Between Friends Page 32

  ‘Damn leg! It goes to sleep if I keep it still for long,’ he said and she was quite bewildered by the harshness which had come to change his voice. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I must get off now. I forgot to tell you, I’m moving back into my old room over the stable this week so Jenny is coming over to give it a clean …’

  At once Meg’s face clouded over and her eyes flashed and the mutionous set of her lips said he had offended her though neither knew why.

  ‘Jenny! That empty headed little baggage. Why can’t I clean …?’

  ‘Now Megan, give over. There’s nothing wrong with Jenny, or her cleaning and there’s no need for you to …’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Martin Hunter. That girl has been longing to get into your …’

  ‘Yes? My what?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Her face was a bright pink. She was standing up now and they squared up to one another in the old familiar way, only at ease it seemed when they were fighting, the strange and awkward tension which had suddenly sprung up between them dispersed in the ritual of a quarrel.

  ‘No, I don’t know what you mean. She’s a decent girl …’

  ‘Oh is she? Then why does she sneak up to the summer house with all and sundry every night when Mrs Stewart’s not looking?’

  ‘How the hell do you know that? Can you see Silverdale from the Delly then?’

  ‘I’ve been told, that’s how!’

  ‘Oh yes, and by who, because whoever he is he’s a liar!’

  ‘Tom’s no liar.’

  ‘Tom! D’you mean Tom’s been gossiping like some old woman or perhaps he’s one of the “all and sundry” Jenny is supposed to be meeting in the summer house.’

  ‘Oh don’t be daft!’

  ‘What’s daft about it? Why shouldn’t Tom fancy her? She’s a pretty girl.’

  ‘Pretty! Jenny?’

  Suddenly it was as though someone had stepped between them, someone who told them scornfully that they were making fools of themselves for it seemed to occur to them simultaneously that they were spitting like wild-cats over something which neither particularly cared about. Jenny meant nothing to Martin and Meg knew it, and even if she did, her sensible mind questioned, what was it to her? And why were they attacking one another with such venom?

  ‘What’s up with you two? Not scrapping again I hope. Not on a lovely day like this!’

  Into the strange instability their hot tempers had caused Tom’s cheerful voice fell like cool water over a fevered brow. It laid itself calmly about them, steadying their curiously beating hearts, bringing them back as it had always done from the brink of the explosion into which their warring natures flung them and they both turned eagerly, relieved to escape it.

  He stood at the gate, his elbows on the top bar, his face split into a wide, engaging grin. He had pushed his cap to the back of his curly head. His collarless shirt was open at the neck and he wore a red spotted neckerchief about his throat. He had on cord trousers held up by braces and big, sturdy boots for he often worked in mud and for a moment, an unkind moment she realised later, Meg had the thought that he only needed a straw in his mouth to complete the picture.

  ‘Now then,’ he said sternly, ‘what’s this all about?’ but his vivid blue eyes twinkled and the fine skin about them drew into the faint lines which were forming as he narrowed them against the sun. His skin was smooth and clear and very brown and his teeth were white against his well cut lips.

  ‘Nowt!’ said Martin, scowling, reverting to the vernacular of his childhood, but already his eyes had cleared and the strong, angry line of his mouth had relaxed. His expression was beginning to shape into one of affection for the man who had always stood as a buffer between his own resolute nature and that of Meg, and the long length of his body leaned against the wall as the tension drained from it.

  Meg began to laugh then, Tom’s presence putting the quarrel in it’s true perspective. She threw back her head and her hair flowed like a living cape of copper flame almost to her buttocks. She put up both her hands, searching for the errant ribbon to secure it and both young men found themselves staring at her with the total fascination of the male for the sensual beauty of a woman, each unaware of the other’s quite frozen, quite sudden stillness. Her breasts thrust themselves boldly against the cotton stuff of her blouse and the shape of her nipples were clearly defined.

