Kezzie at War

by Theresa Breslin

  There was the briefest hesitation, then the woman slid her own hand under John Munro’s and turned his palm face down on to the deal table.

  ‘You have two beautiful princesses sitting right beside you at this very minute,’ she said brightly. She exchanged a glance with her son.

  He scraped his chair back quickly and stood up. ‘Any work need doin’, mister?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said John Munro, pointing to a cupboard in the small hall at the front door. ‘That press in the lobby needs filling with coal from the cellar, and my boots need a good dubbing. And there’s a half-crown in it for you if I can see my face in the polish.’

  Kezzie guessed that her father was saving the boy’s pride by giving him the work.

  She cleared the table as Lucy got ready for bed. She could hear her dad and grandad talking outside with other miners as she washed the dishes at the window sink. As their house was at the end of the row it seemed the natural place for people to gather in the lighter nights. Kezzie knew it was also because her father and grandad’s opinions were respected in the village. The men played quoits and smoked their pipes, soft curls of pungent blue smoke in the evening air.

  ‘I don’t know if I fancy these mechanical cutters,’ one man said. ‘I was talking to a man who worked with them down south and he said you’re eating dust all the time, an’ you have to shout to be heard. If you can’t hear down a pit, you’re in mortal peril.’

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  Kezzie remembered her grandad telling her about how clear his hearing became in the dark in the pit. How he could hear men who were working a seam a quarter of a mile away, talking and laughing. How he learned to listen for any movement, every small dark sigh of the earth, each little creak or groan, or dribble of shale; the miner’s ear tuned for danger.

  ‘Nothin’ wrang wi’ yer ain pick an’ shovel,’ said another voice.

  ‘Aye, ye’ll be carrying yer graith tae yer grave, Andra,’ Kezzie’s father joked.

  Everybody laughed.

  ‘The mines need to be owned by the miners,’ said Kezzie’s grandad. ‘That’s the only way we’ll get decent conditions. Changing facilities at the pit head and the like.’

  ‘We’ll hae spray baths wi’ hot water laid on for us, ye reckon,’ said another.

  The men all laughed again.

  ‘Aye, ye can laugh. They’ll be lookin’ tae please us soon enough when they need the coal. Re-armament’s started. There’s a war coming.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Well, war or no’,’ Kezzie heard her father say. ‘I’m away in to put my bairn to bed.’

  Kezzie made up her father’s sandwiches for the next morning and packed them firmly into his rat-proof metal tin. She then made a treacle sandwich for Lucy’s supper and set a little enamel mug of milk to warm at the fire. She combed the tugs out of her sister’s blonde curls, and, winding some strands of hair round her fingers, she pinned a little cockscomb on the top of her head. Her father and grandad came in. Her father sat down in the big chair and pulled Lucy on to his lap to read her a story. Grandad set out the chess board on the kitchen table.

  ‘Are you for a game tonight, lass?’ he asked.

  Kezzie sat down. The chess pieces were very old, hand carved from wood and Grandad was the best player in five villages. He took his knight and bishop from the board.

  ‘Right, now, let’s see what you can do.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Disaster

  ‘WAIT FOR ME, Kissy, wait for me!’

  Kezzie looked back down the hill where her sister and her friends were trailing a long way behind. She put the pail, half-full of bramble berries, on the grass and sat down to wait for them to catch up. Below her the little village trailed plumes of smoke, black and grey into the sky. The evenings were cooler, the sky a sharper, darker blue at night. Over to the left she could see the colliery, the wheel still, waiting for the shift changeover. In a few hours her father would be home, time enough to fill the pail for jam, if Lucy left any. Most times she had eaten half what they had gathered before they arrived home, her mouth stained with berry juice.

