Not suitable for children. The story has an adult theme.

There was no light only all enveloping darkness as Jim tried to shift his right leg into wakefulness without disturbing the young man cradled in his arms. The events of the night had left him drained emotionally, tired and feeling decidedly nauseated. Sitting bolt upright with his back against the coolness of the wall his mind tiredly reflected, again, over the events of the past six hours and still he couldn’t work out why he was in this terrible predicament and what would now happen to him and young Billy.

Dismissing thoughts of blame and retribution, Jim’s mind drifted off into his past. He thought of his ex-wife. She, Kathy, who was small in stature but big in mouth, would probably laugh unkindly and proclaim that it was his own fault. Kathy, Jim knew, had never forgiven his philandering ways with other, younger, women of the small Yorkshire mining village that they both belonged.

Simple shopping trips to the local Co-op for bread, milk and general groceries became, for her, a personal daily nightmare – there was always someone with a tale to tell about her husband. Jim recalled their last argument before she finally walked out.

"And guess what else Ruby Paterson told me" she had screamed. Jim mused that he, unwittingly, had kept the fight going by saying, "what, what, come on then, what the fuck did that witch say"?

 Kathy, tears streaming down her face had sobbingly blurted out what Ruby, a so-called friend, had told her in the busy Co-op that morning.

"I don’t want to cause trouble but I saw your man leave the Collier’s Arms at quarter past ten last night" Ruby had said.
 
"So what"! Replied Kathy. "Well, you know Annie Davies, she followed him out".
"And", Kathy had snapped.
 

With an eye on Kathy’s menacing look Ruby had said,
 
"Oh I don’t know whether I should say or not, you’re going to be mad. But anyway, you know how I have to pass the lane leading down to the old pit on the way home”?
 
Without waiting for an answer Ruby had continued.
 
“Well your man’s car was parked a few yards up with its windows all steamed up and if you weren’t in it, then who was, I mean the car was bouncing up and down and I thought I hope that’s Kathy getting a good seeing too"?

Jim remembered that day as if it were yesterday. The fact that Kathy had packed her case and left with their son, Jim junior, soon after the argument hadn’t really phased him one way or another. After all, they were only three streets away living with her widowed mother. Any thoughts of remorse were quickly dispelled by Jim’s own conclusion on his failed marriage was that both they, and the kid, had all done OK over the past four years. Kathy had gone back to work in the Colliery canteen and he had continued his philandering in freedom, seeing the kid most weekends.

Billy stirred and whimpered. Jim moved his hand and stroked the lad’s dark curly hair and hushed him to stop fretting saying
 
"it’s OK Billy everything will be fine, you wait and see, nobody will blame you for this".

Billy half opened his eyes and could feel the wetness of Jim’s naked chest against his cheek, He felt reassured by Jim’s soft voice. Awake now, his immediate thoughts were of what his Dad would say and his mother’s anguish at his pitiful plight. Stuff it Billy decided, his Dad could go to hell for the bully he is and Mum will always love him despite his shortcomings. Billy felt the firm but comforting touch as the man, nearly twice his own age, continued to stroke his hair and wondered if now was the right time to tell him his secret.

Jim had known Billy since he was a boy and remembered the day that the Pit Gaffer had told him that Billy was hired as an apprentice fitter and that he would be his Journeyman. This Journeyman, now realised that their relationship had grown between them over the past three years and that it had blossomed into more than man and apprentice but that of close friendship. But he also knew that sadly this would now surely end as light of the coming day will end the blackness and pain of this night.

Billy had convinced himself, helped by the reassuring hand stroking his head, that he should tell Jim the secret that had tormented him for the past seven months.

"Jim", "hush lad" Jim soothed.
 
"No Jim listen, I want to tell you something, please don’t be mad".
 
"Why would something you have to say make me mad" Jim enquired.

Billy took a deep breath and began to blurt out the conscience of his innocence.
 

"Do you remember when big Tom was teasing me that time after Christmas – about how I had been up to no good with another man’s woman and I called him a big fat liar"?

"Lad, I can’t say as I do".

Jim was tiring of this; he wanted to sort out his own thoughts before it was too late.
 
"You had a hangover, remember"?

"Come on Billy I always have a hangover, out with it" Jim replied.
 
"Promise you won’t be mad, but it was true what Big Tom said".
 
Billy took another deep breath and continued,
 
"it was Kathy, there I’ve told you".

Billy turned his head up and peered through the darkness toward Jim’s face – desperate to see some look of forgiveness from a man he had grown to love. He could not see his face but felt Jim’s chest stiffen suddenly and then relax. Billy could no longer feel the reassuring hand stroking his hair and waited for that same hand to strike down at him but it never came.

Jim’s last thoughts, before the lights crashed in on them, were not of anger but of resigned understanding. After four years of separation from Kathy he had no right or earthly reason to be angry if she had sought out her needed comfort and attention from another man. Yeah-Good luck to them he thought - to his mind Billy and Kathy were well matched because both of them could talk for Britain and had both nipped his ears many times in the past.

Billy could hear muffled voices from the depths of the darkness and knew that they were coming for them.
 
"Jim, they’re coming please don’t tell them that I made a mistake and brought this mess down on us".
 
There was no reply from Jim as Billy watched the dancing lights come toward him.
 
"There you are. Are you both alright"? Came a concerned sounding but muffled voice.

Two men were now hovering over the man who was kneeling in front of Billy: the bright light of their lamps illuminating the scene. Billy could read Mines Rescue on the man’s helmet and see the man, behind the full mask of his breathing apparatus, wink and say:
 
"It’s all over now son, just relax while I check you over. Do you feel pain"?
 
Other men were arriving as Billy replied,
 
"I think I’ve broken my legs".
 
In a blinding flash the black darkness was gone. The other men to arrive, latterly, had brought and set up emergency arc lights.
 
"Gently now" ,

said the man who had first spoken to and comforted Billy. He had remained talking with him, holding his hand while others had lifted him, painfully, out of Jim’s embrace.
 
As they lay Billy onto a stretcher he could, for the first time in seven hours, see his Journeyman bathed in the harsh arc light and impaled by a metal spike through his neck. Jim’s eyes were staring but appeared smiling. His naked chest was coloured red as his life’s blood had seeped away from the spike wound and now lay like ebbing thoughts soaking into the black as coal earth.

Billy wretched and began to cry for the man he loved as a friend.

The End.