Read Online All the Way Home and All the Night Through by Ted Lewis - Free Book Online Page B

bridge between me and then was only two minutes long. I felt happy and apprehensive at once. Skies sang over. September, five P.M. Everything became orchestrated. The air became cleaner to taste. Bus rides were filled with adventure. I even talked to my landlady.
    The next day was as fresh as talcum powder before clean sheets. The cold blue air was intimate and dryly sunny. You could see winter getting ready to come a little darker over the river’s horizon. The noises in the streets were physically clear through the thin autumn atmosphere. Again, it was dinnertime when I got close to her. I was wandering across the car park which flanked one side of the college. It was five minutes to class-time. I was walking diagonally across the park. Then I saw a group of students hanging about next to the tubular metal fence which cordoned off the car-park from the pavement. She was with the Karen bird. They were talking to the second-year display group. Their leader was sweet-faced Matthew, God’s gift to fifth-formers.
    I changed direction. I hauled over to the group. I climbed onto the tubular fence and decorated the top bar with my presence, squatting Glenn Ford-style, shoulders hunched and eyes wide.
    â€œNow Victor,” said Sam Finn, Matthew’s Banquo. Matthew was lazily supported by the important prop in this scene, the fence.
    â€œNow Victor,” he said. They knew what I was up to, Matthew and Sam. The others carried on chatting with Karen and Janet.
    â€œHello, men,” I said. “Had any good displays lately?”
    â€œWell, the principal caught us kissing in the common room,” said Matthew, looking at Sam.
    â€œHe didn’t say anything, though,” said Sam. “We promised him his turn tomorrow.”
    â€œHow’s the bird situation?” I said, trying not to look at Janet.
    â€œBlooming, just blooming,” said Matthew.
    I caught Janet’s eye. She was being talked at by one of the lower orders. She looked at me as though she’d never seen me before. Her expression didn’t change. She carried on with her listening but apparently not perceiving a bit.
    I carried on talking to Matthew and Sam, furiously trying to work in some dialogue for Janet’s benefit. We got on to the Steam Packet. Janet’s talking acquaintance had given over for a minute, and Matthew said to the girls:
    â€œYou two ought to come down on Fridays. It’s a good night down there.”
    I cursed him. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
    â€œOh?” said Janet.
    â€œOh, yes, I’d love to,” said Karen. “Where is it?”
    â€œWell,” said Matthew. “We usually meet in the White Horse about seven. Then we wander on down to the Steam Packet, don’t we Vic?”
    â€œYeah, that’s right.”
    â€œYou could meet us there round seven and then we could all go down together.”
    â€œYes, that would be super,” Karen bleated.
    â€œAre you all coming to the Freshers Ball on Saturday?” I asked.
    â€œOh aye,” said Sam and Matthew.
    â€œI am,” said Karen, “aren’t you, Janet?”
    Janet looked as though she had had her private thoughts in-terrupted, as though she hadn’t heard a word of the conversation.
    â€œI’m not sure. I’m meant to be going somewhere.”
    â€œOh, but you must come,” said Matthew. “All good things will be happening and the Savannah’s playing, aren’t you, Vic?”
    â€œSo true.”
    â€œThe arrangements are all made now. I might come if they happen to change.”
    Everyone began moving toward college. I slid from off the fence, and cautiously maneuvered myself next to Janet. We drifted, lazily, slow-footed. The traffic buzzed by soothing me with warm slip-streams. It took only two minutes to walk to college from where we had been standing. Today the distance stretched far away over the horizon. A lorry surged breezily past, its sound far