A Kind of Loving (6 page)

'Well anyway,' Willy says, a bit disappointed like, 'you don't
have to look far for it.'

'You're a feller 'at's lookin' for summat he won't get rid of so
quick,' Harry says.

'Aw, come off it,' Willy says. 'Science, man, science.'

'What does a bint on a street corner know about science?'

Well they look like they're settled here so I get up to leave
them to it.

'You're not goin', are you, Vic?' Willy says. 'Have another
afore you go.'

I say no. I'm all on edge to get down to the Gala Rooms and
look for Ingrid. I'm not much of a drinker, anyway. Willy could keep a brewery in production but an odd one's enough for me.

'Anyway, I'll see you later,' I say, and they both say,' Yeh, see
you later, Vic,' and go back to their argument about the tarts in
Paris.

I pop a piece of spearmint chewing gum in my mouth to clean my breath as I go down the street to the Gala Rooms. I pay my three bob admission at the desk in the entrance and go down to the cloakroom to park my coat. Some bloke with a few too many inside him is singing in one of the cubicles and the attendant keeps looking over that way as though he's wondering if he ought to throw the bod out. I comb my hair and straighten my tie and go upstairs. When I open the big door into the hall I walk slap into a wall of attar of sweat and eau-de-kerniff that
you could cut with a knife. It nearly stops me in my tracks. I
stick it, though, thinking I'll get used to it in a couple of minutes,
and go in, trying not to breathe through my nose.

The place is chock full like Willy said and there's a big crowd just inside the door. I work my way through and edge across the
corner of the floor, nearly getting bowled over by a couple prancing about in a kind of private war-dance. The bloke's
wearing a bottle-green corduroy jacket, a yellow check shirt with
out a tie, and black pants with what look like fourteen-inch bottoms. This bint he's doing his stuff with is a real case, all
eyebrows and lipstick with a white complexion that makes her look like death warmed up, and two at the front under her black
sweater that stick out like chapel hat-pegs, brassiered till it must
be agony, and nearly taking this bloke's eye out the way he's half doubled up breathing all over her chest. They don't like
jiving and rock 'n' roll and whatnot at the Gala Rooms and they
have notices up saying so. Sure enough, while I'm still there, the
M.C. comes up and taps the cove on the shoulder and says some
thing to him. They both give him a killing look and switch to a
straightforward quickstep, Gala Rooms style.

There's no sign of Ingrid, though I stop there about half an hour listening to the band, which isn't bad for a semi-pro outfit. Then I decide I might spot her if I circulate a bit so I get up to dance and pick a bird who looks okay from a distance and pongs like beef gravy gone off close to. I'm glad when this is over; if there's anything I can't stick it's a bird who smells. Now I go up on the balcony where I can see everything except the crowd up near the door. While I'm up there they play a slow waltz and douse the main lights till there's only this sphere with all the mirrors on it spinning slow high up under the ceiling and sending little flecks of light flitting over everybody. I wish I was down there dancing with Ingrid and holding her close because I can get real romantic dancing a slow waltz with the lights down. But she isn't there; I have to admit it now. And she's not likely to be coming now at this time. I wouldn't have come myself if I hadn't heard she'd be here, and now I feel all empty and let down with disappointment. Maybe she's gone to the Trocadero, I think. Or perhaps she's just at home watching television, or in
bed even. I smoke a cig and hang on till the lights go up for a last look round, hating to give it up. I see Willy and Harry down below but I'm not interested in their company tonight so I go down and get my coat and beetle off home. I have to walk because the buses have stopped running by this time.

CHAPTER 2

I

the
holidays over, it's back to the old routine with the same old
crowd on top of the bus. Most of them get buried behind their
papers and they're so quiet you'd hardly know one from the
rest; but there's one or two you might call characters. There's
the country squire type who gets on a couple of stops down the
hill. He wears these thick hairy tweeds and a pepper-and-salt hat
with the brim turned down all round, and a sporting gun would
look more at home under his arm than the
Daily Telegraph
he
always carries. Every time I look at this bloke's face it reminds me of a blood orange, all red with broken veins and this great
big shiny conk jutting out hi the middle like something he presses
into place every morning after he's shaved. He's a fresh-air fiend,
this bloke, and all the chaps on the top deck shrink up in their
seats the second they hear Ms brogues clatter on the steps. He always takes the same seat down the middle of the bus (unless
somebody strange happens to be in it first - and whoever it is
gets a dirty look for trespassing) and slams open every window
in reach till the wind whistles through the top deck fit to blow
your hat off. Wind, rain, sleet, snow, or even fog; it doesn't matter
what the weather is, it's all the same to him - he lets it in through the windows. I reckon the saddest day of his life must have been when the open-air buses went out.

Bloodnok, I call this bloke after that feller in the Goon Show, and I don't think he's so bad, really. You can stick him provided you're well wrapped up. It's the talkers you have to watch out for, like this little elderly cove that gets on the stop after Bloodnok and always comes and sits with me like we're old pals or something. He has opinions on everything, this chap, and he's such a cheerful type, which is why everybody likes him so much.

'Well,' he says this morning, after he's parked himself at the side of me as usual, 'you wait months for it and then it's off in a couple of days.' He has a voice with a built-in megaphone that
carries all over the bus, and all the regulars get a glassy look
in their eyes when he opens up.

'Aye, that's right,' I say. Always agree with him, that's the
drill. Never encourage him or you're done for.

