Heart of Coal

by Jenny Pattrick

  He had walked right through the silent town of Burnett’s Face, the ugly miners’ village, crammed into a narrow valley, cheek-by-jowl with the machinery of mining and the mine entrances themselves, where Brennan, his four brothers and his parents grew up and once worked. Keeping to shadows, he followed the rope-road towards Cascade mine. It was darker here, the steep sides of the valley blocking moonlight. Twice he stumbled and fell. With both hands full it was no easy matter to pick his way between rails, wires and heaps of coal-slack. Finally he found what he was looking for — the old disused mine entrance where he had played as a boy. A short distance in, if he remembered right, in the first cross-tunnel, was a broad ledge cut in the stone of the wall. Other smaller cavities had also been carved out. He and the other children believed that once some lonely man, lacking a house, had lived there.

  Inside the mine it was pitch black but strangely warm. Brennan’s feet crunched on coal. He loved the sharp twinkling sound — so much more lively than the dull crunch of gravel. Gently he set down his cornet case, felt along the wall with his free hand until he came to the side-branch. The sacking brattice still hung there, frayed and decaying. He pushed through it and felt for the ledge. There it was, just as he remembered! Working from memory, using hands for eyes, he found two smaller cavities and stowed his things. He grinned in the dark — ‘All my worldly possessions.’ The thought was exciting. He could stay here for days if necessary. Wrapping his coat tightly about him, he rolled onto his ledge and set his back to the wall. The space was surprisingly comfortable. Surprisingly warm.

  That sleep would almost certainly have been his last had it not been for an extraordinary stroke of luck. Doldo Scobie, Arnold’s oldest boy, was walking home next day from a new section of Cascade, further up the valley, where he worked underground as trucker. Doldo was a quiet boy, like his dad, solid for his fifteen years, sooty-headed and black-browed like most of the Scobies. Every morning Chip, his small white terrier, followed Doldo to work, then sat, ears and tail adroop, while Doldo disappeared into the black tunnel. All day Chip would fossick around, never far from that entrance, until ten minutes before knock-off time when Chip could be found, without fail, sitting facing the entrance, every sense alert for his master’s return. Up Doldo would come, black and sweaty, running his last boxes out by hand, and Chip, knowing his master’s tread, ran the best part of a chain inside to greet him, jumping and licking until they both emerged, as black as each other. The two would then walk home to sluice off together in the tin tub back behind the Scobies’ house.

  That narrow path home alongside the rope-road took them past the unused mine entrance, half obscured by old timber props and drooping ferns. A chain inside, Brennan lay on his warm shelf, still heavily asleep. Much earlier he had woken and stumbled blearily to the entrance. Seeing miners approaching, on their way to work, Brennan had dodged back inside, planning to wait until he was sure his parents had left the plateau. Back on his shelf in the dark he ate a little bread and biscuit, then fell deeply asleep again. He was quite unaware that the foul air he breathed was slowly, imperceptibly poisoning him.

  CHIP stops at the old entrance with his nose high; he looks back at Doldo, tail flagging that something’s up. One short high yelp of excitement and Chip disappears into the dark.

  ‘Hey, feller, nothing but rats in there,’ says Doldo, but he’s interested. Chip walks past this spot twice daily and has never investigated before. Doldo ignites the lamp, still hooked to his cap, and follows.

  Chip won’t go past the brattice but barks at the shredded curtain, runs back to the pool of light that is Doldo, barks again. The sound echoes wildly off the walls, sending the little terrier belting back to daylight with his tail between his legs. Doldo laughs, almost follows. Then some lucky sense guides him to brush aside the brattice and glance up the side-branch. Pale lamplight falls on a dark body lying curled on the shelf. A crust of bread lies on the ground; rat-tails scuttle away from the light.

  ‘Hell’s fires!’ mutters Doldo, approaching with care. Is the man dead, or drunk? Crazy maybe? Not until he is close up does he recognise Brennan. Gently he reaches out, and is relieved to feel warm flesh.

  ‘Bren! Our Bren! Wake up, man!’

  Brennan sleeps on.

