Kit Habianic - Until Our Blood Is Dry

Kit Habianic grew up in Caerphilly, Colwyn Bay and Cardiff. As a freelance journalist, she slept under the stars in the Western Sahara, chewed qat in the souqs of Yemen and sailed the backwaters of Kerala, purely for research purposes. Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian , The Daily Mirror , The Times , Marie Claire (US) and Time Out and in trade titles in Europe and the Middle East. Based in London, she processes copy for a business daily, all the while plotting new stories to write. Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies and literary magazines and made the shortlist for the Willesden Herald short story prize. Until Our Blood is Dry is her first novel.

UNTIL OUR BLOOD IS DRY

Kit Habianic

For Jack and Marion. With love and thanks.

It is bitter to know that history

Fails to teach the present to be better than the past

For man was a slave in the morning of time

And a slave he remains to the last

Idris Davies, Gwalia Deserta

Tributes are pouring in for a miner who died earlier this morning following an incident at a churchyard at Ystrad, a village on the South Wales coalfield.

The dead man has been named as Gwyn Pritchard, 45, an overman at Blackthorn Colliery near Ystrad.

Mr Pritchard was one of just three miners to have continued to work at nearby Blackthorn Colliery, breaking a strike that has halted the UKs coal production for nearly 12 months.

In a statement released minutes ago, the National Coal Board paid tribute to the dead man. Area manager Adam Smith-Tudor described Mr Pritchard as a solid family man who died defending his right to go to work at the pit he loved.

South Wales police have made one arrest and say they are looking for a second person in connection with the incident. A police spokesman declined to confirm reports that the dead man was attacked by striking miners.

Transcript, radio news broadcast, 9am, March 1, 1985

WINT ER 1984

Mid-evening, and The Red Lion was empty. Gwyn Pritchard sat at his usual table in the lounge bar and sipped ale from his tankard. No music pounded from the jukebox in the main bar. There was no tobacco fug above the pool table. Not tonight. He twitched a faded chintz curtain, raised a nostril-full of dust, and stared out into the gloom. The north wind howled, vicious. At the bottom of Ystrad High Street, the pavement was pooled with light spilt from the windows of the Miners Institute. His men were still in there, still stewing over the mornings accident, that bastard Dewi Power stirring up their grief, no doubt.

He dropped the curtain, turned his attention back to his pint. His fourth. But the beer wasnt doing what it should. Tonight, the more he drank, the more he ended up dwelling on it. The rescue workers trooping out of the wheel house to the courtyard. The stretcher covered with grime-streaked canvas.

Steve Red Lion plucked the last packet of peanuts from the poster pinned behind the bar to reveal a topless blonde in all her glory, tits like ice creams. He stared at her, damn as near dribbling. Gwyn caught the landlords eye. Steve flushed pink from neck to pate and started polishing the optics, at a loss to know what to say.

Cold out tonight, eh, Gwyn, he tried.

That pieced keep a fellow warm.

Time was, Mrs Steve ran the pub. A proper little dragon, barely the height of a bar stool but not afraid, come closing time, to grab a drunken collier by the collar, drag him outside and drop him on the pavement. There were no topless posters at The Red Lion when that one was around.

I heard about Gabe, poor old bugger, Steve said. Hit you hard, Ill bet.

There it was. The image assaulted him again. Gabe Parry, face peaceful despite the broken-doll neck, the forehead flecked with bone and brain and clotted blood.

He shrugged. Seen a fair few deaths in my time. Wont be the last.

Steve gathered up Gwyns tankard, filled it, waved away his money, waited as though expecting more.

And what point saying anything. Best to leave fresh wounds to heal, leave old wounds be. The first to go was the old boy who trained him, a sarky old Trotskyist known as Alf Manifesto. A good old boy, for all his piss-and-vinegar about miners being the vanguard of the revolution. Killed when a pack hole collapsed on him, buried him chest-deep in fallen rocks. Gwyn had attacks of the shakes for months after his butty died, body sweating rivers as the cage rattled down to the pit.

Not the loss that haunted him, even so.

Steves lips were moving. after what happened to your old dad.

Gwyn didnt answer. Hed paid his dues to that bloody pit, him and his forebears.

then going down again tomorrow. No life for a man, that, Gwyn. No life for a beast. Pink with emotion, Steves face.

Gwyn touched his thumb to his one good finger. One hell of a price to pay for coal. Every piece of anthracite ripped from the earth repaid in blood. Nights like this, a man needed his butties around him. Nights like this, it was only other colliers who understood. It was alright for his men. They had each other.

Steve was still jabbering. Gwyn turned away and looked out over Ystrad again. Hed known it all his life, this little high street, as familiar as the stumps at the end of his knuckles. Blindfold him, he could make his way down from the pub to the parade of shops, past the Victorian Miners Institute, take a sharp right-turn downhill to reach Blackthorn pit.

It was nothing special, the village, the usual shops overlooking the usual valley floor. Italian bracchi , unisex fashion boutique, hairdressers, butchers, bookies, funeral parlour and co-op. Behind these, up a slope fit for sledging, the usual two rows of terraced houses. And at the top, a row of semis that dwarfed the homes below, built for pit management. Superior properties on the top tier. He had barely enough puff in his old lungs to get up there, lately. Worth the effort, even so.

Footsteps approached the pub. Here they were at last: Dewi Power and that rabble from the lodge. The swing doors flew open and in they trooped, falling silent as they walked past, shooting dark looks in Gwyns direction. Uncalled for, that. They walked through the lounge bar as usual, piled into the main bar with its jukebox and pool table and dartboard, voices muted, not a glance for the peanut girl as they crowded round the taps and waited for Steve to serve them.

Pints in hand, they gathered round the long table at the back, talking quiet, talking serious. There would be trouble in the morning, for sure. If his lads clocked in at all. Dewi Power tapped his glass. The hum of voices faded. The lodge secretary hefted himself onto the bar, face pale against coal dust-rimmed eyes, a broken-nosed little pharaoh addressing his worker hordes. His voice was low, commanding the lads attention.

Listen up, fellas. A sad day its been for Blackthorn. We lost a good man today. One o the best. He clapped an arm around the man-mountain standing next to him. You do the honours, Dai.

Gabes butty Dai Dumbells bowed his head, launched into the Wobbly anthem sung for many a dead collier.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night

Alive as you or me

Says I, but Joe youre ten years dead.

I never died said he. I never died, said he.

There was pathos to Dais tuneless baritone, for once. It got the rest of the lads to their feet, voices soaring together:

Where workers strike and organise

Its there youll find Joe Hill

Its there youll find Joe Hill.

Gwyn sat, heart in his boots, willed his lads not to court trouble. Willed them not to get it wrong so very badly wrong yet again. Everyone knew damn well what was coming. Smith-Tudor, the area manager, had called him in at Christmas, sat him down for a chat, man to man. Promised hed see Gwyn right if he kept his lads in line. There was a time for trouble and a time for knuckling down. Smith-Tudor spelled it out for him. It fell to Gwyn to break the lodges grip on his lads. If he let the lodge use a mans death to stoke his lads anger, there was only one way things would fall.