A Kind of Loving (48 page)

' She didn't tell you to go, did she?'

'No, but she took Ingrid in with her and locked her door. We
had a real old set-to then. It all came out. It's been piling up for
some time and I'd had a drink or two and was past caring ...
I used some pretty bad language ... I couldn't have stayed after
that, I don't suppose. Anyway, I'd made my mind up. I'd finished. I came away this morning before they got up.'

I'm watching Chris's hands and thinking how slim and neat
they are when she gets up and walks away from the table.

' How long have things been like this?'

'Oh, it's been brewing up for ages.'

'Was it the miscarriage?'

'Not altogether. That just made it worse. I didn't get on with
her before that. She took a dislike to me the minute she laid eyes on me. Not good enough for her daughter. Not her idea
of a match. You've seen her; you know what sort she is. You know she never rang me up when Ingrid fell down the stairs. I
didn't get to know till I got home and the neighbours told me.
That's a fine thing, isn't it? Then she blamed me. As if
I
could
help it. As if
I
pushed her downstairs. Things just got worse and
worse after that. Well I told her. I told her I might not be good
enough for her daughter but I was good enough to marry her
when she was in trouble.'

'You got her into trouble, Vic,' Chris reminds me gently.

'I know. And I wish to God I hadn't. How I wish I hadn't!'
I put my head in my hands. 'Oh, Chris, if only I could have met somebody like you: somebody who'd have made me better than
I am, not worse.'

'But you did marry Ingrid, didn't you? You did choose to marry her.'

'Aye. You've had your fun and now you can pay for it. Is
that choosing? You know there's only one thing to do round here
when you put a girl in the family way and that's marry her. It
doesn't matter whether you love her or not as long as you make
her respectable.'

'Is
that why you married her, Vic? I've wondered.'

'Well now you know.'

'But there must have been something, Vic.'

' You're a woman. I don't know if you'd understand. You only
know you and David and you want to thank your lucky stars for
that. It doesn't happen to everybody. I thought it was like that
with me an' Ingrid right at the beginning, but it didn't last long.'

'But you still went on seeing her.'

'Yes, I did... For other reasons.'

'Wasn't that... well, selfish?'

'I did pack it up once. I thought it was over. But she came after me. I knew I was being a rotten dog but she still wanted
me so I thought I might as well have what was going. One night
I went a bit too far and now I'm paying for it. It's worked out bloody expensive, Chris, I can tell you ...'

I sit there with my head in my hands and Chris says nothing
for a bit. When she does say something it makes me jerk my head
up and look at her.

'Well, after all, Vic, you've made your own bed, haven't you?'

I'm stunned, as though somebody's hit me over the head.

'You say that? That's what everybody else'll say. Can't you say nothing else?'

'Well haven't you?' she says. 'It's the truth, after all.'

' I expected something different from you.'

'I'll have to be honest with you, Vic.
I
think you've only
yourself to blame. If you hadn't played about with this girl
you wouldn't be here like this now. Right's right and wrong's
no man's right.'

I can't get over it. I hardly know her. This isn't the Chris I
used to run to, the one you could depend on to show you the way out, the thing to do. Coming here was the first thing I thought of,
and now I'm getting what I could have got free at home.

' You sound like my mother.'

'And why not? She knows and she'd say the same thing to you.
You're married and you just can't dismiss the fact.'

I feel all the bitterness come up sour in my throat. 'I'm married
all right. You all made sure I'd get married. You all stood round pushing. There wasn't one of you said no don't do it if you don't
want to.'

'It wasn't a case of wanting to or not wanting to. You pushed
yourself when you did what you did with Ingrid. At least you
had the backbone to face your responsibilities.'

'For life. Black's black and white's white. Haven't any of you
ever heard of a bloody colour called grey?'

'You're swearing a lot, Vic. You never used to.'

Everybody's tell me that: that I'm swearing a lot. I wonder
why it is...

'I don't know what to say, Chris,' I say in a minute. 'I could
always talk to you. We seemed closer together. You could always
understand better than they could.'

'Perhaps I understand now better than they would, but I can't
simply wave my magic wand and make it all come right. You
came here this morning with some vague idea that you could tell
me all about it and it would all turn out to be like it was before
you were married. That's it, isn't it? Trust Chris to get me out of
it. Well, I'm sorry, Vic, but it can't be done. It's a bit too big for
that.'

