The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  Cicely nodded. 'You would have liked having Mr Robinson here, dear,' she said to the wife, 'if you'd got to know him properly, got to know his ways. He was go-ahead like you. Have you told Mr Stringer of your programme for the filing?'

  'I've not,' said the wife, 'because he is not particularly interested in filing.'

  I finished off my glass of water and gave Cicely a grin.

  'In fact he doesn't even file his own nails,' said the wife.

  'Tell me of your programme,' I said.

  'Very well,' said the wife, who was finishing off my bandage with a pin. 'When I come to take dictation from Mr Hind, he always ends, "Kindly acknowledge in due course", which means that for every letter sent out we get one back, and half the time the other person puts "kindly acknowledge" on their letter of acknowledgement, so you can see that the smallest little bit of business does rather go on for ever. But when I mentioned it to Mr Hind, and suggested that he stop writing "kindly acknowledge in due course", he said, "It's quite impossible. How can you be sure you've sent a letter if you don't have a reply?'"

  'Mr Hind is not go-ahead,' said Cicely, turning to me.

  'So,' the wife continued, 'I said you must just put a little trust in the Post Office, and that way you could save pounds every year, to which he replied, "How am I to finish my letters? What am I to put instead?'"

  'Well, what is he to put instead?' I asked the wife, after a little while.

  '"Yours truly'" said the wife, and she stepped back from me, for the bandaging was now done.

  'He'll never do it,' said Cicely.'No,' said the wife. 'But I will. He never reads over the correspondence after dictation.' 'You can't' said Cicely. 'You'll be stood down if he ever finds out, and -' She suddenly gave it up and stopped, saying directly to me: 'I'm expecting that buzzer any minute.'

  I nodded at her.

  'That's to tell us to stop working,' she added, although she had in fact not done a hand's turn since I'd arrived.

  'The weavers clock off' explained Cicely, 'we book off, and where Mr Hind Senior has got to I really don't know.'

  'Will the weavers be coming through this way?' I asked, for I didn't want to clap eyes on the woman who'd all but accused me of murder.

  Cicely shook her head. 'They leave through the main doors. They only come through this way on Thursdays.'

  'Pay day,' put in the wife.

  Then the telephone did start ringing. The wife answered it very smartly, saying, 'Hind's Mill, Office of Mr Hind', and fell to discussing a sale of looms.

  'Mr Stringer,' said Cicely, who seemed to have no inclination to stop doing no work and go home, 'your suit has more scorch marks on it than my uncle Jasper's tab rug, which is always getting burnt on account of him piling too much free coal onto his grate.'

  I frowned at her.

  'My uncle Jasper works on the railways,' she explained, climbing up onto one of the high stools.

  'Well then' I said, 'so do I.'

  'Lydia never told me' said Cicely.

  'She doesn't really care for the job' I said. 'She thinks it's mucky and dangerous and not, you know… Well, it is true that you can't be an engine man and not be bowed down by it.'

  It was the first time I had admitted anything of that sort, but nobody was really listening. Cicely had a faraway look, and the wife was still talking into the telephone.

  'Mr Stringer -' said Cicely again.

  'I was firing the Highflyer' I cut in. 'I mean the engine that carried this mill's excursion to Blackpool: the one that got stopped.'

  'Oh' she said, except that it was really only half an 'oh', about the smallest sound you can make while still speaking. Climbing down from the high stool, she said: 'Would you care to see the weaving room, just while Lydia's busy?'

  We walked along the wooden corridor between the offices, and I tried to collect my thoughts together. Why had the wife not let on that I'd been firing the engine on Whit Sunday? Well, she would not be popular if it was known she was married to one of the men who'd kept the whole firm waiting in a field for half a day. We'd promised them a holiday, and then made a smudge of it. Or maybe Cicely had known that I was part of that show, but didn't let on that she knew, so as to save embarrassing me.

  Cicely opened the heavy door to the weaving room for the second time, and now I was ready for the noise. There must have been four hundred looms, and every one rocked and buckled as the shuttle inside it was pitched back and forth. The weavers were mainly women. They would dart in and trim at the cloth in the thrashing machines with tiny scissors, then stand back, looking over all parts of the contraption before swooping back in again with the scissors.

