A Start in Life Read Online Free Page A

its purpose in bringing us closer together than I’d expected, it might now shove us apart if it went on too long. I wanted to get off with Claudine, not push her into a quarrel with Alfie which might only get them back into an even cosier hugger-mugger. Nor did I want to discuss their problems as if I was her brother. If we’d been in a more private place I’d have done something as daring as I had on the first night, just to bring us back to reality, and with this in mind I touched her wrist across the table and, when this wasn’t repulsed, made a brief stroke at her knee under the table, but only for a second so that not having had time to push it away she began to wonder whether I’d done it at all. Which was all right by me because she didn’t even blush, of which I was glad because when she did it made her look angry, an expression which took away the few good looks she had.
    â€˜I’ve just been around the bookshops,’ I told her, ‘but there wasn’t much worth buying this morning. I usually call at them on Saturday. I like to get through a couple of books a week.’
    â€˜I didn’t think you were like that. You looked a bit rough the other night.’
    â€˜That’s because I wasn’t wearing my best. I didn’t expect you to be at Alfie’s. It was a very pleasant surprise.’
    â€˜You didn’t act very nice, either.’
    â€˜Don’t get back to that, Claudine. I didn’t know what I was doing. I can be polite – but not all the time. It’s all right for Alfie, because he was brought up on bread and treacle, and iodine tea.’
    She laughed: ‘Was he? He never told me that.’
    â€˜I’ve known him since we was in nappies together.’
    â€˜What happened to his father, then?’
    â€˜He was killed in the war, like mine.’
    â€˜I was beginning to think he’d never had one,’ she said. ‘I’d never go with anybody like that.’
    â€˜Why didn’t he tell you straight?’ I said, riled at having to stick up for him like this. ‘His old man was drowned off the coast of Norway. Mine was bombed in Egypt. Same thing.’
    â€˜That makes a big difference,’ she said. ‘He died for his country.’
    â€˜Lots did. It didn’t do them much good, though. Have another tea?’
    â€˜I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I’m late already. I was supposed to do some shopping.’
    â€˜It’s Sunday tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Meet me after dinner and we’ll go for a walk.’
    â€˜I’m not sure about that,’ she pouted with those dangerous red lips. When she smiled she showed her teeth, and I liked that.
    â€˜Bring Alfie if you like. We’ll all go for a walk. He might like that.’ She agreed to this when I put her on the bus, and I was in such confused and happy fettle that I went back to the bookshop and saw four titles straight away that interested me. Next day Claudine turned up alone, as I had hoped she would.
    If there’s anything better than reading books, it’s going out with a young girl. A book takes you into another world, but a girl stamps you into the soil. Or, rather, you stamp her into the soil, or try to when you’re on top of her behind some bushes and you’re dying to go on that longest journey into the sweetest night of all. One time I would plead, the next I would bully, then I’d be silent and try pressing my own way onwards like a bull, but for months I never got anywhere. We lay between the trees in Shaws Plantation, away from everyone in the summer silence. I lit a cigarette, and passed it to her, then did one for myself. She was ruffled a bit, in her wine-dark velvet dress, and was glad of the soothing smoke.
    â€˜Alfie’s had it often enough off you,’ I complained, ‘so I don’t know why you’re holding out.’
    â€˜Alfie and I are going steady, and