A Kind of Loving (15 page)

'It must have been his sister; Mr Hassop isn't married. Did she
say how he was?'

' She said it was all in the envelope.'

Miller looks at me as if he thinks I'm trying to be funny. 'How d'you mean, in the envelope?'

'That's what she said. I asked how he was and she said it was
all in the envelope."

Miller turns the envelope over in his hands. It's got Mr
Althorpe's name on it so he can't open it.

'Have you seen her, this sister?' I ask him, because now I'm
back in the office I'm wondering if I can have imagined it
all.

'No, I don't know much about Mr Hassop's private life. He's
very reserved about it.'

'I don't wonder. Honest, Jack, she's the queerest bird I've
ever run across.' And I start to tell him all about it and he rests
his behind on his desk and shoves his specs up on his nose with
his forefinger now and again, the way he does, as he listens to me.

'Hmmm,' he says when I've finished. 'Well, you'd better not
say anything about it in the office. We don't want Mr Hassop's personal affairs bandying about the place.'

I say no, course not, and Miller picks the envelope up to take it in to Mr Althorpe. He looks back as he's going out.' You say
this dressing-gown thing had a feather collar on it?' he says.

'Looked like feathers to me.'

He says 'Hmmm' again, and beetles off out.

I go down the office to my board.

'And how's the draughtsman's friend, this morning?' Jimmy
says.

'It's all in the envelope,' I say, and start laughing. It's got all
the makings of a good catchphrase for Jimmy and me once I've
told him the tale.

'What's so funny?' he says.

'Tell you later.' I reckon it'll be okay to tell him outside. It'll
have to be; I can't keep a thing like that to myself. I go over and
lean on his board. 'Didja hear the one about the bloke with the
wooden leg 'at got married and went on his honeymoon?'

He hasn't heard it either.

III

Now I've decided to ask Ingrid out again I can't think of any
thing else for wondering how I'm going to go about it and what
she'll say. I see her at dinner-time in the canteen only I can't
keep my mind right on her because Ken Rawlinson's yattering
away about a symphony concert he's been to in Leeds Town Hall
on Sunday night.
... and it's tragic to think he never actually heard the biggest
part of his own music.'

'What?' I say. 'Who's that?'

'Beethoven.'

' How's that? Did he snuff it young, or summat?'

'He was afflicted with deafness.'

'Well how could he compose music if he was deaf?' The stuff this bighead Rawly comes out with. He'll be talking about blind
painters next.

'It was all in his mind,' Rawly says. 'All he had to do was
write it down.'

'Without hearing it?'

'Of course. All this business you see in films where the com
poser sits picking out a melody at the piano is a Hollywood myth.
Or at least, it's grossly exaggerated. A musician of the first rank
has only to see the music to hear it in his mind. And a composer
has no need actually to hear the music to put it down on paper.'

This is interesting. It even makes me forget Ingrid for a minute.
Course, I don't believe all Rawly says, because he's a big show-
off, but I can always check on this with,Mr Van Huyten. He's
sure to know.

'A first-class musician', Rawly says, 'can read an orchestral
score as easily as the average person can read a book.'

'And he's only himself to blame if anybody plays a wrong
note, eh?'

'Exactly. In fact some musicians so despair of hearing the
perfect performance of a favourite work that they give up
listening
to music and read scores instead.'

'Like playing with yourself because you can't find the perfect
woman,' says Conroy on the other side of Rawly, and Rawly
goes as red as fire and carries on with his dinner without another word.

I have to smile at this because although I don't like Conroy
any more than I like Rawly I think it's a very smart remark and
I'm ready to see Rawly taken down a peg any time. It's shut him
up, anyway, and now I can concentrate on Ingrid again. I like
her. I like everything about her. I like the way her hair's cut
short and waves over her ears. I like the little dimples at the
corners of her mouth and the mouth itself, all soft and full and
made for kisses. I remember me kissing it and wonder if I ever
will again. She knows I'm watching her and just once, for a second, her eyes slide round to mine. Then away again. You
might think we've never spoken two words to one another. All
that in the warm and the dark in the pictures; you might think
it had never happened.

I'm still dreaming about her at half past three when she comes
through the office with her notebook and pencil to take some letters for Miller. I let my eyes slide up over the top edge of the
board and follow her all the way. Such a trim little behind she has in that skirt, and them darkish nylons show her legs off a treat.

'Isn't it sweet, Jeff?' somebody says near by, and I jump.
Conroy and his pal Lewis are leaning on Conroy's board watching me. They're both laughing in that sarcastic way Conroy has
and Lewis copies.

