Union Belle

by Deborah Challinor

  Tom looked up then, and saw Jack watching him. He gave the other man a small nod, not in greeting, but in acknowledgement that it wouldn’t be long now. He made his way back to his table and set the handles down, spilling beer as he did, then rolled himself a smoke, pleased to see that his hands weren’t shaking. He felt steady, if steady was the right word for it. He was pissed but he was angry, and he knew that every man in the bar was waiting for him to do what they would all do themselves, given the same circumstances.

  But something was missing. He was waiting for the feeling that had raged through him that day in Queen Street just before the coppers charged, that wild, exhilarating sensation of being truly alive and that nothing else mattered except being part of the fight. But he didn’t have it and, deep in his belly, Tom thought he knew why: Jack wasn’t the enemy. And it was a gut-wrenching revelation, because he would have to fight him anyway or he’d never be able to hold his head up again.

  ‘All right, son?’ Pat asked.

  Tom looked at him. ‘I’m going over there,’ he said, putting his unlit cigarette back into his tobacco tin. ‘I want to get this over with.’

  Pat nodded, knowing exactly what Tom meant. He emptied his glass and reached for another, then leaned his elbow comfortably on the table, settling himself in for the show.

  But Jack had already made a move. He’d been watching Tom and feeling so sorry for the poor bastard that he’d decided to make it easy for him: he was already walking away, across the room towards the door, as if to slip out while Tom had his back turned.

  Tom moved immediately, barging his way through the crowd towards Jack, who was now only a yard or so from the door.

  ‘Oi!’ he yelled, catching up and shoving Jack’s shoulder hard.

  Jack spun around and took Tom’s first blow full in the face, his head snapping back and his legs going out from under him. But he was up again straight away, oblivious to the trickle of blood coming out of his nose.

  He feinted with his left hand, then hit out with his right, catching Tom a solid thump on the side of the head. Tom staggered but didn’t fall, and then they were circling each other, fists up and heads down.

  The crowd, most with beers still in hand, swarmed around them, forming a wide circle with Tom and Jack in the centre; others sat up on the tall tables and three or four jokers got up on the bar for a better view until Harry the barman told them to get the hell off it. There was a roar of approval at every punch thrown, not in favour of one man or the other, but in simple acknowledgement of each bloke’s skill.

  Jack let go with another swing that took Tom by surprise and knocked him sideways, but he recovered and lurched back, delivering another blow to Jack’s face. For the first time, Jack looked annoyed, and hit out with a punch so heavy it split Tom’s eyebrow. Both men were bleeding now, and breathing raggedly as they stepped around each other.

  Then the boxing stopped and the real fighting began, with a barrage of blows that had the crowd yelling and hooting wildly. Tom hooked his leg behind Jack’s knees and tried to shove him down, but Jack hung on and took Tom with him, the pair of them crashing into a table and sending glasses and beer everywhere.

  Behind the bar, Harry swore.

  Tom and Jack rolled around on the floor until Jack finally tore himself away and staggered to his feet. Tom, caught on his knees, prepared to duck in anticipation of Jack’s boot. But the kick didn’t come, and when he glanced up at Jack’s face, streaming with blood now, he saw in the other man’s eyes that it never would. But he wasn’t going to put out his hand to let Jack help him up—neither of them could ever claim to be that gentlemanly.

  Then he was up and they were at it again, moving more ponderously now, lurching instead of sidestepping, their swings wilder and less calculated. They’d been fighting solidly for nearly ten minutes and both were flagging, the sweat on their faces mixing with the blood and their clothes dishevelled and ripped. With a colossal effort they launched themselves yet again, but instead of hitting out they held on to each other, staggering around like a drunken couple on the dance floor at the end of a very long night.

  ‘Jack,’ Tom gasped as he clung to the other man’s shirt.

  Exhausted, battered and sore, they swayed against each other, faces barely inches apart. Jack blinked at him through eyes bleary with sweat and blood.

