The Jacket

Both girls huddled around a radiator which was hot enough to give instant third degree burns if touched but gave no warmth to the room around it. A film of ice had formed over the inside of the window overnight and was now melting into puddles on the window sill. They knew it was warmer downstairs but sacrificed comfort for seclusion. This was their space.
Tracey shook her slightly greasy, black fringe from her eyes to scrutinise the magazine that Wendy pushed at her impatiently.
“So come on. Decide. Which one then?”
Tracey bit her lip and exhaled slowly. She finally pushed the magazine back. “I’ve told you. I can’t choose. It’s too hard.”
“But you’ve got too. You can’t just have them all. And how would I know which one I could pick. We can’t have the same one.”
Seeing the urgency of the situation Tracey put down the large bowl, the contents of which she had been mixing steadily during the conversation. She had been instantly drawn to the beauty article “Make A Salon Standard Beauty Treatment From Your Kitchen Shelves.” Some elements had been modified of course. Where were they going to find lemons?
“Quick then before it hardens. What’s the situation?”
Wendy leaned forward in excitement.” We’ve been to a concert.”
Tracey nodded.
“And we’re on our way home and one of the roadie people says “scuse me but Duran Duran saw you in the crowd, they’d like to meet you.” She waved her hands hysterically as if reacting to the request and then stopped, becoming serious. “But we play it cool; we don’t want to be too eager.”
“Mmm.” Tracey was considering the situation carefully. Unquestioningly.
“So we go backstage and one of them is going to fall in love with each of us, but to make it work we need to decide.”
Tracey sighed, overwhelmed with the gravity of the situation. Head tilted she stared at the poster of the band, thoughtfully moving a finger over the images before settling on the drummer.
“I think Roger, he seems sensitive.” She passed back the magazine and began mixing again, “and I like dark hair.”
Wendy nodded approvingly. She could now take her time to pour over the poster herself, considering only the remaining four now that Tracey had made her choice.
“I think I will have John then.” Wendy said finally.
“You always do, I don’t know why we bother doing this. Right put your head back; I’m going to stick some of this on. It makes your skin lovely apparently.”
When Wendy’s face was totally covered Tracey stood back admiring her handiwork. “Just leave that ten minutes, then go downstairs and wash it off.”
Wendy grimaced. If she had thought about the bathroom being downstairs she wouldn’t have let this happen. Only recently they had decided, through some now unknown thought process, to cut the leg off a pair of cream tights, put it over each other’s faces and apply make-up. They had found it hilarious to move the tights about changing the position of the facial features. Once bored they had discarded said tights out of the bedroom window, thinking no more about it. Until, that is, Tracey’s Dad found them and accused them of being lesbians. Neither of them knew how the link between tights covered in make-up and homosexuality had been formed, but it had. Wendy was still smarting over it a bit.
“He’ll say we’re lesbians again.”
“It’s alright. They’re too busy arguing. They’ll not notice.”
Wendy sat back with her arms crossed. She wasn’t happy with the situation at all. She could hear muffled shouts from downstairs though so maybe it was OK.
“What they fighting about? That strike thing again.”
Tracey nodded. “It’s all they go on about. Strike this, strike that. I had to sneak this cucumber out. She’s on about saving food.” She placed slices of cucumber over Wendy’s eyes completing what she imagined to be a luxurious spa treatment.
“Tip back a bit more,” she ordered, pushing Wendy back onto the bed. Some of the mixture fell from Wendy’s face and she had unwittingly smeared it on the sheets.
“Careful. She’ll go mad,” Tracey squealed, pushing Wendy again. Some of the cucumber now slid away taking a stream of watery oats with it.
Wendy shrieked with laughter. “These oats are a bit thin Trace. They’re just running off.”
“Didn’t have any.”
Wendy looked quizzically.
Tracey smiled. “It’s Ready Brek. Same stuff.”
Wendy cackled uncontrollably now. “At least my face will be warm.”
They laughed in unison, Tracey bending towards the floor, Wendy rolling on the bed. The hysterics increased as more of the mixture fell off. Once the frenzies of their laughter took hold there was no stopping them. The same phenomenon had been seen last week when Tracey’s uncle had used the phrase brake nipple to her dad in front of them. The men had shaken their heads and shared a look of a complete lack of understanding. The girls liked it that way. It was their thing. No one else’s.

Downstairs, hearing the muffled mirth, Jim wore the same perplexed look as he had then. His irritation was heightened by the untroubled amusement of the girls in the midst of the turmoil that was currently his life.
“I know you’re sick Anne, but you’ve got to deal with it love. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“The whole bloody thing is stupid. No food in the cupboards. No new shoes for the kids. I want a new carpet. When am I going to get that?”
