Until Our Blood Is Dry

by Kit Habianic

  He looked down to see what Helen had left for him. A small, gold object glinted feebly in the half-light.

  ***

  Half the village was outside the Stute. Gwyn watched the comings and goings from his hiding place inside the telephone box. The stench of urine and stale fags made him gag. He sank lower inside his jacket, took in air through the fabric, pulled his cap down further over his eyes. Mary Power stood on the steps meeting and greeting, wearing a red coat with white fur trim, cotton wool for a beard. Behind her, holding the doors, Dai Dumbells and his glamorous missus wore leather-look togas, a pair of bickering gladiators.

  The Stute blazed light under a glowering sky. Miners and their families streamed inside. Gwyn spotted a tiny female Elvis, a burly Shirley Bassey, a Snow White, a Cinderella with designer stubble. A group of pirates of various ages and sizes walked in behind a Captain Hook, sack slung over his shoulder, the word Plunder spray-stencilled on it.

  Captain Hook sloped over to the bus stop to cadge a smoke off Margaret Thatcher – joke-shop mask and navy suit and hairy rugby-player calves. A placard round her neck read Wanted for Murder. He heard jeers and catcalls from a bunch of spike-hair teenagers wearing ripped bin-liners and safety pins. They circled Mrs Thatcher, fascinated and appalled.

  ‘I still might, if yous lot bet me enough,’ said one boy.

  Mrs Thatcher chuckled a forty-a-day chuckle. ‘I’m the one does the screwing, boys.’

  Mary Power waved them into the building. The doors shut and the street fell silent. Gwyn wrenched the door open, gulped down clean air. He didn’t fancy the policemen’s chances of entering the Stute to nick the boy. Not unless they wanted a repeat of the Rebecca riots. And where in hell were the police?

  He heard footsteps at the top of the High Street, shut the door and turned his back as the girl walked past with the boy, both still dressed in Sherwood green, the boy lugging the duffel bag and suitcase.

  ‘They’re late,’ the girl was saying.

  They sat on the steps of the Stute. They seemed to be waiting for something. After a while, Gwyn heard the puttering of an engine. A car squealed to a halt outside the Stute. But it wasn’t a police car. It was Idris No-Handbrake, the local cabbie. The boy ran over, dumped the bags in the boot. Helen leaned into the front window, speaking to someone. Idris gunned his engine again. As the girl stepped back, Gwyn saw Carol in the passenger seat. But before he could act, Idris had sputtered off in a blur of thick exhaust fumes. His wife was gone.

  He slumped against the putrid glass, watched the girl fall sobbing on the boy. At last he heard the clinking of steel toecaps, spotted local bobby Peter Plod turn the corner onto the High Street.

  ‘At bloody last,’ he burst out of the phone box. ‘There’s the lad you want, officer.’

  ‘Right you are,’ the policeman palmed his handcuffs, marched smartly across the road.

  The boy and girl clung on to each other, sensed nothing of the danger they faced. The policeman grabbed the boy by the wrist, yanked him off the pavement.

  ‘So what’s he done this time, Gwyn Pritchard?’

  ‘He broke into my house, knocked me about, walked out with my stuff—’

  ‘He never,’ Helen burst out. ‘My mam sent me round to pick up her stuff. My dad went mental, gave Scrapper a shove and—’

  ‘Do I look like I could shove a six-foot collier,’ Gwyn cut in. ‘The lad’s twice my height and not half my age.’

  The policeman snapped a handcuff on Scrapper’s wrists. ‘Right, Simon Jones. You’re arrested on suspicion of burglary and assault.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ the girl sobbed.

  But Peter Plod was already dragging the boy down the street, to the police car waiting on the corner.

  ‘Right, then,’ Gwyn turned on the girl. ‘There’s no point crying about that boy. He’s trouble, that one, through and through. Ridiculous, carrying on like that in public. And high time you came home.’

  She backed away from him, tears glittering in her eyes; gave him a look that felt like a jackhammer hitting glass. He felt the air punched from his lungs, the blood drain from his veins. She turned without a word, strode off in the direction of the police car.

  ‘Helen Margaret Pritchard – you get back here right this minute!’

  But the girl did not turn back. As she walked away, the sky darkened, the wind took on a razor’s bite. Gwyn felt sleet claw at his cheeks. A peal of laughter burst out from behind the closed doors of the Stute.

