The Blackpool Highflyer

by Andrew Martin

  sunlight. I walked past the Spa, which had four domes and

  was like something out of

  Arabian Nights.

  It was all French

  windows at the front and a black and white floor inside that I

  knew was supposed to be a marvel of the age. They didn't

  charge you for standing on it, but walk in there and order a

  cup of tea and you'd get a nasty shock when the bill came.

  That was all on account of the fancy floor. It had cost fortunes

  to put in, and they had to be got back. There was a band

  playing, which put me in mind of the Hemingway's Special

  Piano that might one day be sitting in my parlour. The wife

  would enjoy a trip to the Spa. She would hate it but she

  would enjoy it too. And that went for the Grand Hotel in

  spades. The Spa was nothing compared to the Grand.

  I carried on, going uphill now towards the Esplanade: all

  the South Shore was the superior end of town, and the

  Esplanade was the pinnacle - home of the seaside gentry. I

  looked across the South Bay towards the castle, where a lot of

  dressing up in olden-day costumes went on, maypole goes,

  and things of that kind. There were benches along the

  Esplanade, and not one without its spooning couple. But one

  bench was longer than the others, meaning that the lovebirds

  were a decent distance away.

  I sat down, feeling like the filthiest thing out, and the lad

  was saying to the lass: 'Oh

  do

  let on, Rose.'

  It was strange to think, from their closeness on the bench,

  that they could have any secrets from each other, but there it

  was. They were not factory folk. He would be a clerk, a

  George Ogden sort, except without the appeal of that funny

  fat fellow. The pair of them had fallen to staring at me now,

  and I wondered what they made of me: a collier let loose from

  his mine, they were probably thinking; the wrong sort for the

  South Shore, any road.

  Rolling away below the bench was a hillside park with

  rockeries and tinkling little streams looked after by a gang

  of men in uniforms. Below the park was the South Bay pool,

  which was really just a walled-off section of sea. On the

  landward side of it were smartly painted blue chalets for

  changing - and every time a swimmer came out it was a different story: sometimes they would be straight in with no

  shilly-shallying, sometimes one foot would be dangled

  down followed by a lot of walking about the edge and

  thinking. There was no skylarking in the pool because this

  was the South Shore, and everybody swam very daintily,

  their heads tipped sideways. I looked out for the prettiest

  doxy, of course, but it was hard to spot the faces under their

  water bonnets. And then my eye fell on a head I knew. It

  was Clive's.

  I stood up and called down to him, but all that happened

  was that one of the park keepers half looked up and the clerk

  alongside me on the bench said to his girl: 'Would you like to

  see what's going off at the aquarium?' which really meant,

  Let's get away from this vulgar fellow.

  As I watched, Clive pulled himself out of the water and,

  with not a glance at the lady swimmers (which was not a bit

  like him), walked into one of the blue chalets. By now, I

  could feel the skin of my face tightening. I was being burned

  by the sun, but I would not move from my post. After ten

  minutes, Clive came out of the chalet, and I lost him in the

  throng standing about the turnstile of the baths. But I got

  him in my sights again as he began walking up the paths of

  the park.

  He still carried the carpet bag, and his swimming costume

  (an article I would not have expected any fellow of the right

  sort to possess) must have been in there, but the bag looked

  emptier than before. He kept putting his hands through his

  hair. He wanted the sun to dry it, but he wanted the sun to get

  it

  right.

  As he climbed towards the Esplanade, I made up my mind:

  if he saw me I would be friendly, otherwise I would keep

  back and watch.

  He did not spot me, and I began walking back in the direction of the Spa and the Grand. I fretted that I ought not to be

  spying on a pal, but I knew that my reason for doing so was

  in some way connected to the stone on the line.

  I followed Clive back up the Valley Road towards the station. He stopped for a while under the Valley Bridge. He

  started walking again, and I thought he might be making for

  the station, but he turned off before he got there, or dissolved

  into air before he did, for the next time I looked he was gone.

  Clive couldn't have put the stone on the line, but he

  could've asked somebody else to do it. He could have paid

  them fair wages, just as he paid the cleaners to put a hexagon

  shine on the buffer plates of the engines he fancied; just as the

  socialist missionary, Paul, was paid fair wages by Alan

  Cowan.

  Chapter Ten

  We were back on the Rishworth branch the Thursday and

  Friday after the Scarborough run. I was able to get nothing

  from Clive over his movements at Scarborough, and had

  eventually given up.

  On the Saturday afternoon, the wife went off to the Cooperative ladies to hear about 'Health in the House' and

  'Thoughts on the Minimum Wage', and when she'd gone I

  took down my

  Railway Magazine

  and lighted on an item about

  'the largest signal gantry in New Zealand'. It wasn't very big,

  as even the

  Railway Magazine

  admitted: 'From the photo it is

  evident that New Zealand is far behind the mother country.'

