Fields of Gold

by Fiona McIntosh

  7

  When they reached the cliff’s edge, his father surprised him again by taking off his coat, which he folded neatly, then placed his hat on top. He spread out his starched white handkerchief and lowered himself onto it, careful to keep his trouser creases sharp. Like all the Bryant men, Charles was tall, and broad across the shoulders, but for the first time, Jack noticed his father had developed a slight rounding of those shoulders. How odd that he had not seen this before or taken account of the new lines etched beneath his eyes. The few silver hairs at Charles’s brow had suddenly spread treacherously right across his head, turning him into a far older man than the one Jack saw in his mind. How could he have missed all this?

  He joined his father and they sat shoulder to shoulder in the most comfortable silence Jack could recall them sharing.

  Looking out to sea was a tonic for him. The water was magically beautiful, changing from a sapphire blue at its depths to a luminous emerald at the sandy shore of the tiny cove, where it broke against the rocks and foamed, glinting in the sunlight.

  ‘I used to come up here as a boy and dream of all the lands beyond Land’s End,’ his father said, startling Jack out of his quiet reverie. ‘I was usually with Jim Jenner, warm pasties in our pocket, and we’d talk about all the gallivanting around the world we were going to do when we grew up.’

  Jack found it hard to believe that his sombre father ever entertained such colourful, daring dreams. ‘How old were you?’

  His father sighed, then actually laughed. ‘About six, I think, when we first began coming here alone. We decided we might like to be pirates – not the sort that threw grappling hooks on stranded ships near the shore. No, we had lofty ideas of being somehow better than that.’

  ‘Honourable pirates,’ Jack suggested, and this made his father grin wider.

  ‘Yes, honourable. We’d only ambush wealthy merchant ships from Spain or Italy … that were coming to invade Cornwall. And we’d make our families rich before we sailed away to exotic ports.’

  ‘Merchant ships that were also invaders!’

  ‘I was only a lad. By the age of eight I was down the mines with my father and uncle. We worked over at South Crofty in those days.’

  Jack knew this from his grandfather but he’d never talked about those days with his father. ‘What about Levant?’

  ‘We all moved across in 1870 or thereabouts.’

  ‘So, your uncle Jamie died at Levant, did he?’

  His father sucked air in as he thought about it. ‘Uncle Jamie died at South Crofty in the winter of 1869, two days before Christmas.’

  Jack recalled the story though he was hazy on the details. But he knew that after James Bryant died in a mining accident, Charles’s father had inherited his brother’s small cottage on a nice holding of coastal land.

  Charles interrupted Jack’s recollections. ‘ “Get your boy out of the mines”, Uncle Jamie told Grandpa so often,’ he said, staring out to sea. ‘But we couldn’t afford to. We were tin miners through generations.’

  ‘And then the sale happened,’ Jack prompted.

  Bryant sighed, staring down at his big hands, no longer battered or bruised; these days his nails were trimmed and buffed regularly at the gentlemen’s salon in Camborne. ‘Yes, and then the sale happened. I hated how mining beggared folk. As young as I was, I could see that we made men in London rich while our families barely eked out enough to feed ourselves. And in those days there were no rights for miners, no strikes or lobby groups or even the know-how. All we knew was how to mine, and how to toil for twelve-hour days.’ His father grimaced. ‘And how to die before we saw our fourth decade.’

  Jack nodded but said nothing.

  ‘Then along came your mother. Fragile creature she was. I still don’t know what possessed her to marry me. She could have done so much better. She’d had an education, your mother, she could have married up.’

  ‘She did, Dad,’ Jack said. ‘Look at what you’ve been able to give her.’ He couldn’t remember the last time he’d addressed his father in this way.

  ‘Well, it was because of her I became so determined to get out of the mines if I could. We were all living in Uncle’s cottage by then and while it was better than the draughty, crumbling place my parents were renting, the prospects didn’t seem that bright.’

  ‘Until they discovered that reef that went below the cottage.’ Jack felt like a child again, asking his elders to retell a story he knew by heart.

