Free A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow

you'd finished. Not like our house, dirty stone front, two storeys and an attic besides, and great big rooms. Not that it isn't cosy, because the Old Lady's good at making it that; but it needs a collier's coal supply to keep it warm and you could never call it smart. I don't know anything about Ingrid really and I wonder about her family and her father and mother and what her father's job is. I think I'm maybe a little bit timid of Ingrid's dad though I don't know why I should be because I've never seen him and I've done nothing to be ashamed of.
    'Any more at home like you?'
    'No, only little me,' and she laughs. Her lips are purple in the lights and her complexion's a kind of dirty white colour. We can't stand here all night, I think, and I wonder about kissing her again. I wonder if she expects me to. It just isn't the same out here, though.
    She clicks the latch on the gate. 'Well, I'd better be getting in. Thanks for asking me out. I've enjoyed it.'
    'I'm glad. See you tomorrow then.'
    Now - now's the time while she's still close and her face is turned up to me. She's waiting, wondering why I don't do it.
    'Yes, see you tomorrow.'
    Too late now; she's through the gate and shutting it behind her. I watch her climb the four steps then walk up the steep path to the corner of the house. She turns and lifts her hand up and I wave back.
    'Ey!'
    'What?'
    'Happy New Year!'
    She laughs. 'Thanks. The same to you.'
    I walk off, wondering what we'll be doing in a year's time, if we'll still be seeing one another. Maybe I did right not to kiss her. Perhaps it'll have given her a better opinion of me. Roll on Saturday night. After a bit I break into a trot because I've a lot too much to think about for walking.

    CHAPTER 3

    I

    Saturday morning and I'm down snug as a bug under the bedclothes and it seems like I'm dreaming somebody's calling my name. I come out of sleep with a jerk and hear the Old Lady at the bottom of the stairs, bawling fit to wake the street.
    'Victor! Victor! How many more times?'
    I open my eyes. 'Righto, I'm up." I look at the wallpaper two feet from my nose. The Old Lady's choice it is: roses as big as cabbages with trellising on a grey ground. There's flowers on the window as well - frost flowers - and when I put my hand out I can feel how cold it is in the room. Just for a few seconds, as I'm lying there, it's any Saturday morning, with me going to help Mr Van Huyten in his shop. And then I remember what makes today special and the happy feeling opens up inside me like a big yellow flower, all bright and sunny and warm.
    I reach out for my watch and see it's two minutes past eight and I'm going to have to look slippy, or else. I chuck the clothes back and swing my legs out and bring them back sharpish when my feet miss the mat and touch the lino, which feels cold enough to fetch the skin off. I hang down over the side of the bed and grabble for my socks. I put them on and then my slippers. I get out of bed and then I have to take the slippers off again so's I can get my pyjama pants off. My britches feel as if they could stand up on their own; no losing the creases this weather. I'm nipping across to the bathroom when the Old Lady comes to the bottom of the stairs again and opens her mouth for another rallentando. It cuts off as though somebody's throttled her when she sees me.
    "Bout time, an' all,' she says, and goes back down the passage to the kitchen.
    I'm out in a couple of ticks and half-way down the stairs before I remember I won't have another chance for a shave before I meet Ingrid. I nip back and lather up and cut myself five times and bleed like a stuck pig. I meet young Jim on the landing and he eyes the bits of toilet paper stuck all over my jib. 'You'll have to get your knife and fork sharpened,' he says. 'Get lost,' I tell him as I patter downstairs. I'm in a bad enough mood as it is now thinking about meeting Ingrid with blobs of dried blood all over my face.
    It nearly makes my guts heave