A Kind of Loving Read Online Free PDF Page A

hair. No two ways about that, I've got a head of hair any man would be proud of, thick and dark with a natural wave that needs only a touch of the ringers after it's combed and glossy without a lot of cream. No doubt about my hair. And I have it cut every fortnight and never miss. Or only now and again. I could do with a couple more inches on my height. I've always had a yen for just two more inches. But still I'm not a little runt because I've got a good build - a nice deep chest that I'm not scared of showing off in swimming trunks, and square broad shoulders. And then my clothes. Now there's no denying I know how to dress. I don't pay the earth for my suits but I know where they give you the right cut and I always keep my pants pressed and my shoes clean. And if my shirt's just the least bit grubby at the collar, into the wash it goes. Ask the Old Lady. She says it's like washing for an army keeping up to me alone.
    So there I am - Victor Arthur Brown, twenty years old, one of the lads, and not very sure of himself under the cocky talk and dirty jokes and wisecracks. Take me or leave me, I'm all I've got. And what does it matter what you look like anyway? Every day you see the niftiest bints with the gloomiest-looking blokes; blokes you wouldn't think any self-respecting bird would look twice at. And what do clothes matter? At least, decent clothes, because it seems you get on best if you look a freak these days and you're always seeing wenches clinging like mad to bods in suits I wouldn't wear as far as the front gate.
    So what the hell!
    I'm as presentable as the next bloke and I don't see why Ingrid shouldn't think the same way. Only, that's what I think here in my own room; and the second I lay eyes on her I feel about as fetching as something dreamed up for a science-fiction picture.
    I pull myself out of the glass and go and have a wash hi the bathroom. Then I decide to go and borrow Jim's new tie, the blue knitted one with the horizontal stripes. There's a light showing under bis door and I find him sitting up in bed with an exercise book on bis knee and a pencil in his hand.
    I pick the tie up off the drawers.' Lend me this?'
    He mumbles something. I don't suppose he could care less. I start to put the tie on in the glass. Another glass.
    'I've never seen anybody make so much fuss over tying a tie,' he says in a minute.
    'What fuss?'
    'All that twisting and turning and threading through. Why don't you tie a knot an' have done with it?'
    "That's a Windsor knot,' I tell him. I pull it into place and smooth my collar down. 'When you tie a tie like that it makes a neat knot and it stays put.'
    'It'll be all creased up now when I want it.'
    'What do you care?'
    'Hmm,' he says, and goes back to his books.
    'It's a nice tie.'
    He says nothing.
    'Like to flog it?'
    'Eh?'
    'The tie. Would you like to sell it?'
    'I didn't buy it. Me mother bought it.'
    I look hi the glass. It really is a smart tie; too good for Jim who doesn't care about clothes anyway.' I'll give you half a crown for it.'
    'It cost a lot more than that.'
    'You didn't buy it.'
    'No, and how can I sell it when I didn't buy it?'
    'You'd like the half-crown better, though, wouldn't you?' I say, looking at him through the glass. He's always broke, Jim is, because he's always buying something or saving up to buy some thing, like guinea pigs or rabbits to keep in the shed, or stamps for his collection, or something.
    He's watching me, turning something over hi his mind. 'I'll tell you what,' he says, 'I'll let you wear it whenever you like at threepence a time. And you owe me threepence now for tonight.'
    'Why did I open my big mouth?' I fish in my pocket. 'I haven't any change, only a bob.'
    "That'll do. You'll have three more times to your credit.'
    I chuck him the bob. 'You don't want to waste your time with medicine, laddie; you want to go into business. You'll be a millionaire by the time you're thirty.' I go over to him and stick my chin out. 'Do I need a