The Blackpool Highflyer

Chapter Twenty-three

Ten minutes later Clive was walking towards 1008, and the damn carpet bag was in his hand again. He kept looking down at his boots as he got near. Before climbing up, he put his oil can on the footplate, and in my mind's eye it was the Bancroft's Hair Restorer that was being slammed down there.

He pulled himself up onto the footplate. New boots, poacher's pockets (with a copy of the Courier sticking out of one of them), kerchief crossed and held in place by… what? By nothing. Just like old Napoleon's. 'Don't look old,' said the slogan on the Bancroft's bottles, and Clive didn't, I had to agree.

'Who was the kid in the green coat?' Clive asked, as he stuffed the carpet bag in the locker.

I told him he was the son of a man who used to be a governor at Hind's Mill.

'Oh yes? In fancy dress was he?'

'That was light suiting,' I said, 'made by Hind's Mill. Well, it was for a while, until his old man was stood down over it.'

'I'm not surprised.'

'It's nice and cool to wear in the hot months.'

'What's the point of that?'

'Well, you know, coolness… in the hot months.'

Clive had finished stowing away the bag. He turned to me and frowned. 'In summer,' he said, 'you get hot, and that's all about it. A light suit's no good. It won't hold its shape.' He reached into his pocket and took out his copy of the Courier. But it wasn't the Courier. It was the York paper, the Yorkshire Evening Press. 'It was left on this engine this morning,' Clive explained. He was pointing at a short article, saying: 'Here's a turn up… I don't think.'

'Excursion Engine Driver Killed' I read, and all the breath stopped on my lips.

Mr Arthur Billington, who for many years had been employed as an engine driver at York by the North Eastern Railway, died yesterday of a head injury sustained while riding to York station on his bicycle. It is not clear what really happened. Some witnesses state that Mr Billington's bicycle simply capsized, others that he struck a pedestrian who was nowhere to be found after the event. Mr Billington was on his way to the locomotive shed at York, where he was booked to take a train carrying excursionists to Scarborough.

'It's the fucking wreckers again!' I said. 'They're out to get the Scarborough excursions as well as the Blackpool ones, and any bugger connected with them. There was the tree on the line before Malton, and now this…'

Clive, of course was having none. 'If that bloke Billington rode a push rod in the same way as he drove an engine, he was a liability to himself and others.' He was looking in his leather pocketbook, checking the time of departure.

I said: 'We're taking on a pilot from York, I suppose?'

He shook his head. 'I've just had a wire sent to say we'll do without.'

'But do you know the road?'

I was sounding rather old womanish, I knew, but I kept picturing Paul, the socialist missionary, stepping in front of the bicycle of Arthur Billington.

Everything, it seemed, was now put in my way to test my pluck, and to spoil what, in any other summer, could have been a happy prospect: a pleasant run to Scarborough, with no need to work the engine back, for we were to return 'on the cushions' once again.

We were put into platform four, where Knowles's blackboard announcing the excursion waited. The stationmaster himself, I noticed, was on platform three, speaking to one of his deputies and pointing to a weed growing down by the line.

'I would like to see lawnmower applied to that directly,' he was saying. 'And liberally, mind you. And anywhere else you see similar. You know where the bottle of the stuff's kept?'

We coupled up to a rake of six rattlers. I found Reuben Booth in the last one, asleep in his guard's part, which in looks was well below third class. He was sitting in a chair that had one arm broken off – probably chucked into the stove in those far-off days of cold. Reuben's gold coat was hanging over the back of the chair. His face disappeared into the grey- ness of his beard when he slept, but as soon as he heard my boots scrape over the dust on the floor of the van, he stood up, barking out: 'One hundred and fifty souls.'

The vacuum brake was tested, and we pulled away into the sun with half the hundred and fifty hanging out of the windows and Clive winding back the reverser, saying, 'There are some very well set-up lasses on this train,' for he'd had a good look up and down.

The sunshine, when we came out into it, was all golden slowness like treacle. We rolled along into the Beacon Hill Tunnel, with the coolness and the happy screams, then swept back out into the brightness.

After Bradford, Clive took an envelope from one of his poacher's pockets and passed it over. Inside was the medal. On one side of it was the company badge that was on the tenders of all the engines: the red rose of Lancashire and the white rose of Yorkshire, together with the shields of the Houses of Lancaster and York. On the reverse were the words 'Presented to C. Carter, engine driver, for extraordinary vigilance and promptitude in stopping his engine on June nth, Whit Sunday, 1905.'

'It's a bobby dazzler, is that,' I said, handing it back, and thinking: they knocked that out in double-quick time. Clive nodded. 'Mind you' he said, putting the medal back in his pocket, 'I'd rather have had a day off.'

He'd said that before about the medal. It was as if he was a little embarrassed over it.

