The Blackpool Highflyer js-2

by Andrew Martin

  Why would anybody say that if they did not think it true? Why?

  I told George about my visit to Winterbottom, the Scarborough tailor, and early on he began to shake his head.

  'You must not buy off the peg,' he said. 'Of course it'd make no odds up on the footplate, but in the offices at Victoria you'd be found out.'

  'Shabbiness is a false economy,' I said, nodding, just as if I was already there in those offices at Manchester.

  'You have it,' said George, and he fell back to smiling at me for a long time.

  Another brandy came along for me, and a quarter of an hour later I floated out of the Imperial on a wave of beer, brandy and cigar smoke, leaving George behind for what he called his 'nightcap'. I was canned, and I was looking forward to the cold night air of Halifax. But of course when I came out into Horton Street the air was still warm, and another trick was in store, for all the buildings seemed to lift and turn so as to let me see them in a new way.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The next day, the Friday of Wakes, the Hind's Mill lot came back from Blackpool, but it wasn't Clive and me that brought them in. Instead, we were running specials from Hebden Bridge into the Joint, which was no distance at all, and I felt sorry for those who'd only been able to get as far away as Hebden in their only week off during the year, pretty spot though it was. It was like a prison breakaway that had not come off.

  That evening at seven I was coming back up from the Joint with my shadow stretched out before me as long as a railway carriage, but the heat of the day still at my back. I was quite done in, and the sun had gone from being a daily marvel to plain hard work.

  My shadow reached and touched from time to time the boots of a tired man in black plodding up the hill under a black bowler. He stopped for a while at Sugden's ice-cream cart, but Sugden was not about, and there was no boy holding the pony. The fellow looked very agitated waiting there, and for a moment I thought he was going to try making enquiry of the white pony which was letting the man know, by certain sideways glances, that it would rather be left alone.

  As I came up to the man, I saw that it was Bob the book- ing-office clerk. Or was it that other rather half-baked chap, Dick? Was it the one who had the same name as Arnold Dyson's dog, or was it the one that could write with both hands?

  It was the second: Dick.

  'If you want a penny lick,' I said, 'you'd best go in the Crown. That's where you'll find Sugden.'Dick seemed a bit embarrassed at being caught wanting an ice cream, and pulled at the ends of his stiff collar. 'Well, you know,' he said, 'anything for coolness.'

  'How do you fancy a pint in the Evening Star?' I said.

  I was in no hurry to get home, since the wife would be out again, I knew. She was taking Cicely Braithwaite to a meeting of the Co-operative Women's Guild. This had been fixed up and put off several times, on account (I guessed) of Cicely not being over-keen on going.

  Dick was looking me up and down: rather nervous of the working man, in his holed clothes and with his stink of yellow soap. But he voted yes. 'You've talked me into it, old man,' he said.

  We walked in past the red billiards table, which he looked at long and hard. 'It's a good make,' he said.

  'Do you play?' I asked him.

  'Not really. I can generally see when a shot's on, but I can't make it myself.' He laughed nervously.

  'But you can write with two hands,' I said.

  'Yes, I can that,' he replied, and he sounded a little more Yorkshire, and a little happier now. Maybe it was the sight of the pint of Ramsden's I was passing his way.

  He took his first go at the beer and I let him talk cricket for a while, and then we took another glass each and I thought: Well, I'm sorry for you, mate, but now the bombardment must begin.

  It was one facer after another, but he took it pretty well, and the airs and graces that go with ink-spilling work gradually fell away.

  'Do you remember when I stepped into your office that time, and George spoke of some tickets going missing?'

  He nodded. He was looking at the beer barrels behind the bar. 'There was a pretty solid row over that,' he said.

  'Why?'

  'Well,' he said. 'Tickets going missing… It's the next worse thing to money being taken.' 'So Knowles was down on you?'

  'Like I don't know what,' said Dick. 'We all thought we'd be sacked. Sacked or reduced over it anyway.'

  'And that would be because the tickets went from your office?'

