Part One, Chapter 6 - A Kind of Loving

I

next morning Hassop's back, I think sooner than we expected and I'm dead sure sooner than we hoped.

'I thought we might have another quiet week,' Jimmy says as the boss goes into his office and shuts the door behind him. 'Didn't his sister give you any idea?'

'It must have been in the envelope,' I say with a grin. What do I care if Hassop is back? I'm happy, that's the thing. Old Hassop isn't so bad. He does his job in his own way and if he does turn nasty once in a while, well, that's a boss's privilege. He's got his trouble ... That sister ... If I had to live with a weird old bird like that maybe I'd be a bit bloody-minded at times. But, like I say, I'm happy. I haven't actually spoken to Ingrid this morning but just to see her legs twinkling away in front in the mist was enough to bring last night back with a rush and make me think what a lucky, lucky dog I am. I feel like liking people. I can even see good points in the brussen bastard Conroy. Well, till dinner-time I can, anyway ...

What happens then is that there's half a dozen of us hanging about round the plan files near the door, having a natter before the bell goes. Somebody's just saying Conroy's name when the door bursts open and in marches Conroy himself. He stops. ' Who's talking about me?' he says.' Who mentioned my name?'

Well it wasn't me, as it happens, but this sharp answer's on the tip of my tongue without me hardly thinking and it's too good to hold back.

'I did,' I say. 'I was just saying I'd bought a pig and I didn't know what to call it.'

Somebody behind me cracks out laughing and there's grins on all the faces I can see except Conroy's. He just stares for a second, going all stiff with rage.' Wha ... you cheeky young bleeder...' And he comes for me with his arms punching out to either side, pushing lads away to clear a path to me. I stand my ground. I didn't want to pick a quarrel, not today when I'm feeling so good, but I reckon it had to come sooner or later. My heart's thumping because I reckon I'm in for a hiding; but I'm not going to let everybody see me back down.

I know the only way to save myself is to get in close, so I dodge the first punch that Conroy swings at my head and duck and throw myself forward under his fists and grab hold of him round the middle. I see the lino coming up to meet me as I go down, taking Conroy with me. We roll about on the floor, bashing against plan files. I catch my ear on one of the drawer handles and nearly shout with the pain, and all the time I'm getting these short jabs on the side of the head as Conroy punches away and pushes and pulls at the same time, struggling to get free so's he can really let me have it. Well, I'm soon nearly weeping, the punishment I'm taking and I'm scared I might show it any time. I pull away and twist my head to try to get it out of the way and I see Conroy's fat leg right in front of my face with the trousers pulled tight across it. I don't stop to think whether it's fair fighting or not • I just dip my face and bite as hard as I can.

That does it, all right. Conroy lets out a yell and rears up and breaks away. He shuffles off on his knees holding on to his crotch with both hands. 'Oh, me cods,' he says. 'Oh, Christ, me cods.'

Well, everybody's laughing fit to bust, bar me. I'm watching Conroy and wondering if I've done any damage, because that wasn't where I intended to bite him at all, only he must have moved.

The door opens and in comes Hassop. He stops when he sees Conroy, still on his knees, holding his cods and moaning to himself. I'm just getting up and everybody else is doubled up laughing. Well, they all knock off laughing pronto when they see Hassop and he looks down at Conroy who's kneeling right under him now, like he's begging from him.

'What's going on here?' he says, and Conroy looks up then looks away again without saying anything. 'Have you been fighting, Brown?' he says to me.

'Just acting the fool a bit, Mr Hassop,' I say. I'm brushing my suit down with the flat of my hand and watching him, his face gone white, standing there as though he's trying to think up the best way to bawl us out. But he doesn't. He just twitches for a minute, then says, 'Well, this is neither the time nor the place. Get to your work, all of you, and let's have no more of it.'

He walks away to his own office and Conroy picks himself up aad goes to his board where he pulls himself up on to his buffet and sits with his head in his hands. I watch him for a minute then go round to him. 'Are you okay, Conroy?' I say, and Conroy says, 'Bugger off,' without looking up. So I go back to my board and get on with my work. But I can't help looking over at him now and again because I'm a bit worried, wondering if I've really hurt him. My right ear tingles all afternoon.

