by Stan Barstow
‘It’ll be all right, Vic, won’t it?’ she says in a whisper.
‘What? Course it will.’ How the hell should I know? I’m thinking. It had better be, that’s all.
‘But we won’t risk it again, will we?’
‘No; I’ll get something.’ When I’m in the mood again I’ll see about getting something. I don’t know just how. I can’t see myself walking into a shop like buying a packet of fags. But I can ask Willy and he’ll know. Just now I couldn’t care less if we never do it again. Now that it’s over I’m wondering what all the fuss is about and wishing we’d played safe and had our fun without any risk like we’ve always done.
But a couple of days later I’m all for it again and feeling quite a lad about it. I feel like a proper man of the world with a willing bint laid on like this. So I keep an eye open for Willy, but somehow now I want him specially he doesn’t seem to be about. One night I set off to call for him and see if I can catch him that way. I’ve only ever been to Willy’s house once and I didn’t like it. It’s a terrace house in a ropy street off Gilderdale Road where there’s always a crowd of snotty-nosed kids hanging about with their britches’ behinds hanging out. Willy’s brothers are a crowd of roughs and always on the booze and his ma’s a bit of a slut. My mother’s broad-spoken and all that, but she’d have no room for Willy’s old lady and her mucky ways.
A kid comes out of an entry bawling as I go up the street. He’s maybe five or six and real grubby. It’s the way he’s blubbing, though, that gets me. I mean kids are always roaring about something but there’s crying and crying and this kid sounds real heartbroken. I’ve never heard such misery in a kid’s crying before and it fair turns me over.
Willy isn’t in when I get to their house and I ask his mother if she knows where he is. ‘Nay lad,’ she says, standing on the step with her arms folded over this mucky apron, ‘how should I know? He never tells me where he’s goin’. Have yer tried t’pubs he usually goes to?’
‘I haven’t tried anywhere. I came straight here.’
‘D’yer know which they are?’
‘I know one or two places he likes a drink.’
‘Aye, well try them. Or he could ha’ gone to t’pictures. Spends half his time in t’pictures, our Willy does. He’ll ruin his eyesight afore he’s finished. I’ve told him so time an’ time agen.’
‘I’ll have a look around, then.’
‘Aye, you do that, lad.’ She eyes me up and down, looking at my clothes. I can tell she doesn’t remember seeing me before. ‘War it owt important yer wanted him for?’
‘Oh no. I’m a mate of his. I haven’t seen him for a bit so I thought I’d look him up.’
She nods. ‘I see. Aye, well you go an’ look in one’r two pubs. You’ll happen run across him.’
I walk off down the street and she watches me from the step. I haven’t gone far when she calls me back.
‘It’s just come to me,’ she says. ‘I believe he did say summat about havin’ a game o’ billiards. D’yer know where t’saloon is?’
I tell her yes, and I’ll try there first. Then I go off, thinking she doesn’t care a damn where Willy is as long as he isn’t hanging about under her feet. I wonder what it must be like to have a mother like that and think I’ll take mine every time, even if she does want to know a bit too much at times.
There’s a flight of wooden stairs to the billiard saloon which is on the corner of Cooperative Street across from the market place. If you’re up there on a market day you see out across all the tarpaulin roofs of the stalls to the glass roof of the covered market-house. I find Willy in his shirt-sleeves playing on one of the four tables under the big shaded light.
‘Howdo, Willy.’
‘Ah, Vic, me old cock sparrer. How ist?’
‘Pretty fair.’
Willy finishes chalking his cue and bends down to take his shot. ‘Come for a game?’ he says.
‘No, I was looking for you. I’ve been up to your house. Your mother said I might find you here.’
‘Owt special on your mind?’
‘No, I just thought I’d see what you were doing. I haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘Right enough,’ Willy says.
There’s four or five other blokes in the room and I don’t know this lad Willy’s playing with. They’re playing snooker. Willy makes his shot and sends balls clickety-clicking all over the place.
‘I’ll just show Fred here the way home an’ then we’ll adjourn for a jar, eh?’
This lad called Fred gives a guffaw. ‘Tha won’t show me t’way home wi’ shots like that, Willy,’ he says.
‘Ah,’ Willy says, dead-pan, ‘it’s not how good you are but how much fun you get out of it. I get a lot more fun than tha does, because tha plays to win an’ I don’t give a bugger either way.’
I unfasten my raincoat and light a fag and sit down to wait for the game to finish. This lad trounces Willy and Willy grins and winks at me as he puts his cue up in the rack.
‘Right, now for that jar. Are you comin’, Fred?’
I’m glad when Fred says no, he’s stopping for another game, because I want Willy on his own. We go downstairs and into the Crown next door. It’s a quiet night and we nearly have the place to ourselves. We drink for a bit and talk about one thing and the other before I get to the point.
‘Willy, when you get yourself fixed up with a bird – you know, on a sure thing – where d’you get your tackle from?’
‘Oh, ho!’ Willy says. ‘That’s it, is it?’
