16 Rose terrace is unremarkable, a two up two down once red now black brick terrace house with a standard and uniformed yellow front door- coal board canary like every other door on the row, sash windows rotting from the inside, they hardly open without crumbled wet wood coming off in your hands, they don’t even have the anger to splinter you anymore the wood is mostly mush, only ever held together when it freezes. It’s the beginning of March so the inside of the windows upstairs at the back of the house where Lou sleeps is especially mushy. The window hasn’t been opened since August so there is a chance it may not open again.
Its early- far too early for Lou to be awake but excited and loud voices on the street, and car doors slamming has woken her. She opens her eyes, its still dark and its already freezing cold before she has even thought about getting out of bed. Lou remembers in a sleepy haze that its her birthday, she is sixteen, and in the few seconds of her consciousness thoughts race through her mind
‘I’m sixteen’
its cold
its too early
whats the racket going on downstairs
the only constant this morning is that its still fucking cold. But Lou is a curious girl, too curious by half, is the consensus amongst her family, Lou is never satisfied with any answer than anyone else offers, and as long as she remembers she has rather found out for herself what is going on, rather than leave it to the vague half truths of the adults around her.
This has mostly been to her detriment when she first started infant school in Mrs Wilk’s class in 1973 at five years old in her first week she was standing on the chair in front of the class being berated by Mrs Wilks, the class was learning about birds and wildlife and had a lovely and colourful collection of blown birds eggs on display. The children had been warned that under no circumstances must they touch the eggs
‘You look with your eyes not your hands’ Mrs Wilks had repeatedly told this class. And there was one very special egg- the Puffins egg that under absolutely no circumstances must ANYONE touch the Puffin’s egg, the Puffin only lays one egg a year and so to have a Puffins egg on display was very very special said Mrs Wilks to a wide eyed Class 1 of about 35 children.
To the five year old Louise-Marie McQuinn this special egg was far too much for her to bear, she wanted to touch this special egg, and she did, although her hands were small, they were clumsy and as soon as she touched it-it crumbled. She found herself stood on a chair in the middle of class while Mrs Wilks told the whole class what wanton destruction Louise-Marie had done to the sacred puffins egg. That was it- from that day forwards Lou was known as a menace, and a child that needed firm discipline and a close eye. Mrs Wilks had told her, and used her as an example for the rest of the class- that it was curiosity that killed the cat, and it was curiosity that put the 5-year-old Louise-Marie on a chair in the middle of Class 1.
These words fleetingly went through Lou’s head as she thought about whether or not she should get up and find out what all the commotion was about downstairs. THANK FUCK she said out loud as she realised she was 16 and only had a few weeks left at school. Although she had stopped listening or caring what her teachers thought about her, and the close eye and firm discipline had followed her from Mrs Wilks class right through junior school and the four years at Hill Crescent Comprehensive .
Lou was out of bed, ‘fucking hell its cold’- she ran towards the window and looked out to see what all the noise was about and who exactly was outside the house. Wiping away the condensation and squashing the mulched window frame, wavy shaped people were outside of the terrace house, Lou looked around the floor to wipe the window so she could have a better look, there was nothing but her clothes from yesterday on the floor, so she picked up her school shirt and wiped the window, she knew she wouldn’t be wearing it again.
Lou could see her Dad’s white Austin Allegro outside the house and knew something was not right. Lou’s Dad was on earlys this week which meant he should be down the pit now and not in the house. This was not good, she had planned not to go to school today, she would pretend to go like most days but wait at the bottom of the row behind the wall for her mum to walk past and go to work, thus spending the day lay on the settee watching the Open University Programmes, Lou liked the French speaking programmes, she liked French and hoped one day to go, but she had been kicked out of her French class at school the year before and banned from ever taking it. Lou’s French teacher Mrs Walker hated her, and found her uncontrollable which had been a fair assessment. Once Lou realised Mrs Walker was of a nervous disposition and was sensitive to the sound of tapping pencils on a desk Lou had taken this as a challenge to rid herself and the rest of class 3 point 1 of Mrs Walker. The reality was Mrs Walker and 3 point 1 had rid themselves of Louise-Marie McQuinn.
For a few seconds Lou seriously thought that to get back in bed would be the best course of action, she didn’t want the double stress of her mum and Dad forcing her out the door to school that she would not arrive at, and especially now her school shirt was wet through and covered in window mulch.
