He had a high-pitched voice, and was better spoken than I had expected.
‘He’s nattering away to the signalman, who’s also fifteen foot up,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said the station master, ‘they like to keep a look-out, you know.’
‘What for?’
‘Well … trains.’
‘So they can ignore them when they come in?’
‘We’ve just one more through this evening,’ said the station master, and you’d have thought from his tone that every one that came by was a torture to him. He looked strained all to pieces – to the point where I felt it wrong to keep on at him about the slackness at his station.
‘Do you know if there’s an inn with beds roundabout?’ I asked him in a kindlier tone.
‘Oh,’ said the fat official, and he began wiping his forehead with the fluttery fingers of his right hand. ‘The Angel,’ he said. ‘They’ll do you pretty well there.’
‘Is it the only inn?’
‘It is.’
I looked again at the books on the floor, and saw again the anxiety in the man’s face as I did so. I felt I ought to account for the clutter in some way.
‘Having a bit of a clearout, are you?’
‘Oh,’ the station master said again, and it came out as a sort of surprised hoot, ‘… no.’
The wife was at the door now: ‘If you don’t mind – where is The Angel exactly?’
‘Just up the way there,’ said the SM, giving us a look that so plainly said ‘Please go away now’ that we both turned, collected our bags and did so.
We walked out of the station under the eyes of the lad porter and the signalman. They were both still on their perches but now kept silence as they watched, and it struck me for the first time that I might have put the wife in the way of danger.
I held open for her the wicket gate that separated the station proper from the station yard, and there was a notice pinned to it: ‘Adenwold Christmas Club Summer Outing. Friday 21 July to Monday 24 July. To Scarborough, Premier Watering Hole of the North & Queen of Spas. Tickets from Mrs Taylor at the Post Office.’
The wife was reading it over my shoulder.
‘Some folks are all luck,’ she said.
The station yard was a dusty white triangle. Beyond it was another triangle, this one green, or at any rate yellowish, for the grass was all burnt by the sun. There were several shops around this green. One was a brick block of a building with a sign reading: ‘A. AINSTY: SHOEING AND GENERAL SMITHS (MOTORS REPAIRED)’. The double doors at the front were closed, an iron bar fixed across. A great heap of old horseshoes was stacked against one side wall, together with a bench seat from what might have been a carriage or motor-car propped on trestles.
A little way along from the smithy was a flimsy clapperboard shop, which was also closed and blank-looking. On the signboard was painted a word that had faded almost to nothing, and that I could not read. It was followed by the word ‘Provisions’, and then came another unreadable one for good measure. Before the shop stood a sort of wide step-ladder meant for displaying goods, but it was quite bare. There was also a cottage under a thatch that was laughably thick – put me in mind of a sheep that needed shearing. A tiny tin sign dangled from the front of it, reading ‘Post Office’, and it was hardly bigger than a postcard. Fixed into the side wall was a posting-box, and I wouldn’t have fancied dropping a letter in there. It looked as if it hadn’t been emptied in years.
Scarborough seemed to have claimed the whole village. I thought of the way a school yard is cleared for a fight, and I thought again of the bicyclist. It was Friday evening. Could he be said to have arrived during the week-end? What exactly did the word ‘week-end’ mean?
Three dusty roads led away from the square. One went more or less the way the station master had indicated.
As we approached this one, I asked the wife:
‘When does a week-end begin?’
‘That’s just what I’m wondering,’ she said.
Chapter Ten
On the right side of the road were trees; on the left side a row of white, bent cottages which declined in the middle like a line of washing. Two old women stood before the houses, and looked like they belonged to them, for they too were old and bent. Then came high hedges in which many kinds of wildflower were entangled. These in turn gave way to fields of cut corn, and The Angel.
It was on the left side, a taller white-painted house than the others. A long trestle table had been placed before it, and three people sat there. It was like an exhibition of country life. At one end sat a man in late middle-age. His face was all colours: white and grey beard mingled with red and grey skin. His eyes were half-closed and he sipped ale from a pewter. In the centre sat a plump, brown woman surrounded by lemons. She was slicing them on a board with a great knife and squeezing them into a pail. A lad of about twelve years sat with his knees pressed up against the table end. At first I thought it was a small dog that was tied by a string to his chair, but on second glance it turned out to be a ferret or polecat. Behind the table, a bicycle – the machine belonging to the man who’d lately climbed down from the train – was propped against the front wall of the pub.