The Blackpool Highflyer (25 page)

We walked along the platform, shadows of clouds moving fast across the canopy glass. The station was half busy: a few trippers on the platforms waiting to go home, and so looking downhearted. Yet Clive and me had the town, and the evening, all before us.

In the Gentlemen's at Central, Clive was stooping over a sink. His shirtsleeves were taken up to the very tops of his arms, with perfect folds all the way. He'd lathered his face, ears, back of neck, and was looking in the glass at the results. My own wash and brush-up had been finished min­utes since.

'There was no soap at Scarborough,' I said, just to see how he'd answer. But the words were lost under the great belch of water going down the plug in Clive's sink.

'What's that?' he said, but he was refilling the sink with rinsing water.

I now stepped outside, just in case he wanted to apply a touch of the Bancroft's.

When he'd done, we walked through the horse smell, cigar smoke and the greenish light of the station, and came out onto Central Drive, where the gulls were screaming. There were the morning gulls and the evening gulls, and the second sort made a sadder sound. It was an in-between time at Black­pool: cocktail time for the toffy sorts, as I supposed; some men and ladies far out in the sea, the more serious sorts of swimmers - swimming and thinking, working things out as they went along.

'I wonder why folk go bathing?' I said, thinking again of Clive in Scarborough.

'Well,' he replied, looking straight ahead. 'Why are some others continually
fishing?'

We continued to look out to sea: all the little waves troop­ing off together in the same direction, which was sideways, not towards the shore but heading up the coast towards Fleetwood.

I thought of Margaret Dyson. This was what she'd never seen. If you saw the sea once and it was a certain way, you'd probably think it was always like that.

The bathing machines had been put in a straight line, side­ways to the sea as if to say: that's your lot for today, fun's over. Clive was lighting a little cigar, and a sandwich man was walking towards us - seemed doolally, like most in that line, traipsing along, clearing his throat over and again. You wanted to box his ears and shout: 'Frame yourself, man!'

His board was advertising a music hall: '
monsieur Mau­rice
,' I read, '
see the ventriloquial paragon
'. It was the fellow I'd seen, and then stood beside, at the Palace Theatre in Halifax. According to the board, he was now giving his turn at a spot called the Seashell; topping the bill too, for under­neath his name were the words '
also the following artistes
. . .' I remembered about the Seashell. It was that weird little humpbacked music hall I'd seen on my first trip to Blackpool. Monsieur Maurice had been topping the bill then as well.

As the fellow shuffled up towards us, I pointed to his board and said, 'This place anything like?'

'It's the only thing,' he said, without stopping.

'Let's go there,' I said to Clive.

Clive turned around so that his back was to the sea. He looked at the sandwich man, who was walking away towards the North Pier.

'There's a ventriloquist on who's quite good . . . Well, he's not good,' I went on, 'he's shocking bad, in fact.'

'Righto,' said Clive, and put his cigar under his boot.

We went first over the road to an oyster room with a model ship in the window, where we put down a dozen oysters and a couple of bottles of Bass apiece. Then we pushed along the Prom to the Seashell.

It really was a rum show, built of bricks covered over with plaster and looking like something between a brick kiln and a funny kind of hat. Inside, it was like a sea cave: no sharp edges, with all the roofs low and sloping. The floor rolled up towards the box office, where we queued for our tickets, mar­velling at the place, which was all painted browny red with pictures of the Prom and the Tower jutting out from the walls because of the way the walls curved.

When we'd bought our tickets we saw the word '
bar'
written in yellow on a green wooden board clipped to red curtains. We walked through, but all the spots were taken by a lot of red-faced old brandy shunters who were stretched out with their drinks on red couches, looking like they were lying in a Turkish bath. But they did have such an everyday article as a barrel of Plain on the go, and it was only a penny a glass.

When the bell rang, we took our seats under a low, wavy roof, painted green, pink and gold. As soon as I sat down I felt sucked down almost into sleep, what with all the beer and the work and having been awake most of the night before.

The number '1' was carried across the stage by a boy, and there followed a cross-eyed banjo player, who you kept expecting to make jokes. But he somehow never did. Next were two women, 'Grace & Marie', dressed up as pixies and singing. They started in straight away with a song, but a good bit of it was lost in the cheers from the audience. This was on account of their dresses, which were tiny and made from leaves, or so you were meant to think. Afterwards they played a tune with hand bells, and the drums coming in towards the end, which made their bosoms shake in a way that had me feeling rather hot.

I looked across at Clive, and he was just nodding to himself.

There was some wrestling next, with no music but just the growling of the two big fellows. It was brought to an end by a voice saying out of nowhere a name, and then 'Mr Jefferson Byrne ... Just him ... and his shadow.' All went extra-dark at this. After what seemed a precious long time, one light came up, then another, and there was a man in white dancing with his shadow. After a while everybody started booing.

'I've never seen anything like this before,' I said sleepily to Clive.

'No,' he said, 'and never will again probably.'

As Jefferson Byrne was leaving the stage, Clive said, 'Now if he did one thing and the shadow did something
else,
he'd have something.'

In the quiet times between the turns, when the number was being walked across the stage, I would hear a noise, and I couldn't tell whether it was the sea just outside, or the breath­ing of everybody in the theatre. Then I started to think of the band as being the noise of the sea. Every time they struck up, it was waves coming in with a great rusty crashing, and then the waves ran back and a new person was left on the stage.

