Closure (27 page)

Lawani explored the mine; after so long in the wilderness, its clangs and clunks, grinds and growls jolted his senses. He was shocked to come across women, bal maidens, buttoned up with thick skirts and white hats with long side flaps. As spallers, they were crushing rocks of tin ore with sledgehammers on the mine's dressing floors. Look at them – strong women who wouldn't be afraid of him. He was right. As he edged closer, they sized him up. Some were too old to bear children, others were too brazen, except for one of the younger ones, who refused to look up even when he stared so hard she must have felt it.

He pretended to leave and then quickly spun round to catch her – flushed, curious, excited.

The next morning, he descended five hundred fathoms down a shaft in a cage. Deep inside the earth the tunnels were propped up by forests of sliced tree trunks. It was torrid, wet, suffocating. What was he doing here? Had he lost his mind? He would soon move on.

At twenty-six, Tommy Penhaligon had already spent thirteen years underground. He showed Lawani how to chip away at rock while high up a ladder that itself was perched on a thin ledge. It's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, Tommy warned. Yeh, really dangerous. If you slip you'll be done for, Larry.

Lunchtime they stopped for crowsts, which was dinner and dessert in one: pies stuffed with meat, turnip, potato and onion on one side; jam on the other. He was instructed to hold the pie by the crust or else get tin poisoning from his hands and then to safely discard it down the shaft for the rats.

After work, Lawani joined Tommy and the other men in the winks, the drinking hole next to the mine, where they all got plastered on porter and ribbed him.

If it weren't for those teeth of yours you'd be invisible in the dark, Larry. Down the hatch in one. Huzzah!

The men quickly slurred their speech and stumbled about. Lawani did not. This was his new self. After twenty years at sea he'd witnessed how drink was the seaman's prolonged suicide. With fresh water in short supply, he and his fellow seafarers got drunk on Sudden Death and Knock-me-Down, liquor that turned the mildest of men into monsters when the fermented stew rose to the surface in a bile of bloated emotion. Nine months earlier he himself had stabbed a man in Mogadishu. For what? For tripping over his stool.

As the men got rowdier, he looked around and saw her enter, the bal maiden, with the other young women, the unmarried ones, the available ones, he was told. Her hair was thickly curled and piled up, her scrubbed-clean face was peachy, her pale eyes mocking with good humour when he sidled up to her.

We was just saying, you're as black as night alright, Sambo.

You can call me Lawani… or Larry or… Mr… Bartlett. And you?

Miss Morwenna Warmington to those who's asking, and mine's a tankard of porter.

Every evening he escorted her to the cob cottage where she boarded in the village. She brought out a new lightness in him. For the first time in his adult life he felt playful.

Miss Warmington, allow me to accompany you home.

It seems you've already made up my mind.

Miss Warmington, allow me to carry your basket.

I can manage full well on my own, thank you.

Miss Warmington, your eyes are like glittering stars.

No, Mr Bartlett, my eyes are like dung and dust and dirt and full of weariness.

She stopped outside the front door to the lodgings she shared with the other girls. He lingered.

Go now, take my lantern for the long walk back across the fields. Give it me on the morrow.

I bid you goodnight, Miss Warmington.

I bid you too goodnight, Mr Bartlett.

Sundays he courted her around the village green. She said she didn't care what anyone said or thought. He was different to all the other men around, which is what she wanted. Her mother had died after breathing in the soot of the calciner for twelve years. Her father copped it from bronchitis after twenty-three years down the pit, and not a day too soon, she said, and then mumbled, I was his daughter, not his wife.

Her three younger brothers had escaped the pits and gone to sea.

Every Sunday Lawani accompanied her to Zion, the Methodist chapel in the village.

Later, out on the moors, he lay her down upon his brown blanket. She took his weight. She was as comfy and fleshy as he had dreamed. He could not believe his luck. Nor could she. After the life she'd had, she deserved a man so special.

Am I your first, he asked. Yes, she replied, turning away and studying the sky.

Afterwards, they were happiest lying in each others' silence.

As a spaller, Morwenna stood outside in all weathers on the cobbled dressing floor of the mine and smashed a three pound sledgehammer onto the great rocks of tin ore that were brought up from underground. Every time she raised her weary arms and brought the hammer down on rock, she imagined it was the head of her father. His brains were the wet, reddish waste that made the dressing floor so slippery and dangerous.

