The Blackpool Highflyer

by Andrew Martin

  Reuben shook his head. 'Carpenter’ he said; 'Settle to Carlisle stretch.'

  'It's famous’ I said. 'Gave the Midland its line to Glasgow. But they had hell-on building of it, by all accounts.'

  'Ribblehead Viaduct...' said Reuben.

  'That bugger was the highest of the lot’ I said.

  'That were me ... day in, day out...' Reuben was shaking his head. 'Never was such a wild spot...'

  'It was all navvies’ I said. 'Very tough sorts.'

  'Couldn't half sup, though’ said Reuben, and he stood there in the freezing field smiling for a while.

  'Would you take a drink back then, Reuben?' I said.

  He shook his head. 'I were Chapel.' Then he smiled again. 'I were a great hand at... harmonium.'

  I laughed at this, for I thought it might be the right thing to do.

  As the attendants sent the gas from the tanks through long sleeves of silk into the dirigible, I watched as the craft changed by degrees from a 'B' cigar into an 'A'.

  'The Ribblehead Viaduct,' I said; 'I've read a good deal about it. They built it up with wooden piers first of all.'

  'That's it’ said Reuben. 'Timber framing below, stone going in up top ... Could never make out how it could stand without rocking.'

  I nodded.

  'March twenty-first, eighteen seventy-five ...' Reuben was saying, as the attendants seemed to just lift the dirigible off its supports, and put it into the air.

  'Crane they had up top’ said Reuben as we both watched the dirigible, 'well, it suffered a mishap, like

  The aeronaut, sitting in his frame under the big cigar, was yanking on a long wire.

  'Sling chain broke’ Reuben was saying; 'let go a block of stone, size of ...'

  The tiny engine of the dirigible was going at last.

  'Size of what, Reuben?'

  The dirigible was going up; circling and swooping but certainly going up all the same, and not in quite the same direction as the free balloons, which proved it was being directed by the aeronaut.

  'Six and half ton,' Reuben said, nodding.

  'And it crowned you?' I said. 'No, it can't have done, else you wouldn't be standing here talking.'

  'I'll tell tha summat,' said Reuben. 'It had me cap clean off.'

  We looked up at the sky where the dirigible was turning like a weathervane; then I remembered why our chat had begun in the first place.

  'But where does Clive come into all this?' I asked. 'And all the Scarborough goings on?'

  Reuben was nodding. 'Come March twenty-first any year,' Reuben said, 'I'll celebrate, like.'

  'Understandable, that,' I said.

  The dirigible was nearly gone from sight.

  'March twenty-first, nineteen hundred,' said Reuben. 'Now that were twenty-five year after ...'

  'And you were in Scarborough with Clive?'

  Reuben nodded.

  'He said we were to take a drink . . . Grand Hotel, he said . . . Nowt else would do, on account of it being such a near thing, like ...'

  'Bloody hell,' I said.

  'So we took oursens off up there’ Reuben continued. 'Trouble is . . .' He turned to me, and he was smiling again. 'They're most particular as to costume.'

  'They wouldn't let you in’ I said.

  'They would not.'

  'It's a bloody disgrace’ I said.

  'Didn't bother me’ said Reuben. 'Clive though . . . proper riled, he were.'

  'I have it,' I said. 'Ever since then Clive's been going into the Grand whenever he has a run to Scarborough?'

  Reuben nodded.

  'So in that bag of his’ I went on, 'he had all the proper togs?'

  Reuben nodded again.

  'Frock coat,' Reuben said, 'and all that carry on ... Goes off beforehand to a little spot off the Valley Road . .. whatsname ... Snowdrop ... aye.'

  'Snowdrop Laundry,' I said. 'I knew that much.'

  'They've a steam press there,' said Reuben, 'but you've to pitch up at a certain time to be sure it'll be working, like.'

  'That's where he was hurrying off to then,' I said. 'To the laundry, then to the Grand. I suppose he didn't want it known.'

  Reuben nodded.

  'I can just picture him,' I said, 'acting all la-di-da . . . Well, I'm sure he looked the part, any road . . . And here's me thinking he'd clicked with Emma Knowles.'

  Reuben was still nodding.

  The sky was changing and you could see the serious stuff coming: darkness and colder snow.

  'Stationmaster's missus ...' Reuben was saying.

  'Crazy notion,' I said, looking up at the sky for any sign of the dirigible coming back. I noticed that Reuben was looking at me with a smile buried ever so deep.

  'Hold on,' I said. 'He never is, is he?'

  But Reuben was now gazing up at the sky, along with most of the spectators.

  'He's late,' said some fellow standing close by.

  The master of ceremonies was waiting, loud-hailer at his side. Arnold Dyson, the wife and the dog, Bob, were in a line looking up.

