Georgina

GEORGINA - Chapter 5: The Worth of a Life

The next morning Georgina was relieved to descend into the darkness of the pit after furtively shuffling to work trying to hide the indecent rent by holding her cloth wrapped piece of dry bread in front of her crotch. 

As she descended the shaft she realised that one of Ben's coarse hands was grasping bare flesh through tears in her thin shirt as he firmly held her torso to him.  Should she follow the example of some of the other women and save her shirt for wearing to and from the pit?  Only the previous week such an idea would have been unthinkable, yet soon the alternative might well be walking home through the streets in a totally indecent condition. 

Her thoughts as she waited to unload her tub at the bottom of the shaft were on what Ben would think if she stripped off her shirt to work topless, and whether to discuss her concerns with Agnes.  They were cut short by a crash and rattle from above as several large pieces of coal fell from the bucket as it neared the top of the shaft.  One huge lump shattered on hitting the ground just in front of her, a large piece flying into face of the young woman waiting alongside her, who screamed and threw herself back on her haunches with blood gushing bright red from her shattered cheekbone, down the front of her colourless thick cloth chemise and canvas trousers.  Her screams faded to incoherent gasps as she fell back with her arms spread and her back arching jerkily to expose her midriff before collapsing motionless.  Georgina just froze in shock staring at the girl, expecting her to cough and sit back up again, until Mr Woods, the old man who recorded their productivity in his ledger, shouted out impatiently "Someone shift it out of the way, the bucket's nearly back down." 

A woman pushed past Georgina and rolled the obstruction to one side so she could start emptying her tub into the bucket.  Once the bucket was full she then turned to the dead, or dying, girl and roughly pulled off her bloodstained trousers and threw them to Georgina saying "Her Ma won't want these and she'd no other family so you can make yourself a bit more decent."  Embarrassed that her exposed crotch had obviously been noticed, Georgina watched as the other woman then carefully removed the girl's bloodstained shirt for herself  before dragging the naked body to the bucket.  "Come on then, help me get it on the bucket, it can't stay here" she commanded Georgina.  Her hands slipped on the wet blood covering the girl's arms as she helped drag the limp corpse to lie on its back on top of the coal in the bucket, then watched still in disbelief as, arms and legs dangling obscenely, it was hoisted up the shaft. 

"What happens to her now?" Georgina shakily asked the other woman.

"We'll bury her when we finish work, if her mother's there" she said as she hurried away leaving Georgina to re-fill the bucket when it came back down again.  Guiltily she  rolled up the blood sodden trousers and dropped them into her empty tub.

When she reached the surface at the end of her shift Georgina, guiltily clutching the bloodstained trousers, saw a crowd of colliers stood looking at the frail grey corpse laid on the ground by the pit head, black flies busy about the dried blood on its shattered face.  No one seemed surprised that the girl's body had been stripped, and the manager was talking gently to a tearful woman who she assumed was the girl's mother.  He turned to the crowd and asked "Does anyone want to pay for Helen Stewart to be buried in the chapel graveyard."  Without waiting for an answer a couple of men grasped the arms and legs of the cold naked corpse and carefully placed it face down on one of the small trams used to take waste to the spoil tip. 

The crowd followed the tram as it was pushed out along the temporary rickety track to the spoil tip.  At the edge of the black heap of discarded shale,  stones and other residues sorted from the coal brought to the surface, the two miners who had been pushing the tram dug a shallow hole and respectfully placed the girl's limp body into it in a foetal position,  as naked as when she was born.  Her mother knelt beside her and kissed her daughter's cold cheek before stepping back and nodding to the two men waiting with their shovels.  Just as they were about were to start backfilling the grave a slender youth timidly stepped forward and tenderly kissed the dead girl's cheek while cradling her lifeless head in his dirty hand.   The girl's mother stepped forward again, scowling, but before she could speak the boy had retreated back into the crowd.  The men then resumed shovelling the loose dirt back over the body.   An older man stuck a crude cross made from two sticks lashed together with what looked like dried grass into the slight mound as the crowd dispersed, most heading for the tavern.  Looking back Georgina realised that the crude grave would no doubt be covered by spoil in a few days,  to become just a part of the growing slag heap.

