The Last Train to Scarborough

by Andrew Martin

  Two paintings hung from the picture rail that ran round the room. The first was above the fireplace smudge, and rocked a little in the updraught of a moderate, spluttering blaze. It was a painting of a sailing ship, with a rather dusty name plate at the bottom: 'Her Majesty's Wood Framed Iron Frigate "Inconstant", 16 Tons.' Was it any good? It wasn't signed - not that I could see. Perhaps it was signed on the back. As I looked at it, the fire fluttered and the flute note came. Again, the fireplace was small and imperfectly swept. Crouching down, I saw that a fancy pattern was set into the black iron over-mantel, like the badge of a king. It was a museum piece really.

  The second painting was on the wall over-opposite, and showed a high, thin, brightly lit house with smaller ones massed below as though combined in a great effort to raise it up. Scarborough from the sea. The harbour stood in the foreground and that gave the clue: it was Paradise of course, and I made out my own room - the top one, and the brightest of the lot.

  The kitchen was next to the dining room, and the food cooked in it would have to be carried the half a dozen yards between the two doors. The kitchen door stood open. The gas gave a yellow light, and the walls were of white brick. The place was stifling. There was a great table, bigger than the one in the dining room, and Amanda Rickerby stood at one end of it, her brother at the other. She was singing lightly. I caught the words, 'Why are you lonely, why do you roam?' and I knew the song but couldn't lay name to it. She broke off (not on my account, for she still hadn't seen me) and, pointing at a pot bubbling on the range, said, 'Egg yolk.'

  Her brother went to the larder to fetch an egg, and Miss Rickerby carried on singing - 'Have you no sweetheart, have you no home ...' - and she could sing so very well that I was almost sorry when she saw me and stopped, and smiled, at the same time pushing something behind the knife polisher, which was one of a great mix-up of things on the big table. She knew I'd seen her do it, but this only made her smile the wider, as though it was all part of the game that seemed to be going on between us.

  'We're trying a little bit of French cooking, Mr Stringer,' she said, indicating her slow-witted brother at the range.

  'Oh,' I said, 'what?'

  'Scotch broth,' she said.

  I heard a sniff from behind me, and Theo Vaughan was there.

  'There's nothing particularly French about Scotch broth,' he said, nodding at me. There was no sign of shame at his late behaviour in the Two Mariners. He had a glass in his hand, and was making for one of the objects on the table - the beer barrel laid in for the guests. The kitchen seemed to be open house for everyone, and Vaughan was now filling his glass from the barrel tap.

  'The Scotch broth is just the starter,' Miss Rickerby said, then: 'I thought you didn't care for this beer, Mr Vaughan.'

  'Oh, a pint of the Two is fine after a couple of the Four,' he said. 'Ask any beer man.'

  'I suppose that, being that bit more drunk, you just stop caring,' said Amanda Rickerby, grinning at me.

  The fact was that our trip to the pub had been nothing to do with the beer. Vaughan had wanted to take me out to show me the cards But why?

  The range was set before a recess that might once have been the fireplace. It was too big to fit in, and perhaps accounted for the heat of the house. All the other fireplaces were small, after all. Adam Rickerby stood at the range next to a stew pot. He was holding a knife over an egg, and eyeing his sister with a look of panic.

  'Gently now,' she said, with half a glance in his direction.

  The knife clattered down on the egg, and all its innards dropped into the broth.

  ' That weren't right,' he said, as though it had all been his sister's fault, at which Amanda Rickerby for once turned away from me, and gave her full attention to her brother.

  'It won't hurt to have the whole egg in, Adam,' she said. 'It won't hurt at all.'

  'I've to put salt? Pepper?'

  'That's right. But go easy, love.'

  Vaughan was eyeing the lad with a look of dislike.

  'I'm off through,' he said, and he went into the dining room, or so I supposed.

  'It's the second course that's the French dish,' said Amanda Rickerby, turning back towards me. 'I can't pronounce it. Mr Fielding found the recipe in one of his books some weeks ago, and we thought we'd try it tonight.'

  She slid a bit of paper across the table to me. At the top somebody had written 'Croquette de Boeuf'.

  'That's French all right,' I said.

