Annie's Promise (7 page)

Their boots were loud on the cobbles as they walked to the pit-yard, the buildings crowded in on them and Georgie and Frank nodded to each man as they joined the group. There was no talk, it was too early, too grey, these were not men on a ramble, they were workers facing a full day, heavy with sleep. There was no surprise in their faces at his presence, word spun round quickly in a pit town. There was wariness though as he had known there would be and he was glad that he was here, proving himself to them, proving that his
family had the right to come back into their midst but more importantly, proving something to himself.

Once inside the entrance they passed the canteen, then clattered into the locker rooms and Frank pointed out the one that would be his from now on. He changed into old clothes, locked up, then walked with the others to the supply room, collecting his helmet, kneepads, steel-capped boots, gloves, belts. It was like the Army again, it was like coming back into the team.

‘Come on man, let’s get your lamp.’ Frank shouldered past the other men, leading the way into the lamp room. Tom had shown him this last week but he still felt the same surge, the same sense of being a boy again. He handed in his metal tag to old Jock who exchanged it for a lamp.

‘Good to see you, lad. You keep your bleeding head and back down, and your feet up and your wits about you. I don’t want to be left with a spare tag at the end of the shift, your Annie’ll have me guts for garters.’

Georgie grinned. ‘No she won’t, bra straps perhaps. You’ve not aged at all, you old devil.’

‘You have, you were a boy last time, just you remember that, Georgie Armstrong. Reckon you need your head examined, what d’you think, Frank?’

Georgie was moving along now, being pushed from behind.

‘Too right, Jock, but I reckon he thinks it’s good for the soul, or maybe he thinks he can talk us into buying Annie’s bras for ourselves.’

The men were laughing and Georgie stood at the cage while he was frisked for matches, lighters, cigarettes. He’d left his Kensitas in his trousers and the checker flung them in the bin and growled. Georgie flushed and Frank dug him in the ribs. ‘Nice one, lad. Don’t happen to have a bomb in the other one, do you?’

There was more laughter but it was good humoured and Georgie relaxed. Bloody fool, don’t do that again, he told himself, knowing he’d have had more to say if it had been one of his bomb team.

He waited with Frank whilst the miners queued for the cage. There was the low hum of the dynamos running the air pumps, he’d forgotten that, but not the feeling in his stomach as he waited to plunge into the darkness.

‘You OK, lad?’ Frank murmured, shifting his weight from one foot to the other waiting for the banksman to get the men in, the wire guard shut. Georgie nodded, his arms hanging loose, emptying his head as he had taught his men to do. They were all in now, the gates were closed, the cage dropped. Jesus Christ, he’d forgotten how your heart lifted, how silence fell, how the faint surface light faded, how quickly you travelled, how the light from the helmet lamps flickered on the surface of the shaft, the cables, the pipes, how your mind persuaded you the earth was closing over you, how the ground bounced beneath you as the cage stopped, how you breathed out as the cage door opened. Jesus Christ, he’d forgotten and now he was grinning, stepping out with the others, their bait tins clanking against one another, their batteries too.

He breathed in the air, sensing its motion, its warm lifelessness. Yes, it was the same. He blinked, then narrowed his eyes in the brightness of the light. He’d forgotten how like a tube station it was.

‘Need a few advertisements, Frank lad,’ he said quietly as they headed for the paddy train.

‘None of this comfort when you were down last, eh Georgie? Shanks’s pony then,’ Frank grinned, squashing himself into a seat, pulling Georgie in.

‘Shove over, let a tiddler in,’ Bernie Walters grunted, sinking back as the train started. ‘Bloody Ritz for you, isn’t it, Georgie?’ He stuck out his hand, shook Georgie’s. ‘Worked in the old seam with your brothers. Like Nottingham, do they? Good thing you came back down, lad, they’ll open up to you now, would’ve been difficult otherwise.’

Georgie nodded, smiled. He knew he’d been right. He looked to the sides, electricity still lit their way, they passed stores of fire-fighting equipment and first-aid stations. He
moved with the motion of the train knowing that any minute they would be plunged into darkness and now they were and their lamps picked out steel pit girders and unpainted brickwork.

‘You’ll be working with wood props at the pit face,’ Frank said.

