by Kit Habianic
‘What if your butties see us?’
‘It’s your dad that’s the scab, bach.’
‘Tell that to your dad. To the lodge.’
‘Aye, well,’ a flicker crossed his face. ‘Dad’s stopping home this afternoon. Best we go up the barn.’
‘No!’ she spoke more sharply than she meant to. They needed to talk. If they went to the barn, it would not be to talk.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Could we not do something else?’
‘You don’t fancy me no more, eh?’
Was that why he was seeing her, to get one over on her dad? ‘It’s like all you want off me is – that.’
‘That’s daft, Red. If I had money, I’d take you any place you wanted.’
What did money have to with it? She moved away from him, vexed. He was ducking their problems yet again. Then again, so was she. A tetchy silence followed. They sat on the wall, not speaking. Thin clouds wrapped and unwrapped themselves around the sun. The mid-morning bus came coughing up the hill. The driver slowed, eyeballed them. They shook their heads and the bus trundled on towards Bryn Tawel. As it passed, Dai Dumbells and Debbie Power approached, both tall and dark, hand welded to hand.
‘Aye-aye,’ Scrapper said. ‘How’s it feel to be Mr an’ Mrs Dumbells, then?’
Dai blushed. ‘Very funny, butty.’
Debbie was staring at Helen’s feet. ‘Nice boots, them. New, are they?’ She flashed a smile that showed too many teeth.
***
‘You could make more effort, Red,’ Scrapper said later. ‘Debbie was trying to be nice.’
Helen lay in his arms, felt the breathless rise and fall of his chest. Daylight poured through a chink in the barn’s iron roof, glinting off the dust that shimmied in the air above their heads.
‘You reckon?’ she suppressed a shiver, suddenly noticing the cold and the damp.
Scrapper pulled her closer, wrapped his donkey jacket over her. The woollen collar felt rough against her cheek. All the men at Blackthorn wore these Coal Board-issue jackets but her dad refused to wear his away from the pit, changed into a smart tweed jacket and matching cap to walk home, the better to set himself apart from his men.
‘What my dad’s doing, me and my mam disagree with it,’ she burst out.
Scrapper nibbled her ear. ‘You don’t have to explain or make excuses for the old sod.’
‘You reckon? Cos it feels like we get to carry the blame for him.’
He kissed her, pulled her closer, buried his face in her hair. It was only later, as she walked home, that it hit her. Scrapper hadn’t disagreed with her.
— 6 —
The pit manager sat at his chipped Formica desk, face pale, nose twitching like a rabbit scenting a fox.
‘You asked to see me, Mister Albright?’
‘Yes, Gwyn. Thank you. You’ve heard about the vote?’
‘What vote?’
Albright raised his pen and tapped his lips impatiently. It wasn’t one of those fancy enamelled affairs he clipped to his top pocket for show, matching his pens to his suit. It was a yellow plastic Bic, tooth marks sunk into the end. Nine years out of college, Albright, and in charge of a pit. And not a trace of black dust beneath those neat pink fingernails.
‘They’ve voted to come out,’ he said.
‘That was weeks back.’
‘Not here, Gwyn,’ Albright said. ‘In Sheffield.’
He had no idea what the pit manager was banging on about.
‘It’s a disaster,’ Albright continued. ‘A disaster on an epic scale. Union delegates from across the country, backing the Kent miners’ motion: all the UK coalfields to join the strike. All union members to respect picket lines.’
Gwyn shrugged. ‘They’re doing that already.’
‘Yes, but this vote changes everything, Gwyn, don’t you see? Head office planned to fight the union through the courts. Get an injunction, declare the strike illegal. Now Scargill can argue that the strike is legitimate.’
Albright’s argument made no sense. Pit by pit, the men had voted show-of-hands on the shop floor. The shop floor delegates took the lodge decision to the coalfield rep. Each coalfield sent delegates to national conference. If the strike was wrong-headed and pointless and damaging, it was wrong-headed, pointless, damaging and legitimate. Anyone who knew coal knew that. Clutching at straws to call the strike illegal and drag a case through the courts. It had nothing to do with coal; everything to do with politics. With the government squaring up to the NUM, the prime minister declaring war on organised labour. And good luck to her, Gwyn reckoned. He’d shed no tears when Thatcher smashed that bunch of no-good bolshies.
