In her youthful – sudden – wisdom she did the only thing she could think of. She laughed!
‘Well, poor Arthur!’ Her voice was gleeful. ‘Did you ever see such a face on that girl of his? I bet she’s giving him what for right now. Can you just imagine it?’ She adopted a high, falsetto voice and lifted her nose in the air. ‘Really, Arthur, I just can’t understand why you have to get yourself into such predicaments. That girl was obviously well able to look after herself and you have to go sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted. Fancy making such a fool of yourself and what’s more to the point, of me. I’m never going to walk out with you again and as for that kiss I promised you, well you can just go and walk in the water till your hat floats …’
She watched as they relaxed and the beginnings of a smile curled each young mouth. ‘I was mortified … mortified I tell you …’ she went on, still imitating Arthur’s young lady and Tom began to grin and he lifted his hand to settle his cap more comfortably on his mop of fair curls. Martin shoved his hands in his pockets, his dark eyes narrowing in a reluctant smile, his white teeth gleaming in the fast falling dark.
‘Poor devil!’ he said, quite amiable now. ‘I bet he’s right under her thumb.’
‘But it took a bit of nerve, Martin. You’ve got to give him that.’ Meg began to saunter along the promenade in the direction of
the
blossoming lights of the city. ‘I mean, you two must have been a bit of a sight scowling at the poor blighter and yet he still came. And it was two to one!’
‘Yes … well … I suppose so!’ They fell in on either side of her. ‘But you know the whole thing was …’ Martin hesitated, wiser now than he had been ten minutes ago.
‘My fault, I know.’
‘You shouldn’t have come out by yourself, our Meg,’ Tom said quietly, ‘not after last week.’ He could speak of it almost normally now, the catharsis of the set-to with poor Arthur purging him of his guilty embarrassment.
‘I know, but you two had gone off and left me …’
‘… and you can’t stand being left out of anything, can you?’
She put her arm through each of theirs and they strode out together and their laughter was high and pleased. The lights from the overhead railway shone on their youthful faces, picking out the glowing satisfaction in their eyes and they began to run, too full of well-being and spirited energy to merely walk and the strong bond of their shared affection and loyalty to one another bound them as it had always done.
‘
I’M OFF NOW
, Mrs Whitley.’
‘Right lad and don’t you be late home or you’ll feel the back of me hand! When I say ten o’clock I mean it, d’you hear me, Martin Hunter, so don’t you come sneaking in at half past. Big as you are I can still give you a clout, so think on!’
‘I will, Mrs Whitley.’
‘And don’t let none of those hooligans be giving you no black eyes or a broken nose, neither. You know I don’t like you to get hurt.’
‘Aah, Mrs Whitley …’
‘Don’t you pull your lip at me, lad. It’s not good for the house to have one of the servants going about with the countenance of a pugilist and I won’t have it. Why you took up with it I’ll never know, but there, I suppose boys will be boys and at least you do your fighting in the boxing ring and not on the streets …’
Martin Hunter, aware of the grinning face of Tom Fraser at his back, stood impatiently first on one foot, then the other, waiting for the moment when he could reasonably hope to escape Mrs Whitley’s regular homily on the nastiness of ‘fisticuffs’, as she called it, and of those who indulged in it. Though Mr Lloyd had given his permission for the lad to spend his evening off at the young men’s sporting club in Renshaw Street, and the gymnasium which was part of it, and of course Mrs Whitley must bow to the agent’s higher position in the Hemingway Company, she made no bones about the fact that she would have preferred their Martin to have taken up a less belligerent interest! He and Tom went as often as they could manage to watch their football team, Everton, the ‘toffee men’, whenever they played at home and that was a good, working man’s preoccupation with sport in her opinion, but this ‘bashing’ another poor chap’s face to pulp that Martin appeared to relish was beyond her.
‘I don’t bash anyone’s face to pulp, Mrs Whitley,’ he explained
patiently
. ‘The lads I spar with are as big as me, bigger sometimes and there’s a trainer to see we do it according to the rules.’
