“She’s a good lass is our Annie.”
Mrs Coates snorted. “She can’t do no wrong for you, we know that.”
“Do you think, Ben, that you could persuade her to come back with me to Oxford today, or tomorrow? She ought not to be here at all at the very beginning of this term when she ought to be working her hardest for her exam. She got behindhand and she needs all the time she has left to catch up.”
Ben nodded. “She couldn’t rightly settle to work in the summer holidays.”
“It wasn’t because she was doing so much to help me in t’house.” Mrs Coates cut in sharply. “She’d lay in till midday without I pulled the bedclothes off her, and then she’d go out mooning somewhere, I don’t know where, and if I spoke to her she wouldn’t hear, like.”
“She was unhappy,” Ben said reproachfully.
“There’s plenty of folk that’s unhappy but has to get on with their work.”
“Ben,” Flora interrupted, “are you very busy now? Would you be able to come with me and the friend who brought me here to the power station to help us to find Annie?”
“Aye. I’ll do that. I’m not driving while afternoon.”
He went across to wash his hands in the sink. His mother hovered round him.
“Best put on your Sunday jacket. Do you want a cup of tea before you go?”
“I’ll not stop for one now.”
“You’ll get one there, I reckon. Annie took my other kettle and a pound of tea, and some sugar. She said she was going to mek tea for the students picketing. If I ask her to mash a pot o’ tea here she’ll sit wi’ her head in a book and never hear me speak.”
Ben glanced at Flora as though he did not like Annie’s teacher to hear about her shortcomings.
“Hush up now, our Mum, Annie’s got to learn things her own way. She’s different.”
Mrs Coates followed them to the front door.
“It was right good of you, Miss James, to tek all this trouble to coom up here after our Annie.”
“I think she’s so well worth taking trouble about.”
“I daresay she is. You’ll think I’m hard on her. I wanted a girl, but I lost my own daughter, and somehow Annie wasn’t the girl I wanted. I often feel I haven’t done right by her.”
“You must have done very well for her, Mrs Coates, or she wouldn’t have got on as far as she has. I just want to prevent her from throwing it all away now.”
“Yon’s Pennythorpe.”
Ben pointed to a circular wall above which rose the cylindrical towers and roof-tops of a power station. The walls were surrounded by a wide stretch of tussocky grass. From the gateway opening onto the road by which they were travelling an asphalted track led to the heavy iron gates of the station. They were shut, and in front of them a strong picket of about twenty men stood stamping their feet, and shifting about to warm themselves. A few men wearing pickets’ badges hung round the gateway into the road, and half a dozen younger ones, indifferently watched by two policemen, were kicking a football about over the rough grass.
“I suppose they’ll let us in, Ben? I have a press pass,” Walter said.
“They’ll let you in seeing you’re wi’ me.”
Ben spoke with the confidence of a man belonging to an exclusive club. He added, “There’s been plenty o’ newspaper men round here t’last day or two.”
The men on picket duty at the gate all knew Ben, they grinned and nodded at him. Flora had the impression that to them he was an oddity whom they laughed at but liked. One of them looked carefully at Walter’s pass. He peered into the back seat of the car, but did not make any inquiries about Flora, probably assuming that she was another journalist.
“Where do we find the students, Ben?”
“They’re right round t’other side o’ t’wall. Where you see them trees.”
“It all seems very quiet. The men just look cold and bored.”
Flora found it hard to believe that there had been any kind of battle here yesterday.
They circled the wall and came to what looked like a makeshift camp. There were two small tents of the pattern sold by boy scout shops. A shaky looking lean-to shelter, apparently made of part of a broken-down fence, had been built against the wall. A big fire of coal and wood burned brightly, a collection of pots and pans and tin mugs stacked in an orderly heap beyond it. Two young men carrying armfuls of branches and twigs came up and piled them near the fire to dry. One of the young men, who wore a thick high-necked jersey up to his ears, and a knitted cap pulled well down over his shoulder-length bob of silky hair, dropped his armful of firewood on the pile, straightened his back, and stretched out his arms, then turned and grinned at them.
“Hulloa, Dad.”
“Tom! You remember Flora?”
“Of course. Hulloa, Flora.”
“And this is Ben Coates.”
“Hulloa, Ben. How did you know I was here, Dad? I only arrived this morning. I’ve been over at Benton Main with my friend Joe Greenwood. He lives there, but it’s very quiet at that colliery, the pickets there didn’t seem to need any help, so as we heard there was a lot going on here we settled I should come over to see if we were wanted. Joe is staying on there for the moment.”
“Do the pickets want help here? There seem to be plenty of them.”
“There are and they’re not very cooperative with us yet, but the important thing is that they should realize that they have our moral support. It shows them that another section of the community cares about them.”
“Have you come across a girl called Nan Coates here? Ben’s sister.”
“Nan? Oh yes I have. She’s great. She’s just gone off with Rick in his car … I mean Flora’s car … to buy some food. By the way, Dad, have you got any cash that you don’t want? I can send you a cheque for it when I get back to Joe’s place. I left most of my things there. We’re pretty well cleaned out, and unless we can raise a bit we shan’t have anything to eat tomorrow.” He turned smiling to Flora. “I must say your car has been most frightfully useful. It’s the only one we’ve got.”
