by Annie Clarke
He was crying. How bloody silly, and thank God it was raining, for the tears wouldn’t show. But he was so far away, and she’d wanted to talk to him, and had said, ‘Ralph has—’
What? Asked her to marry him? Of course. Why wouldn’t he? His Fran was the best thing in Massingham, but she wasn’t a thing, she was a lass. His head was swimming; he’d drunk too much. He shouldn’t, not when he’d taken the hospital’s painkillers on top of aspirin, and now his head was spinning, and his legs felt as though they weren’t his, and still his bad one bliddy hurt. He staggered.
‘I’ve got you, Davey. I’ve always got you,’ said Daisy.
It’s what he’d thought about Fran, and she about him. For years they’d had one another, had held each other up. He could have screamed because he wanted to kill Ralph, and her, his Fran, because she was his home, his life, his everything.
Now it was Daisy holding him up, and they staggered up the stairs to the little bedsit, her billet. She whispered, ‘The landlady’s asleep.’ The lavatory was down the corridor, not in the yard. In Ralph’s house there’d be a bath too, so who could blame the lass? Well, he bliddy could because she’d promised she’d wait.
She propped him against the corridor wall after he came back from doing a pee, then unlocked her door, and helped him into her room, hushing him all the time.
‘I’ll drip rain on your floor,’ he said.
‘You can take your mac off.’
And that was where he found himself in the morning – on the bed. He lay there, wondering where he was, his head bursting. Then he remembered it all. He checked to make sure he was on it, not in it, but it was only the other side that was ruffled. And he had his vest on, and his drawers – he remembered he’d sewn himself into them, and felt ashamed. Had Daisy seen? Well, he was a right sight, even if he’d had his good drawers on, with scars all over his body. He shook his head, but his brain seemed to knock against the sides of his skull as though he’d had a skinful in the Miners’ Club on a Friday night.
He dragged himself into a sitting position. Daisy was dressed, and turned from the basin in the corner of her room. In the other corner was a small hotplate on which a pan of water was bubbling. ‘Tea in a moment, sweetheart,’ she said.
He registered her voice, the words, and scrambled to his feet, stumbling, his head swimming, nausea catching him. Oh God, what had he done? ‘I don’t … I’m not …’
She came to him. ‘You will be.’
‘It’s all a terrible mistake. Really.’
‘Hush,’ she said.
He ran his fingers through his hair, fighting to clear his head, to beat down the sickness. He said at last, ‘You don’t remember – I have a sweetheart.’ He was dragging his trousers off the back of a chair set at the small kitchen table and clambering into them, then his shirt, his tie but it wouldn’t bliddy knot, his fingers were shaking. He swallowed, and thrust his arms into his jacket, and then his mac, both of which were hanging on a hook on the back of the door.
‘You said she had someone else, that you’d had a letter. You said, as you lay on the bed you’d telephoned her, she’d said—’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t.’ The pain came flooding back, and he took a cup of tea from her because he didn’t know what else to do. It was too hot and burned his mouth.
Daisy took it from him and kissed his lips. ‘You told me all about it. Let me make it better.’
He backed away. ‘So sorry, really sorry, but I can’t. You’ve been very kind, but I must get to work. Yes, that’s it, I have work. And Fran’s someone I will always love. I’m so sorry about … Your paper chains, I’ll straighten them. Your bed … In my clothes. Well, some of them. So bliddy rude. So sorry.’
She repeated, ‘But you said she has someone else.’ Her pale freckled skin was flushed now.
He couldn’t think. His head was going to burst. He reached for his scarf, which lay on the sofa. His mam had knitted it, his Fran had touched it. But the letter … the telephone call … And what had she been going to say on the telephone? ‘Ralph has …’ Yes, he remembered. ‘No, I can’t believe, not in here.’ He banged his chest, knowing he sounded like a bloody fool, but it was how he felt.
Daisy was crying and beating at his chest too. ‘You led me on, then, and I don’t believe you. Anyway, it’s too late, because we … you know, did it. And that was because I’m here and she’s not.’
