Breakdown (32 page)

Outside I hurry towards the square of pale light. Everywhere is order. The vegetables all grow in straight lines. All are neatly covered in plastic. There's some kind of chicken coop and a tiny greenhouse at the end of the garden. In the shadows, I see a beehive beside it. I hope there's bees inside. Can bees survive up here?

I reach the pale square. I look up at the light from next door. My heart's hammering. I don't want those women to discover I'm out. It's not that I'm scared of them. When I think about it, they're probably only following council rules. But Lenny's still there, and being caught might mean being shipped back.

I stand there, pressing my hand against my face, biting the inside of my cheek.

I stare up at the window.
What to do now?

Suddenly a voice.

‘Meliss'?' It comes from somewhere just behind me. I jump. Standing in the shadows by the greenhouse is Tarquin.

Tarquin.

A rush of something sweet and wonderful. My fears evaporate.
He came out to find me.
Together we'll find a way.
Maybe they don't want him, but they won't separate us. We've come so far. We've been through so much. This sad, dust-blackened place can't part us
.
And suddenly I understand something about myself.

I'm scared of losing him.

And with that understanding the old spectre rises.

The lie.

The fear that when Tarquin learns the truth, he'll leave me. There, I've admitted it to myself.

I don't want to lose him.

No need to tell him yet, though. I look up at him, smile into the darkness, throw my arms out. My voice falters. But I
should
tell him
.

We're alone. There may not be another chance.

But I only manage, ‘You can't sleep?'

Oh Tarquin why didn't I tell you everything right then?

He smiles. ‘Crazy,' he says. ‘Here we are with good food and the best bed in ages and neither of us can sleep.'

Why didn't I trust you? Why didn't I open my heart and let you in?

We both stand there.

‘Let's get into the greenhouse,' I say. I'm still nervous about being out. We slide open the door, step inside.

We could have faced things together.

He brushes against me. I shiver as if an electric current has short circuited inside me. My voice trembles. ‘I –'

‘
Moi aussi
–' he says.

We just stand there.

And I know that if I turn now and raise my lips to him, my life will shoot out of control, like a great river over a great cataract and I'll be swirled away in its current.

So I don't.

I stop myself.

‘I'm scared,' I whisper.

‘
Moi aussi
,' he whispers back.

And I know that if I ever kiss him, I will be his. And I won't be able to ever make it on my own again.

‘Of this place,' I add.

My heart stands still. I'm trembling. I think he's trembling too.

He seems to nod, draw away.

I don't trust myself.

It would be a terrible mistake.

The wind rattles at the greenhouse. Drops of rain patter on the glass.

‘Yes,' he breathes out. ‘All this “have a cuppa”, like they're figuring to sell us something. Nobody ever done that sort of thing without them knowing exactly why they done it.'

‘They tried to lock me in,' I whisper.

He straightens up. ‘What?' he says.

‘They seemed so nice, but they locked me in and – Tarquin – there's no children.'

He steps back from me.

I step away too, hold myself together.

‘We ain't gonna stay here then. We'll just head out. Carry on going north.'

And I want to go with him, steal back in, bundle Lenny into my arms and leave.
Now.

But.

And that's the problem. There's nowhere out there.

I take a deep breath.
Be sensible. Lenny needs rest. He needs food. Tarquin needs food too. Neither of them had the General's kitchen to plunder.

‘Let's wait a bit. Tomorrow. See what they say?'

‘I don't like being in a different house from Lenny.' No trace of a French accent now. I'm glad. His ganger voice doesn't confuse me.

‘Or you,' he says suddenly.

‘Me?' My throat dries up. Confused again.

‘I don't like being away from you.'

I don't know what to say. My heart hammers. I hold my breath.

‘You stick near Lenny, right?' he says.

‘Yes,' I whisper.

‘You stick right by him all the time?'

‘OK.'

‘And whatever they decide at the council, we meet out here tomorrow night?'

‘OK,' I say.

‘And you bring Lenny too.'

‘All right.'

‘And what d'ya mean they locked you in? How come you're out then?'

‘I picked the lock.'

He chuckles. ‘Melissa, Melissa, ganger girl.'

‘There're no children,' I repeat. ‘There's something wrong with the children.'

‘How?'

‘That churchyard on the way up, and Bridey and Hannah so sad, and there's this bedroom in the house, like some sort of shrine, like a child died in there.'

Tarquin freezes. The pale moonshine fractured by the glass gleams in a ghostly halo around him.

‘And everyone coughs so much,' I say.

‘Maybe they're sick, like in France,' he says slowly.

I shake my head. I don't know what it is.

‘We ain't letting Lenny nowhere near no sickness.'

Suddenly I feel terribly cold.

‘Could be TB,' he says. ‘Or radiation.'

Maybe it really is worse here than down south.

