by James Clarke
Naturally he told anyone who wanted to repeat what they’d said to step outside. They might act like he’d forgotten who he was and what he did, but Het was the same Het he’d always been. He was, had been and always would be a miner.
His craft certificate was proof enough of that. It was mounted upon a nail on the wall next to a picture of the queen and a photo of his mam and dad cutting their wedding cake. Below it had been Dad’s wireless. Het still had the TV but was never in the mood to watch it. The programmes seemed trivial now and the news, well, Thatcher was right for once when she said the violence was disfiguring their screens. Het would never have thought the media such liars. If it was two hundred picketers to eight hundred police, you could guarantee the news would tell the world it had been two hundred each. That headline in The Sun after Orgreave was a disgrace. The BBC claimed it was the miners who’d charged first.
Het went to collect his post. It was the morning after Skegness, he was exhausted from lack of sleep and no surprises why.
More bills. He was behind on the rent and everything else. He leafed through the letters until he reached a final one he couldn’t explain, his name and address typed neat, no post mark, nothing. Thin as that.
He tore the envelope open. The letter was from Clifford Briscoe, the pit manager at Brantford.
Dear Mr Newman, blah blah . . . It has come to light . . . gross misconduct . . . arrest . . . terminated.
He’d been sacked.
Fireworks. Your brunette years donated and the grey ones coming for you with no chance of a reprieve. Het thought about breaking something but couldn’t bring himself to punch the wall or smash any of his stuff. He set a fist against the armrest and began to push. You put down a twenty-six year shift and now your P45 was winging its way towards you. He’d be for the blacklist if he was convicted, never mind prison.
Water Street was cold and impersonal. Its russet bricks were damp and the muck between them worm-holed and loose-seeming. Het tried to see through the front window. Although there was no sense of Arthur being in, he wasn’t hanging around to make sure. He went around the back of the house and thumped the door.
Shell had either been crying or was badly allergic to something. Frail golden flies were all over the place as she answered Het’s knock. They crawled on the lightbulb and over the table. Upon everything.
“What you doing here?”
“What’s wrong, love?”
“I said what you doing, Het?”
“I’ve been sacked.”
The door was pulled to. Shell reached for Het’s scar, a gesture that made him duck away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come.”
He almost took flight but didn’t, his clunking legs carrying him down the backs beneath the sycamores until Shell grabbed him.
“You’re not going off on your own?”
“I don’t know,” Het said. “I don’t know.”
They ended up at the dell. It was a short way past Barnes’ Wood, a glade irrigated by the River Ogden that encouraged damp loving alders to grow. The trees’ bark was hoary and fissured and their pear-shaped leaves were bruised and had started to wither. There was no dramatic colour to an autumn alder. Their leaves simply dropped away.
They sat where it was dry so Het could explain the letter. He couldn’t keep the emotion from his voice. He didn’t know what he was going to do.
Shell had only the comfort of herself to offer, which worked all too well, the smallest surprise of the day. She kissed Het so hard that he thought she might have cut his mouth. And as they happened then, as they would, over and again, at least for as long as they could, Het opened his eyes and saw at the base of the nearest commanding alder tree distorted roots emerging from the netherworld like giant mutated chicken’s feet. October days and things were changing, and if the choice was to betray your own feelings or those of a brother who’d blown his chance, then really, that was no choice at all.
Shell became Het’s occupation; he had little else to do. They were direct if they bumped into each other. Cordial nod, retain the distance, nothing suspect. When they met later it was different. Thrown together in the stolen deep at Het’s flat; breaking curfew come evening or at nightfall, at the dell. They even did it in his car once with the back seats down. Flesh sticking to leather. No room for anything except them.
Shell hardly spoke during these brief meetings, and that was fine. There wasn’t a great deal to say when you were getting everything you wanted. All Het had to do was concentrate on owning it. Not messing up.
Under Het’s encouragement Shell re-joined the Litten Ladies. Any fool could see what that did for her. Illuminated, she was a confident speaker. Rational and passionate, she got people’s hopes up; not a strident bone in her body. Het was proud to watch her. She was and wasn’t his, but that didn’t matter.
It didn’t.
Because Shell hadn’t been complimented, she said, in such a long time, when Het congratulated her after another of her speeches. Hers just hadn’t been that sort of marriage. That justified everything. Shell sat down with Arthur and finished her drink.
Het’s brother was another matter entirely. It was all the sleeping Het was doing, each empty day leading to an early night followed by a late lie-in, the odd nap in between, his mind a nomad of the furtive trail, right up until the moment when Het would stun himself awake, thinking Arthur had twigged what was going on, thinking Shell was going to end things, sustain her marriage rather than him.
Mid-month. NACODs were due on strike on the twenty fifth and Het was letting his hopes get dangerously high, because without the manager’s union on board, every pit in the country would have to stop. There would be no power available for any industry. No power for the country and its voters. Not a single thing would be able to function. That would make the government listen – they’d flaming have to.
