Chapter 29

Postscript

Some days after their adventure, Ginger sank down at the table in the Lyons Tea Shop they frequented and dropped his hat and gloves on the table.

Algy looked up from perusing Popular Flying as his companion took his seat. "I've ordered coffee and buns," he murmured. "I thought you wouldn't be long."

"Good, my stomach thinks my throat's been cut," exclaimed Ginger. "There's something about ordering a new suit that really dries the throat and gives me an appetite!"

He glanced up as the waitress arrived at their table and began to unload her tray. She was new, but there was something familiar about her. 'I've met her before,' Ginger thought, racking his brains to pin down the elusive memory.

"That'll be one and sixpence, Sir," she said in a Geordie accent as she put their bill beside Algy's plate and the penny dropped.

"Thank you, Mavis," acknowledged Ginger as he dropped a half a crown on the slip of paper. "Keep the change."

She looked at him in astonishment then coloured as she recognised him. "I'm ever so grateful I took your advice, Sir," she told him. "I'm doin' really well now, got me own flat an' all. I'd never have done it without your encouragement."

Ginger smiled. "Sometimes, Mavis, we just have to pursue our 'fancy ideas'". He raised his coffee cup and saluted her before taking a sip. "Here's success to them!"

Mavis gathered up her tray, flustered, and bustled off to serve another customer.

Algy's eyes met Ginger's over the rim of his cup. "What was all that about?" he asked.

"Oh nothing," murmured Ginger. "Just a memory from the past; dead and buried now." He finished his coffee and stood up, cramming his hat on his unruly shock of hair. "Another life. Another era, you might say, and if the Air Commodore is right, that's not all that is coming to an end."

Algy accompanied him to the door. "I hear the news from Spain is not good," he observed as they passed out into the Strand.