The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  We were passing by an empty bandstand now, and stepping off the green. The boy wasn't used to walking with other people; he was going too fast, and his green coat was flying out behind him.

  'It's the light suiting,' I whispered to the wife, as we followed the boy down a wide road of tall houses.

  'I know,' said the wife. 'It's sad.'

  I knew what she meant. At first I couldn't think of the word, but then it came to me. The boy had been put into clothes that made him a kind of experiment in motion – an experiment that had failed.

  'Now listen,' the wife whispered, 'we are not to stay.'

  'There was no stone on the line for Hind's today,' I said. 'Why not, do you suppose?'

  'Oh give it an airing,' said the wife. 'I thought you'd finished with that.'

  'I've got to work out why there was a stone before, and why there wasn't one this time. One difference from Whit was that the governors of the mill were not on the train: Hind and Hind Senior. Now think on: who would have wanted to see off the two Hinds? And who might already have done the job on the older one?'

  The boy had come to a halt ahead of us. He stood at a turning leading into another wide white road of tall houses with exhibition gardens. He was putting on his glasses as we got near. 'I don't wear them outdoors,' he said, hooking them over his ears with his head down, 'but I'm supposed to.'

  This meant we were drawing near.

  'Father's not home,' said the boy, looking up.

  The wife nodded, and I could see she was relieved.

  'He's dreadfully worried,' said the boy.

  There was a low fizzing in the street. All the gardens were full of bees.

  'The police', said the boy, setting my heart thumping, 'have been here…'

  Where? I thought. Which one is the house? They all looked like tall churches, and they were all joined together: a dark line of giants behind the gardens. You were really meant to see the gardens not the houses.

  'How could you lose a mill?' asked the boy from behind his spectacles. 'Dad had one. He sold it, then went in with Hind's and now nothing's left and Mother won't pay calls because then people would have to come back, and they would see we only had one maid… If a mill came down to me,' the boy went on, 'I would sell it straight off and put the money in the Post Office.'

  'You said about the police…' I reminded him.

  'No, Jim,' said the wife, shaking her head.

  "The Hind's Whit Excursion,' said Lance Robinson. 'They think Father tried to bring it off the line.'

  I smartly took off my cap, because I was lost for any other way to react. I wondered whether the police had been working away all summer, like the bees, and whether I had not put them to it myself after what I'd said in the copper shop at Manchester during my funny turn. But it was no use trying to recall just what I had said then.

  'Well, they're here again,' the boy said, and I knew the house. It was behind the boy, half a dozen along at the end of the road. A wagonette and horse stood outside. There was no motorcar in sight.

  The colours in this place were all too high: the boy's green suit, the whiteness of the gateposts and road dust, the colours of the flowers in the gardens; and the pillar box in the middle of the road was red like none before. But the horse was black, and the wagonette was black.

  'You must still come for tea,' said the boy.

  When the strangeness started I could not say; the boy was walking on, and the wife was saying too loudly, 'Master Lance, Master Lance', as if just saying his name could change something. But the boy walked on and the front door of the house opened as he did so. He walked into it, and the wife turned on her heels and fled. A moment later, I turned and followed.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The tram raced back to Blackpool and seemed to fall into the welcoming arms of the crowd at the Southern Terminus. Blackpool was where the trams belonged.

  As we got up from our seat, the wife pinned the white rosette back onto her dress and the quiet of the ride was over.

  'I'm sure the boy has it all wrong, you know,' she said. 'The police will just have been asking Mr Robinson questions that might lead them to someone else. They asked you questions, didn't they?'

  I nodded. She liked Robinson and didn't want him to be the wrecker, so I said nothing, but my thoughts were running along these lines: perhaps he put the stone on the track not so as to stop the train, but only to stop old man Hind's heart, give him such a shock that he pegged out, while he drove alongside in his motorcar to watch. When that failed, he'd tried again, with the motorcar as the weapon.

  No. It was all loopy.

