No Man’s Land

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.

‘It don’t matter what ’appened,’ he said, looking Adam in the eye. ‘It don’t matter how many goals you score. You don’t belong here wi’ us. An’ you niver will.’

He didn’t wait for a response but walked quickly away, limping slightly as he went.

‘What happened to Rawdon?’ Adam asked Ernest as they began the walk home. ‘Luke said he used to score goals so why’s he the goalkeeper now?’

‘He hurt his leg down the mine,’ said Ernest. ‘The pony he was driving got scared of something and bolted. And then pulled up short and kicked back – britching, we call it. Rawdon caught his leg in the limmers—’

‘Limmers? What are they?’ asked Adam, interrupting.

‘The shafts they put on the pony’s harness to link him up to the tubs. You don’t know anything, do you?’ said Ernest, smiling. ‘Any road, Rawdon broke his leg in three places. He must’ve been in agony – he was white as a sheet when they brought him out but he didn’t cry out at all. Rawdon’s always been a brave lad, I’ll say that for him. And then the hospital didn’t do a good job with the operation, or at least that’s what Rawdon’s father Whelan said, although I reckon he was just after trying to duck out of the responsibility. He should have been watching out for his boy. Rawdon was only thirteen when it happened and maybe he wasn’t ready for the tubs, although I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere. Except maybe with him it would have been different.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Adam, not understanding.

‘Because of the football. Rawdon was really good, better than you can imagine. He could go round you before you knew what had happened, like he was picking your pocket,’ said Ernest, smiling at the memory. ‘And a lot of us thought he’d end up playing for one of the clubs, earning proper money, having a life that the likes of me can only dream about. But the mine’s got a way of claiming you back when you’re thinking of escaping it, and it’s got Rawdon for life now, whether he likes it or not.’

‘I suppose it would’ve been different if he’d stayed at school,’ said Adam. ‘Then he wouldn’t have got injured.’