Between Friends (7 page)

‘Yes!’ Martin stood up abruptly and began to pace the room and they all watched him, waiting expectantly.

‘Well!’ Mrs Whitley said impatiently.

‘Well …’

‘Oh for pity’ sake, lad, get on with it!’

He turned decisively. Looking her full in the face in the manner of one who is to sink or swim on his next words, he spoke jerkily.

‘I want to go to night school!’

Mrs Whitley blinked, then sat up slowly straightening her back, crossing her plump arms beneath her thrusting bosom.

‘Do you indeed? And who is to pay for it, may I ask,
and
, more to the point, how are you to find the time. You have work to do at night and …’

‘The classes cost nothing, Mrs Whitley. It’s the Collegiate Institute in Shaw Street. It was built to provide an education for the commercial, trading and working classes of Liverpool,’ he said, parrot fashion as though he had repeated the words over and over again. ‘I shall learn mechanical engineering and draughtsmanship. Twice a week and I’ll do my work still, never fear but at some other time … if you don’t mind …’ he added hastily.

Meg could contain herself no longer. ‘What sort of classes are those, Martin? What does it mean … er … mechanical engine … and what was it … draughtsman something or other …?’ Her voice was excited and her face glowed with the wonder of it all but Mrs Whitley made short work of
her
!

‘Never you mind, miss! This is nothing to do with you!’ She turned again, her fat cheeks wobbling in outrage but before she could make short work of
him
too, Martin moved across the kitchen and in a way which was as simple as that of a child about to say its prayers, knelt down before her and took her hands in his. She would have shaken him off but he calmed her with a curiously adult dignity, forcing her to look into his face.

‘I’m speaking to you first, Mrs Whitley because the work I do affects you as much as Mr Lloyd but when I have your permission
I
mean to put it to him. I promise you it won’t interfere with what I do here. I shall make some adjustments …’

‘Adjustments!’ How grown up he is suddenly, Mrs Whitley had time to consider – then she was captured again by the simple conviction in his voice.

‘I want to be an engineer, you see, Mrs Whitley and I can’t do it if I don’t learn how!’

The room was silent. They could not have been more dumbfounded had he said he was to take the train to London to be a guest of his Majesty the King. An engineer, their collective minds considered, barely aware even of what that was! They had all heard of men with such titles who built bridges and railways and so on but what was that to do with their Martin? He was an odd-job boy, for goodness’ sake and would no doubt, if he worked conscientiously for Mr Lloyd, one day be a steward, and agent, or even, God willing, a manager, but an
engineer
!

‘I’ve not had much schooling,’ Martin continued, his voice falling strongly into the stunned quiet his announcement had created. ‘I can read and write and do sums but there’s more to it than that. You know how … how good I am with machinery. I can mend things, I always have done. I don’t know how, or why I can do it. When I was eight years old I took Matron’s watch to pieces when she said it wouldn’t go and when I put it together again … it went! You’ve seen me mend things, haven’t you?’

Mrs Whitley nodded, hypnotised by his quiet certainty.

‘Well, I can do it with anything. Mr Hale said …’

‘Mr Hale?’

‘Yes, I’ve been meaning to tell you …’

‘Tell me what?’ Mrs Whitley drew back suspiciously but Meg, Tom and Emm leaned closer, mesmerised by this incredible scene they were witnessing. Martin continued to kneel at Mrs Whitley’s feet, speaking to them all really, but his eyes never left the cook’s face and she felt the power in him and knew there would be no stopping him, ever! Whatever he did, now or in the future, he would not be stopped!

‘He has the bicycle shop at the corner of Victoria Street. I’ve been helping him out …’

‘… and you never told us!’ Meg was affronted but again Mrs Whitley turned on her sharply, telling her to hold her tongue.

‘Go on, lad, helping him out?’

‘In my own time, Mrs Whitley. Instead of going to the sporting
club
… whenever I had an hour free … I met him at the club, Mr Hale I mean … he plays billiards there and when I told him about …’

‘What, lad?’

‘That I liked … loved machinery … bicycles … the internal combustion engine …’

‘The internal …!’ Mrs Whitley could only gasp on the unfamiliar words.

‘Yes … the horseless carriage, you know … you’ve seen them in town …’ Martin shook her hands impatiently.

‘God save us all!’

‘Well, he said I could give him a hand in his shop and I did and he said I was wasted here.’

‘Wasted! Now see here, young man!’

‘… and that I could go to night school and learn it properly. I’ve got a knack, he said. It’s coming, he said …’

‘What is?’

‘The motor car, not just for them with money but for us all and so I want to be in on it, Mrs Whitley, by God I do. It’s 1903 and before this decade is over we shall see the roads crammed with them. There’s already more than eight thousand of them! Think of that, Mrs Whitley!’ His voice was filled with awe, ‘and the speed they go now that the Motor Car Act has been passed … twenty miles an hour, can you imagine it?’

Mrs Whitley couldn’t, not having the slightest conception of what he was talking about and neither could Emm but Tom and Meg, as enthusiastic as the young are about anything which might bring excitement and colour into their lives, became flushed with Martin’s own triumph and they jostled with one another to hear the better.

‘They have to have a registration number now,’ Martin explained eagerly, ‘so that those who break the law can be identified and prosecuted …’

‘Prosecuted.’ Mrs Whitley said feebly.

‘It’s not just a hobby any more, you see, like sailing or … or such like. It used to be a toy for the well-to-do but not any more. Oh no! Everyone will have one some day but before they can someone has to get the design perfected …’

‘Perfected …’ Meg breathed reverently.

‘… so that they can be turned out cheaply …’

‘D’you mean chaps like you and me will be able to have one?’ Tom’s expression was disbelieving.

