by Stan Barstow
Ingrid's already back when I get home, and not in a very good mood. She hasn't been in long from the look of it: her coat's over the back of the settee and the fire, which I banked up earlier, hasn't burned up beyond a few pale cold-looking flames.
'Where've you been?'she asks me as I walk in.
'I've been home, like I said.'
'I didn't think you'd be this late,'she says, as though it's three in the morning and I've kept her out of bed.
'It's only eleven,'I tell her. 'And anyway, you never asked me what time I'd be back.'
'I just thought you'd be back before this.'
I take my coat off and start to go with it-into the passage.
'I stopped for my supper.'
'You might as well hang mine up now,'she says.
'What do you mean "now"?'I say as I turn back for it. 'You weren't going out again, were you?'
'I wanted to go back and stay with Mother tonight.'
'Why?'I say from across the passage. 'Isn't she well?'
'You know very well she's not well.'
She's sitting on the edge of the chair as I go back into the room, looking at the fire, her hands held palms together between her knees.
'I meant is she worse?'
'She's not well,'Ingrid says and I start to open my mouth, then shut it again, thinking what damn'silly conversations people have sometimes.
'If you think you ought to go, then go,'I say in a minute. 'I'll walk you back round.'
'It's too late now. She'll already have gone to bed.'
'Well, I'm sorry if I spoilt anything, but I didn't know, did I?'
'I'll have to pop round first thing in the morning, that's all, and tidy up for her and see if she wants any shopping done. You can ring the office for me and tell them I shan't be in, can't you?'
'I suppose so.'
It's a bit chilly in the room and I get down and give the fire a good poking, breaking up the coal so that the flames begin to roar up the back.
I wasn't going to disturb that,'Ingrid says.
'No good sitting shivering,'I say. 'I can bank it up again when we go to bed.'
'I shall be going in a minute.'
'I shan't be long meself.'
I sit down on the other side of the fireplace and light a fag.
'How are your mother and father?'Ingrid asks after a minute.
'As usual. They're thinking of flitting to a smaller house.'
'I suppose that one is a bit big for them now ... Did you tell them why I hadn't gone with you?'
'Yes.'
'What did they say?'
'Nothing special. Why?'
'Oh, I don't know. I sometimes think your mother hasn't much sympathy for mine.'
'What makes you think that?'
'It's just a feeling I get sometimes.'
'You know my mother never makes a lot of fuss.'
'Mmm,'she says. 'She's no need to, has she?'
'What d'you mean?'
'Well, she hasn't lost anybody and she keeps in good health.'
'I didn't mean that. Anyway, her health isn't all that good, but she doesn't grumble. And if she did lose me dad she'd square up to it. Better than some, I reckon.'
'You never know till it happens.'
'No, I suppose not.'
'She does miss him, but she's got used to it in eighteen months. It's her health that's the trouble.' 'Yes.'
'I don't like to think of her being on her own when she's not well.'
'No, it's not pleasant. Still, you're not far away. You can see her nearly every day.'
'Mmm,'she murmurs. She gives a sigh and stands up.
'You going to bed now?'
'Yes.'
'I'll just mend the fire again and lock up.'
She stands at one side of the fireplace.'Have you thought about what you're going to do when you've finished at the shop?'
'I keep thinking about it.'
'It won't be long now, will it?'
'No, I'll be out of work in a week or two, I reckon. Soon as all the books have been sorted out.'
'Well you can't count on living on that money Mr Van Huyten left you because you haven't got it yet.'
'No, and as far as I can see it could be six months before I do get it. If I get it at all.'
'You will get it eventually, won't you? There's no doubt about that, is there?'
'Well, I suppose it'll depend on whether there's so much left when all the accounts have been balanced and the debts paid. It'll be all right as far as I can see, but you never know.'
'Why don't you give Mr Hassop a ring at Whittaker's and see if he can take you back?'
I pull a face. 'No ... I dunno. It looks like engineering again, but I don't fancy going back to Whittaker's. I should be fidgety again inside a month . . . I've been thinking about that letter I had from Albert Conroy. I haven't replied to it yet, what with Mr Van Huyten going so sudden, and all the messing about since.'
'But we can't just pack up and go all that way.'
'Why not? Other people do it. We don't have to stick around here all our lives, do we?'
'I don't see why not. I like it here. All my friends are here. And besides, there's Mother to think about. I couldn't leave her now.'
'You wouldn't have to leave her straight away. Suppose I did go: it'd mean me living in digs till I saw if I like the job and found a house*'
"That'd mean me staying here on my own.'
'Well, for a bit.'
'I don't see why we have to go to all that trouble. There's plenty of engineering firms round here.'
'Look, Ingrid, things haven't worked out like we expected. I've got to go back to engineering but I just don't feel I can do it here. I fancy a change, a new place, fresh faces, a new start, and a job with prospects.'
'But all that way ...'
'God almighty, it's only two hundred miles. People are moving about to new jobs like that all the time.'
She stands thinking and looking down into the fire.
'Have you mentioned it to your mother and dad?'
