And the Band Played On by Christopher Ward Page A

Line.
    The first post in George Street was always delivered promptly at 8 a.m. and was one of the few events in Dumfries that you could set your watch by. Andrew’s strict adherence to routine dictated that he would be in the dining room at this time, eating breakfast with his wife Alice, his son Andrew and daughter Kate. Each day brought new disappointment as Alice, having heard the clatter of the letter box, brought back to the breakfast table a bundle of ten or twelve letters, none of them from Liverpool. Today there were three hand-written white envelopes with black borders, one hand-written brown envelope immediately recognisable as a circular from the Dumfries Music Society, and a typewritten envelope with a Liverpool postmark.
    Andrew snatched the envelope from Alice and tore it open. The letter was not, as he had hoped, from the White Star Line. It was from C. W. & F. N. Black and it said:
     

     
    Andrew read the letter and the accompanying statement three times, with growing disbelief. At first he thought it must be a clerical error, or possibly a practical joke in the worst possible taste. Without saying anything, Andrew passed the letter to Alice, who read it and burst into tears.
    The statement explained that Jock was to have been paid £4 for the return voyage on the Titanic . But as the ship had sunk before even reaching New York, Blacks had terminated his contract from 2.20 a.m. on 15 April – the moment the band could no longer play on. Jock’s wages, reduced pro rata, were now insufficient to meet the expenses that Blacks had incurred on his behalf through the outfitters Rayner’s. These included the provision of White Star lapel insignias for his bandsman’s tunic, sewing White Star buttons on his uniform (one shilling) and Jock’s sheet music, which was now floating somewhere in the North Atlantic. The total Andrew was being asked to pay came to 14s 7d, less than £1 but a sum with approximately £40 of buying power in today’s currency. There was no accompanying letter of regret, no word of sympathy.
    Andrew felt dizzy. He thought for a moment that he was going to faint and quickly sat down to catch his breath. He felt freezing cold and wondered if he might be having a heart attack. He heard Alice say through her tears, ‘How could they, Andrew? How could they?’
    Suddenly Andrew found himself living in a world where people could send your son to his death and then invoice you for his buttons lying at the bottom of the ocean. He would have his revenge and it didn’t matter who would pay for this.

    It was bad luck, as well as unfortunate timing, that Mary Costin chose this particular moment to break the news to Andrew Hume that she was expecting Jock’s baby. She had judged that 8.45 a.m. would be the best time to arrive, catching him between breakfast and his first lesson of the day at 9 a.m., thus preventing a scene in front of one of his pupils.
    However much he had disapproved of her relationship with Jock, she reasoned, he could only be pleased now that Jock had left a son or a daughter, Andrew’s first grandchild. It would give his senseless death some meaning. This was the argument that Mary rehearsed in front of the mirror that morning, putting on her best dress and tying her hair back with a comb.
    Alice answered the door. When she saw Mary, she said, ‘I thought I told you . . .’
    ‘This is important,’ said Mary. ‘It’s about Jock.’
    Alice beckoned her in and showed her into the drawing room, where Andrew was standing with his back to the fireplace, where a fire was already lit. She had seen only the back of his head at the memorial service and he looked much older than the last time she had seen him properly, a year ago when he had come to her home, called her a whore in front of her mother and told her to stay away from his son. That was the day before Jock moved in with her for good.
    The strain of the last two weeks had taken its toll on him. There were dark lines