by Kit Habianic
‘Lui non è un assassino,’ Angela burst out. ‘Bella, the boy made stupid, stupid mistakes these last weeks. But a killer? Never. No.’
‘I want to believe that—’
‘We’ve got to be practical,’ Sue said. ‘I’ll call the support group in Cardiff, have them find us a criminal lawyer. They’ll know what to do about the press, and all.’
Helen grabbed her hand. ‘What d’you mean, the press—?’
‘Mary called. Jimmy Mosquito’s outside the Stute with his crew. Circling like starving foxes, she said. Dewi sent them packing.’
‘This’ll be on the news?’
‘What time’s it?’ Sue scarpered upstairs, came back with the box television from her bedroom.
She perched it on the scuffed dresser, fiddled with the aerial. The set crackled as she turned the wire loop backwards and forwards, tried to get the flickering images to settle. The newsreader emerged from a blur of grey static.
‘A South Wales miner was killed this morning, attacked as he travelled to work at Blackthorn Colliery. Police say striking miners dropped a heavy object on a vehicle carrying working men into the pit. Medics treated three people at the scene for shock and non life-threatening injuries. Police have arrested two men, said to be striking miners from the nearby village of Ystrad. Both have been charged with murder—’
The newsreader paused to draw breath.
Helen gripped the table. Her father’s fate and Scrapper’s. This was real, then. It had to be, if she heard it on the television.
‘Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speaking exclusively to the BBC this lunchtime, condemned the killing as “a strike at the heart of British democracy”. A statement from the TUC echoed the prime minister’s words, calling the attack “vicious and—”’
Iwan clamped his hands over his ears.
The scene switched to an outside location. The camera panned over a minivan – windscreen shattered, tarmac glittering anthracite under a dusting of broken glass – came to rest on a nervy, twitchy little man. Blackthorn’s winding gear soared behind him.
‘Local journalist James Hackett is live at the scene. What more can you tell us, James?’
The camera zoomed over the reporter’s shoulder, came to rest on a pale, solid object rising like a sail from the wreckage, returned to the reporter, who was waving a piece of paper at the camera.
‘Got a scoop for you, Nigel. A written statement from Adam Smith-Tudor, the Coal Board’s most senior man in South Wales. In it, he tells the BBC: “Gwyn Richards was a loyal worker. A solid family man who died defending his right to go to work at the pit he loved. We owe it to Gwyn’s memory to stand firm against the hired thugs of the National Union of Mineworkers”.’
Sue strode across the kitchen, snapped off the television. ‘Bastards couldn’t even get your dad’s name right.’
‘Hired thugs,’ Iwan echoed.
Helen said nothing, robbed of speech by the sight of the wreckage. By the thought of her dad, beneath that mangled metal, a pale object sticking out of it like the wing of some flesh-eating bird. She thought about Scrapper pleading with her: it wasn’t me, Red. You got to believe me.
‘You’ll make that call, Sue?’ Iwan said.
‘Right away.’
He nodded his thanks. ‘I got to see Dewi. Then get back up the cop shop.’
Angela didn’t move. Fixed her eyes on Helen. ‘Is no point talking to Dewi. Not when Simon’s own wife thinks he’s guilty.’
‘It’s not that—’
‘He loves you, bella. He needs you. We need you.’
After Iwan and Angela left, Sue fetched a bottle from the top of the dresser. Put a tumbler on the table and poured.
‘Southern Comfort.’
The drink had the colour and stickiness of treacle. Helen slammed the liquid down her gullet. It warmed her a little.
‘D’you reckon Scrapper done it, Sue?’
‘Not in a million years, bach.’
‘So many times I wished my dad was dead.’
‘None of this is your fault.’
‘You sure about that?’
Sue poured her another drink. ‘I’d best make that call.’
As she stood, a quavering voice echoed down the hall.
Helen downed the Southern Comfort, rinsed her glass under the tap. ‘Go. I’ll look after Johnny.’
She knocked on the door to the front room, now Johnny Griffiths’ bedroom. A draft blew through the open window. The curtains rose and fell. An old miner’s quirk, to sleep with the window open, believing that fresh air sooner cured than killed. The gaunt old man was sitting up in bed.