  Kezzie lay down on the grass and squinted at the clouds. She liked to imagine places from their shapes. That one looked like India. She would travel there one day. Her dream, her birthday wish. She was going to be a doctor, and then a missionary. After she had cured all the people in Scotland she would go to faraway countries. She’d read about David Livingstone and Mary Slessor. She wondered what it was like to be an explorer and visit foreign lands. The only foreigner she had ever seen was the Indian who came round from time to time, selling goods from a large brown suitcase. He looked strange in his business suit with a heavy turban on his head. Stockings and ribbons and packets of pins, and little jars of cold cream to take wrinkles from your face. Bella always bought a jar of this, at the same time declaring, ‘It’s a bliddy big bucket of the stuff Ah need, with what Ah’ve to put up wi’.’

  Kezzie looked again at the clouds. She put her hands behind her head and stretched herself out. She loved the berry time, hot days and soft warm evenings. It was very quiet. There was a terrible stillness between the earth and the sky. Then … the world seemed to stagger, and she felt rather than heard a great muffled thump from beneath her. A dull thud which echoed inside her.

  Kezzie sat up and instinctively looked towards the pit. Before her horrified eyes the huge whorl wheel started to creak slowly forward. She leapt to her feet knocking over the pail. Berries spilled out across the grass. She was halfway down the hill and running fast when she heard the siren sounding.

  It was still wailing as she joined the group of villagers streaming towards the pit head. People had run out of their homes and washhouses, women with sleeves rolled up, men half-dressed. Old women with shawls flung about their shoulders, little children snatched from play and gathered up on the way. Kezzie jostled herself forward until she was at the head of the crowd and could see into the lamp cabin where the miners’ lamps were kept in rows upon the shelves. She was hoping that her dad’s lamp would be in its place. Perhaps he had taken sick and not gone down this morning? Maybe someone had asked him for a change, or there had been a flood or some other reason for a stoppage, and his shift wasn’t in.

  His lamp space on the shelf lay empty.

  There was someone beside her in the crowd. It was her grandfather.

  ‘His lamp’s away,’ said Kezzie, her chin unsteady.

  Grandad put his arm around her shoulder and gripped her tightly. And they stood there with the rest and did what women and children and old folk had done for generations before. They waited.

  And the waiting itself took its toll. Their wearied faces, in anxious lines, huddled into their shawls and coats. While the minister and the priest came and went among them, and the Salvation Army arrived with hot soup and kind words. Through the night and into a grey morning they waited with an occasional rumour scurrying through them like an agitated wasp.

  At one point the crowd scattered as the rescue team from Shawcross roared up with extra breathing equipment. Two ambulances arrived and stood by.

  Kezzie was slumped, exhausted against Grandad, when they heard the three bells sound. The steel cable vibrated and then the cage began to rise.

  There was a cry from someone at the front of the crowd.

  ‘There’s men coming up. They’ve got some out!’

  The ambulances were loaded and pulled away quickly.

  ‘A bad fall. A right bad fall. And then another,’ Kezzie heard. ‘No warning, just an almighty crack.’

  ‘It’s those props,’ she heard another voice. ‘Rotten timber props, should have been renewed years ago.’

  There was confusion everywhere. Men being brought into sudden daylight, women crying tears of joy. Suddenly the crowd fell silent, then parted. Kezzie saw the section deputy coming towards them.

  A voice in the crowd. ‘That’s the worst job in the world he has to do now.’


  The official ushered Kezzie and her grandfather into the pit office.

  ‘You’ve got bad news for me,’ said Grandad.

  ‘The worst,’ said the deputy. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I’ll take this standing up,’ Grandad replied.

  ‘It’s been restless all week, spitting and crackling,’ said the deputy, ‘but today, quiet … Aye, too quiet. We should hae kent. The whole length of the face took a seat. Caught Alec McKinnon and his son, and a lad from Shawcross. No hope for them. A lot of bad injuries with the rest trapped. John was at the heading with another group eating his piece. Him and Michael Duthie went back up. We said to wait, wait for the rescue equipment. He said they didn’t have the time. He was right. Those others wouldn’t be out alive if it wasn’t for him. He had the last one in his arms, only a boy. He had just passed him back to me …’ The deputy’s voice cracked. ‘The whole lot came down on him … He would know nothing about it, mind, if that’s any consolation.’