Realizing she was now alone, still staring at the grave after even the girl's mother had gone, Georgina looked guiltily at the blood stained trousers she was still holding.  Taking a deep breath after looking down at the indecent ruined crotch of her own trousers she scrambled down to the stream below the tip and thoroughly washed them,  staring at the girl's blood as it drifted downstream in the sluggish water.   Looking about she seemed to be alone so she cautiously removed her blackened shirt and washed that too,  watching the coal dust follow the rapidly dispersing blood.  Inspecting the thin wet fabric she realised how badly it was disintegrating with rough usage and shivered as she carefully pulled the cold damp material back over her arms and body.  Looking back at the slag heap,  remembering the pathetic frail body now interred in it, Georgina decided that her concerns about modesty whilst working in the Stygian darkness of the pit were really irrelevant if she too was likely to end her short life being brought up into the daylight as just a piece of limp broken flesh.

As she walked dejectedly back Ben called across to her from outside the packed alehouse and offered her a small mug of beer.  At first the bitter cloudy liquid stuck in her throat and she almost spat it out, but having drunk nothing but water for several weeks, she forced it down her throat to be grateful for the change.   The next mouthful she swallowed more easily.  Although very different to the wine she used to be allowed a small glass of occasionally, by the time she had finished the mug she was ready for more.  Seeing that Ben appeared somewhat inebriated already she hesitated to approach him with a request for another lest such familiarity be misconstrued.  

She turned to leave but spotted the youth who had kissed the dead girl in her grave, sat alone on the moist grass holding a mug to his lips with both hands.  As she got closer she could see that his hands were shaking slightly and he was staring fixedly in front of him.   Feeling sorry for him, and slightly curious, Georgina sat down next to him.  From the reaction of the girl's mother she could assume he wasn’t a relation "Was Helen a friend of yours?"

Instead of replying he finished his beer then stood up and, without looking at her, said "Will you have a beer?  Stay there, I'll get you one."  She watched as he headed through the crowd at the door of the tavern, staggering slightly.  He returned carrying two mugs, each twice the size of the one Ben had given her and silently handed her one.

Georgina repeated her question "Your friend was she?"

"We both used to hurry in the four foot mine, but I’m a hewer now." He paused to gulp down several mouthfuls of beer "In the top end of the half yard mine."

The unaccustomed alcohol made Georgina boldly persistent "Did you love her?”  Even as she said it she remembered his kiss and regretted asking that question.

"We'd meet in the tunnels" he drank again "Sometimes I"d deliberately seek her out in the dark."  He paused, placing a hand on Georgina’s thigh, dangerously near to the growing tear in the rotten fabric.  She gulped down several large mouthfuls of the warm, still beer.  "I always tried to be careful to avoid doing anything..." he drank some more beer and his fingers moved up slightly nearer to the indecent rent  "not to make bastards or anything."  Georgina drew a deep breath as she felt his calloused fingers on the flesh of her inner thigh.

She put up a hand to push him away as he leant towards her but when she touched his chest she instead found herself moving her hand round to his back pulling him tighter towards her.  As his whole hand moved to caress the skin of her inner thigh beneath the rotten fabric of her trousers she felt relief as it moved tenderly down her leg away from her exposed sex.  Were people watching them?  She frantically looked around but only saw people staggering homeward away from them, towards the terraced cottages, while those remaining gravitated towards the noisy warmth inside the tavern.  As his face moved towards hers she felt with her hand to check how much her torn trousers were exposing her, sat as she was with her legs slightly spread.  She found no fabric but her finger tips made contact with her exposed vagina, with shock she realised how moist it was, gently inserting her fingers she checked whether the dampness came from within or from the damp grass.

