Read Online As Far as You Can Go by Julian Mitchell - Free Book Online
Authors: Julian Mitchell
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unambitious and already, in the imagination, tedious copulation to follow. He pretended he was a cowboy and his Lambretta a horse, but the illusion only made traffic-lights more irritating.
Three
H ELEN GALLAGHER was a short girl and her shortness was emphasized by curly brown hair that looked, Harold sometimes thought, like a mop with a permanent wave. Her eyes were brown, too, and rather weak, but she refused to wear glasses. From time to time she made efforts to adapt herself to contact lenses but never for long enough, so that every few months she would be weepy with eye-strain for a week or two. Apart from this, she was quite pretty in rather a bossy way, her hands always busily smoothing her skirt, and her back continually straightening itself when she sat in a chair. Her legs were slim and elegant, and she wore only the sheerest of nylons, though her taste in shoes was always more sensible than smart. In summer she wore attractive sleeveless dresses that showed off firm shoulders and well-shaped arms, and which nipped in at the waist to suggest a maximum of twenty inches. She worked as a secretary in the Home Office, and was full of pieces of interesting information about crime waves, and the amount of recidivism among burglars.
Her flat was in a dingy row of houses behind the Army and Navy Stores, but inside it was cheerful and clean, with a Matisse poster and a Ben Nicholson lithograph that Harold had given her. She shared a kitchen with another girl, called Brenda Symington, who also worked at the Home Office, and their joint dinner-parties could be delicious, since they took a good deal of trouble over their cooking, Elizabeth David and Mrs Beeton between them covering a lot of gourmet territory. The only trouble with these dinner-parties, Harold thought gloomily as he rang the bell, was that Brenda’s steady was an extremely boring young accountantwho was likely to spend the whole time discussing stock movements in the mistaken belief that Harold cared about them. It was always either stock movements or sport. David Plummer spent his summers supporting Surrey and his winters Tottenham Hotspurs, and to Harold’s intense irritation these two teams seemed almost permanently successful.
Brenda answered the door, and said, “Hallo, Harold, late again.” Then she shouted up the stairs to Helen, “Yoohoo, Helen, loverboy’s here!”
Harold followed her up the stairs, wishing Helen’s bottom moved as dramatically from side to side. There was something about Helen’s bottom that made even the thought seem in distinctly bad taste. It was a good sensible bottom, with no nonsense about it. That was the trouble, really, with Helen.
“Hallo, darling,” he said, trying to sound convincing.
“Hallo, sweet,” she said.
They went into her bed-sitting-room and kissed. Her hair smelled rather nice, Harold noticed.
“Hmm. What have you done to make yourself smell so good?”
“Washed my hair,” she said. She fluffed at it, but it looked exactly the same, closely curled along her skull.
“Nice,” said Harold.
“Thank you,” said Helen. She disengaged herself from him and said, “Why are you late?”
“The traffic’s simply terrible. Friday night, you know.”
“I’d say you’d stopped for a drink at the Macaroon.”
“Well, I did, actually. Dennis was there.”
“And you knew we were having an early dinner, so as to be in time for the film.”
“I forgot.”
“Well, it was very selfish of you to forget. Now we’ll have to gobble our way through it.”
“Couldn’t we go to the late show?”
“No. You know perfectly well that David has to catch the ten o’clock.”
David had parents near Brighton, who went to bed at midnight and locked all the doors, no matter who was expected . They had six children, and had obviously simply got bored with waiting up for them. But David was loyal and dutiful, and when he went to see them always caught the ten o’clock, thus just getting home before
Three
H ELEN GALLAGHER was a short girl and her shortness was emphasized by curly brown hair that looked, Harold sometimes thought, like a mop with a permanent wave. Her eyes were brown, too, and rather weak, but she refused to wear glasses. From time to time she made efforts to adapt herself to contact lenses but never for long enough, so that every few months she would be weepy with eye-strain for a week or two. Apart from this, she was quite pretty in rather a bossy way, her hands always busily smoothing her skirt, and her back continually straightening itself when she sat in a chair. Her legs were slim and elegant, and she wore only the sheerest of nylons, though her taste in shoes was always more sensible than smart. In summer she wore attractive sleeveless dresses that showed off firm shoulders and well-shaped arms, and which nipped in at the waist to suggest a maximum of twenty inches. She worked as a secretary in the Home Office, and was full of pieces of interesting information about crime waves, and the amount of recidivism among burglars.
Her flat was in a dingy row of houses behind the Army and Navy Stores, but inside it was cheerful and clean, with a Matisse poster and a Ben Nicholson lithograph that Harold had given her. She shared a kitchen with another girl, called Brenda Symington, who also worked at the Home Office, and their joint dinner-parties could be delicious, since they took a good deal of trouble over their cooking, Elizabeth David and Mrs Beeton between them covering a lot of gourmet territory. The only trouble with these dinner-parties, Harold thought gloomily as he rang the bell, was that Brenda’s steady was an extremely boring young accountantwho was likely to spend the whole time discussing stock movements in the mistaken belief that Harold cared about them. It was always either stock movements or sport. David Plummer spent his summers supporting Surrey and his winters Tottenham Hotspurs, and to Harold’s intense irritation these two teams seemed almost permanently successful.
Brenda answered the door, and said, “Hallo, Harold, late again.” Then she shouted up the stairs to Helen, “Yoohoo, Helen, loverboy’s here!”
Harold followed her up the stairs, wishing Helen’s bottom moved as dramatically from side to side. There was something about Helen’s bottom that made even the thought seem in distinctly bad taste. It was a good sensible bottom, with no nonsense about it. That was the trouble, really, with Helen.
“Hallo, darling,” he said, trying to sound convincing.
“Hallo, sweet,” she said.
They went into her bed-sitting-room and kissed. Her hair smelled rather nice, Harold noticed.
“Hmm. What have you done to make yourself smell so good?”
“Washed my hair,” she said. She fluffed at it, but it looked exactly the same, closely curled along her skull.
“Nice,” said Harold.
“Thank you,” said Helen. She disengaged herself from him and said, “Why are you late?”
“The traffic’s simply terrible. Friday night, you know.”
“I’d say you’d stopped for a drink at the Macaroon.”
“Well, I did, actually. Dennis was there.”
“And you knew we were having an early dinner, so as to be in time for the film.”
“I forgot.”
“Well, it was very selfish of you to forget. Now we’ll have to gobble our way through it.”
“Couldn’t we go to the late show?”
“No. You know perfectly well that David has to catch the ten o’clock.”
David had parents near Brighton, who went to bed at midnight and locked all the doors, no matter who was expected . They had six children, and had obviously simply got bored with waiting up for them. But David was loyal and dutiful, and when he went to see them always caught the ten o’clock, thus just getting home before
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