The Litten Path Read online

  THE LITTEN PATH

  by

  JAMES CLARKE

  SYNOPSIS

  March, 1984. Britain’s miners face political opposition. Soon, the State will confront them, violent forces will be unleashed and the country will change forever.

  The Newmans have enough on their plate without a strike to contend with. Arthur hates working at the pit, his unhappy wife, Shell, doesn’t know what she wants and their lonely son Lawrence has no say in anything – especially a late night mission to Threndle House, home of disgraced politician Clive Swarsby and his two mysterious children. When Lawrence and Arthur take an abandoned rug from the house, their family is plunged into crisis. Then there is the small matter of the pickets . . .

  Taking in controversial events such as the Battle of Orgreave, The Litten Path is an exceptional debut set against the sunless landscapes of a country now lost in time. Grimly honest and tender, tough and lyrical, comic and painful, it is about class friction, the clash between the urban and the rural. It is about what happens when a decision is made, when one cannot turn back.

  PRAISE FOR THIS BOOK

  ‘Bristling and inventive, brilliant and important – an outstanding debut.’ —JOE STRETCH

  The Litten Path

  James Clarke grew up in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire. The Litten Path is his first novel.

  For my brother Chris. Everyone still misses you.

  ‘. . . And you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.’

  MARGARET THATCHER

  PART ONE

  The Causeway to the Moor

  1

  His dad was squatting by the bed directing the Anglepoise into his face. Through the glare Lawrence could smell fresh outdoors, cigarettes masked badly with peppermints.

  “What?” he said.

  “Said wake up.”

  He turned away from the bother but his eyes were so scrunched that he misjudged the distance and clumped his head against the wall. Cold stucco. He bit the inside of his cheek and kept his mouth shut.

  “Kid.”

  Movement. Then what sounded like his homework being blundered off the desk. When his blanket was peeled back, Lawrence yanked it towards his neck again and hissed “Jesus” over his shoulder.

  “Not him.”

  “You’re funny.”

  “Not as funny as this.”

  The blanket was torn away entirely.

  “Shit, what’d you—”

  Arthur’s rough palm smothered Lawrence’s mouth. Those beer lips were always so clumsy against the ear.

  “Quiet. An’ watch your lip. Your mother didn’t raise a bloody yob.”

  Even the gentlest moments could turn against you. A minute ago Arthur’s outline had been dimly lit between the doorway and the landing. Now this. Lawrence finished his sentence anyway. His curses emerged as muffled nonsense.

  “Calm it.”

  He prised Arthur’s bastard hand off. No one else had a dad like this, the human equivalent to a poke in the eye.

  “Am calm.”

  “But not quiet.”

  “What do you want, Dad?” Lawrence clamped either shoulder and tucked his legs in until he resembled the shape of a question mark.

  “I’ve a job for you, but you need to keep it down.”

  Dad’s grin rictus was like always. Lawrence had a similar face, except his wasn’t as grey and there was no blot on his cheek that drew the eye. A pit wound that coal dust had seeped into, tattooing the slash-mark blue.

  “Dad.”

  “I know, kid. But I’ll make it worth your while.”

  A handful of coins landed on the mattress: warm coppers strewn next to Lawrence’s torso that was as hairless as a baby’s kneecap. Worth getting up for, he supposed.

  “Time is it?” he said, sitting up. He’d been sacked from his paper round and needed the money. Sixteen and skint. Gristle, bone and bags under the eyes.

  Arthur laughed. “Wrong question.”

  “Kind of job?”

  “Special ops. Now get some clothes on and meet us downstairs.”

  Ten minutes later they were crunching along the strip path around the back of their house on Water Street. It was late February and the moon was monstrous. It undermined the sodium road lamp flickering on the corner ahead.

  “Summat about a carpet?”

  “Bloody rug I said.”

  “Right.”

  “Cracking rug it is.”

  “Right.”

  “You listening?”

  Fucking carpet. Never mind all the cloak and dagger business, a bribe in the offing meant Lawrence’s mam wouldn’t be allowed to find out about all this. Lawrence stumbled in a clutch of weeds, not that Arthur noticed.

  When they reached the road they headed north, the opposite direction to Litten centre. Litten was a pit village that called itself a town. Its angled streets were crammed a hill or two away from the rest of South Yorkshire. Factories and works studded every outskirt, chimneys burst out of the ground like raised middle fingers and the clouds of pumped smog were caught still in the daylight. Litten was tired pubs with stone troughs outside that they used for watering the sheep back in the day. It was the odd scrat of grass at the end of your row, an arcade under a metal awning, a roundabout, too many traffic lights, charity shops and an old bandstand in the centre where the brass band from Brantford pit still flogged the dead horse every other weekend.

  And still Arthur smiled. His hair looked static-charged against the unreal glow of the street.

  “What d’you mean a rug, anyway?” said Lawrence.

  “What do you mean, what do you mean?”

  “Well, really a rug?”

  “Course.”

  “Then why this hour?” His Casio said half two.

  “As this is the only time we can get it.”

