The Lost Luggage Porter (17 page)

I gave her the tale, the whole of my double game, leaving out only my suspicion that Sampson had done for the Camerons, and concluding:

'By rights I'm not supposed to have told you any of this.'

The wife was looking at me in a mysterious sort of way - half amused, I thought.

'You are to keep it dark,' I said, thinking of Sampson standing in the cart.

Still no reply - just the dark eyes looking at me in the dark room.

'You wanted me in the police,' I said, 'and this is what police work comes down to.'

'I wanted you out of an occupation that was not suited to your intellect,' said the wife, after a space.

It was the first time she'd come out with anything of that sort. I'd thought all along she'd set her face against railway work because it was mucky.

I said: 'Firing's no picnic, you know: one shovelful of coal in the wrong spot, down goes the pressure and you're knack­ered; and driving's just as tricky.'

I finished off the bottle of Smith's, and turned towards the wife.

'What is the effect of notching up the gear upon the steam cycle within the cylinder?' I asked her. 'Any notions on that point? No? Try this then: what are the eight name positions of the crank?'

'You're the crank, Jim Stringer,' she said.

'Tell you what,' I said. 'You're off the hook if you can name me one.'

'You're not happy in the police, then?'

'You know very well I'm not.'

I walked through to the kitchen to collect another bottle of Smith's from the pantry.

'Off the footplate,' I said, returning to the parlour, 'you see the world as it really is ...'

'And how is it?'

'Everybody spends too long in one place. I have a need for speed.'

I sat down on the rocking chair, and the wife came over and sat on my knee, saying, 'Well, you have the Humber.'

We sat there in silence for a while.

Some voices came from the direction of the Fortune, but just when I thought they were about to grow loud, they faded away.

"There are three people in one rocking chair,' said the wife, after a while.

'I wouldn't half mind putting the fixments on that lot,' I said, thinking of the cart rolling away down Lendal, the cutting cylinder rolling back and forth inside it, like a clock ticking.

'I'm doing some letters for Hunter and Smallpage just at the moment,' said the wife (who was evidently still thinking of the rocking chair, for she was speaking of the shop where we'd bought it) '. . . they call themselves "a firm of forty years'
standing",'
she continued,'. . . and yet almost all their business is selling chairs ...'

I looked at the wife; she could be a queer sort, at times.

'You've your report to write tomorrow, I suppose’ she said, standing up, for I'd mentioned that part of the job, too.

'Aye’ I said, 'in fact I think I'll make a start now, while it's all fresh in my mind.'I moved the typewriter and the sweet jars across to one side of the strong table, laid out on it the papers given me by Weatherill and, having placed carbons beneath, began to write. With the wife looking on, I set out at the top of the first page the headings insisted on by Weatherill, thinking, now ought I to begin with meeting Lund at the War Memorial? I decided to leave him out of it, as before, and so started with the moment I walked into the Big Coach.

After five minutes of watching me write, the wife said: 'You're not to eat the Opopanax, but you can have one of the Parma Violets.'

I took one of the sweets, looking at her, thinking hard. I was now up to the point at which Sampson went off to meet his layer, and Hopkins was preparing to leave for the rail­way station.

After another five minutes or so, the wife rose swiftly to her feet, went into the kitchen, and came back with some bread, soup and hotcake, which I ate as I continued to write, and the wife continued to watch.

Suddenly, she stood up, declaring: 'I cannot stand the slow travel of your pen!'

'You said I was an intellect!' I shot back.

'I'll type your reports,' said the wife, and she was already at it: chivvying me out of the chair, and winding a new one of the report sheets into her machine.

'It's late,' I said.

'What do you put at the top?' she asked.

'"Special Report",' I said, 'then "Subject: Persons Wanted".'

'That's a waste of words,' said the wife, but she was type­writing all the same, asking, 'And how do you begin the actual reports?'

'How do you mean?'

'What form of words do you start with?'

'You've to start: "I beg to report".'

'That's ridiculous,' said the wife. 'We'll start with "I respect­fully submit..." Now, you speak it out, I'll take it down.'And so the wife learnt in more detail about Hopkins and Sampson, and all that had happened in the goods yard. And it was much quicker this way, for she typed fourteen to the dozen - at least as fast as I could speak. Occasionally she would eat an Opopanax, occasionally she would ask a ques­tion. She wanted to know what was in the cylinder, and I explained as best I could.

