The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  'Right you are' said Reuben, and he nodded to himself for quite a while. 'The boy's been left -'

  Here he stopped to wheeze for a time, and I thought for one crazy moment that he was about to say, 'He's been left a thousand pounds.' But no.

  '- orphan.'

  That word again; the fairy-like woman proved right again. Why couldn't that old bitch take the kid in herself?

  'So it's Crossley Porter House for him then?' I said to Reuben.

  The Crossley and Porter Orphan Home looked over Savile Park in Halifax. It was a school with orphanage above. The orphans were looked after by matrons or masters who were all immense; the masters all had big beards, and the women would've if they could. Or maybe it was just that the orphans were so small. The orphans slept on the fifth floor; everybody in Halifax knew that. If you were left without parents, or even just fatherless, you would be climbing those stairs.

  Reuben looked down at his dockets.

  'And what's to happen to his dog?' I asked.

  'The dog?' said Reuben. 'That's at my place.'

  Reuben was a kindly, untidy fellow – just the sort to have dogs. He lived in a house on the edge of Halifax which you could see on the run down from the Joint to Sowerby Bridge. It was on its own hill: tall and thin in the middle of tall and thin trees, and looking liable to topple forwards into its own garden.

  'It won't be the first I've taken on,' he said.

  'No' I said.

  'Folk put them in the van, label on the bloody collar: "Give water at Bradford", "Put off at Hebden Bridge", and I'll tell you what… half the time there's no bugger at Hebden Bridge to collect.'

  'Don't they give a name and address when they hand a dog over?'

  'I'll tell you summat else for nothing,' said Reuben sounding quite galvanised just for a moment, 'I've no notion of this beast's name.'

  'I'll ask the boy,' I said. 'I'll take him back the book, and I'll ask him. I could take him a bit of sweet stuff too… Comfits,' I said, remembering George Ogden, 'only they don't like the hot.'

  'Farthing Everlasting Strip' said Reuben, 'that's the thing for a lad. Mind you, they en't really everlasting -' He stopped here, and seemed to be thinking of something a million miles away before continuing:'- but they really do cost a farthing.' He was smiling, which I had never really seen Reuben do before, and all over a bit of toffee.

  I asked him if he'd have a drink with me, and he said he would, so we fixed up to meet in the station booking office after I'd disposed of the tank engine.

  I uncoupled it and ran it round to the Scarborough shed, where I signed my own name and Clive's. It was a sacking matter if discovered and reported, but you'd do it for a pal. Then again, you usually knew why you were doing it.

  They didn't have an engine men's mess at Scarborough shed. They had an engine men's 'lobby', which sounded fine, but in the washroom there was no soap: plenty of Jeyes smell and acres of white tile, but not a smidgen of yellow soap. I'd known country stations where they'd lay on a pail, but even in those spots there'd always be soap.

  When I met Reuben back at the station, he was looking at himself in the window of the booking office, a steady look with a tired sort of question in it.

  'Do you have any idea where Clive's off to?' I asked him, and it came out quite short, for I was still vexed over the soap.

  Reuben gave me one of his looks which meant he was getting ready to say nothing.

  'The fellow's been moving in narrow ways all day' I said.

  Reuben was still looking in the window, but now sly, like. There was gold lacing on his coat and cap, but it meant nothing to him. His beard was like what's left of a thistle after the flower has gone.

  'There was no soap over yonder' I said, 'so all I could do was take a piss.'

  'Aye,' said Reuben, looking away from the glass and towards me at last, 'well tha must do what tha can.'

  Where was Clive? And why had he not seemed put out by the smash or anything that had happened since? Why had he come out laughing from his interview with Major Harrison of the Board of Trade?

  I looked down at my grimy hands. Clive could not have put the grindstone on the line because he'd been with me since first thing that Whit Sunday morning, and the stone had been placed within the hour before we struck it.

  And anyway: why would he do it?

  Chapter Nine

  You'd have guessed the weather was set fair even under the glass of the excursion platforms, but when I stepped out of the station with Reuben I was startled at what I'd been missing: rows of glass charabancs waiting under the high, burning sun; the widest of clean blue skies somehow letting you know that the sea was at hand, though not for the present to be seen; and, across the road, the Westfield Hotel, fairly dazzling in its whiteness.

