Shoes for Anthony (3 page)

A group of pitmen, about four or five miners, was sitting on some upturned drams to the left of the pithead. The tallyman, a short, stocky fellow with a cap pulled low over his forehead, was standing above them, gesturing back towards the lamp house.

‘
Cera yffarn
! I'm going back down after I've had my buttie, man!' said a blackened man, legs splayed either side of the end of the dram. ‘You'll only have to give it me back.'

‘Stop being daft, hand it over. You know full well – if you're up, you hand it in.'

‘Christ, man,' said the fellow, reaching into his waistcoat pocket and pulling out a small metal coin. ‘There. Now leave me be, daft bugger.'

He took a bite from his sandwich and grimaced. ‘Bloody jam again,' he said, his cheeks bulging outwards.

‘Every day you get jam,' said another man, sitting on the floor with his back against the dram. ‘Every day you moan. Ask your sweetheart to put something else in your sandwiches, for Christ's sake.'

‘I would,' the first man replied, ‘but I make them myself.'

Groans rang out. I found myself grinning. ‘Bloody hell, Alf,' said the man sitting on the floor. ‘Your jokes don't get any better. No wonder you haven't got a sweetheart.'

‘Don't need a sweetheart these days, innit?' said Alf. ‘You can get a tup easy enough. Pretend you're a soldier on furlough, the girls throw themselves at you.'

‘Every girl in Treherbert knows you're a pitman!'

‘Doesn't matter. Go doe-eyed, tell 'em you've signed up. Being sent to France or Africa, like. Might not be back for Christmas, you say. Might not be back at all. If only I'd had a tup with a girl, like! Oh, to die a virgin!' He clutched at his chest, dramatically.

‘And they give you tups? For telling 'em that?' said the man on the floor.

‘Works like a dream,' said Alf, leaning back.

‘And what happens when they see you the next day in your pit kit?'

Alf shrugged. ‘Jobs done b'then, innit?'

‘
Uffarn den
! You're a menace, Alf Davies,' said the man sitting on the floor, shaking his head. ‘I wouldn't let a woman anywhere near you.'

‘Aye, aye,' said Alf spying me. ‘What's this? You're Davey's boy, aren't you? Scott Street? Bethan's brother?'

I nodded and came to a standstill.

‘Brought his tommy box? Forgotten it again, has he?' Alf continued. ‘
Duw
, he'll forget his trousers one of these days. He's underground. You taking it down?'

I shook my head. He shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth and tilted his head as he stared at me. A thick, bready grin stretched across his face.

‘You ever been underground, boy?'

I shook my head again.

‘Fancy going down? Would you like to?'

I nodded.

‘Ignore him,' the man sitting on the floor said in my direction. ‘Lampy'll never allow it.'

‘Course he will. We all had to go down a first time,' said Alf, sliding off the dram and coming towards me. ‘I'll keep an eye on him. You going to be a miner, then?'

I nodded one more time.

‘Course you are. Good Welsh lad. Black stuff is in your blood. Come on, then. Let's get a token from the lamp house. I'm Alf. What's your name? Tallyman will want it.'

‘Anthony Jones,' I said, holding tight to the tommy box. ‘I don't know if I can go down, though. Father might not like it.'

‘There comes a time when all sons must go against their father's wishes, young Anthony. It's how we become men. And besides, you want to see underground, don't you? See what it's like?'

I did want to see it. From the six o'clock siren that rang over the rooftops, to the clattering of hobnailed boots coming back at night, underground was the driving heart of our village. It was spoken of every evening, ingrained into every crease of my father's face. It was our way of life. It was my future and I had never even seen it. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘I do.'

‘Come on, then,' said Alf, wiping his fingers on the bottom of his dust-covered shirt. He pressed his hand into the middle of my back. ‘Let's go down.'

‘He'll have your guts for garters!' shouted the man sitting on the floor.

‘Ignore him,' said Alf, pushing me forwards. ‘It's an adventure, innit?'

I followed him to the lamp house, a small outbuilding to the left of the pithead. It had no door, and I stood in the open frame, hanging back. Alf went forward.

‘Give us two tokens,' he said, leaning across a scarred wooden counter. ‘I'm taking Davey's boy down. He's brought his father's tommy box.' He nudged his head back in my direction.