Gorgie nodded. Tom had told him. He saw traces of coal on the walls, the roof. There was already stone dust on his lips, in his throat. Thank God for that, flash fires were less likely. The train stopped, they eased themselves out, their feet kicking up the dust, tasting it in their mouths.

He moved along the roadway, his lamp picking out Frank’s back, the roof, the walls. ‘Pick your feet up, man,’ Bernie hissed behind him, ‘it’s like a sandstorm back here, and keep up.’

He moved more quickly now, remembering to feel with his feet, bending as the roof lowered to four foot, remembering the pain that dug into his back and legs. His lamp was picking up the roof and the floor and the sides, but in front there was nothing but a wall of blackness because Frank had left him behind. Bernie turned off down another roadway. God, he was alone. He moved more quickly, carelessly, caught his back on the roof, felt the jagged slash, the sharpness, the dampness of blood, black blood. He moved even faster, straining his back as he kept low, straining his thighs. Come on, come on, keep moving until his lamp at last picked up Frank and now the roof was higher, they were upright, but it was so hot.

‘We’ll strip off here, gets too bloody hot, d’you remember?’ Frank asked.

‘Aye.’ He could do do more than grunt in the heat and tiredness and he hadn’t even lifted a shovel yet.

He felt the blood on his shirt, sweat in his eyes, the taste of it in his mouth. He wanted a drink but not before Frank took one.

They walked on inbye until there it was, the old sow’s black face, scarred and blasted by the night shift who’d cut
it and now, together with others, they shovelled the coal on to the clanking rasping conveyor but it wasn’t until ten o’clock that Georgie at last managed to maintain the ceaseless steady rhythm of the others. His throat was dry and his head splitting with the noise of the conveyor but he knew that the cutter would be much worse.

The broken coal came away quickly, leaving the jagged roof exposed. He and Frank propped it, sawing, heaving, banging and it was easier than Sarah’s shelf. It really was, and he laughed and Frank shook his head, then called ‘snap’ which was picked up by Bernie further down, who called it too, and so it was echoed down the line and at last they sat in amongst the coal dust, listening to the creaking roof, checking it with their lamps while they ate and drank and pee-ed.

Georgie’s right hand was sore, blistered through the gloves. Both his hands were so stiff he wondered how he’d ever get them round the shovel shaft again, his back was so stiff he wondered how he’d ever bend again, his legs were shaking so much that Frank laughed and told him the only time he’d shaken like that was when he’d brought Tom back from the beating the fascists gave him at Olympia and delivered him to Annie at the hospital.

‘Thought she’d damn near kill me I did,’ he laughed, squatting on his hunkers.

‘Did she?’ Georgie asked, working his hands, rolling his shoulders.

‘No, but I expect she damn near killed you when you said you were coming back down.’ He tossed Georgie a piece of gum to chew.

‘I guess you could say that but what about you, are you still in politics?’ Georgie didn’t want to think of Annie’s attempt to nurse, her courage, her self-sacrifice, her nightmares, her rage and worry at his plans, he just wanted to be here, in spite of the pain and the tiredness.

Frank shook his head, his jaw moving in the same ceaseless rhythm that he had used when wielding his shovel. ‘Kids’ stuff, you get too old to stand there mouthing off at
demonstrations somehow, and with Tom scratching away at the business idea he’s had no time for anything but that and the union. You’ll go into the business, will you?’

Georgie nodded. ‘Aye, this’ll keep us until it’s off the ground.’

‘Canny move too, the blokes’ll get their wives to look out for your stuff, there’s some who’re good with sewing too. Get Tom on to that, then you’ll not get any bad workers to be a bloody nuisance.’

Frank stirred, packed his tin away, looked at his watch but waved Georgie back down. ‘Few minutes yet.’ He leant back against the wall, and Georgie’s lamp picked out the sweat which ran in rivulets down Frank’s black chest and belly, just as it would be running down his. His back was too sore to lean against anything.

‘So what d’you do with yourself now then, Frank?’

‘Pigeons, that’s what I do. Got a real good ’un.’ Frank took his gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the sole of his shoe. ‘Looks what he is, a belter. Got a good eye, make a good racer. You should get that old loft of Eric’s fixed up, he raced a few good ones you know.’ Frank checked his watch again and nodded. ‘Best be getting at it.’

Frank came across and heaved Georgie up and for a moment he thought his legs wouldn’t take his weight but they did and he could straighten his back, just.