Lawani promised her a better life, away from this dump. Perhaps London. Let's see.

That spring they celebrated becoming man and wife with a mug of porter and a turnip pie. Lawani decided to build a temporary home on the moors, near enough to the mine but far enough away to be undisturbed. He'd had enough of overpriced lodgings crowded with fellow miners and their families all sleeping together in a poorly-ventilated, disease-breeding room. It was no better than below decks and he was already coughing up the dust of the mines.

He needed air. He was beginning to miss the sea.

Our very own makeshift castle on the moors, he told her, built out of stone.

She rolled her eyes. You're mad you are.

He slapped her cheek.

Well, it's the stupidest thing I ever heard.

He slapped her again, harder.

She refused to cry.

I am your husband.

She handed over her wages every Friday.

For a nominal sum he was allowed to build their temporary home near the remains of a granite pit. On three sides was woodland that would protect it from wind. A river ran nearby. He lugged stones from the pit and slotted them into each other. It took weeks before the construction was solid and not prone to collapse. Peat filled in the gaps. Coal sacks were further insulation. For flooring, he laid planks of wood. The finished hut was large enough to sleep two people and high enough for smoke to circulate.

They had a straw mattress on a wooden pallet, a large tin chest containing provisions such as bowls, beakers, pans, billycan, rags, blankets and a bar of Pears Translucent Soap, the one luxury Morwenna asked for and got. For fuel they dug up peat in summer and stacked it like stones to dry out for the coming winter.

In the desert kingdoms they use camel dung, he said.

What's a camel, my lovely?

In summer they stripped off their garments and washed in the river. He lathered her with her precious, expensive soap. He unclipped her thick hair so that it fell in an abundance of twirling curls to her waist. She wrapped her legs around him and leaned back in the water so that her hair spread out like the fronds of water plants. Her breasts were wet, shiny mounds. He plunged and plunged until he softened.

When she grew round, he was convinced it was a boy.

Finally, he was going to be more than himself.

She began to weep in the mornings and he didn't understand why she was so unhappy with him. She said she wasn't. He said she was. Women are strange creatures. Why be so sad when you should be overjoyed? I'm not sad, she cried.

As her stomach grew, so did his dreams. New wife, first child, new life, new beginnings, new country. As soon as my son is old enough, I will take you both back to Yorubaland. I am ready.

Where is it, she asked. Why did they have to go somewhere so far away? You promised London.
Everyone
's heard of London.

Then she held her tongue.

Mr Yelland allowed her to do lighter duties at the mine for less pay, sweeping up the waste, a job usually reserved for old women and children.

After twelve hours in the dungeon of the worm-infested earth, he enjoyed the walk home with Morwenna through the spongy tussocks of rushes. When the wind blew he imagined he was sailing between continents.

As autumn arrived the moor became soaked in a grey mist and the tors looked like ancient burial mounds. Early morning, the ground was covered with dew. As winter arrived the tall grasses blanched, dehydrated and died. When mist thickened into fog he imagined he could see the long-necked prehistoric creatures in the Natural History Museum in London, just like the ones he'd seen in photographs in the
Gazette
. Or he imagined mountainous blocks of ice against the chilly blue sky. He had once worked a whaler called the
Svend
under Captain Johannsen. The Arctic tundra – a bleakness greater than his own.

He wanted to tell Morwenna all of this.

He awoke early and sat outside wrapped in a blanket to drink tea in the chilly air.

As she grew larger, their walk to the mine slowed down; he helped her along. She was finding it difficult and had to rest often. If she didn't work until the baby dropped, she'd have no jobs to return to. She complained and wanted to move nearer town. She wanted to live in a proper house even if it was crowded and stank. She wanted to be warm at night. She wanted to be away from the wind that howled outside their hut.

That day they arrived at work and she headed, as usual, for the dressing floor while Lawani went down the shaft with Tommy to the spot they'd left the day before.

They stood on the narrow ledge as the tunnel echoed with the sound of a hundred men and boys banging chisels into rock. Lawani always heard it as a kind of drumming. It made him homesick for a place he could barely remember. Sweat poured down him. He dreamt of roaming the open oceans. How free he had been, changing ships at whim, seeing so much of a world most people cannot even begin to imagine. He thought of the son who would soon be born.

He would name him in honour of his father: Babatunde – Father Returns.