  He turned to Kezzie. ‘Your father is a hero. There’s men owe their lives to him,’ he was saying. ‘His section was clear yet he went back along the seam.’

  Kezzie didn’t understand. She gazed at him. If her father was a hero then where was he?

  She turned to her grandfather.

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked desperately. ‘Where is my daddy?’

  ‘Your dad is dead,’ Grandad said stolidly. ‘My son is dead.’

  A vast void opened up in front of Kezzie. She tried hard to concentrate. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

  ‘Lucy?’ She looked around her. Voices and faces were not matching properly.

  ‘Bella’s got her.’ Her grandad took her arm gently. As if in answer to a prayer Bella appeared at the office door. She crossed quickly and gathered Kezzie into her arms.

  ‘I’ll take her away home with me.’

  Kezzie’s grandad nodded. He addressed the deputy.

  ‘I’ll go down and collect my son’s body.’

  The deputy wiped his mouth wearily with the back of his hand.

  ‘I don’t think you appreciate what it’s like down there. There’s flooding and a trace of fire damp.’

  The old man smiled.

  ‘I know exactly what it’s like,’ he said. He pointed to his twisted leg. ‘I got that in a fall the same as this one. Somebody pulled me out or I’d be there yet. My boy’s not biding there.’

  Old John Munro leaned over the desk and picked up the deputy’s own safety lamp.

  ‘I’m going now to bring my son home.’

  CHAPTER 5

  Eviction

  THEY BURIED THE four miners a week later in the cemetery at Shawcross two miles away.

  Peg McKinnon’s mother was too distraught to attend and the two girls, arms supporting each other, led the cortege through the town. Shopkeepers pulled the blinds and closed their doors as they passed. The streets were lined with silent crowds. Men took off their caps and women bowed their heads in respect. The weather itself appeared to take notice of the great grief that swelled through the whole countryside. A grey dreich sky hung over the mourners as they laid their loved ones to rest: John Munro beside his wife and the baby boy she had died bearing.

  Kezzie was totally numb as she watched her grandad lower her father’s coffin. The retiring hymn ‘Abide With Me’ still sounded in her ears, the soaring notes of the organ and the voices from the church, filled to overflowing, would remain with her a long time. Now she knew what her father had meant when he had talked about the price miners’ families paid for coal. Far from getting it cheaper than others they paid for it in blood. Grandad had warned her against being bitter, and she knew her father would not have approved of the terrible rage she felt inside her. Her hatred of the whole world engulfed her from time to time. Bella had tried to help, despite being busy with her own children, watching her in sorrow unable to ease her suffering. The older woman had seen all this many times before. She tidied the house and cared for Lucy.

  And Lucy, poor little Lucy, who had not fully understood what had happened.

  ‘But I do not want him to die,’ she had said stubbornly on the night of the accident. She had looked at Kezzie uncomprehendingly. ‘Doesn’t God know that I do not want Dadda to die?’

  And Kezzie saw then that she could not explain it away to the little girl. She would not accept trite phrases and meaningless words.

  ‘Nor did I,’ she had said finally, realising that indeed there were no words which would ease that pain, that great lonely grief. And the two of them had cried together and held each other close, against the dark and the fear and the cold that was both outside and inside their little house that night.

  Peg came to her among the crowd as she left the graveside.

  ‘I’ll say goodbye just now, Kezzie,’ she said. Her face was blotched and she had her hankie screwed up in her hands. ‘We’re moving to Glasgow to try to get work. My ma won’t let my other brother go back down the pit, so we’ll have to get out.’

  ‘Will you write to me?’

  ‘What address?’ asked Peg.

  Kezzie looked at her friend, not understanding. Peg knew where she lived. They were separated in the crowd before Kezzie could ask her what she meant.

  It wasn’t more than a few days before Kezzie found out the meaning of Peg’s words.

  It was early morning when a sharp knock sounded on their door. There was a smartly dressed older man standing there with a rough-looking man and woman and some raggedy children.

  She didn’t have time to speak when the man in the suit said, ‘Right now, girl, I want no trouble here. I’ll give you twenty minutes and then these folk have to get in.’

