The Last Train to Scarborough (12 page)

'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.

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.

'We're
two railway men,' he said. 'He's the fireman, and I'm the driver.' (I thought:
Don't say that, it's not convincing.) 'We've just come from the station, and
we're having to overnight in Scarborough.' He took a deep breath before continuing:
'Now we've heard...'

But
the man cut in, turning a little to one side, and saying, 'Miss R! Two
gentlemen in need of a bed - they're railway men,' he added, in a way I didn't
much care for.

The
trim man was now replaced in the doorway by a woman and it was the one who'd
been sitting on the bench. She'd evidently just come in, for she had her
grey-blue coat and hunter's hat still on. She looked a bit distracted, flushed
and very pretty. I took off my hat, and she whipped hers off at exactly the
same time, as though we were playing the looking glass game; and then she shook
her curls.

The
hall was rather cramped. The landlady stood on a brownish carpet, a little
worn, under a swinging gas chandelier, with three of the four lights burning.
The wallpaper was green stripes, also a little faded; there was a faint smell
of paint. On the wall was a thin case with a glass front. Above it a sign said,
'Today's Menu,' but there was nothing in the case. The stairs were narrow, and
rose up into darkness. The thin banister was rather battered ... and the hall
was too hot. In spite of this, the woman seemed highly amused at something or other
and she
was
beautiful.

I
was on the point of speech, but Tommy was under way again.

'Our
engine's broke down,' he said. 'It's an injector steam valve that's giving
bother.'

'I'm
awfully sorry,' said the woman, 'but you see ...'

'Steam's
pouring out of the overflow, and when that happens ...'

The
woman was eyeing me, half smiling. Did she remember me from the bench?

'We
saw your notice in the engine men's mess,' I interrupted, for fear that if I
didn't speak up soon she'd think me dumb.

'Ordinarily,'
Tommy was saying, 'we'd have taken the engine back to York tonight but it's not
up to the trip, so we've left it at the Scarborough shed, and in all likelihood
they'll have it sorted out by morning.'

'Good
,' said the woman, by which she
no doubt meant: 'Shut up.' Then she said, 'We hate to turn railway men away,
but we only have the one room available tonight.'

'Single
bed, is it?' I asked.

'If
that
,' she said, with half a smile.

I
turned about and looked at Tommy; then back to the woman, who looked as if she
was trying not to laugh. It was fascinating to watch the movement of her lips
over her teeth.

'Do
you mind if we step away for a moment to talk it over?' I asked her.

'Not
a bit,' she replied, and she retreated into the house, leaving the door on the
jar.

I
walked with Tommy towards the gas lamp at the end of Bright's Cliff.

'I'm
going to take the room, Tommy,' I said. 'I'm the investigating officer and ...
well, do you see?'

He
put down his two bags on the cobbles, and, opening one of them, said, 'Fair
do's, Jim. But you'll take a rifle, won't you?'

I'd
forgotten about the bloody rifles.

'No,'
I said, and Tommy looked put-out. 'I mean ... they're a bit small,' I said.

'Dangerous
to a mile these are, Jim,' he said, 'and I should think the average room in
that house is about ten foot across.'

'But
they're meant for target shooting. I mean, they're
miniature
rifles, aren't they?'

'How
big a hole do you want to make in their bloody heads, Jim?'

He
was unwinding one of the great bandages he'd made of all his under-clothes.

'Well,'
I said, 'I don't want to make a hole in their heads at all. I'm not trained up
in rifle shooting.'

'No
need to be a dead eye,' he said. 'Not inside a house. You're not going to need
orthoptic bloody
spectacles,
Jim: just pull the bloody trigger. And I'll tell you
something else: you're well away with this because it's about the only gun you
could loose off indoors and not deafen yourself.'

He
was obviously a good deal more concerned for the one firing than the one being
fired
at.
I looked down at the kit bag, where one of the rifles was in
clear view.

'I
just don't fancy it, Tommy,' I said. 'I shan't bother.'

'Jim,'
he said, glancing back over towards the door, 'those people are
strange.'

The
door of Paradise was still half open, spilling coloured gaslight onto the
cobbles of Bright's Cliff.

I
said, 'They didn't look strange to me.'

Tommy
now held a third bloody shooter in his hand: a pistol this time. It was very small
and thin - there was nothing to it. It looked like a pop gun of Harry's.

'Two-two
pistol,' he said.

'How
many more have you got in there?'

'What
do you say, Jim? You can carry this beauty in your pocket.'

I
shook my head, and he fastened up the kit bag, covering over this final
offering.

'Remember
this,' he said, 'if Ray Blackburn
was
killed, and
you click to the reason, they'll come after you no matter what.'

'Tommy,'
I said, 'I can't hang about or it'll look funny. I'll see you at the station
tomorrow, all right?'

And
it appeared that I really had offended him, because without another word he
marched along the short cobbled road until he came to the junction with
Newborough, where he hesitated for a moment, before turning left and disappearing
from sight.

I
returned to Paradise and knocked on the opened door. The woman came again, and
I liked being able to make her appear in this way - like Aladdin with his lamp.
She now carried a cup and saucer with a bit of cake on the side. She'd disposed
of her hat and coat, and wore a dress, more lavender than blue. I thought: What
a pity that, being a married man, I can't fuck you, because you'd certainly
make a very nice armful.

'My
mate's gone off,' I said. 'I'll take the room if that's all right.'

She
opened the door wider to let me in, turned and put her cup down on the bottom
stair, and held out her hand. The house was boiling warm. The woman raised her
arm over my shoulder and pushed the front door to.

'I'm
Miss Rickerby,' she said, as the door closed behind me.

'Pleased
to meet you,' I said. 'Stringer.'

And
I found that we were exchanging smiles rather than shaking hands. I could tell
immediately that she was at odds with the house. The place ought to have belonged
to an older person. A clock ticked softly, and I thought of people's holidays
ticking away. Would this hallway look any different in the summer months? It
seemed all faded, and with a suspicion of dust. Also, it was kept hot as the
houses of old people - those that can afford it - generally are. And the paint
smell made it seem more, not less, old. Even the fanlight over the door was
old, I thought, half craning round towards it, with old colours in it: a
mustardy yellow, a green and a red of the sort seen in church stained glass.