  When the wife climbed down from the tram, she said, 'Now where's that Tower?' then, a second later, 'Oh!'

  Blackpool Tower was the tallest building in England.

  'Well,' she said, quite recovered and speaking in her special Yorkshire voice, 'I'm off for me tea.'

  I arranged to meet her at six outside the main entrance to the Tower, and she disappeared into the crowd. I remembered about an 'A' cigar that I'd put in my top pocket. I lit it and set off towards the Tower myself. Whether I was pressing against the flow of the crowd or going along with it I couldn't have said; sometimes one, sometimes the other. Inside ten seconds I saw two other fellows smoking big cigars. Blackpool was that sort of place. Down on the beach the crowd was especially thick and you'd see a white arm waved or the top of a pointed hat, and this was a Pierrot show going on.

  I was alongside the Tower now – the wife was inside and below, taking tea in the basement.

  Music was coming at me from about a dozen different places, and the jangle of it was like those contraptions they have in pubs: the polyphons, which turn very prettily, but never quite seem to play what you'd call a tune. I crossed over the Prom and leant against the railings looking out to sea for a while. There was something about the sea that made you breathe deeply. I smoked my cigar and thought about Robinson: he had lost everything over the summer suiting, and it was the old man who'd been most particularly set against him. Of that I was now certain.

  I looked down, and there on the beach, giving a show, was a ventriloquist with a figure on his knee. It was the good ventriloquist from the Seashell, Henry Clarke, and the doll was… what was the name? Leonard. Young Leonard.

  There were steps to the beach nearby. It was hard going, walking over the hot sand in my boots, and I fretted that the turn would end by the time I got to it.

  'By gum it's hot work this, you know,' Henry Clarke was saying to the little crowd when I reached the spot. 'My head's fairly throbbing, and I'm starting to sweat all over.'

  I was at the back of three rows of kids, but Clarke's voice carried pretty well. He was sitting on a folding stool. There was a bottle propped in the sand before him, with a few coppers placed inside to show that's what it was for. Underneath the bottle were some papers, and I knew what these were: handbills for the Seaside Surprises at the Seashell Music Hall.

  'It's not quite polite to speak of "sweating" you know,' Henry Clarke was saying to Young Leonard. 'Now let's all hear you say the word "perspiring".'

  Leonard looked up quite suddenly then stared around at all the children, his eyes seeming to get wider by the second, but they couldn't do that, so it was just something about the face.

  'Oh come on now, you know you're awfully good at talking when you've a mind to be. Leonard, I would like to hear you say: "Around the ragged rock, the ragged rascal ran.'"

  Leonard looked at Henry Clarke, then out at all of us. 'So would 1' Leonard said, sounding very glum.

  It was all daft stuff but it was real too, and that's why it was funny.

  Henry Clarke's folding stool suddenly slipped in the sand, and it was his turn to pull a funny face. This seemed to bring the show to an end, and some of the kids went forward to put money into the bottle.

  I put in a penny myself and picked up one of the papers. At the top of the page was Henry Clarke's name. Above it there was nothing. The name of the other ventriloqu
ist, Monsieur Maurice, appeared down below.

  'The bill's changed,' I said.

  Henry Clarke looked at me with his pleasant face. Leonard was still on his knee. Clarke smiled, perhaps nodding slightly, but saying nothing. He wasn't about to start putting on swank.

  One of the kids was pointing at the figure. 'What's he?' he said. The kid was eating a penny lick.

  Clarke smiled again. 'Why, this is Leonard,' he said.

  Leonard suddenly smiled too, and looked at the boy, who jumped back. It was like electricity.

  'He's got a good face,' said another of the kids.

  'He has lots of faces really' said Henry Clarke. 'He has what we call his "By Jove, you don't say!" face.'

  And those words were now spelled out in the face of Leonard, just as clearly as if they'd been written.

  'And he has his… well, what we call his "thinking it over" face.'

  Now the dummy was all thoughtfulness, nodding gentle-like.

