‘And the only way to the mine was across the bridge.’
Alice nodded, slowing down to pull a sharp turn onto a dual carriageway. ‘They blockaded it, day after day. The New Siders had to push through, getting spat on and kicked and shoved. Plenty of times men ended up floating in the river, from both sides. New Side started using boats, but then one of them was tampered with, and an old guy died. As the Old Siders got hungrier and colder and angrier and more disheartened, the worse it got because they blamed the New Side scabs. It soon reached the point where you didn’t dare cross the bridge for any reason. Young women were getting hassled, people knocked off their bikes. Fights breaking out in the miners’ club, windows smashed and worse. And then, a year or so after the strikes were all over, we demolished the bridge. And that was the last time the whole village did anything together. Now, we’re two villages who happen to share a name. There’s a campaign to officially change to New Ferrington and Old Ferrington, but these things take time, and the powers-that-be don’t understand it so they aren’t exactly hurrying things along.’
‘Wow.’ I let all this sink in as we began to re-enter the village, on the other side of the river this time. Someone had scrawled ‘NEW’ in black spray paint on the Ferrington sign.
‘So, are both sides back working in the mine now?’ I asked.
‘You’re joking?’ Alice glanced at me. ‘You really aren’t from round here, are you? The mine closed in ninety-four. Over thirty-five years since the strikes, twenty-five since the mine shut for good, and we are still just an ex-mining town, because we don’t know how to be anything else, and we don’t have anything else to be.’
Well, I could relate to that…
‘When the mine shut, it broke us. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are towns and villages all over who faced the same. No jobs, no purpose, defined by a miserable past, with no hope of a future. I’d not let anyone else hear me say it, but it’s not as though mining is all that. Dangerous, dirty, knackering work with crap pay. But it’s like even people my age, who weren’t born when the strike happened, we’ve grown up feeling wronged, like we’re the bottom of the slag heap, abandoned and left to rot. Maybe the anger will fizzle out, die with the mining generation. But I think it’s more likely we’ll still be angry – no jobs, no money, no help – just no one will remember how we ended up here.’
And I’d thought my life was depressing…
We pulled up then at the Co-op. The road mirrored Old Main Street almost perfectly. There was a Gregg’s and a hairdresser, only the off-licence was a betting shop and instead of Pepper’s Pizza, it was the Ferrington Fish and Chippy. Opposite the Old Boat House stood the Water Boatman pub, and instead of a replica old church, a white Methodist chapel squatted.
Alice waited in the car while I nipped in for the bananas, and this time I noticed the glances from other customers as I whizzed round, choosing the self-checkout to avoid an interrogation by the glowering older woman behind the till.
‘So, were your family miners?’ I asked as she drove us back to the farm, fascinated by this woeful tale of a village split in two.
‘My dad was nineteen. He kept working because he wanted to marry my mum. His dad mined too, of course. My uncle had three kids, one with cystic fibrosis, so he kept working. Mum’s dad had retired with bad lungs, so that was another reason for Dad to keep earning, to help her family out. It wasn’t that they didn’t sympathise, or get why people did strike, but they never believed it would work. And turned out they were right.’
‘So in the end the strikers did it all for nothing?’
‘Yep.’
‘And Jase, is he your husband?’
Alice shrugged. ‘We moved in together a few months ago. To be honest, it was a rush decision and if he doesn’t pull his finger out soon I’ll be reconsidering. Only problem is, working in the Water Boatman doesn’t make nearly enough to get my own place, and however much I love her, and everyone who knows me knows I do, I can’t face going back to sharing a bedroom with my Nana.’
‘You what?’
And right there I had made myself a new friend.
11
I arrived back at the farmhouse just after five. Alice had dropped me off at the end of the lane, leaving us to enjoy the last few minutes of daylight as I bumped Hope’s pushchair the short distance up to the yard. Daniel’s Jeep was parked in its usual place, and the cosy glow of lights from the hallway welcomed us back. Unclipping Hope and shrugging her out of the orange snowsuit, I expected Daniel to appear any second – or at least to call hello. Instead, I found him in the study. He was stretched out across the sofa, top two shirt buttons open to reveal a smattering of chest hair, one shoe kicked off, the other still dangling precariously from the end of his foot. One arm splayed out into open space, he looked as though he’d fallen asleep mid-air. His features had softened in sleep, the pucker between his brows smoothed out and his mouth carrying the hint of a smile. I could see Charlie there, only, perhaps Charlie on a bad day. His complexion was stark against unruly dark hair, the shadows from the sidelamp emphasising hollows beneath his cheekbones. He looked like a man with seven months’ worth of sleep to catch up on.
It was nearly nine by the time he appeared, skidding into the kitchen in his socks, hair gloriously dishevelled, one side of his shirt hanging out.
‘Eleanor! Hi!’ His scrunched-up eyes darted around the kitchen.
‘She’s out for the count,’ I replied, unable to keep from smiling.
‘She’s okay? Everything went okay? Has she had her milk, and bedtime porridge?’ he gabbled, eyes still searching for evidence.
‘Yep.’
‘You didn’t give her a bath? Because she’d be fine with a clean nappy and change into a sleepsuit.’
‘She had a bath. We splashed and sang and squirted her blue whale. It was a very lovely time. And then a story, milk and she settled straight down.’
He stared at me, this new information flitting across his face like data on a computer screen. ‘Why… why didn’t you wake me?’
‘You looked like you needed the sleep.’
‘But you’ve had her all day.’
