Until Our Blood Is Dry

by Kit Habianic

  ‘What’s it got to do with—?’

  ‘He promised me first dibs if a job came up. Queue-jumping, are you?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Once a scab always a scab, eh, Helen Pritchard? It’s in your blood.’

  ‘You what?’

  The woman smiled nastily. ‘We won’t forgive what your dad done to this village.’

  ‘What my dad does is his business,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t—’

  But the woman wasn’t listening. ‘You’re the same, you Proberts and Pritchards. Alun’s great-granddad scabbed on the Great Strike. Small wonder the lad’s turned scab now. And you’re the same. Blood will out, Helen Pritchard. I fucking hope you never have kids!’

  The words stung like the business end of a wasp. Helen backed away, turned and ran from the shop.

  ***

  At the bracchi Angela, slate-faced, was serving tea and Welsh cakes to Jimmy Mosquito. Last week’s Welsh cakes, but even so.

  ‘Iwan said we weren’t to serve that one,’ Helen whispered.

  ‘Beggars and choosers, bella.’

  Her mam-in-law had a point.

  ‘What’s he after now?’

  ‘Is TUC meeting down in Brighton. Electricians’ union want to cross picket lines. He’s chasing Dewi for a quote.’

  ‘Pay danger money, do they, BBC Wales?’

  ‘Bloody hope not. How did you get on?’

  ‘Nothing so far.’

  ‘Ah well, bella. Is simple, then. Back to school and make the best of it.’

  ‘Angie, no—’

  ‘Is nothing to stop you applying for jobs when you’re back at school.’

  Helen knew better than to argue with her mam-in-law. She set to work on the washing up. At last, Jimmy Mosquito paid up and buzzed off into the twilight.

  ‘Angie, did Alun Probert’s great-granddad scab on the General Strike?’

  ‘No idea. Why?’

  ‘Something someone said.’

  ‘These people,’ Angela shrugged. ‘Like Mafiosi for nursing a grudge.’

  — 2 —

  Scrapper sat at the kitchen table, twitching unease. His mam stood at the draining board, grinding together two teaspoons to squeeze the last drop of flavour from a teabag. At last she sat, tugged her cardigan around herself for warmth.

  ‘Is beyond us to pay gas and electric and now the nights become so cold.’

  Iwan sighed. ‘I’ll fetch more coal from the drifts. The lad’ll help.’

  ‘Course I will,’ Scrapper said.

  Angela was in no mood to be humoured. ‘Is dangerous up by there. What point risking life to gather coal, if not for a living wage?’

  They sipped their tea in silence. Angela’s lips were as tight as the family purse strings. Iwan slipped his hands inside his sweater, patted his ribs to try to lighten the mood.

  ‘I’ve not been this slim since I walked you up the aisle, eh, love?’

  She shot him a dark look.

  ‘Spoke to Mary before,’ he kept on. ‘We’ll have a food parcel tonight. Plenty of apples and onions and potatoes in the shed.’

  ‘Is not enough,’ Angela snapped. ‘Not if strike lasts to spring, like Dewi reckons.’

  Red came back from school in time to finish off the tea. She slung her satchel on her chair and sank down with a sigh. Her face was pale, cheekbones too sharp, as delicate and fragile as an icicle.

  ‘I seen more meat on a lamb cutlet than on you, bach,’ Scrapper said, not thinking.

  Red eyeballed him over the rim of her mug. ‘That a compliment, Scrap?’

  But Iwan and Angela were looking at her too.

  ‘We’ll fetch that coal tonight,’ Iwan said.

  ‘I’ll help,’ Red said.

  ‘No you don’t,’ Iwan said. ‘It’s filthy, dangerous work. Men’s work, carrying coal.’

  Angela served up ladlefuls of cawl, beef bones cadged from Johnny Scrag, bulked up with onion, potato and cabbage from out back. Scrapper finished two bowlfuls, pushed his chair back, enjoying the glow that spread from his stomach to his arms and legs.

  Later, Red bent over her books. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. An age seemed to pass before she looked up, yawned and stretched.

  ‘You done, bach?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You been working too hard. Let’s take a walk. How about you make yourself presentable?’

  She grinned. ‘You saying I’ve let myself go, Scrapper Jones?’

