Heart of Coal (4 page)

Rose says something so quietly that Henry misses the words, despite the fact that he is by now almost under the window. Bella’s heavy sigh, though, is clear enough.

‘Ah, Rose, my dear, my darling one, what can we do with you?’

Rose laughs. ‘Do nothing. It will pass over.’ A pause … ‘I love you, Mama.’

‘Pass over? You may be wrong, sweetheart. There are quick tongues and long memories up here. As we both well know. Also, I will be blamed as a mother.’

Rose’s voice is sharp now. ‘None of that, Bella. Blackmail doesn’t suit you. No one will blame you, and you know it.’

Bella ploughs on. ‘And what about Michael? Will he marry such a thief? Will the Hanrattys want such a daughter-in-law?’

‘Who knows?’ laughs Rose. ‘Who cares?’ And, after a pause in which Henry imagines her flinging around the room in her mad, wild way, ‘Michael knows what I am.’

Yes, thinks Henry, standing in the dark, I believe he does. But do you understand Michael, I wonder?

Judging the temperature inside to have cooled sufficiently, and the temperature of his own body to have lowered too far for comfort, Henry Stringer tiptoes back to the gate, lets it creak and click, then walks smartly onto the veranda.

LATER in the evening, after spirited argument over the rights and wrongs of Boer and British, followed by Rose’s analysis of the failings of the Westport Coal Company’s expansion plans, and Henry’s defence of them, the subject of the new road is aired. Rose is alight with the possibilities. Tonight she wears cream sprigged muslin, good enough for a formal dinner party, and far too lovely for a quiet night at home, but Rose is like that. Conventions of any sort slide away from her quick as butter on a hot griddle-iron. She
jumps up now from her chair by the fire and gestures out the window.

‘Can’t you see it, Mr Stringer? The Track holds us back in the nineteenth century! Eighteenth, you could well say. What modern town, let alone the top coal producer in the country, can countenance access like that? The new road will open up Denniston to the world!’

She dances around behind Bella’s chair and hugs the old lady around her plump, black-ribboned neck. ‘And Mama here will be the first to descend in the comfort of a horse and trap.’

Henry cannot resist the argument, though he knows he’s on dangerous ground. He could scarcely be happier, warm by the fire, well-stoked with Bella’s tea-cake, his pipe filling the air with spicy fragrance and this sharp young woman as sparring partner.

‘I say the new road will spell the end of Denniston,’ he says, pointing his pipe stem sternly at the two women. What a picture they are together!

‘The end!’ cries Rose, striding to stand over him. ‘Would you have us all stand still and let progress pass us by? Henry Stringer, you old fogy, you head-in-the-sand!’

Henry wags his head at her. ‘That is immaterial to the argument, Rose.
Argumentum ad hominem!
Stick to the facts of the matter. You say the world will come to Denniston. But think of the other possibility. Denniston, Rose, may well go down to the world. Down your precious new road and away. Denniston could bleed to death slowly, inevitably, drop by drop, family by family.’

Rose glowers. ‘Never! The men will stay where the work is, and the women will stay with the men. What miner will spend half his day travelling when he can live at the mine mouth? You are wrong, Mr Stringer.’

‘Well, we will see.’ Henry, though he won’t admit it, hopes Rose
is right. An enduring, prosperous Denniston is part of his dream.

‘And Brennan agrees,’ says Rose. ‘He knows the miners. He says the new road will be another engineering wonder. People will line up to travel here.’

‘And down.’

‘Brennan says we will become a tourist destination.’

‘Brennan is a dreamer,’ laughs Henry, then wishes he had kept quiet. He is disturbed to see Rose wound so tight. She stands with her back to him, looking out into the dark. She’s trembling. But why? It’s unusual for Rose to take anything seriously, even an argument. On most occasions it is Henry himself who becomes tense and flustered, out-argued by his clever pupil.

He stands, ready to take his leave, and then has a thought. He clears his throat, addresses her back.

‘Rose, I wonder … There is a new teaching position at the school. For the older children. Would you reconsider?’ Henry has offered her a position at least three times already, and she has always laughed and turned it down. Not her style; too constrictive; not stimulating enough. Though who would consider that working for a draper was any better?

Bella quivers with anticipation. ‘Teaching! Rose, Rose, it is meant. This time you must!’

Rose looks sideways at Henry. ‘Mr Stringer, have you been listening at the window?’

