by Webster, Jan
She was suddenly aware of the magisterial tick of the grandfather clock, with the picture of Burns at the plough on it. ‘Gracious, Maw, I must fly. Now promise me you’ll watch that cough. Have you got some lozenges for it? I’ll send the maid down with some beef tea and potted head.’
*
There were five rows of pit cottages at Dounhead and Tansy had been instrumental in having communal wash-houses built at either end of them the previous year. When Duncan launched into an attack on how little they did to help the colliers, she could point to this amenity she had provided for the colliers’ wives.
The women were supposed to use them on a rota system, but there were interminable fights over whose day was which, and one was in progress now as she picked her way over the hard, rutty ground towards Josie’s.
From a safe distance, she gazed into a steaming wash-house where one woman was bent over the wooden bine, scrubbing something that looked like a pit shirt. Carefully, and in graded sizes, she had already hung out bed linen, infant clothes and starched aprons, and from the pile at her feet there were still pit socks and coal-grimed underdrawers to come. She was red-faced, hot, in need of her traditional washday dinner of porridge and sour milk, and obviously in no mood to listen to the other woman arguing at the wash-house door.
‘I don’t care what you say, Tuesday’s my day for the washhouse key,’ this virago was saying. ‘You think because your man brings you home all his pay, you’re above the likes of me.’
‘I can’t help it if your man’s a drunkard,’ cried the washerwoman shrilly, still pounding industriously.
‘Away and ask your holy Willie who he takes up the bing for walks,’ suggested the onlooker. ‘I would rather have a drunkard for a man than a whoremonger.’
Something sodden and soapy from the wash-tub slapped across her face and, squelching about in her clogs on the sloshy wash-house floor, the industrious one screamed with rage: ‘I’ll send my Willie down to your Tam. He’ll knock his big soft head off. And then, by God, I’ll start on you —’
The challenger, having achieved the effect of aggravation she had been after, took a clean pair of heels off up the Rows, but was back in a minute bearing a kitchen knife, with which she sawed at the washing-line of her opponent. In a moment, linen, petticoats, aprons all lay in the frosty mud and the washerwoman surveyed her morning’s work undone and stood undecided whether to scream, laugh, or weep before she attempted to wrest the knife from her neighbour and murder her with it Tansy approached the scene of the incident with fast-beating heart It would have been easier to walk away, but her conscience would not have let her rest.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ she said firmly. ‘Are you having some trouble, then?’
Their faces were a guilty study. Tansy bent and helped the washerwoman to pick up the muddied items, clucking sympathetically.
‘It’s Jean — Jeannie Watson, isn’t it? How’s your man’s back?’
The washerwoman straightened up and threw the damp burden from her arms into a wicker clothes-basket. ‘Not bad,’ she said cautiously.
Tansy turned to the other woman, who was eyeing her dress and cloak with a naked, child-like envy.
‘Ivy Thompson? You shouldn’t let your temper get the better of you.’
‘It was my turn for the wash-house,’ Ivy maintained stubbornly. But she knew better than to show disrespect. ‘I’ll sine these muddy things through for you,’ she offered grudgingly, turning towards Jean Watson.
Jean gave it as her opinion that she would not let Ivy wash a dish-rag, and the exchange of insults continued for several more minutes. But the heat was going out of the situation, and dipping into her bag for pennies for the children of both women, now clinging round their mothers’ skirts in wide-eyed curiosity, Tansy finally went on her way. Farther down the Rows she could see Auld Francie, the cross-eyed tinker, setting up his brazier for the mending of pots and kettles, and promising the children he would make them tiny shovels if they coaxed their mothers into giving him some coal or firewood. Naughty children! Sometimes they upset the old man’s brazier and had him hurling his soldering iron after them with great oaths and imprecations. She smiled, remembering her own childhood in the Rows.
Josie was in the customary domestic muddle. The last of the breakfast porridge was singeing in a pot over the fire. Donald and Carlie had taken ornaments, cushions and other household items of their fancy under the big whitewood table, where they had played an absorbing game of Houses. The beds, set into the wall, had not been made, and the fire smoked because its base was choked with ash. On a hard chair near the door, a girl in a tattered shawl was sobbing out some tale of woe while Josie listened and at the same time tried to cut up the vegetables for some broth.
