Part Two, Chapter 2 - A Kind of Loving

I

I arrive at the shop one Saturday morning and find Henry standing outside with the door still shut and no sight of Mr Van Huyten.

'I don't think he was feeling too good yesterday,' Henry says when I ask him what's up. 'He was out in the rain earlier in the week and he thought he'd caught a chill.'

'Who'll be looking after him?'

'He'll have to look after himself,' Henry says, 'He has a woman coming in to do for him two or three times a week, but he lives on his own.'

Poor old geezer! I know how it is when you have flu and you want coddling. 'Why, he could flake out,' I tell Henry, 'and nobody 'ud be any the wiser.'

Henry strikes a match and lights a dokka. "That's what it's like when you're old and on your own in the world.'

Well, I don't know what to say to this. I can't remember it happening before. You know Mr Van Huyten's old but you kind of never think of him falling ill or dying or anything.

' Well what are we goinna do? We can't stand here all morning. There'll be customers arriving afore long.'

Henry gives a nod. 'And I've a couple of sets to deliver...' He studies a minute, then he says, 'I'd better go up and see what's doing.'

'Want me to come?'

'No need. I shan't be long. I really ought to get them sets delivered, if nothing else.' He goes over to the van, which he's had at home overnight.

'Does it mean the shop'll have to stay shut ail day?'

'It did the last time he was badly,' Henry says. "There was nobody else to look after it.'

'Well there is now,' I tell him. 'Look, Henry; tell him I can manage. He can't shut Saturday; it's his best day. Look at the trade he'll lose. It might mean thirty or forty quid on records alone.' I grab Henry's arm as he's climbing into the van, 'Tell him we can manage, Henry. You can demonstrate the sets while I look after the counter. You can always leave the repairs a day.'

Henry chucks his dog-end away as he gets into the cab. 'I'll see what he says.'

He's away half an hour and I'm on eggs all the time, walking up and down in front of the shop .and thinking he won't be telling Mr Van Huyten right and I should have gone and talked to him myself. It nigh breaks my heart to think of the shop being shut and all that trade being turned away.

Once a middle-aged bloke comes up to the door and tries the handle. 'Aren't they open today?'

'In about half an hour,' I tell him. 'Mr Van Huyten's poorly but we'll be open in about half an hour if you can come back then.'

He studies a minute. 'It's my daughter,' he says. 'It's her birthday next week and she's mad keen for one o' these long-playing radiograms. I thought I'd surprise her like ... I didn't know whether to come here or try Norton's. Their winder's full of 'em ... televisions an' all '

'We can fix you up,' I tell him. 'We've got a good selection in our inside showroom - H.M.V., K.B., Bush ...' I feel like grabbing his arm and chaining him to the door till Henry gets back.

The bloke nods. 'Aye, well... I'll just walk up the road and call back later.'

I can see him slipping away to Norton's and being roped in by that horrible flash type who waits on there. Just then Henry draws up in the van. I say to the bloke, 'If you'll wait just another minute ...' and jump at Henry as he opens the cab door and gets out.

'What does he say?'

'He says okay, we've to open up an' do the best we can. He wasn't too keen on it at first.'

I'm grinning all over my face. 'We've got a customer already. Gimme the key.'

I open the door and ease this cove in before he gets any more ideas about going somewhere else. Me and Henry show this bloke the lot, both in the shop and the back room, and when I give Henry the nudge he starts blinding him with gen about input and output and baffles and speakers and I don't know what else. Neither does this bloke but you can see Henry impresses him and he's thinking he's come to a shop where they know what they're at anyway.

After about twenty minutes of this the chap settles on an H.M.V. console job with V.H.F. radio, and I start to give the patter about hire purchase and what not; and this is where I nearly slip up because I've weighed this cove up wrong. He just stands there for a minute or two listening and then he brings this dirty great roll of notes out of his pocket and says, 'I'll pay cash.'

Just like that. My hands are trembling so much I can hardly count the money.

'When can you deliver?' he says when I've made his receipt out.

'Any time,' I tell him.

'Righto.' He writes something on a bit of paper and gives it to me. 'You deliver to this address next Wednesday morning. Not before, mind. I want it there on the day.'

I take a quick butcher's at the name on the paper. 'We'll attend to it, Mr Wainright, don't worry.' I come round the counter and walk to the door with him. 'Thank you very much, sir. Good morning.'

As soon as the door's shut I dash into the back place to Henry. He's got his overall on now and tinkering inside a TV set.

'Seventy-four guineas, Henry. Seventy-four bloody lovely guineas. Just wait till we tell Mr Van Huyten about this. If we only sell a couple of packets of needles all the rest of the day it's been worth opening for.'

Henry's poking a screwdriver into the innards of this set. He nods. 'Not bad,' he says. 'A pity it can't last.'

I give up and go back into the shop.

Course we sell more than a couple of packets of needles. Before long the rush starts and the fans are crowding me at the counter and I'm whipping record boxes down right and left and ringing up the old sales in the till. By the time we shut up and I start off'to' Mr Van Huyten's with the key, I'm dog-tired. But happy.