“Well you’re not are you? Not yet. Not for a while yet. You’re just going to have to get through it.”
Anne sulked as she folded the clothes.
“We’re all making sacrifices love. Everyone is. You just need to stick in there.”
“Well what if I don’t want to? What then? I don’t have to stay here you know?”
“Anne, that’s no way to…” He stopped as music suddenly vibrated through the ceiling from upstairs. Within seconds it was accompanied by the thump, thump, thump of two relatively large girls stomping out the beat to Bananarama.
“The bloody lampshade’s shaking Anne.” He moved to the bottom of the stairs. “Tracey. Tracey. TRACEY. TURN THAT DOWN.”
The giggles and pounding were unremitting, the girls oblivious to his attempted interventions.
“I’m bloody sick of this Anne.”
He disappeared up the stairs while Anne sucked in her cheeks pursing her lips in disapproval. Her husband and daughter were always bickering and shouting. Too much alike she thought. She could hear raised voices, the booming voice of her husband with the higher counteraction of her daughter. She shook her head, focusing on the towels she was folding. She wouldn’t have dared talk to her dad the way that Tracey talked to him.
The shouting upstairs came to a crescendo as the music stopped.
“You’ve scratched my record,” she heard Tracey scream. “I bought that. With my pocket money. My own pocket money.”
“Pocket money. I never bloody got pocket money. I was working in the mines at your age. You should have turned it down when I said.”
Anne could hear Tracey’s sobbing in amongst the tirade of protest but she didn’t intervene. Just got on with her folding.
Jim appeared again, red faced and breathless.
“Honestly, that girl. Wouldn’t have dared talk to my dad like that. Anyway pet. I’ve got something that will cheer you up a bit.”
Anne looked up expectantly.
“You know how I wanted a new jacket?”
She nodded, perceptively disappointed. She had thought it might be a present.
“Well Davey Johns down the social club got me one. It’s in the car. I’ll go and get it.”
“Bloody club,” Anne muttered under her breath. Just a reference was enough to set her off. “Thinks more of that bloody place than he does me.”
A mantra she recited every time it was mentioned.
She looked up hearing a rustle as Jim slammed the back door.
He held it aloft. The plastic cover glimmered in the cold, afternoon sunlight. He brushed its synthetic shield with pride.
Anne shaded her eyes. She couldn’t see through the bright rays of light that seemed to cling to it like something holy. A gasp indicated she was beginning to focus.
It was red. Time had left it shiny. As Jim removed the protective layer it was apparent that much of the dazzling sheen had come from the jacket itself rather than the overlay.
The black velvet collar and cuffs confirmed it as archaic. A 1960s remnant of a time when Teddy Boys had ruled.
Stroking the fabric admiringly he looked between her and the jacket waiting for a reaction.
“No.”
He stared at her angry, contorted face, bemused by the reaction.
It was simple. No explanation. No reasoning. Just no.
Jim was angry. This jacket was the most positive thing that had happened to him in weeks.
“No?”
Unfortunately the mystical soothing powers of the jacket did not penetrate Anne’s rigid exterior.
“No Jim. I would die of shame.”
Jim exploded. “Shame? Shame? I am the one making sacrifices?”
“You? You’re not the one trying to feed and clothe the kids.”
“Well I must be ‘cos you don’t bring any money in Anne. Don’t you forget, I am the breadwinner. Everything is here because I put it here.”
“Well you are not winning much bread at the minute Jim are you? I’m telling you. If you wear that jacket, it’s the last straw. I’ll go. I’ll not stay here to be laughed at by everyone.”
“Go? Go? Where the bloody hell will you go Anne eh?”
And so it went on.
Upstairs the girls continued with the indifference of teenagers who care of nothing but pop stars, beauty treatments and each other.
The icy stand off as to whether he would wear the jacket to the club that night was still in full force when Tracey brought Wendy downstairs to go home. Wendy still was still covered in oats, now largely dried in clumps on her face with stray flakes on her jumper. A good proportion of it was also now drying on Tracey’s sheets.
“What the bloody hell?”
Wendy cowered a little at Jim’s bark but Tracey was undaunted.
“Shut up dad. It’s just a face mask. Wendy’s going to wash it off.”
“I’m sure you two are lesbians. Bloody no idea what goes on up there.”
Wendy flinched. She was a little scared of Jim, even if Tracey wasn’t. And she didn’t like being called a lesbian.
Tracey was unfazed. “Can I borrow fifty pence dad?”
“No. No you can’t. I’ve got nothing.”
“Really? How come you’ll be going down the club later then?”
Jim stood up quickly, his hand raised in warning whilst Tracey ran off feigning a shriek, dragging Wendy with her.
She knew she would get the fifty pence eventually. She always did.