  ‘Oh, take no notice, Tom,’ she said arching her back to reach the ribbon. ‘It’s only me and Martin up to our usual tricks. No offence meant and none taken, eeh lad?’ She was tying the ribbon into a bow, dragging back the heavy springing coils of her hair and when she turned to Martin, grinning widely he was watching, not her as he had been only a moment ago but the retriever who still leaned companionably against his leg. The second dog had ambled across the yard to Tom and both men were suddenly occupied, quite frantically absorbed it seemed, in the smooth coat of the two animals.

  Tom opened the gate and walked slowly across the yard, the dog at his heels, his hands deep in his trouser pockets. He turned to the three motor cars, looking for all the world as though no other thought but their splendour was on his mind. He ran his finger along the bonnet of the old Vauxhall.

  ‘I always liked this the best,’ he mused. ‘Nice colour!’

  Martin snorted, then began to laugh.

  ‘Nice colour! Bloody hell, Tom Fraser, you sound like a woman! Trust you to like a motor car because of its colour.’ His face was soft in his fondness for his friend and the awkward, strange moment was over.

  ‘Why not? There’s nowt wrong with liking the colour. I know nothing about motor cars, lad, you know that, but I know what colours I like and I like yellow!’

  They were all laughing now, even the dogs seeming to smile in the pleasure of the day. The tension was completely gone. The air they breathed was sweet and uncomplicated. Birds sang as birds will and the benevolence of sunshine and youth and friendship, of trust and shared memories drew them together in the familiar pattern of their childhood.

  ‘Nice day for a ride,’ Tom continued, squinting into the sun. He turned his back on the automobile, leaning against it, and looked amiably at Martin, then away again, his smile easy. ‘Up through Garston and Hale and Frodsham. A pint at the “Bear’s Paw”, perhaps a walk through the forest.’ He sighed pensively though his eyes were glinting with mischief. ‘We might even get as far as …!’

  He winked at Meg and she held her breath for it was like old times. She could see Martin as he had been all those years ago, his head studiously bent over a book or something he was drawing, his face creased in a frown of concentration, irritated beyond measure by Tom’s teasing, by her own sharp and not always good humoured efforts to pry him from his seriousness. She could remember how furious he would be as they both attempted to cajole him into coming on some jaunt, to ride out with them and have some fun, to leave his books behind and to get out of his stuffy attic room where his ‘drawing board’ held him fast. He would be aggravated to the limits of his endurance, threatening violence to them both but little by little Tom would have him trying hard to control the unwilling smile at the corners of his mouth, the twitch of his lips and the broad grin which would involuntarily split his face. It had not always worked for Martin’s direct path to the future which was to be his had not been allowed to be strewn with the foolish, the flippant, the frivolous diversions of youth but today … well today was a holiday, surely, made for a jaunt, a spin, an escape from the routine, the mundane!

  Martin was grinning widely.

  ‘What are you up to, lad? You’re not actually telling me you want to take a drive in one of these “bloody machines”! I believe that’s what you’ve called them a time or two. Or are you suggesting we take turns on Meg’s bicycle? How about you pedal, Meg on the handlebars and me on the back mudguard with my leg stuck out. We might get as far as the gate or even …’

  ‘I’ve got an afternoon off.’ Tom pulled his cap round until the peak was at the back. ‘I always fancied m
yself taking a spin round that motor track you and the old gentleman built. It looks simple enough. It must be if you can do it!’

  ‘You’re joking, of course!’ Martin could hardly speak through the laughter. ‘You at the wheel of a motor car!’

  ‘Why not? I’ve cranked the bloody thing often enough. It’s time I had a turn of the wheel. You tell me which way to steer it and …’

  ‘Oh go on, Martin! Let him and can I have a go as well!?’

  They both turned to look at her, their faces a picture of masculine amazement. Tom had been joking. One day, he supposed, he might take to driving a motor car. Martin had predicted that every working man would own one, one day. But somehow, though Martin said so and Tom believed him, he could not quite see himself actually doing it. Give him a bicycle any day of the week. It was good enough and practical enough to carry him the short distances he wanted to travel. Safe, economical and sure to arrive, perhaps slowly, nevertheless, but it did get there, just like himself! But their Meggie! Driving a motor car! A woman behind the wheel! There had been the curious and strangely unfeminine – in masculine eyes – woman or two who had taken to it though both Martin and Tom did not care to consider it, but their Meg! It was unthinkable, laughable!

