After the Storm (39 page)

He was in his stride now, the words were coming quicker without any need to look at the notes. His voice was stronger and the trembling in his legs and hands was gone. It was still dark on the floor but he could see shapes, the glow of cigarette ends, the stillness of men listening and felt a surge of power, of enjoyment. The lectern edge was cool and hard as he gripped it again.

‘Bairns have no spending money; we have nothing to give them. Their das have no tobacco or beer money; mothers have no dresses. There’s not enough food to keep the family healthy or free from hunger that keeps us awake at night. There is not enough coal to keep us warm in winter and we are living on top of a bloody heap of the stuff’ He banged his hand in his fist and nodded at the calls from the hall, the agreement in their tone encouraging him to continue.

‘So what have the National Government done, a government which I might add, brothers, is led by a Labour Prime Minister? Why, they have brought in the means test.’ He bowed ironically and the catcalls were loud and he held up his hand to quieten the hall.

‘The means test is a grand way of lowering the money paid out by the government and at the same time does a bloody good job of lowering the dignity of the unemployed. Who likes
snoopers coming in, poking their noses into cupboards, telling us we have to sell grandma’s best teapot? Nobody.

‘The means test must go, Parliament must be lobbied, we must make our complaints loud and long. Get your unions to make them for you.’

He stood back and let the calls and the talk between the men on the floor continue while he took some water from Frank and sipped at it, asking him over the top of the glass how it was going.

‘Good, man,’ said Frank. ‘You’ve got them thinking, got them talking. Just give ’em a burst of Davy’s allowance idea and call it a night.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Tom and picked up the gavel. The knocking brought a hush to the hall again.

‘But, lads, as we all know and as Davy knew, there is another problem. What about the low wages when we’re in work? Work does not bring fresh milk. It does not bring butter. It will bring one egg if you’re lucky and that doesn’t keep our bairns well. So, you will ask, what do we do?’

‘Aye, that’s a question could do with some answering right enough,’ called a deep voice from the well of the hall and was taken up by others, loud and long.

‘Well,’ shouted Tom, forcing his voice through the uproar. ‘Well, we can stop having bairns but the bosses would like that less than a wage rise because their future workers wouldn’t be produced.’ He pulled a face and the men laughed. ‘We need a decent minimum wage; we need state control of the mines so that our men are on the board and can make sure of safety, reinvestment, a decent return for our work. But, more than that, men.’ He held up his hand for silence.

‘We need an allowance, not just for the miners but for all the workers in the land above and beyond wages. An allowance that is paid out by the state to the families, a certain amount for each child. That would mean that, low wages or no wages, there would always be enough to feed your bairns.’

There were cheers now and he could feel the sweat running down his back and sides, running down his face and on to his open shirt-collar.

‘What about the unions though?’ a voice cried from the back of the hall. ‘They won’t back that idea, it might make owners
pay less in wages if they thought we was all getting extra anyway?’

Tom smiled; this’ll get them going he thought. ‘Then it should be paid direct to the women, that’d settle that argument and give the lasses their own income.’

He watched as men turned to one another and the volume of argument and discussion grew louder and louder. They were talking and that is what Davy had wanted and, bye, he wished Annie had been here to clip back her ears at what he had said about giving it to the women. She’d have been right surprised, right glad, but it wasn’t just for her he had said it; he’d done it because it made sense.

He turned and moved over to the chairs where Davy’s mates were sitting. They were leaning forward and talking amongst themselves and he listened as he heard Frank say, ‘I’d forgotten Davy said that.’

‘Well he did,’ Tom replied pocketing his notes and standing with his hands in his pockets. ‘It makes sense you know. It’ll be hard enough to get union backing for the idea but if you make it payable to the women it’s different somehow. It doesn’t affect their bargaining position so much, does it, when they come to negotiating wages.’

He looked as a smile slowly spread itself over Frank’s face. ‘Come over to the bar for a drink, lad.’ He rose and took Tom’s arm but Tom looked over at the men, milling towards the bar which had opened at the end of the hall, at the smoke and the dim lights which had now been lit and his legs felt heavy with tiredness. His head ached with the noise and it was as though a band was being drawn tighter and tighter and he shook his head.

