The Blackpool Highflyer

'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.

'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 halclass="underline" 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 alclass="underline" 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.