The Black Mountains

by Janet Tanner

  “Oh, don’t be so silly, Mam,” he said irritably, but in his heart of hearts he knew she’d struck pretty dose to the truth and when he was alone in his room, he mulled it over again, looking squarely for the first time at the facts he had refused to face.

  Once before he’d told a girl he loved her, and asked her to marry him. He’d bared his soul to her, and pinned all his hopes and dreams on the future they would share. And she’d gone—disappeared without so much as seeing him to explain. And he hadn’t needed her explanation. He had known why. Deep in the part of him that was hidden even from himself, he had known.

  He was only half a man, and it was too much to expect any girl to take on a cripple …

  Now that it was out, it should have been better, but it was not. For in spite of himself, in spite of all the contradictory emotions, he knew he was in love with Stella, more deeply and lastingly than he had ever been with Rosa. But at the same time, he knew it would be no good. It would end in misery for them both. What she felt for him could only be based on pity, and one day she was certain to realize that. Perhaps she did already. Perhaps she had only accepted his invitations so as not to hurt his feelings. That would be like Stella. She was a nurse, and the most generous of people. And he could not put her in the position of testing her kindness to the limits.

  Yet, he wanted desperately to know the truth, even if it meant the end of everything between them. The strain began to tell, added to by the worry of his examinations and knowing he would soon have to find a job. Tension crept into their meetings, where before there had been only warmth, and he became distant, moody and irritable.

  One day in June, she lost patience with him.

  “What’s the matter with you these days?” she asked. “You used to be full of fun, but not any more. Now it’s an obstacle course not to say the wrong thing.”

  His heart sank. So she was getting tired of him, just as he had known she would. He sought a defence in bad temper. “You’d better find someone else to spend your time with then, hadn’t you?”

  “Oh, Jack, there are times I could hit you!” she said in exasperation. “ I don’t want someone else. Don’t you know that by now?”

  He looked at her, wondering if he dare believe her. But once before he had been stupid enough to think a girl had forgotten his disability. He could not take the risk of making the same mistake again.

  “You can do better than me, Stella,” he said. “ You don’t want to be landed with a cripple.”

  “I don’t think of you as a cripple. And neither should you. For goodness sake, stop pitying yourself.”

  “I’m not pitying myself. I’m pitying you, stuck with me when you could do so much better.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “With all these exams you’re just impossible, Jack Hall. You’re absolutely infuriating!”

  “Maybe. Maybe it would be better if we didn’t see one another until they’re over.” As soon as he had said it, he was hoping she would tell him again not to be stupid. But she didn’t. This time she, too, had been pushed to her limits.

  “Maybe that would be best,” she said.

  AFTER she had gone, the darkness seemed to close in around him, shutting out the sun.

  He had thought that, pretending he had not committed himself, it would hurt less. He had thought that this time he would be prepared. Not so.

  She had gone, and the rejection was as sharp as when Rosa had left—sharper, for this time he knew he really cared. Depression was like a stormy sea. He felt he was drowning in it. Although he had prepared himself, although he knew he had brought it upon himself, he still was shocked. Despite his tormenting self-doubt, he had expected her to stay.

  His final days at college meant nothing to him now. Without her, even the things he had worked for seemed meaningless. When it was all over, he packed his things and went back to Hillsbridge in a daze of misery. He had interviews to attend, but he had no enthusiasm for them.

  So sunk in self-pity was he, the depression of Hillsbridge hardly affected him at all. It was merely an extension of his own depression, another example of the wretched black world he found himself in.

  Had he but noticed, he would have seen that the mood of the men had changed now, hardened with the passing weeks, with the poverty and the hunger. Their meetings were more bitter, although still peaceful, and when groups of them gathered on the bridge, the hopelessness was etched into the leathery lines of their faces.

  They had had support from their own, it was true. A Welsh male voice choir had toured the area, giving concerts in aid of the relief fund, and there had been parades when those with money or food to spare had given it for those whose long families had quickly eaten away what little they had. But quiet though they might be, they were also stubborn, and already they had twice voted against acceptance of the owners’ offer.

  Now, it was coming to the vote again, and hardship was driving a wedge between those who wanted acceptance and those who were determined to see the struggle through to the bitter end. Whereas before there had been unanimity, now there were arguments, with vociferous factions arising on either side.

  Stepping off the train that day in early July, Jack felt the tension in the air, but cared little for it. He had not seen Stella for three weeks now, but she still occupied his mind as much, if not more, than before. And he wondered, too, what his mother would have to say when she heard it was all over. She wouldn’t be at all pleased, he knew, but perhaps he could keep it from her for the time being at least.

  That hope was short lived.

  Almost as soon as he got into the house, Charlotte raised the subject, turning from the fire that was making the sweat run in rivers down her cheeks. “ Well, Jack, and what have you done about Stella?”

  “Nothing, Mam,” he said, hoping his tight tone would stop her, but he should have known better than that.

  “I thought as much,” she said, brushing a strand of greying hair behind her ear. “She’s home, you know. The woman who goes up there to clean told me. Home for a holiday and then going back to London, she said. I knew straight away there must be something wrong between you.”

