It was mid-week but he unlatched the door wearing a collar and tie, creased trousers, smart coat, and an extra polish to his glasses. ‘Are you in?’ I asked.
‘I might be,’ he said, ‘but my girl is here.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said, edging closer.
He opened wider: ‘Come in, then,’ whispering in the scullery: ‘Her name’s Claudine, and we’re going steady.’
I boggled at this, and he introduced me (as he called it: I’d never been ‘introduced’ before) in the proper way, meaning he allowed us to shake hands, which was his first and last mistake. ‘This is my girlfriend, Claudine Forks,’ he said. ‘Claudine, this is an old friend of mine, Michael Cullen.’
She sat back in an armchair by the fire, and I tried to catch her eye and give her the wink while Alfie was turning the record over on his gramophone. She had a small mouth and big breasts, and as she sat back I could see halfway up her thin legs.
There wasn’t much of a welcome for me from either her or Alfie, and I supposed that his mother was out, and that they’d expected a frolic all to themselves before she came back. I wanted to spoil their fun, if not take it over, and when Alfie went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, which he saw as the quickest way of getting me to go, I concentrated my gaze on his sweetheart, till she stood up and looked along the mantelshelf for a cigarette.
‘I’ve got some,’ I said, flashing them under her nose. ‘Make us a sandwich while you’re at it,’ I called to Alfie. Before she put the fag to her mouth I kissed her, and pulled her into my chest. She struggled, but seemed well practised at making no noise. ‘If you say owt,’ I whispered, ‘I’ll say you kissed me first.’ Her eyes were like octopus lamps at this prime mischief, so I kissed her again and pressed her so that I could feel all she’d got.
I struck a match and lit her fag, and Alfie fried under his jealousy when he saw us so close. It baffled him, but Claudine took his arm and kissed him to prove that all was well, and encouraged by this he pulled her on to his knee and kept her until the red kettle on the gas stove whistled half-time and made him ease her off and rush into the scullery.
It was my turn and I lost no time about it. I sucked her mouth and closed those heavy eyes, my leg forcing hers apart so that she breathed hard and I thought I’d got her on my hands for life, until I remembered Alfie in the kitchen, at which I put my hand down and almost into her drawers.
She hissed like a snake and pushed me away. ‘You dirty bastard!’
‘What’s going on?’ said Alfie.
‘He knows,’ she said, tight-lipped and scarlet.
‘I only asked if she’d got a sister I could be introduced to,’ I said. ‘But I know when I’m not wanted. You can keep your tea and sandwiches. I hope it gets cold and stale while you get stuck into your hearthrug pie and can’t get out. I won’t stay where I’m not welcome.’
From the scullery door I added a bit more, and Alfie hovered in a worried fashion, trying to get a word in, while his girlfriend stood with her face even tenser, as if feeling guilty already at any falsehoods I might throw into their den. ‘Another thing,’ I added, staring at Claudine so that Alfie turned pale. ‘As far as I know I’m not the only bastard in this room, and maybe not the only dirty one, either.’
‘Shurrup,’ Alfie screamed, pushing me out so hard that I turned and pushed him back half across the room. I went of my own accord, slamming the door with less force than either of them expected.
I forgot about her in the next few days, because I was hard at it trying to get a date with one of the shopgirls at work who’d caught me reading a book in the warehouse and, on seeing what it was, thought I might be interesting enough to get to know. So one Saturday morning as I was walking up Wheeler Gate in the sunshine, I saw Claudine coming down the same side of the street, and I greeted her as if we were friends from long ago.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped, stopping nevertheless. She wore a purple summer coat and thick red lipstick, dark stockings, and a hairstyle puffed high.
My wanting her came back, and the fact that this might have been because she was Alfie’s steady girlfriend didn’t bother me a bit. ‘I’ve been hoping I’d bump into you,’ I said, ‘to say I was sorry for running out on you the other night.’
‘Is that all you’re sorry about?’ she said.
‘If it comes to that,’ I answered, ‘maybe you ought to apologize to me as well, for what you called me.’
‘What did you expect, shoving your hand up my clothes like that. I just came right out with it.’
‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘P’raps next time you will.’
‘I hope so. I’m not usually a dirty beast. Only sometimes.’
‘That’s too often for me,’ she said.
‘Not according to Alfie,’ and I watched her go so red I didn’t notice the coat or lipstick any more. ‘Did I say something wrong?’ I added, as if trembling for my sinful way of talking. ‘Alfie and me are old pals, right from birth. We talk a lot to each other. It don’t mean much, duck.’
She got out a few words at last: ‘He said he’d stopped seeing you, after that night. He swore he’d never talk to you again.’
‘You know how it is,’ I said, ‘we’re old mates. It ain’t so easy for him. Maybe he meant to break it off bit by bit. Don’t think Alfie’s a liar. He’s one of the best.’
‘I’ll tell him a thing or two.’
I asked her not to: ‘It ain’t worth it if you’re going steady. Why break it up for a thing like this? Let’s go into that Lyons on Long Row for a cup of tea.’ She looked around, as if to find her mother there and ask if it would be all right. ‘Everybody talks about everybody else,’ I said, ‘but nobody thinks any the worse. I could tell you a few things that happen at the place I work at, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, so why bother?’
Over a cup of tea, she said bitterly: ‘I suppose Alfie told you everything about me?’
‘Only that you were going steady, and that that made it all right, whatever you did between you.’ I was anxious to get off this topic, because though it had served 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.
‘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.’
‘I didn’t think you were like that. You looked a bit rough the other night.’
‘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.’
‘You didn’t act very nice, either.’