‘I’ll get on back now, Frank.’ He shook his hand, then the others. The grips were firm, the faces friendly. ‘I’m tired now and me feet is killing me.’ They joined in his laughter and he pushed down the steps, through the men, his back stinging with slaps and his head full of their arguments until at last he was out, into the cool air. He drank in the spring-laden coolness, felt the fine drizzle, relished the quiet once the door swung shut behind him.

He dug in his pocket for his cap, stuck it on his head and sauntered down the street which was dark with many windows boarded up and houses deserted, their tenants gone from them
to the South, to anywhere which might give them a living. Yes, the men were arguing, talking; they would have more to think about tonight than how hungry they were, how they were going to last until the end of the week. His boots slipped slightly on the wet cobbles and he hunched his collar up against the increasing wetness.

He was not going home but to the pub where he and Davy had sat the night before he had died. Don had not been there at the meeting and he was glad really. He wanted to be quiet for a moment, to think back over this evening, to think back over Davy’s words and check that he had said all that he had wanted the men to hear. Bye, it was a powerful feeling, that it was, standing there knowing that they were listening, knowing that they were chasing around in their minds for questions, answers and arguments. It was a bit like looking at a painting; sizing up the texture, the light, whether the artist had caught the moment, what he was trying to say. He shouldered his way through the doorway of the pub, undoing his jacket and easing the white muffler until it hung loosely.

‘Just half a pint,’ he said to the barmaid. His voice was hoarse and his throat slightly sore. He took the glass from her, sucking at the froth and taking a mouthful of rich brown beer, feeling it slip down his throat and soothe the rawness.

‘You’d better watch yourself, young man. Speaking out like that could see you out of work. One of the Socialist League, are you?’

Tom knew the voice, low and measured and thoughtful but it was a long time since he had last heard it. He did not turn his head, just took a sip before saying. ‘I belong to nothing, Mr Wheeler, and my business is none of yours.’

Bob Wheeler laughed. ‘Two half pints, please. You’ll have another, won’t you, Tom? Revolution is thirsty work.’

Tom turned. ‘Hardly revolution, Mr Wheeler, and aye, I’ll have another drink.’ The man had aged, he thought. His hair was now quite grey, his face thinner and his skin was dry and deeply lined.

‘Let’s sit down?’ Bob waved towards a booth in the corner.

The pub was quiet but then there weren’t many with money for beer these days, as I’ve just been saying, thought Tom ironically. The lights were muted and the curtains at the
windows were drab and uneven though the table they moved to was spotless. Tom’s glass left a wet ring.

‘You remember me then, do you?’ Bob Wheeler said.

‘I remember when you used to visit Archie Manon.’

Bob nodded and brought out his pipe, filling and lighting it while they sat in silence. He had been waiting to speak to Tom, waiting since he had received Sarah’s letter asking him to keep an eye. There had been little for him to do so far but if tonight was anything to go by this lad would need a bit of a rein on him, a bit of steering or no pit would touch him. He would be marked down as an agitator, a trouble-maker as his cousin had been. He sucked at his pipe looking over at the lad as he drew on his pint. Maybe he would side-track him with union business. Tom was a good-looking boy, heavy set with intelligent blue eyes and a manner much older than his 16 years. Oh yes, Tom Ryan, there’s not much I don’t know about you, my lad, he thought, and I daresay rather more than you know yourself.

He smiled to himself at the tone of Sarah’s letter; it had been urgent and worried. Well, let’s see what we can do about it all, eh? And he shifted in his seat, pleased to be involved again with Archie’s family, pleased to be able to pay off his debt but perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps it was because he was lonely that he was prepared to become interested in this young man with the jutting chin. He had spoken well, there was no doubting that and he had caught the men in his hands, something that was hard to achieve.

‘So, how many points did you make tonight, then?’ Bob asked.

Tom looked confused; he had been thinking of Davy and the night they had sat here and had overheard the group who were going to duff up Don. It seemed an age ago.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Two main ones, I suppose.’ He sat back on the seat and looked at Bob.