  'That's just it,' said Dick. 'Did they? The tickets always come in from Manchester. That's where they're all printed up. They come in by train with a lad riding along of them. Now the lad says he brought this particular load up. Some of them were third-class returns to Liverpool. Not so many of those. Maybe just one block of two hundred and fifty, and then there were a good many more of another sort.'

  'What sort?'

  'Blackpool singles,' he said.

  'That's it,' I said, and he looked at me strangely.

  'Firsts, seconds and thirds,' Dick went on. 'Hundreds of pounds' worth. I worked out the exact figure once, but I've forgotten it now. The lad who rode with them from Manchester says he brought them up and left them in the office. He admits it was a busy sort of time when he did it; we say we never had them. You know how it turned out, don't you?'

  'No,' I said.

  'In the end, we were the ones believed, and some poor fellow in the despatch office at Manchester was stood down, and they're talking about bringing a prosecution for theft against him.'

  'What did he look like, that fellow?'

  'What did he look like? I don't know. I've never clapped eyes on him. He'd been in bother with the coppers once before, though, so that was him out.'

  'Will you take another Ramsden's?' I asked Dick.

  He passed me his glass. 'I swear on a hundred bibles I never saw those tickets,' he said.

  'What about anyone else in the booking office? What about Bob?'

  Dick shook his head.

  'Now,' I said, 'what about George?'

  Dick shook his head again, and then, as I handed him his fresh pint, tried a laugh that didn't come off. 'He's a caution, isn't he? Old George. Lodges with you, I hear?'

  'Just while he looks about for a mansion of his own,' I said.

  'We can't all be born into the nobility,' said Dick, 'but old George… He don't seem to know that.'

  'If you'd had those Blackpool tickets away,' I said, 'how could you sell them?'

  Dick was on the point right away. He wanted this chat as much as I did myself. 'If you were a booking-office clerk,' he said, 'you could sell them through the window. You wouldn't record the sale, and you'd pocket the brass.'

  'But those tickets might be inspected on the train, and they're bound to be collected the other end. Besides, everyone's going to be on the look out for the missing numbers.'

  'That's why you'd have to be off your head to try it,' said Dick. 'I mean, you might hope to get pally with as many of the ticket-checking and -collecting fellows as you could, but it wouldn't half take some doing. Of course, you would have the brass to pay them off.'

  'But anyone you tried to bring into it who cut up rough…'

  Dick was nodding. 'They might split,' he said, 'then you'd be in dead lumber.'

  And it was just then that I heard the last sound you'd ever expect in the Evening Star. I turned about, and the billiard balls were rolling, but the fellow who'd made the shot was already through the door and gone. I walked out into Horton Street and there was nobody to be seen. But there again, the Imperial was the next place along, and its door was forever open to those who felt themselves the right sort.

  ____________________

  When I came home the wife was talking in low tones to Cicely Braithwaite. The two of them were sitting on the sofa and leaning forwards, holding hands. I knew what had happened: the wife had told Cicely that she was expecting.

  I kissed the wife and nodded at Cicely. 'Is our lodger about?' I asked the wife.
r />   'I've not seen him,' she said, and she didn't seem too happy about the subject being brought up.

  'Lecture went off all right, did it?'

  It was Cicely who answered. 'Oh it was such a lovely hall: green and white with electric light, and bright fustian curtains, ha'penny teas and buns…'

  'And the talk that was given?' I said.

  Cicely had begun to frown. 'It was ever so good,' she said, but she was well into her frown by now.

  'What was the subject?'

  '"The Municipal Duties of Co-operative Women",' said the wife, rather crossly. 'Mrs Duggan was not quite at her sparkling best.'

  'Oh she wasn't, love, was she?' Cicely eagerly put in. 'Not that I've ever heard her before. You know, I was thinking all the while what a lovely place it would be for a dance.'

  I left them to it, stepping through into the scullery for my usual scrub down at the boiler.

  Through the closed door I could hear the wife saying: 'I just knew. You change, you know… here.'

