Durham Trilogy 03. Never Stand Alone

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  With each day that the convoy brought workers to the pit, relations in the village grew worse. By the weekend the place seethed with angry young miners, hanging around outside the chip shops and the pubs. But everywhere they gathered, vans of police turned up to move them on, harass them off the streets, taunting them into retaliation so that they could bundle them into the waiting vans.

  Each night a patrol car sat outside the Todds’ house and watched. Charlie was convinced the telephone was tapped and refused to answer it. Officers policed the back streets and the beach with dogs, chasing off the children who tried to pick coal from the tip.

  Carol kept to the house, not wanting Laura to witness the intimidation or be frightened of the police. After all, her Uncle Simon and Auntie Kate were police officers and Carol did not want her mind turned against them because of what had happened to Mick. Yet inwardly she was bitter and hoped she would encounter neither her brother nor his wife around the village.

  Finally Eddy managed to scrounge the petrol to take her out to Ridley Prison to see Mick, but on the way there, the ancient Dodge broke down and they were left stranded along a wet country lane until the local garage came to tow them away. Eddy had to abandon the car there, for he could not afford to have it repaired and he and Carol forlornly made their way home on the bus.

  It was that night that Kelly appeared on her doorstep in a terrible state. Carol let her in quickly. She knew that Kelly had returned to the village on the same day as the trip from Whitby, but nothing seemed to have happened - no big scenes, no running off with Vic. She was back at home in the Birches with Sid, as far as Carol could tell, though she had not seen her to speak to until now.

  Kelly crumpled on the settee in floods of tears. Carol went to get her a drink of water and closed the sitting-room door in case Laura was woken by the noise.

  ‘Tell me,’ Carol said gently, sitting down beside her friend and taking her hand.

  ‘It’s f-finished,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s finished with me!’

  ‘Victor?’ Carol asked.

  Kelly nodded.

  Carol sighed. ‘You told him about the baby then?’

  Kelly nodded again.

  ‘And he didn’t like it?’

  Kelly sniffed and said bitterly, ‘He offered to pay to get rid of my baby - his baby! Said it didn’t have to spoil things between us, we could go on as before. Think of it? I could never do that again. I want this baby so much. God, I hate him!’

  ‘Aye, of course you want it,’ Carol said, disturbed at the reminder of Kelly’s abortion and thoughts of Mick’s past. ‘So he brought you back to Brassbank after you told him?’

  Kelly blew her nose. ‘He said he had to get back because there was trouble at work. He was just going to leave me there at his hotel to make me own way back! I said I’d make a big stink about our affair if he didn’t take me with him, said I’d go straight to Fay and tell her what he’d done.’ Kelly shuddered at the memory. ‘He got really nasty. Said he’d sack me dad on the spot if I breathed a word of it and I’d be out the door at work too. Said he’d have me picked up by the police if I went anywhere near his house or family. Then he pushed me in his car and drove me back to Whitby and dumped me down the street from the hostel. It was just as well the bus hadn’t already gone, ‘cos I didn’t know anything about the trip coming back early.’

  Suddenly she turned to Carol. ‘Oh, Carol, I’m so sorry! I’ve never even asked about Mick. And here you are with him in the nick and all I’m doing is giving you an earful of my troubles.’ She put out her arms to Carol and they hugged in reconciliation.

  ‘I tried to get to see him today but Eddy’s car broke down,’ Carol gulped, ‘but we’re hoping he’ll be allowed out for Grandda’s funeral.’

  ‘I can take you next time he’s allowed visitors,’ Kelly offered at once.

  ‘I don’t know when that’ll be,’ Carol answered forlornly. ‘But ta anyway.’ She squeezed Kelly’s hand. ‘So what happened when you got back?’

  Kelly gave a shuddering sigh. ‘The first few days were all right. I went back to the office and Vic was hardly there. There’s a load of work on with getting men back to work—’ Kelly broke off, with a wary look.