'They're safe-breakers,' she said, quite delighted. 'It's like a penny shocker.'

When we reached the point at which we'd all spilled out of the goods yard, I thought I'd better let Weatherill know that this occurred at the very spot where the Camerons had been shot, and so the wife learnt all about this matter too, at which she stopped typewriting, saying: 'You're in danger here, you know.'

'Once things get too hot, I'll just do a push,' I replied. 'Besides, I don't think they'd run to shooting a policeman.'

'But they don't know you're a policeman.'

'That's true,' I said. 'I was forgetting.'

'You're quite certain of that, aren't you?'

'Of what?'

'That they don't know.'

'Do leave off,' I said, 'of course I am.'

She carried on taking my dictation until I came to the moment when Mike, the Blocker, had apologised for lam­ming me, and I'd apologised for calling him a 'fucking rot­ter'. The wife was shaking her head, as I came out with this, saying, 'That goes down as "He uttered foul language".'

'You must write it out,' I said. 'Just put "f" and a line.'

'Why were you given this work to do?' said the wife. 'You're brand-new on the job. You've no experience.'

'That's exactly why,' I said. 'The Chief was taking advan­tage of the fact that I'm not known.'

'Taking advantage full stop, if you ask me,' said the wife.

The Great Doing

'What are you reading?' asked the wife.

'Police Gazette,'
I said. 'Deserters and Absentees from His Majesty's Service.'

We were in the living room, waiting for the knock that would signify the arrival of my father for his Sunday visit. I turned the page and it came.

Just as I stood up to open the door, I noticed, on the very top of the scrap papers in the fire basket, the words 'LADIES' COLUMN by "Lucy"'. It was one of the ones sent by dad to the wife in the hopes of turning her into the more common run of housewife, but it was too late to do anything about it now. I had the door open and Dad was stepping in, remov­ing his brown bowler.

'Harry,' said the wife, and she rose from the sofa and they kissed.

'Now you mustn't stand up, dear,' said Dad.

Leaving aside his being forty years older, he looked like an indoor version of me: pinker and more rounded, better maintained.

'Well, you know, I
like
standing up, Harry,' said the wife. 'It is one of my favourite activities.'

'But in your condition, Lydia’ said Dad.

He was standing at the fireplace now, in his Sunday-best suit, boots gleaming. 'You do look well on it, though, I must say. Absolutely blooming, isn't she, James?'

He was looking about the room - searching for the sewing machine. I'd forgotten to put it out.

'Journey all right, Dad?' I said.

'Yes, all right, lad,' he said. 'A bit blowy coming along the cliffs.'

The wife was watching him very carefully as he folded his gloves and placed them inside his bowler hat. He knew she was doing this, and he coloured up a little. A good deal of his gentlemanliness was new, a luxury afforded by a comfort­able retirement, and he was liable to be embarrassed over it. He said:

'The waiting room at Ravenscar blew clean away, last month, you know.'

'But how could it?' said the wife, evidently fascinated.

'Well, it was made of wood, for one thing,' said Dad.

'They built it out of wood with the gales they get up there?' said the wife. 'Has nobody in that company read
The Three Little Pigs?'

Dad didn't know what to make of this, and went a little redder.

'I don't know I'm sure, dear. You must take it up with your husband . . . Oh, before I forget,' he said, and he took out from his inside pocket a pen which he handed over to me.

'Now you're working at a desk,' he said, and he handed me a pen.

I recognised it. This was Dad's Swan fountain pen, his best one. Receipts to the gentry were always written with it - and I'd often tried to puzzle out the secret of its smoky green and black decoration.

'I can't take this, Dad.'

'Look after it,' he said, 'and it'll be a lifelong friend. I always meant to give you it when you started work, but first you were portering, then on the engines. There was no call for a pen.'

'I'm not always at a desk’ I said, looking at the wife. 'A fair amount of the work is outdoors.'

'But it's not as if you're patrolling a beat ... Is it?' he added, rather anxiously.

'I'm a detective, Dad, in the plainclothes section. I've told you this before.'

'Detective?' he said. 'That sounds a rather superior grade.'

'It is the very lowest grade on the plainclothes side’1 said.