Henry coughs, reddens, but brazens it out. ‘I met Mr Donaldson up on Dickson Street. I understand you have left his employ?’

‘What else do you … understand?’

Henry jerks nervously, stumbles against a basket of knitting, sending balls rolling, bends to retrieve the mess and knocks his head on the standard lamp. Bella wants to laugh but is too anxious. Rose has no such scruples.

‘Mr Stringer.’ She is choking on the words.

‘Henry, Henry.’

‘Henry, you know why I lost that position?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. But …’ Henry’s arms sketch wider possibilities. ‘But at the school such opportunities for …’

‘For a thief?’

Henry frowns. ‘Rose, you are not a thief. Not
per se
. You should not indulge in such labels. It is an impulse with you — dangerous, yes, but simply … impulsive. One should not attach blame. There would have to be undertakings, of course … Perhaps I can help … But in the long run I believe —’

Rose interrupts. She has no time for circumlocution. ‘Mr Stringer. Henry. Thank you for the offer. I accept.’

Bella’s large body fairly dances with approval. ‘Oh, Rose! Out of disaster, triumph!’ She turns to Henry and shakes his hand as if this is a business deal, signed and sealed. ‘A glass of sherry, Mr Stringer, to celebrate?’

‘Why not?’ says Henry, who is also well pleased.

IN THOSE EARLY months of the new century Brennan Scobie was often found down at the Bins end of Denniston. Officially he lived at Burnett’s Face, crammed into the tiny iron shed behind the Doherty family’s damp cottage, but more often than not he would fill an empty room — ‘as a favour, Mrs Hanratty?’ — at Hanrattys’ Guest House. His excuse was that his work surveying the new road kept him down at Denniston, but most people could see with their own eyes the real reason: Brennan was openly, hopelessly in love with Rose Rasmussen, who seemed at present — though you could never be sure with Rose — to be engaged to Michael Hanratty. And wouldn’t
that
be a good match for a young woman of doubtful parentage? Mind you, so would young Brennan Scobie.
There
was a worker for you! Steadier than Michael, and good prospects, with all his education. And the way he played the cornet!

No doubt about it, Brennan’s return added a new spice to the consideration of ‘our Denniston Rose’, a topic of conversation that had always had good flavour from the very day she arrived, a tiny tot, riding the Incline with her witch of a mother, at night, in the middle of a storm. Totty Hanratty herself couldn’t decide whether she supported the Michael camp or the Brennan camp. Out of loyalty it would have to be Michael, of course, but Rose was so unpredictable! Tom certainly would have preferred the steadier Jenny Dodson, who had good skills in the kitchen and a sensible budgeting head, which Michael, dear, oh dear, was going to need if he succeeded to the family business. Not that Michael had shown much interest in Jenny’s direction — or only the once, and that not exactly a happy occasion. On balance, though, most people outside the Hanrattys considered that Michael and Rose were a good enough match, and looked forward to watching the fireworks that marriage would undoubtedly produce. Then Brennan returned with his dark good looks and his driving will. This put a whole new complexion on the matter of Rose. One that needed serious discussion.

Strangely, Michael and Brennan hadn’t fallen out over the rivalry. Quite the opposite. Their friendship added new fuel to the gossip. Surely there must be ill-feeling? Surely there were deeper currents boiling below the surface of their easy smiles and joking back-slaps?

Take the meeting that Willie Winkie witnessed and reported back to his family and friends. Mind you, with Willie you were never quite sure where truth and imagination parted company: somewhere well on the imagination side, as a general rule.

‘I’M holding the rod for Brennan see?’ says Wee Willie, demonstrating with his skinny arms how he holds the surveyor’s pole high and straight so his boss can take the measurements. ‘It’s a fine
morning, the wind in our hair, air clear enough to see what Westport folk are up to in their back yards …’ He pauses for a moment and his little monkey face splits into a grin.

His mother, Janet Scobie, jumps in quickly. ‘Willie Winks, we need no feckin’ stories about Westport back yards. Get on back to your cousin Bren.’