  'Well you did look peaky, love,' Cicely was saying, 'and to be honest, I did wonder…' The wife said something I couldn't catch, then Cicely said: 'Raspberry leaf tea – you must have it. And something else Lydia, dear: you must not raise your arms above your head too much.'

  In the scullery, I laughed at that.

  It must have been getting on for ten o'clock when Cicely quit the house, whereupon the wife and I went to bed. We had all the windows open, and it was as if there was no town at all outside.

  I couldn't sleep, and at midnight I heard the chimes from the parish church, going on for ever and mingling with the clanging of the boots of George Ogden on the outside stairs. I heard him open his door and step into his bedroom. There was no sound at all for five minutes or so. Then he started moving about in his room, and I believed he was still doing so when the two o'clock chimes came, at about which hour I finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The Saturday of Wakes, I was with Clive on the Rishworth branch from five in the morning. The afternoon I had off.

  Arriving back at the Joint from Sowerby Bridge shed, I walked to the booking office. Bob was at the window.

  'Is George in?' I asked him.

  He shook his head. 'Day off.'

  I walked up Horton Street and did not stop at the Evening Star.

  I wanted a normal sort of Saturday, with the town packed to bursting, the pubs with all their doors propped open, the trams flying about and the shop goods set on trestles in front of the windows so you couldn't help notice all the bargains going. But it was just the silent streets, with the sun hanging above and every tram looking like a runaway.

  At three o'clock I reached Back Hill Street. The wife wasn't in: she was off seeing the midwife she'd been put on to by the Maternity Branch of the Co-operative Women's Guild.

  I sat on the sofa in the parlour with a book of the wife's: it was by Charlotte Bronte, and I couldn't get on with it, but I had determined to read and wait for a while, so I finally took up one of my old Raikvay Magazines and started an article on joint stations. The first was the Tri-junct at Derby, shared by the North Midland, the Midland Counties and the Birmingham amp; Derby Junction Railway. It was madness: three stationmasters. But then they all became the Midland Railway, so the station was no longer joint. There was no mention of Halifax Joint, which was rather disappointing – sort of made you feel like you didn't exist.

  There was then an article on joint lines…I heard the parish clock strike the half hour, and could wait no longer. I walked up by the inside stairs to George Ogden's bedroom. In case he was asleep inside, I knocked on the door, then I clattered on the door. Hearing nothing, I opened it and walked in.

  The room was a jumble of dead plants and unread books. You could tell they were unread just by looking at them, just by the silence that surrounded them. All he'd done was set them in piles, but the piles had fallen over. The sunshine coming through the window was rolling gently over the dead plants, as if to say: well, I did my bit for you lot, you know.

  I reached for the first of the books, Letters of Descartes, and there inside it was the wife's neatly typed-out contract for regulation of payment of rent, notice periods and so on. I picked up the next: Hazlitt: Essays. Inside was a tiny blue flower, dried out and itself turned almost to paper. I brushed it away and caught up the next volume, the biggest of all: Don Quixote.

  There suddenly came a great crashing at the front door. It was not knocking but an attempt to bring it down, so it could hardly be the postman, early with the evening delivery.

  I dashed down, and there at the front door was a scruffy man with a big head and big boots, turning and looking about the street. Next to him was a small man with fair hair, light, white beard, wide pale-blue eyes and a beer bottle in his hand. It was a big one, and it was broken, too.

  As soon as I opened the door, this fellow passed this bottle to the taller one and, looking away towards Hill Street, said, 'Give him something for himself.'

  'Is it a delivery?' I said, and the broken bottle hit the side of my head. I was up and at the bottle man and got one good one in, but then he did a leap and put his whole weight into his boot and his whole boot into my stomach. I was now down on the floor in the parlour, and the fair-haired one was sitting on the sofa with my copy of the Railway Magazine, taking my place in all particulars.

