Patrick Parker's Progress Read online

  To Audrey he wrote, ‘I am staying at the YMCA up here, checking up on Isambard at Balmoral. More anon. And it made me think of you and our trips to Bristol and the Tamar. Will you come for a walk when I get back? This is my address. You can drop me a card.' He signed it 'Yours with best wishes, Patrick.' And added two Xs. Might as well get right stuck in, he thought. And put in a third.

  On his return, and finding her card, he downed two glasses of cider in about as many minutes, asked his landlady if he could use her telephone, and then he rang Audrey. He told her that he would like to meet up and she told him that she had missed him. There was a pause. He wanted to say that he had missed her, but it was not the truth. So instead he told her that he was really looking forward to seeing her again, which he was. All of her.

  'You sound just the same,' he said.

  'You don't’ she giggled; he had forgotten that she could giggle so irritatingly. 'You sound like you've swallowed a silver teaspoon.' 'It's London’ he said. 'It just happened.'

  That was not the truth either. But he'd be damned if he was going to tell Audrey how hard he had worked at it. How closely he had observed Henry Galton, listened to his intonations, the terminology.

  ‘I like it’ she said. 'I'll be at the college gates on Friday.' And then she was gone.

  He sat down afterwards and took some deep breaths. He was pleased, and he was nervous. He reverted to calling her Little Audrey in his mind by way of keeping her in her place. Big College, Little Audrey, he thought. But when she finally arrived, long dark hair blowing about her face, little fur collar pulled up against the sharp autumn air, and that bright, happy smile, he saw that she was hardly that. If anything she was taller than him, though he was more than medium height, and she was as rounded and buxom and dark as he was slender, elegant and fair. He stared at her. Big College went out of the window. He could think of nothing else but the rosy prospect ahead. They stood facing each other on the college steps, and Patrick held out his hand. Audrey shook it. Two girls looked on enviously. Audrey, aware of them as one who is in love will be aware of rivals, decided to act. She leaned forward and brushed her lips against Patrick's cheek. The skin so cared for by his mother rewarded her efforts - it glowed in its freshness and was soft to the touch. He barely shaved. Audrey, as her cheek brushed his, said 'Oh.' 'Oh, what?' he asked, stepping back.

  'Oh nothing -' she laughed. 'It's just that my last boyfriend had a beard.' She made that up but what the hell. It didn't do to tell him that the kiss made her stomach turn over with desire. Or to let him think he was the only fish in the sea. Which, in reality - because as soon as she saw him again, she knew - he was.

  Patrick felt a little spike somewhere around his ribs. As usual his face was open to be read. Audrey was quietly contented. He was jealous. 'But I don't see him any more,' she added firmly.

  'Good,' said Patrick. What he was thinking, with anxiety, was that she had probably done it - with this bearded loon - and he hadn't done it with anyone. Supposing he wasn't any good? He had been reading Lawrence lately (everyone at college was) - the first full text of Lady Chatterley - and he drew no comfort from it, none at all; somehow every time he imagined himself with a compliant Constance, his mother barged in. He looked at Audrey. You just could not tell. Lawrence also said that if a woman did not have a touch of the harlot in her she was a dry old stick - and you couldn't tell by looking at Audrey if that was true, either.

  'Shall we go then?' she asked, happily.

  And off they set, walking close together but not yet daring to link arms or hold hands.

  In his pocket was a bag of honey and oat biscuits - his favourites -baked by his mother. The bag crackled. There was a little horseplay as Audrey tried to investigate what made the noise. It was exciting and silly and intimate to have a girl putting her hand in your pocket. In the end she brought out the bag and peered into it.

  'Mum's biscuits,' he said, feeling slightly ashamed. The last thing he wanted to mention at this point was his mother.

  'Like your oats, then?' said Audrey mischievously (truth was she had no idea exactly why oats were rude, only that they were). Patrick felt himself going hot. This was more like it.

  'Are you still seeing that lad who worked on the trains? William?' he asked. He was dying to ask straight out - if they had Done It.

  'Oh no,' she said. 'He gave up being a steward and went into the Army. I think he liked uniforms.'

  She wasn't going to say that she got bored with the kissing and that they never got past the hand-in-the-side-placket stage.

  'Miss him?'

  She shrugged. 'Plenty more fish in the sea.' She smiled at him, quite invitingly. Beneath her coat she wore something bright yellow and full-skirted and her legs made shushing noises from their nylons.

  'And you?' she said.

  'No time for girls.'

  'Oh.'

  'Much.'

  He offered her the greaseproof bag. 'Have one?' She took one and nibbled it and said, ‘I expect they'd be nice with a cup of tea.'

  'Well - let's do that next time,' he said, taking a deep breath and thinking Now or Never. 'Next time we'll have tea at my digs. I'll square it with the landlady and let you know when.'

  It was then that Audrey decided the rekindling of their friendship was serious. Thank you, God, she said to herself, thank you. Patrick was perfect - and Audrey, though she had told no one, was extremely bored with being stuck at the virginal stage. She wanted to know. Not at first, of course. She did not want to appear easy. But eventually she would, as they said in films, Give Herself To Him. She loved him. She knew it. None of her boyfriends had made her happy. She knew more than they did. Only Patrick walked like a god and could tell her things. In the week between his telephoning her and their meeting up, whenever she heard Doris Day singing 'Secret Love' she always burst into tears. Proof.