He itched to put Albright straight. What was the Coal Board thinking, hiring this boy to run his pit? Why send a prissy youngster when what was needed was a coalface man, hair on his chest and calluses for hands, a man with anthracite in his veins.
The phone shrilled.
‘What is it, Sarah? Oh. Right. Just give me a minute—’ Albright looked up. ‘It’s the area manager,’ he mouthed. ‘I’ve got to take this.’
Gwyn pretended not to understand, wandered to the open window.
‘Adam,’ Albright’s voice turned as slick as his hair. ‘How are you this morning? Good to hear—’
Beneath Albright’s office, the colliery sprawled across the hillside, red brick buildings scattered as though hurled from a great height, a hotchpotch of mismatched structures spattered on the valley floor. At the bottom stood the winding house, wheels motionless, above it, the engineering sheds and workshops, canteen and bath house. All lay empty. No buzz and hum of machinery. No voices raised in laughter or dispute. Gwyn found it unsettling: his lads had been out a month and a half and already the power had drained from the place.
In the stillness, he caught the echo of footsteps. A crunch of boots on gravel. Generations of long-gone Pritchards clocking in and out. He was bound to Blackthorn by the coal that clogged his veins and by a bond of duty. The strike left him as diminished as his pit, day dragging after idle day.
‘Yes, but—’ Albright was trying to sweet-talk the boss.
Silly, silly boy. A straight-shooter, Smith-Tudor; expected a man to give it to him unsugared and unvarnished, to call a spade a bloody shovel. And poor little Albright wittering down the line about manual digging implements.
‘Yes, Adam. In fact, I was just saying to Gwyn Pritchard—’ Albright paused. Listened. Looked at Gwyn. ‘Yes, he’s here now. Um. Yes—’ he waved the phone receiver. ‘Area manager wants a word with you, Gwyn.’
He took the phone.
‘Ah, Pritchard.’ No mistaking Adam Smith-Tudor’s fruity baritone.
‘What can I do you for, boss?’
‘You remember our little chat at Christmas, eh?’
‘Aye.’
‘Got some of the best coal reserves in South Wales at Blackthorn. But if those bastards don’t go back quick-sharp, there’s no way we’ll convince London that the pit’s worth the investment. That you’re worth the investment. We understand each other, eh?’
‘Reckon so.’
‘Then you know what to do. Pinpoint the fault lines, eh, give them a little push.’
‘Right you are, boss. I’ll do my best.’
Gwyn handed the phone back to Albright, returned to the window. Outside, the hillsides seemed greener now, mellow April sunshine warming the brickwork. It took a collier to see beauty in this place. Generations of labour gave birth to Blackthorn, crafted it with their blood and sinew and tears and sweat. It was the colliers’ not the Coal Board’s pit. He’d get the coal flowing, like the man said.
Get the lads’ heads down and keep their noses clean.
— 7 —
Scrapper paused in the entrance to the Stute, listening for the sound of voices. The hall was deserted, chairs set in crooked lines, a fug of stale fag smoke hanging in the air. Iwan told him to come over after the picket. But there was no sign of Iwan, not in the hall, or in the tiny
kitchen behind it. He strode up the oak staircase, at last caught a faint rumble of voices. He followed the sound to the end of the corridor, put his head round the library door. Newspapers lay open on the table. But no one was reading The Financial Times or The Observer or browsing the dusty shelves labelled in alphabetical order: Economics, Fiction, History, Leisure, Marxism, Politics, Society and Sport. No one bent over the rack of magazines on mining, football, class politics and bird-watching. The shelf labelled Fiction called him over. He pocketed The Plague, and tried the room next door.
The brass plate on the door read Committee Room but some wag – Matthew Price, no doubt – had stuck a Post-it on top, printed with the words War Cabinet. The door was ajar. Through the gap, Scrapper saw Dewi at the head of the oval table, leading the area strike committee meeting. He sidled in and parked himself on a stool next to the filing cabinets.
Iwan was in full flow. ‘Sorry, Dai, no. The bosses are better organised than we reckoned. Yes, we should picket Port Talbot, stop the coal imports. But we need to get Welsh steelworkers behind us and that means convincing them that we’re not putting their jobs at risk.’
