The Most Precious Thing

by Bradshaw, Rita

  The fire his wife had lit earlier was blazing now, the fancy guard in shining brass which Renee had bought to protect the new sheepskin rug waiting to be put in place. When a burning coal rolled on to the hearth and came to rest against the edge of the rug, Walter stared at it, watching as the pale cream wool began to blacken and smoulder.

  By the time he left the house by the back door the rug was well and truly alight. He kept on walking through the fierce blizzard, his pace steady, the bait tin in his hand. He had to report to the colliery for his shift. That was as far ahead as he was thinking for now.

  ‘You cut it fine, didn’t you? Good job Tom Burns is on, another deputy would have seen to it you were fined a good whack for being late. Andy Blyton for example. He fines you for breathing, he does.’

  Walter nodded to the man who had just spoken to him but said nothing, which wasn’t like him. David stared at his brother as the cage took them downwards. Walter looked like death warmed up.

  ‘Aye, well, for every overman or deputy who’s a pain in the backside, there’s one like Tom who’s right canny.’ Another man joined in the conversation. ‘Little Dickie Cowan gave him a mouthful the other day, cheeky little so-an’-so, but Tom just clipped his lug and told him to watch his mouth. There’s more than one who’d have reported him to the office. Sixteen, Dickie is, and thinks he knows it all.’

  ‘Aye, I know the lad. Cocky little runt. Gives me a headache, he does.’

  ‘It’s a pain in the arse he gives me, man.’

  Under cover of the laughter David said quietly, ‘You all right, Walt? You look rough.’

  ‘Aye, I don’t feel too good. Gyppy belly, that’s all.’ He had killed her. Dear God, dear God, help me. What had possessed him? Why hadn’t he just turned round and walked out like he’d done a hundred times before when she went for him? But he hadn’t known before that she was bringing Yanks back to the house. He hadn’t meant to do it, not kill her. He’d just wanted to stop her saying those things, things which always made him feel less than a man. Oh, Veronica, Veronica. A wave of sickness swept over him and he wanted to vomit. What was he going to say to his bairn?

  He raised his eyes and glanced at Sandy who was over the other side of the packed cage which had just jolted to a stop. Renee was Joan and Sandy’s bairn like Veronica was his. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting some of the others push past him into the roadway, and when he opened them again Sandy was in front of him. Like David, he commented, ‘You don’t look too grand the night, Walt. You all right?’

  ‘Aye, aye.’

  With David on one side of him and Sandy on the other, Walter began to walk in-bye, and Sandy, speaking directly to Walter as he always did when the two brothers were together, said, ‘You heard owt from Ned recently? London’s taken a hammering in this war and no mistake.’

  Walter shrugged. ‘He was all right the last time he wrote, back in February.’ He would have to say something, he couldn’t keep this up. He felt sick, he couldn’t breathe. Oh, Renee, Renee. Veronica . . .

  He stumbled, and David said, ‘Steady, man, steady. You don’t want to brain yourself before you get to the face.’ His voice was wry.

  Walter managed a weak grin. He’d tell them after, not down here. You needed to keep your wits about you, especially now when the increased need for coal to fight the war meant they were cutting deeper and deeper into the wall of the face. The cutting machines that had been introduced over the last ten years saved a lot of blood, sweat and toil but they produced a constant cloud of coal and stone dust. And you couldn’t hear yourself think with hard steel blades slashing and screeching against stone and pneumatic drills hissing and hammering. But he wouldn’t mind that today. He didn’t want to think.

  The deputy was waiting for them as they approached their place of work, and he nodded a greeting at them. ‘There’s been more pockets of gas released the last shift than I’ve noticed in a long time, lads. It’s collecting under the roof with the poor ventilation we’ve got this far in, so watch yourselves.’

  ‘Damn the gas, Tom. It’s the dust and muck in me bait that bothers me. The missus does me right proud an’ all; I wouldn’t dare tell her I can’t tell if she’s given me caviar or best steak.’

  ‘You should be so lucky, Alf.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like caviar anyway, man. Give me a nice bit of cod with plenty of batter any day.’

  ‘Oh aye? You’re something of a connoisseur of caviar, are you? Goes with the dinner suit an’ bow tie you’re wearin’, does it?’

  As Walter listened to the lads chaffing each other, he thought, that was me yesterday. And now everything had changed. He’d done murder. He’d murdered his wife. His stomach turned right over and the bile came up into his mouth. He rested one hand against the wall of the face. ‘You go on a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling--’

  But he never got to finish the sentence. One moment David and Sandy were looking at him, the next there was a noise so loud it came out of the top of his head and he was flying through the air, men tumbling about him as clouds of dust hit his face and eyes and filled his mouth and nose. He landed hard on his back, arching up over a piece of sharp rock, and as the pain hit he knew he screamed but then he lost consciousness and didn’t know any more.

  David hit the ground, landing on his front, and in the same moment he was aware he was on fire. He could hear other men screaming and tearing at their burning clothes and he rolled over and over in an effort to put out his own smouldering jacket and trousers. Some of the men had already stripped down to their underpants, boots and knee pads because where they were working was the hottest place in the pit, and he didn’t like to think what the flames had done to them.