  Patrick was also considering being stuck at the virginal stage. As they tramped the damp London streets he didn't think he would ever get out of it either. Not at this rate. And it was such a liability - men were not supposed to be inexperienced; of course girls were - which did not quite add up and was best not thought about. He hoped Audrey would be a pushover. From the way his mother hinted at the twin evils, sex and girls lurked on every corner, in every situation, and both were just dying to grab their chance with him. Audrey in particular, according to Florence. According to Florence, all he had to do was whistle. Maybe. He still wasn't sure. As they walked, Audrey dared to take his hand. It was his turn to say 'Oh.'

  A week or so later, with the landlady's permission, he took Audrey up to his digs. While he went along the landing to fill the kettle and wash the cups, she took a good look at the scattered letters from Florence, wondering if they mentioned her. But all she found were scathing references to George and motherly affection for Patrick. One particular letter caught her eye. Florence asked, Was he really sure he wanted to keep that old bike of his in the shed? The saddlebag was rotten and half falling off and needed a good clear-out - it was full of junk and probably ought to be thrown away... At which Audrey suddenly remembered their illicit sweets and the sad-faced shop owner.

  'Did you ever give your dad that note and toffee from that woman down Chapel Street?' she asked later.

  'What woman down Chapel Street?' he replied, his mouth full of biscuit.

  Whenever they went out, Audrey encouraged Patrick to talk about himself. It caused him no difficulty. He talked and talked and she listened and listened, for she had little to say of her own that was worthy. Audrey herself worked at the telephone exchange up at Whitehall and, though it was considered a very good job, it was obviously not as fascinating as creating things like roads and tunnels and bridges and roofs and having posters on your wall with incomprehensible-sounding names such as Moholy-Nagy and images of ancient aqueducts and viaducts and siege machines. She reminded herself that she needed to know about such things if she was to keep Patrick happy.

  He took her to the British Museum and
showed her some drawings of a flying machine by Leonardo da Vinci and said it was over five hundred years old. For once she did not have to invent reverential rapture. 'But that's amazing,' she said. 'All those years ago. Weren't they still chopping off queens' heads then?'

  'What on earth has that got to do with anything?' he asked irritably. She sometimes did this, came at something from a whole new perspective. He always felt ruffled when it happened. For her part, Audrey could not quite say what she meant by it but she felt that there was something relevant in there somewhere. Just that Patrick was in one world and she was in another.

  He took her to Hungerford Bridge (which she thought was remarkably ugly) and they stood staring at the cars below while trains whizzed past to the left of them, shrouding them in grit and the cloying smell of burning oil.

  'Opened to the public in eighteen-forty-five,' he said. 'Crossing the Thames in the very middle of London.'

  'Lovely,' she said.

  'Yes - but only a footbridge. Brunel only condescended to create it. He knew he was worthy of something finer, bigger, more impressive . . .'

  'I should think the people who used it couldn't have cared less whether it was bigger and grander,' she said, without thinking. "They just wanted to get to the other side.'

  'Oh, Audrey’ he said, shaking his head. He wagged his finger at her and she had a terrible urge to bite it. 'If building was merely a question of basic form kneeling to function, we'd still be living in the dark ages and making bridges with reeds.'

  She nodded meekly. She would have liked to know about bridges made of reeds, which sounded very curious and quite impossible -but she knew better. The warrior's blood was up.

  'Listen, Audrey.'

  She gave him a Bambi blink to signify that she was all his. , 'Brunel was a great engineer and an even greater designer - and probably the most resourceful builder of bridges the world has seen. Therefore, to say the people "just wanted to get to the other side" is -well - rubbish really'

  'Sorry’ she said.

  He remembered that he was supposed to be softening her up. 'That's all right’ he said, kindly.

  They visited the outside of the Great Man's London office at number eighteen Duke Street. She chose her words carefully and said how fitting it was that Brunel should show off a bit and work somewhere so grand.

  'Imperative’ said Patrick. 'He had to win respect, and keep it, and give everyone a sense of confidence so that he could raise all the money for his projects ... I'll have to do the same one day.'

  'You will, I know’ she said, and she did.

  'And to do what he did, and what I need to do, you have to fit in to society. Which is why I've left Coventry' 'And lost your accent,' she said.

  'How can you impress anyone when they know you come from a place as narrow-minded as that?' He shrugged. 'About the only exciting thing that ever happened up there was that daft woman Godiva and her striptease.'

  Now, there were not many bits of historical information that Audrey remembered. School had been a bit sparing on the more lively aspects of English history. But, when Patrick said the name, she did remember Godiva. Largely because the story was not told to her class by the usual history mistress, but by a young supply teacher, a man with a beard and sandals who - so they whispered - was a vegetarian with left-wing views. He, for some reason, decided to teach the class about six extraordinary British women through the ages -starting with Boadicea. Until then she had not exactly been aware that there were that many. And Godiva, eleventh- - was it? - century, was the one that Audrey remembered best.

