IT WAS a slack morning at Trinder’s, and Archie Ransome, who worked the petrol pumps, rarely had to leave his electric fire to answer the honk of waiting cars. His little cubby-hole behind the showroom was just right, he thought, with its fire and its chair and a packet of Woodbines always at hand. What more could a man want at his age? His white dustcoat, an innovation of Sid Trinder’s when petrol came off the ration, was smeared with oil, and his moustache was stained yellow with tobacco at the right side. His cap, worn low down over his eyes, had been given him twenty years ago by Mr Thompson-Crowley. Archie’s first job, aged thirteen, was stableboy at Mendleton Hall, and in seventy years he’d advanced from feeding horses to filling cars, by way of chauffering. When Mr Thompson-Crowley died, playing croquet with his granddaughter in 1937, a young barrister bought Mendleton Hall, and Archie, then sixty, had to move. With the small capital he had received from Mr Thompson-Crowley for his years of faithful service he set up a one-man taxi business in Cartersfield, moving the six miles from the village without any apparent reluctance. But the war came and put an end to that, and after the war, in which he was a mainstay of the Mason’s Arms platoon of the Home Guard, he went to Trinder’s. And there he stayed. Occasionally Sid Trinder would ask him if he didn’t want to retire.
‘Retire?’ he would say. ‘Why would I want to do that, Mr Trinder?’
And so he stayed on. He filled tanks with a scrupulous accuracy and never gave incorrect change. No one could see any reason why he shouldn’t stay on. He was one of the best-known people in Cartersfield, and Trinder’s without him became unthinkable. When Richard Dimbleby came from the BBC with Down Your Way, Archie was an obvious choice. Asked if he would like to have his life all over again, he said he didn’t think he’d want it any other way; his pet aversion was people who smoked while their cars were being filled up, he liked to go to horse shows, and he chose as his tune ‘Just A’Wearyin’ For You’ by Carrie Jacobs Bond. His wife, who was a few years younger, hobbled arthritically round their council house down by the station, and they watched television in the evenings. Sometimes their elder son and his wife, who lived a few doors down, came in and watched with them. He was a porter. Their other son had emigrated to New Zealand after the war, and wrote once a year to say how he was getting on.
Someone hooted, and he got out of his chair and went out to the pumps. It was early May, a day of bright sun and cold wind, with a few puddles from yesterday’s rain still lying in the garage’s yard.
‘How are you, Archie?’ said Jack Solomons. He stood beside his white Jaguar, hands in pockets.
‘Pretty good, thank you, Mr Solomons.’
‘Chilly today, isn’t it?’
‘The wireless says it’ll be warmer this afternoon. We’re in for a warm spell, they say.’
‘Oh, they’re always wrong,’ said Solomons.
‘I don’t know about that, Mr Solomons. They’re more often right than wrong, I’d say.’
‘Well, maybe. Give me ten gallons of the best, would you?’
‘Right you are, Mr Solomons.’
He unhooked the nozzle and started the pump. As he took off the cap of the petrol tank he said: ‘Looks like your car could do with a wash, Mr Solomons.’
‘You’re right there, Archie. Do you think they could manage that this morning?’
‘What time would you want it?’
‘Not till after lunch. There’s nothing much going on at the shop. I thought I’d take a breather and get her filled up.’
‘There’s George,’ said Archie. ‘I expect he can manage it for you, Mr Solomons. Hey, George,’ he called to another man in a white dustcoat who was walking across the yard.
‘Just a moment,’ he called back. He wrote something on a notepad, tore off the sheet and slipped it under the windscreen-wipers of a Morris 1000.
He came over to the pumps and said: ‘Good morning, Mr Solomons, can we do anything for you?’
George Nisbett was the foreman, a bustling white-haired man who’d been a sergeant in the RAF during the war, working on the maintenance of bombers.
