The Blackpool Highflyer

by Andrew Martin

  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 screaming 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.

  'Oh yes,' he said, 'I'll be in Blackpool Wednesday until Sunday. I never miss, you know.'

  I bought a couple of bread rolls, a bottle of beer and a bottle of Special Cola at the grocer's two doors down, then walked over to People's Park, seeing not more than half a dozen folk all the while. In the park they were a little in the holiday way.

  There was a helter-skelter tower near the bandstand, and half a dozen children around it. I had my pick of the benches, so I made for one near the fountain, which gave out coolness, and here it struck me that there was something different about the day apart from the want of people: clean air. You saw things faster than usual.

  Presently I stood up and made for Horton Street. Sugden was there, dreaming outside the Crown with his ice-cream cart as usual.

  'You should be in the park!' I called to him. 'There's a few about up there!'

  'Righto,' he said, 'I'll think on.'

  But I knew he wouldn't be straying too far from the Crown. Sugden's trouble was that if it was hot enough for folk to want penny licks, it was hot enough for him to want a glass of beer.

  My steps fell in with the beating of exhaust steam as I neared the Joint. Two trains were pulling out at the same time: one was going 'up', one 'down'. It made a nice balance, like two ends of a reef knot being pulled. As the sound of the engines faded, the Joint fell quiet: a lot of excursions had gone and a lot would shortly be coming back, but just at present we were in the eye of the storm, so to speak.

  Approaching Hind's Mill at the top of the Beacon, I saw that all the doors were open, as if they were giving the place an airing. I walked straight into the main doors, and the first surprise was the clocking-off machine: it was lying on its side in bits.

  I walked on, into the weaving hall. The looms were still and silent, with not a soul to be seen.

  I moved along a line of looms. They looked both old and new: knock-kneed somehow, but dangerous. I put my hand into one of the looms, thinking: if this loom starts up now, I'll lose this hand. It was a crazy thing to do.

  It was cool in the weaving room; I kicked at some blue fluff that floated in the sleepy white light.You'd think there'd be some stay-behinds, but no; the place was quite deserted. Well, there had to be somebody about, for the front doors had been open.

  I walked clean through the weaving hall and found the wife's office. The door and the bob-hole were both shut tight, so I knocked. No answer. I pushed at the door and walked in, closing the door after me. The wife was expecting me at about this time. Where was she?

  I was going off Wakes by the second. I wanted everything back to normal. Putting the little buffet of bread and cheese down on one of the high stools, I spotted the Kelly's directory I'd seen in this office before. It was lying open. I picked it up and saw that it was the Kelly's for 'Yorkshire - Western Division'. I put it down.

  There's nothing about this room to show that my wife works here, I thought. The typewriter was set on one of the desks, and I thought: well, it's nothing more than the wife's own loom.

  I then spotted a whole row of Kelly's. I took down the one for 'Lancashire -
Eastern Division', then searched out a pencil and made a note of an address.

  The next item to catch my eye was an envelope lying next to the typewriter. 'Rly Accident' was hand-written in the top corner. It was not the wife's writing.

  I picked up the envelope and pulled out the first paper just as the door flew open.

  It was the wife, carrying more papers. She came over and kissed me. It was rather exciting to be kissed in an office.

  'I'll swing for that maintenance man,' she said.

  'What's up?' I said.

  'Oh,' she said. 'Certificates for this and that. He wants all the ones I haven't got.'

  I looked down at the paper in my hand. It was a copy of Major Harrison's draft report into the smash.

  'What's the telephone number at this place?' I asked the wife.

  'Four,' she said, 'Halifax four.' 'I'll try to remember that,' I said.

  'You must make a note of it somewhere. Of course, the Dean Clough Mills are number one.'

  'Cheese’ I said, pointing to the stores I'd brought along, 'from the Maypole Dairy.'

  'It's beautiful’ she said, looking inside the bag.

  I didn't think you were supposed to say that about cheese.

  'We could eat it by the mill pond,' she said. 'Just ten minutes. We've a lot on today, with maintenance and inspections.'

  So we walked out and had our dinner by the mill pond, with Halifax in the sun below us, and nothing for once between it and the sky.

  When we'd put down most of the food and drink, the wife said: 'That's me done’ and we walked back inside. But as soon as we were through the door, the wife said, 'Blast, telephone’ lifted up her skirts, and began making fast towards the office. I followed on behind.

  I stood in the doorway as the wife picked up the instrument, said, 'Hello, Hind's Mill’ very briskly. But something was said the other end that checked her.

  She put the instrument back in its place. 'Peter Robinson's dead,' she said. 'That was his solicitor.'

  'How is he dead?'

  'He jumped,' said the wife.

  'How do you mean "He jumped"?'

  I remember thinking: By God, he's bloody well jumped off Blackpool Tower, and then being a little disappointed when the wife said: 'He jumped off the pier at St Anne's ... In the light suiting . . . Only he'd put stones in the pockets ... So it wasn't light.'

  The wife looked at me with a kind of rising wonderment, but then she just sighed and said, 'Oh it was such a mistake.'

  I thought of Lance Robinson. He wore spectacles like his father, and these were now a kind of memorial of his father. I wondered whether it was the loss of money that had driven

  Robinson to his jump, or the questioning by the police over the stone on the line. Had I put the police in his way by what I said during my strange turn in Manchester? I could not remember.

  I followed the wife, who was walking towards the weaving hall saying, 'I am to tell the director.'

  'Hind?' I said, following. Ts he about?'

