The Ride-2

 

Continued from Part 1 The Ride-1 | ABCtales

 

Frank groaned as his phone alarm played its maddening little tune; one of these days he’d get round to changing it. “Seven o’clock,” he groaned.

“So it is!” said Lisa brightly, from the other bed. “How’s the back?”

“Better. Much better, thanks to your healing hands. ”

“Plenty more where that came from. Fancy a coffee?”

“Yes, lovely.”

The well-prepared Dr Lisa Thurloe had brought all the necessary – real coffee bags, not instant, milk - in her cycle pannier. No sugar, of course.

 

They sat on white plastic chairs in the back porch, sipping from their cups.

“You know, I could swear that black bin bag was there last time I stayed here.”

“Housework obviously not a priority for the management. By the way, where IS everybody?”

“Everybody?”

“You know, the other guests … residents. Surely we’re not the only people staying here.”

“Out at work, I should think.”

“At seven fifteen?”

“Probably halfway through their first shift, a lot of them. Then on to their second job.”

“What sort of things?”

“I dunno. Uber deliveries. Warehouse work. Anything. Maybe even the odd itinerant freelance editor...”

“Ha! And I thought you media types all swanned about in luxury…”

“Not this one. By the way, you sure you want to come with me up to Aigburth? You could stay here and then go into town to explore.”

“No. I’d like to come with you. Love to.”

“It’s a nice enough ride through the park, on a morning like this…”

 

They cut across town, over busy Edge Lane and Smithdown Road. “C’mon. I’ll show you Sefton Park!”

Lisa was delighted, astonished, even.

“Are we really still in Liverpool? I never thought … it would be like this. I mean, nothing in London is a patch on this. Not even Regent’s Park; certainly not Hyde Park.”

“I know. Scousers’ like to keep their secrets.”

The noise of the traffic was a distant murmur behind the greenery. They carefully negotiated a twisting track alongside the lake, thin road bike wheels skidding and slipping on the mud.

 

They said their goodbyes a discreet distance from the office, in a treelined backstreet of terraced houses in bright orange brick. Lisa gave a little wave: “By-ee! See you at six in the Globe!” Frank watched Lisa pedal off down Mersey Road in the direction of Otterspool Prom, the legs of her muscles flexing in her black lycra leggings. From behind, she could pass for 30; even from the front, not much more than 40. Catwoman.

 

 

Frank was already settled into one of the Globe’s high-backed light brown benches when Lisa arrived.

“Oh, put it away, Frank! Everybody’s staring!”

He glanced across to the bar. The landlady was in animated conversation with one of her regulars about a mutual friend operation.

Frank sighed and manipulated the huge blue clipboard with the proof pages back into his bag.

“Do you always bring your work to the pub?”

“Sometimes. Depends how busy we are.”

“I bet the Scousers rip the piss out of you.”

“I had a very strange encounter a few years back.”

“Oh yes?”

“I was sat in this pub up on Park Place in Toxteth. Big old place, closed now. Doing what I was doing just then, reading my pages. This geezer comes up to me, asks what mag I worked for, I told him it was about freight, and shipping. Turned out he’d worked for one of the Liverpool lines, Bibby’s, and he started banging on about all the different ships he’d worked on, or knew about…”

“And?”

“He carried on talking, about other stuff. Mentioned that his son had just come out of Clink. Anyway, he’d had a few, and he shuffled off to go and talk to some of his mates, I carried on with my pages. Then, just before closing, he staggered back. He said to me: ‘You’re not an editor! Yer a Busy! Come to spy on me son! I tell you, he’s not a gangster any more – he’s goin’ straight!’

“I said: ‘Why d’ye think I’m a copper?’ And he said: ‘When I said all the names of them Bibby Line ships to you, you didn’t know a single one of them!’”

“Extraordinary. Well, that should have been a lesson, not to take it out in strange pubs…”

“So what did you get up to in Liverpool this afternoon? Walker Art Gallery?”

“Oh! Yes!  It was great!”

“What did you see?”

“Oh, paintings. Sculptures. And stuff…”

“Stuff? Did you check out the Big House – the Vines – like I said?”

“Oh yes, the place is quite extraordinary. All those friezes, and carvings. And that huge room with the domed skylight round the back! Looks like it ought to be a gentleman’s club in Pall Mall - only it’s full of scousers in trackie bottoms drinking lager.”

 

They boarded the Birkenhead ferry, watching the Three Graces on the Liverpool waterfront recede slowly into the dusk. “I love Liverpool,” said Frank. “We always used to visit when we lived in North Wales. It’s almost like coming home.”

“Not like you to be sentimental, Frank.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s a sentimental city.”

 

As Frank said later that evening, it’s hard to match the frantic surreality of a bicycle-borne pub crawl. The Wheatsheaf, down muddy country deep into the Wirral countryside had massive high-backed settles, like something out of Nicholas Nickleby.

Then, a lonely little pub – Little Neston - overlooking the marshes of the Dee estuary. Lisa had no idea how they got there, just following in Frank’s wheeltracks. Frank said the Welsh border was barely a mile away.

By the time they emerged from the Stork on  Price Street, the last ferry was long gone. Birkenhead’s streets were hushed, almost as if they didn’t want to disturb their more raucous neighbour across the wide river.

They could have loaded their bikes onto a late-night cross-Mersey train; they ran almost up to midnight. But Frank said: “Let’s ride through the Mersey Tunnel.”

“What? We’d get arrested!”

“No, you’re allowed to ride through it after 10pm.”

“But we’ll get mown down…”

“Nah! You’ve seen how quiet the roads are here. It’ll be fine. And we’ll be back in bed in Kensington in no time.”

 

The guy in the booth at the tunnel entrance barely glanced in their direction. They dropped down the gentle gradient, past the Docks exit, the split slightly unexpected in the middle of an under-river tunnel. “Straight on!” Frank said. A couple of cars and a truck overtook, giving them plenty of space. They felt the rush of warm air; a fug, though not unpleasant. Then a small effort to surmount the hill and out again into the Liverpool night.

 

As Frank predicted, it was little more than 20 minutes before they were wheeling their bikes down the hallway in Kensington. A crack of light showed under one of the doors, the faint murmur of a TV.

 

Frank sat on the bed and started to pull off his sock. “Back better?” said Lisa, standing, looking down her nose at him with just the faintest of smiles.

“Er, yes. It’s fine … Look, Lisa … “

“Yes?”

“Er Lisa. Do you think … do you think we should be … ?”

“Look Frank. I know. I’m in a hotel room with the husband of my best friend. I fully understand …”

“I mean, it’s not as if I don’t want…”

“Yes Frank, I fancy you something rotten too. But we’re going to be sensible adults. Aren’t we?”

“We are. Very sensible adults.”

---***---

Continued in Part 3 The Ride -3 | ABCtales