with Ingrid for sending it
and starting all that with the Old Lady and I wonder why she couldn't ring me up if she wanted to tell me something. I open
the letter at the bus stop.

'Dear Vic,' she says, 'I've been off work today with an upset
stomach and as I shan't be going back tomorrow (Thursday)
I shan't be able to come out to meet you. My mother's going out,
though, and you can come up to our house if you like. You know where I live. Just come to the back door and knock. Love, Ingrid.

'PS. Don't come before 7.30 because she's not going out till
seven.'

Now I like this very much. I've never been in Ingrid's house but they're sure to have a couch or a comfortable chair, and it'll
be a lot cosier than the park.

II

'I couldn't ring you up because Mother didn't go out all afternoon,' Ingrid says. 'So I scribbled the letter and pretended I wanted a little walk for some fresh air to give me a chance to
post it.'

'You haven't told your mother about me, then?' I say.

'Well, no, I haven't. I mean, it's not as if we were ... well,
courting, is it?'

'No., .no, it isn't.'

'Your parents don't know about me, do they?'

'Well they do and they don't. I mean they saw your birthday
card and they know a girl bought me the cigarette case; but they don't know how often I see you or how it is between us.'

Ingrid blushes a bit. 'I should think not.... That's the trouble isn't it? I mean, we couldn't tell anybody how it is, could we?'

'As far as anybody else is concerned - anybody who happens
to see us out, I mean - we're just friends who go out with each other now and again.'

She says nothing to this, but looks into the fire, reaching out
once, out of habit I suppose, to pull her skirt down over her
knees. She's showing quite a lot of leg actually, because her skirt's
on the short side and you sink right down into the velvet cushions
in these chairs of theirs.

It's the dining-room we're in. I suppose they're like us and don't use the front room every day. This room's cosy, though, with this,
leather three-piece suite and a fitted carpet in rust. There's a
console TV on one side of the fireplace and a little wireless on a
table on the other. Ingrid's ma must be a Royalty fan because
there's a big coloured photo of the Queen in her Coronation
outfit on the wall over the fireplace. There's a good fire and I'm
feeling nice and comfortable and I've taken my jacket off and
hung it on one of the dining-chairs.

I think Ingrid's a bit excited at having me here while her mother's back's turned because she's in a sort of lighthearted
nervous mood and she laughs a lot. Or she was doing before we
started talking about how it is with us and now she's gone a bit
quiet, as if it's started her on studying, while she looks into the
fire. I was just thinking before this that I'd have to get up and
kiss her any time now. And the way we are, cosy and private for
the first time, who knows what might happen then? I look at the
shape of her under this pale pink blouse and I want to look at
her properly. I want to find out if my hands have been telling the
truth about how lovely she is.

I stand up to get a fag out of my jacket. As I get the cig case
out of my inside pocket I pull some more stuff out with it: my
comb and wallet, and a little book of pin-ups that took my fancy
in a shop where I was buying fags a day or two since. Ingrid's
just got up to straighten the curtains and there's no hiding this
book from her because she sees it there on the floor with this bint
on the front revealing all. The next minute she's bent down, got
it, and jumped away as I try to grab it back.

'C'mon, gimme.'

She laughs.' No. I'm going to look and see what a dirty-minded
old thing you really are.'

She gets behind her chair and I know if I want the book I'll
have to chase her and take it off her. I'm a bit red, but I'm not going to make a song and dance about it, so I sit down in my chair and light my fag. When she sees I'm not bothering she comes round and sits down and starts to turn the pages. She
seems to get real interested, having a real good look at every
picture, just like a lad might do, and once or twice she gives a
little giggle, when she comes to one she thinks is a bit more saucy
than the rest, I suppose. I go over and sit on the arm of her chair
and look down over her shoulder. I get a funny kind of thrill
looking at pictures like these with her and I can feel the blood in
my throat and my hands aren't steady.

'I don't know how they can do it,' she says, 'standing in
front of a photographer like that.'

'I don't suppose they think anything of it. It's a job. Exploiting
their natural assets, you might say.'

'I'll bet there's some carrying on.'

'Now who's being dirty-minded?'

'Well if you were taking photographs of women like this all
day wouldn't you feel like it? Now you can't pretend you
wouldn't.'

'Well, I'm not used to it. And anyway, I don't know where' you drop on jobs like that. There'd ha' been some sense in it if
me dad had apprenticed me to one o' these blokes.'

She gives my leg a dig with her elbow. 'Go on with you!'

She turns the pages.
'She's
lovely, though. Isn't she
firm
!'

'No nicer than you,' I say, and I'm glad she can't see my face
because my cheeks are on fire.

' Get away,' she says.' You don't mean that.'

'I do, though. I think your figure's every bit as nice as hers.'

'Look at her bust, though. I'll bet she doesn't even need a bra.'

I have to swallow a couple of times before I can speak. 'Well,
I think you've got ... got lovely breasts. I've always thought so.'

'Shut up,' she says. 'You'll make me blush.' And I can see
her coming up pink about the ears and neck.