The Palace of Strange Girls. Sallie Day

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 bumps feeling, 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 barney 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.

      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 centre 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 СКАЧАТЬ