  Doldo shakes harder but his cousin is oblivious. Doldo examines the sleeper for blood or damage — why in the name of God won’t he wake? Finally he heaves the unconscious body onto his shoulder, knocking out his lamp in the process, and staggers towards the fading light at the mine entrance, where Chip is dancing his anxiety.

  It takes several slaps about the face and a good whiff of Janet’s smelling salts to bring Brennan back to life. Even then he’s groggy. Nothing he says makes sense.

  ‘Give the boy some soup and put him to bed,’ grumbles Arnold, who is tired and ready for his dinner.

  ‘Bed, bed, all very well,’ says Janet, waving her arms wide. ‘Where would you feckin’ suggest, then?’

  ‘Put him on the floor, under Doldo and Wee Willie. Beats a rat-ridden mine.’

  And there Brennan sleeps all night and half the next day. He wakes, clear-headed and ravenous, ready to face the legendary gauntlet of Janet’s tongue.

  In the kitchen, where Janet is making bread, he pours himself tea from the kettle on the stove, cuts himself a heel of bread and sits to eat and drink. When Brennan left eight years ago, Janet was adult to his child: a different generation. Now he sees his aunt more as an equal — much younger and more full of fun than his mother. It is difficult to call her Auntie. Slowly, for his own tongue is not sharp like hers, he stumbles through an explanation: his note to his parents; his desire to come back and work on the Hill. His feeling for the coal business.

  Janet narrows her eyes. ‘Oh yes, mining, is it?’

  ‘It is,’ says Brennan earnestly. ‘I want to work with my hands for a change.’

  ‘A certain colourful Rose is not part of the attraction, then?’

  Brennan dares to grin. Janet hoots with laughter and slaps him on the back.

  ‘You sneaky devil! After all these years? Well now, Mr Lovesick, and what about that golden cockerel Michael Hanratty? Your one-time feckin’ “best friend”? What about him, then?’

  Brennan frowns. Clearly Janet is not over-fond of Michael. But this is an uncomfortable area for Brennan.

  ‘What about him?’ he says.

  ‘You saw him at the concert. His proposal. He is a Denniston lad like her. Everyone expects it, Brenny-boy.’

  Brennan swallows his tea, then looks up at her. ‘Ay, but did you see Rose when I played?’

  ‘I did not.’

  Brennan’s serious face is now alight. ‘I played for her, every note. Every note! She knew it; she loved it. She never took her eyes off me, beginning to end.’

  ‘Oh, Bren — she loved your music! Everyone does.’ Brennan frowns and thinks about this.

  Rose is too sharp for our plodder here, thinks Janet. He would never manage her.

  ‘No, but,’ says Brennan finally, ‘not just the music. We talked before that. She is happy to see me. Really happy. Oh!’ He blushes like the little boy Janet remembers. ‘I kissed her!’ His eyes are confident and proud.

  ‘Bravo and all! She kissed you back, then?’ This role as confidante is hugely entertaining to Janet.

  ‘Well, she laughed and ducked away. But that is Rose.’

  ‘Oho, and you are the one-day expert on Rose?’

  ‘No, but listen — she squeezed my hand. That must mean something?’

  ‘Surely,’ laughs Janet. But she knows, better than Brennan, Rose’s reputation, and fears for him. She sighs. Plants her floury hands on the table in front of him. ‘Now then. What about your mother? She is not happy.’

  Brennan looks away. ‘I left her a note.’

  ‘A note! Words spoken to her face would be the bold action.’

  Janet watches as the proud young man turns boy again. Brennan squirms in his chair, reduces his crust to crumbs, then
sweeps them back and forth on the table. His mouth turns down like a sulky child’s. Janet wonders if he is going to cry. Oh yes — here is a boy who needs to get away from his mother. When Brennan finally looks up there is indeed an extra brightness to his black eyes.

  ‘She has such plans for me, Auntie Janet. I’ll never make a half of them. All I’ve ever done since I left here is study books and study music. She thinks I will fight for mighty causes like her and Dad; be an important politician, or maybe an important musician. But I’m not like them. I’ll never change the world and I don’t want to. Why can’t she see that? I’ll be good enough at something. That’ll do me.’ He lowers his head into his hands and mutters something.

  ‘Come on, spit it all out,’ says Janet.