‘Look at how they wash everything. They've got polythene over all them vegetables,' he adds.

I don't have any answer. It could be all of that. Though polythene won't keep radiation out. And there's that thin film of grit everywhere.

‘There's sickness round here,' he says, ‘and we gonna get out.'

‘Could be inbreeding,' I whisper. ‘There's so few women and all those men.'

‘Well, it ain't OK,' he says, ‘an' we're leaving.'

I look at him.
I'm going to have to tell him.

I stand there. Trying to convince myself there might not be TB or radiation or anything. I try to remember Nan telling me about the picture on the key ring.

‘They say hills offer protection – some deep valleys are in a rain shadow. The worst of the fallout misses the valley. I used to dream that valley was safe and you could still live there – or would be able to one day – when the worst was over, and the bees were back.'

Maybe the worst is over. The north should be OK now.

‘Let's wait and see?' I say. ‘We can't leave tonight. We need to rest.'

‘If I had my way, we'd leave, and now.' Tarquin slams his fist down on a bench. Plant pots rattle. Something falls to the floor with a metallic tinkle. ‘An' I ain't going back to no ten years' hard labour,' says Tarquin. ‘I'd rather deal with Careem.'

‘Tomorrow,' I say.

‘And I'll kill that General if he touches you.' Tarquin tenses up as if some new thought has struck him.

The bolt of electricity is back. It shoots between the two of us. And I tremble from head to toe. And I look up at him and the wild light in his eye.

‘No.' I try to laugh. ‘He's my spoil. I'll kill him myself.'

‘I won't let him touch you.' In one swift movement Tarquin pulls me to him, his eyes blazing. ‘I'll strangle him with my bare hands.'

My heart pounds. I can't breathe. His breath on my cheek. I'm shivering. I'm balancing on the top of that waterfall.

About to plunge over.

And as he tightens his grip around me, I feel the rush of the current. And when he presses himself against me, I try to hold back.

I mustn't. I can't fall.

Over that cataract.

Into that abyss.

A noise wakens me.

Lenny's side's empty. The sheet thrown back from the mattress. Where is he?

I sit upright in bed.

‘Lenny?'

‘Here.'

A voice from the window. A grey shape against a grey dawn.

The noise again. That's what woke me. A kind of gong. Not like any gong I've ever heard.

I'm out of bed, into clothes, helping Lenny tug his top on in the dim light. Cold boards underfoot. Scent of burning. I smooth my hair, wash my face in a basin. Running water. Bridey enters, she looks surprised. The door's unlocked. She says nothing. Then we're down those narrow stairs. Hannah holds the door open at the bottom.

‘Good, you're up.'

‘What is it?'

She smiles. ‘Call to the mine.'

I give her a blank look.

‘The men go down and when they're all down, we got to follow them.'

‘Us too?

‘Surely,' she says. ‘You've asked to join us, and council rules say you have to visit a coalface before we sign you. That way we all know what we're all getting into. We can't abide deserters up here.'

A trembling starts in my knees. Suddenly I hear Nan's voice louder than ever. ‘Beware, my honeybee. Eurydice was trapped in the underworld. A dark unholy place, land of the lost, land of the buried.'

‘And Tarquin?' asks Lenny.

‘We'll meet him at the pithead,' joins in Bridey.

I nod at Lenny. ‘Be OK.'

‘After they've worked their shift, they'll tell us their decision,' says Bridey. ‘It's no use fretting. The men are the mine and the mine ain't nothing without the men. We live by the power in their arms. That mine saved us all. If we hadn't got down there, we wouldn't be here now. The men will decide. And they never decide quickly, not until they've slept on it, and not till they've worked a coalface. Then they'll sit us down and tell us their decision.'

She puts a rough-cut hunk of bread into my hands. Then on a sudden impulse takes a carrot from the table and presses it into Lenny's.

‘Eat it, child.'

Lenny turns to me. He breaks the carrot in half. ‘I'll save some for Quinny,' he says.

‘Eat it. This too.' I break off some bread.

He shakes his head. Puts the half carrot in his pocket.

We get to the pithead. Beside the winding gear waits the only person I want to see. My cheeks suddenly seem hot. And I can feel myself smiling. Though his first smiles are for Lenny, I know he's watching me. He picks Lenny up, gives him a bear hug and tosses him in the air.

He throws his arms around me. Squeezes. My heart races.

‘You're going down pit,' reminds Bridey. ‘Collect your tokens.'

‘Why?' asks Lenny.

‘Identification in case of fire,' explains Bridey.

‘Fire?' says Lenny. ‘Is there gonna be a fire?'

I imagine all that coal burning underground like in the pits of hell. I imagine us caught down there. Nowhere to run. Hungry flames. Suffocating heat.
Tarquin. Lenny
. Ashes. My chest tightens. The only thing left: metal tokens.

A sweat breaks out across my brow.

