Slower than hedgehogs, slower than houses
Slower than cabbages, slower than mouses
Crawling along like soup in a kettle,
All through the cities, the garbage and metal
Passing the hedgerows flowering bags
Passing the meadows of cows and old nags
Passing the waterways brim-full of trollies
Passing the litter and sticks from ice lollies
Stopping at points for over an hour
Failing signals and loss of all power
The wrong kind of snow and leaves on the track
Somebody somewhere should get the sack
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack
This is the night train bringing the mail
Invoices, catalogues, items for sale,
Letters and packages tied up with string,
Yo-yo the boy and his emerald ring
Travelling on to its last destination
The City of York and its railway station.
(After R.L. Stevenson and W.H. Auden)
1.
ARRIVALS: 1119 from Dewsbury
I guess it all started when Yo-yo said he had murdered his mother. I'm not really sure.
Maybe it all started after that, when Mister Vanilla stole Yo-yo's ring.
Maybe it all started before that, when Yo-yo's mother ran away with that one-legged window cleaner named Stins. You know him. The one with the eye-patch.
Maybe it never really started at all.
Whatever.
Yo-yo told the doctors one story and he told the police something different. This is the story he told me, which is different again, and I will leave you to decide which, if any, is true.
At 11:19 on that fateful Friday morning, the creaking train seeps beneath the sweeping arches, breathing softly like someone sleeping as it creeps into York and draws up under the vaults of Platform 5. Yo-yo presses his nose against the rain-smeared, filth-bleared glass and congratulated himself on his cleverness. He's thrown everyone off the scent and he still has the emerald ring. It is on a silver chain round his neck, for safe-keeping. Stealing it had been easy. Keeping it might be more difficult.
Yo-yo caught the 10:44 Transpennine Express at Dewsbury. He had hitched a couple of lifts to get there, the first with a lorry driver somewhere near Huddersfield. Yo-yo had flashed his leg to get a ride, and also earn a little money towards the train fare. The second lift had been with an elderly couple somewhere outside Mirfield. He had told them he was fleeing a lascivious lorry driver. They had given him the rest of his train fare and gone after the unfortunate trucker with a howling mob and a pair of blunt garden shears whilst Yo-yo had slipped through the turnstiles and onto the train. Now he watches as
benches signals
shops footbridges
platforms
clocks trolleys
porters commuters
flow slowly past and feels a surge of excitement when he spots his uncle and aunt waiting on the platform. They haven't changed. Uncle Reefer is still a shank-shouldered, cardigan-clad, pipe-puffing tree whilst Aunty Latch is still balloon-breasted, barrel-bottomed and bewilderingly be-whiskered. Doctor Molasses and Matron Majeiskii always exchange concerned 'glances' whenever Uncle Reefer and Aunty Latch are mentioned but, with his mother now decomposing beneath the dahlias, they are his only living relatives and they will shelter him, of that he is certain. so he slings his rucksack over his shoulder and steps serenely onto the platform.
''How was the journey?'' Aunty Latch looks doubtfully at Yo-yo's silver-grey trainers, white socks, pale blue jeans, dark blue shirt and green rainproof jacket. She is wearing an orange and pink floral print frock that might make a useful medium-sized party marquee.
''Fine,'' Yo-yo mumbles into her bountiful bosom.
Uncle Reefer ruffles Yo-yo's dusty-copper hair, the mop that had earned him the nickname Duracell in his first days at Gillworthy, and puffs on his pipe. ''You haven't grown a bit,'' he says proudly, ''Not one inch. Still five foot four and still six stone seven. Well done.'' The pipe sketches a halo of smoke round Yo-yo's head. ''Katze's waiting in the taxi,'' it putters whilst Uncle Reefer stoops to scoop up Yo-yo's little tartan rucksack. ''My God, that's heavy!'' grunts the pipe. ''What've you got in it? The kitchen sink?''
Yo-yo grins broadly and follows his uncle and aunt out of the station to the taxi. He stops dead in his tracks.
Oh.
'Taxi' is something of an exaggeration. In fact to call it a 'car' would be like calling an octopus a pony. It is basically a flat, metal chassis with four wheels and some seats.
There is no shell.
There are no windows.
There is no body.
There is no windscreen.
But there are two purple armchairs fixed in the front and a purple sofa riveted in the rear.
An engine is strapped to the front. A whirling propeller juts out from the centre.
Flat.
Metal.
Open air.
Propeller.
A banner streaming from a pole in the centre of the chassis proudly proclaims, in the colour of dried blood, that this is:
KATZE'S KAB
Katze's cap is shoved back on the crown of his head. ''Eh up, Yo-yo,'' he grunts, the hand-rolled cigarette seemingly glued to his lips jiggling up and down. He is wearing a blue jacket, white shirt and dark blue tie.
