A Station In Life (28 page)
Authors: James Smiley
“Our reasons for wanting
rid of Jay may be different, gentlemen, but I think truncation of his tenure
here suits all parties,” he deliberated coldly.
“Oh, you think so,” I muttered,
tempted to step out and take control of events.
The cove cast his eye
about the room so Jack diverted him with a question.
“You ’aven’t said why
you want rid of ’im, sir?”
Bannerman realised that
he was dealing with someone as shrewd as himself so he answered very carefully.
“Well, let’s just say that
I’m closing off someone’s avenue of escape,” he replied, his preparations to
leave making his baggy overcoat heave like an angry bullock.
“Would that be Miss
Macrames?” Humphrey asked rhetorically. “Word has it Miss Macrames danced for
e at one time, then became Mrs Bannerman. I reckons she be your wife.”
“Common law wife,”
Bannerman corrected him.
“And now you won’t let
’er leave you,” Jack tested him.
Bannerman grunted
humourlessly and donned his hat.
“Well, e be one step
behind, sir,” Humphrey advised him. “It be the miller over at Upwater e needs
to ruin now, not the stationmaster. And for the record, let it be said that Mr
Jay be an excellent stationmaster and worth a dozen of e.”
Roundly outwitted,
Bannerman grunted again and resumed his departure. Whereupon I straightened up,
stepped forward and obstructed him, staring down my nose at the dwarf with
disdain. He recoiled with surprise and attempted to step around me, but I refused
to be stepped around.
“So this is a trap, is
it?” he protested.
“And it’s ’arvest time,”
Jack breathed over his shoulder.
Seeing my uncertainty, Humphrey
ushered me to one side.
“E see, Mr Jay, we
noticed Miss Macrames be a terrible Jonah, taintin’ every gent she associates
with, and when we put our heads together we calculated the most likely cause be
Mr Bannerman.”
“Rose is a gold digger and
deserves everything she gets,” Bannerman interrupted, then tried to push past Jack.
Jack stood his ground
and I joined him.
“If you please, I
believe we have business to discuss,” I insisted. “How soon can I expect a
retraction of these phoney complaints you have whipped up against me? And what
recompense have you in mind for the anxiety, sir, that I have suffered?”
“I’m afraid I no longer
hire magicians,” came the sarcastic reply.
“Then we shall have to trade
blows,” I declared. “I will begin by discrediting you in this community, and
in the business of discrediting people you will find that I am in a position to
do a better job than you managed, Mr Bannerman. Upon this you may rest
assured. Unless, of course, you see fit to redeem yourself while there is
still time.”
Bannerman made no reply,
although by now the certainty upon his face had drained. He barged past me
with the petulance of a music hall diva and slammed the door behind him.
“I reckon ’e don’t deserve
to be let off the ’ook so easy, Mr Jay,” Jack complained.
“Have no fear, Jack,” I
replied. “Bannerman is the self aggrandising kind of egotist who will fall
heavily enough upon his own sword when the time comes. In the meantime he will
devour himself with recrimination for being so gullible.”
“It was ’Umphrey who
sniffed ’im out,” Jack explained reluctantly, then boasted, “but the trap was
my idea.”
“Then thank you both,” I
responded humbly.
“Twer nothin’ sir,”
Humphrey warbled. Between e, me, and the fence post, Mr Jay, ’twer my brother
in Blodcaster who set the ball a rollin’. He heard a whisper, e see.”
I resolved to remain
worthy of the loyalty that my two colleagues had shown me but, as ever, Jack sought
to deflate me before I grew too large.
“Anyway, we don’t need
’elp from a weasel like Bannerman to get rid of you, sir.”
Jack left, but Humphrey
tarried.
“Mr Mildenhew were a
fine fellow, sure enough, but he weren’t of the same high calibre as your good
self, Mr Jay. E be a keen all-rounder who makes it a pleasure to work for the
railway.”
I was abashed to respond
to such fine remarks, but my blush turned to flush when the porter gazed in awe
at the polished cabinet containing the dummy telegraph instrument.
“Poor ol’ Mildenhew…
The fellow couldn’t even work the telegraph apparatus. Yet here e be, Mr Jay,
striving for even greater mastery.”
