The Blackpool Highflyer (21 page)

There were two other clerks in the office: one sitting at the
ticket window, another leaning against one of the racks.
George introduced them as Dick and Bob, and as he did so, all
of their voices sounded lost, as if they were outnumbered and
beaten down by the tickets on all sides.

I had seen this pair before and secretly thought them a very
medium pair of goods. They might have been in any line of
business. There was nothing railway-ish about them. They
both shot me funny, complicated looks, because they knew
me for an engine man, and an engine man does not wear a
stiff collar. But he does start at the head end of the train, and
that's the important thing. Or so I'd believed until the smash.
Being at the front end put you in the way of trouble. I had
struck trouble, and been found wanting.

I shook their hands, and then they fell to staring at George
and his cigar. 'Better not let Dunglass or Knowles see you
with that thing in your mouth,' Dick said.

Dunglass was the chief booking clerk.

'Smoking's only allowed in the general room,' added Bob,
rising from the seat at the ticket window. The ticket office had
the wooden, empty smell of a cricket pavilion.

'Nonsense,' said George, who now took Bob's place at the
ticket window.

In front of George at the ticket window was a great wooden
guillotine that could be dropped down at the close of busi­ness, or, as I was to learn, at any time that suited. George also
had a money drawer, and at his elbow a date stamp which
looked like an iron head with a thin mouth for the tickets to
go in.

There not being any passengers to be dealt with, George
swivelled around in the chair, which was set on wheels, and,
using his cigar as a pointer, indicated the racks, saying very
loudly: 'First-class singles

There were lots of these.

'Second-class singles .
..'

More still of these.

'Third-class singles
...'

Yet more - a good two dozen racks of these.

'Heaps of Thirds, aren't there?' I said.

'What?' said George, sitting back, taking a pull on his cigar.
'Well, nine out of ten passengers go Third. It's a third-class
world, I'm afraid . . . except for some of us.' At this, George
swivelled right round in his chair, with his boots lifted up off
the ground, and the face of a kid riding a whirligig. Bob and
Dick looked at each other and smiled. George was the star
turn of the booking office.

'First-class returns,' George continued, putting his feet
down to stop the chair and pointing to another part of the
booking office, 'Second returns .
.
. Third returns, policeman-
on-duty tickets, clergymen tickets, staff privilege, angling
tickets, market-day specials, platform tickets.'

He was going on rapidly now, his cigar jumping about; I
couldn't make out where he was pointing.

'Now,' said George, 'your first-class singles are white, your
second-class singles are red, your third-class singles green.
Your first-class returns are white and yellow, your second-
class returns are red and blue, your third-class
..
.'

'Tell him the interesting stuff,' said Dick, or Bob, very
timidly.

'What do you think I
am
doing?' said George, quite indig­nantly.

'No, the
really
interesting stuff.'

'Is there any way of recalling who's bought a ticket on any
particular train?' I asked the office in general.

George frowned. 'You can say which tickets have gone,' he
said, 'but not who's had 'em.'

'Unless you happen to remember the person,' said Dick.

'Or the ticket they get,' said Bob. 'A notable ticket number might do it. I sold a ticket for Todmorden this morning: third- class single, number one, two, three, three. That's a highly interesting ticket.'

'Why?' I said.

George answered for him. 'Because the next one's going to be one, two, three, four, see? Collector's item.'

If George was right, and the wreckers had been aiming at the 8.36, the regular Blackpool express, the train after ours on that day, it might be handy to know who was riding on it. But I would not find out here.

Just then, somebody tapped on the ticket-window glass and George swivelled around to face the customer.

'Good afternoon, Doctor Whittaker,' he said, thrusting his cigar-holding hand down below his counter. 'Second-class return to Bradford?'

At this he gave a sudden kick with both legs and his chair went flying backwards so that he was level with second-class returns to Bradford, or so I supposed. Bob and Dick gave me silly smiles as he did this. George reached across to the rack, and suddenly the ticket was lying in his hand. He had the trick of flicking it from the bottom of the rack. Then, by means of a strange, sitting-down walk, he dragged himself and his chair back to the ticket window, sliding the cigar into its tube as he did so.

'Ninepence, Doctor Whittaker,' he said.

But then he had to lean again towards the window, for the doctor - evidently a regular customer - had further require­ments.

'Cycle ticket in addition?' said George. 'That'll be one six­pence, Doctor Whittaker.'

He gave a greater kick this time, sending himself back a good fifteen feet, the cycle ticket being a more out-of-the-way sort of thing than a second-class return, therefore kept further from the window. George took one from the rack, and went back to Doctor Whittaker, who it seemed was not done yet.

'Cycle
insurance
also?' asked George, quite peeved after listening for a moment at the window.

The doctor then had something else to say - something pretty sharp, too, that I could almost hear through the glass. When the speech had finished, George said: 'It is no trouble at all, sir, only you might have said first time. If you had
said,
you see, I would have
known ...'

