Enchantment by Monica Dickens Page B

himself round to hinting at a loan, and then came right out with what it was for, Harold’s eyes came to rest on his face.
    He looked at Tim for a while and then he said, as if he were repeating a lesson, ‘
You
want
me
to loan you a couple of hundred quid?’
    â€˜That’s right.’ Tim nodded brightly. ‘Just for a very short while. I get my bonus soon.’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜You can’t always tell, with Webster’s.’ Ha, ha, well we all know what
they
are. ‘Look, I hate to ask you, Harold, but you’re – well, I do think of you as a friend.’
    â€˜That so?’ Harold dropped his cigarette end through the hole in the bowl of the ashtray. The stub must come out at the bottom of the stand. ‘I thought I’d scared you off, previous.’
    â€˜Talking about – you mean, violence?’
    â€˜Yeah. You tell the truth to some people, they think you’re psycho.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t.’ Tim saw his chance. ‘I mean – I don’t blame you for feeling like that.’
    â€˜You’d back me up?’ Harold looked at him over the huge hands that were lighting a cigarette. ‘When the day comes that I finally let ’em have it – you’ll be on my side?’
    â€˜Oh’ – Tim crossed his fingers on both sides – ‘definitely.’
    Harold gave a grunt and suddenly disappeared from view, as the back of his wide chair went down and a footrest shot out.
    â€˜I’ll pay you back, every penny, before you’ve even missed it,’ Tim babbled to the yellowing soles of Harold’s socks which were now up in the air. ‘I’ll work, I’ll moonlight, I’ll do evenings in a pub, mow lawns, clean cars. And look – not having Butter – my car for a few weeks – look what I’ll save on petrol.’
    Harold gave him two hundred pounds, in cash. He went upstairs to get it, and came down with the money in a neat, clean bundle, as if he had stolen it from a bank.
    â€˜Thanks – I mean thanks ever so.’ The money burned in Tim’s hands. Now that he had it, he almost wished he had not asked for it. ‘You’re a real friend. If there’s anything I can do for you …’
    â€˜Pay it back.’
    â€˜Oh, I will, cross my – er, my heart.’
    â€˜Ten per cent interest.’
    Tim had not thought of that. ‘Of course.’
    Could he take the money and run, or did he have to stay and talk for the look of things?
    â€˜Better get out before I throw you out,’ Harold said, pleasantly enough.
    Before Tim left, Harold produced one of his little cards and made him write out an IOU and sign it. Harold stuck the card in the frame of a picture painted on velvet of cows in blue moonlight in front of a ruined tower and a flat, reflecting lake.

Chapter Six

    When Tim sent off the money to the garage, he remembered that he should also be sending a ten pound note to Helen. He would get an envelope and a stamp from the office when Mr D. went to tea.
    Mr D. did not take his tea break. One of his favourite customers, the wife of a famous racehorse trainer, was in the department, doing up a cottage for the stable lads, and Mr D., like a porpoise by the bows of an ocean liner, would not budge from her side.
    Mrs Slade came in again. Tim liked her, and she liked him. Her husband hated the bathroom curtains, but she still came in from time to time to pick over the remnant tables or buy a bit of canvas seating. Tim gave her as much time as she wanted, while Gail thudded down another heavy roll of cloth on the table for a demanding customer, and glared at Tim.
    By the time Tim and Mrs Slade had parted, mutually pleased, over a sample swatch of quilted lawn, and Tim had cleared up and checked his cash book, he was late knocking off. He missed his bus and had to wait for another, which was full. He did not think again about Helen’s money until