  ‘Jack, man, leave her alone. Please,’ Tom whispered, his voice hoarse.

  Panting and hoicking back blood and snot, Jack slowly shook his head. ‘I can’t, Tom. I just can’t.’

  They stared at each other for several long heartbeats. Then, dredging up the last of his strength, Tom shoved Jack as hard as he could; again Jack hung on and another table crashed onto its side.

  Behind the bar, Harry muttered, ‘Right, that’s it,’ opened his little hatch and marched over to the crowd.

  ‘Break it up, break it up!’ he roared, shoving spectators out of the way. ‘Come on, the pair of you, on your bikes, you’re wrecking my pub.’ He grabbed Tom by his already torn collar and dragged him to his feet. ‘And you’re banned for a month, Tom McCabe, this is the second time you’ve done this in as many weeks. Now go on, bugger off, both of you.’

  Tom was in considerable pain over the next twenty-four hours, once the effects of the beer wore off. His right eye was black and swollen shut, his eyebrow was split and he’d lost one of his back teeth. In frosty silence, Ellen made him ice packs for the bruises and dabbed iodine on his cuts, but she never once asked him how he’d come to be in such a state. She didn’t have to: news of the fight was all over Pukemiro almost before the Friday night train had pulled into the Junction. She wouldn’t have asked him anyway, she was so irate at what he’d done. Irate and ashamed, because everyone must have known bloody well what he and Jack were fighting about, and it made her feel like some sort of chattel being bickered over in a shabby little public dispute. It was humiliating, for all of them.

  Tom was still sleeping on the couch, and the atmosphere in the house was colder than the winter air outside. But Ellen continued to cook and clean and look after the boys, she worked almost obsessively in her vegetable garden and she slipped out of the house to see Jack at every opportunity she could grab. Tom knew exactly where she was going, but said nothing. He neither told her to pack her bags, nor did he make the decision to leave himself. It was a situation that was almost intolerable, for both of them.

  Then, on 26 June, the day that the swelling in Tom’s eye finally started to recede, news came that the Seamen’s Union had advised the WWU to return to work on the government’s terms, and had confirmed their own decision of some days earlier to go back themselves. It was an almighty blow to the strikers who still held out hope, although their numbers were dwindling by the day.

  But then good news followed. Thoroughly rattled by the town’s crumbling economy after more than eighteen weeks of strike, and even more by talk of ghost towns and of blacking the coalfields for ever, fifty of Huntly’s businessmen petitioned the mayor, who urgently telegraphed the government asking that the miners’ standing working agreement be honoured should they return to work. If it wasn’t, if Sullivan insisted on applying his own terms and the miners refused to go back and went further afield for work instead, then the town could very well turn to dust, and with it the coal that until very recently had fuelled half of New Zealand.

  Two days later, Sullivan announced that he would modify his conditions after all.

  National officers of the UMWU recommended immediately that Sullivan’s new terms be accepted. As soon as they were informed of the decision, the two Waikato delegates to the national council of the UMWU boarded the train for Wellington.

  FIFTEEN

  July 1951

  Ellen sat at the kitchen table, waiting and glancing anxiously at her watch; the meeting should be over by now. Yesterday, the UMWU had officially accepted Sullivan’s conditions, and Tom, in sullen silence, had oiled his boots and hung his work clothes out to air. Today he’d gone with t
he rest of the men to the Pukemiro pithead to vote by secret ballot on whether they would finally return to work, although the result was more or less a foregone conclusion. The Renown miners had started back yesterday.

  She tensed as she heard someone coming up the steps, but a discreet knock told her that it wasn’t Tom.

  She opened the door—it was Jack.

  ‘Tom will be home in a minute,’ she said, before he even had a chance to open his mouth.

  ‘No, he won’t, he’s gone down to Pat’s with the others, but I’d better be quick.’

  Ellen stepped back. ‘Come inside, it’s cold.’

  Jack followed her into the kitchen; he didn’t sit down but propped himself against the bench instead. He seemed preoccupied and on edge.

