Andrew Martin - The Last Train to Scarborough

'Do you know what time it is?' I enquired.

'I bring t'tea at seven o'clock.'

I had forgotten our arrangement.

'You bring the tea at seven, therefore it is seven o'clock,' I said, putting the tray down on the bed.

'Put it on t'table,' he said, and just for a quiet life I did so.

'Did you sleep well?' I enquired, because I was determined to discover more about this queer bloke.

'I've ter be off down now,' he said. 'I've t'breakfasts to do.'

I had a topping sleep,' I said,'… only the fire smoked a little.' 'I'll tek a broom 'andle ter t'chimney,' he said.

'Do you know why it smoked?'

'Gulls,' he said. 'They nest in chimneys.'

'But it's only March,' I said.

'… Don't follow yer,' he said.

'Gulls don't nest until April or so. I was born in a sea-side town so I know.'

He eyed me for a while.

'Could be last year's,' he said, very rapidly.

'But has no-one else complained of a smoking chimney in this room? Did the fellow Blackburn not complain?'

'Who?'

'Blackburn. You might remember him. He was the one that vanished into thin air while staying here.'

"E did not.'

'Didn't vanish?'

Adam Rickerby took a deep sigh, for all the world as though I was the simpleton and not him.

"E med no complaint!

I took a sip of the tea. It was perfectly good.

'I'm obliged to you,' I said.

'Are yer after a reduction in t'rent?' he enquired anxiously. '… Want yer money back, like?'

'No, why ever do you ask that?'

'I asked yer,' he said, more slowly, and once again giving that flash of unexpected intelligence, 'because I wanted ter know!

So saying he turned about and marched back down to the kitchen. I then moved the jug over to the wash stand, and I had all on to lift it with two hands let alone one. After a shave and sluice-down, I went down to breakfast, which was taken at the kitchen table – apparently this was how it was done in winter.

Amanda Rickerby was there, which surprised me at that early hour. Then again she was reading a novel and sipping tea rather than doing any of the breakfast chores. These had evidently all been left to Adam Rickerby, who was moving plenty of pots and pans about at the range. The landlady glanced up and gave a sly smile by way of saying good morning. She was more beautiful than was needful at breakfast. Over-opposite her – and with his back to me – was Fielding, wearing a fairly smart black suit and very carefully finishing a kipper.

'Morning!' he said, taking a bit of bread to the few remaining specks. 'Sleep well, Mr Stringer?'

'Yes thanks, 'I said. 'You?'

'Very well indeed.'

'I didn't notice the storm, if there was one.'

'Hardly anyone's out from the harbour,' he said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin, 'so I think it's still in prospect.'

'Where's Mr Vaughan?' I asked, and the answer came from Adam Rickerby, who was eyeing me steadily from the range.

"E gets up late,' he said.

'His money came this morning,' Amanda Rickerby put in, 'so I don't think we'll be seeing much of him today.'

She indicated a letter propped up against the knife sharpener. It was addressed to Theodore Vaughan.

'You'll be for the Scarborough engine shed then,' Fielding said, 'and the run back to York.'

'Dare say. If the loco's fixed we'll run it back light engine. That means…'

'I know,' Fielding put in. 'Without carriages.'

I didn't like it that he knew.

'If I know those gentry, they won't want to keep an engine idle for more than a day,' he said.

'Those gentry?'

'The engineers of the North Eastern Railway.'

'No,' I said, 'but there was only one fitter at the shed and… Well, if it comes to it, I might have to stop here another night.'

'Why not?' he said. 'Make a holiday of it!'

Amanda Rickerby read on, but then none of this was news to her.

'If you do come back, you'll have the infinite pleasure of meeting Mrs Dawson,' said Fielding, passing his plate to Adam Rickerby.

I remembered about the daily woman.

'She's due at ten,' said Amanda Rickerby, still with her eyes on her book, 'thank God.'

I thought again of the wife who, being the religious sort of suffragette, never said 'thank God', and who only read books in bed, being always on the go when she was not in bed.

'Porridge,' said Adam Rickerby, and it was by way of being a statement of fact.

As I stared at the porridge that had been put before me, Fielding gave a general 'Morning!' and quit the room.

I began to eat; Amanda Rickerby read, and sipped her tea.

I'd almost finished my porridge when she looked up, and said, 'I hear you've been asking about Mr Blackburn.'

Silence for a space. I watched her brother at the range. Who'd told her of my questions? She was not smiling.

'We believe it was a case of suicide,' she said.

'Yes,' I said.

'Some event seemed to have thrown a great strain on him.'

'Kipper,' said Adam Rickerby, putting it next to my porridge. He retreated to the range, from where he enquired: 'Kipper all right?' 'I haven't started it yet,' I said.

'What a time that was,' said Amanda Rickerby. 'The police all over the house – it does nothing for business, you know.'

There was a hardness in her eyes for the first time, and I thought: This is what you'd see perhaps quite often if you were married to her. She was still beautiful, but in spite of rather than because of her eyes.

'I thought it would be a miracle if we ever got another railway man in,' she said.

'Yes,' I said, contemplating the kipper, 'I can quite see that.'

And when I looked up she was smiling and her eyes were shining again: 'You are that miracle, Mr Stringer.'

On the lower level of the Promenade, a man at a road works was making hot gas, seemingly for his own amusement. No- one was about. The beach was like black glass. I could make out a couple of dog walkers on the sand, a few hundred yards in the direction of the Spa. They minded the sleeting rain; the dogs didn't. It was nine-thirty, and I had half an hour to kill before I met Tommy Nugent at the station. Facing the sea on the lower Prom was the iron gate leading into the Underground Palace and Aquarium. It was padlocked, and there was a poster half slumped in a frame alongside it. 'Great Attractions of the Season', I could just make out: 'Voorzanger's Cosmopolitan Ladies & Gentlemen's Orchestra, 21 in number including Eminent Soloists, will give a Grand Concert Every Sunday at 8'.

But not in winter, they wouldn't.

'Swimming Exhibitions', I read lower down: 'In Large Swimming Bath by Miss Ada Webb and Troupe of Lady Swimmers, and High Divers at Intervals'.

I walked on towards the harbour: the sea water baths were closed, and never likely to re-open by the looks of it. I climbed the wet stone steps to the higher Prom. The ships in the harbour were huddled tight at all angles. A fishing boat approached, bucking about like mad, and I was surprised the blokes walking the harbour walls weren't looking on anxiously. But I soon saw the value of those walls, for the boat steadied the instant it came between them.

I wound my way up towards the shopping streets. The Scarborough citizens had the sea, the cliffs, the great sky and the Castle to themselves, but all was black. I saw a broken bathing machine in a back yard. Because Scarborough was a happier place than most in summer, it was a more miserable one come winter. I walked up Newborough, heading the opposite way to most of the trams, which thundered down the road from the railway station as though they meant to hurl themselves into the sea when they reached the bottom.

According to the station clock tower it was dead on ten when I walked through the booking office and onto Platform One. The station was still guarded by the moody coal trains. It was biding its time until summer, and there was hardly a soul about. The station bookstall stood like a little paper encampment, and the magazines hanging by clothes pegs from it fluttered in the wind that blew along Platform One. Tommy Nugent was buying a paper – The Scarborough Mercury. He hadn't seen me yet. The two kit bags were at his feet, and he was having a laugh with the bloke who ran the stall.