  ‘I’m afraid to talk to her. She’s better at arguing than me. She’ll win.’

  ‘And your dad?’

  ‘She’s better than him too.’

  Janet laughs at his long face. Her sister-in-law is certainly on the dragon side of the table. The lad seems to have made the break; let him have his chance. Janet is proud to live on the Hill, and pleased that Brennan has chosen to come back. She plants a floury finger on his nose, dabs a white smudge on each cheek as if anointing him. ‘Well, you are here and they are gone, so let us see what we can do.’

  Brennan’s grin would crack his face, but before he can speak Janet is at him again.

  ‘Enough of mothers. Enough of feckin’ love. Let us talk some self-preservation here. That mine …’ She snaps her fingers in front of Brennan’s dreaming face. ‘Are you listening to me now? This is important.’

  Brennan’s dark eyes focus and he frowns. ‘The mine. Yes. Yes! What happened to me?’

  ‘You near died, that’s what happened. Didn’t you feel the wall warm there?’

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘And you a miner’s son! That section backs onto that other old shaft that caught fire. They left the remaining coal to burn out. Still it burns, ten years on. It was feckin’ burning when you left, you dreamer!’

  ‘I forgot about that.’

  ‘Well, you know now. Knock the fact into that black head of yours. There must be cracks in the wall, see, that let the gas from the fire leak through. That’s what Arnold says. And no draught in the old mine to draw it away. You were slowly gassing yourself, you dolt, dreaming away of love and such-like.’

  Brennan grins, remembering. ‘Dreams, yes. I did! Beautiful!’ Then stands. ‘Well, I am alive, thank God. Perhaps it is a sign?’ He looks at his aunt steadily. ‘I am not quick-witted like Rose, or as interesting. But I am the right one for her. I know it.’

  There is a new look of independence and purpose about him. Janet would like to kiss the lad herself. Who knows, she thinks, there may well be more to him than his music. He may surprise us all. And brilliant, unpredictable Rose, for all her wilfulness, would surely be a catch. Wouldn’t that be one up for Burnett’s Face and one in the eye for Denniston!

  Brennan nods to her. It is almost a formal bow. ‘So then, I owe cousin Doldo my life. I’ll be back to thank him.’ He grins. ‘But now I’d better turn my lies to truths. I need work and a bed. Can Uncle Arnold help with the work?’

  ‘He’s underviewer now,’ Janet winks at him. ‘He’ll talk to the boss for you.’

  Rose

  5 JAN 1900

  SO MUCH FOR all my resolutions! Five days gone and still my new journal lies blank. Nineteen hundred. 1900. The new century! How will we ever get used to saying it? I like its sound, though. Pronounced slowly … Niiine-teeeen hunnndred … it is sonorous, almost like a bell tolling. Dong dong, take your seats for the twentieth century!

  My resolutions:

  1. Write down all the songs Bella can remember, and learn them.

  2. Give up thieving altogether.

  Well, easier said than done. It happens without my planning or control. I tell Bella it is a game. I wish it was. There is a rush of excitement, out goes my hand, and the thing is done before I can bring reason to bear. So. On the alert, Rose! Fingers — know your proper place in life!

  3. Read something new every day. Newspaper articles qualify. Especially the Bulletin from Australia. Mr Stringer says he would die of thirst if it were not for the Bulletin. I will make him lend it to me and read every article. Also that fascinating rag from the Department of Labour. Old Edward Tregear may be a pen-pushing lackey of our Mr Seddon but he can write stirring stuff. Scientific papers will also qualify. Recipes do not. Medicinal remedies (from an approved source) do. Oh, but can I get my hands on something new to read every day? Sometimes silly romances will have to do.

  4. Write in this journal at least once a week! If I say daily, well, then I’ve broken the vow already! Anyway, I cannot manage daily. I would rather write important thoughts than a mean little list of tasks achieved each day. Liza Hanratty has shown me her diary. (I will never show mine, but sometime ahead in this new century someone will find my journal and marvel at the things I have written! … Well … will they, I wonder?) Liza’s diary is full of 9 am ironed the petticoats, 10.30 am mixed the scone dough, and so on. What point is that?

  Enough of resolutions. Four is plenty.

