— Is it because he’s a left-footer? Is it because he’s a Bolshevik?
Catholics were generally less tolerated in the predominantly Methodist town than any other denomination. Jonty’s dad for one would not entertain them at his table. Nor humour them with conversation at the pub. It was assumed that there was something belligerent about stray papists in Morecambe, and though his mam had never seemed to judge one way or another when it came to matters of religion it did not mean she was without discrimination. Anybody remotely liberal in Morecambe was considered to be a Bolshevik, and about as remote to the affection of the town as Russia itself.
— No, love, it’s because it’s a difficult trade.
The curious part was that for all the bits and pieces of argument Cy had stored up in preparation, how his dad had had a tattoo as she herself had told him, how he just liked seeing the colours go in, how it gave him opportunity to use his best talent, how Mr Greene at the print shop was a boring old coot who left his hands too long on ladies elbows and made them uncomfortable, it was Reeda herself that changed her own mind during the course of the discussion the following Sunday morning. First she insisted it was not a good idea. Next she began to dwell on the profession of tattooing itself, in relation to her own, the difficulties, she wouldn’t wish them on anyone let alone her own, but for herself she could justify them. Cy suspected that his mother was alluding to her secondary profession undertaken with her silent partner Mrs Preston rather than hotel managing. Then she became defensive, and from that empathy, part pride, part fool’s pardon, she gradually spun a web that caught her.
— It’s not that I don’t approve of the trade, for all its oddness. And goodness knows I should comprehend an odd profession. I cannot say I don’t. But sometimes what choice have we? Life conspires to plant us in the funniest of gardens where the trees need an especial form of tending. We are all here to serve one another, Cyril, after all, and some serve in stranger ways than others, but one without the other we are made the poorer. There’s room for all kinds of folk in this wide world. You’re old enough to see that now, that what I do is necessary. Mr Riley, well I’m sure he has his incentives too. It’s a most unusual calling, those who go to him are sent for very deep and mysterious reasons as best that I can see. And I suppose you’re old enough to make your judgments as you will of him also.
— So, you’re saying I’m grand to do it.
— I’m saying someone has probably got to do it.
— Me as well as anyone?
She came around to it like a person slowly developing a taste for bread and dripping because that’s all there is left to eat in the kitchen, or like a dog, finally defeated in a frenzied circle by its own tail and slowing and realizing then that the tail it was after all along was already in its possession. Until her decision was reversed.
— Though I’ll be wanting a word with Mr Riley first, if you’ll pass that on to him. Yes, Cyril, I’ll be wanting a word with him. Oh, Pedder Street! I swear on all things true and holy if you put a foot inside Professor Johnson’s looking for the spirit of your father I’ll honest to goodness wring your scrawny neck. He’s where he should be, and not hanging around trying to … make contact … or whatever it is they say!
Mesmerists were Reeda Parks’s least favourite type of people. She was very much in contempt of that kind of penny-stealing, preying on the weaker soul, charlatan’s act. Manipulating the bereaved and lonely was not only a shabby way to make a living, it was a moral disgrace, she said. Neither was her son to have anything to do with it. And with that Cy received the only condition to her endorsement of his new profession that his mother would issue.
Eliot Riley was a blaggard but he knew when to trim the excessive fat off the edges of his raillery. Face to face with a steel-eyed, dyed-in-the-wool, straight-and-narrow-peddling Reeda Parks was one such occasion. Nor was Riley well suited to unwavering, tedious sincerity. Instead of bluff or sombre, he settled for a compromise of personality, nearer to streaky bacon than a flabby or lean cut of behaviour. He had called at the Bayview at Reeda’s behest and was being poured a cup of her strongest tea. Cy sat on a sofa next to his mam as she saw to the cups and saucers, her best rose-patterned china no less, and he distributed the buttery crumpets. She’d insisted he comb his hair and wear his school tie, which, given his new insight into the trade he was entering, seemed not unlike polishing a shovel to carry muck. She herself was rouged. There was a string of pearls about her neck, and a workwoman’s headscarf hid her thinning hair, suggesting she always went about the hotel’s upkeep bejewelled and made-up like a lady. Riley had on the usual combination of derelict smocking and turn of the century gentleman’s suiting, but the tips of his boots looked buffed. The woollen hat was firm about his ears. It was a most peculiar tea-party, as if several mismatched elements of fable had been stuffed into a magician’s box, thoroughly shaken, then evicted. There was something slapstick and pantomime and overly choreographed about it all, thought Cy, like one of the more farcical shows in the pavilions.
— Eliot.
— Reeda, my dove. It appears your boy wants to learn the annals of my craft.
Eliot? Reeda? He wasn’t aware the two were on such informal terms. The town was small but locals were, in general, candid about their friendships and allegiances, yet here was possibly another of Reeda’s covert associations.
— Yes. So it would seem. And what, in your opinion, is to become of his schooling?
— He’ll finish it, I’ll not hear otherwise, and Reeda, pet, I would suggest you let him do so. I’ve no room for a simpleton at my shop, getting under my feet and fiddling with machinery, not to mention annoying the customers. He’s not exactly sharp as a brass tack now.
— Be serious, Eliot. I won’t have him disadvantaged by this.
— I think you’ll find him well advantaged if he comes to me. Not only will he learn himself a craft, a craft I say, Reeda, and a good one, he’ll learn a thing or two about the wider world.
Cy began to feel rather like a platter of star-gazey pie, scooped into pieces and distributed around the table. His mother straightened her back.
— Yes. That’s exactly my concern. You’re not to take him drinking. You’re not to … harden his edges either. And, I need to ask this of you Eliot and I’ll ask only once, this is an … independent offer, isn’t it?
Riley’s eyes flickered briefly over Cy, who had lost the thread of the conversation.
— Reeda. You know what sort of man I am. Don’t you? Yes, love, you do. I wouldn’t be here in your pretty sitting room eating your delicious crumpets if you thought of me what your tone implies. He has the skills necessary. That’s all. Call it … a happy coincidence. What can I tell you that you don’t already know, love? He’ll be well looked after. Made as firm as any man must be, and not a hinge or bracket firmer. I’ll not say the wage will be anything to look forward to in the beginning mind. But that’s the nature of an apprenticeship, isn’t it? Which brings me on to my next consideration. He’s learning bugger-all at school. I quizzed the boy myself not a week ago and he’s sorely lacking in a nobler knowledge. Do you know the lad had never even heard of Leonardo da-bloody-Vinci? Eh? Eh? Hogarth, Rembrandt. Not a noddle. Michel-bloody-angelo! Masters, all of them. Passing their gifts down to the next generation through which honourable system, incidentally? The apprentice system. You can’t have a craftsman doesn’t ken these things. It’s like having a magistrate doesn’t know the law, then where would we be? The poor lad’s been disadvantaged already Reeda. Sorely disadvantaged.