  ‘I bet there is,’ Carol answered bitterly. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I thought Vic might change his mind about us, then - oh, Carol it was terrible!’ Kelly began to shake. ‘Just this morning, me dad comes in and tells Victor that he doesn’t want to drive any more buses into the pit, he wants to be put on the London run. Said he was sick of what he saw. Victor went berserk, called him all the names under the sun, even blamed him for the bus being set on fire. Then he sacked him on the spot. Well, I argued back at him for once and he told me to get out an’ all. I just flipped. Ran out with his car keys and drove his BMW up to Brassy.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Carol dreaded what she was going to hear.

  ‘Your sister was at home having a facial done. I think I screamed a lot at her about me and Victor and the baby - I don’t really remember. Finally Victor turns up in a work’s van and hauls me away, denying it all to your sister, of course, but I think she got the message.’

  ‘That was a really stupid thing to do,’ Carol said. Her sister would be beside herself with hurt and humiliation.

  Kelly started to laugh hysterically. ‘Aye, it was, wasn’t it? But she did look a sight in her cucumber face pack!’ Then the laughter dissolved into sobbing once more. ‘Oh, Carol! What am I going to do? I’ve got nothing now. I’ve lost me job, I’ve lost Victor. And I loved him so much, it really hurts.’

  Carol shoved a tissue at her. ‘Does Sid have any idea what’s been going on?’

  Kelly shook her head. ‘I don’t think he does. He’s always round at his sister’s. I haven’t told him yet about being sacked. Me dad’s the only one who’s guessed about Victor, but he won’t say anything.’

  ‘So you haven’t lost everything,’ Carol said more briskly. ‘You have a baby on the way that you want to keep, and you have Sid.’

  ‘I can’t stay with Sid after what’s happened,’ Kelly said unhappily.

  ‘You don’t have much choice,’ Carol answered, ‘and staying with Sid’s the best one, if you ask me. He’d make a smashing father and he’s always been as keen for a bairn as you have, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Aye, but I don’t love him any more.’

  Carol grew impatient. ‘You love your baby, don’t you? Well, the least you can do is give the bairn a loving father who won’t disown it before birth. And the least you can do for Sid is to give him that happiness too. It’s either that or admit what you’ve done and go back to Mafeking Street to live with your dad.’

  Kelly gave her a petulant, frightened look, like a child being told off. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Well then, what have you got to lose by pretending the bairn is Sid’s? That’s if it’s physically possible.’

  ‘I could lie about the dates a bit,’ Kelly said, with an embarrassed smile.

  Carol felt relief. Her friend was a survivor. Perhaps it would work out for her and Sid after all. Yet she thought how little they would have to give the baby if the strike lasted till Christmas, as everyone was now predicting. They would need all the help and support they could get. Carol buried her anger at Kelly for her futile affair with Vic. Her contempt for her brother-in-law, though, would not be so easy to suppress. She wondered briefly if she should go and see Fay, but she could imagine how she would be rebuffed. They had not spoken for too long and none of her family had come to comfort her when Mick had been taken away to prison, she thought with resentment.

  She put an arm round Kelly. ‘I’ll volunteer for babysitting and anything else I can help with, you know that.’

  Kelly grinned at her tearfully. ‘I don’t deserve a friend like you. I’ve never brought you anything but trouble.’

  ‘Aye, I know,’ Carol laughed. Then added more seriously, ‘But you were a good mate to me when we were growing up. At least I had someone to
go off the rails with.’

  Kelly hugged her tight.

  Arthur Bowman’s funeral was delayed a further week while the Todds fought for Mick to be allowed to attend. On a bright September afternoon, with a hint of autumn in the air and the first chestnuts beginning to fall, Mick was brought under guard to the Methodist Chapel in Good Street.

  Laura was at school and Carol had not told her that her daddy was going to be there in case she had hysterics again. The girl was constantly flying into tantrums and alternately biting and kicking her then clinging to her, fearful of letting her out of her sight.

  Carol was able to sit next to Mick, but she felt his distance and he did not respond to her smile of encouragement. He sat there, his hair cropped and his face once again shaven, looking boyish, not saying a word. Mick’s calmness alarmed her, but his composure broke as the coffin was lifted by Charlie and Eddy and Sid and Stan Savage. Outside, the colliery band struck up the miners’ hymn of Gresford in tribute to the old face worker and the chapel filled with singing. Carol heard Mick sob.