  My views on the Boer War (That is more interesting than scone dough.)

  The Bulletin is full of how brave the poor besieged English are and how brutish the Boers, but Mr Stringer says there is another side to it and the Boers were there first. I say surely the natives were there first, what about them, but Mr Stringer says this is not about natives but about who will rule them. He says imagine if the French sent boatloads to the North Island and then claimed it for France! I say well, that would be interesting for we would have a foreign country on our doorstep — very convenient for visiting and learning the language. Mr Stringer frowns and puffs his pipe and says I am thinking only of myself and not the issues involved.

  Oh dear, writing about arguments that are already over is no fun. There is no one to argue with. I love to wind Mr Stringer up into a rage. He is so serious about his views: so against the war in principle and against our colony sending troops, so rampantly in favour of the Arbitration Act, that I just have to take the opposite view. That is great fun. I tell him he is no better than the Conservatives because his Liberal views are just as set in concrete as the landowners’ and the employers’, which makes him sputter and tear his hair until I burst out laughing and tell him I am only teasing. Mr Stringer may glower and rant, but it is perfectly clear he is enjoying himself as much as I.

  But with no adversary my interest melts away like snow in a kettle. Does that make me a shallow person? I would not like to be thought of as silly and light-headed, like Liza Hanratty or Kitty Stokes. They see the Boer War as a fine heroic enterprise, and talk in awed whispers about Manny Donaldson and Barry Forbes, who joined up to fight in it.

  Enough of the Boer War!

  New Topic: Life as a Draper’s Assistant

  The question, as Mr Stringer would say, is Why??? Why, oh why, am I a draper’s assistant, and why in the name of heaven choose Inch Donaldson to assist? (This is more interesting.)

  Positions I have been offered: Teacher’s Assistant (three times)

  Visiting Doctor’s Assistant (part-time)

  Pay Clerk’s Assistant (part-time). To check on Jackie O’Shea’s figures because there are so many disputes from the miners who say Jackie got their tallies wrong. Now why did I turn that one down? I love to run figures through my head. They pour like water this way and that, pooling in interesting combinations and divisions. I would have loved that position, but I laughed and walked away. Sometimes I think I am just plain mad. Here is an interesting thought: am I trying to punish myself? The thieving, for example? And working for Inch Donaldson? That man would drive a saint to drink with his sighs and sad drooping moustaches, and his ridiculous fussy fear of anything remotely unclean. And here I am working hour after hour in his gloomy little shop, his sad eyes following me every inch of every day. Yesterday my only sin wa
s to stand in the doorway to catch a glimpse or two of the sun. Not one soul in the shop; all the bolts and swatches neatly stacked in their shelves like churchgoers in their pews; the ribbons and buttons regimented on the counter; fresh orders neatly copied. He could think of no fresh task, but still … ‘Come inside, come inside, Miss!’ calls Mr Donaldson. ‘You will give the shop a bad name, displaying yourself like that.’

  Displaying myself! That is what he said. I was standing with my two feet together, smiling at the sun. And if Michael came past at that very moment with a shout and a wave and a skerrick of gossip, what harm was in that? But no, Inch Donaldson’s arm was tugging me inside before I heard the end of the story. And outside, Michael and his friends prancing in the road, laughing at me, making prison bars with their fingers to show how I was trapped. Oh, I could have slapped the lot of them!

  If Bella didn’t call in every day for a chat, I would die of boredom.

  Now, Madam, as Bella would say. You are hiding the truth. This journal sets down the truth. No fancies. No romantic theories. I know perfectly well why I chose the drapery: the hourly rate was higher.

  New resolution: I will disregard the lure of the pounds, shillings and pence. There are other things in life besides wealth. (But I may still keep my savings safe and secret.)

  12 JANUARY 1900

  Yesterday Brennan told me about the old mine — how it nearly poisoned him. All day I have been thinking about it. That dark, warm, deadly place has nagged at the edges of my mind like a strand of forgotten music. As I cut flannel for Mrs Owens’s new baby, and parcelled it up, I wanted to be wrapped myself in that black place with my back to the slow burn of the mine. It is like the Sirens calling. Perhaps I will go and see for myself.