  “But it’s freezing, Dad—”

  “Bloody hell, you’ve a coat, and you’re always whining about early bed. I thought you’d be up for this.”

  “I am.”

  “Well stop acting the fairy then.”

  They walked on. The sky could have been indigo, purple, black, as they advanced deeper into the sticks. A steeper incline and visible breath. When Arthur put his hand on his shoulder, Lawrence let it stay.

  “Could at least say where you’re taking us.”

  “So you know Threndle House, right?”

  Lawrence began to say no.

  “Course you do.”

  “Big place?”

  “Where Brantfords lived.”

  “Aye, what about it?

  “Well that’s where we’re off.”

  Lawrence stopped in his tracks. “It’s a mile off!”

  “Come on, kid, I did say this were Special Ops.”

  It was always so funny. Lawrence began to head back the way they’d come, no longer the eternal boy, adding for good measure that there was nothing special about these ops.

  “Wait,” said his dad, grasping him by the elbow, his voice so many things; pick your bloody adjective. “I need your help, kid. Them muscles.”

  “What muscles?” Lawrence was being led back towards Threndle House.

  “Well, these for a start,” said Arthur.

  “Get off, Dad, God’s sakes.”

  “Look, I’d not ask other than it’s for your mam.”

  Now they were getting to it. There had been a lot of overtime in the run up to Christmas, and on Shell’s orders Arthur had taken on all that he could get
. He’d described to Lawrence the great mound of coal collecting outside of Brantford pit. Perceptible from the road, the pile had to be climbed over on the way in: an immense blackness the men could look at from way upon the gantry.

  With his tongue, Lawrence touched his top lip, where hair had started to grow. These were the deep hours, when the bobbins and the sprockets of the mind squeaked. “Why always me?” he said, surprised by the whine in his voice.

  “Because.”

  “You always say that, Dad. There must be a mate or—”

  “There’s no one,” said Arthur. “There is no one.”

  It took them the best part of an hour to get there, but eventually they reached a grand stone building that loomed like a mural at the end of the road. This was Threndle House, and Lawrence was being pushed to it by his father’s hand.

  A five-foot wall protected the house from the public. Detached and remote, it was a large property, though still smaller than Lawrence remembered.

  “Knows exactly who it is,” said Arthur, hauling himself up the wall. “Kind of what I like about the place.”

  For once Lawrence’s dad was right. Threndle House made up in grandeur what it lacked in size. “Watch out or someone’ll see you,” said Arthur, nodding in the front door’s direction. “Swarsbys are on holiday.”

  “Doesn’t answer my question.”

  “You didn’t ask a question.”

  Lawrence took the hand offered and was dragged up the wall.

  “Just trust us,” said Arthur. “They’re not in.”

  They sat kicking their heels against the brickwork. Threndle House would have been shrouded were it not for the silver light draping over everything. The place was thick, almost sullen in shape. Across the lawn you could see mullioned windows and doors, curlicues of metalwork and masonry along the roof. Roughly on top of all that was a gherkin. Gargoyle, probably. Though Lawrence couldn’t quite be sure from such a distance.

  Arthur produced a canteen from his anorak and removed the lid. It was a dented old thing that his own father, Alec Newman, twenty years’ coal dust in the lungs, used to keep hot vodka blackcurrant in. Lawrence’s grandad was a Shotfirer. He set charges in bore holes and detonated them to make headway in the pit. One morning after a blast failed, Alec went to check the line for a problem in the circuit, only the young man he was training wasn’t the brightest spark; he tested the detonation key the moment the connection was repaired. The canteen was the only surviving thing they found left buried in the debris.

  “Have a drink,” said Arthur.

  Lawrence accepted the canteen, smelled it, handed it back.

  Arthur screwed down the cap, looking like he was the one being put upon. “See, wi’ what’s going on at minute—”

  “Wi’ pits?”

  “What else would I be on about?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Ever hear of a rhetorical question, kid?”

  Lawrence puffed his cheeks.

  “Manvers are striking over snap times, I heard, and . . .” Arthur adopted his daftest, poshest voice. ‘The lady’s not for turning.’

  Lawrence couldn’t help but laugh.

  “So I daresay summat’s up. They’ve been chipping at us wages long enough.”

  The canteen sloshed. It spent most of its time in Arthur’s back pocket. Your dad home after his shift for a processed cheese butty, washing it down with some spirit that turned you full-on fruit-loop.

  “Union’s after donations. They’ve had everyone out postin’ leaflets. I ended up volunteering.”

  “Good of you,” Lawrence said.

  “I’m all heart.”

  They both laughed this time. Arthur had made no secret of falling into the job. Slaving to heat everyone’s baths, was a stock phrase in the Newman house. Powering Sunday pissing dinner for the neighbours was another. One of three sons clumsily named after three ancient heroes, he and Uncle Hector travelled daily in the pit cages, miles underground to the districts of Brantford, treading the same routes as before and deeper still. Vaster aspects of coal, hotter tunnels to work in. The third brother, Samson, hadn’t been so lucky, but he was never spoken of. Sam was an awkward discussion no one wanted to have, a picture in the living room of a Teddy boy with a monobrow.

