by Kit Habianic
Her mam-in-law greeted the Women Against Pit Closures delegation like long-lost friends, kisses all round, sat down with them, had Helen fetch coffees and ice cream sundaes.
‘On the house, bella,’ she said, with a complicit nod.
When Helen brought the order, Angela had her pull up a chair.
‘Is like this,’ she was saying. ‘You ladies got your local jumble sales and street collections. Sue here and Debbie go to meetings up and down the country. I say we make the fruit and veg pay. You help us harvest, I fill your jars and bottles with secret-recipe Schiappa chutneys and jams. Sell them at jumble sales, street collections and meetings. Split the profits, everyone wins.’
Helen gawped at her mam-in-law, surprised and impressed. Angela had clawed back her fighting spirit, armed herself with an idea, gone out to battle for it.
Mary’s eyes narrowed on hearing the word profit. Her friends sat, spoons poised, considering.
‘The lads can sell too,’ Sue said. ‘I’ll get labels printed: buy me to back the miners.’
Mary shot Angela a sidelong glance. ‘So when you say profit—?’
‘Sixty-forty, to me,’ Angela said.
There was a shocked pause. Then Mary broke into a deep, earthy chuckle. Angela’s eyes darkened. Helen braced herself. But then her mam-in-law was laughing too, and so were the others.
‘Damn it, Angie,’ Mary wiped her eyes. ‘If we had you negotiating for the lodge, we’d win the bloody strike in a week.’
‘Is what, your offer?’
‘Our labour, our jars, our leg-work doing the selling,’ Sue said. ‘Make it twenty-eighty in our favour. Payment on sale.’
Angela sighed. ‘Twenty-five, seventy-five, we got a deal.’
‘Done,’ Mary said. ‘A pleasure doing business wi’ you.’
They raised their coffee cups and clinked them together.
After the women left, Helen and Angela went back to spring-cleaning. Angela climbed onto a chair and unhooked the covers of the strip lights, tipped the bodies of dead insects into the bin. Looking up, Helen saw her mam-in-law’s hips had lost their fullness, the softness firmed to sinew.
She finished stacking the dishes, wiped damp hands on leggings.
‘You reckon we’ll make enough to get the bank off our backs?’
Angela sloshed soapy water into the light casings. ‘Don’t be daft, bella. Not if we kept all the profit. Things gone way too far.’
***
On Sunday morning, Mary Power and half a dozen members of Ystrad Women Against Pit Closures came trooping into the back garden, armed with gardening tools and pails. Sue drove up in her battered Ford Anglia, boot loaded with jars and preserving bottles, gallon containers of vinegar and a sack of sugar. Helen helped her to carry it all up to the kitchen, where Angela had her first vat of pickle on the boil.
Helen had seen most of the women around the village, apart from Sue. She was an old school friend of Debbie Power’s. Just when Helen had decided that the women weren’t at all scary or unfriendly, Debbie herself wafted through the garden on a drift of Poison, all cheekbones and bile-green eyeliner, dressed for gardening in snake-print leggings and a one-shoulder top.
Scrapper leaned out of the kitchen window. ‘Morning, ladies.’
Debbie grinned up at him, a hand shielding her eyes, bobbed hair shimmering like jet in the sunshine. She looked as sleek as a model from a pop video. Little wonder Scrapper was gawping at his ex-girlfriend.
Helen stalked off to join Iwan, who was showing the women round the garden. When her in-laws married, Angela had Iwan dig up her late uncle’s rose beds and replace them with fruit and vegetables – her dowry, she liked to joke. The plum and pear trees hung heavy with fruit. Beetroot leaves and cabbages burst from the earth. Butterflies flitted between tins and pots crammed with herbs. At the end of the garden, half a dozen stocky gooseberry bushes lined up like sentries at the borders.
‘Right,’ Mary said. ‘Sue’s got gloves. She’ll pick goosegogs. Debbie, you sort out the runner beans. Shirley an’ Chrissie will pick courgettes an’ tomatoes. Rest of us’ll sort out these trees.’
‘Me and Simon can help too,’ Iwan said.
Mary rapped his knuckles lightly. ‘You done enough letting us loose by here.’
‘No trouble,’ Iwan said. ‘Game’s not on until two.’
‘What about me?’ Helen asked.
