The Ride -5 of 5

Continued from Part 4 The Ride-4 | ABCtales

 

Frank finished early again the following evening. He’d promised Lisa the ultimate pub crawl.

They got their bikes down onto the Central station’s Wirral Line platform and boarded a train to Bidston, a bleak little single-platform station out of the marshes. A few minutes later, a grubby two-coach diesel train came grumbling into the platform from the Wrexham direction, pausing before reversing and going back the way it came - almost as if it had had meant to head into Liverpool, but then lost its nerve. Lisa nodded politely as Frank related the technical reasons why trains from that line couldn’t go into Liverpool, without really taking it in. Frank liked his trains, as well as his ships.

 

The short train clattered over a huge metal bridge, the brown, still waters of the Dee underneath. “We’re in Wales now,” said Frank. Lisa thought she noticed a slight lilt in the still-predominant Scouse of the passengers who alighted at the small stations after Shotton. The pylons, industry and arterial dual carriageway roads around Connah’s Quay receded into the distance. Soon they were trundling sedately through green fields. Small whitewashed farmsteads clung to the hills that rose up above the railway.

“Never imagined you could go to Wales from Liverpool, just for the evening,” Lisa said. “Different world, isn’t it?”

“Lots of people have bought old cottages and farms round here and drive into the city every day,” said Frank. “Probably can do it in an hour if the Tunnels are behaving themselves.”

“Celtic Twilight with easy commuting.”

They got off the train at Buckley, gaining the other side of the tracks by a foot crossing, waiting first for the thundering freight train bearing down on them, heading for the steel finishing plant at Shotton. They mounted their bikes and powered on to Buckley, cutting through the pedestrianised town centre rather than the longer bypass, then on to Mold, the first hint of rural Wales.

They pushed on, along the A541, quiet now that the Welsh idyll-seeking commuters were all safely tucked up in their barn conversions and former farmhouses. Then Frank held out his right arm and dived down an improbably narrow lane. The road steepened; there was grass growing down the middle.

“You can’t say you’ve been to Wales - unless - you’ve ridden up - a lung-burster of a hill,” said Frank, in-between pedal strokes. Lisa nodded and dug in for the climb. “It’s – not far – just about – a mile,” said Frank.

 

Lisa clapped her hands in delight when she saw The Fox at Ysceifiog. Rough whitewashed walls, sash windows, a few benches on the frontage that gave directly onto the village green, a sign promising real ale. The inside didn’t disappoint, just a simple wood-panelled public bar, a collection of antique jugs suspended from the wooden beams. Even the beer met with Frank’s approval – Brains, from Wales, admittedly the wrong end of Wales, but Welsh nevertheless. They tarried over a couple of pints, then remounted and took the back lane to Lixwm; the hill would help burn off some of the alcohol.

Nor did the Crown disappoint, another rural gem. More pints, Robinsons this time. Who cared if the patrons were Liverpool accountants, estate agents and solicitors rather than sturdy Welsh peasants these days?

“Sometimes you have just got to suspend disbelief; imagine it’s still the 1940s and those guys over there have just spend the day ploughing the long acre,” said Frank.

“As opposed dreaming up yet new ways of fleecing homeowners?” said Lisa. “I’ll try.”

 

Then they dropped back down the valley, across the main road and up another steep little lane to the Cross Foxes at Nannerch, another whitewashed Welsh rural delight.

 

There were other pubs on the way back, by way of Rhydymwyn, Mold and back to Buckley. Lisa fancied that they stopped off in a place in Buckley but everything was beginning to disappear into a blur. Good thing she no longer had to lecture patients on sensible drinking; she’d probably exceeded the weekly alcohol guidelines in a single night.

 

Somehow, they made it onto the last train from Buckley to Bidston. Frank, of course, had researched the timetable. “We can wait about 25 minutes for a connection at Bidston, or we can cycle on to Birkenhead and get an earlier train from there, or we can ride the tunnel again.”

“Twenty-five minutes! That’s a bit of an anomaly,” said Lisa, adopting a strangulated ‘trainspotter’s’ voice. “Tunnel,” she added, firmly.

 

The air in the tunnel was warm again, womb-like. The growl of the city receded as they rushed down the slope to the bottom.

