A Kind of Loving (22 page)

'You sack me if you want to,' Conroy says. 'You'll be doing me a favour.'

A vein comes out on Hassop's forehead and just for a couple
of seconds we're all waiting to hear him tell Conroy to get his
cards. But we ought to know he hasn't the guts to do a thing like
that in front of the whole office. He stands there, and he stands
there a minute too long. Then he says in a strangled voice,
'You've had your warning, Conroy. You'd better watch out.'
And he turns and walks away to his own office.

Conroy watches him till the door shuts behind him, then he
goes back to his reading, licking his finger-end to make turning
the pages easier.

II

One night when I get home the Old Man's upstairs practising.
He's quite a lad with the trombone, the Old Feller, and I mean that. He's had offers from some tip-top bands in his time, only he didn't take the ones from South Yorkshire because the pits
down there are too deep and hot for him, and with the others
it would have meant him leaving the pit altogether and taking an
unskilled job in a factory, and the money wasn't good enough.
So he's always played with Cressley Town, which is no Fairey
Aviation, but a pretty good second section band, for all that. I
don't play anything myself, but I'm rather partial to a brass
band, especially on the march, and one of the biggest kicks I know
•is to see the Old Feller out there in front, throwing the slide out, and hear the trombones rasping away under the rest of the band.

He comes downstairs while I'm having my tea and picks a
postcard off the fireplace. 'You haven't forgotten this, have you,
Vic?' It's notification of a blood donors' session round at Shire-
grove Road Council School. The Old Man has one as well, and
we usually go together.

'I had,' I say, 'but it's okay; I've nothing else on.'

'AH this givin' your blood in the middle of winter,' the Old Lady
.says. 'I'm sure it weakens your resistance to colds and disease.'

'Gerraway.'Isay.

'I should imagine it's quite beneficial in some ways,' young
Jim says. 'Bloodletting was considered a cure for almost everything at one time.'

I pull a face at Mister Know-all and the Old Lady says, 'Well
they don't do it now, do they? They've learned better.'

The Old Man's polishing his boots by the fire. 'I don't see as
how it can do any harm,' he says. 'An' what drop they take out o' you does some poor soul a power o' good.'

'Ah well,' the Old Lady says, 'I reckon it's up to everybody to
do their bit. That's what makes the world go round. But I do think you should take some malt and cod-liver oil in winter,
Victor. Help to make up for it a bit.'

I pull another face. I haven't taken malt andcod-liver oil in years.

"Jim's used all his up. I'll get a new jar from the chemist's tomorrow.'

'Get some capsules; I'm too old to take it out of the jar.' I hold my cup out. 'Is there a drop more?'

The Old Lady picks the teapot up out of the hearth and pours
me another cup. 'You're never too old to take what's good for you; and that includes your mother's advice.'

'Lecture coming up.'

'A thick ear coming up, young man, if you start cheeking me. Advice is cheap for them as'll take it.'

I jump up from the table and throw my arms out and go into
nay Al Jolson take-off.' Mammy, how I love yer, how I need yer,
my dear old mammy

She can't help smiling, though she does her best.

' Gerraway with yer, you great clown.'

The school's all lit up and we walk across the playground
to the door we usually go in and check the notice which says 'Blood Donors this way', with an arrow. There's a bloke and a
middle-aged woman waiting with their cards outside the door on
the left and two or three more people sitting outside the room
where they actually take the blood. Me and the Old Man tag on to the line. I'm easy about giving blood now; it's a doddle; but I
can never get used to the hospital smell they bring with them when they come and set up for the job. The Old Feller goes in and I follow in half a minute and sit down in front of this bod
who takes my card. He shows me another card which I have to
sign to say I've never had yellow jaundice, malaria, cancer,
kidney disease, and a lot of other nasty complaints. They don't
want your blood if you've had any of these and you have to sign
the card every time you go, in case you've had a dose of something
since the last time you were here, I suppose. Then this bloke
gives me a postcard and asks me to write my name and address
on it. Ill get this through the post in a couple of weeks telling
me what my blood's been used for. He hands me all my record
cards and whatnot and I move on to the bint in the blue uniform
who takes hold of my hand and jabs a needle in my thumb and
squeezes a drop of blood out which she catches in a little glass
tube and drops into some chemical or other. She blows into this
chemical through another little tube and watches it change colour.
From this she can check my blood group against the record card.
I go out, holding a bit of cotton wool over my thumb and hang my jacket on a hook and join the others waiting for their turn.

They have all the trolleys set out in the assembly hall and a
nurse leads me to one of these and I get up and lie on my back.
The nurse there shoves a length of like brush-handle into my hand
and I'm supposed to grip and relax on this while she winds a
rubber bandage round my arm above the elbow and pumps it up to make the vein stand out. Now we're all ready and in a
minute a woman doctor comes over and gives me a nice smile
like she always does and asks me if I'm keeping well. I say I
am and she slips the needle in and makes the connexion without me feeling a thing except the light touch of her fingers. I watch
her face while she's doing it. It's a clean, fresh face, without
make-up, and I always think how nice she is and wonder why she isn't married because I'm sure she'd be real good for some
bloke.

