Page 17 of Strangers in Time

A T RIP T AKEN

A S THEY PAID THEIR fare and received their tickets and boarded the double-decker bus, the gray-whiskered uniformed conductor looked suspiciously at the pair.

“Here now, what you two be doin’ out at this hour? Should be home in yer beds, eh? Where yer parents, eh? You think I’m daft and ain’t notice, eh?”

Molly seemed frozen by his aggressive attention. Charlie, though, was not at a loss.

“Our mum’s charrin’ at the Min-stry of Food office. We’re goin’ to help her. Got her dinner in me pocket.” He added, with a sly glance at Molly, “’cause they ain’t got no food at the Min-stry of Food. Eh! ”

The conductor snorted at this comment as he poured out a cup of tea from a dented metal thermos. He gazed at the unkempt Charlie and then eyed the properly attired Molly. He said to Charlie, “Now you look you got the char ma, but not her. Think yer having me on, boy? You sure you two even got the same ma?”

“Ain’t think we don’t know our own mum?” said a seemingly outraged Charlie.

“Oi, which one of you’s older, then? Tell me that, you young scamp!”

“We’re ruddy twins,” replied Charlie. “Who got the coins to ride this here bus, right?” This was directed at the young, female driver, who nodded and told her colleague to stand down.

The beaten conductor turned away, took his seat near the front, and quietly sipped his tea as the bus pulled off.

Charlie and Molly sat side by side while tired-looking people sat all around them. However, one young man in a sailor’s uniform and what was likely his girlfriend were energetically kissing. Molly primly looked away.

“How long a ride is it?” she asked.

“A bit,” replied Charlie, scratching his cheek. “Make sure you don’t lose that coin now.”

“I’ve got it right here in my pocket,” she replied firmly.

“So why didn’t your dad come home?”

“He works very long hours. His job is very important. As you know, it deals with getting food to folks who need it.”

“Bloke needs to work harder, then,” said Charlie as he tipped his cap lower over his eyes.

The bus bumped slowly along, and it seemed to Molly that they could have traveled far more swiftly on foot. They passed through several stops where people got on or got off, and never once did Charlie stir. Finally, he lifted his cap and said, “This here’s our stop.”

As they alighted onto the pavement, Molly said, “Are you sure? I’ll be very cross if this isn’t the right place.”

“This way,” said Charlie confidently.

They walked down one street, made a diagonal through another intersection, and wandered over to a broad thoroughfare that was dimly lighted.

“I think we’re lost,” said an angry Molly, coming to a stop because Charlie had halted.

“Look at the street name on that buildin’,” he instructed.

When she did so, Molly knew that he was right. “Oh, I see. Now we just have to look at numbers, of course.”

“It’s that one,” said Charlie, pointing at a flat-faced, sad-looking building with dark windows. They walked over to it.

“You’re very quick to spot things,” said Molly.

“Blokes like me got to.”

“Do you ride the bus a lot? I thought that would be expensive.”

“It is if you pays for it. The buildin’s dark. You sure your dad’s here?”

She knocked on the door three separate times, but no one came.

Molly frowned. “It might be that my father has already headed home. We might have passed him, do you see?”

Charlie scratched his chin and nodded half-heartedly. “S’pose,” he said.

She took out the coin and held it up. “But you still earned your wage,” she said.

Charlie looked at the half crown and his fingers rubbed together in anticipation of seizing it. But his hand stayed by his side.

“Well, take it,” urged Molly. “It’s yours now.”

“How do you figger to get back?” he asked.

“The bus, of course,” she said. “I have more coins. We just reverse course. Well, I do. I’ve no idea where you might be going.”

He shook his head and pointed at another clock tower. “Don’t think so, seein’ as how we were on the last bus to come through here tonight.”

Molly whirled round to look. “Then what do I do? I have to return home.”

“We can walk,” opined Charlie, looking down at her fine, buckled shoes with a doubtful expression. “Though they don’t look too good for walkin’.”

“Your shoes don’t look so comfortable, either,” countered Molly.

“They ain’t. They pinch somethin’ fierce.”

“Well then?” she said.

“We can take ’em off.”

“That is quite ridiculous. I have stockings on. They’d be absolutely ruined. So I cannot countenance your suggestion.”

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Miss, but you sound quite educated.”

“I have received a very good education. And I have also read a great many books, which is like receiving another education in itself.”

“I know a place with lots of books.”

“Where?”

“The Book Keep, down an alley in Covent Garden. It’s got a green awnin’. Man called Ignatius Oliver is the owner. He’s named after a saint that got et up by wild beasts. Least that’s what he says. Bit of a strange bloke, he is. The shop’s over near St. Saviour’s School. Do you know it?”

“I know Covent Garden, of course. We used to do some shopping there.”

“But books won’t help you get home,” he said crisply.

“Do you have another idea?”

Charlie glanced over her shoulder. “That.”

She turned to look at the bicycle leaning against a lamppost.

“What about it?”

“It’s the way you get back home.”

“But it doesn’t belong to me.”

“Oh, we’d just be borrowin’ it. We’ll ride it to your place, see, and then I’ll come back here with it, all in a jiffy.”

“But then how will you get home after that?”

In answer, he pointed at his feet. “With these. Only a few miles. I’ve walked a lot farther’n that.”

“But the bicycle, isn’t that stealing?” she said apprehensively.

“It’s stealin’ only if you don’t brin’ it back. And I figure whoever left it there done it so’s if another fellow comes along and needed a ride somewheres he’d have one. See how it’s not even locked up or nothin’?”

She looked at the bike and back at him. “But how can we both ride it? It only has one seat!”

“Me on the pedals and you on the handlebars.”

“The handlebars!” said a shocked Molly. “I’m wearing a dress.”

“Well, okay, you can do the pedals and me on the bars.”

“No, we’d crash. I… I, you see, I never learned to ride a bicycle. Father didn’t think it important, and the family I stayed with didn’t have one.”

“Then better me on the pedals and you on the bars.”

They set off and Charlie kept to the middle of the road and tried his best to avoid the numerous holes so as not to jostle Molly too much.

In what felt like a fairly short period of time they pulled to a stop in front of Molly’s home. His feet planted firmly on the pavement, Charlie clutched the handrail of her front steps and held the bike steady so Molly could safely dismount.

She turned to him and once more held out the coin.

He eyed it again, his top row of teeth clenching over his bottom lip. “Better you hang on to it,” he said at last.

“Why?”

“It might come in handy, even for rich folk like you.”

Before she could say anything, he had whipped his wheels around and was pedaling furiously down the cobbles.

“What a very unusual boy,” she said to herself.

Molly used her latchkey to enter the house. She quickly saw that they had not passed her father after all. His coat and hat were not where they should have been, and when she peeked into his room, he was not in his bed. She even called out to him in the toilet.

Her thoughts had then turned from her absent father to Charlie Matters. She had been fortunate to run into him. Yet she doubted she would ever see him again. It was just not likely in such a large city where there were many such boys.

And with that thought she undressed and climbed under the covers.

Not realizing how very wrong about that she was.