The next morning Morwenna gave birth prematurely in a hut at the mine. It was the shock, they said. Along with everyone else, she had been up all night. The women delivered her a son but Morwenna did not name him until three months after his birth. In hope. In desperation. In disbelief.

At the time of Frank's birth, his father was trapped five hundred fathoms under the ground. Lawani was not dead at this point. At first the men and boys charged around the tunnel hoping to find a way out. But they were sealed in. They extinguished their lamps to preserve breath until, in the blackness, one by one they slumped.

Of the two of them, Tommy went first. His congested lungs were weak anyway. Lawani sat still, conserving himself in case someone broke through and air – clean, crisp, salty, invigorating sea air – rushed in to save them.

*

Epilogue

Frankie, as he was known, grew up in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. In the village and surrounding areas everyone knew him as the son of the African who had been buried in one of the worst mine disasters of the 1880s. About his father, his mother told him little. He'd once been a seaman. He'd come from foreign. Look at this dagger, Frankie. I don't have no photographs.

When the boy was teased by the other children, his mother reassured him. Don't listen to them, Frankie. You're the same as everyone else. Nay, you're better you are. You're special.

He wanted to believe her.

Morwenna remained a bal maiden until the day she died at the age of thirty-five. She was a known drinker and brawler.

A year after her death, young Frankie went to the city of Exeter in search of a job that did not involve burying himself alive down a mine or coughing up blood all day until he died before his time. In Exeter, he was mistaken for a Neapolitan or one of the Portuguese seamen who came up the canal into town. He passed and married a grocer's daughter, Emily. They had five sons, who looked as pale as their mother.

He never spoke of the father he had never known and he died before his own children were old enough to be curious enough to ask.

His sons fought in the First World War, except the youngest, Walter, who came of age in the interwar years and was posted as an administrator in the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. He was stationed in the city of Lagos, as a representative of his people, the British.

He died at home in the town of Exmouth in 1979, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

Among his possessions was the family heirloom displayed in a cabinet in his living room: a dagger with a horn handle studded with coins.

Origins unknown.

CONTRIBUTORS

Monica Ali
is the author of four books,
Brick Lane, Alentejo Blue, In the Kitchen,
and
Untold Story.

Dinesh Angelo Allirajah
(6.05.1967-9.12.2014) described his writing as “narratives of the unnoticed moment”, giving airplay to what happens “on the edge of the crowd”, where characters have to suddenly reassess who and what they are. He worked tirelessly as a believer in the liberating and educating power of the arts. The loss of his voice humorous, witty and deeply moving leaves a silence. He is survived by his mother, Evelyn, and older brother Duleep, his fiancée Vic, two sons Bruno and Rufus, and their mother, his ex-partner Jo.

Muli Amaye
teaches creative writing at Soran University. She has short stories published in
Moving Worlds Journal
(2009, 2012). Her MA novel was long listed for the SI Leeds Prize 2014. She's currently editing her PhD novel for publication.

Lynne E. Blackwood
's poetry, short stories and plays are inspired by a life rich in emotions, events and stories from people around the world she has met, influenced by her Anglo-Indian heritage sensitivities.

Judith Bryan
's work includes
Bernard and the Cloth Monkey
(Saga Prize 1997), and
A Cold Snap/ Keeping Mum
(second, Alfred Fagon Award 2008; Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 2011). She lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton.

Nana-Essi Casely-Hayford
is a storyteller and writer who works as a part-time Visiting Lecturer at one of the Leeds City Colleges, where she facilitates Positive Wellbeing & Expressive Visualisation Through the Arts.

Jacqueline Clarke
was born in Bristol to parents of Jamaican heritage. She has a short story in
Voice, Memory, Ashes
(Mango Tree Press). She has written a novel, a play and is currently working on a film script.

Jacqueline Crooks
is a Jamaican-born writer. She writes about Caribbean migration and subcultures. She has been published by
Granta, Virago
and
MsLexia
.

Fred D'Aguiar
has published loads of books. His latest poetry collection is
The Rose of Toulouse
(Carcanet, 2013). His most recent novel is
Children of Paradise
(Granta, 2014).

Sylvia Dickinson
's stories are influenced by her multi-cultural community of Cape Town. She lives near Chichester University, where she achieved an MA in Creative Writing. Her ambition is to publish a novel.

