‘Pam Turnbull’s back, Dad.’
Frank’s hand became motionless and his thin kindly face took on a look of comical surprise. ‘Back! You’re not joking, lad, about such a thing? She couldn’t do that…not come back here after—’
‘I’m not joking.’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘No, but Aunt Lot has.’
‘Oh.’ Frank sighed and gave a laugh, and his knuckles now rubbed at his neck as if he were shaving. ‘Now you’re talking…Lottie.’
‘She’s back all right, Dad. There’s a swell car outside the shop, bigger than anything in this town, and in Powell’s they’re on about it already.’
Frank’s eyes flickered to the sky again, then he looked at his son, his expression a deeply troubled one. ‘What’s to be done? There’ll be hell to pay. Why has she come anyway? Look’—he took hold of Jack’s arm—‘he mustn’t see her, we’ve got to do something. Get him away for the day or something.’
‘That would be no use, he’d see her some time or other. She’s here to be seen, judging by that car.’
‘All that over again,’ Frank said. ‘My God, no.’ He looked about him in a bewildered fashion for a moment, then slowly he walked up the path and into the house, Jack following him.
The kitchen was as quiet as if it had been empty. Jinny sat on the edge of a chair and her hands in her lap picked at each other intermittently. Lottie sat gazing from her sister to her niece, and occasionally her eyes would rest on Lena, only to drop away from the hard stare that met them. Lena, just returned from having a hairdo, had been told of the return of Pam Turnbull, and was now, while filled with a devilish glee, awaiting confirmation of the rumour. Anything that would tend to make her brother-in-law uncomfortable and take him down a peg found favour in her eyes. He was an upstart was Larry Broadhurst, a prig—there was nothing bad enough that she wouldn’t like to see happen to him. Lena considered she had a way with men—a sly movement of her hips or a hitch to her bust could bring a man’s hand out to her. Why, even old dad Broadhurst walloped her affectionately across the buttocks, but Larry Broadhurst, even before his wedding fiasco, had rarely opened his mouth to her. And to listen to Jack and the others talking about him you’d think he was God Almighty. He was a stuck-up nowt, that’s all he was, and she hoped from the bottom of her heart that Pam Turnbull would stay and flaunt her money and her new man under his nose. She was no fool, was Pam Turnbull, and she had guts, too, to make the break at the last minute like she did. She had more sense than to tie herself to a pitman.
Lena now screwed herself back and forward on the chair and with her forefinger pressed the crinkled waves of her fair fuzzy hair into deeper grooves. She had been a fool; if she hadn’t been so frightened at the time she would never have got herself tied up with this family. So deeply did she become engrossed in her personal regrets that when Jack did come into the kitchen she took no notice of him.
He touched her hair, saying, ‘Come on, penny for them.’
‘Stop it!’ She turned on her husband. ‘Don’t be so rough, I’ve just had it done. Did you see Pam Turnbull?’
‘Listen to her.’ Jack laughed down on her. ‘She’s been asleep.’
‘Don’t lark on,’ said Jinny. ‘This is no time for it.’
‘I’m not,’ said Jack in a slightly hurt voice, ‘but if we all look like professional mourners when he comes in that’s not going to help him, is it? We’ve got to put a good face on it.’
‘Yes, Jack. You’re right, Jack,’ Lottie piped in. ‘We should all be happy and pleasant.’ She looked towards Lena, trying with all the power she knew to draw the surly young woman into agreeing with her. ‘Shouldn’t we, Lena?’
Lena, staring back at Lottie, thought, ‘One of these days I’ll hit her with a poker or something. I will, honest to God.’
She rose from the chair and went out without a word, and Lottie, blinking and bewildered, looked from one to another until Jinny’s voice rapped at her. ‘That cape and hat! I’ve told you, our Lot, time without number, I won’t have them lying about in the room. Take them off that machine and upstairs with them. I’ll put that cape in the fire, I will.’
As if Jinny’s threat was imminent, Lottie grabbed up the cape and hat, and exclaiming, ‘Oh, Jinny!’ went out. And Florence, pulling at her gloves once again, said, ‘Well, I’ll go if I can get through the streets for the gossip.’