Somewhat shaken I returned
Humphrey to his work and sat before the dummy instrument to begin my first
practise session. Not a notable success, my head was still chattering with
‘clicks’ that should have been ‘clacks’ and ‘clacks’ that should have been
‘clicks’ when eventually I stepped outside to ‘right away’ the 10.29pm ‘down’
passenger train. This was a Third class service known as the ‘Parliamentary’
because of its statutory, one-penny-per-mile fare limit to accommodate the
valley’s poor folk. Upon its departure the overcrowded train caused me a most
unpleasant nausea, for locomotives burning cheap coal of the kind purchased by
the SER laid down a light grey fog smelling of rotten eggs. While normally not
troubled by the stink, just now I was worn down and had to dash to my quarters
to freshen up.
Regarding my future as a
railwayman, this now looked generally more favourable, for Miss Blake’s
resurrected heathen appeared to have lost his appetite, my dinner having been
eaten by its rightful owner, and there was no hint of a thunderstorm.
Furthermore, a clove of garlic now hung above my door and poisoned cheese
supplemented the traps that I had set earlier. My only remaining concern was
that I still had no time to attend church and consequently remained ‘a lamb
separated from the Lord’s herd’.
Earlier in the evening I
had seen Diggory returning from The Shunter surreptitiously clutching something
wrapped in wax-paper. I had been unable to investigate the boy’s unauthorised
excursion at the time because I was tapping out a message on the dummy
instrument and too tense to speak, but being able to recognise mischief when I
saw it I simply made a mental note. In all probability I would have forgotten
about the incident had I not chanced upon the wax-paper and its contents while
transferring the day’s takings from the Ticket office to the safe. Fat was
oozing from the greasy bundle and spoiling documents laid out across the
Booking clerk’s desk.
I called Diggory to come
and explain the mess. This was an optimistic exercise given that my platform
staff generally concluded their duties and left after the last train, and
especially as I had given the lad permission to leave by this train should he
have coal to carry, so I was surprised when he responded. Assuming him to be
occupied constructively, perhaps encouraged by his pay rise, I was puzzled that
his late working should necessitate skulking about in nooks and crannies. I
drew his attention to the foul slurry on Jack’s desk.
“Perhaps you would care
to explain this mess,” I challenged him.
Diggory seemed able only
to stare at me in silent appeal.
“Open it then,” I
instructed him.
When the young porter
unravelled the wrapper and presented it to me for inspection I discovered that
it contained an assortment of bones and what smelled like cooked chicken.
“Scraps?” I queried
him. “So you have been scrounging leftovers from the Shunter. Surely you are
not in such straits that you are reduced to begging, young man?”
“Spare me, Mr Jay, I
wouldn’t eat this mess. I was… I was going to put it up a tree.”
I stood akimbo, and
agape.
“Up a tree?” I queried
him. “This is the kind of thing lunatics do.”
“It’s for the tits,” the
Junior porter apprised me.
I lifted my hat and
scratched my head.
“Diggory, one day your
propensity for climbing will be your downfall, literally,” I said. “What
imperative is there to scale a tree at this time of night and adorn it with
offal? The birds have gone to roost, fellow.”
“I know that, sir,” the
lad replied, then faltered. “I was… I was going to put it out in the
morning.”
Something about this
business did not ring true.
“You will do no such
thing,” I checked him. “I cannot allow my staff to be seen swinging about in the
trees like monkeys. What would the public make of it? Neither can I allow you
to leave brock lying around overnight. Such things encourage vermin. Indeed I
have reason to believe we have rats upon us already. Dispose of it at once,
and clean up this desk before you go home.”
Wondering what Diggory
was up to I tutted loudly and left the Ticket office to retire for the night. Making
my way to my office it occurred to me that Humphrey might know what accounted
for the lad’s odd behaviour lately, and that if I hurried I might catch him
waiting outside the station for his lift home. Finding the porter upon the
forecourt struggling to don his giant overcoat with all the vigour of a bear in
a trap, I approached him for a word. By the time I reached the fellow he was,
for some reason, staring intently at the sky.
“Different story to last
night,” I observed, joining his gaze.
There seemed to be a
conspiratorial silence about the stars this night, their purpose a secret.
They appeared as pinholes of daylight escaping eternity, bright and steadfast
betwixt the valley’s sombre horizons, not twinkling as usual.
“It is the waking yawn
of creation, yet still you feel you could reach up and touch them,” I observed
humbly.
“I reckons they’m a
tryin’ to reach down and touch I, Mr Jay,” Humphrey replied. “August be the
month for shootin’ stars, right enough, for I’ve seen two on ’em in as many
minutes.”
“Humphrey, dear fellow,
if it is not an imposition I should like to have a word with you about
Diggory,” I redirected our conversation.
“Arr look,” the porter
interrupted me with a stubby finger raised heavenward. “Her makes three!”
