Union Belle Read Online Free

but she loved him and did that, and everything else they shared in their lives, willingly. She enjoyed living out at Pukemiro, unlike her mother who was on at her dad at least once a week to move into Huntly, and she was comforted by the closeness of the small community (except, sometimes, for the never-ending gossip) and the industry that made them such a unique little group.
    Ellen was definitely her father’s daughter: she loved the coal, she loved the life, and like him she regarded the trade union almost as a religion. Without the union there would be nothing for the men who risked death undergroundevery day, and nothing for their families should they not come back up. And because the union had voted to go out in support of the watersiders, she would do everything she could to help.
    ‘Have you heard?’ she asked her mother.
    About the strike? Yes, I’ve heard, they’ve been talking about nothing but all afternoon up and down the street.’
    Ellen knew her mother didn’t have much time for striking miners, regardless of their reasons for going out, but whether it was simply because her father had been a lifelong union man himself, she had never been sure.
    ‘What do you think about it?’ she asked.
    ‘What I think is you’ll be very sorry if it goes on for much longer than a few weeks,’ Gloria said. ‘How will you pay your mortgage? And what about Neil and Davey? They can’t go to school on empty stomachs, you know. Do you want a cup of tea or a cold drink?’
    ‘Cold drink, please. They won’t go to school on empty stomachs, Mum, you know that. There’s plenty in the vege garden, and the union will rally around, they always do.’
    ‘I don’t know why you didn’t marry someone from outside, like Hazel did,’ Gloria said, shaking her head ruefully. ‘Look at her now, lovely house in Auckland, three beautiful children, husband making lots of money.’ She stood up.
    Ellen sighed—not this again. ‘I’ve got a lovely house in Pukemiro, with two beautiful kids and a husband earning all we need.’
    ‘Not after today, he won’t be,’ Gloria said as she went out to get the drinks.
    Ellen loved her sister, but she was sick to death of hearing about how marvellous her life was compared with her own. Hazel was eleven years older and had married very auspiciously, if you thought that sort of thing wasimportant. And good for her, but Ellen had never once envied Hazel’s big house in Remuera, or her husband’s admittedly substantial income. She had Tom, she had her boys, and that had always been enough.
    Gloria came back carrying two glasses of home-made lemonade on a tray set with a perfectly pressed placemat, and handed one to Ellen. ‘Look at you, you look worn out. And where are your stockings?’
    Ellen sipped her drink gratefully. ‘It’s too hot to wear stockings, Mum. And who puts stockings on just to go down Joseph Street to the grocer’s?’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Well, I’m not you.’
    Gloria ignored her. ‘At least your father will be pleased about the strike.’
    ‘He will, won’t he? It’ll give him something to sink his teeth into.’
    ‘Only if he puts them in.’
    ‘Oh, Mum, why do you always have to be on about him?’
    Gloria swirled lemonade around in her glass, watching the pips form a lazy arc then disappear beneath a lemon slice. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘Force of habit, I suppose.’
    Ellen said, ‘You’ll drive him away one day, you know.’
    Her mother looked up sharply, then laughed. ‘I doubt it. He’s sixty-eight years old, where on earth would he go?’
    Ellen didn’t know what to say to that, and didn’t even want to contemplate it. She couldn’t bear the idea of not having her father around.
    ‘The union committee’s coming over tonight,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I thought I’d do sandwiches and pikelets.’
    ‘They’ll all bring beer and smoke their heads off and leaveyour house smelling like a billiard