Lisa was a few yards ahead of Frank. Suddenly, the stopped, next to a little alcove, possibly a shelter for the maintenance crew. Frank stopped too, puzzled.

“The CCTV can’t see us here. Take me!”

“LISA! NO! We’re in the middle of a public highway! This is like something out of a Mills & Boon novel! You’re MAD!”

“We’re living out own novel! Don’t you see?”

“Well, it’s very badly written!”

“Frank, you’re being an old woman AGAIN!"

 

 

Frank’s heart sank when they emerged back on the Liverpool side 20 minutes later; the yellow-jacketed attendant emerged from his booth an held his hand out. But he merely asked: “Everything all right down there; you seemed to take a long time?”

“Yeah, bit of tyre trouble, that’s all.”

It was gone midnight when they arrived back in Kensington. “Time for bed, I suppose,” said Frank unnecessarily. Lisa had been pretty much silent all the way home; she hadn’t been silent at all while they were doing their impromptu knee-trembler.

Now she spoke. “That was beautiful.”

“Beautiful. I’d call it a lot of things, but beautiful? By the way, your arse is filthy ... you’ve got 'Mersey Tunnel 1934' imprinted on it. Must have been one of the embossed tiles…”

“Liar!”

“Your bum really is filthy, though …We really, really shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong, wrong. Dunno how I’m going to face Celine…”

“SHUT UP! Just because it was wrong, it doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful! OK! OK! OK! It was wrong, and it was BEAUTIFUL!”

 

 

Next morning, 8.00am, from the other bed, Lisa groaned. The first proper hangover she’d had since her student days.

“Suppose we ought to make a move,” muttered Frank, swinging his feet out of the bed onto the floor. “Train’s at 10.12 out of Lime Street.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about last night,” said Lisa. “When we did it, we were under the water, under the river, right?”

“You-wot? Yeah, I suppose we must have been.”

“So we weren’t technically on Earth. Neither of this earth, nor of the water…”

“Not TECHNICALLY on Earth?”

“We were in another dimension – so we can say it never happened! Not on this Earth, anyway. No need for you to tell Celine…”

Frank gave a long sigh and pulled his socks on.

 

Frank carefully placed the lodging house key in the little key safe and pulled the outside door firmly closed, checking that it was locked with a firm push. Lisa was outside in the tiny front garden, holding the two laden bikes.

“Still got a couple of hours before the train,” said Frank. “Like me to treat you to a coffee in Maccy Ds?”

“Actually, there’s somewhere I’d like to go before we leave. Meet me on the train? No need to wait for me – I’ll get the next one if I’m late.”

“Yes – sure, if you want.”

 

Frank had resigned himself to a solitary journey back to Euston when Lisa tapped him on the shoulder, breathless, clutching her bike pannier.

“Whew! Thought I was going to miss it. I’ll just put my pannier up in the rack…”

“Why don’t you leave it on the bike?”

“Er, don’t have the bike any more. Went round to Ronda’s house just now. I gave it to her.”

“You gave Ronda your bike? Is there no end to Saint Lisa’s goodness? Leaving aside the al fresco sex on the national transport system, of course…”

“Who said saints have to be good people? And if we were in the tunnel, it technically wasn't al fresco, was it? Look, I’m falling over bikes in my back yard. I’ve got a £3,000 Boardman, more road bikes and mountain bikes than you can shake a stick at. And when the girl from the Liverpool backstreets makes it to the Olympics in five years’ time, she’ll tell everyone about the lady who gave her her  bike.”

“What did Ronda say?”

“She was absolutely made up. Choked. Couldn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. I gave her my big chain lock as well, made her promise me she’d always use it. Told her not to take it to school, either. That’s where her other one got nicked.”

“I’ve got my old boneshaker that I never ride any more. Maybe next time I’m up, I could bring that. She could ride that to school.”

“That’d be nice…. Hey, Frank? You don’t think I’m being patronising, do you? Trying to be Lady Bountiful to the people of Liverpool with good works and things?”

“I just think you’re severely under-employed…”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. I’m planning to do a bit of training, then I’m going to go back into work; I want to set up a holistic practice, helping people with physical and mental health.”

“Takes one to know one, I suppose…”

“Frank!”

“Sorry, Saint Lisa…Fancy a coffee from my thermos? Still warm.”