  'She didn't do a striptease, Patrick’ she said, forgetting to be amenable. 'She rode on a horse through the city naked. And she did it to show up her husband who was imposing things on the people of Coventry. Cruel taxes - and other things ...' Audrey was a little shaky on what the other things were. 'Anyway, when she went to her husband on behalf of the people and begged him to stop he said that he would only stop if she rode naked through the market at midday. So she did. She covered herself with her long, golden hair and asked the people of the town not to look and they didn't. Except one and they called him Peeping Tom. She's probably the lady on the horse with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes at Banbury Cross and -'

  'Very interesting,' said Patrick impatiently. 'Anyway - it was a stupid thing to do. Fancy taking your clothes off just to make a point.'

  Audrey stared at him. His lip had come out again. She was fed up with seeing it actually, a thought which very much surprised her. 'Well’ she said, her hands on her hips, 'it bloody well worked, though, didn't it?'

  They stared at each other, stunned into silence.

  ‘I mean’ said Audrey, a little less defiantly, 'It shamed him. And he stopped doing - whatever it was he was doing.'

  Patrick was not pleased by her sudden uppishness. It conjured up the kind of images (naked, golden hair, warm horse between thighs) that warmed the parts of him that got in the way of clear thinking. The combination of irritation and desire - yet again - had happened. Audrey would question him and at the same she would sit near him or touch his arm - it confused him, it confused the issue and it confused the issue particularly now. They were on the trail of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, not fighting the ruddy battle of the sexes. He walked off briskly to show his disdain and then stopped and all but stamped his foot. Damn. He was supposed to be winning her over . . . But it was all right. Audrey followed. Over his shoulder he said, 'Anyway - Isambard had to mix with the great and the good in order to get what he wanted. And I'll have to do the same. Coventry gives the wrong image, completely the wrong image.'

  'Of course’ said Audrey. 'Of course.' She looked up at the blue plaque. 'It says he lived here.' 'Oh yes’ said Patrick. 'He got married and they moved into the house next door. He needed a wife by then.' 'Well, quite’ she said happily. Everything was mended.

  But later they argued about Battersea Power Station. She wished it didn't look quite so stark, though the chimneys were nice . . . And why not paint it a colour? Patrick was very short with her over that.

  'You would hardly want it painted pale blue, now would you?' he asked, quite sharply.

  To which she thoughtlessly snapped, 'Well - why not, it might be rather nice, cheer things up a bit...'

  'You'll be wanting them to wallpaper it and put antimacassars everywhere next,' he said acidly.

  She found herself apologising. All these outings together meant that they were moving towards the moment when Patrick would Make A Woman Of Her (as Belmondo did of Bardot), and nothing must get in the way of that. 'Sorry' had already become something of a mantra between them. She said it again now. 'Sorry’ she said, 'but sometimes I get a little confused about what to think ...'

  He nodded. 'My course and my beliefs are a bit of a mixture’ he told her as they wandered around the flattened site of the Festival of Britain. 'But they are all part of the systematic application of scientific knowledge to the design, creation and use of structures.'

  'Gracious’ she said. 'I should think so ...'

  'Colour really isn't a part of all that.'

  'Well no,' she said. 'It wouldn't be.'

  They stared down at the murky water of the river. 'What are they building here?'

  "Theatres, more concert halls - a whole arts complex’ he said gloomily, gesturing with his hands to indicate something grand and imposing. 'Born too late, again. If they'd needed a bridge I'd have designed them one.' He stared at the simple arch that took people and traffic over towards Covent Garden. 'And it would be a great deal more impressive than that.'

  'I bet it would,' she said rapturously. 'My dad says we could do with another bridge across the Thames. He says the traffic is getting to be a nightmare.' She paused, thinking. 'Of course, I suppose they could just stop having so much traffic instead.'

  'Silly’ he said, quite affectionately. 'But your dad's right. Another bridge is needed.' And he stood gazing across the water, eyes screwed against the afternoon sunlight, fa
ce bearing an expression of one who sees his own heroic place in its Pantheon. Audrey's heart skipped a beat, he looked so handsome and distinguished. 'Give me time,' he said. 'Give me time.'

  'Oh, Patrick’ she said reverently. 'You'll be even better than your Brunel one day. I'm sure of it.'

  What an intelligent girl she can be, he thought. And he put his arm right around her waist, smiling to hear her say 'Oh' in that special way of hers.

  That evening he took her to a pub and bought her a gin and lime, and then another. Gin and lime, it seemed, was quite important if you were out to seduce a girl. Audrey did not appear to be the slightest bit unwilling (much as his mother had predicted) but you never knew and it seemed wise to get the thing right. He was extremely nervous. Audrey, on the other hand, was growing more and more animated and smiley. Desire, by the end of her second gin and lime, had reduced itself in him to an alarming feeling of tiredness. He sipped his pint of bitter and began to feel very ill. The dreadful spectre of failure gripped him. He had not felt it for a long time, not to this degree, and he was afraid.