Debbie shot her a sideways look. ‘Don’t you trouble yourself, Helen Pritchard. I’m sure we’ll—’
‘Excellent, Red,’ Mary said. ‘Debbie could use a hand picking beans.’
Of all the bad luck. Helen grabbed a wicker basket, stalked off towards the canes, not caring whether Debbie followed her.
Sunlight beat down on the garden. The other women cracked jokes, swapped gossip. Helen and Debbie had nothing to say to each other. Pain scorched the tendons in Helen’s shoulders and fingers. She lowered her arms, tried to find shade beneath the canes. Debbie laboured on, back turned, hands a blur of fingers and thumbs as she twisted the beans from their stalks. She seemed to sense Helen stop. Her hands slowed.
‘Given up already, Helen Pritchard?’
Helen swallowed a sigh, raised her basket again. ‘Not by a long shot, Debbie Power.’
As time creaked by, the other women fell silent too. The sun beat down on them, relentless. By lunchtime, Helen and Debbie had picked all the beans, topped and tailed them, and bagged them for storage in Angela’s freezer. Helen went upstairs to see how her mam-in-law was getting on. Angela was busy in the kitchen, face glowing with steam, two huge batches of chutney cooling on the windowsill, a vat of sugared plums boiled up for jam.
Helen brewed a fresh pot of tea, took it down to the garden. Scrapper was perched on a stepladder among the plum trees, Iwan below him, both using rakes to comb the tree of its fruit. Plums thudded onto the lawn as fast as Mary, Chrissie and Shirley could gather them. When Helen called them over, they downed tools, grabbed a mug and perched on the wall sipping tea.
Only Sue kept going, battling the gooseberry bushes at the far end of the garden, a battered raffia hat tilted over her eyes, man-sized industrial gloves covering her arms from fingertips to elbow.
Helen filled a mug for her, took it over. ‘Proper collier’s gloves, those.’
‘Borrowed ’em off Gramps. He worked at Blackthorn, until his accident. Owes his hands to these gloves. Too bad he didn’t have them for his feet.’
Helen shuddered. Her own granddad died in that blast and her dad had lost his fingers to the pit some years later.
‘Blackthorn’s got a taste for human flesh,’ she said.
‘I used to think that,’ Sue said. ‘Gave me nightmares.’
‘So why fight to save it?’
Sue shoved her hat out of her eyes. ‘It’s all we’ve got, isn’t it. Close Blackthorn, Ystrad’s finished. There’ll be nothing for the boys and nothing for the rest of us.’
***
By mid-afternoon, they had loaded Sue’s car with bottles and jars of pickles and jams to be labelled and stored at the Stute. Scrapper brewed up a last round of tea. Helen picked up a knife and went to help Sue top and tail goosegogs. She watched Scrapper talking to Debbie, two dark heads bent over the teapot. Scrapper said something that made Debbie flick her curtain of hair and give a showy laugh.
‘How come I’ve not seen you around before this summer,’ she asked Sue.
‘I’m at college. Got digs on campus. But then Gramps got poorly. Since there’s no one else to care for him, I deferred two terms and came home.’
‘D’you come home most summers?’
Sue shook her head. ‘Last year, I went to Greenham.’
‘What, the peace camp?’
Helen was shocked. Her dad went on and on about the Greenham Common women whenever he saw them on the news. No-good trouble making lesbians, the Greenham Common women, her dad reckoned. Harridans and hoydens, he called them.
‘One time, we used wire-cutters to get
through the fence. Climbed onto the missile silos. Had a song and a dance before getting nicked.’
‘Nicked, seriously? Oh my God.’
‘Occupational hazard,’ Sue shrugged.
A shadow fell across them. Scrapper topped up their mugs, plonked himself on the grass next to them and set to topping and tailing gooseberries with his pocket knife, working at breakneck speed.
‘You seen Matt?’ Sue asked. ‘Since—’
‘Oh, I seen him,’ Scrapper said. ‘Swanning past in the boss’s car.’
‘Poor, deluded bastard,’ Sue said.
‘Treacherous bastard,’ Scrapper said.
‘Matt showed up down the pub the other night,’ Sue said. ‘The men put down their pints and walked out. Then Steve Red Lion refused to serve him.’
