Between Friends (17 page)

‘If it’s not,
we’re
ready for it, sir!’

He had rung the bell at the front door for he wanted to impress on them that this was no ordinary visit such as he made on his day off and he would always remember that moment when Meg opened the door to him. Her eyes had widened incredulously, for what was their Martin doing on the
front
step, she seemed to be
saying
, then they had gone beyond him to the magnificence of the gleaming machine which stood at the kerb.

‘What …’ She appeared to be incapable of speech and her hand went to her mouth.

‘Can I come in, Meg, or are you going to stand there like a tailor’s dummy for the rest of the day?’ He was delighted by her reaction and he swaggered slightly as he brushed past her, tipping the peak of his smart chauffeur’s cap to a more jaunty angle.

He thought she was going to swoon from the sheer joy of it and indeed was quite prepared to catch her as she did for their Meggie was growing into a very pretty girl and Martin Hunter, the darling of Mrs Glynn’s kitchen had quite an eye for a pretty girl! It was the word ‘spin’ which did it. He had asked her if she would care to sample one quite airily, as though well used to taking such things and indeed thought nothing of them, so sophisticated had he become!

Spin! That’s exactly what she was in, she declared and as for Mrs Whitley who was invited too, she positively refused to get within ten yards of the dratted thing, convinced it would explode or run away, dragging her with it! She allowed herself to be persuaded to peek from behind her net curtains at the kitchen window but the wild notion of not only climbing up the area steps to look at the thing at close quarters but going for a
ride
in it gave her ‘palpitation of the pluck’ she cried and if Meg was willing to risk life and limb in it that was her affair but there was nothing on God’s green earth that would make Agatha Whitley climb up and perch herself on that high seat and go at the mad speed of twenty miles an hour!
Nothing
!

But Meg could and
would
! Tom had gone on an errand for Mr Lloyd, she said, and would not be back until later but she’d go like a shot if Mrs Whitley would allow it! Give her a minute to get her hat and coat, and how on earth had he managed it, and was he sure it was alright with Mr Hemingway, she didn’t want Martin to lose his fine job and ‘Oh Lord’ … goggles … she must wear
goggles
!

‘It’s alright with Mr Hemingway, Meg, honest. This is Mr Charles’ car, his old Vauxhall and he said I could take it out for the afternoon.’

It didn’t look old to Meg. It looked brand new, in fact, shining there in the sunshine. It was like a golden beam of sunlight itself, all yellow with bright brass lamps and even the spokes of the
wheels
gleaming like daffodils. There were two black leather seats side by side and when she climbed up she could smell the lovely smell of them and they were warm from the rays of the sun.

She saw Cook’s white face at the window, drawn there by her dread, her eyes staring and her hand to her mouth. In Cook’s mind it was possible for a man to go about in one of those dreadful things – just! Men understood such intricate contrivances but surely to God this was the last she would see of their Meggie for no woman could survive such an ordeal!

But their youthful faces were so alike, so full of sparkle and zest Mrs Whitley was quite overcome and retired to her chair with Emm at her heels.

‘Them two’ was all she could say, quite tearfully, but Emm knew what she meant!

Martin rotated the starting handle.

‘Is the hand brake on, our Meg?’ he shouted cheerfully, for he had explained a hundred times to her the workings of the handbrake.

‘Which one’s that?’ Her reply was fearful for what did she know of what seemed like a dozen gauges, dials, knobs and levers.

‘Never mind.’ He ran smartly round to the driver’s side and peered inside the machine, just beside the steering wheel.

‘Yes, it’s on. We don’t want to run away, do we, not on your first trip!’

‘Oh no!’ Her eyes were huge and brilliant with excitement.

‘Now then, see this switch on the dashboard?’

‘Yes,’ she breathed and Martin was quite bewitched with the way she hung on his every word. It was not often he had Meg’s undivided and admiring attention. She liked the limelight too much herself!

‘Well, I’m going to give the crank a few turns and I want you to move it – it’s called the magneto switch – to the “on” position, see?’

‘Yes,’ she breathed again.

‘We don’t want to flood the carburettor, do we?’

‘Oh no, Martin.’

