I craned my neck backwards to see whether I could catch sight of Tommy Nugent coming out of the gloom of the Valley Gardens. But there was no sign of him, so I looked forward again, and counted three wide waves as they came in, turning themselves inside out and going from black to white in the process. I knew the woman was eyeing me, so I tried to watch the sea as though I had some special understanding of its moods and movements.
Another night walker came up out of the darkness to the left: a man in a great-coat and a high-crowned bowler. He walked a little white dog with the lead wrapped around his wrist, and he was eating a fried fish from a bit of paper. He stopped just in front of the bench, and leant against the railing, half looking out at the wild sea, half at the woman on the bench. He might have nodded at her and nudged his hat when he'd come up, or he might just have been setting it right after a gust of wind.
The fish didn't half smell good, and the dog thought so too, because it would sit down, begging to be given a scrap, then shuffle about and sit down again, just in case its master hadn't noticed the first time. The man ate the fish with a superior look, as if conveying to the dog: 'Well yes, I suppose you would like a piece, but then who wouldn't? It happens to be excellent grub, otherwise I wouldn't be eating it.' After a few moments, the woman spoke up, and I was glad – encouraged, somehow – to hear that her accent was mild.
'Will you give your dog some of that fish, for heaven's sake?' she said.
'He doesn't like fish,' said the man, and I couldn't tell whether the two knew each other or not.
'You could have fooled me,' said the woman.
'It's cats that like fish,' said the man.
'Try him,' said the woman.
'Oh all right,' said the man, and he dropped a bit of fish that the dog caught and ate in an instant.
'I saw Jepson in town today,' said the woman.
'The magician?' the man asked, rather unexpectedly, as he finished off the fish and crumpled up the paper.’ He’s in town early.'
'Or late,' said the woman. 'He was in Boyes's.'
'Oh aye?'
'Household Goods department… Returning a kettle. He was after a full refund.'
'Why?'
'It was faulty.'
'How?'
'In the only way that a kettle can be faulty, Mr Wilson,' replied the woman (and she gave me a look as she did so). 'It had a hole in it.'
'Well,' said the man (evidently Wilson), 'what about it?'
'He was very angry.'
'He's entitled, isn't he?' said Wilson, who was surprisingly off-hand with the woman, considering how pretty she was. 'If I bought a kettle with a hole in it, I'd do my nut.'
'Yes, but you're not The Magical Marvel of the Age,' said the woman… With all due respect.'
The man pulled a face, which might have meant anything.
'It doesn't do for a man who's supposed to have mysterious powers to get all worked up about a faulty kettle,' said the woman.
'Well, that's his look-out,' said the man, and, giving a half nod to the woman, he went off into the windy darkness as the woman said, partly to herself: 'He put on such a lovely show at the Winter Gardens, as well.'
The woman now stood up and sighed at the sea. She took off her hat, and drove her hand into the mass of curls. Then she turned and headed off into the Valley Gardens. I watched her for the space of three lamps, and at the instant she disappeared there was Tommy Nugent coming the other way, grinning and limping, kit bags in hand.
'You all set?' I said, standing up.
He gave a nod; there was no mention of taking a pint. He seemed minded to get on with it now. We walked towards the funicular railway that led up towards the Grand, and I read the famous sign: 'Two hundred and twenty steps avoided for id.' But it wasn't working. The two carriages were suspended halfway up, like two signal boxes dangling from a cliff. It was a strain for Tommy to climb the steps, but he never moaned. As we toiled up, we had the high north wall of the Grand Hotel towering alongside us. There were no windows in it, and a dark slime ran all the way to the top.
Tommy was saying about he'd had enough of the J Class; he'd try to lay his hands on one of the Class Qs. They had a good height to the cab roof; you weren't all cramped up in there as with the Js. They'd been express engines, but were now coming off the main line, and were ideal for the medium distance, semi-fast trips like the Scarborough runs. He was talking to cover up nerves, I felt sure of it.
At the top of the steps, we were in the square that stood between the Grand and the Royal hotels. No-one was about. A horse whirled a hansom away from the front of the Grand, and I had the idea that every last person was fleeing the town. We turned right, making for Newborough, which was the main shopping street of Scarborough, but dead and abandoned now apart from the shouts of a few unseen loafers.
We went past a furniture store that showed in the window its own idea of the perfect living room, lit by a low night light. Next to it was a marine stores: 'All Kinds of Nets Sold'. After half a dozen shuttered and dark shops I saw the sign: 'Bright's Cliff. It was a short stub of a street at a slight angle off the Newborough – put me in mind of a drain leading to the cliff edge, a sort of cobbled groove over-looked by houses older than the common run of Scarborough buildings. At the end of it stood a single lamp that marked the very edge of Scarborough, and a steep drop down to the Prom. Near by stood an upended hand cart with a couple of old sacks tangled up in the wheel spokes. It might have been connected with some stables that looked half derelict.
The end property was turned somewhat towards the cliff edge, as though disgusted with the rest of the street, and a derrick stuck out from its front, from the forehead of the house's face, so to say. This must be for drawing things up the cliff. I walked directly to the end of Bright's Cliff and looked down. I saw an almost sheer bank, covered in old bramble bushes and nettles; then came a gravel ledge, then the rooftops of some buildings on the Prom: a public house, a public lavatory, and the Sea Bathing Infirmary. A little light leaked out of the pub, and, as I looked down, with Tommy Nugent breathing hard behind me, a man walked out of it – well, he was just a moving hat from where we looked, and the hat revolved on the Prom, and doubled back into the public lavatory, which must still have been open. I doubted that the sea bathing place was open. There'd be very few takers for its waters in March.
Tommy tapped me on the shoulder, and I wheeled about.
'Paradise is that one,' he said, and… Well, I didn't know about paradise but, as far as Bright's Cliff went, the house indicated was the best of a bad lot.
Chapter Fifteen
It was a house of white-painted bricks, and the paint was falling away a little, like the white powder on the face of a pier- rot. It was perhaps a hundred years old, and sagged somewhat. The windows were rather ill-assorted as if they'd been bought in a job lot at knockdown price, no two being the same size. The door was blue; over it was a fanlight of coloured glass with the name of the house set into it, the letters being distributed between the different panes like so: PA-RAD-ISE.
'You knock,' said Tommy, and he held one kit bag in each hand, as though he was ready to march straight in.
I knocked, and there came the sound of a woman's laughter from beyond the door as I did it. The door opened slowly, and there stood a trim, well-dressed man, perhaps in the middle fifties. The laughter had stopped but the man was smiling pleasantly. He was the very last sort of person I'd bargained for, and I was silenced for a moment by the sight of him. He tipped his head, preparatory to asking our business. But Tommy was already speaking.