Chapter 20
I hated leaving London, hated knowing I wouldn’t be able to see much of Theo over the coming weeks once he was back up in North Yorkshire working the summer months at Mandeville Hall.
I reassured myself that Theo had asked me to go up and stay there with him and, although I wasn’t overly looking forward to another weekend en famille, I had more than liked Mary and Graham the groom, and to be honest, even Lord Hugh had been pleasant and welcoming.
‘I don’t want to go home,’ I said, once we’d thrown our bags into the back of the Mini at Sheffield station, Theo had put the car into gear, and we were on the road back to my house.
‘You didn’t want to leave London?’ Theo turned to me with a smile. ‘Or you don’t want to leave me?’
‘Both,’ I said. ‘I never thought I’d love being in a city as much as I did London. Thought I was a country girl at heart.’
‘Well, you did see London at its best.’ Theo took my hand once he’d stopped for a red light. ‘It can be grey, miserable and crowded a lot of the time. As well as ridiculously expensive. I can’t say I’d ever want to live there permanently.’
‘Oh, really?’ I felt disappointment, having been wrapped up in lovely little dreams of Theo and I both moving to London once we’d finished our final year at Leeds. ‘But, you know… Westminster? The Houses of Parliament? I want to be there. Where it’s all at.’
‘I get that. And I’m sure you will end up just where you want to be. If I had a choice I’d be back in the South Island of New Zealand.’
‘Right.’ Theo hadn’t said ‘we’ and I sat back in my seat, a slight despondency working its way through every bit of me as I took in his words.
I was being ridiculous, I knew. For heaven’s sake, we’d only been seeing each other a few weeks.
But they had been the best few weeks of my life and I knew I wanted – needed – more of Theo Mandeville.
‘Right, we’re here.’ Theo pulled up outside our house and, taking me in his arms, he whispered, ‘Anna, I can’t bear to let you go.’
‘Let me go?’ I looked at him in something akin to horror. Was he leaving me? Letting me down gently? Had London been our swansong?
‘Until I see you up in North Yorkshire!’ Theo laughed, pulling me into a tight hug. ‘What did you think I meant? After this weekend? After those knickers of yours…?’ He whispered into my ear, nibbling on my ear lobe, but jumping back as there came a loud rapping on the car window.
‘Hey, you two, enough of that. You’ll have t’neighbours talking.’ Mum made a winding-down motion with her hand. ‘Right, come on, come on in, we’re having a picnic.’
‘I don’t think…’ I started. I really wasn’t ready for Theo sitting down to eat with us all.
And where the hell was Mum thinking of having a picnic?
Our back garden was a yard where we hung out the washing, and the front garden was a postage stamp, albeit beautifully kept and tended by both Mum and Dad.
‘Oh, come on, the pair of you. We want to hear all about London. What you’ve been up to…
’ Visions of what Theo and I had been up to in his bedroom in Holland Park made me blush and I turned to Theo, shaking my head slightly.
‘We’re off up t’th’allotment,’ Mum went on.
‘It’s far too nice to be inside, and your dad’s been busy all afternoon preparing kielbasa and golabki as well as those lovely salads he’s right good at.
What’re they called? Mizeria and surowka.
Summat like that, anyhow. And.’ Mum turned to Theo who hadn’t said a word up until then.
‘I can always do you a cheese and tomato sarnie – with Joe’s home-grown tomatoes, you know – if that’s what you’d prefer? ’
‘Mum, I don’t think—’ I started again, but Theo cut me off mid-sentence.
‘That sounds absolutely delicious. And up at the allotment as well? What could be better? Lovely!’
And before I could stop him, he was out of the car and following Mum through the house, up through the garden and into the allotment.
Hell. I just hoped Les wasn’t around.
‘Theo, you try this.’ Dad handed Theo a glass of beer. ‘It put hair on chest.’
I didn’t like to tell Dad that Theo already had a delicious amount of hair, moving in a dark blond vertical line up from his groin and towards his six pack.
‘Careful,’ I warned. ‘It’s Dad’s homemade mulled grzane piwo.’
‘I get Lublin hops, Polish honey and spices from Polish stall on market,’ Dad said proudly, watching closely as Theo sipped at the drink.
‘It’s a bit like Christmas,’ Theo said.
‘We have it at Christmas, yes,’ Dad went on as Theo, clearly liking the stuff, necked half the glass.
