by Stan Barstow
‘No, I haven’t forgotten.’
I say good night and go upstairs. There’s light in Jim’s room and the door’s ajar. I go into our bathroom that’s like a big cold cave, all pipes and tanks and bare painted walls, and wash my face and brush my teeth as quick as I can. As I’m coming out I hear Jim give me a call and I go and stand in his doorway.
‘What’s up?’
He picks this pale blue envelope out of his book and flicks it down to the foot of the bed. ‘Letter for you.’
I pick it up and look at it. I look at my name in this handwriting and all at once I begin to get excited.
‘Where d’ye get this?’
‘I found it behind the front door as I came to bed. Somebody must have pushed it in while we were watching television. There’s no stamp on it.’
There’s no address on it, either; just my name. I hold myself back from tearing it open there and then.
‘Have me mam an’ dad seen it?’
‘No, I came straight upstairs.’ Jim gives me a sly look. ‘I wouldn’t say it was a man’s handwriting, would you?’
I’m grinning at him, grinning all over my face, even though I don’t know what’s in the letter yet. ‘Thanks, lad. I’ll remember you in my will for this.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ Jim says.
‘Don’t you mention it, either.’
‘Mum’s the word.’
‘That’s the ticket.’
I go across the landing and shut my door behind me before I rip the envelope open and take out this one sheet of matching notepaper. ‘Dear Vic,’ it says, ‘My cousin decided to catch a later train and I went with her to Leeds to see her off. The train was late and it was after half past seven when I got back into Cressley. I went to where we’d arranged to meet but of course you’d gone. I wondered what on earth you could be thinking of me so I thought I’d better write this letter and explain or you wouldn’t be on speaking terms by Monday. I’ll be at the same place tomorrow night (Sunday) if you can manage it. If you don’t come by 7.15 I’ll know you can’t get. Hoping you can, Love, Ingrid.’
That last word jumps out and hits me in the eye. Love! Love! I throw the letter up in the air and do a standing jump on to the bed and bounce about like a clown on one of those trampoline things at the circus. She hasn’t stood me up. She couldn’t help it. And she sends her love. Her love! I jump down and feel in my back pocket and go back to Jim’s room. ‘You know that speedometer for your bike ’at you’re saving up for?’ I throw a couple of half-crowns on to the bed. ‘There’s five bob towards it.’
I’m back across the landing again before I think that one half-crown would have been enough. Then I think, Oh, what the hell! What’s money anyway? Good old Jim. Good old me. Good old everybody, and lovely, lovely Ingrid. Oh, what a lovely tart she is: what a luscious, lovable bint!
II
Sunday afternoon, then, we all troop across town – the Old Feller, the Old Lady, Jim, and me – to Chris’s new place up a little avenue off Dewsbury Road. It’s high up, like our house, and they’ve got a view as good as ours only with it being an upstairs flat they can see it from the living-room and ours only shows from the bedrooms. Chris and David have only got back from their honeymoon yesterday and there’s kisses and hugs all round when she opens the door for us. And then we’re all invited to look at the furnishings in the flat that Chris hasn’t let any of us see before because she wanted to keep it all as a surprise for when they were actually living in it. Well it looks real smart and I wouldn’t mind a place like it myself. It’s done out in contemporary style with light-coloured furniture with splayed legs that you catch with your feet if you’re not careful and a kind of mauve fitted carpet and two different pattern papers on the walls. They haven’t got a three-piece suite like ours at home but a couple of easy-chairs and a studio couch that makes up into a bed if they want to put anybody up for the night. The Old Lady looks round at it all, taking all in, and says, ‘Yes, very nice, love, very nice,’ in a tone of voice that says straight out it is very nice if you like that sort of thing but it isn’t her cup of cocoa by any means.
David and the Old Man get together at the window and look out. ‘That’s what I call a real West Riding view,’ the Old Feller says. ‘A bit of everything.’
‘Better than the view from my old digs,’ David says. ‘A coal-dealer’s yard, half a dozen rows of terraced houses, and the biggest Nonconformist chapel I’ve ever seen.’