‘Slept late today, Uncle Johnny.’
‘Lay awake half the night. Couldn’t sleep for the pins an’ needles in my legs.’
‘Your legs?’ That made no sense.
The old man’s face split into an impish grin. ‘Lose one leg down the pit, that’s an accident: lose two, it’s bloody careless. Know who wrote that, girlie?’
She shook her head.
‘Oscar-bloody-Wilde. Or very nearly. A fine writer, Wilde. Almost a patch on Dylan Thomas. You know, bach, even something long gone can hurt like fresh.’
He threw aside the quilt. She grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, positioned the seat below the bed and helped the frail body into the chair. In the hall, Sue was giving it plenty on the phone. She steered the old man to the bathroom, went to fix his tea and breakfast. By the time Johnny called her to fetch him, Sue had dashed out.
Helen wheeled Johnny to the table, served him toast and scrambled eggs.
‘So,’ he said. ‘The way our Susie’s carrying on, sommat’s afoot today. Won the strike, have we?’
The question caught her off-guard. She burst into tears.
Johnny sipped his tea and munched his crusts, waited for her to dry her eyes. Listened without speaking as she told him about her dad and Scrapper. When she finished, he breathed out a whistle.
‘Duw. Bloody mess, eh?’
‘The worst is not knowing what to believe.’
When Uncle Johnny smiled, his years and infirmities fell away from him. ‘You know what I tell my Susie? When you can’t fathom right from wrong, trust your gut.’
‘It’s that easy? Yeah, right.’
The old man removed his top row of false teeth, chipped away with a yellow fingernail at a stray crumb of toast. Slid his teeth back in, eyed her gravely.
‘You’re bloody joking, girlie. It’s the hardest thing in the world. It’s not easy, learning to trust yourself. Don’t let no one tell you different.’
— 13 —
Helen paused outside the Stute. The last time she saw her dad was here, on Christmas Day, yelling at her in the road. It felt disloyal to his memory to enter the building. But Sue had summoned her. She raised her head, called up her old defiance and walked in. The meeting was already underway. Dewi stopped mid-sentence as she wheeled Johnny through the crush to the front of the room. People moved aside for her. Heads turned. Johnny pointed to a spot at the front. She parked his wheelchair, slid away to join the women behind the tea urns, away from the staring eyes.
After a pause, Dewi started speaking again. The men listened, barely breathing, as still and frozen as fossilised trees.
‘And as you’ll know,’ he wound up, ‘Dai Dumbells an’ Scrapper Jones were charged this morning. Police are saying it’s murder.’
‘A travesty,’ Johnny shouted.
Some of the men murmured agreement.
Dewi patted the air for hush. ‘The lodge’ll do what it can to help the two lads. We got a lawyer—’
‘Bollocks!’ Mary Power exploded as though fired from the tea urns. ‘The lodge has been squawking like a bunch of headless chickens all morning. It’s Sue called the brief.’
Dewi ignored her. ‘The killing of Gwyn Pritchard marks a low point. We done our best, lads, held out nearly a year, but here’s where it stops.’
A tremor rippled through the crowd. Helen felt th
e women breathe in sharply. There was a pause, then uproar. Voices demanding to be heard.
‘You’re selling out?’ Mary’s white hair quivered.
Dewi addressed himself to the men. ‘We can’t do it, lads. All the other coalfields have had folk drift back to work since Christmas. We’ve had nothing from the TUC. The best hope for this pit – our only hope – is to go back to work united. Regroup to fight the closure.’
‘That’s suicide,’ Johnny’s voice came back sharp as a whip. ‘Go back defeated, you’ll give the bosses free rein to shut the pit.’
‘We can’t back down,’ Mary said. ‘We said all along, it’s a fight to the death.’
‘We held out a year,’ Eddie Hobnob said. ‘We did our best.’
The meeting was split, Helen saw; the men defeated and tired, the women fired up to fight on. But how could their best be good enough, if it left her dad dead, her mam homeless, Scrapper charged with murder and every man in the room heading for the dole queue?
Mary was watching her. ‘You tell ’em, Red.’
