JACK - PRETTY JACK

PRETTY JACK.

There was once a perfectly respectable miner and his wife who had seven
children, all sons. There was no minimum wage in that country and the
family was very poor indeed. None of the boys were old enough to earn a
living, and to make things worse, the youngest boy was... different.
Neat, pretty, and too slender ever to be of any use hewing coal from a
seam, his effeminate ways endeared him to his mother but occasioned
near apoplexy in his father. Things like that were all right for the
namby-pamby middle classes but were an absolute disgrace to a working
man.
Pretty Jack, as he was disparagingly called, learned to say little but
observe everything.
One bitter winter, at the end of a year when inflation had reduced the
father's wage to something worse than a pittance, Pretty Jack overheard
his parents decide that all their children must be abandoned to the
state and put into a Home.
"Us canna feed they any more," quoth the father, stiffening his upper
lips as his wife wept and wailed, "Tis either that or see they starve
to death."
Pretty Jack had a strongly dramatic streak and lay awake for hours
wondering how to utilise it. In the morning, without saying anything to
anyone, he slipped into his mother's room and helped himself to needle
and thread together with some of her glad rags from earlier, happier
days. Whistling happily to himself, he sat cross-legged on the communal
bed and rustled up a hot little right-up-to-the-minute number which
showed up his long legs and pert behind to perfection. Make-up was a
problem. He improvised with flour and ox-tail, and just a soupcon of
boot-black for mascara.
That night, Pretty Jacqueline earned more in a mildly sleazy nightclub
with an erotic song and dance routine than his father had made in three
months. He/she also had a lot of enquiries about the dress.
Unfortunately, his father caught him crawling through the scullery
window in the early hours and beat him black and blue - after pocketing
the cash.
For a while Jack tried sticking to manly pursuits: bird's nesting,
torturing the cat, helping to clean out the privvy at the bottom of the
yard. Then the miners went on strike. Not a penny came into the house
for a fortnight. When they were down to eating fresh air and quitch
grass roots, his mother gathered up every garment she possessed and
dropped them, without a word, at Pretty Jack's feet. His father sat by
the cold fire, saying nowt and gnawing his knuckles right up to the
elbow.
The first night, Pretty Jack came home with enough money to keep the
family for six months. His father cursed and swore at the shame of it.
The second night, he brought home enough to keep them for a whole year.
His father howled with rage as his imagination worked time and a half
thinking how it might have been earned and forbade him to go back. The
third night, Pretty Jack didn't come home. His name was erased from the
family Bible.
Years went by and nothing much changed in the Valleys. The sons grew
bigger and scraped a precarious living at the coal face. Then a new
government was elected to look after the needs of the common man and
immediately closed down the pits. Once again the family was reduced to
abject poverty.
"If only Pretty Jack was here," sobbed his mother, grinding acorns to
make flour, "He might not have been man enough to come up to your Dad's
standards, but he were Man enough to get out and do what had to be done
to put food on table."
"No shame in being different," agreed the next youngest son, tugging at
his braces. He slapped a newspaper on the table. One of the situations
vacant had been ringed in red biro.

WELL-MUSCLED MEN REQUIRED FOR MODELLING WORK. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY:
FULL TRAINING GIVEN. EXCELLENT RATES OF PAY. NO MINORS.

No one said a word. Next morning, all six of the brothers put on clean
underwear and trooped down to the Majestic Hotel for job
interviews.
The hotel formed one side of The Square, next to the station and
supermarket, a hadful of thriving ale houses and two or three chip
shops. On normal days it was full of people from the moment the Co-op
took down its steel shutters until kicking-out time somewhere around
mid-night. Today it was deserted: even the women were afraid of
contamination. A few fantails, liberated for economic reasons,
scattered before the quick-march of the brothers' working boots. On the
steps they hesitated. But only for a pico-second. Squaring their
shoulders and steeling their backs they flung wide the plate-glass
doors and plunged into the decadence of deep pile carpets and Monstera
deliciosa. In for a pwenny, in for a pound, they accepted without demur
daft little cups of ground coffee - with a head, like beer - from a
wench who was in danger of catching pneumonia if she didn't get some
proper clothes on, and listened to job descriptions from some poor
bloke who must have accidentally tipped his whole bottle of aftershave
down his front.
It was almost too good to be true. Money like they'd never dreamed of.
All they'd have to do was stand around in their vests, flexing their
muscles and looking macho. Sort of being a backdrop for the skinny
girls modelling this famous desiner geezer's clothes.
The six brothers looked at each other. Never mind having jam to put on
proper bread and real butter, with a job like this they'd never have to
go near pit head again. In fact, they'd never have to come back here
again full stop. Nice clothes, swanky car, clean finger nails...
Heads down, they sweated over their application forms.
The personnel manager looked with some satisfaction at the brothers.
His boss had been right. Wasn't he always? They were perfect: over the
top masculine, but with that O so revealing little quiver of
vulnerability. Pretty Jack's butterfly delicate creations would look
even more stunning set against a bit of the rough.
There was one thing he didn't understand though. How had Jack known
that there would be six, and only six, applicants, as alike as swarthy
peas in a pod, in this bigotted and benighted hell hole?