‘You’ll think I’m lazy,’ said Solomons, ‘but I’m damned if I can be bothered to wash my own car. Can you do it for me?’
‘We can, Mr Solomons. What time would you like it? Would one o’clock be soon enough?’
‘That would be fine. My wife wants it this afternoon.’
‘Very good, Mr Solomons.’
‘And how’s Mrs Solomons?’ said Archie.
‘She’s very well, thank you.’
‘I’ll have someone bring it up to you when it’s ready, Mr Solomons. Just as soon as it’s done.’
‘Fine,’ said Solomons. ‘Charge it up, would you?’ He nodded casually to them and walked off towards the High Street, hands still in pockets.
‘Quiet morning, eh, Archie,’ said Nisbett, scribbling on his pad.
‘Suits me,’ said Archie. He put the cap back on the petrol tank, wiped his hands on a rag, then on his coat, and went back to his cubby-hole.
Nisbett got into the Jaguar, made a turn and drove through the yard to the repair shop. The mechanics were standing in a group with mugs of tea in their hands, talking.
‘Come on now, lads,’ said Nisbett. ‘Tea-break ended five minutes ago. Let’s get a move on.’
There was a general gulping of tea and stubbing of cigarettes. They all wore blue overalls of various dirtinesses. While the others moved back to work, one young man in very new overalls which were much too baggy for him began to gather up the mugs and spoons on a tray.
‘When you’ve done that, Allen,’ said Nisbett, ‘you can take Mr Solomons’ car out to the washing bay and wash it. Get it clean, mind. Don’t leave any flies on the radiator, remember. O.K.?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Allen. He was seventeen, just out of school, with brown eyes and a trace of red in the brown hairs which fell over his eyes.
‘And don’t call me “sir”, you monkey. You’ll have plenty of that when you’re called up. And don’t forget the wheels. And brush it out inside. I want you to make a really good job of it.’
Allen blushed and said: ‘I’ve never driven one of them.’
‘Here, I’ll show you. It’s just the usual shift.’ Nisbett demonstrated quickly. ‘Now, look sharp with those mugs and get on with it.’ He walked off to another part of the repair shop.
Allen took the tray through the office and into the little washroom. When he came out again the two secretaries looked up.
‘Well,’ said Joan Cartwright, ‘if it isn’t Mr Neverbeenkissed.’
‘I think he ought to be a film star, don’t you?’ said Betty Tarrant. She was blonde and twenty, given to silver nail-varnish.
‘To think of it,’ said Joan. ‘Seventeen and never been kissed. A nice-looking kid like that.’
‘What do you know about it?’ said Allen, blushing. ‘Want to try?’
‘You’ll kiss my arse, the lot of you, if you don’t get some work done,’ said Sid Trinder from an inner office.
‘Really,’ said Betty. ‘Such language. And from the boss.’
Allen went out, still blushing. He got into the Jaguar and started it, then gingerly put it in reverse. It wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought. He’d only been at Trinder’s a week and large cars still frightened him. He drove into the washing bay and took down the hose. The jet of water made a satisfactory tingling noise against the bodywork of the car.
Nisbett came in and said: ‘Good lad, you remembered to shut the windows this time.’
In his first week at Trinder’s Allen often wondered how he could possibly keep his job. He knew a fair amount about the inside of an engine, but a lot of simple things still baffled him. And he’d get very tense when given something to do, making easy jobs seem like gigantic labours. He’d forget obvious things, too. When he’d washed Brigadier Hobson’s car with the windows open Nisbett had treated him to a piece of parade-ground language that he didn’t think he could ever forget. And then there had been the time he simply could not get a car to start, and eventually one of the older mechanics had come over to see what was the matter, and he’d forgotten to switch the ignition on. Yet he knew he was perfectly capable of good work. And he wanted to do good work, too, he wanted the money.