‘I told you it was too Christmassy for a hot June evening.’ Mum tutted but smiled indulgently at Dad.
‘I know, I know, but I thought lovely to sit up here in sunshine, in peace and quiet with birds singing and eating lovely food.’
‘Wow,’ Theo said, draining what was left. ‘That is delicious.’
‘Careful,’ I said again. ‘You’ve to drive back…’
‘Oh, he stay here,’ Dad instructed. ‘Enjoy the food, the drink, the peace.’ He handed Theo a plate with a running commentary about what each dish was, and what had gone into their making.
‘Well, I doubt it’s going to be peaceful much longer.
’ Les had arrived, a white doorstep of a cheese sandwich in one hand, a can of Carlsberg in the other.
‘What you all doing up here? God, don’t know how you can eat and drink this stuff.
’ He nodded towards the Polish-inspired picnic on the garden table, around which we sat on wobbly wooden chairs.
‘Les, this is Theo,’ I said and Theo stood, holding out a hand across the table.
Les nodded in Theo’s direction, briefly taking his hand.
‘What d’you mean, Les?’ Mum asked sharply, ignoring his comments about the Polish picnic fayre.
Dad put down his plate, chewed contemplatively and then asked, ‘What is it, Les?’
‘What do you know?’ I asked.
‘What everyone around here knows. We’ve got us instructions. Big push at Orgreave in t’morning.’
‘Oh, so that’s what the top brass were all up to on Friday in the office.’ I sat back.
‘What happens at Orgreave?’ Theo asked politely. ‘Sorry, I don’t even know where Orgreave is?’
When Les ignored Theo, I said, ‘It’s about twenty miles from here, between Sheffield and Rotherham.’
‘And there’s a mine there?’
‘Closed in 1981,’ Les said briefly but offering no other explanation.
‘The mine might have closed,’ I explained, turning to Theo, ‘but the Orgreave Coking Plant was set up for the steelworks. They need coal to make steel, and they have to transport it in from mines round here.’
‘Aye, and we have to stop the bastards from getting it. They should be out in support of the miners! Most times I’ve been there, there’s been two separate convoys, each with twenty to thirty empty lorries to load up with coke so’s to keep the steel production going.
We have to stop the bloody lorry drivers delivering the stuff. ’
‘Les, you’ve been fly picketing for weeks,’ I said.
‘And I get that.’ I turned to Theo once more.
‘It’s all been well organised. You might have two to three hundred pickets on the job, persuading miners who’re not striking to come out and join the strikers.
The pickets receive about four pounds a day, and the drivers get petrol… ’
‘What world do you live in, Anna?’ Les was getting angry.
‘And you working right there at the NUM? You should know better. We might have got a bit of cash in the early days – hell, we have to live – and it was all pretty matey with the cops. You know, most of ’em are like us.
From round here. So, we’d push at them and they’d push back a bit and then we’d share our sandwiches with ’em and then we’d all go home, job done. But not any more.’
‘Right?’ Theo appeared fascinated by Les’s words.
‘Arthur’s identified Orgreave Coking Plant as a key target for picketing.
If they can’t get coal, the steelworks’ll have to close down.
Meks sense. And then Thatcher’ll know what’s hit her and she’ll have to back down about closing t’mines.
As I say, it were OK to begin with. All right friendly, if you like, but a couple a weeks back, they started drafting in police from all over t’shop. ’
‘So intimidating people who want to work?’ Theo’s question might have shown his naivety when it came to what was going on with the strike, and I don’t think for one minute he was trying to be political or even controversial, but Les turned on him and was about to vent his anger when Dad stopped him in his tracks.
‘Les, either sit down and join us and be polite, or leave. We have guest here. You show your manners.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Theo said, clearly embarrassed. ‘I just don’t know much about what’s going on. Apart from what I see on TV or read in the papers. I’m just trying to understand the situation.’
‘Theo, honestly, most people from not round here…’ I started, but Les was in there before me.
‘Mebbe,’ he said pointing a finger in Theo’s direction, ‘mebbe you should ask one of your brothers-in-law.’ He slumped crossly onto the one remaining chair, reaching for the jug of Dad’s Polish beer and, despite his decrying the stuff, poured himself a hefty glassful.
‘Sorry?’ Mum, Dad and I all turned towards Les.
‘Didn’t you know, Anna? One of your boyfriend’s sisters is married to a Tory MP, for God’s sake and t’other one’s even worse – he works for t’finance company that are bankrolling Thatcher against us.’