  She slipped her arm through his and held it tight, ignoring the way he stiffened at her touch. Then the tears came, pouring down his face, and his body shook. Carol wept too. She wept for the old man and for them all, united in their pain as the strains of the band rang out in the sunny street, rallying their spirits.

  They filed out together, but Mick’s escort kept close beside him as they made their way up the hill to the cemetery. There, under a rowan tree bright with autumn berries, Arthur Bowman was laid to rest beside his wife, among so many of the folk of Brassbank with whom he had lived and worked. Lotty and her sister Val were bowed in grief, comforted by Charlie and Eddy.

  All too soon, Mick was being led away. Carol caught his hand before he went and they hugged each other awkwardly. Yet he looked at her for a long moment and she thought she saw tenderness in his blue eyes, which gave her courage. He was telling her to be brave. Then he was being hurried out of the cemetery and out of her life again.

  Carol stood feeling quite alone in the autumn sunshine, wondering how much more she would have to endure.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  At the end of September, after a month on remand, Mick was found guilty of assault and criminal damage at the court in Durham and sentenced to ninety days in prison. He was sent back to Ridley where he continued his mute defiance of non-cooperation which landed him in solitary where he was denied exercise and allowed no visitors.

  Carol was desolate at the thought of not being able to see him and after a month she grew angry with Mick for his stubbornness, wondering if he was deliberately keeping her away. She threw herself into work at the Welfare kitchen and spent every hour of the day with members of the Women’s Group so that she did not have to stay in the cold empty house at Dominion Terrace. At the weekends she took Laura blackberry picking and they made fruit pies with thin pastry which they took round to Septimus Street and shared with the Todds.

  With October came the first of the really cold weather and the soup kitchen was busier than ever. Carol noticed how thin and tired many of the women looked, as they gave what meagre resources they had to their children and husbands first. She and Laura survived on endless vegetable soup and beans on toast; her daughter had given up asking for chicken or ice cream or sweets or bananas. On Sundays they went round to Lotty’s for dinner and Eddy played football with Laura and taught her to whistle.

  Carol knew that Lotty grieved deeply for her father, but it was Charlie who seemed to miss his company the most. He still took Dougal for a walk up to the cottages on the days he would have gone to visit Arthur and fetch him to play dominoes at the club.

  ‘You know you can move in with us any time,’ Lotty repeated every visit.

  ‘Ta, I know that,’ Carol smiled, ‘but we’re managing. I’m trying to keep things as normal as possible for Laura. Being in her own home is one way.’

  Carol kept to herself the worries about how to pay for the winter clothes and shoes that Laura needed. The strikers’ children were not entitled to free school meals or clothing grants as other poor families were; they had to manage as best they could by swapping second-hand clothes at the Welfare and begging for jumble from charity shops.

  In the evenings, unable to afford coal for the fire, she and Laura would go to bed early wrapped in extra jumpers and sleep together in the double bed. She marvelled at how her daughter did not complain at their change in circumstances; it was she herself who nearly cried with despair when she had to bathe in cold water and leave her hair unwashed for a week at a time.

  Then one day Laura came out of school crying. When Carol got her home she noticed a cut on the back of her neck where someone had scratched her.

  ‘What’s been happening?’ Carol said gently, taking her on her knee and cuddling her.

  ‘Nothing. I’m not going back to school,’ Laura muttered. ‘I’m going to be poorly tomorrow.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ Carol cajoled her, ‘you’ll be just fine. But how did you get that scratch?’

  ‘Sarah did it,’ Laura admitted in a whisper.

  ‘Sarah Lawrence?’

  Laura nodded. Carol’s heart sank. Sarah’s father had recently gone back to work and his house had been daubed in red paint. She had heard from gossip around the school gate that the children of scabs were being picked on at school and no doubt Sarah was one of them. She felt sorry for the girl, but it made her angry that she had taken it out on Laura, one of her best friends.

  ‘Have you been saying hurtful things to Sarah?’ Carol asked.