  When he was sure his clothes were out he lay still, and he became aware that there was a roar in his ears like a giant waterfall. He thought his eardrums had burst. It was blacker than pitch, no light at all. A measure of hearing returned and he could make out groans and cries around him. He felt as dizzy as when he’d gone on a pirate’s ship at one of the miners’ galas.

  ‘Walter? Walter, man?’ As he tried to rise to his knees the pain he’d felt in his leg intensified, telling him it was broken, but he fought it, calling again, ‘Walter?’

  ‘Is that you, David?’

  It was Sandy’s voice that answered him, and David gasped, ‘Sandy? Where are you?’

  ‘Here.’ The next moment a hand touched him and he realised Sandy must have landed right next to him in all the mayhem. ‘It’s a bad ’un, lad. There’s plenty not movin’ who were a bit further on. Look, we’ve got to try an’ get back to the cage. The roof ’s down. Did you see Billy earlier?’

  ‘Billy? No, is he doing the extra shift?’

  ‘Aye, but I don’t know where he’s workin’. Likely his section’s all right. By, you can taste the gas, man, we’ve got to get out of here. This might not be the end of it.’

  ‘I can’t go without Walter.’ David was crawling now, touching bodies which either groaned or remained ominously silent, but within seconds he came to the roof fall and his way was blocked.

  There were one or two other men stumbling about and they obviously had the same idea as Sandy and were trying to orientate themselves in order to go back the way they had just come. There were three men able to walk, of whom Sandy was one, and two others, like David, who were injured but able to crawl. They checked the bodies on the floor for heartbeats and found only one who was still breathing. When he stirred, saying, ‘Renee? Renee?’ David’s heart leaped out of his chest.

  ‘Walter? You all right?’

  The answer was a muffled groan, and then his brother said, ‘I can’t move, man. David, David, I can’t move.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.’ He crawled towards the sound of Walter’s voice, reaching out with his hand until he touched his brother’s face.

  ‘We’ve got to get moving, lads,’ said one of the other men.

  ‘Aye, you go on,’ Sandy answered him. ‘Me an’ Da
vid’ll bring Walter.’ If Walter couldn’t move, ten to one his back was broken. Getting him out would be slow and difficult; there was no point in holding everybody up.

  The others crawled off, keeping as low as they could in the thick, dust-filled air. Some minutes later, when they’d managed to drag Walter’s inert body a few yards, the roof collapsed.

  When the noise and dust had settled, Sandy was surprised to find he was still alive. He had to cough and spit several times before he could croak, ‘David? David, man?’ There was similar coughing and choking at the side of him. ‘You got Walter there?’

  Two voices answered him, and the brief elation they all felt at still being alive was quickly extinguished by the realisation that they were trapped in a pocket of air; the roof had come down in front of them and to the rear. There was no way of knowing how far ahead the others were or if they were clear.

  Sandy had been half expecting the fall after the force of the explosion. Everyone knew the roof on this stretch had been weakened by continually dripping water from the North Sea above, and the extensive undercutting of latter years and constant firing hadn’t helped. The props, however well they’d been put up - and some were useless, thanks to the Bevin boys - could only take so much, and even the biggest of them, some so heavy it might take two men to lift them, could splinter and snap like a matchstick. It didn’t take much, and the explosion had been more than a little bang.

  Every miner knew that in a fall, whatever else was happening, you could be sure the oxygen was running out. Every time someone breathed, they used up what little air was left and replaced it with carbon dioxide from their own lungs. It was an inescapable fact, and no one could help it.

  ‘They’ll come for us.’ David’s voice was bracing despite the agony his leg was giving him. He didn’t add, pray God they’ll be in time, but they all thought it.

  ‘Aye, they’ll come all right. I just hope them in front of us got clear before the roof fell,’ Sandy said quietly.

  ‘Aye.’ David cleared his throat. ‘Thanks for staying back with us, Sandy. You could’ve been long since gone with the others.’

  ‘I’d never have been able to look me lass in the eye again if I’d left you,’ Sandy said gruffly in reply. ‘She thinks a bit of you, does Carrie.’

  The roof above them creaked and stretched, and they became silent. A little while later David said, as though Sandy had just spoken, ‘I dunno about that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Carrie thinking a bit of me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, man.’ It was Walter who spoke and his voice was weak. ‘She thinks the world of you, a blind man could see that.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’ Sandy’s voice carried a note of irritation and something else which was sharper. ‘It was her thinking a bit of you that got her--’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Oh, to hell with it. It’s all water under the bridge now.’

  But it wasn’t. David’s eyes strained in the darkness which was blacker than anything above ground. Even with the blackout, the darkness above was never complete like it was down the pit. He’d often heard folk say they couldn’t see a hand in front of their face when their blackout curtains were drawn and the lights were off. More than once he’d been tempted to tell them they didn’t know they were born, but he never had. Unless they came underground and switched off the lamps they wouldn’t know what he was on about anyway.