  There were five rows between the lines of looms and men walked along these, pushing trolleys on which were spare bits of kit for the looms, to be stopped as needed.

  Most of the lot in this room would have been on the excursion. Cicely was standing next to me, with a handkerchief in her hand, looking along the middle row of looms. She looked quite grave, which did not suit her. It was getting on for five o'clock on a roasting hot day, but the inside of the mill had a feeling of near-dawn on a cold day. I looked up at the skylights, but they weren't sky lights, for they'd all been whitewashed to keep out the glare.

  'Which loom did Dyson, the girl who died, work at?' I shouted to Cicely.

  She leant towards me and I shouted my question again. She heard it this time and pointed. My eye flew from her finger end to a loom in the centre of the weaving hall, where stood the superannuated fairy, my accuser. She was looking straight at me once again, as a great scream came in on top of the clattering of the looms. It was the buzzer, and even as it continued, the place wilted, the machines wound down, and all the madness came to an end, for the steam had been turned off.

  But the woman was still staring.

  I turned to Cicely and said: 'Who is that woman?'

  'That's Mary-Ann Roberts,' said Cicely.

  As Cicely looked at her, Mary-Ann Roberts finally left off staring at me and turned away to join the crowd moving towards the door at the opposite end.

  'She knew Margaret Dyson, the one that died, didn't she?'

  Cicely nodded. 'She was her elbow mate: worked at the next loom. She's moved along now to take Margaret's. She didn't want -'

  Cicely was looking up, and now she was crying. All the weavers were walking out of the weaving room at the other end, and I was alone with this crying woman.

  '… The ladies with her in the compartment,' Cicely said, 'they thought at first she was getting on nicely, but -'

  And she was off again. I just stood there like a mule. My programme was to get her back to the wife, because the wife would know what to do. An idea struck me – not a very good one. 'Do you want a cup of tea?' I said. 'Come this way.' I didn't know where any kettle was, leave alone tea, and Cicely Braithwaite knew that I didn't know, but she followed me back to the wooden corridor between the offices. The wife was still talking on the telephone. Cicely was sniffing mightily as she walked, and starting on a speech.

  'I've worked here five year,' she was saying, 'five years, I mean. I was taken on as a weaver and a friend said you should go typist because there's better prospects, so I did my typing course. In my first year, the Whit excursions for this mill started: it was to be an extra treat in advance of the Wakes Week trip to Blackpool. It was Mr Robinson's idea – he's the fellow that's gone now. He said it had to be Blackpool of course, and everyone from the mill was to go, and there was to be a tea at the Tower. Well, when we came back it was always given to me to write to the Blackpool Tower Company, and it was always the same letter.'

  She took a big breath, and I was afraid of another big crying go, but she carried on, just as if reading this letter she'd spoken of: '"On behalf of the work-people and officials of Hind's Mill, I beg to thank you for the excellent manner in which you catered for our party of five hundred.'" A very big sniff here.

  I could hear the wife, through the wooden wall, saying: 'You must telephone late
r when Mr Hind himself is here, or can you not write a letter?'

  '"The tea'", Cicely was continuing, '"was admirably served, and the attendants left nothing to be desired… and… the fact that we have not had a single complaint out of the very large number -"' Another mighty sniff. '"- speaks for itself.'"

  That last part did it. She was off crying again, saying how the tea was never served that day; and how it was to have been such a spread, how it had been the thing Margaret Dyson had been looking forward to most particularly; how the Wakes Week holiday that was coming up really would be a wake. But now the wife, having at last finished with the telephone, was stepping out of the office and putting her arms about Cicely, and things were set to rights while I was sent outside to wait.

  I walked around to the side of the mill and stood between the chimney and the mill pond. They made a silent pair as always. The sunshine was sending a golden V shimmering out across the water. My heart was beating fast, just as after the smash. What I wanted was another smash, and there would then be a person lying down in a carriage, having taken a concussion. I would go in and I would not attempt to lift their head.

