The Litten Path

by James Clarke

  “I’m just not supposed to. Not on us own.”

  Other people’s marriages irritated Shell, perhaps because she was in the throes of one herself. Skinny Joyce and her beige life. She was only allowed to sit in the front seat when there were no other men in the car, only drank white wine when she and Jed went out. A lifetime of rearranging the cushions and pillows, weeding the patio and doing the Wordsearch in the Mail because the Crossword was too hard. Green Gartside was singing absolute, absolute, and Shell couldn’t keep her feet from moving.

  She leant over and clapped the poor cow’s knee. “Don’t worry, flower. I’ll enlighten Jed if he says ’owt. I mean heaven’s sake, he’ll get the message if we can’t hand him his food-parcel come Monday. He’ll shut his trap then, the silly fool. The prickly bugger.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “What do you reckon?”

  “It’s always a question to a question with you, isn’t it, Michelle?”

  “Well how else would you like me to be?”

  The rest of the journey drifted by, the sky a blur of cirrus, cat’s eyes punctuating the asphalt. It felt stirring to leave the borough. Needed and on a mission, older than she’d ever been, younger than she’d be again, Shell was in such a good mood that she didn’t even criticise Joyce’s parking as they pulled in horrendously on a residential side street outside of Sheffield centre.

  They walked into town, Olive wittering on about how they were like chartists and suffragettes, nurses in the Crimea. Shell stuffed her hands in her pockets. She had never thought about it like that.

  Soon they’d be on Queen Street. Shell had been on quite a few marches and stood on the line outside Brantford she didn’t know how many times, but had never been anywhere like this without Het. Course it was no fly picket; it was still the coal board’s office in the belly of the country, and no one could predict anything in times like this. Arthur had been injured only yesterday. It was just like him to get himself hurt. No doubt he’d be up on the moor today, mard-arsing through the brindle and whinstone.

  While his brother was off picketing Selcroft. Het would have set off before sunrise today. Nearly every day the men were picketing in Notts. Shell had been there herself at the start of the strike, seen the good side of the dispute, the honest talk, debate, one day witnessing her Arthur, out of all the men there, convincing the front driver in a retinue of lorries to turn around. It had brought that old flush back to the pair of them. The two of them had understood one another again.

  Then things went mad. The NCB obtained their injunction to stop any miner picketing outside of his own county, and every region was cordoned off by the police, sandbags stationed to prevent any more of the strike’s floodwater getting in.

  They must have had Maggie on the run, because the bitch threw the kitchen sink at it. The entire country was now encircled by sirens, a circuit board of blue, men no one knew from Adam given dispensation to do whatever they bloody . . . Arthur’s face. His poor, swollen face.

  “Shell?”

  Little blonde Jan was pointing down the street with her rose-tattooed arm. Shell had been so engrossed in thought that she hadn’t noticed the voices, the women’s voices: a chanted song.

  United by the struggle

  United by the past

  And it’s here we go, here we go,

  We’re the women of the working class

  It gave her the jitters. A huge procession was herding towards an even bigger crowd, the whole lot marching towards the town centre. Shell’s instinct was always to scoff, but as she and the others joined with the masses, the looks on everyone’s faces stopped her short. People were so buoyant. They were alive. She’d barely noticed it was summer before today, yet here the mood highlighted the weather, or maybe vice versa. Shell lifted her face to regard the same firm warmth that washed the slates and the lichen on the mortar between the bricks. 1984 was heating up, showing off its dazzling shark’s teeth.

  Outside the NCB headquarters Shell re-tied her hair and pointed out the TV cameras to Jan. She could smell cooked meat – a barbecue? – and people were handing out copies of The Miner and The Morning Star. She had never been one for communal feeling or public togetherness, and for that matter tended to dislike people whenever she first met them, but she felt a synchronicity with everyone here. She supposed it was because for once she actually cared about what was happening.

