by Ted Lewis
The Fair began the coming Saturday. Saturday night would be the night I would ask her to go with me.
So now I had to choose the right moment to ask her. Somehow get her on her own, so that no one would notice if she refused.
I took Karen to her train after college on Monday and Tuesday, but I stopped that because the sight of Tony and Janet doing the same thing was too discouraging. I began the week seeing Karen at break-times, but as the days passed, our tête à têtes grew less frequent. Nor did I ask her out again. She began to look very bewildered.
I kept putting off asking Janet. The right moment never seemed to be at hand. She would be with Jenny, or Tony, always with someone, and if she wasn’t, I didn’t raise the strength to confront her. The week dragged on. On Thursday evening I felt the first sniffs of a cold. On Friday morning it was well settled in. By lunchtime it was rampant. And I still hadn’t asked Janet. Came Friday afternoon break. Janet and Jenny were sitting together on a couple of high stools in the common room. I joined them. Jenny and I did most of the talking. My nose kept streaming. The buzzer went for the end of break. We carried on talking. I wished, ached, writhed for Jenny to leave us. She finally made a move.
“Well, we’d better be getting back,” said Jenny, looking at Janet.
You mustn’t, I thought. Stay.
“I’ll just finish my tea,” said Janet.
“Well look, I’ll see you in the cloakroom. I’ve got to pop in there on the way.”
Jenny left us. There was no one else in the common room. Except the two of us. I blew my nose. Janet sipped at her tea and time stood quite still. Traffic passed in the street.
“I expect you’re quite settled in by now,” I said.
“Yes, the newness is beginning to wear off.”
“I expect the people aren’t as overbearing anymore.”
“They never were really. Just new.”
“I expect so. Tell me,” I said, “do you ever come into contact with that girl Angela?”
“Angela? Yes.” She smiled. “She’s rather sweet. Why do you ask?”
“Sweet? You could say that, I suppose. No, it’s just that I wondered if, well, if she’d said anything to you. You know, about me.”
“About you? No, I don’t think so. Why should she?”
“Well, you know. Well, I’ve known Angela quite a time, and she knows me, knows what I’m like, and you know Angela, she’s not exactly tactful, and, well, I wondered if she’s said anything.”
“Why should she say anything to me especially?”
“Well, take Saturday. That awful business with Hilary.”
“Yes, it was awful.”
“Well, Angela likes Hilary. She doesn’t get on all that well with me. Anything she could say about that business that would run me down, she’d say.”
“But why should she say it to me.”
“Has she said anything?”
“Not to me. Not about that. I’ve heard her talking to other girls.”
“Saying what?”
“Well. One thing I heard was that she didn’t think you were to be trusted with girls.”
“Did she? Why not?”
“I would have thought it obvious after Saturday.”
“Now why say a thing like that? It wasn’t my fault that she went off like that.”
“No. But it was clear that she had thought that you felt a lot for her or else she wouldn’t have been that way.”
“She could have got that way of her own accord. I didn’t have to make her that way.”
“No, but you weren’t very kind. You didn’t help much.”
“If I’d have gone to her I’d have made things worse. I’m sure of that. And I was with someone else. Anyway, I couldn’t help what happened.”
I didn’t like the way the conversation was turning. It was almost beyond saving. On the surface it was pleasantly said but I knew she believed her sentiments.
“Anyway,” I said, “I wish it hadn’t happened. As you say, it doesn’t show me in too good a light. I’m fed up with all this kind of business. You know, you go with a girl now and then and people build it up and build it up and suddenly you’re the worst thing since Bluebeard. And twice as nasty.”
“Why should they build a thing up if it’s not true?”
“People are like that. It’s the way they are.”
I tried to detect some glimmer of interest that would mean she was being impressed by my high-minded sentiments. That she sympathized with the difficulty of an old lag trying to go straight. But nothing showed.
“But you can’t live down a bad reputation very easily,” she said.
This is better, I thought.
“I suppose not,” I said.
There was a silence.
“Actually, my mother heard about you. She was telling me last night.”
“Who from?”
“A friend of hers. The mother of Paul Markham. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“He manages the band. What did she say?”
“She said you were a bit wild. That’s all.”
“I see. Oh, well.”
“She told my mother she liked you. She said you were charming.”
“Good old Mrs Markham. I like her, actually. She’s nice. A lot of fun.”