He fled down the stairs, his leg hurting like buggery, and out of the front door. He wanted to run to Fran, but she wasn’t here. Was she with Ralph? Had he wooed her away because he thought Davey had once stabbed his stupid ball? He’d said he’d take everything from him but they were bairns, for pity’s sake. Was the world mad? And of course he hadn’t done anything with Daisy. He couldn’t have, he’d been too bliddy drunk, and still had his drawers on, and couldn’t get the beggars off without breaking the thread. What the hell was she talking about? But he shouldn’t have been there at all …
He stopped. Davey bloody Bedley, what the hell are you playing at, half undressed in a girl’s bedroom? And it was all because he didn’t know what Fran had been about to say, not for certain. Oh God. He checked his watch and ran for the bus. At the bus stop he ignored Daniel’s raised eyebrows and his whispered ‘No show last night, and the same shirt …’
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, in the basement kitchen, with the clock showing 3 o’clock, Ralph drank tea and breakfasted on cheese on toast, made by his own fair hands, because the cook was still in bed. But at least he was spared the evacuees rampaging through the house and bursting into the dining room as they had on Sunday. What the hell were they going to do now that the nursery maid had left to work in a factory? Not just because the pay was better, but also because she ‘couldn’t put up with the bed-wetting no more’. The very idea of it had made him feel sick. What the boys needed was discipline.
He made his way up the stairs, his bait tin in his hand and was crossing the hall when his father called from the landing. ‘Wait one, Ralph.’
Ralph looked up to see his father standing there in his carpet slippers and tartan dressing gown, no spectacles and his hair awry. It made him look quite different. Ralph wondered if the old boy would actually see if he ignored him and slipped out of the house.
‘Father, it’s almost three thirty in the morning. What on earth are you doing awake?’
His father sighed. ‘Steven, one of the boys, had a nightmare, so your mother has been up and down to the nursery all night. One simply can’t get back to sleep.’
Ralph continued to look up at his father, but all he could see was his nanny soothing his nightmares while he cried for his mother. His nanny had always smelled of roses – did she still? He shut his eyes, not wanting to think of how he had been sent to school and when he returned he found his father had taken her away from him. Fran had hair like Sophia’s, or had until it had been cut. But what did he really care about that factory girl? He paused for a moment, seeing only Fran, which wasn’t the idea at all.
‘Ralph?’ his father called.
‘What can I do for you, Father?’
‘Just a word, Ralph. Sabotage it seems is encroaching on this area. There have been several incidents or so I have been informed. We must be on our guard in every establishment and workplace, including the mines. If production can be curtailed, it is more than a nuisance, it is treasonable. Quite frankly, security can only do so much, so it is up to us all. Please do emphasise this to everyone you work with, and be careful yourself. Sorry to go on, but—’
The man looked absurd, Ralph thought, standing there in his dressing gown, handing down his warnings. Was he finished? But no. On his father went.
‘Look, my boy, I do hope that ghastly little tyke Tim Swinton you used to spend time with isn’t back in the area? It’s his sort whose beliefs might not have changed, who are likely to cause damage.’ His father hesitated. ‘Or am I flinching at shadows? Perhaps so, one hears so much in London. One—’
There was a pause, and his father said, ‘Fuses? Who said anything about fuses?’
Ralph reached for the front-door knob. ‘You never said anything about the British Union of Fascists either, but one assumes they weren’t far from your mind. I wasn’t a member, not of them or of the Communist Party. I just found some of Mosley’s ideas … Well, you know, having experts to run government departments, having some order in things … Anyway, may I go to work? Who knows, it might be me caught under a collapse one day and that might prove I’m as sound as the next man.’
He stormed out, slamming the door as his father called out, ‘Ralph, my boy—’
Stan followed his da and Tom Bedley and several other pitmen into the pit yard while Sid and Norm played the fools as always, but they stopped when they saw Elliott the manager in the lamp hut. They all looked at one another, but no one said anything. Once the current cageload had started to descend, Elliott said to those waiting, ‘I’m saying this only once because there’s another lot coming hot on yer heels, and I’m sick, sore and tired of having to say it to each cageload. Me throat’s as raspy as the bottom of a budgie’s cage.’
