Free The Valley by Richard Benson Page B

windows with wires bound to the end of a long wooden pole. It is half-past four, and the house is cold. Rolling over and out of bed, Winnie puts her feet down on the damp lino and pulls on the cardigan and woollen coat that she has left on a chair. Along the landing and down the stairs, treading quietly for fear of waking Mrs Skelling; in the kitchen she lights a taper from a gas flame, then returns to the bedroom to light a candle for her husband.
    Back down she goes to the Skellings’ living room, where the range is, and takes a poker to rattle the fire that has been left banked and smouldering to warm the house. White ash falls to the hearth and Winnie feels the warmth of the glowing tangerine-coloured coals on her face as she shovels the ashes into a zinc pail. She takes the bucket outside. It is a dark February morning. Along the street there are lights on in some kitchens and smoke from chimneys joining with the hearthsmoke clouding the low belly of the valley as the men who have work rise for early starts at shops and glassworks. Standing there in the darkness, she will say later, Winnie Hollingworth feels for the first time like a married woman with wifely duties.
    In the kitchen the flames of the fire lick at the bottom of the kettle. From a caddy decorated with Indian coolies, she spoons tea into a teapot, and fries creamy-fatted bacon and brown eggs in Mrs Skelling’s beaten black frying pan. She can hear Harry padding about upstairs, pulling on his clothes. As the bacon cooks she makes food for work, or snap: black tea to cut through the dust in his throat, bread slathered with pork dripping for bulk and energy. She seeks out the brown salty jelly in the dripping bowl and layers it evenly over the plain grey fat before topping it with a second slice of bread, so that he will have some moistness and salt to savour against the grime and dirt. Then she puts it into the snap tin, a metal canister shaped like a sandwich which will be fastened to Harry’s belt, snapped shut to protect the contents against the dust and the wet.
    As she mashes the breakfast tea, Harry passes her on his way to the kitchen, wearing his vest and trousers, carrying his shirt, pullover and jacket. At the sink he splashes his face with cold water and pats it dry on a rag hanging on a hook near the tap.
    ‘Here you are, love,’ says Winnie, setting down on the sitting-room table tea, bacon and eggs and thick slices of bread, curved and uneven because she cannot cut the loaf straight. She will have her breakfast later, bread and margarine, the protein being reserved for the man. 
    ‘Thank you, my sweet,’ he says, and takes from his jacket pocket a bottle of whisky.
    With the salty steam of breakfast rising in his face, Harry pours a tot into the cap and then into his tea. A few men take a medicinal whisky like this at the start and end of the day, though Winnie’s father never has. She stares as he slips the bottle back in his pocket, smells the hot alcohol across the room, and sits down and tries to ignore it. Harry begins cutting and forking the food into his mouth, and then as he chews, taps out a rhythm on Mrs Skelling’s cruet set with his teaspoon. He doesn’t seem to stop drumming except to drink or dance. After a week, Win will ask him to stop. After two, she will beg, and after three they will fight.
    From outside come the sounds of slamming doors and men’s voices and hobnail boots in the road. The early shift is going to work. Harry swallows the last of his tea, takes his snap and steps out of the back door, immediately cheery as he greets another miner in the street. They join a march of men walking down the road in the dark towards the pits at Goldthorpe, Highgate and Manvers Main. Winnie turns back inside and climbs the stairs to bed for two hours more sleep, for her and the baby. She will rise again at half past seven for breakfast and then to start cleaning the house.
    *
    A fortnight after they move into their