Born Under Punches (17 page)

‘I love you.'

Her voice trembled, seeking assurance.

‘I know.'

That night:

Louise lies wide awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what time the front door will open this time. Wondering if the front door will open this time.

Keith lies next to her snoring noisily. He grinds his teeth. He dreams of getting even.

Larkin lies down with ghosts and dreams about the past. Rewrites the past.

Mick dreams of white beaches and blue skies. Permanent holiday.

Davva dreams of clowns, comics and comedians. It's safe to laugh in his dreams.

Suzanne lies awake on Karl's bed. Something has changed, but she isn't sure of what.

Karl lies next to her, dreaming of gladiators, of swords and knives, blood and victory.

Skegs dreams of pastoral scenes, of woodlands and warmth, of welcoming, happy, talking creatures, of a realm where he feels safe and loved.

Tanya dreams about a lost jigsaw she once had, but every time she tries to complete it, more pieces appear, and the right ones are missing. The harder she tries, the more she feels like ripping it up.

Tony dreams away the pain in his leg. He dreams away the past. He dreams of the future.

Tommy lies there. He dreams about everything. He dreams about nothing.

PART TWO

Two Tribes

9. Now and Then

The way Dougie Howden saw it:

The call had gone out and from over the hills and far away it had been answered.

They were coming. He knew it, could feel it.

They were coming from similar places to Coldwell, villages grown around work, towns built on tunnels. Home to men who had once proudly fuelled the country, now left angry, fearful and bitter. From places now under martial law, where the police had laid siege in an effort to contain them, to stop them fighting back against an arbitrary erosion of a way of life.

They were the great escapees, eluding police checkpoints, stop and searches and roadblocks. Gone by the time armoured woodentops had dawn-raided their way into homes, kicked in front doors, pulled lives apart; finding nothing but manless families, feeling the curses of miners' wives ring in their ears, fists on their chests, and fleeing, leaving behind a blueprint to turn sobbing children into next-generation police-haters.

They were coming despite intimidation, personal hardship, weariness and physical threat to themselves and their families. They were coming because it was the right thing to do.

Dawn at the Miners' Welfare Park. Grass and trees leisurely stretched around a lake, swings and slides off to one side. A picnic area. Land gifted to the miners, for them and their families to enjoy open space and clean air, to cherish the surface.

The prearranged time, the prearranged place. The day shift.

They had arrived.

Vans, cars and minibuses were unloading. Men were greeting each other, some veterans of picket action who knew what to expect, some first-timers. They were smiling, fixing on brave faces: the laughter in the dark of the mine replaced by the steely humour of adversity against authority.

They were dressed for work: flannel shirts, denims, jumpers, boots, donkey jackets.

Banners were unfurled, laid out on the ground, poles screwed together, leather carrying belts strapped on. The painting and embroidering had been done with obvious care and love, the depictions of mines or trade unionist heroes rendered with pride. Dougie read the names and locations: Yorkshire. Nottinghamshire. Derbyshire. Northumberland. Even one from South Wales. His heart seemed to grow inside his chest.

Loud-hailers were given batteries, tested with chants. Stones and half-bricks were held in carrier bags just in case.

Emotion lodged in Dougie's throat. He smiled.

He looked up, saw clear blue sky.

Yes, he thought, it's going to be a good day.

That was the way he saw it.

Mick Hutton saw things differently.

It was a fight, a struggle. Everything was a struggle. Either confrontation or avoiding it.

He crept around the house quietly, as if the slightest noise or touch would undermine the foundations, set it shaking. He flitted ghostlike between rooms, finding his clothes, making breakfast, washing, brushing his teeth. Everything was too loud: the corn flakes, the running water, the strokes of the toothbrush. He cursed himself and aimed for yet more silence, willed himself, cloaked, invisible, absent.

Angela was asleep in bed. Or appeared to be asleep in bed. She had had a bad night, the restless baby in her belly giving her uncomfortable insomnia. He was trying to let her sleep, to rest! He didn't want her to wake up without being fully rested. He didn't want her to wake up and be reminded of where he was going. He didn't want her to wake up to confrontation.