After the shadow dancer came an immobile comedian with a turkey head. Next was a ventriloquist - not Monsieur Mau­rice but one of the new kinds with a small doll placed on the knee. The turn announced itself. The man was Henry Clarke, the doll was called Young Leonard. Leonard had a boy's head, but wore a man's suit - and could move his eyes or smile.

The ventriloquist asked the boy: 'How old are you?'

'That depends.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I'm thirteen at home ...'

The doll's eyes moved slowly away from the ventriloquist, and that was the thing that set you laughing - the eyes.

'...
but under twelve when travelling on the railway.'

I liked that, and I wondered how it might go down with Martin Lowther, the narky ticket inspector.

'And speaking of figures,' said Henry Clarke to the doll, 'I believe you are a great hand at mathematics.'

'That is correct,' said the doll, who nodded away for a while, looking very pleased about it.

'Well, can you multiply?' asked Henry Clarke.

'I can multiply very rapidly,' said Leonard.

'Yes, they say that fools are multiplying very rapidly these days,' said Henry Clarke, and it wasn't the line that brought the house down, but the looks that went between the two afterwards: Clarke seeming to be rather embarrassed at his own crack, and the doll quite mortified.

Some clever stuff with numbers came next, then Leonard broke off, saying, 'I'm sweating badly.'

'That's rather vulgar,' said Henry Clarke; 'why don't you say "perspiring"?'

At this Leonard rolled his eyes and looked about the theatre with his amazement growing by the second. It was all pretty good, and the best thing of all was the end, when the doll smiled and moved its eyes
at the same time.

Next was a man doing a boot dance, like Little Titch's, but not really up to snuff; then came a ballerina.

'They ought not to have dancers on one after the other,' I whispered to Clive.

'Yes,' he said, 'but get those legs.'

The whole audience felt the same; you could tell because it went quiet.

The Elasticated Man was next, followed by the star of the evening, Monsieur Maurice. As before at Halifax, the lights went up to show him standing at the side of the stage gasping for breath with the moon-headed Johnny hanging on his arm. When the two started the walk, the applause began, but there was not so much of it as there had been in Halifax. A Black­pool crowd had more than likely seen walking figures before, or Monsieur Maurice himself come to that, for, as I had noticed myself, he had been in Blackpool at the start of the season. The two staggered up and down a fair bit this time, with Monsieur Maurice calling out that they were 'taking a stroll' and 'promenading', and the figure was made to wave at the audience from time to time. The only good part came when Monsieur Maurice said, 'I believe we are being hailed from the pier', at which the two looked out at a far corner of the audience and a voice really did seem to be coming from there, so that a fellow sitting in that particular spot in the audience began shaking his head and grinning, as if to say: Look, it's not
me
that's calling out, you know.

The lights went down, and when they went up again the two of them were on a bench, supposedly looking out to sea.

I looked at Clive. He was asleep.

After some seagull noises (worked up in the orchestra), the ventriloquist said, 'Blackpool, famous for cold sea, warm beer, hot pies and scorching sun ...'

As we all waited - those of us that were awake - the dummy turned its head to the ventriloquist; a crater on the moon opened, and the word 'Sometimes' came out in a deep croak. I knew it was being worked from behind, and thought it a swizz for a ventriloquist to have battalions of fellows helping out.

Afterwards there was some business where the dummy turned its head to watch a make-believe paddle steamer go hooting by. Meanwhile, the ventriloquist lit a cigar with both hands to prove he wasn't the one
moving
the head. You couldn't take your eyes away, partly because it was fright­ening.

At the last, there was a man whose hair went into funny shapes, and a man whose hair was normal. Funny Shape also went in for sad faces. He started singing a song called 'Home' and that's where everyone was going as he did so. The more they sang the more they walked out.

'I'm off,' said Clive, suddenly waking up, but I always sat through the chasers, owing to feeling sorry for them. It was selfish in a way, for I could never enjoy my after-show beer if I'd cut the chaser.

'I'll see you in the bar,' I said, and he went off, lighting a little cigar.

The trick was to get out of a music hall just between the finish of the chaser and the start of 'God Save the King'. But you had to move fast because they'd try and trap you with the national anthem, and when they'd got you standing to attention, they'd try to deafen you.

I timed my escape to a tee, though, and Clive was waiting for me with a glass of ale.

'I've made enquiries,' he said, 'and Grace and Marie will be next door in five minutes.'

'What's next door?'

'Supper rooms used by the turns.'

'What do you want to see that pair for?' I said.

Clive looked at me and frowned. 'You can spend the evening with the Elasticated Man if you
want.'

I knew what was going forward, of course. Clive was after a bit of spooning with one of these two, but it was more than that. I was to be put to choosing whether I wanted to try my luck with the other. He was saying: look what can be yours for the taking on a night in Blackpool, but for the vows you have foolishly taken. He would never say so, but he was out to prove I was wrong to be married.

The supper rooms were over the road and along the Prom a little way, and we got a fair old blast as we stepped across to them. It was a warm wind, but strong, and the black sea was starting to get lively. The electric lights along the front were all lit, like a swaying pearl necklace.

The first thing I noticed was the Elasticated Man eating a chop. He wore thick trousers and no coat; white shirt with collar open at the neck. Clive saw him but paid him no atten­tion. He was looking all about for Grace and Marie.

It was a long, low room with no curtains. The Promenade - and the occasional speeding hansom - could be seen through windows on one side, and the sea beyond. There were benches and tables running along beneath the sea window. In the middle of the room was a billiard table, like a peaceful green field. There wasn't much to say it catered to the show business: just one poster showing acrobatic cyclists.