Free Patrick Parker's Progress by Mavis Cheek

comfort. Her son was not interested in that sort of thing even if Little Audrey was . . . Looking at the girl she saw how she had grown. Dark hair pulled back in a band, shiny freckled skin and big, clear brown eyes. Given to heaviness, though, Florence was pleased to see, so not all was perfect. And her son liked perfection. Patrick was a little heavy himself, but that was puppy fat, and his fair hair and blue eyes and flushed cheeks made him so beautiful that she could weep. Sandy, sitting behind them both on the station bench, playing with his cycle pedal, was like a little weasel in comparison. Most boys were. But she was very glad, weasel or not, that he was there.
    She went over to him. 'Sandy,' she said cajolingly, 'those two think they are very grown up but you know they are not - and so do I. Will you keep a good look-out for them?' She reached over and tentatively patted his head. Sandy nodded, pleased with the importance of it all. 'Don't let them out of your sight for a minute,' she said. 'And in the Youth Hostel you stick close to Patrick at night. All right, lovey?' He nodded. She had only confirmed what Sandy knew. That so-called older boys and girls were too full of themselves by half. Florence slipped him a halfcrown.
    Of course Audrey knew what she wanted from this trip. She had packed a lipstick, surreptitiously purchased from Woolworth's, for the purpose of ... whatever, exactly, the purpose was (she was a little vague about it) - but she was also bright and interested in the world around her (as her school report said, nicely) and a bridge was as good as any other place to visit. If it pleased Patrick, it would please her. She had dreamed about being with him like this, without parents to bother them, without Florence to crack the whip. Patrick was clever, he was funny sometimes, and he was handsome. When she spoke to him on the phone her heart went a little faster. She was fairly sure she was In Love, and she had every intention of finding out. Pity about Sandy but you couldn't have everything.
    In the train Audrey said what she had been thinking on the matter of Patrick's interests. 'We've got a lot of bridges in London. You've got no bridges in Coventry to speak of,' she said. 'So it stands to reason you're interested in them. Everyone wants what they can't have - don't they?' She smiled, hoping it was iiwitingly. Sandy asked her if she had stomach ache. She kicked him - not very hard - and said, 'Hmm, Patrick?'
    But he shook his head. 'Oh, those are mostly boring ones,' he said. 'I like bridges that amaze you, excite you .. . Most of those London ones just get you from A to B.'
    'Nothing wrong with that is there?' said Audrey sharply. "That's what bridges do, isn't it?' She regretted this immediately. She had planned to be nice to him.
    Patrick sighed as if she had said that two and two make five. 'No, it is not all they do,' he said. 'Not Great Bridges. Great Bridges like the ones we are going to see are important for themselves. Grand Designs. Historical. Huge. They made their builders into -' He searched for the right words.
    Audrey helped him: 'You mean household names?'
    'That sort of thing,' he agreed, only it sounded a bit lame.
    'Like Edmund Hillary?' offered Sandy.
    'Exactly ’ breathed Patrick with relief. 'Just like him.'
    'Grand ’ said Audrey, giving him her smile of confidence again. 'Tell me some more about bridges ’ she added.
    Sandy yawned.
    As the train sped towards Birmingham (where, thanks to Audrey's direction, they managed to retrieve their bicycles and change platforms without mishap) and out of it towards Shifnal, he explained what they were doing and why.
    First they would go to Coalbrookdale to see Darby's Ironbridge - seventeen-seventy-nine and the first true bridge of the industrial age - prefabricated. Audrey nodded wondering what prefabricated meant exactly. She immediately thought of all those little boxy temporary houses that went up after the war. Her aunt and uncle