‘Have you never been to Cleckheaton?’ the Old Man says, his face never slipping. ‘You want to get our Chris to take you sometime. A lovely spot. They’ve got biggest Methodist chapel there ’at I’ve ever seen. An’ another nearly as big on t’other side o’ t’road.’
‘Ghastly places, David says.
‘Ho’d on, lad,’ the Old Man says. ‘They were built to the glory of God, young feller. just imagine the spirit ’at went into putting ’em up.’
‘Oh, yes, agreed,’ David says. ‘It’s pity that they’re mostly white elephants today. It’s the architecture I’m referring to. Why must almost all the big building in the West Riding be either Greek or Italian? Every other one you see looks like the Parthenon covered in soot.’
‘Because we believe in having t’best there is,’ the Old Feller says.
‘But is there no typically Yorkshire architecture?’
‘Aye, Collinson’s mill,’ the Old Man says, grinning. He points. ‘That one wi’ t’biggest chimney o’ t’lot.’
David smiles. ‘Well, I must admit that the West Riding isn’t as bad as it’s painted. I’ve been pleasantly surprised since living here.’
‘It’s not everybody’s cup o’ tea,’ the Old Man admits. ‘Some fowk like summat a bit… well, softer, if you know what I mean…’
They get on talking about various parts of the country because the Old Man fancies himself as having knocked about a bit, and every now and again he has to admit that other places might have something. I get up and wander over to the bookcase by the fireplace. There’s a chinking of pots from the little kitchen and every now and then either Chris or the Old Lady will march through with something else to put on the folding-leaf table they’ve got opened out in the middle of the floor. David’s chief subject is English Lit. and there’s a lot of Shakespeare and dull classics stuff on the shelves. I’m just browsing there, passing time on till the tea’s ready, and this fat book with a green back takes my eye. I pick it out and notice one thing on the spine, what I took to be a snake, is a bow like they used in ancient times. I look at the title, Ulysses, and the name of the author, James Joyce, and they don’t mean a thing to me; but seeing as I’ve got the book out I open it and leaf a few pages over. The next minute I’ve dropped on a bit near the end that nearly makes my hair stand up. As far as I can make out it’s a bint in bed or somewhere thinking about all the times she’s had with blokes. It knocks me sideways, it really does. I mean, I’ve seen these things what sometimes get passed on from hand to hand on mucky bits of typing paper – you know, all about the vacuum cleaner salesman who goes to a house and finds a bint in on her own – but I’ve never seen anything like this actually printed. Well, I’m racing through it, catching up on my education fast (it’s the sort of stuff you race through because it’s her thoughts, see, just as they come – and nothing left out, believe you me – and there’s no commas or full stops or anything and all the sentences run into one another just the way they do when you’re thinking yourself, I suppose). Anyway, I’m standing there taking all this in – or at least, all the spicy bits – when David comes over and asks me if I’ve found anything interesting.
I’m a bit embarrassed, though I don’t know why because it’s his book, not mine, and I say with a little laugh, ‘This is a bit hot, isn’t it? I didn’t know they let ’em print stuff like this.’
‘It went through several courts before free publication was sanctioned,’ David says.
‘I’ll bet…’ and I’m thinking, well, fancy old David reading
stuff like this, and leaving it around for Chris to see an’ all. ‘Is it supposed to be good or something?’
‘It’s a masterpiece,’ David says. ‘There’s no other word for it. It’s one of the most significant books in the language.’
I’m thinking I’d like to have a go at it when I’m on my own and I say, ‘You’ll have to lend it to me sometime.’
‘I’m afraid you’d find it very dull,’ David says. ‘It’s not an easy book to read. There’s so much below the surface that it takes several readings before you begin to grasp it… Anyway, I shouldn’t want your mother, for instance, to pick it up and open it where you did. She mightn’t understand.’
‘You bet your boots she wouldn’t. What does Chris think to it?’
‘She hasn’t read it. She knows what it’s about, and its reputation, and she says she doesn’t feel obliged to go any further.’
