In the Kitchen (28 page)

Gabe watched him tackle the hill, his back angled against the slope.

'Decent,' said Ted, turning up his coat collar. 'A decent sort.'

Gabriel pretended he wanted to look in a shop window to give Ted a chance to catch his breath. They dawdled along the parade. Outside a jeweller's Gabe blurted out, 'Dad, I'm engaged.'

Ted laughed. 'Don't sound so terrified, son.'

Gabe said, 'God, I think I am.'

'It's wonderful news,' said Ted. 'Perhaps we'll meet her now. Set a date?'

'Haven't even got a ring yet,' said Gabe. 'But it'll be soon, definitely.'

'Got you tearing yer hair out already, has it?'

'What?'

Ted gestured vaguely towards him.

Gabriel lowered his arm. He hadn't realized he was doing it. He hadn't felt it. 'The thing is ...'

'Let's keep walking,' said Ted.

'There's this other girl. I slept with her. More than once.'

Ted lengthened his stride, hoping perhaps to leave this news behind.

'It's over, anyway. With this Lena. I won't even see her again.'

Ted remained silent.

'I don't know why I told you that.' He could think of no reason, other than the thrill of speaking her name out loud.

'I remember,' said Ted, 'when I decided to marry yer mother. Blackpool it were. She's there with her folks and I'm there with mine. I'd seen her before, course I had, seen her around, but I didn't know her then. Anyhow, I'm walking down the pier and there she is, having her portrait done, penny portrait on the end of the pier. I says, "Hello, Sally Anne," but she ignores me. Aye, that's right. Bit later, reckon around tea time, I'm on the beach and summat hits me on the head. So I look up and she's there, up on the promenade, throwin' chips. I says, "Sally Anne," call out to her, you know, and she smiles at me and then she's off and running. And I know. She's the girl I'll marry. I see it – clear as the back of my hand.'

Gabe said, 'She was really something, I bet.'

Ted blew his nose. 'I'd to hang on to her, Gabe. From that day on. I'd to hang on for dear life, sometimes.'

'I didn't really know,' said Gabe. 'I knew she had her ups and downs ... but ... I was talking to Jen last night and she said ...'

'We've a hard time remembering now, the way we didn't talk about things then.

And she didn't want it. Didn't want you bothered with all that.'

'There were a few dramas, weren't there?' said Gabe. It was easier to talk like this, not facing each other, but walking side by side.

'We'd a temper on us, both of us. Can't have been easy for you and Jen.'

'Oh, we were all right.'

'Always the one for me,' said Ted, speaking quietly, as if to himself. 'And she knew it, because I always brought her home again. That's how I knew it meself, truth be told.'

'Your feelings didn't change, not in all those years?' His parents' marriage, which had seemed – at best – like mutually indentured labour, began to seem like something of an achievement.

'Feelings?' said Ted, chewing it like a foreign word, the way he said 'vol-au-vents'. 'I felt angry, a lot of the time. People are always on about how they feel. I tell you one thing I've learned in old age. You don't always know how you feel, not at the time, anyway. And it's easy to mix up feelings, muddle up anger with fear. Maybe what's important – it's not what you feel, it's what you do.'

Rileys Shopping Village was, according to the sign that hung over the entrance, A LEGENDARY EXPERIENCE. It had begun, after the last of the jacquards and looms had been shipped to Egypt, as a small retail outlet selling remnants and seconds that had been discovered when the warehouse was cleared out. Over the years it had grown into a sizeable emporium with a coffee shop and restaurant, landscaped gardens, an indoor children's play area and free parking for the coaches that brought the visitors to experience shopping the Rileys Way.

Ted and Gabe followed the signs to the Hungry Tackler Café. It was hot inside the old shed but the customers, mostly middle-aged and old, wore their coats and anoraks as they worked diligently through the concession stands. The 'Victorian Arcade' was filled with 'ladies' fashions', ceramics, bakeware, handbags and accessories, crystal vases and 'personalized' coffee mugs. Gabe saw signs to Candleland, Gnomeland and Bubbleland, and more pointing the way to FlowerWorld, Cat'n'dogWorld and GadgetWorld. In the 'Weaver's Court', they brushed by the fake bow window (complete with bubbled glass) of Thow'd Calico Shop and witnessed an exhibition of toffee being pulled by hand.

At a stand selling tea towels three old ladies, their hair freshly 'set' for their day out, picked through the offerings with great deliberation as if selecting for their trousseaux.