Despite the heat, Helen felt crystals of ice form along her spine. It was no small thing to be shunned in this village. She could see it all too well: Matthew Price, waiting at the bar, naked in his bravado. Ferrety face crumpling as his former butties showed him their backs. Matt lived to impress the boys. Without them, he was— what?
‘Poor Matt,’ she said, not thinking.
‘Don’t waste your pity on that one,’ Scrapper snapped.
***
That night, despite her aching arms, sleep would not come. She rolled from side to side. Nothing helped. At last, daylight stuck grey fingers through the curtains. The dim glow fell on Scrapper’s sleeping face. She propped herself up on one arm and lay there, looking at him. It was strange, even now, to wake up next to him. It felt exciting but wrong, somehow. As though she had stolen something and sooner or later would get caught.
His face, neck and arms were tanned from his hours on the picket line. His hair, uncut since the start of the strike, spilled over the pillow. His skin looked properly Italian now. When he worked below ground, he looked half-baked. But his cheekbones were sharper, lately. He was thinner now. A lot thinner since Orgreave. She leaned closer, tried to count his flickering eyelashes. He muttered something she didn’t catch.
‘Scrap?’
‘Hunhhh?’
‘Do you love me?’
‘Mmm.’
‘And Debbie?’
He looked at her through half-closed eyes. ‘Huh?’
‘Debbie. Is there something between you still?’
He rolled towards her, trapped her in his arms. ‘Don’t talk daft, woman.’
AUTUMN 1984
— 1 —
When Helen sat her mock O-levels, the school brought in a careers adviser to talk to the class. The lady stood at the blackboard wearing a nice beige twinset and a tiny pearl crucifix and pecked their illusions apart. Hundreds of unemployed chasing every job, no-experience school-leavers last in the queue. She handed out brochures for the new youth-training scheme. Get trained, she said, the opportunities would flow, leaving the untrained by the wayside to scrounge on the dole.
When Helen repeated to her in-laws what the careers lady had told the class, Iwan was outraged. ‘Scrounge, with two million unemployed? Don’t you dare give your labour for free, love. The likes of us can’t afford to work for nothing. Stuff the YTS.’
Her in-laws wanted her to stay at school, resit her exams, take A-levels. She disagreed. Surely something would come along. But summer was over and now was her last chance before term started to prove to her in-laws and everyone else that she wasn’t planning to scrounge. If Angela was fighting to save their little family, she wanted to help out too.
The careers lady had talked about grooming, about dressing as the person you wanted to be. Helen sighed and reached for her wedding dress. Her skin prickled as she zipped it up. She scraped her hair into a bun, pulled on her black leggings and a cardigan and slipped her feet into her boots. The box file was under the bed. It was crammed with carbon copies of application letters bashed out on Iwan’s battered Brother, most stapled to a typed reply. Fifty three replies, all short and to the point. Words flickered before her eyes: enthusiastic; keen to learn; not afraid of hard work.
Scrapper walked in, laughed at the sight of her. ‘Nice outfit, bach.’
‘Thanks a bloody bunch.’
She stomped off to the kitchen. Angela, pouring tea, looked as grumpy as Helen felt. Her mam-in-law was missing her morning coffees.
‘You don’t have to do this, bella.’
‘I got to get a job, Angela; high time I paid my way.’
‘Is ridiculous, Helen. Get A-levels, is lots more opportunities. I’ll speak to Mr Probert.’
Helen grunted. She kissed her mam-in-law on the cheek and headed out to the High Street. Should she try the pub again? Last time she asked Steve Red Lion for work, he said he wasn’t hiring. Offered her a shot of Irish Cream, tried to pat her bum. Definitely not the pub. That left Betty’s Unisex, the hairdressers, the butcher, the bookies, the funeral parlour and the Co-op.
Betty Bowen was alone, flame-red helmet of hair bent over a rack of nylon blouses. She didn’t hear Helen walk in, looked up when she sensed her presence. Her face cobwebbed into a smile, orange lipstick oozing into the cracks around her mouth.
‘Where you been, bach? Got the perfect top for you. Kept it back for you, special. Now where’d I put the ruddy thing?’
She ducked into the stock room, reappeared with a square of stiff fabric. Heat flooded Helen’s cheeks. She wouldn’t be buying, no matter what treasure Mrs B produced. She unfolded the fabric. It was a black, fitted waistcoat with jet-look buttons, a halter back that left the shoulders bare. The girl from The Pretenders, the coolest chick that ever walked, wore something like it on Top of the Pops. Mrs B had found the perfect thing. She always did.
