‘I knew you shouldn’t have gone!’ he shouted. ‘It was a daft idea.’
‘It wasn’t daft,’ Carol protested, ‘and you never tried to stop us going. It wasn’t our fault anyhow. There was no trouble until right at the end.’
‘I saw it on the TV,’ Mick fumed. ‘It was worse than anything on the picket line. You should leave the marches to the men. You’re stopping at home next time.’
‘I’ll do whatever the Women’s Support Group wants me to do,’ Carol flared back. ‘And if that means marching, I’ll damn well march!’
Mick paced around the sitting room like a caged animal, pulling at his collar-length blond hair. ‘You’ll not take Laura again! And what’s all this the bairn’s been saying about you shouting at an old woman in the crowd? It sounds like you went looking for trouble.’
‘I don’t know how you can say that!’ Carol protested. ‘We all went to support you and the other lads. I was just trying to talk some reason into the people there. You wouldn’t believe the foul things some of them were saying to us. But I couldn’t care less about that; I’d do it again if I thought it might change some folks’ minds.’
‘A bunch of lasses chanting and waving a sheet will change nowt,’ Mick answered dismissively. ‘The pitmen who only think of themselves have to be picketed out and kept out by the rest of us. It’s a hard fight and one for the men. You stick to the food parcels in future.’
Carol fumed with indignation, but she could see that Mick was in no mood to reason. She had no intention of staying at home while others took on the fight, but she still felt guilty at subjecting Laura to the ugly scenes at the rally and decided to say no more.
They sat in stony silence awaiting the late news. When Carol saw how the fight at the rally was portrayed as being provoked by drunken miners, she was incensed.
‘It’s all lies!’ she shouted. ‘There wasn’t any trouble until the coppers came tearing out of their vans. They went berserk! The lads had nothing to defend themselves with. Oh, God! There was this man lying on the ground being kicked in the head and I kept thinking I should do something.’ Carol began to shake. ‘But I was too scared to move, I just wanted to run away. Oh Mick, I kept thinking what if it was you?’ Carol burst into tears.
At once Mick reached over and pulled her to him in comfort.
‘It’s all right, pet,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Have a good cry.’ He held her for several minutes while she sobbed into his shoulder. Finally he said, ‘I’m sorry, Carol. I shouldn’t have lost me temper with you. I was just worried when I saw the news - felt I should have gone with you. And after Sid being arrested . . .’
Reminded of Sid, Carol made an effort to stop crying. ‘Look at me, crying like a baby when none of us has come to any harm. And there’s poor Sid in the cells. I should go and see Kelly.’
‘Not now,’ Mick answered. ‘She’s stopping over at Auntie Val’s tonight. She didn’t want to be on her own. You can go round tomorrow when you’ve had some sleep.’
But, exhausted as she was, Carol was unable to sleep. She finished her tea and got up and fetched her coat and boots from the hall, tiptoeing through the kitchen to let herself out of the back door. She stepped out into the sharp night air. The black sky was littered with stars, unusually bright, and Carol realised that there was an absence of smoke from people’s fires. Instead of the pungent smell of burning coal, she was hit by bracing, tangy salt air straight off the sea. She could hear the distant hum of the pit, kept going by the deputies’ union, Nacods. But there was no clatter of boots down the streets for the early shift or the noise of miners arriving by car. Gone was the sound of the coal trucks clattering along the line, disturbing the night.
Carol walked on to keep herself warm and thought about Kelly. There would have been a time when her friend would have come to her first when she needed support, not Val Bowman. She knew that Kelly had drawn close to Val since working for her years ago, but it saddened her that Kelly no longer turned to her. There was a reserve between them these days that Carol could not explain and she wondered what it was that Kelly was keeping from her. Years ago, to have had secrets from each other would have been unthinkable. But now, Carol could see that they had drifted apart - had begun to ever since she had married Mick. And now, with her time increasingly taken up with helping the strike, Carol saw even less of her old friend. She was forging new friendships through the Women’s Group and new interests. Still, Carol thought, she must support Kelly in this crisis over Sid’s arrest, for she was not sure how much pressure their rocky marriage could take.