  Countless placards and lodge banners were waved as the women pushed through the crowd. On their way towards the stage, they passed a cardboard coffin balanced on the shoulders of five or so men. Reserved for MacGregor, it said, though as it went by, the angle made it look as if it just said: Reserved.

  Able to hear all sorts of regional accents, Shell felt like she’d put her hands together for any one of these people if they asked, and they were asking. She linked arms with Jan. There was hope in these alien faces, and it made her think of Lawrence and the family she wanted him to have one day, their lives rayed out in the decades ahead. What would become of them if the miners lost this dispute, if the industry was downsized, shelved, even? Shell was afraid, and she could sense that same fear around her, easily as much fear as hope, and it made her well up in the instant that she recognised it.

  She gulped the lump back. Very little could make her cry. Generosity of spirit was one thing, clarity of vision was another, but the reality of things was something else entirely.

  “Sorry we’re late,” she said, nudging Cherry Cairns as they met the others on the concourse outside the cathedral. Cherry had bags under her eyes, lived across the road from Shell and had four kids. She was one of the few women who had never thrown the rug business back in Shell’s face.

  “Here she is. Mad out there, isn’t it,” said Cherry.

  “We’ve been waiting ages, Shell,” Joyce said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Where you wanting us, boss?” Cherry laughed. “Don’t play coy, duck. What’s plan?”

  Shell had wondered if they’d have organised themselves. Naturally it had been left to her. Everyone was staring but they could bloody well wait. She rummaged in her bag for her fags and popped one in her mouth. Lighter, lighter, there it was.

  She sparked it first time, thank God. “Well, have we us buckets?” she said.

  “Present and correct,” said Jan.

  “First speech is half-twelve so by my count that’s two hours’ collection time.”

  No one disagreed.

  “So . . . four groups? Different parts of town. Meet here at twelve for tally and total.”

  “I were thinking we could do half and half,” said Joyce. “Split in two.”

  “There’s twelve of us here.”

  “Aye, I can see that, Michelle. We could—”

  “We’ll do four groups, like I said. Cover more ground.” Shell glared at the others, prepared to argue.

  “We’ll have no strength in number that way,” Joyce insisted. “Needs solidarity does begging.”

  Shell ignored her, split everyone into threes. Crown Court. Quays. High Street. Uni. People divided into groups as she’d instructed.

  Joyce raised her hand, her whole arm as thin as one of those joke back scratchers you got at the seaside. “Crown Court?”

  “Aye, what about it?”

  “Oh, forget it.”

  Joyce had been like this since school. Shell went over so the others wouldn’t hear and said, in a quiet voice, “So what’s wi’ slapped-arse face then?”

  “I just don’t think you’ll have much luck at the crown court is all.”

  “Stop being a pain, Joyce. I’ve hardly seen us wrong so far.”

  “Oh, have it your way then, Lady Muck.”

  Shell was going to say something Joyce would regret when she felt a tap on her shoulder. The rest of the girls were grinning at her.
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br />   “What?”

  Laughter. Shell pinched her thigh. Fucking Joyce was saying nowt and Smug-Arse Butterworth could hardly contain herself. Had any of them seen her and Het coming out of the bakery the other night? Because they’d been spending an awful lot of time together as it was. Lo, if word got back to Arthur . . . a breeze-fire swept through Shell’s chest.

  “Have I summat in me teeth?” she said.

  “Don’t talk daft,” said Jan.

  “Well, for crying out loud, put us out of us misery and don’t make us ask again.”

  “So you’ve got the whole gang here an’ geared up, right?”

  “Well, aye, yeah . . .”

  “But tha’s forgetting summat.”

  Shell could only shrug.

  “A uniform!”

  “What you on wi’, Jan?”

  Jan’s gigantic blue eyes were practically popping from her head. “Well, there’s been a great deal of talk of a name, as tha knows . . .” she said.

  “An’ I know you said you’d get your thinking cap on,” said Olive.