Bernardine Evaristo
is an editor, critic, dramatist and the award-winning author of seven books of fiction and verse fiction including
Mr Loverman
(Penguin, 2013). She was awarded an MBE in 2009.
www.bevaristo.com

Gaylene Gould
's short stories have been published in various anthologies and she is completing her first novel which won the 2012 Commonword Diversity Prize. She is an artist coach and a broadcaster presenting regularly on BBC Radio 4.

Michelle Inniss
was born in Liverpool to Trinidadian parents. She is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Brunel University. She was a runner-up for The Decibel Prize and was shortlisted for The Fish Short Story Prize. Her first play,
She Called Me Mother
, was produced by Pitch Lake Productions.

Valda Jackson
is an accomplished visual artist who writes fiction and non-fiction that expands the breadth of her narrative. Shortlisted for BBC Opening Lines 2015, Jamaican born, Jackson's public sculptures and paintings are exhibited internationally.
www.valdajackson.com

Pete Kalu
is a novelist. He has sung opera in German, been detained in Calabar, Nigeria, busked near Islamabad, Pakistan and felled trees in Canada. Some of this is untrue.

Patrice Lawrence
is of Italian-Trinidadian heritage. She writes for adults and children and has been published by A & C Black, Scholastic, Pearsons and Hamish Hamilton. Her young adult novel,
Orangeboy
, is forthcoming (Hodder, 2016).
http://patricelawrence.wordpress.com/
.

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
is an Associate Lecturer at Lancaster University. Jennifer's novel,
Kintu,
won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013, published in 2014. “Let's Tell This Story Properly” won the Commonwealth Short Prize 2014.

Tariq Mehmood
's novels include
Hand On The Sun
,
While There Is Light
and
You're Not Proper
. He co-directed the award-winning documentary
Injustice
. He teaches at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Raman Mundair
is the author of
Lovers, Liars, Conjurers and Thieves
,
A Choreographer's Cartography
, both poetry, and
The Algebra of Freedom
(a play). She edited
Incoming: Some Shetland Voices
. Raman was awarded a Leverhulme Artists Residency, a Robert Louis Stevenson award and is a nominee for the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
shetlandamenity.org/the-artist

Sai Murray
is a writer, spoken word artist, arts facilitator and graphic designer. His poetry collection
Ad-liberation
and the first part of his novel
Kill Myself Now
are published by Peepal Tree Press.

Chantal Oakes
is a multimedia artist, an MA graduate in Fine Art, a regular contributor to academic, community and fictional publications, and is currently writing her first historical novel.

Karen Onojaife
's work has been published in
Mslexia
,
Sable LitMag
and
Callaloo
. Her novel won second place and the Reader's Choice Award in the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2012. She is a VONA/Voices Fellow.

Koye Oyedeji
is a writer and critic. His work has appeared in the anthologies,
IC3
and
The Fire People
and featured in
Wasafiri
and
Brand
magazines. He is a contributing editor for
SABLE Litmag
.

Louisa Adjoa Parker
is of Ghanaian/English heritage. Her poetry collection,
Salt-sweat and Tears
, was published in 2007. Her work has appeared in
Wasafiri
,
The Forward Prize Collection
,
Envoi
and
Out of Bounds.

Desiree Reynolds
started her writing career as a freelance journalist for the
Jamaican Gleaner
in London. She is a broadcaster and creative writing workshop facilitator. Her debut novel is
Seduce
published by Peepal Tree Press.

Hana Riaz
is the director of The Body Narratives, an organisation committed to the healing, reclamation and resilience found in Women of Colour's stories and work. She believes in the transformatory power of love.

Akila Richards
is of German and Liberian heritage. Her poetry and fiction has been anthologised in
Red
, and
True Tales of Mixed Heritage Experience: The Map of Me,
and she co-edited
Ink On My Lips
by Waterloo Press.

Leone Ross
is the author of critically-acclaimed novels
All The Blood Is Red
and
Orange Laughter
. Her speculative fiction and erotica has been widely anthologised. Ross is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Roehampton University, London.
www.leoneross.com

Seni Seneviratne
is a writer and creative artist of English/Sri Lankan heritage, who is widely published. Her latest collection is
The Heart of It
(Peepal Tree Press, 2012)
www.seniseneviratne.com

Ayesha Siddiqi
is based in London. She writes short stories and plays. She is also a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at UCL.

Mahsuda Snaith
is a writer of short stories, novels and plays. She was selected as a finalist for the
Mslexia
Novel Competition 2013 and won the Bristol Short Story Prize and the SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2014.
www.mahsudasnaith.com
.