They were off at last and Martin honked the horn and went round the square a few times until everyone came out to see what the commotion was about, just as they had when the ‘three of ’em’ had set off on their bicycles. Meg sat perfectly still, one hand on the side of the open motor car, the other on Martin’s arm. The
wind
blew in her face and the movement, the speed at which they went took her breath away, but never in all her life had she experienced such … such rapture. She had thought the bicycles to be the pinnacle of all her young dreams, the means by which she would fulfill them but this … this was like … like being a bird, she thought. Far distant and apart from the people who crawled along the pavement on either side of them. Through her goggles she peered at them pityingly and felt the smooth shudder of the engine beneath her reach the very heart of her and fill it with joy. She was not cold for there was a certain amount of heat coming from the engine, and from what Martin explained was the gearbox at the back.

Martin turned to grin at her, his teeth incredibly white in his amber tinted face. ‘What d’you think then?’ he shouted into the wind.

She was unable to speak but through the eyepiece of the goggles he saw her wide eyes glow with an emotion which he knew was the one he experienced whenever he was in or about the machines he loved, and suddenly he felt that curious sensation in his chest which she had awakened in him several times in the past. He turned again to study her, narrowly missing a horse and carriage, the irate driver of which shook his fist at him. He had not really noticed before except in the most casual way but she really had become extraordinarily pretty, sitting there with her hair which the sun had turned to fire, snatched out of its pins and blowing in curly tendrils about her ears and neck. Her mouth was parted in an enchanted smile and her eyes were that familiar deep and golden brown he had known since childhood, the colour they turned when she was excited. She was looking about her and then at him as if he were the King himself, as though he had just presented her with the most wonderful gift she had ever had, and he found he
liked
the sensation.

She pressed his arm and he felt a small thrill of masculine pride for everywhere they went people turned to look and it gave a chap a big kick, not just to be driving a motor car which was a rare thing in itself but to have a pretty girl by his side as he did it! The more he looked at her the prettier he realised she was but what on earth had got in to him, he thought. She was only their Meg, his little ‘sister’ and a damned nuisance at times, still she did look grand sitting there beside him!

They drove out of Liverpool towards Aigburth and on to
Garston
through villages which sprang to life as they clattered through. They turned away from the river at Garston thundering along the open country road which was bordered with high banks of marigolds and cowslip. They were stopped several times by animals. Farmers were unused to motor cars on what they considered the natural footpath from farmyard to field, and a herd of cows was one of the most common hazards the motorist must deal with. The animals jostled one another to get a better look at this peculiar device in their midst until Meg became alarmed and begged Martin to drive on but the look on the cowherd’s face was enough to assure him they would be ill-advised to do so until the animals had passed by!

At the junction where Rose Lane ran into Allerton Lane they came to Beechwood, a favourite place for their cycling excursions though as Meg declared admiringly it took a lot longer to get there on the tandem. Martin stopped the motor car on a grass verge.

‘We’ll let her cool off here, Meggie,’ he said importantly, ‘then we’ll have to make our way back, I’m sorry to say.’

‘Don’t be sorry, Martin. It’s been the most wonderful, wonderful afternoon and such a lovely surprise.’

‘I thought
you’d
like it,’ he said and then wondered why he had. He was having some strange thoughts today but somehow he was immensely pleased with
her
pleasure!

They sauntered across the grass verge and into the shade beneath the trees. The path was insubstantial, obviously not much used and on either side as far as the eye could see was a hazed, floating mist of bluebells. They were dense beneath every tree, clustering about Meg’s skirt and she drew in her breath in delight. The sun shone through almost transparent leaves, sparking green splashes where it touched, shading them to a darker green on the lower branches. Forest birds hovered above the dazzling carpet of blue and green and an early bumble bee jostled clumsily about the lovely swathe of wild flowers.

There was birdsong though neither Meg nor Martin could identify them for they were city dwellers and could scarce tell a pigeon from a gull, but the notes were sweet and there was an air of expectancy, of hushed calm as though the day waited for something exciting which was about to happen.

‘It’s funny without Tom,’ Meg said abruptly and for a reason
Martin
could not understand he felt a twinge of annoyance and he frowned.

