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left heavy indentations in the snow.
    A blackbird, unconcerned, pecked hopefully at the frozen ground close by the open grave. Out beyond the cemetery wall, the land offered no angles to the sky.
    As the coffin was lowered, a small group of men who’d kept their own company since before the service began to unfold a banner, the red, black and gold of the NUM, the National Union of Mineworkers.
    ‘What’s all this?’ Jack Waites said angrily. ‘What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing?’
    ‘What’s it look like?’ one of the men replied.
    ‘You tell me.’
    ‘Honouring a comrade.’
    ‘Honouring be buggered! Not here, you’re bloody not.’
    ‘Dad,’ Waites’ eldest said, pulling at his sleeve. ‘Dad, don’t.’
    Waites shrugged him off. ‘Wanted to honour him, should’ve done it when he was still alive. Out of work thirty years near enough, poor bastard, after your union helped bring the industry to its bloody knees …’
    ‘Don’t talk so bloody daft.’
    ‘Daft? Course you bloody did. You and Scargill, arrogant bastard that he was, delivering up the miners on a sodding plate and you were all too blind to see.’
    ‘I’d watch my mouth if I were you,’ another of the union men said, showing a fist.
    ‘Yes? Where is he now, then, Scargill, tell me that? In the lap of luxury in some fancy flat in London while your union pays out more’n thirty thousand a year for his rent, and has done since God knows when. And my old man, all that time, scraightin’ out a living in some one-time Coal Board house as was fallin’ apart round his ears. And you want to raise a fucking banner in his honour …’
    ‘Jack,’ Resnick said, moving towards him, ‘let it be.’
    ‘I can only thank Christ,’ the union man said, spitting out his words, ‘your father’s in his grave, ’cause if he weren’t, hearing you’d make him shrivel up and die of shame.’
    ‘Fuck off!’ Waites said, his voice shaking. ‘Fuck right off, the lot of you!’ There were tears in his eyes. Both his sons had turned aside.
    The union men stood their ground before backing away and resting their banner against the cemetery wall, some small distance off; the snow falling only fitfully now, sad moultings curling slowly down.
    Resnick weighed a handful of earth carefully against his palm, then opened his fingers and let it darkly fall.

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