‘Aye, and that’ll be bad for orders.’
‘The community is divided enough as it is. I’ve been responsible for nothing but the destruction of our new town.’
‘Josiah!’ Mary bangs down the teapot for emphasis, and follows it with ringing teacups. ‘You have not failed. You have nearly won.’
‘The men are losing faith. I should not have tried so soon. We were not ready.’
‘Let them wait two more weeks. No more. I know. In my bones I know it, Josiah. The pressure of winter coal orders will win our cause. You know it too. The coal creeps out of Coalbrookdale in spoonfuls. I could hew faster than those fumble-fingered recruits. The Company will give way, I know it!’
Josiah sips on tea, weak and sugarless, as Mary has served it for a fortnight, in order to provide tonight’s meeting with a proper supper. There are no scones or cake to comfort his growling depression.
‘The committee cannot conduct a strike without the men, Mother,’ he says. But something about his wife’s fierceness makes him smile.
Mary crashes into a chair beside him, takes his seamed worker’s hands in hers, kneading them like dough. Strength pours out of her.
‘My dear.’ She hasn’t used an endearment in months. ‘My dear, I believe you could conduct a strike on your own. More than that. Look at that useless what’s-his-name from Wellington. If that’s the workers’ hope, let us despair right now.’
Josiah tries to keep a stern demeanour. ‘In Wellington he has a fine reputation for results …’
‘He could not persuade a fly to land on sugar! All the way down here he comes, rides up the Incline like Moses to the promised land, and then orates as if he’s telling the women’s knitting circle a new recipe!’
Josiah laughs out loud. ‘Well, I must admit he was a bit daft.’
‘Daft! Josiah, what good can he be doing up north? You could drive him into the ground in three sentences. You can nail an audience: have them roaring for blood or weeping for injustice, listening for an hour, forgetting to re-light their pipes. You, Josiah, should be up in Wellington arguing the workers’ rights, not that wad of wet wool, gorging himself right now on Hanrattys’ best beef!’
‘I am a miner, not a politician, my dear, and not even a miner these last months.’
‘Then miners must be politicians. You are needed in Parliament, Josiah!’
Mary Scobie’s will hammers behind her words. The house vibrates with it. Young Brennan, woken by the sheer force of the conversation, stands unobserved in the doorway, sleepy in his nightshirt, his mother’s words ringing like bells in his ears. He sees his father stand, lift his mother by her shoulders, and hold her at arm’s length. His father seems puzzled by her, as if she is a strange new creature, observed for the first time. But the boy also notices that his father is rapt, hypnotised almost, taking into himself, through his connected arms, a new source of power.
The atmosphere in the kitchen is somehow disturbing, too rich; it excludes him. Brennan turns and pads back to the bedroom where he tucks in with his already stacked brothers.
He thinks of Rose, who has been more herself again these last weeks, readier to talk and play, but who came to school today with a flaming and swollen ear and a bruise all down her neck.
Skirmish in a Hell-hole
HENRY STRINGER, SUPERVISING teacher at Denniston School, was on the side of the strikers. After school closed he would walk with the miners’ children back up to Burnett’s Face, partly as a bodyguard, for feelings were running high, but mostly so he could sit in on meetings and expound his theories about worker solidarity, stabbing bony fingers in the air or pacing restlessly in rooms that were always too small for him. At eighteen he was over six feet tall. His bony limbs jerked as if he were a wooden marionette; his words spluttered and gurgled, half the meaning lost in his eagerness to get them out.
The miners treated this unco-ordinated bean-pole with indulgence — as an endearing but hopelessly idealistic mascot. Their children, on the other hand, had learned to love and revere him. He was on their side, not only in the matter of the strike, but in the matter of children versus adults. He talked to them as if they were equals. He spoke of the world beyond Denniston as if it were a marvellous treasure chest waiting for Denniston children to unlock. He laughed and threw his arms about and ran over the plateau with high, flailing leaps as if he were a child still. Henry Stringer and the six miners’ children careering home along the silent, rusting skipway was a sight few could keep a straight face over.
Brennan adored this teacher who would calmly haul off attacking children in the playground; who sprawled in Brennan’s home, listening to him play the cornet, waving his arms in time, singing along in a tuneless drone; who took seriously Brennan’s plan to be a builder of magnificent railway bridges and never to go underground into a dark and terrifying mine.