‘It happens,' says Bridey, her voice flat. She passes us the tokens. We string them around our necks. We collect a hard hat, safety lamp, overalls. I catch Tarquin looking at me. I think of last night. The pressure of his arms.

‘You'll need to see what you're joining,' says Bridey. ‘It's a good sign that they've called you down mine. Some as wants to work here, don't get invited to pit.'

His eyes are searching mine. I remember how I pulled away.

‘This is Aidan.' She hands us over to a young miner.

I had to. Had to keep a clear head. Survival is all that counts.

We enter the cage at the pithead.

‘You're not coming?' says Lenny, suddenly taking Bridey's hand through the bars.

‘Bless the child.' She strokes his hair. ‘I'll be here when you get back.'

The cage, a steel box, is about as wide as a cupboard. It holds nine of us, packed tight. Tarquin can't stand upright. There are six other miners with us. They crouch as if their chests were already on fire. I press myself close to Lenny. Can't avoid being crushed against Tarquin. My heart hammers. My pulse pounds. The steel door shuts. Somebody works the winding gear. Down into the pit. Down into the underworld.

Suddenly we drop. My stomach squirms. I crouch too. Hold Lenny tight. The void opens. A swallowing feeling, as if a fish has dived through my intestines, and a bursting sensation in my ears. Then complete blackness.

Near the bottom, the cage stops abruptly. Almost like it's jerking back upwards. I hang on to Lenny in the darkness. Somebody lights lamps, hands us one each. We crawl out of the cage deep underground.

My bowels seem to shrivel.
I'm here, Nan. Here in the underworld.

A smoky smell of old fires and hot nights greets us. We're down under everything. Above us the bones of extinct things, earth, stone, struggling roots of growing plants, threatening to crush down. I look up at the low ceiling of the first gallery. It's only kept up by wooden props, thin as lampposts.

I close my eyes. Hold my breath. Steady my nerve. When I reopen them for a minute I think we're back inside the tunnel under Games City. Escaping from Careem. Tarquin's hand finds mine. He presses my fingers. The abyss opens up inside me. I hold on to him. How brave he is. How much he must hate this place. If he can be brave, so can I.

For what seems like miles we trek along cramped passages. Single file. Only Lenny can stand. The rest of us stoop. No way to hold any hand. Tarquin bangs his head. Every minute I think we'll find the miners working. At the very next gallery, surely?

I stumble at the rear, trying to guide Lenny when I can. Down the dim-lit galleries, three metres wide, only half that high. On again. Tarquin is bent forwards, almost double, like some strange, crouched apeman. If only he could stand to work here. If they want us. We could be together.

On either side, walls of slab shale. More thin, wooden pit props hold up the roof. Above us girders bulge into absurd curves. We duck beneath them. What if they fall? Underfoot, thick dust, angled chunks of shale, coal mud, glittering tracks of anthracite. Down the centre of the gallery runs the tub track. Sleepers to stumble over, not quite a pace apart. Everything soft grey.

Like blind things we stumble on.
This is the underworld, Nan. I know it. It's always been here, deep inside me.
Past strange machines, bunches of tools hooked on wires, mice scuttling from the dim beam of our lamps. Pit ponies. Poor sightless things: working in darkness, born in darkness, dying there.

‘Do they live down here always, mister?' asks Lenny.

‘Aye,' says the miner, Aidan, his voice still young, though he looks ancient. ‘They ain't never seen daylight.'

I shudder.

Lines of coal trucks. We press against the wall for them to pass. Bit by bit they crank and jolt towards the shaft, towed by some infinite steel cable. We shuffle through curtains of sackcloth and thick ventilation doors, held open by the hands of small children.
So there are children.
Ferocious hot air. It smacks out at us, sucked past by shaft fans.

‘Have to get the little lads and lasses to flap the doors,' says Aidan.

‘Why?' asks Tarquin.

‘Keeps the deeper workings ventilated.'

‘But why children?' insists Tarquin.

‘Some of them shafts too narrow for a grown person.'

Lenny stops by the child opening the door. A small girl with a grimy face. Whites of her eyes staring.

‘Here,' says Lenny and presses the half carrot into her hand.

The miner laughs. ‘Don't pity her too much. You'll be a trapper too, doing the work yourself afore long.'

Tarquin stumbles, stops. Turns sharply round and looks at the sad figure of the little girl, squatting by the door.

‘And you'll get a good beating if you falls asleep.'

Tarquin puts his arm round Lenny. ‘I don't think so,' says Tarquin.

‘Men's lives depend on fresh air,' says Aidan. ‘And we can't work the mine without it.'

‘But do the children live down here, like the ponies?' asks Lenny.

‘A trapper's job never ends,' laughs Aidan.

‘But they don't live here,' insists Lenny.

‘They dies here, though,' says Aidan. And this time there's no laugh in his voice.