  “Weren’t like I had much choice,” said Arthur. “Het’s been saying I won’t do my bit. No way were I about to give him chance to lord it over me like usual.”

  He turned and gobbed over his shoulder. Uncle Het still lived in town. Lawrence saw him and his dad exchange a look when they came across one another from time to time, but the two didn’t really speak. He longed for someone to exchange looks of his own with. His breath clouded into the empty space in front.

  “You should see him with his hair all slicked. Thinks he’s AJ bloody Cook, I swear.”

  “Who the hell’s that?”

  Arthur clicked his tongue. “Point is I’d to get involved or have Het and the others to contend wi’. Leaflets seemed an easy enough job.”

  “So they’ve had you round posh end?”

  “Fat chance. Flintwicks Estate. Not far, is it? After us round I’ve stopped here. Which leads us to this evening.”

  “Were gonna say.”

  Lawrence’s dad dug him in the ribs.

  “You’d better not have dragged us out of bed ’cause this is the only time you can dump them leaflets, Dad.”

  “That might come later,” admitted Arthur, showing off a batch of undelivered papers. “Like I said, I’m more interested in what’s round back here. Want another drink?”

  Lawrence hadn’t even had any in the first place. The mansion glowed madly, lit special where it wasn’t black and total.

  He shook his head.

  “Suit yourself,” said Arthur, then dropped off the wall into the garden.

  They stole across the lawn. At the front of the house a tree coiled towards the gables, lending texture to the place like some kind of beard. The tree reached the gutter running under what was in fact a gargoyle, its stone face wet with moonlight: a demon grinning down on Lawrence’s dad.

  “You said Swarsbys.”

  “Aye, Tory,” said Arthur. “Saggy-titted wet lettuce, here for by-election, God help him. Naturally he’s buggered off skiing the minute he got here.”

  “I seen that in the paper.”

  Splashed all over the Free Press. Derek Shaw, the Labour incumbent for Litten Borough, had suffered a heart attack, so his seat had been thrown open, the Conservatives deciding to contest it. Clive Swarsby was the man they’d sent, only he’d disappeared straight to France on holiday. Lawrence remembered the man in black and white, a skiing politician; the news had made the nationals, a cartoon in one paper of a large-featured, buck-toothed ghoul careering down a mountain with a trail of pound notes streaming behind it in the snow.

  “So you thought you’d bob round?” he said.

  Arthur looked thoughtful. “Not sure. To be poetic I suppose seeing the house were like stumbling into someone else’s head, except for a minute it were my head, not some dream. The sky surrounding were all lit. I couldn’t go past wi’out looking. I said to myself: why not? He’s the one who thinks he can decide what’s good for everyone. Why shouldn’t the likes of me come see what he’s about?”

  “That’s a yes then,” said Lawrence, under his breath.

  “So I jumped grounds, had a look and found this. What d’you reckon?”

  A long shape was sticking out of one of the bins. So this was the rug. Even poking out of the rubbish it was taller than Lawrence. It could have been a damaged piece of industrial equipment, bent in the middle and having to be propped against the wall to keep from falling on someone. Lawrence felt its coarseness, a fox barking somewhere the moment his fingers grazed the fabric.

  “Well?” said his dad.

  “I t
hink it’s in the bin.”

  “Aye, well a twat like Swarsby doesn’t know the value of ’owt. Mark my words, kid, this is a find.”

  Consider them marked. The off-white moon was a curdled penny. Lawrence didn’t know. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Oh, shut it – quick scrub and it’ll be reight. If this doesn’t cheer your mam, nowt will.”

  “Then what?

  “How do you mean and then what?”

  It took them a long time to carry it home, a pair of midnight bailiffs, each holding one end of a repossession. They skittered the bins and dotted the rubbish as they dragged the rug out into the open, but the commotion drew no attention and when Lawrence got back from school the next day, he and his dad laid it in the living room whilst his mam was out doing the shopping.

  “Turkish,” said his dad, on his knees, smoothing the ricks from the surface that now covered the entire floor. The rug’s pattern was like a jigsaw, and studying its compact spread made Lawrence think of the sea at Bridlington Beach, where he’d visited as a boy, the moment he swam too far out and realised his mam couldn’t see him anymore.

  “We’ve done well here,” said Arthur.

  “Suppose.”

  “Do you not think so?”

  . . . The salt water up your nose. The dread line where the horizon met the sky . . .

  Dad started going over the story again. They’d saved up, bought the rug out of town and blah blah. They had to tell Mam something. She’d never accept a stolen gift and a cast off she couldn’t help but look down on. Words Lawrence knew to be true, though the fact they had to be kept secret and couldn’t be spoken in front of her made them feel like lies.

  When his mam finally walked through the door, Lawrence stood well away from his dad. Shell Newman had a frank, open face that tended to hang, but as she saw the rug for the first time, her lips pinched. She wasn’t one for taking promptly to acts of kindness.

  “What’s this?” she said.

  “Present, love.”