Well if we were thinking it was done with we were wrong, because next morning Hassop stops by Conroy's board and says, 'Mr. Althorpe wants to see you in his office, Conroy. You, too, Brown.'

Conroy lifts his big head up and stares Hassop out before getting off his buffet and making for the door, with me following him. 'You know what this is, don't you?' he says when we're out in the corridor. 'Our pal Hassop's been telling tales again. He hasn't the bloody guts to bawl us out himself so he gets Althorpe to do his dirty work.'

'What are we going to say?' I ask him, wondering if we can concoct a decent tale before we go in.

'Don't worry, mate,' Conroy says. 'If I know Althorpe we shan't get a word in edgeways.'

We stop outside this big heavy varnished door with 'Chief Engineer' painted on it in gold letters. 'Step through here,' Conroy says, 'and you're in the presence of two thousand a year ... Here goes.' He raps with his knuckles and sticks his ear against the door. A typist trots by and gives us the once-over. I wink at her though I never felt less like winking at anybody. I hear a voice shout in the office and Conroy turns the knob and we go in.

Mr Althorpe is a big chap with smooth silvery hair that shines in the light coming through the big window behind his desk. He finishes the letter he's dictating and then tells the typist to scram and she picks her notebook and pencil up and pads out across the carpet through a connecting door. Mr Althorpe takes a cig out of the packet of twenty Players lying on the blotter and lights up. It's only eleven o'clock but the big desk ashtray's nearly full of dog-ends and matchsticks already. He waves us nearer and takes his heavy glasses off and puts them on the desk and gives us a real keen look which he holds till I feel the last of my confidence vanish.

'Now then, you two,' he says. 'I hear you've been indulging in a bit of horse-play in the office. Rolling about on the floor and clouting one another.'

I wonder if he expects us to say something, but I wait for Conroy and he keeps mum and so I look out of the window behind Mr Althorpe and watch a bright yellow fork-lift truck, unloaded, the forks sticking out like a circus clown's big feet, come down the yard.

' Well I'm not having it, see?' Mr Althorpe says all at once, and he brings his hand flat down on the top of his desk, making me jump a foot off the carpet. 'If you've got differences and want to settle 'em that way, do it outside. I'm not standing for it in the office. You come here to work and get the job done. That's what you're paid for and if you don't like the arrangement you can take your hook somewhere else. I won't have the office turned into a monkey house. If I'd carried on like that when I was a lad I'd have been out in the street without any warning. But we valued our jobs in those days; they were harder to come by.'

I'm looking at Mr Althorpe's tie now which is a neatly knotted blue with little white spots. I wonder if I'll ever sit behind a big desk with two thousand a year and tell a couple of bods off for scrapping in the office. I think after that this was one of the times when I knew I didn't really care one way or the other for the job.

'You're old enough to know better,' Althorpe's saying to Conroy. 'You shouldn't have to be told these things; and it's up to you older chaps to set a good example for lads like Brown here. I've no complaints about your work, Conroy. You've got a good engineering brain and we've always had high hopes of your ability. It's time you grew up.'

He swivels his eyes to me and pins me like a butterfly on a board. 'I'm not so sure about you, Brown,' he says. 'Mr Hassop hasn't been altogether satisfied with your work lately. You seemed a promising kd when you first came to us, but you haven't shown much sign of it recently. What's up, are you busy thinking about some lass when you should be watching what you're putting on your drawings!'

I blush and open my mouth, thinking he wants an answer. Then I shut it again when he carries straight on talking.

'Just get your ideas straight and look to your work if you want to stay with us.' He picks his glasses up again and puts them on. 'I don't know what you were scrapping about and I don't want to know. But don't let me hear any more of it.'

He looks down at his papers and I know he's finished. I'm just thinking it hasn't been too bad and let's get out of here when old Conroy, who hasn't said a dicky bird so far, says something that makes my spine go cold, and Mr Althorpe takes his glasses off again.

' What was that?' he says.

'I said I don't know what all the fuss is about,' Conroy says. 'A bit of alecking about in the office. I don't see why it couldn't have been dealt with in the office for what it was worth.'

