Reginald Hill - Under World

He greeted her with open arms, literally. Good conversation was OK but those limpid brown eyes spoke more fluently to the sensual ear.

He opened another bottle of wine, spoke wisely and well of the kind of man Neville Watmough was, told interesting and amusing anecdotes of his life in the CID, and was rather taken aback when Thelma started yawning uninhibitedly to show the strangely sexy depths of a delicate pink mouth crescented with the kind of pearly teeth a dental hygienist ought to have. She compensated by squeezing his hand apologetically as she said to Ellie, ‘Must go. Have you got your great descent fixed yet?’

‘Next week,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m going down Burrthorpe Main.’

‘Burrthorpe? I know it. Good active women’s group determined not to be sat upon after the Strike ended.’

‘Always the problem with miners,’ chimed in Adi. ‘I defended a few of them and it was surprising how they followed a pattern. Shock troops of radicalism till it comes to their women, then they’re stuck in the Dark Ages.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Pascoe brightly, ‘if they sent all the women down the pit and made the men stay at home, they’d all soon arrive at a better understanding of sexual equality.’

This clanged like the last-orders bell and shortly afterwards the visitors left.

‘Well, that seemed to go OK,’ said Pascoe, flopping into an armchair.

‘You thought so?’

She sounded irritated but Pascoe, who was feeling vinously randy, pressed on in the naïve belief that the way to melt a woman’s heart was to be nice about her friends.

‘I was surprised how reasonably Adi was approaching this business. She seemed genuinely concerned about the reputation of the Force as well as the feelings of the public. I was quite touched.’

‘Yes, I noticed you were quite touched. And every time Thelma made a point, I noticed she was quite touched in return.’

‘For heaven’s sake! She’s a mere child.’

‘She’s thirty if she’s a day.’

‘Yes, of course I realize that. But you’ve got to admit there is a childlike quality about her. Those eyes, that complexion, so fresh, so smooth. And not a trace of make-up …’

Something in Ellie’s eyes warned Pascoe he was missing his way. He tried to get on the right path again by squeezing her hand and saying, ‘What I mean, I suppose, is my attitude to Thelma is sort of avuncular.’

‘Well, don’t imagine you’re going to work out your fantasies on me, Uncle,’ said Ellie, coldly pulling away.

Irritated himself now, Pascoe retorted, ‘At least I keep my fantasies above ground.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘What it says. You never told me you’d definitely fixed up this mine trip. And Burrthorpe. Why Burrthorpe? That’s a long way to go to get your face dirty.’

‘Because that’s where the next visit is happening,’ Ellie replied coldly.

‘Is that so? Oh, I thought they’d have stopped work throughout the entire Yorkshire region and laid on a special gala to celebrate this great conversion.’

‘Conversion?’

‘Yes, isn’t that what they do? Take the heathen bourgeoisie and bring them up blacker than black after total immersion in dust? Just think. One quick dip and you’ll have expiated all your sins of birth and background and education and marriage — you’ll have joined the working class at last! Welcome aboard.’

Ellie, who was rather sensitive that her origins were considerably less humble than Peter’s, went to the door where she paused.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘ You can’t welcome me aboard. Not when you went over the side and swam away long ago, like all the other rats.’

She went out. Pascoe groaned and reached for a Rioja bottle. When he tipped it up, nothing came out. He peered inside with one eye and groaned again.

It was deep and dark and empty as despair.

It was true what the Spaniards said about trouble. Once she fancied you, there was no shaking her off, so you might as well go looking for her as risk being surprised when she turned up at your wedding.

Colin Farr recalled this bit of wisdom, picked up in a Bilbao bar, during his shift on Tuesday afternoon. Monday had been great, the class had been really interesting with Ellie talking about the way the media distorted truth and often corrupted opinion rather than informing it. Afterwards she had been full of her visit to Burrthorpe Main on Wednesday. ‘Pity I’ll be on shift myself,’ he said, ‘else you could have come and had tea with my mam.’ He could see she didn’t know if he were joking and to tell the truth he didn’t know himself.

That night as he went into the Welfare, he glimpsed Boyle, the stout Challenger reporter, standing at the bar with a couple of men Farr had no cause to like. He’d amazed himself by turning on his heel, getting back on his bike and heading off to do his fairly moderate drinking in a pub at the far side of the village.

He’d rounded this trouble-free day off by getting home early, drinking a cup of cocoa with his mother and laughing with her at some early pictures in the family album.

Tuesday morning he’d tinkered with his bike which was running a bit rough, then, leaving it half stripped down, he’d strolled to work, vaguely surprised at how little of the usual pre-shift tension racked his nerves.

But half way through the shift trouble found him out again. It wasn’t surprising. A man can duck and weave through his free time, but work makes him a still target.

At first the trouble seemed merely operational.

They were advancing one of the gates or tunnels leading up to the coal-face. The roof here was notoriously weak and when they blasted the rip, instead of the looked-for twelve or fifteen feet, nearly thirty feet came down, leaving a great hole far beyond the reach of the metal support arches.

Colin Farr and Neil Wardle peered cautiously up.

‘It’s a bastard,’ said Wardle.

‘Aye,’ said Farr.

They knew that someone was going to have to clamber up there among those pendulous boulders and jags of rock to construct a protective lattice of wooden beams above the advancing rings. Up there a ripper was alone, trying to support with his mind God knows how many tons of exposed ground, listening to its cracks and groans, feeling trickles of earth and spatters of stone, ready to leap desperately aside when a louder crack or some sixth sense warned him that a huge boulder was coming down to bounce like a rubber ball around the gate. It was a job no one could do and not be afraid.

Colin Farr felt the fear like everyone else. But fear of late had become a sort of barrier through which he could pass to a state in which no threat, not even of death, could touch him.

‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘But tell ’em to switch that chain off.’

A little later the conveyor carrying the hewn coal along the face whined to a halt. It was a wise precaution. Being dislodged by, or jumping down to avoid, a falling boulder was dangerous enough without having the moving chain waiting to mangle you below.

Carefully Farr climbed up on to the ring and began his work. He’d only been at it a few minutes when there was an interruption.

‘What the hell’s going on here? Why’s that bloody chain stopped?’ demanded an angry voice.

It was Gavin Mycroft.

‘Colin’s up there, timbering the hole,’ said Wardle as the deputy arrived.

‘I don’t give a toss what he’s doing. We can’t have the job held up like this. Get that fucking chain moving right away!’

‘Now, hold on,’ said Wardle reasonably. ‘You can’t expect a man to …’

‘I expect men to do what they’re paid to do,’ interrupted Mycroft. ‘Every minute that lock’s on is costing money. Aye, and it’s costing all you lads money too, you know that.’