‘Me? But—’
‘Mary’s right,’ Sue said. ‘They’ll listen to you.’
Arms pushed her forwards. She stumbled to the front of the room, dug deep, mined a thin seam of resolve. ‘You all know me,’ she began. ‘My name is Helen—’
A burst of white light dazzled her. She paused, shielded her eyes. The arc lights of a television camera blazed from the doorway. Jimmy Mosquito was pushing through the crowd.
‘Get that bastard journalist out of here,’ someone growled.
‘No,’ Helen said. ‘Reckon the bastard journalist should hear this.’
A ripple of laughter boosted her nerve.
‘Gwyn Pritchard was my dad. But Scrapper Jones is my husband. Scrapper was on that bridge trying to stop Dai Dumbells attacking the bus. He did what any one of us would have done. He’s no murderer, my husband; it’s down to us to clear his name. Go back now, it’s like you’ve tried and found him guilty.’
As she staggered back towards the women, Uncle Johnny nodded to say she’d done alright. But the men stood in silence, their faces masks of defeat and exhaustion and shame. And Dewi was shaking his head.
Someone launched himself at her, gripped her hand between clammy palms. ‘James Hackett, freelance journalist.’
She backed away from him.
‘Helen said what she wanted to say,’ Sue told him. ‘We’ll be watching to see if you use it. Bet it don’t fit your script.’
— 14 —
The smell of mothballs hung in the half-light. The old boys from Blackthorn Colliery Band had dusted down their red serge uniforms and were tuning up their trumpets, trombones and tubas. Staccato toots and beeps echoed along the High Street as a crowd gathered. Dewi Power stood in front of The Red Lion, donkey jacket over orange boilersuit, helmet under his arm. All the men were dressed for work for the first time in a year. The red banner of Blackthorn lodge billowed and flapped above them.
Helen watched them sadly, shivering in her white t-shirt. Around her, the other women wore white t-shirts too. On each, a slogan: Justice for Scrapper Jones. Were they her friends, these women? Getting there, maybe. They were bound together now, an uneasy sisterhood.
A bizarre gathering was taking shape. She saw students from the solidarity groups in Swansea and Cardiff, a ragged army in dreadlocks and khaki and denim, come out for one last defiant march. Among them stood Margaret Parry, done up in her Sunday best, smart eau de nil coat and a little hat to match. She was leaning on the arm of her eldest, come home to the village with a busload of car workers from the Midlands, all dressed in blue boiler suits, rising sun logo stitched on the breast. Small figures darted in and out of the crowd, the children of Ystrad, wearing outsized white t-shirts over their clothes.
There were dozens of red banners for the railway workers and the printers, the nurses and the civil servants. But there were banners of many other colours too. Pink flags and purple; banners with rainbow stripes. Black flags for anarchists. Green for the ones Mary called lentil botherers. And Mary, where was she?
Tension rippled through the crowd. Helen climbed the bracchi steps, saw a well-padded man wearing a double-breasted navy suit, a camera crew pushing after him through the crush.
Sue clambered up behind her. ‘Our so-called local MP,’ she said sourly.
The cameraman lined up a gang of students to wave placards behind Harry Cross. The MP pulled a comb from his pocket, folded his hair across his scalp. His cheeks puffed importance, as the sound girl fussed around him.
‘Got a nerve, that one,’ Sue said. ‘He’s not spoken to the men in twelve months.’
The MP’s words floated towards them. ‘—a slap in the face for the Tory government. Today’s return to work is a triumph for common sense. It’s a moral victory. For the miners and for the Labour Party in Wales.’
Helen had to hold Sue back. Physically restrain her.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘They want to interview me later about Scrapper. I’ll make sure you get your say, and all.’
Iwan and Angela climbed the steps to join them.
‘Good of old Double-Cross to show his face,’ Iwan cast a scowl over his shoulder at the MP.
‘Where’s Mary?’ Angela asked.
‘Not coming,’ Sue said.
‘What d’you mean?’ It was the first Helen had heard of it.
‘She’s packing to leave.’
That was unthinkable. Mary couldn’t leave. How could they fight to free Scrapper without her? Helen marched over to the film crew, cadged ten pence from the producer who wanted to interview her. The phone box outside the pub was empty. She dialled Mary’s number and waited.