"I might as well have fucked her properly as she's ended up dead anyway" he said.  Confused, Georgina realised he was still thinking about his dead girlfriend and pulled away from him.  She went to drink some more beer but found that she had already emptied the mug, watching her he said "I'll see if Landlord will let me get some more on tick." Un-entwining himself from her he headed unsteadily back to the tavern carrying the two empty mugs.

Georgina felt she should immediately get away back to her lodgings, but then the boy could obviously ill afford to buy her drinks so it would be most ungracious to abandon him should the landlord give him credit for more beer .. so she just sat there, moving her knees together.  She wondered whether to change into the freshly washed canvas trousers, but felt certain he would know they were Helen’s.  Had he already recognised them bundled up alongside her?

As he headed back towards her with two more mugfuls of beer she shamefully realised she didn’t even know his name.  "Richard Barratt" he relied in answer to her question "or Dick if you prefer" he added.

"I’m Georgina Hu..." she started to reciprocate, then suddenly remembering to avoid any link with her past ".. err Smith" she finished.  Adding with a giggle "Mr Thomas wrote it down as George."

"That's in case the Inspector of Mines takes a look, women shouldn’t be working underground any more" explained Dick, moving closer to her, handing her one of the beers.  "You can read then?" he suddenly added.

Anxious to change the subject she sipped her beer then asked "You say you’re hewing in the half yard mine now, that’s where I hurry for Ben Hopkins.”

"You’re down the bottom, near the pump shaft.  There's plenty of coal down there, even if it's a bit wet.” He drank from his mug.  "They've put me to the top end, the other side of the shaft.  It's not much good up there, they tried it before, a few years ago but there's not much coal up there.  It so thin even I can hardly wedge myself in there, I think the seam's running out.  The roof's too low to get a corve up to the face so they send kids to push and roll the coal down to the pit eye, but I keep having to stop to help them."

Georgina could hardly imagine a roof even lower than where Ben worked, even there her buttocks scraped the roof with her knees on the ground.  As Dick huddled closer to her she had nearly asked if she could hurry for him before he had explained how cramped the thin seam was.  She had been wondering why such a skinny youth had been made a hewer, now she realised that probably few of the other colliers could squeeze into that part of the mine.  She grasped him tight to her and kissed him, then released her hold and started unbuttoning his shirt, he reciprocated by lifting her shirt up so he could place his hands on her bared midriff and feel her bottom ribs protruding above her hollow belly.  She drunkenly rolled her shirt up to expose her trim breasts, two more of the few remaining buttons popping off as she tugged at the ripe cotton then tightly hugged his bare chest to her body. 

As he moved his hands round her back, gently running his fingers up her spine, massaging the ridges of her vertebrae, she held his head in her hands turning his face towards her.  She kissed his lips, probing between them with her tongue.  Dick responded enthusiastically, probing deep into her mouth with his tongue, while clawing his fingers sharply into her back between her ribs making her thrust her chest tighter against him.  Georgina fell onto her back and he followed her so that his full weight crushed her to the damp ground, shamefully unconcerned that the bulge in his trousers was brushing the skin of her uncovered labia.  She released his head and, as he thrust his tongue as deep into her mouth as he could, she spread her arms wide surrendering her body to him.

As his tongue explored the back of Georgina’s mouth her stomach, unaccustomed to beer – especially in such quantity, heaved and she tried to push him away as the bile rose in her throat.  She frantically pushed his face up off hers a moment before she heaved beery vomit down her front, soaking her rolled up shirt, covering her breasts and ponding in her hollow belly. 

Dick rolled away cursing her as he felt the warm stinking contents of her stomach splashing on his chest.  Georgina tried to sit up feeling giddy and somewhat detached.  She retched to clear her mouth, eventually managing to mumble profuse but incoherent apologies before vomiting again as she tried to roll over and crawl away on all fours. 

Suddenly feeling embarrassed,  and guilty, Ben got to his feet and ran back to the village leaving Georgina lying face down on the wet grass.