Between Friends (14 page)

To the Hemingways, both father and son, it was a hobby, a pastime new and thrilling but to Martin it was his life’s dream and not to be taken lightly, as they did. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for, striving for! The start of the work he had been cast on this earth to do and by God he was ready to start doing it! He’d show them! He’d not let them down! He’d win every bloody race they put him in! He’d make the name of Hemingway as famous in the motoring world as it was in the sphere of shipping and with it would rise the name of
Hunter
!

Oh dear God … dear sweet Jesus …
it had begun
!

Meg thought she would swoon with the excitement of it all at first! Martin was like a candle … no … one of those new exciting
electric
lights which were beginning to appear in all the smart shops and the homes of the wealthy. Brilliant, unable to stop talking, unable to sit down or even stand still, he lit up the kitchen with his magnetic presence and Mrs Whitley said she was all of a ‘do-dah’ and she’d have to have a sip of stout to steady her and would Martin be a good lad and slip round to the ‘Fiddlers’ …

It was then, as she mentioned the ‘Fiddlers’, without warning she began to weep and the three of them became as still as animals which scent a trap and are helpless to avoid it. Was it not at this precise moment, years ago, that they had first set eyes on the weeping woman and in such a manner and tone of voice she had sent a young and defiantly brave Martin for that first jug of stout and now, now it was ending and Mrs Whitley’s tears said she did not know how she was to do without them! The first was to be off and soon it would be the other two and she was heartbroken. They had not thought, any of them, as they exulted over Martin’s good fortune, that this was the moment when the ‘three of ’em’ were to become two, then perhaps only one as they all went their separate ways. Mrs Whitley’s grief struck at their elation, crumbling it to fragments as their young hearts considered it. All these years, their eyes said to one another and did we ever think
the
day would come when we would have to part and could they bear it, they silently asked each other?

Emm stared from one to the other, her face which had shrieked its joy with the rest, slipping into bewilderment for where, suddenly, had it gone? One minute high jinks and laughter, the next, tears!

Martin moved jerkily, his eyes tearing themselves away from those of Meg and Tom. He reached in a fumbling fashion for the door knob, awkward and anxious to regain the high euphoria of moments ago, resentful suddenly that it should have been taken from him. He was young and unable yet to cope with his emotions and his instinct was to run, to run away from what he could not easily manage.

‘Right, Mrs Whitley, I’ll not be a minute.’ His voice was deep, unconcerned he would have them believe, doing its best to be normal but his eyes were strangely blurred as though something dimmed their usual soft and depthless brown.

‘Alright, lad and don’t you get lost,’ Tom said, trying to make a joke, his voice only a fraction from cracking. ‘… and make sure you get the right change, now.’

Meg put her hand to her mouth, covering it with shaking fingers for were they not the very words Mrs Whitley had used so many, many times in the last four years and now she could not bear to hear them spoken for were they not the symbol of their united lives and was it not to end with this last night together!

‘Oh don’t … don’t, Tom … don’t joke, please … it’s the last …’

‘Now then, Meggie …!’ Martin moved forward as though her distress had released some maturity in him, some strong and protective emotion which would not allow him to turn away as he had intended. ‘Don’t say that! I’ll not have it! Bloody hell, it’s only up the road … to start with, anyway and later … I’ll be home as often …’

‘Of course you will! Of course you bloody will!’ Tom was quite overcome and could do no more than repeat the same words over and over again, moving in his turn towards Meg but she turned away and began to carefully re-arrange the crockery which was set out for their meal, moving the salt and pepper a little closer to the centre of the table, smoothing the white cloth though it was unwrinkled, straightening the already straight cutlery.

‘I know, I know! Take no notice of me,’ she said, but her voice trembled as she bent her head, her spirit oppressed and joyless.

‘Nor me, lad!’ Mrs Whitley heaved herself to her feet, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘Daft beggars we are! Why, you’ll be in and out of this kitchen all the time, I’ll be bound. Sick to death of you we’ll be, eeh, Meggie?’

Meg felt the silent, waiting presence of Martin at her back. She knew she must say something to bring back to him the rejoicing which was his due. She must not spoil for him what was the greatest day of his life with her own sorrow and squaring her shoulders she took the first step on the path which was to lead her from the careless selfishness which is the mark of the young to the hard won generosity that comes with maturity.

