The Likes of Us (19 page)

They left the scene, cutting out of the street by way of a ginnel and returning to the middle of town by a roundabout route. They went into the saloon bar of a public house, ordered pints of bitter and sat down at a corner table. As he drank, Vince relived the moment when the sight of the little man's stupid face had become unbearable and felt again the violent uncoiling of tension in the smash of his fist. The violence had given them all a sense of release and now they talked animatedly about the show and Paula Perez, and women in general. Another two rounds of drinks increased their feeling of well-being and they decided it was time to go to the Trocadero and try their luck. They felt ready for anything, even to face the arch-enemy, Jackson.

He was standing in the foyer, eyeing everyone going in, his hard, square-jawed face expressionless. He wore a light-blue, double-breasted suit which hung easily on his big muscular body. He moved across to the pay-box as Vince and the others stepped in from the street.

‘Hello, hello. What's up – won't they let you in at the Gala Rooms?'

‘Why, what d'you mean?' Vince asked blindly.

‘Don't come the injured innocence with me,' Jackson said. ‘You know there was a scrap there last week.'

‘Nothin' to do with us, Mister Jackson,' Finch said.

‘Well, I'm paid to keep order here,' Jackson said stonily; ‘and the first sign of trouble here tonight and you lot are out. Just bear it in mind.'

He nodded to the girl in the box and she took their money and issued tickets. He watched them bleakly as they filed past him into the hall.

‘Bastard,' Vince said as they passed through the doorway and out of earshot.

They edged their way through the press of people standing just inside the doors and stood on the edge of the floor to watch the dancers with cool, dangerous insolence on their young faces. An archway on the left led through the trellised wall to the coffee and soft drinks bar. Vince said, ‘We'll meet over there between sets.' It was routine to them to have a gathering-place as they liked to know where support lay in case of trouble. Before they could separate now Finch grabbed Vince's arm in excitement.

‘Ey, look who's there.'

‘Where?' Vince said. ‘Who?'

‘That tart on the bike. Christ, look at her! What a dish! Over there, see, dancin' with that tall lad in the blue sports coat.'

Vince found her and as his gaze fell on her something in him seemed to turn over. She was wearing a wide, blue-flowered skirt topped by a sheer nylon blouse through which was visible the lace edging of her slip. He rubbed his hands together. His palms were already hot and moist from the heat of the hall.

‘That's for me.'

‘Ey up!' Finch said. ‘I saw her first, din' I?'

‘Get lost, laddie,' Vince told him. ‘Go find somebody your own measure.'

He began to edge along the perimeter of the floor, formed at this end of the hall by the people standing, and farther down towards the bandstand by the green cane chairs set out along the wall under the curtained windows. The set ended, the floor clearing, and he found the girl standing with her partner, the tall youth in the blue sports coat and grey slacks. Vince took his measure as he approached, decided he did not constitute any serious threat, and greeted her boldly:

‘Well, well, well! Fancy running into you here! Got home all right, did you? No punctures or anything?'

The girl's glance was momentarily startled, then cool. ‘Yes, thank you very much.'

‘Good,' Vince said, smiling broadly now. ‘Good.' He looked into the eyes of the tall youth. ‘What's your name, might I ask.'

The young man's eyebrows came together. ‘Colin Norton. Why?'

‘I thought it was. There's somebody askin' for you at the door.'

‘Oh? Who is it?'

‘Dunno. Young bloke; wavy hair.'

The tall young man pondered this for a moment. ‘I'd better go and see…' He looked uncertainly from Vince to the girl. ‘Excuse me.'

‘Sure,' Vince said.

He watched Norton walk up the hall, then turned back to the girl. ‘You with him?'

‘No, not particularly.'

‘Did you come with anybody else?'

‘I've one or two friends here.'

‘Boy friends?'

She shrugged faintly. ‘Nobody special.'

Vince grinned. ‘Good.'

‘Was there really somebody asking for him?'

