by Kit Habianic
She slipped away into the dusk, followed the track past the allotments to the fields. Something drove her towards the barn. Wind whistled across the hillside. As she staggered through a gap in the hedgerow, she saw a figure up ahead on the track. A man of medium height, styled like a Russian spy in waisted, wide-shouldered felt. Only one man in Ystrad could wear such a coat. Siggy Split-Enz. It had to be.
She moved closer. Siggy was heading straight for the barn. She and Scrapper had guessed that other couples met at the barn. Who might Siggy’s lucky lady be? He cleared the stile in a leap. She chased after him, panting, saw him reach the barn and take his lover in his arms. When they came up for air, the shock knocked her sideways. No lucky lady, that. It was Matthew Price.
***
She staggered away, crashing downhill through the mud and dried bracken. Two men together. In Ystrad? Was that possible? And those two, of all people. Glamorous, strapping Siggy. Ferrety divorcé Matthew Price. A ladies’ man, Matthew Price, everyone said. A string of conquests from Milford Haven to Monmouth. So he said. So Scrapper said. Scrapper: did he know about this?
The night closed over her, a drawstring bag pulled tight. Patches of light splattered across the valley. She had only one place to go. She staggered back across the fields. As she emerged above the allotments, she saw Angela and Iwan in the kitchen window, arms wrapped around each other. Despite everything, they kept going, her in-laws.
She opened the back door, fumbled with her shoelaces.
Voices drifted down the stairs. ‘Talk to her, and say what?’
‘Is not important what you say, Simon. Get her to talk to you.’
‘It won’t work, Mam. We’re strangers now.’
‘She’s not a stranger, son. She’s your wife. Not helpful, you going out every night. You need to stop home, for once. Fix this mess.’
‘I’ve tried, Dad. She won’t look at me. Won’t touch me. Like she’s the only one that hurts.’
‘Please, caro mio. Try one more time.’
‘Can’t you butt out, the pair of you? It’s not down to me, this. Red don’t want me no more.’
The hall light snapped on. Clumsy footsteps clattered downstairs. Scrapper paused when he saw her, but didn’t stop.
He pushed past, grabbed his coat, vanished into the night.
If he came home, she didn’t hear him. When she woke alone, she knew a void had opened between them too wide and too deep to cross.
***
Some days later, she woke to find Sue next to her bed.
‘Did Angela send for you?’
‘Shaping up to be a gorgeous day, cariad. Fancy a walk?’
Outside, sunlight splintered the February clouds. The hillsides breathed a faint green scent of spring. A robin dipped and bobbed under Iwan’s fruit trees. Crocus buds and nodding snowdrops broke through the black earth. On the High Street, the pavement glistened from overnight rain. Everything had a newborn shine to it. Helen clutched Sue’s arm, blood roaring in her ears. They headed downhill, past shops that were shuttered and vacant. Outside the Stute, figures loomed at her. Faces smiled and nodded hello. They kept walking, ducked beneath the railway bridge, emerged below the stone-built miners’ chapel.
Sue looked tired and stressed.
‘You been working too hard.’
She gave a laugh that was more a yelp. ‘Busier than ever, with the rumours about the pit, Red.’
‘What rumours?’
Sue gripped her arm. ‘Scrapper didn’t say?’
‘Me an’ Scrapper don’t talk much, lately.’
They trudged past the chapel, paused at the fork in the road. Up ahead, a listless plume of smoke rose from the picketline braziers. Sue steered Helen the other way, following the black, slow-flowing stream that wound beneath the slagheaps to a cracked bench, green with algae, placed at the water’s edge.
Helen flopped down, exhausted. ‘What rumours?’
‘Word is, the pit needs serious repairs. Lodge reckons the bosses would sooner shut down than shell out.’
‘D’you believe that?’
‘Who knows? Gramps says not to worry about what ifs. Win the strike, he reckons, Blackthorn’s future’ll take care of itself.’
Sue lobbed a stone at the brackish water. It bounced twice. Blackness closed over it. There was something more, Helen could tell.
‘What else?’
‘Debbie’s gone.’
‘Left Dai, you mean?’
