Free The Undertow by Jo Baker

Billy good luck, and Billy says thanks, and he’s near the end of the street now, keeping pace with Mr. Bell and Rosie, and then waving goodbye as they turn into Battersea High Street and he ducks down the back alleyway, boots clattering along the cobbles, his arms wrapped round him and his horse-scented hands tucked under his armpits and his lips faintly tingly. He bumps his way in through the back gate into Mr. Cheeseman’s yard.
    Mr. Cheeseman is at the back door of his shop. He has a box of parcelled groceries held out from his hip. There’s an oil lamp hung from the wall. It casts a warm orange glow, filled with grainy fog.
    “Ah, Billy,” he says. He sets down the box by the back step.
    Billy stands up straight. “Good morning, Mr. Cheeseman.”
    Mr. Cheeseman brushes his hands. “Your mother well?”
    Billy nods. “Yesser.”
    “Good good. Well then. So. You can ride a bike, then?”
    “Yesser.”
    In fact, he’s only had a couple of goes, standing up on the pedals, on this very bike, Freddy having marked him out some months ago as his successor. Freddy himself had set him going with a hand under the saddle, then a final push and laughing when he let go and Billy looped round in the street and found he couldn’t make the turn and couldn’t stop and yelled and wove about, and then banged the front wheel on the kerb and came off sideways and took the skin off his knee, which made Freddy dash over all concerned and examine the solid tyre and go phew with relief when he found it was undamaged. Billy’d also had a ride from time to time in the grocery box when he was small, but you’re not supposed to lark about with Mr. Cheeseman’s bike.
    “Well this ol’ girl won’t give you any trouble.”
    Mr. Cheeseman heads over to the lean-to shed and drags open a door that needs its hinges redoing; the bottom is scraping itself away against the flagstones.
    “Let’s see you give it a try.”
    He reaches into the dark space and half lifts, half pulls out the bike. Billy feels a fierce delight.
    It’s an Alldays & Onions. There’s a wooden box fitted above the front wheel; and down the side of the box the words
Cheeseman’s Quality Grocer’s
and
Established 1873
picked out in gold and white lettering against the black. That’s where Billy’d sat, knees buckled up, backside numb, rattling over the cobbles with Freddy cruising along and singing behind him.
    Billy crouches down, admires the mantrap pedals, thumbs at the solid rubber tyres. He rests a hand on the sprung leather saddle. His face breaks into a grin.
    Mr. Cheeseman shifts in his nice boots, he has to be getting on. Billy stands up. He brushes the dirt off his hands, rubs the oil away.
    “Give her a go, then?” Mr. Cheeseman says.
    The smile spreads further, making Billy’s cheeks bunch up, ache. This is a
job
. This is
work
. Mr. Cheeseman’s going to
pay
him to do this.
    “She weighs a fair bit herself,” Mr. Cheeseman says. “So we’ll try it first without a load.”
    Mr. Cheeseman holds the saddle while Billy punts along with one foot, and then hops it up onto the pedal and Mr. Cheeseman lets go. Billy dips back and forth through the frame like a wind-up toy.
    “Watch it,” Mr. Cheeseman calls. “Try and stay upright. If you had a load on that, you’d topple right over.”
    A few more yards, passing the backyard gates of the houses, and he’s picking up speed, whipping through the cold cobwebs of fog. The pedals taking him up and over and down, up and over and down, his back up straight and the cold needling in through the weave of his jacket. The sheer breathless joy of it. Then the alley ends—opens out onto Simpson Street, a pool of lamplight—and he careens out, swings the bike round. He’s taking it too wide and is going to hit the kerb—he tightens the turn, slows off, but he’s lost it, balance almost gone, and he’s going to fall, crunch the bike onto the cobbles and wreck it, splintered wood and bent spokes and scored