Talking of fantasy, Het and Arthur were on speaking terms again. They’d done a grand job of avoiding each other since the break-in at Threndle House, yet after accusing Het of getting too close to Shell that summer, Arthur had been almost genial. Probably he felt guilty. It was so like Arthur, sauntering into Het’s flat then chucking his drink at the wall. If Het had failed to spring across the room he didn’t know what would have happened. It must have killed Arthur. Never once had he physically bested Het. No matter how quick his mouth was, Arthur could never drop his older brother one. Het had fixed his nose and sent him home to Shell.
Then it had gone and happened, becoming guilty of the very thing you’d been so hurt to be accused of. Het had met his brief and told him about himself – long-serving worker, no record of arrest, paid up union man – and been tempted to confess what he’d been up to with Shell, just to get it off his chest. Sly pints with your sister-in-law over a plate of chips drenched in vinegar and burger sauce. Having it away every spare minute. The days were getting colder and so was Het.
The thing was that with Lawrence at his gran’s and Arthur never in, Shell was easy to get away with. Arthur had to be up to something: he certainly wasn’t picketing like he was supposed to be. Het resolved to have a word. Although it was easier to steal Shell with his brother out of the picture, he still wanted to see Arthur put right. While they were at it they could work out a plan for Lawrence. That would please Shell. It might even slow the hawks from swooping over Het’s life as they did every day now. One for each problem, an entire cast.
The front door opened. Het could smell the pissy reek of old fags. Shell was there, face on her. She was always so off with him at first.
Het said, “I’m here for Arthur.”
“What do you want wi’ him?”
“We’ve things to discuss.”
“You know I don’t like being sprung upon.” Those marauding eyes. The day sounded like a seashell against Het’s ear. “He’s having a bath,” Shell said. “You’re b
est not coming in.”
“It’s fine, I’ll wait. Look . . . is everything?”
“Shut up . . . It’s fine.” Her cloistered face turned coy. “Gives us chance to tell you the news, actually, Het. Hang on a tick.”
Shell went inside then returned with a scrap of paper grasped against her chest. “I saw an adviser at Job Centre,” she said quietly, refusing to let Het take the note. She held it up for him instead, displaying a phone number under the name of some meaningless college, decreed in cursive script.
As usual, something in her expression was lost on Het. “I thought you already had a job,” he said.
“Well, aye. But it’s had us thinking, why stop there,” Shell replied. She took a cigarette from its box and lit it, hand, box and lighter disappearing back into the stash under her armpit. “Why stop at all?”
Women shouldn’t smoke. It was uncouth and filthy. Het said “Tha’s spoke all over the borough – you’ve hardly stopped. Isn’t that. You know . . .”
Shell’s eyes did something magic. “Exactly,” she said. “An’ all the years before, nowt. Since I started on all this . . . you know, going on stage and that. Organising the kitchen an’ that, well, I’ve asked for details of a course.”
Het had the urge to say that his mam and thousands like her had never needed school and turned out fine. “Can tha put that out please?” he said, indicating Shell’s cig. “It’s going in my eyes.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She was frowning at him.
“. . . I’m chuffed, Shell . . . It’s dead great.”
“Do you really think so?” She had that measuring look now that made Het wonder if he’d been convincing enough, so he told her it was great again. That did it. Shell started whispering at him, never mind that it was all well and good for her, well and good for kids like Lawrence. What about a bloke a few years shy of his forty-fifth birthday? Het had only ever worked in one place. He was Imperial not Metric. He’d been one of the last people to do national service, remembered shillings and baths heated with kettle water. His dad and grandad had fought Britain’s wars and supported its posturing and now he’d been sacked, a supposed enemy of the very economy he’d spent his life helping to build, perusing plastic window wallets for unskilled factory jobs twenty miles away – most of them taken – and now listening to Shell explain herself away from him. Fifty percent of his life was gone and the rest was going with it.
He said for a flaming third time what great news it was. “Industrial Relations. Sounds promising.”
“Aye. Now listen cause I’ll only say this the once . . . but, well . . . it’s thanks to you, love. Making us go back. I’d never have thought I could apply for something like this.”
Het pretended he hadn’t heard. He was readying to make his excuses and hit the dell when the door opened.
“Well bon-fucking-jour.”
“Arthur.”
Shell stuffed the paper into her pinafore.
“Brother,” said Arthur. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
All teeth. All ornery swagger. Arthur wore a dinner-flecked t-shirt, a towel around his waist that stopped at the knees, and odd socks, one of which a little toe poked out of. His shins were noticeably wet and his damp, slag-coloured hair was towel-dried and at odds and ends with itself. Arthur had grown a raddled beard recently that almost disguised the blue mark on his face and the scar the knuckle-duster had given him: a line under the eye that made him look permanently exhausted.
“Well?” he said.
“Come to see us little brother.”
“Well I am blessed. Am I not blessed, Michelle?”
“Be nice, Art,” said Shell. There was a look of naughty amusement on her face that drove Het mad. He had never once been able to make her look like that.
“Down pub, if you’d join.”