  But Meg was not laughing. Her face was quite serious. She had grown up with these two young men, dragging along, often unwanted, at their heels as they went about their entirely male pursuits. They had accepted her for the most part for had she not been an adjunct of their growing up, sharing its hardships as well as its joys but there were limits, after all to what a woman can do, the expression on their faces told her. But in her own mind she was Megan Hughes, Miss Hughes of the Adelphi Hotel, a person of some importance, worthwhile and certainly well able to cope with the mysteries of driving a motor car. If she could run successfully, a hotel floor and the staff who worked on it, she could as a matter of course, drive a motor car and come what may, she intended to!

  Tom had been spellbound when Martin got out his own small Austin two seater from the garage. He sat apprehensively on the luggage rack behind the hood which had been folded neatly away and clung for dear life to the rail which surrounded it, his long legs tucked up beneath his chin. On his face was an expression which said quite clearly he expected to be flung off at any minute since Megan Hughes could not be persuaded to keep to the regulation twenty miles an hour the law allowed!

  ‘Slow down, Meggie,’ he heard Martin bellowing, his mouth close to her ear but she seemed deaf to his pleas in the wondrous delight which filled her; brimmed from her every pore and made her eyes glow to match the gold of the sun itself. Her boater had been tossed carelessly backwards to Tom with a shouted injunction to ‘Hold this, will you Tom,’ and her hair was alive about her head in a riot of windblown, shining curls and on her face, though he could not see it, was an expression of pure unadulterated joy.

  Martin had explained patiently the intricacies of the gears, the ignition, the starting handle and the correct way to steer and brake the machine. He had not liked it, not at all and would have much preferred to have been teaching Tom who, though he knew nothing of motor cars was at least a man! His attitude had said quite plainly that though he was taking the trouble to show her how to do it, he doubted very much whether they would ever pull away from the stable door, let alone the yard. He had been quite confounded, even uneasy that a woman should have taken to it so easily, when Meg started the engine at the first turn of the ignition. He was even more astounded when she let out the clutch exactly as he had told her and the motor car jerked to an erratic but nevertheless definite start.

  ‘Careful Meg.’ His hands reached instinctively to the steering wheel, certain she would run his much loved little car into the stable yard gate.

  ‘Get off, Martin,’ she shrieked at him. ‘I can do it,’ and with a face as white as paper and eyes blazing with the brilliance of sunshine on water, she did, steering the car neatly between the gateway and on to the wide gravelled drive which led to the front of the house.

  ‘Jesus, Meg … Dear God, take it easy,’ he gasped as she changed gear with a jerk which nearly had Tom off the back. Faces appeared in windows and a couple of men working in the garden lifted their heads to stare in open-mouthed amazement as she jerked and banged and coughed and hiccupped her way along the driveway from the house to the gates.

  She was smiling as she steered the machine between the ornate gate posts and even, to Martin’s complete horror, took her hand off the wheel to wave nonchalantly at Mrs Whitley who came to her cottage door to stare, not awfully sure she could believe what her old eyes had just seen.

  ‘Keep both your bloody hands on the wheel, for God’s sake,’ Martin roared but she only turned to grin at him, speechless with excitement.

  ‘Keep your bloody eyes on the road,’ he roared again and at the back Tom closed his eyes and tried to remember a few lines of a prayer he had been taught as a child.

  They were in Garston, just passing St Michael’s Church when she began to sing and Tom opened his eyes then, turning to stare over his shoulder. Martin was still sitting with the air of a man being taken to his own execution, but the high colour had flooded Meg’s face and on it was an expression of utter and complete satisfaction. He could see her hands on the steering wheel and he realised she was gloriously happy, relaxed and perfectly in control.