Mary Scobie would watch in amazement as her shy youngest son chatted and laughed with this gawky, bristle-headed young teacher. But she smiled, too, thinking of the hot, sweet, powdered-milk drink he served the children each day, a drink that he lovingly heated on the classroom pot-belly stove, then passed around in four tin mugs, exhorting reluctant sippers to drink deep, making them all laugh with stories of how tall they would grow and how strongly their muscles would develop. That hot milk, often accompanied by a handful of bread to dip into it, held the balance between health and slow starvation for the children, whose parents grew more and more gaunt as the months passed.
In the early days of the strike, before Mrs C. Rasmussen returned to train the infants, Henry Stringer took especial care of Rose of Tralee. That alone ensured Brennan’s adoration. Somehow Mr Stringer always looked the other way when Rose fell asleep at her desk. Bigger boys who laughed at Rose’s livid scar were themselves ridiculed mercilessly by Mr Stringer. A cardigan and a woollen hat, old but clean, were quietly popped into her shoe-bag.
‘Well, Rose of Tralee!’ Mr Stringer would shout, spittle showering the front row. ‘I will have to put you out here to be teacher, for you can figure faster than me! Is she not amazing, children?’
And Rose’s poor bruised face would glow with pride.
Michael Hanratty and Brennan were in opposite camps for the strike months. Michael was a junior member of the town gang that tormented the Burnett’s Face gang whenever they dared. The nuggety little miners’ children were no pushover, but their numbers kept dwindling as strikers left Denniston to seek temporary work. They became adept at running for cover or forming a fierce knot, back to back, as the town gang pelted them with stones or ambushed them with wild shrieks.
The one point of contact for the two boys was Rose of Tralee. They were rivals for her love but partners in her protection. Once, the worried boys went together to Mr Stringer. He listened frowning, his jerking arms and legs still for once.
‘Well, boys,’ he said, ‘you have done well to show your care. But there is little I can do when it is her own father beats her.’
‘He’s only a stepfather,’ said Michael, kicking at the leg of a desk.
‘It’s not fair if she hasn’t done anything wrong,’ said Brennan, his eyes fierce under black brows and shaggy hair.
Henry Stringer smiled at the indignant pair. ‘Well, my two young Galahads, I cannot interfere, but perhaps a word to the mother …’
‘That won’t do any good.’ Both boys were adamant on this point. They left the classroom disillusioned.
MICHAEL and Brennan never found out that their teacher did, in the end, against all wisdom, make an effort on Rose’s behalf.
That particular evening Henry Stringer downed a drink or two at Hanrattys’ bar — a relatively unusual experience for the young man, and one that left him even more unco-ordinated than ever. He plunged out into a stormy night, heading for Minifie’s saloon bar over at the Bins.
Inside he stops, blinking like an owl at the noisy shouts, the thick pipe smoke, the smell of stale ale and sly grog. But this young man, who has been headlong and stu
bborn all his short life, falters only a minute. Shaking the rain off his back like a wet dog, earning curses from those nearby, he crashes his way through the dark and crowded room until he locates the bar — a rough-sawn plank laid between two wooden barrels. Red Minifie, a red-eyed, gap-toothed apparition from hell, glowers behind the bar waiting for his order.
Henry Stringer clears his throat.
‘I’m looking for Mr B. Genesis.’
‘By God, you’ll have to do better than that if I’m to hear a word!’ roars Red. ‘Listen to the lad: he has a pretty woman in his throat!’
Leaning forward across the bar, Red Minifie grabs a handful of Henry’s coat, draws him close and places a wet and stinking kiss full on his lips. Henry Stringer jerks back as if shot, trips over a table behind and crashes to the floor. Everyone guffaws. Henry, scarlet with fright and embarrassment, jumps to his feet, hits his head a resounding crack on a low beam, and down he goes again, poor lad, with not a soul offering a hand of friendship.
This time he comes up mad as a meat-axe, arms flailing, voice a high-pitched scream. ‘Mr Genesis! Is Mr Genesis here?’