  Jack felt sick with shock, but he hid his dismay. If Stella was going back to London, it could mean only one thing, that she had decided to wash her hands of the whole affair and start afresh.

  “Jack, you’re a fool,” Charlotte said, and he bridled.

  “Mam, I wish you wouldn’t interfere in things you know nothing about.”

  He would have had his answer when Charlotte had recovered from her surprise, but at that moment, the door opened and James came in calling, “ Cheerio,” to Walter Clements over his shoulder.

  “Can we have tea a bit earlier tonight, Mother?” he said to Charlotte. “ There’s a meeting down in the square to talk about this ’ere offer.”

  She nodded brusquely. “If you must. And I hope you’ll have the good sense to call it all off this time.”

  “Be you coming down to hear what they’ve got to say?” James asked Jack.

  Jack shook his head. “No thanks, Dad. I’ve got some applications to write out. I’m going upstairs where it’s quiet.”

  “Ah, well, at least our Jim’s coming,” James said resignedly, and for the first time, Jack saw that his father actually minded that he had not followed him into the pit. Not wanting to be buried there himself, he had seen only Charlotte’s eagerness for him to be free of it. He hadn’t realized that James felt, deep down, that what had been good enough for him should be good enough for his sons. Even in troubled times, as these were.

  Jack left his mother washing up the tea plates and went up to his room. The window had been thrown open to the summer’s day, and through it he could hear the sound of music floating up from the valley below.

  They must have got the band together for the meeting, he supposed. That didn’t bode well for those who wanted a vote to end the strike. The band was always good for stirring up a fighting spirit.

  He sat down on the
window-sill, his writing pad beside him, and remembered how he had sat here as a child. How long ago, it seemed now, and yet, in some ways, how close! Nostalgia brought the misery flooding back again, and impatiently he took the top off his pen and began to write.

  When he had finished, he looked out of the window again. The band had stopped playing now, but from time to time he heard the distant roar of a hundred and more voices, raised in a unanimous shout, and he wondered just what was going on. Perhaps he’d wander down the hill and find out after all. The sweet evening air was making him restless, and anything would be better than facing his mother’s questions again.

  He could hear the hubbub more clearly as he reached the foot of the hill, but it seemed to be closer than the town square. The wind must be blowing this way. But as he rounded the corner, he stopped, unable to believe his eyes.

  The road, as it curved away again up South Hill, was a seething mass of men. And as he listened, the band began to play again, ragged now, as if half the instruments were missing, but still belting out a defiant ‘Men of Harlech.’

  Puzzled and a little alarmed without really knowing why, he hurried across the bridge and saw a small group of men who had broken away from the main procession smoking and spitting as they watched the tail end disappear round the bend of the hill. Among them were James, Jim, and Walter Clements.

  “What in the world is going on?” he asked when he reached them.

  “Trouble,” James said shortly. “I’ve never knowed them so mad. We’d just took a vote on the strike and decided we was going to carry on when the news came through.”

  “What news?” Jack asked.

  “The strike’s over.” Jim spat deliberately at the kerb. “At least it’s supposed to be. We’ve been sold down the river again, and we’m fighting mad about it. But we don’t want nothing to do with that lot and what they’m going to do.”

  Jack stared up the hill. Only a few men were visible now, but be could still hear the noise, the shouts and the ragged band music.

  “Where are they going?” he asked. But in his heart of hearts, he already knew.

  “They’m off up to the big house to get O’Halloran,” James told him. “They’m going to tar and feather him—or so they say. Well, we don’t want no part of anything like that.”

  “But why?” Jack asked. “ What’s he done?”

  They shook their heads. “ Nothing really. Though there was talk of him retiring on all the money he’s made out of the pits. But I don’t envy him. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, the mood they’m in.”

  “No, t’won’t do no good him hiding inside his fine house,” Walter Clements put in. “ They’ll break the door down soon as look at it, and have him out of it.”

  Jack said nothing. Slow horror was filling him, driving out all his fears and resentment. The men’s patience had finally been exhausted, and this last straw had somehow turned them into a howling mob, crazy for revenge. They were marching up the hill to Hal’s house with violence in mind. He didn’t care much what they did to Hal. He was old enough to take care of himself. But Stella was there, if his mother was to be believed, and he couldn’t leave her to their mercy.

  Without a word he began to hobble along the street after them.

  “Where d’you think you’re going?” James called after him.

  He hesitated, knowing that if he admitted to what was in his mind, they’d stop him. “ To see what happens,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Don’t be so daft. You don’t want to get mixed up in it,” James called, but he took no notice.

  He hurried on, cursing his leg for the way it was slowing him down, and wishing for the moment that he had his crutches back. He’d really been able to swing along on those.

  The evening had become close, and before he had gone far, sweat was running down his neck and soaking his shirt, But he kept going. Half-way up the hill he caught the tail-end of the marchers, and the wild atmosphere struck him with the same fearful apprehension that he had felt on sighting an enemy aircraft in the war.

  “For Christ’s sake, where do you think you’re going?” he asked one of the marchers.

  “Don’t you know? We’m going to tar and feather old Hal. He’s bloody well asked for it.”