You have to lay it on thick for Willy so I say, ‘I’ve got a bint lined up an’ she’s all ready for it; only I don’t want to take any risks.’
‘How about letting me in on it,’ Willy says. ‘Share an’ share alike, y’know.’
‘She’s not a bag, Willy. She just likes me, that’s all. I’ve been working on it a bit now.’
‘What’s her name? Do I know her?’
‘No, she doesn’t live round here… Anyway, that’s all I need and I’m set up.’
‘Lucky dog,’ Willy says.
‘Where d’you get fixed up? Have you any on you now?’
‘S’matter o’ fact I’m right out at the moment. But you can buy ’em. just walk into a shop an’ ask for ’em.’
‘Which shop?’
‘Oh, any chemist’s. Doesn’t your barber flog ’em?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A lot of ’em do.’
‘Anyway, my barber’s a pal of the Old Feller’s.’
‘Well there’s plenty o’ places.’
‘Suppose you go into a chemist’s and a bird comes to serve you?’
‘So what? She knows what they’re for just like anybody else.’
‘I couldn’t ask a bird, Willy. I’d be embarrassed.’ I take a pull at my pint. ‘Look, Willy, if I give you the brass will you get some for me?’
‘But what’s to stop you gettin’ ’em for yourself? You’ve got to do it sometime, haven’t you?’
‘I don’t think I could do it, Willy. I’d be scared they might ask my age or something.’
‘Well, you’re old enough.’
‘Aye, but it’d be embarrassing.’
‘Aw, there’s nowt to it.’
I’m getting a bit suspicious the way Willy’s hedging and beginning to wonder how much of him is just talk.
‘Who was the first bint you ever had it with, Willy?’
‘Oh, a bint you don’t know.’
‘When was the last time?’
‘The other week.’
‘Aye, in your flipping imagination, Willy, I know.’
‘Why don’t you mind your own bloody business?’ Willy says.
I’m grinning as I reach for Willy’s empty glass. ‘C’mon, let’s have another.’
IV
‘Did you get anything… you know…?’ she says.
‘No. I went downtown on Saturday but I couldn’t bring meself to go into a shop an’ ask.’
�
�We’d better not… you know… go so far, then, had we?’
‘No, we won’t go so far.’
I push her back on to my coat and kiss her, holding her to me full length till I seem to be sinking into her, and I’m thinking what a mug I am with it here for the asking for the first time in my life and I’m letting a little thing like bashfulness stop me. And after it’s just like it always is, as though I’m finished with it and I’ll never look twice at a bint again. Only times like this, when I’m seeing things more clear than I can any other time, I feel it’s like being let out of prison must be, when you think you’ve got a clear field in front of you and all the good things to enjoy without having something else nagging at you like it is when I can’t read a book or listen to music or enjoy a picture for thinking about her and touching her and her touching me. To get really free, though, I have to get right away from her because while I’m still with her I’ve got that feeling that I’m just about the rottenest devil alive, for treating her this way. I reckon people sometimes are just like animals, just like randy dogs having a go in the street and not giving a cuss for all the traffic belting up and down round them. Only dogs have some sense: when they finish they just walk away, and people have to talk. And I don’t want to talk to Ingrid: I want to get up and walk away, free, and not have to stick around and listen to her yatter about something and nothing and say yes and no and I think this and I think the other when I don’t think anything at all except I want to get away where I can enjoy being rid of her and wanting bints at all. Only, the thing is, I’m not rid of wanting bints except in that way. There is another way, and with a real bint, the sort I’ve always wanted, it would be this way and I’d want to stay with her and talk and laugh and maybe touch her, but tender like and soft. And when I think about that it comes on in a deep ache as I wonder if I’ll ever find her.
I sit up and look round. I can see the grass sloping away to the path, and the pale line of the path and the bandstand just to be made out in the trees, and I feel suddenly so awfully lonely that I’m scared and I say the first thing that comes into my head, which is: ‘Turned a bit cold, hasn’t it?’
She’s still lying there on the coat and I wonder what’s keeping her so quiet when she usually has so much to say.
‘Like to walk a bit?’ I’ve got to be on the move. I can’t stay here any longer.
She says nothing but just lies with her face partly turned away from me.
‘You okay?’ I ask her after a bit of this and she mumbles something that I take to be ‘yes’.
‘Let’s walk a bit. I’m turning cold.’
She says something I don’t catch and I say, ‘Beg pardon.’
‘I think something’s gone wrong, Vic,’ she says.
I catch this all right, and no mistake. My heart sort of slips sideways and there’s panic like big bats flying about inside me. ‘How d’you mean “wrong”?’ I know very well what she means but I’m hoping I’m mistaken, just the same.
She says in a quiet voice that I know means she’s dead serious, ‘Something that should have happened hasn’t.’
‘How d’you mean it hasn’t happened?’ My voice is a bit rough because I can’t control it properly and it’s either that or letting her see how scared I am.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Well, how long?’
‘Ten days.’
‘Ten days… That’s nothing, is it?’
‘It is with me. I’m like clockwork usually.’