‘Are you mad? I'm not letting a boy down. How old is he? Ten? Eleven? Get away, man. Finish your butties. And you …' He strained round to look at me. ‘If you want to leave your father's box with me, you can.'

‘Don't trust him. There's a reason he's that fat,' said Alf, leaning back against the counter and grinning. ‘Come on, Lampy. Let him go. He wants to see it. I'll not let him out of my sight. Take him down for five minutes. No more.'

‘No, Alf,' said the lamp man, shaking his head. ‘It's not happening.'

‘I'll trade you a coupon,' said Alf, shooting me a wink.

‘For what?' answered the lamp man, his tone softening.

‘Dunno. Something you need, something you'd look good in … stockings?'

I suppressed a giggle. The lamp man rolled his eyes. ‘Alf Davies, you're a right card. Give me a coupon for cheese and you've got a deal.'

‘Cheese? Hate the stuff.' He spat on his hand and held it out.

‘All right,' said the lamp man, taking Alf's hand and shaking it. ‘Five minutes, mind. No more. Straight down. Straight up. And I want that coupon first thing, Alf. Got it?'

‘Got it,' said Alf. He turned and gave me a lopsided grin.

Alf took the helmets from the lamp man and gestured for me to go outside. ‘Now, then,' he began, fixing me with intensely blue eyes, ‘here's your helmet and that there's your lamp.' He held up a heavy metal pack that was attached to the helmet by a cord. ‘And this is the battery for the lamp. Tuck that onto the back of your belt.'

‘Haven't got a belt,' I said, struggling to keep the front end of the helmet from falling down over my eyes.

‘Then shove it down the back of your shorts,' said Alf. ‘Or hold on to it. Here's your token. Stick that in your pocket. Before you go underground, you hand that to the pit cage tallyman. That's how he knows how many men are down.'

I tried slipping the battery pack down the back of my shorts, but it was so heavy it fell out the hole of my right leg and dangled behind my knee. I looked towards Alf, who was clipping his own to the back of his belt. I didn't want him to think I was stupid, so I pulled the cord upwards and decided to carry it instead.

‘Right, then,' said Alf, patting me on the back, ‘let's get to the pit cage.'

The cages hung from the base of the pithead wheels, and as we walked towards them I felt strangely elated. I was going underground. We'd find Father and he'd see me and p'raps, even though I wasn't allowed, like, he'd be pleased? It showed gumption, spirit. He admired those things in a man. P'raps he'd admire them in me?

‘Your sister, Bethan,' said Alf, casually, as we walked towards the cages, ‘she stepping out with anyone?'

I shook my head. ‘Don't think so. She hasn't brought anyone home.'

Alf sniffed. ‘She up at RAF St Athan, isn't she? In the WAAF. Not fallen for any of those fancy airmen, then?'

I shrugged.

‘What's all this, then, Alf?' said a man sitting by the cages reading a paper.

‘Taking Davey's boy down. It's all right. Lampy's said so. He's got a token. Five minutes down, and then we're up.'

The man frowned. ‘Your father know about this, does he?' he said, looking straight at me.

I looked down at my wellingtons and my helmet slid towards the bottom of my nose. I shoved it upwards. ‘No,' I said. ‘But I've got his tommy box. And he likes gumption.'

‘Gumption, is it?' said the tallyman, his forehead frowning. ‘More like bloody madness. Lampy said yes? Has he lost his mind?'

‘Quit blathering!' said Alf. ‘He's only going down for five minutes. I'm not taking him down to do a shift. Besides, he'll be down here for good, soon enough. May as well see his home from home, innit?'

‘I don't like it,' said the man, folding his paper and standing up. ‘Five minutes and no more, mind. They're blasting this afternoon. I want him back up before they start.'

‘On my word,' said Alf, reaching for the metal bar that spanned the large empty cage in front of us. ‘Anthony, give the man your token.'

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small, scratched circle of metal.

‘In you get, then,' said the tallyman, taking it. ‘Don't put your hands outside the cage. Drams coming up. They make a racket.'

I stepped inside the cage and stood next to Alf. To our left was a cavernous hole, the shaft that held the larger cage for shuttling coal drams. Our cage was big enough for about ten men and, instinctively, I shuffled myself into one corner. Alf slotted down the horizontal metal bar in front of us, then reached up and fixed a vertical bar across it.

