Andrew Martin - The Last Train to Scarborough

'My mate's gone off,' I said. 'I'll take the room if that's all right.'

She opened the door wider to let me in, turned and put her cup down on the bottom stair, and held out her hand. The house was boiling warm. The woman raised her arm over my shoulder and pushed the front door to.

'I'm Miss Rickerby,' she said, as the door closed behind me.

'Pleased to meet you,' I said. 'Stringer.'

And I found that we were exchanging smiles rather than shaking hands. I could tell immediately that she was at odds with the house. The place ought to have belonged to an older person. A clock ticked softly, and I thought of people's holidays ticking away. Would this hallway look any different in the summer months? It seemed all faded, and with a suspicion of dust. Also, it was kept hot as the houses of old people – those that can afford it – generally are. And the paint smell made it seem more, not less, old. Even the fanlight over the door was old, I thought, half craning round towards it, with old colours in it: a mustardy yellow, a green and a red of the sort seen in church stained glass.

'Shall I help you with your coat?' the landlady enquired. She seemed very keen to do it, and I thought: Is she sweet on me?

'No thanks,' I said, 'I'll manage.'

But I made heavy weather of the operation as she looked on.

'I like your badge,' she said, when the lapel of my suit-coat was revealed, and she leant forward and nearly touched it.

'Oh,' I said, with face bright red, 'that's the North Eastern company crest. Really it's three other railway company crests in a circle.'

'Why?' she said.

I tried to peer down at it. I must have looked daft in the attempt.

'It's the companies that were amalgamated to make up the North Eastern,' I said. 'The top one is the York and North Midland Railway. That has the city of York crest on it. The bottom left hand one is the Leeds Northern Railway and that has the Leeds crest and a sheep to show the woollen industry, together with ears of corn to show that side of the business, and a ship to show… well, shipping…'

As I rambled on it struck me that there was a good deal more to this badge than I'd ever thought, so I said, 'Do you really want to hear about the third crest?'

She was looking at me with an expression of wonderment.

'Would you like a cup of tea?' she said, seeming to come out of a trance. 'Or would you rather see the room first?'

At the back of the hallway, to the right of the stairs, I could see the man who'd answered the door. He now wore some species of dressing gown over his suit. It was perhaps a smoking jacket – not that he was smoking, as far as I could make out, but just generally taking it easy. He too held a cup of tea. He nodded as I looked at him.

My coat was over my arm. A coat tree stood in the hallway, beside a small bamboo table on which stood an ornamental tea pot, a dusty circle of sea shells, some framed views of Scarborough, and a black album of some sort, closed. I reached out towards it, thinking it might be a visitors' book, that Blackburn's name might be in it, but something in Miss Rickerby's look checked me. However, after eyeing me for a moment, she said, 'Open it.'

I did so. It held more views of Scarborough.

'The sea from Scarborough,' observed Miss Rickerby of the first one I turned up. 'Scarborough from the sea,' she said of the second.

'I thought it might be a visitors' book,' I said, closing it again. 'I thought I might have to sign it.'

'We do have a visitors' book, but it's in the kitchen. I'm going through it just now.'

I nodded, not really understanding.

'You see,' she explained, 'I write to the visitors asking if they'd like to come back – the ones I want back, that is.'

I should've thought they'd all want to come back, looking at her.

I glanced up, and the man had gone from the side of the stairs.

'It's hardly worth keeping it out this time of year,' the landlady said.

'You've not been busy then?'

She smiled, eyeing me strangely.

'We had a Mr Ellis last week.'

'An engine man, was he?' I enquired, and it seemed my investigation had begun sooner than I'd bargained for.

She shook her head.

'He travelled in galoshes, if you see what I mean. Now… tea or room?'

'I'd rather see the room, I think,' I said.

'Quite right,' she said, 'because you might just hate it. What did I put down about it on the notice at the station?' she asked, turning towards the staircase.

'You said all the rooms were excellent,' I said, and she made a noise like 'Ha!'

I thought of the wife, who'd been a landlady when I first met her – my landlady in fact. She had a good sense of humour, but it would not have done to rib her about the rooms she let out. Being so keen to get on, she never saw the funny side of anything touching business or money.

Miss Rickerby carefully moved her teacup aside with the toe of her boot, and began climbing the stairs. Without looking back, she said, 'Follow me.'

I did so, with my coat over my arm, and of course it was a pleasure to do it, at least as far as the view of Miss Rickerby's swinging hips went. But the stair gas burnt low. The paint smell increased; the stair carpet seemed to deteriorate with every new step, and the green stripe wallpaper became faded, like a sucked humbug. We came to the first landing: black floorboards with a blue runner, none too clean. It led to closed doors.

'The sitting room is on this floor,' Miss Rickerby said, indicating the nearest closed door.

The staircase narrowed still further as we approached the second landing: a dark corridor where one bare gas jet showed tins of white-wash and rolls of wallpaper leaning against the wall.

'These are all the rooms you can't have,' said Miss Rickerby – and this was evidently why Tommy Nugent had been turned away.

'Decorating,' I said.

'You're very quick on the uptake, Mr Stringer.'

I followed her up another, still narrower staircase, and we came to a short corridor, running away ten feet before ending in the slope of the house roof. A gas bracket – unlit – stuck out of the wall to my left. A little further along, also on the left, was a small white-painted door with a sloping top to accommodate the roof – evidently a cupboard or store room. Immediately to my right was a somewhat bigger white-painted door, with a low, reddish light coming out from underneath. The landing being so small, I was rather close to Miss Rickerby who smelt of talcum, perhaps, but also something out-of-the-way. She made just as good an impression close to, anyhow.

She said, 'You haven't asked the price.'

I said, 'No, that's because…'

'… You're stupendously rich.'

She took a small match box from her sleeve, turned the gas tap on the bracket, and lit the mantle, allowing me to see that the wallpaper was a faded green stripe alternating with an even more faded green stripe.

'It's because in your notice,' I said, breathing in Miss Rickerby, 'you put down "economical rates for railway men".'

'And because the North Eastern company will refund you,' said Miss Rickerby… which was what I should have said.

'Two shillings,' she said, and she reached for the handle of the bigger door, pushed it open and retreated.

The room was practically all bed. The head of it was just alongside the door, while the end fitted neatly under the win- dowsill. The window itself was about three feet with a wide ledge and red velvet curtains, which had perhaps once been very good, but now showed bald patches, and were parted, so that the whole window was like a tiny theatre stage. I went in, shuffled along by the edge of the bed, and looked out and down. There was a kind of staircase of dark house roofs to either side, but directly below was the Prom (which was deserted), then the lights of the harbour, with its cluster of cowardly boats, unable to face up to the wild black sea beyond.