by Stan Barstow
‘You’re a feller ’at’s lookin’ for summat he won’t get rid of so quick,’ Harry says.
‘Aw, come off it,’ Willy says. ‘Science, man, science.’
‘What does a bint on a street corner know about science?’
Well they look like they’re settled here so I get up to leave them to it.
‘You’re not goin’, are you, Vic?’ Willy says. ‘Have another afore you go.’
I say no. I’m all on edge to get down to the Gala Rooms and look for Ingrid. Im not much of a drinker, anyway. Willy could keep a brewery in production but an odd one’s enough for me.
‘Anyway, I’ll see you later,’ I say, and they both say, ‘Yeh, see you later, Vic,’ and go back to their argument about the tarts in Paris.
I pop a piece of spearmint chewing gum in my mouth to clean my breath as I go down the street to the Gala Rooms. I pay my three bob admission at the desk in the entrance and go down to the cloakroom to park my coat. Some bloke with a few too many inside him is singing in one of the cubicles and the attendant keeps looking over that way as though he’s wondering if he ought to throw the bod out. I comb my hair and straighten my tie and go upstairs. When I open the big door into the hall I walk slap into a wall of attar of sweat and eau-de-kerniff that you could cut with a knife. It nearly stops me in my tracks. I stick it, though, thinking I’ll get used to it in a couple of minutes, and go in, trying not to breathe through my nose.
The place is chock full like Willy said and there’s a big crowd just inside the door. I work my way through and edge across the corner of the floor, nearly getting bowled over by a couple prancing about in a kind of private war-dance. The bloke’s wearing a bottle-green corduroy jacket, a yellow check shirt without a tie, and black pants with what look like fourteen-inch bottoms. This bint he’s doing his stuff with is a real case, all eyebrows and lipstick with a white complexion that makes her look like death warmed up, and two at the front under her black sweater that stick out like chapel hat-pegs, brassièred till it must be agony, and nearly taking this bloke’s eye out the way he’s half doubled up breathing all over her chest. They don’t like jiving and rock ‘n’ roll and whatnot at the Gala Rooms and they have notices up saying so. Sure enough, while I’m still there, the M.C. comes up and taps the cove on the shoulder and says something to him. They both give him a killing look and switch to a straightforward quickstep, Gala Rooms style.
There’s no sign of Ingrid, though I stop there about half an hour listening to the band, which isn’t bad for a semi-pro outfit. Then I decide I might spot her if I circulate a bit so I get up to dance and pick a bird who looks okay from a distance and pongs like beef gravy gone off close to. I’m glad when this is over; if there’s anything I can’t stick it’s a bird who smells. Now I go up on the balcony where I can see everything except the crowd up near the door. While I’m up there they play a slow waltz and douse the main lights till there’s only this sphere with all the mirrors on it spinning slow high up under the ceiling and sending little flecks of light flitting over everybody. I wish I was down there dancing with Ingrid and holding her close because I can get real romantic dancing a slow waltz with the lights down. But she isn’t there; I have to admit it now. And she’s not likely to be coming now at this time. I wouldn’t have come myself if I hadn’t heard she’d be here, and now I feel all empty and let down with disappointment. Maybe she’s gone to the Trocadero, I think. Or perhaps she’s just at home watching television, or in bed even. I smoke a cig and hang on till the lights go up for a last look round, hating to give it up. I see Willy and Harry down below but I’m not interested in their company tonight so I go down and get my coat and beetle off home. I have to walk because the buses have stopped running by this time.