Frank leaned forward and tapping his pipe on the hob, said quietly in the broad pitmatic which always irritated Florence, ‘As long as it isn’t about thoo, lass, thee’s nee need to worrit.’
Florence stared at her father’s back, her indignation swelling her slim figure; then muttering, ‘Oh, what’s the use!’ she flung out of the room, banging the door behind her, while Jinny, after flinching and compressing her lips, turned, and looking from her husband to her son, asked apprehensively, ‘Do you think he’ll make a shindy?’
Frank said nothing, but Jack answered, ‘You never can tell. He might close up and ignore them, or he might get into a blaze and then anything could happen. Or he mightn’t be able to stand it and go off.’
Jinny went to the table and attacked the cutlery, rearranged it with quite unnecessary energy. God forbid that should happen…she could stand anything but that Larry should go off.
Chapter Two: Larry
‘I hate this bloody shift, don’t you, Larry?’
Larry Broadhurst’s answer was a grunt as he wriggled on his belly over the slack to the next prop.
‘I don’t mind working Sunday, Monday, or any other damned day but Saturday.’
A man pulling on a length of cable a few feet away laughed. ‘United will change the day for you, you only have to ask them, Willie. And what have you to grumble about? You’ve got a ticket for the Cup, man!’
‘Aye,’ called another man further down the coalface. ‘What I want to know is how you got it, Willie. All those damn promises week after week, they’ll be given oot the day, they said. And like hell they were, not a smell did we get. But you got one.’
‘Aye, how did you bring it off, Willie?’ asked the first man. ‘There’d uv been no hanky-panky about tickets had it been Cardiff.’
‘Aw, Taffy…Cardiff! Aw, don’t make me laugh, man…Cardiff in the Cup Final! But I’ll tell you how I got me ticket.’ Willie Macintyre swung round on his belly and his tone became soft and confidential: ‘It was like this. I was tipped the wink that I had only to subscribe a thoosand punds a year towards home comforts for the team and a ticket’d be mine…well, I did.’
‘Aw, to hell with you!’ said the Welshman. ‘They’ll lose anyway. Manchester will put them in their place, you’ll see.’
‘Manchester!’ Willie spat into the dust before turning. ‘I’ve bet ten-to-one on Newcastle. I’ve got ten punds on.’
‘Thoo’s a bloody fool.’ This last came from an oldish man further along the face, and Willie shouted back good-naturedly, ‘All right, Jimmy, you won’t say that if it comes off, but I’ll stand you a bottle of the best if it does.’
‘I’m likely to go dry,’ said the man. ‘Manchester’ll wipe their backsides off the field. And I’ll bet you two-to-one that you’ll not get to Wembley with the rail strike coming off an’ all.’
‘For crying out loud!’ said Willie. ‘What a lot of supporters you are…you should go back to the Midlands, Jimmy. If I don’t get the train, I’ll take three days off and hitch-hike it.’
The man’s answer was lost in a shouted order from the mother gate. There was a movement of men, a laugh here and there, muttered curses, and the work of moving the coalface went on. This was the back shift, and on this particular face, which was only a small section of the pit, there were thirty-four men employed. It was the shift that prepared for the night shift. The conveyor belt had to be moved towards the new face and the props withdrawn from the old face and the roof dropped. Some of the men were cleaning the conveyor structure; others were spreading stone dust to allay the danger of the
coal dust; some hauled sections of the one-hundred-and-sixty-yard conveyor belt needed for the new face. Each man was absolutely conversant with his allotted task and well aware that a slight lapse or negligence on his part could jeopardise the lives, not only of his immediate companions, but of the thousand men hemmed in below millions of tons of rock, coal and slate. But apparently this did not weigh heavily upon them; in the absence of the deputy, risks were taken lightly, for as some of them said, ‘If we got the coal out by the book there’d be a lot more bloody talk of output going down.’ The prevalent idea among these men was that not one of them could be done without, which was almost true—especially of the tried and tested old hands. Where would they be without hewers? thought the hewer; where would the hewers be without the shot-firers? What was the good of coal if there were no fillers, and no-one to see to that all-important item—air; and where would they be if they couldn’t drop the roof?
