A Mother's Gift (3 page)

‘Nay man, me an’ Katie will have it when we come back in,’ Noah stated. ‘Howay, Katie.’

‘But where are we going, Grandda?’

‘You’ll see.’

Noah picked up a potato sack Kitty had begged from the greengrocer at the store; one she intended to wash and use as a backing for a proddy mat to go in front of the fire for the new year. (You always had a new mat for New Year.)

‘Hey give that back!’

Noah shook his head impatiently. ‘Don’t bloody go on, lass,’ he said. ‘You’ll get it back.’

He went to the door and Katie followed obediently.

‘I expect you’re not picked bits off the slag heaps,’ Kitty shouted after him. ‘You know they’ll set the polis on you and then where will we be? Mebbe’s better off without you, I reckon.’

Noah didn’t answer, just set off down the yard and along the back alley, Katie having to give a little trot now and then to keep up.

They passed the pit yard and the towering slag heaps and Noah turned his head to look at the straggle of safety men coming through the gates, helmets pushed to the back of their heads showing a white line, stark against their coal-blackened faces. ‘What cheor, Noah,’ one of the deputies muttered and Noah nodded. ‘I been meaning to see you, I could let you have a bucket or two of coal next week if you like. You know what it’s like, the whole pit not working, everyone wants some.’

‘Aye, I know, Tommy,’ said Noah. ‘Don’t bother theesel’ about us though. We can manage.’

Katie looked at him in protest. How could he say that? They hadn’t a knob of coal in the coal house! But then,
though
it was usual for those in work to help out those not, a few safety men keeping the pit ticking over until better times and so getting their allowance could help out the hundreds out of a job, but not all of them.

‘I appreciate the offer, lad,’ her grandfather went on.

‘Thanks.’

‘Look lad,’ said Tommy urgently. ‘Just don’t try picking off the slag heap. The gaffer’s getting red hot against it an’ he’ll ’ave you for sure. You won’t get taken on again any road.’ He eyed the sack rolled up under Noah’s arm.

‘No no, I’ll not,’ Noah assured him and Tommy shrugged.

The safety men turned down towards the rows and Noah and Katie walked on through the colliery village and on through the older houses of Winton village. They were in open country now and rising slightly but soon Noah stopped and plucked a few handfuls of grass from near the hedge, grass which had not yet been frosted off. He climbed a stile into a field and set off down a footpath. Beneath them the ground was hard and the grass by the side of the path sparse and faded. There were pit ponies gathered under an oak tree further down, nosing about, looking for the odd blade. Though there was some hay spread about for them they loved the grass. It was something they didn’t get much chance of underground.

They were the ponies from Winton Colliery, brought up until such time as the colliery should start working again. They whinnied and moved back out of range, wary that the day had come and their freedom would be gone.
All
except for one, a sturdy grey of about ten hands, a Shetland pony. He stood about six feet away from Noah and nickered softly.

‘Howay, lad, come away Peter,’ Noah said quietly and held out a handful of green grass. Katie watched, fascinated as the pony’s ears pricked and he moved forward to take her grandfather’s offering. He stood champing at the grass, allowing Noah to fondle his ears, rub his neck.

‘You’re a good lad, Peter,’ Noah whispered in his ear and the pony nuzzled at his pocket where, down the pit, Noah had always had a few sugar lumps. For this was Noah’s pony, a good marra working with him in the pit. But there was no sugar lumps in the pocket now just as there had been none in Noah’s breakfast tea that morning.

After a few minutes, Noah set off again down the field, making towards Eden Hope Colliery that had started up again after the strike and was working normally now. It was quite a long walk and the going was rough. The fields gave way to an ancient wagon way, still with bits of iron jutting out of the ground where they had held the tracks. Beyond there were slag heaps just as old, grey bits of slag showing through half-dead weeds and odd blades of grass. In summer time, only a few years ago, Katie and her friends had played along here, pretending the heaps were a moonscape, waging mock battles with kids from Eden Hope.