Vaguely aware of a
streak of light, I persisted.
“About Diggory,” I
primed the fellow a second time.
“Funny thing,” he
ignored me, “most on em’s gone in a flash but now and then e sees a slow,
sparkly one.”
“Humphrey,” I barked, “I
have no wish to talk to your chin. If you would care to lower it I should like
to know of anything which might account for my Junior porter’s strange
behaviour lately. Now, have you any idea what causes it?”
“Course I does,”
Humphrey chortled heartily. “The boy is Diggory!”
I gave up.
“By the way, Humphrey,”
I began anew, “are there feral dogs hereabouts? I heard a most fearful howl
last night.”
“Arr, I expect the cry
of a vixen’s what e heard, Mr Jay,” the porter entertained himself. “Frighten
e, did it?”
Humphrey’s flippancy was
beginning to vex me.
“I have heard no fox
like it,” I retorted.
“Perhaps it were a gust
of wind in them telegraph wires, sir,” he sought to appease me. “They’m the
devil’s choir in a storm. I bin heard ’em emit an unearthly low hum afore
now. Fit to make your blood curdle.”
I almost choked upon
hearing this theory.
“No telegraph wire made
the sound I heard,” I declared with a raw laugh.
A Linton tradesman who
spent each night carousing in The Coach House circled his gig upon the station
forecourt and brought it to a clumsy halt beneath the awning. This was
Humphrey’s lift home so I bade the porter goodnight with a pat upon the back
and turned away to retire. Notwithstanding the stink of garlic, the absence of
a thunderstorm, and scattered poison, the departure of all my staff left me
feeling alone and vulnerable.
Chapter
Twenty-Four — A spook comes to stay
Walking the shadowy
platform back to my office after my starlit consultation with Humphrey I found
that I could not recall the vicar mentioning the charcoal burner’s final
resting place, and because there was nothing in parish records to indicate that
the outcast’s remains had eventually been admitted to the churchyard I began to
wonder if I did indeed have a skeleton beneath my floorboards.
Whilst I could
appreciate that an exhumation would have incited the same ugly prejudices that
had beset the charcoal burner’s burial in the first place I could not believe
that the so-called evil doer’s remains had simply been dug back into the soil
by a detachment of navvies. Yet upon reflection this seemed likely, for had
the church been magnanimous enough to allow the outcast’s remains to be
reburied in consecrated ground the vicar would have been proud to tell me about
it. Of this I had no doubt.
Earlier in the day I had
secreted a bottle of port wine in my office and thereto I strode to partake of
a measure, for whilst I had taken many steps to prevent after dark horrors,
this night I intended to sleep even should Beelzebub visit. Instantly I
thought he had! A figure sprang out of a doorway just ahead of me and turned
to stone upon the clashing of our eyes.
Instinctively I raised
my handlamp to the intruder to establish his identity. Staring back at me in
surprise, his guilty lineaments twisting rhythmically in the swinging
lamplight, was a youth.
“Diggory! What are you
doing here?” I bristled. “Should you not be on your way home by now?”
“Mr Jay,” he stammered,
having intended to avoid me, “I was only…”
“Shush!” I interrupted
him. “Listen. Do you not hear that noise?”
For some reason the lad
responded with only a timid stare.
“Bless my soul,” I
breathed. “If it isn’t that tapping I’ve been hearing at night. You must be
able to hear it too.”
Still Diggory said
nothing.
Looking over my shoulder
I saw my Rollingstock superintendent’s white eyes floating up the platform so I
called him over and invited him to follow me to the Booking hall to begin an
investigation. Mr Troke, wearing a rancid oilskin cape, was evidently working
late to cleanse the interior of a van in which fish had putrefied while in the
sidings. The three of us advanced with our noses pinched.
Once in the Booking hall
I led my two followers through the staff door into a short passage
communicating with the various offices. Having detected nothing untoward
during this phase of our search I continued with somewhat greater expedition to
the foot of the stairs leading to my private quarters, and here halted abruptly
with a finger pressed to my lips. Mr Troke, being more concerned with a shred
of tobacco caught between his teeth, walked into my back. Taken by surprise,
the oaf then trampled my heels with his heavy duty boots while trying to regain
his balance. I called a halt to his feeble apologies and listened once more
for the tapping.
At first I could hear
only my Rollingstock superintendent’s heavy breathing, something to which he
was prone while concentrating, but then I heard the tapping again.
“Mr Troke, do you hear
that noise?” I tested the fellow while dealing Diggory a withering look.