  It was meant to be a joke, I supposed.

  The words of Dr N. Kenrick came back to me: 'It is only a

  matter of common sense to keep the head low.'

  I would take a stroll. And I would try to find some company. I walked upstairs ready to tap on George Ogden's

  door, but I saw that it was ajar. I was full of curiosity about

  this fellow, who I had seen nothing of all week. He had use

  of the scullery, but he never

  did

  use it. He would go up by

  the back stair late at night and very quietly, but it was a kind

  of quietness - by which I mean not

  very

  - that told me he'd

  taken a drink.

  I pushed the door and George was inside, sitting on the

  truckle bed, with the plants - half of them quite dead - on the

  floor around him.

  'George,' I said in an under-breath, and he came to life, like

  a penny-in-the-slot mannequin.

  'What ho!' he said.

  'I'm off up to the Albert Cigar Factory. If you knock on the

  back door they give out cigars that have got a bit bashed.

  They've usually only had a little nick and they come very

  cheap, less than half price.'

  'They're quite all right, are they?' said George, standing up.

  It was heartbreaking to see him so galvanised over such a little thing.

  'They have 'A's and 'B's,' I said.

  'Good,' said George, 'I'll have an 'A'
. This will be our first

  step to better acquaintance. I'm to book on at two, but I'll

  have plenty of time, won't I?'

  He stood up, collected his hat, picked up a letter that was

  lying on one of his boxes, and caught up one of the packets of

  biscuits. 'Care for a cream biscuit?' he said. He sounded like

  an advert, and his face looked like an advert too as he bit into

  the biscuit: a big smile decorated with crumbs and bits of

  white sugar cream.

  'Don't they sell those down at the Joint?' I said.

  'That's it,' he said, 'from the penny-in-the-slot machine.'

  'I didn't think it worked,' I said. 'Well, the excursionists can

  never make it work.'

  'Excursionists?' said George. 'Daft lot! I expect they just put

  their money in and hope for the best!'

  I said I thought that was more or less the recommended

  procedure.

  'It is if you're a juggins. Now listen, there's an address on

  the side of the machine’ said George. 'You write in to it if the

  thing is not giving out biscuits, and they send you any number of them back, gratis. Duggan's Sweetmeats, 54 New

  Clarence Road, Bradford.'

  'You have it by heart,' I said.

  'That's the best way’ said George. 'You ought to give it a go.'

  'But I've never put money in the machine,' I said.

  George said nothing to that. 'You get a very gentlemanly

  letter of apology too,' he went on, 'signed in person by the

  chairman himself.'

  We were crossing Ward's End, dodging the darting wagons and traps and their hot, cross drivers. All the pavements

  were chock full, as if the heat had turned the whole town inside

  out.

  'You're very lucky in your Mrs Stringer,' George said.

  'Yes,' I said, 'I know.'

  'She's rather pretty.'

  I thought to myself: now that's going a bit strong, but I didn't really mind it coming from George Ogden. It would have

  been different if a dog like Clive had said it.

  'She stops at home as a rule, does she?'

  'Used to,' I said. 'She works at a mill now.'

  I could not bring myself to say the words 'Hind's Mill'.

  'I wouldn't fancy that myself,' said George. 'You'll see a lot

  of weavers in some pub of a Saturday night, crowding around

  the "Try Your Fortune" machine, startled at whatever comes

  up, and it's enough to make a fellow weep. I mean to say, the

  tickets might just as well read: "You're a weaver in a mill, you

  will stay a weaver in the mill, and when you are quite worn out

  you will leave the mill, and then you will die.'"

  After that little lot, I found that I didn't quite

  know

  George

  Ogden. I would have to think on.

  I said, 'The wife is in the

  offices

  at her mill, you know?'

  'Of course she is, old man,' he said. 'Don't mind me at all.'

  A tram was stopping outside Victoria Hall, and George

  Ogden suddenly made a run for it. It was an unnatural sight,

  George running. It was like a man having a fight with himself

  while on the move, and it seemed that half the street came to

  a halt in order to marvel at the spectacle. He jumped onto the

  tram then jumped directly off with the conductor bawling at

  him. There were post boxes on the trams, and George had just

  posted his letter. You weren't supposed to do it like that

  though. The boxes were for fare payers only.

  As he strolled back to me, the conductor was giving us the

  evil eye, but luckily his tram was carrying him further off by

  the second.

  'You want to watch he doesn't open the box and take your

  letter out,' I said.

