Wear, but he thinks Thorpe is the only colliery in the County of Durham that has shithouses in the yards.”
“I think I’ve understood the issue.” Hill had somehow managed to insert himself between the two disputants. “Here on my right,” he said, “in the person of Saul Parrish, we are hearing the opinion that the workings of authority as regards the emptying of the netties in Thorpe do not take account of the likes of you and me, having a wider view of things, ranging farther afield and emptying more netties in the course of a week than what we can imagine. On my left, we have James Bordon, who is stating that there is more to the emptying of the netties than meets the eye, there being some reason lying below why they always come to us on a washing day. There is the further question, not so far touched upon, whether they always do come on a washing day or whether it only seems so because of the nuisance. That is the position as it stands at the present time. Now, lads, box on.”
But Bordon’s rage had died as he listened, and weariness had returned. The voices of quarrel still came from the village, sounds ugly and discordant, so much at odds with those he had emerged from, which had seemed part of the silence. “Take it personal?” he said. “The manage dinna pay them fellers. Him that owns the mine, Lord Spenton, he dinna pay neether. Every man jack of us is docked tuppence a week, as you know well, Saul Parrish. That is personal enough, an’t it? Them that pays should have a say in the runnin’ of it.”
“It’s as well nobody but us is listening,” Hill said. “Those are words that could be took wrong.”
Bordon shrugged. “Bad cess to them that would take it so,” he said. He had long suspected Hill for a tale-bearer. Then, realizing he had made a sort of joke, though by accident, he smiled a little. “You two gan on,” he said. “A’ll stay here till they’ve done.”
He lingered in the lane for some time longer, greeting the men who passed but remaining alone. Only when the cart was gone did he start to make his way toward the village. He knew now, rage spent, that he had been wrong in what he had said about the nettie men; he knew they came on various days, he knew there was no plot. He had been angered at the sight and sound of them because washing day was always Saturday and it was the day he looked forward to most in the working week, the clean shirt and trousers, the prospect of rest next day.
There was free coal for all the mining families and fires were kept up all day, in all seasons. Nan was waiting for him with the water already heated for his bath. She was the only woman of the house; their one daughter had died in early childhood. The two older sons worked longer hours than their father, fourteen hours a day, dragging the loaded baskets along the workways from the coal face. It would be after dark when they returned; at this season they saw full daylight only on Sundays.
The hip bath was brought out and set before the fire, the hot water poured out from the big copper pan and mixed with the cold brought in from the well in the alley. His clean clothes were laid over a kitchen chair; there was the pipe to enjoy afterward. He looked at Nan’s face as she ministered to him, and felt a concern for her that came close to sorrow. She had had to endure that chaos and rage with the other women, after the long day of washing, the poss tub, the mangle, the tall lines to reach up to. There was weariness in her face, but no trace of anger; she was intent, pouring clean water from a tin mug over his shoulders and back.
“A saw our Percy in the Dene,” he said. “He was racin’ with birch boats in the beck. A dinna know if he saw me watchin’.”
“He wouldna have knowed it was you, all black from the pit. Men are different inside of them but tha canna tell much difference on the outside till they wash the coal off.”
Different inside they were indeed, she thought, whether clean washed or not. Bordon was subject to rages and there was violence in him,