‘So?’ I interrupted hotly, utterly mortified that Theo was being put on the spot by my little brother. ‘It’s nothing to do with Theo who his sisters are married to. And I’d like to know exactly where you’ve got all this so-called information from, Les?’
‘John Dyson,’ Les said with a raised eyebrow. ‘Had a drink with him in The Feathers on Friday night. Good bloke. I don’t know why you gave him the runaround.’
‘Les!’ Dad warned, glancing at Theo.
‘Bought you lots to drink, did he?’ I asked, furious that Dyson, as I suspected, had been checking up on Theo.
‘I paid my way,’ Les said sulkily. ‘Anyhow, he’s got more brass than me. He were right friendly. Came over and told me what a good job you were doing in the office, Anna. Let it slip about what Arthur was planning tomorrow at Orgreave. Although, we all knew anyway,’ he added.
‘New best friend?’ I said in disgust. I knew just what Dyson had been up to, getting in with my brother, grooming him into friendship so that if I ever told Les what I’d been subjected to – twice – in the office, he wouldn’t believe me.
‘As Anna says,’ Theo said calmly, but I could see he was dreadfully embarrassed, ‘I don’t get to choose who my sisters end up with. I’m so sorry if it…’
‘No, we sorry,’ Dad said, glaring at Les. ‘Here, Theo, you have more of this…’ He poured Theo, despite his protestations, more of the beer. ‘A toast,’ he said, ‘to good people. To integrity. And to peace.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Mum said and we clinked glasses and drank, and then ate, as if Les hadn’t fired a cannonball into the midst of our picnic. Into the very heart of my relationship with Theo.
‘I really must go,’ Theo said after an hour. Les had left almost immediately after his comments about Theo’s family. ‘I’ve a squash match as well as my things to pack up in Leeds before heading home tomorrow.’ He stood, swaying slightly and immediately sat back down again.
‘You can’t drive,’ Mum said. ‘What would your mother think if we let you get back into your car? Even if you leave it an hour or two, you won’t be fit to go anywhere. And there’s a big police presence around here at the moment, as you can imagine. You don’t want to be losing your licence.’
‘Theo can have my bed,’ I said quickly before Mum suggested he share Les’s room.
‘No, I’m not taking your bed,’ Theo protested. ‘I’ll sleep in the car.’
‘You can still be done,’ Mum said, nodding her head knowingly. ‘“Being in charge of a car”’ – she air-quoted the words – ‘if you’ve been drinking. Ted Sykes had to go to court – d’you remember, Joe? – when Jackie, his wife, threw him out for being drunk and he decided to kip in their car.’
‘I can bunk down on your sofa,’ Theo said quickly. ‘If that’s OK with you,’ he added, looking towards Mum.
Around ten, when the midsummer sky was still refusing to give up its daylight, Mum and Dad went back down into the house and Theo and I were left at the allotment.
‘Theo, I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘Les has always been like this. He was hell at school… Mum and Dad always being called in… And, you know…’ I went on, falling over my words as I spoke. ‘…if your family had turned on me when I’d met them for the first time… I’d have been so upset… so—’
‘It’s fine,’ Theo cut me off mid-flow.
But I sensed it wasn’t.
When he didn’t say anything more, I went on, ‘My brother has spoiled what’s been a wonderful weekend.’
‘I guess it’s the sheer prejudice your brother has against me. He’s judging me on who my sisters have ended up with. That’s a bit weird, you have to admit, Anna.’
‘I know and I’m so sorry.’
Theo stifled a yawn. ‘Actually I’m shattered. From what I recall, we didn’t get much sleep last night.’ He smiled at me, but there was a distance between us that hadn’t been there earlier.
‘Theo, don’t judge me on my brother,’ I now said, immediately regretting the words.
‘But Anna, you judge me constantly: on my family, my home, my public school, my accent… my friends… you know, all that stuff about Minky, Blinky, Buffy… and Barty, wasn’t it? And when you met them at the hunt ball, you immediately judged my brothers-in-law.’
‘No, I didn’t… I don’t,’ I argued, almost in tears.
‘Anna. You do. And I guess it’s natural. It’s just, you know… bloody hard work.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Theo stood and kissed my cheek almost sadly. ‘It’ll all be fine when I’ve sobered up,’ he said. ‘I need to sleep and then I’ll hit the road early.’