  “But we chose one anyway.” Jan yanked a white cloth from her bag and threw it at Shell. “Reckon tha’ll like it.”

  “Since when do I wear t-shirts?”

  “Oh just read what it says, Shell.”

  There was the poppy red lettering. “Litten Ladies . . . God, this is daft . . .”

  “No go on, Shell, read rest!”

  Shell sighed. “Litten Ladies fight to the end. We support the miners.”

  “Again!” cried Olive.

  Shell read it again.

  “Now, look!”

  The girls pulled apart their jackets. They all wore identical t-shirts, even Joyce.

  “Tha’s a Litten Lady,” Jan yelled above the cheering. “So you best start dressing like one!”

  Shell spent the morning with Olive and Linda, trying to collect money on the crazy paving near the crown court. She dealt with the public all the time in the bakery, but beseeching them, discussing her business? That was a very different matter.

  Less than a pound in silver about summed her efforts up. People were so very nice. They sympathised – or patronised was probably a better word. Still, it was gin-clear they were glad they weren’t her, involved in this unfortunate and bitter mess.

  Shell just didn’t have Olive’s way with people. She was too forthright, and though she tried to appear natural when she cornered folk, she couldn’t get over how her Litten Lady shirt outlined the fact she’d no bra on, and it was far too hot for her to put on her denim jacket.

  Course it was nice to be outdoors, and Shell could bear a little embarrassment over important matters, but she couldn’t resist sticking her tongue out at a baby sitting in his pram, and when Olive managed to persuade Linda to join her in singing like Pinky and Perky at people as they hurried by, Shell slipped away to watch the River Don instead.

  Relieved to find a quiet place, Shell stared down at the murky water from the concrete embankment. The river could have been a patchwork of parcel tape, caught and creased, its numerous irregularities winking in the light as if hundreds of mini crescent moons had been collected and jumbled together in a colossal trough.

  A barge cut its way through this soft ink, the dank bouquet of sewage and industrial works nearby making themselves known, too. A stockyard stretched on the other side of the river. Figures sat there on their pallets, scoffing their snap amid the pig iron. Above the barge’s engine and the clanging of the factories could be heard the spontaneous lap of the river. You’d never think this wide outflow with its gloop and overlay drew its sources from the becks and rills of wild Yorkshire, from the ghylls and ravines of England’s Pennine spinal column. Yet beyond it, beyond this carbon city, the landscape was rugged enough to suggest that this was so.

  Shell gazed at the distant country, an irresistible sight that gave her comfort. Here, for once, she felt free, free of her reckless family and her stunted existence, free of the welfare with its bowl of 10p’s, the tower of Weetabix and enough teabags to last until October. She was free even of Het’s laugh that made things go as thick and fuggy as winter mist. And this peace made her hope to one day find the answer she was in search of, although she couldn’t remember ever posing life a question.

  She looked at her watch. Quarter to. Lawrence would be on his dinner soon. How had he even got to be sixteen? He’d managed it so quietly, dashing along the skirting boards towards his O-levels. Finding the paper with the college ads the other day had been an eye opener. There her lad was, thinking about further education, and there she was, not even knowing when his exams were, let alone that he was considering working somewhere other than the pit.

  She was useless not knowing that. Mind you, you had no chance with a teenager, especially one like Lawrence. If only he could be a kid again, even for a day, now that Shell had more of an idea what she was doing as a parent. Kiddies told you everything; they were little cupboards you could open whenever you wanted. Now she’d never know what was going on in her son’s head. It was what she imagined missing a plane to be like, watching Lawrence’s feelings jet off while she was left stranded on the runway.

  She chucked her dog-end in the river and returned to the streets. Olive was waving and Linda was tapping her watch. Shell couldn’t resist sneaking a final look at the way she’d come. For some reason she was mesmerised by the distant hilly range and the thought that every city, every citizen petered out before something like it, a vastness she’d never understand, such mystery. She could see the way to Lawrence bound up in that feeling.

