After the Storm (35 page)

He’d been with his back to the next table with Davy arranging the meeting for tonight since it was no good leaving it to the union rep; he was a flaccid little tyke who kept out of everyone’s way. Even if there was an accident you had to chase round after the little bleeder to make sure he got to the hospital to deal with the owners’ offer of compensation, if there was one.

Tom waited by the cage door, his head down. He didn’t want to talk, he wanted to think. But it wouldn’t do any good, he had said to Davy about the meeting. There could be no strike; they had no clout with the unemployment and low union funds. But at least the men could talk and that was better than nothing, Davy had argued.

They’d heard the men behind them then in the snug, saying that they were going to get Don. Bad as a blackleg, one of them had said. The sort of bloody bugger that’d do our job when we were out on strike. We’ll get him, we’ll beat his bloody head in for leeching the blood out of his own people with his bloody rates. Tom had not been surprised; he had been expecting something of the sort. The cage was up now and it was no easier today than when he had started to go down two years ago. It was still the same iron cage lined with wooden planks blackened by inches of dust that stank raw and filthy even before you plunged down into the black heart of the pit.

Don was forgotten, Davy too, as he crushed up against the next man, his bait-tin digging into his hip. He clenched his nostrils against the smell of coal and looked away from the last sight of the sky to the back of the man in front and waited, his mouth dry with a fear he could never conquer, a hate he could never master.

Then down they went, screaming through pitch-black cold rushing air and his legs felt as though they would never catch up with the base of the cage but stay forever two inches above it as it plummeted down the shaft. The cold made his skin crawl and always he wondered if they would not slow but instead hurl
against the shaft end in a tangle of wreckage and shattered bodies but, at last, there was a slowing, a stopping and his legs felt firm again as though they were at last bearing the weight of his body.

Dimly lit by lights every few yards, the main seam throbbed with men, the smell of coal, the rumble of the trams as they were pushed back with coal from the headings to be taken to the surface. There was the hammering of the picks as they heaved and tore at the face. In each tunnel, in each hole, miners attacked the face.

Millions of tons of coal pressed close on top of the workings and Tom removed his jacket in the heat. Their boots clumped and they edged sideways where the heading narrowed, careful always of the tram-lines and their cargo which could take off a foot. The men pushing the trams did not look up, their heads were down into their shoulders, their bodies streaked in black sweat. In the narrow entrance to their heading, away from the lights, they felt their way along, their lamps scything through the darkness, cutting a beam in which the black dust danced.

Tom was bent double now as the seam reduced in size and then he crawled, with Frank, Davy’s marrer, who had been put with him today, going on ahead, until they reached the face.

Frank was quick with his pick, hammering with short sharp blows while Tom heaved the broken lumps. They worked in silence changing jobs to ease the tearing muscles of shoulders, back and stomach, lying down and throwing the pick-head deep into the coal and, when straining thighs could take no more, they squatted. And however much coal was moved, more was always there, waiting.

It was there above him too, Tom knew. Hanging there with its miles of height and weight. It grew grass on the top and grazed sheep but hung waiting over the ants of men which picked and irritated its great bulk here below. It had chosen not to fall yet, not on him but he was reminded each day that it was only waiting as a fine coal-dust spewed down all the time and lay in every crease of skin, every pore; filling nostrils, mouth and lungs. Oh yes, Tom ground out, as he heaved at his pick and pushed back the coal to Frank, kicking the slag to the sides as he worked, you remind me you’re there, you bugger. Even when I eat me bait, when I drink me tea, you’re there crunching in me teeth, reddening me eyes, falling in me cuts.

He never counted the hours, just lay, crawled, squatted and picked at the coal, grabbing a sip of tea now and then; smelling the coal, the excrement, hearing the rats and he longed for the end of the shift, longed for the end of fear and screaming muscles. He tore his shoulder as they edged and crawled back towards the main seam when they had no more strength and it was, thank God, the end of the shift. He felt the tear but could not see the blood; it ran down his back and dripped on to the ground as black as the sweat which joined it.

His legs always shook as they walked down the main heading which was brick-arched and busy. But there was soon to be air, air and light and the coolness of a breeze. The clean, clean air; until tomorrow of course. He breathed and coughed, breathed and coughed as he slumped towards home, towards the water which would sluice him clean; his body and his mind.

