Westmorland Alone. Ian Sansom
to disperse, and then I breathed a very big sigh of relief indeed.
‘Let’s go,’ I said to Miriam, moving quickly around to the passenger side of the Lagonda.
‘All aboard the Skylark!’ cried Morley.
‘You’re keen all of a sudden,’ said Miriam to me.
‘Charming man,’ said Morley. ‘The British bobby – curious, steadfast, and yet always polite.’
‘Indeed,’ said Miriam. ‘Now, gentlemen, shall we just check our route.’ She produced a map and several of the boards onto which Morley had mounted his county maps. ‘Our route. We begin in London, obviously.’
‘Starting at the GPO?’ said Morley. ‘The traditional starting point of the Great North Road?’
‘Starting here, Father. And then Herts, and Beds, and Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Lincs, Notts, West Riding—’
‘And then a left turn at Scotch Corner?’ said Morley.
‘And then a left turn at Scotch Corner,’ agreed Miriam.
I was half listening and had already begun opening the door when I saw him: MacDonald. He was perhaps a hundred yards away, across the other side of the Euston Road. I recalled him mentioning before that he lived somewhere up around King’s Cross. When he saw me, as inevitably he would, he would doubtless want to raise the small matter with me of my having abandoned our card game, and possibly the no less small matter of my having departed with several packets of Delaney’s precious ‘snuff’.
I stood rooted to the spot.
‘Scotch Corner,’ continued Morley, ‘being of course the junction of the traditional Brigantian trade routes in pre-Roman Britain, and the site where the Romans fought the Brigantes. The Brigantes being?’
‘A Northern Celtic tribe, Father,’ said Miriam wearily.
‘Correct! And they fought the Romans at the Battle of?’
‘Scotch Corner?’ I said.
MacDonald had seen me. He stared for a moment in surprise and then smiled a dark smile and began making his way hurriedly through the traffic. I had less than two minutes. If I stayed with Miriam and Morley and the car we wouldn’t be going anywhere fast.
I had a choice. I could either make a run for it or …
‘The Battle of Scotch Corner is correct!’ said Morley. ‘You know, perhaps you’re finally getting to grips with this stuff, Sefton. We’ll also have a look at the Stanwick fortifications, which are about five miles north-west of Scotch Corner, and which I think I’m right in saying form the most extensive Celtic site in Britain—’
‘I think I might get the train, actually, Mr Morley, and meet you there.’
‘The train?’ said Miriam.
‘Ah!’ said Morley. ‘You’re thinking of the Settle–Carlisle line, Sefton, are you not? Possibly the greatest railway line in the country. A sort of railway companion to our Great North Road journey?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking, Mr Morley.’ MacDonald was twenty yards away and closing fast. ‘I would just need some money, to—’
‘Of course,’ said Morley. ‘Good thinking, Sefton. I think it would certainly add immeasurably to the book if you were to travel by train, we were to travel by car, and then we could compare notes when we arrive in Westmorland and—’
‘I really need to go now though.’
Morley consulted his two watches – the luminous and the non-luminous dials.
‘Yes, the seven fifteen, would that be it?’ He had – naturally – memorised most of Bradshaw’s. ‘If you hurry you might just catch it.’
‘I’m going to catch it.’
‘Good, now let’s give the man the means, Miriam, shall we?’
Miriam looked at me suspiciously but nonetheless began rooting around in her handbag.
‘And the camera, Miriam, give him the camera. Come on, hurry!’
‘The new Leica, Father? But I thought I might—’
‘Now, now, Sefton is our photographer. We did buy the camera for him. It’s the new Leica, Sefton. I was particularly impressed by the set-up we saw in Devon, and I thought perhaps you might enjoy using it. Give you something to play with on the train.’
‘I’m sure Sefton will find something to play with on the train,’ said Miriam, handing over the camera and a handful of cash. ‘That should be enough to cover a third-class fare, Sefton. You’ll be travelling third class, of course?’ Miriam smiled at me.
‘For colour?’ said Morley. ‘Yes, good thinking, Miriam. Travelling with the people. Ours is a people’s history, after all.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
MacDonald was just five yards away. I could see the veins throbbing in his neck and his eyes bulging.
‘I think we’ll beat you to it,’ said Miriam, but I didn’t answer: I had already begun to run.
‘Sefton!’ shouted Miriam after me. ‘Where will we see you?’
‘Appleby!’ cried Morley. ‘The county town of Westmorland! We’ll meet you at Appleby, Sefton!’
I ran into the station, shouting to the porters for the seven fifteen: they pointed me to platform 3. I ran past the ticket inspector and made it to the last carriage of the train, where a young mother was struggling to get on with a young girl and a baby. The guard was calling the departure as I managed to lift up the girl and slam the door behind us – and the train shuddered forward.
I stood for a long time at the window looking out for MacDonald, but there was no sign of him. I must have lost him in the crowd.
Satisfied, I made my way to a compartment, squeezing past fellow passengers and their luggage. There was the woman with the baby and the child.
‘Mummy, Mummy,’ said the little girl. ‘It’s the nice man, Mummy.’
The young woman smiled at me warmly.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for helping.’
‘The baby will cry,’ said the little girl. ‘But all babies cry. What’s that?’ she asked, pointing at the Leica.
‘It’s a camera,’ I said.
‘What’s a camera?’
‘It’s something that you can take pictures with.’
‘Like a drawing?’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Is there a pencil inside it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s not a pencil.’
‘Is there a pen?’
‘No, there’s not a pen either.’
‘Is there paint?’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Do you want to see?’
The girl looked at her mother, her mother nodded, and the little girl came and sat close to me; as we left London I showed her how to open the camera, how to check the shutter and the focus and how to frame a photograph. I took her photograph and she took mine.
‘Are you coming with us?’ asked the girl. ‘Mummy, can the man come with us?’
‘The man is on his own journey,’ said the mother. ‘He’ll be going somewhere himself.’
‘We’re going to Carlisle,’ said