One Summer E-Book

Jim Ellis

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Nathan Forrest is a lapsed Catholic, a welder, an illegitimate son, and a gifted jazz trumpeter. After he begins pursuing Dorothy - a Protestant girl from a middle-class family - they face the antagonism of mid-20th century Scotland.

Against a backdrop of decaying Westburn's doomed shipyards and bitter environment, the young lovers seek to escape the contraints of prejudice and hate.

But is their love and determination enough to bring them happiness, or will religious and social conflict consume them both?

Leseprobe

One Summer

Jim Ellis

Copyright (C) 2013 Jim Ellis

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Cynthia Weiner, Libby Jacobs, and Miriam Santana for their support and encouragement; and a warm thank you to Maggie McClure for proof reading. A special thank you to my Good Lady, Jeannette.

To see her is to love her,And love but her for ever;For nature made her what she is,And ne'er made such anither

Robert Burns, Bonnie Leslie

Chapter One

Nathan Forrest lived in Westburn, a town built by the river, its fading glories sprung from shipbuilding and marine engineering, many of its 80,000 souls sustained by stoicism and God's Mercy. The workers were crammed into tenements and drab estates on the edges of the town; the better off enjoyed a spacious suburb to the west. The working people felt compensated by the beauty of the river and the views of the mountains. The middle classes took it all for granted.

Nathan saw only High Summer in Westburn, and was blind to winter coming. In 1958 orders replacing wartime losses had dried up, but the yards held on, building new ships.

When he left the Army, Nathan had mastered welding and now worked on the submarines building for the Royal Navy. Had he lifted his eyes he might have seen that this way of life was mouldering. But Nathan made good money and did not worry that class solidarity was dying, and management control of the business of shipbuilding was slipping.

The yard managers knew how to build ships, but they hadn't a clue about leadership and had no respect for the men. At ten o'clock every morning, they sat in warm offices, drinking tea and nibbling biscuits served on Company china by liveried tea ladies from the Management Restaurant; the staff obtained refreshments from the Staff Canteen. The men took an unofficial break, hiding in draughty corners of part-built hulls and steel fabrications, sneaking a bite of egg roll, slurping hot, sweet tea from a thermos flask or a tea can. Sometimes the men's meal was disrupted when an aggressive young manager, or an old management hard case feeling his oats, raided the hiding places, chasing the men back to work.

One Thursday, a senior manager, an old warhorse, ambushed a tea boy brewing up for his squad and booted the tin tea cans to the ground, trampling them underfoot. The boy, cowering from the manager's rage, tripped on an upturned tea can and fell. It looked as if the manager had pushed the boy to the ground, and Nathan was outraged when the boy got sacked. The fury of the men erupted in a wildcat strike, emptying the yard in twenty minutes. Nathan joining the hate-filled throng milling at the yard gate, refusing to disperse until management summoned the police.

The following Monday, management's stomach for the fight collapsed and the Tea Boy Strike ended when the manager apologized and the boy was reinstated.

But sometimes the unions sank low. A young manager saw a workman defecating inside a steel fabrication and dismissed him. Nathan was sickened by the man's filthy habits and agreed with the firing, but he doubted the judgement of the Unions, when the shop stewards fought and had the miscreant reinstated. Nathan retreated again from life in the yard and backed farther into his private world.

Some of Nathan's friends went abroad, but Nathan was impervious to the creeping rot killing the yard: the struggles of management and unions, and the ending of the old way of life. He turned aside from the decay surrounding him; Nathan was content and did not want to shift overseas, and have to deal with changes to his trade, and the way he lived. He was an elite welder earning good money, supporting what really mattered to him: his life outside the yard as a Jazz musician. It would have been better for Nathan were the yards to implode through sudden, unexpected crisis, driving him out of his crumbling niche, opening his eyes to the truths of his situation. Nathan was far from stupid and could have worked out the uncertainties and difficulties lying ahead; but he was indifferent to the struggles for respect; and heedless of the slow death rattle rising from shipbuilding and his people.

Nathan wrapped himself in a comforting blanket of tolerable wages and his other life in Jazz. It would take a great storm to set Nathan free.

Nathan was twenty-five of lean build and stood at five-foot ten inches. He dressed in sober, dark wool jackets and slacks. The cut was hip. Hip for Westburn and working class: drape jackets with sack back and narrow pants and well-polished loafers. He liked soft, solid coloured shirts and wool ties. With his dark hair cut short and neatly parted, he came close to the look favoured by some American Jazz musicians he'd seen at concerts in Glasgow.

