Laura arrived home with Edwina at eight o'clock and almost caught me asleep in front of the telly. She switched it off, looking windswept and angry. "Been asleep have you?"
     "Of course I haven't". I tried pacifying her. "Fancy a cup of tea?"

     She placed Edwina near the fire and removed the kid's topcoat and shoes. "I don't want tea or coffee. I wanted you to phone and say what Housing is doing about our home." She took off her own raincoat. Rain dribbled from it. Edwina held out her arms for me to pick her up. I did so and sat her on my lap.
 
     "I did phone you about the house. I phoned you half an hour ago and you hung up on me. I'm afraid we have to wait a few weeks for a decision."

     Laura's brown eyes gave me that piercing look that had attracted me to her in the first place.

     "Wait a few weeks!"

     "Yes, there's nothing more I can do about it."

     "And what did you do after you'd left Housing?"

     "I went back to work."

     "Oh, did you really?"

     "Yes. Old Errol Flynn Dingle had a surprise for me."

     "What was it - a raise?"

     "It's not a raise exactly. Starting next Monday, they want me to work from six in the morning until ten at night. That's five days a week for one week, plus Saturday from six until midday."

     "Christ, you'll hardly be at home if you work those hours!"

     "Can't be helped. It's a special order for a Danish customer. The money will be good though."

     She slumped on the sofa. "So, we might lose the house and soon you'll be working longer hours."

     I could tell by the set of her jaw that something was wrong. Her manner showed simmering resentment. I couldn't figure out why. She fixed me again with a stare that said she knew something I didn't know. She took Edwina from me and started undressing her. "There was a telephone call for you this afternoon."

     "Oh, who from?"

     "From a girl. Can you guess which one?"

     I had a sudden feeling of lead in my slippers and an iron band tightening round my head. Surely one of my old flames hadn't called. My attempt at a laugh came out weak. "You'll have to tell me which one."

     Laura smiled in a way I'd never seen her smile before: a cold, indifferent smile, just as if she was talking to a liar. She said, "Have you ever heard of Brenda? She phoned to say thanks for the lift. I said what lift. She said the lift you gave her from Shefton to Mayfield this morning! Mayfield's bloody miles from Cheadles - and you gave her a lift before going back to work!"

     He voice was harsh. Edwina whined slightly.

     "Don't shout - you're frightening the little 'un."

     Laura wouldn't let go. "Why do you have to lie? It would be nice to hear the truth occasionally." Her lips were a thin line. She put Edwina into bedtime clothes and sat back with her on the sofa. This was it then: another eyeball contest. "Who is this Brenda?"

     I told her. Told it exactly as it had happened. Said how Brenda had returned recently from Canada. She meant absolutely nothing to me. I was helping a friend. I couldn't understand how she had obtained our phone number.

     Laura shook her head at that. "She knew you lived on Paper Road because you told her you were going to phone me, so she looked in the phone book and found our number. I thought she had a bloody cheek phoning here when she must have known you were going back to work. Unless you told her something different."

     I had to stop this one-way traffic. "Do you remember the Cartwright family?"

     "No."

     "They used to live at Forth Park. It was Brenda's dad who slipped into a molten vat at Hampton Engineering."

     Laura winced. "Yes...I remember that. It must have been terrible - just for that one split-second."

     She didn't mention Brenda again. I made a pot of tea, happy to slip the hook.
After I had put Edwina to bed, Laura told me she was starting at Milford's in the morning.

     "As quick as that?"

     "Yes. At least the job will get me out of here." She munched a biscuit. "But if the Council give us the push I'll be out of here permanently." She selected another biscuit from a box and offered me one. "I suppose we could stay at mum's for a while."

     "That's definitely out."

     She looked somewhat pinched around the face. The strain was getting to her. "Where else could we stay? We'd have to stay with mum, even if only for a short while. I wish you'd make an effort to settle things with her. You never give her a chance. You just snap off her head every time she says something."

     Glowing fire coals settled in the grate. She switched on the telly, didn't like what was on and tuned in the radio instead. We listened to Stanley Black's Orchestra on the Light Programme. I held out my hand to her. She got up and we swayed to the music.

     "What will we do if we have to move, Alan?"

     "Don't worry about it - something will turn up."

     She leaned back to look at me. "But suppose doesn't come along? It's your favourite saying, isn't it? Something will turn up. We can't sit back and let other people decide what's best for us. We must look out for ourselves."

     "But we might not have to move, so why bother about it?"

     She left me and flounced onto the sofa. "Talking sense to you is like banging my head against a wall. No matter what's said, you always come up with a daft answer."
She drew in a deep breath. "Have you got another woman?"

