A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow Page B

like he says and then let me know what he thinks.
    He brings it up again the next Saturday. 'I like that idea of yours, Vic,' he says. 'How could we introduce it, do you think?'
    I'm itching to get started straight away. 'It shouldn't be hard,' I say. 'All we need's plenty of boxes, and I've got a kid's stencilling outfit at home I can do the labels with.'
    'It's the reorganization I'm thinking about, Victor. It will take time and you're only here Saturdays, our busiest time.'
    I tell him I'm willing to come in after work a couple of nights and he looks doubtful. 'If you're sure you don't mind sacrificing your spare time,' he says.
    'It'll be a pleasure. I like doing jobs like that.'
    'And I'll pay you the same rate as Saturday, then.'
    'Well, I wasn't thinking about the money, Mr Van Huyten,' I tell him, and I wasn't. I don't want him to think I'm on the make. It's the idea that counts.
    'Well you just think about it now, my boy,' he says. 'You give me your time and I pay for it. That's business.'
    Anyway, I did the labels at home and went into the shop every night one week and got the sorting done. I've got a pretty good memory for anything I'm interested in and by the time I'd finished I thought I nearly knew the stock off by heart and could say practically without checking whether we had a record in or not. The first two nights Mr Van stayed with me but on the others he left me to lock up and take the key up to his house when I'd finished. It made me feel good to have him trust me like that. I mean, I could have walked out with nearly anything and he wouldn't have known. Anyway, it started me thinking about something else - staggering the dinner hour on Saturdays so's we didn't have to shut the shop at the busiest time. We started doing this after a bit.
    Anyway, now I've finished sorting the new records and I take a look round the shop. One time the customers used to listen to records on any old gram that was handy, but now there's a couple of soundproof listening booths at one end of the shop. Even these aren't enough some Saturdays, though, and I'm thinking about something I've seen in Leeds: a kind of arrange ment of turntables and earphones so's you can listen in private right out in the shop. I wonder if Mr Van Huyten would be interested in this idea and I think I'll mention it to him some day soon.

    II

    'Hello,' she says. "I've brought my friend along. I hope you don't mind.'
    'Oh, no ... no,' I say, like a clot. But what else can I say, for Pete's sake? My heart's dropped down into my boots with a thud because I know straight off my number's up. This is one way of doing it, giving you the shove. They don't refuse the date but they bring a girl friend along to keep you at arm's length; and if you don't ask them again, well, that's okay, because that was the idea in the first place.
    I look at them standing arm-in-arm under the lamp: Ingrid all neat and clean and fresh-smelling as usual, and this plain Jane with a muddy complexion, a big nose, and a mouth like a crack in a pie. I often wonder what it is makes bints pair off like this, one lovely and one horrible. You see it all the time and it must have turned more lads against one another than nearly anything else because if you're hunting in pairs somebody's got to have the horror. As it is, it looks as if I've got both of them and neither. And if the fact that she's here isn't enough the look this girl friend's giving me says a mouthful.
    Tonight's Sunday and we were out together for the second time last night. It wasn't like the first time, though. We went to a plushy cinema in the middle of town and all we could do was hold hands. Well that wasn't bad but once we were outside again we seemed to lose all the headway we'd made, just like we did on Wednesday night. So it was my idea to go for a walk tonight and see how we'd make out outside all evening.
    And now this. This is a brush-off if ever I've seen one.
    'This is Dorothy,' Ingrid says. 'And this is