Katie sighed. She was older now, soon she would be earning her own living. In any case, children were chased away from the heaps since some of the boys had fallen
through
the crust just where a fire was raging beneath the surface and feeding on the bits of coal in the heaps. She shuddered, remembering the boys’ legs, red-raw and blistered as they ran down the rows screaming for their mammies.

‘Howay, Katie, you’re all right, the fire’s not in this part,’ said Noah. ‘Just follow me, where I put my feet you put yours if you’re scared.’

‘I’m not scared. I’m hungry, that’s all,’ said Katie and hurried to catch up with him. But surely the hardened crust of the heap felt hot through the thin soles of her boots? She was glad when they got to the other side and could slither down into the valley and the banks of a small beck.

‘You’ll have something when we get back,’ her grandfather told her. Instead of turning right to Eden Hope and the pit, he turned left to where another, newer wagon way ran alongside the beck with a footpath beside it. They were going to the old coke works, Katie realised. Abandoned buildings stood at intervals along the line, windows broken and brickwork black with soot. Further along she could see tall chimneys and mineral wagons; small figures scurrying about. The sides of the valley were covered in dead stalks of rosebay willow herb and bracken. There were patches of black oil by the track and a coaly smell tinged with sulphur.

Noah was watchful, keeping his gaze on the figures up ahead except for quick glances up the line behind him. He stopped on the edge of a shallow black-filled hole.

‘Pitch,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘By, I knew there was
a
pitch lake around here, I remember it from when I was a lad. Sit down on the edge, lass, you won’t stand out so much.’ Climbing into the hole he began rapidly rolling balls of the pitch and throwing them to Katie to put in the sack. Fifteen minutes later they were back along by the stream, trying to wash the pitch from their hands and boots.

‘Howay, that’ll have to do,’ said Noah, getting to his feet. He slung the sack of pitch balls over his shoulder and set off at a trot for the stile leading to the fields and home with Katie struggling to keep up. They were almost at the bend in the track with the turnoff just around it when Noah, bent over with the load on his back, almost bumped into someone coming the other way.

‘Mind where you’re going! Anyway, what are you doing here? Up to no good I’ll be bound.’

Matthew Hamilton was making his way along the wagon way which led from Eden Hope Colliery through the derelict land of the old coke works to where the more modern works was coming back into production after the long strike and lockout. He wasn’t in too good a mood either as he noted things that should be done to modernise the colliery, uses that could be made of this land. Now he looked at Noah suspiciously.

‘What have you got there? Where have you been?’

Noah drew himself up. ‘It’s none of your business. This is a public pathway, it’s always been a public pathway. We ’ave as much right as you ’ave.’

For the first time Matthew noticed the girl behind Noah as she stepped out to stand beside him. Wavy fair hair
hung
down her back and large, deep blue eyes stared at him, eyes only a little darker than the old man’s beside her. Was it her grandfather maybe? A striking-looking pair, though he was dressed as though he was ready for entering the pit and she in a cotton dress and threadbare brown coat that could possibly belong to her grandmother. Her hands were stained black and there was a black smudge across her cheek. Seeing him looking at them she put her hands behind her back.

Pitch, that was what was in the sack and also liberally smeared over the pair before him. He stared at them, frowning, and two pairs of dark blue eyes stared back at him defiantly.

‘Any road,’ said Noah, breaking the small silence, ‘you may be a gaffer but you’re not the gaffer ’ere, are you? I know who the manager is and I know the agent an’ all. Gan on and mind your own business, like I said. I know the gaffer ’ere, like I said.’

Matthew opened his mouth to contradict him but changed his mind as he saw the girl’s expression become anxious. He’d always prided himself on being hard as nails but there was something about her that made him want to reassure her, tell her it was all right. He stood aside.

‘Oh, go on,’ he said. Noah and Katie were not to tell twice. Noah hitched the sack higher on his shoulder and they climbed the stile and set off rapidly up the field. They didn’t stop until they had put a covering hedge between them and the wagon way.

‘Who was that, Grandda?’ asked Katie when she could catch her breath.