‘That’s what I reckon, lad.’ He acknowledged Tom’s look of surprise. ‘Oh yes, I was there, a union official should know what the members are getting up to! It was good, lad, but leave it at one point each meeting and only up it to two if you must. People don’t remember a great deal, you know.’

Tom leaned forward, his brows lowering, his face interested. He was going to learn from this man tonight and they talked then until closing-time and on some more in Bob’s house.

It was strange, Tom felt, walking into the small two up two down that Archie used to visit; that he had visited the night before he had killed himself. He wondered whether Archie had sat here as they were doing, round the kitchen table with the fire glowing in the grate, the kettle heating on the range. The table was covered with a heavy wool cloth with darker tassels which caught on Tom’s thighs as he sat down. A jug of beer frothed between them and Bob poured them each a mug.

‘It’ll keep us going until the kettle’s boiled,’ Bob laughed and Tom nodded and looked at the photographs on the wall to the right of the dresser which had only a few plates propped on the shelves. A man and a woman looking stiff in Victorian dress peered down at them and Tom could see the likeness between Bob and the man.

He pointed and asked, ‘Is that your da then?’

Bob craned round and nodded. ‘Yes, it is. He was a good man. Bought this house, though it took a lot to do it. He was a pitman, Tom, though I never was; I went into the office.’

‘Me da was a pitman an’ all,’ Tom said tracing the weave of the wool cloth on the table. Bob knew already. He had done some ferreting about, as he had told Sarah, and found out quite a bit about Tom’s background, about Barney Grant.

‘I know, lad,’ he said. ‘I know that Barney Grant was a good face-worker, a good pitman.’

Tom sat up, his eyes eager. ‘You knew me da then, did you?’

‘No, not exactly but I knew of him.’ He had found some of Barney’s mates, those who had been in the pits with him; joined up with him. He’d found them through the union records and they had wanted to talk but mostly about the war and so he had let them, listening as they spoke of Ypres, which they called Wipers. They told him of the salient which guzzled up lives like a bloody great pig and the waterlogged trenches that never moved forwards. They told him too of the tunnels, one hundred or so feet deep, which the big nobs, as they called the Generals as they spat into the gutter, had thought were a good idea.

One of Barney’s friends explained that the idea was to blow the Germans up. He was a cripple of 35 who had broken his back in the pits in ’25. Survived that bloody mess, he had hissed, to lose me back in the pits; like that Barney, you know, but Bob did not know and had said so looking along the mean streets which converged on to the corner where they were all
standing. The man had shaken his head in disgust. They needed miners, you see, he had sneered, miners to carve out the tunnels, build up the shafts and then lay the charges beneath the German front-lines so what did they do, they took us off the surface, didn’t they, brought us down into the clay and put us to work, like bloody rats in a trap again.

They wanted to shift the Germans back off the salient, the man had grunted as Bob frowned, and they couldn’t do it from the top so we crept along beneath them, quiet as bloody mice because they were tunnelling too. We lived down there, one of the other men explained. I can still hear the pumps as they kept the water out he had said with a shudder, but not the dampness, so you still coughed and your skin looked white in the lights but at least they had light and electric they were too. The other men nodded and one said that it was grand what could be done when the nobs wanted it enough, while the other cursed and became restless.

Bob had passed round Woodbines and brought them back on to the subject and learned how the men had lived and worked down there until the tunnels were long enough and deep enough and the poor buggers above them had been blown to bits. Went up like a bairn’s mud pie kicked by a horse, the cripple had said, but Barney Grant didn’t see it, did he. He was killed when the bloody ceiling fell in two weeks before. The man had hunched himself forward in his wooden wheelchair and stabbed a finger at Bob. Gone all the way from our pits, he had said, to die in a bloody frog’s. They hadn’t told Barney’s missus, of course, not that she was his real missus but you know what we mean and Bob had nodded and he remembered their faces even now as they had walked away from him, not wanting a drink, just wanting a job. He had watched them as they walked down the street, all but the one who had told him the most. He was being pushed by his mates. They had all been at Ypres together; they were all out of work together.