  ‘My son, the gentleman,’ Angela tutted.

  ‘Touch o’ lippie wouldn’t hurt.’

  He helped Red into her jacket and they left the house hand in hand, following the trail to the top of the fields. Dusk was closing in. He wrapped his arms around her and they stood, looking down over the village as the sun flayed streaks of red and orange across the sky. Then, with the Pole Star high above their heads, he pulled her into the barn.

  ***

  He woke to the sound of shouting. Red turned over, pulled the bed covers over her head. He dressed quickly and rushed into the living room to see what had happened. Angela was dragging cushions off the sofa and armchairs, tossing them on the floor. Iwan stood over her, trying to reason with her.

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘Is down the back, you mark my words.’

  ‘Stop it, Angie, you’re being ridiculous.’

  She ignored them both, carried on searching down the back of the sofa. At last, she held out her palm; a bottle top, a nail cutting, a fifty pence piece, three pennies and an amethyst earring. She pocketed the coppers, handed Scrapper the silver coin.

  ‘Go down the shops, buy the girl a chop, or some sausages. Whatever Johnny Scrag got for the price.’

  ‘But Mam—’

  ‘Is no but. You said yourself how thin she is.’

  Iwan’s eyebrows twitched fury. ‘And the earring?’

  ‘Is twenty-two carats. Now I found it, pawn the pair.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing – that’s my gift to mark our tenth anniversary.’

  ‘Is too late now to get sentimental, Iwan Simon Peter Jones.’

  ‘They cost a month’s bloody wages,’ Iwan exploded.

  ‘Is good for a tidy few bob, then. Strike ends, buy them back.’

  Off she stalked to get dressed. Iwan glared after her, worn too ragged to try to jolly her along. He’d lost his hwyl. Since Orgreave.

  ‘She don’t mean it, Dad.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  Iwan’s vest showed the muscles across his chest had softened, like clay heated too quickly. His skin was stripped of colour. Scrapper thought of Captain Hook, suddenly. But Captain Hook was further along the journey back to coal, surely?

  ‘Are you sick, Dad?’

  Iwan snorted. ‘Sick an’ tired.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Suppose we hadn’t come out on strike, son. Suppose I’d stuck to my guns, told Dewi Power and the lodge and Sheffield to get stuffed?’

  ‘We had no choice,’ Scrapper said. ‘Once they start cutting jobs and closing pits, who knows where they’ll stop.’

  ‘So where’s Heathfield’s TUC? Where’s Kinnock and the Labour Party? They’ve got plenty to say about picket-line violence, about why we should hold a bloody ballot. Nothing to say about working men losing their livelihoods, getting beaten by the police. Open your eyes, lad. It’s a sell-out.’

  ‘But there’s thousands of people like us, who—’

  ‘We came out on strike to look out for our own. But look at Red and your mam. Look at any of the lads’ wives and kids. All of them cold and tired and hungry. Fact is, the only man caring for his own is Gwyn Pritchard.’

  ‘Caring for his own?’ Scrapper said. ‘Caring for himself. All Captain Hook cares about is crushing the lodge and pocketing his pay-off. You saw what he did to Red.’

  He couldn’t let Iwan slide into despair. If they caved in now, Red and Angela would fold too. Everything rested on the pair of them holding their nerve. ‘Gwyn Pritchard can rot i
n hell, Dad. We’re gonna prove the bastard wrong.’

  He turned to see Red standing in the door. He saw from her face that she had heard him.

  — 3 —

  Time was, Gwyn spent his evenings down the pub, sank seven or eight jars with his lads, felt all the better for it. But these days Steve Red Lion kept no welcome for a working miner. So he wound up drinking alone at The Mountain Ash – four pints down, strung tight as a winding rope. A disaster of a day, the pit deputies voting to strike. Bad news and too-cold beer weighed heavy on him. His chest whistled distress. By the time he sank his fifth pint, he felt ready to march down to The Red Lion, put that rabble from the lodge straight on a few points. Instead, a good hour before closing time, he set aside his drink and headed home.

  A long walk from Bryn Tawel to Ystrad, all the longer for being sober, steel-capped boots lobbing stones at the road. He unlocked the front door, boots still on. The house was silent, but for the ticking grandfather clock. He double-locked the door, pulled up short in the living room. The room was dark but thick with heat, the fire burned low in the grate. In the dim glow, he saw a figure crouching on the floor.

