The Necropolis Railway js-1

by Andrew Martin

  He said nothing for a while, then: 'All cleaners get rides out' Now Mike spoke up, and Rose gave a strange little sort of gasp as he did so. 'Henry liked the cemetery,' he said. He had the eyes of Rose and myself on him now. 'Why?' I asked.

  'It's beautiful there. You've got, you know, grass… trees. It's something a bit different.' 'What was this fellow like?' I asked. 'You shouldn't say that,' said Mike, and it was the first bit of sharpness I'd had from him. 'Shouldn't say what?' 'Was.'

  He'd stopped putting on coal now; he was leaning on his shovel. 'We got to be good mates, me and him, and I've had the coppers on at me no end of times, twice in the last month, trying to get to the bottom of it, and they haven't finished with me yet. If you'll take a pint with me sometime,' he went on, 'I'll tell you all about him, because he really was a first-class fellow.' At which Rose cut in: 'We got the road for the Necrop?' Mike leant out of his side and nodded back to him. The Necropolis terminus was two private lines and two private platforms of no great length. It was just outside Waterloo, and the branch that led into it veered off at the last moment from the thirty or so roads going into the great station. We came in with Mike reading all the signals, the steam hammers from Waterloo beating away and echoing for miles in the hot, dirty air around the factories and houses.

  The little station had a simple metal and glass canopy on each platform. It looked like a place that everyone had recently left, and when Rose shut off steam late, giving the carriages a bit of a whack against the buffers, I thought: he's trying to wake somebody up. Even though it sounded like it might be a breakdown job, though, nobody came out from any of the black doors on either platform. After a couple of minutes, however, a little tidy man in blue did come out. He looked about him a bit, then hopped down behind the tender to start uncoupling our set, and Rose told me I could go off for a quarter hour and take a look about.

  I walked down the platform we'd come in on, past a row of doors in a low, blank building. The first two doors were closed, but the third was open, so I looked in. There was a fat young fellow standing in a shadow holding a broom. He was being given a scolding by an older, taller, dismal-looking fellow. They were both in black suits – neither of the best cloth – and there were posters on the walls showing folks at funerals. 'Mourning Suits Made by the Gross', I read, and 'Dickins and Jones, Mourning in All Its Branches'.

  "The address is to begin in ten minutes' the older man was saying, 'and the room is not swept.' He sounded devilish surly. 'Well, I did sweep it,' said the fat fellow. 'When?' 'Earlier' said the fat fellow. 'Today?' 'Bit earlier than that.'

  'During the summer the room was very frequently found to be in a terrible condition. At that time it was not found necessary to give the address every week…'

  'Well, then' said the fat kid, 'it was not found necessary to sweep the room every week, either.'

  'But now the address is once more weekly; it is also of a considerable duration -' 'So I've heard' said the fat fellow.

  '- and being so, it is quite intolerable to give it in a dusty room or a room that is too cold, as is very frequently its condition.'

  'Well, the fires are not down to me' said the fat fellow, 'and two weeks ago you said it was too hot.'

  'If the room is overheated, the address attracts a class of person it is desirable should not attend.' 'What class is that?'

  'A cold class' said the other, slowing down, and sounding glummer by the second. 'A class with a limited interest in extramural interment, and a much greater interest in getting warm on a sharp evening.'

  'Bloody hell' said the fat fellow, but he had a jolly sort of face, I thought, for somebody working in a spot like this.

  I moved on to the next door, which was also ajar. In the darkness I made out a table, on top of which was a tangle of candelabras and a stack of thick yellow candles laid on their sides. Underneath the table was a pile of long dried rushes and two clocks of black marble that reminded me of tombs. In the corner of the room was another table, and at this one a small, worried-looking man of about seventy was reading a book while eating what must have been an early supper. It looked like chops, but where they came from I could not guess. From the door next to him, another man entered, and I at once had a feeling of great danger when I saw that it was Rowland Smith. He had on more business-like togs to the ones I'd seen him in at Grosmont, but they were still exquisite. Half-hiding at the edge of the doorway I listened.

  "That's a very good mixture you have there, Erskine,' he said to the worried-looking man.

