The Last Train to Scarborough (17 page)

'That artist is coming it a bit,'
I said.

'How's that?' asked Vaughan.

'Looks like a Class S, does that
engine. But you'd never see one of those on dock duties - not in a million
years.'

'Why not, Jim?' asked Vaughan,
but I could tell he wasn't really bothered either way.

'Too big,' I said. 'They're
hundred mile an hour jobs. The company's not going to waste 'em on loading
fish.'

Vaughan nodded as though he was
satisfied with this. He slid over another card.

'Summer Series,' he said.

This too was from a painting. It
showed a sea cliff in twilight. 'The Yorkshire Coast' read the heading. Then:
'Railway stations within easy reach. For particulars write to the Chief
Passenger Agent, Department 'A, North Eastern Railway, York.' Vaughan was
eyeing me again. I felt minded to ask what he was playing at, but couldn't
quite see my way to doing it. Another card was put down: a photograph of a signal
gantry on what looked like a foggy day.

'Where's that?' I said.

'Search me,' said Vaughan.

'That one's crossed,' I said,
pointing to one of the signals, which had a wooden cross nailed over the
arm.'... Means it's out of commission.'

'That right, Jim?' said Vaughan.
'Interesting is that.'

But he wasn't interested in the
least.

Out came another card. A station
master and a couple of porters stood on a little country platform somewhere.

'That fellow's managed to get his
dog into the picture,' said Vaughan, pointing, and then another card came from
the packet and was put down. This showed a flat-bed wagon carrying a great
boiler or some such outsized article that overhung the wagon by about six
feet. A handful of railway officials stood about grinning foolishly.

'Out-of-gauge load,' I said.

'However would they move a thing
like that, Jim?' asked Vaughan, who kept looking over my shoulder, as though
expecting someone to come up behind me. But the pub was still quite empty.

'They've to keep the next track clear,'
I said.

Vaughan nodded.

'They'd run a breakdown wagon
along behind it,' I said. 'A crane, I mean, to lift it clear of any obstacles
that might come up trackside. Fancy another?' I said, indicating our empty
glasses. Vaughan gave a quick nod; I walked up to the bar, shouted 'Rose!' and
the trick worked for me too.

When I came back to the table and
handed Vaughan his pint he took down his feet from the stool, and ran his hands
through his long hair. He then blew his nose on the blue handkerchief, and I
saw that there was another card in my place, and this was a comic one, like a
picture out of the funny papers. It showed a baby in a cot, and the words above
read: 'A Present from Scarborough'.

'One for the holiday makers,'
said Vaughan, who was now fiddling with his pipe.

'Enough said,' I replied, giving
a grin. But then a thought struck me: 'I don't suppose
this
one was sold on the stations.'

'Not likely,' said Vaughan. 'This
isn't one of the Fielding lot. I'm a sort of free agent now when it comes to the
cards.'

He'd got his pipe going properly
at last. Rose had gone away from the bar again. Vaughan said, 'I bring a good
many over from France, as a matter of fact, Jim.'

'Oh yes?' I said. 'Pictures of
French trains, would that be?'

'Not quite, Jim,' and he put down
another card, which showed a lady holding a bicycle.

She had no clothes on.

I looked up at Vaughan, who was
frowning slightly and sucking on his pipe in a very thoughtful manner.

'Do you suppose she means to get
on that bike?' I said, handing back the card.

Vaughan took his pipe out of his
mouth and gave a grin.

'I think the saddle's set a
little too high, Jim,' he said. 'But she looks a game sort, doesn't she? Matter
of fact, I
know
she is.'

'You know her?' I said.

'Home grown, she is,' he said,
and I didn't quite take his meaning.

He now returned the package to
the cape pocket, and I was relieved at that. I wasn't well enough acquainted
with Vaughan to talk sex with him.

He said, 'Drink up, Jim, or we'll
be late for supper,' and we walked out of the pub, and reversed our steps, with
no sound in the Scarborough Old Town but the breathing of the German Sea.

For a while, nothing was said between
us. Vaughan seemed to have attained his object in showing me that particular
card, and it had done its work - I'd been made to feel rather hot by it, which
brought Amanda Rickerby more and more to mind. Not that I hadn't seen plenty of
similar ones before. They would do the rounds of any engine shed, and there was
an envelope in the police office that was full of them, and marked 'Improper'.
Any stuff of that nature discovered on a train (down the back of a seat or
folded into a newspaper on the luggage rack) and taken into the lost luggage
office would not be collected or enquired after, and would come to us. But the
rum thing was that when it was placed in the
left
luggage it wouldn't be called for either. So we had our ever-growing file in
the police office containing pictures and little home-made- looking books, and
one day the Chief said to me, bold as you like, 'Every man in this office looks
at that file when left alone,' a remark that put me on the spot rather, and was
no doubt meant to do so. I just coloured up and changed the subject, for I
had
leafed through it from time to time.

No one ever suggested throwing it
out, anyhow.

As we walked along Newborough, I
noticed a little alleyway going off to the left directly before Bright's Cliff,
and this one ran steeply but smoothly down to the Prom, almost like a slipway
for ships, rather than ending in a steep drop. A woman stood shivering halfway
down it, and she eyed us directly and took a step towards us as we went past.

