Between Friends by Audrey Howard Page B

with Martin as he ‘mucked about’ as they tolerantly called it, in the element he loved. They had spent hours watching and idly listening as Martin discussed with Mr Hale the merits of the ‘Napier’ versus the ‘Vauxhall’ and the chances of the former in the ‘Gordon Bennett Cup’ in July. It was an enigma to them both still for they had not yet got over their bewilderment at Martin’s passion for these weird contraptions but they were willing to be part of it, as they had always been part of Martin’s life.
    Threading their way through the muddle, led by Mr Hale they passed beyond the curtained alcove which led from the shop and into another room which looked as though some playfully destructive hand had taken a score of bicycles and torn them apart, flinging the pieces in joyous abandon to every corner of the room. There were wheels and frames, pedals and handlebars, saddles and mudguards and all lying about like the pieces of a giant jig-saw puzzle waiting to be put together. Here again Tom and Meg were on familiar ground for it was in this workshop that Mr Hale kept his ‘spares’, the pieces he used to construct or repair a machine. On more than one occasion Tom had been ordered to shuffle them about in search of a decent spoke or brake as Martin helped Mr Hale to fit up some contrivance he was re-building.
    ‘How’s it going then, Mr Hale?’ Martin asked politely, though his eyes shone with excitement.
    ‘Fine lad, just fine. All ready then, are yer?’
    ‘Aye … if you are!’
    ‘Oh aye. I said a week or two and … well, come and see fer yerself!’
    Meg and Tom looked at one another and pulled a face, mystified by this cryptic exchange, then followed the retreating backs of Mr Hale and Martin, stepping over the explosion of bicycle parts which barred their way.
    ‘Come through then, you two,’ Martin called over his shoulder.
    Another door was opened in what seemed the endless depths of the shop and what was evidently Mr Hale’s living quarters until they came at last into a back yard. In one corner, draped lovingly with a tarpaulin was the shape of what Meg and Tom understood to be the wonder of the ‘Vauxhall’ motor car, not apparently to be revealed to their amateur and therefore heretic gaze and they were directed to the furthest corner. Here again were a myriad pieces of what had once been bicycles, from the old ‘ordinary’, the ‘pennyfarthing’ and the ‘boneshaker’, all discarded now for they were rusted and rotting away, but standing in their midst, shining and proud and leaning against one another in companionable equanimity was a tandem, it’s two leather seats polished to the shine of a horse chestnut, and a bicycle!
    ‘Now then!’ said Mr Hale, ‘will these do yer?’ His face was fondly indulgent as though he showed off two beloved children. ‘I ’ad to put a couple of extra coats of paint on them mudguards after you left, Martin. Well, they’d bin rusting out ’ere for months, but they turned out right well. What d’yer think to ’em?’
    Martin appeared to have lost his voice and Meg and Tom were beyond speaking anyway so Mr Hale went on comfortably.
    ‘Not bad, eh, considerin’ not one piece belongs to another. I reckon there must be at least fifty machines in them two, if yer don’t count the spokes! Now get on ’em, the three of you and let me see what you make of ’em!’

Chapter Five
     
    THEY WERE NEVER off them dratted machines Mrs Whitley grumbled and what about the scullery steps and them windows hadn’t been polished for two days and would you look at the state of the kitchen floor, she said, but secretly she was as proud of her three as if they had been of her own conceiving and was heard to boast quite openly to neighbouring servants of the vast distances they covered on their ‘machines’! Still, it did no harm to let them know where their place was and so she did, quite volubly, endlessly pointing out the slow deterioration of her