Under World. Reginald Hill

the fresh night air.

       Chapter 4

      By half past nine, Colin Farr was moving between his seat and the bar with a steady deliberation more worrying to Pedro Pedley than any amount of stagger and sway.

      ‘Young Col all right, is he?’ he asked Neil Wardle as the taciturn miner got another round in.

      ‘Aye,’ said Wardle, apparently uninterested.

      But when he got back to the table, he repeated the question as he set pints down before Farr and Dickinson.

      ‘All right, Col?’

      ‘Any reason I shouldn’t be?’

      ‘None as I can think of.’

      ‘Right, then,’ said Farr.

      ‘What’s that, Neil? A half? You sickening for something?’ said Tommy Dickinson, his face flushed with the room’s heat and his vain efforts to catch up with his friend’s intake.

      ‘No, but I’m off just now to a meeting,’ said Wardle.

      Wardle was on the branch committee of the Union. During the Great Strike there had been times when his lack of strident militancy and his quiet rationalism had brought accusations of ‘softness’. But as the Strike began to crumble and the men began to recognize that no amount of rhetoric or confrontation could bring the promised victory, Wardle’s qualities won more and more respect. There’d only been one ‘scab’ at Burrthorpe Main, but many who had weakened and come close to snapping knew that they too would now be paying the price of isolation if it hadn’t been for Wardle’s calm advice and rock-like support. Since the Strike he’d been a prime mover in the re-energizing of the shattered community. And it was Wardle who’d pushed Colin Farr into seeking a place on the Union-sponsored day-release course at the University.

      ‘Bloody meetings!’ said Dickinson. ‘I reckon committee’s got a woman up there and they take a vote on who gets first bash!’

      Wardle ignored him and said, ‘There’ll be a full branch meeting next Sunday, Col. You’ll be coming to that?’

      ‘Mebbe,’ said Farr indifferently. ‘They’ll likely manage without me, but.’

      ‘Likely we will. But will you manage without them?’

      ‘Union didn’t do my dad much good, did it?’ said Farr savagely.

      ‘It did the best it could and he never complained. Col, you were grand during the Strike. It were a miracle you didn’t end up in jail, the tricks you got up to. Nothing seemed too much bother for you then. But the fight’s not over, not by a long chalk. The Board’s got a long hit list and only them as are ready and organized will be able to fight it.’

      ‘Oh aye? Best day’s work they ever did if they put a lid on that fucking hole!’ exclaimed Farr.

      ‘You fought hard enough to keep it open in the Strike,’ said Wardle.

      ‘I fought. But don’t tell me what I fought for, Neil. Mebbe I just fought ’cos while you’re fighting, you don’t have time to think!’

      Wardle drank his beer, frowning. Dickinson, who hated a sour atmosphere, lowered his voice to what he thought of as a confidential whisper and said, ‘See who’s just come in? Gavin Mycroft and his missus. They’re sitting over there with Arthur Downey and that cunt, Satterthwaite. Right little deputies’ dog-kennel.’

      ‘I saw them,’ said Farr indifferently.

      ‘Here, Col, you still fancy Stella?’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Come on, Col, you were knocking her off rotten when you were a lad, up in the woods by the White Rock. By God I bet you made the chalk dust fly! And don’t say it weren’t serious. You got engaged when you went off, and you didn’t need to, ’cos you were stuffing her already!’

      He smiled at the perfection of his own logic.

      ‘That’s old news, Tommy,’ said Farr.

      ‘And you were well out of that,’ said Wardle. ‘Marrying a deputy in middle of the Strike and going off to Spain on honeymoon while there were kids going hungry back here! That’s no way for a miner’s daughter to act.’

      ‘What did you want her to do?’ exclaimed Farr. ‘Spend her honeymoon camping on a picket line?’

      ‘See! You still do fancy her!’ crowed Dickinson.

      ‘Why don’t you shut your big gob, Tommy, and get some drinks in?’ said Farr.

      Unoffended, the young miner rose and headed for the bar. Wardle called after him, ‘No more for me, Tommy. I’ve got to be off and look after you buggers’ interests.’

      He stood up.

      ‘Think on, Col. If you’re going to stay on round here, make it for the right reasons.’

      ‘What’d them be?’

      ‘To make it a place worth staying on in.’

      Farr laughed. ‘Clean-up job, you mean? Justice for the worker, that sort of stuff? Well, never fear, Neil. That’s why I’ve stayed on right enough.’

      Wardle looked at the young man with concern, but said nothing more.

      ‘Bugger off, Neil,’ said Farr in irritation. ‘It’s like having me dad standing over me waiting till I worked out what I’d done wrong.’

      ‘He were a clever man, old Billy,’ said Wardle.

      ‘If he were so bloody clever, how’d he end up with his neck broke at the bottom of a shaft?’ asked Farr harshly.

      ‘Mebbe when he had to transfer from the face, he brought some of the dark up with him. It happens.’

      ‘What the hell does that mean, Neil?’ said Farr very softly.

      ‘Figure of speech. See you tomorrow. Don’t be late. Jock never is.’

      Left to himself, Colin Farr sat staring sightlessly at the table surface for a while. Suddenly he rose. Glass in hand, he walked steadily down the room till he reached the table Dickinson had called the deputies’ dog-kennel.

      The three men seated there looked up as Farr approached. Only the woman ignored him. She was in her mid-twenties, heavily made-up, with her small features diminished still further by a frame of exaggeratedly bouffant silver-blonde hair. But no amount of make-up or extravagance of coiffure could disguise the fact that she had a lovely face. Her husband, Gavin Mycroft, was a few years older, a slim dark man with rather sullen good looks. Next to him, in his forties, sat Arthur Downey, also very thin but tall enough to be gangling with it. He had a long sad face with a dog’s big gentle brown eyes.

      The third man was squat and muscular. Balding at the front, he had let his dull gingery hair grow into a compensatory mane over his ears and down his neck.

      This was Harold Satterthwaite. He regarded Farr’s approach indifferently from heavily hooded eyes. Mycroft glowered aggressively, but Arthur Downey half rose and said, ‘Hello, Col. All right? Can I get you a drink?’

      ‘Got one,’ said Farr. ‘Just want a word with Stella.’

      The woman didn’t look up, but her husband rose angrily, saying, ‘Listen, Farr, I’ll not tell you again …’

      Downey took his sleeve and pulled him down.

      ‘Keep it calm, Gav. Col’s not looking for bother, are you, Col?’

      Farr looked amazed, then said with an incredibly sweet smile, ‘Me? Nay, you know me better than that, surely? It’s just that me mam wants Mrs Mycroft’s receipt for potato cakes. It’s all right