''No need for the meter,'' Uncle Reefer says jovially, heaving Yo-yo's bag onto the sofa. ''We're not going far.''
''You're damn right,'' says Yo-yo. ''It'll fall to bits before we leave the station.''
''What do you mean?'' growls Katze. ''Solid as a rock, this car.''
''Yeah, the suspension, you mean!'' Yo-yo exclaims. ''I might fall out. I want a proper car.''
''This is a proper car,'' Katze retorts. ''It's the best car in town. You get a view, and excellent a/c. Natural, like.''
''You've heard of convertibles,'' Uncle Reefer says mildly. ''Well, this is the ultimate convertible.''
''It's an al fresco driving experience,'' says Aunty Latch.
''Well,'' says Yo-yo, ''I'm not going in it. What if it rains?''
''We've got umbrellas,'' Katze replies shirtily.
''Well,'' repeats Yo-yo, ''I ain't going in it,'' and he dashes across the road and into the soft green grass, gently swaying trees, bright yellow daffodils and sandstone gravestones of the Cholera Burial Ground between Station Road and the old city walls. 185 people lie here. They died in the Great Epidemic, June 2 to October 22 1832. Around twenty monuments remain in this pleasantly green and shady spot. Some stand tall. Some are raised slabs, like tables. Some are embedded in the path, paving the way. Some are to named individuals such as Jonathan Pickles (Lord Mayor's Officer). Others are communal graves dedicated to two or three apparently unconnected people who all died on the same day such as the one inscribed
Died 1st July 1832
Eleazar Glenn aged 6,
William Ellison aged 42
Sarah, wife of Thomas Buckley,
late of the Minster Choir.
Why are they all buried together? This is a mystery.
Yo-yo stops. He can hear voices again.
''die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me''
There is a lung-shredding cough somewhere under the grass.
HUKKKKKK HUK KUK KKKKKK
Then the cries come again.
''die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me die daddy don't let me''
A little long-haired boy in a tatty white shroud lying in the daffodils chokes on his coughs, gives a great rasping gasp. Yo-yo puts a plastic bottle to the cracked, dried lips. Water spills over the small boy's chin. He is shaking violently. His forehead burns with fever and his blue eyes are
unnaturally bright.
''Where's your Mummy?'' Yo-yo asks urgently.
''She's dead. HAK HAK HAK HAK ''
''And your Daddy?''
''Dead.''
''What's your name? Where do you live?''
HUKKKKKK HUK KUK KKKKKK
Yo-yo kneels and takes the boy's hand. A tremendous trembling tears the thin frame. Water trickles onto his chest.
''I l..l....live hhhhh....... here!'' splutters the boy.
''Here?'' Yo-yo looks at the daffodils and the grass and.............
OH GOD!
'''mmmmmmmmmmm ..... Eleazar Glenn!'' moans the boy.
He has been dead these 180 years!
Yo-yo sways away, cold sweat beading his brow. Faintly, as though under water, he hears Katze, Latch and Reefer calling his name, sees them as vague, blurry outlines waving wildly from the city wall, staggers sideways past the headstone that is
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
RUTH BELLERBY
died July 2 1832 aged 39 years
and lurches
PhuTHLAPP
into a mountain of flesh the size and shape of an unfeasibly enormous pear. He vaguely makes out
thin black hair plastered down with oil that smells of linseed
a pink baby face,
a thin black moustache, tips waxed erect,
some half dozen chins,
a lilac waistcoat,
a gold watch chain
stretched over enormous, smothering stomachs
''Steady, my dear.'' Sugar-sweet breath. ''You could have knocked me over.'' The unfeasibly fat man teases a tiny tin from his waistcoat pocket. ''Have a sugared violet, my pillicock.''
''No,'' says Katze, holding Yo-yo's shoulders in both hairy hands. ''He won't.''
''That's a pretty jewel,'' the fat man observes. The buttons on Yo-yo's dark blue shirt have come undone. The polished green stone winks from its silver ring on the silver chain. ''Sell it me. I'll give you a fair price.''
''Come on, Yo-yo.'' Katze is steering him firmly away from the Cholera Ground.
''Who is that man?'' asks Yo-yo as Uncle Reefer and Aunty Latch escort him back to Katze's Kab.
''Mister Vanilla.'' Uncle Reefer clamps the stem of his pipe firmly between his teeth.
''He's no waster,'' remarks Aunty Latch. ''Weighs forty stone, tha knows.''
