Darkness, Darkness (25 page)

‘Linda Stoneman, gotcha!’

‘Where?’ Catherine asked.

‘Lands’ End.’

‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers!’ growled McBride. ‘All the way to the arse end of fucking Cornwall!’

‘No,’ said Vanessa, ‘not that Land’s End. The clothing company. You know, mail order, online. Their headquarters, it’s in Oakham. About an hour’s drive.’

MUCH OF THE
euphoria Jenny felt earlier – the big rally in Mansfield, her own first time on the platform – was beginning, just gradually, to fade. She’d spoken again on several occasions – to a group of firemen in north London, some schoolteachers in Stoke-on-Trent, and at a meeting of the National Union of Railwaymen in York – and it had felt good, the sense of people listening, going along with her arguments, but more and more there was a sense of preaching to the converted.

Read the papers, listen to the news and you’d think the strike was on its last legs, the Coal Board and the government victorious, but then the papers, the media were all in the government’s pocket – just about all – and what you got from them was a jaundiced version of the truth at best.

What happened at Orgreave, for instance – the Battle of Orgreave, as people were calling it – the way it had been reported on the
Nine O’Clock News
. Edited to make it seem as if the police action – mounted officers charging downhill into groups of fleeing miners, batons swinging – had been in response to miners hurling bricks and stones, whereas, in reality, it had been the other way round. The police had charged, the stones been thrown in self-defence.

Of course, the BBC denied it. What else would you expect, as Peter Waites had said. Government have got them in their pocket, haven’t they? Tow the party line, or next spending round find your licence money trimmed by half.

And the trouble was, with so many people, it worked. In Notts, where the strike had never been as strong, especially.

The drip, drip, drip of misinformation.

Wives asking her in whispers after meetings, how much longer were they going to have to hold out? The most militant areas aside, the slow drift back to work continued. The temptation of increased redundancy money too great for some near-starving families to resist.

Christmas was coming, as Peter Waites had said, and MacGregor and his mates the only bastards growing fat.

Edna had called a meeting of the wives’ support group to make plans for a big communal get-together, ensure presents for each and every family with children. A toy and a turkey for each striking household, that was what was wanted. Hard to promise, difficult to deliver. But a lorryload of toys was already reported to be on the way from the Ruhr Valley in Germany, and, before the deadline, there would be others.

‘I don’t know,’ one of the women at the meeting said. ‘It don’t feel right, somehow. Accepting charity that way. It makes me feel like I’m a step off the poorhouse or something.’

‘That’s because you are, duck,’ said another. ‘We all are.’

‘Look at it this way,’ Edna said. ‘If it was foreign miners out on strike – French, German, Russian, whatever – fighting for their rights, their livelihoods, wouldn’t we be the ones helping them out any way we could?’

‘Put it that way . . .’ said the doubter.

Jenny liked to think that would be so. One for all and all for one. She’d scarce had a political thought in her head before all this had blown up and now it was full of them. Wriggling round like little sperm cells, mostly, looking for something to fertilise.

She hadn’t thought so much about that till recently, either.

Unbidden images of her one-off encounter with Danny coming to her a little less frequently now, maybe, but not fading away.

Sometimes, despite her best intentions, she deliberately encouraged them not to.

She’s sitting gossiping with Linda one afternoon, the two youngsters playing cheerfully enough with bits and pieces of Lego, pushing them together and then pulling them apart again, when there’s a knock at the back door.

Jenny’s immediate thought, it’s Danny, and how’s she going to explain that to Linda. Blood rushing to her cheeks she’s hoping hasn’t been noticed.

‘Hang on a minute!’

Fumbling the door open, her heart’s going nineteen to the dozen, but it’s Jill, standing there solemn, expression just this side of apologetic.

‘Come in,’ Jenny says, stepping back. ‘Come on in.’

Jill looks round as if she’s hardly been there before, which is not so far from true.

‘Linda, this is Jill, my big sister. Jill, Linda. Linda’s lad goes to nursery with Brian.’

Linda smiles, starts collecting her things. ‘All right now,’ she calls into the other room, ‘time we were going.’

Five minutes later, give or take, the sisters are sitting either side of the kitchen table. Jenny’s made a fresh pot of tea, scrabbled together enough biscuits to cover the surface of a small plate, though neither of them has shown much interest in eating.

‘That day . . .’ Jill starts.

‘You don’t have to explain.’

‘That day, when you called round . . .’