He broddles about in his pipe a bit then lights it and puts a
smoke screen up round us. He grows his own tobacco, he's always
telling people, and he'll hold his hand out to show you this dry yellow stuff that looks like horse-shit that's been in the sun all day. Nobody contradicts him on this because nobody can think
of a brand of tobacco that stinks so foul. It's when this bloke
lights up that we're glad of Bloodnok and his open windows.
'I reckon we shan't be back more than half an hour before it
seems as though we've never been away,' he says, sucking at Ms
pipe, which he must have had since he was a young chap because
the bowl's all burned down at one side and the stem's tied round
with insulating tape where it's been broken. I reckon he must
be either very fond of it like, or too skinny to buy a new one.
I decide it's because he's too skinny, because blokes who talk
like him are usually tight with their money.

'I reckon so,' I say.

'Don't know why we bother with Christmas,' he says at the top of his voice. "There's no religion left in it; no real feeling. It's just a mockery. Shopkeepers like it. It's all right for them,
they can sell all they've got and more besides. All it is for any
body else is guzzling and swilling and sitting round dozy-like
watching television... A mockery.'

He whips his hanky out and blows his nose with a loud noise
and wipes his little grey moustache. He looks in the hanky to see
what he's brought down before he puts it away again. 'Not that I'm a churchgoer meself,' he says. 'Full of hypocrisy and humbug, that's the churches today. And the parsons ... all mealy-mouthed little toads enjoying an easy living where they know
they won't get sacked unless they offend somebody by preaching
a sermon with a bit of honest to goodness hell-fire in it...'

"That's it.'

"And this television. I wouldn't have a set in my house. The
wife's allus on about getting one. I've told her, though. "If
you've got enough to buy a television set," I said, "you buy
one. But the day it comes into this house, I go out ..." I just
don't know what we're coming to. It's got the whole country.
It's riddled with it. Riddled, from top to bottom.'

And so on, and on, and on ...

But I'm all right this morning because I can shut myself
off by thinking about Ingrid. I'm going to get talking to her
today. I don't know just how, but I am. We've been nodding to
one another for a couple of years now, but it was only a month or
so before Christmas that it dawned on me what a marvellous bint she really is. And she'd been there under my nose all the
time ... Now I've reached the pitch where I've got to do some
thing about it. I just have to. I've no idea of my chances, that's
the trouble. I don't know whether I'm somebody special to her or
just another tuppence-ha'penny draughtsman, one of thirty-odd
in the firm. What I do know is I'll never find out unless I pull
my socks up and
do
something. And the first step is to get talking
to her.

I buy my morning paper in the bus station and cross over to wait for the other bus. I'm half-way between two islands when
I see her in the queue and for a second all the people round me seem to vanish and I'm out there on my own with all the queue
looking at me and me thinking about her and
feeling as if every
thing in my mind is written plain across my face for them all to
see. I think I'm going to colour up and I only just make the queue
in time. Of course I only thought
she
was looking. In fact she only
glanced my way and then went on talking to Miss Price from the
typing pool. Why should she notice me in particular? Who am
I? Just another bod from the D.O., and not one of the important
ones either. I bet she never gives me two thoughts together. I bet
if I left Whittaker's this week she'd hardly notice I'd gone. Oh, it's rotten the way you flog yourself like this: up one minute, down the next, and never knowing which is nearest the mark.

I step a bit out of line and watch her over the top of my
Mirror.
Ah, but she's a smart piece! Always so neat turned out and clean
as clean. I hate bints with bitten fingernails and mucky hair
who smell like last week's joint gone off and warmed up again.
I could nearly throw up when I run into one of them. But Ingrid
looks as if she has a bath every morning and her hair's always
soft and clean and shining, lighter brown than mine and lighter still when the sun catches it. And these skirts and blouses and
jumpers she wears are always washed and ironed and fit well and show her trim little figure off a treat. I reckon her legs are just about the best thing about her; they're a lovely shape and
she wears high heels that set them off and nylons with never
a ladder or a hole. I've never known a bint like her in all my born
days and it isn't a bit of good me mooning over her because I haven't a chance in a million. Not a dog's.

I lift the paper up quick because it's just as though she knows somebody's watching her when she turns her head and looks straight at me.

The bus trundles in and stops. The conductor nips off the platform and round to the front for a lean on the radiator and a quick drag with the driver. By the time I reach the door the top deck's full and people are coming back down to stand inside. The usual second bus pulls in behind and most of the queue stand back to get on this. This is what I'd do usually but today I get on the first bus and stand. This way I'm all the nearer to Ingrid. She's sitting up at the front next to the aisle with a woman I don't know. I edge forward till I'm standing one seat behind her. The floor gives a shudder as the bus starts and I reach up and hold the bar and stand looking at her till the conductor's voice brings me to again. Now this bloke's well known on this run as a bit of a card. They say he's an ex-army sergeant and everybody knows he doesn't give a damn for anybody. You get the feeling that if the Archbishop of Canterbury got on in full rig-out he'd get the same treatment as anybody else, with maybe a bit of extra leg-pulling on the side. He's got more neck than many a comedian at Cressley Alhambra, and that's saying something. He gets up off the platform. 'Nab, then, you workers, getcha fares ready, perlease! An' look cheerful, for cryin' out loud. Think about them 'at started at half past seven while you lot were still hi bed ... Yes, miss? Three-pennorth of the best? Ta! — What's your pleasure, madam? A fourpenny one? Just like the geezer give his owd woman, eh? ... Yessir?'