‘Orright, love,’ Mary’s voice was thin and tired.
‘We’re about to move. When you coming?’
There was a long pause. The telephone line clicked and whirred. ‘I’m not coming.’
‘But we need you, Mary. I need you.’
‘I’m sorry, Red. I’m off to Manchester to stay with my eldest for a while.’
‘You and Dewi, an’ all?’
Mary’s laugh had the dry rasp of coal dust. ‘I’ll leave you my badge, love. Your marriage has a shot, at least.’
‘You reckon?’
‘I knows it. Damn proud of you, girl.’
The coin clattered to the bottom of the slot. Helen replaced the receiver, leaned against the grubby glass. Something round and solid dug into her thigh. She reached into her pocket and touched the lump of anthracite. It was as warm as her skin. Scrapper’s words came back to her: I’ll trade you this lump of anthracite for a diamond and gold band.
She wouldn’t hold him to it
***
The colliery band struck up a marching tune. The crowd oozed down the hill. The shops and businesses that had survived, from The Red Lion down to the Co-op, had closed for the morning. Customers and shopkeepers lined the pavement as the march surged past. A lone figure in a tweed great coat stood outside the salon. It was Siggy Split-Enz.
He waved Helen over. ‘I’m so sorry about your husband, schatzi. Matt saw what happened. We know it wasn’t Simon.’
The shock sent tremors up her legs. She grabbed Siggy’s arm. The police said there were no witnesses, said it was Scrapper’s word against theirs. Dai Dumbells had fallen apart like a worn-out sack of coal in custody, couldn’t or wouldn’t answer questions. Debbie refused to visit him. He wasn’t fit to stand trial, his lawyer said.
‘Matt is not a villain,’ Siggy said. ‘Just scared to tell the truth about himself.’
‘Would he tell the truth in court. About Scrapper, I mean?’
‘I will ask him,’ Siggy said. ‘It is a small way to make amends before we go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Somewhere no one knows us. A new town. A new life.’
‘But I’ll miss you, Sig.’
‘Steady on,’ he held her at arm’s length and studied her. ‘I saw your picture in th
e papers: Red Helen says No. The hair was half tidy, if I say so myself.’
She said goodbye to Siggy, ran to tell Sue and Angela the news. She found them with the other women, at the front of the march. They passed the Stute, turned down the hill towards the pit. Thin daylight picked out a green haze on the slag heaps. When they reached the railway bridge, the band stopped playing. Helen gripped Sue’s hand. The verges were scarred with tyre marks. Chipped brickwork marked the spot where the minibus had hit the wall. The marchers entered the tunnel in silence, heads lowered, emerging below the chapel gates. She looked up and saw the mound of earth that marked the grave dug for her dad, his body returning to coal. She hoped she could persuade her mam to come back to lay him to rest, at least.
At last, the lodge banner reached the pit gates. It took a while for the hundreds of marchers to assemble. Iwan waited with his butties, stoic in his donkey jacket and helmet. The men dragged deep on roll-up cigarettes, traded blue jokes and hollow banter, the better to hide their feelings from the cameras. At last, the stragglers reached the gates. Dewi clambered onto an oil drum and cleared his throat.
‘Today is a sad day and a proud day for Britain’s miners, out on strike for two days short of a year. It’s a sad and proud day for Blackthorn, for the community, for the women who fought beside us. We go back with our heads held high. The struggle continues.’
The women moved aside as the pit gates swung open. All the men, dressed in donkey jackets, boilersuits and hard hats, lined up behind Dewi in their working pairs. When he gave the word, they trudged behind him through the gates. All of them, hardened colliers to the death, nailed their eyes to middle distance, marched in on heavy feet, towards a future no more solid than the clouds above their heads.
Helen felt a hand on her arm. It was the old boy, Sion Jenkins, already breathless and wheezing, face tinged blue.
‘You lasses,’ he said. ‘More balls, more brains, more guts than any of us.’
He shook his head, shuffled off to catch up with Iwan. The gates slammed shut behind him. Steel-capped footsteps echoed across the hillsides.
