The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  'And it was on account of a motorcar, wasn't it?' I asked her.

  Cicely nodded. 'Frightened the life out of the old man,' she said, and then she coloured up. 'You know, it's the first time I've said that when it's actually been true.'

  'Did the motorcar do anything?' I asked.

  Cicely shook her head. 'Barley, that's the old man's man… He said it just came too close as it passed by… and it was going at a fair rate of course, as they all do.'

  I could hear Knowles, the stationmaster, shouting at a porter: something about an out-of-date auction poster and how it wanted taking down sharpish. I looked at the clock over the station. 'If I nip up fast for our tickets,' I said, 'we should be in time for the one thirty-two – stopping train for Blackpool. Hebden's first stop.'

  'Does he have Bradshaw off by heart?' Cicely said to the wife, as I climbed the steps to the ticket office.

  As I waited at the ticket window, I thought about motorcars. The one that had run alongside us before the smash had looked like a giant baby-carriage, and so had the one on Beacon Hill. And so did they all, except for a certain other kind that looked like boats. I'd asked the wife, and she'd said that her Mr Robinson owned a motorcar.

  The Courier was always going on about how they were the terrors of the countryside, I knew that much, and it was said they should be taxed. I didn't believe the Socialist Mission could run to one, even though old Hind might have been in their sights as an operator of wage slavery.

  Dick served me at the ticket window. I could see Bob in the office behind him. I tried to remember the difference between them. Dick was the one who could write with two hands; Bob was the one that couldn't.

  'George about?' I asked.

  He was not; day off.

  'I can't understand Bradshaw's,' Cicely was saying, as I returned. 'Whenever I find the train I need, I look down the page and there's a note saying "Only on Weekdays", and it never is a weekday that I want to take a train.'

  'There's worse than that,' said the wife. 'Only go on Thursday afternoons, half of them.'

  The train came in on time, pulled by one of Mr Aspinall's 060s, but that was lost on the ladies. We found an empty compartment in Third. I sat next to the wife on one side, Cicely sat on the other. As the whistle was blown, Cicely said, 'I suppose Mr Hind will have to break off his sailing holiday. He'll be awfully cut up to hear the news.'

  'Rubbish,' said the wife, and Cicely frowned as the engine started away.

  'Well, it's a shame that the poor old -'

  'Fossil,' put in the wife.

  'The poor old gentleman', said Cicely, 'did not get to a hundred, because then you receive a telegram from the… Oh, now that reminds me.' And Cicely began telling a story about Hind's Mill. 'Before he went off sailing, Mr Hind asked me to take a letter, which always gets me in a tiz. He's so fast, it's very hard to take him down verbatim, although I'm sure you can do it, love.' She touched the wife on her knee.

  'He usually writes out the letters he wants me to send,' said the wife. 'I've only taken one from him verbatim.'

  'How did you get on?'

  'I asked him to talk more slowly.'

  Cicely went wide-eyed and forgot all about her story for the moment, looking the spit of Young Leonard, the doll of Henry Clarke. 'Well he must be dead keen on you then,' she said, 'or you'd have been stood down in a moment.'

  The wife was smiling, looking out of the window and kicking her foot, smiling at the flashing sunshine and the smokeless Saturday-afternoon mills going by. I pulled down the window strap and lit one of the last of the 'B's that I'd bought with George Ogden. A man went past in the corridor, and I thought: now by rights he'll be envious seeing me sitting here with two beauties. Though I'd lain awake most of the night as usual, trying to make a connection between the death of old Hind and all else, I was now feeling a little better about things: I would just go on searching until I knew the name of the person who'd put the stone on the line. Meanwhile I was dead set on having a pleasant afternoon.

  'Do carry on with your story, Cicely,' I said, and I put on a bit of a swell's voice for that, so the wife gave me a funny look.

  'Mr Hind had me into his room,' Cicely went on, 'and after a bit of doing his usual -'

  The wife was frowning at her; we were rattling past Sowerby Bridge.

  'You know,' Cicely said, 'the funny…'

  'Funny what?' I said, puffing out smoke.

  'The funny-osity. He never says anything, but just puts his hands -'

  The wife shook her head, as if to say: not in front of a man, which was a shame, because I'd have liked to hear more about the funny-osity.