“You won’t have that one any longer. Flora wants to drive Nan Coates back to Oxford in it. If you like to come back to Doncaster with me I’ll stand you lunch, but that’s as far as I’m prepared to go towards feeding any of you. You know there was fighting here yesterday when the lorries of coal tried to get through. I thought you didn’t approve of violence?”
“I don’t, but the pickets didn’t start any violence. All they did was to stand in the way of the lorries.”
“Some people got hurt.”
“I promise you, Dad, I shan’t hurt anyone. I won’t come and have lunch, thanks all the same, I don’t want to have anything different from the others. If you could see your way to lend me the money you would have paid for my lunch, it would be a great help to all of us; we could buy some food for tomorrow.”
“I hope you won’t be here tomorrow.”
Tom looked at him gravely.
“But I shall, you know, Dad. I shall be here as long as any of us are.” He added, as Walter frowned and shrugged, “You’re not against us, Dad, really.”
The sight of her car bumping over the rough grass distracted Flora from this exchange.
“There they are.”
The car slowed to a standstill. One door swung open; a big package, a trousered leg and a ruffled red head appeared.
Walter went round to the other side of the car.
“Out you get. The owner of this stolen car is here and the game’s up.”
“I don’t know what you had to come for.” Nan gave Flora her most truculent look. “You needn’t think I’m coming back with you. I’m staying here until the strike’s over.”
“I came for my car.”
“Of course. Property is always what comes first with people like you. I don’t suppose it means anything to you that your car is serving a useful purpose to help a lot of people, probably for the first time since you got it.”
Ben
laid a hand on Nan’s arm.
“Hush now, Annie, love, you shouldn’t speak to your teacher like that, you shouldn’t have taken t’car, you know, without asking.”
“If I’d asked her she wouldn’t have let me have it.”
Nan shook off his hand and flung round on Flora, who had the impression that the girl had been startled at seeing her and was whipping up her hostility.
“Don’t you care that all these students have come here to support a cause they believe in and that they’re half-starving? I’ve used your precious car to fetch food for them, with all the money we had left. I don’t know how they’re going to manage or how they’ll get home at the end.”
“Not in my car, anyhow,” Flora said, and then wished she hadn’t. There was no point in antagonizing Nan any further. Besides when she looked round at these spirited young creatures, she felt herself at least half in sympathy with them. Tom, who had been talking to his father by the camp fire, came over to join them.
“Have you got the bread, Nan?”
“It’s in the car.”
Tom said politely to Flora, “Do you mind if I get it out?”
With half a dozen wrapped loaves in his arms he paused by her side.
“I wonder if you would mind lending us your car for one more short journey? Dad has given us a little money. If I went back to the village now I could get some sausages and cheese and things for tomorrow. Of course if you don’t like us to use your car any more, I can walk it and bring the things back in a haversack, but it would save a lot of time if I could drive, and I want to get back before the lorries arrive.”
“Are they coming again?”
“They’ll have to try, won’t they? It’s not their fault. It’s their job. Things are so mixed.” Tom added sapiently, “I expect the lorry drivers don’t understand that they ought to be supporting the miners, instead of the bosses. Can I take the car?”
“All right, take it.”
“Thank you very much. You’d better come with me, Nan. You’re the housekeeper. Just wait a minute while I hand over this bread. Oh, here’s Rick. Would you take the bread, Rick, Nan and I are going back for more provisions.”
Rick made no move to relieve Tom of the bread. He said aggressively,
“Who told you to take the car?”
“Flora said I could. It is hers, after all. Nan said she’d come with me and help with the shopping. It doesn’t really matter who goes, does it?”
Flora could see that Tom’s smiling ease, his gentle voice, his very indifference to affront were all maddening to Rick, who stepped back, pushing the loaves into his arms.
“Take the loaves yourself. I’m not your errand boy.”
“Of course not. I just thought as we were all mucking in together …”
Ben uneasily whispered to Nan,
“Why don’t you tek t’bread yourself, lovey.”
“Oh, all right. Here give it to me.”
Tom released the loaves to Nan who ran off with them.
“I’m sorry, Rick, if you thought I was ordering you about. If you want to go and do the shopping it’s O.K. by me. Here’s the cash. I expect Nan will go with you and help you.”
“That’s not for you to say.”
“You’re being a bit uncooperative, aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to cooperate with you.”
“O.K. You don’t need to. So long as somebody goes and gets the food before the lorries come. I suppose we all want to be here then.”
Flora was not sure from the look on his face that Rick did.
“Here’s Nan.”
Nan came flying up to them, her eyes and cheeks brightened by the cold air.
“We’d better start. They’re just going to cook lunch now, and if we don’t get back quickly there won’t be any left.”
“Rick is going with you.”
Tom opened the car door for her.
“Why? I thought you were.”
“No, he wants to.”
Nan looked from one young man to the other with a mischievous smile.
“Why don’t you both come?”