That Friday, with the working week over, Nathan walked out the yard gate with Leo, an alto saxophone player and co-leader of the band. He offered to pick up Nathan and drive him to the Friday night gig, but Nathan preferred to walk.

Later that evening, Nathan went down the four stairs leading from the main door of the terraced house where he lived, looked across rooftops and through tall chimneys, free of smoke so close to mid summer. Nathan's eyes rested on the masts and funnels of vessels in the harbour, then moved on to the silhouettes of ships anchored in the river. He paused outside the house for a minute, taking in the views of the cranes; tall, sinister skeletons perched over the frames and hulls of part built vessels. And below them, invisible from the heights of Galt Place was the sub, a black, deep-sea creature, cramped and packed with weapons and machinery. He hated all of it; was sick of the hard drinking and coarsened lives that went with it and yet, grudgingly, Nathan admired the innovation and industry that created it. Perversely, he was proud of the ships that his people, the working class, built there.

Nathan and Leo were welders on the sub and would be back inside its confined spaces on Monday morning, bulky in pigskin jackets and gauntlets, the moleskin trousers: all this kit to protect them from burns; and the heavy boots with steel toe caps. Nathan seldom lost the feel of the tight beret on his head and the welding hood that fitted snugly over it. Monday to Friday, he stared through the dark window of the hood at the blue arc of the burning welding rod.

Nathan headed west to the affluent suburb and Westburn Rugby Club. At the end of Galt Place he turned to let his eyes linger on the full sweep of the small terraced villas and the house where he lived with Ma. Galt Place was elegant when built early in the 19th Century.

Now, carelessness and neglect enveloped Galt Place. Year by year, ruin gained. Peeling paint, crumbling stonework, stained windows, shabby entrances and stairs assaulted his eyes. But the quality of Victorian craftsmanship survived in the elegant bay windows, the deep eaves, ornate sofit boards and solid, hardwood doors.

Ma cared for their house, keeping paintwork and fitments neat and clean. She struggled against the indifference and despair of her neighbours. Nathan often wondered how long Ma and he could hold back the flood tide of decay.

Nathan liked walking through Westburn on the way to a gig, the Bach trumpet safe in its case tucked under his arm. He walked down the steep hill of Ann Street and entered The Square, past the old Empire Theatre, shabby now that it was closed and abandoned. There was no theatre, no variety shows or musicals in Westburn and had Nathan read the signs on billboards and in the local newspaper, he might have predicted that his great passion, Jazz, would struggle to be heard, as amateur folk groups mushroomed in popularity capturing gigs from musicians like himself. Had he looked closely he might have noticed that some venues for young people already preferred record hops to live musicians. He stared for a minute at the regal Municipal Buildings, raising his head to see the top of the Royal Tower soaring above.

Walking westwards, Nathan crossed the Great Divide of Westburn: Lord Nelson Street, lined with the symbols of authority: the Sheriff Court, the Grammar School, the established Protestant churches and in particular, the Town Kirk and its clock chiming the quarter hours, reminding Nathan's people that they did not belong west of this line. These buildings like Forts on Hadrian's Wall, a deterrent to entry by working class barbarians into middle class Valentia.

Nathan turned towards the river passing his old school that he habitually referred to as 'The Borstal for Retarded Tims.' His time there ended on a sour note when the School Chaplain, Father Brendan Toner, a cruel Irishman humiliated him in front of the class. It was a about a week before he was due to leave. Nathan was fourteen.

“Are you Catholic boy?” the Chaplain said.

“Yes, Father.”

“Are your parents Catholic?”

“Ma mother wis. She's dead. Ma father's dead. Ah don't know if he wis a Catholic.”

Behind him, Nathan heard the titters of the class.

“And were they married?”

Nathan felt the swelling in his throat and tears coming. He didn't answer.

“Who brought you up, boy?”

“Ma did.”

“And tell me boy, who is Ma; is she Catholic?”

Nathan fought back the tears, silently cursing the brute. The class was laughing now.

“Ma's ma Grandmother.”

“Ah,” the priest sighed. “Born out of wedlock. Why in Ireland, boy, a good Catholic family would've taken you in and fostered you.”

Cold rage took hold of Nathan; he'd had enough. “Ma an' me, we're a good Catholic family.”

