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.
“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.