When Tansy appeared, Josie spoke some comforting words to the girl, pushed some bread and a packet of tea into her hands and eased her out of the door.
‘She can’t work — she takes fits,’ she explained briefly. ‘And if that’s not enough, some rotten blackguard has given her a wean.’
‘Josie, no wonder you never have anything for yourself,’ Tansy scolded. ‘You’d give the folks around here the eye out of your head.’
Josie shrugged off the compliment. ‘You been to the poor-house like you said you would?’
Tansy nodded. Josie was for ever nagging her into good works. It wasn’t that as chatelaine of the Big House she didn’t appreciate she had a certain duty towards the poor of the parish. She wanted to help. She’d been poor herself, after all. But Josie wanted to rub her nose in it.
‘Did you see these wee lasses of eight and nine scrubbing the floors?’ Josie demanded. ‘They’ve nothing to wear but those short-sleeved, low-necked dresses and they go naked to their beds. They’ve nearly all got bronchitis from the cold and damp.’
Tansy nodded. ‘I had a word about that. I’ve arranged to have some warm material sent down from Glasgow for dresses with sleeves, and they’ve to have nightdresses or I’ll know the reason why.’
‘Good.’ Josie nodded in approbation. ‘The next thing you can tackle is why they shove those poor older lasses out to fend for themselves and their bairns ten days or two weeks after a birth.’
‘Josie,’ said Tansy patiently, ‘these are loose girls and I won’t encourage them to have their illegitimate bairns.’
‘You’d sooner see the bairns die, then, or the lasses take up with some old man who’ll soon give them another?’
‘You know that’s not what I mean.’
‘Then the parish should look after them.’
Tansy sighed. ‘All right. I’ll see what I can do. But the church folk are very firm against sin.’
Donald stuck his head from under the table and said, ‘Mama, we’ve played some good games.’
Shyly, Carlie, red-haired like her mother, brought forward some wooden spoons wrapped in old bits of cloth and explained, ‘This is our family. Three boys and two girls.’
‘Carlie was crying sometimes,’ said Donald, emerging to stand by his mother’s knee. ‘She says her head is sore.’
Josie pulled her offspring towards her and felt her brow. ‘She’s hot,’ she said worriedly. ‘Are you not well, pet?’
Carlie laid her head on her mother’s lap and sniffed a little. ‘Not very,’ she admitted.
Feeling her own throat go dry, Tansy said, ‘See if she has a rash, Josie. I hear there’s scarlet fever in Dounhead.’
With fingers that were trembling slightly, Josie parted the child’s thick woollen clothing. Across her chest lay a veritable forest of red spots.
‘It’s sore here, Maw,’ said Carlie, pointing to her throat.
*
Ivy Thompson picked her way carefully down the back of the Rows in the dark. A small boy, whistling to keep the bogeyman away, passed her on the way to fill a bucket at the communal pump.
She rattled the latch at Josie’s door and after a short interval Josie appeared, wrapping a shawl about her shoulders against the freezing n
ight air.
‘How’s the bairn?’ demanded Ivy solicitously. A big, quick-tempered Glasgow woman, she was regarded in the Rows as ‘gallus’, meaning ready for anything, with not too high a rating for dignified behaviour. She was also kind-hearted to a fault.
‘No change,’ said Josie. ‘She’s sleeping now and the doctor says that’s the best medicine. That’s why I can’t ask you to come in.’
‘Here.’ Ivy shoved a tin canister of something hot and liquid into Josie’s hands. ‘It’s chicken broth. Don’t ask me where he got the fowl. He says it strayed, but you know what a bloody liar my Tam is.’ And Ivy gave a full-bodied roar of laughter. Just as quickly, her face darkened as she laid a confiding hand on Josie’s arm.
