'What's up?' said Clive, with a little grin.
I was blowed if I would tell him the truth, so I just said: 'I've a wife to look after, you know.'
'I'll stand you half a dozen oysters' said Clive.
'What's that set against a marriage?' I said, and I was grinning myself now.
'All right, a dozen,' said Clive. 'A dozen and a couple of bottles of Bass.'
I hadn't bargained for having to make this decision, being so sure we were going to be tripped up by some obstacle on the line.
We were now rumbling past the Blackpool gasometers – bright rust in the evening sun – and Clive was shutting off steam. We coasted past the gaps in the houses, where the glittering sea would come and go. The biggest gap was where the line went over Rigby Road, which had the beach right at its end, and you would gasp as you went over, just as if you had at that moment been caught up and put into the sea.
We came swinging into Blackpool Central at dead on seven o'clock with two empty water specials streaming out on either side of us. We were put into excursion platform seven, where an assistant stationmaster told us to leave the engine. The next crew booked for it would take it off to the shed, and we could sign off in the SM's office.
Clive turned to me, saying, That's handy for you. If you sprint across directly to platform two, or three, in the main station -1 can't just remember – you'll be back in Halifax… ten-thirty, sort of touch.'
I thought of the wife in bed alone, and the stone, the indoor comet. 'Well, I'd best go,' I said, knocking off the vacuum ready for uncoupling, as Clive leant out of the footplate watching our passengers walk towards the ticket gates.
'Aye,' said Clive, 'you'd better had. I'll sink a couple of pints on my own.'
Some of the passengers thanked Clive as they went, but they were respectable sorts, not factory, and not the kind to give a cheer for the driver. One of these worthies shook Clive's hand, and handed up to him a letter, saying, 'Apologies for not sending these along earlier.'
At this I tapped Clive on the shoulder, and asked, 'What's that?' because I feared he might stick it straight in his pocket, making another chapter in the Scarborough mystery. But he obliged me straight away, taking out from the envelope two theatre tickets and a handbill, which last he passed directly to me.
'What is it?' he asked.
'A play called Man to Man,' I said. 'It's on at the Grand.'
'Not music hall, then?'
'It's a drama,' I said, reading the handbill.
'Oh yes?'
'It's in four acts.'
'Is it now?' said Clive.
'There's two intervals.'
'That's good,' said Clive. 'That's the first good thing I've heard about it.'
I began to read from the handbilclass="underline" '"Mr Frank Liston is as manly and impressive as the Rev. Philip Ormonde. As George Gordon, Mr William Bourne submits an earnest and incisive…'"
'Will you give it here for a moment?' said Clive. I did so, and he put the paper directly into the fire.
'You didn't really fancy it then?' I said.
'Too improving,' said Clive, 'and I will not be improved. I cannot be as a matter of fact…'
From a distant part of the station came the sound of an engine moving in.
'Well, I reckon you've missed your early service,' said Clive.
'Bugger,' I said, and Clive shook his head, grinning at the same time, because he knew I'd done it deliberately. The stone chucker had done his worst. He wouldn't be back. Also, I felt in need of a bit of fun, and that was all about it.
We walked along the platform, shadows of clouds moving fast across the canopy glass. The station was half busy: a few trippers on the platforms waiting to go home, and so looking downhearted. Yet Clive and me had the town, and the evening, all before us.
Chapter Fifteen
In the Gentlemen's at Central, Clive was stooping over a sink. His shirtsleeves were taken up to the very tops of his arms, with perfect folds all the way. He'd lathered his face, ears, back of neck, and was looking in the glass at the results. My own wash and brush-up had been finished minutes since.
'There was no soap at Scarborough,' I said, just to see how he'd answer. But the words were lost under the great belch of water going down the plug in Clive's sink.
'What's that?' he said, but he was refilling the sink with rinsing water.
I now stepped outside, just in case he wanted to apply a touch of the Bancroft's.
When he'd done, we walked through the horse smell, cigar smoke and the greenish light of the station, and came out onto Central Drive, where the gulls were screaming. There were the morning gulls and the evening gulls, and the second sort made a sadder sound. It was an in-between time at Blackpooclass="underline" cocktail time for the toffy sorts, as I supposed; some men and ladies far out in the sea, the more serious sorts of swimmers – swimming and thinking, working things out as they went along.
'I wonder why folk go bathing?' I said, thinking again of Clive in Scarborough.
'Well,' he replied, looking straight ahead. 'Why are some others continually fishing?'
We continued to look out to sea: all the little waves trooping off together in the same direction, which was sideways, not towards the shore but heading up the coast towards Fleetwood.
I thought of Margaret Dyson. This was what she'd never seen. If you saw the sea once and it was a certain way, you'd probably think it was always like that.
The bathing machines had been put in a straight line, sideways to the sea as if to say: that's your lot for today, fun's over. Clive was lighting a little cigar, and a sandwich man was walking towards us – seemed doolally, like most in that line, traipsing along, clearing his throat over and again. You wanted to box his ears and shout: 'Frame yourself, man!'
His board was advertising a music halclass="underline" 'monsieur Maurice,' I read, 'see the ventriloquial paragon'. It was the fellow I'd seen, and then stood beside, at the Palace Theatre in Halifax. According to the board, he was now giving his turn at a spot called the Seashell; topping the bill too, for underneath his name were the words 'also the following artistes…' I remembered about the Seashell. It was that weird little humpbacked music hall I'd seen on my first trip to Blackpool. Monsieur Maurice had been topping the bill then as well.
As the fellow shuffled up towards us, I pointed to his board and said, 'This place anything like?'
'It's the only thing,' he said, without stopping.
'Let's go there,' I said to Clive.
Clive turned around so that his back was to the sea. He looked at the sandwich man, who was walking away towards the North Pier.
'There's a ventriloquist on who's quite good… Well, he's not good,' I went on, 'he's shocking bad, in fact.'
'Righto,' said Clive, and put his cigar under his boot.
We went first over the road to an oyster room with a model ship in the window, where we put down a dozen oysters and a couple of bottles of Bass apiece. Then we pushed along the Prom to the Seashell.
It really was a rum show, built of bricks covered over with plaster and looking like something between a brick kiln and a funny kind of hat. Inside, it was like a sea cave: no sharp edges, with all the roofs low and sloping. The floor rolled up towards the box office, where we queued for our tickets, marvelling at the place, which was all painted browny red with pictures of the Prom and the Tower jutting out from the walls because of the way the walls curved.
When we'd bought our tickets we saw the word 'bar' written in yellow on a green wooden board clipped to red curtains. We walked through, but all the spots were taken by a lot of red-faced old brandy shunters who were stretched out with their drinks on red couches, looking like they were lying in a Turkish bath. But they did have such an everyday article as a barrel of Plain on the go, and it was only a penny a glass.