During the Scottish autumn of 1891, Irishman, Lucan Hayes, a coal miner, loses his wife to childbirth. In his darkest hour, he meets prostitute Meg-Anne Dunn. This brief encounter would alter their lives forevermore.
Lucan must find a way to rais...
Lucan stood at end of the road; the sun not quite having lit the sky. He moved his eyes over the pithead. The underground men made their way from the lamp house toward the shaft. The chilly dawn danced in the glow of their hand lamps. Hundreds alight and swaying backwards and forwards as they walked. The slag pile loomed out of the darkness behind them. Sown with cinders, shimmering like candle flames in a gentle breeze. He sighed at this dreamlike sight, realised from squalor beauty also existed and wished Kat were beside him to see it.
He made his way to the cage and descended into the pit, followed the road to the shallow and started to work.
Shielding his head from the rocks raining down on him, Lucan covered his eyes and mouth with his neck chief. Once the dust had settled, he began to dig. When he hit the solid rock bottom of the seam he reached for a tree, rammed it into the ground, and then commenced on the other side so as to fit a bar across the two, his chief goal to get up a roof support. He was not satisfied until he had the main set up. A roof fall was the one major concern of all facemen.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his scarf, removed his shirt, and then set to work on his stent. The face was the hottest place in the mine. Perspiration streamed down his body and mingled with the coal dust.
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Jas worked nearby filling the cog with old bits of timber and rock. He carried the facemen's main sets from the day before, backwards and forwards, so they could be used again.
"Told you months ago didn't I, Luc, that Scarper wouldn't ken. Got as much nous as a gatepost that one." Jas stood back and watched Lucan work. He marvelled at how the tall man had so much agility. Lucan, he knew was a hard worker. He had always worked with more vigour than any of the others who had passed through in Jas's time. Now he was like a machine. Since Kat's death, Jas had noticed the change in him. He worked constantly and talked less, when words did pass his lips, they were short, cutting and to the point. Jas wasn't going to give up, Lucan was his friend and Jas feared without his endless babble Lucan would shut the door completely. "How's young Covey, Luc?"
Lucan lifted his pick and brought it down solid. "Well."
"And the bairn, Luc, what did you call him again?" Jas watched the sweat roll down Lucan's bare back.
A back black with soot and grime.
A back broad and well-muscled.
Lucan continued to dig, each blow harder.
"Luc! What did you name the loun?"
The hammering stopped. Lucan threw the tool on the ground, turned and grabbed Jas by the throat, forcing him up against the wall. "Why'd ya ask me this shite? Every day's da fuckin' same, you ask me these things. Why?"
Jas held on to Lucan's wrist and tried to prise his fingers from his throat. "I'm sorry, Luc. I'm just askin'." He gasped for breath and stared wide-eyed. "Lucan... let go... I... cannae... breathe..." Jas wasn't sure if Lucan heard him. The rage he saw in his friend's face was something he had never seen before. "Please... Luc..." Jas rasped, as he fought to breathe.