2
I
The holidays over, it’s back to the old routine with the same old crowd on top of the bus. Most of them get buried behind their papers and they’re so quiet you’d hardly know one from the rest; but there’s one or two you might call characters. There’s the country squire type who gets on a couple of stops down the hill. He wears these thick hairy tweeds and a pepper-and-salt hat with the brim turned down all round, and a sporting gun would look more at home under his arm than the Daily Telegraph he always carries. Every time I look at this bloke’s face it reminds me of a blood orange, all red with broken veins and this great big shiny conk jutting out in the middle like something he presses into place every morning after he’s shaved. He’s a fresh-air fiend, this bloke, and all the chaps on the top deck shrink up in their seats the second they hear his brogues clatter on the steps. He always takes the same seat down the middle of the bus (unless somebody strange happens to be in it first – and whoever it is gets a dirty look for trespassing) and slams open every window in reach till the wind whistles through the top deck fit to blow your hat off. Wind, rain, sleet, snow, or even fog; it doesn’t matter what the weather is, it’s all the same to him – he lets it in through the windows. I reckon the saddest day of his life must have been when the open-air buses went out.
Bloodnok, I call this bloke after that feller in the Goon Show and I don’t think he’s so bad, really. You can stick him provided you’re well wrapped up. It’s the talkers you have to watch out for, like this little elderly cove that gets on the stop after Bloodnok and always comes and sits with me like we’re old pals or something. He has opinions on everything, this chap, and he’s such a cheerful type, which is why everybody likes him so much.
‘Well,’ he says this morning, after he’s parked himself at the side of me as usual, ‘you wait months for it and then it’s off in a couple of days.’ He has a voice with a built-in megaphone that carries all over the bus, and all the regulars get a glassy look in their eyes when he opens up.
‘Aye, that’s right,’ I say. Always agree with him, that’s the drill. Never encourage him or you’re done for.
He broddles about in his pipe a bit then lights it and puts a smoke screen up round us. He grows his own tobacco, he’s always telling people, and he’ll hold his hand out to show you this dry yellow stuff that looks like horse-shit that’s been in the sun all day. Nobody contradicts him on this because nobody can think of a brand of tobacco that stinks so foul. It’s when this bloke lights up that we’re glad of Bloodnok and his open windows. ‘I reckon we shan’t be back more than half an hour before it seems as though we’ve never been away,’ he says, sucking at his pipe, which he must have had since he was a young chap because the bowl’s all burned down at one side and the stem’s tied round with insulating tape where it’s been broken. I reckon he must be either very fond of it like, or too skinny to buy a new one. I decide it’s because he’s too skinny, because blokes who talk like him are usually tight with their money.
‘I reckon so,’ I say.
‘Don’t know why we bother with Christmas,’ he says at the top of his voice. ‘There’s no religion left in it; no real feeling. It’s just a mockery. Shopkeepers like it. It’s all right for them, they can sell all they’ve got and more besides. All it is for anybody else is guzzling and swilling and sitting round dozy-like watching television… A mockery.’
He whips his hanky out and blows his nose with a loud noise and wipes his little grey moustache. He looks in the hanky to see what he’s brought down before he puts it away again. ‘Not that I’m a churchgoer meself,’ he says. ‘Full of hypocrisy and humbug, that’s the churches today. And the parsons… all mealy-mouthed little toads enjoying an easy living where they know they won’t get sacked unless they offend somebody by preaching a sermon with a bit of honest to goodness hell-fire in it…’
‘That’s it.’
‘And this television. I wouldn’t have a set in my house. The wife’s allus on about getting one. I’ve told her, though. ‘If you’ve got enough to buy a television set,’ I said, ‘you buy one. But the day it comes into this house, I go out…’ I just don’t know what we’re coming to. It’s got the whole country. It’s riddled with it. Riddled,
from top to bottom.’
And so on, and on, and on…
But I’m all right this morning because I can shut myself off by thinking about Ingrid. I’m going to get talking to her today. I don’t know just how, but I am. We’ve been nodding to one another for a couple of years now, but it was only a month or so before Christmas that it dawned on me what a marvellous bint she really is. And been there under my nose all the time… Now I’ve reached the pitch where I’ve got to do something about it. I just have to. I’ve no idea of my chances, that’s the trouble. I don’t know whether I’m somebody special to her or just another tuppence-ha’penny draughtsman, one of thirty-odd in the firm. What I do know is I’ll never find out unless I pull my socks up and do something. And the first step is to get talking to her.
