Union Belle

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘So if the unions aren’t as strong by then as they are now,’ Ellen went on, ‘who’ll guarantee how safe it will be? It’s bad enough now—imagine what it would be like if the unions had no clout at all, and they won’t if Holland squashes the guts out of them.’

  Milly pulled a face. ‘It’s just that, well, I can’t really believe the government would do that, Ellen, I really can’t.’

  Ellen snorted. ‘Of course they would, if it means saving a bit of money, and that’s what it always comes down to.’

  They both looked around as a truck pulled up beside them and Jack Vaughan climbed out. ‘Can I give you ladies a lift anywhere?’ he asked.

  He was bare-headed, his shirtsleeves were rolled to above his elbows and his trousers rumpled but clean. Ellen caught herself thinking that if she could just get them off him she could give them a good iron, and her face reddened at the image the idea conjured.

  Milly giggled. ‘Nobody ever needs a lift in Pukemiro, it’s too small!’

  Ellen stifled the urge to roll her eyes. Milly might be happily married, but she wasn’t immune to the twinkle in a good-looking man’s eye. Neither, apparently, was Nora Bone, whose name had entertained several generations of Pukemiro children; Ellen could see the old lady peering through her front window across the street, her nets twitching and dropping back into place as she noticed she’d been spotted. Nora was seventy-five years old, however, and therefore not likely to be serious competition for the town’s younger women.

  And neither was she immune herself, Ellen noted with a rush of the same breathless, tingling discomfort she’d experienced the last two times she’d encountered Jack. ‘We’re fine, thank you,’ she replied, more crossly than she had intended.

  Jack looked at her for a moment, then nodded amiably. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘you’re only up the road—unless you’ve shifted since Saturday night.’

  ‘No, we haven’t shifted,’ Ellen said.

  Milly blurted, ‘What did you think of the meeting on Monday?’ She clearly didn’t want Jack to go just yet.

  ‘In town?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Good turnout.’

  ‘As good as what you’d get at Ohura?’ Ellen asked. For a reason she couldn’t fathom, she wanted the local unions to measure up against their Taranaki counterparts, in terms of commitment and enthusiasm, at least. She didn’t like the idea of Jack being anything less than impressed with his new colleagues.

  He nodded. ‘Good bunch of jokers, too. I haven’t met many of the men from the other mines yet, but the Pukemiro blokes are top notch.’

  Satisfied, Ellen looked at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got a couple of things to do before the boys get home. Nice talking to you, Jack.’

  He looked embarrassed. ‘Er, actually, I saw Tom earlier today and he asked me around to your place tonight for a meal. Did he tell you? It’s no problem if it’s not convenient.’

  Ellen forced a smile. It annoyed her when Tom did this; she usually enjoyed the company, but not the last-minute scramble to cobble together a decent dinner. And especially with Jack—something was bound to go wrong in the rush.

  ‘No, he hasn’t actually, but I’ve been out. We’d love to have you, will around six o’clock suit?’

  ‘Be great, thanks,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll see you then.’

  He climbed back into his truck, tooted the horn once and drove off, leaving the two women staring after him.

  ‘You lucky dog,’ Milly said.

  Ellen left Milly at her front gate and hurried home. Belting up the back steps—nobody ever used the front entrance except the Rawleigh’s man, and the police during the war looking for conscription dodgers hiding on the coal—she banged open the back door and lunged for the refrigerator. On a plate sat five pork chops and two lonely sausages. She had planned to give three of the chops to Tom tonight, one each to the boys, and have the sausages herself, but looking at the plate she knew she wouldn’t be able to feed two grown men with what she had. She snatched up her purse again and shot back down the steps.

  Fortunately for her, Sid Pollard the butcher still had a reasonable selection left. She listened patiently to him extolling the virtues of a nice bolar roast, which required slow roasting and therefore would not be done in time, then fat sirloin steaks, which were far too expensive, and finally settled on five more chops: three for Jack and two for her so he wouldn’t see she was eating leftover sausages. While Sid wrapped the chops in brown paper and tied the parcel with string, she dug into her purse; she hadn’t budgeted for the extra meat, but this was an emergency.

