by Annie Clarke
Miss Ellington had given them all a talk in the changing room, saying to look for something that wasn’t quite right, something or someone doing something unusual. Fran almost laughed as she looked around. What in the world was usual about this? She poured more powder from the container into the funnel, then into another thingummybob, which must be going to fill something else. Who knew what? Perhaps it was a shell, which would need a detonator and a fuse pellet, and until then was almost safe and inert. Well, bloody hooray. It just made them yellow and itchy, but at least it would help end the war.
She thought again of her phone call with Davey, but if someone had damaged the telephone line they’d be noticed. Or would you just think the person fiddling about up a telegraph pole was supposed to be there? Well, she bloody wished they hadn’t, and her heart still hurt because they hadn’t had their conversation as usual, and it was her lifeblood, and she’d wanted to tell him what had been happening, and how the girls were with her now, and they’d sort something out.
Her mask was itching, her breath was making it moist. The yellow would be claggy. Her lungs must be yellow? She would finish her water on the bus home. She poured in more chemicals carefully, trying not to cause it to puff up, and she breathed carefully too, shallow, quick breaths, trying not to suck more than she had to into her body, knowing she must talk to her lad again and tell him about Ralph, for with Davey by her side she’d be even stronger.
She looked around. Yes, they were all getting used to it, they were handling the powder better, there was not so much in the air, and all the masks were firmly on, all were taking care. There, Da, she thought. No need to worry about me, or us. Just don’t do anything so bloody stupid as to poach again. She decided then and there to tell him that tonight. She would be grateful to him, but say she didn’t want him to take risks.
Miss Ellington entered the sector and spoke to Swinton with that look on her face. Fran thought back to Tubby Smith, Beth’s da. Patterns, she heard Davey say. Patterns, keys, settings. Find the key and you can decode. He’d said something about a key in hospital when he’d been half asleep. But he’d not yet remembered what that was all about.
She poured more powder into the funnel.
Miss Ellington was walking towards her. Fran’s hands trembled as she added more powder. She laid down her scoop and put the funnel into its stand, for one mustn’t pour anything, bang anything, do anything with shaking hands, because the tremble was now a shake. Miss Ellington was coming straight for her, but then she went past and on to Sarah, who worked on Fran’s right. But no, she stood between them. Why?
Miss Ellington waited for Sarah to put the funnel into its stand. Only then did she say, very quietly, ‘I need you both to come with me. There has been an accident at Auld Hilda that concerns your fathers.’
Sarah paled. She wrenched her mask off, as though she couldn’t breathe; her lips parted, but she said nothing, and neither did Fran. They just followed her, and behind them came Beth. All the women were watching, just for a second, but then returned to their work.
In the corridor they came face to face with Amelia, who held a sheet of paper. She looked up at Miss Ellington. ‘I’ve just had a message. There’s a car at the gates.’
Beth slipped to Fran’s side. ‘Let me go too, Miss Ellington.’
Miss Ellington nodded. ‘If Mr Swinton allows. Give me a minute. I’ll catch him before he checks on pellets.’ She entered the stemming shop again.
Amelia was drawing Beth to one side, and while Fran and Sarah stood close together, Sarah whispered, ‘Is it Stan too? Is Da gone? Is your …?’
As the tannoy played ‘It Had to Be You’, they heard Amelia whispering, ‘I will do what I did before, and support you. It would be nice if I could be part of the singing group, though.’
The three of them looked at her. Fran didn’t feel cross, she just felt dazed. How very strange. Her da needed them and this strange girl was bargaining. How very awful. Then her anger caught up with her, and turned into a rage, worse than the rage at her da, much, much worse.
‘Come on, Beth. Come on, Sarah. We have to be elsewhere.’
The three of them brushed past this girl with her piece of paper, and headed down the corridor. ‘I was only trying to help. I shouldn’t have … Damn, I’ve done it again,’ Amelia called.
‘Quite,’ Fran said, but her voice was high, and shook as much as her hands.