Now this is as good as saying Hassop's a tale-telling bastard and I watch Mr Althorpe's face go pink and his eyes stare as he throws his specs down and stands up to lean forward on his hands.

'Are you telling me how to deal with my staff, Conroy?' he says. And then he begins again and says all he's already said and more besides only this time he decorates it with words that make me look away and wish a hole would open up in the floor, I'm so embarrassed. It sounds to me nearly as bad as if the Old Feller had come out with a mouthful. Maybe he thinks it's the only kind of language we understand but I reckon a man in Mr Althorpe's position shouldn't use language like that and I know I'll never have the same respect for him again. Once I sneak a sideways look at Conroy and see him standing there, his mouth set, and not knuckling under at all to what Althorpe's saying.

'Now clear out,' Althorpe says; 'both of you.' And he drops back into his chair and reaches out for his glasses again.

Conroy's doing some swearing himself when we get out into the corridor. He's nearly climbing the walls, he's so mad. As for me, I'm trembling all over and my heart's bumping away.' Christ' I say, 'I could have dropped through the floor when he started effing and blinding it.'

'He knows all the words, doesn't he?' Conroy says. 'One thing about him, he has the guts to use 'em and speak his mind.'

'You know, I reckon this is all my fault for cracking at you the way I did.'

'Hassop's fault, more like. I'd like to smash his yellow teeth in, the snivelling little sneak.'

I'm looking at Conroy and I'm nearly liking him, and I'd never have thought that. I know I'll always remember how he stood up to Althorpe, anyway.

'I'm sorry I bit you, Conroy,' I tell him; 'only, you were giving me a real leathering.'

'Oh, forget it,' he growls. 'I thought for a minute you'd blighted me efficiency. Anyway, I reckon we're even now. I got your back up before that with what I said about that bird... You won't be seeing much more of me around this place, I can tell you. I've had my bellyful of this shower. Be damned if I'll stick here and be talked to like a labourer off the shop floor.'

He hits the office door with the flat of bis hand and barges in. The door swings back on the spring and I have to put my arm up quick to stop it hitting me in the face. Conroy walks straight up the aisle till he gets to Whymper, a little middle-aged draughtsman, and a wage-slave if ever there was one.

'Where's that Manchester Guardian of yours?" he says in a voice everybody can hear.

'You can look at it at lunch-time, by all means,' Whymper says, giving a startled look up at Conroy standing over him glowering.

'Bugger that,' Conroy says. 'I want it now.'

Whymper shrugs. 'If you insist.' He opens a drawer on bis left and looks away and carries on with his work.

Half the office is watching when Conroy takes the paper back to his own board and spreads it out and starts turning the pages just as if he's in the reading room at the public library. When he gets to the situations vacant pages he stands there reading and running his finger down the columns.

In a minute or two Hassop cottons on that something's up and he comes out and soft-foots it down the office to Conroy, who takes not one bit of notice of him at all. 'Do you have to read the paper during office hours, Conroy?' he says, sarcy as can be; and Conroy goes on reading as though he doesn't know he's there. 'I'm talking to you, Conroy,' Hassop says, getting his rag out a bit.

Conroy turns his head and looks at Hassop. 'I'm looking for a job,' he says. 'And if I don't find anything in here I'll look in the Yorkshire Post an' all.' He starts warming up. 'I've had enough of this bloody lot, Hassop, and I'm getting out. I'm not one of your frightened little time-servers cowering over his board every time he hears the boss's voice. I'm a lad 'at knows a thing or two and I'm taking me talents elsewhere. I shan't have to look long, either; there's plenty of firms crying out for blokes who can think jobs out on their own. And they're paying more brass than this bloody sweat-shop an' all!'

Well, this is telling him, and no mistake, and everybody's straining so's they don't miss a word and waiting to see what'll happen. That Conroy, I'm thinking, he's a buggeroo if ever there was one. There's no stopping him when he gets his dander up. Old Hassop's face is as white as lard and his mouth is twitching away like it always does when he's worked up. 'You'll be applying for a new job sooner than you think, Conroy, if you carry on like this.'

'You sack me if you want to,' Conroy says. 'You'll be doing me a favour.'

