The Litten Path

by James Clarke

  “Lawrence?”

  “Time is it?”

  “Six.”

  The lad groaned.

  “Breakfast’s ready,” Het said.

  “I can smell the mutton.”

  “Well that’s better than nowt, which is your other option.”

  “In that case I won’t dawdle.”

  Het waited. “. . .I’m not seeing much movement. Come on. Up.”

  Lawrence rolled over, squinting through a gap in the quilt. “Are you wearing them gegs of yours or what?”

  Het was wearing them all right. The pictures on the wall were of the moorland, the sky, a forest. The linen chest was open, contents ruptured everywhere, and the egg-shaped rug he’d bought his mam for Mother’s Day a few years ago was doubled in the middle from where Lawrence had obviously skidded into the room, rucked it up and left it.

  Het tried yanking the covers from off the bed. “You’re not my dad,” Lawrence said irritably, grabbing the sheet and pulling it up to his neck. “That’s his trick you’ve taken up.”

  “Five minutes,” Het replied, letting go. He went downstairs and began setting the table.

  Lawrence soon joined them. The kid might have been in a rotten mood after being turfed out of school, but of late he’d barely a civil word for Het, and it was getting tiresome. It was probably Arthur’s fault. After Het got back from Selcroft his brother had shown up. Shaking he was, asking for a drink of water. Arthur didn’t manage a single sip. He just lobbed the entire pint at the wall the moment Het passed it to him. The glass smashed. Het’s pullover was soaked though.

  Arthur flew at him. “You’ve to stay away from her!”

  “Who?”

  “You’ve not even the nerve to admit it!”

  Quite so. Het would deny everything if he had to, his heart especially. He managed to roll Arthur over and pin him down, accidentally busting his nose, and eventually sent him packing with an ammonia phial stuffed up his nose and the assurance nothing was going on with Shell.

  How could anyone think Het would do a thing like that? Although he might have feelings for Shell, he would never act on them. Had somebody said something? Had Arthur spread the gossip on to Lawrence? Likely the two were in cahoots. Curse their closeness. Het could smell the lad’s B.O. wafting sourly across the table.

  Eyes shadow-ringed and girlish. Hair scruffily the same length all over. Lawrence clearly got as much guidance about his appearance as he did with everything else. Someone had to pick the pieces up for Shell. “Got a job yet?” Het said, buttering his bread. He’d burnt himself on the hotpot before and now the middle of his tongue felt dimpled and sore.

  “No, Uncle Het. Have you?”

  Lawrence held his hand out for the salt shaker, which Het slid down the table, with satisfaction watching it stop out of the lad’s reach.

  “So what’s plan of attack? Cause from what I can tell you’ve room and board and no means to pay it.”

  “Gran, will you tell him?”

  “Oh, leave off, Het. Let him eat.”

  “Has Arthur even been round to ask about this arrangement, Mam?”

  Had he heck been round.

  Helen swilled down her hotpot with a glass of Tizer and frowned. She’d always been soft on Arthur. “He’ll stay as long as he wants,” she said. “He’s having a think, aren’t you, love?”

  Lawrence didn’t answer.

  “Of that I’ve no doubt,” replied Het. “Though what’s on his mind is a flamin’ mystery.”

  Lawrence was always shrugging. His gran said he lacked confidence. Het thought he had it in spades.

  He said, “Been up to much wi’ all this free time then?”

  “This and that.”

  “Summer eh.”

  No answer.

  Young lads needed three things to feel self-assured: a sense of direction, to be included and never to be made to feel small. Het had been young himself once. All he had to do was let his wisdom bleed through. Avoid condescension.

  He cleared his throat. “Seen this one, Mam?” he said, expanding the broad chest of his that he was still dead proud of. “Bright lad. Strong lad. Could be of great use one day.” He wiped at a clump of hairwax he could feel behind his ear. “Capable of big things in the right job, you, Lawrence . . . So I want to know.” He lent himself a fatherly manner. “Have you started thinking long-term? Cause Brantford will gladly take you.”