Vince's smile broadened. ‘You never know.'

She began to smile in turn. It broke through first in her eyes, then moving her mouth.

‘You're a proper devil, aren't you?'

‘That's me,' Vince said. ‘Right first time.'

He was pleased when the band struck up again. He wanted to be away from this spot before Norton realised he had been hoaxed. Not that he couldn't take care of him if it came to that, but he didn't want any trouble to complicate matters now. He jerked his head in the direction of the floor, which was filling up again.

‘Care to?'

She hesitated, her glance flickering up to his face.

‘All right.'

It was a slow foxtrot. He took her lightly in his arms, keeping the correct distance, and steered her with easy confidence through the moving throng of dancers. When they had made one circuit of the floor she said, ‘You're a very good dancer, you know.'

Vince nodded. ‘I know. It comes easy. If you're light on your feet and have a sense of rhythm there's nothing to it. Practice helps... You're not so bad yourself, anyway.'

‘I'm better if I have a good partner. Half these lads can hardly dance a step. They grab hold of you like a sack of potatoes and walk all over your feet…'

‘No style,' Vince said, ‘that's their trouble.'

She gave him a quick speculative look, but said nothing. He pulled her in a little closer.

‘I don't even know your name.'

‘I know yours; you're Sammy Davis, junior.'

‘That's only my professional name. Vincent Elspey's my real name.'

‘I like that. It sounds a bit distinguished.'

‘My friends call me Vince.'

‘Do they? How nice for them.'

He didn't know what to make of this so he said nothing for a minute, waiting.

‘Well?'

‘Well what?'

‘What's your name? I can't talk to you all night without knowing your name, can I?'

‘Are you thinking of talking to me all night?'

‘That and other things.'

She pulled away and looked at him. ‘Just a minute! Not so fast, friend. I think you've got your lines crossed somewhere. Don't be getting ideas.'

‘What ideas?'

‘You know what ideas.'

‘Cross my heart,' Vince said.

‘And what?'

‘I mean every word I say.'

She laughed again, as earlier, almost despite herself, the light coming to her dark blue eyes, the smile lifting the corners of her red mouth.

‘Come on,' Vince said. ‘What's your name?'

She shook her head.

‘Come on. What's wrong?'

‘I don't like it.'

‘…What?'

‘My name'

‘Well, what is it?'

She hesitated. ‘Iris.'

‘Well what's wrong with that, for Pete's sake?'

‘I don't know. I just don't like it.'

‘It's okay. What's wrong with it? I thought you were goinna say Aggie or Clara or summat right horrible.'

‘Oh, no. I just don't like it, though. I've always wished I was called something else.'

‘Such as what, for instance?'

‘Well, Audrey, or something like that.'

‘Well then, we'll reckon you never told me your real name an' I'll call you Audrey. How about that?'

‘All right.'

He saw Sam standing alone on the edge of the floor and caught his eye, lifting his hand from the girl's back to form an ‘O' with forefinger and thumb. He winked over the girl's shoulder and Sam gave him an approving wink in return and the thumbs-up sign. Sam was the one Vince was closest to in the gang. He had known him longer than the others and he was a good lad to have beside you in a tight corner. Little Finch was okay but his size meant that he couldn't throw much weight into a fight and Bob, big enough and tough when it came right down to it, spent half his time sulking because somebody had hurt his feelings.

When the second of the three dances in the set ended he asked the girl if she would like a cup of coffee. She said she didn't mind and they went through into the snack bar adjoining the floor.

‘Where are your friends tonight?' she asked when they were seated, with cups of coffee on the green Formica-topped table between them.

‘Here.'

‘Do you always run around with the same crowd?'

‘Usually. You have your own mates, y'know.'

‘Do you always go about looking for trouble?'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Oh, come on,' she said. ‘You know the way you hustled John Sharpe off on the street earlier.'

‘Was that his name?'

‘Yes. Do you always do just what you want like that?'