‘I don’t care! It’s brutal and undignified.’ Nevertheless she had to admit to herself it certainly had helped to build up the lad’s shoulders and back. She’d not missed the looks the maidservants in the square gave him as he effortlessly heaved the sacks of coal potatoes down the back cellar steps and his springing step and swift and graceful stride brought an appreciative gleam to many a pert young eye. He had had his fifteenth birthday at Christmas and his voice had deepened even more. He had put on another two inches in height and two pounds in weight, the last he was ever to gain as he became the full grown man he was to be. Broad, tall, straight, with a narrow waist, flat belly, slender hips and long, well-muscled legs which carried him round the boxing ring with the grace and speed of a young leopard. He had drawn ahead of Tom in the past few months, she recognised, and the fair-haired lad appeared to be still a young boy beside the maturing Martin.
‘I’ll be off then, Mrs Whitley,’ he said now, reaching hopefully for his cap and muffler and she shook herself from her reverie, nodding her head irritably and waving him away with an impatient hand. The room was warm, the temperature outside a little below freezing but if he must go, daft as she thought it, her attitude said, he might as well be off. It was the quiet season from November to March in the migration of those who moved from the old world to the new and the house, in this month of January, was empty and silent. He had done his chores and there was no reason for her to hold him back.
At the door he turned, looking back to the table, bathed in the golden glow from the lamp which stood in its centre. The light fell on the bent heads of Meg and Tom as they pored over the books they were reading. They sat companionably side by side on the bench, shoulders almost touching, oblivious it seemed, to anything, to anyone, even himself and a strange and elusive sensation fluttered in his chest. It touched him briefly but even before he could grasp it or even realise its existence, it was gone. He stamped his feet impatiently and his young, eager manliness carried him half way up the area steps but, surprising himself he found himself retracing his steps to the kitchen door he had just slammed urgently behind him.
They all four lifted their heads enquiringly to look at him, Mrs
Whitley
, Emm, Tom and Meg and he was himself quite amazed to hear his own voice speak.
‘Why don’t you come with me to the gym, Tom?’ it said, his mouth seeming to form the words of its own accord. ‘A bit of boxing would put some muscle on you.’
‘You what …?’ Tom was clearly bewildered. Though they were as close as brothers with a long record of friendship stretching right through their childhood they were in no way alike in their interests and it was the first time Martin had ever suggested that Tom accompany him to the sporting club.
‘You heard! Come and do a bit of sparring with me. It’ll build you up, put some muscle on you like I said.’
‘What do I want more muscle on me for?’ Tom asked laughingly. ‘I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve got, thanks.’
‘Come off it! You’re like a long drink of water! I can nearly see through you! All skin and bone and nothing to hold it together. A couple of months working out in the gym’ll build you up …’
‘You mean if I came with you and bashed hell out of some poor sod …’
‘You watch your mouth, Tom Fraser,’ Mrs Whitley tutted angrily.
‘… I could look like you?’ Tom finished.
‘What’s wrong with that? It’s exercise that does it.’ Martin flexed a muscle in his arm, glancing at Meg but she merely lowered her eyes to her book, losing interest in his and Tom’s argument and he scowled, still young enough to feel the insult of her girlish disdain in his own manly pursuits. Nevertheless he persisted, quite perplexed by his own sudden determination to have Tom go with him.
‘Come on. It’d do you good, a bit of exercise …’
But Mrs Whitley had had enough of Martin standing there with the back door wide open letting all the lovely warm air out ‘Never mind a bit of exercise, Martin Hunter. If Tom wants a bit of exercise, or you an’ all for that matter, you can run round to the “Fiddlers” and fetch me a jug of stout.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Is that enough exercise for you because if it isn’t I’ll soon find you some. Now shut that door and be off with you before I change me mind!’