  He stared down at his shaking hands, helpless to stop loneliness closing in over him.

  — 14 —

  Helen was at a loss to know what to do. Instinct drove her up the hill, towards the police station. But what the hell would she do when she got there? She stopped, reconsidered. The police would laugh in her face if she demanded to see Scrapper. But there’d be outrage and mayhem if she burst into the Stute, told everyone what her dad had done. The shame floored her; and why let her dad ruin everyone’s Christmas? She ducked into the alley, the better to avoid running into the old man again, and paused to regroup her thoughts. When she emerged onto the High Street, her dad had gone.

  As she reached the Stute, the door swung open. Iwan stood at the top of the steps, smiling down at her.

  ‘Ah, good. You’re here,’ he said. ‘Get in quick, love, for God’s sake. There’s a bunch of locusts got designs on your dinner. I can’t hold them off much longer. Where’s Simon?’

  ‘He got nicked.’

  ‘Nicked? For what?’

  ‘Dad called the coppers, said Scrapper robbed the house.’

  Iwan shot a furtive look over his shoulder, shut the Stute door behind him and lowered his voice. ‘You told them different?’

  ‘They wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Jesus,’ he buttoned his jacket. ‘We’ll fetch your mam, have her make a statement. High time she had the bastard for assault.’

  ‘Mam just left. Sue found a refuge to take her.’

  The Stute blazed light. Loud music drifted through the open windows with the smell of roast dinner and burned brandy and cigarette smoke. The music stopped. Helen heard chair legs screech on the wooden floor, a burst of laughter.

  ‘Right,’ Iwan said at last. ‘Guess we’d best say nothing to that lot, get ourselves up the cop shop.’

  ‘What do we tell Angela? It’ll ruin her Christmas, this.’

  ‘And the rest of them. Best we say nothing. Not yet.’

  They set off up the hill to the police station. It loomed above them, blocks of dark stone glowering across the village. The tall, helmet-shaped gable raised a weather vane like a truncheon. Helen followed Iwan up the shallow steps. He flung open the door, charged over to the desk sergeant.

  ‘I’m here to fetch my son.’

  The policeman fixed his eyes on his magazine, on a photo of a golf course. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Iwan Jones, father of Simon Jones.’

  ‘Take a seat,’ the officer said. ‘We’ll deal with this presently.’

  ‘You’ll deal with me now, thank you. You got him or not?’

  ‘Take a seat. We’ll deal with you in our own time.’

  ‘Now look here,’ Iwan said. ‘The lad’s got rights. Number one, the right to let his next of kin know he’s been arrested.’

  ‘I said wait.’

  Iwan hefted an impatient sigh. ‘The boy’s done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘My daughter-in-law can vouch for him.’

  The officer raised a mocking eyebrow, moved his spectacles an inch lower down his nose. Iwan stiffened.

  Helen put a hand on his arm. ‘My dad had Simon arrested, officer. Said Simon broke into our house. It’s not true. He was helping me fetch my mam’s stuff.’

  ‘That’s as maybe. You still have to wait.’

  A row of cracked and stained plastic chairs backed up against the far wall. She led Iwan towards them.

  ‘Officious bastard,’ he spoke so that the desk officer would hear. ‘Knows damn well why we�
�re here. Knows we know our rights.’

  ‘So now what?’

  Iwan lowered his voice. ‘I’ll try and call our brief. But the fellow’s down in Cardiff and there’s not a snowball’s chance we’ll get him up here on Christmas Day.’

  He fumbled in his jacket for his wallet, pulled out a scrap of paper with a number scrawled on it. Scrabbled in his pockets for change. Helen fished in her parka, brought out three ten pence pieces.

  Iwan took the coins. ‘I’ll nip down the hill. The walls got ears here. Might fetch Dewi too. You alright to wait?’

  I nodded. ‘You gonna tell Angela?’

  ‘Not if I can help it, bach. Not ’til we get this mess sorted. If Angie shows up, she’ll hang that jobs-worth from the light fittings.’

  ***

  Time passed. Nothing moved inside the station. Iwan did not return.

  ‘Can you at least say if he’s here or not?’

  The desk officer lowered his magazine, looked up at her, unfolded himself into standing position. He was a beanstalk of a man, with the high shoulders of someone who had to stoop to be heard. ‘We have procedures.’

