That much is true. Eddie Tapworth is the best tackler in the cotton shed. A giant of a man, he is built for the heavy job
of lifting beams. He can keep his looms running all day. He’s not one of those tacklers who hang around making the weavers
wait while they sort out a trapped or broken shuttle, or grumbling at Jack to chase up a shortage of spindles from the spinning
rooms. Tapper sets to and does it himself. He could replace the used shuttles and put a fresh cop in faster than you could
draw breath. He is one of the few tacklers who can reckon how much the shaft speed will increase when the leather drive belts
from the looms shrink in the heat. If all the tacklers were as capable as Tapper, the foreman’s job would be a damn sight
easier. When he’s sober, Jack has a good deal of time for Eddie Tapworth. But drunk it’s another matter. A few pints and Tapper
would fight his own shadow if it followed him.
“We’re off to the Winter Gardens tomorrow night,” Dougie continues. “You’d like. It’s Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. Why don’t
you come?”
Jack rubs the angle of his jaw and shakes his head. “No, I’m not that bothered, Dougie.”
“Come on! You’ve not lost your taste for jazz! I’ve known a time when I couldn’t get you to play a waltz straight without
jazzing it up. We lost work for the band because of it. You were Blackburn’s answer to Jack Teagarden.”
Jack’s expression is transformed by the memory. Laughter rumbles from deep in his chest while his gray eyes all but disappear
above the curve of his cheekbones. He and Dougie got up to all sorts in the band before the war. He played trombone to Dougie’s
trumpet. Jack had started off as bandleader—top hat, silk scarf, the lot. But it hadn’t taken long to sort out that it was
the players who were getting all the girls. The bloke with the trombone in particular. Eddie Cummings couldn’t shift for skirt.
When Jack promoted Eddie to bandleader and borrowed his trombone, things started looking up. Jack’s broad shoulders and ability
to charm make him popular even now with the women. He may be in his late thirties but he takes care of himself. His blond
hair is cut by the best barber in town and combed back into a series of shiny Brylcreemed tramlines.
“No, I’ll give it a miss, Dougie. Kenny Ball’s a bit tame for me. I like the proper stuff—I saw Count Basie at the Tower a
couple of years back. Cost an arm and a leg to get in, but it was worth every penny. Kenny Ball is just an amateur in comparison.
I listened to a fair bit of jazz in Crete during the war.”
“We were damn lucky to get Vera Lynn where I was stationed. Wasn’t it Crete where you met that bloke… the one that…?”
“Yes. Nibs turned up one day with a gramophone and half a dozen jazz records. He’d brought them over from Greece. Got them
from a black GI who was being posted back home. Only the Yanks would think to take a gramophone to war. I couldn’t get enough
of it. The first time I heard Meade Lux Lewis playing ‘Honky Tonk Train Blues’ I cracked out laughing.”
“Aye, well, Kenny Ball’s the best Blackpool can come up with. You sure you won’t come?”
“No, I’ll give it a miss. I promised to see Tom Bell tomorrow night.”
“What? The Union bloke? Now isn’t that a surprise!”
“Oh, it’s nothing serious. He just wants a chat.”
“Chat my arse. He’ll have summat up his sleeve. I bet he’s got wind of Fosters’ offer.”
“You haven’t said anything, have you, Dougie? Nobody is supposed to know. I haven’t even told Ruth. I’m still thinking about
it.”
“Why haven’t you told Ruth? I’d have thought you’d have wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Bloody hell, Jack, they’ve offered
you the top job. Manager of Prospect Mill. What’s there to think about? It’ll more than double your pay packet overnight.
Get her told.”
“She’s been distracted with Beth. And anyway I haven’t said I’ll take the job.”
“Then you want your head examined, Jack. You should have bitten their hand off the minute it was offered. They should have
made you up to manager years ago. You know more about cotton than all the Foster brothers put together.”
“It’ll mean sitting behind a desk all day.”
“You won’t catch Ruth complaining about that. I remember when we were kids on Bird Street. She had some fancy ideas even then.
We used to tease the life out of her, but she’d never change her tune. She was going to get married, live in a beautiful house
and have two children—a boy and a girl.”
“That’s Ruth. Always knows exactly what she wants. But I still think I’d rather be busy in the weaving shed than sitting by
myself in an office pushing papers around. I’ll get round to telling her. I’ve got other things on my mind at the moment.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Jack shakes his head. “No, no. It’s something and nothing. Not worth bothering with.”