‘Not this time, anyway.’ I’m surprised the way my voice sounds now. Here I am all chewed up and panicky inside and the way it comes out you’d think I hadn’t a care in the world. ‘C’mon,’ I say, ‘let’s walk.’
‘It’s never happened before, Vic,’ she says, still not moving.
‘Look, how can anything have gone wrong? How can it?’
‘You know very well it can.’
‘Look, people try for ages before it comes off. My sister’s been trying for months and there’s not a sign yet. I’m not even sure we did it properly… I don’t have to go into all the details. You know.’
She sits up now but her head’s hanging down and she’s pulling her hanky about with her fingers. ‘All I know is I’m ten days overdue and it’s never happened before… I’m scared, Vic.’
So am I. Oh, brother, am I scared! I feel like getting up and running like mad across the park, putting as much distance between me and her as I can. As if that would do any good. But still, I’ve got to get away from her, on my own, so’s I can think this thing out without having to put a show on for her benefit. Oh, Christ, what have I got myself into!
‘You’re scared about nothing. C’mon, let’s walk.’
‘I wish I’d your confidence.’
You wouldn’t want it if you could see it, old girl, I think. ‘All you’ve got to do is stop worrying. You’re probably stopping it happening by worrying about it. It’s a vicious circle … C’mon, let’s go.’ If I have to ask her once more I’ll shout it.
She stands up and tidies her clothes. I pick my mac up and shake it and think about the number of times I’ve done the same thing just here. I don’t know when I’m well-off, that’s my trouble. There I was, happy as a lark, free as you like, and I have to go and get myself into a mess like this. And I didn’t even enjoy it really. Well never again. If this turns out all right it’s the finish. And I mean that. It’s the end.
Down at the gate I say to her, ‘Now stop worrying about it. By the time I see you again everything’ll be okay.’
‘I hope so,’ she says in a dull voice. ‘What will we do if it isn’t, though?’
God, I can’t think about that!
‘I tell you it will be, so stop worrying.’
I’ve a feeling she’d like to hang about a bit longer because she doesn’t want to go home with it on her mind. Maybe she’s scared of giving the game away. Not like me. I should go in for amateur dramatics or something. I never knew I was such a good actor.
Well I get plenty of practice the next few days. I can’t remember a worse four or five days in my life, while I’m walking about putting on the big act, pretending I haven’t a care in the world, and all the time this thing’s boiling inside me. I learn how people can hide a big load of worry if they have to, because nobody, not even the Old Lady, as much as guesses there’s anything wrong. All the time I’m wanting like mad to ring Ingrid up and hear her say it’s come right, but I daren’t for fear of hearing the opposite. I think she’ll ring me anyway when it does happen; and then again I think maybe she won’t because I might have sounded too confident about it, and why should she ring me to tell me something I knew would happen all the time? I might have to marry her. I’ve got to face it; if this doesn’t turn out right I might have to marry her. I break out in a cold sweat at the thought of it. I suppose there are places in the world where you could marry a bint who was having a kid and then call it off after. But not where I live. People do get divorced now and then, and split up, but when bods like me get married it’s nine times out of ten for life. A life sentence, and make the best of it. And anyway, I don’t like to think about marriage in terms of getting out of it. Marriage shouldn’t be like that: it should be like it is with Chris and David; like it could be with me and that girl… the right girl… But with the wrong one… Never again, I tell myself. If this works out I’ll see her just once more to explain how I feel and that’ll be the end, finis, kaput. No matter how much I might want to do otherwise.
Well, at the end of this five days, or five years to me, the phone rings in the shop and Mr Van Huyten says, ‘It’s for you, Victor. A young lady, I believe.’ My heart’s hammering as I pick the receiver up and I look round to see if anybody’s listening and take a deep breath before saying anything.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, is that you, Vic? This is Ingrid.’
‘Hello, Ingrid. How’s tricks?’
‘I’ve been waiting for you to ring me, Vic. I thought you must
be away from work or something…’
‘Oh, no, no… I’ve been a bit tied up with one thing an’ another.’ I slip my hand into my jacket and feel my heart doing the polka.
‘Vic – it hasn’t happened. It’s over a fortnight now.’
‘You’re not pulling my leg, are you?’ Like hell, she is!
‘You know I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that.’
‘Well, there’s still time, isn’t there?’
‘I suppose there’s always a chance… Look, I’ve got to see you, Vic. We’ve got to talk about it. I can’t talk over the telephone. Can I see you tonight?’
‘Well, I’m not sure about tonight…’ I haven’t a damn thing on actually, but my first instinct is to put her off.
‘Please, Vic, tonight. Don’t put me off, please. I’ve got to see you.’
She sounds to me as if she’ll go round the bend if she doesn’t talk to somebody, and better me than anybody else. You never know with these birds. Some of them tell their pals every damn thing.
‘Okay, tonight, then. Usual time and place.’
I put the receiver down and get hold of the counter with both hands. I know as sure as God made little apples that it’s not going to happen and she’s pregnant.