  The route was a single track.

  ❦

  To Joyce’s satisfaction they divvied only five quid shrapnel between the lot of them. Shell ignored her snide gaze and led everyone to the main stage to hear the speeches.

  The crowd was swollen. Shell could see two women in primary-coloured business suits interviewing groups of miners who themselves had small crowds of people surrounding them. There was a makeshift stage where couples handed out pamphlets. A preaching student was gesticulating, standing on some milk crates with a karaoke microphone in his hand, the microphone connected to a boxy guitar amp.

  It was so busy that the Litten Ladies had to stop a fair distance from the front and spread out in the crowd, two or three abreast or single to a gap. While everyone waited for Arthur Scargill to arrive, a chant began to do the rounds. Call and response. Shell smoked through the entire thing.

  A huge cheer went up when the union leader finally showed his face. He stepped confidently across the stage like a rock star. Shell couldn’t see a thing so went on her tiptoes, putting her hand on the shoulder of a man in front, who gave her a dirty look. There was a lot of clapping and cheering as Arthur – he had to be called Arthur – said how proud he was to be here. But what good did pride ever do? Shell had learned that one the hard way.

  So many police, each of them a blue danger point lined up along the NCB building with its stripe of grey brick spanning it like a belt strap. The police resisted the crowd as it poured forward at something Scargill had said. Shoved people regrouped and steadied themselves, creating the space Shell needed to escape from Joyce and get a better view of the stage. Jan called after her – she didn’t turn around.

  She found her way to some steps. From the top, a sight like nothing she had ever seen washed ahead: banners and placards, flags and people perched on each other’s shoulders, a thousand heads, a human stew. Shell stuck her fingers on either side of her teeth and blew a piercing whistle across the square. Plenty of people stared.

  Bloody look at me then.

  Scargill didn’t turn; he had his hand raised. Too kind, you’re all too kind. He wore a blue suit, which somehow felt out of order to Shell, as if the guy had come straight from the set of a Saturday night quiz show. Shell had never seen anyone in the flesh who’d been on TV. Ye
t here was their ashen chief, and he had that same combed hair, side-parted, coarse as donkey mane, that same neck with no chin as he had in real life. Her dad used to call men like Arthur Scargill chinless wonders; and not that it was their fault, but, no offence, it sort of was their fault. Shell thought Scargill was OK. His sideburns looked authentic, he cleared his throat like a working man and thanked people the right way. He felt like one of them, and that was important because if he wasn’t one of them, he was doing a damned good job of faking it and what else would he be lying about?

  He talked of counties, negotiation. He talked of unity and strength. Everyone lapped it up, and why wouldn’t they? You don’t come to these do’s to be told what you don’t want to hear. You come to have your lily gilded, to be grouped ­together and buttered-up, glazed merrily in your kiln.

  The speech went on. They’d win because they were the good guys, only there was talk of what a win might mean, and Shell didn’t trust that. There was always a catch. Then again perhaps the catch was that she was always looking for one. Shell chewed her hair. This was another benefit of the strike. Her mind felt open as it never had before.

  Some pissed lads behind her were acting all giddy.

  “Do you mind?” Shell said.

  “Who pulled your chain?”

  “You lot, I can’t hear nothing.”

  “Oh calm down, Doris.”

  “Aye, shouldn’t you be back at home wi’ t’kiddies?”

  “Some of us are here to support the effort,” said Shell, wrinkling her nose at the stink of beer.

  “She must be on t’blob. Decorators in.”

  They were laughing and Shell couldn’t stand being laughed at. “Oh, shut yer traps,” she said. “I’ve not come all this way to listen to some babbies who’ve just crawled out from behind their mothers’ skirts of an afternoon. You’re pathetic.”

  “How’s about you be quiet,” someone else called from nearby, which made the lads crease up with laughter. Shell searched for where the voice had come from and saw Joyce Stride watching her, scowling.