'You might form your own opinion
as to how she gets her living, Jim,' said Vaughan.

'That would be the quickest way
down to the beach, wouldn't it?' I said.

'Eh?' he said.

'Where she stood?'

'It would, Jim,' he said, 'but
the beach is for summer.'

The woman had retreated into her
doorway, and so my gaze shifted to the black, writhing sea beyond. The wind was
getting up. As we gained the cobbles of Bright's Cliff, I said, 'What happened
to Fielding's post card company?'

'Lost the North Eastern
contract,' said Vaughan.'. . . Back end of 1912, hardly a year after we
started. Went bust as a consequence.'

'Why?'

'The cards weren't liked. I mean,
cross-eyed station masters on lonely platforms, busted signals, details of dock
working, "Sunderland Station Illuminated and Photographed by Kitson
Light". Fielding found all that interesting but you see he's an intellect,
is old Howard ... or so he tells me. He lacks the common touch.'

'Is he in with you as regards the
...?'

'The continental specialities? He
is not. Well, he
wouldn't
be, now would
he?'

'You keep it a secret from him,
do you?'

Vaughan stopped walking, as if to
make a declaration.

'I see nothing shameful in it,
Jim,' he said, 'and so it's not kept secret - not from men, anyhow.'

'Does Fielding approve?'

'Not exactly, Jim,' said Vaughan.
'Not exactly.'

'How does he get his living?' I
enquired.

'He has private means, Jim. We're
both lucky in that way. His old man did well for himself in the law, you know.'

'Barrister?'

'Solicitor,' he said, and he was eyeing
me. The word made me turn white as paper at the thought of all that lay ahead.

'Is his old man still alive?'

'Hardly, Jim. Howard's pushing
sixty, you know.
My
old man
is
living.'

'Where?'

'Streatham,' he said, taking his
key from his pocket as we approached the door of Paradise. 'A very dismal place
in London that suits his character to perfection, Jim. But I shouldn't complain
really. The old boy puts five pounds in the post every month, which is not
riches but better than a poke
in
the eye with a blunt stick.'

'Miss Rickerby doesn't usually
run to a hot tea on Sundays, does she?' I enquired, as Vaughan pushed at the
door.

'She does not. Of course, you
know why she's laying it on tonight?'

'I've no notion,' I said.

'I'd say it was all on your account,
Jim,' he said, and we stepped into the hot hallway and a smell of cooking.

Vaughan darted straight upstairs.
I removed my hat and great-coat, then turned and tidied my hair in the hall
mirror. I tried to tell myself this was normal behaviour before supper taken in
company, but in fact I was only doing it for Miss Rickerby's sake. It must be
true, if Vaughan had noticed it, that the lady had taken a shine to me, but
that didn't mean she wasn't out to kill me.

This time I did hang my coat in
the hall, first checking that my warrant card was stowed safely in my
suit-coat. I followed the food smell along the hallway, coming first to what I
imagined to be the dining room. It was on the front side of the house: a faded
room with a table that could have sat six but had cutlery laid for five, which
must mean that Amanda Rickerby and her brother would eat with we three paying
guests. The white cloth was a little askew and nearly, but not quite,
completely clean. Also, the wallpaper - decorated with a design of roses the
colour of dried blood - had come away a little around the two gas lamps that
roared softly on the end walls, and there was a black soot smudge above the
fireplace, like a permanent shadow.

Two paintings hung from the
picture rail that ran round the room. The first was above the fireplace smudge,
and rocked a little in the updraught of a moderate, spluttering blaze. It was a
painting of a sailing ship, with a rather dusty name plate at the bottom: 'Her
Majesty's Wood Framed Iron Frigate "Inconstant", 16 Tons.' Was it any
good? It wasn't signed - not that I could see. Perhaps it was signed on the
back. As I looked at it, the fire fluttered and the flute note came. Again, the
fireplace was small and imperfectly swept. Crouching down, I saw that a fancy
pattern was set into the black iron over-mantel, like the badge of a king. It
was a museum piece really.

The second painting was on the
wall over-opposite, and showed a high, thin, brightly lit house with smaller
ones massed below as though combined in a great effort to raise it up.
Scarborough from the sea. The harbour stood in the foreground and that gave
the clue: it was Paradise of course, and I made out my own room - the top one,
and the brightest of the lot.

The kitchen was next to the
dining room, and the food cooked in it would have to be carried the half a
dozen yards between the two doors. The kitchen door stood open. The gas gave a
yellow light, and the walls were of white brick. The place was stifling. There
was a great table, bigger than the one in the dining room, and Amanda Rickerby
stood at one end of it, her brother at the other. She was singing lightly. I
caught the words, 'Why are you lonely, why do you roam?' and I knew the song
but couldn't lay name to it. She broke off (not on my account, for she still
hadn't seen me) and, pointing at a pot bubbling on the range, said, 'Egg yolk.'

Her brother went to the larder to
fetch an egg, and Miss Rickerby carried on singing - 'Have you no sweetheart,
have you no home ...' - and she could sing so very well that I was almost sorry
when she saw me and stopped, and smiled, at the same time pushing something
behind the knife polisher, which was one of a great mix-up of things on the big
table. She knew I'd seen her do it, but this only made her smile the wider, as
though it was all part of the game that seemed to be going on between us.