‘Oh yes, and all the …’

‘But what about the roads? Will there be enough room on them for everyone?’

‘That will come, with time …’

‘Yes, but who’s going to make all these motor cars …’

Meg’s eyes gazed wonderingly at Martin and in the midst of his jubilant elation he found himself staring in quite the most fascinated manner at the moist curve of her open pink mouth. She had licked her lips with her little tongue leaving them shining and … and …

He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away.

‘We are!’ His voice sounded strangely husky.

‘We? Who’s we?’

‘Well, me for one!’

‘What do you know about it?’ Tom’s voice was derisive and Mrs Whitley snorted as though in agreement. He was but a lad, her expression said with a lad’s big ideas and if he didn’t give over and get down to the job he had he might find himself without one altogether. But Martin Hunter had not yet finished.

‘I know a lot! I can read, can’t I, and Mr Hale takes all the latest magazines. It’s ten years now since it began so I’ve got to be quick …’

‘Tell us about it, Martin, please …’ Meg’s voice was humble, paying homage to his masculine knowledge and he lifted his head arrogantly.

‘You wouldn’t know what I was talking about, for God’s sake!’

‘Try us, go on, please.’

They listened carefully, caught up in his own excitement, turning their heads and straining towards him as he explained the difference between steam and the internal combustion engine, talking incomprehensively about fly wheels and crankshafts and horsepower and valves until their eyes began to glaze. It was too technical for them, Martin could see that so he told them of the days, told to
him
by Mr Hale, not too long ago when Timothy Osborne (a gentleman of much power and wealth in Liverpool, related to their own Mr Hemingway) was one of the first to own an ‘infernal machine’ as they were then called and had caused a sensation in Dale Street by driving his vehicle at the speed of two miles an hour which was all that had then been allowed, the
machine
manned, as the law demanded, by three persons one of whom walked ahead carrying a red flag of warning! Horses had reared and ladies fainted and men had laughed. Yes, men had laughed but not now! Not when every man with the slightest conception of what internal combustion would one day mean to the world, men like himself, were about to launch it in the shape of the motor car and … yes … the flying machine, on the unsuspecting world! Every detail of motoring, it’s past and it’s future was of the utmost importance to him and although Martin Hunter knew he was barely scratching the surface as yet he was quick to see the possibility of the new ideas and his shrewd intelligence, more vital than the slower thinking Tom, had grasped and marvelled at what it would mean to their future.

Those who owned carriages and rode horses could see no purpose in the ‘automobile’ for had not the railway opened up the country to anyone who cared to travel, providing he had the price of a ticket! They were hostile to the idea of the motor car. Where the railway line went so did people, freight, workers moving from one destination to another so what possible use was a motor car? The roads were not made for them, they said, roads meant only for the horse and carriage, for pedestrians and cyclists. Crops were ruined by the dust the machines raised and even washing hung out to dry in one’s own garden was spoiled! Dangerous, horrid, odious things, frightening everyone within a mile of them! That was the general opinion of most folk, including Mrs Whitley who had been no nearer to one of them than to the wild animals she believed they resembled, but already Germany and France, Italy and America were manufacturing them, taking the lead and surely, young Martin agonised, Britain – and himself – must soon catch up. And only by
learning
could he do it. Learning how to do it. Learning how to design and
make
the machines he loved, and to do that he must go back to school!

He fell back on his heels and his dreaming eyes stared off into the far corners of the kitchen, to the far corners of the universe or wherever it was he must go to find whatever it was he sought, then he sat upright again and his face was bright, young, hopeful, boyish again.

‘Can I go, Mrs Whitley, can I?’

THE CITY AND
port in which Megan Hughes, Martin Hunter and Tom Fraser lived was a flourishing one. It was a city of contrasts as the great merchants whose fortunes had been amassed by their forefathers in the early part of the previous century looked out from the splendour of their homes on Everton Brow across what had once been meadowland and marsh to the teeming streets, the bursting tenements of those not quite so fortunate; across the bustling dockyards and warehouses and the landing stages to the busy, swaggering river. It was a bustling highway filled with a constant shouting and hooting and whistling and banging and the lovely dancing sight of eager craft as it swept in a silvered ribbon down to the sea which had brought the city it’s wealth.

But the three young people who idled along the length of Renshaw Street cared nothing at the moment for this. Today was Shrove Tuesday and they had been given an afternoon off! It was not often that they were able to get out together for Mrs Whitley could not spare all three at once, but it was nearly spring and the influx of emigrants which lasted all through the summer months had not yet begun in earnest.

The sun sparkled on her shining copper pans, the polished crockery and the gleaming floor tiles of her kitchen and acknowledging that Meg, bless her had put the sparkle there, that Martin and Tom had done all their chores and Cook was only making work for them to do, she shoo-ed them away, ordering them to ‘be off and be quick about it before I change me mind!’

They had needed no second bidding, stopping only to grab their caps and Meg’s straw boater and like the youngsters they still were despite their fine proportions, had kicked their heels to the corner of the square, their youthful, excited voices beseeching one another to decide on how they should solve the delightful problem of what to do with this precious, unexpected holiday! Should they take the ferry across the water to Wallesey and have a walk along the domed and glittering pier which delicately
pierced
the river? Or to New Brighton to climb it’s sky scraping, lattice work tower? Perhaps a stroll along the great stretch of the white sea promenade which threaded its way up the coast to Egremont? Would it be a brisk pace down the Marine Parade to see the splendid liners at berth, or Bold Street with it’s elegant shops selling rare fabrics from every corner of the world and where the wealthy and fashionable, the ladies, the carriages and fine horses which pulled them moved in superior respectability?

They looked at one another with shining eyes!

‘Well, go on then, make your minds up.’ Tom grinned amiably at the other two, carelessly willing as usual to do whatever they chose.