The Blackpool Highflyer Read online

  As the floods went up he was leaning on the figure, or the figure was leaning on him. It was an English Johnny, or Champagne Charlie. You could tell by the tailcoat and high collar. The head was weird: round, white and lumpy, like the moon or some great fungus, and the grey eyes seemed to be sliding to the side, as if the figure was sad and ashamed at having a perfectly round head. The ventriloquist was also got up like a toff: frock coat and top hat. He was breathing deeply, trying to get a breath in the heat like all of us, and preparing for the walk. The doll, of course, was not breathing at all. Any sort of weather was nothing in his way.

  The walk started, and as usual a great cheer went up at the same time as the walking music started up. It was as if a famous cripple had got to his feet and taken his first steps in years. The ventriloquist's left hand was at the figure's back, and he was working the levers that swung the legs. The figure moved by a forward jerk of the left leg, which woke up the right one, and brought it swinging along behind, and the left arm rode up towards the chest every time this happened. The doll's right arm was in the hands of the ventriloquist.

  They were heading for two chairs half involved in darkness in the middle of the stage, and you could see that disaster beckoned because the ventriloquist's legs (which were shaking) and the legs of the figure were moving further and further apart, so the two of them were starting to make the shape of an A.

  In walking ventriloquism, the figures were always the Johnny or Champagne Charlie sorts, so that their funny walks could be put down to them being cut. It was all so samey, but there was an extra sort of desperation with this pair, and I really wanted them to get to the chairs without a collapse.

  Part of the trouble was that the ventriloquist wasn't such a great hand at walking himself. He was a big fellow, but trembly from nerves. At one moment he lost control of the figure's head, which swung from left to right, as if saying:

  No, I will not go on with this. But they did reach the chair, and sat down to great applause. The ventriloquist beamed out at the audience. He had a red face, shining with sweat, a wide grey moustache held out by wax, and a sharp, pointed beard, the two of them together making a cross on the lower part of his face. He looked so completely jiggered that really you did not want him to have to do any more work. But he presently produced a cigar and put it in the figure's mouth, saying, very loud, 'Well here we are at the eye doctor's!'

  While everyone took that in, and puzzled over it maybe, and the worrit next to me continued with his infernal fidgeting, the ventriloquist produced from his waistcoat a Wind Vesta, and saying, 'A light of course, we must have a light,' he lit the figure's cigar.

  Two things now happened that brought more applause: the lights came up to show a line of figures on seats, stretching away to the side of the ventriloquist and the figure, which was now shooting out puffs of smoke from its mouth. The other dolls in the row were an old lady, a rustic type, a darkie and a costermonger. One was moving: the old lady. Her head rocked up and down, as if she was saying: Well, here we are but we must just make the best of it.

  I wondered whether folk were clapping because they thought it was good or bad, because it was bad, shocking bad. If you were a ventriloquist you ought to be funny - that was the only way you could get away with it. I had seen no ends of funny ones down in London, but they were mainly the fellows with the knee figures: schoolboy, little Johnny, Jack Tar. But it was always funny business, with the figure saucing the man, instead of this slow, exhibition stuff.

  The ventriloquist took the cigar from the figure's mouth, and the figure said something that I worked out was: 'Can we speak in confidence?'

  The ventriloquist looked along the row, and, looking ahead again, said: 'I doubt it, you know.'

  I watched the nodding head of the old woman, which ticked like a clock, and watched the orchestra sweat as my own head clock ticked.

  The ventriloquist was saying, 'Well, my vision is perfect, how about yours?'

  It struck me that at this rate it could be as much as ten minutes before the end, and I couldn't take it any more. I was far too hot, and after the conversation with the socialist I'd been quite unable to put away thoughts of the stone on the line.

  I stood up and walked out into the foyer, which was a red and gold circle of bars so that I was surrounded by barmen, who were all lining up glasses, waiting for the rush that would come at the end. I picked out one at random and walked over to him feeling strange, with my boots sinking into the carpet. I asked for a glass of water, and he said: 'You look jiggered, mate.' I told him I'd had quite a few days of it. He said, 'How's that then?' and I said, 'Well, I was in a train smash for one thing.'

  I told him about the stone on the line, and the death of Margaret Dyson, but the barman wasn't interested in her: 'You, though,' he said, 'you were on the front of the engine, and you weren't hurt even a bit?'

  'Well, no.'

  'Cor,' he said, 'You're all luck, you are.'

  This struck me as the wrong way of looking at things, and made me feel worse about Margaret Dyson. I heard a noise behind me, and was aware that all the barmen in the circle had got hold of the story now and were leaning forward and listening.