  'Anyway,' Cicely continued, 'Mr Hind said, "I would like you to take a letter." I said, "Who to, Mr Hind?" and he said, "To the King!'"

  'He never did!' I said, and the wife gave me another look.'I've not told you this, dear,' said Cicely, grinning all around her head, 'because I was saving it up for today. Anyway it was a very long letter, and it was to go with six suits that we were sending His Majesty.'

  The wife rolled her eyes.

  'The letter was saying, you know, please find herewith six suits, only in a smarter way, and was all about how they were made from the finest woollens. I never knew this, but Hind's Mill has been sending the Royal Family six suits for the staff at Balmoral every year for forty-seven years, and when we send off the fiftieth lot of six, we're to be in the Halifax Courier, Mr Hind says.'

  'You'd think he'd want to keep quiet about such a daft scheme,' said the wife.

  'Why six?' I said.

  'I don't know,' said Cicely. 'Nobody knows.'

  'To think what it must cost,' said the wife, 'and Hind laying people off in their dozens over the light suiting.'

  'The letter was to go to the King's Secretary,' Cicely continued, 'who's the Right Honourable Lord… something, with a lot of letters after his name – more letters after his name than in it. I have the letter by heart if you want to hear.'

  She looked across the carriage at the two of us; again she was dividing us, because I wanted to hear, and the wife, I knew, didn't care to.

  'Go on, Cicely,' I said, blowing smoke.

  'My Lord,' said Cicely. 'We would be grateful if His Majesty would be so gracious -'

  'Makes you quite sick,' said the wife.

  '- so gracious,' Cicely continued, frowning at the wife, 'as to receive this gift of six suits for the royal staff at Balmoral.'

  But such a frost had been created by the wife that Cicely just said, 'Eee, Lydia,' and gave a very Yorkshire sort of sigh. Then she perked up, saying: 'Oh, talking of letters…' And she passed an envelope over to me.

  I didn't have time to picture my worst fears before they were actually there on the page. It started straight in with: 'I saw you yesterday at the mill with Cicely, who says your wife is the new one in the office. This letter is in case you want to know more about Maggie Dyson, the lady you killed.'

  Cicely and the wife were talking. I read on, but not every word. I kept my eyes half turned away, as if looking at the sun.

  There was something about Dyson's husband, how his heart had given out at a young age; something about the boy, who was so quiet where his mother was lively, but still she doted on him: 'No living child was better fed or clothed.' There was another part about the boy's dog, which was quiet too, and didn't need looking after, 'even on railway stations'. It seemed to be good that the dog was quiet, but a worry that the boy was so silent.

  It ended: 'To think that in her hour of need she had you. It must be a judgement upon her, but why only God knows.'

  There was a looking glass on the opposite side of the carriage: I saw in it a boy smoking a cigar, trying to be something he was not.

  'Who on earth is writing to you?' asked the wife.

  Cicely answered: 'It's from Mary-Ann Roberts, love, one of the weavers. She saw Jim at the mill yesterday and stayed behind to write a letter. She asked me to give it him. What it's about I don't know, I'm sure.'

>   'It's just about the smash,' I said.

  'What about it?' said Cicely. And I was sure the tears were coming again.

  'Oh, nothing to speak of,' I said.

  I stood up and pitched the letter through the window, sending my cigar flying after it. The girls looked at me strangely for a moment; then carried on with the chatting. On top of everything, I felt a coward for covering things up.

  ____________________

  ‹o›--

  We climbed out at Hebden Bridge and stood before the notice on the platform: 'for hardcastle crags: an ideal spot for picnic parties'. The sound of our train departing gave way to the clattering of the weir by the station. The town was a little way to the west, with woods coming down to it from the hills on all sides. There were mills at Hebden, but they were small ones: house-sized, family goes, putting out thin trails of smoke instead of black fogs.

  As we set off walking, I picked up the wife's basket with the blanket on top. 'This is a rather light picnic,' I said.

  'We'll pick up a bite in the town,' she said. 'It's on the way, and there's a Co-operative Stores.'

