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Chapter Four
January 1911

The next day, Daniel and Adam went on the bus to Gratton, the nearest town, to visit the board school. He sat in a room full of dusty books and completed an exam which he found easy – the standard here seemed lower than in London, and by the end of the day their business was done. There would be no fees to pay; all Adam had to do was buy his own textbooks and pay for the bus fares, and work hard.

‘Your boy’s got brains,’ said the headmaster, shaking Daniel’s hand. He was an earnest-looking man with intense grey eyes and an evident sense of mission. ‘He’ll go far if he stays the distance.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Daniel, looking pleased. ‘I’ll make sure he does that.’

‘What does he mean – stay the distance?’ asked Adam as they waited in the queue at the bus stop.

‘Most children leave school even if they have the chance of staying on. Times are hard and there’s pressure from their families to have the extra income, and then they want to have their own money too.’

‘Like Ernest?’ said Adam.

‘Yes. Edgar has bought his house and that means the family needs more. The rent we’re paying will help too – my cousin’s a generous man but he knows which side his bread’s buttered.’

‘Don’t you trust him, Dad?’ asked Adam. There was something in his father’s voice that he had picked up on – an anxiety, an uncertainty perhaps about the future. Adam couldn’t put his finger on it but he knew it was there.

‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel meditatively. ‘Edgar’s strong, and the other miners look up to him. I can tell that. And he wants to change their lives for them, just like he’s changed his own. But he doesn’t trust himself to be their leader; he thinks you need book learning for that, which is where I come in. I just hope he hasn’t misjudged me.’

It was dark when they got back to Scarsdale and rain was in the air, blown here and there by an indiscriminate wind that carried coal dust on its back up from the slag heap down below where a tangle of lights lit up the pithead. At the station Adam could see trucks on the sidings standing full of bright wet coal glistening in the moonlight, and by the doors of the miners’ houses the rainwater was washing away the early shift times written in chalk on the knock-up slates. Daniel told him that they were there for the knocker-upper, an old man who rode round the streets of the town on a bicycle in the early mornings, waking up the miners by tapping on their windows, using a long pole with wires attached.

In the house at the end of Station Street it was bath night. The galvanized iron tub that Adam had noticed hanging on a hook outside the back door when he went out to use the privy in the morning had been dragged into the living room and filled with hot water which Edgar’s wife had boiled up laboriously in the two kettles by the fire. And one by one the men of the family took turns bathing, scrubbing their pale bodies with Watson’s Matchless Cleansing Carbolic, although it was Annie’s job to wash their backs. Sitting out of the way in the corner of the room, Adam was touched to see how tenderly she ran the cloth across her husband’s shoulder blades, dabbing at the multitude of pale blue scars like tattoo marks where the coal had lodged under his skin. And then at the end Adam and Ernest carried the bath outside to pour away the inky-black water and leave it ready for the laundry work to begin the next day.

Further at the back, beyond the privy and the ash pit, a pig grunted in its makeshift sty. Perhaps it didn’t like the rain – Adam didn’t know. There had been pigs in the back gardens in London too, fattened through the year for slaughter in the autumn, but Adam had avoided them, pained by the certainty of their coming death. He felt it an ill omen that there should be another here and hoped that he and his father would have ‘found their feet’ and moved to their own house before killing time came round.

Back in the warmth of the house, Edgar, swathed in clean towels, was squatting in front of the fire, toasting brown sugar on a spoon until it turned black. Adam watched as he took a frying pan, added water and flour and mixed them with the burnt sugar for gravy. The movements of his big powerful hands were quick and fluid – hands that could make things but could unmake them too. He caught Adam’s eye and smiled.

‘Come over ’ere, lad. There’s summat I wanna show thee.’

He reached up above the mantelpiece and took down a small round tin box about two inches in diameter and six inches deep and turned it over in his fingers a moment before handing it to Adam.