‘Not half!’ she managed. ‘He’ll be up here after those pasties of yours if for nothing else!’

‘Which reminds me,’ Cook said, cheering up at the thought of food. ‘I’d best get a few in the oven for you take with you.’

‘Mrs Whitley!’ Martin was laughing now, immensely relieved the tears had stopped for like most men he had not the slightest notion of how to deal with them. ‘They will feed me up there, you know!’

‘Not like the grub you’re used to, my lad,’ Mrs Whitley said firmly. ‘You’re still growing and you need feeding up. Now promise me if you get hungry you’ll come home for a bit of decent food … promise …?’

Home
!

Martin moved across the kitchen. Mrs Whitley had her back to him, busy as a bee as her silent tears fell again into the bowl in which she was ready to prepare the pastry for the meat pasties for her lad. Gently, his action as loving as a son with his mother, he put his arms about her, turning her until her trembling cap fitted beneath his chin.

‘I promise faithfully I’ll be home every chance I get.’ He hugged the plump little woman awkwardly in his young man’s arms but his eyes were on Meg as he spoke.

The rest had gone to bed, Mrs Whitley hiccoughing her way up the stairs on her last glass of stout for she had felt the need for a bit extra that night ‘to make her sleep’ she said.

They sat together before the dying fire and no-one spoke. Tom lounged as he always did, long legs sprawled out before him, hands deep in his pockets, his eyes half closed as he stared into
the
fire. It was as though he saw pictures in its brightness, pictures of something serious for his usual light-hearted expression was missing and his young face was sombre with his own heavy thoughts.

Meg sat on the rug, her back against the chair in which Martin slouched. He watched her as her hand idly played with a strand of her own bright copper hair, twisting it in a glowing curl about her finger. It sprang to life beneath her hand and his heart moved painfully with the sadness of this moment.

The last time
! In the midst of his great joy he could think of nothing else and the pain of leaving these two who had been like an extension of his own mind and growing body for what seemed to be all of his life, was almost more than he could bear. He could not recall when he had been without them! They had not consciously been aware of the bond which had tied them inextricably together, at least not to put into words but it had been there just the same. It was no good telling himself that this was what he had wanted to do since he had first seen the strange and wonderful invention called the ‘horseless carriage’, now that the time had come to leave them, and he knew it would be for good, his bewildered heart ached with it!

He had thrilled them all with the splendour of Mr Hemingway’s hallway and the picture of the lovely silver-haired girl whose portrait hung upon it’s wall, the Victorian grandeur of the drawing-room and the incredible loveliness of the glass room filled with flowers. He had seen Meg’s eyes glow with wonder and longing, and Tom’s widen at the incredible idea that Mr Robert and Mr Charles Hemingway owned not one motor car but three, one a racer, and had gratified Mrs Whitley with his assurance that the kitchen at Silverdale was not a patch on her own! He had tried in his way to let them see the wonder of the life he would be living and to reassure them that in every way he could he would share it with
them
! No, he should not be sad for this was the next, inevitable step towards his future and both Tom and Meg knew it and accepted it, or would when they became used to his absence but that step would take him away from them and that was hard!

The ‘three of ’em’ were to be split up at last!

Meg turned and put her bent arm across his knee. Resting her chin upon it she looked up at him, her eyes so lost and depthless he felt the incredible need to lift her up into his arms and hold
her
close and pet her back to the blithe young girl she usually was.

‘What is it?’ he said gruffly, his young manhood once again in jeopardy.

‘Will we still go for rides, Martin?’ she said. ‘You an’ me an’ Tom? When you’re home, I mean?’

‘Of course we will, you daft beggar,’ relieved that it was to be no more than that. ‘I’ll take the bicycle and you and Tom keep the tandem. Every chance we’ll go off somewhere, won’t we, mate?’ He winked at Tom and as he had intended, hoped, she brightened and sat up, smiling.

He smiled himself, a man suddenly, with a man’s fate before him but before he went he must ensure that what he had begun over nine years ago still went on.