Half way along Duke Street, his puzzled mind still deliberating on what on earth had possessed him to invite Tom to come with him to the sporting club when he knew perfectly well Tom disliked
any
kind of violent exertion unless he was watching it, he found his footsteps had turned him in a direction which would take him
away
from the club. Though he had been filled with the need to work off his frustration – at what? his baffled mind asked – he knew he was making, not for the boxing ring where he could fulfill that need but to somewhere else. To somewhere he went whenever he could find the time and the opportunity and the
privacy
he seemed to need for it. He had told no-one about it, not even those who were closer to him than the family he had never known and he had asked himself why frequently, for in all things but this he and Meg and Tom had shared their hopes and fears, their triumphs and disappointments. This part of his life was perhaps the most important; the most precious; the most vulnerable to the scorn of others and he had been unusually secretive about it. That must be it, he reasoned with himself. That must be why. Because it was so fragile it could not be exposed to the gaze of even Meg and Tom. Not yet!
Turning out of Whitechapel into Victoria Street he heard his own footsteps quicken eagerly and his mind flew ahead, dashing forward to meet the excitement which always flooded him when he allowed it its way. There were shops on either side of the street. Shops of all kinds, but not grand like those in Dale Street or Bold Street. These were small, run down, crammed with all the commodities needed and purchased by the working man and his family. A butcher, the blinds drawn and nothing but the sign in the window to proclaim its business. A grocer, a greengrocer, a fish merchant, a cheese and butter shop and the inevitable pawnbroker! At the far end, on the corner, appearing to stand apart from its companions in its shining splendour was a double-fronted shop which declared itself to be ‘Hale’s Modern Bicycle Emporium’ and beneath this splendid title were printed the words ‘Albert Hale, prop.’
Martin’s footsteps slowed and the gas lamplight which shone from the evenly but distantly spaced lampholders along the street picked out the soft, almost lover-like gleam in his eyes. He turned to look into the dim window, a light from the back of the shop evidently shining from Mr Albert Hale’s own living quarters, outlining the silhouettes of the bicycles which were crammed there. He put out his hand, placing his fingers gently against the glass which separated them from him, then rubbed at the glaze of frost which coated it. He breathed on the window, rubbing
again
, this time with his coat sleeve, peering reverently through the small hole his breath had cleared.
For several minutes he stood there, gazing in dream-like fashion at the machines, his head on one side as though considering which one to choose for himself, then with an eager squaring of his shoulders he moved to the arched doorway and tapped gently on the door.
They were about the kitchen table on a bitterly cold evening at the end of January when Martin cleared his throat and as though at a signal they all raised their heads to look enquiringly at him. The room was slow and peaceful, the people in it lounging about in that last reluctant awareness that they should make a move and get to their beds. The fire was dying away to slumbering rosy embers, a tendril of pale grey smoke drifting from the falling ash to escape up the blackened chimney. The kitchen was lambent with pale gold and rose tinted reflections from the last flickering flames in the fireplace and the end of the day indolence gave the figures who lolled about a strange grace.
Emm was there curled up on a tuffet, her spindly legs to the coals for she felt the chill in her almost fleshless bones. Mrs Whitley dozed in the ‘best’ chair, as was her due, proclaiming at intervals that she really
must
get up them stairs but making no effort to do so.
‘Can I have a word, Mrs Whitley?’ Martin said gruffly and she turned, surprised, for could he not always have a word if he wanted and without asking her permission.
‘You what?’
‘I want to ask you something before I discuss it with Mr Lloyd.’
‘Oh yes!’
Tom and Meg looked from one face to the other, then at each other, blue eyes asking amber what on earth this was all about. Meg raised her eyebrows and shrugged. She had been sewing, absorbed in the fine tucking she was putting in a new muslin blouse she intended for the spring days to come. The lamplight touched her hair and the glow of it gilded her white skin to cream and put tawny shadows across her shoulders, following the sweet curve of her breasts but Martin was looking at Mrs Whitley and Tom at Martin and neither noticed. She had returned to being ‘their Meggie’, the tomboy sister they were so used to, the confrontation with Fancy O’Neill buried deeply, firmly, in the pit of their
minds
where it could do them no harm, and her growing, maturing loveliness escaped their casual young men’s interest. Her hair was piled on top of her head, more to keep it out of her way when she was working than to follow fashion, but loosely so that there was a soft fullness around her face. Springing curls escaped to lie about her forehead, above her ears and on the smooth skin at the nape of her neck.