The Most Precious Thing (44 page)
In contrast Renee just stood there, making no effort to cover herself. It was the American who, having managed to scramble into his trousers, threw her dress at her, saying to Walter, ‘Hey, man, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. She said she was a widow.’
‘I am.’ Renee held the dress against her body which was still as magnificent as when Walter had first made love to her in their courting days. ‘I’ve been a widow for years and years, haven’t I, Walter? Your husband doesn’t have to die for you to be made a widow. Didn’t you know that?’
‘You whore.’ His gaze was fixed on Renee and her brave stance faltered a little as she took in the simmering rage at the back of his eyes. ‘To bring one of them into my home.’
‘Look, I didn’t know, OK? She said--’
As the American approached him, Walter’s right fist shot out, making hard contact with his square chin. The American reeled backwards and Renee screamed. He recovered his footing and stood with a hand to his jaw, staring warily at Walter.
‘You’ve already told me what she said.’ Walter’s eyes didn’t leave Renee. ‘Now get out.’
‘OK, OK.’ He didn’t bother to put on the rest of his clothes but gathered them up along with his socks and shoes and scuttled out past Walter.
Renee didn’t say another word until they heard the front door slam, and then, with a coolness that worked like petrol on the flame of Walter’s anger, she said, ‘Poor boy, you’ve frightened him now,’ and she pulled on her dress without bothering with her underclothes which were scattered about the cord carpet. ‘He’ll catch his death out there.’
‘How many have you brought back here when I’ve been working?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. How many?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Walter.’
She actually made to walk past him but he caught her arm, wrenched her round and threw her back into the room.
‘How many?’
He didn’t move but Renee backed away further. She turned her head away and muttered, ‘He’s the first, I swear it.’
She was lying. He knew it without a shadow of a doubt. He could feel himself shrinking at the knowledge that the neighbours must know what she had been up to. Nothing went on round these parts but that the whole street weren’t aware of it. They’d all be talking, the old wives gossiping over the gate in the backyard and the men chewing him over as they sat in the pub of an evening. Poor old Walt, couldn’t keep his missus satisfied, have you heard? Has ’em back to the house now, she does, bold as brass. Be a red light in the window before long, you mark my words. He had heard them with other folk; he knew how they would be. There would be the jokers whose comments would become cruder and cruder depending on how much beer or encouragement they got; worse, there would be those who felt sorry for him. Does he know? No? Well, someone ought to put him in the picture, poor blighter. I’d want to know if it was me.
But no one had.
‘You whore.’ This time it was a low snarl. ‘In our bairn’s home, in my home--’
‘Yours and Veronica’s! Oh aye, you might well say yours and Veronica’s. That’s the way you’ve always thought, isn’t it? Right from her birth I’ve been pushed out of the picture.’
‘Don’t you come that. It was you who went fair barmy when you found out you were having her, it was like old Nick himself had lain with you. And after, you wanted nowt to do with me. Nowt to do with me but plenty to do with that Hughie Fleming. Thought I hadn’t twigged, didn’t you, but I’m not as daft as you think. And what was he? A two-bit manager in a tuppenny-ha’penny factory, but he had the time for larking about and having a tumble, didn’t he? Poncing about in his neat little suit, the damn upstart.’
‘Don’t you call Hughie an upstart.’ Renee seemed to swell with anger. ‘He was ten times the man - twenty - that you are.’
‘He was nowt. They’re all nowt. Any man who takes another man’s wife--’
‘Oh, don’t come the holier than thou act, not you. Anyway, you’d be none the wiser if you’d done what you said and gone on the night shift with the rest of your beer-swilling, foul-mouthed cronies.’
‘That’s all I am to you, isn’t it?’
They were staring at each other, their gazes locked and their mutual hate snaking between them, and when Renee spoke she fairly hissed the words at him. ‘You want to know what I think of you? You really want to know? Then I’ll tell you. You called Hughie nowt but he was a man, a real man, something you’ve never been. You grub about under the earth all day like a repulsive insect and even when you’ve bathed you still smell of dirt. It’s in your nails, your ears, the crevices of your skin like those blue marks that cover you. You disgust me, do you know that?’ She had moved close to him in her rage, her angry features now thrust to within a foot or so of his white face. ‘I hate you, Walter Sutton. I hate the look of you, the sound of you, and my flesh creeps if you touch me--’
The sound Walter made cut off Renee’s voice. It was not human, and his face did not resemble the quiet, melancholy, dull man she had lived with for nineteen years. She did not have time to reflect that she had pushed him too far because in a flash his hands were round her neck, squeezing the breath out of her.
She clawed at the iron grip, she kicked and fought until she lost her footing and brought them both falling to the floor, but still Walter did not loosen his hold, not even when Renee’s heels began to scrabble convulsively and an engorged tongue protruded through her lips.
It was a full minute before Walter’s hands relaxed their death grip, and then he continued to kneel by the body for some moments more, his breath coming in rasps and his eyes glazed.
The fire his wife had lit earlier was blazing now, the fancy guard in shining brass which Renee had bought to protect the new sheepskin rug waiting to be put in place. When a burning coal rolled on to the hearth and came to rest against the edge of the rug, Walter stared at it, watching as the pale cream wool began to blacken and smoulder.
