A Kind of Loving (14 page)

Well I seem to have been standing there half the morning,
and if it was just my say-so I'd have been off long since, when I
hear somebody sliding a bolt on the inside. The door opens
maybe six inches and this woman's face appears in the gap. Her
voice gives me a start; it's as deep as a man's.

'Yerss?'

' I've called with a message for Mr Hassop,' I say, watching this
phizzog in the doorway. It's long and baggy and sort of yellowish
brown in colour and the eyes are stuck half-way out of it like
brown marbles.

'For Mr Hassop?' the face says.

'I'm from the Works - Whittaker's. Mr Hassop does live here,
doesn't he?'

'What is the message?'

When she talks she shows the biggest bottom teeth I've ever
seen, square at the top and tapering
down to the gums.

'It's written down.' I show her the envelope. 'Mr Althorpe
sent it. He thought Mr Hassop must have flu when he didn't come
this morning. We knew he had a cold on Friday. I hope it's
nothing serious, only there's so much flu about you can't be too
careful...'

There I go, yattering on and hardly knowing what I'm saying.
But it makes me feel queer standing there in front of this face
with these two marbles watching me. All at once a scrawny
hand comes round the door and flicks the envelope away from
me.

'Wait.'

The face vanishes.

I stand there thinking this is the queerest do I've ever come
across. I wait a good five minutes and then the door opens
a bit wider as though a little puff of wind's blown it. I push it
open more and step inside.

I'm in a big hall with a bare tiled floor. There's lots of nearly
black unvarnished doors leading off, all shut. The stairs go up at the far end and there's a tall landing window with a half-
round top and some more of the coloured glass in it. There's
a smell of gas that's not burning properly coming from somewhere
and in a bit it seems to settle on my stomach and I don't feel
too cracky. But I hang on and there's not a sound for maybe ten
minutes and I'm beginning to think I must be at the wrong
address after all and this woman is a loony who's buzzed off with the envelope and isn't coming back. I begin to work out
what I can say back at the office and then all of a sudden a door
opens upstairs somewhere and I hear these two voices going at it
hammer and tongs bawling one another out. I can't tell what they're saying but in a minute they stop and this woman comes
to the top of the stairs. I get a good view of her now and it makes
me wish I'd stopped outside. If this is Hassop's missis it's time
he put her back where he dug her up from. She comes down the
stairs with her head back like a horrible imitation of a countess
arriving at a ball or something. Her hair's a dusty black and it's
piled up all any-old-how on top of her head. She's got some kind of dressing-gown on made of a thin stuff, grey and dirty yellow, with like a feather collar to it. The marbles are on me as she gets
to the bottom of the stairs and comes across the hall. When she
gets nearer I find there's a queer smell about her and I wonder if
she's had a bath since the Great War.

She gives me the big envelope she's carrying and says in this basso profundo voice, 'There was no need for you to come in.'

I say sorry and ask how Hassop is.

'It's all in the envelope,' she says.

'Oh, well, righto, then. I'll go straight back and give it to Mr
Althorpe. Hope he'll soon be up and about again ...'

She says nothing and these marbles are fixed on me and I
wonder what we're both doing standing there while I babble
on. It seems she's not going to show me out, so I say, 'Well, I'll
be getting off, then,' and walk to the door. She stands stock-still, just the marbles swivelling as I get to the door.

It's only when I swing the door wide open and a great ray
of sunshine shoots in that she moves. Then she suddenly half-runs
towards me with her hands up as though she's after clawing my
eyes out.

'Close the door,' she says. 'Close the door.'

Well, I'm all for this, but with me and her on opposite sides, so I say good morning and nip smartly out. The door slams as
if she's thrown all her weight behind it and the knocker jumps
and gives a rap. I hear the bolt shoot home again and I get out
of the porch and walk smartish up the
path and don't look back
till I'm out on the pavement. I'm thinking then that if that's what
Hassop
has to put up with it's no wonder he isn't the life and soul
of the party.

II

I drop off in town for a coffee at the Bluebird Snack Bar, and I
light that cig up I promised myself earlier. It's something unusual
for me to be downtown on a working morning and I'm a bit
surprised, like I always am, to see so many people about. I don't
mean just women shopping and that, but blokes wandering about
.as they like while me and my kind are tied up earning a living.
Quite a few of them are coloured bods, Indians and Pakistanis
mostly. They all look alike to me, with long faces and high cheek
bones, thin wrists and big teeth. They have right thick black glossy
hak that shines as if they use half a bottle of cream on it at a time.
I've never seen a well-dressed one yet and I don't suppose most
of them are well-off. I reckon even the ones who aren't working
though are better off on National Assistance here than they
would be working at home; and I suppose there'll be some of
them who don't bother about getting a job so long as the Govern
ment's willing to keep them. That's what a lot of people have
against them, but I always think you can't just lump people together like that. I reckon there'll be right'uns and wrong'uns
among them like there is with anybody else. They don't seem to cause much bother, and mind their own business. All the same,
though, I wouldn't like to be a bird walking home late at night
by myself up Colville Road. There's so many of them living up
there the locals call it the Road to Mandalay. God! I'm glad I'm
English. I'm glad a dozen times a week when I read in the papers
all that's going oif hi the world.