Larry Broadhurst was no exception to this way of thinking, except in his case there had of late intruded a further thought which became louder with each shift: ‘One day somebody’ll make a slip and I’ll be flatter than the impression of the leaves on the coal.’ And his reaction to this was: ‘No bloody fear, it’s not going to happen to me. I’m getting out while I’m whole.’
Willie Macintyre’s voice suddenly rang out in song, ‘Take thou this rose.’ The deep baritone words shot to the roof and echoed along the face, and a laughing voice from the dim distance cried back, ‘Ta, thank you very much. Don’t it smell lovely!’
There was a gale of laughter, and the humorist shouted again, ‘Take your black bullet, Willie, and get oot o’ the team.’
Larry tried to close his mind to the chaffing and especially to Willie’s voice. It was odd, he thought, how you grew away from people. Willie appeared to him now a gormless individual, yet at one time they had been inseparable. And Willie would say they still were. From schooldays to their time of call-up, which they had accepted, they had been pals. It was then for the first time they were forced along different ways, Willie into the Navy and himself into the Army, so that from the time they had returned home things had been different. He did not think that Willie sensed the difference…too dim, he thought. He supposed it was the war that had first brought about the change in himself, but whatever it was, it was a struggle now for him to act as Willie expected. He had to curb himself from snapping a dozen times a shift, ‘For God’s sake, man, shut up and talk sense.’ He wondered if there had ever been days when they had laughed together, wrestled and boxed in the back garden with their Jack as referee, and it was hard to imagine himself, while still a lad, working like a maniac with tough and tested rescue men in order to relieve this same Willie trapped behind a heavy fall of rock. He would have worked until he dropped, as any man alive in a pit would do to save his fellows, but he would not have been spurred by the personal feeling that had permeated his being during those two days and nights. His heart was young and fresh then and he had been very fond of Willie; now he thought him gormless and daft, and this morning, dafter than ever, for his tongue had never ceased. There were only two things in Willie’s life: Newcastle United and bull terriers. And the liking for this particular breed of dog, Larry thought, was because Willie imagined it to have an affinity with the team.
‘Our Joe picked up eighteen quid last week, do you know that, Larry? And he’s working the night again…five bob an hour tonnage. It’s not bloody, fair, is it? It’s the likes of him that makes the country think we’re living like millionaires.’
‘It’s the luck of the kebble, and anyway you had your chance.’ Larry’s voice was terse and again it temporarily silenced Willie. As he wrenched at a prop without caution he muttered, ‘Damn and blast it!’ and he wasn’t alluding to the stubbornness of the prop. He knew why Willie wouldn’t go on the other shifts. He would work nowhere if he could help it but alongside him. But to compensate for his sharpness he made himself ask, ‘What did they turn out?’
‘Close on a hundred and thirty tons a shift.’ Willie came like a dog to his side.
‘Good,’ said Larry.
‘Aye, and they were on bonus: sixteen per cent on the top takings.’
‘Good,’ said Larry again.
‘There’s nowt good about it. It’s not fair, Larry, man.’
God in Heaven!—Larry wriggled forward—why must he keep talking of things as if they were new? Every man jack in the pits knew what the other fellow was getting, or near enough to it. Talk about ‘suffering fools gladly’. If he started on about the union now, he’d hit him. He wiped the running water and sweat from his face. It was this heat, humid, like a bath. The light from his lamp played on the roof. Grey, not black, here, and he found himself staring fixedly at it, and he had a sudden frightening desire to tear at it with his hands and rend it. His bowels seemed to be loose and shaking inside his stomach, he felt sick, as if he wanted to throw up. He steadied himself by bending his head towards the bottom again. Another dose like that and he’d run amok, like Tommy Scallen last year. The quicker he got out altogether, the better.