By the time he left the house by the back door the rug was well and truly alight. He kept on walking through the fierce blizzard, his pace steady, the bait tin in his hand. He had to report to the colliery for his shift. That was as far ahead as he was thinking for now.
‘You cut it fine, didn’t you? Good job Tom Burns is on, another deputy would have seen to it you were fined a good whack for being late. Andy Blyton for example. He fines you for breathing, he does.’
Walter nodded to the man who had just spoken to him but said nothing, which wasn’t like him. David stared at his brother as the cage took them downwards. Walter looked like death warmed up.
‘Aye, well, for every overman or deputy who’s a pain in the backside, there’s one like Tom who’s right canny.’ Another man joined in the conversation. ‘Little Dickie Cowan gave him a mouthful the other day, cheeky little so-an’-so, but Tom just clipped his lug and told him to watch his mouth. There’s more than one who’d have reported him to the office. Sixteen, Dickie is, and thinks he knows it all.’
‘Aye, I know the lad. Cocky little runt. Gives me a headache, he does.’
‘It’s a pain in the arse he gives me, man.’
Under cover of the laughter David said quietly, ‘You all right, Walt? You look rough.’
‘Aye, I don’t feel too good. Gyppy belly, that’s all.’ He had killed her. Dear God, dear God, help me. What had possessed him? Why hadn’t he just turned round and walked out like he’d done a hundred times before when she went for him? But he hadn’t known before that she was bringing Yanks back to the house. He hadn’t meant to do it, not kill her. He’d just wanted to stop her saying those things, things which always made him feel less than a man. Oh, Veronica, Veronica. A wave of sickness swept over him and he wanted to vomit. What was he going to say to his bairn?
He raised his eyes and glanced at Sandy who was over the other side of the packed cage which had just jolted to a stop. Renee was Joan and Sandy’s bairn like Veronica was his. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting some of the others push past him into the roadway, and when he opened them again Sandy was in front of him. Like David, he commented, ‘You don’t look too grand the night, Walt. You all right?’
‘Aye, aye.’
With David on one side of him and Sandy on the other, Walter began to walk in-bye, and Sandy, speaking directly to Walter as he always did when the two brothers were together, said, ‘You heard owt from Ned recently? London’s taken a hammering in this war and no mistake.’
Walter shrugged. ‘He was all right the last time he wrote, back in February.’ He would have to say something, he couldn’t keep this up. He felt sick, he couldn’t breathe. Oh, Renee, Renee. Veronica . . .
He stumbled, and David said, ‘Steady, man, steady. You don’t want to brain yourself before you get to the face.’ His voice was wry.
Walter managed a weak grin. He’d tell them after, not down here. You needed to keep your wits about you, especially now when the increased need for coal to fight the war meant they were cutting deeper and deeper into the wall of the face. The cutting machines that had been introduced over the last ten years saved a lot of blood, sweat and toil but they produced a constant cloud of coal and stone dust. And you couldn’t hear yourself think with hard steel blades slashing and screeching against stone and pneumatic drills hissing and hammering. But he wouldn’t mind that today. He didn’t want to think.
The deputy was waiting for them as they approached their place of work, and he nodded a greeting at them. ‘There’s been more pockets of gas released the last shift than I’ve noticed in a long time, lads. It’s collecting under the roof with the poor ventilation we’ve got this far in, so watch yourselves.’
‘Damn the gas, Tom. It’s the dust and muck in me bait that bothers me. The missus does me right proud an’ all; I wouldn’t dare tell her I can’t tell if she’s given me caviar or best steak.’
‘You should be so lucky, Alf.’
‘You wouldn’t like caviar anyway, man. Give me a nice bit of cod with plenty of batter any day.’
‘Oh aye? You’re something of a connoisseur of caviar, are you? Goes with the dinner suit an’ bow tie you’re wearin’, does it?’
As Walter listened to the lads chaffing each other, he thought, that was me yesterday. And now everything had changed. He’d done murder.
He’d murdered his wife.
His stomach turned right over and the bile came up into his mouth. He rested one hand against the wall of the face. ‘You go on a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling--’
He’d murdered his wife.
His stomach turned right over and the bile came up into his mouth. He rested one hand against the wall of the face. ‘You go on a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling--’
But he never got to finish the sentence. One moment David and Sandy were looking at him, the next there was a noise so loud it came out of the top of his head and he was flying through the air, men tumbling about him as clouds of dust hit his face and eyes and filled his mouth and nose. He landed hard on his back, arching up over a piece of sharp rock, and as the pain hit he knew he screamed but then he lost consciousness and didn’t know any more.
David hit the ground, landing on his front, and in the same moment he was aware he was on fire. He could hear other men screaming and tearing at their burning clothes and he rolled over and over in an effort to put out his own smouldering jacket and trousers. Some of the men had already stripped down to their underpants, boots and knee pads because where they were working was the hottest place in the pit, and he didn’t like to think what the flames had done to them.
When he was sure his clothes were out he lay still, and he became aware that there was a roar in his ears like a giant waterfall. He thought his eardrums had burst. It was blacker than pitch, no light at all. A measure of hearing returned and he could make out groans and cries around him. He felt as dizzy as when he’d gone on a pirate’s ship at one of the miners’ galas.
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