Between Friends Page 8
Meg had taken to heart the list put out by the ‘Cyclist Touring Club’, which she hoped one day to join and though she had not the money to buy and wear the ‘rationals’ or cycling dress for ladies recommended by the club – and should she have it was doubtful Mrs Whitley would have allowed knickerbockers – nevertheless she was sensibly dressed in the mandatory straw boater, a cool blouse and full skirt, a pair of fine cotton gloves and felt herself to be the epitome of what the ‘lady cyclist’ should be. Martin and Tom wore knee breeches and stockings, an open necked shirt and an old jacket, their caps perched jauntily at the back of their heads.
They turned left into Upper Pitt Street and headed in the direction of the Pier Head. They had considered which might be the best route to take on this, their first ‘proper’ ride and had decided on the Wirral Peninsula. They were to go across the Mersey on the ferry and strike out for Shotwick which was acknowledged as the Wirral’s oldest and most secluded village containing a lovely old manor, the Cyclist Touring Club list stated, and which Meg was determined to see. She wished longingly that she possessed one of those photographic cameras so that she might take pictures to keep forever but you couldn’t have everything, could you? and at least she was lucky enough to get there! Mrs Whitley had never been further than Bootle village on a day trip and that wasn’t even across the water!
They manoeuvered through traffic so thick and bustling in the streets of Liverpool which led down to the docks they were in distinct danger of being run down but they loved every thrill-packed minute of it! They were perfectly matched, the three of them, holding their heads high, riding with alert and easy carriage in the saddle and Meg’s grace, her neat ankle and daintily turned elbow drew admiring male glances at every corner. As she got on and off the tandem she did so with a tiny skip which delighted those who watched.
The river was wind ruffled as they took the ferry to the other side. It smelled of tar and salt. The gulls’ cries were harsh yet jubilant and the high, hazed early summer sky seemed to go on forever until it met the glistening smoothness of the water. The sun warmed Meg’s cheek and touched her back as they were put down on the pier at Rock Ferry and without thinking she undid the tiny buttons at her throat, unaware of the sudden stillness which affected the two young men as brown and blue eyes studied, as if for the first time the startling white smoothness of her skin. It was just as she had imagined it. It was her dream, the one she had studied each night since they had brought the bicycles home. The blue sky, the lark which swept the curve of it bursting his heart with song, the smells of the grass, of woodsmoke, the sharp but not unpleasant acidity of animal manure, the flowers, the sea and the ecstatic thrill to come of speeding like the very bird above her head along deserted, dusty lanes. A pulse beat in the soft curve of her neck and the two boys stared at it but her eyes were drawn along the pier to the lane they would take and their strange absorption, their curiously silent appraisal of her went unnoticed.
‘Look,’ she cried, ‘look at the cottages,’ and obediently they both turned, the moment gone as they followed her pointing finger. ‘What lovely gardens they have. I’ve never seen flowers like that before. I wonder what they’re called and where d’you think that lane leads to?’
‘Only one way to find out, Meggie,’ Tom answered cheerfully and began to push his bicycle along the wooden pier, his boots spilling echoes down to the water beneath.
They took the road through the village and turned left beyond a farm and meadowland in which cows raised their heads as Martin rang the bell on his handlebars and a couple of men working in a field turned to wave. They sped along a quiet lane until they were out in open countryside with nothing on either side but tall, blackthorn hedges and fields awash with wild flowers. The pedals flashed in the sunshine and the spokes of the wheels made shadowed patterns in the dust. It was warm and the boys stopped to take off their jackets and Tom said this was the life, wasn’t it? and didn’t you have to be quick to see everything? It all went by so rapidly it was gone before you had time to take it in and could they get off again, please and have a look at that sailing ship which was making its way up the river. He could feel his circulation quicken and his energies seemed to have become awakened and a feeling of such physical satisfaction came over him he threatened to sing but Martin begged him not to since they didn’t want it to rain, did they? Their laughter was high and pealing in the almost hysterical pleasure they had found and the wheels went faster and faster until they blurred and Meg felt as though she was flying, she said.
They met no traffic beyond a milk cart, it’s driver startled out of his drowsing contemplation of his horse’s ears by their swift descent upon him and a fruiterer’s van which almost ran into a hedge for the driver was of the opinion he had the lane to himself and the sudden appearance of the lightly skimming, attractive young people who seemed to have grown wheels made him pull violently on the reins!
When they reached Parkgate with its disorderly row of cottages looking out over the estuary of the River Dee they were singing the bicycle song made famous by the music hall performer, Lottie Collins.
‘Ta ra ra boom de ay,
Ta ra ra boom de ay,
Ta ra ra boom de ay,
Ta ra ra boom de ay,’ and Meg knew she had never been happier in her life!
The sun had turned her skin to rose and that of the boys to a golden brown when they arrived back at the ferry. She had lost her ladylike white gloves and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Her hair was carelessly tied with a strand of couch grass and both Tom and Martin had a crown of buttercups and daisies in their windblown hair
They were quiet as they stood in the bow of the ferryboat, reluctant to break the magical enchantment of the last moments of the day, reluctant to have it ended. Their shoulders touched in that instinctive way which had grown up with them though they were not consciously aware of it and when Martin finally spoke the other two turned dreaming faces towards him.