The blacksmith, weaving drunk, pushes through the crowd. For a moment Henry’s stout heart fails him. Scarred and ugly, thick as a tree trunk, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows despite the cold, Billy Genesis is looking for a fight. He waits, fists on hips, face two inches away from Henry’s. A soft growl rumbles in the room. Men are preparing for entertainment.
‘Well,’ says Henry, offering a hand, ‘I am Mr Henry Stringer, the school teacher.’
Billy ignores the hand.
‘I have some concern about your step-daughter, Rose.’
Henry speaks quietly, but when Rose is mentioned, suddenly, eerily, all sounds ebb away. The whole dark saloon-full listens.
Billy Genesis lowers his head. He is about to charge.
‘I do not wish to intrude on domestic matters,’ Henry is babbling now and backing away as he speaks, ‘but Rose is a clever girl. I mean … The bruising … I cannot help observing that her school-work suffers. Her physical condition …’
Billy lashes out with one meaty arm. The drinkers murmur at the sound of flesh splitting.
‘Then damn well stop observing!’ screams Billy, laying in the boot. ‘Keep your eyes in your books and off my Rose!’ He swats Henry back down as he attempts to rise.
‘“Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire!”’ shouts Billy Genesis, raining down blows, until others haul him off and bundle him outside to cool off in the rain.
Someone pulls the shaken and bleeding Henry Stringer to his feet. Another dusts off his cap and replaces it carefully on his head. There is respect in the gesture. No one will look him in the eye. Henry opens his mouth to ask a question, then closes it again. The sense of shame in the room, the shuffling silence, defeat him. Red Minifie opens the back door and stands by it. Henry limps through, keeping his distance.
After that night, Henry Stringer never touched liquor of any sort. Rose’s plight continued to haunt him, but what could he do?
Moving On
ROSE SHUTS HER eyes tightly to remember, then opens them quickly before she falls off the chair. Two pounds of flour: that is eight cups. She lowers the cupful carefully into the big bread bowl so the flour doesn’t fluff out and mess up Mrs C. Rasmussen’s clean kitchen. Little moths and worms struggle in the grey flour. She pinches them up and drops them one by one into the cracked mug Mrs Rasmussen has put there for them. Now two dessertspoons of yeast. They look like brains frothing on top of the warm water.
Mrs Rasmussen comes in the back door. A slab of misty cold air comes with her. She shakes out her coat and scarf and hangs them to steam on the rack over the coal range. Her cheeks are rosy but her fingers, when she pulls her gloves from them, are white. She claps them together and laughs at their whiteness, and stamps her feet on the wooden floor.
‘Oho!’ she says, her eyes round with surprise. ‘I am only just in time with the salt. What a busy little cook.’
The paper bag with the salt is wet so Mrs Rasmussen brings the wooden box from its place by the range and scoops the soggy white stuff into it. Rose takes two teaspoons before it goes back to dry along with the washing and the coat.
All the time little songs are running in her head, about the warm steamy kitchen and the bread and Mrs Rasmussen’s big soft stomach. Her mouth can’t stop smiling.
‘Ah, Rosie,’ says Mrs Rasmussen, bending to pick out a stray worm. ‘The prices things are these days you’d wonder how the miners can afford to eat at all. Where will it all end?’
‘Is Uncle Con the Brake richer than the miners?’
Mrs Rasmussen laughs in her golden-syrupy way. ‘No one on the Hill is rich, Rose, and if the strike continues much longer not a single body, not even your Uncle Con, will have the price of a loaf of bread.’
Rose thinks about being rich, and her treasure hidden in Conrad the Sixth’s tomb. When Mrs Rasmussen goes into the bedroom to change she looks at the big black purse on the stool by the door. Rose wants to open it. The purse is like a secret cave calling her, but also she doesn’t want to go. Then her feet jump down anyway so she has to. Her fingers leave floury marks on the leather and she wipes them with her sleeve. Inside is a little purse with two sixpences, some pennies, three shillings and a florin. She takes a sixpence and a penny, closes the purse, snap! and runs back to her stool. When Mrs Rasmussen comes back Rose is rolling the dough around in the bowl, punching it and slapping, and singing a song about loaves of crusty dusty bread.
Mrs Rasmussen looks at her purse. There is still a floury spot on it. She looks at Rose but she doesn’t say anything, or open her purse.
