‘Here,’ Mari said. From a drawer she produced two flat bars of chocolate and slipped them into the bag too. She had put by the money for them secretly, buying less food for the week and doing without when Nick was out of the house. Nick didn’t try to protest. He understood the gesture and the price of it. He smiled crookedly instead, then put his arms round her and kissed her.
‘I’ll eat a square a day, and think of you,’ he promised. She felt light in his arms, birdlike, and small for the weight of responsibility that he felt towards her and Dickon, dependent on him. Nick suddenly thought of saying that he wouldn’t go after all, that he would stay because she wanted him to. But the men were waiting for him at the bottom of the hill. He had to go. He had to act on what be believed in, otherwise how could he justify the belief?
‘I won’t come down with you,’ she whispered. ‘Because of Dickon.’
Nick kissed her again and they shivered, held against one another. Then he lifted the bag and the blanket bumped awkwardly.
‘Two weeks,’ he promised, and walked out into the dark, dripping entry. Someone had scratched WORK, NOT WALKS on the bricks.
Mari listened to his steps receding into silence, and then stared round the kitchen at his empty mug, and the imprint of him in the armchair where he had bent to lace his worn boots.
It was so cheerless without him that she was almost crying again. When he was here they quarrelled, repetitively and wearyingly, and when he was gone she couldn’t bear it.
Upstairs Dickon began calling her. ‘Mam. Maa-am.’ He had only a few proper words. The others that he used most were ‘Dad’ and ‘More’. Even Dickon was beginning to understand that there usually wasn’t any more, but his endless repetition of it was one of the day’s painful refrains. Mari sighed.
‘I’m coming, love,’ she called up to him.
Nick squared his shoulders beneath the straps and set off down the hill. The wet slate roofs of the houses shone like mirrors, and smoke from the chimneys already hung like greasy bunting over them. The air smelt of coal as it always did, gritty and rough at the top of his lungs, cut through with the rival scents of damp and, very faintly, of frying food. The streets were deserted. Those who had work were already there, and it was too early yet for the knots of aimless men to gather and talk on the street corners.
The arranged meeting point for the Nantlas marchers was the old pit gates. It had never reopened after the explosion, and the heavy padlocks and chains on the gates were rusted over.
As Nick came over the humped iron bridge spanning the railway and the river, he saw that most of the twenty-odd marchers from the village were already there, waiting for him.
Two or three of them waved cheerfully at him, and called out greetings.
‘Feeling in good leg are you, Nick boy?’
‘Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag …’ someone else sang in a fine, resonant tenor, and there was a ripple of ironic laughter.
Nick was counting the heads. Two more men joined them, making the full complement. He took a deep breath. It was the setting-off point at last. There had been weeks of planning, with the Fed at first wary of then, finally, co-operative with the National Unemployed Workers Movement and with the idealistic young men of Appleyard Street, London. Letters of encouragement had come from Jake Silverman, and funds had been sent by the Communist Party of Great Britain. Jake Silverman had even followed his letters to the Rhondda, and Nick had listened to him talking about the coming of the glorious revolution to a roomful of unemployed miners.
His colleagues on the Federation executive recognized that the hunger marches were as good a way as any of drawing public attention to the mass of unemployed. But Nick himself was more interested in marching the one hundred and fifty miles straight to London and confronting the Prime Minister with the Federation’s demands. He had volunteered himself as a march organizer unhesitatingly, with that goal in mind. He had been proud of the idea that he would be part of the deputation of miners that would march on from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street. And yet, now that the moment had come, he felt the wrench of leaving Mari and Dickon. The crowd of men was growing restive. They jostled one another and called out their impatience.
Nick lifted up his arms to quieten them again.
‘That’s it, lads. Shall we make a start? Don’t want to keep them waiting down the valley, do we?’
They shuffled awkwardly into a column. Half of the men had fought in the War, and remembered the discipline of marches. The rest lined up behind them, grinning in embarrassment. There was a ragged cheer of encouragement from the wives, children and old men who had gathered against the railings to watch them go.
‘Good luck, boys. You tell ‘em, up in London.’
Amidst the renewed cheers, the uncertain column began to wind away along the valley road. At the back of the line two boys were carrying a roll of canvas. They looked at the waving hands, and the erect shoulders in front of them, and then glanced at each other. At once they dropped the canvas roll and unwrapped it. Inside was a green silk banner. It was gaudy with gold threads and the scarlet of a huge dragon, its tail curling back over its head. Nantlas, Rhondda was embroidered on it in big gold letters, and the initials SWMF. They slotted the supporting poles quickly together and hoisted the banner between them. The wind tugged at the gold fringes and the silk bellied out, making a riveting splash of colour amongst the drab greys.
It was like a signal. From windows and doors up the terraces heads appeared and the cheering was carried up the hillside in thin, insistent waves. Nick glanced back from the head of the line and saw the banner glaring bravely behind him. The march, setting out in hunger and despair, was suddenly festive, like the Galas of the old days. He lengthened his stride and the marchers swung along behind him in the pride of the moment.
The singer was next to him. He looked back too, smiling, and then began to sing again.
Hello, Piccadilly, Hello, Leicester Square,
It’s a long, long road up from the valleys,
But we’ll march, right there.
Nick joined in, and the song was taken up all along the line until they were singing and marching and the waving and cheering followed them all along the road until the corner took them round the fold of the hillside and out of sight.
The road ran on in front of them, flanking the railway line with its empty, rust-red trucks shunted into deserted sidings. The slag mountains towered on either side of them, and the black scars of the workings bit into the green hillsides. No one glanced at the scenery. Strung out down the valley were more towns and villages like Nantlas. More men would join them from all these places, and they would march on to meet the miners who had come down from Rhondda Fawr, and the others from across the entire stricken coalfield. At Newport, when they were all together, they would turn on to the London road.
And they would walk and walk until they reached Downing Street. It was a long way.
Around him, Nick heard the singing dying away as one voice after another was silenced by the road stretching ahead. They were solemn now, and the sudden burst of high spirits was over. The two boys in the rear let the banner drop again and wrapped it in its protective canvas before running to catch up once more.
‘We’re on our way, then,’ Nick said quietly.
‘May it bring us something more than blistered feet,’ the singer said beside him, with an absence of expectation that was ominous to Nick.
Tony was as good as his promise. He took Amy out to dinner in Soho, to a cheerful restaurant where Italian waiters with striped aprons wriggled between the close-packed tables, and the owner came out with his magnificent moustaches to sit at the tables of the most favoured customers. Amy ate the highly flavoured food from the thick white plates with clear enjoyment, and drank quantities of Chianti from bottles wrapped in a raffia shell.
A trio of