“Upshott’s Junior porter has cloth ears, you know, but if you listen carefully
I believe you will hear a tapping noise coming from beneath the floorboards.”
“Nay,” Mr Troke
contradicted me with a gappy grin. “Thither it is.”
Using his foot, the ill
bred fellow pointed lazily towards the Goods office door.
Almost immediately, and
for no apparent reason, Diggory took to loitering beside the staircase and was
reluctant to move aside when I attempted to advance. Confusion followed, and
during this the tapping grew louder, seemingly coming from several directions
at once. In an attempt to locate it, Mr Troke revolved himself several times
upon one heel with his head cocked studiously. I took no notice. I did not
envisage his grotesque ballet dance accomplishing very much apart from
dizziness so I set about my own method of tracing the elusive sound. Diggory
obstructed me again.
“Lad, what ails you?” I
snapped. “Can you not see that I wish to open this cupboard beneath the
stairs? Stand aside. Better still, fetch a spade. If we are up against a rat
we shall fare better with a bludgeon to hand. I just hope your marksmanship is
as good as they say it is.”
“Only with a catapult,
Mr Jay,” the rebellious scamp corrected me sullenly.
I ignored his impudence.
“Rat don’t have
catapults,” Mr Troke sniggered.
Only another Mr Troke
would have understood this remark.
“I’m no good with a club
or anything like that,” Diggory blurted an explanation of his reluctance.
I stared at the boy intently
until he took my hint, whereupon with an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm he
meandered away to the Platelayer’s hut to fetch a spade.
“Hurry!” I chivvied
him. “Now see here, William,” I turned to Mr Troke. “When I direct my lamp
beneath the stairs to flush out this blasted rodent, you must stamp your feet
to drive it towards Diggory. Diggory will then club it to death.” Mr Troke
chuckled manically in the quivering light and gave me an energetic nod of
approval. “More is the pity that we do not have a station dog,” I added. “A
little terrier would earn its crust handsomely at a time like this, what?”
“All roads lead to home,
sir,” Mr Troke agreed in his inimitable fashion, then pounded the floor in a
club-footed rehearsal of his part.
At length Diggory
returned with a long-handled shovel, and a long-handled face. He listened very
miserably to my plan and it seemed to me that he possessed surprising qualms for
a boy who had once assisted a rat catcher.
“Have you no heart for
this, nature boy?” I teased him, then turned to Mr Troke. “He feeds the tits,
you know.”
My Rollingstock
superintendent bombarded the corridor with a raucous laugh and tried to pull
the shovel from Diggory, but Diggory clung to it grimly.
“If you will not let
William do the job then you must do it yourself,” I told the scrupulous youth.
“Rats are not tits, you know. Unlike birds they spread disease and must be
killed.”
At last, with a sulky
nod, the lad agreed to cooperate and with Mr Troke breathing down my neck I
opened the cubby-hole door. A shard of light fractured the dark interior of
the cupboard and in response the tapping resumed. Not only did the tapping
resume, unattenuated it resumed loudly and I knew that I had located the source
of my torment.
“Rats don’t tap,” Mr
Troke observed succinctly as I placed my hand inside the hole.
“Well, something does,”
I whispered while retreating sharply. “And whatever it is, we have it.”
As I reached inside
again, Diggory startled me with a warning and dropped the shovel. Withdrawing
again, it shames me to say that I abandoned myself to a profanity, an utterance
so shocking that I was compelled to censure the lad for it. However, the
lambasting was short because of my need to maintain the initiative and I thrust
my lamp inside the cubby-hole once more. When I looked around I saw a broom, a
mop, a tinplate bucket, a jar of decaying macassar oil, and two luminescent
eyes. Bright green eyes. I leapt backwards.
My two colleagues stared
at me like dummies as I looked again in search of the words to express my
incredulity. As apprehension gave way to intrigue, then mirth, I stood aside
and allowed Mr Troke to share the spectacle. He coughed out his chewing
tobacco with a wheeze and gawped at the strange new addition to our cleaning
materials. But while his response was to stare with a slack jaw and slightly
crossed eyes mine was to convulse with laughter. Indeed, so visceral was my
outburst that it frightened my two colleagues, there being so much tension to
release.
