Part One, Chapter 4 - A Kind of Loving

I

there's only one good thing about Monday morning and that is Hassop's away. I'm up talking to Miller in his office when the inter-corn starts buzzing and Mr Althorpe's light goes on. Miller lifts the receiver up and presses the switch and listens for a minute. Then he says, 'No, he hasn't come in yet, Mr Althorpe ... Well, he did seem a bit under the weather on Friday ... Yes, righto, I'll come in now.' He puts the receiver down and shoves a note-pad in his smock pocket and makes for the door. Most of us in the D.O. wear smocks because it's surprising the amount of muck there is about, what with pencil dust and grit from the Works. We had a bloke started once who wore a white one and set everybody off making cracks about ice-cream men because the standard colours are khaki and a sort of mucky grey. He didn't stop long, this bod, because he didn't fit in somehow.

'I'll see you later, Vic,' Miller says as he's going out.

'What's up with Hassop?'

'Mister Hassop,' Miller says, and goes out without answering.

I go back down the office and Jimmy looks up from his board next to mine. 'Where's old Dogknob this morning?'

'Mister Dogknob to you,' I say.

'Mister Horace Edward Hassop Dogknob, Esquire,' Jimmy says. 'Some say "good old Hassop"; others know the blighter.'

I give myself the pleasure of sharpening a brand-new pencil. 'Looks as if he's badly. With a bit o' luck it might turn into pneumonia and we shan't see him for six months.'

'A week'll do for me,' Jimmy says. 'I'm grateful for small mercies.'

Conroy comes past with a roll of prints under his arm. He's got his big head down in his shoulders and he looks as brussen as he always does.

' What's up with Hassop?'

'Looks like flu.'

He gives a grunt and moves off. I'm not sorry. Conroy's one of the bods at Whittaker's I can do without very nicely, thank you.

I file the pencil point to a chisel shape and give the board a flick over with a duster. Everybody seems to be working even if Hassop is away. But Miller and the section leaders can keep order, and anyway, keeping your nose down is the best way of making the time pass. As soon as I try to settle down though, I start thinking about Ingrid and last night. I try to get my mind on my drawing, and do a few lines; but it's no use -I just keep thinking about her. I look over at Jimmy and think I'd like to tell him and get some advice. But then I think I've made a twerp of myself and there's no point in telling anybody else about that.

Miller comes back in a bit and calls me up to his office.

'How d'you feel about a trip into town?'

'I don't mind,' I tell him. 'It's not a bad morning out.'

'Mr Hassop isn't on the phone and Mr Althorpe wants a message taking to him and some papers bringing back. Do you know where he lives?'

'Somewhere up Bradford Road, doesn't he?'

'That's right. Here, I'll jot the address down on a bit of paper.'

He hands me the paper and an envelope with Hassop's name on it that he's brought out of Althorpe's office.

'Righto, then, don't be too long. And no stopping off for morning coffee on the way.'

'I'm missing my tea break, remember,' I say, and Miller says, 'Gerrout of it,' with a grin. He feels in his pocket. 'Here's a bob for your bus fare. You can keep the change.'

'I suppose it'll turn out to be sevenpence each way,' I say as I go out.

I go and take my smock off and throw it over my buffet.

'Taking the rest of the morning off, Brown?' Jimmy says in his managing director's voice.

'I'm off up to see Hassop,' I tell him. 'Makes a change, a trip • out in the middle of the morning. Any messages?'

'Tell him we'll buy him a grand wreath,' Jimmy says.

Outside it's bright and fine and there's big white clouds scudding across the sky just like in spring, only it's none too warm and you have to keep moving or you soon feel the cold. I amble down to the corner to wait for a bus. I feel in my pocket to make sure I've still got the envelope for Hassop. I hope Mrs Hassop, or whoever answers the door, won't ask me up to see him because I know I shan't know what to say to him. I get my cigs out and when I open the packet I see there's three gone already this morning. I'm smoking like a mill chimney these days. I'll be up to twenty a day if I don't watch it, and I can't afford that. Sometimes when I'm broke and I read about it causing lung cancer I think I'll give up, but I can never be bothered to make the effort; and anyway, I like it. I put the packet away and decide I'll wait till I drop off for a cup of coffee on the way back.

