Breakdown, page 26
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.’
61
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.’
62
I lie awake. My mind filled again with the horror of that mine. Its deep black jungle like a living thing, filled with bloodsucking parasites, draining me of every happy thought.
In the darkness, I hear Nan’s voice.
‘The underworld is a terrible place, Melissa. It is the land of the living dead. Do not get trapped there. You are a child of the light. Queen of a thousand blossoms. Beware the darkness.’
And I remember the story.
‘When Eurydice disappeared, Orpheus travelled to the underworld to soften the heart of Hades. And Hades allowed Eurydice to return with Orpheus to the sunshine – on one condition: Orpheus should walk in front of her and not look back until they both reached the light. He set off with Eurydice following, but enthralled by her beauty he hesitated, he turned to look at her, and she vanished forever.
‘Do not cause others to look back, do not hold them by your beauty, Melissa, lest you remain forever in the underworld.’
And suddenly I remember my dream. When Tarquin came to me clothed in white cotton and took my hand and led me forth …
But if we leave here, where can we go?
Oh Nan, there are many kinds of underworlds. Many shades of darkness.
To be back safe with you, by the fireside, with your book of Greek myths. That enchanted world. To open it up at my favourite drawing: Gods sporting, maidens cavorting, over them honeyed skies of gold.
Oh Nan …
Where else is there in this God-forsaken land?
I don’t sleep well. And the morning brings worse.
‘Soldiers have come,’ says Bridey as she stirs a cup.
‘Already?’
‘Arrived on a special, early this morning.’
‘The General?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What’s a special?’
‘A small engine that can run the lines.’
I sit down, rest my head in my hands.
‘He must want you pretty bad to send soldiers the minute he don’t get a reply.’
With a chill I remember.
Aristaeus desired Eurydice – and she belonged to another – yet still he did not repent. Still he pursued her.
I shiver.
‘We’ll stick by you,’ says Bridey. ‘Me and Hannah already love that boy of yours and your young man’s good and strong.’
I don’t point out that he isn’t ‘my young man’.
‘None of us is scabs,’ joins in Hannah. ‘And we don’t like the army up here,’ she adds in a whisper. ‘They don’t pay us for the coal on time. They send us rotten vegetables and they stop us from trading fairly.’
She was beautiful, Melissa. But not more beautiful than you. And Aristaeus pursued her to her death. Caused her to dwell forever in the underworld.
She goes out to the standpipe in the back yard, starts pumping water up to the header tank.
‘It’s you he wants,’ says Bridey. She poles flat cakes with a long handled spatula into the little side oven by the range.
‘I know.’
‘Beauty is a blessing and a curse,’ she says.
‘A blessing?’
‘Look at the way your young man worships you,’ she says.
I raise my head. Tarquin worships me?
‘Even a blind man could spot it.’
I raise my fingers to my face, touch the curve of my cheek, the tip of my lips.
‘Half the men in this community already swooning.’
‘Not really?’
‘Why d’you think our Albert, the headman, took you in, give you shares without even a condition? Why d’you think he didn’t turn you straight over when that communication came?’
I shake my head. ‘He’d already signed us?’ I say.
‘It’s on account of the others. Albert’s only loyalty is to the mine. But a face like yours gives them something to dream about, when they’re down there in the dark at the coalface. He knows that. He’s a man too. Seeing you, touching your hand, maybe breeding with you. That’s all. Even he dreams of it. Dreams are food for the soul, as keeps you going, through them dark hours. We need dreams up here. We got to keep going. We’ve got a good thing – that mine has saved our lives, but it’d suck the heart out of you.’
Lenny bounces in. He runs straight up to Bridey and throws his arms around her waist. He buries his face in her apron.
‘You,’ he says, ‘smell nice.’
She puts her arms around him. Raises her hand to her eyes. Brushes them.
‘If anybody scabs, by Christ the Lord, I’ll kill them.’
63
I stand in the kitchen. Soldiers. They’ll search for us.
Leave no stone unturned.
‘Tarquin?’ I ask.
‘Don’t worry. There was a meeting in the night. Your young man was brought to reason. He wouldn’t let us take you both to stay in the pits, but he’ll be well hidden down there himself by now,’ says Bridey. ‘Take more than an army of soldiers to search them mines. And they’re lazy buggers them soldiers. So it’s you we got to worry about now.’
‘They’ll do a house to house search,’ says Hannah. ‘Bound to.’
‘Before they check the mines.’
The two women step into the yard, seem to be arguing. Lenny sits at the kitchen table. He’s got two fried eggs in front of him. He’s looking at them, like he’s planning every mouthful.
It starts to rain. Bridey and Hannah take shelter by the privy, carry on arguing. The rain drives against the windows, batters the roof. I pace around.
‘If they find us, Missa, how will they know it’s us?’ asks Lenny.
‘They know what I look like.’
‘Do they know what I look like?’
I think about it. They probably won’t. They won’t really know what Tarquin looks like either. His face was all swollen at the farm. And Lenny had dreadlocks then. He’s had his hair combed and washed and cut now. I look over at him: curls, sweet little face. They might not even be soldiers from the farm.
They’ll know it’s him because of me.
They’re not gonna forget my face.
Perhaps I should turn myself in?
Bridey comes back in, wipes her hands, tucks a strand of grey behind her ear. ‘When the soldiers come, you’re to go out back and hide in the geese coop,’ she says. ‘I said it wasn’t the right place to hide you and my boy, but it’s the safest.’
Lenny cheers up. ‘It’s a good place, missus,’ he says. ‘We was pretending we was hens before. Now we can do ducks.’
‘Geese,’ I say.
He decides at that point to cut off the white of the eggs and fork the yolk into his mouth in one go.
‘You got to make sure them geese don’t squawk, that’s all,’ says Bridey. ‘Talk to them. Croon to them. Geese like that. If they honk and squawk, the soldiers are going to look there. If they don’t, the soldiers’re not going to know anybody’s inside. Geese are nasty creatures if you stir them up. Them soldiers won’t want to do that.’
‘Our geese ain’t scabs, though,’ calls out Hannah. ‘They love us and they hates soldiers.’
‘We can read them geese my book,’ says Lenny. ‘You can tell them a story about how they’re going to lay ten eggs each like them hens do, Missa.’
I smile at him. I try to harness that other kind of courage. ‘Better go and practise then,’ I say. ‘So they get to know us.’
Lenny needs no more encouragement. He finishes his breakfast, gets his book. We go down to the coop.
‘Watch out for their beaks,’ warns Bridey. ‘They can give you a nasty peck.’
At first they make a terrible honking. Bridey comes out twice to check. She says, ‘Best you come in and hide under the beds or someplace. This ain’t working.’
But I don’t think hiding under the beds will work either, so I set about talking properly to the geese. Soon they calm down. They like Lenny’s cooing and they like eye contact. Soon Lenny’s petting them and tickling their feathers. I’m tolerated too. One actually lays her head on my lap. I’m just about to take a short break, stretch my legs, when there’s a banging on the door.
Bridey runs out, skirts flapping. ‘They’ve come,’ she hisses. ‘They’ve searched all the houses up to us. Stay quiet.’
My heart hammers. I put my arm round Lenny. ‘Keep cooing to the geese,’ I whisper.
Lenny lets out little soft, cooing, goosey noises. The geese coo too, adding just the odd satisfied cackle.
I hear the soldiers. Steel-capped boots. Loud voices. ‘Stand aside. What’s this?’ Furniture being dragged. A metal bucket clanks.
Five minutes? Have they gone? I’m trembling all over. They’re in the yard. ‘What’s in there?’ Voice of a man.