  We burst into the weaving room and Hind was there, walking between two lines of looms. In my mind's eye he was out on the Fylde, coming along the track towards the stone on the line, a fellow whose feelings you couldn't make out.

  The stale man. He owned a mill, and he was used to owning a mill, and he was tired of owning a mill. He was quite correct in his black and white clothes; he had just enough hair to be going on with. His face was biggish but for no reason, and his age was anything from fifty to seventy. I couldn't see him on a yacht off Llandudno, drinking champagne.

  The wife said, 'I've just spoken on the telephone with Mr Robinson's solicitor, sir, and he gave me some terrible news: Mr Robinson is dead. It appears he has committed suicide.'

  Hind looked at the two of us. 'The poor soul,' he said. 'And so soon after Father.'

  There was no clue to be had from the man. Every word had the same force as every other word. He set off walking again, heading in the direction we'd just come from: towards the back doors of the weaving room.

  The wife said: 'That's the old sod who did for Robinson.'

  I'd never heard her curse before. She was looking up, and there was a painting on the wall - a new painting, or newly put up. It was Old Hind, with one strand of hair going over his white, gone-from-the-world head. I could see that the fellow was very likely a bastard, but it was the wrecker who was to blame, for this and for everything.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next day, Thursday of Wakes, we were booked for another run out to Southport and back. Most of those on the train had already had time away elsewhere earlier in the week and were light-headed with holidayness. There'd been some bottle-throwing from the windows.

  All this skylarking, all this life ... and Robinson lying dead after drinking his fill of the Irish Sea.

  During the day the questions had picked up speed and rolled into a blur: had I put the police on to Robinson or would they have questioned him anyway? And was that the reason he jumped off the pier, or was it the loss of his fortune?

  After the Southport turn, I'd taken a pint with Clive in Sowerby Bridge and was later than usual going back up Horton Street. The wife, I knew, was being kept late at Hind's by the summer stock-taking, so I was in a fair way for a call at the Evening Star.

  I took my pint while reading the Courier, which was thinner than usual on account of the holiday. I looked for news of Robinson's death, but there was nothing. Newspapers, I knew, waited for the inquests, and the reports always ended the same way: 'A verdict of Suicide while of unsound mind was recorded.' It was hard to imagine Robinson, with his specs and his brainy looks fitting that bill.

  I had my two pints then pushed on up the street with my coat over my shoulder. Walking past the Imperial, I looked through the window, and there in the jungly darkness sat George Ogden. He was at his supper, and enjoying it so much that he seemed to be singing at the same time as eating, moving his hands in the air and fluttering his fingers in between mouthfuls. His eye caught mine and he froze for a moment, like a bioscope broken down; then he stood, with his napkin still at his throat, and signalled me for me to come in. A waiter saw him do so and strode up to the door, taking guard.

  'Might I just come in for a moment?' I said, which was not the right way at all of going about it.

  'Of course you might, sir,' said the waiter, and there was a bit of sauce, I thought, in the way he threw back that word 'might'.

  I pulled my cap off my head. I almost handed it to him, and he almost took it, but we both thought better of it in time.

  I walked over to George, feeling for the first time the blast of those fans on my hair. The place was only a quarter full: frock coats and wine glasses; Halifax swells with their legs stretched out, showing me the sharp creases in their trousers. Nobody looked up at me, in that steady world of wine drinking, as I walked across to the beaming face of George Ogden. But I couldn't help notice how my boots did not make any play with the lights and how my trousers just flopped like cloth tubes.

  George was still standing. There was no food and drink on his face, but it was all only just inside it, and he glistened like a ripe red apple.

  'Hello, Features,' he said, putting out his hand and pointing to the empty chair opposite his own.

  'Having a bit of a blow-out?' I said.

  The waiter, walking past, heard me say that and going by the face he pulled didn't much like the sound of it.

  'Spot of supper, that's all,' said George.

  'You do yourself pretty well.'

  George looked down at his plate. 'It was potted shrimps to start, and this is steak and kidney pudding. Well, it was. I've a mind to finish off with wine jelly and brandied peaches, then the coffee and cheese, of course. Now the wine carafe's empty, I see ...'

  George was waving for the waiter.

  'Some sound wine for the two of us’ he said and he winked. 'You will join me in a glass.'

  'I've just had a couple of pints down the hill’ I said.


  'Beer?'

  I nodded. It would hardly be anything else. 'You wouldn't like to settle up and go back there with me, I suppose?' I said.

  'I will not drink those apron washings,' said George.

  The waiter came over and George said: 'Another of these please,' waving the carafe.

  'Could I have a glass of beer,' I interjected.

  The maps of India seemed to come up onto George's cheeks, but faded into the general rosiness pretty quickly. 'Will you run to a beer for a good fellow like this one?' George asked the waiter.

  It seemed that the fellow could, but that he would be putting himself to a fair bit of trouble in the process.

  'I've been able to pull the string,' said George when the waiter had gone, 'but it really is quite amazing the airs they put on here.'

  Then he suddenly asked: 'You ever been to London?'

  'I lived there for a while’ I said, 'Waterloo way.'

  'South, en't it?' said George.

  'It is in the Southern Division,' I said, proudly.

  'Ever get up to the Cri?'

  'The Cri?'

  'The Criterion, I mean.'

  'What is it? Music hall?'

  'Leave off’ said George. 'I don't hold with those places at all. No, the Cri is rather a select bar and restaurant. . . Mind your eye!' he said, for the waiter was coming up to us, swirling down a silver tray with another of the queer wine containers and a glass of beer. The beer had too much froth and looked like an ice cream; tasted all right though.