They had turned now, walking slowly back in the direction of the automobile and they both were silent. Meg sensed the change in Martin, his sudden withdrawal from her but for the life of her she could not understand why. He was strange sometimes. One moment he would be laughing, teasing, talking up a head of steam about the seventy-four things which interested him and in which she was expected to take an undivided interest, the next he was off in some daydream in which no-one was allowed to follow. She could sense the tension in him now, the build up to something he wanted to say, or do, but was not sure about. He would tell her when he was ready.

They were about to climb up into the motor. Meg was an old hand now she felt and she confidently adjusted her goggles before putting her foot on the high step but again Martin’s manner drew her gaze to him. He was looking at her, almost sadly and yet his eyes were glowing with a deep brown excitement and his mouth twisted on what could have been a smile or a tightening of pain.

‘What is it, Martin?’ Her voice was low.

‘Well, I wasn’t going to tell you … not yet …’

‘Go on, I won’t tell anyone if it’s a secret.’

‘No … it’s not that … it’s just … well …’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Martin, tell me.’

With a shout which raised the birds from the trees and the cows from their buttercups he yelled: ‘I’m going to America, Meggie.’ His face was ecstatic and caught up in his rapture, Meg began to jump about like an excited child.

‘When, when?’ she pleaded to know and taking his hands in hers she began a dance in the dusty lane, and it was several minutes before he could speak coherently.

‘I’m going to race, can you believe it? I’m going to race the “Hemingway Flyer”!’

‘The Hemingway Flyer!’

‘Yes, in Florida, America …’

‘… America …’

‘Can you believe it?’ His voice was hushed now, almost humble in the wonder of it.

‘Oh Martin …!’

THEY WERE SITTING
one on either side of the pantingly hot fire with Emm on her low tuffet between them when the front door bell rang.

Meg and Tom and Emm had eaten the steak and kidney pie Meg had cooked earlier that day, relishing the delicious taste which, thanks to Mrs Whitley who had taught her how, she put into all the dishes she cooked. She was as clever and imaginative cook, as once Mrs Whitley had been and she had at her disposal hundreds of recipes, all written in Cook’s neat, childish hand in her recipe book and which she now passed on to Meg as she did less and less in ‘her’ kitchen. They would stand her in good stead, she said, when Meg took up a position in her own kitchen in some grand household for to Mrs Whitley this was the summit to which Meg might aspire.

The pastry crust on the pie had fallen apart when Meg cut into it, crumbling beneath the knife and the steaming aroma, so succulent it flooded the mouth with saliva, rose in a savoury swirl about the kitchen and even to Mrs Whitley’s room where she lay.

‘I think I could eat a bit of that, love,’ she said, and did! The meat bubbled gently in the thick, juicy gravy which was a rich wholesome brown and was just the thing for a winter’s night such as this, Tom said, his mouth full. They had a heaped pile of fluffy mashed potatoes and cabbage, boiled and chopped with butter and pepper and all eaten in the glowing comfort of the kitchen, then washed down with enormous mugs of hot, sweet tea, even Mrs Whitley!

Mrs Whitley, over sixty now and ready, in Mr Lloyd’s sad opinion, for retirement though he was too soft-hearted to tell her so as yet, was in her bed, put there by the bronchitis which came more and more frequently to plague her ageing chest. Each winter it filled her lungs with phlegm so thick she could scarce get her breath. Each one cut her like a knife she confessed to Meg and Emm, for they could be trusted to keep it to themselves, but she’d
be
up and about in a day or two, she said optimistically. A sip of Meg’s broth, Cook’s own recipe of course, and a good coal fire in her bedroom for the cold air was a devil on her chest, and she’d be as right as rain, she assured them, and Mr Lloyd pretended to believe her. If it weren’t for Meg, he fully understood, Mrs Whitley would not have managed for as long as she had and if he could arrange it and she could hold on for a year or two until the girl was seventeen and old enough for the position, he meant to approach Mr Hemingway with the idea of putting Megan Hughes in as housekeeper. She was a good, capable girl, young yet but a year or two would remedy that.