‹o›

It felt lonely to be going beyond York without a pilot, and I almost missed the shouting of the late Billington. We were feeling our way, so to speak, across foreign territory, and I had my eye out for every signal from then on, even the ones on Clive's side. The difficult signal spot was the one at Kirkham Abbey, as I knew from the last Scarborough run. And it was here that the branch had fallen. Again the name Kirkham Abbey made me nervous, putting me in mind of that other Kirkham, on the road to Blackpool where we'd come to grief.

We were flashing along at about fifty as we came up to the distant signal at Kirkham Abbey. It was off as before, so we kept on running.

'Now slow for the home' I heard myself calling out to Clive, which was like something that might happen in a dream – a fireman giving orders to his driver. Clive didn't seem to mind though. That medal had been a real tonic for him, or maybe it was the new boots. He was looking down at these now as he reached up to the brake, but something was amiss with one of the boots – a dab of soot or a particle of coal lodged in the laces.

The broken buildings of the abbey shot into place alongside us: a great and grave thing, a giant tombstone in many instalments.

'Brake!' I yelled.

The movement from hand to boot was halted; the hand went up, brushing the brake handle as much as was needed. 'Keep your hair on,' said Clive.

'Sorry' I said.

The home signal appeared, peeking from the trees. It was off – just as it ought to've been – and we rumbled over the level crossing, where a motorcar stood waiting at the gate.

'You wait,' yelled Clive as we passed it by; 'it's us that'll be stopping for them before long!' He grinned at me, but I couldn't grin back, for I was fretting about whether I was up to the mark for an engine man.

As we crashed and rocked over the Xs into the excursion platforms, Clive said: 'You're all of a jump. Shall I stand you a pint?'

'But you've got your bag in the locker,' I said. 'Doesn't that mean you're sneaking off like before?'

We'd come to a stand now. Clive destroyed the vacuum while thinking over what I'd said. Then he decided to grin. 'I've time for a pint beforehand,' he said, eventually.

After a quick word with Reuben, who was heading directly back to the Joint, we ran the engine into the Scarborough shed. There were two fragments of yellow soap in the engine- men's lobby this time, so we were both able to get tolerably clean. Clive kept his carpet bag by him at all times.

We had a pint in a pub near the shed, and I was sitting there out of sorts, too hot, and wondering whether I'd be in a funk over obstacles on the line for the rest of my days. What bothered me especially was that next week was Wakes. Would we be given the Hind's excursion run once again? Then another thought came: would we be given the Highflyer for a second time?

Clive said, 'Sup up, we're off.'

'We?' I said.

'You want bucking up,' he said.

So we stepped out of the pub into the booming blue of the Scarborough day. The motor charabancs parked along the station were all shaking with their engines on, panting like horses. Looking down at his new boots, and with his carpet bag in his hand, Clive began to walk. I watched him go and he called out, 'Look sharp!' so I started to follow.

We didn't walk down the Valley Road, where Scarborough became the Garden City, but away from the sea and into some side streets that the sun didn't suit. We came to a row of dark shops selling gloomy things like sideboards, and one of the businesses was a tailor's.

Well, I ought to have guessed. There was a sign above the door, in small red letters: 'winterbottom: cash taylor'. Clive pushed the door, and the bell rang very loudly, but Winterbottom was just on the other side of it, waiting. He stood up and a cricketing paper fell to the floor. He was a small, dark man with side whiskers which he for some reason wouldn't let meet to form a beard. His shop was small and so dark after the brightness of the day that blue smudges floated before my eyes as I looked about it.

'Good afternoon, gentlemen,' he said; then, recognising Clive: 'Mr Carter! Have you come in on an engine?'

'Nay,' said Clive. 'Walked it. All the way from Halifax!'

They both laughed at that. I knew right off that Clive and the tailor were thick with each other. Clive introduced me to Winterbottom, saying: 'This fellow needs a suit.'

'Working suit?' asked Winterbottom, half speaking to Clive and half to me.

'A Sunday suit,' said Clive, 'that'll come in for work later.'

'Wear it out,' said Winterbottom, 'then wear it out'

'He always says that' Clive said to me.

'To measure or ready-made?' asked Winterbottom.

'I can't run to tailoring,' I said straight away.

'Should be no trouble to fit off the peg' said Winterbottom, eyeing me up and down: 'the greyhound breed!'

'That's another thing he always says,' said Clive, 'so don't get swell-headed.'

Winterbottom walked smartly towards a line of hanging black suits, then went clean through them and disappeared.

He came back a moment later with half a dozen suits over one arm. He let one of the coats – a blue one – dangle down. Clive shook his head at it, and Winterbottom let it fall to the floor, the trousers and waistcoat too. He held up another coat, biscuit coloured this one. It was the same coat as Clive's.

'Poacher's pockets!' I exclaimed, and felt foolish.

'Norfolk jacket' said Winterbottom.

