“I wonder what we’re in for this week,” Shell said, nodding towards the parcel queue.
Olive handed her a cup that might as well have been a thimble. It contained orange squash. “Same old snap, unless you know something I don’t,” she said. “A rare delight having you show your face, Shell. Things picked up round yours, then, I take it?”
“Not especially, but I’m grand and ta for asking.”
“I heard your Lawrence is living at his gran’s.”
Shell didn’t rise to it.
“And Joyce is here an’ all.” Olive gestured across the room.
“Well, good for Joyce,” said Shell, automatically searching out Joyce’s mushroom head. Unlucky enough to make eye contact with the woman, she glanced at her shoes and raised her hand a touch.
“Seen Het of late?”
Olive’s nose wrinkled.
“Like you say, it’s been a while,” Shell added, too quickly.
“Comes in enough. On his own now an’ all, I see.”
“As well he might.”
Olive sprayed the hatch jamb and began to wipe it. “You’ll have heard he was nicked the other week.”
“What for?” said Shell, having to put her hand on the wall.
“Unlawful assembly.”
Shell couldn’t speak.
“Oh, aye. He’s made bail but you know how it is, they’ll have you confessing to all sorts. A mate of our Johnny were arrested up Orgreave an’ now he’s been charged with conspiracy to riot. Dragged out of picket, beaten black and blue. Now they’re charging him. What’s up, love?” Olive said. “You’ve gone all quiet.”
Shell joined the parcel queue. The woman at the front was going on about the rigmarole with the social. So far below, she said, were the families of those on strike shy of the forty pounds a week it was supposedly sufficient to live on, that it was almost funny. Shell blotted out the noise as best she could. Her food parcel, when it came, contained potatoes, a loaf of bread and some jam. It tended to vary. Some days you might get a bag of sugar and beans. Other days it was soup, Yeoman pie filling tins and a tub of margarine. God, what Shell would have given for normal butter. It was the little things you noticed, in between the big stuff. A good job Arthur liked jam sandwiches, a good job it wasn’t raining and a good job Shell had a decent night’s sleep in her for once, otherwise she didn’t know what she’d do, she might have to sit down for a minute and be sick.
Het.
She touched her trimmed hair, cut for free the other month on a barstool set on a donated bedsheet here in the welfare. That was the last time she’d been seen out in public. Since Sheffield, Arthur had been collecting the food parcels, so how else was Shell supposed to know about Het? Probably Arthur had kept it from her, the conniving bastard.
She set aside those thoughts for the small hours. She was tired and poor Het. Done in and poor Het. And she missed her son. She’d shaved Lawrence’s head then upset him after he’d been kicked out of school, the poor thing. She was pretty sure he had no idea about what had gone on in Sheffield. No one knew about that apart from Joyce and Arthur, and Shell wasn’t about to broadcast it◦– people thought little enough of her as it was.
But she had to wonder if he’d heard. Why else would he act the way he did every time she went to see him? On her visits Lawrence acted so off, in fact, that Shell feared he still harboured suspicions as to her involvement with Het. Course Arthur had sworn to her that he’d convinced Lawrence of the truth… Shell didn’t believe him. Their boy was so morose, and he’d stood her up when she went to see him on at least three occasions now. There was no other way to explain it. ‘He just goes out,’ Arthur’s mother explained, looking so bloody pleased with herself, never mind that it was some way to see Shell being treated by her own flesh and blood. Never mind that it was some way to grin at your daughter-in-law, who was clearly upset while you polished your worktops. Lawrence could be dead in a ditch and all Helen could do was act high and mighty, informing Shell that three of her own she’d raised with the same freedoms and no harm had it done any of them.
No comment.
Shell had given Lawrence time. A season of his own accord before the strike finished and he signed up at Brantford, as she was certain that he would. In the meantime his departure was just another thing for her to endure, so she crouched by the convector heater and warmed herself like some vagabond.
The hot air comforted Shell’s exposed ankles, and for a moment there was nothing in her head, nothing at all. Then she realised this was exactly how she’d been made to crouch in Sheffield, the torchlight shining up between her legs.
She stood up so fast it made her feel faint. Now turn around, drop them knickers and squat. A teasel in her thoughts. She and Joyce in transit, rattling in cuffs. “Cheer up, ladies,” that blond copper had said, straight-backed, tough hands on tough knees, like some granite statue. His badge had a white rose on it, hung in the middle of a star.
DoB and fingerprints. Echoing corridors. Unflattering light. Shell had grown up trusting the police. They were supposed to help people, look after their community and protect what’s right. She was relieved her father would never hear about what happened; he was buried under a sober knoll by a neat red path at St Michael’s. She had laid tulips at his polished headstone the day after her arrest and confided to the grave about how embarrassed she was by the whole ordeal. She said she didn’t want any part in the strike now. She didn’t want to see people, hated her weakness, her place in the world.
Dad said not to fret. He always said what Shell needed to hear now that he was dead. Shell had touched the earth that covered his body, letting herself snivel a bit, her legs beginning to ache, kneeling down, but, for crying out loud, getting the knees of her jeans wet.
“Not a word Joyce. Serious.”
“But, Michelle!”
“You know what folk’ll say. Do you want everyone gossiping behind us backs? I’ve worry up to my eyeballs as it is.”
A cheer pitched and splashed now on the other side of the room, which seemed a far more worthwhile thing to dwell upon, better than the hollow walk to the bus stop, Joyce Stride’s sobs ringing in your ears. Arthur had his snooker cue raised, so Shell went over to him, joining in with the applause, on the way spotting a notice Sellotaped to the wall. They were running a charabanc to Skegness on Saturday and if anyone was interested in going, they should put their names down. She took the biro from her handbag. The Costa del Skeg. Arthur could bring the suncream.
Saturday.
Shell stuffed the blankets and towels into a rucksack along with some jam sandwiches and a flask of coffee, and carefully slid some magazines she liked into her handbag so they wouldn’t spoil. Under her arm was a beach windbreaker, in her purse the money Si Gaskell had advanced her. He’d agreed to knock it off her wage, which was good of him, so when he brushed past her on his way to the oven as she was cashing up at the till, she let him get away with leading with his crotch: his rotten reward.
The family time would be worth it. The plan was for Arthur to fetch Lawrence from his gran’s, while in the meantime Shell would catch the bus to Wolton where they’d all meet. A number of families were already in the WMC car park by the time Shell arrived. They hadn’t the weather yet, though at this hour you couldn’t be sure of what was in store. The optimistic had their swimwear with them but Shell didn’t fancy the water. Thinking of all that space below got on top of her.