‘I reckoned Gwyn Pritchard’s girl would still be buying.’
There it was again, that shrinking sense of shame. But pride was another thing Helen couldn’t afford.
‘I left home, Mrs B. I’ve not seen Dad in months. I’m looking for work.’
The old lady turned back to her blouses. ‘I’ve already let the Saturday girl go.’
‘You’re managing okay?’
‘Oh, aye. Right as ruddy rain, me.’
‘Save that top for me, Mrs B. Soon as I’m earning, I’ll treat myself.’
The old lady laughed; a bitter edge to it.
The next shop was Split-Enz Salon. Helen hadn’t cut her hair in years, had her mam take a scissors to her curls twice a year. But she fixed a smile to her face, pushed the door open. Her boot caught the mat. She staggered and nearly fell. The hairdresser was lowering a dryer over a customer’s head. He jerked round, raised his scissors like a weapon. The customer lurched forward, banged her forehead against the dryer.
‘My God,’ the hairdresser said.
‘Sorry, Mr Sigmund,’ Helen gasped.
The hairdresser patted the elderly lady’s arm, eased her back in the chair. He strolled towards Helen with a rolling, mocking gait, stern gaze trawling from her boots to her hair. His eyes had a sapphire glint that matched the threads woven through the scarf draped across his chest. His dark blond hair was short at the sides, crowned with highlighted curls. Helen drew back, feeling shabby.
‘What then, sweetie? Flood? Fire? Red hair alert?’
‘I— um—’
‘Sit. I must finish Mrs Price.’
He went back to the customer, pushed the dryer against the wall, unpinned the woman’s rollers. Violet curls sprang up between his fingers. As he worked, the old lady eyed Helen in the mirror. Mrs Price, he’d called her. Of course: Matt Price’s mam. There was a strong family likeness. The old lady raised a shaking hand to her face, blinked at the hairdresser with anxious eyes. There was a mouse-like look to her round forehead and turned-in teeth. If Helen moved too quickly, the old lady might leap from the chair and slip between the floorboards. Again, that shrinking feeling. People saw her either as Gwyn Pritchard’s daughter or as Scrapper Jones’s wife; on the wrong side, whichever.
Hair set, the old lady nodded her thanks, shed her polyester gown and
scuttled out without paying.
The hairdresser turned to Helen. ‘So what then?’
‘I came to see if you got any work going.’
Mr Sigmund didn’t answer.
‘I could sweep the floors. Wash customers’ hair and take appointments. My teachers said I’m hard work and not afraid of enthusiastic—’
The hairdresser twitched an eyebrow.
‘Please, Mr Sigmund?’
‘Siggy. And you are the fourth girl to ask this week. Sorry, but no.’
She sagged against the counter. ‘Really no?’
Siggy eyed her. ‘Not even to get my mitts on that pretty hair, more’s the pity.’
Same answer from Johnny Scrag the butcher and Dai Punt at the bookies. After that, Helen lost her nerve. She loitered outside the funeral parlour. Dusty curtains lined the double windows, framed a blank slate headstone. Next to it, two lacquered urns and a brass lamp, etched with the names of the men lost to the Blackthorn Disaster of 1960, her granddad among them. Yellowed net curtains lined the funeral parlour door. She thought about the dead who passed through that door: the old and exhausted, the young and maimed. Try as she might, she could not go in.
She moved on to the Co-op. Narrow aisles ran between shelves bowed under cans, cartons and packets. Nothing was sold fresh. At the back of the shop, a woman bent over the chill cabinet, loading her wire basket with frozen pancakes. Her toddler sat on the floor, sucking a crisp the size and shape of his fist. In the next aisle, two pensioners bickered over packet soups. At the till, a pasty brunette checked her ponytail for split ends. Helen searched the aisles for Mr Daniels, the manager, knocked on the office door. No one answered. The checkout girl confirmed it; Dan the Can wasn’t in.
‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ The young mum charged across, basket on one arm, toddler on the other, safety-pin earrings and knotty bleach-blonde hair all too familiar.
‘Looking for Mr Daniels.’
‘Why d’you want ’im?’