  'Mmm,' said the man, because he was eating – and very fast. 'Now, on the Underground Railway, Rowland -' he continued, before stopping to pour salt onto the side of his plate. 'On the Underground Railway,' he began again after a while, 'which is the nearest station to the Temple?' 'Temple,' said Rowland Smith.

  'Yes,' said the worried man. 'Which is the nearest station to it?' 'The nearest station to Temple is Temple itself.'

  'This is where my spy glass comes in,' said the worried man, and he put down his knife and fork and picked up a lens on a stick. He looked through the glass at the book of maps that was before him. 'There is no station close to the Temple at all except… Oh, yes, I do see now. When did they build that one?'

  'I don't know exactly, Erskine. It's been there for some time, I believe. On the matter of the fifty poles that are to be conveyed tomorrow to Palmer -'

  But the worried man was not having this. 'Is Stanley preaching the gospel?' he asked instead, pushing his book away. 'I saw you speaking with him earlier.' "The address is shortly to begin.' 'Good attendance?' "There will be the usual number, I expect. If that. He says the room is too cold, and not swept.' 'Yes, he seemed very agitated.' 'He is always in that condition.'

  'Indeed, and I fear the matter goes deeper than an unswept room,' said the worried man, going back to his chops. "The difficulty is the manner of the address.'

  'And the subject,' said Smith. 'But it would look amiss, I think, after all, to drop it or even reduce the frequency.' "That is your settled view?' said the worried man. 'Yes.' 'You have no thoughts of bringing him into your scheme of economy?' 'No.' These two are not the greatest of pals, I thought. 'Have you moved yet?' said the worried-looking man, chewing ten to the dozen. 'Yes,' said Smith. 'Last week.' 1 have not had notification of the change of address.'

  'It is not much changed' said Smith. 'I'm still in the same mansion block.'

  "Then why the deuce did you move?' said the worried-looking man. 'It is a better flat. It is on the lower floor, giving on to the garden, and it is to the rear, so it is quieter.' 'A southerly aspect, I trust?'

  'Easterly,' said Smith, at which he looked up and saw me in the doorway.

  'You know, as to the poles to be conveyed to Palmer,' the worried man said, 'I must, as Chairman, take heed of the points raised by Mr Argent -'

  'Excuse me, Erskine,' said Rowland Smith, and he came hurrying across the room towards me.

  He was very friendly, as before; and when he lifted his hat his hair sprang up, also as before. 'How are you settling in?'

  'Tolerably well, sir, thank you,' I said, for I was at least man enough not to say I was having an awful time of it. 'And the lodge is a pretty good one?' 'Quite all right, really,' I said.

  'You've come in on the footplate?' He pointed to Thirty-One, and I nodded. 'Just for a jaunt, or have they got you firing all ready?'

  'Just for the jaunt,' I said. He really seemed to know nothing at all of railways. 'Mr Smith,' I said, 'when you were good enough to take an interest in me before, I was given to… I was… I formed the impression that you were connected to the London and South Western Railway.'

  Rowland Smith was always able to bring out the best from me, in a roundabout way. It had taken a lot for me to say that, just as it had taken a lot for me to ask him to take me on in the first place.

  He smiled and nodded. 'As you might know, this and that company are closely interconnected, the South Western running the trains to Brookwood by contrac
tual arrangement with the Mausoleum Company. Some five months ago I found myself in the position of being able to do some work, advisory in nature in the main, for the board here, and I put myself forward. On finding I had been succesful, I of course resigned my seat on the board of the South Western so as to avoid any collision of interests.'

  I thought: it is not normal for a man like this to speak to a man like me in this way.

  Smith suddenly laughed, and in a most amiable manner. 'You yourself would have stayed at the South Western?' I could not help but nod, crimson-faced I should imagine.

  'But then you speak as a lifelong subscriber to The Railway Magazine,' said Smith, seeming to bow at me as he did so.

  The worried-looking man appeared at the doorway. 'If you must talk to me about those poles, Rowland -'

  'Yes, Erskine. I'm just saying hello to this young fellow here: Mr Jim Stringer. He is a very hard worker, entitled to every possible encouragement. He works with the chaps that drive for us, and he's always after footplate runs, so we'll be seeing a fair bit of him.'

