Justice Is a Woman (5 page)

But still, there it is, and that’s the way I want it. And that’s the way my father wanted it.

We believe that

men should be allowed to make up their own minds whether they want to be free or be

led.”

“Bugger that! we’re not sheep. Tisn’t a case of being led, it’s a case of gathering strength.

Even the

bloody Bible says that: where one or two are gathered in My name ... an’ the name of our strength is the

union. Individuals can do nowt ... nowt.” Now the other three male adults took it up, saying, “Aye,

that’s right, nowt, nowt.”

Then the man who appeared to be the eldest among them, yet was the smallest, being thin and wiry and

undersized, said, “Your lot, Mr. Remington, is the only ones that are workin’ in the town.

And we won’t

forget it. We’ve got long memories, an’ some of ‘em will have their canisters sorted afore this’s over, if I

know owl. An’ who’s to blame them that does it?”

“I wouldn’t advocate taking that line if I were you.” Joe’s voice was grim now.

“You might find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. I came here to see your

father, to tell him

that George Bailey has a proposal to put to his meeting from my lot of sheep, as you call them. I doubt

very much, if the tables were turned and you were in their places, you would consider giving up a day’s

pay each week for a month to help their cause. Alternatively, they propose to have a

token strike for a

week to show that they’re in sympathy with you.

And I can tell you here and now that I’m dead against the latter. “

The four men were silent; in fact, the only sound in the kitchen now was the crackling of the blazing fire

and the discordant breathing of the occupants.

Joe turned to Mrs. Egan and said, “Goodnight, Mrs. Egan,” and nodded briefly at her;

then taking

Elaine by the arm, he added, “Come along.”

They left the hot and now quiet kitchen and emerged into the cooler atmosphere of the street. They had

left David with the car on some waste ground that bordered the rows of cottages. The

street was

cobbled, which Elaine found difficulty in negotiating with her high-heeled shoes. Joe still had hold of her

arm and his grip was tight. He looked angry, and she considered he had every right to be angry. She

hoped that the scene she had just witnessed in that appalling room, full of those uncouth, ignorant

individuals, would have shown him finally that his sympathy was wasted.

From the conversations she had overheard between Joe and his father, she had guessed

that their

sympathies lay, perhaps reluctantly, with the mining community.

She might have been able to understand it more if the old man, as she had come to think of her

father-in-law, had come from a mining family, but apparently four generations of them had been

carpenters, and before that wheelwrights.

Yet now, when their way of life was middle-class, they were in it but not of it, for they knew no-one of

any importance whatever, not even in the business world. Their only friends, apparently, were a family

called Levey. Marcus, the husband, had a wife, Lena, and a daughter, Doris. He was a

solicitor in

Fellburn, and at the present moment was in Devon attending the funeral of his father. But what was a

solicitor? There was the doctor, too, of course; but he was just an ordinary practitioner after all.

As they reached the end of the row of cottages, what seemed to her to be a horde of

savages came at

them and almost upset them both. Five boys were kicking a tin can, and when it landed at Joe’s feet he

kicked it back to them, but there was no smile on his face as there would have been

another time.

There were a number of children around the car and they became silent on their approach, until David

started up the engine. Then one of them yelled, “Stingy darkie, wouldn’t gi’ us a ride in the old tin can!”

As the car drew away, the rest of the children took up the chant, “Stingy darkie, wouldn’t gi’ us a ride in

the old tin can!” As if he hadn’t heard them, David put his head back and asked, “Is it still the Lodge?”

He made no comment about their visit, having gauged enough from Joe’s expression to

give him an idea

of what had transpired in his father-in-law’s house.

“Yes.” The answer was brief ..

The Lodge was an ugly, brick building. It had originally been a chapel, but this had been allowed to go

to ruin when a larger and even more ugly building had been erected in a suburb of the town itself.

As the car drew up outside the Lodge, George Bailey ran down the steps towards it, and as he opened

the car door, Joe said, “I’m sorry I’m late, Geordie.”

“Aw, I think it’s just as well, sir.”

“What’s happened?”

As Joe extended his hand to help Elaine from the car his manager said, “I wouldn’t let your lady come in

if I were you, sir; things could get ugly. Egan’s on his feet now and he only wants a match to set him

alight; he’s a firebrand, that man.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Aye, I did. I told him what was proposed and his response was: Why offer skimmed

milk? As for

comin’ out, we should come out now and stay out with all the rest, he says. To the offer of a day’s pay a

week for a month, he said that was “ Live like a horse and you’ll get grass”, and that we were betting on

a cert, for they’d have won afore the month was up ... And I heard another thing, sir. I was talkin’ to

Bembow, district secretary, you know, of Hammond’s, and he says there’s talk of them

all going back,

transport, railway 47 workers, heavy industry, the lot. You see, they never expected such a flood of

volunteers: onetime officers driving milk trains, an’ university students on lorries; it’s as if the upper crust

was out to prove that there was nothing in this business of work, the workin’ man’s work, and he says

that given half a chance there’d be scores ready to go down the pits, such is the feeling against the

miners.”

“Has Egan put our proposal to the meeting yet?”

“Aye, he did, sir, but in such a way that he got the answer from them that he wanted, the same as he

gave to me; skimmed milk.”

“Stay where you are.” Joe now pressed Elaine back into the car then added, “Stay put, David. If they

come flooding out of there and things look ugly, drive home; I’ll make my own way

back.”

“No, I’d rather come with you.”

“Stay where you are.”

It was an abrupt, curt order, and she sat back in the seat bristling with indignation and wondering what

she could say to this dark-skinned individual sitting in front of her. Well, she would say nothing; she

wasn’t obliged to hold a conversation with him ..

