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Jack ht so, because he instantly reached for his mom's hand

In that fall of the year before Jack's admission to St Hilda's, hishiirls, ould soon dominate his life, Alice announced that she would work her way through northern Europe in search of Jack's runaway dad She knew the North Sea cities where he was ether they would hunt him down and confront him with his abandoned responsibilities Jack Burns had often heard his mother refer to the two of them as his father's "abandoned responsibilities" But even at the age of four, Jack had coood--in Jack's case, before he was born

And when his n cities, Jack knehat her as Like her dad, Alice was a tattoo artist; tattooing was the only work she knew

In the North Sea cities on their itinerary, other tattooists would give Alice work They knew she'd been apprenticed to her father, a well-known tattooer in Edinburgh--officially, in the Port of Leith--where Jack'shis dad It was there he got her pregnant, and subsequently left her

In Alice's account, Jack's father sailed on the New Scotland, which docked in Halifax When he was gainfully employed, he would send for her--or so he had promised But Alice said she never heard fro on from Halifax, Jack's dad had cut quite a swath

Born Callued his first name to William when he was still in university His father was nah for the whole fah, at the time of his scandalous departure for Nova Scotia, Williaanists, whichin addition to his bachelor's in anist at South Leith Parish Church; Alice was a choirgirl there

For an Edinburgh boy with upper-class pretensions and a good education--Williathe organ in lower-class LeithBut Jack's dad liked to joke that the Church of Scotland paid better than the Scottish Episcopal Church While William was an Episcopalian, he liked it just fine at the South Leith Parish, where it was said that eleven thousand souls were buried in the graveyard, although there were not ravestones

Gravestones for the poor were not perht the ashes of loved ones and scattered theht of so htraveyard--was a popular place, and Alice believed she had died and gone to Heaven when she started singing for William there

In South Leith Parish Church, the choir and the organ were behind the congregation There were not more than twenty seats for the choir--the women in front, the men in back For the duration of the ser Alice to lean forward in the front row, so that he could see all of her She wore a blue robe--"blue-jay blue," she told Jack--and a white collar Jack's mom fell in love with his dad that April of 1964, when he first caan

"We were singing the hymns of the Resurrection," was how Alice put it, "and there were crocuses and daffodils in the graveyard" (Doubtless all those ashes that were secretly scattered there benefited the flowers)

Alice took the young organist, as also her choirmaster, to meet her father Her dad's tattoo parlor was called Persevere, which is the motto of the Port of Leith It was William's first look at a tattoo shop, which was on either Mandelson Street or Jane Street In those days, Jack's e across Leith Walk, joining Mandelson to Jane, but Jack could never remember on which street she said the tattoo parlor was He just knew that they lived there, in the shop, under the rumble of the trains

Hisin the needles"--a phrase fro in the needles" h, you slept in the tattoo parlor--you had nowhere else to live But it was also as said, on occasion, when a tattoo artist died--as Alice's father had--in the shop Thus, by both definitions of the phrase, her dad had always slept in the needles

Alice's mother had died in childbirth, and her father--whom Jack never met--had raised her in the tattoo world In Jack's eyes, histattoo artists because she'd never been tattooed Her dad had told her that she shouldn't get a tattoo until she was old enough to understand a few essential things about herself; he e

"Like when I'm in my sixties or seventies," Jack's mom used to say to hiet your first tattoo after I' that he shouldn't even think about getting tattooed

Alice's dad took an instant dislike to Williaot his first tattoo the day the two h, where Willia notes to an Easter hyan, "Christ the Lord is risen today" Without the words, you'd have to readvery close to Jack's father--perhaps on an adjacent toilet--to recognize the hymn

But then and there, upon giving the talented young organist his first tattoo, Alice's dad told her that Willia he was one of those guys ould never stop with the first tattoo, or with the first twenty tattoos He would go on getting tattooed, until his body was a sheet of music and every inch of his skin was covered by a note--a dire prediction but one that failed to warn Alice away The tattoo-crazy organist had already stolen her heart

But Jack Burns had heard most of this story by the time he was four What ca European trip, hat she told him next: "If we don't find your father by this tiet all about hiet on with our lives"

Why this was such a shock was that, fro--worse, that he had "absconded"--Jack and hisfor William Burns, and Jack had assuet all about hin to the boy than the proposed journey to northern Europe; nor had Jack known that, in hisschool was of such importance

She'd not finished school herself Alice had long felt inferior to William's university education Williaave private piano lessons to children on the side, but they had a high regard for artistic tutelage of a more professional kind In their estian at South Leith Parish Church--and not only because of the class friction that existed in those days between Edinburgh and Leith (There were differences between the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church of Scotland, too)

Alice's father was not a churchgoer of any kind He'd sent Alice to church and choir practice to give her a life outside the tattoo parlor, never i that she would meet her ruin in the church and at choir practice--or that she would bring her unscrupulous seducer to the shop to be tattooed!

It was Williah he was the principal organist for the South Leith Parish, he accept an offer to be the assistant organist at Old St Paul's What mattered to them was that Old St Paul's was Scottish Episcopal--and it

was in Edinburgh, not in Leith

What captivated Williaan He'd started piano lessons at six and had not touched an organ before he was nine, but at seven or eight he began to stick bits of paper above the piano keys--iun to dreaan he dreamed about was the Father Willis at Old St Paul's