“All right.” Tom, who evidently thought that this was a move towards general cooperation, folded his legs into the back of the car. Rick, looking furious, got into the driving seat and slammed the door.
Flora saw her car bumping away much too fast for the rough ground, and resolved that this was the last time any of them were going to use it, even if she had to do the next lot of shopping herself.
Ben was at her side looking worried.
“Annie doesn’t mean the half of what she says.”
“I know she doesn’t. And she changes her mind very quickly. But she must come back to Oxford with me tomorrow, Ben, I have to be there on Monday for my own work, and if she neglects hers any more the college may send her down.”
“She’ll coom, I reckon, when I can get a talk wi’ ’er quiet like. She’s outside o’ herself wi’ it all. She feels she’s doing a great thing. Dad doesn’t want her here, he played war wi’ her this morning. He thinks this is the colliers’ own affair, he told her to go back to college and get on wi’ her work and mind her own business. That’s made her stubborn. She’s one, is our Annie, that you can lead but not drive.”
Flora felt the cold touch of a snow-flake on her cheek; the sky looked even lower and heavier. A light desultory shower of snow was beginning to fall. She saw Walter standing by the camp fire talking to two of the young men and went over to him.
“Flora. Come and get warm. I see your girl has gone off with Tom and the other lad. Have you brought her to her senses yet?”
“Not yet. She’s far too much excited. For one thing she seems to be the only girl here in this gaggle of young men, and that’s just her thing. It’s always been the young men at Oxford she’s been interested in, she has no close friends in St Frideswide’s. And this all probably seems to her like a glorious picnic, with the pleasure of taking a kick at authority thrown in. Ben thinks he can get her round when he can get her to himself. I hope he’ll have an opportunity soon, I must go back tomorrow.”
“So must I, and I should like to see Tom off back to Fordwick too, but I doubt if I shall. We don’t seem to be doing much good here at the moment, do we? Shall we go off to Doncaster and have lunch, and then come back here in the afternoon to see if they’ve got tired of it?”
“I should rather like to wait for my car and drive it to Doncaster, and leave it there before somebody here thinks up another use for it.”
“Yes, good idea. We’ll wait for them.”
Flora looked on amused at the preparations for lunch. Mrs Coates’s second-best kettle had been thrust among the glowing coals. Two students were trying to toast slices of bread on the end of pocket knives without scorching their own faces. Another young man was methodically arranging slices of bacon and tomato on a dirty sheet of tin, which was evidently going to serve as a griddle. Someone shouted,
“Didn’t they bring any sugar, blast them?”
Another voice replied, “I put it inside the tent when the snow began.”
“There’s your car coming back.”
Nan, Tom, and Rick got out, all carrying parcels. Rick, from his expression, was no nearer to cooperation. Nan, flushed and excited, was waving one arm wildly to emphasize something she was saying, and two parcels dropped to the ground. Tom alone appeared serene and serious. They brought their purchases across to the camp, and began to stack them in one of the tents. At that moment a young man with two ends of a long scarf flying out behind him came running along the path round the wall, shouting,
“The lorries are coming! Action stations! The lorries are coming.”
The lorries were coming along the road. There were three of them; their drivers’ cabs, and the top of the loads of coal were visible above the rusty winter hedgerow. The first of them turned in through the gateway from the road, which was open and now seemed tobe deserted; the lorry advanced slowly along the track towards th
e power station, and the other two followed it.
“Keep your car with you now you’ve got it, Flora. Stick behind me.”
Flora drove slowly after Walter over the rough grass The students, deserting the half-prepared meal, were racing along the path that circled the wall.
When she came in sight of the power station entrance, Flora saw with astonishment how quickly the scene had changed. A solid phalanx of pickets, more, she guessed, than a hundred of them, stood in front of the high iron gates which were still shut, though she could see figures moving about behind them. More men were running across the field to join the pickets. A police van had arrived and uniformed policemen were jumping down from it. A police car was drawing up beside the van, and another turning in from the road.
Seeing Walter stop his car half way between the road and the power station, Flora stopped hers. He got out and came back to her.
Flora was shivering.
“It’s fantastic, it doesn’t seem as if it could be England.”
“Not the England we’ve known.”
“Where are the students?”
“I can see some of them along the wall to the right of the miners. They should be on the outskirts of anything that happens. If they stay there,” he added gloomily.
“I ought to have brought Nan with me to make sure that she doesn’t get into any mischief.”
“She’s keeping guard over the provisions. I heard Tom ask her to.”
Cars were arriving along the road, and turning in at the gate. Two men, one carrying a camera, got out of a car and ran past them.
Flora saw a television van turning in at the gate. Another police van was behind it, impatiently sounding the siren. The television van drew aside to let it pass.
The snow had stopped falling, and had melted except here and there in a hollow under a tussock of grass. Low clouds still covered the sky, except in one place where a sickly pale-yellow light shone through a break.
The lorries were still advancing slowly, a line of policemen now walking on either side of the first. Behind the high iron gates a small group of men had collected but they had not yet begun to open them. The pickets stood still in an unmoving block while the first lorry advanced to within twenty yards of them.
Snow and Roses Page 24