Rose feels hot. She smiles at Mrs Rasmussen and doesn’t say anything either. She punches the silly dough hard. Her singing stops.
After a while they hear shouts outside. Through the window they can see two men fighting, rolling on the ground and punching. One has blood on his face. Mrs Rasmussen growls like an angry dog. She picks up the bucket of cold grey water by the back door, stamps out onto the porch and flings an icy sheet over the fighters. The watchers cheer, but not as if they care, and walk away. The two men shake themselves and stare with mean eyes at Mrs Rasmussen, but she stands there on the freezing porch, staring right back, until they walk away, one towards the men’s quarters and one up the track towards Burnett’s Face.
Mrs Rasmussen slams the door and sits down hard in her rocking chair.
‘What are we coming to, Rose?’ she says. ‘Hatred is an ugly thing.’
‘Do you hate those men to throw water on them?’
Mrs Rasmussen laughs. ‘No, sweetheart, the hatred is theirs, between Camp and miner. Oh, it’s a dangerous thing, Rose, like a spark in dry brush, and at present all Denniston is like dry brush, waiting for the spark to ignite it.’
‘How can a fire catch in this misty winter?’
‘Rose, Rose, I am talking metaphorically. If that miner from Burnett’s Face had badly wounded the new recruit or vice-versa we would have war up here in a few short hours, and many dead or damaged. It is the same old story the world around.’
‘I don’t know that same old story — you never told me.’
Mrs Rasmussen smiles. ‘Come and sit here by the fire. You must learn, little one, the difference between truth and lies, between give and take.’ Rose squirms and looks away, but Bella continues. ‘That is a lesson for you. But the same old story I talk about is that violence is evil and breeds more violence and ruins good men’s lives. Take your Uncle Con the Brake, who was a great and important man in his own country. One day a single word from a friend sent him into a rage. From that sudden rage came one thoughtless blow of his fist that ended the man’s life, who was his friend, and ruined his own. My Conrad had to run far away and can never, never go back to his home country, where he should be a hero and leader.’
‘Why is his life ruined if he has the best house on the Camp and the best wife to
o?’
Mrs Rasmussen smiles but her face is sad. She hugs Rose. ‘You are too sharp for your own good, my girl. But violence is still wrong. And so is stealing.’ Then she adds with a small sigh, ‘And I am not sure that Con thinks he has the best wife any more.’
That night Rose’s mother puts hot sausage stew on the table, with potatoes and carrots, and a cup of sweet cocoa afterwards. Rose knows it is not her own birthday, and Billy Genesis has not come in for his dinner yet, so it can’t be his. Rose asks if it is her mother’s birthday.
‘You are too sharp for your own good.’
Rose doesn’t feel sharp but everyone says it. ‘Why are we having a party, then?’ she says.
Her mother throws her hands in the air. ‘Questions, questions! Today I feel like a party is all. Eat and enjoy while you can.’
Rose eats while she can.
‘And be ready to move.’
Rose stops in the middle of a mouthful. Her mother’s eyes are fierce and black.
‘With no fuss,’ she says, ‘and no outcry about fancy friends.’
While Rose tries to swallow, her mother adds, ‘That madman Billy Genesis will not be coming.’
Her mother beats with a spoon on the table — a dancing rhythm.
‘La la diddy la la la,’ she sings. She tosses her wild hair and stamps her feet. Rose backs away from the table. Her mother has gone mad.
‘La la diddy diddy,’ sings her mother. ‘Oh Rosie, Rosie, we have won the war, just see if we haven’t!’ She hugs and squeezes Rose. Her hands are hungry and fierce — almost as bad as Billy’s.
‘I don’t want to go far away,’ whispers Rose. ‘Just away from Billy Genesis.’
‘Well then, be happy that you have half your wish!’ sings her mother. She catches Rose’s hands and tries to make her dance too. ‘I also will have my wish, Rosie, and you, you, my Rose, are my little pot of gold who makes all come true!’ She plants a smacking kiss full on Rose’s mouth. ‘Down down dilly down the Incline, off off and away,’ she sings, ‘with a sailor by my side, yo ho, with a bonny man by my side.’
The Denniston Rose Page 26