A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow

sticks it in his jib and lights up. He shakes his head and I know he's having one of his sorrowful mornings. Not that he ever has what you could call a cheerful morning.
    'I wish I thought it could last, Vic,' he says, and shakes his head again.
    'Last!' I say. 'Watcher talkin' about, Henry? Business is booming. You just can't meet the demand.'
    But this is Henry all over - always looking on the black side - and even inventing one if he has to. I think maybe I'd be like him if I had a fat wife and five snotty-nosed kids. I have Ingrid in the back of my mind all the time and when I think of her and look at Henry I feel sorry for him.
    'How long will it go on booming, Vic?' he says, puffing at his cig,' there's got to be a saturation point somewhere, hasn't there?'
    'Just look at records,' I say. 'You'd have thought TV would ha' killed all that; but it hasn't - just the opposite. They see a bloke on TV and run out to buy his latest record. And there's new ones coming out every month.'
    'But you don't buy a new television set every month, do you?'
    'So what? There's maintenance, isn't there? And what about cars? Yes, what about them? Look at the rate they turn them out. Where do they all go to? I don't know. You'd think everybody in the country would have two apiece by this time; but I haven't got one and you haven't.'
    'Ah,' says Henry, 'but that's a different kettle o' fish. That's a different thing altogether ...'
    I catch the gleam in his eye and see the way his hand goes up and I know all the signs. He'll be quoting statistics in a minute and once Henry starts quoting statistics you're done for, I don't don't know where he gets them all from and I sometimes think he must make them up in his sleep without knowing it.
    'I've given this a lot of thought,' he says. 'It's a sort of hobby of mine, as you know; and I've come to one or two con clusions —'
    'You'd better save 'em till dinner-time, old cock, or you'll have Mr Van on our tails for wasting time.'
    Now Henry being conscientious, he sees the sense hi this and shuts up straight away. But he sighs, and I reckon he's doing this all the time when people are stopping him having his say. He stamps Ms tab-end out and buttons his smock up and opens the cab door.
    'All right,' he says. 'But we're all living in a fool's paradise, that's all. A fool's paradise, Vic. Full employment and business booming? It just isn't feasible, lad. Don't say I didn't warn you when the crash comes.'
    'We'll go on the dole together, Henry,' I say, and grin.
    He looks back at me.' Dole?' he says.' You ask your dad about the dole, lad.'
    And with this parting shot, as they say, he shuts the door and starts the engine. A proper Job's comforter, the Old Lady would call him. I wait till he's gone off up the street and then go into the shop.
    'You'd better sell out and put your money in greengrocery, Mr Van Huyten,' I say as I pass the desk, and Mr Van lifts his big shaggy head up behind the glass and gives me a serious look.
    'Oh, and why is that, Vic?'
    'Henry says we're living in a fool's paradise.'
    'Oh, Henry says. Our backyard economist.' Mr Van laughs, opening his mouth and showing his teeth, all sticking out of the gums any-old-how like gravestones in a mouldy old churchyard where they don't bury people any more. 'What Henry doesn't know about the workings of a wireless set doesn't matter; but he's a little undependable on the financial aspects of business, I fear.' And Mr Van Huyten chuckles away as though Henry's the comic find of the year.
    I give him a minute to get over it then I ask him what I have to do.
    'Now let me see,' he says, pushing his specs up on to his fore head. 'Let me consider ...'
    Mr Van Huyten's a bloke with something about him. He says things I never hear from anybody else in real life. And he dresses the part of a distinguished old gent, in a black jacket and striped trousers and a Come-to-Jesus collar. You have to look close to see the bits of breakfast on his waistcoat