Breakdown (33 page)

Children dying down here in darkness.

That row of grassy mounds.
The roof falls to only a metre. We're forced to crouch lower. A pain starts in my knees.
Children squeezed into narrow shafts, flapping heavy wooden doors
. I'm tired of stooping after only such a short time. Even Lenny can't stand up. ‘
No life for a child.
' I bend double, keep my head twisted round so as to see the beams, so as to duck around them.
Hour after hour.
Forever crouching. A crick starts in my neck.
Day after day.
I think of the empty bedroom. Is this what happened to the child at Bridey's house?
Did he fall into that final sleep? Was there a fire?
My thighs ache.

They need the children to work the ventilation shafts.

They need Lenny.

We come to a long portion, where it's really low. We go slower. Will we never get there? I have to crawl along in a semi-squatting position. Tarquin has gone ominously quiet.

I reach out my hand to touch him. He doesn't respond.

Suddenly, terrifyingly, the roof opens out. An old fall of rock has left a vacuum above us. We can stand at last. I walk upright, trembling.

But if we leave here, where can we go?

Another low stretch. A series of beams. I crawl. I go lower. Down on all fours. At the end of the line of beams, my knees refuse to lift me up again. I try to get up. And I can't.

‘Can't,' I whisper.

‘Only a short way now,' says Aidan.

I creep towards the coalface, the far-off roar of the conveyor belt steadily drowning out all speech.
I'll have to tell Tarquin.

‘We've only DONE A MILE,' Aidan shouts. ‘Some of us working at Greenleigh Gallery TRAVELS THREE AND A HALF MILES BOTH WAYS.'

I don't care. I slump in the coal dust, rub my calves, my thighs. Try to flex my neck.
Only cold mountains. Nothing to eat.

We crawl under the last pit props and finally see the shiny coalface ahead.

No shelter.

Lenny will die.

It's about a metre high. Overhead the rock ceiling, underfoot rock again. The yellow light of our lamps is quenched in a fog of coal dust. The deafening racket of the conveyor belt drives out all thought. We crouch like living fossils in a metre or so of open space pressed on each side by tonnes of solid planet.

We'll all die.

And there in front of us is the petrified black forest of our prehistoric world. Cast in swirls of leaf and bark, whole trunks, whole trees, whole woodlands.

I squint into the darkness of that distant past. Dust in my eyes. I imagine bowers of shady green, tangled carpets of wild flowers, a world filled with tiny buzzing insects. And birdsong.

A world I've never known.

All turned to stone.

‘There – it – is,' yells Aidan.

‘What?'

‘Black – gold.'

A forest forever frozen by some dark Midas touch.

And on either side, a line of squatting men, stripped to the waist, polished black as the landscape in front of them. They drive their shovels under the fallen coal. Their torsos shining in the half shadows as they fling the slack over their shoulders.

A metre behind them, the sliding conveyor belt. Gleaming coal rippling by. A dark, prehistoric river.

I watch their shoulder blades saw and slack, shovel and sag. I shudder.

It's appalling. Crouched there in this subterranean hole, moving monstrous quantities of ancient jungle. How do they do it? Kneeling, squatting, all the time?

And the heat.

Suffocating.

Coal dust down your throat, coal dust up your nose, coal dust in your eyes, under your eyelids, coating your hair, clogging your clothes, beneath your nails, beneath your skin, inside your mind, inside you.

And the noise.

Deafening.

Everywhere, like the rattle of gunfire.

‘Seven or eight hours,' yells a miner – I think it's the tall, stooping giant. ‘We'll – come – up and – tell you our decision – whether – you're in or not – seven – or eight hours.'

Seven or eight hours.

Down here.

God help them.

Coming back is worse. I'm tired out and dispirited. Nobody with a soul could bear this work. Tarquin is right. We must leave. The journey back to the shaft is uphill. My knees are trembling. Even the lamp becomes a bother. When I stumble, I drop it. And it goes out. And we must all stop until I light it again.

Ducking the beams is an effort. I forget to duck. I try walking with my head down; then I bang my backbone. Tarquin has already banged his. A dark patch stains across his shoulders.

After three hours underground, two miles travelled, crouching like gorillas, I'm totally exhausted. My thighs so stiff even stepping up into the cage is difficult. I can't step anywhere. I can't even walk again. I try resting my back against a wall and balancing against it in a curious sidelong gait, so as not to bend my knees.

At the pithead Bridey notices. ‘So you've seen how 'tis ta work down pit, eh?'

Lenny doesn't reply. His little face is terrified.

Tarquin can't answer. His face is twisted. His jaw set tight.

‘It's what we all do,' she says. ‘But it's always hard at first. Still, 'tis the reason we can sit by a fire and sup on vegetable potage.'

She looks at Tarquin's shoulders, those once broad, straight shoulders.

‘You'll be fine,' she concludes.

Lenny looks up at Tarquin with big eyes.

‘You too, Lenny,' she says. ‘You'll make a fine trapper.'

I shudder. None of us says a word.

‘They'll be calling us soon. Best to get ready and know your minds.'

They haven't washed. They haven't eaten. They haven't returned home. Nine men and three women sit on metal chairs around the table.

We stand and wait. Above us the winding gear and arched roof of the pithead.

‘We've made up our minds,' says Alfred Glover.

All of them nod.

‘You're in.'

They nod again.

‘You'll be given a bed and board, and willing hands to help you fix up a home. You'll get paid in kind, same as us. You'll be given shares in the mine.'

He smiles his treacly smile and waits for us to say something. I cast a glance at Tarquin. His face is set in stone. I let go of Lenny's hand. I try to bob a curtsey. My knees are too stiff.

