Black Sheep (7 page)

And then, without the sound of a footstep or a hesitant tap on the door, Ted was in the room, shocking them into silent effigies of themselves, and even stopping the words that breathed from the black Bible and Reuben's mouth.

Something about his still presence and strength prevented his father from saying any of the things he had planned to say if ever he saw his son again, and had Clive look up at him and then away uneasily, in something like awe. He was Ted, the youngest, but another Ted, and they were hesitant before him.

Evie broke the atmosphere into shards by lifting the teapot and, because she trembled, chinking it against the cup until Clive reached out to hold it still, and after a minute, Reuben's voice squeaked into life again like a reedy instrument tuning up.

‘Sit down,' John Howker said.

The fire drew badly, and Ted remade it. The kettle handle was bent and he took it off, straightened it, hammered it back. Clive went out, sullen of step. Reuben slept, the black Bible slipping from his lap to the floor as it did every night.

‘You're a stranger to us,' John said.

Ted pulled the fold of notes out of his pocket and set it on the table. No one moved to pick it up.

‘It's about more than money.'

‘All the same . . .'

‘All the same,' Evie said, and swept the notes deftly into her hand and from there to her apron pocket. ‘You've found a way of life you care for more than this one, that's clear. But don't look down at the ones who have to live beneath you because that's in the lie of the land only.'

‘I know that. You'd be welcome to come.'

They looked at one another and looked away, and he knew that they would not.

Later, Evie set a fresh fruit cake on the table, with the usual slab of cheese, but after they had eaten, Ted got up, knowing that the early shift came round before you'd shut your eyes. He put out his hand to his father, who hesitated before he shook it, and touched Reuben's bald skull gently. Reuben did not stir. On the doorstep, he put his arm round Evie's shoulders but she only let it lie there for a second before turning.

In the house, putting the fruit cake back in the tin so old that its picture of Windsor Castle had rubbed almost away and only she knew what had been there with its tower and its flag, she thought but said nothing, only started to get Reuben ready for the night. But lying beside John Howker in the cold bedroom, under three blankets and the feather quilts, she said, ‘He came back though. We know where he went and he came back and he'll come back again. Which Arthur has never done.'

John said nothing but the image of Arthur was between them in the darkness and they sensed all over again the hopelessness of it.

SOMETIMES WHEN SHE
was alone in the house Rose would switch on the wireless and find dance music, and be happy tapping and twirling about as best she could, in the spaces between the furniture. The chairs and sideboard and table had come from Charlie's grandmother's house and were old and ungainly, dark and ill-fitting in the small rooms.

She was dancing in this way, to a swing band, with the door open onto the street to let in some of the fresh spring air, when someone said, ‘You shouldn't be dancing alone.'

He had his feet definitely on the path but his large body leaned inwards, so that Rose could hardly tell whether he was in the house or out of it and certainly he blocked out half the light.

She took a few steps back so that the table was between her and the leaning man.

‘No, no, I didn't mean to upset you. I was going by. Heard the music.'

‘Oh.' But she did not move from the protection of the table.

‘I've moved to lodgings at the top.'

‘Oh.'

‘They call it Paradise.' He had large even teeth in his broad face, eyes like the coals.

‘Where did you come from?'

‘Stannett Valley. I like this better. You can see out.'

They both looked up towards Paradise and then the sky, though it was capped with thick oaten cloud now.

He laughed.

‘You're at the pit,' Rose said.

He nodded, tipped his cap back, showing a doormat of hair.

She wanted to ask his name but dared not, and then his bulk shifted and the light came back into the room.

She thought nothing of it until later, when Charlie had taken himself to bed with a pouring cold, and she was setting the pots out for the morning, and then the man's frame in the doorway and the way he had stood there and spoken as if he had known her all her life came to her and she stopped as she took a cup from the rack, and held it in mid-air. Nothing unplanned or unexpected happened in Mount of Zeal, unless it was a sudden death. New faces were few, passers-by unknown.