  He snapped on the lights. ‘Why you sitting down there, in the dark?’

  Carol wiped a hand over her face. Her skin was blotchy, eyes red. ‘I had dinner ready hours ago,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You’re crying over a missed dinner?’

  ‘I wasn’t crying.’

  He grabbed the TV remote and sat down. ‘Could’ve fooled me.’

  Carol stayed where she was, huddled by the fireplace. He swallowed a sigh. Unnerving, this behaviour of hers. He looked at her again. She was bent over a card, a white horse on it, galloping through a field of poppies, the number thirty-five embossed in glitter. Shit.

  ‘You thought I forgot,’ he blustered. ‘I never forget. Planned to take you out at the weekend. Planned to surprise you.’

  ‘Nothing about you surprises me.’

  ‘Well that’s where you’re wrong, woman. I booked us a table up the Harvesters.’

  ‘We’ve wasted enough good food—’

  ‘What you talking about, wasted?’

  ‘Bought a ham, didn’t I.’

  ‘So? We’ll eat it cold.’

  She pulled a tissue from the sleeve of her cardigan, blew her nose. ‘I chucked it over the fence. Max couldn’t believe his luck.’

  ‘You fed a ham to Eddie Hobson’s stupid dachshund?’

  She was lying. She had to be.

  She flashed him a nasty smile. ‘Had it all to himself. When there’s families in this village near starving.’

  ‘Nobody needs to starve,’ he said. ‘Everyone got a choice.’

  He flicked from chat show to snooker. There was nothing worth watching. Carol was swaying from side to side now, bobbing in front of the screen.

  ‘For God’s sake, woman. Give it a rest.’

  Her lips puckered as though tasting something bitter. ‘You think it’s enough, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think it’s enough that I got a home, an’ a husband making money.’

  ‘It’s more’n some people got.’

  She made a sound half way between a laugh and a sob. ‘Well, take my word for it. It’s not enough. Not when my daughter’s gone. When our neighbours turn their backs on me.’

  ‘Carol—’

  ‘Don’t touch me. I’ve had it with you, Gwyn. I’ve had enough.’ She pushed past him, grabbed her sleeping pills off the nest of tables and lurched up the stairs.

  He turned back to the television, stared at it without seeing. They had an arrangement. It worked. She gave him two week’s warning about her birthday; he got her a gift and a card. Had no one to blame but herself for this mess. It was her own stupid fault he forgot. The clock ticked, another hour passed. Sleep was nowhere to be had. The heat leached from the room. He switched off the television and padded up the stairs to find that she’d locked him out. He leaned against the doorframe, defeated. Time was, he’d have put his shoulder to the door. But even that felt beyond him. If his wife wouldn’t sleep with him, to hell with her. In any case, those damn pills left her for dead.

  The girl’s room was as she left it. Posters pinned to the ceiling, knick-knacks scattered on her dressing table. A brush shedding long, red hairs. He rubbed his sleeve over the scuffed wooden surface to clear it of dust, sank down on the bed. Her pillow smelled of apple shampoo. He stretched out on the bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. His belt buckle dug into his abdomen. He shifted his weight, unbuckled the belt.

  The old man was wearing that belt the day he died. Gwyn dug out the corpse himself, brought the old man up to the top, the broken body already stiff and cold. Sorry old bastard. His earliest memory was of the old man filling the kitchen doorway, yelling seven shades of murder as he and his kid brother cowered under the table. Anything set the old man off. Trouble at work or trouble at home. One too many payday drinks or stony sober for want of a bob; the same outcome. Him or the kid feeling the business end of that belt. No wonder the kid left Ystrad as soon as he could. Ran off to Manitoba, didn’t once look back.

  He wore the belt like an amulet, to remind himself what it meant to be powerless. A pledge that no one would make him powerless again. Yet he’d vowed never to raise the belt against the girl, broke that vow and now the girl was gone. Just like his brother. He sat up. There was no peace to be had here. He headed back downstairs, grabbed his jacket, stepped into his boots, shut the front door and set off down the hill.