The girls changed, took their belongings and left the Factory, walking towards the gate. They heard Miss Ellington call, ‘Wait, you need a guard. He said no. I say yes.’ She came after them, showed the guard at the gate her pass. ‘These three have permission.’ He nodded and searched them quickly. Miss Ellington was backing away. ‘Hurry, the car should be there. God go with you. I will take care of he who thinks he is that God, but falls far short.’
Mr Massingham’s driver, Alfie, held the door open for them. They all sat in the back, shivering from the cold and the fear of reality.
Later that night, as Stan went between the two houses, and Beth finally left Fran and returned to her mam, Ben sat in his mam’s armchair, while Fran and her mam sat at the kitchen table, for no one would sit in her da’s chair. Oh no. Not yet, but how could they ever? Fran cut up strips of blanket for the rug that needed to be at Briddlestone’s by Monday, hearing the crunch of her scissors, the crackle of the range. ‘I’m sure they won’t mind if you’re late, Mam.’
‘Maybe, pet. But I will. The co-op is working well, we’ll need the money even more since the Massingham pension covers the basics but nowt else, and we need to see to Betty’s stone, and your da’s, now.’
Fran put down her scissors and stroked her mam’s hand, but the woman didn’t look up, didn’t stop working her proggy tool, or poking the short strips through the hessian. ‘I am earning, and so is Stan,’ Fran said.
‘Aye, but he’ll want to help our Sarah and her mam an’ all.’
Ben piped up, ‘There’s Davey, he’s earning something. And I can do summat for us.’
Both Fran and her mam turned and said together, ‘You’ll stay on at school.’
Ben was pale, his face strained and smudged. ‘Then I’ll run errands, so I will. You’ll not stop me.’
Fran warned her mam to silence, and said, ‘Aye, when you can. Da would be happy with that. You could try setting some crosswords and maybe the editor will take some. We’ll talk to Davey when he comes for the …’ Fran stopped.
Ben dragged out his crossword magazine. ‘I miss him. He’d have liked the lamb Da poached.’
At that Mam dropped her proggy tool onto the hessian with a cry. With her hand to her mouth, she turned. ‘Howay, lad, he did nowt such a thing. It were killed by the bus when it came off the road. Our Bert got the canary lot to fetch it in the wheelbarrow. They’d never poach a living beast, course they wouldn’t.’
Ben looked at Fran, and there was relief in his words. ‘I’m right glad. Don’t know why I thought it of ’im, but I did and it didn’t seem the right thing for ’im to do, but I liked the meat.’
The women smiled at him, as the last vestige of rage at her da was finally laid to rest in Fran. For only now she understood and dear heaven, she wished she’d known sooner. But that was that, and for now it was only the love and grief that remained. Fran said, as her mam returned to her proggy mat, ‘Why didn’t he, or you, tell me, Mam?’
‘What, and get Bert into trouble? And Simon? Why would he do that, pet? Best to say nowt but it came off a lorry, but I know when there’s summat up, course I do, and then I’m a dog with a bone. Now, we must sort out the ham tea for the funeral.’ Though her voice was quite calm, Fran saw her mam’s face, but she never altered the rhythm of her tooling as she talked of the arrangements. Fran cut more blanket strips, the scissor blades glinting in the lamplight, the handles sore on her itching hands.
Davey received the telegram at his digs, which was the address he had sent his mam the day after he’d received the anonymous note, thinking for s
ome reason that she might need to get a message to him, quickly. Had he known? The news stopped the whirligig of his world, the shame of his stupidity with Daisy, and the uncertainty about Fran and Ralph, for what did any of that matter in the face of this?
He took the work bus in, with Daniel sitting beside him, silently waiting for Davey to tell him what news the telegram had contained. When he did the other two sitting behind heard. Both squeezed his shoulder. Daniel said, ‘Anything I can do, just say.’
They travelled on, and though these lads weren’t yet marrers, they were friends, and it was enough.
The walk up the drive was silent, except for the crunching of the gravel, and when Daisy arrived and tried to slip her arm through his, he shrugged her off. Why wouldn’t she be told? He’d apologised, explained, asked for forgiveness for any mixed messages countless times, but none of it mattered, not any more.
