The Most Precious Thing

by Bradshaw, Rita

  David made a sound deep in his throat but there was still no reaction from Sandy, not until Walter gasped, ‘I’m sorry, Sandy. Man, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  The stones shifted again, and then Sandy said, ‘She was my daughter but she was your wife, lad, an’ I won’t pretend I hadn’t heard whispers she was being a mite free an’ easy, but then half the flamin’ womenfolk are. It’s the stockings an’ all, it’s turnin’ their heads. But I didn’t know she was actually . . . Look, are you sure she’s not just unconscious or somethin’?’

  There was a plea in the words, but Walter couldn’t respond to it with anything except the truth. ‘She’s dead, Sandy.’

  ‘Oh, man, you fool.’ David’s voice was thick. ‘You’ll go down the line for this.’

  ‘There’s only one place I’m going, little brother, and I reckon it won’t be long.’ Walter coughed again, the gurgle more pronounced, and as he tried desperately to get his breath, David’s arms still tight round him, Sandy spoke.

  ‘You know we’ve never got on, Renee an’ me, but I wouldn’t have wished this for all the tea in China. That said, I can understand how she could provoke you to doing somethin’ silly, lad. She could get me riled up quicker than a pig in a poke, an’ but for her mam gettin’ between us more than once I’d have done somethin’ I’d have regretted. But to think of her going like that, it’s hard. We haven’t spoken in years, you know that an’ all, but nevertheless she was my daughter an’ she was a bonny little lass as a babby.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Aye, I know you are, lad. I know you are.’

  Whether Sandy would have said different if Walter wasn’t fighting for his breath, David didn’t know, but when in the next moment his brother began choking, he was aware of Sandy helping him hold Walter up a little. The sound was terrible, it seemed to fill their space. David said frantically, ‘Bend him forward, that might help.’ There was a rattling from Walter’s throat, and something warm trickled on to David’s hand. He realised it was Walter’s blood. ‘He’s drowning in his own blood.’ David was crying now, almost delirious from the pain in his leg as he tried to manipulate Walter forward.

  Sandy said, ‘Easy, lad, easy. He’s gone, let him down,’ but David found he couldn’t let Walter go. His arms tightened round his brother.

  ‘No, no. Dear God, not like this. Don’t let him die like this.’

  ‘There’s nowt you can do, lad, an’ happen it’s for the best after what he’s told us. This way he won’t have to face being shut up an’ knowin’ what’s at the end of it, ’cos ten to one it’d be a hanging job.’

  ‘That’s assuming we’re going to get out of here.’

  ‘Aye, there is that an’ all.’

  Silence reigned for a few minutes as they both tried to come to terms with what they had heard and Walter’s death. After a while David gently laid his brother on the ground and shifted himself into a more comfortable position. The movement shot fire through his broken leg and he bit his lip to stop himself groaning out loud.

  ‘This is going to hit young Veronica hard,’ Sandy said. ‘It’s enough her mam and da both going, but to know it was her da that did her mam in. She’ll never get over it. It’ll ruin her life.’

  David said nothing. What could you say to something like this? he asked himself grimly. He felt the darkness was pressing in on him; it was thick and heavy and he didn’t dare ask Sandy if he thought the air was running out because he didn’t want to know the answer. Walter dead, maybe the rest of their shift too if they hadn’t got clear when the roof came down, and he wasn’t going to have the chance to say goodbye to Carrie. To tell her one last time he loved her. Suddenly it didn’t matter a damn if she loved him like he wanted her to, all that mattered was that she knew what she meant to him. He’d been a fool the last months, a proud, stupid fool, but he couldn’t turn back the clock and he couldn’t put things right.

  ‘David, you awake?’

  Sandy’s voice was urgent and David knew he was really asking if he was unconscious. ‘Aye, I’m awake.’ He knew exactly how Sandy felt. The thought of being all alone down here without anyone to talk to didn’t bear thinking about. ‘Just trying to conserve air like they always tell us to do.’

  ‘Damn that. There’ll either be enough or there won’t, an’ us talkin’ won’t make that much difference. Look, man, I’ve been thinkin’. I got the impression Walter’s told no one else what happened.’ David gave a grunt of agreement. ‘Well, if he hasn’t an’ if no one saw him leave the house, who’s to say he did Renee in? It could’ve been anyone, couldn’t it? That Yank she was with for instance. I’d heard she was spreadin’ it about a bit; it could be any number of blokes who might have been to the house.’

  David was feeling light-headed, and he was sure the air was going. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meanin’ we say nowt if we get out of here. Sayin’ anythin’ can’t help Renee but if we keep quiet maybe Veronica’ll never know. Eh? What do you say?’

  ‘What if they put someone else in the frame? This Yank for instance?’

  ‘That’s different. But this way it’ll spare Veronica an’ make it easier for the family. The women are going to have enough to deal with with losin’ Renee an’ Walter.’

