The Blackpool Highflyer (14 page)

I unlocked the door, walked into the house and sat down
on the sofa, not breathing. It came as a relief, a few moments
later, to hear the steady chimes of midnight coming up from
the parish church. I stared at the closed door, and thought
about how a good cold snap would put an end to all this
nonsense in the streets. When the chimes ended, I stood up
to put on a brew, and as I did so the letter box flipped open.
I flew at the door and looked up and down Back Hill Street,
but that's all I saw: the street and the quarter moon, looking
like a painting.

Bright sunlight and the clanging of hooves woke me up
early the next morning, the Saturday, and, as I climbed out of
bed, I thought: did I go and see a ventriloquist last night, or
did he come and see me? I ought not to have been standing
next to the fellow in the bar like that. It was against all the
rules. Then there was Paul of the Socialist Mission. I knew I'd
said too much to someone. Or had it all been just kids in the
streets and bad beer?

Leaving the wife to sleep, I stepped out, and saw a pan­technicon drawing up. The remover was in the driving seat
but there was no sign of our lodger.

The remover leapt down, and said: 'Upstairs, is it?' He
opened the doors at the back, took out a chair, and darted into
the house with it. I watched as the remover took in various
articles and, as he did not see any need to say anything, it was
like watching a burglary in reverse. Just then a young fellow
in a black suit came wandering into the court, and he
looked
a
George Ogden somehow: biggish and rather round. He was
wearing a high collar even though it was a Saturday, and he
was all
waistcoat,
the garment in question being shiny black
with many little secret slits and vents and special pockets for
small things. Laced into it through special holes was a watch
chain, which hung across this fellow's belly like a golden
banner. I knew that I had marvelled at this waistcoat before -
and that I must have done so down at the Joint.

He was about of an age with me. He stuck out his hand:
'What's your label?' he said, and he not only shook my hand
but clapped me on the back.

'Jim Stringer,' I said.

'Which makes you the master of the house.'

'I am the
man
of the house’1 said, carefully.

George Ogden gave me a look - curious, like, but friendly.
He had a round face, and a lot of curly hair which looked like
smoke that had tumbled upwards from a chimney and
stopped.

The remover was toiling away in the background, now
carrying a bundle of George Ogden's books. I caught sight of
the title of one:
Letters of Descartes.
They were all from the
Everyman Library.

'I've come along to see that this man takes proper care of
my things’ said George Ogden loudly, and just then he
turned to the remover: 'Good morning to you.'

The remover made no reply, but carried on removing.

'Very independent unit, that chap’ said George Ogden.

'The wife tells me you work at the Joint,' I said. I didn't like
to say: You're a clerk, because to my ears that sounded
unkind. 'I wondered if that's where you saw the advertise­ment?'

He nodded. 'Presently in the booking office,' he said, 'but I
like to think I have the steam in me to go a good deal further.
What line are you in?'

'Engine man,' I said, and for the first time since beginning
on the footplate I said it without boastfulness.

'What.
..
driver?'

'Hope to be in time,' I said automatically. 'But just at the
moment firing.'

'I like to think I'm a ticket clerk only on the outside,' said
our lodger, at which I took a good look at him, thinking: well,
there's a lot
of
your outside.

'Are you on goods or passengers?' he asked. 'Don't say
you're on the express runs?'

I fancied he half wanted me to be on the expresses, and half
not.

'I'm on the excursions,' I said.

'Oh yes
...
Do you think one of us should hold that horse?'
he said, nodding towards the removal man's nag.

'It's standing perfectly still’ I said.

'I know’ said George Ogden, and then he seemed quite lost
again for a second. 'But there are some valuable items in that
van, I don't mind telling you.'

Wondering about what sort of goods we were getting here,
with this funny fellow, I inched my way around to the back of
the van so I could get a clue to his character from his posses­sions, saying as I did so: 'I suppose you spend half your time
selling tickets for our show - the excursion runs, I mean, espe­cially the Blackpool trips. There was a stone put on the line to
Blackpool last week. Did you hear of that? My mate and me
were the ones who found it in our way.'

