The Blackpool Highflyer

by Andrew Martin

  'Don was one of them,' I said.

  'Well I'm blowed!' said George, who was now getting back to something like himself. 'You've happened on that gentry, have you? Very nasty piece of goods indeed.'

  'And his pal, Max, is a sight worse,' I said.

  George blew out his cheeks. 'You're not wrong there either.'

  'Where did he come into it? I asked. 'Max, I mean. He's not a ticket collector, is he?'

  'Well now, Max . . .' said George. 'He was on hand just in case anyone should stumble over the scheme and then . . . well, how can I put it, old man? He is rather scarifying. I mean, Queensbury Rules don't enter into it with that particular chap, and that I can promise you.'

  'You're waiting for a boat,' I said, ignoring this. 'Where are you off?'

  'Holland, old man.'

  In my mind's eye I saw George Ogden in Holland, wearing big trousers with patches sewn on, sticking his fat finger in the hole in the dyke.

  'Thought I'd try my luck in Amsterdam,' he was saying. 'Now you wouldn't crack on, old man, would you? We've had some rare old larks, the two of us. I'll be honest, I liked your company. But could I ask you a question, old man? Why should you be up there, day in, day out, working for slave wages in all weathers, getting burnt, bashed about the head - I see you have stitches in - when many stupider fellows are sitting back in their offices and barely lifting a finger for twice what you're on? I only wonder because I saw you in the restaurant and you were like a cat on hot bricks, and it's not right that you should be. You must have a scheme, old man, otherwise your life will be quite wasted. Would you care for a refill?'

  'No.'

  Over the heads of the crowd in the bright, white room I saw the helmet of a copper. It was the one I'd seen over the way, in the shipping office. He was standing by the door, chatting to a bloke who looked as though he ought to be arrested by the copper, not passing the time of day with him.

  'I had a sweetheart once,' George continued. 'Oh, she'd go for the salt with her knife as soon as wink. Well, I checked that in no time and schooled her in speech a little: "Six year", she would say, and I would say "No, sweet, six years". Now, she didn't like it one bit, but I kept at it. Started on the mill floor, that one did. I'm not ashamed to say it, old man: I was stepping out with a factory girl, but I put her up to going for the office, and it was the proudest moment of my life when she went typewriter in the same concern. And why do you think I bothered? Because she had brains, and I would not have them wasted, and I would not have her slighted. It was my duty to keep the wind off that girl, and I tried and I tried, and in the end, old man, you see, I failed.'

  I was not really listening to George. I was thinking of Margaret Dyson and how, as I had picked her up, the life had spilled out of her.

  'You're the same in some respects, you know,' George was saying, 'but you have your Mrs Stringer, and she will keep you up to the mark, old man, believe me.'

  The doctor's words came back: 'I will go further, and say that if it is a delicate person you are dealing with ...'

  'Oh, whether you like it or not,' George Ogden was saying, 'believe me. And you will like it, for you're an intelligent fellow.'

  'To put him or her suddenly upright may cost your patient his or her life.'

  'And I knew, I just knew, old sort, that I could never keep anything back from you,' George Ogden was saying, 'and I'm really awfully sorry for trying.'

  'Speaking of that,' I said, 'your dad's not in the nutty house at all, is he?'

  George gave a laugh, and what was vexing was that it was a real laugh. 'He is not, old man! Though he should be, and I only wish the bastard were locked away. Why, Dad was a butcher, just like your old man, from what I gather. I say, did yours put little lumps of suet on the scales so as to give short change?'

  'No,' I said.

  'I don't want to talk about my pa any more, if it's all the same.'

  'You clapped eyes on your mother lately?'

  'No,' said Ogden. 'Why do you ask? She doesn't live with Dad any more on account of his being so . . .' He frowned, adding: 'I did have an arrangement to go and see Mother, but what with one thing and another ...'

  'Why'd you put the grindstone on the line?'

  He was shaking his head at this right from the off. 'Now just a moment,' he said, 'I know as little of that as the newborn babe. I realise you thought it might have been part of some plan to do for Lowther, the ticket inspector, because of what happened to him later, but you see, old sort, Lowther was in with us on the ticket scheme. I sounded the fellow out, in a roundabout way, and he jumped at it. Lanky wages, you see: they make desperate men of the best of us.'

  He looked at me, nodding for quite a while.

  'Now I happen to know', he went on, 'that Lowther came to grief, over in those Hebden Crags, at the hands of a rather angry fellow from Ticket Despatch in Manchester.'

  'The one who lost his job over the missing tickets?'

  'That's him. I wouldn't have had it happen for worlds, you know, that a fellow should lose his position over the business, let alone another ending up with two busted legs.'

  'You put the stone on the line,' I said, 'not because of the ticket business, but because you wanted to kill Cicely Braithwaite, who'd thrown you over.'

  'If I could just...' said George. His hand was moving.

  'Or at best you wanted to scare the bloody daylights out of her.'

  George's hand was in his waistcoat and the clasp knife was in his hand, the one he used to slice the ends off his cigars. I saw it there, shaking in his fat hand, and I saw on the handle a picture of Blackpool Tower.