  We crossed the river Calder by a bridge called the Victoria Bridge. We walked in a line, dawdling, Cicely in front twirling her sunshade, calling out that this spot could be just as good as Blackpool, if only there were afternoon dances to be found, and me cursing Mary-Ann Roberts. There was a swan going along underneath us, with cygnets following behind, like a train.

  Then the wife caught sight of a baker's van heading into the town, and said we must follow it because it had the words 'hebden bridge co-operative society' on the side. We followed it into Commercial Street, and the wife got excited over the store having a butchery as well as a bakery. It was funny how easily people could enjoy life when they didn't have a death to answer for.

  'If they can lay their hands on the coin for that,' she said, 'there must be hundreds of members.'

  The wife picked up bottles of cola, Eccles cakes, apples and eggs. But when she came out with our divvy number, the shopkeeper shook his head and said, 'That's a Halifax number.' The wife believed you should be able to use a Halifax divvy number in a Co-op at Hebden Bridge or anywhere else, and told the man so, but he didn't seem bothered either way. Even though he had a butchery and a bakery, he was not go- ahead.

  He told Cicely that some of the eggs she was looking over were pre-boiled, all ready for picnicking. Cicely laughed, and said, 'Shall we take them and drop them to test it?' and the man said, 'You can do what you bloody want after you've paid for and taken them away.'

  'You've a hope of getting new members if that's how you talk to customers,' said the wife.

  'I'll not have people cracking eggs on my floor,' he said.

  As we were leaving, though, the shopkeeper walked out from behind his counter and, throwing one of the eggs towards Cicely, shouted, 'Catch!'

  Cicely did catch it, going very red in the process. 'Well,' she said, as we walked down the road with our full basket, 'he was all right in the end.'

  We walked up to a cluster of finger posts on a pole. They showed the way to Granny Wood, Common Bank Wood, Owler Bank, Wood End, Hardcastle Crags.

  'What's at Hardcastle Crags?' asked Cicely, a little anxiously.

  'Rocks,' I said.

  'Do they do teas?' said Cicely.

  'Do who do them?' I asked.

  'Lonely spot, is it?'

  'Except for the hundreds of trippers,' said the wife.

  'It's known as Little Switzerland, or England's Alps,' said the wife. 'I read about it in the library. There's a mill up there that's now a tea room, but was in full cry until only a few years ago, working dozens of little weaving girls half to death.'

  'It is very pleasantly situated, though,' I said.

  We walked along Lees Road, which was in the valley of Hebden Water, and, after passing Nut Clough Mill, fell in with a line of trippers trooping on one another's heels up to the Crags. Occasionally a gig would come along with some toffs on board, and fairly bulging with up-to-date patent cookers and whatnot.

  It was scorching hot, and because of what Cicely had said the day before, I fell to thinking about my good suit, which was probably twenty-eight ounces like my work ones. Well, it was too much. I wore it every single Sunday, but for half the year I'd be far better off without it.

  We walked on, and after a mile of hard going Cicely's sunshade had stopped twirling, and she'd fallen behind.

  'Clog on!' called the wife, turning and grinning at her.

  That's proper Yorkshire, that is!' Cicely called back, but she didn't pick up the pace.

  We knew we'd come to Hardcastle Crags when we began to see oak trees on the hillsides. Underneath them, the light and shade was all criss-crossed. There were lots of signs telling you not to use patent cookers, and lots of people using them. Each little group would look up and scowl as you went past, just in case you were thinking of sitting near. It was the valley of a stream that was out of sight below, but noisy with it. We sat down next to a party that was just leaving. They looked well-to-do, and had managed to have a knife-and-fork dinner. They were now cleaning the knives by sticking them straight into the ground and yanking them out again. Cicely was quite hypnotised by this. 'I'll bet it doesn't work with the forks,' she said after a while, as if coming out of a dream. Then, looking all about, she said, 'The forget-me-nots are all on the go.' She sighed, adding, 'Oh, they're so viewsome. They've always been my favourites.'

  We stretched out our blankets and ate our dinner, which took about five minutes flat. What I'd have liked was a bottle or two of beer, but instead I said, 'Who'd like to walk a bit further up?'

  'What happens up there?' asked Cicely.