  ‘What?’ said Kezzie.

  The rough-looking man was carrying some heavy sacks. He pushed past Kezzie and dumped them in the hall.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Kezzie, her voice rising in alarm.

  ‘Give them time now, give them time,’ said the older man, but he kept his foot in the door and the group of people tried to come into the house.

  Kezzie stepped back and gripped the coat she had put on over her nightdress more tightly around her.

  ‘What is going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘These are mine owners’ houses, there’s no one lives here employed by the mine now. You have to get out.’

  ‘Get out? This is my home!’ shouted Kezzie.

  Bella came running out of her house at the commotion, curlers in her hair.

  ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ she said to the older man. ‘The man o’ this house is dead bare a fortnight and yer flingin’ his weans on the street.’ She set herself beside Kezzie and lifted her arm. ‘Get away outa here.’

  ‘Aye and that’s two weeks’ rent that’s due,’ the man replied angrily, ‘and it’s me that’ll have to make it up. They got a letter sent. They should have been out already.’

  Bella cast about for a weapon and spied the poker by the fire. She picked it up and advanced on the group.

  ‘If ye don’t move yourself from this door in ten seconds flat it’s no letter ye’ll be getting fae me,’ she yelled.

  The man hurriedly moved out and down the road a bit.

  ‘You’re only making it worse for yourself,’ he said to Kezzie. ‘I’ll need to get the police.’

  ‘If we have to go, then we shall,’ said Kezzie with dignity. ‘I must have missed your letter. I haven’t yet opened all the cards and letters of condolence which came for us, and it may have been among them. I will pay you the rent due and we’ll be out as fast as we can.’

  She closed the door and leaned her back against it. Then she caught sight of Bella, her face bright red, curlers falling out of her hair, with the poker in her hand and her nightie half open.

  ‘Aunt Bella, you’re not decent,’ she gasped.

  Her aunt looked down at herself and after a moment started hooting with laughter.

  ‘Well,’ said Kezzie wiping the tears from her eyes, ‘I never thoug
ht I’d laugh again for as long as I lived. Did you see his face when you shook that poker under his nose?’

  ‘I’d have laid it on him as well, and fine he knew it,’ said Bella angrily. ‘Ah kent him when he had nae backside in his breeks. Now he’s a jumped-up factor tellin’ decent folk what to do.’

  The two of them worked quickly, laying out blankets and piling all the household goods in the middle, dragging clothes from the pulley, then gathering the corners and securing the bundle in a big knot. They waited until everything was done before waking Grandad and Lucy.

  ‘See here, your Auntie Bella’s got a surprise for you in her house,’ said Bella rousing the child gently from her little box bed.

  Lucy followed Bella next door while Kezzie went to wake Grandad.

  He looked so old and thin, Kezzie thought, as she watched him hurriedly pull on his trousers and jacket. He seemed to have shrunk over the last days and looked to her to make decisions.

  They managed to half-drag and carry their bundles to Bella’s house. Her children ran to help them lift the table and chairs. Those and the dresser they put against the back wall of her house, with all their bedding piled on top. Grandad refused even a cup of tea.

  ‘We’ll not get lodgings with no wage coming in, and Bella has no room. I’ll go away to the farm and ask about and see if I can find something.’

  Kezzie tried to put out of her mind what might happen if they did not find anything. There were hostels in Glasgow for destitute men. She had heard they were dreary places and people had to roam the streets by day. She would perhaps find somewhere as a maid with her keep as part pay. But what about Lucy? She would be farmed out to different ones who would take her for a short time and then …? Kezzie set her chin. No one was going to put Lucy in a home, she was determined they would all stay together.

  She went next door and collected their last few items. The fire, unattended, had gone out. It seemed appropriate. She took the clock and her mother’s picture from the mantelpiece. Her father’s pit boots lay on the hearth. She bent to pick them up.

  ‘I’ll gae ye somethin’ for them,’ said a voice from the door. It was the new tenant returned. ‘I could do wi’ a new pair.’ He came in and surveyed them critically. ‘Half a crown.’