  There came a great yell and a tug from behind on my coat.

  I almost fell backwards at the yank that was given, and in that instant I saw the empty space where George had been standing and heard the barman roaring: 'You've not paid me for the fucking ale!'

  'For Christ's sake!' I shouted, putting coins into his hands, 'you daft fucking cunt!' and I was fighting my way over the bags and through the crowd, after George, or the copper, but the copper who'd walked in had gone. In fact, half the lot that had been in the pub no longer were, and when I stumbled out into the street I saw why. Clear skies: the blue- ness seemed to go up and up, and all was order and good sense once more in the port of Goole, with happier-looking folk all about the place and the steamships not just steaming but moving.

  All across the docks, I could see fellows walking in circles, pushing wooden spars attached to turning poles. The tide had risen to the correct level and the lock gates were being opened. Two of the steamers were already out on the Hum- ber, moving with no sign of effort over the wide, bright water.

  I ran into the docks, looking for a copper, or looking for George. Had he loved Cicely Braithwaite, or tried to control her? They were the same thing. At any rate, I wanted to see him swing.

  I dashed back and forth as the big blokes turned their circles and one lock gate after another opened, bringing a gentle rushing sound, the ringing of bells on the boats, and shouts back and forth between the boats and the docks.

  This was the moment of freedom for those sea captains and they all wanted to be off and away. In amongst all the ship business I saw the diver, the iron man, up from underwater, sitting on a chair at the top of the dock wall near to me. With his two attendants standing by, next to the pump that was now still, he looked like a strange sort of king from another world, with his great iron boots that could have been gold, his white suit that could have been silk, and the great brass head. As I peered closer, I saw the face of an ordinary man staring through the window at the side of it.

  'Where's the Holland boat?' I shouted to a man throwing a rope onto a moving steamship.

  'Ouse Dock!' he shouted, and pointed over to a ship still in dock but steaming hard; there were horses on its deck in pens, and blokes working away before it, one on either side, turning the wheels that controlled the dock.

  From behind me, George Ogden appeared with his tumbling run. He leapt a
pile of ropes and stumbled, but still he had ten yards on me as I began pounding after him. He was making for the boat that was about to leave Ouse Dock.

  The iron man was standing up once again and moving towards the top of an iron ladder that led down into the water. His attendants helped him all the way, as if he was an invalid. The breathing tube trailed behind. As I leapt the coil of ropes that George had leapt a moment before, I saw that the three were in George's path. I saw him try to leap the air tube, but his boot caught, pulling the pump over. I saw the pump topple and the iron man turn with a sort of slow shock, and ... I couldn't see George.

  Beyond, at Ouse Dock, I saw the lock gates moving, with water moving on them: two mobile waterfalls, swinging away from one another. The boat was a Lanky boat. Its name was written big on the side: Equity.

  I looked again at the iron man, now alone on the dock. His two attendants were climbing down the iron ladder. They were both clinging on to the top of it and shouting things I couldn't take in, but as I got up to the top of the ladder, one dropped into the water, reluctant, like, and then the other. The last man that could help bring George up was the one that was dressed for diving, all togged up to sink.

  I looked down. The assistants had been under and were up again now, moving the water with their hands, as if it was long grass they'd accidentally dropped something into.

  I looked up again at the Equity, moving through the lock gates with a clear, confident rumbling of the engine, the horses all looking forward, with their manes streaming backwards in the direction of the funnel smoke. The sky, cleaned out by the storm, was light blue with a gleam of gold. The long grass in the meadows either side of the waterway was all blowing gently to the right. There was a church out on one of the banks with a pretty sort of barn near that, and you saw that Goole was not so great and terrifying a machine after all if you could be out of it and into country so fast.

  As I watched, and the iron man's attendants roared in the water, the steamship moved into a turn in the centre of the channel, like a dancer; the horses were turning too, under the spinning smoke that was hanging over the shining water, hesitating.

  PART THREE

  After

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  I took the train with the wife to Hebden Bridge. From there we walked - not to the Crags this time but to a high pasture out towards Mytholmroyd, the route along the lanes being indicated by smaller copies of the Horton Street poster that had read 'A DIRIGIBLE FLIGHT' and 'Balloon v. Motor Car'.

  The hill tops and the parts of the fields that were for some mysterious reason colder than others were still covered in snow. In other spots, the ground was showing through again in unexpected shades. The sky was the colour of iron, and such daylight as there was seemed somehow begrudged. The trees were black and still.

  As we followed the signs, the cold made steam engines of the wife and me. I liked to talk in this weather, just to see the clouds come rolling from my mouth.

  'There's hardly a breath of breeze,' I said.

  'That's good for the aeronauts,' said the wife. 'They don't sail in excessive wind.'

  The jaunt was the wife's idea. She'd seen the poster in Horton Street and it had set her reading anything she could lay her hands on to do with aeronautics. It seemed to be one of the funny ways pregnancy had taken her.

  'I can see that wind might cause trouble for the free balloons,' I said, 'but the dirigible pilots are able to steer, aren't they?'

