lad. Either pay up or hand the bike back.’
‘I’ll have the money by the end of the week, honest I will.’ It was Norman’s birthday in three days’ time and on the evening of his birthday his godfather, old Mr Mallinson up at the big house, unfailingly summoned Norman to receive his present. Between the ages of five and twelve the present had been a pound note, from his thirteenth birthday it had been two pound notes. In three days Norman would be eighteen. Surely, he thought with fierce expectation, surely this time he’ll make it three – or even – exhilarating notion! five! At the idea Norman closed his eyes for a second in ecstasy. Five whole pound notes, crisp and new! Or one single imposing fiver perhaps, virgin from the bank!
He opened his eyes and sprang out of bed with renewed hope. Even with three pounds he could pay the instalment, with five he could put some aside for next month’s inexorable deadline.
Melancholy clutched at him again. Even five pounds wouldn’t last very long. There would be the month after next, the month after that, the whole inescapable procession stretching out for another year and a half, till the day when he could burnish his darling with polish and chrome cleaner in the blissful knowledge that she was his for ever.
He fumbled about on the floor, looking for his shoes and socks. Eighteen months! How on earth was he going to manage the instalments all that time? On an apprentice’s wages in a Hallborough garage he couldn’t put much by.
‘A motorbike?’ his father had said, frowning. ‘You’ll never be able to pay for it!’
‘I will, Dad! Honest, I will!’ he’d cried. ‘I’ll save every penny. And if I don’t have a bike, how am I going to get to work? They’re stopping the seven o’clock bus.’
‘You could ride a push-bike,’ his father had said. ‘Like I did at your age.’
But Norman had produced a scrap of paper covered with figures. ‘Look, Dad, this is what I earn and this is what I have to pay out. Go on, read it, you’ll see I’ve worked it all out. I can manage the instalments, it’s all down there.’
‘Go on, George,’ his mother had said, seeing the look of pleading in the eyes of her only child. ‘Let him have the bike. It’ll be handy for getting to work.’
‘Don’t go coming to me for help, then, if you fall behind with the payments.’ His father had shot him a keen look. ‘If you can’t pay for it it goes back and no arguments. Is that clear?’ It had been clear all right, it was clear now, crystal clear. Pay up or else, the harsh law of the adult world. He threw a fleeting backward glance at the gentler world of childhood, at the cowboy outfit and the toy train that were handed over once and for all, all yours, nothing more to pay. He went along to the bathroom with a sigh for those easy, irresponsible, bountiful days.
And then the smell of frying sausages floated up to his nostrils. He smiled. A world that contained sizzling brown pork sausages wasn’t after all such a dismal world. The high spirits of youth rose up inside him. He snatched at his toothbrush and anointed the bristles with a ribbon of white paste. Just suppose old Mallinson regarded eighteen as a landmark, suppose he made it not three, not five, but ten pounds! It was possible. Eighteen was really quite an important birthday when you came to think about it. Yes, it was more than possible, it was actually quite probable. By the time he was scrubbing at his face with a flannel foaming with soap he was quite certain the old man would make it a tenner. He splashed vigorously at his glowing cheeks with cold water, reached blindly for the towel and began to whistle.
Ada Foster speared the glistening sausages on to the expectant plates held out before her.
‘Get those inside you!’ she commanded. Footsteps ground along the gravel path. ‘Who’s that? At this hour?’ She thumped the frying-pan back on to the stove and flung open the kitchen door a couple of seconds after the double rat-tat assaulted her ears.
One of the young maids from the big house faced her in the doorway. ‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ the girl said importantly, delaying the moment of revelation, savouring her position as messenger. ‘It’s the old gentleman—’
‘Mr Mallinson?’ Ada cried, flinging the door wide, gesturing the girl inside. ‘He’s never dead!’
‘Well, no, not exactly.’ The girl looked a little put out, her tidings now appearing diminished, less weighty in their impact. Ada Foster might have the manners to wait without interrupting till a person had had their say. ‘But he was took bad in the night. Heart it was, Mrs Parkes said. She had to call old Doctor Burnett out, two o’clock in the morning.’ The lateness of the hour lent a certain impressiveness to her tale. ‘Thought I’d pop in and let you know.’ She glanced about the kitchen, registering the pork sausages, the brown teapot, with practised eyes. ‘Thought you’d like to know.’
‘Just how bad is he?’ George Foster pushed away his plate and stood up. ‘Does Doctor Burnett think he’ll get over it?’ A flood of anxious thoughts whirled through his brain. If the old man died Whitegates might be sold. Hardly likely young Master David and his wife would want to live in that great mansion of a place, not when they’d got their own house so nicely furnished and all. George saw himself all in a matter of weeks, days even, thrown out of work, given notice to quit the cottage.
‘A mild attack,’ the girl said, a little grudgingly, cheated of high drama. ‘Got to take things easy, Mrs Parkes said. Doctor’s looking in again at lunchtime.’ Not that she wished the old man any harm, far from it. A good employer, Mr Mallinson, strict mind you, but he paid a good wage and provided a good home and what more could a girl ask?
But it would have been interesting all the same to have knocked at the cottage door with a tear-swollen face, to bring news that would have shattered the easy peace of the sausage-savoury kitchen. It would have been nice just for once to have been able to say something that the listeners would remember for ever.
‘A cup of tea,’ Mrs Foster offered, picking up the earthenware pot. The maid shook her head.
‘No thanks, I have to be getting back.’ She nodded in the direction of the big house, indicating vague and onerous duties awaiting her. ‘There’ll be a lot to do today.’ She turned and stepped out on to the gravel path.
Norman sat at the table picking at his sausages now with a merely mechanical show of appetite, not listening to the animated interchange taking place between his parents. Just my luck, he was thinking, just my rotten luck! There would be no summons now on Thursday evening, no present would be formally handed over, there would be no tenner, no fiver, not even a single pound note. Disaster loomed before him, utter and total disaster, not a single ray of hope anywhere in the universe.
He lifted his head and threw a swift glance at his parents. Neither of them paid him the slightest attention.
‘Not easy to get another job at my age,’ his father said heavily.
‘I’ll be off now,’ Norman mumbled.
‘Don’t you go starting to worry about it now, George,’ Ada Foster said, her voice habitually soothing in times of crisis, although her eyes were anxious.
Norman pushed his chair back quietly and let himself out into the fresh morning. He went over to the shed and unlocked the door. For a long moment he stood gazing down at his beloved gleaming dully in the light shining from the kitchen window. Then he moved over and gave her a pat, rubbing his fingers over the silk-smooth metal. His eyes were full of tears.
Gina Thorson stood at the foot of the staircase with a