  Ellen asked, ‘What happened at the meeting?’

  ‘Back to work tomorrow morning. It wasn’t quite unanimous but they’re all going back.’

  ‘And the other pits?’

  ‘Alison and McDonald tomorrow, Glen Afton and Rotowaro on Monday. Not sure about Glen Massey, or the rest of the opencasters.’ He moved closer and grasped her hands. They were cold, and he rubbed them gently.

  Her eyes were shut: he had said ‘they’ were going back. Not ‘we’, but ‘they’.

  ‘Ellen, there’s something I have to tell you.’

  She nodded, her eyes still tightly closed against the words she knew she was about to hear.

  ‘I’m leaving, Ellen. I can’t stay here after everything that’s happened, it wouldn’t work.’ He squeezed her hands. ‘Come on, love, open your eyes, look at me.’

  She forced herself to do as he asked.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I’m going back down to the West Coast, they’re hiring at Strongman at the moment.’ The look of desolation in her eyes almost broke his heart. He cupped her face in his hands, and wiped a tear away with his thumb. ‘No, Ellen, don’t cry, please. I want you to come with me. Will you?’

  Ellen stared at him, at the now familiar and comforting angles of his handsome face, the healing cut on his brow from Tom’s fist, his bright, dark eyes and the laugh lines that fanned out from them. And, slowly, she nodded.

  Jack exhaled in relief and gave her a quick but passionate kiss that almost bruised her lips. ‘Thank Christ,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dreading what I’d do if you said no.’

  ‘Did you think I might?’ Ellen said, incredulous, then burst into tears. ‘My babies!’ she blurted, her hand pressed over her heart, struggling to contain the pain there that was already almost too much to bear.

  ‘Bring them,’ Jack said.

  ‘Take them with us?’ Ellen thought of Tom, and how his life would be without her or his sons, and shook her head. ‘Oh God, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do that to him.’

  ‘You could send for them, when we’re settled. You don’t have to leave them for ever.’

  She rested her forehead against his chest. ‘I don’t want to leave them at all.’

  ‘I know.’

  They held each other, not saying anything.

  In his cage, Fintan had a scratch so violent that his swing rattled wildly, and said to no one in particular, ‘Cold out there?’

  ‘When will we go?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, after they’ve started back.’

  Ellen was jolted by the suddenness of it, but knew that there was no other way they could do it.

  ‘I’ll come and pick you up,’ Jack said, in case she changed her mind. ‘You don’t have to bring much, I’ll get you anything you need.’

  Ellen’s gaze moved around the kitchen over her beautiful white refrigerator, the wooden flour scoop that Neil had made for her in its special place on the windowsill, the curtains she’d sewn when they’d first moved into the house, and the crooked shelves at the end of the bench her father had put up when Tom’s arm had been in a plaster cast.

  ‘No, Jack. Thanks, but I’ll meet you in town. I’ll come in on the morning train and meet you at the station.’

  ‘Do you want to say goodbye by yourself?’

  She nodded, grateful that he understood.

  ‘But you will be there?’ he asked.

  ‘I will.’

  He lifted her chin so he could see exactly what was in her eyes. ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  That afternoon, while Tom was mowing the lawn, she prepared the tastiest meal she could manage from what was in the cupboards and the fridge, and opened the last jar of preserves to make a fruit cobbler, a family winter favourite. Then she cried her eyes out as she kneaded the mixture with her hands, thinking how bloody stupid she was imagining that the memory of a pudding would make everything all right when the boys arrived home from school tomorrow afternoon to find she’d walked out on them.

  Every time she thought about what would be happening in the morning, she felt like being sick. She’d learned a lot about herself over the last few months, and not all of it pleasant, but she’d never imagined she would ever find it within herself to abandon her children. But here she was, on the eve of doing exactly that. She was determined to send for them as soon as she could, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about it, and she clung to that resolution desperately because it was the only thing stopping her from drowning in her own guilt. That, and the image of Jack waiting for her at the railway station tomorrow morning.