The priest cuffed Nathan, hard and he staggered from the force of the blow. “Do not speak back to me, boy”

Nathan ran for the door, turning as he opened it. “Ya fuckin' ol' cunt,” he shouted.

He never went back to school and he finished with the Catholic Church.

The walk on the Esplanade by the river and the views of the mountains to the northwest banished the memories of the Irish priest. Nathan was a lone raider walking in the West End. He imagined the residents preferred that people like him, working class and Catholic, stay away. They were happy enough tolerating the tradesmen and the cleaning women who worked in the houses; and they did not mind too much the deliverymen bringing goods. Nathan liked to think of the consternation the residents of the West End might feel of a Sunday afternoon when his people came in large numbers, dressed in their Sunday best, family groups and friends walking and having a good look.

He laughed imagining the residents' sense of relief when the working classes began their slow retreat on a Sunday evening to the crowded enclaves of tenements and the new estates established at the frontier of Westburn.

The vibrating chords of the bass and swish of rhythm brushes faded; the melody of Tenderly stayed with Nathan for a few moments as the last couples left the dance floor.

“Thank Christ it's over,” he said.

He hated that gig, Westburn Rugby Club's Summer Ball. He'd heard that Catholics were barred, but as he'd given up his Faith and didn't like rugby, so what?

What Nathan loathed was the boorish behaviour of the members; they ignored Nathan and Leo, and the other members of the band: the hired help brought in for their entertainment. And he did not like the snobby, aloof women: big, horsy bints, all bum and tits.

The Club had once been a grand Victorian residence; its rooms beautifully proportioned, retaining many of the original features, a sweeping staircase leading to the upper floor. Nathan could not help but admire the style and elegance of the place.

Nathan returned from the lavatory, glancing into the bar where two of the hearties lay, passed out. One of them, Eric, had pissed into his cavalry twills. Nathan was glad it was Eric; a perfect shit. There was a pool of vomit soaking into the seat of the chair where his head rested at an awkward angle.

Earlier, Eric, dandified in an English cut Donegal tweed jacket and striped Club tie, drunk and querulous, but still on his feet, had demanded the band play Scottish Country-dances.

“We don't do Scottish Country-dances,” Nathan said.

Eric worked at the yard, a ship's draughtsman. Once, Nathan had pointed out an error in one of his drawings. The weld was in the wrong place. Eric hated that.

“I'm speaking to you,” Eric said, nodding at Leo.

Leo pointed to Nathan, “We lead the band. Like he said, we don't do Scottish Country-Dances.”

“This is ridiculous” Eric said. “You're being paid to entertain us.”

“Ah tell ye, Mate,” Leo said. “We'll leave right now, an' ye can shove yer money up yer arse.”

Nathan opened the valve on the Bach and let the accumulated spit drain on to the floor; Eric swayed back. “So, what's it to be?”

“Damned common riff raff,” Eric muttered, staggering away.

Nathan removed the mute, and then dried off the Bach trumpet. Leo had his Conn alto in the case, Chuck covered the bass and Joe finished packing the drum kit.

“Let's go, Nathan,” Leo said.

Chuck and Joe were outside putting the bass and drums into the back of Leo's beat up Humber estate car.

“No' bad for this fuckin' place,” Nathan said to Leo as they walked to the main door of the club. He looked in the bar again. Eric and the other hearty still lay there, passed out. “Gentlemen, eh?”

“Money's good, Nathan. Don't knock it.”

“Fuckin' tossers.”

When they got to the door, it was raining steadily on an ambulance parked at the gate. The ambulance men passed a stretcher with a body lying on it, into the back.

Dorothy Jones, the kid he'd met earlier stood at the door. Nathan liked the way her white dirndl skirt hung below mid calf, a pretty white border for her coat. He and Leo stopped; not relishing a sprint through the rain to the car, hoping Chuck had the wit to bring the car over to the door once the ambulance had gone.

Dorothy had come up to the band at the interval, just as they'd finished playing a hard driving rendering of Wives and Lovers. She held out her hand,

“I'm Dorothy Jones. That was a lovely and an exciting song. What's it called?”

She was a sweet girl. Her pretty lilac blouse and flat summer shoes went well with the white dirndl skirt. Some people might see Dorothy flawed by slightly prominent teeth. Nathan liked her pale complexion and well cut, short fair hair. He pressed her hand and he thought that one of the bears had taste, inviting her to the Ball.