A vein comes out on Hassop's forehead and just for a couple of seconds we're all waiting to hear him tell Conroy to get his cards. But we ought to know he hasn't the guts to do a thing like that in front of the whole office. He stands there, and he stands there a minute too long. Then he says in a strangled voice, 'You've had your warning, Conroy. You'd better watch out.' And he turns and walks away to his own office.

Conroy watches him till the door shuts behind him, then he goes back to his reading, licking his finger-end to make turning the pages easier.

II

One night when I get home the Old Man's upstairs practising. He's quite a lad with the trombone, the Old Feller, and I mean that. He's had offers from some tip-top bands in his time, only he didn't take the ones from South Yorkshire because the pits down there are too deep and hot for him, and with the others it would have meant him leaving the pit altogether and taking an unskilled job in a factory, and the money wasn't good enough. So he's always played with Cressley Town, which is no Fairey Aviation, but a pretty good second section band, for all that. I don't play anything myself, but I'm rather partial to a brass band, especially on the march, and one of the biggest kicks I know •is to see the Old Feller out there in front, throwing the slide out, and hear the trombones rasping away under the rest of the band.

He comes downstairs while I'm having my tea and picks a postcard off the fireplace. 'You haven't forgotten this, have you, Vic?' It's notification of a blood donors' session round at Shire-grove Road Council School. The Old Man has one as well, and we usually go together.

'I had,' I say, 'but it's okay; I've nothing else on.'

'AH this givin' your blood in the middle of winter,' the Old Lady .says. 'I'm sure it weakens your resistance to colds and disease.'

'Gerraway.'Isay.

'I should imagine it's quite beneficial in some ways,' young Jim says. 'Bloodletting was considered a cure for almost everything at one time.'

I pull a face at Mister Know-all and the Old Lady says, 'Well they don't do it now, do they? They've learned better.'

The Old Man's polishing his boots by the fire. 'I don't see as how it can do any harm,' he says. 'An' what drop they take out o' you does some poor soul a power o' good.'

'Ah well,' the Old Lady says, 'I reckon it's up to everybody to do their bit. That's what makes the world go round. But I do think you should take some malt and cod-liver oil in winter, Victor. Help to make up for it a bit.'

I pull another face. I haven't taken malt andcod-liver oil in years.

"Jim's used all his up. I'll get a new jar from the chemist's tomorrow.'

'Get some capsules; I'm too old to take it out of the jar.' I hold my cup out. 'Is there a drop more?'

The Old Lady picks the teapot up out of the hearth and pours me another cup. 'You're never too old to take what's good for you; and that includes your mother's advice.'

'Lecture coming up.'

'A thick ear coming up, young man, if you start cheeking me. Advice is cheap for them as'll take it.'

I jump up from the table and throw my arms out and go into nay Al Jolson take-off.' Mammy, how I love yer, how I need yer, my dear old mammy

She can't help smiling, though she does her best.

' Gerraway with yer, you great clown.'

The school's all lit up and we walk across the playground to the door we usually go in and check the notice which says 'Blood Donors this way', with an arrow. There's a bloke and a middle-aged woman waiting with their cards outside the door on the left and two or three more people sitting outside the room where they actually take the blood. Me and the Old Man tag on to the line. I'm easy about giving blood now; it's a doddle; but I can never get used to the hospital smell they bring with them when they come and set up for the job. The Old Feller goes in and I follow in half a minute and sit down in front of this bod who takes my card. He shows me another card which I have to sign to say I've never had yellow jaundice, malaria, cancer, kidney disease, and a lot of other nasty complaints. They don't want your blood if you've had any of these and you have to sign the card every time you go, in case you've had a dose of something since the last time you were here, I suppose. Then this bloke gives me a postcard and asks me to write my name and address on it. Ill get this through the post in a couple of weeks telling me what my blood's been used for. He hands me all my record cards and whatnot and I move on to the bint in the blue uniform who takes hold of my hand and jabs a needle in my thumb and squeezes a drop of blood out which she catches in a little glass tube and drops into some chemical or other. She blows into this chemical through another little tube and watches it change colour. From this she can check my blood group against the record card. I go out, holding a bit of cotton wool over my thumb and hang my jacket on a hook and join the others waiting for their turn.

