The Blackpool Highflyer (19 page)

Clive couldn't have put the stone on the line, but he
could've asked somebody else to do it. He could have paid
them fair wages, just as he paid the cleaners to put a hexagon
shine on the buffer plates of the engines he fancied; just as the
socialist missionary, Paul, was paid fair wages by Alan
Cowan.

We were back on the Rishworth branch the Thursday and
Friday after the Scarborough run. I was able to get nothing
from Clive over his movements at Scarborough, and had
eventually given up.

On the Saturday afternoon, the wife went off to the Co­operative ladies to hear about 'Health in the House' and
'Thoughts on the Minimum Wage', and when she'd gone I
took down my
Railway Magazine
and lighted on an item about
'the largest signal gantry in New Zealand'. It wasn't very big,
as even the
Railway Magazine
admitted: 'From the photo it is
evident that New Zealand is far behind the mother country.'
It was meant to be a joke, I supposed.

The words of Dr N. Kenrick came back to me: 'It is only a
matter of common sense to keep the head low.'

I would take a stroll. And I would try to find some com­pany. I walked upstairs ready to tap on George Ogden's
door, but I saw that it was ajar. I was full of curiosity about
this fellow, who I had seen nothing of all week. He had use
of the scullery, but he never
did
use it. He would go up by
the back stair late at night and very quietly, but it was a kind
of quietness - by which I mean not
very
- that told me he'd
taken a drink.

I pushed the door and George was inside, sitting on the
truckle bed, with the plants - half of them quite dead - on the
floor around him.

'George,' I said in an under-breath, and he came to life, like
a penny-in-the-slot mannequin.

'What ho!' he said.

'I'm off up to the Albert Cigar Factory. If you knock on the
back door they give out cigars that have got a bit bashed.

They've usually only had a little nick and they come very
cheap, less than half price.'

'They're quite all right, are they?' said George, standing up.
It was heartbreaking to see him so galvanised over such a lit­tle thing.

'They have 'A's and 'B's,' I said.

'Good,' said George, 'I'll have an 'A'. This will be our first
step to better acquaintance. I'm to book on at two, but I'll
have plenty of time, won't I?'

He stood up, collected his hat, picked up a letter that was
lying on one of his boxes, and caught up one of the packets of
biscuits. 'Care for a cream biscuit?' he said. He sounded like
an advert, and his face looked like an advert too as he bit into
the biscuit: a big smile decorated with crumbs and bits of
white sugar cream.

'Don't they sell those down at the Joint?' I said.

'That's it,' he said, 'from the penny-in-the-slot machine.'

'I didn't think it worked,' I said. 'Well, the excursionists can
never make it work.'

'Excursionists?' said George. 'Daft lot! I expect they just put
their money in and hope for the best!'

I said I thought that was more or less the recommended
procedure.

'It is if you're a juggins. Now listen, there's an address on
the side of the machine’ said George. 'You write in to it if the
thing is not giving out biscuits, and they send you any num­ber of them back, gratis. Duggan's Sweetmeats, 54 New
Clarence Road, Bradford.'

'You have it by heart,' I said.

'That's the best way’ said George. 'You ought to give it a go.'

'But I've never put money in the machine,' I said.

George said nothing to that. 'You get a very gentlemanly
letter of apology too,' he went on, 'signed in person by the
chairman himself.'

We were crossing Ward's End, dodging the darting wag­ons and traps and their hot, cross drivers. All the pavements
were chock full, as if the heat had turned the whole town inside
out.

'You're very lucky in your Mrs Stringer,' George said.

'Yes,' I said, 'I know.'

'She's rather pretty.'

I thought to myself: now that's going a bit strong, but I did­n't really mind it coming from George Ogden. It would have
been different if a dog like Clive had said it.

'She stops at home as a rule, does she?'

'Used to,' I said. 'She works at a mill now.'

I could not bring myself to say the words 'Hind's Mill'.

'I wouldn't fancy that myself,' said George. 'You'll see a lot
of weavers in some pub of a Saturday night, crowding around
the "Try Your Fortune" machine, startled at whatever comes
up, and it's enough to make a fellow weep. I mean to say, the
tickets might just as well read: "You're a weaver in a mill, you
will stay a weaver in the mill, and when you are quite worn out
you will leave the mill, and then you will die.'"