‘Hang on to that and I’ll tell thee its story,’ he said. ‘Thy grand-uncle, thy father’s uncle and my father, ’e made that. Forty year ago when ’e wor workin’ in the Marley Main mine south o’ here, and the pit went up wi’ an explosion on account o’ they was usin’ matches to light their lamps – silly ignorant fools that they were – an’ one caught the firedamp that they ’ave underground. Firedamp – it’s a gas. Methane they calls it too,’ he added, catching the puzzled look on Adam’s face. ‘Any road, a lot o’ boys thy age lost their lives that day, but two ’o them survived by a miracle, trapped behind the fallen rock. An’ my dad, ’e drilled a borehole through the stone so ’e could pass this ’ere tin through to ’em with food and water for ’em to ’ave while they were diggin’ ’em out.’

‘And did they?’ asked Adam, looking down at the old tin in his hand, wondering at how Edgar had transformed it from an apparently worthless object into something so precious in just a few sentences.

‘Did they wot?’

‘Dig them out. Did they survive – the two who were trapped?’

‘One o’ ’em did, t’other didn’t. You takes your chances, but the point is that we stick together, us miners. We ’ave to,’ he added, glancing over at Daniel, who was sitting reading the newspaper at the table. And Adam sensed suddenly that Edgar had been telling the story to his father just as much as to him.

Ernest began his shift late on Monday and so there was time for him to walk with Adam to the bus. The stop was in a square across from the station where the village shop and pub and the Miners’ Institute were also located. In the middle a set of rusty swings stood on an uneven patch of worn-out grass – the town’s sole concession to the concept of small children’s entertainment. On warmer days mothers sat on the wooden benches and gossiped, resting their legs before they walked home, and teenagers came here too when they weren’t working, the girls watching the boys and the boys watching the girls and all of them pretending that they were doing nothing of the kind, gathered together in their separate self-conscious groups on opposite sides of the green.

The bus was late and some boys came over when they saw Ernest. One of them stood out from the rest. He was thin and wiry with short hair cropped tight to his skull, dressed in pit clothes that seemed too big for him, as if he was wearing his father’s cast-offs, and he walked with an almost imperceptible limp, slightly favouring his left leg over his right. He was looking at Adam, not Ernest, and Adam sensed the boy’s hostility. It seemed personal, as if he already knew who Adam was and didn’t like what he knew.

‘You’re goin’ up in the world, Ernest,’ he said. ‘Got a new pal wi’ smart London clothes to wear. Wot’s ’is name?’

The boy spoke with a strong local accent but Adam sensed that this was a choice, a deliberate statement of identity.

‘My name’s Adam,’ he said, stepping forward, putting out his hand. He refused to be cowed, not after all he had gone through.

The boy kept his hand in his pockets, looking at Adam’s outstretched hand with contempt. ‘An’ wot hast thou got in there?’ he asked, nodding at Adam’s bag

‘School books,’ said Adam. ‘I’m going to the board school in Gratton.’

‘I knows where the board school is,’ said the boy. ‘I’m not stoopid, you know, even if I work for me livin’.’

‘I never said you were,’ said Adam, standing his ground.

The boy smiled coldly, apparently amused by Adam’s boldness. ‘So let’s see ’em,’ he demanded, pointing at the bag. ‘Show us what we’re missin’ while we’re down mine, ’ackin’ out the coal for thy fire.’

‘Leave him alone, Rawdon,’ said Ernest nervously. ‘He’s done nothing to you.’

‘“Done nothing to you,”’ the boy repeated. He was a good mimic, catching the anxious defiance in Ernest’s voice. ‘Aye, I s’pose ’e’s done nowt, apart from ’is father comin’ an’ takin’ me father’s job,’ he said, switching his attention back to Adam. ‘An’ ’im ’ere bein’ too good for the pit an’ the likes o’ us. Now show us,’ he shouted, taking hold of Adam’s bag and wrenching it out of his hand. ‘Show us what you’ve got!’

The bag opened and the textbooks fell out on to the muddy ground. Adam was horrified, momentarily lost for words. Less than two days previously he had felt such pride of ownership when his father had taken him to the bookshop in Gratton High Street and they’d selected the books from the densely packed shelves. His father had paid for them at the counter, and then made Adam a present of a pen with a fine silver nib with which to inscribe his name on the flyleaves. God knows how much they had all cost, and now here they were – covered in dirt, while this vile thug read out their titles in a clipped, mincing voice, a parody of his own. It was intolerable – a violation.