  The last of the weavers were trailing away down Beacon Hill.

  Walking further along the mill wall, I came to the boiler room. The door was half open and things were still in full swing inside. I could make out two boilers, with fireholes set below. There was one man to each, and now that the fires were finished, the two were scraping out clinkers with long irons. The sound they made was a desperate kind of clattering, for they wouldn't get home until the job was done.

  There was a tug on my coat and the wife was standing next to me. We began walking down the hill to the town. Far below us, trams and horse buses were cutting through Halifax at a great rate, and folk were filing down all the streets that led to the Joint, which was full of engines coming and going. Freedom for the wage slaves: that's what we were looking at, for the Friday buzzers were going off all over.

  'Do they talk much in the mill about the lass that died?' I said.

  'Some do,' said the wife. 'She was popular – a bonny girl.'

  'Do they ever say she might have been saved?'

  But the wife didn't seem to hear that.

  'Cicely is a good soul,' she was saying, while looking at flowers by the roadside, 'but she has an awful time of it. Hind treats her like a slavey – just like one of the work people, even though she's been in the office for donkey's years.'

  'Where is Hind?'

  'He has a yacht,' said the wife, 'and he's on it. Has been for a week.'

  'Where?' I said. 'Cruising off Llandudno. You can send letters to it by posting to somewhere in Llandudno. He can send them back as well, worst luck. All week, the correspondence has been letters from Mr Robinson's solicitors saying that the price offered for his share in the mill is not acceptable; Hind saying that no more is to be offered because the light suiting of Robinson's has brought the mill almost to bankruptcy; and letters to wine retailers asking for Champagne to be sent out to Hind's yacht. If I put the wrong letter in the wrong envelope there'd be fun.'

  'You mean if you sent the Champagne to the solicitors?'

  'No, you nut. If the solicitors for Robinson found out how much Hind was spending on himself.'

  'What about Hind Senior, the founder. What does he make of all this?'

  'That fossil! Who knows if he thinks at all. Hind's the only one who talks to him. It was in King William's day when he founded this mill, you know, and it was powered by water.'

  'Do you think he's on the yacht right now with Hind?'

  'Is he heckers, like,' said the wife. 'The fossil hardly ever leaves Halifax, and he's due at the mill right now.' Then she pointed to a roadside flower: 'Foxglove,' she said quite fiercely.

  'But they did lose money over the light suiting, and it was this fellow Robinson's fault, wasn't it?'

  'It had been his idea, but young Hind had agreed to adventure it. I'd help Mr Robinson if I could… He has a little boy, you know, Lance, rather grown-up for his years, and he wrote a letter to Cicely to pass on to Hind. It was asking for his dad to be given his job back. Quite heart-breaking it was, according to Cicely. Well, that boy's mad on engines. Peter Robinson's often over here with all this solicitor business, and I thought you might show the boy about the station.'

  'I'd say you were sweet on this Robinson' I said.

  'Well, he had his points, you know.'

  'Like what?'

  'He gave me my start, for one thing. He was always gentlemanly to the workers, even if he was flogging them to death.'

  'Where is he now?' 'At home.' 'In Halifax?'

  The wife shook her head. 'He lives in Lancashire, at St Anne's.'

  'Oh, you'd like it there,' I said. 'It's just before Blackpool; it's like Blackpool with everything taken out. Peaceful, like.'

  'What I would fancy,' said the wife, very slowly, 'is a trip to Hebden Bridge.'

  This was a turn up. The wife was not a great one for taking trips. 'Hebden would be a start,' I said. 'It's the prettiest spot within ten miles of here.'

  'In fact I am going – tomorrow afternoon, with Cicely. She did want cheering up, you know. Would you come along?'

  'I book off at one o'clock tomorrow,' I said, 'so I could do. Shall I ask George?'

  The wife shook her head. 'I don't care for that one… I've read there are lots of wild flowers in the hills above Hebden.'

  'You bet your boots,' I said.