‘Yup. Gone to stay at her sister’s.’
‘Because of the abortion?’
‘Who knows. A few marriages hit the rocks, lately. Money troubles, mostly. Or the husbands getting antsy about their women being too busy fighting to put dinner on the table. Some of the girls got badges made: My Marriage Survived The Miner’s Strike.’
Helen snorted. ‘Won’t be ordering mine.’
Sue bounced another stone across the water. ‘How about we take a drive this weekend? Get away from this dump.’
‘Could we visit my mam?’
‘Only if she sends for you. Sorry, bach.’
Helen sagged against Sue. God only knew what state her mam was in. She’d made no phone calls, sent no letters since the day she fled to the refuge. She picked up a stone, lobbed it at the still, dark water. It sank without bouncing. The world was a cold, hard place. No one looked out for anyone. Not really. She was completely and utterly alone.
— 5 —
Scrapper knew he should never have let Red picket. The silence between them was an accusation. As with his other crimes, he had no clue how to plead.
‘Talk to the girl,’ Angela kept saying.
And he tried to talk, but Red stared at him with empty eyes. He spent more and more time on the line or down the Stute or speaking at fundraisers. Throwing himself into things made sense, at least. No one asked painful questions at the solidarity groups. The gatherings, held in pub back rooms and public libraries, raised much simpler debates. Reform or revolution? Do men benefit from women’s oppression? Which way forward for the Welsh working class? And everyone had plenty to say. He felt safer, more sure of himself at the meetings than at home with Red’s hurt silence, with Angela’s fermenting rage. And for the strike to lose was not an option now, when all of them had lost so much.
Meanwhile, the women kept raising hell, as passionate and full of hwyl as the men were burned out and defeated. Mary announced a Valentine’s Day fundraiser, invited the boys, the rest of the village, the solidarity groups and supporters from across South Wales.
‘Come with me, Red,’ he tried to take her in his arms.
But she turned her face to the wall.
***
The Stute was in near-darkness. Strings of fairy lights hung from the rafters. The lamps were draped with sheer red scarves.
Debbie was taking money on the door. She waved at the room. ‘What d’you reckon?’
‘You’re asking the wrong fella.’
‘I reckon it looks romantic.’
‘Set the mood for you and Dai to patch things up, eh?’
‘Stuff Dai.’
The man in question perched on the edge of the stage, clutching a pint of ale, eyes fixed on his estranged wife. Unsettling, the look on his face. Not affection, not sadness; rage, barely held in check. Scrapper spotted some of the other boys, went over to join them. If there was trouble brewing between Dai and Debbie, he wanted none of it.
A heavy, yeasty smell filled the room. The boys were clutching plastic mugs. Eddie Hobnob said Bryn Tawel home brew club had donated the bevvies. Scrapper showed his lodge card at the bar, brought away a free pint. It was pay-what-you-can for all the others and the cash kept rolling in. Someone fetched him a second beer; someone else a third. The brew had a kick to it.
A band got up on the stage, played protest songs. The women sang along and some got up and danced. That reminded him how Red loved to dance. Then Mary dragged Angela on stage to sing ‘Bella Ciao’, which got everyone on their feet to shout out th
e chorus. Scrapper watched, his throat tight with sorrow. The words of loss cut too deep. And no amount of ale in the world would dull the pain he felt.
After came the speeches, Mary wrestling a whistling microphone, Dewi next. Then several trade union types; a nurse from Bryn Tawel hospital, a couple of lads from the railways, a blonde firefighter – whoops and catcalls from the lads when she finished. The final speaker was someone Sue had brought from the university. An old boy, short but vigorous, hair rising from his crown in snowy tufts.
The room fell silent as the man thundered about the power of the proletariat, and seizing the means of production and the false dichotomy of Thatcherism and how the miners, undefeated would be the gravediggers of British capitalism. The boys hung on the man’s every word, heads cocked, some nodding agreement, some shaking their heads. He gave it hwyl, the speaker. Fired them up to fight the good fight. When he finished, the boys were cheering.