  'Sometimes,' said Clarke, 'he even comes to a conclusion!'

  At this, a great look of surprise and happiness appeared on Leonard's face, so that he beamed like the glace kid on the boot-polish tins.

  'He's not living though, is he?' said a very little kid, and it was as if he knew the truth but wanted to make quite sure.

  'He is not' said Henry Clarke, which was the kindly answer I thought.

  He tipped the dummy forwards and slid the head out of the neck. Leonard's head was just as lifelike as before, but now we all saw that it was on a long pole, with levers and wires attached.

  'Superior Professional Movement' said Henry Clarke, and he winked at me, for this was grown-up stuff. 'Most figures have a set-up called something similar but Leonard's works are more superior and professional than most. His mouth and eyes move at the same time. That's not so out of the common, but it's the way they move. You see, the leather around his nose and eyes… It's very supple, and the levers draw it in just the right way…'

  He gave us a few more expressions of Leonard's, and it was like watching a musician play his instrument.

  'Did you make him?' asked one of the kids.

  'Oh I'm not nearly clever enough to do that. Leonard was made by a Mr Pardoe, who lived in Manchester and worked under the name of Zack. He passed on some years ago.'

  'Why?' asked one of the kids.

  'Why… did he pass on?' asked Henry Clarke.

  'Why did he go round calling himself Zack?'

  'Oh well, people in the show business often go in for fancy names, you know. I think it's because it makes it easier for people to remember them.' The world was then put back to rights, as the neck was slid back into the body. As some of the kids walked up to have a closer look at Leonard, I was thinking of Monsieur Maurice, or – what was his real name? – Morris Connell. He'd been moved down the bill because he wasn't up to snuff, which was like an engine man moving from an express link down to local goods. There would be no coming back from that.

  So here were two men who'd lost everything: Robinson and Connell.

  As I looked at Henry Clarke, I made the leap, and he saw something progress in me, for he pointed and said, 'Question, sir?'

  'Were you playing at the Seashell Music Hall at Whitsuntide?'

  'Yes,' he replied, 'I was here for Whit Week in the Seaside Surprises.' He smiled at me as he said the name.

  'When did that Whit Week show begin?'

  'Why, on the Monday of Whit Week,' he said.

  He was too much of a gent to tell me to simmer down.

  'You'd been at the Palace in Halifax not long before, hadn't you?' I said. 'On a run that was extended?'

  He nodded.

  'Did you come over here by train from Halifax?'

  'I have done, yes. I'm on the go all the time, and the Seashell only keeps me here odd weeks.'

  'No, but I mean before that very week. Did you travel up on Whit Sunday from Halifax?'

  Even the smile of Henry Clarke was beginning to fade under this bombardment. He looked up at the sky. Leonard lay dead on his lap. There was nothing in the sky but blue, yet he found what he was looking for.

  'Why, I believe I did, yes.'

  'On the eight thirty-six express from Halifax?'

  He was shaking his head before I'd finished. 'No, no, I have it wrong. I did play at the Palace in Halifax before Whit, you're right over that, and then I had a day or two free in the town. Later on, I had to go and see… Mr Wood… Mr Wood at… at Burnley on a business matter. And so I came here to Blackpool from Burnley, and it was on the Monday that I came, not the Sunday. Why do you ask all this, if you don't mind?'

  The kids had all faded away by now and I felt a chump. 'I just thought I might have seen you on that train,' I said, which sounded pretty sick, but was all I could come up with. 'I work on the railways, you see.'

  Henry Clarke nodded.

  'Fireman,' I said, 'with the Lancashire and Yorkshire. The name's Jim Stringer. Jim Stringer from Halifax,' I added, and I moved forward and shook his hand.

  The poor fellow still looked a bit flummoxed.

  'I have a boy who's mad on ventriloquism,' I lied.

  Henry Clarke smiled, which was about all he could do.

  As I walked back over the sand, I thought: it might be true. I might have a boy. And he might be keen on ventriloquism one day.