He didn't like the question. He felt a lack of the power of argument necessary to defend his position. And anyway, all that had no part in this, sitting here with her. He remembered again the moment when he had driven his fist into the face of the man in the back street and felt no shame, because that part of him, the part keyed to violence, was separate from the part which sat here enjoying being with her. She was waiting for him to say something.

‘We like a bit o' fun,' he said reluctantly.

‘Fighting as well?'

‘We have a scrap now an' again.' He glanced at her face. ‘Well, you can't back down if somebody starts throwin' his weight about, can you?'

‘But you never pick fights with anybody? You don't start trouble?'

‘Look,' he said, ‘you've got to have a bit o' fun. You've got to break out now and again. You'd go barmy if you didn't. You spend all day workin' to fill somebody else's pockets with brass, an' everybody allus onto you: the Old Man callin' you a layabout an' a ted, an' the coppers watching you when you cross the road because your hair's cut a bit different. They're all alike: they want everything their way. Just be quiet an' don't get under the feet. Don't get in the way. An' what sort of a mess have they all made of it, eh? Wars an' bombs 'at'll kill everybody if they let 'em off. An' they say, “Keep quiet; don't cause trouble. Just keep out of the way till we're ready to polish you off.”'

His fist clenched itself on the table-top. ‘Sometimes you feel you just can't rest till you've smashed summat; till you've shown 'em all you don't give a bugger for any of 'em, an' they can't boss you around.'

She sat very still, listening to him, her eyes on his face.

‘Suppose everybody thought like you?' she said. ‘What sort of world would it be then?'

‘Couldn't be much worse than it is now, could it? Nobody trusts anybody. Everybody's out to get what he wants. Countries as well as people. Well I haven't got it upstairs – what it takes to make myself a nice little pile, like some of 'em do; so people look at me as if I'm dirt an' say, “Look at him, a ted, goin' about making trouble.” So I make trouble when I feel like it.'

‘But what about the ordinary decent people?'

‘You mean the stupid ones, the ones everybody puts on? They're the ones the coppers an' politicians push around. Suckers. They're okay till nobody wants 'em. Like our old feller. He goes an' gets himself all shot up in the war an' now he's got one arm what's practically useless. So he gets a bit of a pension an' does jobs nobody else wants and walks about with it all twisted up inside him, hating everybody, including me, because I've got two good arms an' I can earn more brass than he does. An' he calls me a layabout!'

He drained his cup and pushed it moodily aside. ‘What you want to start all that for? Why d'you want to bring all that up?'

She looked down into her own cup. ‘I just wanted to know about you.'

They sat in silence for a time, then he said abruptly, ‘C'mon, let's go dance some more.'

He stood aside at the door to let her precede him and as he followed her he noticed for the first time a small wart on the back of her neck, just below the hair-line. The lights were down in the hall for a slow waltz, and curiously touched by the blemish he had just noticed, he tightened his hold as they moved away together and brought her closer until her hair was touching his cheek. He wondered where she lived and if she would let him see her home when the dance finished. He wanted this very much. He wanted to see her again afterwards, too, and knew he would ask her for a date before long. She wasn't like the girls he and the gang usually went for: she was a few rungs higher up the ladder than them, and sharper, more intelligent. No other girl had ever had him in a corner explaining himself. He wouldn't have stood it from another girl. They were usually interested only in how good a time you could give them and how far they were prepared to let you go in return. They were easier to deal with: they took you for what you were and you didn't need your wits about you all the time as you did with this one. But they were none of them as attractive as she and not one of them had caused him to feel as he did now, dancing with her in his arms, quiet, at peace, the need for violence drained out of him so that he wished the music would never stop.

It was now after licensing hours and the hall had filled up with the latecomers from the closing pubs. The air, despite the open windows behind the long curtains, was thick and stifling and several times used. When the set ended they found themselves near the door. The girl pretended to fan herself with her open hand.

‘I feel is if I'll never draw another breath. How much warmer can it get in here?'