  'Can you go through Sunday without a treat of some kind, Mr Stringer?' she enquired. 'Don't tell me: you go to a Morning Service every Sabbath without fail?'

  'That's not what I call a treat,' I said.

  'Nor me,' she said, and took from behind the knife polisher the object she had hidden: a glass of red wine, and she boldly took a sip, as if to say, 'There's nothing to be ashamed of in a glass of wine.'

  Her brother was removing a tin tray from the oven, making the room even hotter. The stuff inside it was red and lumpy - smelled all right though.

  'Is it done, our lass?' he said, holding it in the hot cloth and offering it towards his sister.

  'It's beautiful, Adam,' she said. 'Mr Stringer,' she ran on, turning back to me, 'supper is about to be served.'

  'I'll go into the dining room then,' I said.

  'Good thinking,' she said. 'And do take a glass of beer with you.'

  She indicated a line of glasses on a shelf near the door. I took one and helped myself from the barrel.

  'Shall I take one for Mr Fielding?' I enquired.

  'No,' said the brother, looking up at me sharply as he put the meat into a serving dish, and then he added, in a somewhat calmer tone, "E 'as wine.'

  I thought how the house was that fellow's life. He was master of all its little details.

  Returning to the door of the dining room I clashed with Howard Fielding, who held a wine glass and a bottle of white wine, half full with a cork in it.

  'Good evening again, Mr Stringer,' he said, and he made his way towards the head of the table with his twinkling sort of walk. He indicated that I should take the place to his right side. Vaughan was already sitting to his left, looking sadly at his beer glass, already empty in front of him. Miss Amanda Rickerby then entered holding her wine glass and a black album, saying, 'We're all here then - no need to ring the bell,' and sat down at the end of the table opposite to Mr Fielding. Finally, Adam Rickerby came in with a big tray, and began distributing the soup bowls. As he did so, Miss Rickerby eyed me in the most thrilling way. I must be just her sort, I decided.

  'Cedar-wood box after supper, Howard?' Vaughan asked Fielding, without looking up from his empty glass.

  'Perhaps Mr Stringer would care to join us at the box?' said Fielding, pouring himself a glass of wine, and he turning and looking his mysterious question at me, with head tilted, so I said, 'I'm sure I would, thanks,' and took a drink of my beer.

  Everybody had the soup now, and I was just about to fall to, when I saw Fielding close his eyes and sit forwards. I thought for a fraction of time that he'd actually pegged out there and then, but he was saying grace, and the final word of it was hardly out of his mouth when I heard a terrible racket such as is made in a bath when the last of the water goes down the plug. This was Theo Vaughan taking his first mouthful of soup.

  'What's in the cedar-wood box?' I enquired, after Theo Vaughan's second mouthful, which was quite as loud as the first had been.

  'Cigars,' said Vaughan, and I felt an ass, for what else could have been in it?

  I flashed a look at Amanda Rickerby. She was still eyeing me, an amused expression on her face. She was turning the pages of the black album while sipping her soup. Every so often she would exchange a muttered word with her brother, but she hardly left off staring at me throughout the meal, and I felt that she was a temptress in league with the naked bicyclist.

  'Mainly Shorts, I'm afraid, Mr Stringer,' said Fielding. 'We've smoked the last of the Coronas from Christmas.'

  'Well, e
ven a short cigar is longer than a cigarette,' I said.

  'Diplomatically spoken,' said Fielding, which made me feel rather a fool.

  Fielding and Vaughan both being cigar smokers, the stub in the top room might have belonged to either of them just as easily as to Blackburn. It was plain that Fielding thought himself superior to Vaughan, but the two seemed to jog along together pretty well in spite of the failure of the business they'd worked in, and in spite of Vaughan's dealing in improper post cards. Fielding's private means must be greater than Vaughan's, for his clothes were not only cleaner but of better quality. His linen cuffs were a bit out at the edge, but it was only decent cloth that would fray like that, and the cuff links looked to me to be made of good gold.

  I glanced over at Amanda Rickerby. She met my gaze, I looked away quickly; looked back again more slowly to see her smiling.

  'This is the guest book for last year, Mr Stringer,' she said, indicating the black album before her.

  Was the name of Blackburn in there, and was she teasing me by keeping it from me?

