A Kind of Loving (29 page)

'Well, look at all the trade we'd've turned away. And you
don't know how many new customers might never have come again if they'd once got to Norton's.'

'Quite so,' Mr Van says. 'You've done very well. And this is
the first time you've attended to the shop on your own for the.
day. Of course, I knew you were capable or I shouldn't have given
Henry permission to open ...'

I lean back in the chair. I really am dead beat and Mr Van Huyten notices it.

' You wouldn't be sorry when it was time to close, eh?' he says,
and I grin at him.' Can't say I was. I haven't had a minute all day.'

He doesn't say anything to this and he appears to be thinking
about something as he stares into the fire. So we sit there in this
'big room with the high ceiling and the old furniture and this
old-fashioned gramophone with the massive horn sticking out into the room. It's all shabby and it would give me the creeps to
live here. I wonder why Mr Van hangs on to this old gramophone
from the year dot, for instance, when he's got all the latest electric
long-playing ones in his shop. Must be sentimental reasons. He
rests his elbows on the arms of his chair and puts his finger-ends
together. He's wearing a big wool dressing-gown and a scarf round his neck. He doesn't look well. You get the feeling you
can see through his skin and his face seems thinner than usual.

'How do you like your work, Victor?' he asks me all of a
sudden, and I give a shrug. I hate to admit it but I have to be
honest with Mr Van Huyten. 'Oh, so so.'

He looks at me over his specs. 'Only so so?'

'I liked it well enough for the first two or three years,' I tell him, 'but now, just lately ... I've been a bit unsettled, as you
might say.'

'You don't think it's just a change of scene you need? There
comes a time in every man's life when he feels the need of a
change.'

'I don't think it's that, Mr Van Huyten. I'm just tired of the work. I want something different altogether. I feel I want to meet different people ...'

' You like it in the shop on Saturdays?'

'I enjoy it. It's grand.'

'Have you ever considered doing something like that full
time?'

I'm a bit embarrassed at this. 'Well, to tell you the truth, Mr
Van Huyten, I don't think the money's there. In my job a thousand a year's not too much to hope for. More than that, even, if
you get to be a chief draughtsman in charge of an office. And all the time you hear of shop assistants going to work in factories to get more money.'

He nods. 'I agree. The money isn't very good for the ordinary
shop assistant. One must have er ... an interest in the business for it to be worthwhile.'

He sits back in his chair and his face goes into the shadows
thrown down by the standard lamp behind him. They make
the lines on his face look deeper than I've ever seen them
before.

'I'm an old man, Victor,' he says. 'Older than you probably
think. I have a sound business which looks as though it will con
tinue to prosper.' He smiles a bit. 'Despite Henry's gloomy
prophecies ... There's even room for expansion, but I'm past
the age for striking out that way ... I'm an old man,'
he says again, 'and I have no living relatives. I was never fortunate
enough to have children.' He lifts his hand. 'I may have a few cousins or half-cousins in Holland, but I don't know them and they don't know me.' He stops for a minute. 'I don't want to say
too much, Victor, because you're still a very young man, not yet
of age ... But I will say in all honesty that I'm very fond of you
and have every faith in your character and ability.'

This gets me. I'm touched, and when I remember the dates with
Ingrid I'm a bit ashamed as well.

'You've become rapidly familiar with the business even
though you spend only one day a week with us ...'

I'm wondering what he's driving at. Is he trying to tell me he
wants to leave me the shop? I begin to feel excited, and a bit scared at the same time. He sits up in his chair and blows his
nose with a loud noise. I catch the smell of the eucalyptus stuff
he has on his hanky.

"The immediate problem, Victor, is that I'm going to be compelled to take on a full-time assistant in the shop. I want
someone whom I can like and trust, someone to whom eventually,
when I decide to retire and take things more easily, in a few years' time, I can hand over the day-to-day running of the
business.'

Now I see he's taking thought for the time when he won't be
around any more, and I don't know what to say to him. Here it
is - here's how loneliness gets you in the end. You think if you find your dream, the person you're looking for, it'll be the end of
loneliness for ever. And then, at the end, it creeps up on you
again and finds you sitting in an old wing-chair in a gloomy old
house, on your own, with everybody gone, and nothing to do
but wait for the end. And maybe this is the worst loneliness of
all, because you've got no hope of anything else.

Mr Van Huyten coughs and says, real delicate like, 'What are your present wages, Victor, if I might ask?'

I tell him I'm on seven-ten a week at present. 'If they come
through with union rate when I'm twenty-one it'll be nearer ten
pound.'

'You think they will give you the union rate?'

'I think it's practically certain. We've a pretty strong union
membership at Whittaker's and all the older chaps get the rate.'