  'I bet you were shitting yoursen,' said one of them.

  'How did the stone get there, then?' one of them called out.

  'Put there,' I said.

  'You suspect... a spot of mischief, then, do you?' asked the same fellow again.

  'I reckon it was socialists,' I said, 'socialists or anarchists who've got a down on excursions, because they're put up by the bosses ... So the stone might have been put there as a sort of warning to the railway company.'

  'Well, that's all fairly choice,' said one of the barmen. Another said, 'Anarchists,' very slowly, as if he was trying out the word for size.

  Just then I felt extra heat and the ventriloquist was standing right next to me. It was powerful strange to see that marvellous beard and 'tache at large in the real world.

  My barman handed him a glass of something mustardy coloured, and nothing was said. The ventriloquist was red, shining with sweat, and panting as if he'd run a mile: he was a fellow not meant to be seen at close quarters. He began to drink the mustardy stuff, whilst looking at nothing. He was bigger than he'd looked on stage, especially in his upper half: he looked cut out for something more than ventriloquism.

  'A warning by anarchists!' said one of the barmen, slow on the uptake, and the ventriloquist continued to drink and to look at nothing, but the nothing had now moved further into the distance.

  The ventriloquist finished his drink, turned, and disappeared through a door between two of the bars.

  'I thought that bloke was on stage just now,' I said to my barman.

  'He generally takes a little summat just about now for his vocal organ.'

  'He gets through heaps of lozenges, you know,' said another of the barmen.

  'But that was whisky and honey he had just there,' said the first.

  'What's he doing out here, though?' I said.

  'There's a bit where he leaves the dolls to it,' said the first barman. 'They're all waiting there at the hopticians -' (he said the word very carefully, and put an 'h' in front of it) '- and they start up with these coughing goes. First one, then the whole lot.'

  'How do they cough if he's not there?'

  'The movements are all worked from off by the fellow does the props. Rubber tubes and air valves and all that carry on. And property's mate, junior properties - he does the coughing.'

  'While Monsieur Maurice drops in here for his little brain duster,' put in another of the barmen.

  'And it won't be the last of the night,' added the first.

  'Monsieur who?' I said.

  'Maurice,' said the first barman, and it came out like 'more ice'. 'Very Frenchified, he is.'

  'But not really, though,' added another of the barmen.

  'I've seen his name before,' I said; 'it was being put up outside a little hall in Blackpool.'

&nb
sp; 'Very likely,' said my barman.

  I looked at my glass of water and enquired about the price of a pint. On hearing the answer, I told my barman I'd nip back to the Evening Star for my last of the night, if that was quite all right with him. He grinned, and all the barmen watched me walk through the main doors and out into the hot night.

  There might have been thirty people in the Star by now, and every man jack avoiding the billiard table. The Ramsden's was off, so I put away a pint of something else that I didn't much care for, and it didn't knock the stone on the line from my mind, so I took another, and that seemed about the right dose.

  I came out of the Evening Star for a second time, and a tram went racing past like a comet with advertisements, or the fast drawing-back of a curtain. Looking far to my left, I saw the Joint and Hind's Mill, a black modern castle at the top of Beacon Hill. To the right, at the top of Horton Street, was another beacon of sorts, the Palace Theatre, but the show was done long since and, as I watched, the lights began to go out. I made towards this disappearing target anyway, and turned off before reaching it to enter the side streets.

  The wife would have been home an hour since, or more, so I was late. I didn't like to be late back for the wife, and I didn't like to be bothered about being late back.

  There was a quarter moon, lying on its back, lazy and not giving out much light; there were flies around all the gas lamps, and too much life in the streets, though none of it to be seen: just far-off shouts and cries, and all doubled by the echo of the houses. The shouts always seemed to be shadows of sound, around the corner, or in the alleyways behind the houses.

  I turned down a snicket that cut a terrace in half, then pushed along a particular back alley because I liked the racket my boots made on the cobbles, but the clanging of the segs on my heels was presently doubled, so that the sound was more the clip clop of a horse. I turned, and there seemed to be a fast-travelling shadow, but no sound. I carried on walking, and was back to hearing the sound of my own boots. I turned into another snicket, and then I was in Back Hill Street.

  The gas was up in the occasional house. I came to ours, which gave out no light, and saw a man or a shadow of a man beyond, in Hill Street. Something about him made me look behind me, and there came a shout from that direction that seemed to jump, so that it was two shouts, and then the noise of something happening in Hill Street, and then nothing.

  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.

  Chapter Seven

  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.'