The Cutting of the Cloth

Michael Hastings

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781783198115
• eBook ISBN: 9781783198160
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The work-room of a Savile Row tailors, 1953. Two master craftsmen at daggers drawn: Polish-born Spijak insists that nothing can beat the excellence of a hand-sewn suit, while Eric uses his machine to work at twice the speed and earn twice the money. Sparks fly as each fights his own corner with biting wit and vicious humour. Into this battleground steps Maurice, a teenager at the very start of his apprenticeship. Will he survive the gruelling training to become a master tailor? Or will he, as Spijak's daughter urges him to, escape? The Cutting of the Cloth, drawn so much from Hastings's youthful experience as an apprentice tailor, has lain in a drawer. Now Two's Company brings it rampaging on to the stage.

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

The room is in a cellar. The windows are barred and give little light. Neon strips from the ceiling give a metallic colour. By the door to the street an internal phone hangs against the wall. The boards are bare.

There are three work benches. Each one is about eight feet in length. At the right end of each bench stands a couple of heavy goose-irons. One iron is wired to a current which is tied to the ceiling. The other – can be a wedge-shaped narrow dowsing iron or a beveller – is cordless. Each iron weighs 14lbs. Beside the irons there is a box for chalk, bodkins, threads and tapes. A foot above floor level, the length of each bench, there is a nod-step, it is filled with bundles, baste jobs, cloth rolls, slim sleeve boards and broader duplex boards for panel and seam pressing. On the opposite side of each bench stands a kipper’s stool, her foot rest, and built in to the bench on her side are a number of drawers.

Side on to a wall stand two sewing machines; the foot plate is the old style pedal push. Pushed back against the side is a tall mirror on rollers. Brown paper patterns in clips hang on the walls. A radio perches on a shelf. A number of jackets in various states of finish hang on a steel clothes rail which can trolley up and down the room on the rollers.

Up a slight step from the floor level is part of a wall of tiles, and the side view of a lavatory cubicle is open.

SPIJAK is at his bench, opposite him works SYDIE on her stool. The bench, at a slight angle to his, is empty. ERIC is at his bench, and IRIS works a machine. The door opens and a RUNNER clatters down the stairs, calling out, as he throws the stringed paper bundles across the room on to the floor.

RUNNER’S VOICE: Eric!

ERIC retrieves it.

RUNNER’S VOICE: Eric!

Second bundle flies through the air.

SPIJAK: What about Spijak!

RUNNER’S VOICE: And Spijak!

SPIJAK catches the flying bundle. The door slams shut. ERIC holds up his two bundles.

ERIC: Are you busy, Spijak?

SPIJAK: Are you asking?

ERIC: I’m asking!

Triumphantly holding up both bundles. SPIJAK glares and brandishes his one bundle.

SPIJAK: Busy busy it isn’t busy that makes a suit, it’s work that does. You put my hands aside yours – sand and milk.

ERIC: But why do I get two jobs for every job come flying through the door for you – ?

SPIJAK: For why? Do I run to the machine? I’ll sew the sideseam, I’ll sew the shoulder, and I’ll sew the facing – you and your machine don’t cut no baste not with me – I can tell a machined jacket before it turns round the corner of the street.

ERIC: Iris and me have got speed.

SPIJAK: If you found a machine that went round in circles you’d machine tack every collar in the trade.

ERIC: This is the new world – there’s technology –

SPIJAK: Is it true you machine linings – ?

ERIC: Well –

SPIJAK: I seen them in the street. There are hundreds of jackets with machine lined linings by Eric walking up and down Bond Street. And you don’t care.

ERIC: I’m all the more grateful you should!

SPIJAK: It’s lucky the needle was invented otherwise you’d stick everything through a mechanical slot machine and pow pow out it come like a pre-packed plastic wrapped British Railways’ lettuce/tomato sandwich! And will you hand-stich a pocket flap –

ERIC: You won’t dare look at my wage packet!

SPIJAK: You’d rather run a hot iron over your big toe than stitch out a pocket flap!

ERIC: Are you asking?

SPIJAK: I’m asking.

ERIC: I’m not listening.

SPIJAK: Course you get two jobs for every one of mine – You skimp the hand to feed the machine. Machine’s the death of the hand. Now look at my hand – twenty to eight in the morning – and it’s bleeding already!

SYDIE: He just cut himself with his own scissors –

SPIJAK: And I’ll tell you one more thing I think about you Eric, I’ll tell you –

IRIS looks up. She breaks the atmosphere in the room with a long sigh –

IRIS: It was such a lovely morning this morning, in the morning. I walked down to the pond and fed the pigeons.

SPIJAK stands with his mouth wide open in mid voice. ERIC stares at IRIS.

SPIJAK: What did she say?

ERIC: What do you want for to say a thing like that Iris – we were having a good time. Weren’t we?

He looks across at SPIJAK. SPIJAK grins and thumps his sleevboard with the handblock. Thump thump thump!

SYDIE: (Sewing.) Pigeons were nice were they, Iris – ?

IRIS: Oh pigeons were wonderful…

SYDIE: Stand on your hand did they…

IRIS: Take the bread out of your finger nail they would.

SYDIE: Like a bit of breakfast come the cold…

IRIS: And they’re so grateful.

ERIC: Old days were different.

SPIJAK: Time was when kippers kept their place and never spoke except to make the tea –

ERIC: My old boss’s day – halfpenny out of wage packet every word said before twelve, or no end of bollocking.

SPIJAK: Pigeons!

ERIC: Old days were different –

SPIJAK: When I was first to learn the trade and the old makers started a quarrel about who made up best – how often they use the machine and like – blood would hit the ceiling.

ERIC: That’s right.

SPIJAK: I’d hit you with the sleeve-board.

ERIC: I’d take the cap off the steam iron and give you a douse of hot boiling water over your tacked up tweed bridle. No end of shrink that’d do your customer!

SPIJAK: As it all was once wasn’t it…

ERIC: As it all was…

SPIJAK: Now it’s just pigeons…

SPIJAK wor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Characters
• Contents
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three