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He couldn’t move his head so he was having to look at her out of the far corner of his eyes. Could see it was a strain. Everything looked a strain for him at that point. His breathing was quick, and shallow.
Who knew what had happened. Something had just slipped. People worry about all the blasting that gets done in a quarry, but it’s more dangerous what happens in between times. People lower their guards. You stick high explosives in a hole, people understand about following procedures, listeni
ng out for warnings, keeping a safe distance. Whereas you start talking about things like slope stability, people stop listening. Certain amount of corner-cutting goes on. There’s always a pressure to get the job done. And then some small thing goes wrong. Something geological. The temperature changes, the ground shifts, and all of a sudden you’ve a man lying in the dirt with a ton of rocks stacked up upon him.
*
It’s not like no one knows a quarry is a dangerous place. Sometimes the wives could talk of nothing else. The men had all had The Talk at one time or another, working at the quarry. Any little bang on the head, any broken bone, they’d get the Mrs wanting everything to change. You’re not working in that bleeding quarry any more, tired of worrying myself sick about you. Get yourself out of there and don’t go back. It’s not worth it. All of that. It never happened. They all went back, in the end.
And if it wasn’t the danger, the wives would get started on the noise, and the dust. This is meant to be a peaceful place to live, but there’s all that blasting going off. And the state of the laundry. All that. You’d think they’d rather there was no quarry at all. Except then what would all those lads have been doing for work. And where would all the limestone come from then. The wives knew this, really. It was only when there was an accident like that one with Ted that they got themselves all riled up again.
There was none of that from Irene just then, of course. Was hardly the time. She just stayed there, kneeling beside him in the dirt, holding his hand. Flecks of dust kept settling on Ted’s face, and she kept wiping them away.
It was the first time Ian had seen those two touch each other, he realised. You’d barely ever see them in the same room, most days, and if they were walking in the street Ted would always be ten feet ahead. The two of them were not known for being inseparable. And yet they’d always been known as a pair. They’d been married before they moved to the village, so no one had known one without the other.
Ted came from another village not far away, somewhere to the north. He’d moved around as a young man, and come this way to work in the quarry. He’d picked Irene up in a town on his travels. It had taken her a while to adjust to village life when they’d first moved in.
One incident Ian remembered from years back, not long after they’d arrived. There was a group of them used to meet up in the pub after work, regular. One night there was a conversation about family, and someone asked what Ted’s father did for work. It was innocent enough. People were curious. Irene started to answer the question for Ted, and Ted cut her right off.
Barely even spoke. Just lifted his hand. Quickly like.
Like getting ready to swat a fly.
And Irene stopped talking, just like that.
When they left there were jokes about what his father did that Ted didn’t want discussing. No one mentioned the way he’d silenced her.
People didn’t think that manner of thing was anyone else’s business, in those days.
*
It should have been a more private moment. The two of them there like that. If they’d been in a hospital, Ian would have made himself scarce. But he was too involved in keeping the weight off Ted, keeping him comfortable until more help arrived.
The two of them were very calm, the whole time.
Not like Tony. Tony was in bits, running backwards and forwards, on the phone, shouting instructions at the men. They were still waiting for the proper lifting gear to arrive. Where’s the effing ambulance, he was shouting, where’s the effing rig, what’s the effing hold-up.
He knew it was on him. Cutting corners, letting blokes get on with it without checking what they were doing. But he was hardly rectifying the situation by running around like a blue-arsed fly the way he was.
Irene just sat in the dirt next to Ted.
Holding his hand. Looking at him.
Not like this, she said. Not now.
And Ted just looking up at her. Blinking, dead slow.
Licking his lips, but he couldn’t talk.
A couple of lads got a jack underneath one of the slabs at that point, and cranked it up. Trying to get the weight off his chest. It was ill-advised. There was a crunching noise, and Ted’s eyes sort of rolled back in his head.
He didn’t scream. But his colour got worse.
*
Word spread, the way word does.
Jackson and his boys showed up, asking was there anything they could do. They had all sorts of rig on the back of the trailer. But it was specialist gear Tony was waiting for.