She had decided to defy Charlie and stay at the shop, so in the end that door too opened on the man she had learned was called Lem Roker. He joined the shuffling queue of those coming off the late shift, buying tobacco and a newspaper, shaving soap and matches, and when he stood in front of her she did not know whether to look at him or away.

‘You could dance in here,' he said, ‘when it's quiet.'

Rose looked away.

That Friday, Charlie's mother was taken ill suddenly and into hospital twenty miles away. Charlie went with his father, telling Rose in one breath that it was nothing, in the next that she might die that same night, terrified and panicking. She put up a small bag for him, was worried and at the same time full of scorn that he was still his mother's boy, and his distress was about himself, about her leaving him, and did not arise out of deep concern for her.

He left the house without a word and Rose had to run after him with the bag, which he grabbed as if his leaving it were her fault. She went back, cleared up and sat for a while, her hands together, knowing that she did not care, because her mother-in-law had never made a secret of her scorn, never welcomed or accepted her, never failed to criticise something she said or did or wore or cooked, every time they met. Why should she be troubled about her illness, which would surely turn out to be trivial?

And then she heard footsteps going past the door, and after a moment, more footsteps, and voices, and as she heard them she jumped up, knowing that she was going where they were going, and would not listen to any whispers from her conscience. She got ready quickly, knowing that excitement and daring made her flush prettily, knowing that she had the courage to defy them all.

The hall was crowded by the time she walked in, the chatter and the music from the band and the tap of heels on the wooden floor jerking it to life. But when Rose was seen the gradual quiet that came over them, and the stillness, so that only the music went on, was shocking. People turned, looked, turned away and to one another. She edged round the room and their eyes followed her. She tried to catch this or that person's attention but though they were all looking none of them saw her. She went to the hatch from which the drinks were served and asked for a lemonade. Roy Parris, who was serving, pulled off the cap, slid it over the counter and waited for the money, all in complete silence, but as Rose fidgeted in her purse, a hand came down on the wooden ledge with the correct coins, picked up the bottle and gave it to her. Then he took her elbow, led her to a seat in the far corner, and after that, still standing, looked round the entire hall, at every face, slowly.

There was a jerk into life again, people took hold of one another and went onto the floor to dance, the band quickened up. They had lost interest in her, or pretended to.

‘You like dancing,' Lem Roker said, ‘so finish that and we'll dance.'

‘I shouldn't dance, not tonight.'

‘Why else did you come?'

Why else?

She sensed that someone was looking at her. Mary, a few yards away, eyes on Rose's face, telling her not to dance, not to stay in a corner alone with Lem Roker, urging her to leave. Rose looked away.

Mary watched them dance, following every move, and without glancing at her Rose knew what her expression said. Mary was right but now the band was playing with even more life and energy and she loved this dancing. Lem, was good at it for all his size, quick on his feet and with an easy rhythm. People watched them and forgot to look away and Rose felt defiant and light as air.

He would walk her home, he said, and what did it matter if they were noticed and remarked upon, she might not be safe alone.

Rose laughed. ‘It's safe enough here. Nothing ever happens.'

‘Nothing at all.' Then they both laughed and he would have taken her arm, but they had neared the corner from which they could see her house, and the light on in the front window.

‘Charlie.' She pulled away from Lem and flew down the street, hearing voices of others coming from the Institute but not daring to glance back.

THEY WERE SITTING
in the midday sun, can of tea between them, cheese and bread and pie just crumbs on the slab of rock.

‘That was a good day when you found your way up here,' William said. Ted drained his tea and wiped his mouth. The July warmth fed his bones. He had no need to reply. They both knew. Whenever he clambered down the steep track home he felt the walls closing in on him and his spirit shrivel and darken. He went for his mother's sake. If she had not been there he would never have left the farm.