When I'm on the bus I start to think about Ingrid again. What I mean is, I'm always thinking about Ingrid but a lot of the time I have to think about other things as well, only now I can give all my attention to it. Oh, but she's a swell piece! The more I see her and think about her the more I think she's a real bobby dazzler. I reckon I can't grumble really and I'm lucky to have taken her out three times. Well, twice, because you can't count last night. That was a proper washout. Thinking about it now I wonder if I wasn't a bit, well, cruel like with Dorothy. Not that she hadn't it coming, mind. She must have been going about for some time saying just what she liked and getting away with it; but she tangled with the wrong bloke when she picked on me. I told her. Awful, though, the way she folded up soon as I really went for her. You could tell it hurt. Poor ugly bint. It cooked my goose with Ingrid, though, I bet, even if the oven wasn't warming up already. Women are funny like that; they're as catty as can be about one another, but let a man start and they don't half close ranks in double-quick time.

The bus runs down through the shopping centre. There's a lad with dusters tied round his feet dressing Granger's big window and a fat woman with great big arms down on her knees scrubbing the foyer of the Plaza picture house. A bint with the neatest pair of gams I've seen in a fortnight stops for a minute to look at the stills in the boxes outside. Ah, well, there's plenty more fish in the sea... I try to think this but it doesn't help much.

I change to a Bradford bus in the station and sit downstairs near the door because I'm not sure how far I have to go. The conductor comes in laughing at something a tart conductor has just said to him and rings the bell. I give him my fare and tell him I want to get off at Providence Avenue.

'Watch out for the Maternity Hospital,' he says. 'You get off there.'

It's only when he says this that I see the two bints on the bus with me both have buns in the oven, and three more get on up the hill. The conductor winks at me when he's taken their fares. 'We give more free rides than any other route,' he says, and I grin.

'Had any embarrassing moments?'

He laughs. 'Aye, I have that, lad; but not on a bus!'

When I see the Maternity Hospital standing back behind these huge lawns I get off with the five pregnant bints and watch them waddle across the road with their shoulders back. I wonder for a minute what it must be like to have a kid and then think I'm glad I'll never know. I wonder about the other thing as well, and if women enjoy it as much as men. I've an idea they don't, and anyway, it might not be all men crack it up to be. I don't know, but I wonder. I wonder about it quite a lot these days, and as I'm going up the road to Hassop's I think there might be a lot to be said for these fcnocking-shops blokes who've done military service abroad tell you about. You feel the need and you pay your money and get what you want. Just like drinking a glass of water when you're thirsty. Nobody spends al! his time thinking about water, except the bloke in a desert where there isn't any. Some chaps spend a lot of time thinking about wine, though; but that's drinking for pleasure, like going to bed with a bint you're in love with. When that happens with everything else you have together it must be just about the most wonderful thing in the world. But that's love and it comes some time. The other thing's biology, and you have that all along.

I think I've made a mistake till I check the number on a bit of paper Miller gave me. The house stands back from the road and there's a lot of black soil packed down hard that must have been a garden at one time. It's big and square, the house, and it looks a lot like a broken-down Working Men's Club. I reckon it must have been standing right there the best part of a hundred years because the stone's all grey-black and the flags round it are all sunk and sticking up in the corners any-old-how. There's a bit of a porch with some coloured glass windows in it, red and yellow and green, round the door, and I go along the path and knock, still thinking somebody's slipped up and given me the wrong address. There's a kind of rising sun in frosted glass in the top half of the door and I give it a push and go into the porch when nobody answers my knock. Inside there's the house door and a mat that's worn nearly to strings on the step. There's a pile of sacks and a rusty old paraffin stove and a crate of empty stout bottles as well. Everything smells damp and you get the idea it's all rotting away here and nobody cares a hang. It's a real rum do. I don't like it much.

But there's the number on the door all right, like the one on the paper, so this must be it. I get hold of a little bell-handle that's in a kind of socket on the wall and pull on the chain. I put my head up to the door and listen for the bell but there's no sound. I reckon that hasn't worked since the Charge of the Light Brigade, so I give a sharp rat-a-tat-tat on the letter-box knocker.

Well I seem to have been standing there half the morning, and if it was just my say-so I'd have been off long since, when I hear somebody sliding a bolt on the inside. The door opens maybe six inches and this woman's face appears in the gap. Her voice gives me a start; it's as deep as a man's.

'Yerss?'