‘I said, there’s no need to explain.’

‘I don’t want you to think . . .’

Jenny looks at her sharply, a smile forming. ‘Think what?’

‘You know.’

‘That you were having a quick shag in the middle of the morning.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘That’s not what you were doing?’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘What then?’

‘Don’t call it that.’

Jenny laughs. ‘Shag?

‘It makes it sound . . .’ She’s not sure what it makes it sound.

‘Cheap?’ Jenny suggests.

‘Yes.’

‘Furtive? Sudden? Keith, the local bobby, calls round waving his truncheon and the next minute you’re all over him, ripping off his uniform . . .’

‘Stop!’

‘Dragging him upstairs to the bedroom . . .’

‘Stop it! Just . . . stop it.’ There are tears at the corners of her eyes and her face is white with anger. ‘You never did, you never could take anything seriously. Everything a big joke. School. Everything. Unless it was about you and then, of course, everyone else better realise just how serious it was. Your marriage. Your kids. And now, your bloody strike.’

The tears have gone, disappeared.

Across the table, Jenny is shaking, literally shaking.

She hasn’t seen her sister like this since they were teenagers, one evening when Jill had suddenly erupted over seemingly nothing, a borrowed pair of shoes, a cardigan, a lipstick.

But this is different.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jenny says. ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’ But realises that she did. Changes tack. ‘How long . . . Keith, how long have you been seeing him?’

‘A month. A month or so.’

‘And what? It’s serious?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’

Jenny leans back, picks up her cup but doesn’t drink. ‘You never said.’

‘Now you can see why.’

‘Jill, I’m sorry.’

She reaches out a hand, but Jill doesn’t take it.

‘It was just, you know, a bit of a joke.’

‘But it’s not that.’

‘I know. I know that now.’

‘And I didn’t want you going round gossiping . . .’

‘I haven’t. Jill, I wouldn’t . . .’

‘While all this is going on – the strike – we thought it best to keep it quiet, between ourselves. Otherwise it all gets mixed up with everything that’s going on, and Keith . . . one way and another, he’s had a lot to contend with.’

Jenny nods, though she thinks Keith Haines has got pretty much what he’s deserved. Bit of a nasty side to him, or so she’s heard. The kind who’ll take advantage, given the chance.

‘Have you said anything to Mum and Dad?’ she asks.

‘We’re going over next weekend.’

‘You and Keith?’

Jill looks at her as if to say, who else?

Jenny is thinking, faced with a police officer as a son-in-law – which she supposes all this will mean – her dad will have a right conniption.

Jill is drinking her tea, glancing round, making ready to go. Out of sight, Brian starts to cry and, with a sigh, Jenny goes to see what’s wrong. When she comes back, Brian in her arms, sucking a thumb, Jill is over by the door, anxious to go.

‘When you see Mum and Dad,’ Jenny says, ‘give them my love. Tell them I’ll bring the kids over soon.’

There was a time when they would have shared a quick hug, a kiss on the cheek; now Jill quickly nods and turns busily on her way. Despite his best efforts, Jenny sets Brian back down and starts to clear away. Jill and Keith Haines, it’s fair taken her by surprise.

LINDA STONEMAN’S HOUSE
was on a new estate, close by the ring road, no more than a stone’s throw, as she liked to say, from the old rugby ground. ‘Sold to developers,’ she’d said, chatting away to Catherine as if they’d known one another for ages. ‘Nine hundred new homes they’re building. Nine hundred. How the town’ll cope, I can’t imagine. Doctors’ surgery’s moved into bigger premises already.’

Following Catherine’s call to check directions, the GPS persisting in ordering them the wrong way round a new roundabout, Linda had met them at the gate. An ample woman in a floral dress, cardigan over otherwise bare arms, she had greeted them cheerily, apologising for living somewhere that wasn’t yet on Google Maps, and invited them inside.

After Catherine had properly introduced Resnick and herself, the pair of them followed Linda along a paved drive and into a house that positively shone, the lingering smell of citrus air freshener mingling with that of pine disinfectant.

‘How long have you been living here?’ Catherine asked.

‘Six weeks tomorrow. Though sometimes it seems like six months. Others, the day before yesterday. But please, sit yourselves down. I put the kettle on when you phoned. You would both like a cup of tea?’

Both nodded.

Interviewing people in their own homes, Resnick was thinking and not for the first time, you ended up drinking as much tea as one of those chimpanzees from Twycross Zoo who did the PG Tips ads on TV.