  'Jim…' she said. She did not often use my name, so I was certain she was going to say she was expecting. Instead, she said: 'I mean to take more of an interest in nature.'

  'It's all the rage now,' I said.

  'I mean to plant something in the garden.'

  It was the first I'd heard it called that. 'You mean in that tub we have in the yard?'

  'Tub in the yard! You're no loss to house agency, are you?'

  'What are you going to plant?'

  'Mint,' she said.

  We'd drifted halfway down Beacon Hill Road. Two coal trains were crossing under the North Bridge, both going slow – lazy in the evening heat, and sending an echo all around the town. The wife had stopped again; she was looking down at some heather by the road.

  'When did Robinson leave the mill?' I asked her.

  'Friday 26 May he got the letter. It was the day after he'd interviewed me for the job.'

  'A fortnight before Whit, then?'

  'Aye' said the wife.

  I said: 'I do think the coppers might ask that gent a few questions about what happened, you know.'

  The wife was still looking down at the tiny flowers. One of the coal trains had come to a halt between the Joint and the North Bridge goods station; the other had disappeared.

  'Why would he want to stop the excursion?' said the wife. 'It was his flipping idea in the first place. There's any number of hundreds who might have had reason to do it, mind you. I spend half my days writing letters to people saying we can't take them on at the mill. Bobbin-setters, reelers, duffers. They might not want to see the ones that have jobs gallivanting off to the seaside. If it comes to that…'

  'What?'

  'No, I shan't mention it. You'll only go flying off.'

  'No' I said. 'You must.'

  'If it comes to it' said the wife, 'when they stopped making the light suiting they laid off two hundred weavers. But half of them were taken on a week later at that show.'

  She was pointing at the letters spelling 'Dean Clough' standing up on the roof of the building just beyond the North Bridge. Each letter was taller than three men, and although the North Bridge was high enough to fit the goods station underneath, those letters towered above it. The Dean Clough Mill seemed to have been built by men who'd never seen another mill, and so had no notion of the correct size, but what they did have was an endless supply of bricks. You could fit twenty mills of the common run inside it. It was built by the Crossleys, who'd also – along with a certain Porter – put up the brass for
the orphanage where young Arnold Dyson now lived.

  As we watched, the buzzer at Dean Clough went off, and it was loud even to the two of us, half a mile across town and halfway up a hill. After a minute, the workers came out, like oil spilling from an engine casing. As they poured forwards, crossing through the shadow of the great chimney, the wife said: 'Eight thousand carpet designs possible… Four thousand colours possible… Six thousand two hundred folk employed.'

  'Wage slavery,' I said, thoughtful, like.

  A motorcar was coming up the hill towards us. We stood back on either side of the road to let it pass, and the wife looked after it in a dreamy way. When it had gone she said, 'That's a bobby dazzler!' Then she laughed at me from across the road, because this was one of her new Yorkshire sayings.

  We walked on a little way, and there was a trap stopped in the road, with a man standing up in it. There was something else in the trap: it was a small scrumpled-up something, and, as we got closer, we saw that it was a person, and that it was dead, with the little eyes in the little head closed and quite sealed up for ever.

  I got in before the wife. 'Hind Senior,' I said.

  Hind Senior didn't look as though he'd ever been a great talker, and nor did his gentleman's gentleman, but this fellow had to call out, for otherwise he would have been in league with the dead body at his side.

  'Hi!' he yelled. 'Are you two down from Hind's?'

  'I work there,' called the wife. 'Drive up there, and ask for Cicely. She'll let you telephone from the office.'

  'What happened?' I called out.

  'He was ninety-nine, Jim,' the wife whispered.

  'Motorcar,' the man in the trap was saying, 'it was the bloody motorcar finished him off.'

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cicely Braithwaite was waiting for us outside the front of the Joint, with all the cab drivers eyeing her. She kissed the wife, saying: 'It was you sent him up to the mill, wasn't it dear?'

  'It was,' said the wife.

  'Of course, you know what did for the old man?' she said to us both. 'His heart.'

  'Go on,' I said.

  'Well,' said Cicely, 'it stopped.'