‘How about going the other way?’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘We’ve got a good hour before dark. We could ride down to the Jericho shore and have a paddle.’
Instantly alert the other two agreed enthusiastically and within half an hour they were giggling and splashing each other, chasing the lengthening shadows across the hard packed sand of the shoreline on their side of the river.
They grew quiet again as night began to creep across the water and they walked in silence, side by side, their bare feet slapping through the tiny pools that had formed as the tide dropped.
They came to the boat house, almost hidden amongst the stand of very old trees which leaned outwards to the beach, and across the smooth stretch of lawn which sloped away from the river they could see a fine house and lights beginning to illuminate its windows.
‘Electric!’ Martin said with awe and the others were silent for none of them had ever seen an electric light.
There was a roaring, snarling, rattling sound which grew louder and louder and Meg drew back uncertainly, reaching for Tom’s hand but Martin stepped forward, climbing up the small incline until he stood amongst the trees, staring mesmerised across the lawn at the monster which had drawn up to the door of the house.
‘What is it?’ Meg whispered fearfully though of course she knew for had they not seen more than a dozen or so about the streets of Liverpool. It was just that the first time you came across one in the flesh, so to speak, it was a frightful shock.
‘It’s only a motor car,’ Tom whispered back.
‘Only a motor car!’ Martin’s voice was coldly scathing. ‘It’s not only a bloody motor car you fool. It’s a “Rolls-Royce” three and a half litre V8! A six cylinder … Oh Sweet Jesus!’
‘Martin …’
‘Where are you going, you daft sod …’ Tom’s voice was agonised and Meg put out a hand as though to hold Martin back but it was too late!
‘Dear God … He’s going to get caught if he goes any nearer,’ she whispered frantically.
But Marti
n Hunter was no longer of their world, nor indeed any world at all for he was in his dream, the one he dwelled in whenever his young mind was not occupied with cleaning knives and peeling spuds and polishing lamps and fetching coal. He moved with wary masculine grace towards the magnificent motor car. It’s driver had climbed out and gone inside the house and the faint click of the cooling engine could be heard in the quiet, darkening twilight.
The sun had fallen behind the grey smudge of the far shore across the river but the last light of the evening illuminated the machine. It glimmered like a precious jewel on a dark stretch of velvet, the lights from the house glowing on its polished surface.
It was truly the most beautiful thing Martin Hunter had ever seen! He stood before it, bewitched and when he put out his hand to it he might have been about to caress a beloved woman. His fingers touched the shining bonnet then moved to the high mudguard, trailing lingeringly across the smooth surface.
‘God help us,’ whispered Tom, ‘he’s going to get in the bloody thing!’ He and Meg watched with the fascination of total horror as Martin Hunter stepped for the first time into a motor car and though it was almost dark by now they saw the flash of his white teeth as he smiled!
For the time being at least they must be satisfied with their bicycles, Martin said as though sooner or later a motor car would be delivered to the front door of the house, and truth to tell Tom and Meg were satisfied and during that summer and autumn they rode as often as they could together, going further and further afield as their confidence grew but it seemed that Martin, having seen and actually sat in the sheer intoxication and joy of an automobile could be satisfied with nothing else. He took to spending much of his spare time reading more and more books, making intricately drawn plans of what appeared to be boxes on wheels, and what he swore was an ‘internal combustion engine’ though the other two could make neither head nor tail of it, and when he was not at his ‘drawing board’ as he grandly called it in the room he shared with Tom, he was at the bicycle shop with Mr Hale. Meg and Tom shared the tandem now, whilst the bicycle, except when Martin rode it to Victoria Street, leaned forlornly against the cellar wall.
Meg was fourteen in September and the childish loveliness of her which had blossomed into the beauty of a young girl began to be something else. She grew even taller and acquired that indefinable quality given to very few women which men admire but which has very little to do with her looks. It was sensual and at the same time innocent! An earthiness and yet a delicate softness which spoke of promised pleasures of the flesh when she was fully matured. Her back was straight and graceful. She had a strong white neck upon which her head was set proudly and she drew admiring glances wherever she went. Mrs Whitley often wondered where she got it from, that haughty look of a young queen. Perhaps it was something to do with her Welsh heritage, she thought, knowing nothing of them from across the two rivers except that they could sing! And Meg did that too, carolling all over the house from morning till night, cheerful as a sparrow but far more exotic!
She was lively, full of fun and liked nothing better than a good laugh and Cook had noticed lately how the eyes, one pair brown, the other blue, of the two young men had begun unconsciously to follow her swaying, graceful figure as she moved about the kitchen. They did not realise they were doing it, she could see that for they both had a dreaming quality about them which did not at that moment contain more than an appreciation of Meg’s quick wit, her bright eyes and flashing good humour. She was their ‘little sister’ and they were devoted to her and it showed in their protective manner but there was something else there now!