If he had money—not very much, just a few spare pounds a week—he could take Ruth out. As he washed the car he thought about Ruth. Polishing the white car he imagined to himself that it was her white body he was stroking. He knew her arms were white, but there were a lot of white things he hadn’t yet seen, and which he didn’t know for sure were white, things he wanted very much to see and touch, things he had never seen on any woman, but which boys at school had talked about in a sniggering way, things they had boasted about seeing and touching. Allen suspected that most of them were as ignorant as himself. Not all of them, of course. There had been a girl in the fifth form who suddenly had to leave and later had a baby, and the boy, who was in Allen’s form, had to leave too, though they hadn’t married. It was odd, Allen thought, the way this boy had never joined in the sniggers and whispers of the others, had never shown any particular sign of being interested in women. And the girl hadn’t been much run after, either. Though she was pretty, all right. When he thought of what they had done together he found himself blushing again. Well, he’d learned something from that incident: never take risks. If his mother knew the way he thought about Ruth …
Ruth worked at G. H. Hudson’s, the chemist’s. She, too, was seventeen. He’d known her all his life, but never very well till they found themselves sitting next to each other in Mr Drysdale’s maths class. That was last year. He would watch her as she wrote, trying to catch her eye and hold it, but when she lifted her head it was rarely to look at Allen. She would glance at him, and sniff, but that was all. She was very quick and pert in her answers, too. But after school she would relent a little. They would go to the cinema together, and sometimes she would come and watch him playing football, but not often. Their evenings were too full of homework, and then Ruth left school. ‘I see,’ said Mr Drysdale at the beginning of the next term, ‘that the nation has lost yet another of its bright mathematical hopes to the world of commerce.’ This had annoyed Allen, though he couldn’t say why. The rest of the class had laughed, rather self-consciously, but he couldn’t see the joke. Ruth wasn’t stupid. Mr Drysdale was always making remarks that Allen couldn’t understand.
Next Easter Allen had left school, and a fortnight before he started work he’d gone to a dance at the Lord George Brunswick Memorial Hall. He stood with a group of other boys watching the band and the dancers. A group of girls stood on the opposite side of the hall. Occasionally one or other of the boys would cross the floor to ask a girl to dance with him. When he came back they would all ask him how it had been. The boy always made some disparaging remark. After a while Allen went up to Ruth. He felt very shy coming up to the group of girls, who all stopped giggling to watch him.
‘Would you like to dance?’ he said, abruptly. He meant to sound confident, but the words came out rather rudely.
‘With you?’ said Ruth. ‘Thanks, but I don’t dance with schoolboys. That’s cradle-snatching.’ She nudged the girl beside her. Both tittered.
‘I’m not a schoolboy,’ said Allen.
‘Aren’t you, now? Well, well. Quite grown up, aren’t we?’
‘Come on, Ruth,’ he said. ‘Don’t you want to dance?’
‘I’m not sure if I do,’ she said lightly. Her foot tapped to the rhythm of the band. ‘Can you dance?’
‘Of course I can,’ said Allen. ‘Anyone can dance.’
‘Well, all right. Lindy, will you hold my bag?’
The other girl took it without saying anything. Then as they moved off she called: ‘Happy landings.’
They moved round the floor once without either of them speaking. Ruth’s eyes were on the other dancers, Allen’s mostly on his feet.
‘So you can dance, Allen.’
At once he lost the step. ‘Sorry.’ They went round the floor twice more, then the number ended.
‘Thanks,’ said Allen.
‘Thank you,’ said Ruth.
They stood for a moment awkwardly, still half in the dance embrace. Then Ruth said: ‘Oh, Lindy’s waving, excuse me.’
When he returned to the boys’ group someone said: ‘Didn’t know you were hot on her, Allen.’
‘I’m not hot on anyone,’ said Allen.
‘We saw you. Holding her like that.’
‘How else do you expect me to hold a girl?’
‘I could tell you.’ There was a general snigger.
‘Well,’ said Allen, ‘what are you doing standing around, then?’