I buy my morning paper in the bus station and cross over to wait for the other bus. I’m half-way between two islands when I see her in the queue and for a second all the people round me seem to vanish and I’m out there on my own with all the queue looking at me and me thinking about her and feeling as if everything in my mind is written plain across my face for them all to see. I think I’m going to colour up and I only just make the queue in time. Of course I only thought she was looking. In fact she only glanced my way and then went on talking to Miss Price from the typing pool. Why should she notice me in particular? Who am I? just another bod from the D.O., and not one of the important ones either. I bet she never gives me two thoughts together. I bet if I left Whittaker’s this week she’d hardly notice I’d gone. Oh, it’s rotten the way you flog yourself like this: up one minute, down the next, and never knowing which is nearest the mark.
I step a bit out of line and watch her over the top of my Mirror. Ah, but she’s a smart piece! Always so neat turned out and clean as clean. I hate bints with bitten fingernails and mucky hair who smell like last week’s joint gone off and warmed up again. I could nearly throw up when I run into one of them. But Ingrid looks as if she has a bath every morning and her hair’s always soft and clean and shining, lighter brown than mine and lighter still when the sun catches it. And these skirts and blouses and jumpers she wears are always washed and ironed and fit well and show her trim little figure off a treat. I reckon her legs are just about the best thing about her; they’re a lovely shape and she wears high heels that set them off and nylons with never a ladder or a hole. I’ve never known a bint like her in all my born days and it isn’t a bit of good me mooning over her because I haven’t a chance in a million. Not a dog’s.
I lift the paper up quick because it’s just as though she knows somebody’s watching her when she turns her head and looks straight at me.
The bus trundles in and stops. The conductor nips off the platform and round to the front for a lean on the radiator and a quick drag with the driver. By the time I reach the door the top deck’s full and people are coming back down to stand inside. The usual second bus pulls in behind and most of the queue stand back to get on this. This is what I’d do usually but today I get on the first bus and stand. This way I’m all the nearer to Ingrid. She’s sitting up at the front next to the aisle with a woman I don’t know. I edge forward till I’m standing one seat behind her. The floor gives a shudder as the bus starts and I reach up and hold the bar and stand looking at her till the conductor’s voice brings me to again. Now this bloke’s well known on this run as a bit of a card. They say he’s an ex-army sergeant and everybody knows he doesn’t give a damn for anybody. You get the feeling that if the Archbishop of Canterbury got on in full rig-out he’d get the same treatment as anybody else, with maybe a bit of extra leg-pulling on the side. He’s got more neck than many a comedian at Cressley Alhambra, and that’s saying something. He gets up off the platform. ‘Nah, then, you workers, getcha fares ready, perlease! An’ look cheerful, for cryin’ out loud. Think about them ’at started at half past seven while you lot were still in bed… Yes, miss? Three-pennorth of the best? Ta!… What’s your pleasure, madam? A fourpenny one? just like the geezer give his owd woman, eh?… Yessir?’
He makes his way down the bus, giving with this horrible corny patter and I feel for some cash. I find a ha’penny in my overcoat pocket, what’s left over from a tanner after riding down into town and buying the paper. I unbutton my coat to get at my trouser pockets, and there’s nothing there. And nowhere else, either, except on the dressing-table at home. So I’m without my fare… It’s a thing that’s never happened to me before, though I’ve heard of other people doing it. If there’s nobody you can borrow from you give the conductor your name and address and pay later. But all my mates are upstairs and I can see myself explaining to this bod and him making sport of it. In front of Ingrid as well! It’s the sort of thing you think’s funny after, but not at the time. As the conductor works his way up towards me I take a quick scan of the faces. Sure enough, they’re all upstairs. I’m in foreign territory here.
There’s only two ways out of it, then. I can bluff it out with laughing boy or… or I can borrow the fare from Ingrid. But I can’t ask her for money. I hardly know her… but then again, isn’t this the best chance I’ll ever have of getting to know her? Haven’t I been wanting a chance, wondering about it all during the holidays?