Adam grabbed at the mathematics book in Rawdon’s hand but the boy was too quick for him, throwing it over Adam’s head to one of his friends who caught it and threw it on to another. But Adam didn’t turn round. He realized in that instant that there was no reasoning with his tormentors, that the only solution was to fight this boy, Rawdon, and to fight now while the anger was red hot inside him, giving him courage. He took a deep breath and charged forward. Perhaps Rawdon had underestimated his enemy, believed that he really was an effete southerner unable to stand up for himself, but he certainly wasn’t ready for Adam’s frontal attack. Their heads clashed and he fell to the ground winded, the spine of one of the textbooks cracking under his weight.

Immediately Adam got up, holding out his fists, and Rawdon’s friends stepped back. ‘Fight, fight,’ one of them shouted and the rest took up the refrain. Adam glanced over at Ernest who nodded his understanding – Adam had at least succeeded in dividing Rawdon from his supporters. The fight would be between the two of them now – much better odds than they had been a moment before.

Slowly Rawdon got to his feet, his dark blue eyes fixed on Adam. He dropped his hands and then suddenly delivered a hooking punch up towards Adam’s jaw. Instinctively Adam pulled out of the way, but he still felt the full force of Rawdon’s follow-up blow, delivered hard to the chest with his other fist. He felt a dense pain followed immediately by a sharp nausea. But he refused to give into his hurt, remembering instead how his father had kept his head, fighting the huge gypsy in the Islington marketplace all those years before. Adam sensed he was his adversary’s equal in strength, and, remembering Rawdon’s limp, he knew he had an advantage in mobility if he could find a way to exploit it.

He moved back, shifting his weight from foot to foot, waiting for Rawdon’s next move.

‘What art thou then? Some sort o’ prancin’ ballet dancer?’ sneered Rawdon. ‘Did you learn that down in London too?’

The other boys laughed but Adam didn’t hear them. He had that rare ability to shut out all distraction when he wanted to, and to operate without emotion when the need arose. He was naturally brave and he had already put aside his anger. Fighting was about control – if he kept his self-control he sensed he could win.

He jabbed with his fist at Rawdon’s face, cutting him under the eye, and then danced back, easily avoiding Rawdon’s heavy-armed response. And then repeated the move again, aiming always at the same place, watching as the blood seeped out from under the skin and trickled down his enemy’s cheek. Now it was Rawdon’s turn to become enraged. He rushed at Adam, kicking out with his hard boots, reaching up to pull him to the ground. But Adam was too quick for him. He’d seen what was coming and stepped neatly out of the way, connecting with a hard punch to the side of Rawdon’s head that sent him sprawling on the ground.

He lay face down in the dirt for a moment and then started to get up with his fists clenched.

‘I’ll ’ave thee,’ he shouted, his bleeding face twisted in rage, but Ernest stepped between him and Adam, pushing him back with his outstretched hands.

‘That’s enough, Rawdon,’ he said. ‘You lost the fight and that’s an end of it. You must shake hands.’

‘I’ll be damned if I will,’ Rawdon shouted. But he had lost the support of his friends.

‘Ernie’s right. Shake ’is ’and, Rawdon,’ said the tallest of them, a handsome boy with jet-black hair, putting his hand on Rawdon’s shoulder.

Rawdon shook him off but, looking round, he knew the game was up, at least for now. Ernest gave him a searching look and stepped aside and Rawdon touched Adam’s outstretched hand with his own and then turned away. ‘Some o’ us ’round ’ere ’ave to go to work,’ he said, walking away towards the railway line. The rest of his friends followed him but the tall one stayed back, picking up the mathematics book from the ground and dusting off the dirt as best he could with his hand.

‘You fought well,’ he said, handing the book to Adam. ‘You’ve nowt to be ashamed of.’

‘Who was that?’ Adam asked, watching the boy walking quickly across the green to catch up with his friends.