'Is that comfortable?'

'Fine, thanks.'

She smiles again and goes off to see to somebody else. I feel like shutting my eyes but I think I might drop off to sleep if I do so I keep them open and look at the ceiling and now and then take a butcher's at this nurse who's sitting by the trolley knitting a jumper while my blood runs into the bottle on the floor. The old place is ready for decorating. As I remember, it was always ready for decorating. It's ten years since I sat my County Minor in this very room and passed to go to Grammar School. Ten years! They say time passes quicker the older you get, but even I can look
back ten years and more and remember what I was doing at the time. And ten years on... what will I be doing then, when I'm thirty? Probably married, maybe with some kids. But who to? Who would the bint be? Now a couple of weeks ago I might have thought Ingrid, maybe, but now ... It's the funniest thing about Ingrid. I'm out with her twice and three times a week now and you might think I've got all I was always hankering
after in that direction. Maybe I have, but somehow, I don't know,
there isn't the magic there was at the beginning, though it's still
exciting enough at certain times. Anyway, when I think of getting
married I don't think of her, that's all...

About twenty minutes later, when we've had a lie-down and a
cup of tea, the Old Man and I are walking out through the gate, all done and dusted.

'Comin' straight down home?' the Old Man says, and I say,
'I suppose so; I've nowt else on tonight.'

We walk down the hill till we come to the Bunch of Grapes,
which is one of these nice quiet pubs with notices up inside telling
you singing isn't allowed. The Old Man fair surprises me when he
stops and says, "Could you do with a drink?' I'm surprised, you
see, because although he must know I have a drink now and
again like any other young chap, he's never really acknowledged it by inviting me into a pub with him.

'I don't mind an odd 'un, Dad.'

'Get a bit o' strength back, eh?' he says, and I see him grin in the light coming from the window.

'That's the ticket.'

The landlord knows him and says, 'Evenin' Arthur,' when we go in.' How you keepin'?'

^'
Evenin', Jack. Fair to middlin', y'know. Mustn't grumble. How's yourself?'

The landlord says he can't grumble either and asks us what we're having. The Old Man looks at me and I think it might be
policy not to seem too used to all this, so I say, 'Whatever you're having, Dad,' and the Old Feller gets two halves of mild (I prefer
bitter really) and twenty Players and we go and sit down at a
table near the fire. The only other customers are two blokes talk
ing about football on the other side of the fireplace.

The Old Man lifts Ms glass. 'All the best.'

'Cheers.'

He drinks and put Ms glass down and sits on Ms buffet with
Ms hands resting on Ms knees. 'What you grinnin' at?' he says
in a minute.

'Oh, nowt much.'

But I'm grinning because I can't help it; because I'm thinking
this is a kind of milestone in my life, like my first long pants and
being able to smoke in the house. It's like the Old Man's kind of acknowledging I'm grown up and not a kid any more.

'Nice quiet place, this,' the Old Man says. 'Never any rowdy
customers. Ever been in afore?"

I say no, I haven't.

'You do take a drink now an' again, though, don't you?'

'Yes, I like a glass occasionally.'

He nods. 'I see no harm in a young feller takin' a drink in moderation. So long as you don't have eight or nine pints an' start wantin' to gob everybody.'

'That's silly.'

'Aye, it is, but there's plenty on 'em do it.'

'It's a nice drink, this.'

'Aye, he keeps a good drink, Jack does.'

We sit without saying anything for a while, then the Old
Man says, 'How you gettin' on at your work?'

'Oh, okay.'

'Still liking it, are you?'

' Yes, I like it all right.' I know this isn't exactly the truth, some
how, but I let it go because it would be too hard to explain to the
Old Feller when I can hardly reckon it up for myself,

'Seems to me there's good prospects in your line. T'evenin'
paper's allus full o' vacancies for draughtsmen.'

'Oh, there's plenty o'jobs about.'

'What d'ye think about Whittaker's? D'yre reckon you'll be settlin'there when you get on to full rate?'

'Well I'm not thinkin' o' moving yet. I'll have to see when I'm
twenty-one. They pay union rates and the work's as interesting as any other branch of engineering, I reckon. Course, I could
probably get the same line o' work somewhere else. I don't
know that there's much chance of promotion at Whittaker's. Too
many keen young chaps in the office.'

'If you made a move in t'same line it'd mean you going away,
happen?'

' Yeh, I'd have to do that. Manchester, maybe, or Birmingham.'

'Aye.' The Old Man nods and appears to weigh this up for a
minute. Then he says, 'Well, there comes a time in most chaps'
lives when they've to strike out on their own if they're goin' to
make headway. And the time to do it is while you're still single, without ties.'