A Kind of Loving (19 page)

'But how did you know where I live?' There's another thing:
she must have been interested before to have known that.

She gives a little smile, not looking at me. 'Oh, I knew,' she says. 'P'raps I know more about you than you think.'

I feel like singing and shouting right there in the street. Oh,
she's a peach. She really is.

III

'Well, where shall we go, then? Pictures?'

'I'd rather just walk and talk,' she says, and this suits me fine. It's what I wanted last Sunday when that Dorothy came and put
her big feet in it. By, but when I think how near she got to busting
everything up.. .What I'd have missed - all this, being here with her now and knowing she's definitely interested in me, like I am
in her. But maybe it's all for the better that we have had some
trouble because it's made Ingrid come right out and let me know
she's interested. We've kind of gone back a couple of strides and
advanced a dozen. I reckon we really owe Dorothy a vote of thanks.

'Did you have any trouble meeting me tonight?'
'Well, I really shouldn't have come,' I tell her, and think that
man-eating lions on the streets wouldn't have kept me away.
'We've all been to tea at my sister's new flat. She just got back
from her honeymoon yesterday.'
'Oh, yes, Christine. You told me about the wedding.'
So I did, nearly a fortnight ago. And look how much has
happened since then! I got to know Ingrid, then thought I'd
lost her, and now I've found her all over again. And I still can
hardly believe she's here with me now, and not at my invitation,
but her own! I take hold of her hand and pull her arm up through
mine and she turns her head and looks at me and smiles; and
at the same time I get this gorgeous whiff of the scent she's
wearing.
'I like your perfume. What is it?'

She giggles. 'It's called
Desire?

'Living dangerously, aren't you, wearing stuff like that?' I
think of the sort of joke somebody like Jimmy Slade might make
- a chastity belt given free with every bottle - and grin to myself.

'It's quite expensive, as a matter of fact,' she says. 'I only wear
it on special occasions. It's not for everyday use,'

'I don't know whether to be flattered or not.'

'Why?'

'I don't know whether it means you trust me to behave or trust me not to.'

She giggles again. 'Now, now. Keep the party clean.'

We get to talking about our families because we don't really know much about each other, and I find out that Ingrid's dad's a site engineer for a big constructional firm out Manchester way and his work takes him all over the country and sometimes abroad. 'He's really hardly ever at home,' Ingrid says. 'Mother says it's like being married to a sailor." (I notice the way she says 'mother' and not 'my mother' or "me mam", and this puts her family a notch above mine straight away.) "Then again she says it has its advantages. You never have a chance to get fed-up with a husband who's only at home occasionally. They're like a proper couple of love-birds when he does turn up. You'd think they'd been married a month instead of twenty years ... Of course, it'll be different when she hasn't got me
for company. It'll be a bit lonely for her then.'

'Are you thinking of leaving home, then?'

'Well, I suppose I shall one day, when I get married, I mean.'

'How old are you, Ingrid?' I've guessed but I'm not sure.

'I was eighteen just before Christmas.' -I'd have given her
another year. 'You're only a kid,' I say to tease her a bit. 'You
won't be leaving your mother for a while.'

'Well you've got to think about the future, haven't you? Many
a girl's married and started a family at eighteen. Anyway, how
old are you, Father Time, if it isn't too personal a question?'

'Twenty.'

'I couldn't really tell. It was the grey beard that put me off.'

I laugh. 'Okay, okay.' And inside I'm singing and shouting
again. It's all right, we're getting along grand.

'And what sort o' chap are you goinna marry? Somebody like
your dad who's away all the time?'

' No fear. I want a husband who's with me all the time, and I'll
risk getting fed-up with him.'

Just the way I want it: living and loving and laughing together,
every day. It must be wonderful if you can hit it right.

"You'll have to wait an' see about that till he turns up. He
might turn out to be a sailor or something and that'll be worse
thanever.'

'How d'you know he hasn't turned up already?" she says, and
I give her a quick look, wondering what to make of this.

' Well what are you doing out with me, then?'

'Making him jealous,'she says.

' I see. Is he a big bloke?'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that. He's quite well-built, though.'

'Handy with his fists?'

'I don't know. I should think he can take care of himself.'

'Hmm.' I pretend to raise my hat and turn back the way
we've come.'Well, good night.'

She laughs.' Come on, I'll take care of you.'