They have all the trolleys set out in the assembly hall and a nurse leads me to one of these and I get up and lie on my back.
The nurse there shoves a length of like brush-handle into my hand and I'm supposed to grip and relax on this while she winds a rubber bandage round my arm above the elbow and pumps it up to make the vein stand out. Now we're all ready and in a minute a woman doctor comes over and gives me a nice smile like she always does and asks me if I'm keeping well. I say I am and she slips the needle in and makes the connexion without me feeling a thing except the light touch of her fingers. I watch her face while she's doing it. It's a clean, fresh face, without make-up, and I always think how nice she is and wonder why she isn't married because I'm sure she'd be real good for some bloke.

'Is that comfortable?'

'Fine, thanks.'

She smiles again and goes off to see to somebody else. I feel like shutting my eyes but I think I might drop off to sleep if I do so I keep them open and look at the ceiling and now and then take a butcher's at this nurse who's sitting by the trolley knitting a jumper while my blood runs into the bottle on the floor. The old place is ready for decorating. As I remember, it was always ready for decorating. It's ten years since I sat my County Minor in this very room and passed to go to Grammar School. Ten years! They say time passes quicker the older you get, but even I can look back ten years and more and remember what I was doing at the time. And ten years on... what will I be doing then, when I'm thirty? Probably married, maybe with some kids. But who to? Who would the bint be? Now a couple of weeks ago I might have thought Ingrid, maybe, but now ... It's the funniest thing about Ingrid. I'm out with her twice and three times a week now and you might think I've got all I was always hankering after in that direction. Maybe I have, but somehow, I don't know, there isn't the magic there was at the beginning, though it's still exciting enough at certain times. Anyway, when I think of getting married I don't think of her, that's all...

About twenty minutes later, when we've had a lie-down and a cup of tea, the Old Man and I are walking out through the gate, all done and dusted.

'Comin' straight down home?' the Old Man says, and I say, 'I suppose so; I've nowt else on tonight.'

We walk down the hill till we come to the Bunch of Grapes, which is one of these nice quiet pubs with notices up inside telling you singing isn't allowed. The Old Man fair surprises me when he stops and says, "Could you do with a drink?' I'm surprised, you see, because although he must know I have a drink now and again like any other young chap, he's never really acknowledged it by inviting me into a pub with him.

'I don't mind an odd 'un, Dad.'

'Get a bit o' strength back, eh?' he says, and I see him grin in the light coming from the window.

'That's the ticket.'

The landlord knows him and says, 'Evenin' Arthur,' when we go in.' How you keepin'?'

^'Evenin', Jack. Fair to middlin', y'know. Mustn't grumble. How's yourself?'

The landlord says he can't grumble either and asks us what we're having. The Old Man looks at me and I think it might be policy not to seem too used to all this, so I say, 'Whatever you're having, Dad,' and the Old Feller gets two halves of mild (I prefer bitter really) and twenty Players and we go and sit down at a table near the fire. The only other customers are two blokes talking about football on the other side of the fireplace.

The Old Man lifts Ms glass. 'All the best.'

'Cheers.'

He drinks and put Ms glass down and sits on Ms buffet with Ms hands resting on Ms knees. 'What you grinnin' at?' he says in a minute.

'Oh, nowt much.'

But I'm grinning because I can't help it; because I'm thinking this is a kind of milestone in my life, like my first long pants and being able to smoke in the house. It's like the Old Man's kind of acknowledging I'm grown up and not a kid any more.

'Nice quiet place, this,' the Old Man says. 'Never any rowdy customers. Ever been in afore?"

I say no, I haven't.

'You do take a drink now an' again, though, don't you?'

'Yes, I like a glass occasionally.'

He nods. 'I see no harm in a young feller takin' a drink in moderation. So long as you don't have eight or nine pints an' start wantin' to gob everybody.'

'That's silly.'

'Aye, it is, but there's plenty on 'em do it.'

'It's a nice drink, this.'

'Aye, he keeps a good drink, Jack does.'

We sit without saying anything for a while, then the Old Man says, 'How you gettin' on at your work?'

'Oh, okay.'

'Still liking it, are you?'