“Hello, Dorothy. Thanks. It's called Wives and Lovers, written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. I'm Nathan,” he said, and pointing to the band, “Leo, Chuck, Joe, meet Dorothy.” They waved and she smiled.

Leo and Nathan had a passion for Hal David, and Burt Bacharach songs. They'd swung into Wives and Lovers, coaxing and driving each other to sharp, jangling improvisations. They brought Chuck and Joe to playing sensed, swinging rhythms.

Many of the rugby men, too far gone in drink to notice the shift to Jazz, as they shuffled round, out of step, heavy brogues bruising their partners feet.

Nathan saw Leo's beat up Humber estate approaching the gate. “Something wrong, Dorothy?” he said.

“Oh, hello. Charles, the boy who brought me, was up to high jinks and broke his leg when he fell down the stairs. I think he was drunk. His friends are away with him to the hospital.”

Back in the recesses of the Club the rear guard of the revelers burst into a raw chorus, attempting to resuscitate the corpse of the Ball.

“Mary from the Mountain Glen,

Fucked herself with a fountain pen…

They called the Bastard, Stephen; they called the Bastard Stephen,

For that was the name of the blue-black ink.”

He felt for Dorothy having to listen to this and he quivered with fury at their unthinking use of bastard.

“Are you going home?”

“Yes, I'm going to walk.”

It was after one and raining hard. She was in for a soaking in her light summer coat. She'd be going by a quiet road to a pleasant middle class street, but there might be trouble with a stray drunk on the way.

Nathan turned to Leo. “Leo, got room for one more?

“Sure, as long as you don't mind the instruments, Miss.”

Joe and Chuck wanted dropped off first and Nathan and Leo chatted to Dorothy Jones as they drove them home.

“Don't you have a Jazz Club where you play, or do you just play at dances?” Dorothy said.

Leo caught Nathan's eye in the rear view mirror and they both laughed.

“Yes, we have a place,” Nathan said. “It's not much, but sometimes the music is pretty good.”

Their Jazz sanctuary: primitive with inadequate heating and a dire toilet. Nathan and Leo paid to have the battered upright piano tuned and they played and heard some great jazz there on Sunday nights. It attracted riff raff with nothing to do on Sunday evenings. The room was located behind and above a tacky fish and chip restaurant, rumoured to be a brothel. The Palm Grove. They called it Greasy Bella's. Regularly, foreign seamen came and went through its portal. The owner of The Palm Grove let the room for a nominal fee. The fans attracted to a Sunday night gig consumed large quantities of his fish and chips at the interval and when they'd finished.

Westburn, 1958; there were few restaurants and none opened at night. Dining out in the evening, generally meant eating on the hoof, standing in shop doorways or sitting on a park bench in fine weather, hands moving rapidly in and out of paper parcels loaded with salty, soggy, vinegary fish and chips. Nathan hated the smell of cold fat and vinegar lingering on his hands and fingers.

“I don't think you'd like it much, Miss,” Leo said.

“Why not? And please call me Dorothy. I hate being called, Miss.”

Leo pulled a face in the rear view mirror. “Sorry.”

“That's Calle Crescent. Can you stop at sixteen?”

Leo pulled over. Nathan got out, mounted the pavement and let Dorothy Jones out of the car. “Come on, I'll see you to the door.”

“Thank you.”

He held the gate open and followed her up the path to the front door. It burst open filling the entrance with light and then, the bulky shape of a big man darkened the light.

“Dorothy. What do you mean coming in at this hour? Who is this man?”

“This is Nathan; he helped me and gave me a lift home. He plays in the band.”

“Band is it? Damned hooligans. You, get to hell out of here.”

He moved towards his daughter, raising his arm to strike her and Nathan stood between them. Nathan choked on the stink of whisky. Dorothy cowered. Nathan saw his face, Jones, the senior manager in charge of submarine building down the yard.

He was a brutal big man. The men called him Horse Jones, after the Hoss character in the TV Western, Bonanza.

Nathan never took on fights since leaving the Army. He worried about injuries to hands, lips and front teeth. Broken fingers, split lips and a wrecked embrasure that he'd spent years shaping and toughening. Fatal for a trumpet player: but he'd not walk away from this man.

“There's no need for that,” Nathan said, raising his hands, palms out, offering Horse Jones peace or a square go.

Nathan had a deep sense of chivalry towards women that went beyond respect and admiration. He despised Horse Jones for his drunkenness and the violence he wanted to wreak on Dorothy.