'Yes,' said George, 'I did hear of that.'

'A lass was killed when we clapped on the brakes,' I said.

Thoroughly bad show,' said George. 'Not quite
cricket,
if
you see what I mean.'

'We'll find out who put it there,' I said. 'You can bet your
boots.'

'You've a lot of plants,' I said, for I had now inched my way
around the back of the van, where there was a whole forest of
ferns and rubber plants.

'They're all new,' said George Ogden proudly. 'I'm a lover
of nature, Mr Stringer.'

'Well I'd say they needed a drink.'

'Reckon so?'

'The leaves of that fern - they're sort of crinkly, and look

A book had been pitched in among the leaves of the fern: a
book of plays by George Bernard Shaw. I picked it out.

'They're going brown at all the edges’ I said.

'What? The books?' said George. 'Better get 'em read, in
that case.'

'The plants’ I said.

George was looking up at such quantity of sky as could be
seen between the two rows of houses in Back Hill Street,
which was a small amount, but at that moment very blue.

'Every Sunday,' he was saying, 'I mean to be on my bike,
getting to know the beginnings of Derbyshire.'

'What bike?' I said, for there was none in the van.

'It's to be sent by the Nimrod Cycling Company,' said
George.

'Oh yes?' I said, scrambling down from the van.

'When they've built it. You see, the kind I've put in for is in
advance of any of the machines they have presently avail­able.' He took a little bag of sweet stuff from one of his many
pockets and held it out for me. 'So far,' he continued, 'their
models are all just so much ironmongery. Comfit?' he said.

'Thanks,' I said, and I put my hand into the bag, but all the
comfits were stuck together in the heat so I gave it up after a
second, but George Ogden continued to hold out the bag.

'Carry on, old man,' he said, 'you haven't quite gained
your object.'

I shook my head and smiled, at which he took the bag in
two hands, and began straining to break a lump of comfit off
for me, going rather red in the process.

The remover was back in the van again as the comfits
cracked. George handed a lump of them to me, and we both
stood there crunching away as the removal man worked.

'Interesting what you say about those plants, old man,' said
George, very thoughtfully, through a mouthful of comfits. 'I
thought the leaves were
supposed
to go brown at a certain time?'

I tried to give him a few points about plants, as the remover
came and went, grumbling in an under-breath, sometimes
dropping things and not always picking them up. The subject came back to railway tickets. George said that
the ticketing at the Joint was all pills, and that with a brand
new way of going on, which he had thought up the night
before, the Lanky would be able to double its profits, but I
was prevented from hearing about this plan by the removal
man, who came up to George when the van was empty:
'That's you in,' he said, at which George Ogden reached into
his waistcoat (I wondered if there were as many pockets
inside as on the outside), and produced a pocket book. In this
he found a ten-bob note, which he handed over to the
remover. He was given some change in the form of one coin,
which he looked at for quite a while, before giving it a home
in his waistcoat and saying to the remover, 'I'm very much
obliged to you, sir, you can be certain that I will be recom­mending you to all at the office.'

As the remover drove off, George bent over and picked up
a boot that the man had dropped, saying: 'Did you smell the
ale on his breath? And to think I could have hired the van and
done the job myself for half the price.'

'Where did you get him from?' I said.

'From the small ads of the
Courier,'
said George, 'the
very
small ads. Should have known not to take a chance on a fel­low who can't run to a line of bold type.'

'He did seem a bit surly,' I said.

'Devilish
surly,' said George Ogden, 'and a butterfingers to
boot.'

He then lowered himself down to pick up a book that had
also been dropped.

This, I saw, was
Letters of Descartes
again - in Everyman like
the last.

'You've two copies of that, you know,' I said. 'I saw one
earlier.'

'Well,' said George, 'I take six a month from the catalogue,
and sometimes I pick one I've had before.'

'Why?'