  ‘On Christmas Day?’

  ‘Nice try, girlie.’

  ‘Don’t you have a family of your own?’

  The man grinned, showed slab-like teeth. ‘With the overtime I get to tell the likes of you to sit down and shut up, I’ll have the money to get away from them come new year, catch me some sun.’

  She slouched back to the waiting area. Dusk had fallen. Orange light burned through the warped glass. She leaned her head against the wall. There was no way to get comfortable. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten all day. Too busy trying to fix things for her mam. And what was her mam doing now? A grim Christmas, settling in for the night at a refuge, away from everyone she loved. Popping pills to shut herself down, no doubt. She wished Scrapper would come out. All she wanted now was to get him home, take off her stupid fancy-dress costume, drink hot, sweet tea and turn in for the night.

  She was drifting off to sleep, when the wooden door swung open. A figure walked out. He was short and barrel-chested, dressed in tweed jacket and cap. Her dad. Seeing her, his face showed surprise, anger, dimmed into something like defeat. The strip lights cut him down to size. He looked small here, and old. He paused, as though he expected her to speak.

  Then the door to the street opened. Dewi and Iwan rushed in. Her dad walked past them without speaking and melted into the night.

  ‘What the fuck’s Captain Hook doing here?’ Dewi said. He saw Helen, rubbed his nose. ‘Sorry, love. What was he after, your dad?’

  ‘He came from by there,’ she pointed.

  Iwan and Dewi held a muttered conflab.

  ‘Did you speak to the lawyer,’ she asked.

  Iwan shook his head. ‘Reckon they’ll keep Simon overnight because they can.’

  They sat and waited. At last, the heavy door opened again. Scrapper shuffled out into the waiting room. He looked pale and tense and exhausted. Helen flung herself at him.

  ‘Did they hurt you?’

  ‘Did they charge you?’

  Iwan and Dewi spoke across each other.

  ‘Burglary and assault,’ Scrapper said.

  Iwan sucked in his breath.

  ‘Bastards,’ Dewi said. ‘First offence, but still. Find you guilty, it’s at least a fine—’

  ‘A fine?’ Scrapper said. ‘How can they fine me, when I’m broke?’

  ‘That’s if you’re lucky,’ Iwan said. ‘Gwyn Pritchard puts on a good show in court, you’re looking at a prison term, son.’

  Helen clung to Scrapper, not believing what she’d heard. It couldn’t happen. Not to him. Not to them.

  WINTER 1985

  — 1 —

  Scrapper pulled his donkey jacket closer. Overnight sleet had hardened into sheet ice. The street glittered glass. Even the air had an icy bite. He paused outside the bracchi. The cafe was shuttered and locked, a heap of bills and flyers piled inside the door. Iwan looked away, pretending not to see. Scrapper made a mental note to clear them away when he got back. Mist draped the hillsides. The High Street, once bustling on Saturdays, was silent, Betty’s Unisex Boutique boarded up, cracked plywood pasted with layers of posters. Victory to the Miners. Maggie Out. But Maggie was still in charge and ten months in victory was no closer than the moon.

  He slipped and slid down the High Street, past hairdressers and butchers and funeral parlour. His plastic buckets glowed yellow in the gloom.

  ‘You should have stayed home,’ Iwan said. ‘You need to keep your nose clean these next few weeks.’

  ‘Give over, Dad. There’s no harm picking coal waste.’

  The track up to the tip was six inches deep in half-frozen mud, the crown of the hill masked in swirling mist. Scrapper soon felt breathless; lately, his strength and stamina were quickly spent. The fog thinned, revealing a man slumped on the stile up ahead, dressed in so many layers he looked as wide as he was tall. As the man doubled over coughing, Scrapper recognised him at once. Sion Jenkins was a martyr to his chest.

  He hurried over. ‘You alright?’

  ‘Came over all peculiar.’

  Two empty buckets lay at Sion’s feet.

  ‘Aw, butty; should’ve called us. We’ll fetch your coal.’

  Sion tried to protest, but his chest was having none of it. He collapsed in a spluttering, coughing heap.

  ‘Go home, Sion,’ Iwan said. ‘We’ll stop by when we’ve filled your pails.’