  ‘Aye.’ It was all theoretical anyway. They were never going to see the light of day again. He hoped Billy was all right where he was, and it wasn’t likely the twins had put their hands up for an extra shift. They were too busy doing the rounds of the local dance halls come evening, seeing what they could pick up after the Yanks had had their choice, or going to the Regal or the Gaiety for the same reason. Damn it. David shut his eyes, his head swimming. Why the hell had he agreed to work tonight? It wasn’t as if they were desperate for the money.

  David and Sandy talked for some time more, both men secretly amazed at how easily their old relationship had been restored and each one regretting the loss of all the years between. After a while, breathing became more difficult, and by unspoken mutual consent they became quiet, sitting now with their shoulders touching in the pressing blackness.

  Was Alec still alive in that prisoner-of-war camp? David’s mind was wandering and half the time he wasn’t sure if he was awake or asleep. They hadn’t heard a word since the notice that he had been captured, but that didn’t mean anything, not in this war. Wicked so-an’-so’s, the Nazis, if even a quarter of what was being reported was true. Matthew talked of him less now, but he had the idea the boy thought of his uncle just as much.

  Matthew . . . David rested his head against the hard rock, a consuming tiredness taking hold. He wished he could have been more of a father to the lad; he wished they could have got on better; he wished he’d had a bairn of his own, just one. Oh, Carrie, Carrie. Remember the good times, the times we’ve laughed and loved, not the last months . . .

  His body slumped a little, settling into the rock face beside that of his father-in-law who was now quite still.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The crowd at the pit gate was thick despite the fact that the weather hadn’t let up in the last hours and the blizzard was still raging. There were no hysterics or weeping and wailing among the women, who made up the greater part of the assembly, and the bairns were silent, the men grim-faced. At times like this the mining community thought as one; there was no need for words.

  Carrie was standing with her mother and Billy’s young wife either side of her; Matthew, Danny and Len were behind her, but she could take no comfort from their presence. Renee was dead, and David, her da, Billy and Walter might be too for all they knew. It seemed impossible but it was happening, and her conscience was crying so loud in her ears she couldn’t hear anything else. She hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told David about the baby, but it was more than that. In the last few hours she hadn’t been able to hide from the fact that she had taken David’s love, expected it, treasured it and yet never once had she told him how much she had come to love him. And why?

  She moved her h
ead in the dull grey light of early morning, the wind so raw it cut through any amount of clothing like a knife. Because she had always held something back from him, some last commitment which would entail saying the words, I love you. Once they had been said, once she had told him how she had come to feel for him, she would become vulnerable again, open to rejection and being used, discarded. But that was stupid, so, so stupid. It was David who was her husband, David who loved her, not Alec. And David would never behave like Alec had done all those years ago.

  She had thought she was over the rape. She raised her eyes and stared unseeingly. She thought she had put it behind her years ago that day on Penshaw Hill, but now she understood that a residue of fear had persuaded her that the love she felt for David was really gratitude mixed with tenderness and deep affection. But it wasn’t. It was true love - full, mature and achingly real.

  When they had brought what remained of Renee out of the charred shell of the house, Carrie hadn’t at first been able to take in the fact that her sister was dead. A house fire, a stupid, senseless house fire, after Renee had come through all the bombing without a scratch. As Carrie had stood there weeping with her mother and a couple of the neighbours who had come running to fetch her, it had struck her how unhappy her sister had been. And Renee had been unhappy, deep in the heart of her. How could you be anything else when the person you were bound to, the man you’d promised to share the rest of your life with, was barely more than a stranger living in the same house?

  Standing there in the swirling snow, Carrie had counted her blessings, and the main one was David. And then, with the smoke still curling in the sky and the acrid smell in their nostrils, someone had come running to tell them there had been an explosion at the pit.

  Fear and panic gripped her. What would she do if David was dead? She must have made a sound in her throat because Matthew spoke from behind her, his hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Mam, it’ll be all right. The rescue team has sent word they’re on the point of breaking through the first fall and they can hear knocking.’

  His voice was gentler than it had been for years and if he had spoken like this in the normal run of the mill Carrie would have been delighted. Matthew had become increasingly withdrawn and morose of late, his bad humour always worse when he had visited Olive at Alec’s house. She knew he was missing Veronica, but the last time his cousin had come home for a few days, Carrie had got the impression they had quarrelled, although when she had tentatively put it to him he had not been forthcoming.

  Now, however, his mellowing brought her no warmth or comfort. She felt numb and icy-cold, but she forced herself to reach up and put her hand over his for a moment in a wordless gesture of thanks.

  It was another hour before the first batch of survivors, one of whom was Billy, came up. These men, along with several other sections, had been working in a different area to where the explosion occurred but had been cut off by the fall in the main road. They were all unharmed and to a man they wanted to stay and work with the rescue team, whose most urgent job was to establish a fresh-air base and get the ventilators operating again as they moved forward to the explosion site. It appeared the roof had come down in several places, and there was no knowing how many men were still alive.