May had set the buckets out in the wash-house as Tom had done for Davy and Uncle Henry, and Frank and Edward before they had gone to the Midlands and the factories.

Inside the wash-house, he could feel the stiffness of his clothes as he dropped them on to the floor. He leant against the inside of the door, the trembling still in his limbs, his arms too tired to raise the buckets. Let me be for a minute, he moaned to himself. Just let me be, I’m so bloody tired, so bloody scared. He stood naked, his head thrust back on the door and felt the roughness of the wood against his shoulders and buttocks. He fingered the raised untreated grain, traced it up and down and slowly the panic subsided, slowly the steam from the buckets looked inviting, looked normal. He took the first and poured it over his head, his body; gasping as it covered his face and then on down his chest and back. He lathered the soap and, still standing, ran it over his face, the whole of his body, eager now to remove the taint of the coal. Another bucket, another soap and then another so that the water slopped over his feet before running across the floor into the gutter which ran to a drain in the corner.

He scrubbed until his flesh felt raw and at last the coal was nearly gone. He could see his own colour, his own flesh and now he stepped into the bathtub, easing himself down into and under the water, his hair floating, his muscles easing into looseness.

‘I’m ready, May,’ he called and waited as she came from the
kitchen. Much thinner now she was, but still a smile, though with Davy at Lutters it didn’t reach her eyes. Her scrubbing was hard across the back and shoulders, as it had to be, and the knots between his shoulders eased and he saw the blackness float past his hips and cover the water right up to the edge of the bath.

‘There you are, bonny lad. A bit of a soak and then a cup of tea.’

She shook her wet hands at him and he dodged and ducked and laughed. He was always surprised when he laughed because he felt sure that just one more day in the pits would dry all the joy into a black dust.

The water still had some warmth and he ducked himself down for one more minute then he would sluice himself and climb into the clothes that May had brought and put on the chair which no one would sit on because it was rotten.

He wondered what it would be like to have Grace scrub his back, her plump soft arms holding one shoulder so that she could have purchase with the brush and the thought of her hand on his body made him flush with heat. They had kissed of course and he had felt the weight of her full breasts in his hands but always through clothes. He had never felt her flesh, her blue-veined flesh, never run his finger from her throat to her nipple and kissed that luscious softness. He dreamt of it more and more because soon he would go to College in Newcastle and then on down to London for three years. Would she come too?

He stepped out of the bath and held his breath as he poured the last bucket over himself. It would be cold by now and perhaps it was a good thing, he thought grinning.

And then he stopped. Oh God, he had to go to Don and his face set and he was glad his body had thickened with muscle.

He walked from May’s, through Beckworth Alley, up past the school and down the alley where Annie had stood when she had come to say goodbye. His boots were noisy in the streets and alleys where children hung about at the back of yards, too thin and tired to play, some just squatting as they copied their fathers, doing nothing. Men were on street corners, propped up against lampposts and Tom walked past quickly, nodding as they said they’d see him tonight at the meeting. He kept his eyes
lowered, ashamed of their redness which showed he’d had a day’s work and they hadn’t.

It made him angry and his jaw was clenched when he came through Don’s backyard. He moved past the privy and into the kitchen. Don would be there doing his books; he was always there in the afternoon while Albert took over the shop. People slipped in the backyard; men with their caps drawn low over their heads, women with their shawls across their faces, barely able to repay the interest let alone the loan.

He realised that he hadn’t locked the gate and he wanted no interruption for what he had to do this afternoon so he turned as Don looked up, turned without a word and walked back sliding the lock across and entering the kitchen again.

Don had half risen from his chair. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? I’ve a business to run, Tom.’

He was resting on his hands which had gone white where the wrists had creased with his weight but his face was tanned by the sun and Tom felt a further spurt of anger that his own had the pallor of a pitman. He stood there facing Don, his cap folded in his hand, then took a chair from the hearth and set it opposite. The kitchen was dirty; there were dishes piled up in the sink and green slime where the tap had dripped. He sat down. Albert had not allowed Annie to have visitors so this was all new to him. There was a low fire in the grate and a kettle was on the hob but not boiling yet, a broom was propped against the wall but the floor was dirty with bits of paper screwed up and scattered around.

