This is the way the world works. This small, small world –
The way it tilts and the way it turns –
The way it tilts and turns again.
Martin
Darren fourteen. They were digging to get some pocket money for Christmas presents. Digging it out with their bare hands for two quid a bag. Two pound notes. That was all. Spoil heap fell on them. Crushed them. Buried them. Suffocated them. Killed them. There were no television cameras there to see it happen. No reporters. Just two little lads lying dead under a mountain of muck. Two little lads who wanted to buy their mam and dad a Christmas present — Their father doesn’t have a job. Father doesn’t have any brass — He doesn’t have his lads now. Nothing now — They are fifth and sixth to die coal-picking in Yorkshire. This year. Nineteen eighty-four. Three of dead weren’t even old enough to smoke. Let alone vote — There’s silence in Welfare today. All day. Even in kitchen. No one speaks. No one — The fragments tumble down. The fragments clatter below — Theywhisper and they echo— I wake up. I get bus into Sheffield. Day 261. They’re putting up Christmas lights. Christmas tree. I can’t remember last time I was here. It must have been with our Cath, I suppose. Used to go in twice a month without fail when we first moved here. Window shopping. Looking at all things money could buy — Three-piece suites. Fitted bedrooms. Fridge-freezers. Video-recorders — Cath didn’t like to just look, though. Had to have something. I encouraged her and all. Made her feel better. That would last a day or so. Then catalogues would come back out. Tape measure. Like a drug with her, it was. Buying stuff. Filling up all empty spaces. Needed her fix or there was no talking to her. It was like an addiction. Even had a stone façade stuck on front of house. How much had that cost us? Fuck me, it looked daft. But that’s why I’m here, though. To see if I can see her. But deep down in my heart I know I won’t — I just wander about looking at all them things I can’t have. Then things I’ll never ever have again — Three-piece suites. Fitted bedrooms. Fridge-freezers. Video-recorders — Things I don’t even want again. Things I never wanted — They don’t have one thing I want. You can’t buy thing I want. Not round here. Not any more. Not in Britain today — Thing I want is to go back. Back to my place of work — Not on a bus with mesh over windows. Not in a hood with slits for eyes — I want to drive back up there. Park my car up with all other cars. Go into locker room and have a laugh with lads. Take cage down. Do my shift and have my snap. Do some graft and come back up. Wash up and clock off. Drive straight back home — Back home. Home to wife. My wife. My Cath — That’s what I want. That’s all I want — My wife back. My job back — My life. Life I had — That’s all I want. But I don’t see it. Not here. Not today — Day 264. Sunday again. Fucking Sunday. I can’t stay in house. I go down Hotel. I’ve got just enough for half a pint. Walk there and back will take up most of day. Fresh air helps me sleep. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I really don’t. I know there were them that thought it was best thing that ever happened to them. First few months. Especially some of them with kids — Time in house with them. Helping them with their homework. Doing different stuff. Stuff they’d never had time for before — Swimming. Football. Fishing. Hunting — I wonder how they feel about it all now. After nine months. Nine bloody months — Nine months of toast for their breakfast. Nine months of soup for their dinner. Nine months of spaghetti for their tea. Nine months of their kids without any new gear. Nine months of their kids on hand-outs and other folk’s cast-offs. Nine months of their wives trying to make ends meet. Nine months of their wives trying to hold them together. Nine months of them slowly falling apart. Nine months of them watching every single news programme there was. Nine months of them talking about nothing else. Nine months of them arguing and arguing and arguing and arguing and arguing. Nine months of them going up to the bedroom. Nine months of them lying on their backs. Nine months of them staring up at ceiling. Nine months of them wishing they were fucking dead — Day 267. I stopto rest on the heap.I watch fires light up ahead. This place is old. This stede is niht. This place is cold.
The Thirty-eighth Week
Monday 19 — Sunday 25 November 1984
Terry Winters waited until the children had left for school. Theresa for work. Terry went out onto the landing. He pulled down the ladder to the loft. He climbed up the ladder. Terry looked into the loft. He saw the two suitcases standing in the shadows –
Kiss me.
Terry got up into the loft. He walked across the chipboard. He took down the two suitcases. Terry went down the stairs with them. He left them on the kitchen floor. Terry went out to the garage. He opened the boot of the car. He took out two more suitcases. He carried them back inside. He put them down on the kitchen floor, next to the two suitcases from the loft –
Kiss me in the shadows.
Terry Winters went over to the cupboard under the sink. Terry took out a black dustbin-liner from under the sink. He took the bin-liner into the pantry. Terry emptied cream crackers and digestive biscuits out of their tins. He threw away cakes. Terry filled the bin-liner. He took it outside. He put it in the dustbin. Terry went back inside –
Kiss me, Diane.
Terry laid the four suitcases out on the kitchen floor. Terry opened the suitcases. He stared at the money. The money in the suitcases. Terry put his hands in the suitcases. The suitcases full of money. Terry sat at his kitchen table and counted out the money. The money into piles. Terry put some of the money into the empty biscuit tins. He put some of the money into the cake tins. He put the tins back on the shelves in the pantry Terry split the rest of the money between the four suitcases. He left two of the suitcases up in the loft again. He put the other two suitcases back in the boot of his car –
Kiss me in the shadows.
Terry sat at the wheel of his car. He had followed Diane’s instructions to the letter. The instructions she had written out. The instructions he was to destroy –
Kiss me in the shadows of my heart.