  Laura shook her head vehemently. ‘No I never.’

  ‘So why did she scratch you?’

  ‘We were playing houses,’ Laura sniffed, ‘and Louise Dillon said to Sarah she should paint her house red and she was crying and Louise was calling her scabby, scabby Sarah. And then I said she could share my house and she hit me and said she would never come to my house ‘cos me dad was a hooligan and a very bad man . . .’ Suddenly Laura’s face crumpled. ‘And she said the police would come and take me away next because of what Daddy had done and put me in prison.’ She burst into tears.

  Carol hugged her daughter tight and tried to calm her, sick at the cruelty of children. But then they were only repeating what they heard the adults say; they could not be blamed for the awful bitterness that was tearing their community apart.

  ‘It’s not true, pet,’ Carol reassured her. ‘None of it’s true. No one’s going to put you in prison. You’ll always stay here, safe with me. And your daddy is not a bad man; don’t let anyone tell you so.’

  Laura wiped her nose on Carol’s shoulder and snuggled into her hold. ‘Then why is he in prison, Mam?’

  Carol sighed. ‘It’s difficult to explain in a way you’d understand. Daddy’s been forced to do things he never wanted to do because of the strike. But he’s only been trying to do the best for all the men at the pit, like Granddad Charlie and Uncle Eddy - standing up for them, for all of us.’

  ‘Then is Uncle Simon wrong because he’s a policeman? Louise Dillon says all police are pigs and they hate my dad and her dad.’

  Carol wondered what else Marty Dillon had been telling his children. But he was still awaiting trial for the incident at Orgreave months ago and she knew from May that their eldest boy Rob was being hounded or picked up by the police every time he left the house. Rob was only fourteen and terrified by all the attention, but he was the son of an activist and the Dillons were under constant surveillance. No wonder Laura’s friend Louise was turning into a playground bully.

  ‘Uncle Simon doesn’t hate Daddy,’ Carol assured.

  ‘What about Grandpa Ben and Grandma? We never see them any more. Is that because of what Daddy’s done?’

  Carol’s heart missed a beat. Her daughter had not mentioned those grandparents for months and she had wishfully thought she did not even miss them. It would have made her feel less guilty for staying away and keeping Laura from them.

  Car
ol swallowed. ‘Your dad’s got nothing to do with Grandpa and Grandma not seeing us. It’s Mammy who fell out with them, I’m afraid.’ When Laura did not pursue this, Carol was relieved. ‘Anyway, I’ll come into school with you tomorrow and help you make it up with Sarah if you want. Then you can be friends again. Is that what you want?’

  Laura nodded.

  ‘OK. Let’s have some tea.’

  ‘But if I make friends with Sarah, will you be friends again with Grandpa and Grandma? Then I can go and play in their garden and go on Grandpa’s swings again.’

  Carol felt her eyes sting at the sight of Laura’s longing face. Life was so hard these days and yet Laura demanded so little; how could she refuse to let her see her own grandparents?

  ‘I’ll take you to see them soon,’ Carol promised.

  Later, as she tucked Laura into bed and the condensation on the window began to freeze, she felt a stab of guilt towards Mick. He might see it as a sign of weakening, of going behind his back to take Laura over to Granville House. But then Mick was not here, she thought with resentment, and she just had to get by as best she could without him. She had to make her decisions alone and stand by them.

  Pulling on an extra pair of socks and a large jumper of Mick’s, Carol snuggled in beside her daughter, wondering how life could have changed so dramatically in eight months. When would they ever live a normal life again?

  As so often happened these days, Carol went to Lotty for advice. Her mother-in-law was still as busy as ever, spending long hours in the Welfare kitchen and riding around the village on her moped muffled in scarves and Eddy’s old donkey jacket, visiting families and finding out their needs. Yet Carol noticed the tired lines of strain etched into her face at the end of the day.

  ‘Laura wants to see her other grandparents,’ Carol confided as they peeled an endless mound of potatoes one morning.

  ‘Have they ever got in touch with you since Mick was imprisoned?’ Lotty asked tartly.

  ‘No,’ Carol admitted, ‘but this is about Laura.’