A Place Called Freedom (1995)

Mack had imagined a lawyer’s house to be a place of dusty documents and whispered secrets, in which the loudest noise was the slow scratching of pens. Gordonson’s home was more like a printer’s shop. Pamphlets and journals in string-tied bundles were stacked in the hall, the air smelled of cut paper and printing ink, and the sound of machinery from below stairs suggested that a press was being operated in the basement.

The servant stepped into a room off the hall. Mack wondered if he was wasting his time. People who wrote clever articles in journals probably did not dirty their hands by getting involved with workingmen. Gordonson’s interest in liberty might be strictly theoretical. But Mack had to try everything. He had led his coal heaving gang into rebellion, and now they were all without work: he had to do something.

A loud and shrill voice came from within. “McAsh? Never heard of him! Who is he? You don’t know? Then ask! Never mind—”

A moment later a balding man with no wig appeared in the doorway and peered at the three coal heavers through spectacles. “I don’t think I know any of you,” he said. “What do you want with me?”

It was a discouraging introduction, but Mack was not easily disheartened, and he said spiritedly: “You gave me some very bad advice recently but, despite that, I’ve come back for more.”

There was a pause, and Mack thought he had given offense; then Gordonson laughed heartily. In a friendly voice he said: “Who are you, anyway?”

“Malachi McAsh, known as Mack. I was a coal miner at Heugh, near Edinburgh, until you wrote and told me I was a free man.”

Understanding lit up Gordonson’s expression. “You’re the liberty-loving miner! Shake hands, man.”

Mack introduced Dermot and Charlie.

“Come in, all of you. Have a glass of wine?”

They followed him into an untidy room furnished with a writing table and walls of bookcases. More publications were piled on the floor, and printers’ proofs were scattered across the table. A fat old dog lay on a stained rug in front of the fire. There was a ripe smell that must have come from the rug or the dog, or both. Mack lifted an open law book from a chair and sat down. “I won’t take any wine, thank you,” he said. He wanted his wits about him.

“A cup of coffee, perhaps? Wine sends you to sleep but coffee wakes you up.” Without waiting for a reply he said to the servant: “Coffee for everyone.” He turned back to Mack. “Now, McAsh, why was my advice to you so wrong?”

Mack told him the story of how he had left Heugh. Dermot and Charlie listened intently: they had never heard this. Gordonson lit a pipe and blew clouds of tobacco smoke, shaking his head in disgust from time to time. The coffee came as Mack was finishing.

“I know the Jamissons of old—they’re greedy, heartless, brutal people,” Gordonson said with feeling. “What did you do when you got to London?”

“I became a coal heaver.” Mack related what had happened in the Sun tavern last night.

Gordonson said: “The liquor payments to coal heavers are a long-standing scandal.”

Mack nodded. “I’ve been told I’m not the first to protest.”

“Indeed not. Parliament actually passed a law against the practice ten years ago.”

Mack was astonished. “Then how does it continue?”

“The law has never been enforced.”

“Why not?”

“The government is afraid of disrupting the supply of coal. London runs on coal—nothing happens here without it: no bread is made, no beer brewed, no glass blown, no iron smelted, no horses shod, no nails manufactured—”

“I understand,” Mack interrupted impatiently. “I ought not to be surprised that the law does nothing for men such as us.”

“Now, you’re wrong about that,” Gordonson said in a pedantic tone. “The law makes no decisions. It has no will of its own. It’s like a weapon, or a tool: it works for those who pick it up and use it.”

“The rich.”

“Usually,” Gordonson conceded. “But it might work for you.”

“How?” Mack said eagerly.

“Suppose you devised an alternative ganging system for unloading coal ships.”

This was what Mack had been hoping for. “It wouldn’t be difficult,” he said. “The men could choose one of their number to be undertaker and deal with the captains. The money would be shared out as soon as it’s received.”

“I presume the coal heavers would prefer to work under the new system, and be free to spend their wages as they pleased.”

“Yes,” Mack said, suppressing his mounting excitement. “They could pay for their beer as they drink it, the way anyone does.” But would Gordonson weigh in on the side of the coal heavers? If that happened everything could change.

Charlie Smith said lugubriously: “It’s been tried before. It doesn’t work.”

Charlie had been a coal heaver for many years, Mack recalled. He asked: “Why doesn’t it work?”