At the top of the drive he said to her once more, ‘Daisy, I made a mistake, lass, and yer really got to understand that nowt happened between us. I love my lass, whatever she thinks of me. I really do.’
As usual she said, ‘You can’t, Davey. If she’s cheating, you’ll realise that you can’t still love her.’
‘For pity’s sake, Daisy, grow up. This is not the time. I’ve just told you, his father’s dead,’ Daniel said.
‘Then he needs comfort,’ replied Daisy.
Davey ignored it all, just looked at the huts, his hut, and instead strode to the big Victorian house, entered the front door, and asked the man there if he could speak to whoever he had to speak to if he needed to leave. When they weren’t available, he said, ‘Well, you tell ’em I’m going home. It’s me da, he’s dead. The funeral is Monday. I am getting a taxi to the station, now. Arrest me on my return if you like, but I’m going.’
The bloke at the door pointed to an office to the left. ‘Then she’s available. Bang on the door.’
He did. The woman with the bun was in the office. The same woman who had been in London, Miss Downes, was reaching for the telephone. He said, ‘Me da’s dead. I’m going. Don’t arrest me until I’m back, then throw away the bliddy key if you need to.’
‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake. You’re making the place untidy. I heard your conversation with nice Mr Simpson, if one can call it that, and am telephoning for a taxi. We will expect you back in four days. And I’m so sorry about your father. The taxi will be at the bottom of the drive when you get there. Hurry now.’
In his briefcase was a change of clothes, money and a crossword magazine, the one he used to write for. Those days seemed so good as he hurried down the drive. He had almost reached the gates when he heard running footsteps, and his heart sank. Not Daisy, not again. It was his fault, but why wouldn’t she listen? Instead he heard Daniel.
‘Hold up, old man.’
He did, though he could see the taxi at the huge wrought-iron gates, its exhaust puffing out into the freezing air. Daniel gripped his hand, shook it, then pulled Davey to him, slapping his back. ‘So sorry. Wipe your face, old boy. It’ll chap in this wind. I’ll steer Daisy away once and for all. Strange girl. Bright, but strange. Got to go. Condolences, my dear pal. You’ve got money? Otherwise I have a bit. Only a bit.’ Daniel was shoving his hand into his trouser pocket.
Davey dragged his arm across his face. ‘You’re a good friend, almost a marrer, and I have enough, but I won’t forget it, Daniel.’ He turned, walked through the gates and clambered into the taxi, wishing he could go back to Fran’s arms, but he couldn’t, and that was that, and what’s more, his heart was sick of being broken. Oh, Da. Oh, Fran.
The funeral was at St Oswald’s, high on the hill with views all around. Ben led the way with Joe and Tom’s boots in either hand. Stan, Davey and their marrers spread themselves between the two coffins, as pall bearers, whilst their fathers’ marrers helped to take the weight. Fran and Sarah walked behind with their mams.
‘Bit of a bliddy hill, eh?’ whispered Sarah.
Fran muttered, ‘Bet me da’s glad he’s got a lift.’
Their mams turned and smiled. ‘Aye, both of them, eh? Bliddy glad.’
The girls smiled at one another. A laugh was too much, yet. But a smile, oh yes, their das would expect a smile or two.
Behind them walked Beth and Mrs Smith. A small army against the world, it seemed to Fran. The gang again, tight as tight could be, for Davey had arrived last night and come to the yard and called her out. He had looked so strange she had not gone to him. Instead, with space between them, she had told him about Ralph and the threat, and that the poaching wasn’t that sort of poaching. They had clung to one another then, his body trembling from tiredness and grief, but as he’d laid his head on hers, he’d said, ‘I thought I were finished, because I knew summat were up.’
Fran had said, ‘How could you know? No one would split on me, and they came onside for me in the end. So how?’
He’d just shaken his head, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. ‘Oh, I just felt it.’ Then he’d had to go to his mam. But he was here in Massingham, and he’d been told.
She looked ahead as he carried his da with Eddie Corbitt, Mr Albright and Sid, for Norm was carrying her own da with Stan, Simon Parrot and Mr Oborne.