' Yes, I like it all right.' I know this isn't exactly the truth, somehow, but I let it go because it would be too hard to explain to the Old Feller when I can hardly reckon it up for myself,

'Seems to me there's good prospects in your line. T'evenin' paper's allus full o' vacancies for draughtsmen.'

'Oh, there's plenty o'jobs about.'

'What d'ye think about Whittaker's? D'yre reckon you'll be settlin'there when you get on to full rate?'

'Well I'm not thinkin' o' moving yet. I'll have to see when I'm twenty-one. They pay union rates and the work's as interesting as any other branch of engineering, I reckon. Course, I could probably get the same line o' work somewhere else. I don't know that there's much chance of promotion at Whittaker's. Too many keen young chaps in the office.'

'If you made a move in t'same line it'd mean you going away, happen?'

' Yeh, I'd have to do that. Manchester, maybe, or Birmingham.'

'Aye.' The Old Man nods and appears to weigh this up for a minute. Then he says, 'Well, there comes a time in most chaps' lives when they've to strike out on their own if they're goin' to make headway. And the time to do it is while you're still single, without ties.'

'I suppose so.' Me and the Old Man haven't talked like this for a long time. Come to think of it, we don't talk much at all except to say where's the boot polish and pass the salt.

'I'm not tryin' to push you off or any thin', mind,' he says. 'I just want you to know 'at I see the position and if you do decide it'll be best to make a move it'll be up to you. I don't want you to think there's anybody here holding you back.'

'No, I see that.'

'Course, your mother'll not like it. You're still nobbut a bairn to her.'

'If I'd been in another job she'd maybe have had to like it or lump it. a couple of years ago.'

'You mean your National Service?'

'Aye.'

'D'ye think you'll ever have it to do now?'

'I don't think so. There's a lot of us up at WMttaker's got deferment. I don't think they'll ever bother us now. They'll be packing it up altogether soon by the looks of things.'

' Well, that's all right, then.'

'I wish I had gone up sometimes, y'know.'

'You'd just ha lost two years' experience an' wasted your time.'

'I think it might have given me a fresh slant on things. You know, broadened me outlook. I talk to these lads who've had service abroad and I think I've never seen anything stopping at home.'

'Well, it gets a lad away from Ms mother's apron string,' the Old Man s'ays. 'Teaches him to stand on his own feet. But for broadening your outlook, I don't know. I reckon it depends on the man. I knew fellers in 1916 'at were just as gormless when they came out as they were when they went in. It didn't learn 'em owt. Except 'at politicians makes wars an' us ordinary chaps has to fight'em.'

He empties his glass and I reach for it as he sets it down.' Have another?'

He looks up at the electric wall-clock and says, 'Aye, all right.'

'I wa' thinkin' o' poppin' over to see Huddersfield Town a Saturday,' he says when I come back with the hew drinks. 'Fancy an afternoon out?'

'I shall be at the shop, Dad,' I remind him.

'Oh, aye, o' course. I wa' forgettin'. Ah well, it can't be helped. Seems a long time sin' we had a day out together like that.'

It does. I can't remember the last time. I lift my glass. 'Well, we're having a night out now.'

The Old Man twinkles. 'Aye, you're right, lad, we are. We
shan't have to be too long, though, as your mother 'ull be
wondering where we've got to.' ,

I'm watching a little feller who's buying a pint at the back counter and looking across at the Old Man. In a minute he comes over with his glass and puts his hand on the Old Feller's shoulder.

'How go, Arthur? How ye keepin', lad?'

The Old Man looks up. 'Well, I'll be blessed if it isn't Herbert! Wha, I haven't seen thee in ages, lad. Sit thissen down, lad, sit thissen down.'

The little feller pulls a buffet up and sits down. He's quite well-dressed in a grey tweed overcoat and a green trilby, but there's no mistaking what he is, even without the blue marks on his face and hands.

'You don't know my lad, do you, Herbert?' the Old Man says. 'My eldest lad, that is. T'other's still at school, but Victor here's a draughtsman up at Whittaker's, y'know.' There's a touch of pride in the Old Man's voice and I'm surprised because it's never occurred to me he might be proud of me. Of Chris, yes, and young Jim, but not me.