Scrapper watched the others crowd around the old boy. He grabbed another bevvy and hung back. Debbie was talking to a man with tanned skin and chin-length white hair, chunky silver bangles on his sinewy brown arm. He’d turned up with the old Marxist. Debbie talked and the man smiled and nodded intently. Scrapper watched sleepily as Dai pushed through the crowd, snapped awake when he realised what was afoot.
He bowled after him, got there just as Dai yanked the man away from Debbie, arm raised to strike. Someone seized Dai’s wrist, Scrapper grabbed his other arm and helped to shove him to the far side of the hall, to cool him off. It didn’t work. Debbie chased after them, hell-bent on giving Dai a tongue-lashing. They were both angry and the worse for drink. After a struggle, two hauliers pinned Dai against the wall, as he fought and bellowed like an ox.
‘Get Debbie out of here, Simon,’ Iwan yelled.
‘C’mon,’ Scrapper clamped an arm around her waist.
‘I’ll go when I’m bloody well ready.’
The white-haired man followed them out, a bottle in his bangled hand. Scrapper had a sense that the man was studying them both. Analysing the chaos.
‘That man didn’t hurt you, comrade?’ the man said.
‘I’d like to see the bastard try.’
Scrapper gripped her again. ‘C’mon Debs. Show’s over. I’m walking you home.’
‘Says who?’
‘You want to stay?’ he hissed. ‘With that ponce?’
‘Jealous, are you?’ She turned to the man. ‘Gi’s a sip, eh, comrade?’
The man handed her the bottle. ‘Keep it. We’ll continue that discussion some other time.’ He raised a fist by way of a salute and slid back inside the Stute.
Scrapper grabbed Debbie, dragged her down the steps onto the street. She staggered against him, laughing. Just how drunk she was, he couldn’t tell. He was struggling himself, the cold, damp air filling his head with clouds.
‘Let’s go to the gatehouse,’ she slung an arm around his waist.
‘No, I—’
‘Drink,’ she ordered.
He took a gulp, choked as bubbles filled his throat, burst as they hit his gullet. ‘Jeezus—’
‘You not had champagne before?’
‘Is that what you call that crap?’
He wiped his lips on the back of his hand. His mouth tasted dry and sour. Part of him wanted Debbie to get him wasted and part wanted to be safe at home, snuggled up with Red. But Red didn’t want him and Debbie was deaf to the word no.
He let her drag him under the railway bridge and up the steps to the lych gate of the miners’ chapel. It was where they came to be alone, when they were courting. Debbie collapsed, laughing, on the stone bench inside, pulled him down next to her.
‘Does a tidy job getting a girl pissed, this stuff.’
He took a couple more glugs from the bottle. His arms and legs turned numb. He leaned against Debbie, head full of bubbles. ‘Why do we lose the things we love?’
She rested her cheek against his cheek. ‘Love? I’m done with it. Gets you nothing but grief.’
‘Me and Red—’
‘I’m gonna start enjoying life. I’m sick of being trapped.’
‘So that’s your game, comrade? But that bloke’s a tosser. Don’t blame Dai for trying to smack ’im.’
‘Don’t you know who he is?’
‘I don’t give a stuff. He’s not one of us.’
Debbie sucked the bottle thoughtfully. ‘The be all and end all, is it?’
‘What?’
‘Belonging. To Ystrad. To Wales. What if we didn’t? What if we went different places, met new people? Belonged any place we damn well pleased.’
Scrapper snorted. ‘Lose the pit, we’ll have no damn choice but to go.’
Debbie made it sound exciting. But Angela didn’t belong, not really. Not even after twenty-odd years in Ystrad. It was no fun being the Johnny Foreigner at school, the teachers calling him Scrapper because they couldn’t say Schiappa. The other kids calling him Iti or Wop. There was nothing stupid about wanting to belong, the way he saw it. He’d never belonged, before meeting Red.
‘Saul’s a fourth internationalist,’ Debbie said. ‘Permanent revolution, and all that. Wants me to speak to his students about the strike. Said I could stay over.’
‘Ych y fi, Debs. You know what he wants.’
‘Maybe it’s what I want.’
‘There’s nothing to say about the strike. We’re halfway to hell in a handcart.’