  “Why?” Jack panted.

  “Living it up while we’re starving. Making out to be our friend, while all the time … We’ll show him, don’t you worry.”

  The hill began to flatten out and O’Halloran’s house came in sight, a big, stone-built dwelling set back in its own grounds.

  The leading marchers were in the garden already, trampling plants and small bushes underfoot as they surged forward, chanting now at the tops of their voices:

  “We want Hal! We want Hal!”

  “Come out, you yellow bellied coward, or we’ll come in and get you!” one man yelled above the uproar, and Jack saw the curtains of one of the bedrooms move.

  He was not the only one.

  “We know you’re there, you bugger. Come on out!”

  Jack looked around him in disbelief. They were mostly men he knew, men he’d known all his life as peaceable and slow to anger. But now some madness had taken hold of them, and driven by hunger and despair, they were seeking revenge upon the person who was to them the bosses’ figure-head, Hal, the man who stood between them and the hated owners.

  As he watched, one man ran forward, hammering on the door, and others picked up stones and clods of earth. It was a riot, the most dangerous situation Jack had seen in peacetime, and his only thought was to get to Stella.

  Looking around to make sure no one was watching him, he found a path at the side of the house. There, by the greenhouses, he saw one lad about to put a stone through the glass and catching him by surprise he hit him so squarely on the jaw that the boy lost his footing and fell backwards into a cucumber frame. Not waiting for him to pick himself out, Jack went on.

  The back door was locked. He had expected it would be. And he had little hope that they would answer his knocking. But someone must have been in the kitchen and heard the glass cucumber frame smash, for he saw a face peeping anxiously from behind the curtains, and he ran forward, knocking on the window.

  “Stella! Is Stella there?”

  The face, that of a timid maidservant, disappeared, and moments later the inside door opened and he saw Stella come into the porch. She was pale and frightened, but when she saw Jack she opened the glass door quickly, pulling him inside and locking it after him.

  “Jack! Thank God, you’re here! They’ve gone mad!”

  He took her arm, and it was as if their separation had never been.

  “Let me get you out of here, Stella. If we slip out this way and up the garden, we can go down over the fields and along the bottom of the batch.”

  She shook her head. “No, Jack, I can’t.”

  “No one will see. They’re all round at the front.”

  “I can’t leave Mummy and Daddy. I just can’t do it.”

  “But they’re violent, Stella. They want to tar and feather your father, and God only knows what they’ll do if they get in here. I couldn’t stop them.”

  “I’m not leaving, Jack,” she said stubbornly. “Mummy and Daddy are in the bedroom. You’d better come up.”

  He followed her up the stairs, and she clung to his arm all the way. He thought he had never seen her so frightened, and when they reached the landing looking out over the front garden he could see why. From up here, the mob looked even more menacing, a sea of snarling upturned faces. Someone, looking up, must have seen them move, and a clod of earth struck the window.

  Jack drew Stella away, up the last flight of stairs to the top floor. In the front bedroom, Hal and his wife were having some kind of argument, and Mrs O’Halloran turned to Stella with, “ Stella, for goodness sake, tell him…” before realizing she was not alone and stopping in mid-sentence.

  “This is Jack,” Stella said briefly. “You’ve heard me talk of him.”
/>   “Oh, yes.” Mrs O’Halloran smiled vaguely from a social habit too strong to be broken even in circumstances like these, then the mask dropped and she ran to Stella, catching at her arm.

  “Stop your father, dear, do! Tell him he can’t do it!”

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “I’m going out on that balcony to talk to the men,” Hal thundered, pointing to the French windows that gave on to a small stone balcony. “ They’ll see sense. They’re bound to. I just don’t know what all the fuss is about.”

  “You can’t go out there, dear!” Mrs O’Halloran cried in real distress. “ Oh, tell him he can’t do it, Stella!”

  “She’s right, Mr O’Halloran,” Jack said. “The mood they’re in they’ll be right up here and get you.”

  “Well, we’ve got to do something!” O’Halloran roared. “Look at them out there—all over my fuchsias!”

  “Never mind your fuchsias, Daddy…”

  “Hal, you can’t go out there! I won’t let you!”

  O’Halloran ignored them both. A lifetime of living in a houseful of women had given him plenty of practice in doing just that. He crossed to the wardrobe, puffing up an ottoman and standing on it to reach on top.

  “Where’s that gun of mine? If they don’t mind themselves, I’ll blast a few rounds off at them. That’ll cool ’ em off!”

  “Let me talk to them,” Jack said suddenly.

  They all stopped talking and looked at him.

  “You?” O’Halloran boomed, echoing the thoughts of the others.

  “Yes, me,” Jack said. “I’m a miner’s son. They know that. At least let me try.”

  As they hesitated, looking at one another, there was another roar from below, and taking the decision, Jack moved purposefully.

  “Go on out of this room, all of you, and barricade the door,” he told them. “Then if they do come up after me, they won’t get any further. Go on!” he said again when they made no move.

  Stella was the first to recover her wits. She put a hand on each of their arms. “Mummy, Daddy, do as he says.” Then, in spite of their protests, she led them firmly out of the room.