‘Sheffield’s working on a national agreement with the steel unions,’ Dewi said.
‘Aye,’ Iwan’s eyes glittered. ‘Good luck to them.’
‘Well, Scargill said—’ Dai began.
‘Stuff Scargill,’ Iwan cut in. ‘It’s down to us to get the Welsh TUC and steel unions behind the strike. We know the boys; they know us. Sheffield can do what they like.’
‘Let’s just put it to the bloody vote,’ Dewi said. ‘Who reckons this strike committee should approach the Welsh TUC and steel unions independently?’
Hands shot up around the table. Despite himself, Scrapper was impressed: his dad had turned the meeting. Only Dai and Dewi voted no. Iwan leaned back in his chair, palms knitted, elbows to the ceiling.
Dewi sighed. ‘Agreed, then. Area priorities are to stop coal unloading at Port Talbot and lobbying for solidarity from the Welsh steelworkers and TUC.’
The men rose from the table, pulled on their coats and jackets.
‘Why d’you always go splitting hairs,’ Scrapper said as he followed Iwan down to the hall.
‘I do no such thing,’ Iwan said. ‘It’s about strategy and tactics. You got a lot to learn about class struggle, lad. It takes brain, not brawn.’
‘So, we’re off to Port Talbot?’
Iwan nodded. ‘Do me a favour, son. Don’t get nicked.’
‘As if.’
Iwan went over to the tea urns to continue the argument with Dai and Dewi. Scrapper looked at his watch. It was nearly midday; time to head up to Bryn Tawel to find Red. They hadn’t spoken in a week. It was more than his life’s worth to call the house and have her dad pick up the phone.
***
The lunch bell sounded as he reached the school gates. Kids slammed out into the yard like hosed sludge, wrapped in blazers and sweaters the colour of dung. Brown-and-yellow striped ties flapped in the breeze, but some of the boys had pierced ears and some of the girls had permed hair, their faces blank with slap. Scrapper felt old, suddenly; it would have been unthinkable, in his time, for boys to wear jewellery. For a girl to paint even her nails.
He leaned against the gate post and waited as the crush of bodies thinned but there was still no sign of Red. He was about to leave when he saw her at last. She wasn’t alone, for once, but none the better for it. A sturdy fair-haired lad had wrestled her into a headlock. She wriggled and squirmed as the boy tried to drag her behind the building, two smaller boys urging the bully on. Brawn acted faster than brain. He scaled the wall, pelted across the yard and grabbed Red by the waist. He shoved his palm under the boy’s chin and snapped his grip like broken elastic. Brawling was not Scrapper’s strong point. He decided to make it look convincing, even so, hands against the lad’s pecs, shoving him just hard enough to make a point.
‘Pick on a girl, would you?’
‘I—’
The lad looked familiar. A squint on him to scare the horses.
‘Name?’
‘Ricky Allison,’ the boy mumbled.
Allison. There was a family of that name in the village. They weren’t miners, though. Not in a generation. Distant relatives of Johnny and Sue.
‘Well?’ Scrapper said.
The boy stared at the ground, muttered something.
‘What’s that?’
The boy raised his head. ‘She’s a scab, in’t she? Everyone knows that.’
Scrapper shoved the lad again. ‘Listen, kid. You got a problem with her, you got a problem with me. Got a problem with me, you’ll be wearing your balls for earrings. Capeeshee?’
The boy gave a faint nod.
‘Right. Scram.’
He turned to the boy’s two cronies, to the other kids who stood watching, open-mouthed. ‘Same goes for the rest of you,’ he knotted his brows for menace. ‘Mess with Helen Pritchard, you mess with Scrapper Jones.’
The boys backed away. That nickname had its uses. He got saddled with it when other kids couldn’t pronounce Schiappa-Jones. Luckily, he grew into the name. Got tall enough and hefty enough to not have to defend it.
He turned to Helen. ‘You orright?’
‘Best you go. There’ll be trouble if Sir catches you.’
‘Can I see you?’
‘Why?’
‘What d’you mean, why? I missed you, Red.’
Her face hardened. ‘Missed me? I’ve not heard from you in two weeks.’
‘Well how could—?’
‘What Ricky said: you didn’t deny it.’