  'You hit the tree line where all the vegetation gives out.'

  'Doesn't sound so exciting,' said Cicely.

  A few minutes later, the wife spotted a little sign reading 'flower office', and pointing up. This was a round hut where flowers were explained. It was very close inside and smelt strongly of plants, although there were only pictures of plants on show, with the parts – roots, flowers and stems – shown separately like the parts of a machine. In the middle was a glass case containing books open at certain pages and showing maps of the Crags. Everybody shuffled around in a circle, boots making a din on the floorboards.

  There was an old lady standing in the hut. Everybody had to keep dodging around her, but it turned out she was there to be asked questions. A couple of smart sorts came out with a few, speaking the Latin names of the plants for swank.

  Cicely asked the old lady: 'Is it allowed to pick any of the flowers round about?'

  'It is not,' said the old lady. 'And there is a ten-shilling fine for those that do.'

  Cicely walked directly out, and the wife followed her.

  A minute after, I came out myself, and the sun had suddenly swung away. Well, it was not completely gone. There were floating shadows and patches of light in the trees; then would come a surge of cool wind and rattling leaves. I saw the wife walking through some yellow flowers with her skirt lifted almost to the knee.

  'Where's Cicely?' I asked her.

  'I don't know. I've looked all about. The way she was spoken to, and it's the second time today -' And here she raised her voice so that it might carry to where we'd just been: 'If that woman was not standing there everyone would be able to walk around the hut properly. Has anybody thought of that?' She was now looking down at the ground. 'All the flowers are labelled with little tickets,' she said, 'it's like a shop.'

  'I thought you liked shops,' I said.

  'I would rather find out about the flowers by myself.'

  'How?'

  'I would save up for a book which had pictures and explanations, and I would match those up with the ones I see growing.'

  'You'd be walking about all day,' I said.

  'I might very well be.'She took off her hat, and, keeping it in her teeth, changed her hair at the back. She asked me if I would pass her the shawl that was in t
he basket. She pulled it around herself and put both her arms around my waist.

  'I'm froz,' she said, practising her Yorkshire again.

  Rain came with the next gust of wind, and you could hear the cries from the trees all around as picnics were brought to an end. I picked up the basket and we walked up, away from the stream towards the dining room in the old mill. When we got there, we saw a big sign on the wall saying 'teas and dances', and we knew Cicely would be inside.

  She was eating chocolate and drinking tea at one of what seemed like hundreds of tables. Even so, the old mill looked empty. They hadn't put as much back in as they had taken out.

  When Cicely saw us, she shouted: 'Oh do come on, or else I shall finish all this chocolate cake!'

  'She seems quite herself again,' said the wife.

  'The dancing starts shortly,' said Cicely when we reached the table. 'And there's a programme.'

  'Do they run to a waltz?' asked the wife.

  She passed over a piece of paper. The wife read it and, sitting down, said to Cicely: 'The two of us shall have a waltz, dear.'

  The wife was a good dancer.

  In short order, the floor was full of people waiting for someone to walk over to the piano. I looked up at the roof. Brackets that had held machinery were still stuck out from the tops of the walls like gibbets, and there were flowers jammed in at odd places. When I looked down again there was a man at the piano.

  The waltz began, and, as Cicely and the wife walked hand in hand to the dance floor, I decided to take a turn outside. It was raining more heavily, but the sun was out once again. Two minutes later, I was walking in the woods in the rain and the sun, when I heard a crashing noise that shouldn't have been made by any picnicker. I stood still, and the noise was followed by a crack and a shout.

  Down below, the stream was racing on as before. I heard another cry. Walking smartly towards the sound, I struck a rock that had been broken in two by a tree that had been growing up through the middle but was now dead, and itself broken, and, beyond these, making up the complete set, was a broken man.

  I knew him, even without his gold coat: it was Martin Lowther, the ticket inspector. He lived in Hebden Bridge. His head was half beard, half blood. He was in shirtsleeves, with cuffs undone and no gold on his clothes to protect him. Without his coat he looked like a tortoise without its shell. And both his legs were in the wrong positions, as if they'd swapped sides. It was the impossible before my own eyes; the sun and the rain together; engine number 1418 half off the tracks.