‘Or a canary’s,’ Sid said to Joe, ‘for them’s not smooth buggers neither, are they, with all the seed husks and you-know-whats?’
‘And that’s enough from you, lad,’ Elliott said. ‘Thing is, there’s been a bit of a fall at Sledgeford overnight in a half-worked out seam that was about to be opened. Happened as the safety crew was doing its rounds. Bang it went, like a bliddy pack o’ cards.’
‘Owt hurt?’ called Tom Bedley.
‘Not this time, Tom, but once they clear it, they’ll check for a charge. There’s been talk racking up, as yer know, of sabotage and I had a message from Mr Massingham last night giving me the same warning going round all the pits. So I want you all to be right careful. Now get in the cage and off to work. Tom and Joe, stay back with me, please.’
Stan looked at his da. ‘Please?’ he mouthed.
His da smiled, and shrugged. ‘Ah well, we go back a ways.’
Stan looked around for Ralph as they filed into the cage. The banksman said, ‘You lost your bait, lad, or just your wits, you’re looking so gormless?’ He closed the doors behind them.
Stan shook his head. ‘Only the boss’s son. Late again it seems.’
‘Howay with you. Turned over a new leaf, I reckon. He was here, what, twenty, thirty minutes ago, so he’s tramping out to t’face, though he knows he’s ahead of you, so he might wait.’
‘Well, that’s a bit of a treat if the beggar’s way ahead of us,’ said Sid, ‘so’s we’ve a few minutes’ peace, and just for once I won’t have to eat his bliddy dust. The beggar won’t pick up his precious feet, he won’t.’
Someone squashed at the back of the cage called, ‘Howay, he’s trying, got to give the whelp that. Not many o’ his ilk’d come down and get dirty like he do.’
‘You after a raise, then, Timmo?’ Norm called as the lift accelerated.
‘Aye, lad. Course I am. That Ralph’s got such big lugs on him he’ll no doubt hear me kind words.’
Stan stared into the darkness, knowing he’d not care a wit if he never saw the bugger again, after all his panting after Fran. She was his sister, and his best marrer’s girl, and because of a poxy football the lad had held a payback grudge, or that’s what they had all come to think. He was behaving like a devil, and for two pins he’d knock his bliddy block off, thought Stan. But last night he’d promised Sarah, yet again, that he wouldn’t. Why, when his fists had itched?
He still didn’t know if he’d been right, but Sarah had told him Fran wasn’t encouraging him, not like people thought, and it had been sorted between all the lasses. She said that Ralph really was just trying to do a kindness, and added that his sort thought they knew best. He wasn’t exactly soft on Fran, but thought Fran would be sad because she missed Davey.
Now, in the cold light of a bitter morning, Stan knew such a story didn’t made sense, but Sarah had pulled him to her, kissed him and muttered. ‘Best leave it be, why make a mountain out of a molehill, eh? He’ll likely find someone more his own sort. We girls can handle it, so let us.’
Stan could still feel the power of her kisses, her almost frantic voice as she’d said, ‘Just be glad we’re still together, lad. Everyone’s in turmoil, everyone’s worrying about someone or something. Beth doesn’t know where Bob is, we know Davey’s safe but not what he’s doing, but whatever it is, he’s not here. The whole thing’s a ruddy mess, so you stay safe, and trust us girls to sort ourselves, eh? Trust us.’
She’d even made him cross his heart, like they used to when they were bairns, and he had, because she’d offered him another kiss if he did. He smiled as the cage slowed and jolted and the gate was hauled open.
Norm led the way, his bait tin banging on his lamp. The deputy in his office to the right of the lifts bellowed, ‘You three, over here.’
They went as the cage clanged shut and rose again taking the night shift up, and all around the banging resonated against the screeching of the tubs. In the dimly lit roadway, Albright said, ‘Yon Ralph’s gone on a while ago. Says he were keen to get started. But listen, Stan, your da’s having to nose down a couple of half-used seams to the left of the roadway, just before the Mary Lou. He’s got auld Bedley with him, and they may not be out with you at shift end, so don’t go fretting. Depends how they do, how many props need replacing, and so on. We need to produce more coal, and t’boss reckons they’re worth opening up, as they’re a good grade.’