“To recite another yard of us mistakes, I suppose.”
“The opposite, actually.”
Arthur looked suspicious, as well he might.
“My treat,” said Het.
“Well if you’re footing the bill then that sounds like a bobby dazzler plan.”
They sat under the lodge banners near the snooker table. Arthur drank at twice the pace of Het, nodding Slàinte, before each pint and raising his glass. Het played along but could only stretch to one more round of drinks so just came out with it about half an hour in.
“I want to talk about that night at big house.”
“Well, don’t be shy,” said Arthur, that famous late night air about him. “As I’m in a fine mood. Gratis pints will do that for a man.”
Het took a breath. He could not stop staring at the flatness of his beer.
“Been playing on us mind that perhaps I could have handled it better,” he said. “The other month. Forcing you on picket.”
Arthur kicked his legs out and crossed them.
“So I wanted to say sorry. Sorry, Art. There’s no need to keep at it, not if tha doesn’t want. I’ll not repeat a word of what you did.”
Het was practically shaking. He didn’t need to say he still expected Arthur to be on strike. That much was understood.
Arthur started to laugh, a sound that might have been jagged and slashing if it were visible. “Well, bugger me . . .”
“What?”
“You.”
“Me, what?”
“You know, Het, I don’t ever think I’ve heard you say sorry before.”
Sure he had. Course he had. Arthur was just forgetting because he amounted to one big apology himself.
“Aren’t you good?” said Arthur. “Letting us off.”
Het waited for his brother to say something else. Nothing was forthcoming. “That’s as well then,” he replied.
“Well indeed.”
The Lurcher over the way barked. It shivered, its sabre ribs and black lips all-too visible. Meanwhile the rain made a racket against the welfare windows. The ground at the bar was sodden, entrance floor slippery, mellow light flooding the snooker balls. Arthur’s roll-up made Het cough.
“I suspect tha’s heard—”
“What, that you’ve been given your marching orders?”
Het put down the beer mat he’d been tearing up and tried to compose a response.
“Sacked.” Arthur grinned. “An’ everybody knows.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly like that . . .”
“How else to put it?”
“It’s a mix-up, I’m appealing the decision.”
“You should have taken redundancy, or gone back to work. So should I, for that matter. Maybe I will now you’ve deigned to stop blackmailing us.”
“Arthur, you’re not . . . You’d go back?”
“Reckon they’d make it worth us while to get Brantford going again. Or I could work elsewhere. Markham or summat. Bet they’d take us.”
“You’d be a dead man.”
“We’re all dead men. Might as well get paid.” Bastard had that look, started going on about being sick of holding on. “What’s point?” said Arthur. “I’m on the verge of going down the butchers of an evening asking for the last bloody bones reserved for the dogs so my family’s got dinner. An’ all for a few pits I don’t fucking work at.”
But it wasn’t just that, it wouldn’t be just a few. Het was about to say so when Arthur cut him off. “Save it,” he went. “If the pits close, they close: I’ll do summat else. Eight months an’ no wage, thanks to you.” He pointed to his scarred face, his sorry hands. Het couldn’t deny it. “We’re nearly losing the house.”
“Well that’s your own fault for getting a mortgage – that’s the idea of the flaming things – scare you into working for fear of endin’ up homeless.”
Arthur had nothing to say to that because there was nothing to say. You couldn’t get around facts.
Het pressed his point.
“Zero times zero equals zero, Art. We’ll not walk into another job. What jobs are there? Only jobs are at the pit. All round here it’s pit country. What they gonna do, comrade, build us some mystical new place of work?”
“Comrade.”
Another of those white-gold insects was on Arthur’s sleeve. Het watched him crush it under his thumb. Arthur, making out like everything was everybody else’s fault. Arthur, acting like Het was some bully beyond a man trying to do right by everyone.
“Whole point of a union is if there’s a problem in one bit of the chain, it’s organised so the whole chain stops.” Het coughed, losing track of his old spiel. He touched his brother’s arm. “Do you not see . . . ?”
Arthur was no longer bothering to hide his disgust. Able to finally see that he was being goaded, Het’s voice rose. “And another thing I want to say is . . . I want to have a chat with you about Lawrence.”
There was no laughter on that potted wreck now. “What about my lad?” Arthur practically spat.
“It’s just . . . Look, I think it’s high time he was home wi’ his mam, don’t you? You need to do summat about it.”
Arthur necked the last of his beer, picked up Het’s glass and began to drink that, too. He had weak, bovine eyes, jellied balls that saw nothing the way you did. The space between those front teeth could hold a cocktail stick. It had been one of Arthur’s party tricks in happier times.
“Oh, you do, do you.”
Het snatched his pint back, spilling a load. “Shell’s upset. And you must—”
Now it was Arthur’s turn to raise his voice. “Oh right, well, when’ve you been seeing her then?”
Het steadied himself, still seated, first and second fingers on the ruins of the beermat. “Just in the bakery, like . . . I stopped in.”
“An’ what you doing buying bread from my wife?”
“Oh, here we go.”