  She thought about Tom, too, and how he would feel when he realised she’d gone. It wouldn’t kill him, he was far too strong for that, but it would change him for ever and she would always carry the responsibility for that. For a moment she tried to tell herself he’d be better off without her, but she knew she was having herself on. If he still loved her, her leaving would hurt him terribly.

  They ate their meal that night in the same stony silence that had enveloped them over the past two weeks. It was agonising. The disillusion and despair rolling off Tom was palpable, Davey knocked his milk over and burst into frightened tears, and Neil got up and walked away from the table halfway through the meal and slammed into his bedroom. A few weeks ago he would have been given a swift clip across the ear for such bad manners, but now no one even commented on it. The atmosphere was unbearable and for a moment Ellen wished it was tomorrow morning already.

  But when she went into the boys’ bedroom later to tuck them in, she was overwhelmed with such love for them that she thought her legs might buckle from the force of it. She stood holding onto the door handle, gazing at them, her eyes prickling with tears she hoped they couldn’t see, then moved over to sit on the edge of Neil’s bed.

  She bent down to give him a cuddle, but he turned his head away.

  ‘Neil, love, don’t. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, I want to know.’

  ‘Why?’ he said to the wall. ‘You don’t care about us any more.’

  She recoiled as though he had punched her in the face. ‘Oh, I do, Neil, so much. Why are you saying that?’

  He turned his head back towards her. In the semi-darkness, his eyes were flat and distant. ‘Trevor Quinn says you’re a slut. He says you’ve got a fancy man and you don’t love us any more.’

  ‘Oh, Neil, sweetheart!’ Ellen reached for him, but he batted her hand away exactly as Tom had done.

  He rolled over to face the wall again. ‘Go away, Mum, I’m tired,’ he said, and closed his eyes.

  She watched him, her heart breaking. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she moved over to Davey’s bed. He was on his back with his arms out, on top of the covers.

  ‘Davey, love?’

  He didn’t answer, although she knew he wasn’t asleep because he was holding his breath.

  ‘Davey?’

  He stayed still a few seconds longer, then suddenly sat up, leaning into her and beginning to cry. She sat there for some time, stroking his hair and wiping tears and snot off his face. When he’d finally cried himself to sleep, she laid him back down and tucked
him in.

  She went back to Neil’s bed, but he didn’t stir.

  Finally, she went out and shut the door behind her.

  Tom wasn’t in the kitchen but she saw him through the window, sitting on the steps next door having a smoke and talking to Bert. Dot would be home soon but she would miss her, Ellen thought with a deep pang of regret. She could write to her, though, she could write to everyone she wouldn’t be saying goodbye to, and perhaps try to explain why she’d gone. If she could. She’d already decided not to say goodbye to her mother, or Milly, because she knew they both would try to stop her, and she wouldn’t be able to bear what they’d say to her about Neil and Davey. She thought about the advice Alf might have given her. She wanted to think he’d have told her to follow her heart, because he’d always told her that, but now she suspected he might have told her something completely different.

  And she wouldn’t have wanted to hear that, because she’d made up her mind.

  In the morning she got up early, washed and dressed quickly, and packed a small carrybag with two changes of underwear, a clean blouse and the basic toiletries she would need. Then she shoved the bag under the bed and went into the kitchen to start breakfast.

  No one spoke at the breakfast table, and when it was time for Tom to leave for work, she sent the boys to the bathroom to clean their teeth. While Tom packed his crib tin in his rucksack, she watched in silence, trying to decide what she wanted to say to him.

  He went out to the porch and she followed him, watching as he bent over to tug on his boots.

  ‘Tom?’

  He stopped, but didn’t turn around. She moved closer, wanting to reach out and touch his broad back, but knowing it was far too late for that now.

  ‘You’ve always been a good husband.’

  ‘I wanted to be,’ he said. Then he straightened up, picked up his rucksack and went down the steps, not once turning back to look at her.