Andrew Martin - The Last Train to Scarborough

But he said, 'I'll come with you, Jim.'

He set down his glass and followed me, cigar in hand, out into a white-washed back yard – where the rain flew, and the roaring sea echoed – and into a tiny gentlemen's lavatories with two stalls for pissing. Vaughan stood close enough for me to hear his breathing, which he did loudly, through both his nose and his moustache. I wondered what he'd been doing all morning. Evidently, he'd been drinking for a good part of it. Well, his money had arrived by the post from Streatham; he was in funds. As he started to piss, he had the cigar in his mouth; he then lowered the cigar and when he turned away from the stall I saw that it was extinguished. He was stowing the remnant of it in his waistcoat pocket as I asked, 'How d'you put that cigar out?'

'Private method, Jim,' he said.

'All right then,' I said. 'Why did you put it out?'

'Can't smoke in the rain, and I'm off back to the house, Jim,' he said. 'Shall I tell them you're expected for luncheon?'

I did not answer immediately. My life, I knew, would be a good deal simpler if I did not go back, and it might be a good deal longer.

'All right,' I said. 'What time?'

'It's generally about one-ish, Jim.'

'Right you are,' I said, in as light a tone as I could. 'Yes,' I said, 'tell Miss Rickerby I'll be in for one.'

I looked at my watch: midday. I did not care for the constant march of the second hand. It wouldn't take Vaughan an hour to reach Paradise, but he went off directly, and when I regained the bar I found out from Tommy that he'd done it in double quick time as well – hadn't even finished his drink. None of this was at all like him, and his behaviour had increased my state of nerves, so that I was fairly short with Tommy as he quizzed me about Vaughan: short to the point that he gave up talking, and just fell to watching the rain and the serving girls with a hopeless sort of expression that made me feel guilty.

It was Amanda Rickerby – she brought out the worst in me. Half the reason I wanted rid of Tommy was so that I could have her glances to myself. I couldn't help thinking that I had a clear run at Paradise, what with Vaughan being such an off- putting sort of bloke, and Fielding being… well, was he queer? What was my intention? I did not mean to try and ride the lady exactly, but I certainly meant to do something with her: to arrest her, for instance; have it out with her about Blackburn. I would tangle with her somehow, and I wondered whether my real intention was to get revenge for the way Lydia had tried to push me about. But I knew that I ought not to think this way. If my wife pushed me about, it was because I let her.

I said to Tommy, 'When I go off, will you send a wire to my wife? You might go back to the station, or do it anywhere. The address is the post office, Thorpe-on-Ouse.'

'Saying what?' he asked, and I thought: Saying kind things in general.

'Tell her I'll see her tomorrow,' I said.

He nodded.

'I'm off, Tommy,' I said, and it was surprisingly easy to get away from him, and without even making an arrangement for the next day. Or perhaps not exactly surprising, I thought, as I walked along the Prom, with head down and coat collar up, trying hard to keep a straight course against the battering of the wind. After all, he'd seen that the situation at Paradise was pretty involved, and he was back there, warm and dry in the women's pub with a glass of beer in his hand and the guns at his feet should any trouble arise. But it didn't seem likely to – not where Tommy was, anyhow.

The iron wall of the chain locker cracked and the grey Mate stood in the gloom of the companionway holding the pocket revolver.

'How are you, my friend?'

'We've anchored,' I said.

'Come along with me,' he said, and he was holding the outer door open.

'What became of the kid?' I asked. 'Did he jump?'

'Nothing,' said the Mate'… He got wet,' he added, at length.

'Why did he jump?'

'Yes,' said the Mate. 'Why? I would like to know too.'

Stumbling onto the deck, I saw that our ship had arrived at its rightful home, for it was now one of hundreds or so it appeared. Under the dark blue, roaring night sky, I had the impression of ships in lines stretching fore and aft; some were on the wide channel in which we were anchored – the Thames Estuary, of course – while others appeared to have been picked up and set down amid the streets. I saw a ship that had interrupted a line of street lamps; a ship at close quarters with a church. I had the impression of many smaller vessels patrolling the lines of the big ones like prison guards, and I had the idea that this was also a city of one-armed men, a city of cranes that were all lit by small white lights like Christmas trees. Most were still but every so often one would stir, as though it wanted to confer with its neighbour, or couldn't stand the sight of its neighbour, and so must turn aside. The fore-deck of our collier seemed to command the whole of the great docks but I knew I saw only a fraction of the mass; that Beckton stood only on the fringes of the London docks proper and that I had imagined beyond the limits of my vision.

'Where's the gas works?' I asked the Mate, who was eyeing me with his chin sunk into the up-turned collar of his brass- buttoned coat. He shifted his grey-bearded chin so that it came clear of the collar, and indicated an expanse that shone moonlike a little way for'ard on our starboard side – it was perhaps a quarter of a mile off. I saw a jetty crowded with cranes, and two colliers docked there. All was silent and still on the jetties, but you could see the way things would go on come first light. High-level railway lines ran back from the jetties and these penetrated the factory buildings set down amid the great fields of pale blue dust; the lines smashed through the front walls, came out through the backs and ran on to the next, like lions jumping through hoops in the circus, only these were not factories but retort houses, where the coal was taken to be burnt and the gas made. The York gas works, at Layerthorpe, ran to one retort house but here were dozens, all tied together by the railway lines and set in the wide expanse together with their companions the gas holders, which were perfectly round, like great iron pies.

'Have we made the turnaround?' I asked the Mate, and he didn't answer but indicated with the revolver that we were to walk along to the bridge house once more. As we made our way, there came one repeated clanging noise, echoing through the night, the beating heart of the London docks, as I imagined.

Once again, there was nobody about on the fore-deck, and I saw nobody but the Mate prior to being sat down before the Captain in the chart room. The chart lay on the table as before, the oil lamp and the coffee pot on top of the chart. I doubted that the Captain had given it as much as a single glance on our way from the north. He and the Mate evidently navigated by second nature or force of habit. Running the ship was something they did casually, while attending to other business.

The Mate gave the revolver to the Captain. Behind the Captain's chair, the door leading to the bridge was closed and there was no man out there. For the first time since waking, I noticed the silence of the ship.

The Captain sat with arms folded, and his eyes never left me. I would have said he was a handsome man, although he looked a little like a marionette. There was something neat, cat-like about him.

'Coffee?' he said, and he leant forward and poured me a cup.

'Do you want some carbolic?'

He knew his man had crowned me. I shook my head.

'Food?'

'Later,' I said, and the Captain flashed a look at the Mate that I didn't much care for.

'Do you want to go to the heads?' enquired the Captain.