  'How will he know which is mine?' George said, and then

  he smiled and then he frowned.

  'It's a letter to my best girl,' he said.

  'Where does she live?'

  'She's out in Oldham,' he said.

  'Do you get over there very often?'

  'Not so

  very ...

  It's a fair way, you know.'

  'Matrimony on the cards, is it?'

  George, who had wandered onto the road, now had to

  scuttle out of the way of a delivery bike and was nearly flattened in the process. His legs were too short. He was all brain

  and belly.

  'That's . . . it's never quite settled,' said George. 'Your Mrs

  Stringer,' he said.

  'She's

  got her own mind, hasn't she?'

  'It's all the woman's role, and so on,' I said. 'She's ardent

  for freedom.'

  'Bit hard on you though, old sort?'

  'Well, she wants better conditions for all.'

  'What about lodgers?' he said, quite sharply.

  'How do you mean?'

  'It's just that I'm in rather low water in present, financially

  speaking, and -'

  'If you want a rent cut it won't wash, George,' I said.

  'You've only been in a week.'

  'But with all her beliefs about fairness -'

  'No,' I said. 'As far as all that goes ... You see, a part of freedom for her is being able to charge you five shillings a week

  rent.'

  'Oh,' said George, and he stopped dead on the pavement,

  looking quite abashed. 'Anyway, it's quite all right,' he said,

  starting to walk once again. 'I'm a socialist myself, you

  know.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'so am I, but I will not go to lectures on the

  minimum wage on Saturday afternoon.'

  And I will not put grindstones on railway lines on account

  of being one either, I thought, and it came to me that I hadn't

  seen Paul, the socialist missionary, hanging about Horton

  Street since our conversation of eight days ago.

  'There's just nothing to be done about it,' said George, who

  was still thinking of his rent. 'I shall have to reduce my savings.'

  'Well you could stop going out for knife-and-fork teas

  every night,' I said. 'You do have use of the scullery, you

  know.'

  'I do not have knife-and-fork teas,' said George, 'I have

  damn good

  suppers.'

  'And I suppose you'll have a bottle of wine too?'

  'I will take a carafe,' said George, and he said that last word

  with very great care. 'That would be nothing out of the way.'

  'What is a carafe?' I asked him.

  'It's a sort of small jug,' he said, and then he stopped and

  smiled: 'But not

  too

  small.'

  We walked on, skirting past People's Park, where all the

  benches were full. I was trying to spy the rainbow in the fountain, while thinking violently about George and money. He

  either had too little or he had too much.

  'Where did you lodge before, George?' I said.

  But he ignored this question completely.

  We were by now at the Albert Cigar Factory, whose two

  chimneys did look like cigars puffing away, but nothing had

  been made of this for advertising purposes. I took George

  round to the back of the factory, where there was a small blue

  door with a broken metal sign on it. The only words remaining read: '

  ALWAYS DELIGHTFUL TO INHALE'.

  I knocked, saying to George, 'You sometimes have to wait

  a while.'

  But the door was opened straightway by a youn
g fellow in

  a dust coat. He was standing in a kind of shop - a take-it-or-

  leave-it kind of show, not out to please, where the goods were

  just left in crates and kicked about as needed.

  'What ho!' shouted George, and the cigar man sprang back.

  For a minute I thought he was going to crown George.

  "A's or 'B's?' the cigar man asked.

  "A's for me', said George. 'Take a dozen.'

  "B's for me,' I said. 'Half a dozen.'

  Mine were two shillings, George's four, and they came to

  us in boxes without lids.

  'Do you have any tubes?' said George to the cigar man.

  'What sort of tubes?' came the reply.

  'Cigar tubes,' said George.

  The man turned to one of the crates and George turned to

  me, muttering, 'Extraordinary fellow!'

  George got one tin tube, gratis - which he thought a great

  thing to bring off - and as we walked away he took a little

  clasp knife out of one of his dozens of pockets, chopped the

  end off his 'A', and lit it. It was more than twice the size of one

  of my 'B's.

  'Sound smoke,' he said after a while, and he carried it off

  pretty well. Folk looked at him as he walked by. Then he

  stopped, and with the smoke racing into his eyes, unlaced his

  watch from his waistcoat: 'Fancy a stroll down to the Joint?'

  I said that I did, and we set off down Horton Street, carrying our cigar boxes.

  'You really ought to get 'A's, you know,' said George.

  'Why?' I said, even though I'd been thinking the same

  thing myself.

  'They're bigger,' he said, taking a puff, 'and better. You're

  an Ai fellow, so have an Ai cigar.'

  'Thank you,' I said, because there didn't seem much else to

  say.

  After a few paces he turned, with a flaring match in his