The other boy imitated the headmaster: ‘“We must learn to be patient.”’ The headmaster said it every speech day, about any and every thing. Everyone laughed, and Allen didn’t feel he had to answer.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls‚’ said the band-leader over the loudspeaker, ‘take your partners, please, for the last dance.’
This was the signal for a general mixture of groups. Allen, failing to obtain Ruth, stood and watched her dance with Bill Ponsonby, the mayor’s son. To his surprise he felt extremely jealous. What hope could he have against the mayor’s son? He left the hall quickly to avoid the national anthem, and went home.
‘Did you have a good time?’ said his mother when he came in.
‘All right. You should be in bed, Mum.’
‘You can’t expect me to sleep easy in my bed,’ she said, ‘not while you’re running round the town after some girl.’
‘What d’you mean? It’s not late, only twelve.’
‘Only twelve,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Only twelve.’
‘I don’t have nothing to get up for in the morning.’
‘You could think of your mother, sitting here alone all evening.’
‘Well, what d’you expect me to do about it? Sit here with you?’
She glared at him. Then she said: ‘All right, I know. You’re as bad as your father. You want one thing and one thing only, and till you’ve got it you won’t be satisfied. Who is she?’
‘There isn’t any “she”. I was only at the dance, Mum.’
‘You think I haven’t been to a dance in my life? I’ve been to a few, I can tell you. I know what they’re like.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, I’m going to bed. Good night, Mum.’
‘Good night, Allen. Give us a kiss.’
He kissed her, and she held him for a moment and said: ‘It’s been lonely since your father went, Allen.’
‘I know, Mum. Good night.’
He went upstairs to his room. His father had died just after Christmas, and the death was one reason why he hadn’t stayed on at school. But I can’t stay home and look after Mum for the rest of my life, he thought, as he got into bed. Hell, no. Ruth. Was it true that there wasn’t any ‘she’? How were you supposed to know whether you were in love with a girl or not? He pulled up the blanket and thought about her dancing with Bill Ponsonby. But he was soon asleep.
After that he’d seen Ruth much more often. Sometimes they met by chance, but mostly, he had to admit to himself, wasn’t by chance at all. And he didn’t really need the new toothbrush or the new razor-blades or the new comb he’d bought recently.
One morning he went into Hudson’s and bought some after-shaving lotion.
‘Oooh,’ said Ruth. ‘Who are you tidying yourself up for?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ said Allen.
Ruth wore a green smock, like all the girls at Hudson’s, with her name stitched in yellow over the pocket by her left breast. She had black hair that she wore long, brushing it back just enough to show her two green ear-rings, shamrocks.
‘Where did you get those?’ said Allen.
‘They were a present,’ she said, simply.
‘Bill Ponsonby, I dare say.’
‘Then you’d be telling yourself lies,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t accept a gift from a man. Who do you think I am?’ Her eyes shone with anger, real or pretended Allen couldn’t be sure.
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘The idea!’
‘Well, Bill’s rich. He could afford things like that.’
She looked at her finger-nails for a moment, long and painted rather too red. Then she said: ‘Bill Ponsonby wouldn’t give anything to me, and you know it.’
‘He seemed to like you at the dance last Saturday.’
‘I don’t say he doesn’t like me.’ She raised her eyes and said: ‘I’m not good enough for the likes of him, and you know it, Allen.’
‘Well, you’re good enough for me, Ruth. Come to the pictures tonight?’
‘Why, I didn’t know you cared.’
‘Cut it out, Ruth. Are you coming or not?’
‘I’ll be round about six.’
‘Don’t be late,’ she said. ‘It’s Fabian in the second feature.’
‘Fabian?’
‘You know, the one who sings “Hound Dog Man”.’
‘Him. O.K., Ruthie, I’ll see you at six.’
‘And don’t you call me Ruthie,’ she called as he went out.