'I did say I might fancy moving away.'
'What did they say?'
'What does it matter what they said?'
'I know what my mother will say.'
This brings me up on my feet, my face set as my mind's set; ready to lay the law down now before we go any further along that road.
'Now look here, Ingrid, I know your mother's not well and all that, but she's young enough and she'll get over it. This is between you and me. Nobody else. If you say you don't want to go, I want good reasons. But your reasons, not ideas your mother's put into your head.'
'I'm sure there's no need to talk like that - 'she begins.
'Ah, but there is,'I butt in. 'Plenty of need. We've had all this sort of thing before. Remember? Well this time I'm scotching it before it starts.'
'You've already made your mind up, haven't you?'she says in a minute. 'I can tell.'
'Well you're telling wrong.'
'You wouldn't be so worked up about it if you hadn't.'
'It's the principle I'm getting worked up about, not the job.'
'Well there's no need to shout.'
Maybe my voice has risen a bit. It sometimes does when I'm on the subject of Ingrid's mother.
'I'm sorry. I didn't know I was shouting.'
'You were. And I've got a headache.'
'You go on to bed. I'll be with you in a minute.'
'I'd like to get this business settled before I go. Have you made your mind up?'
'How can I have when I haven't seen the place?'
'Well what do you intend to do?'
'I'm going to write to Conroy tomorrow and tell him I'd like to go down and look it over.'
'It's no good me talking then, is it?'
'There's not much point in anybody talking till I've been and had a look.'
'There's no point in moving all that way just out of spite, either.'
'Look, don't talk so damn'silly, Ingrid. I was happy e
nough at the shop, but that's all gone now. It's my place to think about our future. What's best for us. It's my responsibility and nobody else's. And people should remember that before they start handing out advice.'
She turns away, not looking at me. 'I'm going to bed.'
'Okay, we'll talk about it another time.'
'I don't think there's any point in me talking about it again,'she throws over her shoulder, the door shutting behind her and cutting off my chance to reply.
In a minute I pick up the coal scuttle and take a swing at the fire which scatters lumps of coal all over the hearth. And then I'm down on my hands and knees, picking them all up, my cup brimming over with the joys of married life.
4
'Course, you're on a pretty good thing today,'Conroy says. 'You don't have to prove yourself - we've got to tempt you.'He hunches over the little fake rustic table, one big hand round his pint of bitter.
'Well for God's sake don't ask me how you stress a beam, Albert,'I say with a laugh, 'because I've forgotten.'
'Oh, that'll come back in no time. You know where to look for the information, anyway. The main thing is, do you really want to come back into engineering?'
'I've got no option. I need a job. I'm not carrying on as a shop assistant now Mr Van Huyten's dead, and engineering's the only other trade I know.'
'You know, I wondered if you weren't making a mistake going into that shop. I remember thinking so when I heard.'
'Oh, it's a long story, Albert. I had a pretty good relationship with old Mr Van Huyten; that was the main reason. Things didn't turn out quite like I expected, but I don't really regret it.'
The little dark-haired barmaid who's dealing with the lunches comes over to our table with a fistful of cutlery.
'Would you like to start now?'
'Er, yes,'Conroy says, glancing at his watch, 'may as well, Shirley.'
'Soup for both?'she asks as she sets out knives and forks and spoons.
Conroy looks at me and I nod.
'Yes, two soups ... You haven't been introduced to Shirley, have you, Vic? This is a friend of mine. Vic Brown, Shirley. I want you to look after him because he might be coming to work for us.'
'Is he from up there as well?'the girl asks, and Conroy laughs.
'Aye, he is that, luv, 'he says, laying on the Yorkshire.
'There'll be nobody left in Bradford if it goes on like this,'Shirley says.
Conroy's still laughing as she goes away. 'Nice kid. Thinks all Yorkshiremen come from Bradford.'
'You seem to be able to chat her up,'I say. 'Is this your local?'
'I come in quite a bit. It's a decent lunch they put on. Bowl of soup, help yourself off the cold table, piece of apple pie, and coffee to finish. Seven and six. Not that I can afford that every day. I have to use the canteen sometimes, and that's a bit rough yet. Give us another five or six years of prosperity, though, and I expect we'll have a canteen for every two people, graded according to status.'
'The rewards of industry.'
'Aye. You don't want to give a bloke more money so you soften him up by giving him a fancy title and letting him eat his dinner in a posh canteen. Me, I'll take this set-up we've got here. The boss knows everybody by his first name and there's no bull-shit or hangers-on serving their time till retiring age. It can't last, though: we've too much work coming in and we're forced to expand. I was the only designer when I first came. Now we've got Jimmy and another bloke as well; and we need another man desperate, maybe two. And it's going on in every department. In fact, there weren't any departments eighteen months ago, just a few blokes doing their jobs ... Would you like another drink?'
'No, I don't think so. Drinking at dinner-time puts me to sleep.'
'You'll have to learn to cope with it, lad. Entertaining customers, and all that. It's these places the business is done in nowadays.'