  The roof settled itself a little more, the sound prompting David to say, ‘Look, Sandy, there’s something I want you to know.’ He suddenly couldn’t bear the idea of going to meet his Maker without coming clean with Carrie’s da. ‘Matthew, well, it’s not like you think.’

  ‘It never is, lad.’

  ‘No, what I mean is, he’s not mine. Matthew isn’t mine.’

  The silence was intense, and again it struck David how completely they were entombed. And then Sandy’s voice came, tense and low. ‘What the hell do you mean, he’s not yours?’

  ‘Carrie was . . .’ Damn it, how did he say it? ‘She was forced, the night of Renee and Walter’s wedding.’

  ‘You’re tellin’ me--’ Sandy stopped abruptly. His voice rose as he went on, ‘You’re sayin’ my lass was taken down against her will? My Carrie? You’re mad, the explosion’s addled your brain.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sandy.’ Something in David’s voice stopped further protest.

  ‘Who?’ Just one word but David was glad he couldn’t see Sandy’s face.

  ‘I don’t know.’ And then as Sandy made an exclamation of disbelief, he said, ‘I swear I don’t know, Sandy. She . . . well, she might have told me if I’d pressed her, but to be honest I didn’t want to know. I was prepared to take the bairn on but I felt if I knew who the father was he’d forever be there looking out of its face.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ But Sandy’s broken voice told the other two men he believed it only too well. ‘I knew somethin’ was wrong that night. Well, you saw the state she was in, lad. An’ after, she was never the same, never. By, a bit lass, that’s all she was. I’d hang for the filthy scum if I got me hands on him, even now. What man’d do that to a bit bairn?’

  David made no reply to this, and after a moment Sandy said, ‘Why didn’t she tell her mam an’ me?’

  ‘She was confused, scared, ashamed.’ David moved slightly and the searing pain in his leg almost made him pass out. After a moment he was able to say, ‘She might have told you though after we’d married if I hadn’t told her I didn’t want anyone to know the bairn wasn’t mine. I . . . I can’t explain it, Sandy, but taking Carrie and the baby on was all right, I’d have walked through coals of fire for her for ever and a day, I still would, but . . .’ He swallowed. ‘Other folk knowing . . .’

  ‘Aye, well, I can understand that, lad, aye, I can. I think I’d be the same, although I don’t know if I’d have been big enough to do what you did.’

  It was all the recompense David wanted for the years of being treated like a leper by this man who had once been like a father to him.

  Sandy went on, ‘I should’ve known you weren’t the sort of lad to take a lass down on the side.’

  David protested. ‘How? You were told I was the father and I’d got her into trouble. I’d have reacted like you. You love her, course you were angry. But . . . I wanted to set things straight, once and for all.’

  The three of them knew what he was saying. The chances of their being rescued before the air ran out were minimal. They had all been part of rescue teams in their time, and the pit was chary about giving up its prizes once they had been marked.

  There was silence for a few moments, and then Sandy said, ‘I’m glad you’ve told me, lad. It’s eaten me up over the years, the thought of you doin’ the dirty on me. Joan used to give me gyp over thinkin’ that way, tellin’ me I was puttin’ meself before our Carrie, but it wasn’t like that, not really. You were - are - a son to me an’ I thought I knew you through an’ through. It appears I did after all.’

  The sound of Walter’s laboured breathing was audible in the quietness that followed, and when he spoke, both David and Sandy felt a sense of relief because his voice dispelled the intense emotion that had been quivering in the small space. Their relief was shortlived, however. ‘I need to say something an’ all. I found Renee with a bloke, one of them GIs. I’ve done for her.’

  Walter’s words were cut off by a gurgle in his throat and he coughed, or tried to cough. The sound was painful, and David’s arms were about his brother by the time the rasping gasps were over. ‘Lie quiet, man, don’t try to talk.’

  ‘Did . . . did you hear me?’

  ‘Aye, I heard you.’ David’s voice was quiet, embarrassed. ‘You found Renee with someone.’

  ‘One of them Yanks. They were sporting on the rug like a pair of newlyweds.’

  ‘Walter, man, we don’t have to hear this.’

  ‘I’ve killed her, Sandy. I’ve done for her.’

  ‘You don’t mean it.’ This was from David
and said in a tone of incredulity threaded with horror.

  The sound of shifting stones and rubble told them Sandy was moving, and then he, too, was kneeling by Walter. ‘You’ve killed her? Not just knocked her about?’

  ‘She . . . she was screaming at me, saying things. I wanted to shut her up, that was all, but . . . Man, I didn’t mean to do it.’

  ‘What about the Yank?’

  ‘He’d skedaddled after I hit him.’

  A curse vibrated in the darkness but it was from David, not Sandy.

  ‘I was going to tell you once we were up.’ Walter’s voice was hoarse and straining, each word an effort. ‘She . . . she’s been with lots, it was that Hughie Fleming from the factory to start with. I . . . I dunno but something just snapped tonight. One minute she was shouting and the next me hands were round her neck. I just kept pressing and pressing.’