  ‘By God, Martin, she’s not bad, is she?’ he shouted admiringly above the noise of the engine. ‘You’ll have to watch out or she’ll be borrowing this thing to take Mrs Whitley for a spin.’ He then began to roar with laughter at the expression on Martin’s face. Tom was delighted with Meg’s prowess, proud as punch to see the confident way in which she manoeuvred the little car along the narrow country lanes which had not been designed for the automobile but for the peaceful passage of cows and horses. He was not the slightest bit put out that she had mastered the controls so well, having no inclination himself to take part in the supposedly masculine pastime of motoring.

  They had reached the outskirts of Warrington and Martin insisted, absolutely insisted, he said, on taking over from her since there was far too much traffic for a beginner to manage. Horse-drawn drays and waggons, carriages and omnibuses, alongside the growing number of motor cars which were increasingly to be seen.

  They stopped at Stretton for a cup of tea and when they resumed their journey she begged to be allowed another ‘go’ since it was quiet here and if she didn’t practise how was she to ever become an experienced driver, she said, as they bowled along towards Lower Hargrave.

  ‘An experienced driver?’ Martin’s face was a study in bewilderment.

  ‘Yes. I can’t get the hang of it in one day, can I, and if I’m to be any good at it I’ve got to practise. It’s like anything else …’

  ‘Practise!’ Martin looked at her as if he had never heard such lunacy.

  ‘Of course!’ Meg was becoming exasperated and she pressed her foot down a little harder on the accelerator, thrilled with the way the motor car surged forward.

  ‘Just a minute, lady. What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’ Martin’s voice was becoming quite dangerous for though he had allowed her to drive, teaching her, however reluctantly, with a quiet patience not usual in him, he was not prepared to be taken over, so to speak, in the way which Meg seemed to find increasingly easy these days. She was used to giving orders now and having them obeyed. She had loved every moment of the last couple of hours and was well pleased with herself in her new capacity as ‘lady driver’ and could see no reason why she should not continue.

  ‘Just slow down a minute, if you don’t mind …’

  ‘What for? There’s nothing on the road and I …’

  ‘Slow down, Meg! Take your foot off that accelerator and put it on the brake and then get …’

  ‘Oh come on, Martin, don’t be such a wet blanket. I’m perfectly able to drive now and well you know it.’

  And so he did! She was a natural driver, the car running as sweet
ly as though he himself was at the wheel but his strange male ego, that which had been brought up to believe that women were unable to equal a man in almost every aspect of life, could not admit it to her. For weeks now, ever since he had been brought home from Weybridge on a stretcher he had been careful with her, avoiding her if he was honest for he could make neither top nor tail of the strange emotions she awakened in him. When he had heard of what Benjamin Harris had tried to do to her he would have killed him if the law had not got to him first. His own rage had frightened him, though he had not even told Tom who had shared his anger. She was exactly the same as she had always been now, despite the terror she had been through but he felt awkward with her, vulnerable to her sharp and often wicked wit which once he would have answered with his own. She was smart, clever, beautiful, good at what she did and she knew it, and he wanted her to be soft, soft as she had been on the day he had returned.

  Now Meg’s panache, her almost careless handling of his smart little car infuriated him and he wanted nothing more than to see her out from behind the wheel and in the passenger seat where she belonged!

  ‘Stop this car at once!’ His voice was expressionless and Tom turned to look at him in surprise. There was nothing he himself would have liked better than for the bloody car to be stopped. The skin of his buttocks was bruised, he was sure, from long contact with the luggage rack but there was something in Martin’s voice he did not like. He himself could see nothing wrong with Meg’s handling of the machine and indeed after the first bone-shaking half hour he had relaxed considerably and if he had had a cushion to sit on would have enjoyed the day immensely for he knew just where Meg was heading. Meg continued her smooth journey along the empty lane to Lower Hargrave and the pretty village of Great Merrydown beyond, just as though Martin had not spoken and Tom felt rather than saw the sudden tightening of his body. Nevertheless he was almost thrown off the back of the automobile as it came to a screeching, jerking standstill, slewing across the lane to end with its front wheels hanging perilously over a ditch.