He shot himself backwards once more, towards bicycle insurance, muttering as he went: 'Not being a great hand at mind-reading.'

When the sale was completed, George wheeled around to us all once more, beaming.

'Quite a card, our George,' said Dick.

Just then there was a knock at the door. It was a kid I'd never seen about the Joint before. 'Any of you blokes come across a photographer?' he said.

Everybody said they hadn't, and the fellow left.

'Rum sort of question,' said George, frowning when the fel­low had gone.

On the other side of the room, Bob, who was looking down onto the platforms through one of the windows, gave a cry: 'Hi! She's back!'

George left off fiddling with his cigar and dashed over to the window along with Bob. I walked over more slowly.

'What's going off?' I asked.

'Mrs Emma Knowles,' said Bob, grandly.

'Who's she?' I asked. 'Stationmaster's daughter?'

'Wife!' said George. 'If you can credit it.'

A tank engine was pulling out of platform two and a lady in white was walking along the platform in the opposite direction: little clouds of steam were flying towards her from the engine, like blown kisses. From the ticket-office window I could only see the top of her hat, but some hats promise beauty beneath, and this was one.

'She looks lonely today,' said Bob.

The finest woman in the town’ said George very sadly, as he walked back to his rotating chair at the ticket window. 'One day, I'm going to go down there and talk to her.'

'You ought to, George,' said Dick, 'she couldn't eat you, after all.'

'Actually’ said George, 'I wouldn't mind a bit if she did, you know?'

'What would you talk to her about?' asked Bob.

'I could put her straight about this show’ George said, indicating the whole of the booking office.

'You'd talk to her about railway tickets?' I asked.

'Only at first’ said George. 'Just to break the ice.'

Emma Knowles walked on, disappearing under the build­ing in which we stood.

'Oh we do like her,' said Bob, turning away from the win­dow and folding his arms.

'Why does she come here?' I asked.

'Take the air?' suggested Bob.

'What air?' I said. 'It's all smoke, like any station.'

'Old Knowles likes to show her off’ said George. 'Just rub­bing it in, you know, look at me: villa looking over People's Park, housemaids, company cab at my door each morning, and this vision in my bed every night.'

'She's quite often seen at the station’ said Bob. 'And she doesn't just come here to see Knowles.'

'Why does she come then?' I asked him.

'Catch a train,' said Bob.

'Where to?'

He shrugged.

'Being married to the SM she has a pass all over the line’ said Dick.

'So you see,' Bob put in, 'because we don't sell her the tick­ets, we don't know.'

Now all was quiet in the booking office. George seemed half asleep in his chair all of a sudden, with the cigar lodged in one of his waistcoat pockets. Dick was leafing through a

book of accounts. Bob was looking out of the window with his hands in his pockets.

There was another knock on the door and Dick opened it. A grinning kid stood there with a box in his hand. 'Afternoon, mates,' he said. He uncombed his hair by smearing his hat across his sweaty head, then he passed the box to Dick, hand­ing across a docket at the same time. 'Fleetwood singles,' he said, 'numbers five hundred to six thousand on the nose.'

Bob passed a book to Dick, who'd begun unwrapping the parcel, which contained bundles of tickets tied with white ribbons.

But George was scowling from his seat as Dick began to record receipt of the tickets in the ledger. 'We're counting on a full complement this time, old man,' George said to the kid.

There was something funny about the way Dick wrote in the ledger. At first I couldn't see what it was; he just looked greedy to get the words and numbers down, but it struck me after a second that he was holding two pens, writing with both hands.

George saw me watching. 'Like a blinking octopus, en't he?'

Bob, who seemed proud of Dick over this, said: 'He can do sales and receipts at the same time.'

'Five hundred to six thousand exactly,' said Dick, looking up from the ledger and turning to the ticket bundles. 'Looks like they're all here.'

'Have you lot seen the show they're putting on down there?' said the kid, pointing at the floor, but meaning the platforms beneath.

'What show, old man?' said George to the kid (even though he didn't look more than fifteen).

'Picture-taking,' said the kid. 'Photographic artist. He has all the brass lined up.'

Dick walked over once more to the window.

'You'll not see it from there, old man' said the kid, who then gave a funny look towards George.

'I'm off down to look,' said Dick, and Bob went too.

'Good fellows if they can be turned the right way,' said George, when they'd gone. 'Not a lot of steam in them really, but. . .' He got to his feet and began putting away the tickets from the new parcel, or trying to. He couldn't quite reach the top of what I took to be the rack for Fleetwood singles. I asked if I could help, being six inches taller than George. 'It's quite all right,' he said, and took a stool from the other side of the room. 'They must be put into the racks in a certain special way.'

'Well, yes,' I said, 'in number order, lowest number at the bottom.'

'Bit more to it than that, chief’ said George.

But there wasn't, as he knew very well.