“Coorie doon means to snuggle down,” he said. “My grandpa sang this song to me to help to sleep when I was a bairn. Imagine me as a bairn! And imagine my tough old tender grandpa singing at my side.”
He sang on. He ignored the stupid ignorant kids that rolled their eyes and giggled, especially the stupid ignorant boys that thought they were so tough. And as he sang, Mina closed her eyes and imagined that the singing voice was her dad’s.
Mr. Henderson smiled as he wiped his eyes.
“You must always remember,” he said, “the men and boys that dug out the stuff as black and bright as Mina McKee’s hair.”
That lunchtime the kids in the yard were rotten to her. They laughed like hyenas and called her Coaly McKee and Teacher’s Pet and told her to get herself back to the underground where she belonged. She clenched her fists.
“You stupid bloody hyenas!” she said.
“Ooooh!” they said. “Mina McKee’s swearing! I’m going to tell the teacher!”
“You are!” she yelled. “You’re bloody stupid bloody hyenas!”
And she ran straight out of the school gate and into Heston Park. She slowed down. She listened for footsteps behind. She listened for her name being called, but there was nothing. A few men sprawled on a grass verge in the sunshine, reading newspapers and eating sandwiches. Their hard hats lay on the ground at their sides. They hardly looked up as Mina walked by. She walked towards the rhododendron bushes, then through them towards the steel gate. A stone had been put against the gate, but it was open, just a few inches. Mina looked at the skull and crossbones and quickly looked away. She was a small thin girl. She only needed to ease the gate open a few more inches, and she slithered inside.
Yes, it was very dark, but there was a pale light dangling close to her head. It lit steep steps that headed down into the earth. She followed them, twenty crumbling steps or more. Then she was in the tunnel itself, where another bulb dangled, and more bulbs dangled in the distance, showing the tunnel that stretched away to right and left. It was higher than her head. There was rubble on the tunnel floor, and a trickle of water. There was the stench of damp and rot and of what she thought must be death. She thought of the sun shining brightly in the outside world so nearby, and she had to tell herself not to run back up there in fright. She thought of Orpheus and of her father. She thought of the stupid hyena kids. None of them would dare to do something like this! She took a deep breath, and steeled herself, and headed down into the earth. She kept stumbling on the rubble, stretching out to steady herself on the damp walls. She kept expecting her voice to be called but there was nothing.
“My name is Mina,” she kept on whispering, and her words echoed back to her. “My name is Mina. I am very brave.”
There was a dull roaring sound from far away. She stopped and listened. Maybe it was water, or could it be the yelling and groaning of the dead?
Something brushed against her leg. She leapt away and screamed in horror and looked down and it was a black cat, weaving its way around her legs.
“A cat!” she gasped. “A cat!”
She couldn’t stop shuddering as she leaned down to it. She stroked its dense dark fur and felt the heat of its body and she began to be soothed and calmed.
“My name is Mina,” she whispered, and the cat mewed and purred in reply, and Mina knew she’d found a friend down here in the dark.
She moved on with the cat at her side. In places the walls of the tunnel had broken. Stones and bricks lay in untidy heaps. She imagined the world above, and the thickening layer of earth, stones, soil, bones, roots between herself and it. She imagined the whole tunnel collapsing onto her, as the tunnels could collapse onto pitmen long ago.
And then there was a ditch, crossing the route of the tunnels. By the frail light of the dangling bulb, she saw the stream rushing through the ditch. Mina caught her breath. She stroked the cat. This must be the river that Orpheus had to cross, the river between the world of the living and the dead. Suddenly, the cat drew back. There was a growling, and on the other side of the stream two eyes had begun to shine. This, thought Mina, is the monster, the guardian of the Underworld, that Orpheus had to tame. It came closer, and showed itself to be a shaggy, thickset dog that snarled at them across the ditch.
Mina crouched down. She held out a friendly hand towards the dog, and in a trembling voice she started to sing, just like Orpheus did so long ago.