‘Listen, hen. I didn’t come just with the soup. Has your man heard about the riots at Blantyre? You knew they were out on strike there? Well, they sent the police in and it was like a bloody war, they say. Now they’re sending in the Hussars from Glasgow. And my Tam says they’re coming out in sympathy at Dounhead. Can you not get word to your Duncan? The Federation should be doing something, Tam says.’
‘The Federation’s doing what it can,’ said Josie quietly. ‘But the coal-owners won’t listen. They’re out for a show of force. Strike — and in go the blacklegs. It’s as though they want to provoke trouble.’
‘Aye. I still think you should get hold of Duncan and get him down to the pit,’ said Ivy. ‘I can smell bad trouble here, so I can.’
Josie closed the door on her neighbour while her mind chased around for an answer on where to find Duncan. A week ago, when the child was taken ill, he had stayed at home for two days. The doctor had agreed that Josie could nurse the child, and anyway the beds at the cottage hospital were already full with victims of this virulent fever that killed so many.
It was not that he didn’t love Carlie, Josie assured herself. It was just that as soon as the child seemed even fractionally better, he had been caught up again in this great, unsteady vehicle that was the Scottish Miners’ Federation.
The Federation had been set up in October with Keir Hardie as its secretary, and in November Duncan had joined Hardie, William Small from Lanark, Belfast-born Robert Smillie and Chisholm Robertson, the savage Stirling critic of the Lib-Labs, in hammering out an all-out attack on what they saw as the unplanned anarchy of laissez-faire in the pits. They wanted the eight-hour bill and a uniform policy of output restriction. Duncan saw the Federation as the instrument of change he had worked for for six years and now that the miners were thus organized, he campaigned relentlessly for the adoption of the Federation’s aims.
He had learned in the past the penalties for lack of organization and now he was as fanatical as Keir Hardie about making the Federation effective. But its task was doubly difficult. Not only were the coal-owners quicker than ever to respond to strikes with a naked show of force; the individual unions and coalfields still had not learned the lesson of unity, but pursued their own parochial demands.
The battle had taken its toll of Duncan’s strength. His hair was greying, his lean frame thinner than ever. Because it was second nature to support him, Josie had sent him off to Glasgow on Federation business, while she took full responsibility for nursing Carlie.
She decided in the end there was no way she could get in touch with Duncan that night. In the morning she would find some means of dispatching a message to Glasgow.
Carlie in any case took up her attention. The child, hot and fretful, began to wail in a thin, heart-breaking way, and called for her daddy. Josie sponged her hands and face constantly and gave her frequent sips of water. When that did not seem enough, she wrapped the thin little frame in a blanket and sat with her on her knee by the fire, rocking her back and forth and singing anything that came into her head:
‘Shoo, shaggy,
Ower the glen,
Mammy’s pet.
And Daddy’s hen.’
At midnight, as the fire had burned low and Carlie had at last dropped off to sleep, the latch lifted on the door and Duncan came in. His face was white and exhausted and his clothes sodden with rain.
‘It’s all right,’ he assured Josie. ‘They got word to me about the trouble. I’ve been down there and quietened them down. The night shift’s on as usual.’
He eased his cracked boots off with a sigh.
‘How’s the bairn?’ He rose and looked down at his daughter, whose red curls lay damply round her too-rosy, sleeping countenance.
‘Don’t wake her,’ Josie commanded sharply.
‘Is there aught to eat?’
She stirred some mutton stew over the embers and he took it from her, with a hunk of bread, and ate hungrily and absently. Josie undressed and climbed into the bed with Carlie. Presently she heard Duncan undress also and ease himself into the other bed. The fire flickered into a last brief glow, sending shadows all round the room. Then all was dark and silent except for the child’s troubled breathing.
*
Josie awoke at daybreak, her first thought for Carlie. The child lay in a deep, restful sleep, her brow cooler, her mouth curved in a smile as though she were dreaming something pleasant.