When Mrs Bradshaw saw he was wearing his new suit, she sniffed and said: ‘Going courting?’
‘That’s enough of that, Mum. I’m taking Ruth to the pictures, that’s all.’
‘Ruth? Ruth who?’
‘Ruth Stevens.’
‘Oh, her. Well, she’s a nice girl. But don’t you go tying yourself down, my boy. You look around a bit. There’s a lot better than Ruth in the world.’
‘I didn’t say I was going to marry her, Mum. I said I was going to take her to the pictures.’
Mrs Bradshaw sniffed.
‘She suits me,’ he said, deliberately provoking her.
She looked at him angrily but said nothing. She poured herself another cup of tea with a steady hand. Allen got up.
‘I won’t be late, Mum. Don’t you sit up for me.’
‘I’ve got better things to do than worry about you,’ she said.
And so it had gone on for three weeks now, and though Mrs Bradshaw learned nothing from Allen, she heard from Lindy’s mother, Mrs Badham, who lived three houses down, that Lindy thought Allen and Ruth were going steady.
As he worked over the headlights, Allen thought about Ruth and how far she had let him go last time. The trouble was, it was so hard to see what you were doing in the dark. And there were all those straps. He thought again about the boy and girl at school who had had to leave. His father had said to him at the time, in a tone half of embarrassment, half of seriousness: ‘I don’t want you to get into no trouble, Allen. You can get carried away, you know, especially when you’re young. I was young once myself, you know.’ And he smiled awkwardly. ‘But I never made any mistakes, and you needn’t come to me for sympathy if you make one. That’s just bloody silly, getting caught like that. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’ And Allen had said ‘Yes’, though he wasn’t altogether certain. ‘That’s all right, then,’ said his father, and never mentioned the matter again.
Allen knew what his father meant now. He knew what he needed all right. But it wasn’t easy to see how he was going to get it. Hudson’s was the only chemist’s in Cartersfield, and Ruth worked there, and he didn’t want her to know what he was buying. He wasn’t at all sure if she would like the idea, for one thing, and for another it was a bit cold-blooded to ask the girl you were taking out to serve you with those. He wanted some, not because he had any definite plan of seduction, but because he would feel happier if he knew he had them. It was just a precaution. He didn’t want to get carried away and make a mistake.
‘Haven’t you finished yet, Allen?’ said Nisbett. He tapped on his pad with his pencil.
‘Just this minute,’ said Allen. ‘I was just giving the lights a bit of extra polishing, sir.’
‘Don’t call me “sir”,’ said Nisbett, making a mock swipe at his head with the pad. ‘Yes, yes. That looks all right.’ He opened the door and looked inside. ‘Here, you didn’t empty the ashtray.’
Allen took it from him and emptied it, wiping it clean on a rag.
‘Good,’ said Nisbett. ‘That’s a nice job you did there, Allen. Mr Solomons should be pleased. Now, I want you to take the car up to his shop. You know where it is, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Mr Nisbett.’
‘Well, it’s nearly dinner-time. You take that up to him, and I don’t want to see you back here till one o’clock. On the dot. All right?’
‘Right you are, Mr Nisbett.’
Nisbett watched critically as Allen got into the car.
‘You’ve forgotten something,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Your shoes. Are they clean? Don’t muck up a car you’ve just cleaned.’
‘They’re clean, Mr Nisbett, honest they are. Look.’
Nisbett inspected them, found them satisfactory, and waved him off with ‘Good lad’.
When he came to the pumps Allen saw Archie standing in the entrance. Instead of giving him a signal to show whether or not the road was clear he came over and said: ‘I filled ’er up this morning.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘But I never checked the oil. Or the air. Or the water. We’d better check.’ Archie was a thorough man, if you gave him time.
Allen opened the bonnet from inside and said: ‘It’s a lovely job, Archie, isn’t it?’