‘Luke Mason. He’s all right. And the girls like him,’ said Ernest with a grin. ‘Most of the lads aren’t so bad when you get to know them, but Rawdon’s different. He’s angry all the time – it’ll be someone else’s turn tomorrow, I’ll be bound.’

Adam smiled, grateful for his friend’s attempt at reassurance, although he didn’t believe it was genuine. Rawdon’s antipathy had been deeply personal, not some offshoot of a general resentment against the world.

‘What did he mean about my father taking his father’s job?’ he asked.

‘Rawdon’s father, Whalen, wanted to be the union secretary when old Harris retired. It goes with being checkweighman, which is a nice job – good pay and up on the pithead, not down below. Whalen’s very political, very involved with the union, and he thought the job was his for the asking. But my dad wouldn’t have it – he wanted your dad after what he read about him in the paper. And what my dad wants is pretty much law down the pit.’

‘What paper?’

‘The Herald. They reported all about the strike your dad organized and about what happened to your mother …’ Ernest stopped, clearly embarrassed at his casual mention of Adam’s bereavement. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …’

‘It’s all right,’ said Adam. ‘Thank you for helping me today. I won’t forget it.’ The bus had arrived while they were talking and he reached over and shook Ernest’s hand before he got on. He meant what he’d said – it was a long time since he’d felt he had a friend.

On Sunday Daniel took his son to church. Adam was surprised. He vividly remembered the division in the house in London between his mother’s devout Christianity at one polar opposite and his father’s outspoken atheism at the other. According to Daniel there couldn’t be a God who would allow the world he’d created to be so unfair, so cruel to the vast majority of those who had the misfortune to be born into it. And since his mother’s death Adam had been inclined to agree with his father. The God to whom he had once prayed to find his father work and watch over his family seemed like a foolish figment of his childhood imagination, a cardboard cut-out figure with his big white beard and all-seeing eyes.

‘Why are we going, Dad?’ he asked as they walked up the hill together in the cold bright morning, leaving the mine and the streets of grey terraced houses behind them.

‘Because your mother would have wanted it,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s one of the only ways we can honour her memory.’

Adam nodded, accepting the explanation. ‘Does Edgar know we’re going?’ he asked. Like many of the miners, Daniel’s cousin was not a religious man. Church for him was where the owners and the managers went: its doctrines of social respect and obedience were useful tools to buttress their control of the workforce.

‘Yes, he knows. And he understands why,’ said Daniel. But Adam sensed an unease in his father’s voice that belied the certainty of his response.

The church was beautiful. It was smaller and simpler in design than the church in Islington, made of an old silvery-grey stone that was cold to the touch. There was no stained glass and the morning light poured in through the high leaded windows of the clerestory. The brick floor of the nave was uneven, worn down by centuries of use, and the carvings on the oak-wood chancel screen were primitive and mysterious – flat ancient faces with thin mouths and opaque eyes. The building was timeless, far removed from the ugly excrescence of the mining town stretching out behind it down the hill.

It was a family church built and maintained through the centuries by the Scarsdale family. Their huge marble mausoleum surrounded by iron railings and encrusted with black names and dates dominated the churchyard; and inside, a baroque tomb of two seventeenth-century ancestors carved in relief, lying side by side on a stone bed in the south transept, struck the only unharmonious note in the church’s architecture.

The empty front pew was reserved for the present occupants of Scarsdale Hall who had not yet arrived when Daniel and Adam took their seats at the back of the church. They came in just before the service was about to start: the father, a straight-backed, thin-faced man in his fifties with a long aquiline nose and a short clipped grey beard and moustache, was dressed in the severe formal fashion of thirty years before, and had on his arm a younger wife, who moved slowly up the aisle, her movement sharply constricted by a wasp-waisted hobble skirt that reached narrowly down to her ankles. The wilting sleeves of her silk blouse dripped with expensive lace and a wide-brimmed hat covered with artificial flowers was perched on the front of her head at just the right angle to show off her conventionally pretty face.