She diverted down the back of Septimus Street, certain that the house would be in darkness but hoping that someone else might be sleepless too. Her spirits lifted to see the kitchen light burning. Peering in at the window she could see Lotty talking to Eddy. Carol tapped lightly on the glass and went in at the back door.
Lotty showed no surprise. ‘Come in, pet. There’s some tea in the pot, though it might be a bit stewed. I was just telling Eddy about the rally.’
‘I’m glad I’m not the only one who can’t sleep,’ Carol grinned.
‘No one sleeps at the right time around here any more,’ Eddy answered, ‘and we’re used to getting up at all hours, any road.’
Carol accepted the mug of tea he held out to her and sat down on the settee beside him.
‘Eddy’s moving back in with us,’ Lotty told her. ‘The rent on his flat is too much.’
Eddy’s thin face tinged with embarrassment. ‘Just temporary, mind. I’ve still got a bit put by, so I can help with the bills here.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Lotty said.
‘So what’s keeping you awake, flower?’ Eddy changed the subject quickly.
Carol sighed. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the rally. I had a row with Mick about it earlier. He doesn’t want me to go away again.’
‘I’ll speak to him,’ Lotty assured her. ‘He’ll come round.’
‘Lotty tells me you tried to stop a lad being kicked on the ground,’ Eddy said with admiration. ‘Said you were arguing with the crowd like a leader.’
Carol blushed. ‘No, I just said what came into me head.’
‘We need speakers,’ Lotty insisted, ‘women who’ll go out and put people in the picture about what’s really going on in the pit villages. Tell them what the families are suffering; help raise a bit money for them to live off. You could do that, Carol.’
‘I couldn’t speak in public,’ Carol protested.
Lotty snorted. ‘You’ve never been backward in coming forward before.’
‘Aye,’ Eddy encouraged. ‘Anyone who can answer back to Charlie or Lotty can take on the world.’
‘Cheek of it!’ Lotty took a swipe at her brother-in-law.
‘I don’t know.’ Carol was cautious. ‘Mind you, I feel so angry about the way the rally was shown on TV. We were treated like thugs, not ordinary decent families. Nobody seems to want to show the strike from our point of view.’
‘There you go then,’ Lotty answered. ‘Think of ways we can get our message across. We’re not just going to leave this to the men; we decided that when we formed the support group. I can ask Charlie about contacts in other unions who might want to help us, or local councils. We’ll put the word about. Now, do you know any local press who might be sympathetic?’
Carol was astonished by the speed of Lotty’s thinking and wondered if she had already been discussing it with Eddy before her arrival. She found herself excited by the prospect of becoming more actively involved, even though the idea of standing up and speaking to strangers terrified her.
‘There is someone,’ Carol suddenly remembered. ‘A friend of Fay and Vic’s. He was their best man. Pete . . ? Pete Fletcher, I think they called him. He was a journalist on a newspaper in Sunderland, but that was a while ago. I could find out if he’s still around.’
‘Would he be on our side?’ Lotty sounded doubtful.
Carol shrugged. ‘He’s local. He
might at least be impartial.’
‘Worth a try,’ Eddy said. ‘And if our Carol can’t win him over then he’s not worth the bother,’ he grinned.
Carol smiled. ‘I’ll get on to it in the morning.’
Lotty yawned. ‘That’s not long. I think you should be off home before Mick starts sending out a search party.’
Carol got up and Eddy rose too.
‘I’ll walk you up the street,’ he offered.
Out in the dark again, Eddy said, ‘She thinks the world of you, you know.’
‘Who? Lotty?’ Carol exclaimed. ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘She does,’ Eddy insisted. ‘She might never say it to your face, but she’s proud of the way you’re standing by the family and the village.’
‘Surprised, you mean. Because I’m the Shannon girl,’ Carol mocked herself. ‘I think if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never shake off that name.’
Eddy slung his arm over her shoulder. ‘Names don’t matter a bit,’ he declared. ‘You are who you are, and you should never be ashamed of it. We come into this world without a say about who our parents are or what family we’d like to belong to. We just have to get along with the buggers we’re landed with.’