‘A car’s a car,’ said Archie. ‘As long as it gets you there it’s all right. Not like horses. Horses have to jump. A car can’t do that.’
‘I’d like a Jaguar.’
‘What would you want with a thing like that?’ said Archie, dipping the oil. ‘At your age?’
‘Oh, I could go up to London. I could take a girl somewhere.’
‘What’s wrong with Cartersfield?’
‘It’s a dull town,’ said Allen. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Archie. ‘There’s a dance once a week, and there’s the pictures. And there’s the canal. That’s a nice walk.’
‘I’d like to go up to London,’ said Allen. ‘See some real shows. The Palladium.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ said Archie. ‘I’ve never been to no Palladium.’
‘I’d like to take my girl up there.’
‘What do you know about girls?’ said Archie. He didn’t ask it mockingly, but as though girls were a subject of great complexity which could be understood only by long and patient study, and by the sharing of information by all researchers. Allen was grateful to him for putting it like that.
‘Not much‚’ he said, suddenly confiding. ‘You know Ruth?’
‘Ruth?’
‘Ruth Stevens—she works up at Hudson’s.’
‘Can’t say that I do. You like her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Allen. ‘How do you tell? Yes, I like her all right, I suppose.’
‘Well, make up your mind,’ said Archie. ‘Do you like her or love her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s good. Lot of rot, love. Make yourself miserable. Know what you want, and make sure you really want it, then get it. That’s the way to be happy. It’s what my father said, and it’s what I did, and what I told my kids to do, and not a one of us regretted it.’
‘How do you make sure you really want it?’ said Allen, who wasn’t sure whether the old man meant simply the sexual act or the whole terrifying business of marriage.
‘Ah,’ said Archie, ‘that’s the problem.’ He finished checking the tyres and said: ‘I thought I’d better check.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Archie. ‘All in order. Off you go now.’ Without another word he went back into his cubby-hole.
Left with the ultimate problem, Allen drove towards the High Street. He heard the church clock begin to strike twelve. That meant Ruth would be off to lunch in a moment. He knew he shouldn’t, but he drove round for a few minutes, enjoying the power of the Jaguar, then pulled up outside Hudson’s.
‘Well,’ said Ruth, ‘look what the cat brought in.’ She was getting ready to go out.
‘I thought you’d be gone for lunch.’
‘And what did you want in here when my back’s turned?’
‘Oh nothing.’ He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered round the shop. ‘Got a prescription.’
‘Well, give it here, then.’
‘Dr Nye said I had to explain to Mr Hudson.’ Allen began to blush, and to curse himself mentally for doing so.
‘Suit yourself, then,’ said Ruth. She went to the back of the shop and called: ‘Prescription, Mr Hudson.’
‘You look real smart in that uniform,’ said Allen, trying to recover himself.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s a good idea, having your name like that.’
She fingered the yellow letters above her breast in a way that made Allen feel he ought to look away, but he couldn’t. She was more than desirable.
‘Can I help you?’ Mr Hudson was a big fat man, like an athlete gone to seed. He wore bi-focals with thick black ear-pieces. He stood behind the counter, drumming with his fingers, thick and blunt with tufts of hair, on the glass counter. His masonic ring seemed bedded in flesh.
‘Oh, Mr Hudson,’ said Allen. He glanced quickly over at Ruth, but she was pretending to study her nails. He lowered his voice and asked for what he wanted. Mr Hudson gave a start, looked suspicious, glanced under his thick eyebrows at Ruth, who still wasn’t looking, and said in a very low husky voice: ‘How many?’
Allen had no idea. ‘A dozen,’ he said, hoping it sounded right.
Without raising her head, Ruth had been following the conversation, though she hadn’t heard what Allen was asking for. She knew he had lied to her when Mr Hudson went to a cupboard, slid open the door, bent down to the bottom shelf and returned with a small packet. So that’s it, she thought, her legs going weak. She leaned on the counter, trying to appear casual, though no one was watching her. So that’s it.