‘Thanks,' I say. Someone's got to say something. I flash Tarquin a look.
Just pretend. Till we think of something.

‘You're a pretty lass and God knows we can all do with a pretty face,' says Alfred. He turns the full beam of his attention on me, and leers. Openly fascinated. ‘Will be nice to get to know you better. See more of you.' He puts his hands together, palms in.

My heart sinks. There's a pause. For a moment I think that's the end of it. Then an old woman I haven't seen before stands up.

‘My mother,' grunts Alfred.

‘You've noticed we need women, and we need children here,' she says, straight to the point. ‘We've hardly got a dozen young ones left. All of them are needed in the mine and even though we're working them day and night, there's still not enough of them to keep the mine ventilated. Some of 'em won't make it through the winter and we got to keep output up or we'll all starve. You've come along with a young one, and they tell me he's already popular. He's good and small. Make a fine trapper in the deep workings. We'll expect more.' She nods her head at me in a rough manner and sits down again.

Alfred Glover separates his palms.

‘We're glad to have you. Not many want this life,' she adds as an afterthought.

The woman with the shrunken head bursts into tears. I notice Hannah slips an arm round her and cries too.

‘You may well cry,' snaps Alfred's mother, rising again. ‘But you're not the only one who's lost a child to the mine.' She spits the words out at Hannah.

The stress level in the room shoots up. There's a quick nodding of heads.

‘And if you wasn't so sickly, you could breed us a few more,' adds the woman unkindly. ‘And ease the work on the ones left.' She points a thin finger at Hannah. ‘If you'd tried, maybe your boy wouldn't've gone.'

Hannah hangs her head. Her shoulders shaking.

Alfred Glover quickly picks up a pen and signs a document laid out in front of him.

Tarquin is about to explode. I can see his tension like a fuse burning. I grip his arm.
Not now. Remember the locked door. Wait.

But he can't. He's got to speak. And I know what he's going to say. But as he opens his mouth, the door bursts wide. In runs a young man. He's holding a paper. He rushes straight up to Alfred.

‘
Communication!
'

Tarquin stands there, mouth still open.

‘Communication,' pants the messenger again. ‘Carrier pigeon.'

Everyone waits while Alfred unfolds the note. Not a chair squeaks.

Alfred takes an age reading it. At length he raises his hand, reads out. ‘
Believe fugitives arrived at pithead last night. Girl, young man and boy. Wanted. Deliver back on next cargo. By order Governor General.
'

‘No,' sobs Lenny.

Tarquin sees his terror, swallows his words.

‘Send 'em back,' shouts someone.

‘We won't go,' warns Tarquin.

‘You won't go,' says Alfred.

‘No.'

‘You're part of the mine now.'

‘We still won't go.'

‘You're part of the mine and you'll do what I say.'

Tarquin stiffens.

‘
Just hang on,
' I whisper.

‘This mine is independently owned and operated. General Hammond don't run it. And he'll not interfere with my running of it. I sign up who I like. We've got our own charter. I've already signed you. So he's too late. If you've committed a crime we'll see to it here. You won't be going anywhere.'

You won't be going anywhere.
A cold shiver runs down my spine.

‘I see,' says Tarquin.

Lenny squeezes my hand, terrified.

‘He won't take silence for an answer! He'll be on the next train up here!' shouts out one of them.

‘Let him come,' murmurs someone. I realise it's Bridey. She's snuck into the room and moved up close. She places her hand on Lenny's shoulder. ‘Let him try. He'll not take my boy from me,' she says.

‘And he can't take what he can't find,' adds Alfred's mother.

‘You want the girl and the little lad that much?' asks Alfred, still staring at me.

She nods. ‘We gotta breed some strength and beauty back,' she says, ‘or there'll be no younger ones left to run the mine when all of you're old.'

‘Scabs' Law then.'

‘Scabs' Law?' asks Tarquin.

‘Old term for when you crossed a picket line,' explains Bridey. ‘Headman just set a picket. Nobody'll tell the General about you, where you are, or if you ever reached here. All of us got a duty to each other. We'll hide you, lie for you, stick with you. Nobody's a scab in this community.

‘As long as you stick with us.'

It's night. Tarquin will be waiting. He said to bring Lenny, but I look at Lenny's little face, his damp golden curls stuck against his cheek, so sound asleep. I let him lie. There's no lock on the door tonight. I creep down through the house, through the kitchen, softly open the back door. Let myself out. Cross the garden to the shadows behind.

‘We're not staying here.'

‘I know.'

‘Didn't you see that girl down the mine?'

‘I did.'

‘I can't live like an alien bent double in darkness.'

‘I know.'

‘I'm used to outdoors. I'd rather roam the streets, fight dogs.'

‘I know.'

‘Then why d'you sound so disappointed?'

‘It's a roof over our heads. And they need us, I guess.'

‘They need Lenny.'

‘And food.'

‘They need Lenny and you, not me.'

‘They'll protect us from the General.'

‘They need Lenny, so as they can send him down the mine.'

I bite my lip. I can't bear to think of Lenny down the mine, flapping those heavy doors. Living in darkness.

‘And you, to breed more children, so as they can send them down there too. The ones that don't die.'

A cloud runs across the face of the moon. The greenhouse falls into shadow. I think of the smell of smoky fires, hot nights, of the fossilised forest. We can't stay here. I know it.

But where?

‘Don't you care they want to breed you, send your babies into a pit?'

‘OK.'

‘OK, what?' He sounds so fierce, so disappointed.

‘You've made your point.'

‘So tomorrow night, when we've got some food and clothes together, we're out of here.'