Ian Sansom - Westmorland Alone

4th Estate

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2016

Copyright © Ian Sansom 2016

Cover image © Science & Society Picture Library / Getty Images

Ian Sansom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008121747

Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780008121754

Version: 2016-12-08

For the other Morley

Here we entered Westmoreland, a country eminent only for being the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England.

DANIEL DEFOE,

A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1: The Infernal Streets of Soho

Chapter 2: Rise and Shine and Give God The Glory

Chapter 3: 72 Miles, 1,728 Yards

Chapter 4: Pandaemonium

Chapter 5: Wild West Appleby

Chapter 6: The Locomotive Accident Examination Guide

Chapter 7: Pencilariums and Pharmacopoeias

Chapter 8: English Archaeological Records

Chapter 9: Death and Deceit and Despair

Chapter 10: Merrie Englande

Chapter 11: Stephen ‘Jawbone’ Sefton

Chapter 12: The Stench of Cabbage and Onions

Chapter 13: The Joy of Pickling

Chapter 14: Gavver-Mush

Chapter 15: A 22-Lever Midland Tumbler

Chapter 16: The Hanging Room

Chapter 17: Ejecta, Rejecta, Dejecta

Chapter 18: Some Photographic Techniques

Chapter 19: A Totally Different Complexion

Chapter 20: Dora’s Station Café

Chapter 21: The End of the Story?

Chapter 22: Open to Closed

Acknowledgements

Picture Credits

Keep Reading …

Also by Ian Sansom

About the Author

About the Publisher

LONDON WASN’T KILLING ME. The opposite.

We had returned from Devon in a low mood. Things had not gone at all according to plan. Miriam was no doubt distracting herself with some dubious engagement or other and Morley was probably working on some mad side project – a history of war, perhaps, or of the Machine Age, or of Russian literature, or indeed of Russia, or of fish, of friendship, of God, of the gold standard, goodness only knows what. (See, for example, Morley’s War – And its Enemies (1938), Morley’s Forces of Nature in the Service of Man (1932), Morley’s Fish, Flesh and Fowl: A History of Edible Animals (1935), Morley’s Mighty Bear: A Children’s History of Russia (1930), Morley’s Studies in Christian Love (1934), Morley’s God: His Story (1936), and one of my favourites, published rather unfortunately in 1929, Morley on Money: How to Make It, How to Spend It, How to Save It .) I was just glad that I’d been granted a few days’ leave. I had been making the most of them.

I had been drinking late in the Fitzroy Tavern, and had then found myself at an after-hours club just off Marshall Street which was frequented by some of my old International Brigade chums. The club was run by a big Kerryman named Delaney who ran a number of places around Soho. Delaney self-consciously styled himself as a ‘character’ – all thick Irish charm, topped off with faux-aristo English manners. He wore a white tie and tails, carried a silver-topped cane with a snuff-pot handle and came across as everyone’s friend, the debonair host, generous, witty and easy-going. He was not at all to be trusted. I had been introduced to him by a couple of lads from Spain, Mickey Gleason, a tough little Cockney with a beaten-up face, and a classically dour stick-thin Scotsman named MacDonald. Gleason liked to boast that he had saved my life in Spain, when in fact all he’d done was to cry a well-timed ‘Get down!’ when we had come under unexpected fire one evening near Figueras. And MacDonald had loaned me money – dourly – on my return. So I was in debt to them both, in different ways. Delaney had also been in Spain, apparently, though I hadn’t met him there. It was said that he’d been working as some kind of fixer. I rather suspected that he had enjoyed as much business with Franco’s forces as with the Republicans.

Delaney’s places were famous for their wide range of entertainments and refreshments, and for the clientele. It used to be said that to meet everyone in England who really mattered one had only to stand for long enough at the foot of the stairs of the Athenaeum on Pall Mall: the same might just as truly be said of Delaney’s basement bars and bottle parties. Poets, artists, lawyers, politicians, doctors, bishops and blackmailers, safebreakers and swindlers: in the end, everyone ended up at Delaney’s.

I’d started out drinking champagne with one of Delaney’s very friendly hostesses, a petite redhead with warm hands, cold blue eyes, sheer stockings and silk knickers, who seemed very keen for us to get to know one another better – but then they always do. She told me her name was Athena, which I rather doubted. Sitting on my lap, and several drinks in, she persuaded me into a card game where I soon found myself out of my depth and drinking a very particular kind of gin fizz, with a very particular kind of kick – a speciality of the house. My head was swimming, the room was thick with the scent of perfumes, smoke and powders, I had spent every penny of the money that Morley had paid me for our Devon adventure, I was in for money I didn’t have – and Athena, needless to say, had disappeared. My old Brigade chums Gleason and MacDonald were watching me closely. Even through the haze I realised that if I didn’t act soon I was going to be in serious trouble: Delaney was renowned for calling in his debts with terrible persuasion.

I excused myself and wandered through to the tiny courtyard out back. There were men and women in dark corners doing what men and women do in dark corners, while several of the hostesses stood around listlessly smoking and chatting, including Athena, who glanced coolly in my direction and ignored me. She was off-duty. Out here, there was no need to pretend.

I picked my way through the squalor, past beer crates and barrels, and went to use the old broken-down lavatory in the corner of the yard. When I tried to flush the damned thing I found it wasn’t working. I stood pointlessly rattling the chain for a moment and then climbed drunkenly up onto the seat and quickly discovered the problem. There was no water in the cistern. And there was no water in the cistern for a very good reason: the lav served as Delaney’s quartermaster’s store. I had found myself a little treasure-trove. A honeypot. I glanced up and thanked the heavens above. Through the rotting makeshift roof of the lav I could see the starry blue sky. It was a beautiful warm autumn evening. Suddenly, everything seemed OK. And anything seemed possible. I seemed to have shaken off my torpor. Without hesitation – without thinking at all – I decided that this unlikely Aladdin’s cave presented me with the perfect opportunity to make up for some of my losses inside. I dipped my hand in and helped myself to some supplies. I took only what I needed.