  'I put ticks next to the ones I want back, crosses against the ones I don't,' she said.

  And she suddenly turned to Fielding.

  'Do you remember Mr Armstrong, Mr Fielding?'

  Fielding smiled and nodded.

  'He was a very strange . . . well, I was about to say gentleman,' Amanda Rickerby continued. 'He collected seaweed, Mr Stringer. It was his hobby. It was left all over the room to dry. He needed pails of fresh water to clean it - and then he had the nerve to complain about Mrs Dawson's cooking. But Mr Fielding took him in hand.'

  Fielding nodded graciously again, saying, 'I merely pointed out that sole a la Normande was supposed to contain fish. He collected seaweed but did not eat fish - slightly paradoxical, I thought.'

  'Howard didn't care for him at all,' Vaughan put in, addressing me. 'He drank beer from the neck of the bottle.'

  'He was rather a vulgar young fellow,' Fielding explained. 'He was from Macclesfield. The North Bay of this town would have been more to his liking ... You'd have thought that a man interested in marine biology would have had more decorum.'

  7 wouldn't,' said Amanda Rickerby. 'I'm putting a cross by his name.'

  And she did so, before turning the page.

  'Mr and Mrs Bailey,' she said, looking towards Fielding again,'... from Hertfordshire.'

  'Rather a pleasant couple, I seem to remember,' said Fielding.

  Miss Rickerby made no answer to that but looked down at the book and came over very sad, it seemed to me. I wanted to help her, bring her back to smiling, but after a couple of minutes I was aware of Adam Rickerby standing over me and saying, 'Yer've done, 'ave yer?'

  I hadn't quite but I gave him my bowl and he took it away along with all the others. Only after he'd left the room did I think: Ought I to have eaten that? Perhaps Blackburn had been poisoned? The soup had seemed quite tasty anyhow, if nothing to write home about. The meat, when it came in, was the cause for a little more in the way of excitement.

  'Croquette de boeuf cooked to a turn, Miss R,' said Fielding, when he'd taken his first mouthful, and she seemed to come round from a stupor or a dream.

  'I only superintended,' she said. 'It was Adam who cooked it really.'

  But there seemed no question of complimenting Adam Rickerby.

  'Beef patty, I call it,' said Vaughan, who'd already eaten half of his.

  'Oh come now, Vaughan,' said Fielding. 'What about the delicious dressing?'

  'Beef patty,' repeated Vaughan, 'with tomato sauce. Perfectly good though,' he added.

  'Certainly is,' I said, trying to direct my remark to both Amanda Rickerby and her brother.'... Goes down very nicely.'

  But there was something in it I didn't care for, some spice, and the taste of it somehow made me think the dining room fire too hot. Had I been poisoned? No. It took hours to notice if you had been, and what could possibly be the reason? About half a minute after, Vaughan pushed his empty plate away and fell to sucking bits of the meat out of his moustache while eyeing me. The meal ended for all shortly after, when Adam Rickerby stood up and reclaimed all the plates. There would be no dessert, evidently. Pudding was for summer only, together with all other good things.

  'Will you be joining us for a smoke, Adam?' I enquired, as he approached the door with the pile of plates.

  Fact was, I felt a bit sorry for the bloke. His sister was kindly towards him in her speech and expressions, but never lifted a finger to help him in his duties.

  'I've t'plates to clear,' he said, the words coming with a fine spray of spittle.

  'After that, then?'

  'Then, I've t'plates to wash!

  I gave it up, and he left the room. Fielding was good enough to wait until he was through the door before leaning towards me and saying, 'The boy is weak in the head, Mr Stringer. An injury to the brain sustained when he was fourteen.'

  'He does very well considering,' I said. 'I knew there must have been something of the kind. What happened?'

  Silence for an interval; and they all gave me the tale together, as though they'd rehearsed the telling of it.

  'My brother was straight down the mine from school,' began Miss Rickerby.

  'One of those timbers in a mine...' said Vaughan, 'that holds up the whatsname.'

  'A pit prop,' Fielding put in, 'that holds up the shaft.'

  'One of 'em broke,' continued Vaughan, 'and a quantity of coal came down on him.'

  'Two and a half tons, Mr Stringer,' said Fielding.