  This obviously did not excite the elderly gentleman all that much; in fact it made him look very sad. As he looked on, Smith asked, 'Will you meet me, in order to let me ask you some questions?' 'Questions as to what, sir?' 'Oh, concerning the life at Nine Elms.'

  'Where?' I said, and I must have fairly gasped out the word.

  'My flat. The address is on the letters.' He reached into his jacket and a pocket book flopped open in his hand. 'You must come to my place,' he said again, 'and you must come by cab.' He held out his long, fine right hand, and I saw a ten shilling note there.

  I shook my head and took a step back; a cab (with an honest driver) could be had for sixpence a mile. I was young but I was not stupid, and it seemed to me plain that he wanted me to sneak on my fellows and would pay me to do so.

  'I'll write to you,' he said, putting the note back into his pocket as though quite used to having his offers refused. 'Do carry on with your tour,' he said. 'It's quite an interesting setup we've got here.'

  Chapter Nine

  Tuesday 24 November continued

  I could not stop thinking about what Rowland Smith had in mind for me in his flat in the Northern Division of London, but if anything could have taken my mind off it, the little Necropolis Station was the thing. It certainly was a very interesting show.

  I walked around the buffer stops to the second platform, where there was another row of low, dull buildings. I had been given permission to look about, so I opened one of the doors and there was a coffin. Above it, an electric light swayed on a chain that had a black cable entwined in its links. The coffin lid was off and, stepping forward, I saw a white face -1 could not say whether a man's or a woman's – with a mass of blackness below. There were chairs like thrones on either side, and I marvelled to think that this place was a waiting room of sorts. I looked again at the mighty electric light, thinking: all this modernity for the dead. But I longed for the roaring of gas, and I stepped out of there in double-quick time.

  I walked around the block of buildings on that platform and saw what from my side looked like a low wall but was in fact the top of a twenty-foot drop. At the bottom was a dazzling white courtyard with, on the far side, a fancy pink-brick building with a big arch cut through it. As I looked down, a black coach-and-four shot through the arch into the courtyard. The driver got down, and when he removed his black top hat I expected more blackness, but there was no hair there at all. It was as if he was letting me know: just between you and I, my unknown friend above, I am completely bald. He put the hat back on, left the carriage in the middle of the courtyard, and everything went still again save for the hot horses, stomping now and again in the shafts.

  Two minutes later a door on the right-hand side of the court opened, and two men in black came through it. Three more men in black came out from the tunnel, and one of these was talking all the time, but I couldn't see which one. The men stood still for a second; but their shadows, which were like the hands of clocks, kept growing. Then the bald fellow led the horses into stables at one side, and a coffin was taken out of the back of the carriage by the other four, who put it onto their shoulders and carried it quickly through a doorway in the bottom of the wall of which I was on top. I seemed to be watching a funeral taken at a running pace, but with all proper dignity preserved.

  The door below me closed, and then I heard a muffled, buried groaning getting louder and louder. This groaning changed to more of an open-air scream for a second, before the four men and the coffin burst out of a door right behind me that was in some part of the platform buildings. They'd come out of a rising room – in America they call them elevators. The coffin men turned and aimed towards me. For a second it was as if they were bringing their casket to me, asking me if I'd like to try it for size, and I was glad when they continued down the path towards the buffer bars. I now spotted an iron ladder coming up from the floor of the courtyard to where I was standing, and I thought: I'll go down.

  This place spoke of mystery, and it needed to be got to the bottom of, and so did that ladder.

  The courtyard was white and empty, except for horse droppings. I thought: for neatness and cleanness you must have up-to-date transport, but then I remembered Nine Elms. I went across the courtyard, through the arch, and out into the street. I couldn't quite get my bearings. I knew by the noise and the pickle-and-beer smell and the train thumping across the viaduct to one side that I must be in the same territory as my lodge. The front of the Necropolis building was straight out of the Arabian Nights – all domes and swirls and bricks of pink, as though it was embarrassed, for the street it stood in was plain enough. I tried to get the place straight in my head. It was like a castle with a courtyard, and this pink part with the arch running through it was where the portcullis would be. Yes, a castle with a portcullis, a courtyard – and a small railway station running along the top of its back wall.