     It was my turn to protest. "What the hell makes you say that?"

     "I don't know. I just have this feeling. I've had it for a while. You don't love me like you used to love me. I have to come to you for affection. You don't come to me."

     "There isn't another woman."

     "There used to be though, didn't there? You had loads of women chasing you when you came out of the army."

     "Maybe I did, but what's that got to do with me now? I'm not running about with another bird. First off, I haven't the time, and second - I'm not interested."

     She gazed into the dying fire. "Not interested? Do you know - those two words describe you exactly."

     Laura went to bed then. Without a glance, not a kiss, not a word. She just went.

     My sandwiches were unmade. I opened a tin of corned beef, scraped off the fat and cut it into hefty slices. Couldn't be bothered putting margarine on the bread, just broke the loaf into pieces and shoved some into my lunchbox.

     I couldn't be bothered, eh? Maybe Laura was right. Nothing much seemed to interest me these days. A bit of jazz; a few pints of ale; a nice bird with a bit of leg. I thought some more of what Wally Mullins had said about something extra. Maybe he was right. I could try it.

     The fire died. I went to bed when the room became cold. Laura was bang out. I thought of long hours to come at Cheadles. Of Mum Atkinson baby-sitting Edwina. Of Laura starting work again. Of being kicked out of 40 Paper Road. I drifted in and out of troubled sleep.
     Edwina cried out once. I went to comfort her and she relaxed. I made sure she had enough cover over her and returned to bed.


     Wednesday morning arrived cold with a breeze fanning in from the west. I gave myself an extra ten minutes to check the Austin's performance after Frank Vosper had worked on it. The engine growled into life. I'd never heard it sound so throaty. Good old Frank! I drove round the estate, pulled into Cheadles' yard and clocked in.
     Joe Hillian and Frank Vosper were warming their backsides by the forge's glowing furnace door.

     "How's the car, Al?" asked Frank.

     "It's fine - couldn't keep it below eighty." I smelled singeing clothing and said so.

     "I've charred my pants," said Joe, showing scorch marks to his trousers legs. "That's one of the bonuses of working in a forge - you never get frostbite."

     The machine shop dampness hit me like a wet flannel. Jacky Ballinger saw me coming, held out his arms and sang a couple of lines of 'Jezebel'. It sounded awful; he was further off key than usual. I hurried to my cabinet and put on a pair of clean overalls.
     Wally Mullins had prime position round the nearest lit stove and had his curved Roman nose stuck into this morning's local newspaper. "Take a look at this," he said, indicating an item in the advertisement columns. I read, Resident jazz band required Friday and Saturday nights, 7-30 until 10. Please apply now to Nick Lewis at the White Horse public inn, Eccles Road, Shatley, Shefton. "They'll get nobody to play there," said Wally. "It's too far out of town."

     I straightened my overalls collar. "You never know. there's a young lad in our office who plays great jazz clarinet."

     "Who's that?"
 
     "Bobby Patterson. I heard him a year or two back when he was practising with some kids at Black Road school. I told him then to get fixed up with a group in the city but he didn't bother."

     "Why didn't he?"

     "He's a quiet kid - doesn't push himself."

     Wally turned to the sports pages. "I know young Bobby. I'd never have thought he could play clarinet - he doesn't look strong enough to hold one."

     The start buzzer sounded. Old man Dingle, eyebrows lowered in threatening arcs came to his office windows and glared at us. It was his get-moving-or-else-you're-fired glare. The main belt drive engine started. The forge hammer thumped tentative blows, shaking the tin roof sheets above us. Another working day yawned. I put a finishing cut to the shaft on my lathe and borrowed Wally's paper to see who had done what to who, and why.

     At seven-thirty, Labourer Bill came round with brush, shovel and wheelbarrow to collect scattered turnings. I needed to check the Danish job with him. We called him Labourer Bill because in the late 40s there had been five 'Bills' in the main factory - that was excluding Billy Wells in the forge. When somebody yelled 'Bill' each Bill looked round to see who was calling him. This could not go on said the Union man, Teddy Rollins. This was disruption of the workforce. He called for Management consultation.

     Ted asked of Dingle, "Which Bill is which? How do we solve this problem?

     Simple, old man Dingle said. Call each Bill by the machine he works on. Everybody agreed to that - as daft as it sounded. Therefore, it became Miller Bill, Grinder Bill, Driller Bill, Shaper Bill - and Labourer Bill. Eventually, the entire 'Bills' in the machine shop left, except Labourer Bill. However, his name stuck. Not that it bothered him. He was forty, thin, sallow complexion, had long dark hair that refused to lie down no matter what he put on it. A few months back Joe Hillian had recommended Bill a glue-like substance that his son had devised in the school lab. It could hold in place the most difficult of hair and also withstand the power of a hurricane, Joe said. Bill said he would try it the following morning before coming to work. He applied it, combed his hair into satisfactory position, put on his cap, washed his hands and walked to work. When he got there he couldn't remove the cap.

