Free Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood Page B

noise with his mouth which caused still more mirth. It embarrassed Mrs Scodger, who, red in the face, retired, muttering, whilst Alfred, trembling with emotion, passed through the open doors of the Duke of Gloucester public-house, where, leaning against the bar, Harry saw Ned Narkey, mug raised to his mouth. Phoo! The way he could guzzle beer! At half-past two he would go reeling down the street to his digs, sleep off his drunkenness in readiness for evening. Harry thought him a fool; wondered how long Ned’s army money would last at this rate. Everybody knew how he was spending it on women (he’d the nerve to invite Sal go dancing with him! Harry had heard it from Helen who had heard it of Sal herself. The impudence of Narkey, classing Sal with those women with whom he associated! It filled him with unease to think of her even speaking to him). Narkey. Harry regretted Ned’s muscularity; nobody could gainsay his striking appearance: either in his workaday apparel or his flashy week-end clothes his figure rendered him conspicuous. He’d be all right if he wasn’t so overbearing, so downright, so ostentatiously vain. He thought every girl in the place had only to see him, to fall in love with him. Although Harry did not know it his lip was curling as he stared at Ned’s broad back, so engrossed was he in telling himself how much he disliked Narkey.
    He dismissed the thought from his mind, stretched, yawned, and, seeing Larry Meath passing on the other side, rucksack on his back, cried, warmly: ‘Aye, aye, Larry,’ and grinned.
    ‘Hallo, Harry. Still like the job?’
    ‘Not half,’ Harry answered; ‘It’s great’
    Larry smiled, nodded and turned the corner.
    Bill Simmons, throwing away the end of his cigarette, spat and said, as he stared after Larry: ‘He’s a queer bloke, if y’ like. I seen him up Clifton way when I was out ferritin’ wi’ Jerry Higgs, y’ know, along cut bank. Aye, an’ there he was, large as life, lyin’ on his belly in grass watchin’ birds through them there glasses o’ his,’ curling his lip: ‘Fancy a - feller seein’ owt in watchin’ bloody birds. He’s barmy, if y’ ask me.’
    Tom Hare laughed: ‘Jus’ depends on what kind o’ birds he’s watchin’. Them as wear skirts is more i’ my line…. An’ there’s some hot ‘uns down cut bank. Maggie Elves. Ha! She’ll let y’ do owt for a tanner.’
    Harry scowled: ‘Aw … tarts agen. Blimey, don’t you e’er think about nowt else?’
    Tom winked, clapped his hands together, grinned and showed his decayed teeth: ‘Ay, Harry, lad. Y’ want t’ go out wi’ Maggie fr a night, it’d do y’ good… On’y a tanner, then y’ could call y’self a man.’ He winked again at the others, sniggered and added: ‘He knows nowt about tarts, does he?’
    Harry blushed: he hated to give the other boys the impression of his being a prude; at the same time he shrank from the thought of being in a class with Tom Hare. He protested, with warmth: ‘Aw, you wouldn’t talk like that if y’ ma heard y’. An Ah’ don’t believe y’ anyway, about this Maggie Elves. She must be a bright spark an’ hard up t’ have owt t’ do wi’ a guy like you.’
    ‘Me?’ replied Tom, not at all put out: ‘Me? Ha! Any tart’ll let y’ do what y’ want if y’ve enough money. Aye, any!’
    ‘Oh, no, they won’t,’ Harry retorted, thinking on Sal and Helen: ‘Ha, the kind as’d luk at you, might. They ain’t partic, anyway,’ impatiently: ‘Oh, but you make me sick,’ raising his brows and concluding, in tones of warning: ‘You let y’ ma hear y’ talkin’ like that. She’ll gie y’ Maggie Elves an’ cut bank.’
    Tom made a grimace: ‘Me ma, eh. They’re all same, her an th’old man. … So’re all of ‘em as is married. That’s what they get married for… . Your ma an’ pa … ‘
    ‘Shut it, Hare,’ snapped Harry, white, a threatening stare in his eyes: ‘You leave me ma and pa out of