''Don't go to the burial ground again,'' Katze says sternly.
Mister Vanilla, standing by Jonathan Pickles (Lord Mayor's Officer)'s headstone, pops a sugared violet into his mouth and dabs at his little moustache with a lilac handkerchief. So that is Yo-yo. He nods. Target acquired. ''I'll get you, my pretty,'' he wants to say but is suddenly conscious of the tourists watching open-mouthed and decides to keep his mouth shut. Instead he will report to his boss that the boy and the ring is within his grasp. The trap is now set.
''How's your mother?'' Aunty Latch asks as Katze sticks out his right hand to indicate he is pulling into the traffic.
''Dead,'' Yo-yo answers. ''I smothered her with a pillow.''
''Hahaha.'' Aunty Latch ruffles his hair. ''How's Gillworthy?''
''Better,'' says Yo-yo. ''I blew it up before I left.''
The twin towers of York Minster rear up before them and the River Ouse oozes beneath them as they pass the statue of George Leeman the Railway King, swing into Lendal and on to Lendal Bridge, with its leitmotif of lions, three to a shield, entwined with white roses engraved in the iron work.
Beneath the bridge, hidden in the shadows, lurk a weed and a pebble. They have recently become friends. They met when the pebble was lobbed off the bridge by a kid named Craig. The pebble, a dark shade of grey, has never recovered from being ripped away from his family and friends and thrown into water. The weed, dark green, a little frondy, prone to nibbling attacks from the bream and perch that occasionally brave the city stretch of the slow-flowing, aptly named Ouse, took pity on the poor, abandoned pebble. He has sometimes regretted it. After all, he has never been trained to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder of this magnitude. Their exchange goes thusly-
Weed: How's it going, Pebble?
Pebble: (Shudders) Don't talk about gooks to me. That sweaty hand! Seized from my home, my lovely, gravely bed, torn away from my wife and kids, imprisoned in that sweaty hand .... He'd been eating nachos, you know.
Weed: So you're OK then.
Pebble: Wouldn't let me go ... wife, kids, all gone ... then chucked into the water ...
left to drown, sinking, watching the water flow past my eyes, watching the plants and roots, silver fish, hitting the sand with a jarring thud....... the horror, the horror!
Weed: So no different then. Yo-yo's in town. I've just seen him.
Pebble: It was awful. Been in Hand .... Can't talk about…. Can't forget it .... The smell of nachos in the morning…
Weed: Things'll liven up now, you'll see….
Pebble: Still have nightmares ... Flashbacks … you know. Wake up screaming in the night….I can still see those eyes …. And smell the nachos.
Weed: ….now Yo-yo's back.
Pebble: (Sobbing) Nachos in the morning ……
Weed: Yes sir. Things'll be different now Yo-yo's back.
Pebble: Colonel Klutz he dead.
Weed: Right. What are you doing tonight?
Pebble: Dunno. Probably stay in, watch the footie. What about you?
Weed: (Sighs) Washing my hair, I suppose. Unless I get a date. Then …. Way-hey! Watch out, gravel. Here I come.
Pebble: (Starts singing 'The Ride of the Valkyries') Da-da-da-daaa-da, da-da-da-daaa-da, da-da-da-daaaa-daa…
Katze pulls up outside the Bed and Breakfast. They passed a number of Beechwoods and Park Views and Riversides but not a COZEE NOOK. For COZEE NOOK is unique. It is the Bed and Breakfast run by Uncle Reefer and Aunty Latch, close to Clifton Green, the Old Grey Mare and the sandstone-and-spired Clifton Parish Church dedicated to Saints Philip and James.
COZEE NOOK is dismal and dreary, a three-storeyed Edwardian terrace with soot caking its red bricks. A narrow, weed-sprouting path winds through bedraggled bushes and poorly plants up to steep stone steps and a front door from which the paint is flaking. Whilst the Beechwood Guest House proudly displays an A.A. endorsement and a NO VACANCIES notice, COZEE NOOK hides its vacancies card carefully behind crumbling, cobwebbed net curtains.
''It hasn't changed a bit,'' says Yo-yo, delighted.
''Chutter chutter,'' says Reefer's pipe.
Katze scratches the side of his head. ''Lovely, Reefer. You've done it up a treat. Looks awesome.'' He drags Yo-yo's bag from the sofa. ''Blimey, what you got in here, Yo-yo? The kitchen sink?'' It clunks to the floor. ''I'll just pop in on Mrs Lollipop,'' Katze continues casually, ''Then I'll get off.''
''Right-o,'' bibbles the pipe.
''And,'' Aunty Latch adds, ''Yo-yo can have a lovely lunch.''