  ‘That’s right. Your grandfather didn’t want to sell it, Jack. I fought with him bitterly. Kept telling him it was my future he was throwing aside, as well as yours. You were about three or four months old at that time.’

  ‘I’ve never really understood how you convinced him. Grandpa was such an old stick in the mud.’

  ‘I reminded him how Uncle Jamie had asked him to get me out of the mine. My wheezing was really bad and I think that’s probably what pushed him over the edge. The mine made an offer to make his eyes pop. You know he gave it all to me.’

  Jack turned to stare at his father’s profile, his own reflecting an identical strong jawline. This news was a revelation. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Grandpa wanted nothing to do with the money. He kept mining. Never told a soul about how much he got and swore the mine to secrecy as well. I got it all. I was twenty-seven. He told me to make something of it. So I did. I left the mine that very day, but you see, mining was in my blood by then. I couldn’t let it go completely. I tried to think about how I could still work around the mines. Providing the big companies with their raw materials seemed the best idea. I was the one who negotiated to give the men free candles.’

  Jack frowned with surprise. ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve never forgotten what life’s like down the shafts. I never did achieve my real aim, to give the men more light, you could say, but when they did deign to set a taper to one of my candle wicks, it burned true. Stupid buggers still worked in the dark more often than not.’

  ‘That was just one of the businesses you set up, though, I mean —’

  ‘That’s true. But everything I’ve done, including the small money-lending scheme I set up out of Camborne, is designed to help the miners. You see, Jack, I never could let go of my roots.’

  He knew suddenly where this was leading. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you, though? Do you really?’

  ‘You wanted me to stay close to our roots – to appreciate that we come from generations of miners.’

  His father’s expression relaxed, his forehead smoothing. ‘That’s it, Jack. We were never smugglers or pirates. We were tin miners. And although I was able to move away from the grime and the grinding poverty, give your mother a good life and you some prospects, mining is in my soul. And I wanted it to be in yours too. I wanted you to be qualified, trained in mining. So that some day you could …’ His father’s word petered out.

  Jack’s heart leapt. Take over? he wondered. He held his breath.

  ‘But everything changed,’ his father continued, that familiar tone of disappointment creeping into his voice. ‘You’re smart, Jack. Far smarter than any Bryant that’s gone before. I wanted you to know about the mining industry so that you could take our firm strongly into this new century, with fresh ideas and the knowledge to back them up. I thought with your engineering skills you might build …’ He stopped and sighed. ‘But then the gambling and drinking, the carousing began …’

  ‘I could stop it in a moment!’ Jack said, his eagerness spilling over as he grabbed his father’s suit sleeve. ‘Half my problem is frustration. You were a miner and you were raised a miner’s son, but I grew up in a house with a housekeeper and fine furnishings! You sent me to school when everyone else was heading down the shaft. And when I should’ve been learning the ropes of the family business, you insisted I learn a trade and then packed me off to the mine! You set me up for a fall. If you wanted me to be a miner, we should have stayed in Uncle Jamie’s house and never sol
d it!’

  Charles Bryant looked at where his son’s hand had bunched the fabric of his jacket. Jack instantly let go, regretting the starburst of creases left behind. ‘Are you blaming me for your shortcomings? For all the trouble you find yourself in?’

  ‘I’m blaming you for using me to soothe your own guilt.’

  ‘Guilt?’ his father repeated, anger and astonishment mingling.

  Jack sensed this confrontation had been coming for years. ‘You’ve never quite come to terms with your new status in life, have you, Dad? You dragged yourself out of the holes in the ground to become a successful businessman. I take my hat off to you, because somehow you’ve pulled it off without earning the contempt of your fellow miners, or the disdain of the people you do business with.’

  ‘Don’t throw big words at me,’ his father replied.

  ‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t have educated me,’ Jack growled, tearing at his necktie and loosening his collar. ‘Did you expect me to be happy working as a mine winder all my life when I sleep in starched sheets ironed by our servant and get driven about in a fancy motor? Think about it! Don’t make me take a constant beating for your success. You’ve abandoned me, somehow hoping that by making me work the mines, you’ve stayed true to the community that raised you. There’s no pride in showing off that your only son works the mines. There’s only humiliation for me and you’re its chief instigator.’

  His father’s eyes had taken on the grey of the granite cliff they sat upon and Jack knew his own mirrored that colour. They were peas in a pod, just as his mother often said. A single gull floated above them, waiting for the updraft. Jack felt as lonely as the bird looked.

  ‘What would you have had me do?’ his father demanded. ‘I’ve provided for you —’

  ‘Yes, but you hate me. I reflect what your money brings.’

  His father looked astonished but said nothing for a few moments. Then he stood suddenly and began dusting himself down. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve made you what you are, boy!’

  Jack’s disappointment cut deep; he’d lost all hope that there could be an open and honest discussion between them. ‘And are you proud of what I am, what I’ve become?’

  At this Charles Bryant bent down and began lifting his coat and hat, avoiding Jack’s eye. ‘What happened at the mine is not your fault.’

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me that, although your support back there is something I’ll carry with me always.’

  Now his father’s gaze flashed up to meet his, bright steely sparks igniting within his flinty stare. ‘Carry with you? What do you mean?’ Jack saw a familiar glimmer of contempt in it.

  ‘I’m going to do what I should have done years ago. I’m leaving.’

  ‘The house?’ His father gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘You won’t last a week on your own, the way you spend your allowance —’

  ‘Not just the house, Dad,’ Jack said quietly, a curious calm flowing through him. His gaze was steady and direct. ‘I’m leaving Cornwall. And I don’t want your allowance.’

  ‘What?’ the older man roared. ‘Don’t be a fool. Your future is —’

  ‘Not here,’ Jack finished, his tone resigned. ‘It’s taken too long. And I’m disappointed in myself for not coming to this realisation faster.’

  ‘But what about the business?’ Charles asked.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’m not getting any younger,’ his father railed.

  ‘Neither am I.’ He sighed.

  ‘What about your mother?’

  Jack couldn’t believe how clear his mind suddenly appeared. ‘She loves us. That won’t change. And what else won’t change is the fact that you and I clash constantly.’

  ‘Listen, now.’

  ‘No, Dad. I’m not going to listen any longer to your rules and how I must live my life. I’m no saint, I realise that I’ve let you down and given you no reason to hand me opportunities.’ Jack stood and gazed back towards Pendeen town, then he looked down sadly. ‘Besides, mud sticks. You’ve told me that often enough. The people we live amongst have made up their minds about me. I’m the villain. I’m responsible for all the sons who died in France, for all the lives lost and damaged at Levant, and for Helen’s bastard child. That’s plenty for you to be ashamed about.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his mother’s diamond watch, amazed and grateful that it had not been lost during the chaos of the mine’s disaster. ‘You’d better add thief to my list of failings. I took this a few days ago.’

  His father stood speechless.

  Jack told him the whole sordid story before shaking his head helplessly. ‘I wanted to pay him off quickly so he wouldn’t come after you and Mum.’

  ‘He threatened your mother?’ Jack rarely heard such emotion in his father’s voice.

  Jack told his father everything he could remember. ‘I’m sorry, really sorry, about it, Dad.’

  Charle’s mouth twisted with disdain. ‘I’ll take care of Sir Walter.’

  This reminded Jack of everything that he truly loved about his father: his calm strength, his ability to take command of situations, his refusal to allow anything to threaten his family.

  Charles cleared his throat. ‘So. Where will you go?’

  Jack looked out to sea. ‘London, probably. I’ll take on a labouring job if I can and earn passage on a ship. I’ve always wanted to sail somewhere.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. You made me a miner, Dad. Perhaps Australia? They say there’s a new goldrush there. But there are opal and diamond mines too.’

  ‘Australia? That’s on the other side of the world! And what the hell do you know about opals or diamonds?’