After that little lot, I found that I didn't quite
know
George
Ogden. I would have to think on.

I said, 'The wife is in the
offices
at her mill, you know?'

'Of course she is, old man,' he said. 'Don't mind me at all.'

A tram was stopping outside Victoria Hall, and George
Ogden suddenly made a run for it. It was an unnatural sight,
George running. It was like a man having a fight with himself
while on the move, and it seemed that half the street came to
a halt in order to marvel at the spectacle. He jumped onto the
tram then jumped directly off with the conductor bawling at
him. There were post boxes on the trams, and George had just
posted his letter. You weren't supposed to do it like that
though. The boxes were for fare payers only.

As he strolled back to me, the conductor was giving us the
evil eye, but luckily his tram was carrying him further off by
the second.

'You want to watch he doesn't open the box and take your
letter out,' I said.

'How will he know which is mine?' George said, and then
he smiled and then he frowned.

'It's a letter to my best girl,' he said.

'Where does she live?'

'She's out in Oldham,' he said.

'Do you get over there very often?'

'Not so
very
...
It's a fair way, you know.'

'Matrimony on the cards, is it?'

George, who had wandered onto the road, now had to
scuttle out of the way of a delivery bike and was nearly flat­tened in the process. His legs were too short. He was all brain
and belly.

'That's . . . it's never quite settled,' said George. 'Your Mrs
Stringer,' he said.
'She's
got her own mind, hasn't she?'

'It's all the woman's role, and so on,' I said. 'She's ardent
for freedom.'

'Bit hard on you though, old sort?'

'Well, she wants better conditions for all.'

'What about lodgers?' he said, quite sharply.

'How do you mean?'

'It's just that I'm in rather low water in present, financially
speaking, and -'

'If you want a rent cut it won't wash, George,' I said.
'You've only been in a week.'

'But with all her beliefs about fairness -'

'No,' I said. 'As far as all that goes ... You see, a part of free­dom for her is being able to charge you five shillings a week
rent.'

'Oh,' said George, and he stopped dead on the pavement,
looking quite abashed. 'Anyway, it's quite all right,' he said,
starting to walk once again. 'I'm a socialist myself, you
know.'

'Yes,' I said, 'so am I, but I will not go to lectures on the
minimum wage on Saturday afternoon.'

And I will not put grindstones on railway lines on account
of being one either, I thought, and it came to me that I hadn't
seen Paul, the socialist missionary, hanging about Horton
Street since our conversation of eight days ago.

'There's just nothing to be done about it,' said George, who
was still thinking of his rent. 'I shall have to reduce my sav­ings.'

'Well you could stop going out for knife-and-fork teas
every night,' I said. 'You do have use of the scullery, you
know.'

'I do not have knife-and-fork teas,' said George, 'I have
damn good
suppers.'

'And I suppose you'll have a bottle of wine too?'

'I will take a carafe,' said George, and he said that last word
with very great care. 'That would be nothing out of the way.'

'What is a carafe?' I asked him.

'It's a sort of small jug,' he said, and then he stopped and
smiled: 'But not
too
small.'

We walked on, skirting past People's Park, where all the
benches were full. I was trying to spy the rainbow in the foun­tain, while thinking violently about George and money. He
either had too little or he had too much.

'Where did you lodge before, George?' I said.

But he ignored this question completely.

We were by now at the Albert Cigar Factory, whose two
chimneys did look like cigars puffing away, but nothing had
been made of this for advertising purposes. I took George
round to the back of the factory, where there was a small blue
door with a broken metal sign on it. The only words remain­ing read: '
always delightful to inhale'.

I knocked, saying to George, 'You sometimes have to wait
a while.'

But the door was opened straightway by a young fellow in
a dust coat. He was standing in a kind of shop - a take-it-or-
leave-it kind of show, not out to please, where the goods were
just left in crates and kicked about as needed.

'What ho!' shouted George, and the cigar man sprang back.
For a minute I thought he was going to crown George.