Joe entered the hall with his manager but could get no further than to the side of the door.

The place

was crowded and smelt of sweat and stale clothes. Clan Egan was standing at the front of the platform,

his whole body looking as if each limb was separately being worked by springs, for as he talked he

stepped first to the right, then to the left, then a little forward, then backwards, his arm and his head

jerking all the while. His voice was thin but high and piercing and he was crying now,

“Miners’ blood is

cheap, man, ‘cos it isn’t red like ordinary blood; no, when it comes out it’s black and blue, black from

the dust and blue from all the bloody knocks its poor old veins have had.”

The ripple of appreciation that swept over the hall at his cynicism sounded like a wave washing over a

pebbled beach.

“And you know what we should stand out for besides livin’ wage? We should make it a

point that every

man jack in the government an’ in the House of Lords should do a shift down below, an’

their wives

should spend a day in worn kitchens, getting’ up at three in the mornin’ like our missises do, washin’,

cookin’, scrubbin’, bangin’ the pit clothes ... scrubbin’ wor backs.” He now thrust his hand down in the

direction of a big miner sitting in a front seat and he yelled, “How would you like Lady Golightly wielding

a flannel up and down your spine, Peter?”

There was a great roar of laughter at this, but it died away when Clan Egan, raising his hand high, cried,

“Aye, we can laugh, but, lads, it’s grim laughter and it’ll likely get grimmer as the days go on. And, lads,

hear this, an’ I’m only repeatin’ what’s in the heart of every one of you, we’re seem this through, even if

the skins of our bellies get stuck to our backbones.”

“Hear! hear!”

“Hear! hear! Hear! hear!”

The hall rang to the sound.

Again his hand was held up and now he was stubbing his finger forward: “An’ don’t let us delude

ourselves at this stage, don’t let’s think that the others are going with us all the way. To my mind they’re

makin’ a token show, although we’re grateful for it and we won’t forget them. Nor will we forget—’

Now his voice sank deep in his throat and he repeated, “ Nor will we forget them that stood on the

sidelines. I have it in me heart to forgive the volunteers, and the polis, and even the bloody army if they

turn it on us, but never those workmen-like worsels who stayed in. Blackleg is a dirty word;

to me it’s blacker than black, it’s pitch, and it stinks in the nostrils of every decent working man. When I

pass one such individual I look him in the eye, I sniff hard, then I turn me head away and blow the snots

out. “

Joe turned abruptly and went from the hall, and George Bailey followed him, and they

paused for a

moment outside and looked at each other.

“It was a wasted effort.”

“Aye, Mr. Joe, I think you’re right. To my way of thinking, men like Egan do more harm than good.”

“Yes, and to mine too. But I suppose as he sees it he’s fighting for his life and that of all the others, and

I fully understand that. But when I hear him rant on like that it makes me wild. And his sons are as bad;

they’ve erected a barrier: they’re on one side and we’re on the other; everybody on their side is

reasonable; on the other, to their way of looking at it, there are only mine owners,

politicians, and

non-unionists.”

They both turned and walked away from the Lodge. Neither of them mentioned the fact

that the car had

gone until they reached the end of the road, when George Bailey said, “You’re going to have a long walk

ahead of you, sir.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that; it’s a nice evening.” He looked up into the sky. The sun had long since set, and

the soft greyness of the long twilight had fallen over the town. There was no sound at the moment:

the whole town, its pits, factories and docks, all seemed to be sleeping. He was still gazing at the sky as

he said, “You can feel everything has stopped, even at this time of night. Away up in the house of an

evening I’ve often opened the windows of the observatory to hear the hum. It was, in a way, like pulling

back the bed covers from over a face to make sure that the person was breathing; but now the breathing

has stopped, the town’s dead. Ah well’ he sighed “ I fear a lot of things are going to happen before that

hum starts again. What do you say, Geordie? “

“I fear it too, Mr. Joe. I also fear for our chaps.”

“Oh’ Joe’s face took on a grimness now ‘let them start anything in that quarter and they’ll find out their

mistake, for I wouldn’t hesitate to ask for police protection for every man jack in the factory. Anyway, I

hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Aye, I do an’ all, sir. And given a fair chance, man to man, our chaps can take care of themselves;

5i only at times like this it’s often four to one or more. “

“Yes, you’re right there. Well, we’ll have to hope it won’t happen. Now I must be off.

See you in the

morning, Geordie. Goodnight.”

“Good-night, Mr. Joe. Give my respects to himself. How is he, by the way?”

“Much the same.”

“Pity, pity. Good-night, sir.”

“Goodnight.”

They separated, going in opposite directions. Joe, cutting across a field, jumped a low dry-stone wall,

climbed a hill, dropped down the other side and so reached the main road that led from the town. Once

on the road his step took up a slow rhythm. He was worried, and about a number of

things, and the

most important one rose to the top of his mind. She had found the Egans and their way of living,

everything, repulsive. She was of another world, and she wasn’t going to take to this one, which in the

long run was bound to prove awkward, to say the least.

Why did he love her? He had asked himself this question since the first time he had set eyes on her. He

couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was about her that attracted him, but attract him she did; and she would

likely go on holding that attraction for him until the day he died. Was it her face, her mouth, her eyes . or

that hoity-toity manner of hers? He had been amused by that, and still could be if it was directed

towards himself alone, but when she imposed it on others and he saw its effect on 52.

them he was upset by it. At her uncle’s home in London and her cousin’s in

Huntingdonshire her manner

hadn’t stood out; all her people seemed to have that air about them, although he guessed they hadn’t one

penny to rub against the other; and he imagined that her uncle, Turnbull Hughes Burton as he was called,

didn’t eat as well or didn’t have as much in his pocket as some of the men in the factory here, but he, like