  ‘I’m a quick learner.’ Jack pushed the watch at his father. ‘Take it.’

  The older man didn’t touch it. ‘I bought this the year you were born. That blue shell face for my son, diamonds sparkling like my wife.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were so sentimental,’ Jack replied, bitterness creeping into his tone.

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’

  ‘Put it back in her jewel box for me.’

  His father ignored the watch, now in Jack’s palm, but withdrew a pale, creamy-coloured envelope from his jacket pocket. ‘No. If you’re going to leave us, keep it. That way you won’t forget us. In the meantime, take this.’

  Jack frowned.

  ‘Money. I was taking it to Camborne to pay wages, pay some bills.’

  ‘Then keep to that plan.’

  Bryant shook his head. The breeze stiffened and caught Jack’s hair, ruffling the black mop his mother had wanted trimmed. He noticed his father’s perfectly oiled, equally thick hair, didn’t budge. ‘I insist you take it.’

  Jack stared at the fat envelope. His father slapped it into his hand. It was the closest they’d come to touching each other, their two palms almost clasped but separated by the envelope.

  ‘It feels like too much.’ Jack suspected there was a small fortune inside.

  ‘Take it!’

  ‘Why? To ease your conscience?’ Jack regretted his words instantly.

  Charles shook his head. ‘To ease yours.’

  They stared at each other, the waves crashing below, several gulls now shrieking above. Jack sensed they both wanted to reach out but the divide – like the Atlantic Ocean that stretched out before them – was too great.

  ‘Are you coming back with me to pick up your things?’

  ‘I don’t need things.’ He stared at the package. ‘I can buy the few bits and pieces I need.’

  His father gave a soft sigh and began to shrug himself back into his coat, its deep-red lining reminding Jack of the bloodshed of the previous days. ‘Well, you should say goodbye to your mother … explain this to her.’

  Jack shook his head, too emotional to even feel the bite of the cool breeze. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You’ll break her heart.’

  ‘I need you to mend it for her, then, Dad. Tell he
r I love her. Tell her I will come back one day. But I can’t face her now – I don’t want to take away that memory of her tears and disappointment and loss with me. I’d rather remember her smiling at me as she did the last time I saw her.’

  His father didn’t reply; Jack was unsure whether his expression reflected anger or deep sorrow.

  ‘I’ll write to Mum,’ he finally offered. ‘I can say more in a letter. I promise I’ll write to her.’

  ‘You do that,’ his father replied gruffly, his own voice thick with emotion, and finally held out his hand.

  Jack stared at it for a second, then he shook it, once, hardly daring to meet his father’s eyes before he turned to leave. There was nothing to say and he never looked back.

  The following night a group of men paid a call on Walter Rally’s office. They’d chosen their moment well, with Rally’s minder taking a leak out the back. Neither Big Jock Harrison nor Rally knew what hit them, until Rally regained consciousness slowly and realised he was in a car and blindfolded.

  He screamed questions at the men surrounding him. In his blindness he guessed there were four other men travelling with him. But they maintained a frustrating, stony silence despite the fortune he offered to be released.

  When the car eventually stopped he was gagged and dragged from the vehicle. He presumed they’d taken him further west and was now sure of it when he felt the whip of the cold around his face, the familiar blast of freezing Atlantic air.

  His blindfold was finally ripped free and before him stood men whose faces were blacked out with soot.

  ‘Where the hell is this?’ he demanded. ‘Levant?’

  ‘Hello, Rally,’ said a newcomer, emerging from behind a tower, who wore no disguise.

  He thought he recognised the local businessman. ‘Bryant? Is that you?’ Rally asked, squinting into the dimness. They had only moonlight illuminating them.

  ‘Our apologies, Wally. I sometimes forget us miners are used to seeing in the dark,’ his captor said.

  Men sniggered nearby.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rally’s cockney sounded even more foreign on this rugged, desolate coastline. ‘You’re no miner, Charles Bryant,’ he accused, jabbing a finger towards him.