' I've called with a message for Mr Hassop,' I say, watching this phizzog in the doorway. It's long and baggy and sort of yellowish brown in colour and the eyes are stuck half-way out of it like brown marbles.

'For Mr Hassop?' the face says.

'I'm from the Works - Whittaker's. Mr Hassop does live here, doesn't he?'

'What is the message?'

When she talks she shows the biggest bottom teeth I've ever seen, square at the top and tapering down to the gums.

'It's written down.' I show her the envelope. 'Mr Althorpe sent it. He thought Mr Hassop must have flu when he didn't come this morning. We knew he had a cold on Friday. I hope it's nothing serious, only there's so much flu about you can't be too careful...'

There I go, yattering on and hardly knowing what I'm saying. But it makes me feel queer standing there in front of this face with these two marbles watching me. All at once a scrawny hand comes round the door and flicks the envelope away from me.

'Wait.'

The face vanishes.

I stand there thinking this is the queerest do I've ever come across. I wait a good five minutes and then the door opens a bit wider as though a little puff of wind's blown it. I push it open more and step inside.

I'm in a big hall with a bare tiled floor. There's lots of nearly black unvarnished doors leading off, all shut. The stairs go up at the far end and there's a tall landing window with a half-round top and some more of the coloured glass in it. There's a smell of gas that's not burning properly coming from somewhere and in a bit it seems to settle on my stomach and I don't feel too cracky. But I hang on and there's not a sound for maybe ten minutes and I'm beginning to think I must be at the wrong address after all and this woman is a loony who's buzzed off with the envelope and isn't coming back. I begin to work out what I can say back at the office and then all of a sudden a door opens upstairs somewhere and I hear these two voices going at it hammer and tongs bawling one another out. I can't tell what they're saying but in a minute they stop and this woman comes to the top of the stairs. I get a good view of her now and it makes me wish I'd stopped outside. If this is Hassop's missis it's time he put her back where he dug her up from. She comes down the stairs with her head back like a horrible imitation of a countess arriving at a ball or something. Her hair's a dusty black and it's piled up all any-old-how on top of her head. She's got some kind of dressing-gown on made of a thin stuff, grey and dirty yellow, with like a feather collar to it. The marbles are on me as she gets to the bottom of the stairs and comes across the hall. When she gets nearer I find there's a queer smell about her and I wonder if she's had a bath since the Great War.

She gives me the big envelope she's carrying and says in this basso profundo voice, 'There was no need for you to come in.'

I say sorry and ask how Hassop is.

'It's all in the envelope,' she says.

'Oh, well, righto, then. I'll go straight back and give it to Mr Althorpe. Hope he'll soon be up and about again ...'

She says nothing and these marbles are fixed on me and I wonder what we're both doing standing there while I babble on. It seems she's not going to show me out, so I say, 'Well, I'll be getting off, then,' and walk to the door. She stands stock-still, just the marbles swivelling as I get to the door.

It's only when I swing the door wide open and a great ray of sunshine shoots in that she moves. Then she suddenly half-runs towards me with her hands up as though she's after clawing my eyes out.

'Close the door,' she says. 'Close the door.'

Well, I'm all for this, but with me and her on opposite sides, so I say good morning and nip smartly out. The door slams as if she's thrown all her weight behind it and the knocker jumps and gives a rap. I hear the bolt shoot home again and I get out of the porch and walk smartish up the path and don't look back till I'm out on the pavement. I'm thinking then that if that's what Hassop has to put up with it's no wonder he isn't the life and soul of the party.

II

I drop off in town for a coffee at the Bluebird Snack Bar, and I light that cig up I promised myself earlier. It's something unusual for me to be downtown on a working morning and I'm a bit surprised, like I always am, to see so many people about. I don't mean just women shopping and that, but blokes wandering about .as they like while me and my kind are tied up earning a living. Quite a few of them are coloured bods, Indians and Pakistanis mostly. They all look alike to me, with long faces and high cheek bones, thin wrists and big teeth. They have right thick black glossy hak that shines as if they use half a bottle of cream on it at a time. I've never seen a well-dressed one yet and I don't suppose most of them are well-off. I reckon even the ones who aren't working though are better off on National Assistance here than they would be working at home; and I suppose there'll be some of them who don't bother about getting a job so long as the Government's willing to keep them. That's what a lot of people have against them, but I always think you can't just lump people together like that. I reckon there'll be right'uns and wrong'uns among them like there is with anybody else. They don't seem to cause much bother, and mind their own business. All the same, though, I wouldn't like to be a bird walking home late at night by myself up Colville Road. There's so many of them living up there the locals call it the Road to Mandalay. God! I'm glad I'm English. I'm glad a dozen times a week when I read in the papers all that's going oif hi the world.