  I climbed back up to the Prom, and the further I walked from Henry Clarke, the crazier my late notion seemed. This had been it: Monsieur Maurice had placed the stone on the line to stop the 8.36, knowing his rival, Henry Clarke, was riding on that train, and not realising our excursion would hit that spot first.

  I was going nuts.

  But when I looked back at the beach, Henry Clarke was staring after me and frowning.

  ____________________

  The wife was coming out of the Tower buildings and laughing with Cicely, who coloured up very nicely when she saw me. She was about to go off to the company house she was staying at with some of the others from the mill, including one fellow with a bushy moustache who would seem to dart towards her whenever the crowd was after swirling her away. I wondered if the two of them had clicked over tea or before.

  By the time the wife and I started back towards Central station, the evening gulls were in full cry.

  'Noisy brutes aren't they?' said the wife, as the line of cabs outside the station came into view.

  'Are you jealous of them because they can stay?' 'The gulls, you mean, or the lot from Hind's?' 'Well,' I said, 'both.'

  'I wouldn't want a whole week here, but I wouldn't mind staying for a couple more hours, just for a walk along the sands.'

  'We can do that if you like,' I said.

  'Let's not,' said the wife, 'it's train time now.'

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Having grafted through fourteen-hour turns on the Monday and Tuesday of Wakes Week, taking such folk as had not already got away to spots round about Halifax, I found myself with a day's leave on the Wednesday.

  I woke early, and the sound of the Horton Street tram floated up to our bedroom as usual – steel fighting stone at high speed – but this time there seemed to be something freer and wilder about the noise, for there was nobody at all about to muffle its racket.

  The wife left for Hind's at seven, and I heard George Ogden clattering down the back steps a little later. Towards eight, I was drinking tea and eating bread and butter next to the window looking down into Hill Street while reading over yesterday's Courier. There was no news of any smashes.

  There was not a soul to be seen out, and by 8.15 it hit me that the baker's van had not even troubled to appear. But the heat was rising steadily in the empty street, as if trying to force the folk left in town out of their houses.

  It was getting on for eleven when I put on my Sunday suit and set off for a turn about Halifax.

  Back Hill Street was empty, and so were the alleys and snickets beyond: no sound of marbles rattling along gutters, no footballs bouncing down the alleys or s
creaming kids giving chase. Also, there was more sky than usual: no washing on the lines! I came to Horton Street and a tram flew past, like a stone that someone had pitched at the Joint. The only one aboard was the driver.

  I strolled over to the Palace Theatre.

  Morris Connell – Monsieur Maurice – was back and still topping the bill here, even if no longer doing so in Blackpool.

  But who would want to go to the theatre in Halifax in Wakes? And in this weather?

  As soon as I set foot in Commercial Street, I heard the jangling of a barrel organ, like a man walking down a street kicking bottles and somehow making a tune of it. The barrel-organ man was getting on for being the only person in the street. He was right outside the Post Office. As I walked towards him, a fellow came out of the Halifax and Hudders- field Bank, hurrying towards me with a kind of secret smile on his face. He knew this Wakes show was a queer going-on, though not really worth speaking of, for it did happen every year after all.

  I looked inside the bank as I passed: at one clerk, sitting under the coloured sunlight that came through the stained glass.

  As I walked, it was hard to tell whether the shops were open or closed. You had to walk right up to them to find out. The fishmonger's in Silver Street was closed, and looked as though it had been for years. Well, everybody had gone to where the fish came from.

  I found myself walking over to Northgate. I wanted to see whether the New Zealand cheeses were in the window of the Maypole Dairy. They were there all right: fresh cheese, fresh plants, electric fans revolving above them. The door was propped open and, for the first time, I walked in rather than just looking on.

  The place smelt so much of heat and cheese that I could hardly breathe, yet there was a nice old fellow smiling behind the counter. I asked him to parcel me up a bit of something cheap, and he said he'd knock a penny off since it was Wakes.

  'Not going away yourself?' I asked him.