They were an ill-assorted couple, Adam thought: the husband making no effort at ostentation and the wife self-consciously fashionable and excessively over-dressed for the simple country setting. And behind them came their younger son, Brice, a boy of Adam’s age in an expensive suit with a carnation in his buttonhole and a gold-topped walking cane and pearl-grey silk hat in his hand. He looked very like his mother and yet he hadn’t inherited her good looks. The slightly drooping edges of her full mouth conveyed an impression of sensuality but the same feature on her son gave him a look of bored condescension, and while her dimpled chin was pretty, his small version made him seem weak and petulant.

Adam liked the parson, Mr Vale. He seemed down-to-earth and preached an inclusive gospel based on the second commandment, although there were precious few miners there to hear him. They were either Methodists attending the chapel on the other side of the valley or non-believers like Edgar, who saw the sabbath as an opportunity to catch up on sleep after the heavy demands of the working week. None of the family had been out of bed when Daniel and Adam had left for church in the morning.

The parson was waiting at the lychgate in his surplice with his daughter beside him when the congregation came out after the service. She was the most beautiful girl Adam had ever seen; she stopped him in his tracks at the door of the church, staring at her wide-eyed over the gravestones. She was dressed in a plain black dress with lace-up Oxford shoes and a bonnet. Nothing special, nothing fancy – just dark liquid eyes and rich dark hair and skin like white honey and a way of looking about her that seemed shy and tender all the same time. Adam thought that if he had been asked to write down every feature of the perfect female face then each one would have been hers, and yet he had never imagined her face in any of his dreams.

He stayed just outside the porch feasting his eyes on her, memorizing her, and prayed that she wouldn’t look back in his direction. He didn’t want to embarrass her but he didn’t want to stop watching her – the way she bent her slender neck forward to listen to her father, smiling in a way that lit up her face from inside as he spoke to the parishioners passing through the gate. And she didn’t notice him, didn’t feel his gaze. Someone else did instead – the owner’s son, Brice Scarsdale, the boy with the gold-tipped cane and the weak chin. He’d been standing watching the girl too and now he realized suddenly that she had another admirer.

He left his parents and came over to Adam. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked angrily, twirling his stick.

‘Adam Raine,’ said Adam evenly. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Never mind that. Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at a lady?’ Brice demanded angrily.

‘Yes,’ said Adam, looking him in the eye. ‘But you were doing the same.’

‘How dare you!’ said Brice. ‘Why, I’ve half a mind to—’ He raised the stick but then dropped it, remembering where he was. ‘You should learn some respect for your betters,’ he said and turned abruptly on his heel, walking quickly over to his parents, who were at that moment climbing into their chauffeur-driven motor car. And as they were driven away, Adam had the exquisite pleasure of being introduced to the parson’s daughter. Miriam was her name and she smiled at him as he took her hand.

In the afternoon there was a visitor at the house in Station Street. Luke Mason, the boy who’d spoken to Adam after the fight, was at the door holding a football under his arm.

‘Do you want to play, Ernest?’ he asked. ‘It’s a fine day. An’ thy friend can come too if ’e wants,’ he added, nodding to Adam.

Adam did want to; he could think of nothing that he wanted to do more, in fact. Days sitting on the bus or in classrooms had left him pent up with nervous energy. And he liked football. It had been one of the street games he’d played growing up, although the makeshift balls they’d used had been nothing like the heavy dark brown leather object that Luke was carrying.

What’s it made of?’ Adam asked.

‘It’s a rubber bladder inside an’ then tanned leather on top, eighteen sections of it all stitched together. Look, you can see the seams: it’s beautiful work,’ said Luke, holding the ball out for Adam to inspect. ‘Our team won it two year ago when we won the Mines Cup. Not the proper one, mind, but the one for kids our age. ’Twas the match ball an’ we won in the last minute. It was a great day, weren’t it, Ernest?’ said Luke with a faraway look in his eye, remembering past glory.

‘Yes, it was,’ said Ernest, smiling. ‘There’s never been a better.’

‘Who scored the goal?’ asked Adam.

‘Rawdon. An’ ’twas Ernest that gave ’im the cross,’ said Luke. Adam liked the way Luke wanted to tell everything correctly, to ensure that everyone got the credit he deserved.

‘Will Rawdon be there today?’ asked Adam.