Meg was quick tempered but on the whole good-natured and tolerant and her affectionate approach to her companions held no more than that of a sister to two much loved brothers. She fussed them and nagged them, treating each one with the same fondness and irritation, scolding them if they went out in the wet without a coat like a mother with two irresponsible children and praising them where she considered praise was due!
She became weary sometimes of Martin’s everlasting preoccupation with motor cars, especially as it often interfered with what were really the loveliest outings, or would have been if Martin had come along! It was not that she was uninterested in the exciting possibilities she was keenly aware would undoubtedly make a difference to all their lives but she did wish sometimes he was not so … so obsessed was the only word she could find to describe him and the subject which filled his mind week in and week out! She had to admit that she was herself fascinated with the thought of travelling about, seeing the country, the world even (for Meg had no limits when it came to daydreaming) in one of the smart and increasingly reliable machines which were appearing more and more on the roads of Liverpool and the surrounding countryside. They were a nuisance at times when they thundered past them on a country road, lifting the dust in a whirlwind about their heads, settling it on their clothes and skin and causing a cloud through which they could barely see, but imagine being up there, actually on the high seat able to look over hedges to the fields of wild flowers beyond, and beyond that to the very horizon!
Martin would cheer wildly when one rattled past them, waving his cap and standing up on the pedals of the machine, causing no end of problems with balance but still, as she watched the automobile veer madly down the lane she admitted to herself that she wouldn’t mind changing places with those who rode in it!
And the speed at which they went! Twenty miles an hour! It meant you could get about so much more quickly and arrive at places the bicycle could not reach in a day. Meg meant to travel, to see people and places she had read about in her books and yet that was only part of it! She not only liked the idea of having a look at other parts of the world, she wanted in some way to share in the change Martin, and through him she herself, sensed was coming, because of the motor car! Not only would she hope to share the exciting fascination of their countries, their people would come and see hers!
Holidays! Travel! Movement! Would not this marvellous machine of Martin’s, when it became readily available have the effect of shifting people, ordinary people like herself who had scarce moved from their own fireside in a lifetime to seek out and discover what was at the end of the road, the limit of their village or town, or even beyond the shoreline of the country in which they lived?
Martin said so and though she was often in discord with him in so many matters, in this they were in agreement. Her brain would seethe sometimes as she lay in the darkness next to the supine Emm whose only anxiety was the keeping of her share of the blankets which covered them both. Her thoughts would try to regulate themselves into coherence. Somewhere in the future was her own fate. Martin was so sure of his and already was setting about it with the possessed certainty which Meg wished she could emulate. She admired him for it and envied him too and wished she could go back to school, evening classes, to learn something, but what? That was the trouble! She didn’t know what it was she wanted to do. She was perfectly happy doing just what she did. She loved seeing to the comfort of the weary travellers who crept over her threshold and nothing gave her more pleasure than to watch their care-worn frightened faces relax and grow peaceful as she shepherded them to their alloted place in the house, or put before them some tasty dish she herself might have prepared.
But where would that lead, she began to ask herself? Did she want to be a kitchen maid, or even cook at an emigrant house until the end of her days? Finish up like Mrs Whitley complacently toasting her toes at what would never be her own fireside? How was she to see the rest of the world from the kitchens of a house just like this one and if she left it, what would she do? She was well aware that Martin would be off soon for he would never be satisfied with the job he had now. A repair shop somewhere in Liverpool, she imagined, where he could tinker to his heart’s content with his blessed machines and he would get a good job once he had the necessary qualifications. Not that he couldn’t do it now, given the chance, but he needed a bit of paper to show folk, he said and
besides, there was the designing of motor cars which he intended as soon as he was able and he needed his ‘certificate’, whatever that was, in order to do that!
It was at the end of September when it happened!
It had been a lovely day. A Sunday and quiet at the house and with Cook’s blessing they had taken a few of her pasties, the three of ’em and set off just before noon. They had got no send off today! They had become a familiar sight by now to those who lived in the Square and those few emigrants who still remained after the sailing of the Lacy Rose III and Girl Sophie II of the Hemingway Line the day before, were out seeing the sights of Liverpool before they too sailed away to their new life.
Meg almost fell from the tandem as Tom, who was sharing it with her that day, stopped pedalling, for when his feet slowed so did hers and, her balance suddenly interfered with, she jerked at the handlebars to steady herself, causing further disturbance.
Martin had come to an abrupt halt ahead of them and they almost ran into his back and for a chaotic moment it seemed they would all crash into the bonnet of the amazing machine which stood forlornly slewed across the junction of the lanes. It was bright, polished, a beautiful gleaming blue and from its surface the sun winked back at them, dazzling, blinding. The hard top was black, the bonnet was raised and all they could see of the man who had his head buried in the depths of it was the seat of his trousers! It was a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, and Meg heard Martin whisper the name in a soft, hushed tone.
Like a man who has entered a church and walks reverently towards the altar he simply left the bicycle to crash against Tom and Meg and began the short journey from where they stood, to the motor car! A few steps only, but for him a journey from one life to another. His head was held high and his hands clenched at his sides and on his face was a look of exalted joy!