He lay on his back, arms behind his head. William was trying to get his pipe to light. The sheep were quiet. Afterwards, Ted's single frozen moment of memory was of the quietness, the heat of the sun, the smell of the first thin plume of tobacco smoke, the taste of tea in his mouth, the firmness of the ground beneath him. They seemed to be caught and held. Time had stopped. But that was afterwards.

The sound of the explosion rocked the hill, as if it had happened in the earth immediately below them but then broken open the sky too. The reverberations went on and on. The sheep took off, bleating wildly, surging away up the steep track. William was on his feet first, Ted scrambling up while he was still bewildered by the vastness of the sound. William was yards ahead of him while Ted was standing like a boulder.

‘Run, boy, run.'

‘What happened?'

‘Pit explosion,' the farmer shouted over his shoulder, slipping and almost falling on the dry track, recovering his balance and bounding on. ‘Run, boy!'

Ted ran.

Every door stood open, every man and woman in Mount of Zeal who had use of their legs was making for the pithead, men who five minutes before had been asleep pulled on clothes as they ran, women scooped babies out of cribs and carried them swaddled, and dragged small children. William and Ted were behind but they caught up and raced on down, Ted jumping over walls and taking steps three at a time. The whole area round the machinery was filling up. Men were surging forwards, shouting out that they had come to help, where should they go, women edged close to one another and simply stood. There were shouts, and then vehicles and gear and fire engines, then the whole paraphernalia of disaster attendance. Police came, held people back, shouted at the women not to go nearer.

No one knew, no one came forward to explain, no one had time. Murmurs went round, rumour after rumour flew.

Ted and William Barnes were pushed back.

‘Nothing you can do yet, they're sending the search crews down, nothing you can do.'

Ted looked round for his father and mother, saw neither at first but then there was his mother, scarf to her face, eyes huge with fear. He reached her and she clung to him, hardly breathing, her body like a rod.

And after that, all they could do was stand and wait, as the cages went down and eventually came up again, teams emerged, returned, went to report. They stood hour after hour and for the most part they were all silent. Only a child called here and there, or a baby wailed. Once, a dog set up howling like a terrible banshee and would not stop until someone threw a brick and it fled, tail down. A few went away and came back with tins of tea. Children were taken home. School had been let out as soon as the blast came. But the inner core of women whose men were below stayed, silent, grey-faced, watching, watching. Waiting.

It fell dark and they brought storm lights and the lights turned the women's faces moon-coloured and hollowed out their eyes.

It had been clear but after midnight cloud trailed across the sky, thickened and ballooned out. A thin rain fell.

More cans of tea came, and rough-cut slabs of bread and cheese, chunks of fruit cake. More tea. The rescuers stood briefly, downing pint after pint of it and scoffing handfuls of food before getting into the cages and descending again to the hell below.

It went on until dawn. But as a wan light stained the terraces of Mount of Zeal, the lift came up once more and unloaded men whose skin was stained worse than coal black, and who smelled of acrid smoke. And then the lift gates stayed open. No one else went down. A couple of wagons started, revved and drove away. A gang of firemen stood hopelessly together, helmets on the ground beside their feet.

A woman started to keen aloud, and another took up the crying, but they were both shushed into silence, for the noise unnerved the rest of them.

Ted encouraged his mother to turn for home, but she was riveted to the spot where she had first settled and would not shift. He looked round to try and see William Barnes, even while knowing that the farmer must have gone back up the hill hours before. He should go back too. But Evie's hand was fierce on his arm and he could not leave her.

Word went round at noon and by then soup had been brought and bread and jam and cake. More tea, with a snuff of brandy for the women who had to wait for the final word. They knew too well but could not go until it was given out loud.

The minister came and read prayers and Ted listened to words from the Bible that were stitched into him. Someone sounded a note and the hymns began, slow and hesitant then rising and swelling until they filled the village and rose up and out to the hill beyond.