He prepared a bowl of corn flakes, put them on a tray, added a jug of milk and a spoon and carried it up to her bedside. He backed carefully out of the room and made his way downstairs. He put on his jacket, let himself out, and closed the door with a silent click.

On hearing that, Angela opened her eyes. She checked the bedside clock, saw the corn flakes.

She moved on to her side, sighed.

She closed her eyes again. Willed the day away.

‘Listen, lads.'

Dougie looked around the hall, knocked on the table a couple of times, waited until he had the men's attention. Mick Hutton stood next to him, fidgeting, all suppressed anxiety.

‘Thanks.'

They were in the Miners' Welfare Hall, once, Dougie always thought, the hub of socializing and socialism back when the town was a village, now the headquarters for the strike action, where the soup kitchen, clothing and food distribution took place. All the pickets were there along with miners' support groups, miners' wives. Dougie looked at their faces, saw optimism. Abraded by reality and hopelessness, but not completely removed.

Today was going to be a good day. He knew it.

‘Thanks for comin' here. I know some of you have come a long way and put up with a lot of unfairness. But if everythin' was fair, you wouldn't have to be here in the first place.

‘Now, I don't wanna go on for long.'

‘Makes a change,' someone mumbled loudly.

Heads turned to the voice. Dougie looked too. Dean Plessey.

‘Thank you, Dean.' Dougie looked at his watch. ‘Now, as you know, the local executive don't want this march to happen. They want to negotiate. Well, we've seen what happens when they negotiate, haven't we? Right. Nothing. You can't negotiate with these people. You have to stand up to them. So that's what we'll do. We'll show them.'

He looked again at his watch. ‘Right. They'll be comin' soon. So let's go down there. Let's stop them comin' in. If we stick together, we can beat them.' His voice rose. ‘And beat them with pride. Come on.'

He walked towards the door, the men following.

The grey clouds had berthed.

The drizzle started as Larkin turned off the roundabout into Coldwell, the final leg of the journey. Football kit in a rucksack on the passenger seat, ache in his bones from exercising, ache in his head from drinking, Wilco on the stereo.

‘When You Wake Up Feeling Old'.

Tell me about it, he thought.

Last night had been memory lane, trip two. He had powered up his laptop, intending to work on his book.

The Miners' Strike and After: One Community's Legacy.

Provisional title.

He had opened a bottle of Spanish Rioja to keep him company as he wrote. But once he'd uncorked the bottle, the genie had come out again dancing, dismantling the order of his thoughts, imposing chaos on his memories. The journalistic arguments became personal ones. He lost the battle, went to the aftermath. The battle for Coldwell became the battle for Charlotte. And beyond. Back there again, word for word, blow for blow. Alcohol sharpening rather than deadening his memories. Mouthing the words, dodging the fists. No perspective: individual strands mashed together, knotted, inextricably linked.

He drove through the streets, pavements filling with Saturday-lunchtime crowds. It looked unreal, the windscreen a TV screen, black and white and badly tuned, the buildings a dark, hazy grey, the people indistinct forms. Ghosts. Rain-wraiths. The previous night's memories seemed more real than what was around him.

He shook his head, tried to pull himself back to the present, will colour into the world. He drove away from the shops and past the Miners' Welfare Park, the grass now yellow and threadbare, the brown-black trees gnarled and leafless, the playground barren with neglect. His head continued to pound. He drove through residential streets, houses too small to contain their occupants' dreams, just big enough to kill them. A house like he had grown up in. He drove to the edge of the town.

The colliery was now gone, the big gates missing, the wheel and tower razed, the tunnels filled. Dismantling had begun the day after it had closed for the last time in 1986. In its place was a leisure centre complete with swimming pool, tennis courts, squash courts, gyms, five-a-side pitches and a full-sized football pitch.

He looked at the building, tried to look into the past, see the wheel tower against the sky, see the outline of what was once there.

And he did.

Grey and indistinct, like the earlier phantom streets, but there. Hanging over the town, its ghost, its shadow, haunting it still.