He wanted to see this girl again, but he knew that if he didn't protect her, he never would. Nathan caught Dorothy's elbow and steered her towards the door. Her arm trembled. “Go on, get inside and into bed. We'll fix this up. Don't worry.”

Leo's squat solid figure was between Horse Jones and Nathan. “You're right out o' order, Mate. Touch the girl or Nathan, an' Ah'll kick yer fuckin' head in. Yer no' on the subs the night. The clown that took yer daughter tae the dance got drunk and broke his leg. He's in the hospital. Mebbe ye should have a word wi' him.”

Leo waited. “Well, come on. If it's trouble yer after, I'm here.”

Leo was careless with his talent. An alto player, he needed good hands with flexible, supple fingers, firm lips and strong teeth as much as Nathan did.

“I know you two,” Horse Jones, said. “You work in the yard, on the submarine. I won't forget this.”

“You don't know us, Mister and where we work is none o' yer fuckin' business.” Leo stuck his forefinger an inch from the Horse's face. “Touch that wee lassie o' yours an' Ah'll come after ye.”

Leo turned to Nathan. “Come on, let's get tae fuck away from this cunt.”

Leo drove the car. He was white with barely controlled fury.

“Thanks for stoppin' him, Leo.”

“No trouble, Nathan. Ah can't get over the way that big fucker wis gonny hit Dorothy. Imagine; hittin' yer flesh and blood. She's such a nice lassie. I'd kill masel' before ah laid a finger on ma children.”

Leo had three beautiful daughters all under five and he loved them. They were great children and Nathan adored having fun with them. Sometimes he watched them to let Leo and his wife go out of an evening. Then he could listen to Leo's wonderful collection of Jazz records. It was a relief to think about Leo's daughters and the music. Good memories cheered him and Nathan considered the rest of the weekend.

He looked forward to Saturday. With Leo, he had a gig with a big band at a dance hall in Glasgow. The music was dull, but the pay was good for an evening's work. In the early morning he'd practise quietly and then, mid morning, travel to Glasgow to The Athenaeum for a lesson in music theory. In the afternoon, he attended a lesson with his teacher of trumpet, Thomas Youngman, Principal Trumpet with the National Orchestra.

But Nathan was unsettled and jangled with nervous energy. He wanted to talk about Dorothy Jones, to tell someone that he'd just met this lovely girl. He wondered how the hell he could see her again. Right now, it would be so good just to say something nice about her. But he was afraid of being mocked.

“Whit dae ye think, Leo; how old is that girl?”

“Dorothy? Seventeen, mebbe eighteen.” He grinned. “Don't tell me ye fancy her. Man, yer twenty five; ye'll get done fur baby snatchin'.”

“Just wondering, that's all. She's no' really my type.”

It had turned out a fine night; the rain was off and a full moon was on the sky, bathing the streets of the town in soft yellow light. Leo let Nathan out at the Square and he walked back up Ann Street and along Galt Place to enjoy the moon lit views of the town, the shipyards and the river.

It had been a long time since Nathan had warm thoughts of a woman. Several times, girls he'd liked brushed him off when they found out he was illegitimate. But that night, he forgot these bitter disappointments and suppressed doubts that Dorothy was too young. As he fell asleep the images of Dorothy Jones came, and he felt he could touch her. As he drifted over, he gave in to hope that this slender, quiet, lovely girl might like him, quite forgetting that he had no idea how he might see her again.

Sunday night and they were a quintet. Christopher Lejune came and Nathan was glad to see him. It must have been a rush to come up for he was in uniform. He played tenor saxophone and when off duty from the US Air Force Base at Prestwick, liked to sit in with the band. He'd met Leo at a gig down in Ayrshire. Chris was a good friend.

“Nathan,” Chris said. “How you doin'?”

“Good, Chris; you?”

Chris slung the instrument, holding it in with his left hand. He nodded and raised his right thumb.

“C Jam Blues?”

C Jam Blues; a good number to open and Chris counted out the beat: ”A one, two, a one two three four.” It would get the attention of the small audience and a few couples, keen on dancing might take the floor. If they could dance to what they played the quintet didn't mind, but on Sunday evenings they played for themselves.

Four numbers played that first hour, and Chris, who loved the Blue Note sound moved them from C Jam Blues to Art Blakey's Moanin' and further out. He was an inspiration; they all played better when Chris was there. The last number, their swinging version of Three Coins In a Fountain, Nathan had his jacket off, tie loosened.