  'Excuse me,' said a pleasant sort of voice at that moment. 'Is today Tuesday?'

  I turned around and saw another man in black – no undertaker this time, but a parson.

  'I am looking for the Tuesday Address on Interment,' he said. 'Do you know where it is held?'

  'Upstairs in there, I suppose,' I said, pointing at some of the lighted top windows of the pink part. 'It is Tuesday, isn't it?' said the parson.

  'Do you mean today?' I said, because I was learning to be cautious with all remarks.

  "The last time I came it wasn't on,' he said, 'or at least it wasn't on here, but perhaps it sometimes happens elsewhere.'

  This parson, who was a very vague gentleman indeed, now walked under the arch and through a doorway in its side. I followed, and saw that he had entered a kind of vestibule with electric lights burning. It was all good wood; there was a triangle pattern everywhere in the panels, which meant something – the sign of a secret society – and on the wall just to the left of the door was a glass case with funeral notices inside. There was a smell of carbolic and old flowers.

  I walked in, and up the wide wooden staircase. There was nothing on the first floor save closed double doors and a great fan of flowers trapped in a glass globe. If they could have had black flowers, I am sure they would. The sprays were perfect but I didn't like the way they didn't move, and I began to think more favourably of old Crystal and his fluttering blooms on the 'up' and 'down'.

  There were two lots of double doors on the next two landings, and two more on the fourth floor, which was the top one. On one of this pair was a card fitted into a slot, reading: 'Extramural Interment: An Address by Mr S. Stanley'. From within, I could hear what I felt certain was the voice of the sad busybody I had glimpsed earlier scolding the fat boy, but this time he sounded slower, and lower and grander. He was saying, 'As it is appointed unto all men once to die, the subject of interment is one of universal interest. It comes home to every human breast, not only with a solemn but an emphatic closeness. Whatever, or whosoever, the head of a family in this
vast city may be – whether high or low, rich or poor, young or old or in the prime of his days, he must…'

  I knew what was going on: this was the company crying its wares. I put my eye to the chink in the door, and although I could not see the speaker, I could count the number in his audience. There were four, including the parson I had spoken to in the street.

  I turned to the second door and, opening it, came upon a room in which were one loud clock and a lot of large books. Screwing my boldness up to the highest pitch, I entered this little library, which seemed more out of bounds, than any other part of the premises so far. The volumes were marked with every year from 1852 to the present. I picked out 1888, and opened it. 'On Tuesday 19th of March,' I read, 'at a meeting of the directors -' Just then I heard a voice.

  I looked up from the book, but what I had heard was only the voice of Stanley coming through from the next room. He was in high force now. 'Within these numerous and loathsome decomposing troughs, for centuries past in the heart of the capital of a great Christian nation, the most depraved system of sepulture has existed that has ever disgraced the annals of civilisation…' (His speech being very old fashioned, I couldn't properly follow the meaning.) 'During which time the amount of poisonous gases evolved from putrefaction into the civic atmosphere, beyond that absorbed by the soil, exceeded…' Here there was a short pause, before Stanley continued with a dismal booming, 'some seventy-five million cubic feet.'

  I read the book as long as I dared, and could not make sense of it. It was all lawyer's talk. But it wasn't all books, this room. The clock was on the mantel, which was very grand, and there was one black pot to the left of it and another to the right. Over the mantel were pictures of swells, five in all, with dates underneath. The first picture was titled 'Colonel Tidey', and he was dated 1799-1862. Well, that was his life, but there was another line, stating that he had been 'Chairman of the London Necropolis Company from 1854 to 1861'. Colonel Tidey was a bearded gentleman, as were the next three. The fifth only had moustaches, and had been photographed, not painted. His name was Sir John Rickerby, and he had gone from life, and of being chairman, in the same year, 1903, the only one to have done the two in one. Well, I thought, it's 1903 now, so he could have died this very morning, although that would have needed quick work by the picture framers.