  Pine forest quiet, Lawrence shook salt on his buttered bread, hotpot untouched.

  Het tried again. “As it’d be a shame to end up scratching on. No kidding, lad, if I’d even half your brain an’ it were being put to waste the way yours is, I’d never forgive myself.”

  Still nothing. It didn’t matter if it was half six in the morning or half six at night. Het banged the table. “Knock, knock! Earth to Lawrence—”

  “Obviously, Het, obviously it’d be a shame!”

  “Well . . . glad we’re in agreement.”

  “Fancy taking us down Brantford to scab tomorrow, do you?”

  “After, lad. I mean after.”

  “After they’re mothballed the pits? Do you think that’s my plan? Sitting on us arse until the end of time?”

  “I should hope it’s not. And there’ll be no mothballing!”

  “Oh, get gone, you’ve no idea what it’s like. Sixteen and stuck living in this shithole wi’ nowt to do except walk about, no jobs except down the pit or a poxy few quid’s training scheme bloody miles away.”

  Sixteen was a working age, always had been. The edges of Het’s scar bristled as they tended to do whenever he was blushing. This indignant cub was another one who was always trying to make him feel past it, acting like he was visible from several miles away. Lawrence was one big afterthought. He’d say anything and tell himself it didn’t matter.

  He made shoo signs with his hands. “I’m fine, all right.”

  “I just want to help, Lawrence.”

  “And what if I said I don’t need your help.”

  Het’s mam interjected. “Oh, come on,” she said. “Why not hear your uncle out? What can it hurt?”

  Het almost thanked her out loud. When she nodded at him, he cleared his throat as gently as he could then adopted the same tone he used when collaring newbies at the complex’s gates or on the wooden steps leading to the pit entrance, making sure they knew who to address and on what team. How to press their point and when to do so.

  He said, “So I can put in a word for you, reight, get you a job. Course it won’t be now – for obvious reasons. But after, when all this is over, and it will be, mark my words, kid . . . we’ll be going back to work. You could come for a chat then. Think of these weeks as a last hurrah. Hang out wi’ your mates. Sit in’t sun. Then I’ll take tha down Brantford so you can see how it feels. You know us Newmans have always been miners, Lawrence. Every one.”

  “Every one?”

  Hold the look. Don’t back down. Sam had never gotten as far as the pit, as Lawrence well knew.

  “Every one,” said Het.

  Lawrence didn’t reply. He looked frightened, the silly lad.

  “All I’m sayin’ is a chap like you can make management within five to eight year.”

  “Eight years?”

  “Less . . . if you’re lucky.”

  The kid was bottling up like usual. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said.

  “Who you trying to kid, grammar brain like yours. Your mam’s always saying.”

  “No I’ve not, an’ I don’t know where you’ve got her saying that from. Though I bet she tells you all sorts, you and her . . .”

  It was lucky there was food to concentrate on. Arthur must have said something. It was mortifying to think of Lawrence grading the design upon design, the muck rake and compost of the affair Hector had been having in his head with
the lad’s mother for the last decade and a half.

  Seize it. Seize the rope.

  “Listen, I dunno what you mean by that . . .” Het said.

  “I even heard her,” Lawrence said, voice freighted with feeling. “Having a go at Dad, saying I know how to get inside peoples’ heads and say what I have to, just like him. She thought I couldn’t hear her. She said new school won’t change a jot. She just said what were a lad like me going to do wi’ a grammar education in the first place? She always knew it. Always knew I were for the pit.”

  Het’s mam placed her hands on Lawrence’s shoulders. They were wrought things, fragile as bird’s wings.

  “Dad said I can do what I want. He said Mam weren’t being fair. She just went, ‘What’s fair got to do with it.’