I turn round in my chair and look out of the window. They've
got a nice view on a clear day but now it's just mucky and grey
and damp and all you can see is the mills down by the river with
the big chimneys sticking up into the mist.

'What are you going to do?' Chris says after a while.

'I don't know ... I know one thing, though; I'm not going back to live with that old cow Ma Rothwell.'

'She probably wouldn't have you back now, anyway.'

'No ...' I haven't told Chris about me throwing up on the
carpet. It's one detail I'd rather she didn't know. 'Well that makes
it easier.'

David comes in from the bedroom, stuffing cigs and matches
and papers into his pockets. He buys nice suits, David, but he
ruins them with the amount of stuff he packs into the pockets.

'Vic's left Ingrid,'Chris tell him.

Td gathered as much,' he says. 'I'm sorry, Vic. That it's come
to that, I mean. Anything we can do?'

'It looks as though there is,' Chris says. 'We shall have to put him up here, for tonight at least, I think.'

'Don't put yourself out for me.'

She turns on me. 'It's no use being silly-clever about it, Vic,' she says. 'Where else can you go? You won't want to go home
just yet, I suppose?'

All of a sudden I feel my face begin to slip. I can't hold it, keep
it together. It crumples up. 'I haven't got a home,'
I
say. 'I
haven't got a bloody home.' And then my face is down in my
arms and I'm crying without trying to stop it, crying away with it
all coming out; all of six months bottled up and now coming
away.

II

I sleep on the studio couch in the sitting-room that night and
for a good few nights after. I don't know what I'm going to do. I've no plans. Any idea I might have of going back home and
picking up where I left off is soon scotched because next day Chris
tells me she's seen the Old Lady.

'Has she been here?'

'No, I called on the way back from school.'

'You told her, I suppose?'

'That's what I went for. She has to know, Vic, and it's better
coming from one of us than from somebody in the street.'

'I suppose so. What did she say?'

' She was upset.' I see Chris hesitate.' She says she doesn't want
to see you till you've patched it up with Ingrid again.'

I feel my mouth tighten. 'If that's the way she wants it ...
She'll have to wait a long time, that's all.'

'I told her I didn't think she was being fair; that you should
be able to come to her when you're in trouble. But she said you
should have gone straight to her if you felt like that. I think she's
hurt that you didn't go there first.'

' I wanted advice, not a row with all the old proverbs thrown in.'

'As it happens you didn't get much more here, did you?'

I shrug.

David comes in with a loaded briefcase. Exercise books, I
suppose. He says, 'Hi,' to me and kisses Chris. I look away for
a minute. I can't bear to watch them. It's the worst of being here, seeing how happy they are.

'I've just been talking to Fowler downstairs,' David says,
dropping the briefcase in a chair. 'He's got a job in Canada.'

'Have they decided to go?' Chris says.

'Oh, yes. It's just a question of time now, apparently. Making
all the arrangements and all that.'

I can see Chris has something on her mind.

'How long did he say it would be?'

'About six weeks or a couple of months, I think. They've
only just decided.'

'What are they going to do about the lease of the flat?'

'Give it up, I suppose.'

Chris looks at me and David says, 'Oh, I see what you're -'
'Vic,' Chris says. 'Do you think you and Ingrid would have been
all right if you'd been on your own?'

'I dunno. We'd have been better. At least we could have
brought things out and talked about them and said what we had
to say.'

'Suppose you could get the Fowlers' flat, do you think Ingrid
would come?'

'
I don't know.' I can feel myself being pushed into another
comer and I shy away from it. 'It's too soon, Chris. I don't
know what I want to do.'

'Could you afford it?' she says. 'It's four pounds a week.'

'Not on my wage.'

'Suppose Ingrid got another job?'

'I suppose we could then. Only her mother doesn't want her to go out to work again. She thinks a husband should be able
to keep a wife.'

'Let's leave her mother out of it. She's had too much to say
already.'

'I don't know ...'

'David,' Chris says, 'pop down and see Mr Fowler. Tell
him you know somebody who might want the flat. Ask him how
long he'll hold it before he advertises or asks anybody else. He
might have somebody in mind, of course.'

David goes out again and I say, 'Look, Chris, I don't know. I'm all mixed up. I don't know what I want to do.'

'If he'll hold the flat it'll give you a breathing space while you decide.'