  The boys were home when she got back, eagerly eyeing her shopping in case she’d bought something interesting, like lollies. She hadn’t, and they drifted off before she could rope them into helping her with the dinner.

  She knew it was far too early, but she started on the vegetables anyway. Tom arrived home halfway through the beans. He came up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist and gave her a squeeze.

  ‘Tea’s early, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Oh, whoops, I forgot to tell you, I’ve invited Jack Vaughan around tonight. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but a little more notice might have been helpful,’ Ellen said, extricating herself from his cuddle.

  ‘Sorry, love, I forgot. Been a bit busy today.’

  Ellen relented and gave him a smile. ‘Milly and I saw Jack down the street. I think he was a bit embarrassed, actually, when he realised you hadn’t told me.’

  Tom looked sheepish. ‘Well, you weren’t home.’ He gave her a quick kiss, and looked around. ‘Is there anything to eat now?’

  ‘Sandwiches,’ Ellen said, pointing at the refrigerator.

  Tom took out a plate of sandwiches made with thick slices of bread. He lifted the edge of the top one and pulled a face. ‘Bloody cheese again. I’d rather have ham.’

  Irritated, Ellen smothered a sigh. ‘I know you would, and so would the boys, but there isn’t any. We’re a bit short at the moment, remember?’

  Tom looked at her as if the complexities of housekeeping were not only beyond him, but beneath him as well, then shrugged, sat down and took a bite. ‘Good pickle,’ he said, and Ellen knew the comment was his way of apologising for complaining when he knew bloody well the grocery money wasn’t going far enough.

  He swallowed. ‘How was your ladies’ meeting? Get your order of battle from Colonel Wickham?’

  ‘We did,’ Ellen said, turning back to the bench. ‘We’re to help put together the food parcels and hand them out. She also wants us to “encourage” the wives to stand behind their men while the strike’s on.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d need encouraging.’

  Ellen contemplated the chopping board. Tom could be very naïve sometimes, when it came to understanding how people worked. Perhaps she’d spoiled him—she’d never once gone against his wishes or complained when money was short when he was on strike. And she’d never really wanted to, either, because she’d always agreed with what the union was trying to achieve.

  She said, ‘Well, Rhea does. She says it’s happened before and it’ll happen this time, too.’

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘That the women will start on at their husbands about getting back to work.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Tom said. ‘That’s only when the stakes are low. This is different, we have to win this one, they all know that.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Well, the miners all bloody well do.’

  Ellen hesitated, then turned to face him. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Christ, we all voted, every man at every pithead! An honest show of hands, too, not a gutless bloody secret ballot.’

  ‘You don’t think some of them were just putting their hands up for a couple of days off, or that they were swayed by what Pat and the others had to say? Do you think they all understand what’s really at stake?’

  Tom narrowed his eyes, but said no
thing and resumed eating.

  Ellen went on, although the last thing she wanted to do was annoy him. ‘Perhaps it might have been an idea to take a secret ballot after all, then you would have got a better idea of how many of them genuinely wanted to go out.’

  ‘They all wanted to go out,’ Tom said through a mouthful of bread.

  ‘Yes, but if you’d taken a secret ballot there’d be a record of the exact numbers, wouldn’t there, and you’d be able to remind them of that if any of them did start to waver. The result of a secret ballot always stands, doesn’t it?’

  ‘So does a show of hands.’

  ‘Not if you have to have another one later on and not everyone puts their hand up.’

  Tom leaned back in his chair and pushed his empty plate away. ‘No one would dare, that’d imply they were prepared to scab.’

  ‘Rhea says they might dare, if their wives are on at them to get back to work. A lot of them have kids to feed, Tom, and bills to pay. So do we.’

  ‘What are you saying, Ellen?’ Tom demanded. ‘We’ve only been out a bloody fortnight.’

  ‘Mum?’