  'Somewhat,' said the wife.

  She didn't want to talk; she wanted to reach the flying ground. In her hand were two Farthing Everlasting Strips.

  We continued on. The wife wore her overcoat, but I'd made do with my work suit, which came into its own in freezing temperatures. It was the middle of October, and summer was already far beyond imagining.

  'Just look at all that silk’ said the wife, sounding rather jealous, as we walked through the gateway into the flying ground.

  Two of the three so-named free balloons were already inflated and were being held down by teams of shouting men. They looked like upside-down onions, and were onion colour too: silvery brown. A third balloon was being inflated from tanks resting on a cart, and, as the gas went in, it was just like seeing a big-headed man slowly raising his head from his pillow.

  The three motorcars that were to give chase waited in the corner of the field with their own shouting attendants, all heavily muffled up. A corps of cyclists would also be following along, and this lot were pedalling in circles in the field, trying to keep warm.

  There were not as many spectators as I'd expected, so it was pretty easy to pick out old Reuben Booth. He wore an overcoat that seemed very black, like a night without stars, and then it came to me that this was his own overcoat and not the one he wore for work, so there was no gold on it. Next to him stood Arnold Dyson in his Crossley Porter cape, with the Irish terrier, Bob, alongside. All three stood close together but silent, looking on.

  As I led the wife over towards the little group, I watched the dog. Every time a little more of the gas went into the balloon, Bob would inch forwards, eagerness increasing.

  I nodded at Reuben. 'How do’ I said.

  'How do,' said Reuben.

  The boy Dyson wore the same face as before: a sort of knot. Every so often, though, he would pat the dog, which he was holding by a string, and his features would relax for a moment as he did so. The lad was quite taken with the balloons, anyone could see that. Mr Ferry had written to us from the orphanage to say that the boy's interests lay in that direction.

  A man in a long coat was in the centre of the field, shouting through a loud-hailer. He seemed to be pointing to one man in particular of all those holding on to the balloons, and this fellow, it was given out, was the Chief of Aeronautics.

  I introduced the wife to the boy, and he just gave a grunt, as I'd warned her he would do. That was when the Farthing Everlasting Strips came out. When they were put into his hands, Dyson looked up at Reuben, who winked and said: 'Tha's a lucky beggar, en't tha?'

  Then the first balloon went up.

  In no time at all, the people riding in the basket were higher than the top of Blackpool Tower, and looking down on us and waving as best they could in their thick coats.

  They're waving to show us they're not scared, I thought, even if they are. The next two went up in very short order, skimming over the fields in exactly the same direction, for of course it was the breeze - such as there was - that had taken charge. Their tailing ropes bashed the same hedge in the same place, sending up sprays of snow on both occasions.

  There came another burst of shouting from the man with the loud-hailer, and the cars and bicycles went off, but how they hoped to give chase I could not say for, upon turning through the gate, they were immediately required to follow a lane that took them in the opposite direction to the balloons.

  'I don't get it,' I said to Reuben.

  'Rum,' said Reuben, looking after the motorcars.

  'Now, where's the dirigible?' I asked, for that was the bill topper, the steerable balloon.

  'Yonder,' said Reuben, tipping his head.

  They were bringing it across the field towards us. It must have been in another field to start with, stowed away behind a hedge, out of sight.

  'More silk,' I said to the wife, and I realised I'd interrupted a conversation of sorts between her and the boy.

  The dirigible balloon, or airship, was half inflated, and so was half floating. There was a line of men underneath it, and I couldn't make out whether they were holding the thing up or holding it down. Directly beneath the balloon was a wooden frame, inside which sat the aeronaut, who looked like a hero already, the way he was being carried aloft. At one end of the frame was a propeller; at the other end was fixed a rudder (which was the important article). It was not a regular balloon shape. Instead, it was horizontal - a big cigar.

  The loud-hailer man was now telling us all about the aeronaut, who by all accounts had been practically born
in mid-air. Last winter, he had flown somewhere to somewhere in fog. His training, we were told, was a jolly good dinner; he smoked and drank in moderation, and the only thing he did to excess was fly. The engine in his craft, the loud-hailer man continued, was controlled by wires; this would be a short flight, but still the aeronaut would be quite lost to sight for most of it; he would be flying in a circle and returning within half an hour to this very field.

  But I didn't want to know about the aeronaut. I wanted to know about my mate on what had become once more the relief link, Clive Carter.

  'Reuben,' I said, 'you know those Scarborough runs we had this summer?'

  'Aye,' he said.

  'Clive disappeared both times with a bag.'

  Reuben nodded.

  'What was going off?'

  As we looked on, the dirigible was placed on wooden supports while a team of men started pulling the gas cart nearer.

  Reuben's mouth was opening behind that worn-out grey beard. He meant to speak, so I leant close, for the air was filled with the sound of the rushing gas and the shouting of the loud-hailer man.

  Reuben's words came with shaky breaths and shaky clouds of steam. 'Eighteen seventy-five,' he said; 'that were when I had my start... Midland Railway.'

  'As train guard?'