He takes another book out. ‘What about this?’ I look at the title. ‘Oh, Raymond Chandler. Yes, I’ve read this one. I’ve read three or four of his: all they’ve got in the library.’
‘You like to read?’
‘Oh, yes; I’m reading all the time. Beats television into a cocked hat, reading does.’
‘What kind of books do you read?’
‘Oh, thrillers, war stories, that sort of thing. You know … Why don’t you write a book, David? A war book, I mean. You’ve had plenty of adventures, haven’t you?’
‘Too many…’ He puts the Chandler back on the shelf. ‘I did start one once, a book about my experiences in the prison camp… But there have been so many it didn’t seem much use.’ He pulls another book out and hands it to me. ‘Now if I could write a war story as good as that one it wouldn’t matter how many there had been before.’
It’s called For Whom the Bell Tolls. ‘I’ve seen a picture of this,’ I tell him as it comes to mind. ‘It’s a fairly old one but they re-issued it a while back. Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman were in it… It was good.’
Ingrid… Ingrid… I’m hardly listening when David says to take the book with me and see how I like it.
A bit later I nip into the kitchen for a word with Chris while the Old Lady’s out for a minute. ‘I say, Chris, you won’t mind if I beetle off about half-six, will you?’
She’s slicing hard-boiled eggs for the salad. ‘I shall be mortally offended,’ she says. ‘Invited for the first time to my new home and you can’t get away soon enough. Is it something important?’
‘Top priority. I wouldn’t have gone out tonight only there was a bit of a mix-up and now I really have to.’
‘What’s her name?’ Chris says.
‘Oh, you don’t know her.’
‘I shall know her a bit better if you tell me what they call her. You do know, I suppose?’
‘Course I do. They call her Ingrid Rothwell. You’ll not say anything to me mother about it, will you? You know how she is. I mean, well, I’ll tell her myself sometime, if… you know.’
Chris smiles, one of them lovely little smiles she has that make you feel everything’s all right with the world and everything. ‘I know,’ she says.
The Old Lady bustles in licking butter off her fingers and wiping them down this apron of Chris’s that she would put on. ‘C’mon,’ she says to me; ‘out of it. Can’t do wi’ men cluttering the place up, hindering the job… How’re we doing?’ she says to Chris. ‘I think we’re nearly ready aren’t we?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind mashing the tea.’
‘Right you are, love.’
A few minutes later we’re all sitting round the table and Chris starts talking about some of the things they saw on their honeymoon and this gets the Old Man started on London. It’s one of the things about the Old Feller that niggles you a bit the way he thinks he’s an expert on London because he was there a bit in the Great War and he’s been two or three times since to brass band contests or Rugby League Cup Finals. It doesn’t put him off a bit that he’s sitting next to David who was born in the place. In a bit he gets so much at sea that even Chris has to pull him up.
‘But the place you’re talking about isn’t even in Leicester Square, Dad,’ she says.
‘It wa’ t’last time I wa’ there,’ the Old Feller says. ‘Are you tryin’ to tell me I don’t know London?’
‘He’d tell Joe Davis how to play billiards,’ I say and the Old Man says, ‘You keep a still tongue in your head, young feller,’ and lifts his first finger up to lay the law down, ‘I’m tellin’ you ’at when Ezra Dykes an’ me were down for t’Daily Herald Brass Band Contest in 1949… No, wait a minute… war it ‘51?…’ He turns to the Old Lady. ‘You remember that year. War it ‘49 or ‘51?’
‘I don’t know owt about it,’ the Old Lady says, poker-faced. ‘You’d better shut up an’ get your tea.’
And David, who’s sided with nobody, looks up at this and gives me a quiet wink.
At twenty-five past six I go into the bathroom and have a wash, then while the Old Lady’s busy in the kitchen helping Chris with the washing-up I get my coat and nip out down the stairs.
She is waiting for me on the corner by Barclays Bank. She’s got a blue coat on that fits to her figure, with a big fur collar and no hat. Her shoes have the highest heels I’ve ever seen her in. I see her before she sees me and it’s like half of me’s over there with her before I start to cross the road.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello. You got my letter, then?’