'Look at this,' said Gabe. He picked up a towel from the 'novelty' shelf and read aloud to Ted. '"Rules to be Observed by the Hands Employed in this Mill".

It's got the date on, 1878.'

'Oh aye,' said Ted. 'I've seen that one before.'

' "For single drawing, slubbing, or roving, 2d for each single end. For any bobbins found on the floor, 1d for each bobbin. For every oath or insolent language, 3d for the first time, and if repeated they shall be dismissed. The Grinders, Drovers, Slubbers and Rovers shall sweep at least eight times a day." '

'Hard times,' said Ted. He chuckled. 'But at least they got paid for being here. Now look, it's t'other way around.'

*

They installed themselves at the café where, despite it not yet being five o'clock or even quite December, a coach-party Christmas dinner was in full swing. They were, the piped music informed them, simply having a wonderful Christmas time. Plastic holly and fir branches, studded with glittery red ribbons and baubles, decorated the walls.

Ted and Gabe sipped their tea in congenial silence. Gabe stared at the pillar to his right. It bore the scratches and knocks of a hundred years and more and the letters that he thought he'd made out were small and barely visible: he'd struggled with his penknife to leave any mark at all. But, no, there they were, a G and an L, underscored with a wobbly line. He'd worked at it, quickly, feverishly, when Ted had been called away to deal with a mash on one of the machines.

It was in the summer holidays and Dad had brought him to Rileys for the day but they were shorthanded and he kept leaving Gabe on his own. When Dad came back Gabe had slipped the penknife up his sleeve.

'Right,' Ted had said, 'I'll start from the beginning. This here's a knotting machine. Everyone calls it the Topmatic, that's how it's known.'

'Can I have a go with that blower thing, Dad? Can I? Can I have a go?'

' ' Old yer 'orses,' said Ted. 'OK. The Topmatic goes on top right here, on the warp-tying frame. Remember what we're about? What's the job we've to get done?'

'Easy,' said Gabriel. 'I know. The loom's run out of warp. It needs a new beam on. Dad, can I have a new bike?'

Ted started up the machine. It looked like something Gabe could build with his Meccano set. Ted operated it with loving precision, breathing hard down his nose. He checked the first few knots individually then speeded everything up.

The Topmatic trundled along.

Ted was speaking and Gabe stared at him closely to tune out the background noise. 'Go on, you can use it.' Dad handed him the blower, a simple nozzle and rubber pump. 'That's it, you get rid of the fluff so the knots don't get stuck in the healds and break. Know what a heald is?' Gabe pointed to the flat steel strips with eyes in the centre through which the yarn had to run. 'Champion,'

said Dad.

After Gabe had finished, Dad worked along the knots with a little brush to make sure they all lay down nice and smooth.

'Dad,' said Gabe, 'when did you decide you wanted to work at Rileys? How old were you?'

Ted snorted. 'Decide? That's just what you did. Them days, they said, "Put a mirror under their nose. If they're breathing, get 'em in." '

Gabe put his hands in his pockets and wiggled his penknife into his hand. He worked it open and managed to cut his finger on the blade. It didn't seem right, what Dad said, as though any idiot could do his job. 'But you could have been, like, a train driver? If you wanted, Dad?'

'Aye,' said Ted. 'I suppose.' He wound the handle again and showed Gabe how the threads went through the pins to the reed. 'Right, the knotter has to call the tackler at this stage. But,' said Ted, 'guess what?'

'I know,' said Gabe, bursting with the answer, 'you are the tackler, Dad.'

'The tackler tightens what's known, in this town, any road, as the temples, have a look, these spiky rings what hold the cloth in place. It's an important job, is tackler. Not anyone can do that.

'Then I tighten up the warp, come with me round the back. And now we're ready to weave a few inches, then I put a docket on the board says the loom's been gaited. The weaver's help checks the cloth over for faults and – if it's all OK – the weaver starts the loom.'

'Dad,' said Gabe. He could feel the blood draining rapidly out of his finger.

He was surprised there wasn't a pool of it on the floor. If he took his hand out of his pocket and showed Dad what had happened he'd get a bollocking. If he didn't he would bleed to death. He couldn't decide which of these options he preferred.

As he dithered he noticed a crazy woman running towards them, flapping her arms.

'Take a breath, now, Rita,' said Ted. 'You'll set yerself on fire.'