Scrapper sucked in his breath. It was true; he hadn’t. But how could he? This was how it went, when a miner sold out his butties. There were families frozen out, even now, because a grandfather or great-grandfather turned black-leg back in 1926. Most were long gone, to cities like Cardiff or Swansea, or off to England where shaking off a shady reputation came as easy as shedding a coat.
‘Christ, Red. You’re still my girl. But how can I make this better for you when everything your dad does makes things worse?’
Her shoulders stiffened with rage. ‘No one’s got the guts to come after Dad. But the women yell at my mam in the street. At Mam! Who never hurt no one.’
‘I’m sorry, Red—’
‘Are you? Because it looks to me like you got what you wanted and now you’ve dumped me. It’s like you’re ashamed to—’
Scrapper grabbed her, slammed her body against his, pressed his lips to her lips.
‘Geroff!’ she struggled to free herself, heat flooding her cheeks.
The door to the staff room squealed open. At last, Scrapper let Red go. Nothing moved in the schoolyard. Everyone was staring at them.
‘You still reckon I’m ashamed of you?’
She didn’t answer; too busy struggling not to smile.
‘Tomorrow lunchtime,’ he said. ‘You know where.’
He sprinted across the yard and let himself out through the gate. When he turned back, Helen was gone. His English teacher Mr Probert, the apprentice’s dad, stood in the doorway, arms wrapped around a pile of books. In that moment, Scrapper was fifteen years old again.
‘Sorry, Sir,’ he mouthed.
— 8 —
Which man should he get on side; which fault line would be easiest to break? Gwyn had been mulling that over for days. He lay in bed, listened to Carol bumbling around in the kitchen. Life had taken a tidy turn. A rare privilege to rise late, take a pot of tea and eat breakfast at his own table with his wife. To head down to the pit in daylight and not stumble around in the dark. All those things were everyday privileges for folk with desk jobs. He dressed slowly, went downstairs. Poured his first pint of morning tea, just the way he liked it; quarter of the mug filled with milk, two and a half sugars. A superior brew to that swill Dolly Bowen served in the canteen. He nodded a greeting to his wife and hunkered down at the table, pondering.
The strike was solid in Ystrad
; not a chink in the frame. They were well dug in, Dewi Power and his acolytes. If Dewi was the guts and Dai Dumbells the heart, Iwan Jones was the brains of the outfit. He had no hope, come hell or heaven, of chipping those three from the pack.
He sliced the egg open. It took a sharp knife and a steady wrist to top a soft-boiled egg. Hold the knife unsteady, go in cack-handed, get fragments of shell all over the shop.
‘You working today?’ Carol asked.
‘Aye. Got a survey team coming up from Cardiff.’
She looked at him pigeon-fashion.
‘The longer the stoppage, the more likely the pit becomes unstable,’ he said. ‘Albright’s getting a survey team to check that the coalface is secure. All goes well, we start maintenance work next week.’
‘And who you gonna get to do the maintenance?’ The girl slouched in the doorway, arms folded. She wore a baggy green sweater Gwyn hadn’t seen before, skin-tight black leggings over too-skinny legs. He hadn’t heard her come down. He watched what he said, lately, when his daughter was around.
‘Mind your own, missy.’ He sliced his toast into equal-sized rectangles.
‘Bring in scab workers, will you?’ Helen said.
He set down his knife. ‘That’s not your damn business. I’ll thank you not to sneak around listening to what doesn’t concern you. I catch you carrying clecs – to anyone outside this house – I’ll tan your hide. You hear?’
The girl stomped off down the hall.
He turned to Carol. ‘You sure she’s not been seeing that boy?’
Carol shook her head. ‘Says he dumped her. Wants nothing to do with her, since the strike. There’s been name-calling again at school, Gwyn. She’s upset.’
She gathered up his empty plate, mug and cutlery and dumped them noisily in the washing-up bowl. She’d been getting sideways comments too, from the wives, had started taking the bus to do her shopping in town, the better to avoid their neighbours.
‘Sticks an’ stones,’ he said.
‘It’s sticks an’ stones I’m bloody worried about.’
But the mention of school got him thinking. It was obvious. He should have thought of the teacher’s little lad right away. He pushed away his chair and set off for the corner shop.