It's quiet in the snack bar and I enjoy my coffee and sit there thinking how nice it would be if Ingrid was to walk in and we could have a quiet little chat and I'd maybe get to know where I stand. Not that I don't know already. I reckon it's all up. But I still can't take it somehow that it's all over after just two dates -three if you count last night. We were getting along fine as far as I could see. There wasn't the slightest sign of anything going wrong till that Dorothy turned up. I wonder if I got Ingrid wrong about that. Perhaps Dorothy did just turn up and Ingrid couldn't get rid of her, like she said. If she did I made a real mess of things by going for her like I did. Oh, I don't know. Bints are the very devil to understand.

I'm feeling a bit peckish so I go to get my cup filled again and buy a sausage roll to stave off the pangs till dinner-time.

There's only one way to find out and that's to ask her for another date. If she says yes, all well and good. If she says no it can't be any worse than now when I'm wondering and imagining the worst and hoping for something better. So I decide: I'll ask her, and if I can't screw myself up to doing it to her face I'll write her a little note and get young Laisterdyke to give it to her.

I'm sitting there drinking my second cup of coffee and thinking about Ingrid and hearing somebody bashing pots about in the back place when who should walk in but Les Jackson with his left hand all done up in a big boxing glove of bandages. He spots me as he turns round and he lifts his eyebrows and brings his cup over to the table, holding his bad hand up against his chest. The bandages are all fresh and clean.

'Howdo, Vic.'

"Lo, Les. What the hell you been doin' to your hand?'

'That dame,' Les says. 'What thighs!' He sits down laughing. 'I had an argument with a drilling machine Friday morning.'

'Is it bad?'

' Slit all down the side of me hand an' taken the tip off one finger.'

'Christ!'

Les sips his tea and I take my cigs out and offer him one. 'Have a picture of Queen Victoria.' I take another myself and we light up. Les pulls on his like he hasn't had a smoke in a week.

'Just what I need,' he says. 'I've been up to the Infirmary. I've to go up every morning to have the dressings changed.'

'Give you some stick?'

'It's not so bad now. Gave me gyp Friday, though, when I just done,, it. I nearly passed out on 'em. They've one of the tough Irish sisters in Casualty up there. I told her they ought to give you a whiff o' summat afore they start messing about. "What, a big husky chap like yourself?" she says. "You're soft, man.'"

'Aye, an' I'm soft an' all when it comes to owt like that,' I tell him. I'm looking at the bandages and imagining the mess underneath and I can't help turning cold and shivering.

'What you doing out this time o' morning, anyway?' Les says. 'Are you laiking?'

'No, I've just been taking a message to my boss's house. He's off badly.'

'Having ten minutes at the firm's expense now, eh?'

'That's the idea.'

'Got it cushy, you office boys.'

'Come off it. It's your own fault if you're wearing overalls instead of a collar an' tie. A grammar school lad drilling lumps o' metal.'

'Aw, I like to make things. I allus did. I couldn't abide sitting at a desk all day. Too much like school... I say, guess who I ran into just now - Old Roster.'

'Gerraway!'

'I did that!'

'Old Roster ... I haven't seen him in years. Did he speak to you?'

'Oh aye. I said good morning like and he stopped and took a good look at me. You know the way he does it - first over his glasses then through 'em. Then he says. "Jackson, isn't it? Yes -Jackson. Good heavens, boy, what have you done to your hand? " We must have stood for a good ten minutes talkin' about this an' that. Fancy him remembering me name, though.'

'Oh, he's not a bad lad, Roster. Plenty worse than him.'

'I'll say.'

'He didn't remind you about the time we sewed the armholes of his gown up, did he?'

We have a laugh as we think about that, then Les shoves his cup to one side and leans over the table and lowers his voice a bit. ' Didja hear the one about the chap with a wooden leg who went on his honeymoon?'he says.

I haven't heard it.

I get back to the office about half-eleven and take the envelope in to Miller.

'Did you see Mr Hassop?' he asks me.

'No, just his wife.'