By this time other girls would have betrayed the knowledge that I was going to ask them out. They would have looked coy, or smiled encouragement, or their eyes would have been excited, as at any proposition from a boy. But not Janet. Her face bore no intimacy. Her whole aura was one of reservation. The gazelle-like quality of her personality would seem to start imperceptibly when a phrase in my conversation appeared to her unnatural or previously un-met. I could think of nothing more feminine than the picture she presented sitting on the high stool, her elbows resting on the counter, her chin platformed on the back of her hands. All the stuff I had been trying to lay on about my being an indolent charmer tasted sickly in my throat. But how else was I to do it? I had to make myself unique, exciting, or else what was there about me which could possibly interest her?
“What do you do in your spare time?” I asked. “Do you go out much?”
“Quite often. My parents are fairly strict, but I do what I want within reason.”
“What sort of things?”
“Oh, the usual things.”
“Do you go to many parties?”
“Some.”
“Shall you be going to the fair this year?”
“I expect so. There’s a large group from college going on Monday, isn’t there?”
“That’s right. Are you, er, going alone?”
“Yes, up to now.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said airily. “I prefer going with Harry and the boys in the band.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know really. I like them better than most of the college mob.” I sneezed. My eyes watered and sweat stood out on my forehead. I couldn’t have looked less charming if I’d tried.
“You’ve got a bad cold.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you go home?”
“Because... Nothing.”
“Oh.”
“Look—”
“Yes?”
“Oh bloody hell.” I took out my handkerchief again.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s this cold.”
“Oh.”
“What I mean is—nothing. Forget it.”
“Forget what?”
“All I was going to say.”
“What were you going to say?”
“You know what I was going to say. Anyway, we’d be
tter get back.”
I slid off my stool. She walked in front of me to the canteen door. I stretched forward and pushed it open for her. I was as awkward as a Motley. I felt wretched. My cold danced in my nostrils and hope sprinted over the horizon. We mounted the steps from the basement, and rounded the corner into the entrance hall. We were twenty minutes late for classes. The hall was deserted. I glanced upward into the great well of college. The skylight revealed the panoply of late afternoon’s early darkness. I had to do it now or not at all. Every nerve in my body stretched its full length in unison.
“Janet,” I said.
She turned, half up the steps.
“Look, you know what’s coming,” I said. I rushed into it.
“What I mean is, lord, this must sound crazy, I know, but well, I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But, this must sound strange, I mean, I hardly know you and everything, but I really would like to go out with you very much. I know you won’t believe me, not with what you’ve heard and everything, but I’m not asking you as though you were just any girl, like the rest. I mean, you know why I go out with girls, for one thing, but, what I mean is, well, I like you, what I know of you, and I really would appreciate it if you’d go out with me. To the Fair.”
She smiled at me in what I took to be an amused fashion. She didn’t say anything. I stood there like a naked fool.
“Well, there you are,” I said. “There’s no reason why you should.”
“What about Karen?” she said.
Now hold on, I thought, hold on. She hasn’t said no. Don’t move or the balance will tip with a sneeze. She hasn’t said no. She had said:
“What about Karen?”
“Karen? Oh, she doesn’t mean anything. I mean, she’s just a girl.”
“But you’re going out with her.”
“No, honestly,” I lied, “I’m not. That was all over before it started. Seriously, I’m not seeing her anymore.”
“And Hilary?”
“Look, you saw how I felt about her. I mean, you don’t have to accept. But I’d promise to be on my best behaviour. No false pretences. Honestly.”
I held up a hand and smiled. At least I hoped it was a smile.
“I don’t know.”
“Look, all I’m doing is asking you to go to the fair. Nothing much can happen there.”
“I’m not really sure.”
“How about Saturday?”
“Not Saturday. I’m meant to be going out.”
“Monday then.”
“I’ve already been asked to go on Monday.”
“Who by? Tony Jensen?” I couldn’t resist the question.
“Yes.”
Oh hell, I’m too late, I thought.
“Can’t I persuade you to go with me?”
“I’ve already told him I’d go. He’s not here today. He’s at home with a bad cold. There would be no way of telling him anyway.”
“Tell me something. Do you really want to go with him?”
“I don’t not want to go.”
“There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“I can’t.”
“But if you weren’t going with him, I mean, would you think of going with me?”
“I’m not sure. How do I know what you want? I’m not a Karen or a Hilary.”
“That’s why I want to go out with you.”
“I’ve heard too much to believe you.”
“I wish you would. I mean it.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Listen. I’ll tell you what. If Tony doesn’t come in on Monday, then will you go with me? It can’t do any harm. You’ve nothing to lose. I’ll be on my very best behaviour. I promise. I can’t say fairer than that.”
“You’re sure about Karen?”
“Positive. Ask her.”
“If Tony comes in, I’ll be going with him.”
“Then you’ll come?”
“Only if Tony doesn’t come in.”