‘And you behave yourself, lady, or I’ll know the reason why when I come home!’ He looked across at Tom and his expression said quite clearly that his words meant something else entirely and that they were directed not at herself, but at Tom. Their Meg was placed in
his
care from now on.

Tom nodded briefly, understanding!

THEY MISSED HIM
, of course they did, they said a dozen times a day and how on earth was Tom to manage all the lifting and carrying he and Martin had done between them; and that dratted clock, the one Martin had put right years ago and which had ticked away merrily ever since, had suddenly decided to stop and who was to mend it now? It was the same with the mangle which inexplicably refused to turn its rollers, jammed it seemed to eternal inactivity, and poor Meg, forced to hand wring the dozens of heavy cotton sheets was close to tears as the skin of her hands cracked and broke open in the icy chill of the wash-house.

Tom did his best. Mr Lloyd had thought enough of him to give him a rise in pay when Martin went saying that Tom was to consider himself the agent’s deputy and that when he was absent Tom was in charge.
In charge
! Promotion, and what’s more he was to have a lad under him when one could be found but somehow the wondrous pride of it seemed to evaporate before he really got to grips with it in the atmosphere of sudden and constant bickering which arose between himself and, of all people, Meg! They just could not agree on anything from who should eat the last piece of Mrs Whitley’s summer pudding to the choice of where they go on a bicycle outing. Tom’s once bright and cheerful face became moody as the weeks wore on and Meg developed what Mrs Whitley called a look of the ‘mulligrubs’ with a most uncharacteristic peevishness about her which set them all on edge. Her temper, always volatile, was even more menacing in the many flaring quarrels which erupted between herself and Tom over nothing at all.

The last straw came one day when he and Meg were about to take a short spin on the tandem up to Aigburth Hall and back one bright frosted Sunday afternoon. Their route would take them along Aigburth Road and past the gates to the Silverdale estate and with a bit of luck they might see Martin, they said. They were themselves again that day, in affectionate harmony and
eager
to be away together on a jaunt, teasing one another, joking with Mrs Whitley on the prospect of one of her kidney and mushroom casseroles on their return.

They were to get no further than Upper Pitt Street and as they hobbled home, Tom dragging the crippled tandem on which the chain had broken, Meg clutching the grazed elbow she had suffered as she was flung from the machine, Mrs Whitley could hear their high, angry voices coming from the Square even in their cosy nook by the chimney corner. Meg’s face was crimson with temper as she burst into the kitchen and her eyes glared furiously into Tom’s. She had snatched her boater from her head, crushing it between frenzied hands and her bright hair sparked about her head and fell dramatically over her forehead. She pushed it back impatiently as she continued to heap recriminations on Tom’s head, tossing her own as he met her fury with his.

Emm and Mrs Whitley sat, appalled and speechless, their mouths open, their eyes wide as saucers as the frustrated rancour of the two young people filled every corner of the room. Their expressions said they could not really believe what they saw and heard and for a bewildering,
stunned
moment they were frozen, unable to move or even utter a remonstrance. Emm, never one to say much at the best of times, a silently cheerful little presence scuttling busily about the place, looked as though tears were imminent but Mrs Whitley’s face had begun to turn a truculent puce and her eyes narrowed, their gooseberry green depths turning pale as her own temper rose to the surface. She stood up abruptly and reached for the wooden baking spoon, her symbol of authority, or so the gesture implied and Emm shrank back since she was convinced Cook was wild enough to lay it about the shoulders of the threatening couple who were bridling up to one another so dangerously. She had never seen them like this and her bewildered, frightened mind – for surely they had lost theirs – considered what it was that had brought them to such a ferment. Their Meggie had a hot temper and could you wonder with that hair of hers but Tom was so amiable, sweet tempered, as free and easy as the breezes which blew off the river and just as carefree. Would you have believed he could snarl in such black anger, that his blue eyes could burn that bright and snapping blue? He was what Emm secretly called a ‘laughing boy’, unembittered by his sad start in life. Though she did not know the word, if she had she would have described him as uncomplicated, peaceable, patient,
always
the one to pour oil on the troubled waters stirred up by the other two. As he went about his work he gave the appearance of someone who will stroll idly, blithely through life, a whistle on his lips, perfectly content to let the world go by whilst he stood back to admire its passing!