Far from having
discovered a corpse in a rotten coffin I had discovered a puppy-dog, very much
alive, with its wiry tail wagging against the joinery beneath my stairs. Two
things now became clear. Diggory’s reluctance to assist had been borne of
concern for the furry mite presently blinking into my handlamp, and this
frightened little waif with luminous green eyes and pale, speckled nose had
been the cause of all my nocturnal misery. The anxious little fellow looked
far too innocent to have caused a stationmaster so many sleepless nights but
there was little doubting its culpability, for its tail was still making the
noise that had driven me to distraction, also I could see the evidence of its
attempts to scratch and gnaw its way out of the cupboard during the
thunderstorm. Hallelujah! There was no evil spirit!
I checked the
four-legged stowaway and found it to be a male. He tilted his head and barked
bravely, although just the once, and made no objection when I lifted him from
his gloomy prison with an embrace. Indeed, to show his gratitude he dispensed
a long, pink tongue and larruped my face.
“You, sir, have
shortened the sum of my days,” I indicted the animal gravely then handed him to
his co-conspirator. “This puppy is never again to be left alone,” I instructed
Diggory. “Especially during a storm. It is bad for him and it is bad for me.
Feeding the tits indeed, huh!”
Diggory hugged the
creature fondly.
“He’s an English
Setter,” he told me excitedly.
“He’s a trespasser,” Mr
Troke reminded the lad.
“Praise be, at least he
is not a charcoal burner!” I toppered them both, though they did not understand
the remark. “And as for you, Master Smith, I am greatly disappointed. I’ll be
bound if this dog did not fall off the circus train. What have you to say in
your defence?”
“Sorry, Mr Jay,” he
apologised sullenly. “I was going to put him aboard the train to Giddiford but
then I overheard someone say he would have his neck wrung if nobody claimed
him. Can’t we find him a home? Couldn’t I take him?”
“I have heard enough,” I
halted the lad.
Diggory’s future domestic
arrangements, three small rooms above a shop, would provide no space for a
growing dog. Besides, my duty was to censure the porter for his disobedience,
though in truth I was struggling to appear stern.
“Officially the dog is
lost property,” I reminded the boy. “And very probably he has a broken-hearted
owner somewhere, perhaps a young lad like yourself, pining for him.”
Diggory looked troubled
by this possibility and lifted his chin manfully, whereupon my attempt to be
severe was weakened further by his rubescent eyes and quivering top lip.
“Shall you rectify your
misdeed?” I softened.
“I’ll put the puppy
aboard the morning ‘up’, Mr Jay,” he undertook solemnly.
I was touched by the
lad’s adult sensibilities, and on the strength of this I decided to indulge him
a minor infraction of company rules.
“We shall keep the
little chap here at Upshott and notify Giddiford of what has happened,” I
declared. “If the puppy is unclaimed, well, I have no doubt that our Lost
Property clerk can be persuaded to endorse a solution which spares him
administrative inconvenience.”
“What solution?” Mr
Troke asked stupidly.
“To wit,” I ignored him,
“that we offer the animal a home here as a supernumerary. And I do not jest,
gentlemen. I think we might be well advised to place this little terror on the
payroll as a watchdog.”
The melancholy in
Diggory’s eyes was gone as he squeezed his new comrade tightly, the ball of
mushroom fur so flattened that its shiny black nose nearly popped off.
“He will be the
cleverest station dog on all the railways,” I was exhorted.
I brought the lad back
to earth with an outstretched finger.
“If he is unclaimed,” I reminded
him. “Now, I must make arrangements for the poor creature to spend the night
in company. No dog should be incarcerated on its own in the dark for days on
end, least of all an intelligent working breed. Tomorrow we shall think of a
suitable name for the critter, for I have no wish to be heard calling out ‘here
dog’ while at large.”
“He’ll be no passenger,”
Diggory put in. “I’ll teach him to do things.”
“Yes, well, a dog that
can sell tickets would be useful,” I responded wearily, reclaiming the animal.
“I reckon we could teach
him to lick baggage labels,” Mr Troke suggested, apparently in earnest.
Mr Troke worried me at
times but I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“Perhaps you have an
idea there, William. His tongue is long enough to wet a dozen at a time.”
After a staccato laugh,
Diggory counselled against the idea.
“He’d run off with them
stuck to his tongue!” he warned.
Who was in jest and who
was not I had little care to judge, for my backwards lean from the critter to
avoid another larruping was proving ineffective and I had need to wipe saliva
from my face again. During this operation with my best silk handkerchief I was
puzzled that the animal’s breath smelled of peanuts. I glanced at my fobwatch,
dismissed Diggory with instructions to find a lamp and set off home, then
tucked the dog under my arm where he could not douse me. The lad, unable to
wrench himself away from his newfound friend, lingered.