It's quiet in the snack bar and I enjoy my coffee and sit there
thinking how nice it would be if Ingrid was to walk in and we
could have a quiet little chat and I'd maybe get to know where
I stand. Not that I don't know already. I reckon it's all up. But
I still can't take it somehow that it's all over after just two dates -
three if you count last night. We were getting along fine as far
as I could see. There wasn't the slightest sign of anything going
wrong till that Dorothy turned up. I wonder if I got Ingrid wrong
about that. Perhaps Dorothy did just turn up and Ingrid couldn't
get rid of her, like she said. If she did I made a real mess of things
by going for her like I did. Oh, I don't know. Bints are the very devil to understand.

I'm feeling a bit peckish so I go to get my cup filled again and buy a sausage roll to stave off the pangs till dinner-time.

There's only one way to find out and that's to ask her for another date. If she says yes, all well and good. If she says no it can't be any worse than now when I'm wondering and imagining the worst and hoping for something better. So I decide: I'll ask her, and if I can't screw myself up to doing it to her face I'll write her a little note and get young Laisterdyke to give it to her.

I'm sitting there drinking my second cup of coffee and thinking
about Ingrid and hearing somebody bashing pots about in the
back place when who should walk
in
but Les Jackson with his
left hand all done up in a big boxing glove of bandages. He spots
me as he turns round and he lifts his eyebrows and brings his
cup over to the table, holding his bad hand up against his chest. The bandages are all fresh and clean.

'Howdo, Vic.'

"Lo, Les. What the hell you been doin' to your hand?'

'That dame,' Les says. 'What thighs!' He sits down laughing.
'I had an argument with a drilling machine Friday morning.'

'Is it bad?'

' Slit all down the side of me hand an' taken the tip off one
finger.'

'Christ!'

Les sips his tea and I take my cigs out and offer him one. 'Have a picture of Queen Victoria.' I take another myself and
we light up. Les pulls on his like he hasn't had a smoke in a week.

'Just what I need,' he says. 'I've been up to the Infirmary. I've
to go up every morning to have the dressings changed.'

'Give you some stick?'

'It's not so bad now. Gave me gyp Friday, though, when I
just done,, it. I nearly passed out on 'em. They've one of the
tough Irish sisters in Casualty up there. I told her they ought
to give you a whiff o' summat afore they start messing about.
"What, a big husky chap like yourself?" she says. "You're soft,
man.'"

'Aye, an' I'm soft an' all when it comes to owt like that,' I
tell him. I'm looking at the bandages and imagining the mess
underneath and I can't help turning cold and shivering.

'What you doing out this time o' morning, anyway?' Les
says. 'Are you laiking?'

'No, I've just been taking a message to my boss's house. He's
off badly.'

'Having ten minutes at the firm's expense now, eh?'

'That's the idea.'

'Got it cushy, you office boys.'

'Come off it. It's your own fault if you're wearing overalls
instead of a collar an' tie. A grammar school lad drilling lumps o'
metal.'

'Aw, I like to make things. I allus did. I couldn't abide sitting
at a desk all day. Too much like school... I say, guess who I ran into just now - Old Roster.'

'Gerraway!'

'I did that!'

'Old Roster ... I haven't seen him in years. Did he speak to
you?'

'Oh aye. I said good morning like and he stopped and took a good look at me. You know the way he does it - first over his glasses then through 'em. Then he says. "Jackson, isn't it? Yes -Jackson. Good heavens, boy, what have you done to your hand? " We must have stood for a good ten minutes talkin' about this an' that. Fancy him remembering me name, though.'

'Oh, he's not a bad lad, Roster. Plenty worse than him.'

'I'll say.'

'He didn't remind you about the time we sewed the armholes
of his gown up, did he?'

We have a laugh as we think about that, then Les shoves his
cup to one side and leans over the table and lowers his voice a bit.
' Didja hear the one about the chap with a wooden leg who went on
his honeymoon?'he says.

I haven't heard it.

I get back to the office about half-eleven and take the envelope
in to Miller.

'Did you see Mr Hassop?' he asks me.

'No, just his wife.'