They used to go up Wolton Road washhouse when Arthur was little. It was his job to cart the laundry in the old pram. If he’d been good, his mam sometimes let him book a tub in the bathhouse. Sneaking next door, all but naked, Miss Starkey showing him where to go, her husband a pit deputy, she in white overalls that must never have been dry. Her prunish fingers ran the baths by turning the taps with the special key. Arthur always asked for his extra hot so he could have a proper soak, spending so long in the marvellous water that his mam had often to come and fetch him.
His wife was at it with his brother.
He gathered some chalky dirt from the flowerbeds, compacted it in his hand and chucked it at Lawrence’s window. It came back and blew all over him. Some went in his mouth.
He tried again, catching the glass with light stones until Lawrence’s head appeared speculatively out of the window.
“Kid?”
The head shot back inside.
“Please, Lawrence.”
No answer.
Arthur still wanted Shell. He didn’t know how to make her want him back.
“Oh, come on.”
Lawrence’s gentle brow, the boy’s fingers and nose, appeared at the window ledge.
“I’m in bed, Dad.”
“I’ll make it quick. I just wanted to explain, about yesterday…”
“Time is it?”
“Summat came up.”
“I knew you wouldn’t show.”
“I meant to, I promise.”
“Have you spoken to Mam?”
Talk? Arthur could barely look at Shell. And as for Het. He was some brother. This was some life.
“I want to make it up to you, kid. I thought we could go for a walk later. Have a chat, like…”
The expression on Lawrence’s face made Arthur cover his mouth.
“Oh, stop trying to make us feel guilty all the time, Dad!”
“I’m not!”
Arthur had been copping it since day one and although his son had ruined everything for himself at school, he could still be helped in some respects. Arthur could do something for the only person he had left. “I expect you’ll be busy wi’ that Swarsby lass,” he said, “but listen, this might not be the time or place, but, Lawrence, I’ve been meaning to tell you, well… I’ve heard stuff about this Evie girl an’ I think it’s only right I tell you what’s what.”
“Oh go home, Dad,” Lawrence said angrily, retreating and hauling the window down, leaving barely a gap.
Arthur sat on the path, wishing Sam was here. His brother could have been the ignited piece of coal wrapped in a newspaper, a hot cob to rekindle a life’s spent fire. There are so many ways to die and so few ways in which to live. The Litten Path was drawing in, a rent in the hills with the eyes of the wolfhound nearly up it. “Ask her about Guiseley, then,” Arthur called up at the house. “Ask that girl what she and that lord got up to down in London then.”
The window drew to, just above.
Arthur was able to thumb a lift from a milk dray. He didn’t know where he’d go but sitting among the crates he happened to drive past Chris Skelly, Gordon Lomas and Darren Roach. They must be on their way to a picket somewhere, and maybe that was the kind of release he needed.
He knocked on the driver’s window. The dray quickly slowed, Arthur jumping off and going after the others. Thanks to the street lamps, his reflection was clear against the wet tarmac and road markings. Arctic, it was. The zip on his coat was broken so he had to tug it about himself as he hollered at the lads to slow.
“Boys!”
Arthur met them at the bus shelter, where they said hellos, shared smokes and cupped hands around matches to guard against a moody wind and the beginnings of a light rain.
“You’re out early,” Gordon said.
“Just roaming about,” replied Arthur. “I needed the quiet.”
Chris Skelly nodded sympathetically. “Where you been hiding?” he said. “I were beginning to think you’d packed it all in.”
“So were I. Had to clear us head though, you know.”
“Fancy it tonight?” Chris clapped Arthur on the shoulder. “We’re off to fetch car.”
From his pocket, Arthur removed a bottle of juice he’d lifted from the milk dray, peeled the cap off and took a sip. It was tart, the bottle so cold it was uncomfortable to keep hold of. He didn’t need to say anything.
They slipped out of town and headed towards Tockholes Farm, where Chris had his car stashed. All the way there they walked in the grass on the hill-side of the drystone wall, so that when a vehicle came by they could duck, and arrived a short while later, safe and damp.
Fortunately there were spare towels in the boot and Gordon had a Thermos of tea, so they warmed a little on the drive to Kellworth. Quiet and weary, the miners listened to the rain dropping on the car. It sounded like someone was scattering tons of grit at them.
At Kellworth they were admitting strike breakers into the pit at staggered times, so the NUM had instructed its picketers to correspond their arrivals accordingly◦– morning till lunch. Arthur and the others were a part of the second or third wave of protesters that morning.
They pulled in a fair walk from Kellworth’s compound and navigated the tricky sump of sodden fields until they got to the scar of railway sidings cut into the pit itself. Five minutes or so down these tracks they heard a noise in the trees behind. They lay flat and tried to see over the embankment, spotting the flashing rods of many torches in the murk.
Police.
The percussive sound of boots did not stop or go away. The noise came closer, then closer still. Arthur and the others were forced to scrabble from the train tracks, heading through the field instead, in the direction of the pit’s rear. They quickly got caught in an obnoxious lake of thick black coal slurry six inches deep. They waded through the muck to the west of Kellworth. Shit-stinking, legs filthy, they eventually reached the outer wire fence that they could follow in the hope of getting closer to the picket.
The pit lights were huge and alien and the fence, made of interlinked and criss-crossed metal cord, created a blanket of tessellated diamonds that sent mesh shadows on to the face of each man. Arthur and the others edged single-file along the fence until they could see the picket stationed by the main gates, the police lines in darkness way ahead.
A group of officers were conversing with the lead picketers by the tea hut, its tarp and brazier lending the proceedings a rich, satanic glow. Behind this group were larger numbers of picketers and way more police. Hundreds on either side.
Arthur nudged up front with Chris. They couldn’t hear what was being said but voices were being raised. The lead police officer give a signal to some of his men to approach the tea hut. They did so, a small group carrying between them a large bucket. The men emptied the bucket over the picketers’ brazier, which left the detached floodlights in the pit compound the only remaining source of light.
Beneath these unforgiving beacons the picket was set upon and men were beaten and arrested in the patchy glare. Shouting. Fragments of violence. Everything got mixed up until Arthur couldn’t tell which side was bloody which.
He and Darren wanted to pitch in immediately. Chris and Gordon wanted to wait for the scab vans and the rest of the picket to arrive. As they bickered, the clomp of boots and hooves got louder. A centipede of reinforcements was coming, aiming towards the carnival of violence playing out by Kellworth’s central gates.
This was followed by vehicles coming at the fracas, headlights blinding. Arthur broke free and ran towards the vans. He found a wedge of rock, and, imagining the lead vehicle was Het’s face, threw the rock and managed to pop a headlight.