The service was short, as pitmen would expect, and the vicar ended with, ‘Our pitmen are the salt of the earth, and Auld Hilda and The Pig at Sledgeford, and The Mint at Minton are good pits. But they are the few, amongst many whose conditions are atrocious.’
He’d warned them he would say as much the day before when he’d come to Fran’s house to discuss the arrangements with them and Mrs Bedley and Sarah. It was because he’d have the union members on his backs, else. ‘But,’ he’d added, ‘it’s bliddy true.’
Fran’s mam had sighed. ‘But be quick, or else go and stand on a street corner with a bliddy placard round your neck and do it in your own time, lad. Not ours, or the offerings’ll be small on the plate, and mine’ll be non-existent.’
‘Ours an’ all,’ Mrs Bedley had added, her face drawn but also strangely peaceful.
He’d grinned at that, they all had, and had left the house, ramming his hat on his head, then turned. ‘Who’ll take on the canaries, ladies?’
‘Why, Simon Parrot, Stan and Ben, of course,’ Mrs Hall had said.
‘And Davey when he’s home,’ said Mrs Bedley. The two women had smiled at one another and watched the vicar cross the yard, his nose pink with the cold. Mrs Bedley had tucked her arm into Annie’s. ‘I’m right glad our lads’re together, and one’s not left. They’d be a bliddy nuisance, mithering about the place. What’s more, one’d come and haunt t’other just to scare t’other to death.’
‘Aye,’ Annie had said. ‘They’ve good bairns to go on into life, and they’ve had extra years when they could have drowned in the mud of Flanders.’
Fran, Sarah and Beth, standing behind them, had understood then why their mams had an aura of peace about them. Their men had lived a life when others hadn’t, and were together.
The two men were laid to rest side by side, just below the graves of their families, and that meant Betty’s too. All the time the bitter wind blew.
Mr and Mrs Massingham stood with Ralph, who had knocked on the Hall household’s front door the day after Joe’s death and been ignored. ‘Now is not the time,’ Fran had told Stan. ‘And when it is, I will deal with it, is that clear?’
The mourners dispersed, some looking at the flowers before heading down the hill. Davey stood beside Stan, also looking at the wreaths and messages, and came across one in blue ink and handwriting he recognised. It was the same as the letter he had received telling him about Ralph and Fran.
Sincere condolences to both families, such a great shame. Amelia.
‘Is that the one who muscled in on the singing?’ he asked Stan.
‘Aye, the very one. I suppose she felt she must because lots of the others have sent flowers.’
Miss Ellington approached, and Davey lifted h
is cap. Miss Ellington gave her condolences, then called out to a brown-haired girl standing some way to her right, ‘Oh, lovely flowers, Amelia.’
All the misery he could have caused Fran, and the stupidity that had led to hurting Daisy started to build in Davey, and he looked so hard at Amelia that it drew her attention. She approached.
‘I received your note,’ Davey said.
Amelia flushed, and pulled up her coat collar as though she wanted to hide. ‘I thought it might be useful.’
‘Did you, really?’
She said nothing, and as Stan and Miss Ellington looked from one to the other, Amelia moved on. After Miss Ellington had gone to talk to Mrs Hall, Stan asked, ‘Well, what was that about, lad?’
Davey studied the card, feeling again the misery caused by the letter and the news it contained, wondering how he could ever have believed it. ‘A well-wisher, you could say, spreading the good news of Ralph and Fran.’
Others were threading past them, looking at the flowers and tapping both boys on the back.
‘So sorry, lad.’
‘Such good men.’
‘Thought the world of them.’
‘’Ow do, lads.’
The two boys dug their hands in their pockets, and if they hadn’t been pitmen’s hands they’d have been sore with all the handshaking. Sid and Norm joined them. The marrers were all together, Davey thought, and whispered, ‘And it were right good.’
He looked at the church where he had first heard those words from Genesis, or the proper words at least, the way they’d say them down south. Well, it were right good. They turned to watch the long trail of villagers walking down the hill to their bicycles and taxis, all in a hurry to get to the ham, tea and beer set up at the Miners’ Club.