  Billy’s wife fell into his arms, and Carrie hugged her brother and wept tears of relief, but the strange sense of unreality that had come over her in the last hours increased rather than decreased with the knowledge that some of the men were safe. It somehow emphasised the fact that those who were trapped were in an increasingly bad way.

  Joan clung to Billy as though she would never let him go. She seemed to have aged twenty years since they had brought Renee’s body out of the house. And when the first rescue team was due to be relieved and she realised that her two youngest sons and her grandson intended to be part of the second, she wanted to stop them.

  ‘They’re all miners, Mam,’ Carrie reasoned with her, ‘and Da’s down there, along with David and Walter. You have to let the twins and Matthew go, don’t you see? They need to do this, they’d never forgive themselves if they didn’t go.’

  She happened to glance at Matthew as she finished speaking and found her son’s eyes hard on her face. Something in his expression caused a chill to sweep over her. He didn’t want to go down, he was only going because the other men would think it bad if he didn’t. She stared at him, her stomach turning over as she read the resentment her words had caused. And then his gaze dropped and he turned away to answer something Len had said, leaving Carrie more shaken than ever. He didn’t care about David and the others, not in his heart of hearts. The only person he really cared about on God’s earth was Alec. She closed her eyes, sickness rising up into her throat. She couldn’t pretend any longer. He’d gone from her. Somehow in the last years he had gone from her as completely as if he was one of the lads who had been lost in the war. She muttered an excuse and hurried away to find a privy where she was violently sick. Her stomach twisted into knots as she strained time and time again.

  Don’t let me lose the baby, Lord, not on top of everything else. When she had finished, her legs were trembling so badly she had to sit for a while. Whatever happened, she wanted this baby more than ever. If she never got to tell David he was going to be a father, she could at least raise his son or daughter in the knowledge that their da had been the most wonderful man in the world.

  It was twenty hours later when the rescue party reached the first of the men who had been on David’s shift. The mine had taken all of them, crushing them under the stone and coal they had mined each day of their lives.

  One by one they were slowly uncovered and then gently stretchered away on their last journey in the cage, their fellow miners holding them as tenderly as they would their own bairns. Now and again an agonised groan would rend the air as a father or brother or son recognised his own, blood crying out to blood, but otherwise the job was done in almost total silence, a silence more consecrated than in any church. Hard-bitten veterans might be crying like babies but no sound would pass their mouths, the only indication of their grief the streaks of wet clean skin in coal-blackened faces.

  As a ragged dawn began to break, Carrie sank quietly on to the snow in a dead faint. Only then did her mother come to herself a little. Joan took Carrie home and persuaded her to eat. Afterwards she wrapped a blanket round Carrie where she had fallen into an exhausted sleep in the rocking chair, and sat quietly by. Two hours later both women were back at the pit gate.

  When the last man from under the roof fall had been brought up, word came filtering through to those at the gate that the current rescue team were going to press forward. Carrie and her mother turned as one and stared at each other.

  They weren’t there. The three of them, Sandy, David and Walter, weren’t there. That must mean they were together somewhere surely. So there was still hope. They didn’t say this out loud, it wasn’t necessary - both women were of like mind.

  The hours ticked on. Danny and Len finished their stint with the rescue team and joined the two women and Billy, who had come back to the pit gate after a meal and a bath. Matthew went home to bed, declaring he was spent. Carrie was surprised to find she didn’t mind his going; in fact she would have gone further than that and said she was relieved if she had been capable of rationalising how she was feeling. The only people she wanted round her were those as desperate as she was.

  At midday, when a weak, watery sun was shining for the first time in days, word came through that they had reached a second fall just yards behind the first and were on the point of breaking through. Because a small section of roof had held between the two falls, the going was more dangerous and slower than ever. The remaining section of roof needed shoring up and propping, and although every man on the team knew time was of the essence, they also knew any mistakes could mean they and their fellow workers were the next victims.

  Through all the hours and hours of endless waiting, the time had never crept by so pitilessly as
in the next little while. The blizzard had died and the world about the pit gates seemed clean for once. The covering of white on the rooftops and the glistening carpet coating the streets seemed to mock the events of the last forty-eight hours, and among the remaining folk at the gates none was more aware of this than Carrie herself. The cold white brilliance made her tired eyes ache and, ridiculously, she found herself remembering a Sunday the previous summer when she and David had taken a picnic and walked into the surrounding countryside. They had left just as it was growing light and had returned when it was dark, and David had been in his element, showing her figwort, cinquefoil, thyme, wood geranium and all sorts of other flowers and plants.

  They bought a drink of milk from a farm. The cowshed was warm and stickily scented with milky magic, and the farmer’s wife, who seemed to take to them, pressed two freshly baked ham pasties into their hands, refusing any payment when they tried to offer her some coins. They ate their picnic in a sun-drenched meadow close to a small pond, and again David brought her alive to the shimmering silver-green and blue dragonflies hovering close to the still surface, when all she had seen at first was murky water. He pointed out water crickets moving in slow motion on long legs, making her laugh when he called them aquatic clowns on stilts.