‘Or not get along, as the case may be,’ Carol said wryly.
Eddy stopped her and made her look into his craggy face. She could tell he was serious for once. ‘I’m sorry if you’ve not been happy with the Shannons. They must be mad turning their back on a daughter like you. You’re a special lass, Carol. But the Shannons’ loss is the Todds’ gain. So stop doing yourself down. We all think the world of you.’
Carol felt her eyes sting at his generous words. For so long she had striven to be accepted by her in-laws and now here was kind, funny Eddy telling her that she was. She could not be sure. She would probably never know what Charlie really thought of her, because he was not the sort of person who could easily show his feelings. She still felt a reserve between them, despite coming closer since the strike started. Nevertheless, she felt a wave of gratitude and tenderness towards Mick’s uncle for his kind words and for his understanding that the Todds’ approval was important to her.
‘You’re a good, kind man.’ She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. She thought she saw his eyes glisten.
‘Well, I’ve never been accused of that before,’ he joked. ‘Now don’t go spoiling me James Dean image, will you?’
Carol laughed and linked her arm through his. They walked up the quiet lane, lit by a bright moon, in easy companionship.
‘Did I ever tell you about the time I met Elvis?’ Eddy asked, squeezing her arm.
‘Presley or Costello?’ Carol teased, knowing he had never heard of Elvis Costello.
‘Elvis the Pelvis, there is no other,’ Eddy protested.
‘You have, but tell me again,’ Carol grinned.
‘Well, it was during me National Service . . .’
The following day, Carol went to the library and searched through the back copies of the newspapers.
She read everything she could find about the strike and became increasingly angry and dismayed by the stories she read. There was little explanation of what the strike was all about, just coverage of any bit of trouble with the police or in the courts. In the tabloids there was gossip about pickets making money from picketing and exaggerated claims about the wages miners earned. She had never read newspapers regularly before or paid much attention to news in the outside world. Current affairs in school had been viewed by her and Kelly as an opportunity to skive off and go down the beach or into town.
Carol combed the serious broadsheets that she had never touched with a barge pole before. There had been a debate in Parliament on 10 April in which the Opposition had accused the Government of using the police in the strike and putting them in an intolerable dilemma. ‘Police force is not an arm of the state but the servant of the community. . . confidence in them has been eroded. . .’ Carol murmured as she read.
She noted the names of politicians who spoke on the miners’ behalf; the Shadow Home Secretary, Gerald Kaufman, and Tony Benn who accused ministers of authorising police to harass miners and blamed magistrates for working hand in hand to make possible the butchery of the mining industry.
Carol thought of Sid and two others coming before the magistrates’ court that very day and wondered what would happen to them. Mick and his father had gone to support him, but Kelly had been sharp with her when she had suggested they go together.
‘You can go if you want,’ she had said tartly, ‘but as I’m the only one keeping a roof over our heads, I’m ganin’ to work.’
Carol was sure Kelly was worried about Sid but she was not going to show it to her or anybody else. Carol took her mind off gloomy thoughts about Sid and Kelly by absorbing herself in the newspapers. She searched for a mention of Pete Fletcher but could find none in the recent past. There was nothing for it but to contact Vic about his friend.
She called in at Proud’s office on her way home, but he was not there and Kelly was in no mood to chat. ‘Try him at home,’ she said shortly.
Plucking up courage, Carol decided to take Laura up to Fay’s house in Brassy. Even if she and Fay were estranged, there was no reason why Laura should not have contact with her cousins, Jasmine and Ngaio. Brassy village was looking springlike with daffodils and tulips lining the main street and the trees burdened with pink cherry blossom. Laura scampered up the pink gravel drive in anticipation of playing with her older cousins, but Carol’s stomach twisted at the sight of the opulent house with its vast Grecian tubs full of pansies guarding the portico. Resentment filled her as she thought how a few days ago she and Mick had visited the bank once again to sort out their looming financial crisis. They had taken out a loan, to be paid off once the strike had ended, to cover their mortgage and essential bills, which had given them a reprieve. But Carol knew this would not cover new shoes for Laura or unforeseen repairs or the weekly groceries that were a constant drain on their dwindling resources. They had never been in debt before and Carol had never had to cope with life without money. She had never craved money and possessions as Fay had, but having to worry about how to make ends meet was new and very frightening.