‘Yes, I got it.’
I’m holding her hands with gloves on and looking at her while she babbles on all about why she was so late last night. Now I know it wasn’t deliberate I’m not interested, but she will go on, giving me every little detail.
‘What was his name?’ I say, breaking into it.
‘Who?’
‘This porter you got to help you with the case.’
‘How should I know?’ she says, and then she sees I’m taking the mickey and she says, ‘Yes, I do go on, don’t I? And it doesn’t really matter, does it?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘I don’t know what you must have thought of me, though.’
‘Forget it. It’s okay now.’
‘What did you do?’ she says. ‘Did it waste your evening? Did you wait long?’
I tell her I went to the pictures with a pal and ask her how she came to think of writing the note. Because this is the real good bit about it all. She meant to come all right, and that’s something; but to think of writing the note when she was late, that meant she cared about it and couldn’t just let things slide. She had to do something.
‘It just came to me,’ she says. ‘I thought if I let you know straight away you’d realise I couldn’t help it. If I’d waited till Monday it would have had all weekend to pile up in – you know what I mean? – and it would have taken a lot more putting right then. I was afraid you might think I’d done it on purpose you see.’
‘But how did you know where I live?’ There’s another thing: she must have been interested before to have known that.
She gives a little smile, not looking at me. ‘Oh, I knew,’ she says. ‘P’raps I know more about you than you think.’
I feel like singing and shouting right there in the street. Oh, she’s a peach. She really is.
III
‘Well, where shall we go, then? Pictures?’
‘I’d rather just walk and talk,’ she says, and this suits me fine. It’s what I wanted last Sunday when that Dorothy came and put her big feet in it. By, but when I think how near she got to busting everything up… What I’d have missed – all this, being here with her now and knowing she’s definitely interested in me, like I am in her. But maybe it’s all for the better that we have had some trouble because it’s made Ingrid come right out and let me know she’s interested. We’ve kind of gone back a couple of strides and advanced a dozen. I reckon we really owe Dorothy a vote of thanks.
‘Did you have any trouble meeting me tonight?’
‘Well,
I really shouldn’t have come,’ I tell her, and think that man-eating lions on the streets wouldn’t have kept me away. ‘We’ve all been to tea at my sister’s new flat, She just got back from her honeymoon yesterday.’
‘Oh, yes, Christine. You told me about the wedding.’
So I did, nearly a fortnight ago. And look how much has happened since then! I got to know Ingrid, then thought I’d lost her, and now I’ve found her all over again. And I still can hardly believe she’s here with me now, and not at my invitation, but her own! I take hold of her hand and pull her arm up through mine and she turns her head and looks at me and smiles; and at the same time I get this gorgeous whiff of the scent she’s wearing.
‘I like your perfume. What is it?’
She giggles. ‘Its called Desire.’
‘Living dangerously, aren’t you, wearing stuff like that?’ I think of the sort of joke somebody like Jimmy Slade might make – a chastity belt given free with every bottle – and grin to myself.
‘It’s quite expensive, as a matter of fact,’ she says. ‘I only wear it on special occasions. It’s not for everyday use.’
‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or not.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know whether it means you trust me to behave or trust me not to.’
She giggles again. ‘Now, now. Keep the party clean.’
We get to talking about our families because we don’t really know much about each other, and I find out that Ingrid’s dad’s a site engineer for a big constructional firm out Manchester way and his work takes him all over the country and sometimes abroad. ‘He’s really hardly ever at home,’ Ingrid says. ‘Mother says it’s like being married to a sailor.’ (I notice the way she says ‘mother’ and not ‘my mother’ or ‘me mam’, and this puts her family a notch above mine straight away.) ‘Then again she says it has its advantages. You never have a chance to get fed-up with a husband who’s only at home occasionally. They’re like a proper couple of love-birds when he does turn up. You’d think they’d been married a month instead of twenty years … Of course, it’ll be different when she hasn’t got me for company. It’ll be a bit lonely for her then.’