I had a finding-dream of my own. I pictured a camera, probably a Leica, bouncing off the back of one of the lorries that lurched past me on my trudges along the grimy roads of the Pennine town. I could see it clearly, feel its sexy weight in my hand, hear its precise clicking as I twisted its milled knobs and pushed its levers.Then one foggy day I turned a corner on my way to night school and found it. A compact and weighty leather case on a scruffy verge. I kept it under my coat till I snapped it open in the college toilet. Not a Leica, actually, but a Contax, neat and silver-shiny-dull, solid and clickable, with a rainbowy lens like a soap bubble. The case was well-used and the stitching to the shoulder-strap had broken away. The leather was a bit muddy. I wiped it on the roller towel. The find filled my thoughts throughout the lesson, like a packet of dirty photos. I couldn't wait to pore over it, cherish it. At last I was outside and holding it firm under my fawn gaberdine. The fog had gone. As I went back along the road I saw two figures in the gloom. A middle-aged man and a long-haired girl were bent over, moving slowly, peering and kicking at the bits of rubbish in the gutter. I crossed over from them straightaway, and strode home, not lingering. I knew that middle-class man becaue he came to the garage. I'd wanted for ages to know his pretty daughter, who seemed so nice, who had long shoulder-stroking hair, and soft brown eyes. I now knew her first name and their telephone number from the label stuck in the leather case.

I went to bed with the camera. It lay near my pillow, just under the covers. I held it leashed on its strap. It had a faint pungent smell, like a small unfamiliar animal. I knew little about cameras and had never before even laid a finger on one. Mixed up with its glamorous comfort was the thought of Lily. I didn't know much about girls either. I'd thrilled at the marvellous feel of them a few times in games but had never kissed one. I had only the skimpiest knowledge of their minds and their .... bodies.

I hardly slept all night and didn't want to. My mind was an interesting place for once. I kept swopping alternatives. I could keep the camera myself and become a well-known magazine photographer. I could give it back and her father, impressed by my clear-eyed honesty, would say, "I've got another one you can have - if you like." Soon the three of us would be off on country rambles. He would show me how to take pictures, with lovely Lily posing by giant oaks or waterfalls. Or daughter-Lily would swim beside me in warm clear lakes. I didn't care much about swimming and the only bodies of water I knew were bare reservoirs infested with creaking seagulls and anglers with big umbrellas tilted against the Pennine weather. But the Pearsons (Lily Pear-son, what a nice fruit-and-flower name) had a car. We'd drive to the warm South, to the proper countryside, full of unusual and beautiful animals and flowers. And another thing; I no longer had a father, and Lily hadn't a mother. Who could tell what might happen?

But I knew that the most likely outcome would be nothing much. But when I finally went to sleep around dawn I knew that the camera would stay mine, like my gloves and my Waterman pen. It was a fine bird in the hand. But no more than a bird.

I got up late, feeling terrible. The fog and the corncob pipe I was learning to smoke seemed to have got on my chest. But I had to get to work. I'd had three days off in a month already. And there was a mid-term Maths test that evening. I put on a singlet, my dirty thickest shirt and a pullover, wound my scarf into my gaberdine collar and dashed out to the garage. I'd no time to think about the camera, deep under two pillows, but put my head down and pressed through the drizzle, coughing.

Work was hard that day; two lorries came in with punctures and I had to hammer big tyre levers between tyres and wheels and jump on them to free the stiff rubber rims. There was an exhaust change, and no-one to burn off the rusted-up parts with a blow-torch for me. I had to chip away with a cold chisel for an hour and spent another hour adjusting the new exhaust from banging underneath when I revved the engine. I left sweatily for the college at five o'clock. The Maths exam was restful compared with my day at work.

As soon as I got home I went up to my bedroom. I pushed my hand under the pillows. Nothing but damp cold flannelette. My mother threw open the door on me.

"It's no use feeling for it because it's not there, you sneaky little bugger!". I was nine inches taller than she was. "I don't know how you got it and don't want to know, but I've given it back to that Mr Pearson." I could hardly speak. "I was going to take it back tomorrow," I said. I heard a slight whine in my voice. "What did you say to him?" "I said you'd found it in the street last night and you'd asked me to take it back. It's a good job I'm a good liar," she said. "Nearly as good as you." She glared at me through the twilight. I walked to the window and looked out on the street. I couldn't see the moors that ringed the town, but I could imagine them, looming high and dark. After a minute or so I realised she'd gone. I gazed numbly at the glass, at a standstill. Eventually I went downstairs. I sat down opposite her at the table covered with newspaper and started on the shin beef stew. She sipped tea from a pint pot. After a long silence she said, "You'll never be any bloody good." I didn't respond. After another silence she said, "Mr Pearson's offered me a job." She'd been a tailoress before she met my father, before unemployment hit the town.

"What doing?" I hoped she wouldn't be out all day and not get my dinners ready. More money would be good though. We didn't get much from my father over the moors and far away with his woman. Maybe I'd manage to get to know Lily after all. "Cleaning at his house."

