by Maggie Joel
All three of them nodded wisely.
‘The S is gradually replacing the older K-Types which were only twenty-eight horsepowers. This is a Daimler engine, thirty-five horsepower.’
She paused to let this sink in and they all looked impressed.
‘She’s got a twenty-four foot, eight-inch body and weighs four tons unloaded. Carries fifty-four passengers: twenty-six downstairs, twenty-eight outside. You’ve got your forward control, of course.’
‘Forward control?’ prompted Parks—or was it Sutton?
‘Driver sits beside the engine rather than behind it.’
‘Ah...’
‘You’ve got your basic bell-and-cord arrangement inside, means your conductor or your passengers can tell you when to stop.’ She reached inside the bus and pulled the cord to demonstrate.
‘Right then, who’s first?’ and Bertha gulped and realised this was it.
‘Well done, Miss Flaxheed. Now, there’s your steering column, your gearstick, your accelerator, and—most important of all—your brake. Now, who can tell me the speed limit?’
‘Twelve miles an hour?’ hazarded Sutton.
‘Excellent! Now then, Miss Flaxheed, once around the block then you’re on your way!’
With Miss Gordon sitting behind her and Parks and Sutton cheering encouragement from behind, Bertha lurched and ground her way out of the yard and into Steyne Road then left into High Street. Really, once you got the hang of the gears, it was just like driving the traction engine! She turned left twice more and sailed—with some aplomb—back through the gates of the garage just as Jem appeared in her conductor’s cap and armband, ready to start her shift, Mum waiting with Baby and the perambulator just beyond the gate.
Jemima jumped out of the way and stared openmouthed and wide-eyed as Bertha swung the General round the corner and turned a neat circle in the yard, bringing the bus to a halt facing the gates. Then she missed the gear and the bus lurched then the engine cut out with a bump.
‘Bravo! Well done, Miss Flaxheed,’ said Miss Gordon beaming, and Bertha sat in the driver’s seat glowing and not a little flushed.
The superintendent lumbered out of his office, a cigar in the side of his mouth, carrying a sheaf of papers.
‘This one ready?’ he inquired of Miss Gordon with a nod towards Bertha.
‘Ready for action, Mr Royale!’ confirmed Miss Gordon, climbing down.
Mr Royale turned to Bertha and regarded her through a puff of cigar smoke. ‘Right you are. Here’s your route map. Don’t worry about the schedule. Just get her there and back. In one piece. Got it?’
Bertha took the map and nodded grimly.
Jem, who had been sitting on a wall watching with a raised eyebrow, now stood up.
‘Extraordinary,’ she observed dryly. ‘Are they really going to let you out with this?’
‘Of course,’ replied Bertha annoyed.
Jemima looked up and down the yard and her frown deepened. ‘Where’s Matthew?’
Bertha restarted the engine and gripped the steering wheel so that her knuckles turned white. In front of her was the high brick wall of the garage and beneath her hands the engine of the four-ton General throbbed disarmingly. What would happen, how much damage would there be, if the bus shot forward and smashed into the wall? Would it smash, a jumble of shattered glass and twisted metal? Or would the bricks crumble and disintegrate?
‘Matthew’s working’, she replied. ‘Early, at the post office. He won’t be here till later. Much later. You can ride with me. Is that all right, Mr Royale? If I take Mrs Booth as my conductor? She’s my sister, you see.’
‘Is she?’ Mr Royale looked at Jemima through another cloud of cigar smoke as if such a thing was hardly to be contemplated. ‘Well. That should be fine. Hurry up then, no time to be dallying here.’
Jemima stood very still and said nothing and for a moment it seemed she would refuse to get on board. Then she hitched up her ticket machine and climbed up on the platform, pausing as she passed the driver’s cab.
‘You think, don’t you, that by being here you can keep an eye on him?’ And she laughed.
There was already a line of people waiting to board and Bertha sat quite still, her foot poised over the accelerator, as an elderly gentleman and a nanny in a black uniform and a cloak, clutching a small child, climbed on board and went up top, Jemima close on their heels. The engine chugged erratically as she idled, waiting for the gates to be opened once more.
It was seven twenty.
‘Are we ever going to get a move on?’ called Jemima impatiently from her position halfway up the stairs.
‘Remember your route!’ called Mr Royale as he swung back the gates and stood to one side to let her pass.
Bertha eased down on the accelerator and the bus lurched forward. She waved goodbye to Mr Royale and to Miss Gordon and to Parks and Sutton and to the other volunteers who were arriving to start their shifts. Beyond the gates Mum stood beside the big old perambulator, Caroline perched on her hip, Mum holding the baby’s hand up in a wave of farewell.
The S-Type General, all four tons of it, roared into life and thundered out through the gates and onto Uxbridge Road, swinging out between a private motor car that swerved to avoid it and a charabanc loaded with shopgirls who cheered as the bus shot across the Gunnersbury Lane junction and disappeared from view.
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
THE PAST AND OTHER LIES
A Felony & Mayhem mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First edition (Murdoch Books, Australia): 2009
Felony & Mayhem print and digital editions: 2013
Copyright © 2009 by Maggie Joel
All rights reserved
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-937384-70-8
For my father, Michael
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While I have taken every care to produce a work that is historically correct, some inaccuracies will inevitably have occurred, and for these I beg the reader’s indulgence and trust that they do not detract from the reading experience. The discerning enthusiast will spot at once that the tram route number 36 taken by Bertha and Jemima from Acton to Park Lane does not, in fact, exist. And, sadly, Acton Bus Garage closed its doors in March 1925, some ten months prior to many of the events described in this novel. Acton is, of course, very much a real place, though the reader will not find Wells Lane nor Oakton Way on any map of the area. The reader will also face certain disappointment if they attempt to apply to study at Edinburgh’s Waverley University or to purchase goods from Messrs Gossup and Batch.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Colette Vella, Kay Scarlett, Ali Lavau, Rhiannon Kellie, Tricia Dearborn, Louise Godley, Sheila Joel, Anne Benson, Liz Brigden and Sharon Mathews for your assistance, support, expertise and encouragement during the publication of this book.
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