'It's Jimmy,' said Rita. 'Jimmy. A beam's fell on him.'

'Go and find Maureen, stop with her,' Ted told Gabe. 'You know where she is.

Go on.'

'But, Dad,' said Gabriel. Ted was already striding away. 'Dad.'

Gabe ran through the sheds with one bloody finger aloft. Dad didn't even care.

He didn't even look round when Gabe was shouting out. Gabe ran smack into Maureen, straight into her pillowy bosom, and she said, 'Oh, there you are,'

as if she had been expecting him.

On the drive home Ted had been quiet. 'Dad,' said Gabe, eventually, 'is Jimmy all right?'

'I'd a pint with him after work,' said Dad, 'only yesterday.'

'Did he go to the hospital? Did an ambulance take him? Did you go with him, Dad?'

Ted indicated to turn right. The tick-tick filled the car like a time bomb, nobody speaking, and Gabe felt his stomach contract, wishing now he'd not said a word.

When the car was stopped at some traffic lights Ted said, 'Course in the old days you'd to do knotting on by hand. There's a few as can do it still. I can do it. Jimmy could do it. Aye, there's only one or two. I remember when I was learning, this old feller he tried to show me what to do. But he was that fast I couldn't see what he were doing wi' his fingers. And he couldn't do it slow.

It were ingrained in him, ingrained.'

It was Mum who had told Gabe about Jimmy, the morning of the funeral.

A waitress brought a Christmas pudding to the long table, the weight of it forcing her tongue out between her teeth. She set it alight. The coach party said 'ooh' and 'ah'.

Ted said, 'Have you handed in yer notice yet? They know you'll be moving on?'

'I'm waiting for the right time,' said Gabe.

'Mr Riley had a way of knowing who were about to leave. It were uncanny. Like he had a sixth sense. Well, he seemed to know everything, even who'd clocked on late, and he'd a lot of things to see to, but he always knew. What about your boss now? Good sort, is he, good man?'

Gabriel shrugged. 'I don't know. But, you know, the hotel doesn't belong to him. He's only an employee like me.'

'Oh,' said Ted. 'I see. Who's it belong to, then?'

'Shareholders,' said Gabe. PanCont had hotels all over the world and was listed on the US stock market. 'American shareholders, I guess.'

'What about your colleagues. You told 'em yet?'

'Not yet, Dad. They won't care. The catering business, it's got a very high turnover. People move around.'

Ted said, 'Not done too much of that meself.' He smiled to acknowledge the understatement. 'No, not done so much moving around. Maybe I should of, but it's a bit late to be thinking of that. Loyalty,' he said, 'that don't mean anything any more. It means points on your Tesco clubcard. It means buy five teas and get one free.'

'We're a nation of shopkeepers, Dad.'

Ted blew his nose. The effort of it made him pause a while. 'But I don't look back and wish I'd done it different. Only the small things, maybe. D'you know, I was stood by the window waiting for Jen, t'other week, is this, and there were a blackbird on the lawn and I was stood there watching, the way he's trying to pull up this worm, and there's a fascination to it, if you've a mind to notice. Well, we never really look. You see the colours in the feathers, like a slick of oil on water, you see the beauty in it when you take the time.'

'You know what,' said Gabe. 'You know we were talking about "British" – what does it mean? There's your answer, that's what we've always done as a country: trade. We're a trading nation. If anything's our national identity, that's it, that's what it is.'

Ted set his hands on the table and ran them along the paper tablecloth. ' Once upon a time,' he said, 'yes. But not any more. D'you know what the balance of payments is? Aye, expect you do. When we were the workshop of the world we sold to everywhere and we'd a healthy surplus, you see. But we've a huge deficit now because all as we can do is shop. We're not a trading nation, we're a nation of consumers, that's all.'

'Where does the money come from, then? You've got to be making money to spend it. If people want to spend it on shopping that's up to them.'

'Of course it's up to them. I'm not telling anyone what to do.' Ted folded his arms, as though – even if begged – he would refuse to direct the nation now.

'But this country wants waking up. It's in a dream world. How long can it go on?'

'How long can what go on?' Gabe tried to keep the irritation from his voice.

'There's no industry any more,' said Ted. 'We don't produce anything. You can't build a pyramid upside down, it'll fall over, you've to get the foundation right.'

'You mean, we don't make ships any more? Cars? Cloth? So what, Dad? So what?