'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 anything 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 composer 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 particular 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 Johnson'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, whoever 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.

' Has he turned in this morning?'

'I haven't seen him.' She makes a few more steps then a spin that brings her round to face me. 'I don't like your tie.'

'What's up with me tie?'

'It's not modern, up-to-date,' she says. 'It's an old man's tie.' She reaches out and flicks it out of my jumper, calm as you please, so's she can see it all. She shakes her head and dances away with her hands up and her fingers clicking.

I tuck the tie away again. 'What sort o' tie do you think I should wear, then?'

'Well, a slim jim, or summat else modern. You've seen 'em in the shops.'

'Aye, an' they can stop in the shops for me. I wouldn't be seen dead in 'em.'

'If you want to walk about looking like your grandfather,' she says.

'I don't want to walk about lookin' a freak ... An' why don't you stop jigging about a bit? You'll have St Vitus' dance, if you haven't got it already.'

Phoebe knocks off dancing and pulls herself up straight, sticking this lovely chest of hers out, and says in her duchess's voice, 'If you're going to be insulting, Mr Brown, you may leave the room.'

I get off the table, grinning at her, and toss her the roll of drawings. 'Here, run us one off each o' them, will you?'

'When?'

' Oh, any time as long as it's in the next ten minutes.'

A bit later I see Phoebe go out of the print room and I pop down to catch young Laisterdyke on his own.

'Here, Colin; you know that good-looking dark-haired lass in the typists'; Ingrid Rothwell her name is?' Laisterdyke nods. He knows them all. He's one of these cheeky undersized kids that women seem to take to, like they want to mother them or something. I take the note out of my pocket. 'Will you give her this?'

He grins. 'I'll think about it.' He takes the note and puts it in his pocket.

'You know what I mean. On the quiet like.'

'I know.'

I'm a bit uneasy about it as I leave him. Somebody else knows about it now, and if she turns me clown I'll look more of a twerp than ever.

There's nothing doing in the way of a reply till after lunch. Once, in the canteen, I catch Ingrid's eye and she seems to smile for a second before she looks away. Then about two o'clock Phoebe walks by and throws a letter on to my board and says in a loud voice, 'A lass in the typists' asked me to give you that.' I put my head down and lock my ringers over my forehead. For a minute or two I daren't look up because I'm sure everybody heard. I wait till my cheeks stop burning then sneak a look round and see everybody apparently minding their own business. I pop the letter into my pocket and nip along to the river caves where I can read it in private. I'm so excited I'm all ringers and thumbs opening the envelope.

It's a very short letter. 'Dear Vic,' it says, 'I'm sorry but I can't come tonight because we have a cousin of mine staying with us for a few days, Ingrid.'

And that's that. How many times do you have to be told? I hear somebody come in and run one of the taps so I pull the chain before I open the cubicle door and walk back to the office. It's like a big heavy weight inside me. I'm like that all week, miserable as sin, going through the motions but hardly seeing what I'm doing, even though I know it'll all very likely catch up with me later and get me into trouble. But I can't help it. And I know I'm a fool but when it gets to Friday I know I'll have to ask her just one more time. This time the chance comes like a charm. What happens is I'm by myself in the print room when she comes in to ask about some prints for Miller's letters.

'I don't know,' I say, rummaging about on the table. 'You'll have to ask young Colin. I don't think he's done 'em yet.'

She says all right, she'll finish the letters and come back, and she starts to go out.

'I say!'

She stops and turns round and doesn't look at me. I think she knows what's coming and she's embarrassed because she's going to say no.

"Are you er ... doing anything special tomorrow night? Have you anything fixed up?'

She says no, she doesn't think so, still keeping her eyes down.

I'm fidgeting my behind on the edge of the table trying to look casual and snapping my penknife open and shut. I wish she'd look at me so I might guess what she's thinking.

'Well, look, I was thinking ... wondering, would you like to go out with me? We could go to the flicks first, then on to a dance, if you like.'

It seems like there's about ten years between me finishing and her speaking. Then she says, 'All right,' and that's all. But it's enough. Phoebe comes in jigging her hips as if she's got all the office behind her in a conga chain and when I look round again Ingrid's gone. But she said yes! Yes, yes, yes. I seem to float off the table and I grab hold of Phoebe and do a few steps with her.

' What d'you know!' she says.' It's come to life!'