‘Yes, but there won’t be any trouble. I can promise thee that. It’s the game that matters,’ said Luke. And Adam believed him.

The football pitch was on the edge of the town. It was surprisingly well kept with nets behind the goals, benches for spectators, and a single-storey wooden pavilion for changing with a green and white scoreboard on the outside.

There were about fifteen boys already there when they arrived and they started playing almost straightaway. Adam was on Luke’s team. He could see Rawdon down at the other end of the field, standing between the other side’s goalposts.

‘You look like a runner,’ said Luke. ‘So try it on the wing. See what you think.’

The game was played at a frantic pace and the tackling was hard. Like the ball – when Adam headed it he felt as if he’d been hit with a lead weight, and Luke laughed. ‘Hurts the first time, don’t it? But you’ll get used to it.’

Several times they had to stop to reinflate the ball’s bladder and the boys drank water from the standpipe. Some of them had brought oranges and they ate them, leaning with their backs against the pavilion. Adam recognized several from the day of the fight but they were friendly now, united in their love of the game and the exhilaration of running in the open air after a week of working in the mine.

Near the end, when the score was tied at one apiece, Adam got the ball far out on the right and, instead of passing it as he had done up to then, he ran at the other side’s full back, feinting to the outside and then cutting back in, leaving his opponent wrong-footed as he went past. He looked up but there was no one on his team nearby and so he ran on, heading towards the goal where Rawdon stood waiting for him, holding out his arms to make himself big and cut off the shot.

Adam could see that Rawdon had positioned himself well and that the angle was too tight to score. He’d taken one too many strides and his only hope was to go round the goalkeeper. And so at the last moment, just as he was about to collide with Rawdon, he twisted his body to the left, kicking the ball away from Rawdon’s outstretched hand. Rawdon had already committed himself and, charging forward, he knocked Adam to the ground. It was a mirror image of what had happened on the day of the fight. One of the defenders rushing back was in time to kick the ball away and out of danger.

As Adam got to his feet, he found himself surrounded by the other players. They were arguing amongst themselves about what had happened; about whether Rawdon had committed a foul, whether there should be a penalty kick.

‘’E ran into ’im. There wor nowt Rawdon could do about it,’ said one.

‘Rawdon took ’is legs. The new kid would’ve scored if ’e ’adn’t,’ said another.

There was no referee to make the decision and Adam couldn’t see how they were going to resolve the dispute until Luke stepped in.

‘What do you think, Rawdon?’ he asked. ‘Was it a penalty?’

Rawdon hesitated, surprised to be asked. The rest of the players fell silent, waiting. Adam could see that it was a clever move by Luke. Would Rawdon take his own side or would he want to look fair? And the second choice also gave him a chance at glory if he could save the penalty kick.

He glanced at Adam, looking him up and down for a moment, and made his decision. ‘I reckon it was,’ he said. ‘But e’s got to take it. Not thee, Luke. You know our rules.’

‘Good,’ said Luke. ‘I agree.’ And he handed the ball to Adam, pointing at the almost invisible white spot painted into the muddy grass twelve yards from the goal.

Adam took four steps back and braced himself, trying to concentrate on the ball and not look at Rawdon, who was staring at him from the goalmouth. He’d decided to go to the left. He didn’t know why but he was certain of his decision, and yet the knowledge didn’t stop his heart thumping in his chest. It felt like a hammer beat, but there was no time left to calm down. It was just a kick, he told himself as he got ready to run; just one stupid kick, and yet in that instant he wanted it to succeed more than he could ever remember wanting anything. Perhaps he wanted it too much, which was why he half slipped as he went forward, scuffing the shot so that it lost most of its power as it travelled towards the middle of the goal. It should have been easy to save but Rawdon had read Adam’s intentions too well. He dived hard to his right and watched helplessly as the ball rolled past his feet into the net.

Adam’s team cheered. They’d won the match and it didn’t matter if the new boy had got lucky. He’d played well and he’d made the chance for himself. They laughed, clapping him on the back as they walked off, and even some of the other team’s players joined in. But Rawdon stood watching him with a look of concentrated hostility. He waited, leaning against a goalpost, until they were alone, facing each other.