Before I’ve time to think it over too much I’m leaning forward and touching her shoulder and catching the scent of her hair as she turns her head. Then she’s looking straight into my face at a distance of one foot and my knees are weak and I can’t think for a second what I’m supposed to be saying.
‘Look, I’m in a bit of a spot. I’ve left my money at home and I wondered if you… I don’t know anybody else down here, y’see.’ Then she catches on and starts opening her bag, her neck going a bit pink. ‘No,’ I say, ‘you get both fares.’ And I straighten up and watch the pink spreading over her neck to her ears and over the one cheek I can see, and I love her madder than ever. I go all weak inside with it.
At our stop I stand back and wait for her to get off. I try to give her a smile but I can feel it doesn’t amount to much.
‘Thanks for saving me life.’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’
We start off up the lane to the Works.
‘I’ll see you get it back as soon as I get some money.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’
‘I never picked it up off the dressing-table. I had sixpence in my overcoat pocket so I never noticed till I was on the other bus, y’see. One of the lads’ll help me out.’
‘Well I’m not frantic for it,’ she says. ‘It’s only threepence.’
‘No, but it’s your money and you want it back.’
‘You can pay my fare some time.’
‘Be glad to.’
Just give me the chance! And that’s only the beginning. There’s pictures and dances and theatres as well. Not to mention chocolates and nylons and bottles of scent and whatnot. She can have every penny I have. She’s only to say the word.
We’re both quiet now and I’m thinking, This is it, what I’ve been waiting for. I’m talking to her. What can I say? ‘Dear Ingrid, I’ve been mad about you for months (well, one month, anyway). How do you feel about me? Will you make me the happiest bloke in Cressley and come to the pictures with me tonight?’
‘Not a bad morning, is it?’ I say.
‘No, not bad at all, to say.’
To say what? That it’s winter, I suppose. ‘I wonder if we shall have some more snow soon.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder. It’s cold enough for it.’
And who the heck cares? I can love her in snow or sunshine. If only I knew what she thinks of me. She seems friendly enough, but that could be plain ordinary politeness and not mean a thing. I’m pleasant myself every day with people I don’t really like at all. What I want to do is give her a hint…
‘Funny, isn’t it?’
‘Hmm? What?’
There she was, miles away, thinking about something else altogether. Or may be somebody else. What then? Suppose she already has a
boy friend? Oh, Lord, I’ve never really asked myself that one. Not straight out, anyway. I’ve always skated round it. But you never know. It’s more than likely, if you think about it… how attractive she is an’ all…
‘I was just thinking we’ve worked at the same place for two or three years and we’ve never talked to one another before.’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘it is funny, isn’t it?’
So it’s funny. We’re agreed on it. We fall quiet again and I beat my brains out. Why doesn’t she say something? I hear somebody tramping up behind and I look round and see Miss Price coming up fast, striding out like a man.
‘Good morning, Mr Brown. Are you returning refreshed from your holiday?’
‘That’s right.’ Well, that’s it. I’ve had it now.
Miss Price nods and sticks her big chin out as she falls in with us. She throws the end of her long muffler back over her shoulder and plants her feet down square in step with mine. Miss Price embarrasses me. She’s too good to be true. She should be under contract to J. Arthur Rank by rights because I always think she looks as if she’s lost her way from a British comedy picture. She’s got a voice as well. Some of the staff say it’s been known to carry the length of the Works, given the wind in the right quarter of course, and I wonder what it would be like to put her and the cheerful cove together in a railway tunnel.
‘Have you had a nice Christmas, Vic?’ lngrid says, and I’m so tickled to hear her say my name that I can’t think what to say for a minute. Not Mr Brown, like Miss Price. Not Victor, even; but Vic, just like my mates.
‘Oh, so so, y’know,’ I say. ‘We had quite a time Boxing Day. My sister got married.’
‘A charming girl,’ Miss Price says, telling everybody for five hundred yards either way as well as Ingrid and me. ‘And the groom – a most pleasant and intelligent young man, so my sister tells me.’