Clive was shaking his head. 'Won't do,' he said, which I thought rum, since it did very well for him.

The next coat Clive liked, and so did I. It was blue, of course, loose and comfortable-looking, and not too heavy. It came with turned-up trousers and there was a choice of two waistcoats to go with. Winterbottom held up the two: one had more pockets than the other – a lot more. It was a complicated sort of waistcoat, like George Ogden's.

'I'll try that one' I said, pointing to it.

I went into the little changing room and when I came out Winterbottom was saying something to Clive and pointing me towards the mirror. He and Clive stood behind me, looking on, which stopped me looking at myself. So I put the whole thing on to them. 'What do you think?'

'Rather flattering, sir,' said Winterbottom.

I expected Clive to put in his motto with 'He always says that,' but he didn't. This was no joking matter. The suit was rather fetching. I could see myself driving engines in this, big ones at that, and meeting no obstructions as I did so. I could also see myself at the University of Liverpool, chatting to Mr Aspinall himself about railway matters.

'What weight is the cloth?' I asked.

'Give over' said Clive, 'you barmpot.'

'Eighteen ounce' said Winterbottom, 'a good summer weight.'

'I prefer this sort of light suiting,' I said.

'Quite so, sir,' said Winterbottom.

'Just out of interest,' I said, 'would you ever think of buying cloth as low as twelve ounces?'

'No' said Winterbottom.

After a bit more fancying myself in the mirror, I asked the cost.

'Guinea suit,' said Winterbottom. 'I have a tie in brown that'll set it off to a tee,' he added, before disappearing once more into the line of coats.

'Tell him the lining feels a little rucked at the shoulder' said Clive when he'd gone.

'But it isn't,' I said, 'well I don't think it is, any road.'

'No,' said Clive, 'but he'll know what you mean.'

'What will I mean?' I said.

'That you want a little off.'

'He feels it's a little caught under the shoulder' said Clive when Winterbottom came back.

'A pound and sixpence' said Winterbottom double-quick, before adding, 'It's already discounted, you know.' He then let a brown necktie dangle down.

'No…' I said. 'No thanks.' I certainly didn't want the necktie, but the question was the suit.

Winterbottom could see me thinking things over. 'Do you want it on HP?' he said.

'He's trying to work out what the missus'd say' said Clive, grinning, and he had that right, although of course I wouldn't let on.

The wife wanted me to progress, and a good suit might come in there. She liked what was down-to-date, and turn-ups were the latest thing in trousers. Then again we were meant to be putting the coppers aside for the Special Piano.

I said I wasn't sure, that I would think on, and Winterbottom wasn't put out in the least. He just cut me off completely. Turning to Clive, he said something I couldn't quite catch, and pointed to the carpet bag.

I dawdled off to the changing room, trying to cotton on to what was being said, but all I heard was the word 'snowdrop'.

Five minutes later I was out in the street once more with Clive. 'You'll regret that,' he said. 'It did wonders for you.'

'I can always come back for it' I said, but Clive wouldn't have it.

'It'll be gone in a flash,' he said. 'Top summer wear, that is.' He walked off with a wave of his free hand and I didn't have the brass neck to follow him this time. Before turning a corner he called back once more: 'Did wonders for you, that suit!'

I wandered back to the station and thought about taking the first train for Halifax, but I had a new sort of superstition about seeing the sea in a seaside town. If I didn't see it, there might be a stone placed on the line. So I walked down the Valley Road past the gardens in bloom. The same sort of plant came up over and again: a bush with long white flowers like railway signals. Wherever it grew, folk stood admiring it.

I turned to my left, and saw a giant white 'S', and it was the first letter of 'snowdrop laundry' – the words were painted on the wall of an end-terrace. A line of smoke came out of the chimney, but disappeared after a second, put to shame by the bright sea air.

That was where Clive had been heading with his bag. I wondered whether he was inside at that moment. I hung about outside the front door for a while, then gave it up and walked back towards the Valley Road and the sea view, feeling blue.

The sea didn't end, and so you felt useless looking at it. You could only do little things by comparison. George and Clive knew that, and the one little thing they did was cut a dash in the world. I had thought that driving and firing engines might be the thing, for it gave the freedom of flying, but I now could not think of the job without feelings of anxiety.

I turned away from the sea.

With all of Scarborough before me and the whole world in holiday mood, I could think of nothing to do but go back home.

I set off back up the Valley Road in my heavy boots, aiming for the station, thinking of Arthur Billington. In a holiday town, people go slowly towards the railway stations but they always come out of them fast, and so I was not surprised to see a pretty woman moving fast away from the railway station. I almost called out to her when it struck me that I knew her, but I buttoned my lip in time, for I did not know her at all, really, but had only seen her once at the Joint.

It was Emma Knowles, the stationmaster's beautiful wife.