Allen paid Mr Hudson, whose attitude throughout had been one of discreet distaste, then came over to Ruth and said: ‘Can I take you anywhere?’
‘I didn’t know you had a car.’
‘I’m taking it to Solomons’.’
‘I can walk, thanks.’
‘Let me take you, Ruthie.’
‘No. And don’t call me that.’
‘Well, see you at six, then.’
‘I’m not sure that you will,’ she said, studying her nails.
Mr Hudson turned and left the shop with great emphasis.
‘And why not?’
‘Because I’m not sure, that’s why not.’
‘What’s all this, Ruth?’ He reached across the counter to take her hand, but she snatched it away.
‘I expect you’ve a job to do,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you get along and do it?’
‘See you at six,’ said Allen, bewildered. As he left the shop he blew her a kiss. What could have got into her?
The idea, said Ruth to herself. But she went to the window and watched as he got into the Jaguar. He roared the engine for her benefit, and drove off.
‘Well I’m damned,’ said Jack Solomons, who was walking along the opposite side of the street. ‘That’s my car. Who’s that driving it, d’you know?’
Mr Drysdale peered at the disappearing car and said: ‘I didn’t notice.’
‘What does Sid think he’s up to, letting youngsters run around in my car?’
‘Serves you right for having a car in the first place,’ said Drysdale. ‘Nothing but smoke and noise and mangling of innocent pedestrians. I loathe cars.’
They crossed the road together on the way to the Brunswick Arms. They passed the window of G. H. Hudson’s, but neither noticed the small sign at the bottom of the display which said simply: ‘Durex’.
Allen delivered the car to Solomons’ shop, then went home for dinner, feeling the package burning a hole in his pocket. His mother was in a good mood, though, and went on and on about some royal progress in Reading that had taken place the day before. After the meal Allen slipped upstairs and hid the package under a pile of shirts. Then he started back to Trinder’s.
As he approached he noticed an unusual amount of commotion going on. An ambulance was drawn up across the pumps and two men were taking out a stretcher. People were gathering not at the scene but around it, in nearby doorways, watching in silence. A sympathetic distance was being kept.
‘What’s going on?’ Allen asked Nisbett.
‘Archie had a stroke‚’ said Nisbett. He took off his cap.
‘He’s dead?’
The men carried the stretcher into the showroom, to the door of Archie’s cubby-hole. Then they put it down. One of them beckoned to Nisbett. He turned white and said to Allen: ‘You go, Allen. I can’t stand the sight of blood.’
Allen looked startled, then went in. His shoes squeaked on the composition floor of the showroom. The white coats of the ambulance men shone with an antiseptic cheerfulness in the polished sides of a new Rover 105.
‘We can’t get round,’ said one of the men. ‘Can you move that car forward a couple of feet?’
Allen took off the Rover’s hand-brake and pushed the car to the front of the showroom.
‘Thanks,’ said the man.
‘Can I help?’
The man shook his head. Through the door of the cubby-hole Allen could see Archie sitting in his chair, his head fallen forward. There was no blood. He looked all right. He often dozed like that.
‘Will he be all right?’
‘He’s dead,’ said the man.
Allen went out again and stood by Mr Nisbett.
‘Thanks,’ said Nisbett. ‘I just can’t stand it. Never could.’
‘He’s dead,’ said Allen. ‘Archie’s dead.’
Nisbett moved away quickly towards the washroom. At the same moment a telephone began to ring in the office. Joan Cartwright, who was standing beside the pumps, went to answer it. In a minute she came out again and said to Allen: ‘It’s Mr Solomons. Something about his car. You took it up to him, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I think you’d better speak to him.’
He went into the office and picked up the receiver. ‘Hallo.’
‘Is that you, Sid?’
‘No, sir, it’s me, Allen Bradshaw. Was there something wrong with the car?’