He turned to Willie and indicated that he wanted a chock, but Willie was heedless and laughing again. Back-pushing towards him with his foot Larry cried angrily, ‘Look what you’re up to! Throw that chock here. It’ll be a damn good job when the cup tie’s over, or you’ll go barmy over that damn thing yet.’
Willie made no retort to this rebuke, but the little Welshman exclaimed to no-one in particular, ‘Depity manager we have on the job, my God.’
Willie was quiet now and working in unusual silence, and Larry thought, ‘Hell, why must I go for him?’
If anyone had told him during the war that Willie Macintyre’s company would irritate him beyond words, he would have called him a liar, for one of the two people he had really missed during those years was Willie. But now things were changed. Life was changed, the whole world was changed, so how could he expect to be the same? Willie’s continued silence told on him as much as his chattering and brought him to a final decision. He couldn’t stand any more. He’d tell Bradley on Monday that he was going, and a week today would be his last shift. He’d get his money out of the bank, buy a rucksack and go—he could be in San Lorenzo in a week.
He rested on his elbow and stared ahead into the black, speck-spangled light. San Lorenzo. He clutched at the memory to bring him respite. Perhaps they had rebuilt the bridge on the road to Pontesieve. It must have been a beautiful bridge. He’d go to Florence; he would walk and walk. Slowly, very slowly. There’d be no need to rush and tear. He’d see the galleries and palaces again, the baptistry, and then his thoughts would come clear, and the words would flow, and his sentences would be polished, and when that time came he would go into Margate, and write and write and write. Margate—it had been a silly name to give to an Italian village. A fellow from Margate had called it that because it held nothing that his home town could have held, for not even the war and the German feet had really touched it. Theirs was only a surface impression, they had not ripped away the charm of untroubled centuries that lay in its soil. The village stayed as it had always been. Except that it was empty of youth; there had remained only the aged, and the very young. But with the aged there was quietude, and that’s what he wanted now, to be quiet. He could hope that no youth had returned to the village, he hated youth.
His mind was made up. Abruptly he went on to another prop and attacked it with controlled energy. Before him, he knew, lay a week of fighting and tears. His mother’s tears would be hard to bear but he was prepared for them. It was a pity he had not left four months ago, but that would have looked too much like running away. He suddenly picked up an iron lever that was not in his way and flung it behind him.
‘My God! Larry, look out. Do you want to brain me?’
‘I’m sorry, man. I didn’t think you were so near.’
They stared at each other in the dim light for a moment before returning to their work.
‘Larry.’
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br /> ‘Aye.’
Willie crawled up and lay alongside him again.
‘Larry.’
‘Aye—I’m here. You’re talkin’ as if I was at the other end of the swing bridge.’ There was an attempt now at jocularity in the tone, but Willie did not answer it in the same vein, but asked seriously, ‘Is owt the matter?’
‘No. What should be the matter?’
‘Nowt, only I thought…But if you’re all right.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘That’s good.’ There followed a pause, at the end of which Willie coughed and spat, then he added hesitantly, ‘By the way, Larry, when I’m on I’d like a word with you about summat. I’ve been wantin’ to get it off my chest for ages.’
Larry stopped his work on the prop and looked at him. His voice had been quiet and even possessed a worried note; it was as unlike Willie’s usual approach as could possibly be imagined, and he was forced to ask, ‘Something wrong? Have you got into a mess?’
‘No, no.’ Willie gave a sheepish grin. ‘I’m not such a fool as I look. I don’t put on more than I can afford.’ He drew his forearm over his face. ‘No, it’s not like that.’
‘Well, fire ahead, then.’
‘Not here, man,’ said Willie. ‘If you’ll wait for me up top.’
‘But I thought you were scrambling to get to the match. The buses and the roads will be packed.’
‘Joe Fowler’s giving me a lift on his motorbike. He’s collecting some bait from me Ma and meetin’ me outside. You don’t mind, do you? You weren’t thinkin’ about comin’ to the match?’
It was almost an appeal, and Larry knew he had only to show by the slightest sign that he did mind and Joe Fowler would go on his own.
The Menagerie Page 3