  ***

  He had no clue where to go. It was gone midnight, a star hanging solo in a sky gathering clouds. The High Street was deserted. He paused at the ice cream parlour. The curtained windows above the shop revealed no secrets. The girl was somewhere behind them. Was she sleeping like an innocent, or awake and tormented by regret like him?

  If he raised his voice to call her, would she hear him? He shook himself. If he raised his voice, the whole village would come out to laugh and jeer. He moved on, cold air like a knife in his lungs. As he crossed the road, dizziness slammed him sideways. He staggered to the bus shelter, collapsed on the bench fighting for breath.

  ‘Please, mister, you got two quid for a taxi?’

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw a pair of skinny legs, a stretch of naked thigh. An indecent skirt and a puffy jacket nipped tight at the waist. Hair like bleached pipe-cleaners. Safety pins for earrings. Black makeup smeared across sunken cheeks.

  ‘Why you wanting a taxi?’

  ‘I got to get to my mam’s. Went an’ missed the last bus.’

  ‘So get your boyfriend to take you.’

  ‘We ’ad a fight. Owes me money, ’e does. Actin’ like it’s my fault. Not my fault ’e’s flat broke.’

  ‘Why’s he broke, then?’

  The girl narrowed her eyes. ‘You takin’ the piss?’

  ‘No, love. I’m genuinely interested.’

  ‘How many miners are makin’ money right now?’

  ‘Ah. Blackthorn man, is he?’

  The girl wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Please, mister. Lend us five quid to get off ’ome.’

  Made him smile, that. She was after two quid a minute ago, and no mention of it being a loan.

  ‘And what’s in it for me?’

  The girl falls quiet. ‘Orright,’ she said at last.

  ‘Alright, what?’

  ‘How much would you pay me to—?’

  He gawped at her. He meant the question as a joke. She must be desperate, this girl. He shot her a sideways look. She was young, for all the muck on her face. Barely older than the girl. Unsettled him, that. The girl was nothing – nothing – like this drunken slut. It was a fair while since he’d had an offer, even so. Nothing doing with Carol. Not in months.

  He leaned across and whispered.

  ‘You’ll give me ’ow much?’

  ‘Five,’ he repeated.

  The girl staggered to her feet. ‘You filthy old—
’

  He put a hand on her arm to silence her. ‘Alright, ten.’

  The girl scowled.

  ‘Listen sweetheart,’ he told her. ‘Ten quid, you get home tonight with change left over for booze, or smack, or glue, or whatever it is you’re on.’

  ‘Twenty,’ the girl said.

  ‘Last offer: fifteen. Take it or leave it.’

  The girl slumped against the wall. ‘Money first.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck, missy.’

  The street was silent. He peered up and down to check that no one was around. He thought of Iwan Jones and his family asleep across the road. To hell with them. To hell with them all. He slipped back into the shadows, stood in front of the girl, unzipped his flies.

  ‘How about you gimme a kiss, then?’

  The girl raised listless, lager-scented lips. That wouldn’t do at all. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. ‘I said, kiss me. Properly.’

  He prised his tongue inside her mouth, pushed her fingers inside his trousers. Her hand connected with a touch like ice. Far from hardening, he shrank away. That never happened. Not to him. He pushed the girl down onto her knees, thought back to when Carol was young and pretty and panting for it. But memory and imagination defied him too. He shoved the girl aside, zipped himself up. The shame of it. It took all his strength not to burst into tears.

  He fumbled in his jacket pocket, thrust the money at her. The notes scattered limply on the ground.

  — 4 —

  Helen was trudging up the hill towards school when she heard footsteps behind her. Someone close and coming closer. She turned to see Ricky Allison and Seamus Hobson.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You up the duff yet, then?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Told you she was,’ Seamus said.

  ‘Piss off, the pair of you.’

  She walked faster. The clear blue sky blackened, cast down bursts of sheeting rain. She had no umbrella, no parka to protect her. She broke into a trot, her shoes and blazer sodden, her hair plastered her cheeks. Her socks squeaked wetly with every step, the rain pelting her sideways.

  ‘D’you reckon her tits got bigger?’ Seamus chased after her, craned over her shoulder.

  Ricky rammed her other shoulder. ‘Nah, she got bee stings for tits.’