‘No, the car’s all right. But can you tell me what it was doing outside Hudson’s this morning when it was supposed to be being washed and delivered to me?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. It was me. I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘It was you, was it? Well, I do mind, I mind very much. I saw you, roaring the engine like that.’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I’d like a word with Mr Trinder, if you don’t mind.’
‘He’s busy, sir. Archie just died.’
‘What?’
‘Archie just died. He had a stroke.’
‘Oh.’ Allen could hear Solomons clearing his throat. ‘Oh. I see. I’ll call back later.’ Allen heard the line go dead. As he hung up, Trinder came into the office.
‘What was all that about?’ he said.
‘It was Mr Solomons, sir. I went by Hudson’s and he saw me. That’s all.’
‘I haven’t got time for that now,’ said Trinder. He went into his own office and began to dial a number.
When Allen came out the ambulance men were putting the stretcher with Archie on it into the back of the ambulance. The body was completely covered by a blanket, except for the feet. Two sturdy black boots pointed to heaven. The door of the ambulance shut and the men drove away.
Mr Nisbett came out of the washroom, still looking pale, and watched them go.
‘Poor old Archie,’ said someone. ‘I thought he’d go on for ever.’
People began to move away. In ten minutes work was going on as usual. Allen was assigned to the pumps, but he didn’t use Archie’s cubby-hole. From the repair-shop he could hear someone whistling, the tune echoing loud above the hammering and the testing of engines.
That evening, as they walked towards the cinema, he said to Ruth: ‘I had a near squeak today.’
‘Did you?’
‘Mr Solomons saw me with his car outside Hudson’s.’
She removed her arm from his and said: ‘What were you doing in there, I’d like to know.’
Slipping his arm round her waist he said: ‘That’s my business, isn’t it?’
‘Could be,’ she said. ‘Could be mine, too.’
‘Could be,’ he agreed.
They walked along in silence for a while, both thinking about the same thing, without either of them knowing that the other was thinking about it. Then Allen said: ‘It’s a nice evening. Would you like to walk down by the canal? We can go to the pictures any night.’
‘Now listen to me,’ said Ruth, pulling herself away from him.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t want any of your nonsense, that’s all.’
‘Archie told me something today,’ said Allen, putting his arm round her again as they turned towards the canal. ‘He said you’ve got to know what you want. Funny he should say that to me. Just before he died. I may have been the last person to see him alive.’
Awed by the thought, they held each other tighter, walking in silence to the old towpath.
‘He said he never regretted anything,’ said Allen.
‘What did he have to regret? He was pretty old, wasn’t he?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Well,’ said Ruth, with the air of one saying something profoundly new, ‘we all have to go sometime.’
‘Might as well get what you want first, though,’ said Allen.
Archie had been right to trust the wireless. It was a warm evening. The trees were just beginning to move from fluffiness to leafiness, bare branches still visible against the very pale blue sky. The day’s wind had dried the puddles. Allen and Ruth found themselves a place to sit under a beech tree in Chapman’s Wood. In front of them the canal, long stagnant, reflected nothing but clear sky, paler every minute.
‘Now stop that,’ said Ruth. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you were buying this morning.’
‘I’ve never done it,’ said Allen, happy to find himself completely unembarrassed. ‘Have you?’
‘No,’ said Ruth. She was going to add: ‘And I’m not going to tonight, either,’ but for some reason she didn’t. The words were there in her mind, but her tongue wouldn’t say them. And Allen’s arm was strong and warm around her, his lips soft against her ear.
Allen kissed her very long and slow on the mouth. His hands began to fumble under her dress.
‘Let’s move back a bit,’ Ruth whispered, ‘someone could see.’
They moved back into the woods, hand in hand, both seventeen.
Mr Drysdale, out for his evening walk, heard a boy and a girl laughing softly together. He walked on along the towpath, shaking his head, muttering, and from time to time allowing himself to smile.