Willie Scobie is twin to his brother Doldo. Both are just sixteen, first-born to Arnold and Janet Scobie but as unlike as any twins might be. The older by five minutes, Arnold, named after his dad but always called Doldo, is a brawny lad, slow with his words like his father, and already a promising miner. Willie obviously came a poor second in the womb; he was born tiny and stayed that way, despite drinking prodigious quantities of his mother’s milk and stuffing his mouth as soon as he had teeth to chew. Once, when he was not three years old, something gave poor Willie a fright — a rat or a nightmare or just his own active imagination — and he ran from one end of Burnett’s Face to the other, right down the rope-road, screaming blue murder. Family after family woke and looked out to see the tot, no bigger than the Scobies’ dog, nightshirt flapping, dodging the skips as they trundled along, and his mother screaming just as loud for him to stop. When she finally caught him, Janet hugged the boy and laughed and sang him the nursery rhyme:

After that, of course, the name stuck. He was Wee Willie or Willie Winkie or all three names. Pretty much everyone on the Hill has some kind of nickname, and Willie Scobie suffers his with a good enough grace, but at sixteen he longs for something with more of a ring to it. Even his jockey nickname — Willie the Rat — is a small step up the ladder in the lad’s eyes.

Arnold and Janet love this small son, who is still shorter than his
younger sister Sally. Wee Willie is far too small and light ever to work in or around the mines, but will never lack a living. He’s as quick-witted as his mother, and his handwriting is finer than many an experienced clerk’s. He has been offered a position in more than one office, up here and down in Westport. But Wee Willie is mad on horses and aims to be a famous jockey. Working as surveyor’s mate for Brennan leaves him time and opportunity to be near horses.

But now, in the Scobie kitchen, Wee Willie leaps from chair to table as if mounting a horse, and settles there, legs dangling, eyes alight, ready to paint the picture for his family, who are all crowded into the dark little room at the back of the house, waiting for their tea.

‘Well, we’re at the top section, where the new road will start, and just above is the playing field.’

‘The what?’ asks Arnold Scobie, sitting comfortably with his feet against the coal range.

‘That’s what Michael calls it,’ says Willie. ‘The playing field.’

‘Oh aye,’ laughs Arnold. ‘Fancy name for a lumpy piece of ground where the ball will hit rock as often as boot.’

‘Oy, Dad. You want this tale?’

‘Well, on with it, lad, our tea’s on the way.’ Arnold is less interested in the lovers’ rivalry than the rest of his family.

‘So here I am then, stuck with my pole. Brennan away on the knoll squinting into his theodolite. Well and good. Then up on the field is a shout: Halooo Harooo! And it’s Michael atop his nag Miss Demeanour. Oh, she’s a pretty mare! You know — what won the gallop last month. What Michael says I might ride next time …’

‘Yes, my boy, we heard,’ says Janet dryly.

‘Well, Michael is shouting, “Come on up, have a trot,” and I’m itching to go, but Cousin Bren keeps his head down, writes in his wee notebook, and I can’t let go the feckin’ pole.’

‘Oy! Language!’ says Janet.

‘Well now, Ma, who did I learn from?’

‘That’s different. I was born to it. You know better.’

‘Any road, here comes Michael and Miss Demeanour, stepping neat as ninepence over the rough, and down to where I stand.’

Willie Winkie tosses his hair back the way Michael does. Out comes a perfect imitation of Michael’s easy drawl.

‘“Hey, young Willie Winkie, look here at this and tell me what you think.” He shows me a piece from the newspaper. I read it. Not
the
Grinder? says I, and he says, “See there, in black and white, whippersnapper. It’s
the
Grinder all right, by Traitor out of Misfortune, and standing for the season at Westport! Traitor, who is by that fancy Australian import Traducer out of Deception. Think of it! Now by hook or by crook I will put my Miss Demeanour to him.”’

Arnold interrupts with a snort. ‘Traitor, Misfortune, Miss Demeanour; you’d think they could find a few cheerful names.’

‘Oy, Dad, and you a West Coaster!’ says Willie Winkie. ‘That’d be courting bad luck. Name me a West Coast thoroughbred with a happy name!’

‘Golden Guinea,’ says Doldo. ‘Johnno’s nag. And her dam, Sunshine.’

Wee Willie cocks his head at his twin brother. ‘My point! My point precisely. Sunshine had good breeding but went lame on her first race. Golden Guinea can’t get around the paddock without tossing his rider.’

‘Are we hearing this story or not?’ says Sally Scobie, one year younger than the twins but already interested in the comings and goings of romance. ‘Buck up or I’m off, wee one.’

Willie grins. ‘Who interrupted me, then? Well now, back to Grinder. I says to Michael, “It would be a great match, Michael, but
have you the fee? It says three guineas plus five shillings’ groomage.” “I will find it,” says Michael, “fair means or foul, and you shall come down to see the fun, and lend a hand with the old girl.” Well, I am lit up with this bit of news. You know, Grinder that won the gallop …’

Janet Scobie takes her son by the ear. ‘Haul in your reins, boy — we are not so interested in the horseflesh side. Get to the two-legged variety.’