‘We can’t afford the HP on the car much longer,’ Mick had said, ‘though I’ve been trying to hang on to it for picketing.’
Carol knew, but did not say, that what would really break his heart was the thought of having to sell the motorbike. It stood unused in the back yard under its tarpaulin like a reproachful beast. How unfair it was that her whole world was under threat while Fay lived in prosperous security just because she had married Vic Proud. But Carol had chosen Mick and she knew that even had she been able to see into the future, she would not have chosen differently.
Laura had already rung the bell and Carol tried to quell her anger before Fay came to the door. But it was Mrs Hunt, her mother’s old cleaning lady, who answered. Carol was amazed to see the pensioner still working.
‘Fay’s at her shop,’ Mrs Hunt explained, ‘but the girls are in. I’m looking after them for the Easter holidays. Come in, pet.’
Laura rushed ahead. ‘They’re in the playroom watching a video,’ Mrs Hunt shouted after her, but Laura was already halfway up the stairs. Carol knew what a treat it was for her daughter to play with her cousins and she felt a pang of guilt for not having brought her sooner. Still, it was a relief that she did not have to confront Fay. She wondered if the ancient Mrs Hunt had been brought in because her brother-in-law had frightened away all the young nannies in the area, then chided herself for the unkind thought.
‘It’s really Vic I was hoping to catch,’ Carol said.
Mrs Hunt gave her an inquiring look before answering, ‘Oh, well, you’re in luck, he’s working in his study. You go on up and I’ll make a cup of tea. Do you still take it with milk and two sugars?’
‘Ye—’ Carol stopped herself. ‘No, I take it black now, no sugar, thanks.’ No point getting used to the taste
of sweet tea again, she told herself. She would like to have gone into the kitchen and chatted to Mrs Hunt, who was a neighbour of Grandda Bowman’s and kept an eye on the old man. But she was keen to get her request to Vic over with and escape.
Vic was in his large airy study, fitted with mahogany shelves and a large desk at which he was seated, absorbed in front of a computer screen. The air was stale with the smell of cigarettes and made Carol suddenly crave a smoke. She had given up four times in the last two weeks and had held out for five days this time.
‘This is a nice surprise,’ Vic smiled and came to greet her. Carol turned her face quickly so that his kiss landed on her cheek.
‘Just a quick visit,’ she said, suddenly nervous of him. He had always had the ability to make her feel like a gauche teenager, she thought in irritation. Mick would probably go mad if he found out she had come to see him on her own, for he used to complain that Vic was always trying to make a pass at her. Carol would counter that Vic flirted with any female under ninety, but she knew Mick disliked him.
‘Cigarette?’ Vic offered. Carol, in a state of sudden nerves, could not resist. He lit it for her and she inhaled deeply.
‘So,’ he smiled, ‘I hear you’ve been getting into scrapes in Nottinghamshire.’
‘Says who?’ Carol asked, cautious.
‘Ted Laws was full of how you tried to tackle the police at the rally. Pulling women on to buses, that sort of thing. Not sure I want my buses used for political purposes,’ Vic teased. ‘Never took you for the radical type either.’
‘I’m not,’ Carol answered. ‘This isn’t about politics, it’s about justice. We went on the march to draw attention to the way the miners and their families are suffering. We just want people to listen to us, not hound us off the streets like criminals.’
Vic began a slow hand clapping. ‘Spoken like a true Todd.’
‘Don’t mock me,’ Carol said with an angry look. ‘I mean what I say.’
Vic was suddenly serious. ‘The best way to stop the suffering, as you call it, is to get back to work and save your own necks. Why throw everything away for a few bolshie Yorkshiremen?’
Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone Page 19