  Shell hadn’t pulled her punches – Het admired that. When you were soft on errant lads you ended up with men like Arthur. He carried his empty bowl to the sink while his mam gave the boy a flaming cuddle. On the sill below the steamed glass were jam jars filled with soil. The shoots of baby sunflowers poked optimistically out of them. The last time Het had seen Shell she’d told him about the family tree Arthur had planted. She’d been so scornful of the gift, but Het’s mind had striven for the maple, as it did now. He envisioned a tremendous thing, red-leaved, helicopter blade branches. Newman lore spoke of goblins living in the whorled boles of such specimens. Button milk bastards that peeled the bark away like it was cellophane, climbed out at night and stole from you. If you came across a horse spooked at night, it was said the goblins had ridden it across the fields, visited the land of death.

  Helen was still talking. “Newmans have always been pit men. And tha father never wanted it neither,” she said. “Although it did our Arthur more good than he’ll dare admit. And tha’s so much of him in thee, Lawrence. Really there is.”

  “He’s a useless bastard.”

  Het strode over and clipped Lawrence around the head. “Don’t talk about your father like that.”

  “What I’m saying,” Helen went on. She always knew when not to say if she disagreed. “Is Brantford could be the best place for you, for time being, anyroad. Pits are where young men make ’emselves. Always have been.”

  Lawrence was so thin. Het had seen him coming out of the bathroom only the other day: he had a pigeon chest that looked like a nose from certain angles. Add to that a tendency to goggle or shrink, and you had to feel for the boy. He had been made a pawn of. He would always be the one to pay the price.

  Het said, “Your gran’s right.”

  “I am, love. So listen. Tha uncle’s away to Orgreave today. Why don’t you go wi’ him?”

  “Hang on a sec . . .” said Het, only for the ferocious look his mother gave him to shock him quiet. Had Arthur spoken to her too?

  “Make a day of it. See what’s what.”

  Het tried again. “Mam, it’s really not the place for him . . .”

  “Oh but tha’ll keep an eye out, Hector. You said it yourself, it’s a quiet do. You might even have a laugh. What does tha say, Lawrence?”

  Het was sure he could hear the wind filtering through the leaves of the maple.

  13

  The Maxi navigated the quiet streets. Lawrence rested his head against the front passenger window. The morning was really with them, its sun bled upon its stone, its birds went about their business and there was a glow through the mixture of trees. You could hardly ask for better weather. The air smelled almost sweet.

  Pulling in outside the Grey Grebe Hotel, Uncle Het tooted the car’s horn at a large man in a flat cap and a younger man in a Sheffield Wednesday shirt with hair straggling all over his shoulders. This was Bob and Darren Roach, Het explained, a couple of Brantford miners.

  “Tardiness is ungodliness,” Bob said through the open window, scratching the hair under his cap. “Everyone else has gone.”

  “I were held up,” said Het, nodding accusingly at Lawrence. “My nephew.”

  Lawrence couldn’t be bothered to defend himself. He shook hands with either Roach and slumped in his seat while they clambered into the car. The two men smelled of sweat and the pub. They were of that Irish blood that spawns pale and hairy, hard-drinking types.

  “I’ve a youngster trying to have me sunburnt,” complained Bob, showing off the damp blotch on the back of his grey t-shirt. “It’s frying out there, lad.”

  Lawrence didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Bob was wheezing a typical fucking pit cough. They were typically fucking indignant about everything, men Bob’s age.

  “I suspect you’ll have found ways to pass the time, Robert,” said Het, smirking along with Darren, who was miming ‘drink’ at him.

  “Oh, aye,” said Darren with a wink. “Give you time to work on that tan an’ all, didn’t it, Dad.”

  “Least now no one’ll think us a scab.” Bob chuckled. “Pale-skinned buggers.”

  With the lorries due at eight, Het drove above the speed limit rather than his usual granny-pace. After about a mile Bob said to Lawrence, “You’ll be for Brantford then?”

  “Thinking of it.”

  “Your grandad’d be chuffed.”

  Het was such a milquetoast, and a secretive one at that. He appeared to be concentrating on the road but Lawrence could tell he was listening in. So although he couldn’t deny that it was a nice idea, making his grandad proud, Lawrence didn’t answer Bob.

  Darren leant forward. “What about today then, you ready for t’scrap?”