  The old boy staggered back down the track. Scrapper picked up his buckets. As they climbed higher, weak sun dissolved the fog. A hefty figure was outlined against the sky, bare hands plunging into the snow, hurling coal at two outsized buckets, huge arms like pistons. Not one lump of coal fell short or too far.

  ‘Orright, Dai,’ Scrapper called.

  Dai snapped upright, a hand flying to his chest. ‘You scared me outta my skin, Scrapper Jones.’ He bent down again, started picking coal even faster than before.

  Scrapper filled Sion’s pails first. The coal was brittle with cold. Wind hissed in his ears. Soon, his gloves were sodden, a chill sunk deep into his bones. Gusts of wind shook the trees below, shaking off day-old snow. His fingers ached, but a beat in his head kept him going. Small Town Boy. It made him think of the funfair at Barry Island, the waltzer ride with Red. He’d felt free for the first time in months, that day. Now, they were cash-strapped and cold, a baby due and a court case to come.

  He turned to Dai. ‘How are you and Debbie getting on at Dewi’s?’

  ‘She’s never there.’

  ‘You’ll have more time together, once the baby comes,’ Iwan said.

  ‘What babby?’ Dai started hurling coal with raw fury.

  ‘But—’

  ‘There’s no babby,’ Dai snapped.

  Scrapper frowned at Iwan to lay off the questions. Dai would explain, if he wanted to. Best to leave it if he didn’t. A collier knew not to push his luck. It was the code they all lived by. Downright dangerous, below ground, to poke a man until he snapped.

  The three of them laboured steadily, not speaking. The sky gathered darkness, clouds heavy with snow. Soon, Sion’s pails were full. Scrapper carried them down from the tip and tucked them in a clump of bracken, sheltered from the wind and the wet. He climbed back up, started to fill his own buckets. Below, in the trees, a magpie cawed, cross and insistent. The bird spooked him. One for sorrow. He grabbed a lump of coal, lobbed it towards the trees. The magpie cackled and fled on glossy wings.

  He straightened his back, rolled his shoulders. ‘Strange how quick you get out of shape. Used to shovel on hands and knees for hours and not get knackered.’

  Iwan pulled his tobacco pouch from the lining of his jacket pocket where he hid it from the pit searcher and from Angela. He twirled a sliver of a roll-up, passed the tin to Dai.

  Dai took it with a thin smile. ‘Didn’t mean to bite your head off.’

  ‘Forgotten already, lad.’r />
  For all Dai’s heft, Scrapper sensed something shrunken in him, the light gone from his eyes. So Debbie had done it, then. It took guts to make that choice, to go through with it; a damn sight more guts than he had.

  Eerie purple light washed over the valley. Dad and Dai finished their roll-ups. They gathered up their buckets and set off down the slope. But as they clambered over the stile, Scrapper heard footsteps squelching through the mud.

  Peter Plod was steaming up the track, his tubby colleague Johnny Boots panting along behind.

  ‘Fuck,’ Iwan pushed Scrapper behind him.

  Penny-sized lumps of sleet began to spatter the hedgerows.

  ‘You know it’s against the law scavenging coal, boys,’ Peter Plod called. ‘You’re trespassing on National Coal Board property.’

  Dai drew himself up to full height. ‘Local bobbies property of the National Coal Board and all, are they?’

  ‘I don’t like your tone, Dai Dobrosielski,’ Peter Plod said. ‘Step away from the buckets.’

  Scrapper opened his mouth but Iwan got in first. ‘There’s families cold and hungry across this valley. You boys got nothing better to do than guard a coal tip?’

  Johnny Boots stared at the ground, round face dripping embarrassment. ‘Orders is orders.’

  ‘Orders is orders?’ Dai echoed. ‘Reckon the guards said that at Auschwitz.’

  Peter Plod moved closer, jabbed a finger on Dai’s chest. ‘Set down your buckets now or I’ll arrest all three of you and it won’t look good for Scrapper Jones when his case comes to court.’

  ‘Do it, Dai,’ Iwan murmured.

  Dai set down his pails, slammed the policeman with the flat of his hand. ‘Orders is orders? Next you’ll be saying this got nothing to do with politics.’

  The policeman reached for his radio. ‘Fancy a night in the cells, do you?’

  There was no way Scrapper could let that happen.

  He handed Johnny Boots his two pails. ‘That won’t be necessary.’