I couldn't imagine Lily going out with a charwoman's son and picked up the boring local and began to read, holding it so I couldn't see her. I should have known that charring was the most likely thing. Mrs Pearson had died a couple of years ago and her husband kept a tobacconist's in the best street in town. After half an hour I went to bed. Tomorrow was Saturday. I'd be glad of a rest.

I had more or less got over my cough and my disappointments when I went off to work on Monday morning. One thing about my mother, she didn't nag. She didn't mention that bloody camera. "I'll try to forget it," I thought, dodging into a shop doorway to have another go with my old corncob and birds'-eye. The smoke seemed familiar now, rather sweet and comforting. I walked towards the garage trying to look like a hardened smoker.

I got the job of checking a few hundred spare parts bins in the stores against bin cards; something the foreman liked to get done every now and then between proper stocktakings. It was easy and clean, and my fresh-that-morning boiler suit looked respectable when it got to five o'clock. I kept it on to go home since it was an icy windy evening. No class on Mondays.

As I crossed over from the garage, I saw a girl in a brown school raincoat and a gold and scarlet scarf, swinging a shiny briefcase. I felt a pang. I wasn't surprised to see Lily here, since I knew it was her way from school. I'd watched from a garage window as her figure undulated out of sight. I supposed she'd been staying late at school. She seemed to be moving to join up with me. I became aware of my grubby hands, my chipped nails, my old grease-smeared shoes.

We were a yard apart when she spoke. It was the first time I'd heard her voice. "It's Robert, isn't it?, Mrs Adkins is your mother? I'd like to say thank you for finding my camera. I was really miserable. My dad had just got it for me for my club."

I could hardly get a word out. "Well," I said, "I sort of knew whose it was by the label." Come to think of it, peering into her camera case was probably a rude thing to do, kind of intimate. Maybe somebody well-brought-up would have taken it to the cops without prying inside. "Most people round here would have kept it, I'm lucky that it was somebody honest. It must have jumped out of my bike basket in the fog. I was keen to get home. I remember bumping over a brick or something. My dad and I went back and searched and searched and then gave up." she said. Her smile was so friendly that I felt that I'd never even thought of hanging on to the camera.

"I'd like to know about taking photos," I said. "I might manage to get to a class sometime, but I'm busy with my GCEs and City and Guilds for a few years." After all, I had dreamed along those lines while in bed with her camera.

Then, as if I'd pushed a button, we started to talk. She was doing GCEs too; English and Maths and German, and she seemed eager to tell me about photography, and she liked country walks, and was even, I could hardly credit it, interested in what apprentice car mechanics did. She was a different sort of girl from the ones I'd come across. She had a nice warm voice too, not like my mother's. I told her I didn't know why I was doing German. "I don't know why I do it either, it's sodding hard," she said. It was nice to hear her swear. I wondered what other words she'd use if we were friends. An exciting thought.

We strolled along, chatting in an incredibly friendly way. She was quite at ease. I hardly noticed people coming towards us, and twice she pressed my arm, "Look out!", giggling a little. For once I wasn't noticing the dreary weather. Soon we were at her front gate. A few hundred yards further on was a busy main road. Beyond it lay street after street of old terrace houses, with no garden gates, no gardens, front doors opening straight into living-rooms. My district, slated for demolition for over twenty years.

I was going to walk on in the gathering dark when I saw her father in their driveway straightening up from his car engine. He came up to us rubbing his fingers together. He greeted his daughter and said, "See you're with Robert. Suppose you did thank him for getting your camera back?" He'd remembered me from work. "Course I did," said Lily pertly.

"She was really upset," he said, looking at me. He rubbed his fingers together again. "I've been mucking about trying to set my points, and I've made it so the engine hardly goes at all." I felt for my father's goodbye present, a set of feeler gauges in a leather slipcase. I always carried it.

"Shall I have a go?" I said. I'd mastered contact breaker points a year ago. Soon I was bent over the engine, expertly clicking off the distributor cap, sliding the correct feeler into position, pulling on the fan belt, tightening the screw. Lily was near, holding a torch, watching every nimble movement of my knowing fingers. I could smell warm oil. But there was a more exciting, even joyful smell. It came from Lily's shoulder-length hair as she leaned forward, as it veiled and stroked her smooth cheeks. She was only six inches away.

I finished adjusting, started the engine, revved it a few times, checked it. It ran like a bird. I lowered the bonnet. My heart hummed, sweeter than that good old Austin.

Mr Pearson came up. "That's lovely," he said, "Better than it's been for weeks. Thanks very much." He opened the car door. "Hang on for a sec." He felt about on the passenger seat, then held out a small orange and green packet. "Here you are, lad, have a smoke on your way home." Ten Woodbines, fourpence wholesale. "No thanks," I said. "I smoke a pipe."

There was a brief silence, while Lily and I exchanged glances. "Goodbye," I said, and turned on my heel. I fumbled for the gate.

It was dark except for the odd street light. My fingers numbed quickly in a sudden icy wind from the high moors. I quickly pulled out my gloves, but hesitated for a moment. Then I pushed my dirty fingers into the warm furred sheaths and strolled happily homewards. Lily's eyes had gazed fearlessly, and hotly, deep into mine.