  Davey was standing at the kitchen door, his eyes big at the sound of his parents’ raised voices. Ellen held out her arms, and he ran into them. She and Tom rarely argued, and when they did, she at least tried to make sure the boys weren’t around.

  ‘Are you and Dad having a fight?’ Davey said into her skirt.

  ‘Of course we’re not,’ Ellen said as she stroked his hair. ‘We’re having a discussion, that’s all.’

  ‘About the strike?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Davey stepped back, the shine of tears in his eyes gone now. ‘You know Kevin Insley at school? His mum and dad were having a discussion about the strike, and his mum belted his dad. A really good one, Kev said.’

  Ellen refrained from glancing over at Tom. ‘Well, I don’t really think Kevin should be telling people about that sort of thing, do you? And you certainly shouldn’t be telling anyone else, Davey. That’s called gossip and it’s not very nice.’

  Davey gazed up at her. ‘But why would Mrs Insley belt Mr Insley, Mum?’

  Tom got to his feet and rummaged through his trouser pocket. ‘Look, here’s sixpence, why don’t you and Neil run out and get yourself some lollies?’

  Davey instantly forgot about Mr and Mrs Insley and whipped his hand out before his father could change his mind: being sent out with sixpence to spend solely on lollies was almost unprecedented.

  Tom remained standing until his sons had galloped out the back door, then slowly subsided back into his chair. Ellen said nothing.

  ‘The Insleys are always having a go at each other,’ he said eventually, ‘and they’re always hard up. Barry Insley sits on his arse half the day down the pit so he never earns what he could.’

  Ellen went back to preparing dinner, feeling that the tension had eased a little. It was unlike Tom to be short-tempered, and it worried her. She knew they would be all right, one way or another, but she also knew that Rhea Wickham was probably right too—sooner or later at least some of the men would find themselves under pressure from their wives, whether Tom wanted to believe it or not.

  ‘Who’ll be going up to Pukekohe for the veges?’ she asked.

  ‘Not me. Pat and I’ll be at the watersiders’ meetings once a week, I don’t fancy going up twice.’

  Ellen glanced at him over her shoulder. ‘The meetings in Auckland?’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘Every week?’

  ‘For as long as the strike’s on, yeah.’

  ‘Then why don’t you get the veges on the way?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘Jack’s doing that, since he’s the one with the truck. And anyway the meetings are on a Friday, and the deal we’ve done with the market is for Mondays.’

  Ellen sliced the ends off the last of the beans and tipped them off the chopping board into a pot. She rinsed the board then propped it behind the taps to drain, and sat down at the table.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘How long is it likely to go on?’

  Tom’s eyes were suddenly serious and Ellen felt a worm of anxiety begin to uncurl in her stomach.

  ‘I really don’t know, love,’ he said.

  Ellen knew he wasn’t quite telling the truth. ‘But you know it won’t be over soon, don’t you?’ she asked.

  Tom looked as if he might be considering lying, which he had never been very good at, then thought better of it. ‘No, it doesn’t look like it. Pat says Barnes has no intention of giving Holland even an inch, and he’ll never accept arbitration and that the watersiders are behind him one hundred per cent. And we won’t go back until they do.’

  ‘Just the Auckland lot, or the wharfies at all the ports?’

  ‘All of them. They’re all out and they’ll stick together, and we’ll stick with them. So will the other unions in the TUC, you can bank on that. And the Communist Party, of course,’ he added, pulling a face.

  Ellen nodded in commiseration. It was common knowledge that the communists openly supported the watersiders’ strike, although neither Jock Barnes nor Toby Hill were party members themselves. But it wasn’t much of a bonus because the papers were playing up the communist angle atrociously, accusing the watersiders of being agents of the Soviet Union and scaring the wits out of ordinary New Zealanders who didn’t know any better because it was illegal to print anything in support of the strikers. The accusations didn’t particularly bother anyone in Pukemiro because there were communists throughout the local mining community, and several high up in the unions, and nobody gave a toss. One of the shops down the street sold the People’s Voice and quite a lot of people took it, but it didn’t mean they were rabid reds about to invite Joseph Stalin around for afternoon tea any time soon. Tom read it himself and although he was appalled by what Stalin was doing in Russia, he liked some of the ideas the magazine espoused, and said it was very handy for lighting the coal range. But whatever people’s views on communism, the idea that the strike was being driven by the Soviet Union was laughable.