'And in future years? Does it rise any more?'

'Till you're twenty-five. It's about fourteen-ten then.'

Mr Van lifts Ms eyebrows. 'Fourteen-ten. And after that, what happens?'

'Well as far as the union's concerned, that's it. If the firm thinks you're worth a bit more they might give it to you. Like
I said, there are jobs going that carry a thousand a year.'

'Hmmm.' Mr Van Huyten nods. 'I've never known just how
well or how badly draughtsmen were paid. I've always thought they should be paid a reasonable wage considering the skill and training involved...' He clears his throat and feels for his hanky,
bringing the smell of eucalyptus again.

'Well,' he says, 'no doubt you've followed the trend of what I've been saying. As I said, it's too early to make promises and
raise hopes. What I require immediately, or as soon as it can be
arranged, is someone whom I can like and trust to come and
assist me.'

'What you're saying, Mr Van Huyten, Is that you'd like me
to come and work full-time in the shop.'

He nods again. 'Correct,' and he puts his hand up as I'm
going to say something else, 'Apparently you've never seriously
considered it before and the last thing I want to do is divert you
from your chosen course. That's why I asked you how you liked
your job. Now assuming the money was, shall we say com
parable, and there were prospects of a future when - not next year, mind, but sometime - when you wouldn't be just a shop
assistant in a dead-end job, what would you say then?"

'I don't know, Mr Van Huyten." I think about it for a minute.

'I rather fancy the idea. I've always liked working in the shop, as you know ;..' I realize he's not expecting an answer off the cuff, and I say, 'Thanks very much for your offer, Mr Van
Huyten, and I'd like to think it over, please.'

'Well done,' he says. 'A very reasonable answer. The last
thing I wanted was for you to jump to a decision without con
sidering every side of the matter.'

'I'll have to talk it over at home, you see.'

'Of course, of course. Naturally. I was going to suggest that I might discuss it with your father.'

'I'll tell him and maybe he'll call in one day on his way home
from work.'

I don't stop long after this. Mr Van Huyten thanks me again for looking after the shop for the day and gives me a ten-bob
bonus over what he usually pays me. I don't want to take this
but he won't let me go without it.

I put it to my mother and dad at supper-time the same
night.

'Mr Van Huyten's offered me a full-time job at the shop,' I
say, and watch the Old Lady's face.

'What did you say to that?'she says.

'I told
him I'd think it over an' see what you an' me dad thought about it.'

'I think you're all right as you are,' the Old Lady says. 'What
prospects is there in a shop?'

'Hold on a minute,' the Old Man says. 'Just ho'd your bosses.
It's not like a job in just any shop. Mr Van Huyten thinks a lot about our Victor. He nearly looks on him like his own lad ...
Just what did he say, Victor? He didn't come out with it just
like that, did he?'

'Oh, no; he went all round the houses, talking about how old he was and he has no relatives and he didn't want to divert me from my chosen course. You know how Mr Van Huyten talks.'

The Old Man nods. He's pretty sharp in a lot of ways, the
Old Man, and he's on to this situation a sight quicker than the
Old Lady is.
;

'Aye,'he says,'he's a real gentleman all right.'.

'But there's no money in being a shop assistant, Arthur,' the
Old Lady says. 'Victor's nearly twenty-one an' he'll be due for a substantial rise then.'

'Oh, we talked about all that. He said the money would be
all right.'

'D'ye fancy it, though, Victor?' the Old Man says. "You know
you alms wanted to be a draughtsman. You remember how chuff
you were when you got that letter to say you could start at
Whittaker's?'

'I was only sixteen then. I'm not sure I want that kind o' work
now. It's not what Mr Van Huyten said makes me say that: it's been coming on for some time ...' I feel myself beginning to
grin. 'I wouldn't mind, y'know. I rather fancy the idea.'

'I think happen I'd better have a word with him,' the Old
Feller says.

'Oh, aye, he said he thought you two ought to talk it over. I told him you might call in on your way home from work one day.'

'I shan't that!' the Old Man says. 'I shan't call an' see Mr
Van Huyten in t'clothes I go to 'an' from t'pit in. I'll go up an' have a talk with him one night when I'm washed an' changed.'

III

A week later it's all settled. I'm to go and work for Mr Van
Huyten at eight pounds a week. When I'm twenty-one he'll make
it nine and he says I can depend on him to see I'm all right after
that.

The first person I tell at Whittaker's is Jimmy Slade. I tell
him straight after the Easter holidays.

'How d'you go about handing your notice in?'

'I think the correct way is to write to the Managing Director and say something like, "Will you please take this as notice of
my intention to terminate my employment»with the Company on
such and such a date."'