The small brick kitchen of the Saye cottage on Chapel Lane smelled of coal fire, toast, fried onions, and strong boiled tea. In the corner by the hearth, an old grandfather clock ticked with a heavy, deliberate swinging weight stroke that seemed to anchor the room against the dark Yorkshire rain falling outside. On the oilcloth-covered table sat a loaf of sourdough crust, a wedge of white Wensleydale cheese. A small slate chalkboard framed in pine. It was marked with neat columns in white chalk.
Martin Saye sat in the wooden rocking chair by the stove, his left leg stretched out straight to ease his stiff, arthritic hip. The legacy of thirty years spent crawling through two-foot coal seams at the Grimethorpe colliery. In his gnarled hand he held a piece of chalk. It watched his wife Jo stand at the back kitchen sink, vigorously scrubbing the green copper green rust stains from her thumbs with a foam-stone.
“Come away from the sink, Josephine,” Martin said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that carried the patient power of a man who had survived roof collapses and methane explosions. “The foam-stone won’t wash that bronze dust off in one night. Sit down and eat your toast before it turns to leather.”