Larkin parked the Saab in the car park, grabbed his bag and, feeling his knees creak as he walked, went to find Tony Woodhouse.

He didn't have to look far. Rounding the corner of the main building, he saw a crowd gathering before the football pitch. Tony Woodhouse, Claire and what he presumed were the team. The Coldwell CAT Centre Crew, Tony had said, named after the centre. In addition there was a TV crew, a flash-suited man, leisure centre staff and spectators. Families, friends. None of them seemingly bothered by the damp. Larkin, jolted into the present, made his way over to Tony Woodhouse.

Tony Woodhouse saw him, smiled. ‘Not a bad turnout, is it?'

‘It's not. So who's the opposition?'

Tony smiled again. ‘The police.'

‘What?'

‘The local drug liaison team. Community policing. Gives them good PR, gives us someone to play against. They do a lot of this kind of thing.'

Larkin nodded. ‘Right.'

‘I can see those journalistic cogs whirring away. The irony of the situation. Playing the police on this ground. Where the pit used to be.'

It was Larkin's turn to smile. ‘Something like that.'

‘That's what the local paper were saying. Well, it's all changed here. There's not many people think that way any more. There's not many can remember the strike.'

'You reckon?'

‘I reckon. Anyway.'

He drew out a sheet of paper.

‘This is who we've got to start the match. He'll be auctioning a few things at half-time.'

The man was a hugely famous TV actor.

Larkin, although not a fan, was impressed. ‘How did you manage that?'

Tony shrugged. ‘Lots of celebs like to do stuff for charity. Or be seen to be doing something. Besides, everybody owes somebody something. C'mon and have a cup of tea.'

He walked Larkin over to a portable tea urn where Claire Duffy was busy buttoning up her coat. She saw Larkin, smiled.

‘Roped you in an' all? Very persuasive, our Tony.'

She looked at Tony Woodhouse, holding her smile as if waiting for a response. None came. She looked back at Larkin. ‘Nice to have you here.'

‘Thank you. Nice to be here.'

Tea in hand, Larkin watched the local TV news crew interview an immaculately suited and groomed man. He was answering questions in an earnest, self-important manner.

‘Who's that?'

‘Dean Plessey,' said Tony. ‘Our local MP. Electioneering.'

Larkin thought. The name meant something to him. Dean Plessey. He shook his head, the context out of reach. ‘I know that name,' he said. ‘Is he from round here?'

‘Yeah, local lad. Started off as a miner.'

It clicked.

‘He was involved in the strike. Yeah, Dean Plessey. He was a right dick.'

Tony smiled. ‘He still is. C'mon, I'll introduce you.'

Tony limped over to where the TV crew were concluding their interview.

‘Dean,' Tony said when they had moved away. ‘Got someone I'd like you to meet. This is Stephen Larkin. He's a journalist.'

The politician stuck out his hand.

‘Dean Plessey. Pleasure to meet you.'

He had the smile and look of an expert flesh-presser.

‘Don't try too hard to impress him, Dean,' said Tony, smiling. ‘He doesn't live round here so he can't vote for you.'

Dean Plessey laughed as if it was the funniest joke he'd heard in ages.

Larkin politely joined in, looked at him. The years had treated him well. Everything about Plessey was smooth: smooth skin, smooth hair, smooth suit, smooth manner. Only the eyes gave him away. Jagged, hard.

‘So you're here with Tony, are you? Who are you reporting for?'

‘Actually, I'm playing. He's roped me in.'

‘Very good at getting people involved, is Tony. Just look at all this. And he does wonders for Coldwell. For the community. Wonders. We support him to the hilt. And we need more like him.'

Tony said nothing.

‘Well, good to meet you,' said Plessey, turning to go.

‘Oh, Dean …'

The politician stopped, looked at Larkin.

‘I'm writing a book on the miners' strike. Using Coldwell as a study. You were involved in that, weren't you?'

Something passed over Dean Plessey's eyes, like a breeze ruffling a peacock's feathers.

‘I did my part.'

‘Yeah, I remember. I was here than as well.'

Dean Plessey's Blairite grin remained fixed while the rest of his face changed around it.