I reach for his glass. 'Let me get you filled up, anyway.'
'No, we're on the firm today. I'll put an expenses slip in later on. Have a short, if you fancy one.'
I shake my head. 'No, what's left of this pint will do me.'
Conroy gets up and fetches another pint for himself and as he comes back the soup arrives.
'Heard any good music lately?'he asks as we start.
'Not recently, no.'
'You used to frequent the old concerts, though, didn't you?'
'Yes, I used to go with Mr Van Huyten now and again. It's not in Ingrid's line, though. Do you get anything like that round here?'
'Not here in Longford. But London's only forty minutes away.
I sometimes go up to the Festival Hall. I spent a week of my holidays up there last spring. Had a proper orgy of it. Heard Klemperer do the whole cycle of Beethoven symphonies. Bloody marvellous.'
'I'm not too keen on him in all of them. I prefer Beecham in the Pastoral, for instance.'
Conroy nods. 'Yeh, maybe old Otto is a bit straight-faced in that one.'He starts to grin. 'Y'know, they did that and the Fifth in the same concert and the minute they struck up the Fifth I started thinking about old Rawly and his big culture thing.'
I smile at this, remembering Rawlinson, one of the draughtsmen at Whittaker's, with his fancy tie-clip and a pocketful of fountain pens. The sort of bloke, as Conroy once said about him, who'd go to a concert once a year and talk about it at the top of his voice on the bus next morning. But by the time he said this Conroy was giving me another side of himself that I'd never thought existed under the loud-mouthed, big-headed front he put up at the time. Now it seems to me he's mellowed a lot. He's got responsibility and he's loving it.
'I wonder what happened to him, Conroy says.'Do you know?'
'No idea. I haven't laid eyes on him since I left.'
'What about the rest of them? Do you keep in touch?'
'Afraid not. I'd no idea Jimmy was down here, for instance. The only place you might run across 'em is in some pub, and I don't go drinking much nowadays.'
Conroy's looking at me. 'No concerts, no booze ... You've settled for marriage in a big way ...'
'Well, you can't carry on as if you're single.'
'What does Ingrid think about the possibility of you coming down here?'
I hesitate, pushing my empty soup dish away. 'Well, tell you the truth, Albert, she's not all that keen at the moment. But she'll come round if she has to.'
'They don't all,'Conroy says. 'Women have deeper roots than men, y'know. Some of 'em can't bear to move out of their own backyard.'
'Well, they've bloody well got to go where the living is, haven't they? And that's all there is to it.'
This comes out with a bit of force and I see Conroy's eyes narrow ever so slightly. I'm sorry then that I've let him see so much. Not that he takes me up on it, but it's something for him to remember in future.
'You'll have to see how you fancy it yourself, first,'he says. 'Come on, let's go help ourselves.'
I follow him across to the long bar, one end of which is set out with the cold buffet: plates of ham and tongue, a big pork pie, and dishes of lettuce, tomatoes, slices of hard-boiled egg in mayonnaise, red cabbage, sliced onion, and so on.
Looking round as we eat, I can't see anything that straight away tells me I'm two hundred miles from home. Lots of pubs in the North have been slicked up in this fashion, with imitation beams, stone fireplaces, and timber that's nailed to the plaster and doesn't support a thing. And then I think to myself - what did I expect? That people two hundred miles south of Cressley would have two heads or four eyes and talk a lingo I couldn't understand?
But still, the strangeness of being here does hit me as Conroy and I sit and tuck, in without talking. Some people seem to settle down as soon as they leave school and spend the rest of their lives growing old. With other people things are always changing, or they're making them change. I'm kind of in between. I've got a strong feeling I'm going to take this job, though I know next to nothing about it yet. And it's not so much the job itself, but more as though it's a div
iding line in my life. A crossroads, if you like. A few weeks ago I'd no more idea than flying that I'd be going back into engineering. I hadn't heard of Longford; as far as I knew Conroy was on the other side of the world; the shop was my future. Then Mr Van Huyten dies and everything's changed overnight., Just like it changed when Ingrid told me she was pregnant. Only then the world closed in on me and now it could be opening out a bit.
After lunch we go out to the red Morris 1100 that Conroy picked me up at the station in (not his own car but the firm's, which is better for him because it's paid for by them, serviced at their expense, and most of the petrol is chargeable to expenses) and he drives me through the town. It doesn't seem like much of a place to me. I like a place to be either country or mucky industrial and this seems to be somewhere in between. Still, I suppose I saw the worst of it when I arrived, like you always do from a train. The main street is long and wide and straight with a lot of the new anonymous-looking supermarket and department store buildings you get in every town since the war. I notice a Woolworth's and a Marks and Spencer's and a cinema plastered with Bingo notices and, down a crossroads as we come up to a red light, a theatre. It's a dingy-looking shack with an iron fire-escape on the side wall, and I have time to register that they're doing An Inspector Calls, by J. B. Priestley, before Conroy moves forward on the amber and begins talking to me about the firm and the chap I'm going to see, whose name is Franklyn.