'The lowest grade in a superior division’ said Dad, who was now removing another article from his pockets. It was small and squarish, and wrapped in brown paper. He hand­ed it to the wife, saying: 'This is for you, Lydia, love.'

'Thank you, Harry,' she said. 'Whatever is it?'

'Cheese’ he said, 'best cheddar.'

'I'll go and put it in the pantry straight away’ said the wife.

'No, no, let me, dear. I need to go to the little room as well. That's ...'

'Out in the garden’ I said.

Dad took the cheese back from the wife, and handed over a slip of paper to her as he did so.

'Brought you another of these, love’ he said.

He turned and walked through to the kitchen, and I looked at the wife. It was another 'LADIES' COLUMN by "Lucy"' snipped from the
Whitby Gazette.
She read out loud: 'There are many dishes which are much improved in rich­ness and flavour by the addition of a sprinkling of grated cheese.'

'Well that's the mystery of the present solved’ she said, putting the cutting into the fire basket, from where I retrieved it and placed it on the table next to the typewriter.

The wife was now putting on her cape and gloves, while I took my cap off the hook on the front door. We had a plan for the day, and it was now being put into effect.

'We thought we'd go off to church,' said the wife, when Dad came back from the privy. 'Oh good,' said Dad.

And we all stood there looking at each other.

The day was darkish, drizzly. A grey cloud sat squarely over Thorpe-on-Ouse like an island in the sky. On the long path cut diagonally through the churchyard, we fell in with a thin stream of churchgoers, as the sound of a distant train filled the sky: a Leeds train or London train. It rattled away, leaving the cold, old sound of church bells. The wife had spied Lillian Backhouse, and, having made her excuses to Dad, had dashed on ahead. Lillian Backhouse, I knew, did not believe in God but went to church only because her husband was the verger. As far as I knew, most of the suffragists were like Lillian: non-believers. But Lydia did believe, and I went to church - sometimes - because she went, whereas Dad went to church because he thought it was the gentlemanly thing to do.

St Andrew's Church smelt of damp kneelers and old flags and banners. These hung down dead from the roof. They were set in rows above the pews, and reminded me some­how of the moving cranes in a locomotive erecting shop. The wife had re-joined us at our regular pew, which was at the back. Major Turnbull's pew, of course, was at the front, and when he walked in, making along the aisle towards it, I pointed him out to Dad, who was not in the least interested, which knocked me rather.

'No fresh meat to be seen in your kitchen, James,' he whis­pered, so that the wife would not hear. 'Do you not have a joint on Sundays?'

'Not every Sunday’ I said.

'In your larder’ he said, 'the emphasis is rather on the can. A young lady in Lydia's condition,' he continued, lowering his voice yet further, 'needs a regular supply of good, fresh meat.'

'Well’ I said, 'she's living on raspberry-leaf tea and hum­bugs just now.'

'The baby will be small’ he said.

'They generally are, aren't they?'

He ignored that, but turned into a different channel:

'Where does Lydia wash the clothes, James?' he asked.

'In the bathtub,' I said.

It was the wrong answer.

After the service, I reflected that Dad was bringing out the suffragist even in me. He'd never done a hand's turn about the house. As a widower he'd always had help: a half-time maid when I was a boy, and now Mrs Barrett, his housekeeper.

Afterwards, the three of us stood in the churchyard, and the wife said: 'Lillian's going to look in later.'

Then the wife said, 'The river's just nearby, you know, Harry.'

'We thought we might have a swing out there,' I said, for this was the second part of the plan.

Dad said: 'Are you sure you're able, my love?'

'Quite sure’ said the wife, shortly.

'How are things in Baytown, Dad?' I asked as we set off past the front of the Archbishop's Palace.

'I'm kept pretty busy with the meetings of the Conserva­tive Club. It was our annual meeting on Monday. Very good attendance, considering .. .'

'Considering that you lost,' I put in, which I'd done because I'd feared the wife might, and it would come much worse from her. Dad already knew me for a Labour man, his own son a lost cause.

'I consider it a blessing in disguise that the Liberals got in, James. It'll give us the chance to put our house in order.'

He turned to the wife.

'You're still campaigning, are you, dear?'

We're in for bother now, I thought, as the wife nodded, saying:

'Church League for Women's Suffrage and Women's Social and Political Union.'

