The Ride -3

Continued from Part 2 The Ride-2 | ABCtales

It was six weeks later, late August. Frank was back in Liverpool, working on the next issue. He was at the Kensington lodging house early on the second night. Work had gone smoothly, it was barely 4pm. He unlocked the front door and wheeled his bike into the dark passage. As he turned to close the street door behind him, someone coughed. He wheeled round again; he could barely discern the outline of a figure in the gloom. “LISA!”

“Guess I couldn’t keep away. My bike’s round the back. Come on, let’s go.”

All that afternoon and evening, they roamed far and wide over the city. The Baltic Fleet, Ye Cracke (Lisa collapsed in laughter again when she saw the sign), back to Peter Cavanaghs, the Big House. Lisa had discarded her doctorly disapproval of alcohol and was matching Frank pint for pint; in fact, he was beginning to get seriously worried about her ability to stay on her bike.

 

They headed up the hill, down Jamaica Street, down Grafton to where it bent round into Hill  Street.

“Bugger!” said Lisa. A pothole had jerked one of her LED lights from its holder, onto the pavement.

“Let’s stop awhile. Take in the view.”

Lights were just coming on in the city. They looked across the wide river, to the Birkenhead side. A couple of coasters moored outside the Cammell Laird berth.

Lisa held her damaged light. Three kids were hanging around in the front garden of one of the houses. “Missus – you should get some compo off the council for that,” said the shorter of the two lads.

“Yeah. And you see that big hole in the road there. Ride over that, tell them you fell off and get even more.”

“And how much compo would the council give me?”

“Dunno, like. But yeah, hundred poonds maybe. Decent amount, anyway…”

“A hundred pounds wouldn’t pay my weekly champagne bill,” said Lisa, turning her head to wink at Frank.

“Nice bike!” said the tall girl, speaking up for the first time. “How much you pay for that?”

“About five hundred, I think. It was a while ago."

“Carrera, innit? I had a Sirrus. Twenty-seven-speed. I was really fast on it. Mrs Morris was always on at me, sayin’ I should take it up competitive, like…”

“You’ve got the build for it. So are you going to?”

“Bike got nicked, dinnit? Maybe, one day. If I can get another one. Hey, Miss? Could I have a go on yours, like? Just ten minutes, round the block. I live just there, three doors down. No worries, like…”

“Yes, sure.” Lisa held the red Carrera up. “Be my guest.”

The girl swung a long, muscled leg over the crossbar, snapping the gears into position – click-click-click. Then she was gone, speeding away down Hill Street.

Frank gaped: “Lisa! You’re MAD!”

“Frank – you’re always on at me and Celine about how you can sum up people; how your instincts about people are almost always right…”

“Yeah! Why d’you think I’ve had so much stuff nicked over the years…” he muttered.

“She’s sound, is Ronda,” piped up the taller lad. “She’s no scally.”

 

Ten minutes came, and went. The two lads muttered something and shuffled away down the road, kicking a stone as they went.

“So now we’re going to spend the rest of our evening waiting for Ronda not to come back. And we’ll be a bike short.”

“Oh, don’t be such an old woman, Frank!”

 

Twenty minutes ticked by, thirty. Frank glanced at his phone - -8.40pm. Ronda had been gone 34 minutes. “Look!” shouted Lisa.

In the dusk, Frank could just about make out a black-haired white T-shirted figure powering up Hill Street.

 

“I’m SO sorry Miss! I just got…got carried away, like. Just kept on going. Forgot the time. Hope yer dinnant think I’d robbed it…”

“We had every faith in you, Ronda. Didn’t we, Frank?”

“How far did you get?”

“Garston – the Aldi. But then I thought you’d be thinking…”

“Garston? But that’s miles! Round trip must be, what, at least ten, maybe fifteen!” Frank said.

“It is addictive, once you get going,” said Lisa. “You must miss it, terribly.”

 

“Poor kid,” said Lisa as they pedalled away down Grafton Street.

 

There was karaoke again at the Warrington Hotel; Frank got up and sang. T’Pau:

Your dreams are china in your hand

Don't wish too hard

Because they may come true

And you can't help them…

He looked knowingly down his nose at Lisa from the little stage. She tipped her head back and took another large gulp from her pint of Bombardier.

 

“You’ve a nice voice, did you know that?” said Lisa, squeezing his hand as they headed out into the night.

Unlocking their bikes from the railings, Lisa let her lycra’d thigh brush against Frank’s, then ran her fingers gently down his spine, letting them linger in the small of his back. Then she turned, pulling her helmet out of the pannier. “Sensible adults,” she said, clamping it on her head and snapping the buckle closed.

“Oooh look! It’s Darth Varder!” shouted a pavement smoker outside the Wetherspoons as they cycled past. “Watch out for my death ray, my good man!” said Lisa over her shoulder, in her best cut-glass accent.

 

 

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Continued in Part 4 (Tomorrow)