After another two hours his blisters burst and Frank took gauze and cream out of his underpants and bound them. ‘Full of surprises, my old lady says. Always happens first day back and you’ll need to use them tomorrow lad, that’s if you’re going to make a real pitman.’ He slapped Georgie’s shoulder. ‘You’re doing well, Georgie, real well.’

He talked above the noise of the conveyor as they worked now and Georgie knew it was to ease the last hour for him. He learned about squeakers and then about ringing, training, and the race which had been spoiled by gale-force winds.

‘You should get yourself a squeaker. Have one of mine if you like.’

Georgie laughed, heaving another shovel load on and then another, then breaking off to help Frank heave in another prop. ‘Fat chance of that, any free hands around our house and you get a pair of pants stuffed into them, or a bra, or if you’re really lucky, an apron.’ They both laughed as the prop went in and picked up the shovels again, though Georgie had to use his to force himself upright and then lean against the prop as a wave of giddiness brought the nausea to his throat.

‘Your Annie’s got it right though you know, got to work hard at the beginning. She deserves success, she’s a right bonny lass, Georgie.’

Georgie knew that she was, knew that she’d say nothing about his hands, his back but her eyes would flare until anxiety overtook the anger. He’d be all right though, and today had shown him that he could listen for the old sow’s mumblings just as well as he’d always been able to, except for the noise of the conveyor.

Annie and Sarah stood at the yard gate waiting and watching for Georgie, Frank and the others and for a moment they couldn’t pick him out because his walk now was that of a miner, measured, feeling the ground.

As he reached them he nodded to Frank, put his cap in his pocket, kissed Annie and stroked Sarah’s hair with his bandaged hand.

‘No need to scrub me back, little Annie, they’ve got pit showers now.’ His smile was tired.

‘Well, you can’t win them all, then,’ Annie said, her smile broad because that was how it must always be, though the anger had flared at his hand before anxiety had taken its place.

‘Never mind, lad, nothing wrong with your fingers, you can still pick out the faulty stitching on the knicks.’

She heard Frank laugh further down the lane and then Georgie and Sarah too and now her smile reached her eyes, and her love was in her lips as she kissed his ear. ‘I love you,’ she whispered and left her relief at his return unspoken.

Annie lay in bed and watched another rocket soar, then explode. Would that mean a stick in their yard in the morning? It was supposed to be good luck wasn’t it? Maybe she’d get that big order they desperately needed.

‘Four months gone and where is it?’ she said softly to herself. ‘Four months of slog and still I can’t get my foot in the door, what on earth am I going to do?’

She ran her hands through her hair and could still smell the sulphur from their own fireworks, hear Sarah’s shrieks as the Catherine Wheel had spun off its stand by the bonfire on the wasteground. Georgie had stepped forward, then stopped as Annie held him back. ‘You’re not defusing that, bonny lad,’ she’d said and handed him a charred baked potato instead.

She turned away from the window, stretching her hands across the emptiness next to her. At least he and Frank had had time to come to the bonfire and at least on night shift they’d be turning over the conveyor rather than working behind the cutter but she still worried and she still missed him.

Annie turned again, then again and heard yet another rocket. Who was still up? Kids probably. She looked at the clock, two a.m. Oh God, she was tired. She must get some sleep or she’d be going to the market traders with bags under her eyes big enough to hold their week’s takings.

She sat up now, resting her head on her knees. She’d try the traders to the west and north of Wassingham in early
autumn. They’d taken the pants in the summer – now she would try them with the aprons with Christmas looming.

There were fifteen regular orders from stalls to the south and east but no money up front, that was the problem, and they were still asking for sale or return plus thirty days’ credit and she had to go with that for now. At least though she’d hooked into two new shops in Newcastle. They were keen on the pants and bras which was good but they paid on thirty-day invoices too and even then they had to be chased. At least the markets paid up promptly.

She lay down again, watching the clouds scudding across the moon, pulling the bedclothes up around her neck, feeling the cold on her face. Would Georgie be cold? No, it was never cold deep down he said, and it might not be, but it was hard and she could see the tiredness more deeply etched on his face with each passing day and feel new cuts and ridges on his back. If they weren’t getting enough garments into the retail outlets how could they sell? She must try harder, cut their profit margins if necessary, create a need and she just had to crack the big stores.