With no solid walls to the cage, I felt exposed, as if the mountain could eat me up at any moment. My stomach bubbled and I found myself rushing forward to cleave into Alf's side. He glanced down and let his arm drift around my shoulders. ‘Ready?' he said. I nodded. ‘Away, then!'

A sudden jolt and we plunged downwards into the pit, blasts of warm air shooting through my fringe. It was blacker than I'd imagined and I narrowed my eyes, hoping they'd acclimatise to the gloom. I raised my hand in front of my face. I couldn't even make out a shape. I felt disorientated, anxious, and my nails dug into Alf's shirt, desperate to hold on to anything for a scrap of comfort. The noise! Metal on metal, grinding, ugly sounds filling the air. I wanted to block it all out, but I was paralysed with fear, as if I'd been punched, very suddenly, and couldn't move. My ears popped and an odd sense of weightlessness overwhelmed me, as if my feet were bobbing in water. We were now going so fast I couldn't tell if we were going down or coming back up again. I wanted to call out for it to stop. I didn't like it.

A light sparked above me. Alf had turned on his helmet lamp. ‘Twist that,' he yelled over the rattling. He pointed towards a large dial on the top of my battery box. I turned it and a small round light appeared in front of me, catching the contours of the rock as we descended.

I grimaced. ‘Not long now,' shouted Alf, seeing my expression.

A deep rumbling tumbled upwards, like a train, a wave of dark noise. The cage shook and I stumbled away from Alf, falling into the side rail. My head jerked forward, sending the beam from my helmet shining down into the shaft. The light caught something metallic, the noise roared louder, I felt the breath catch in my throat, and my eyes widened. Something was coming up and it was coming fast. I heard a voice shouting, felt a hand gripping me in the middle of my shirt. Alf yanked me backwards, there was a sudden dazzle of lamps, and the coal dram cage with its men on board shot past us. It knocked the breath from my lungs. I gasped for air, shut my eyes tight and buried my face deep into Alf's smoky shirt.

A bump. A pat on my shoulder.

‘That's it,' said Alf. ‘We're down.'

He undid the two metal bars at the front of the cage and we walked out into a tunnel. It was about fifteen feet wide. Small electrical lamps ran along the walls either side of us, and below my feet were tracks that disappeared off into pitch black. The smell was dense, claggy, warm earth and coal, the air filled with dust. I lifted a hand to my forehead. I was sweating. It was hot. I hadn't expected that.

‘There's a fallen section that way,' said Alf, pointing off down a side tunnel. ‘They're working it up with timbers. Your da's b'there. It's not far.'

‘Will my brothers be there n'all?' I asked.

Alf shook his head. ‘Nah, they're loading drams down by the seam.'

A series of loud thuds rumbled above us and the tunnel shook, sending small grumbling waves up through my legs. I looked towards Alf. ‘Was that thunder?' I said.

‘Bumpers,' he told me. ‘It's the mountain settling after the seams are worked. Happens all the time. Come on. Follow me.' He strode off.

I kept as close as I could, occasionally breaking into a trot when I had to. Ahead of us, the dark, black circle tightened and I began to feel the dank creep of something claustrophobic. Skewed timbers held up roof falls, moisture dripped from the ceiling, creatures scuttled as we passed, and the hair on the back of my neck began to bristle. A sharp chill was icing up my spine. I didn't want to be afraid. But I was.

‘Conveyor belt's running,' said Alf, as another intense rumble sounded from inside the walls. ‘It runs down the seam. Brings the coal up, men down.'

We walked on, indecipherable voices drifting up through the dark. Ahead of us, the tiny black pinhole began to open out, larger with every step nearer, until we found ourselves stepping into a chamber filled with light. A group of men was fixing interlocking timbers. It was bright. I blinked.

I heard a voice call out. ‘Pass me that cleat!' I recognised it. It was Father.

A tight ball of panic surged through me. I wanted him to be impressed, to be proud of how brave I'd been, to pat me on the back, call me ‘his boy', but now, standing here, waiting for him to turn round, I knew exactly how he was going to react. I looked back the way I'd come. If I ran now, I'd get back to the cage without him seeing me. I turned. A hand fell on my shoulder.

‘Someone to see you, Davey!' called out Alf, a laugh in his voice. ‘You'll never guess who.'