  'It rather put him off coal mining,' said Vaughan, who was now staring at the ceiling and stroking his moustache. 'Well... as you can imagine.'

  'So you see,' Amanda Rickerby said to me, 'this house really is Paradise to my brother.'

  Chapter Twenty

  At length, the way became clear for my return to the chart room. The youth led me up in silence; he would not meet my eye. The Captain and Mate waited with chairs pushed back from the table, as though they'd just put away a good supper. The Mate indicated one of the chairs, and the two made no objection when I moved it closer to the stove. This burned too low as before. I asked them to put more coal on from the scuttle that stood alongside, and the Mate did this readily enough as the Captain eyed me. It wasn't as though they lacked fuel on that bloody ship. The pocket revolver was on the table at the Captain's place as before, together with coffee, bread, cold meat of some description and a round cheese. It was all I could do to look at the stuff, let alone eat it.

  'Well?' asked the Captain when I'd settled down.

  'I'm not at all well,' I said. 'I've a terrible headache.'

  'Not what I meant,' said the Captain.

  'You were not asking after my health?' I said.

  'He means carry on with the talking,' said the Mate.

  I eyed him. It did not seem likely to me that the common run of collier - of the sort that carried coal from the North of England to the great gas works of London - would have a foreigner as First Mate. But these two were confederates of long standing - had to be, since they were together weighing the idea of doing murder.

  Most likely it was an ordinary collier, and an English one at that. Sometimes, they had funnels that were hinged, like ships in bottles, so that they could go all the way upriver - up the Thames - but the usual trip was to the mighty gas works at Beckton, which came just before the start of the London docks. The colliers were in competition with the coal trains. The North Eastern company carried coal to London over its own metals and those of the Great Northern, but most of the stuff made the long journey by sea. Had I been put on with coal? None was loaded at Scarborough, I knew that for a fact. But this ship would have passed Scarborough on its way south.

  The chart room swayed like a tree house in a high wind, and for a moment I was in that tree house, for my mind still wasn't right. I looked down at my hands: the redness was fading somewhat from them, and my memory returning by degrees. 1 started talking. I did not let the Captain and t
he Mate see my mind entire as I spoke, and tried to make myself seem cooler towards Amanda Rickerby than I had been in reality. I talked to them about her much as I might have talked to the wife about her. I was rehearsing, so to say, the way I might tell the tale of Paradise to Lydia. It was only when, after an hour or so, the Captain once again consulted his watch and nodded towards the Mate - who rose to take me from the chart room - that I wondered whether I would ever have the chance to put the story right, and to make amends.

  But make amends for what, exactly?

  The Mate was descending the outer bridge-house ladder behind me, and the over-grown kid I'd seen before waited on the deck below. They had entrusted him with a gun, and he continued to look at me as though I was a dead man. It broke in on me that I was a prisoner under escort. It was as though I was the criminal; as though the Captain and the Mate were sitting in judgement on me, the hearings of the trial being conducted in instalments fitted around the performance of their duties in the ship. I supposed they could only hide themselves from the crew for short intervals.

  But how long was the run to London from the northern places where the coal was dug? It was roughly four hundred miles' distance, and a ship making about six knots would do the journey in three days and nights at the maximum. By that reckoning there would be only the one more hearing to come.

  I descended to the gunwale on the starboard side, facing the land, which ran along with us, rising and falling. The night sky was darker that way; the light rose from behind me. The land, then, lay to the west. I thought I made out bays, hills, perhaps a thin wood on a low stretch of cliff. And now there was a new sound rising on the air, a beating, on-rushing sound, the source of which disturbed the waves of our wake. At the foot of the ladder, a conference was taking place between the Mate and the lad.

  I looked back towards the land, and now saw a beautiful, flowing ribbon of lights being drawn over the cliff top. I do not believe that I had ever been happier to see a train, even though I had no hope of catching this one. I then turned my head to the right and saw the source of the new noise: another ship, blazing light on our starboard side, the landward side. It was bigger than us and gaining on us at a great rate. I knew that I had seen this all before, and of course I was now inhabiting the scene shown on the painting in the ship room at Paradise. The very sky was the same colour: a dark blue with a rising pearly light on the horizon.