Stan shifted his weight on to his better leg. Get on with it, man, he wanted to say, as restless as Sid and Norm. Albright said, ‘So, to get to the point, if they’re looking fair for a good few tons, but the props are mangy, Elliott says I’m to get Ralph to take your da replacements. It’ll get him off the face, cos your loads are down since he’s been on the pick. If you get the message that he’s needed, tell him to find your da and Bedley in the left-hand seams, not the bliddy right. In the meantime, you could move him back to putting, just get him out of the way, eh.’
Norm laughed. ‘Aye, your da will be right thrilled to have him bring him props, Stan, but he’ll only be able in between his tiddle walkabouts. Says he doesn’t like to take a pee in public, and even less a pooh.’
Albright shut his eyes. ‘Listen, lad, there’s some things I want to hear, and t’others I don’t. Get along now, but I’ll send down a message if yer da needs him, but best warn “Sir”, eh.’
Stan tipped his cap and they set off, joining the miners streaming from the cage which had just rattled to a stop. On they walked, passing the openings to the two seams where the planks across the entrance had been removed. Stan listened but couldn’t hear his da or Tom Bedley. No doubt they’d be down by the face of one or t’other, having chalked the props for replacement.
He looked ahead, and there was no putter shoving Ralph’s tub out along the roadway to hitch up to the pony’s chain, so clearly not a lot of pick work had been done. What was the whelp doing, studying his navel and thinking of Oxford? What was the putter lad doing? Driving himself mad with time wasted because of the lazy dolt of a boss’s son? Stan raised his eyebrows, coughing in the heat and dust. It wasn’t just that Ralph was inexperienced, it was that he wasn’t used to work of any sort.
Perhaps he’d be better in a smart and shiny uniform leading a hopeless charge of poor bloody men into the face of the enemy, like they did in the old days. Something with a bit of a flourish.
They turned off down the Mary Lou, bending and then crouching lower, the jagged coal catching their
backs, the heat building and the sweat running. Gradually the ache in their backs eased as they rose with the roof, but they were still not able to straighten, and wouldn’t until they were nearer the face. Soon they’d need Stan’s da and Tom to lever in more props to take the roof planks, as they moved the face forwards. There was no one better than his da and Tom Bedley. They’d look at a roof and walls and know what they were telling them from the sighs and creaks.
Stan could too, and Davey, but not as well as their das. The marrers heard no sound of Ralph’s pick from the face and Sid muttered, ‘Bet the bugger’s sitting on his arse. His pick work is a load of bloody rubbish.’
Stan shook his head. ‘Give him a chance, at least he got here early.’
At that moment they heard the whack of a pick, the slither of coal to the ground, another whack, but Stan could tell from the crack it had hit slate. Norm murmured, ‘Bet that went right up his arm into his head, ricocheting around the empty space and giving the lad a headache cos there’s no brain to absorb it.’
Stan hushed him as they reached the face and saw that the bottom of the tub was barely covered, though Ralph was stripped of trousers and top and working in his drawers. The putter was hunkered with his shovel, waiting for more coal to be hewed. The boy shook his head at them. Norm called, ‘Oh, so you’ve done a bit of work, then, Ralph? Long pee was it? You need to get yer willy sorted, lad. Yer need to get yer arm behind the pick, and into a flaw, eh.’ He and Sid were tearing off their clothes and laying their bait tins on top of their piles.
Ralph nodded in the light from his lamp. ‘Oh yes, helps you get rid of a load of buggerance, doesn’t it?’
Sid shrugged and, bare-chested, levered his pick into a split in the coal. ‘What does, peeing, or pick work? Listen, lad, don’t whack it. Find the weakness and sort of splice it, see?’
Ralph grinned, his face smeared with coal dust, his teeth white. ‘Pick work, I meant. And yes, finding a weakness is a good idea.’ He tracked a split and did the same, heaving out the coal, which fell in bits.