“That’s absolutely great. Thanks, thanks very much. I really thought you wouldn’t, you know?”
She didn’t answer. We didn’t move. College was as silent as a blind man.
“I’ll have to get back,” she said.
She moved off the entrance hall steps and began climbing the marble stairway which led to the studios. I remained standing where I was. She paused a few steps up. She turned.
“Thank you for asking me,” she said. Detached, unemotional, she turned away again.
Harry and I went to the fair on Saturday. Hilary and a group of friends were standing at the end of the stall-lined avenue which led to the fair. We stopped and chatted with them. I was in the process of apologizing again to Hilary when Janet got out of a car which had drawn up a few feet away. The car drove off. Janet saw us. She took up a position outside the pub on the corner. I went over to her.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello.”
It was as if I hadn’t asked her to go out with me. She didn’t give me an inch.
“I—you mustn’t think I’m with Hilary. Harry and I just bumped into them.”
She smiled as though she didn’t believe me, as though she couldn’t have cared less either.
“Oh, I don’t,” she said. “Why should I?”
Her girlfriend from the dance rolled up.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, and “Hello” to me.
We all stood about for two seconds. The other girl looked from me to Janet. Then they walked off. I joined Harry and the others. Hilary kept close. We kept bumping into Janet and her friend all night. Faint smiles. Hilary still kept close. We stayed together all evening. Later on we held hands and I took her home.
I got to college early on Monday morning. I hung about in the entrance hall, waiting for the Horncastle students to arrive.
“Karen,” I said when she came in, “can I have a word with you?”
I took her aside from the others.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t think we ought to go out anymore.”
She looked surprised.
“Oh. Why not?”
“No reason I can tell you. I just don’t.”
There was nothing she could say to that.
“That’s it then,” she said, after a pause. She smiled in a meaning-less way. Before she could say anything else I walked away, sweating with relief.
I saw Janet at break.
“Enjoy the fair?” I asked.
“Yes, very much. Did you?”
“Not bad.”
Then I said:
“Has, er, has Tony come in?”
“No.”
“Oh?”
“He’s got a bad cold apparently. He told Karen to tell me he wouldn’t be in today.”
“So he won’t be taking you to the fair.”
“No, he won’t.”
“I see. Will I?”
“That’s what we arranged, isn’t it?”
“That’s what we arranged.”
Imagine a sensitive child waiting in dread for its first day at school. Imagine a nervous man just before making his first public address. Imagine a schoolboy on his way to the headmaster’s study. That was me during the hours preceding our arranged meeting. I saw Janet from a distance on several occasions during the day. She looked as detached as ever. And suddenly not attractive --- lovely. I couldn’t imagine any reason on earth why she should be impressed by me to even the smallest degree.
Janet approached me at break in the afternoon.
“Jenny and Alex will probably be coming along tonight. They were going on their own, but I thought they could come along with us so I asked them.�
�
“Great.”
“What time shall I meet you?”
“Seven.”
“Where?”
“At the end of the road, outside the pub.”
“You could go along with Jenny and Alex. I’ll have to go home first so I’ll join you there.”
“Okay by me.”
Nothing was going to work out, I could see.
The rain poured down on my head. Jenny, Alex and I were waiting outside the pub. It was five to seven. My bones told me that she wouldn’t come. I was being indifferent for the benefit of Jenny and Alex. The lights from the stall-lined street which led down to the fair winked limply throughout the blurring rain. Traffic swished by and people straggled past in the direction of the fair. At five past seven I went into the pub, leaving the others waiting outside. I ordered a pint. The barman slid it across the counter. I gave him the money and Alex was standing behind me.
“She’s here,” he said.
“I’ll be with you in two seconds.”
My body jettisoned its indifference. I almost choked trying to get the drink down. I went outside.
She was standing with Alex and Jenny. Her hair was done in its pony tail style. She wore a white roll-neck sweater and light blue jeans. My heart rolled over three times and I became constrictingly aware of myself.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.”
We all turned into the street and started walking toward the fair. Alex and Jenny were in front. They were getting on like burning houses.
“I’m glad you could come,” I said.
“Good,” she said. It could have meant anything.
I almost jumped out of my skin when she took my hand.
“I didn’t think you would, really,” I said.
“Oh, why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just didn’t think you would, that’s all.”
“I said I would, so here I am.”
“I’m very glad.”
We got very wet at the fair. I tried to draw her into intimacy by asking her what things in life she liked: music, films, books, all that old jazz. She refused to be drawn. I couldn’t tell whether she enjoyed it or not, but we held hands all the time. The time came for us to leave the fair. On the way back, Janet had her fortune told in a gypsy caravan.