Don was watching him. He had a wooden box and a ledger written up in pencil on the table. His hair was too long and falling in his eyes, his mouth was pinched and he turned a pencil round and round between his two hands.

‘Well, what d’you want? A bit short, are you?’ Don laughed.

Tom felt the heat rising in him, the heat of an anger which was years old.

‘No, I’m not, bonny lad, but you’re about to be.’

Don looked at him and put the pencil down. ‘What d’you mean by that?’ His face was wary.

Tom told him then about the conversation he had heard in the pub. Explained that the men were in an angry mood, that the means test was pinching and they wanted to get back at
someone and that Don would be that person and it looked as though it would be soon.

Don flicked a pencil across the table and lounged back in his chair.

‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ he sneered. ‘If they were after anyone, they’d be after Albert.’

But Tom shook his head. ‘Nay lad, it’s you they want. You grew up with them, remember. You’re young and greedy and that’s what they don’t like.’

His words had become hard; he realised that he wasn’t afraid of Don any more. He had always been, he knew suddenly, and had let Annie do the fighting, but not any more. She was worried about Don and so was he.

Don said nothing, just tapped the table and then rose and propped himself up against the fender.

‘You’re asking me to drop the interest rate, is that it?’

Tom nodded. ‘If you drop by quite a bit, Don, word would get round by the end of the day and you’d be safe. I could spread it about at the meeting tonight too, if you like.’

Don was pacing in front of the fire now. ‘Well, I don’t like. I don’t believe a word of it,’ he said. ‘I think you’re making every bloody bit up. You just can’t stand me getting on, that’s it, isn’t it? Annie’s been rabbiting on as well and I reckon you’re both jealous because I’m going up you see. You’ve come to put the dampers on; that’s what Albert’s been saying and I reckon he’s right.’

Tom leant forward. ‘For God’s sake, man. I’ve come to warn you. I’d get a good belting if anyone knew. I don’t want to see you getting hurt, that’s all. I want to see you doing the right thing by everyone and I want to see you getting on, of course I do, but not like this.’

Don moved to the door, holding it open.

‘I told you, I don’t believe you so you can get out and leave me to get on with my life and you get on with yours and your bloody stupid politics. Just stop siding against me, the pair of you. It’s like Albert says, you both hate me.’

Tom rose, his cap was still in his hand and he stuffed it in his pocket. Don looked tired he saw, tanned but tired.

‘Don’t be bloody stupid, no one hates you and I’m not going Don, not until you bring your rates down. I’m not having you beaten up by anyone but me and I’ll do it if you don’t give in
any other way. That way you’ll still have your head on your shoulders, not a bloody smashed eggshell to hold in your hands.’ He moved towards Don now. ‘For God’s sake,’ he ground out, ‘don’t be so stubborn. Annie’s right worried about you, you know she is.’

Don was still holding the door. ‘The pair of you can sod off together. You always were together weren’t you, always. You on the inside, me out there somewhere.’ He flung his hand wide. ‘Now bugger off home, Tom.’

He moved out into the yard, towards the gate. The shadows were thick today in the light of the sun and Tom took off his jacket and flung it on the ground.

‘Don,’ he said softly. ‘We care about you. We don’t want you to be hurt. For God’s sake, you’re family, man.’

Don turned, his face red and hands bunched. ‘You don’t care, you and she don’t care. Thick as thieves you’ve always been. Haven’t wanted me around.’

Tom walked towards him. ‘That’s not true.’

He searched in his mind, looked back at the years which had gone. ‘That’s not true, man. You were older, had your own friends; you had Georgie and then you went to Yorkshire and, by the time you came back, there was no home left. We were all on our own. Think about it, man. We both care for you. I keep telling you, that’s why I’m here.’ He stopped and drew a deep breath. ‘But you’re not that easy to love, Don. You shrug us off. You’re a bit like Albert, you know. He’s made you like this. He did his best to get back at Archie through hurting Annie and now it’s you. You’re going to get hurt now. For God’s sake, I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t me brother and I cared.’