‘Don’t be like that, Scrap. It’s changed us, and for the better. We never knew our own strength, before.’
‘Aye. And where’s it got us?’
‘It’s been the making of us,’ Debbie said. ‘And when we win, thousands of men and women and children’ll rest easy in their beds knowing they got a future.’
‘And if we don’t win?’
She flung her arms around his neck. ‘There’s no fucking if, Scrapper. Win, or lose everything.’
She clamped her lips to his lips. Her tongue fizzed like champagne against his tongue. They clung together. She opened her jacket, shoved his hand inside. The shock brought him to his senses. He pulled away. Debbie’s body went rigid. She buttoned up her blouse, face hidden beneath her curtain of hair.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to—’ It sounded lame, even as he said it.
‘How do I get myself a real man?’ Debbie said. ‘A man fit to be my equal? Cos I’m fucking sick of being strong. You’re the same, you and Dai. You’re all the same. Women got all the strength. And that scares you.’
‘Debs, me and Red need to sort things out.’
‘You’re wasting your time on that daddy’s girl, Scrap. She’s got no guts for this. You need to let her go. We were good together, you and me.’
Was it guts, or was it choices, he wondered. Red started out with options. He and Debbie and the rest of the boys had none. Red could have chosen not to be cold and hungry and defeated, could have walked away undamaged. Instead she chose him over her family. The strike had asked too much of her. But he was trapped and maybe she wasn’t. And perhaps Debbie had a point.
Perhaps he had no right to make Red stay.
— 6 —
A car pulled up outside the ice cream parlour. The driver beeped the horn three times. Helen peered down, saw Sue’s battered Ford Anglia. She shrugged on her parka, turned to see Angela in the doorway.
‘Is good to see you up and about, bella.’
Her mam-in-law was pale. Not easy for her either, these last few weeks. Helen threw her arms around Angela’s waist.
‘I’m sorry, Angela. For all of it. We should have told you. I don’t know why we didn’t.’
‘Is alright.’
‘But it’s not alright, is it?’
‘It will be, bella. If you and Simon talk.’
‘Tonight. I promise I’ll try tonight.’
She meant it, too. If everything went to plan today, perhaps she and Scrapper could start over, talk over their differences, find a way to put their losses behind them, to drop
her defences and let him back in.
She climbed into the passenger seat, gave Sue a peck on the cheek.
‘So. Where to?’
‘Cwm Gwragedd.’
‘The magic forest?’
Helen nodded.
‘Well, I’m not scared of tree spirits. But why?’
‘We’re gonna say goodbye to my babby.’
Ystrad blurred as the car picked up speed. They rattled across the valley past a cluster of low-rise concrete buildings inside a barbed-wire fence.
‘What’s that?’
‘New industrial estate,’ Sue said. ‘There’s a Japanese firm making components. And a factory’s opening soon to process chickens.’
They sped through a village of detached houses, tricycles and space hoppers parked on huge front lawns. Sue pointed out the pit manager’s house. Pots of cyclamen peeped through gleaming lace curtains. Parallel box hedges led to his door. As the road wound higher, there were no more front lawns. Each terrace village was more derelict than the last, houses opening onto thin pavements. Streets empty, only the old and infirm staggering along with canes. Whole parades of shops were boarded up and abandoned, only bookies open for business.
At last, the desolation was behind them. Fields became woodland. They crossed a stone-built bridge, pulled into a copse of silver birch. As Helen stepped out of the car door, two things hit her: the thin, sharp scent of pine trees and the silence.
Sue squeezed her arm. ‘You’re sure we shouldn’t drive to the top?’
‘I want to walk.’
The road slipped under a canopy of foliage. Squirrels skittered in the leaf mold, tails twitching. As she watched them, she heard a shrill of bells, jumped aside as a dozen racing bikes sped towards her. Middle-aged men in neon Lycra that jarred against the February landscape. The last cyclist turned as he passed, waggled his eyebrows, wolf-whistled.
‘Prat,’ she muttered.
She followed Sue up the road. Blackbirds hopped among roots that rose from the soil like outstretched hands. Two magpie couples traded insults from the tops of the trees. One for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a—