  When we were clear away from the shadow of the station, Reuben stood still for a while, nodding and saying over to himself, 'Gradely… gradely,' even though it was hardly the weather for old men in gold coats.

  We were now on the Valley Road leading down to the South Shore: Italian gardens, lily ponds, rock pools, bamboos and all vegetation out of the common; white ladies with the smaller sort of parasols in the miniature zigzagging roads, laughing at all these corners they were made to turn in order to get nowhere at all. But it didn't matter because whatever way they faced gave postcard views: the Valley Bridge connecting fun with more fun, the mighty Grand Hotel high on its own cliff – a cliff all to itself! – with its stone starfish and dolphins all around the roof. I'd been born just along the coast at Baytown, and the one telegraphic address I knew as a boy was that of the 'Grandotel Scarborough'. Many messages under that head, it was said, were sent out in code for they were starting wars, or finishing wars, and all that kind of carry on.

  The harbour, down below the hotel, was like a sort of circular village in the sea, and the beach was a creamy brown – sand, I mean – whereas at Baytown it was rocks, and the sight of anybody sitting on it was a sure sign a drink had been taken.

  We walked on, and the sound of a brass band floated up to us and expanded to fill the sky. If you could imagine a whole town saying, 'I am first class -1 am in the pink,' well, that was Scarborough in the summer.

  Reuben was next to me as we took it all in. At large in his guard's uniform, he looked like an old campaigner from some forgotten war, which to my mind he was, having had a hand in the building of the Settle-Carlisle line. I had read that the winds on the high viaducts there could stop a locomotive in its tracks.

  As we walked on, I fancied I could feel the heat of the sun and an extra heat on top – the coal dust burning on my skin. I took my coat off, but my shirt and my undershirt were like a further two coats, and these I could not take off. How Reuben was managing under his thick coat I could not imagine. The further we walked, the more my boots and my woollen trousers became my enemies, but we eventually struck the Scarborough and Whitby, the pub Clive had spoken of. As we walked towards the door, I noticed a torn scrap of a poster on its wall: 'see monsieur maurice', it read, 'the ventriloquial paragon at the floral hall, scarborough'. The bloody man cropped up everywhere.

  Stepping into the Scarborough and Whitby, you saw the truth of the day: everybody's face was red. The sun had fairly exhausted them, or beaten them in a fight.

  'What's yours?' I asked Reuben.

  'Shilling of brandy,' he said, in a thoughtful sort of way.

  I took a glass of pale ale, as recommended by Clive, while wishing he'd been on hand to take one with me. It was very hard to talk to Reuben, because everything he might have to say was buried so deep.

  'Clive's gone off,' I said again. 'Don't know where.'

  There was a bit of a question put into that, but Reuben said nothing.

  'Odd that he shouldn't let on' I said.

  Reuben didn't seem to have heard this, but something must have progressed in him, for he said, nodding: 'It's a rum go-'

  Nothing was said for another short while. Then I had an idea: 'Reuben' I said, 'why i
s a football round?'

  It was a quarter to one by the clock over the bar as I said this. At getting on for five to, Reuben said: 'Well… it would have to be.'

  'But why?' I said, and I saw the daftness of the whole thing. The riddles in Pearson's didn't work without speed.

  Reuben had finished his brandy. 'Thinking on…' he said, '… I had two of these, last time I came here.'

  'Will you take another, Reuben?' I said.

  He shook his head. 'Just thinking, like.'

  'When were you last over here then?'

  'Nineteen hundred,' he said.

  I nodded, hoping he might continue, and he did after a little while.

  'Generally speaking,' he said, 'I'll only take one drink.'

  'But the last time you were in Scarborough, you had two?'

  He nodded. 'Aye.'

  We were back to square one. I bought another glass of pale ale and Reuben watched me drink it. There were so many questions I could have asked him that in the end I asked none at all.

  Reuben made his way back to the station when I'd finished my beer, and I walked out a minute later. It had been a mistake to have a second drink, as I learnt the minute I struck 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?'