'Doesn't it do your heart good to see it?' Conroy says.

'What's up wi' you two?' I say, as if I didn't know.

'Don't come it, young Browny,' Conroy says. 'We know you're doing a bit for our Miss Rothwell, the Siren of the Typing Pool.'

'Why don't you mind your own bloody business?' I say, and look down at my board as if I'm going to carry on working.

'I don't suppose you've got into the front room yet, young Browny,' Conroy says. 'A bit of knee-trembling up the back passage just now, eh?'

'Up the front passage an' all, I'll bet,' Lewis sniggers.

I'm going red and I can feel myself getting mad in a hard lump
in my chest. I say nothing, because it'll only make them worse.
But one of these days I'll give that Lewis one right in the guts.
Conroy's too heavy for me, but Lewis is just my barrow and one
day he'll open his big gob too far when there's nobody around
to keep the peace...

They haven't done yet, either.

'You want to be careful there, young Browny,' Conroy says.
'She's a hot bit o' stuff, our Miss Rothwell. A bit out of your class, I'd say. You want to leave her to the men.'

I keep my head down, reckoning to be drawing. But they won't
lay off. My heart's hammering now and I can't hold the pencil
still, so I grip it and press it down hard on to the paper so it
won't show.

'Know what they call her?' Conroy says. 'What her nickname is? They call her the Praying Mantis. You know what a Praying
Mantis is, don't you?'

I say nothing, holding myself in tight, waiting for them to lay
off.

'Well it's an insect, something like a big grasshopper, and the female eats the male while they're actually on the job together. Just gobbles him up bit by bit.'

'And you can guess which bit she leaves till last,' Lewis says,
nearly killing himself with laughing.

'That's a bloody rotten thing to say, Conroy,' I say, bringing
my head tip. 'Why don't you mind your own business, you lousy
swine!'

'What's that?' Conroy says, and gets off his elbows. 'Say that
again, you young sod, an' I'll -'

I'm saved in the nick of time when Miller opens his office
door and shouts for Conroy. He goes off and Lewis comes over to
me and sticks his face over the edge of the board. He's nicely
shaved and his hair's slicked back with a dead straight parting.
They always say Lewis has a haircut every ten days. Very particu
lar about his appearance he is. Clean as you like on the outside
and as mucky as a sewer in.

'You want to be careful with your language, young Browny,"
he says, 'or you'll be getting a thick ear for your cheek.'

This is about as much as I'm taking and I grab for Lewis's
tie and nearly throttle him pulling him over the edge of the board.
'You say much more, Lewis, an' I'll wrap a bunch o' fives round your bloody neck.' He waves his arms about and goes red in the
face as I hold him. 'You're a poor bioody fish without Conroy to back you up, an' don't forget it.'

I give him a push as I let go and he stands there gasping and
pulling at his tie as he wonders whether to make anything of
it. Then Miller and Conroy come down the office to Conroy's
board and he can slink away without losing any more face.

IV

I don't get a chance to talk to Ingrid going home Monday and I
hope I might do better next morning. Instead, though, I get
tied up with Jimmy in the middle of a whole drove of people while
Ingrid walks on in front with some more women.

When I get into the office I scribble a quick note asking if I can
see her tonight. I roll a couple of drawings up and mosey down
to the print room. The machine's humming away in there and the lamps are trundling to and fro along the rails with the light
from them swooping about the walls and ceiling. Phoebe John
son's on her own, doing a few little dance steps in front of the machine as though it's a juke box in a coffee bar. Phoebe's at
this sort of thing all day long: humming calypso songs to herself
and twitching her elbows and shoulders about. She's only sixteen
but she's a real voluptuous-looking bit with curvy hips and two
at the front any film star would be proud of. There's a rumour
about among the lads that she's a sure thing, but that's just
wishful thinking because I happen to know a couple of blokes
who've dated her and there's nothing doing. Phoebe believes
in Romance and that's got nothing to do with what nearly every
bloke she goes out with is interested in; though I reckon she
knows she'll have to put up with it when she gets married, who
ever the bod happens to be.

I lean on the trimming table and watch her for a bit. 'Where's
young Colin?'

She shrugs without stopping this little dance she's doing.
'Dunno.'

Tell the truth I'm just a little bit scared of Phoebe because she
says just what she thinks when she thinks it. She does her job
well enough to keep out of trouble but one of these days she'll
speak her mind to the wrong bloke and then she'll be out.
Not that she'll care because it's obvious she wouldn't care
a hoot if she got the sack tomorrow. That's the kind of lass she
is.