Page 30 of The Way We Are Now

I sighed as I opened the front door, making my way into the building’s main hall, resplendent with its stained-glass windows, art deco panelling and beautiful ornate ceiling, before turning left into the office where I’d been assigned a desk. There were a couple of other desks for union delegates when required, various phones, metal filing cabinets and a photocopier. Immediately I’d sat at my desk, swivelling round on the chair to adjust its height, John appeared at my shoulder, squeezing my arm and nuzzling into my neck. Embarrassed as I always was at any contact between us in the workplace, I batted him off, tutting. ‘Oy, not here,’ I warned. ‘I’m a professional, paid to do a job of work.’

‘Why didn’t you come round to the flat last night?’ he murmured into my ear. ‘You promised!’

‘I don’t think I did!’

‘You know I can’t resist you.’ John reached out an arm once more, his hand burrowing, under cover of my buttoned cardigan, like a little woodland animal, to my breast. ‘You know you want it too, you gorgeous creature.’

Something snapped and I jumped up, pushing back my chair. ‘Actually, John, I don’t want it. Not now, not when I’m here to do an important job of work. And actually…’ I took a deep breath ‘…please take this as notice of my intent to terminate this relationship.’

‘What?’ John stared down at me, his face a picture.

‘You heard,’ I said, my own face flaming. ‘Women are not chattels to be owned, to be pawed over by a man in the office who believes himself to be entitled just because he is a man.’ All I could think about was Fliss who’d accepted money to be pawed over; paid to have sex. Is that why she’d drunk so much the night she’d died? As a sort of anaesthetic against what was being done to her body? Or maybe she simply adored the sex bit so much she’d made the decision she might as well be paid for something she loved doing? Surely not. A picture of her drowned, dead body floating in the filthy water of a Leeds canal flashed unbidden before my eyes, and I closed them momentarily before standing.

‘Enough,’ I said. ‘My body is my temple.’ I couldn’t for the life of me remember who’d first come up with that little homily but was rather proud of saying it out loud now.

‘Absolutely,’ he said, grinning. ‘An utter temple, and I’d like to enter it!’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ I said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ John shot back in distaste. Well-brought-up women, my dad always said, rarely came out with the F word, and certainly never to a superior in the workplace.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, mortified. ‘I’m not myself today.’

‘On the rag?’ he asked, sympathetically. ‘You should have said. Janice turned into Godzilla’s big sister once a month.’ Janice was his ex, her blonde, featherbrained head rearing often as an example of feminine grace and beauty and only put out to pasture, John had assured me, on his meeting me. I think she more than likely dumped him, but no man is ever going to admit that, are they? ‘I kept well away from her,’ he went on. ‘Not much point really.’ He smirked. ‘So let me know, in a couple of days, when you’re up for it again…’ He broke off as the President of the NUM walked past the glass window of the closed door.

‘John,’ I said calmly. ‘I’m not seeing you any more.’ I held up my hand as he started to protest. ‘If you want it in writing, in duplicate…’ I glanced at the ancient Underwood typewriter in front of me on which I was teaching myself to type ‘…then I’m happy to do just that.’

‘But, Anna, you and me…’

‘There is no you and me,’ I retorted angrily, pushing away his pinstriped-suited leg and backside which he’d moved across my desk. Into my space.

‘Bitch,’ he spat, reaching for my breast and squeezing it hard so that I actually cried out in pain. ‘You were never any good in the sack, anyway!’ And with that, he walked slowly out, stopping to smile and talk to the main man who was returning to his own office. As if the previous five minutes had never happened.

I fled to the loo, determined not to cry. Women didn’t have to put up with this. I didn’t have to put up with this. I wasn’t going to cry. I was going to make a coffee, redo my lipstick and get on with the work I was being paid to do. Some research maybe, as well, into the history of the unions and particularly the NUM. I took several deep breaths and walked back to my desk, head held high.

‘Coffees for the workers, darling? When you’re ready?’ The head and shoulders of some entitled man peered round my office door.

And I knew, even as I smiled, nodded and headed to the kitchen, women did not have to put up with this crap from egotistical men; particularly in the workplace.

By four o’clock my head was pounding.

‘You all right, Anna?’ The President of the NUM was back in headquarters, presumably from the local picket lines or even down in Nottingham where picketing the miners was a serious business, according to my brother, Les. Trying to stop the Nottingham-based miners from doing their shifts, as well as tussling with the police who were escorting said miners, was harrowing, dangerous and deeply unpleasant.

‘Bit of a headache,’ I said.

‘You get yourself off home.’ He smiled. ‘Too nice a day to be cooped up in here. You live near The Alamo? Yes? Well, get yourself off, but do me a favour on the way home. There’s some new leaflets to be handed out to the men there.’ He passed over a bulging brown envelope. ‘Just drop them in for me, would you?’

‘Are you sure?’ I glanced at the clock. ‘I’m not supposed to leave until five.’

‘Hey, who’s in charge round here? I’m giving you permission.’

‘Lovely, thank you.’

‘Just collect up the cups and give them a wash first? And the kitchen a bit of a tidy? Or we’ll have nothing to drink out of tomorrow.’

‘Right.’

Ten minutes later, I was out in the glorious April sunshine, breathing in the sweet, scented air, closing my eyes against the bright light after the dingy oppression of the office.