Wee Willie grins, winks cheekily at his mother. ‘Well, I must try and educate my blockhead family now and then. So. Michael. He invites me to take Miss Demeanour for a run around. “Come on,” says he, “Up you hop, Wee Willie Winkie, and take her for a gallop. Easy till she’s warmed up, then you can open her out a couple of laps.” But I’m bolted here, says I, amn’t I? Holding this feckin’ pole. And Michael says he’ll hold it for me, because he wants a word with our Bren, and thus, says he, we’ll kill two birds.’

‘Does he indeed!’ says Sally. ‘Is a fight on its way then, Wee Willie?’

‘Hold up and you’ll hear, our Sally. So up I hop …’

In one smooth bound Willie jumps to his feet, stands with his stockinged feet neatly between knives and spoons, and gallops away, grinning like a madman, wind in his hair and the chestnut flanks of Miss Demeanour moving warm under him.

Back at the edge of the plateau Brennan walks slowly toward Michael. They stand together looking out to sea, the tall surveyor’s pole dividing the air between them. To Wee Willie they are sharp black silhouettes above the distant sea. Michael moves closer to Brennan, flings an arm around his shoulder. Wee Willie, galloping away, sees the two figures as one. But when the horse takes the bend and runs west again, Willie can see that they have turned to face each other. Michael’s hands fling wide. Brennan shakes his head
vigorously. Michael seizes Brennan by something — a lapel, it looks like. Brennan disengages the hand. It is like watching a scene from a lantern slide show. Brennan raises the tall pole, thumps it into the ground, once and then again. Michael’s arms plead, but the separation between them is greater now.

At the end of the next lap Willie walks Miss Demeanour carefully over the rough and down to the two men. He is curious to hear.

Brennan is quieter now; the pole lies on the ground. But his voice is heavy. ‘I could never do it. Never. Nor could you.’

‘I could!’ cries Michael. Willie Winkie thinks he is almost in tears. Or is it laughter? Some emotion is breaking his words. ‘We could at least try!’

Brennan looks at the ground. For a moment he remains still, as if considering the proposal. Then he shakes his heavy black head.

‘You can share a horse, Michael. Or a meal. A business, certainly. You cannot share a woman. It just cannot work.’

‘Rose is different. With her, yes, it could work!’

‘No.’

Miss Demeanour snorts and rattles her mane. The two men look up.

‘Hey there, young Willie Winkie,’ says Michael, his mood sliding from dark to light quick as the flip of a coin. Now his smile is as easy as a summer day. He runs a practised hand down Miss Demeanour’s sweating flank. ‘Is that knee running smooth, then?’

Willie Winkie steps down from table to chair.

‘“As silk, Michael. She’s a dandy,” says I, and there was an end to it. Michael went off with a cheery wave, sweet as apple pie.’

Janet beats her cooking spoon against the pot. ‘Share Rose! That Michael’s mad as a flea!’

‘Oho!’ laughs Sally, who’s as quick and pretty as her mother, and
already has her eye on Mackie Flinders three doors down. ‘I’d say Michael knows he’s losing the battle and wants a wee share of her, too. What do you say, Doldo?’

Doldo Scobie shrugs his great shoulders. Doldo usually leaves the chattering to Willie Winkie and his sisters. With one hand he now plucks his pint-sized twin off the chair and deposits him on the bench reserved for the young ones. ‘Let’s have our tea,’ he says. ‘Enough of that slippery Michael.’

Willie Winkie frowns. ‘Get off, our Doldo. Michael knows his horseflesh, can pick a good’un out of a bunch of old lags quick as a moonbeam. Call that slippery if you like. I reckon he knows his woman-flesh pretty good too. He and Rose are a right pair. Our Bren is too soggy for her.’

‘Wee Willie, button up!’ says Janet good-naturedly, ladling thick pea soup into bowls. ‘Our Bren has his head screwed on right. Rose is smart enough to see who would butter her bread best.’

‘What sort of buttering have you in mind, Ma?’ asks Wee Willie, all feigned innocence.

The older ones roar with laughter and Janet joins in. ‘Arnold,’ she splutters, ‘would you kindly bring some order to this riot, and say grace?’