'Is he, by gow?' the little feller says. 'A draughtsman, eh?
That's better nat'pit, eh?' .

'You're dead right,' I say.

'I allus said 'at mine wouldn't be forced into t'pit like I wa',' the Old Feller says.

'This is a golden age for young fowk, Arthur,' the little chap says. 'Not like our young days. Then there wa' nowt else but pit or f mills. An' us fathers were on'y too ready to send vis down to addle 'em some brass. I have a lad o' me own hi t'Coal Board offices, y'know. He's allus grumblin' about size of his wage packet compared wi' mine. I tell him he doesn't know he's born. It's worth three quid a week to go to work at nine o'clock an' be able to see daylight through t'winders. My job 'ud kill him in a week. Less.'

He lifts his glass and sinks half his pint. I watch the level fall and know he's a chap who likes his booze. As if he's read my thoughts, he says, 'I don't know what I'd do wi'out me pint, Arthur. I sometimes think it's t'only thing 'at keeps me goin'.' He brings a packet of Woodbines out and hands them round. 'They ought to give us a free ration of it, like they do coal,' he says, and laughs.

'Where are you working now then, Herbert?' the Old Man asks him when we've all three lit up.

'I've been at Roundwood for t'past three year, fillin' on t'days.'

'Roundwood, Wakefield?' the Old Man says. "That's a tidy way to travel, isn't it?'

'Oh, I have a car,' the little feller says. 'Gi'n over bussing it years sin'. I can be at work in twenty minutes thru stepping out of the house.'

'Doing it in style, eh, Herbert?'

'Why not?' Herbert says. 'We've never had it as good as this last ten year, Arthur, an' I'm niakin' t'best on it while it lasts.'

'How d'ye mean, while it lasts? You don't think there'll be a slump, do you?'

'It won't allus be like this,' the little chap says. 'I've seen too much o' t'shabby times and to think 'at this'll last for ever.'

^'Oh, I don't know, Herbert. I don't see why it shouldn't.'

'Funny thing happen, Arthur. You'd think 'at fowk 'ud allus want coal. An' so they will for a long time yet. But we've both seen times when fowk had empty grates and coal were standin' in mountains in t'pit yards, doin' nowt. It's a question of economics, Arthur; an' chaps like thee an' me knows nowt about that. All we know is coal-gettin', when they'll let us do it...'

I listen to them natter on. From coal-getting and economics they get on to politics. They're both Labour, of course, so they've nothing much to argue about there. Then they get on to sport and Huddersfield Town where they can have a difference of opinion on one or two points; but all very matey like. While this is going on the little feller gets himself another pint and has our glasses filled up. Then the Old Feller buys him a pint and we have our glasses filled again. I'm thinking it's a good job it's mild we're drinking because by the time the clock shows twenty to ten we've had five glasses apiece and the little feller's well on with Ms fourth pint.

'Just look what time it is,' the Old Man says.' Wes'll have to be off.'

'It's taken you some time tonight,' the Old Lady says when we go in. The house is lovely and warm and full of the smell of ironing.

'Aye,' the Old Man says,-and Old Lady takes a quick look at both of us. 'I see,' she says. "That's where you've been spending your time.'

'Aye, we just felt like an odd 'un,' the Old Feller says, taking his jacket off. The beer's put a twinkle in his eye and the Old Lady can't bear to think she's being laughed at any time.

'You want taking Victor into such places,' she says. 'Learning him bad habits.'

'I reckon it's about time he learned to take a drink in moderation,' the Old Man says. He sits down in his chair and crosses his legs to take his boots off.

"They learn soon enough on their own, these days. An' you want to remember you've another son an' all. You want to set an example for him.'

Jim's sitting reading and taking not a bit of notice of all this.

'I reckon my example's good enough for any son o' mine,' the Old Man says, and winks at me while the Old Lady's got her back turned. I wink back. I'm feeling a bit drunk and I'm keeping my mouth shut and moving very carefully so's the Old Lady won't notice.

It looks for a minute as if she's going to say some more on the subject; then she seems to decide to let it drop and goes on ironing, hanging the clothes on the bars of the clothes-horse as she finishes them.