'Well, that sounds enough to be going on with,' said Dad, as the wife strode on ahead, opening up a little ground between herself and Dad and me. We were walking past the old, ruined church on the riverbank now, and the few grave­stones that stood at crazy angles around it.

'You know,' said Dad, to the back of the wife's hat, 'women have got along perfectly well up to now without the vote. Why should they want it now all of a sudden?'

"This is a new century,' said the wife, striding on, as though about to walk into the river, 'and women want new things.'

'They want the vote,' said Dad.

'And other things besides,' said the wife.

'Such as what?' said dad.

'Sexual liberation,' said the wife, without looking back, and Dad turned to me with his mouth open and a look of panic on his face.

We are unbalanced, I thought, as we came to a wet, slip­pery sty, and Dad helped the wife over, neither of them say­ing anything; there ought to have been another female in the picture, but there again perhaps there would be in a little under a month's time. We were right by the river now. It was wide and cold, carrying more brightness in its golden colour than the sky, and hard to look at, somehow.

To our left were the private riverside grounds of the Arch­bishop's Palace, to the right the muddy path that lead towards Naburn Locks. We walked on in silence for a while, then Dad said to me: 'Hodgson has a new shed down on the front.'

'What for?'

'Boils crabs in it.'

The wife looked back at us, pulling a face.

'He doesn't do it for fun, you know,' I called ahead to her. 'He's a fisherman.'

The Hodgsons were one of the three or four big fishing families in Baytown. Dad didn't hold with them. They were vulgar sorts, he thought, stinking at all times of fish or foul cigars. Also, anybody eating fish was not eating meat, and Dad had been a butcher most of his life. Thinking on, it was a wonder he stayed put in that spot for so long. If he could have, he would have taken a rope and dragged the whole of Baytown up the cliff and away from the sea.

We began to hear the noise of the weir, and presently we stood before it, the water racing over the smooth stone slopes. It was not possible to speak in that stream of din. The swing bridge that carried the London trains over the river lay beyond. It looked like a steel tower that had over-toppled.

We turned about, and were back home for two o'clock. It was dinner time but there was no dinner, only tea, which the wife had half-prepared, so I put off the subject of food, made up the fire and lit the gas (for it was already dark outside). Dad looked at the pocket knife on the mantelshelf, saying:

'This is a handsome one, James, where did you get it?'

I don't recall answering, but poured him out a bottle of beer, and sat him on the chair near the fire, where he went to sleep in short order. I suggested that the wife have a lie- down, but she went off to the kitchen to finish the tea, and I picked up the
Police Gazette
once more. At first, I didn't read, but thought of Baytown, stacked up on its cliff - not so much streets as steps. If you let fall a marble anywhere in the town, it would be on the beach within a minute. I thought of the fishing families, and how they carved model ships and sailed them in the rock pools, which proved they liked the sea in some way. It wasn't just something they were stuck with. Anybody could join in too, even the butcher's son, so I liked the fishermen . .. But the railway ran around the head­land, high and free, and timetables had held more fascina­tion for me than tide-tables.

I looked down at the
Police Gazette,
and, without thinking, turned over the page reading 'Deserters and Absentees from His Majesty's Service' to that reading 'Portraits of Persons Wanted'.

I read the by-now familiar words: 'Apprehensions Sought.' 'Metropolitan Police District,' I read, lighting on the top one on the page. 'Joseph Howard Vincent, whose arrest is sought for the murder of two police detectives at Victoria on August 23rd, 1902.' There was a bad picture. The fellow was blurred, and further away than the usual
Police Gazette
lot, as if he'd already started making his escape at the moment the picture was taken. He looked to be on a gangway of a ship. The sky was very large behind him, and half of it might have been sea, when I looked closer. 'Complexion fresh,' I read, 'rather high cheekbones, carries head rather forward, beard, dark grey mixture jacket suit, silk hat. Eyes small and shifty. Blue. Erect bearing; has a habit of biting his nails. Until the date of the murder he lived on the prostitution of a murdered woman. Two days after the murder he is said to have been at Great Grimsby. Sentenced at Durham Assizes, 21st April 1890, to seven years' penal servitude for burglary at a pawnbroker's and shooting at police. Will probably be found in hotels. Warrant issued. Information to be forwarded to the Metropolitan Police Office, New Scotland Yard, S.W.'