‘Some bloody interfering toff,’ Noah replied. ‘Always wanting to rub your nose in it they are.’ They set off up the field into the one where the ponies were now huddled around a gate. They were waiting to go into their warm stable, Katie thought, waiting for their feed of oats.

‘They always know the time, them galloways,’ Noah observed ‘Won’t work a minute after the shift ends. Aye but they’re not used to being out in these winter nights.’

‘They’ve been fed carrots,’ said Katie. ‘Carrots and turnips.’ There were bits of carrots about where the ponies had been munching on them, the odd broken bit of turnip. Noah stooped and picked up a couple of whole carrots they had missed. ‘Might as well ’ave these, I’m fair clemming,’ he said. ‘Bloody hell, what’s the world coming to when we take the leavings from the ponies?’

Katie didn’t care, she took her carrot and rubbed it on her dress before biting into it. Her stomach felt so empty the sides must be sticking together. An icy wind had sprung up and was stinging her legs through the thin cotton of her dress whenever her coat blew open at the front. She. chewed on the carrot and bent her head to the wind, striding out without thinking of anything but the need to get home. By the time they were walking down the rows it was dark, only a faint glimmer from the gas streetlamps lit the street and a rain mixed with sleet had begun to slant against them.

‘There, now, Kitty,’ said Noah. ‘Didn’t I say I’d get something better for the fire?’

Katie lifted her nose from the bowl of soup and
grinned
. The kitchen was warm, as warm if not warmer than when the coal house was full of coal. She was in her nightie covered by an old cardigan and she had a pair of Noah’s old socks on her feet in lieu of slippers.

In the grate a pitch ball flared and shifted and Noah added another to the flames. He sat in his rocker by the fire and stretched out his legs before taking the fag end from behind his ear where it had stayed since morning. Leaning forward he lit it from the fire with a scrap of paper and inhaled deeply. The heat from the fire made him remove his feet from the steel fender but he didn’t care.

‘Aye,’ said Kitty. ‘But I don’t know where the heck I’m going to get a bit of good sacking for a new mat before Christmas now. You’ve ruined that tatie sack, it was nice and close-woven an’ all.’

‘By heck, woman, you’d find summat to grumble about in heaven!’ Noah growled, but mildly. It was dole day the day after tomorrow, he’d have a few pence for himself, buy a decent pack of Woodbines. Twenty, even. It was cheaper to buy in bulk.

At least he got a bit of dole now. During the strike able-bodied men got nowt, only a bit of out relief for the wife and bairns. It was the single men who did the worst though. As long as they were able-bodied they got nowt at all. So it worked out that a man would get food for one day and not the next. A man was considered able-bodied if he’d had something to eat in the last twenty-four hours. Aye, but things would get better. They had to, they couldn’t get much worse.

The oven shelf was hot, courtesy of the pitch balls and Katie lay in bed with her feet on the shelf wrapped in an old towel and it was lovely. She huddled under the blanket with her coat on top and the bedroom mat on top of that. Outside the wind howled and the rain pattered on the window. Sleepily she thought of the toff they had met on the wagon way down by the old coke ovens. She had been frightened he would turn her grandda over to the polis, he looked so cold and angry. She dropped asleep wondering why he had not.

‘WHY MAN, I’M
a hewer not a safety man,’ said Noah. He stood in the manager’s office where he had been summonded that morning by Billy Wright knocking at his back door.

‘Me da says the gaffer wants to see you, Mr Benfield,’ Billy had said.

‘Me? Are you sure he wants to see me?’ Noah was filled with foreboding. Had someone seen him take the pitch yesterday? But it wasn’t stealing, not really, the pitch was no good for anything except burning, it had been left to the elements too long.

‘That’s what he said,’ said Billy. ‘As soon as you can get there.’

As Noah washed and shaved he went through what it could mean. Were they going to be put out of the house? Was he going to be told he’d never get a job in any of the company’s pits again so he might as well emigrate? Leave his beloved Durham for one of those new-fangled car factories in the south?