“Well, think on. There’ll be merry hell to pay if she finds out you’ve been keeping secrets.”
Jack looks at his feet and moves his hand unconsciously up to the inside pocket of his jacket where he has hidden the letter.
There are enough secrets in there to keep him busy for a fair bit and then some.
“Anyway, how is she?”
Jack looks confused; his mind has been elsewhere. “Who?”
“Your Ruth.”
Jack shakes his head. “She’s jiggered after all the upset with Beth. She didn’t want to come away for fear that Beth wouldn’t
be up to it. We ended up having a fight about it. Ruth needs a holiday more than any of us. Still, you can lead a horse to
water but you can’t make it drink. The first thing she did when we got to the hotel was to set to and clean the washbasin.”
“But Beth’s goin’ to be OK?”
“Oh aye. Give her time, she’ll pull round. She’s a right little fighter.”
“And how’s your Helen?”
Jack smiles. “Still pushing to leave school this summer. It’s the usual do—she’s sixteen going on twenty-five.”
“They’re all the same. Our Doug is only a year older and he thinks he knows it all. Never satisfied. ‘He wants jam on it’
as my old dad used to say. Talking of which, just take a look at this.” Dougie reaches into his pocket and pulls out a square
of fabric and hands it to Jack.
“Where did you get this?” Jack asks, turning the square over and back.
“One of the lads from Whittaker’s. Says this is what they’re turning out nowadays.”
“Are you sure Whittaker’s are weaving this?”
“It’s right what I tell you. Look at the state of it. Lowest possible thread count and sized to glory.”
Jack runs his thumbnail across the surface of the dry, brittle fabric and a small cloud of white powder rises. “It must be
hell to weave. There’s no movement in it, no give.”
“There’s more elastic in a tart’s knickers.”
“I can’t believe Whittaker’s are using such poor-quality cotton staple that they’ve had to glue it together. They never used
to use anything less than Egyptian or Sea Island cotton.”
“Times have changed, Jack. You know that as well as I do. There’s no pride left in the business.”
Dougie and Jack reach the pavement where they part, Dougie for breakfast at the nearest café, and Jack for a
Daily Herald
and twenty Senior Service cigarettes.
On the way back from the newsagent’s Jack finds a bench on the prom, sits down and reaches for his cigarettes. The pack of
untipped cigarettes is embossed in the center with a picture of a brawny sailor. Jack runs his thumb over the familiar relief
as he pushes open the pack and lights his first cigarette of the day. Smoking is barely tolerated at home. Jack may smoke
in the backyard or, if it is raining, in the scullery. Tab ends to be disposed of directly into the ash bin. There isn’t an
ashtray in the house and Ruth refuses to buy one. Numberless though her household duties may be, emptying ashtrays is not
one of them. Alcohol is subject to similar restrictions. The single bottle of sherry is brought out every Christmas and returned
untouched to the darkest recesses of the sideboard every New Year. Ruth is running a house, not a public bar. She is teetotal,
has been since the Temperance Society marched down Bird Street with their banners flying.
Jack sighs and opens the paper, but he’s too distracted by memories of his friend to read. Nibs was barely five foot six,
thin as a rake. He seemed to be in a permanent sweat. His skin shone like it was newly oiled and he couldn’t speak without
using his hands to illustrate his point. He looked like a windmill in a gale when he got upset. He had run a pet shop in London
before the war. A typical Cockney—loads of patter and plenty of old buck when things weren’t going his way. But he loved animals.
It didn’t matter where they were, there’d be some mangy mongrel or moth-eaten cat at his heels. In Heraklion Nibs had put
his hand halfway down an Alsatian’s throat to pull out a sliver of bone that was blocking the dog’s windpipe. The dog had
promptly vomited and then nipped Nibs on the ankle as he was walking away. He’d always taken in strays and the fact that he
was in the middle of a war didn’t make any difference. He argued that there wasn’t much to choose between dogs and men. “Sometimes,
even with the best will in the world, you can’t save them and there’s no point in even trying. It’s kinder to have done and
put them out of their bloody misery.” The memory is a bitter one, considering how things turned out. Jack shakes himself and
rubs his hand across his forehead as if to wipe away the memory. He lights another cigarette and stares out across the empty
sands, a look of hopelessness on his face.