  “Don’t know about no scrap.”

  Het broke in. “Lad’s been dying to come on picket.”

  “I’ve not.”

  “He wants to make a difference. See us at it.” Het laughed his firm, fake laugh. “This is our Arthur’s lad.”

  The Roaches exchanged a look.

  It was another fifteen, twenty minutes’ drive to the coke plant. There were hardly any police about. They received not so much as a single stop or second glance all the way there, which was strange, because, as far as Lawrence knew, it had been pitched battles right the way through May, the police doing whatever they could to stop the pickets. Now there was nothing. He supposed this was yet another thing that his uncle was completely wrong about.

  This way, please. Drive safely, lads. They followed the police instructions and the arrows and signposts directing them to the working men’s club down the Catcliffe end of the plant, parking a fair distance away still because Het was being precious about his bloody car. The picket was building this far back too. Hundreds were gathered here. Union brass with their fuzzing walkie-talkies. Maybe thousands. Maths was never Lawrence’s strong suit.

  The police numbers had also swollen. Down the drastic Orgreave Road Lawrence could see them lining the way, reaching the fortress of the coke works and those menacing columns, the scorched chimneys intruding madly upon the sky.

  Lawrence didn’t know what was going to come out of his mouth if he opened it. He stuck close to Darren Roach and ear-wigged on the men’s conversation.

  “You all right, Het?” Bob was saying.

  “I always get like this on picket,” Het replied, failing to lower his voice. “And I’m aware for the lad.”

  Bob said, “We’ll look after him.” As if Lawrence was some kid.

  “Ta, Bob. You been coming here recently?” Het said.

  “Our Darren has.”

  “You’ve to come expecting a hiding.”

  Het pointed at the urine-dark bruise spread across his neck.

  “Aye,” said Darren. “That’s why I were surprised you brought him.”

  Happening to glance over at Lawrence, Het changed the subject. “Reminds me of Saltley Gate,” he said.

  “Saltley?” said Darren, cottoning on. “How old are you, Het?”

  Lawrence’s uncle had to think about it. “I must have been twenty-nine, my fi
rst strike. Scargill were leading from up front. Dad were spitting feathers, you should have seen him. It changed our lives, a win like that.”

  “Goodbye Teddy Heath,” said Bob.

  “We did ourselves proud.”

  Bob said, “They must be mad scabbing here in strike’s heartland. Bloody death wish. Sandy Coates were only saying the other day that Maggie’ll crack if we can stop her steel. This could be it, lads. What do you reckon, Lawrence?”

  Lawrence nodded vaguely at Bob as Het and Darren swigged from their tins of beer.

  The police directed everyone towards the junction at Poplar Way, where the lorries accessed the Sheffield Parkway. The noise was enormous here, the topside in front of the cokeworks. All the crowds.

  Lawrence had to stare. Had a factory ever looked so massive? Had there ever been as many police waiting in one place?

  “You all right?” said Het.

  “Aye.”

  “Stick close to me.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  At last he knew what the pickets were like. Police everywhere, more police than Lawrence knew existed. The protesters reached the back end of the huge field, to what Bob said was a steep embankment ahead of some train tracks and a narrow bridge leading into Orgreave village.

  “We’ll stay here then get at them from afar,” said Bob, his thick hand resting on Lawrence’s shoulder. Everyone felt like they had a right to touch him. “You best keep your wits about you, son.”

  That much was plain as a pikestaff. In the heat of this day there was zero wind. Ahead of the ranks of picketers was a land of dying grass. Then the navy blue began, swathes of police officers that must have been at least ten or twenty men deep. An even greater horde waited on the other side of that, while to the left of the enormous coke plant was a command post, police forces busying themselves around a marquee with what looked like refreshment tables inside, tents beyond, Portakabins and horseboxes dotted further away. The edges of the field, lined against the woods on one side, were guarded by men with dogs. On the other side, guarding the hill, were yet more men with yet more dogs. Uncle Het was rubbing seriously at his scar.