“Now for it,” somebody announced, and an enormous cracking sound, a million twig-power went six times into the sky — followed by the muffled noise of collapsing walls somewhere in the broken and derelict maze.
A policeman’s horse reared up, tried to climb an invisible stairway leading from the explosions, then saw sense and merely stood nodding its head and foaming. A bleak scream came from some woman at the back of the crowd and Brian saw her led away by men in black and white uniforms. “Is she frightened, dad?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not, are you?”
“No.” But Seaton lifted him down, dragged him roughly out of the crush.
“Is that the end, dad?”
“Stop asking bleddy questions, will yer?” Brian caught his mood, and the bomb that had lodged itself inside his chest suddenly burst, scattering more blind havoc in him than the actual grenades sent from the flight of planes. “Stop cryin’, will yer?” Seaton tugged at him angrily. “Come on, if you stop cryin’ I’ll buy you an ice-cream cornet.”
“I don’t want one,” he roared, thereby creating a big puzzle, its depth measurable only by Seaton’s inability to solve it. “Then what do you want?”
And without giving the question any thought, he answered: “Nowt”—and went on crying till he stopped.
On a wet afternoon two tall men wearing raincoats and nicky hats knocked at the front door. Vera led them into the room where Seaton sat. Brian, sprawled on the floor playing with a box of dominoes, noticed that she was almost in tears, something that never failed to touch off the sea-controlling springs at the back of his own heart. She stood with folded arms, and the two men stayed by the door. “They’ve come for you, Harold,” she said. He turned his head and looked up from the fireplace.
“We don’t want any trouble,” one of the men said, seeing desperation in his ashy face.
He looked at them for some time. “You’ll have to keep me,” he remarked at last, forcing a smile.
“We know all about that.”
Seaton hadn’t moved from his chair. “And my family as well you’ll have to keep.”
“That’s nothing to do with us,” he was told.
Vera unfolded her arms, ran a finger along one of her eyes. “Shall I get you your coat, duck?”
“Aye, you might as well,” he answered, standing up. “I’m going on holiday, and I suppose I’ll see a lot of my pals there as well.” This witticism amused him, and he laughed, his face relaxed. The two men said nothing. “Got a car?” Seaton asked them.
“No,” one said, “it’s not far; we’ll walk you down.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it matters if the neighbours guess what’s going on. It might ’ave been them if they did but know it. If I’d ’ad a job to wok at I wouldn’t a done this. But when yer kids ain’t got no grub, what else can you do?” He’d run up too many food bills at too many shops. It’s a big country, he thought. There’s grub in the shops for everybody, so why ain’t there wok? I don’t know, it beats me, it does.
Vera came back with his coat. “Will you want your mac as well?”
“No,” he said, “keep it. You’ll have to pawn it when you get short.” Brian felt himself lifted from the dominoes and kissed; then quickly put down. “Don’t let the kids get at my tools, Vera, will you?”
“No,” she said, “they’ll be all right.”
A watch was looked at, and Seaton realized aloud that he’d better go. “I’ll see you in a couple o’ months then. It’s nowt to worry about, duck. I’ll be all right, and you’ll be all right. They’ve got to keep you all, so they’ll be the losers in the end.”
“Come on, young man,” the eldest said. “We haven’t got all day. We’re busy.”
“I expect you are,” Seaton said.
Brian was too involved in his collapsing line of dominoes to wonder what was going on, and his mother must have been crying for some time before he joined in, without knowing why. Not that she knew why she was crying, because, as Seaton had truthfully said, none of them would starve while he was in Lincoln; and it would be as much of a holiday for her as it would be for him, and this thought lifted her from despair as she set the table and put on the kettle to boil and sat wondering however she’d come to marry a bloody fool who got himself sent to jail — and was a rotter to her in the bargain. She could hardly believe it had happened like it had, and that she was in such a fine bleddy mess; and it was impossible not to spend the next hour brooding on it, going back over the last few years and picking them to pieces as if they were the components of a complex lock that, once opened, might solve something.
CHAPTER 2
Merton had scratched his head. He drew back at the sound of some far-flung twig or half-hearted gate rattling from outside, hoping to hear the door-latch lift and Vera make her way across the kitchen to say she was sorry for being late.
Which is too much to expect, he thought, from any man’s daughter since the war. Leaves made a noise like the erratic beginning of a rainstorm: October: if she comes in wet she’ll get my fist, he promised himself, turning back to the fire, and no mistake; I can’t have her getting her death o’ cold and then not being fit for wok; she manages to get enough time off as it is. But he knew it wouldn’t rain because he hadn’t yet noticed the pause between the end of leaves falling and the commencing tread of mute cats running lightfoot through them; so he swung a watch from his waistcoat pocket in pursuance of another reason to be angry, and saw with satisfying indignation that it was eleven o’clock. What a bloody time to be coming home, and me having to get up at five in the morning because they’re bringing a dozen ponies up from the Deep Main. They’ll be hell to pay getting ’em out of the skips — and all of ’em to be shod before they’re turned loose by the tip-field. Allus the same when you want an early night.
He spat forcefully at the fire-bars and his spit didn’t sizzle with the alacrity to which he was accusomed, thereby reinforcing his often-said conviction that nothing in life could be relied on. By God she’ll get the stick when she comes in for keeping me up like this. Yellow flames from a darkening unstable fire-bed blazed full-tilt upwards, and with the self-made poker he pushed a lump of prime pit coal into the last effort of the inferno. God bugger it, there was no doubt about using the stick, and he turned, while thrusting back his watch, to make sure it still leaned by the pantry door. It was bad luck for Vera — the last of Merton’s brood young enough to be disciplined in this way — because she shared his anger with the dogs now barking in the yard, was the wall to his violent and frequent upstarts of passion, which usually — though not always — coincided with signs of defiance in what animals or humans happened to be under his control; and whereas the dogs would lick his hand a few hours after one of his uncouth godlike flings of rage, Vera took days before she could force herself into the kitchen for a meal. Such domineering reached beyond the borderline of family, for Merton was recognized as the mainstaying blacksmith of the pit he worked at, where, no matter how obstinate or too-happy the horses and ponies became, they were soon broken into docility by his strong will; hence shoes hammered on to tranquil hoofs by Merton only loosened when nails could no longer support the thinning metal. A lit pipe signalled a good job done, and no chafing butty or gaffer begrudged him the loud smack their horses got on the arse as an indication that it should be taken clip-clop back to its shafts outside the shed door; they’d better not, either, because that was the on’y way to deal with ’em; a clout for the hoss so’s the rest on ’em would do as they was towd.