Free After the Storm by Margaret Graham Page B

more Scotch into his glass and listened to Albert.
    ‘Wonder what the old man would think of this then. You andme equals. He’d turn in his grave and I don’t see you laughing all over your face either Archie, me lad.’
    Archie was surprised. So, he thought, I’ve underestimated you, all these years have I, and now the question is, how deep is the grudge, for he felt sure that there would be one. He felt curiously detached; not worried, not frightened since there was little anyone could do to hurt him any more. He just felt surprised. He watched as Albert settled himself back in his chair, his shirt open at the neck, his chest hairs crawling up his neck. He really did despise the man. He turned to hide his eyes.
    ‘Let me take your hat,’ he suggested to Mr Wheeler but he refused.
    ‘Call me Bob,’ he said to Archie.
    ‘Right we will then, Bob,’ Albert said, annoyed by this instant familiarity, knowing that Wheeler had for two years preferred to stay on formal terms with him. ‘Let’s have another drink then, Archie.’
    There was sweat on his upper lip; this was not his first drink of the day, thought Archie, but then it isn’t mine either. He poured another for Albert but Bob had drunk hardly any yet. Archie noticed the tremble of his hand as he took another sip. It must be the war, he thought again.
    But it was not the war, though Wheeler had been through that too. It was merely a family trait passed down from father to son along with all the other failings Bob Wheeler’s mother had listed on many occasions, always with a smile. Wheeler’s father would snort in reply and his son grin. His mother knew really that the hours spent discussing the latest leader in the newspaper were not wasted. After all, it had helped Bob to form an articulate argument.
    Together they read under the dim light of the oil lamp in the cold front room of the small house, well away from the airing washing and the endless mashed tea. His mother might have swiped at his head with a towel when he was too lost in thought to shift himself to help her but it was as much her wish as his da’s that their son, Bob Wheeler, should get some learning under his belt and go into the offices of the colliery not the darkness of below ground which had stifled his father’s urge to improve their lot, and the lot of their fellow workers. He had been too physically broken within a few short years but from those offices they knew that their son would keep a clear headand a vision beyond the blank coal-face. Bob Wheeler frequently thought, though, that vision was one thing and progress quite another, for how could you get blood out of a stone? It was satisfying trying nonetheless.
    And that was it, he was completely satisfied with his work to the extent that he never missed not having a wife or family of his own, even now with his parents dead. His mother had died of flu the doctor said, but Bob felt it was a broken heart after his father had died of black spit. What he did miss, though, were his conversations with his father and he wondered whether this man, Archie Manon, might prove to be something of a substitute. He looked as though he saw beyond the confines of the Wassingham streets.
    ‘Business any better with Ramsay in power?’ Bob Wheeler asked.
    Archie stirred, about to speak but it was Albert who replied. ‘Business would have been better if the mines had stayed under the eyes of the government,’ he grunted, settling himself back in his chair. ‘Bloody stupid handing them back to the owners with exports down. The wages come down and that makes my business difficult.’ He pointed to Archie. ‘We were saying as we came along that the owners did all right out of the war, not like the rest of us.’
    Bob Wheeler caught Archie’s eye and they exchanged nods.
    ‘Where are these papers then?’ Bob asked, and took them from Archie as he passed them over. ‘Shall I stick my name under both of yours as witness? Is that the idea?’
    ‘If