“Hurry up in there then. I want to get ready,” Jim shouted, casting a sideways glance at Anne to gauge her reaction.
She didn’t lift her head from her book but he knew that steely expression.
He did go to the club that night and he did wear the jacket as promised. Anne also kept her side of the bargain and left. Only for a few days but he did have to go begging to make her come back. He didn’t give in completely though. He still wore the jacket. He wore the “red monstrosity”, as her mother called it, through the year long strike, and a little beyond that when he was looking for work in the aftermath. The fights over the jacket continued. A bone of contention in their marriage that never went away.
Now, 20 years, two very beautiful children, and one very ugly marriage later Tracey was hearing about the jacket again.
“Stubborn man,” Anne was saying, shaking her head. “Who would cause all of that trouble over a stupid jacket. The red monstrosity I used to call it. And that club. Thinks more of that club than he does me….”
Tracey was nodding, wanting to support her dad but having no defence. He had just seemed like an obstinate man digging in his heels over something unimportant.
She had taken her new partner to meet her mother. It was Sunday afternoon so of course her dad wasn’t there. Anne was telling David that you wouldn’t find Jim at home any Sunday. That he would be down that club. That he thought more of the club than he did her...
David had smiled good naturedly through all of this and had suggested that they visit the club to meet her dad. Get both parents in one day. Perhaps regrettably, she had agreed.
Her dad seemed to like David, as much as he seemed to like anybody. He spoke to him anyway, which was an improvement on the ex whom he had avoided quite unashamedly.
Jim was well into his repertoire of Sunday afternoon stories. He told the same ones every week. Tales of fights, of being on doors at nightclubs. And always, the strike.
He was talking about the jacket now. “Can you remember it Tracey? That red jacket? Beautiful it was.”
“I can remember it dad but…” She had been going to try to change the subject to save David’s ears, and his sanity, but Jim ploughed on.
“Anne said she’d leave me if I wore it but I stood my ground. That jacket got me all of the way through the strike. People used to call me Red Jim you know? Because of the jacket, and because I was hard labour. Red Jim. I used to wear it down here. You used to have to be smart in those days. I would stretch a pint all night but I wasn’t going to be badly turned out.”
Tracey looked over to David to share an eye roll of apology until she could find the right moment to free him from the conversation but he seemed engrossed.
In the midst of shared laughter with her dad he eventually looked up and caught her eye. Contrary to her expectations he seemed fascinated. Still at the stage where she wanted to impress Tracey turned her attention to a story she knew she had probably heard hundreds of times. Any excuse to share a moment with David.
“Durham Miner’s Gala. The year of the strike.” Jim took a drink, gearing up for a long haul. “I was on the platform where they do the speeches. I was on the union you know? Neil Kinnock, he was head of Labour at the time, well, he said that he had once been a bit of a teddy boy himself. He asked if he could swap jackets. Wanted to wear the old beauty. Did his speeches in that jacket.”
As she followed the anecdote Tracey became aware of the animation it brought to her dad’s face. His movements took on a new enthusiasm. His eyes sparkled.
The strike had been a minor irritation to her. Her pocket money had eventually been stopped and she hadn’t got the shoes she wanted for school but other than that it had been unimportant compared to the trials and tribulations of a teenage girl. Wendy and she had relished the food parcels from Russia, playing “guess what’s in the tin” every time they made tea. Would it be fruit or baked beans? Who knew? It had all been a bit of mild amusement.
But here, for the first time, she saw what it had been to her dad. She had noticed the jacket on the platform but had been distracted following two older boys from school that she and Wendy had fancied. She remembered catching a flash of the red jacket on the TV news when he came out of a union meeting but had barely looked up from her magazine. She recalled the jacket in the midst of a picket line as she delivered sandwiches her mother had made but she had been eager to get away and see her friends. She saw it on the day the pit finally closed and he had lowered his head and cried.
That jacket had been a shield against the degradation and anonymity they had used to try and break him. In that jacket he was never just a husband letting down his wife, a father who couldn’t provide for his children, a worker who couldn’t work. In that jacket he was “Red Jim”. It wasn’t pig-headedness that made him wear that jacket. It was the desire to fight. It was strength. It was pride.
An overwhelming surge of love brought tears to Tracey’s eyes but she blinked them away. That wasn’t what her dad wanted, he just wanted to be listened to. “Another drink then Red Jim?” Tracey teased affectionately. “Are you OK to stay for one more David?”
He nodded, already deep in conversation with her dad as she turned to the bar.
“Mind just the one pet,” called Jim, “your mother will go mad. She says I think more of this club than I do her.” He turned to David again. “I used to go all over the country for meetings you know. High up in the union I was. They used to call me Red Jim…”