     Somebody said, "It must be welded on."

     Joe Hillian suggested using a blowtorch to free it. No, Frank Vosper said, not hot enough. Shove Bill into the forge furnace, said Joe. That might help. Billy Wells cut off the offending cap, and with it, most of Bill's hair. And since that day, Labourer Bill had used a branded hair control mixture that he purchased regularly from a reputable city store.

     I had words with Bill. "I'll mark out this Danish job on Friday afternoon. Machining starts Saturday morning. You're working the same hours as me, aren't you?"

     Bill leaned on the shovel. "Yes, I'll be here when you are. Just tell me what you want me to do."

     "Will it affect your love life?"

     Bill's gaunt face hardened. "You know I don't have one. You know I'm single and I live in lodgings. It suits me. As for longer hours - that suits me too because I hate clocking out. That's because I don't know what to do when I'm not working."
     With that, he cleaned round my lathe. I watched him trundle off with a wheelbarrow full of turnings - a man with little past and not much future.

Occasionally, some days drift by without anything happening and nobody having much to say, but when Wally joined me at the break, he was rattling off pretty good.
     "Tonight's the night, Al," he said, opening his lunch box to reveal ham sandwiches loaded with mustard. "Get your best suit on tonight and give it some what for."

     "Give what some what for?"

     "The birds, Al. The birds at the Royal. They're waiting for you, man! All that crumpet and you can't be bothered to look."

     "What time are you going?"

     Wally perked up. "We'll be there about eight o'clock, but we'll have to catch the bus about seven-thirty."

     "Forget the bus, Wally. I'll give you a lift in my Rolls."

     Wally's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Bloody great! I'll go tell Terry."

     Seldom did Wally move far during his break but now his lean figure slid between machinery like a greasy wraith and I could see him talking animatedly with Terry Bonsall. Terry raised a thumb to me. May as well have a night out, I thought. It came to me right then. It was ten minutes past nine. Laura would have started work at Milford Engineering. And Edwina would be with Mum.
     Maybe Wally was on the ball, a night out might recharge my batteries. I frowned. That would mean lying to Laura. I grinned. So what? I'd done it before. And I'd do it again.

I practised excuses while driving home at six. Said them out loud but they still didn't sound convincing. That was bad. To me, lying was Art. Somebody once said if you believed your own lies then you're good. I hadn't reached that stage, yet. The house lights were out when I got home. I went through the usual procedure: down the entry, up the steps, used my key at the kitchen door, entered, light on, coat off, boots off, washed hands, entered lounge, light on.

     Letter on table against teapot.

     'Staying at mum's for tea,' it read.

     "Bloody hell!" I had to fix my own meal. I realised this could become routine. But not here - not if the Housing Department threw us out. The fire was at low ebb. I banked it up and left the grate grill open slightly and placed a fireguard on the hearth. I opened a tin of pilchards and scoffed the lot without anything else. I needed to get out quick. As much as I wanted to see Edwina, I couldn't hang around. I dashed upstairs and had a good scrub in the bathroom. Put on some first-rate stuff. Poplin shirt, cuff links, dark blue three-piece pin-stripe suit, snappy tie pin, navy socks, black shoes. I trotted downstairs.
     The telephone rang. I thought - tough luck, I've gone. It was bang on seven o'clock. I lifted my best raincoat from a hook at the bottom of the stairs and left by the front door. 
     Something rubbed against my legs. I reached down. It was Lassie, the dog from next door. Gave her ears a rub. "Hello, girl. Can't stay with you, I'm going to town."
     She was a lovely golden spaniel. Several times she had followed me to Cheadles and had been waiting outside for me when I came home at night.
     Joe Hillian had been impressed by that. "That's what you call love," he said.
     I drove off and left her sitting by our front door.

     Wally mouthed off all the way to the Royal Hotel. "There she is," he said as I pulled into the next street. "Bloody big place, ain't it?"

     He was right. Eleven years after the old Alhambra theatre had suffered a direct hit in the 1940 blitz, the site had been cleared and the Royal hotel had been built in six months.
     
     Terry Bonsall rubbed his hands together. "Can't wait to get my hands on a pint. The birds always look better when your eyesight's poor."

     The moment I applied the handbrake and turned off the engine, both he and Wally got out and waited for me to lock the car.

     "Come on, for Christ's sake," said Wally, "or there'll be no ale left."