‘I was living in Melton,’ Linda explained when she came back through. ‘Then, when Mum passed away, I thought to move here. I’d got the job at Lands’ End by then and it saved a good half-hour or so’s journey either way. Besides, the smell from Pedigree Pet Foods when the wind’s in the wrong direction . . .’

She wafted a hand front of her nose.

‘I had a nice little flat here at first, but when Gerry and I got together, I mean, really thought we might make a go of it, we needed somewhere bigger – he’s got grandchildren, has Gerry – so we took the plunge. Not easy that either, neither one of us spring chickens and both married before, twice in my case, baggage by the vanload, if you know what I mean. But anyway, Gerry brought me out to take a look at it, did the sums, said as how, if we didn’t go crazy – go crazy, us, at our age – we could manage the payments, so I thought, why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. Gerry had got this little nest egg when he retired. Mind you, he’s back working part-time. Lands’ End, same as me. One thing, though, however much he asked me, I said I’d not change my name. Not again. Stoneman I was and Stoneman I’d stay. And so here we are.’

All that with scarcely a pause for breath,

‘What do you do?’ Resnick asked. ‘At Lands’ End?’ Enquiring out of politeness as much as anything.

‘Me? Front End Quality Tester. Make sure all your buttons are in place. Your zip’s not been sewn in upside down or back to front. You’d be surprised.’

She poured the tea.

‘Enough of me,’ she said. ‘It’s not my life story you’ve come to hear.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor Jenny. I always thought – liked to think, anyway – she was off somewhere, somewhere nice, a new family maybe, a new life. Thought she’d met the man of her dreams, down London somewhere . . .’

‘London? Why London?’

‘Oh, down there quite a bit, Jenny was. That winter. Union business of some kind. At least, that’s what I think. Something to do with the strike, anyway.’

‘Making speeches, you mean?’ Resnick asked. ‘Rallies and so on?’

‘I’m really not sure. All I know is, she’d ask me, last minute usually, could I come over and babysit. That’d be when Barry was on nights. So I’d take mine over and we’d all camp out in their living room. Kids loved it, you can imagine.’

‘And how often did this happen?’

‘Ooh, two or three times. November, December. Maybe more. Late, an’ all, she’d be sometimes, getting back.’

‘And Jenny never said anything about meeting somebody down there? A man, I mean?’

Linda smiled. ‘Tall dark stranger? Love’s young dream? No, that was me. Imagination working overtime. Too much Mills and Boon.’

‘Her husband,’ Catherine said. ‘How did he feel about it, do you think? These trips to London?’

Linda ran it through in her mind before answering. ‘What you have to realise, by then at least, there were a lot of things they weren’t talking about at all. Living under the same roof, it was the only thing they could do. Anything of Jenny’s to do with the strike, I never heard him say a word. She just got on with it and so did he.’

‘They didn’t argue, then? That’s what you’re saying?’

Linda set down her cup in its saucer. ‘What I’m saying is, they didn’t argue about that.’

‘What then?’

‘Oh, usual things. Bickering, really. Stuff to do with the kids. Jobs he still expected her to do around the house. Iron his shirts, have a dinner in the oven when he came off shift. So, you know, iron your own bloody shirts, get your own bloody dinner, there’d be a lot of that. And the occasional plate’d go flying.’

‘He had a temper, then?’

‘They both did. Barry worst of all. Not often, maybe. Not, you know, truly lost it. But when he did . . .’

‘Can you remember any . . .’

‘One. One time especially. November, it would have been. Somewhere towards the end of November. I don’t know what caused it, mind. But I’d just popped in to see if Jenny wanted me to take Brian in next day and it was like, I don’t know, walking into some kind of thunderstorm. Both of them shouting and screaming in one another’s faces. I was fair frightened, I don’t mind saying. And then Barry, he shouts, “I’ll kill you! I’ll f-ing kill you!” And he’s got his fist, raised, like this, and I’m standing there thinking, he will, he will. And then he turns away from her and puts his fist right through the wall, the partition wall. And I realise I’m shouting, too. No idea what, just words. And Jenny, she’s standing there, just staring at him. Defiant, you know. You dare. You just dare. Barry, he walked away. Wrapped his hand in a tea towel and walked away. And, after a minute, Jenny, she starts talking to me as if nothing out of the way had happened. And I remember thinking, I couldn’t live like this, I just couldn’t.’