A Place Called Freedom (1995)

MACK WOULD HAVE LIKED TO START WALKING TO Edinburgh right away, but he knew that would be foolish. Even though he had not worked a full shift he was exhausted, and the explosion had left him feeling slightly dazed. He needed time to think about what the Jamissons might do and how he could outwit them.

He went home, took off his wet clothes, lit the fire and got into bed. His immersion in the drainage pool had made him dirtier than usual, for the water was thick with coal dust, but the blankets on his bed were so black that a little more made no difference. Like most of the men, he bathed once a week, on Saturday night.

The other miners had gone back to work after the explosion. Esther had stayed at the pit, with Annie, to fetch the coal Mack had hewed and bring it up to the surface: she would not let hard work go to waste.

As he drifted off to sleep he wondered why men got weary more quickly than women. The hewers, all men, worked ten hours, from midnight until ten o’clock in the morning; the bearers, mostly women, worked from two A.M. until five P.M.—fifteen hours. The women’s work was harder, climbing those stairs again and again with huge baskets of coal on their bent backs, yet they kept going long after their men had stumbled home and fallen into bed. Women sometimes became hewers, but it was rare: when wielding the pick or hammer most women could not hit hard enough, and it took them too long to win the coal from the face.

The men always took a nap when they came home. They would get up after an hour or so. Most would prepare dinner for their wives and children. Some spent the afternoon drinking at Mrs. Wheighel’s: their wives were much pitied, for it was hard for a woman to come home, after fifteen hours of bearing coal, to find no fire, no food and a drunk husband. Life was hard for miners, but it was harder for their wives.

When Mack woke up he knew it was a momentous day but he could not remember why. Then it came back to him: he was leaving the glen.

He would not get far if he looked like an escaped coal miner, so the first thing he had to do was get clean. He built up the fire then made several trips to the stream with the water barrel. He heated the water on the fire and brought in the tin tub that hung outside the back door. The little room became steamy. He filled the bath then got in with a piece of soap and a stiff brush and scrubbed himself.

He began to feel good. This was the last time he would ever wash coal dust off his skin: he would never have to go down a mine again. Slavery was behind him. In front of him he had Edinburgh, London, the world. He would meet people who had never heard of Heugh pit. His destiny was a blank sheet of paper on which he could write anything he liked.

While he was in the bath, Annie came in.

She hesitated just inside the door, looking troubled and uncertain.

Mack smiled, offered her the brush, and said: “Would you do my back?”

She came forward and took it from him, but stood looking at him with the same unhappy expression.

“Go on,” he said.

She began to scrub his back.

“They say a miner shouldn’t wash his back,” she said. “It’s supposed to be weakening.”

“I’m not a miner anymore.”

She stopped. “Don’t go, Mack,” she pleaded. “Don’t leave me here.”

He had been afraid of something like this: that kiss on the lips had been a forewarning. He felt guilty. He was fond of his cousin, and he had enjoyed the fun and games they had had together last summer, rolling in the heather on warm Sunday afternoons; but he did not want to spend his life with her, especially if it meant staying in Heugh. Could he explain that without crucifying her? There were tears in her eyes, and he saw how she longed for him to promise he would stay. But he was determined to leave: he wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything. “I must go away,” he said. “I’ll miss you, Annie, but I have to go.”

“You think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you?” she said resentfully. “Your mother had ideas above her station and you’re the same. You’re too good for me, is that it? You’re going to London to marry a fine lady, I suppose!”

His mother had certainly had ideas above her station, but he was not going to London to marry a fine lady. Was he better than the rest of them? Did he think he was too good for Annie? There was a grain of truth in what she said, and he felt embarrassed. “We’re all too good for slavery,” he said.

She knelt beside the tub and put her hand on his knee above the water. “Don’t you love me, Mack?”

To his shame he began to feel aroused. He longed to embrace her and make her feel all right again, but he hardened his heart. “You’re dear to me, Annie, but I never said ‘I love you,’ no more than you did.”

She slipped her hand under the water and between his legs. She smiled when she felt how stiff he was.

He said: “Where’s Esther?”

“Playing with Jen’s new baby. She’ll be away for a while.”