  ‘So it all depends on Barnes and the watersiders?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘It depends on all of us. United we stand and all that.’

  Ellen nodded. ‘Well, as long as you and I are united. Rhea has asked us to keep an eye on the women, so we will. But there’s no point you and I arguing about it, Tom, is there?’

  He touched her hand. ‘No, there isn’t, love, so we won’t, I promise.’

  ‘Good,’ Ellen said, relieved that they had cleared the air between them. ‘Do you think it was wise giving the boys a whole sixpence just for lollies?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘I didn’t want them to hear us.’

  Ellen kissed the tip of his nose. ‘No, neither did I.’

  Tom went next door for a yarn with Bert Sisley, so Ellen made the pudding then tidied the kitchen and the sitting room, just in case Jack thought she was a slovenly housekeeper. She gave the outhouse a quick going over as well, even though the nightcart man had only been yesterday and it smelled quite fresh. It was absurd, really; they had electricity in the house and a refrigerator now, but the laundry still had to be done in the copper in the washhouse off the back porch, and their toilet was a long drop at the bottom of the garden because there was no town sewerage system, which was particularly hard going in the winter. Even Tom only took the newspaper in there with him during the summer months.

  Jack arrived promptly at six o’clock, bearing half a dozen bottles of DB for Tom and a small bunch of flowers for Ellen. Neil and Davey tittered when he handed them to her and she shooed them out of the kitchen, trying not to let Jack see her red face. But they were back again within minutes, hanging about and making a production of sniffing the flowers which she’d placed in the centre of the table. She was very tempted to tell them to hop off outside until tea was dished up, but Tom seemed to be finding their antics amusing. Jack himself simply smiled at her, and at Tom, and at the
boys. She wondered when he’d last had a decent, home-cooked meal.

  The pudding was keeping warm in the oven, the vegetables were almost done and all she had to do was fry the chops. Tom, seated at the table which she’d laid with her best tablecloth and china, rolled a smoke while Jack flicked the lids off a couple of beers.

  ‘Mum, can we have a beer?’ Neil asked.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ she said. ‘Stop showing off.’

  ‘I’m not showing off, I’m thirsty,’ Neil said, punctuating this announcement with a theatrical clearing of his throat that sounded like gallons of water going down a plug hole.

  Everyone laughed except Ellen. She put the chops in the frying pan and stood back as the heated fat sizzled and spat.

  ‘Dinner will be in about ten minutes, Jack,’ she said, glancing over at him.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ he asked.

  There was a brief but profound silence as Tom, Neil and Davey all looked at each other in exaggerated amazement, and then across the table at Jack before they burst out laughing again.

  Ellen ignored them. ‘No thanks, Jack, I’m fine.’

  Usually when Tom joked with the boys she joined in, even if it was at her own expense, but tonight she was feeling tense and unsettled, and wasn’t finding their shenanigans funny at all.

  She scooped the chops out of the pan and arranged them on a serving dish, then carried them over to the table. In honour of their guest the boys held back until Ellen had seated herself, looking at her expectantly. Even Tom kept his hands in his lap.

  ‘Help yourself, please,’ she urged Jack.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and speared a pork chop with his fork. To his plate he also added beans, peas and waxy yellow potatoes, while everyone watched intently.

  Ellen nodded at a small jug on the table. ‘There’s apple sauce to go with the chops, if you’d like it.’

  Neil said, ‘But Mum, we never have apple sauce.’

  ‘We do now,’ Ellen said, feeling her nerves fray even further. She kept her head down so Jack wouldn’t see the exasperation and embarrassment on her face, which she knew was flushed again from standing over the range.