The knot of tension in Josie’s chest dissolved and she moved about the room, kindling the moribund fire, starting the porridge, cutting bread. Thin fingers of rose and gold across a dark-blue bolt of sky painted an inspiring picture beyond the kitchen window. She opened the door and gazed out at the dawning miracle of light, drinking in the silence like music. A scraggy opportunist cat shot in between her feet to see what it could salvage of food and warmth at her hearth.
In the moment of closing the door she heard it. Feet. The hard pounding noise of heavy pit boots.
And then a scream that went on and on, violating the lovely morning. She opened the door again and found herself running wildly, spontaneously, towards the sound. The door of Ivy Thompson’s cottage was open and her kitchen seemed full of coal-begrimed figures. They parted as she went in and she saw Ivy’s big, cushiony body cast down on a chair, while her head moved back and forward and the powerful nerve-assaulting noise came from her lungs.
‘What happened?’ One of the coal-black figures moved a pink tongue round rough lips and said, ‘Her Tam. He’s down there. He’s trapped.’
A voice inside her said sickly, not again, not another. But she grasped Ivy’s arm strongly and said, ‘That’s enough, lassie. Don’t frighten the bairns.’ From the two beds set in the wall, tousled bewildered heads looked out at the scene, eyes rounded in shock and terror.
Deep in sleep though he had been, some instinct that was always alert had roused Duncan, who now appeared, fully dressed, and took over. As the miners who had brought the news to Ivy accompanied him back to the pit, he gleaned from them what had happened.
There had been agitation and argument last night, even after Duncan had talked the night shift into going to work. The vituperation had been particularly bitter between Tam and Wattie Clegg the safety-man, a peaceable soul who was always against striking, no matter what the objective. To show how little he thought of Clegg, Tam had bull-headedly worked a part of the seam that the older man had warned him away from, and the roof had fallen in on his head.
There were men down there already, careless of their own safety, pulling the coal and slurry away with shovels and bare hands where necessary, knowing Tam would have done the same for them.
Duncan joined them, fresh after his sleep, his muscles soon into their old rhythms. In a grim way he acknowledged it was salutary for him to be there: it reminded him of how much there still was to be done.
What was it Hardie had written in the preamble to the Federation’s objectives? ‘These who own land and capital are the masters of those who toil. Thus Capital, which ought to be the servant of Labour and which is created by Labour, has become master of its creator.’
His spade touched something soft. With a sick premonition, he laid his spade carefully down and called for die others to add their light to his. He felt
in the coal with his hands. Something loosened and fell with a soft and sticky thud into his hands. It was Tam Thompson’s guts.
*
No man went on day shift that day. Tam Thompson’s rejection of the safety-man’s orders was forgotten and the blame for his death was laid elsewhere. The Federation was reviled, the Hussars were dared to come and do their worst, police were jeered by the women and children, and a sick and angry fury lay over Dounhead like Tam Thompson’s pall.
It was the day before pay day, the traditional day for poor suppers and the other economies of living hand-to-mouth. The pithead fury spread like boiling jam scum into every house in the village, and men, young and old, tumbled into the streets looking for a focus for their scalded sense of outrage.
Wylie the grocer had his windows broken and his stock pillaged. Stones and bricks were hurled through the colliery-office windows and would have been thrown at the windows of Dounhead House had not the police put a guard on the gates.
When the Hussars came in they were set upon with sticks and clubs and bricks, anything that came to hand. The women came into the streets to scream defiant abuse at them. Miners were spirited away to their cottages to have heads bound and wounds dressed, while their sons who were old enough to take up the cudgel — and some who were not — went out to take their place.
Duncan worked with authorities to abate the violence. When the men would listen, he tried to calm their wild, anarchic mood. They had to accept the fact that the pit was their livelihood.
When it was all over, the fighting and the shouting, they would have to go back to work. Every coal-owner in Lanarkshire knew this. For children had to be fed.
Duncan faced the fact that the Federation was less than useless. The men had no faith in it and the owners treated it with lofty scorn. He was conscious of the fact that he was putting on some kind of mental armour. He, the man who had preached the brotherhood of men, who had wanted Capital and Labour to lie down together, like the lion and the lamb, knew he had to lay aside some of his pacifistic notions from now on.