We've walked up this residential avenue that branches off the
main road that runs but to Greenford past Cressley Moor and
now we can see the big gates of Ravensnook Park with all the fancy ironwork and shields, and a little side gate standing open,
Ingrid suggests we walk through that way and we go in past the
lodge which is in darkness and on to one of the wide tarmac
avenues where there's empty flower-beds on each side and big
trees.

'What
did
you think when I didn't turn up last night?' she
says after a bit.

'I didn't know what to think, really.'

'I suppose it did occur to you that I might have got held up
somewhere?'

'It did cross me mind.'

' You didn't really think I'd made the date and then deliberately
not turned up, did you?'

'It has been known, y'know.'

'Well you don't know me very well if you think I could do a
thing like that,' she says, and it seems to me there's a touch of
frost in her voice now.

'Well I don't know you very well, do I? We've only been out together three times. Only twice with just the two of us. When
you turned up with that Dorothy the other night I -'

'I
didn't
want her to come, you know. Only she often pops over
on Sunday afternoons and stays to tea. I wasn't expecting her
last week and when she came I didn't have a chance to explain to her till we were out of the house and then
I
couldn't get rid of her without offending her. She's like that, y'know. She got it into her
head that she was coming to have a look at you and that was that.
She said she'd only stop five minutes and then go.'

Well that clears that up. Now it's just like we're beginning
again, only the funny thing is that Dorothy's got us off to a flying
start this time. I'll bet she'd be mad if she knew!

'You know what happened after that,' Ingrid says.

I do. Not half. Is she ticking me off just a little bit?
I
wonder.
Maybe she is, and she's probably right, because the mood I'm in now I can even think about Dorothy without wanting to puke.

'I didn't mean to open up on her like that, you know; only
I
couldn't stand all them insinuations of hers. Not after the two
dates we'd had. And when all that happened and you didn't turn
up last night, well, I just thought we'd had it. I thought you
didn't want to see me any more and you didn't like telling me to
me face.'

'And it wasn't that way at all!' she says. 'Doesn't it just show
how misunderstandings can come about? It's a good job I did think of writing that note or I don't know what might have
happened.'

'I can tell you what would have happened,' I say. 'I shouldn't
have bothered you again.
⁹

The bandstand, a big one shaped like a fancy cake, looms up
out of the dark. I say, 'Let's sit down,' and steer Ingrid round a
comer that's a mass of rhododendron blossom in early summer on
to a sidepath where I know there's a seat.

'Would it have bothered you if I hadn't asked you out again?'
I say and it seems like a kind of shyness comes over her because
all she says is, 'What do you think?' I say nothing to this but I
show her by lifting my arm and putting it round her shoulders.
She moves a bit nearer to me on the seat and I think how funny
it is what can make the difference between you jogging along from
day to day and thinking that life's absolutely wonderful.

'What on earth's that you've got in your pocket?' she says.

I take my arm away and sit up straight again. 'A book.'

'It feels like a brick.'

I take the book out of my pocket and hold it in my hands. 'It's
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Have you read it?'

Good heavens, no, she says, she can't read books. She gets
three magazines a week and can hardly get through them for
watching telly. 'Telly.' I don't like that word somehow. It always
reminds me of fat ignorant pigs of people swilling stout and
cackling like hens at the sort of jokes they put on them coloured
seaside postcards; all about fat bellies and chamber pots and
that sort of thing. You know.
So I just go on holding the book and say nothing. There's something just in
the feel
of a book, I
always think; something solid that's here to stay. Not like tele
vision, switched on and off like a tap. I think it's a pity she doesn't
read because it means we shan't ever be able to talk about the books we've both read and recommend them to one another.

"They made a picture of it,' I tell her, for something to say. 'Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.'

'My namesake.'

'Eh?'

'Ingrid Bergman. That's who I'm called after. Mother was mad
on her at one time. Her and Leslie Howard. If I'd been a boy I'd
probably have been called Leslie.'

'I thought it was a queer name for an English girl,' I say. 'I
was going to ask you about it.'

'I don't think it's queer. I like it'

'I don't mean queer that way. I mean unusual.'

'Would you rather I was called Mary or Barbara, or something
like that?'

'Dorothy,' I say. 'That's a name I've always liked.'

She digs me in the side. 'Go on with you!'

I laugh and put the book away in the other pocket. 'I like you just the way you are,' I tell her.

There's a little silence before she says, 'Do you, Vic? Honest?'