I waited till I felt less dizzy, then picked up the photo of my mother, shaking the smashed glass into the waste-paper bin and reminding myself not to walk barefoot until I had had a chance to Hoover properly. I placed the broken frame and the photo back on the bedside table, propping it against the lamp.
Some of the hollowness was hunger, but I didn’t dare go downstairs. My heart was still thudding, but I made myself finish the chapter of history and trace a map of the Somerset coalfield for geography homework before I got into bed. It was still light outside, and for a while I lay awake, listening to the sound of the hi-fi downstairs playing Bobby Darin and Roy Orbison. It was my fault, of course. I shouldn’t have let Trish and Poppy come back.
But I also kept remembering Gary Bennett’s face. I thought his eyes had met mine, through the binoculars. I was sure he had winked.
When Gary Bennett comes over to me, the first thing he sees is my arse. I’m bending over lacing my boots. First impressions count. Now he’ll probably always file me under ‘buttocks’.
As I straighten up, trying not to show how shaken I am by hearing his name, he’s taking off his hard-hat as if he were doffing it to a lady. I recognize him immediately. He must be in his forties now, but he still has the same Roman-statue face, firm jaw and carved mouth, a bump in the middle of his nose and the same half-humorous expression that tells you he doesn’t take the world too seriously. There are deep lines etched into his cheeks either side of that mouth, and the hair is different, clipped very short and silver-grey. It suits him, though I miss those lovely dark-blond curls.
He doesn’t recognize me, thank God. Why should he, anyway? The name’s different and so am I. In those days I wore long hair in a curtain round my face, and rarely had the nerve to meet anyone’s eyes. Besides, I doubt he ever looked as hard at me as I did at him, across the street when he didn’t know I was watching. I could have mapped those features as accurately as I had traced the Somerset coalfield from my geography textbook. I knew the contours of his bare chest even better.
It looks as if he’s filled out a bit since then, though it’s hard to tell under the big yellow jacket. His legs are sturdy, in mud-spattered jeans, and I can’t help noticing he’s shrunk. No: I reckon I’ve grown. I thought of him as tall and long-limbed, but he was actually no more than average height. There’s a small pimple on one side of his chin, pushing through the late-afternoon bristles.
He holds out his hand to shake mine. ‘Come on over to the meeting room,’ he says. ‘Kettle’s on.’
No, not a glimmer of recognition in those weathered blue eyes. If you’d been where you were supposed to be, all those years ago, everything would have been different.
‘Good journey? Come far?’ he goes on, waiting politely for me to finish lacing the second boot. When I straighten up, he’s gazing at me with just the faintest shadow of worry in his face. ‘I’ll take you underground on Monday. We won’t rush you. There’s a lot to get through this afternoon–nearly the full team will be at the meeting. It won’t be too technical.’
Is he patronizing me? Surely he realizes I understand technical, maybe even better than he does–that’s my job. But there’s no point in making an issue of it and seeming arrogant on my first day, even if I don’t want Gary Bennett to treat me like some token bimbo. I’m already alarmed by the way he doffed his hard-hat. To make a point, I reach back into the car and pull out my own, setting it firmly on my head before we set out for the site office.
He leads the way across the hardcore, past piles of wooden pallets, steel and timber struts, to the nearest and biggest of the metal-sided cabins. In spite of all the gear, not much is happening. The project is still waiting for the official nod from the government that will release the funding. Until then all that can happen is emergency work, to shore up the most immediately dangerous places underground.
Narrow steps rise to an open door. There’s a kitchenette at one end of the cabin, and a man in a grey sweater is topping up his mug from a big urn of hot water. He turns and gives me a thin smile. ‘Coffee or tea?’
‘Rupert,’ says Gary, ‘this is Mrs Parry, our new mining engineer. Rupert’s our bat man.’
His hair is the same shade of grey as his sweater, and dishevelled above a long face. He looks as if he doesn’t see enough sunshine, and his hand when he extends it is dry and papery. I almost expect him to rustle.
‘You’re up and about a bit early,’ I say. Oops, misjudged that one. Along with my coffee he gives me a frosty look. ‘Sorry,’ I add. ‘I expect the last mining engineer made the same remark. The profession’s noted for its sparkling humour.’
‘I respect the work you’ve come to do, Mrs Parry,’ he says. He has a high, penetrating, plummy voice that makes everyone look round. ‘Just remember that the law requires you to respect the bat colonies.’
The mines are home to several species of bat, all protected, some extremely rare, and at this time of year, all tucked up and hibernating. Rupert must take his job seriously indeed if he turns up for midwinter planning meetings. Gary takes my elbow and steers me firmly past into the main conference room. ‘Don’t worry,’ he murmurs. ‘He’s obsessive. Treats us all like that.’
Just as firmly, I dislodge Gary’s hand from my elbow by the simple expedient of handing him my coffee so I can take off my jacket. As I do so, on the opposite side of the table, a guy with long stringy hair and a nose like a camel’s looks up. His eyes get stuck somewhere around chest level.
The meeting room is more luxurious than I’d expected. A space heater blows out warm air, display boards show maps and photographs of the work in progress, and even the chairs and table aren’t tattooed with as many coffee-rings as usual. There’s a white projection screen on one wall. About fifteen people are milling around, hanging fleeces and high-vis jackets on the back of chairs. The bloke in the corner unfolding the laptop could be the hydro-geologist, getting ready to show off his charts and diagrams of how water flows through the caverns–one of several specialist consultants. Long Stringy Hair is probably the archaeologist; archaeologists usually look a mess. Everyone in the room is male, which is hardly a surprise.
I have never got used to first days, trying to work out who might be on your side, and who thinks you have no place in the team. When I did my postgrad training at the Camborne School of Mines, I was the only woman in my class. You don’t get many girls saying, ‘I want to be a miner when I grow up’. Nor so many boys, now we hardly have a national mining industry. Most of the British jobs are like this one, making safe long-disused workings; the real career opportunities lie abroad. My predecessor in this job got a much more glamorous offer, and swanned off to Congo last week, at twice the money I’ll be getting.
Usually I know at least one person on the team when I start a new job, but that isn’t so today–unless you count Gary Bennett, and he doesn’t know I know him. So what are they all thinking? Just our luck to get a bloody woman? Or God, she must be tough? I’d prefer something along the lines of She looks like she knows her job, because the truth is I do. Today I just have to keep reminding myself of that.
A big, heavy man comes over as I’m pulling out a chair. He’s got a moustache that looks like someone slapped it on his face at a seventies fancy-dress party and he forgot to take it off. My head just about reaches the RockDek logo on his navy fleece jacket.
‘Brendan,’ he says, with a slight Scottish accent. ‘McGill.’
