Black comedy, satire, mining
Long Term Impact
A black comedy. Don’t read if you love your pet!
Henry and Henrietta are twins, nine years old, the children of Albert and Jean Gibson. Albert was a miner all his life, having started down the Jarrow mine in 1979, when he was just seventeen.
Albert was an easy-going lad, and met Jean, who was then working in the pit cafeteria and was the same age. It was at a Christmas party in 1981, held at the pit, when they first started going together. Albert changed after the great strike, the battle between Scargill, the miners’ leader and Thatcher, then prime minister.
Albert, having got a loan from the mine to help finance a mortgage for their first home, was laid off with thousands of other miners, and a struggle ensued between the miners and the government, and between those who would strike, and those who would not. (Scabs)
Life might have been so different for Albert and Jean had the ‘Iron Lady’ been defeated. She wasn’t defeated, but victorious, and so earned her nickname. Mines were closed down, and despite taking part in the Jarrow march, 300 miles to London, the miners’ efforts failed. Families were fighting families, mining men battled each other, the police, and the government, all to no end.
By 1989, with no work and no unemployment benefits, Albert was still out of work and a changed man. A cruel man.
On the twin’s 9th birthday. Henry and Henrietta were behaving like typical nine-year old’s, constantly squabbling, and frequently facing the wrath of their father, who was no longer a patient man.
It was only a month ago that Albert set light to Paradise, the family’s parakeet. Henry, you see, had been fighting with his sister, and no amount of cajoling from their mother would quiet them. In a sudden moment of rage, Albert stood up from the the armchair where he’d been reading the evening newspaper, walked over to the cage in which Paradise was housed, opened the cage door, took a cigarette lighter from his pocket, saying: “Right, if you won’t listen to your mother, I’ll get your damned attention!” Albert pushed his hand into the cage and held the lighter’s flame under the squawking bird.
Henry, as usual, could not resist having the last word, at which point Henrietta nipped her brother’s arm. Henry then screamed in a feigned agonizing pain.
That was the moment Albert sent the bird up in a puff of smoke.
Paradise was lost!
Albert was in no mood to make light of the children’s squabbling. He was a man at his lowest ebb, broken of spirit, having lost his dignity, and seeing his family fed by charities.
It was a week later, that Floppy, the children’s pet rabbit, met her end when dropped from a third floor of their apartment block, having lost their house in the strike.
Floppy’s death was particularly hard, sentenced to the penalty of death after Henrietta had broken an arm off a tin soldier, and a fight ensued between the children. However, Floppy made for a first decent meal in a long time.
Before that, Snuggles, the family cat, no longer snugly, having lost weight, met his fate in the bathtub. Snuggles might have been spared his life at the last minute, but Henry squealed: “It’s all Henrietta’s fault.”
Jean was hit hard by the death of Snuggles, she loved the cat more than her husband.
It seemed the two children never learned their lesson. The latest victim, in the saga of murdered pets due to the children’s infighting, was Sludge, the family goldfish. Sludge had it easier than most, he lived in a four-inch-wide bowl, with water so murky he could not see out of it. Sludge was won at a fete before he was speared on a toothpick and flushed down the toilet. The demise of Sludge, sadly, was ill timed, as Snuggles had already met his fate. Later, and Sludge would have been a full meal. Just circumstances, I suppose.
That brings us back to today. The children’s birthday, and Jean had warned Albert, the birthday party would be a naturally riotous event. Birthday parties by definition are that way.
Jean had spent the afternoon making a cake. Friends and neighbors had contributed the ingredients she would need to make the children’s birthday cake. A chocolate cake, half pink icing and the other blue. The nine candles blazed happily as she brought the cake from the kitchen to the table.
When the children stood up to blow out the candles, Henry managed to knock over a glass of orange juice, which ran across the table and into Albert’s lap, still reading the evening newspaper.
Bruiser laps it up noisily.
Henrietta immediately burst into tears while Jean hurriedly ran around the table to mop Albert’s lap, and dry his newspaper, all while trying console her daughter at the same time.
“Why don’t we sing happy birthday to Henry and Henrietta, Albert?” She said.
“I’m not singing. Look at these trousers, they’re bloody ruined,” he said angrily.
“Not ruined, Albert. It will come out in the wash good as new,” and Jean began to sing… Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Henry and Henrietta…” but Henrietta sat silent with a face of gloom, sulking.
Immediately the singing stopped, Henry started yelling at Henrietta who had picked up the carving knife and cut into the blue side of the cake.
Bruiser made a hasty retreat to the cupboard. He’d witnessed some tragedies.
The two children continued to squabble at the table. Henrietta threw icing at Henry.
“Mummy, Henrietta threw pink icing at me!”
“Henrietta!” Mother pleaded, “young ladies don’t throw food across the table now, do they?”
“Henry spilt orange juice, didn’t he? He didn’t get scalded.” She protested.
“That was an accident, Henrietta. Henry didn’t mean to spill his orange juice.”
Henry thumbed his nose at his sister. Never a good idea.
“Mummy, now he’s making faces at me. Tell him to stop”
“Who would like a piece of birthday cake?” Mother asked, hoping to bring an end to the squabbling with a food bribe.
“Henry isn’t eating the cake, mummy. He’s dropping it to the floor for Bruiser,” who, shivering with fear, could not resist coming out from his hiding place. Big error of judgement.
“No, I’m not. You liar!”
Henrietta burst into a flood of tears, “I’m not, it’s the truth, mummy.”
None noticed that father had left the table, and seemingly without losing his rag. It was a good sign. Until he returned with his shotgun, used on a Sunday for shooting clay pigeons at the club, and grabbed Bruiser by the scruff of his neck, holding him at shoulder height.
“I’m trying to read my evening newspaper. If there’s another word, I’ll shoot the damned dog!”
Bruiser hangs there like a shaggy mop, shaking uncontrollably.
“But Henrietta started it, dad. She cut the cake before I was ready!”
“You spilled orange juice!” Henrietta snapped back.
Albert turned, heading out the door and down three floors into the backyard. One shot rang out.
As wonderful as dogs are, they will sometimes make the wrong decision when starving.
The children jumped with fright, staring at each other.
Henry then sobbed at the table. Henrietta sat poker faced. Jean sat at the table holding her head in her hands.
Albert returned, locked the shotgun into its case, and resumed reading the evening newspaper.
“Children, I’d like you both to go to your bedroom,” Jean told them.
“But mummy…”
Albert peered at both children over the newspaper.
The children left the table and went up the stairs still prodding at each other.
Fifteen minutes later came a knock at the apartment door. The birthday candles had burned out.
Jean opened the door to find a tall policeman standing there.
“Good evening, a gunshot was reported coming from the backyard below,” he said, removing his helmet.
“Yes. That was my husband. He shot the children’s dog. Please come in. I have sent the children to their bedroom.”
“Thank you, ma’am?” The policeman entered.
“I’m in trouble I’m afraid,” Jean said.
“I don’t think so, ma’am, if it was your husband who shot the dog.”
When the policeman entered the small dining area, he found Albert sitting dead and neat at the table. He had the birthday carving knife sticking out of his back.
The policeman turned questioningly to the slight frame of Jean, sitting calmly at the table looking at her husband. The newspaper spread before him and his eyes still shocked open.
“I threatened him, officer, if he killed another family pet, I would kill him!” She said, without a tear on her cheek. “You see, my husband always said I shouldn’t make a threat unless I was prepared to carry it out.”
End note: While I’ve written this dark comedy, it is a fact that families feuded, and went through impossible trials of neediness and desperation due to Thatcher’s policy to bring an end to the coal industry.
More from Harry:
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