But her bed had gone cold, the warmth had quickly left it, and the mustard colour candlewick bedspread didn’t look appealing as the light started to creep into the small dark room. She put her dressing gown on and went downstairs.
Opening the kitchen door, the amount of people in there surprised her, Lou’s Dad was sat at the kitchen table with her Uncle- Brian and Dave from down the road. All of them worked at Teversal Colliery and none of them should have been in the kitchen at quarter to eight in the morning. Lou stuck her head round the door no one noticed her the three men continued talking and Lou’s mum briefly looked over at her from the window where she was leaning with her coffee and gave her an excited grin. Lou then remembered again it was her birthday, was all this a plan for a birthday treat. Perhaps they were giving her a surprise trip to France, then she realised Dave from down the street didn’t need to be there for that. The men looked up at her but continued talking, except her uncle slapping Lou on the back of her legs laughing as he shouted
put some bleeding slippers on or you’ll catch yer dearth
Lou ignored him, but realised he was right the floor was frigging freezing, the lino felt like an ice rink. So she shoved up next to her uncle on the pine bench and asked
‘mam can I have a cup of coffee, and why are they here’ gesturing at the three men.
Lou clasped her knees together with her arms and moved closer to her uncle.
‘We are on bloody strike, Yorkshire pickets have turned up, so we’ve come om’ said Lou’s uncle
Lou looked up at her mam as she put the cup of coffee in front of her and said ‘well you haven’t come om have you, cos you nor Dave live here’
Dave looked towards Bronnie Lou’s mum and said ‘shes a clever bogger int she’
Bronnie tutted and said ‘she thinks she bloody is”
Bronnie moved Lou’s Dad out the way and squashed on the end of the bench so she was facing Lou.
Lou watched her Dad’s face, she was looking for clues trying to figure out what was happening, but he wasn’t giving much away his ice blue eyes fixed on the brown smoked glass mug. Bronnie was leaning across her talking to her brother Eddie, they were both excited, and Lou thought Bronnie looked happier than she’d seen her for a long time.
‘good old Yorkshire lads, they’ll keep these boggers out, its about time we made this stand’ said Bronnie puffing out her chest, she looked happy thought Lou
‘arr I’m ready for a couple weeks off anyway good old Arthur he’ll see us rate’ smiled Eddie
Bronnie and Eddie clasped hands over Lou slightly pushing her out the way,
‘Bloody charming’ she shouted ‘does anyone know that its my bloody bothday today’
Dave from down the street looked over to her and said ‘happy bothday lass, how old are you’
‘I’m bloody 27’ Lou shouted climbing over her mother to get out of the table.
Eddie looked over at Bronnie
‘whats up wi her’
Bronnie answered ‘teenagers’ a little girl slid from behind the kitchen door appeared rubbing her eyes ‘mam whats all this noise’ it was Lou’s little sister Kerry-Ann she was nine years old, both girls were small for their ages but even with all the will in the world the lavender nylon dressing gown was far too small it was an age 4-5 years old so it only reached her elbows. “I’m freezing’ whined Kerry-Ann trying to pull the sleeves of the Lavender dressing gown past her elbows . Bronnie got up sat her on the bench where Lou had been sitting, some of the warmth still lingered and Eddie put his arm around her.
Bronnie broke the few seconds of silence and contemplation around the kitchen table, silence was always disturbing in this house and it was always best to interrupt it- no good ever came out of thinking too much
‘Right then I’ll make us all another cuppa and then I’ll cancel the pop man, the milk man, and the butcher’
Dave from down the street looked up from his coffee and looked a bit puzzled ‘do you think theres any need for that Bron, how long do you think we’ll be out’
Bronnie MQuinn was 5ft 2, she was a small woman but held herself like she was a 10ft goddess she turned to all three of the men sat at the table and she said pointing her finger at them
‘you’ll be out as long as it teks, and I’ll tell you summat this bloody Tory government and Maggie has been preparing for this, so we have got to an all’
The three men all looked down into their mugs. There was a silence all over the house, Kerry-Ann realised something enormous was happening but had no idea what, so she cuddled up closer to her uncle. The silence and enormity of the moment was broken by heavy and loud stamping up the stairs.
And a shout from Lou ‘does anybody actually bloody care about me’
Its my bloody Birthday.