  The Chief of Aeronautics was in the middle of the field, looking down. His arms were folded.

  With all Reuben had said, more strangeness was put into the weird summer I'd had of it. I thought back to the lifting of the stone from the line and all the things that had come out from underneath, so to speak.

  I fell to thinking of Monsieur Maurice. He'd been connected to the stone on the line only in my mind. The upshot was that he'd thought me a fan, and I was glad of that, at least.

  Monsieur Maurice had topped the bill once more at the Palace, but for only one night - late September, it would have been - and the notable event had been written up in the Courier, under the heading: 'RETIREMENT OF A FAMOUS VENTRILOQUIST'. Monsieur Maurice, I'd read, had resolved finally to take in hand his small garden in Sussex.

  It would have been at about the same time that the order for great quantities of the light suiting had arrived from Italy. It had been the wife's notion to send out the particulars, and she had received thanks, of sorts, from the younger Hind. It was all too late for Peter Robinson, of course, and the wife had asked me: 'Why couldn't Hind Senior have died instead?', and that while stepping out of Halifax Parish Church.

  Who'd murdered old Hind? Nobody. And the same went for Arthur Billington.

  As far as I knew, the Halifax coppers were still looking out for the Socialist Mission.

  The long-haired fellow, Paul, was now to me like something in a dream, and his governor, Alan Cowan, last heard of in Dunfermline, was like a dream dreamed inside a dream.

  Well, I was Paul's one chance of having the Mission written up in the newspapers as something to be reckoned with. And as far as that went, I'd done all the work for him, apart from a bit of stone throwing. Paul had pitched the stone through the excursion-office window, I was sure of that, but whether he'd burst our bedroom window ... I didn't really believe it. It might have been George trying to father the blame for the wrecking onto the socialists, but he would have had all-on to get back into his room and let me see him there a moment later. No, I believed it was Don and Max, who'd done it to warn George over the money owed. Although, of course, they'd got the wrong bedroom. I'd not seen either of them again, at Central or anywhere, and another ticket collector at that station had told me Don had been stood down long since, and taken himself off to London.

  The light was quite gone now, and the blackness of the sky was coming down to meet the blackness of the trees. I was cold, and fancied that I could detect every one of the burn- holes in my work suit. But I was proud to have a suit full of burn-holes, and proud once again to be an engine man. The great thing was to make speed, and then to give it to others, for it gave folk time, and it gave them life.

  Looking up once again, I still could not see the aeronaut. Nothing moved in the sky, but somehow the greyness was mixing with the blackness. It would certainly snow again, and the weather brought to mind an interesting article I'd read that very morning in the Rai
hvay Magazine, under the heading: 'Fighting the Snow on a Canadian Railway'. 'British railroadmen', I'd read, 'have a limited conception generally of what excessive snow can do . . .' Well, it could be that we were about to find out, for extremes of temperature seemed to be all the rage in 1905.

  I was thinking back to the summer once more, and the strongest picture in my mind's eye, the one with the strongest, brightest after-storm colours, was that of the Lanky steamboat, Equity, rocking on the Humber, heading slowly out to Holland, and down by one passenger.

  I'd not read the report of the inquest when it had appeared in the Courier a week later, but I'd had the notion of writing to Peter Robinson's solicitors telling the tale of the funny fellow, George Ogden, and mentioning that, since he'd put the stone on the line, their late client could have had nothing to do with the matter. That would have been a comfort to the boy, Lance. But, as the wife said, a letter of that kind would have made things hot for Cicely, who by rights ought to have spoken up earlier.

  The Chief of Aeronautics had taken out his pocket watch.

  A fellow I didn't know, who was standing nearby, turned to somebody in our little group of watchers, and said, 'I reckon he's been dashed to death.'

  I watched the wife as she stared upwards. She was waiting for much more than the airship, of course.

  A movement caught my eye - the loud-hailer going to the lips of the master of ceremonies; and there in the corner of the dark sky, tiny, but quite all right, was the dirigible.

  I looked over to Arnold Dyson and saw that he was smiling.

  The fellow with the loud-hailer was going forty to the dozen once again, giving us more credentials of the aeronaut. The fellow, it appeared, had three daughters; he was to be the principal attraction somewhere on Wednesday next. He valued his airship at no less than £3,000.

  The attendants were all gathering to receive the airship.

  The wife was next to me. 'Well, I hope they don't mean to catch it,' she said.

  Arnold Dyson was alongside the wife and grinning up at me, just as though he'd been all smiles from the very start.

  'She's all right, your missus,' he said.

  'She is that,' I said.

  'She can make her eyes go crossed, you know.'

  I looked at the wife, but she was miles away, gazing up at the airship.

  'Can she?' I said.

  Table of Contents

  Whit

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Wakes

  After