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last updated 3 June, 2008
any moment now
It was 5.17 when the doorbell rang. My holier-than-thou younger sister had phoned to say she was going to drop by on her way home from work. I was slumped in the armchair nursing my guitar, going through a few sets of changes in a desultory way, my already damaged psyche preparing itself, wondering what I’d done this time. It always came as a surprise. The bell rang again. More insistently. I dragged myself out of the chair, propped the guitar back on its stand, pushed a hand through my hair and straightened my T-shirt. The girl standing outside wasn't my sister. She didn't look anything like my sister, but I was so psyched up about her calling that for a moment, I still thought it was.
'Hi,' she said. 'I'm Leila.'
'Leila,' We stood looking at each other.
'Yes. I phoned.'
'You did?'
'About the bicycle.'
'The bicycle,' I said, aware that I was coming across with all the panache of a pedal bin.
'I saw your ad in the newsagent's. You did say to come right over,'
'Right.' We stood there looking at each other again.
'Only I'm a student. Just starting my first year. So I need a bike. To get around. I didn't really think about it before I came up. I hear that in June, you know, at the end of the year, you can virtually pick them up off the street. But at the start of the year, now, you can't get one for love nor money. That's why I phoned straight away when I saw your card. I wrote down your address when you gave it to me on the phone,' she added, flashing a diary page filled with hieroglyphs at me. 'Oh, sorry, that's shorthand. I took a course over the summer - I thought it would be easier to take notes in lectures in shorthand.'
Keen.
'Seventeen, Vespasian Mews,' she read. We both looked at the drop forged brass 17 prominently displayed on the open door.
I didn't know who she'd spoken to on the phone, only that it hadn't been me. I didn't know why the person she'd spoken to on the phone had given her my address - if he had. I didn't know anything about shorthand, but it struck me as I glanced again at the diary that the hieroglyphs were somewhat loose in construction and might, possibly, have lost something in translation. What I did have was a bicycle. At least, I was pretty sure I did. And anyway, she had the most amazing blue eyes.
'Oh,' I said. 'The bicycle. Of course. It's in the shed.' I led her through the hallway, the kitchen, into what I laughingly call the conservatory, and out into the garden. The shed was slumped in the far corner, leaning like a drunk on the neighbour's wall for support. There was no padlock on the door as there wasn't anything inside worth stealing. I grabbed the latch. The door fell open. No, actually it fell off. Leila executed a neat sidestep as the timber hit the deck like Sonny Liston.
'Sorry,' I said.
It took a few moments for our eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. Motes of dust stirred up by the door's stage dive made me think of Howard Carter discovering the tomb of Tutenkhamun.
'That lawnmower'll come in dead handy in the afterlife,' Leila said.
I dragged the mower out onto the lawn. Which seemed appropriate. We stared at it as if expecting it to do something. Like mow.
'Does it work?' Leila asked.
'If you push it.'
We found the bike under a piece of mauve carpet which was under a door on which stood the gutted shell of a 1950’s gramophone cabinet on which was perched a cardboard box containing the mortal remains of half a dozen garden gnomes.
We laid the bicycle carefully on the lawn next to the mower. It was probably the only thing that had ever been done carefully with the bike in its entire life. It had seen better days. Better decades actually.
'It's not quite what I envisaged,' Leila said
'It's not quite what I remember,' I admitted.
'I kind of thought, you know, it would have pedals. And a saddle.'
'It's got wheels,' I said, pointing.
'Hmm,' she grunted, 'but shouldn't they have some sort of rubber stuff around them?'
'Probably.'
I went into the house and ran a bucket of hot water, sudsed-up with lashings of Fairy Liquid. While I was gone Leila had re-entered the shed and found a selection of vital organs. The saddle, pedals; and the chain which neither of us had noticed was missing.
'Has it got gears?' Leila asked.
I just looked at her.
'Okay. Just asking.' Then suddenly. 'Look, thanks for letting me see it, but I don't really think it's what I'm looking for.'
'No,' I said, putting down the bucket, slopping some of the water over my feet. 'No, I can understand that.'
I showed her out, wandered back through the house and into the garden and cleaned five thousand years of Nile Valley dirt off the bicycle.
My sister never showed.
The following morning I went into town and bought a new saddle, inner-tubes, tyres, chain, pedals, brakes, a 3-speed gear kit, pump, handlebar-grips, some decent front and back lights complete with long-life batteries. And an economy size chrome cleaner. It would have been cheaper to buy a new bike. The afternoon slipped by as I put the thing together - it was like I'd got it flat-packed from Ikea.
Sometime after six a shadow darkened the patch of grass where I was sitting, using the chrome cleaner to get the rust off the wheels. I looked up.
'Hi,' Leila said. 'I rang the bell.’
'I was here in the garden.'
'The door was open,' she shrugged.
'No, the door was closed.'
'I meant,' she said with a smile, 'that it wasn't locked.'
'No - I keep meaning to get a Yale fitted.'
'I've been thinking. About the bike,' she said.
I got to my feet, grabbed the bike and pulled it upright.
She looked. 'Is it the same one?'
'More or less.'
'Wow!'
'Thank you.'
She ran her hand over it as if were some thoroughbred stallion.
'Why'd you bother?”
I shrugged.
'Is it still for sale?'
'Yeah. I guess.'
'How much do you want for it?'
'What did it say in the ad?'
'It didn't. Just 'Bicycle For Sale' and your phone number.'
I thought about what I'd spent on it earlier in the day.'
'Do you get much of a grant?
'Grant?' she said with a slight frown. 'Loan - we get loans these days.'
'Right. Of course you do. I tell you what; to reflect the prevailing fiscal thinking, I'll loan you the bike.'
'What?'
'You can have it for however long your degree is - just return it when you graduate.'
She stood staring at me. 'You're serious, aren't you?'
'Why not?' I shrugged.
She was still staring. 'Okay.'
'Don't you want to try it out first? It's got a crossbar,'
'You think I should learn to ride side-saddle?'
She swung her leg over. She could just about keep the thing upright by standing on her tiptoes like a ballerina, first the left, then with a slight movement, onto the right - like she was on the deck of a ferry in a gentle swell.
'I could lower the saddle a bit,' I offered.
'Yes. Thank you.'
She dismounted and I made the adjustment.
'Try that.'
Leila rode around in a tight circle. She had to - it’s a small garden. Her feet slipped off the pedals and she almost fell, just getting a foot down on the ground in time. She kicked off her sandals and tried again.
'This is great! I haven't ridden for years.'
'You'll get dizzy,' I warned. 'Go the other way round.'
She stopped, sliding her bare feet along the grass as a brake.
'Are you certain about this loan thing?'
'Sure. I haven't had the chance to road test it yet, but it comes with three years free service, that's parts and labour.'
'Best deal in town. Thank you.'
I scraped the back gate open. She pushed off, circled the garden twice, to gain momentum, and then without pausing rode straight out through the narrow opening into the lane and away.
Forcing the gate shut, I turned to find her sandals lying on the grass where the glistening, early autumn dew was forming, so I picked them up and took them inside and dumped them on the table. It couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes before she realised she was barefoot. I slumped into the chair, thinking about the scene in the shed the previous day. Something odd had happened. Something important.
'I just wish I could work out what it was,' I said to any of the inanimate objects in the room that might care to listen.
I glanced at sandals on the table and then at the wall clock.
Any minute now, I thought. The doorbell’s going to ring any... moment....... now...............