It is Gunner, the hotel dog, who finally rouses him. The dog wanders up out of nowhere and lodges his chin firmly on Jack’s
knee. Gunner is a Lakeland terrier, his coat a scrunch of gray and brown wire wool. One eye is dimmed with a cataract but
the other is bright and what’s left of his docked tail is permanently erect. Man and dog sit in companionable silence for
a few minutes. The breeze freshens, shifting grains of sand across the pink flagstones and rippling the bunting tied to the
promenade railings. Jack has spent Wakes Week at the Belvedere Hotel every year since the war and, as a result, is regarded
as family by Gunner. Blackpool at the height of the holiday season might disturb and overexcite any ordinary dog, but Gunner
is an old hand. It has been a long trip for Gunner from “unofficial South Lancs Regimental mascot” to Mine Host at the Belvedere
Hotel. The dog is subject to the unwelcome attention of passing children and his sleep is disturbed nightly by hotel guests
in various states of inebriation gaining rowdy entry to the hotel lobby. Jack tickles the dog’s left ear before taking a last
drag and flicking his cigarette over the promenade railings. Standing up, he proceeds to fold the newspaper into three and,
putting it under his arm, heads back to the hotel. Gunner meanwhile continues his route march along the prom in search of
last night’s chip papers.
“Looks as if it’s going to be another hot one, Ruth,” Jack says when he sees his wife in the lobby. His glance strays to Beth,
who is already wriggling with the itchiness of her undershirt, liberty bodice and wool sweater. “Hasn’t she got a summer dress
to wear?”
“Not today,” Ruth replies firmly. “It could turn cold again; the wind’s got a nip to it.”
“Give over. I’ve been out there. It’s not cold, it’s fresh. It’ll do her good to get some sunshine.”
Beth runs up to her father and wraps her arms round his legs.
“E-yo-yo, Sputnik!”
Jack bends down to pick Beth up. He puts his arm carefully round the back of her legs and lifts her gently. Beth might be
fragile but the spell in hospital hasn’t curbed any of her curiosity. She spots the letter in his inside jacket pocket in
a flash. “What’s this?” she asks, her fingers closing round the corner of the letter.
“Never mind that. Are you ready for your breakfast? Plenty of porridge, that’s what you need. It’ll make your hair curl,”
Jack says as he strokes back a fine brown strand that has escaped from her ribbon. “I’ll just nip upstairs and change my jacket—it’s
too hot for tweed,” he continues, turning to Ruth.
“I’ll come with you,” she replies. “I’ve left my scarf on the dressing table.”
“No, you’re all right. I can pick it up at the same time.”
Once in the room, Jack reaches inside his jacket. The beige satin lining whispers conspiratorially against the thick envelope
as he slides it out. He has had the letter for the best part of a week now and keeping it hidden is proving stressful. If
he were at home there’d be no problem. Jack could have hidden it in his worksheets and textile patterns. As long as they’re
neatly stacked Ruth never bothers with them; she’s no interest in loom specifications and the like. But here in Blackpool
there’s nowhere safe to keep the letter. Not in the suitcase. Dear God, not in there. She’s in that case half a dozen times
a day, pulling out fresh clothes for the girls and rearranging everything. She has a system. Everything in its place and a
place for everything. At night she goes through all Jack’s clothes looking for loose buttons and dirty handkerchiefs. She
empties the contents of his pockets onto a brass tray on the dressing table and puts his wallet on top. Finally she brushes
down his jacket and, resisting the lure of the hotel wardrobe, hangs it up behind the door. As a result of her efficiency
Jack has been driven to distraction—forever moving the letter from jacket to trousers as the situation demands. He had been
keeping it in his shirt pocket until he noticed her eyeing him suspiciously at breakfast yesterday. Discretion being the better
part of valor, he had retired to the toilet and moved it to his jacket pocket where he’d reckoned it was safe enough for a
while. Now he takes the letter, folds it in half, pushes it in the back pocket of his trousers and does up the button. Maneuver
completed, Jack takes off his jacket, collects Ruth’s scarf from the dressing table and locks the door behind him.
These are large seabirds with white feathers and black tips to their wings. They feed by plunging into the sea and catching
fish with their long pointed bills. This habit of diving upon their food has led to their hungry reputation! Score 20 points
for some greedy gannets.