II

Mr Van Huyten's playing Brahms on the gramophone when I get there. He shushes me as he lets me in and I sit down arid wait while the music's finished. I think Brahms is Mr Van Huyten's favourite composer. He told me once that Brahms might not be the greatest composer who ever lived but nobody ever wrote music that sounded more like great music should sound. It all sounds much of a muchness to me. No beat, no melody, and it goes on and on from now to Kingdom come.

Well after I've been sitting there about three hours this piece finishes and Mr Van reaches out and knocks the gram off. I've hardly said a word up to now and he waits for all the news. I ask him how he is first and he says he's not really poorly on himself but he's got a chill and he thought it wisest to stay at home today. I tell him about the radiogram we flogged and show him the details of the day's trade where I've written it all down on a bit of paper.

He says very good, very good, a few times, nodding his head, and I can tell he's pleased.

'You see it was worth opening for, Mr Van Huyten,' I say. 'I was on eggs thinking you'd tell Henry not to bother.'

He looks at me from where he's sitting in this big old wing-chair by the fire. 'It was important to you that the shop should open today, then, Victor?'

'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 continue 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 comparable, 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 considering 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."'

'And how much notice do you have to give?'

'I think you're only bound to give a week but a fortnight's fairer. And I should have a word with old Hassop first and tell him what you're doing; then it doesn't make him look a Charlie.'

'I'm not looking forward to that.'

'They reckon he even tried to get Conroy to stay on, Jimmy says; 'and I always thought he hated his guts.'

'He was pretty hot stuff, old Conroy. Hassop knew he was losing a good man. I don't reckon I'm in his class as a draughtsman.'

The dinner-time bell rings as we're talking and we follow everybody out of the office.

'Funny thing about Conroy,' I say, 'I was just beginning to like him when he left.'

' Oh, Albert wasn't such a bad sort of chap,' Jimmy says.' Once you made allowances for his ways you could get on with him okay. I always did prefer him to Lewis.'

'Me an'all, any day.'

'Ah, well,' Jimmy says. 'If you've made your mind up you've made it up. I'll miss you, old cock.'

'Oh, come off it,' I say. 'I'm not emigrating to Timbuktu. We can have nights out together.'

'Aye, right enough.'

We've got along the corridor nearly to the door when all of a sudden we hear a bint cry out and there's a commotion at the bottom of the stairs. When we get nearer we see a crowd of birds and one or two bods gathered round somebody lying on the floor.

Somebody says. 'No, don't move her; run for the Nurse,' and one of the blokes goes dashing through the door.

We can't see a thing from where we are and we can't get past to get out. When one of the bints turns away I ask her, 'What's up? Who is it?'

'It's Ingrid Rothwell,' she says, all in a flutter and a flap. 'She's fallen down the stairs. Right from top to bottom. She couldn't save herself She just gave a shout and went straight down.'

'Is there anything we can do?'

'I don't think so. They've gone for the Nurse. She's passed out and we daren't move her.'

My heart's going like a tom-tom and I don't know where I am for a minute. Jimmy gets hold of my arm and steers me away. 'C'mon; we're only blocking the way. Let's go to the canteen.'

We go back the long way round and hear about it later on, Ingrid's come round by the time the Nurse gets there and she gets a couple of bods to carry her into the waiting-room while she rings up for an ambulance. Next day we hear they've X-rayed Ingrid at the infirmary and she's broken her left arm. I get all this from Jimmy, who's got it from Pauline Lawrence, who got it from the Nurse. I'm glad it's not serious but now the shock's passed I don't feel much else. Anyway, I have to do something so I splash eight-and-six on a pound box of chocolates and send them with a little note by Pauline who's going to visit Ingrid one night. I just say in the note I'm sorry it's happened and I hope she'll soon be better again. I don't mention about leaving Whittaker's. She can't write back because it's her left arm and she's left-handed so she just tells Pauline to say thanks for the chocs, which she does.

When I think about it I'm glad she can't write because it means she can't pin me down. What with her laid up and me leaving Whittaker's I reckon this is the time to break off properly, for good. Then I might feel better all round and not so much of a louse. It'll be all right if I don't see her. I just shan't think about her then.

That afternoon I tell Mr Hassop that I'm handing my notice in at the week-end. I don't meet with much opposition. Maybe he's not bothered either way, whether I go or stay. We have quite a long natter, though, and he tells me all the disadvantages of being a shop assistant and the opportunities open for draughtsmen. I tell him I've thought about all that and this isn't just another shop assistant's job because I've kind of got an interest in the business, and we leave it at that.

On the Friday morning I take my letter In to Miss Padgett, Mr Matthew's secretary, and a fortnight later I'm away, just like Conroy, with my tackle in a case and a very nice pigskin notecase with my initials on it and a quid inside from the Staff.

Right at the last when they're giving me the wallet and Hassop's giving out with the bull like he did for Conroy, I'm swallowing hard and looking round at all their faces and having a last-minute touch of panic for fear I'm doing the wrong thing. Because now I can only remember the good times early on, when it all seemed exciting, before I got restless; and I think what a good bunch of lads they are, as grand a bunch all round as you'd meet in a day's march, and I know I'll miss them.

And that's it. The next Monday morning I go to work full-time for Mr Van Huyten in his shop.