  This was Cornstalk, the ticket collector I'd seen at Blackpool Central after my night with Clive at the Seashell, and then again while meeting the wife. He was the one who'd thrown the beer bottle in the air; the one who looked not like a railwayman but an angel gone to pot. I sat up on the floor as best I could, and there was a flowing free coolness on the side of my head. I slid my fingers over the skin on the side of my head and they moved through wetness, and then they were under skin. I slid my fingers back down through the blood and the skin fell; I moved them up once more and it rose again. It was a simple mechanism, like a letterbox, a shortcut to the inside of my head. The feel of it stopped me moving.

  'Some Notable Joint Stations', Cornstalk was saying, and even as he was speaking he was tearing the pages. He stood up so as to make a better fist of the ripping, saying, not to me but his mate with the boots, 'I don't go much on this paper, you know.'

  'What is it, Don?' asked Boots.

  'Fucking Railway Magazine, Max,' said the fair-haired kid. 'I don't care for it because it always seems to remind me of fucking railways. Ask him "Where's George?'"

  Max, the boot specialist, turned to me. I was still sitting on the floor. There was a warm sound in my head.

  'Where's…'

  He had many teeth, all white but assorted shapes and sizes; all strangers to each other. He smelt of old meat.

  '… George?' I said. 'He's gone.'

  'What's that? He's a fucking gonner you say?' said Max, leaning down over me.

  'We fucking know that,' said Don to Max.

  'He's gone,' I said again. 'What do you want him for?'

  'Owes us brass,' said Max, who was taking from his pocket a bag of something. White powder. He held it out to me.

  'Stick your finger in,' he said.

  My blood was starting to stick my collar to my neck. I pulled the collar away. 'Did you two cunts put the stone on the line?' I asked Max, who was still holding out the white bag.'Did we fucking what?' he said, and I knew they hadn't.

  Don continued tearing up the Railway Magazine, fighting with it over at the sofa. His face was going pink, which made his eyes seem bluer, his beard whiter.

  'Take a lick of this fucking sherbert,' Max said, moving the bag closer to my face. He said sure bert, drawing it out. His head was too long. It looked like something you saw on its own in a museum.

  I could feel the blood a long way south inside my shirt now, heading down in force towards my belt.

  'Did George put the stone on the line?' I asked.

  Max still didn't seem to cotton on to what I was saying, but Don did, and, looking over to Max, h
e said: 'Doesn't sound like one of his strokes, does it?'

  But Max had only one idea in his head. 'Sure bert,' he said again, and the bag was right under my nose.

  'I don't want any fucking sherbet,' I said.

  'Are you sure about it?' he said, and I stood up and swung at him, missing, and falling over. He kicked me in the belly and I was down again, couldn't breathe, could only bleed.

  'I want to put this lot on the fire now,' said Don, the angel gone to pot, who was standing at the sofa with the remnants of the month's Railway Magazine all around him. 'I want to get a fire going and I want to get this lot on.'

  'There is no fireplace, Don,' said Max.

  'Jesus Christ, you're right,' said Don, looking at the hole in the floor.

  The wife would be back very soon. If there was trouble of any sort with the examination, if her pelvis was too small, she might be kept late. But the wife was strong and perfectly built.

  I saw now that Max, holding that powder of his, wore gloves. On a day of this heat they were not required. Max picked some of the powder from the bag and threw a little of it towards me. It hung in the hot dark air of the parlour like stars. I rolled back away from it.

  'That's it,' said Max, leaning over me with his horse's head, 'You do right. Quicklime, see. Be the blind home for the rest of your days, mate: half fare on the fucking trams, basket weaving and chair caning… riding that long push bike with all the other fucking blind blokes. You've fucking seen 'em…' He leant forward again, roaring: 'En't yer? Six of the buggers to one bike, and all blind as fucking bats.'

  'No, Max,' said Don, who'd sat back down on the sofa, with his hands in his pockets. 'The one at the front can see. Tell him: we know Ogden's done a shit. Now where's he gone?'

  'I don't know.'

  Don was frowning on the sofa, with his legs wide apart, looking down at his pointed boots.

  'He's the landlord though…'

  'George has flitted,' I said.