by Max Schaefer
‘Oh hello,’ says Tony. ‘How are you doing then?’
There is a pause. ‘Who’s speaking, please?’
‘We’ve got a friend in common. Thought I’d phone for a chat. It says here you’re not married, is that right?’
‘I’m sorry, who is this?’
‘Live by yourself in fact. In Haddo House. That’s over in Greenwich isn’t it? Do your neighbours like having a nigger in the building?’
Dave, listening at the open door, grins at this flourish.
The woman says, ‘Are you trying to frighten me?’
‘I have to say you don’t sound like a nigger, I’d never have guessed.’
‘Because you don’t scare me, do you understand—’
‘Oh I think your voice is shaking just a bit there sweetheart.’
‘—you pathetic little boy.’
‘Hardly surprising you’re not married is it,’ Tony says.
She tells him, ‘I’ve dealt with trash like you my whole life.’
‘Perhaps you’re just lonely. Would you like some company? I hope you’re fucking lonely you black cunt.’
‘Like the baby fascists at school. Thugs for parents and tiny pricks.’
‘OK so I’ll drop round later then. Haddo House. And our friend Blair Peach says see you soon. You fucking dried-up smelly old cunt.’
Her voice is properly shaking now. ‘I doubt you’ve ever even seen one, have you? A cunt? How old are you, little boy?’
Tony puts down the phone. ‘She hung up,’ he tells Dave. ‘We should go.’
The face of Niven’s wife assembles itself behind the stained glass like a shoal of fish darting into alignment. ‘Hello, Tony,’ she says, ‘Long time no see,’ and kisses him on the cheek. ‘You’re looking very smart. Who’s your friend?’
‘Dave, this is Mrs Niven. The lady of the house.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ says Dave.
‘Come on in,’ she tells them. ‘Have a drink.’
The party is already under way. There are perhaps thirty people in the front room, in twos and threes. Most of the men wear suits. The guests are all the Nivens’ age. Tony mutters to Dave, ‘The other kids in the nursery or what?’
Dave nudges him: ‘Major Hollywood at nine o’clock.’
Tony turns. Near the window a tall man in his sixties is talking to a shorter couple. He wears an SS uniform. He says something and all three laugh. The short man wipes his eyes. ‘Gordon Bennett!’ he says. ‘Gordon Bennett!’
Niven’s wife asks: ‘Would you boys like red or white? Or there’s beer if you prefer.’
‘Beer please.’
They follow her to the kitchen. She takes a can from the fridge and pours it into two glasses. Dave says: ‘You’ve got a lovely house.’
‘Oh it’s endless bloody work, this house.’ She laughs. ‘But it’s nice of you to say so, love. Come back through, let’s get you something to eat.’
The dining table is laid with platters of food. She gives them plates, and cutlery wrapped in paper napkins. ‘There’s ham, and potato salad and tuna salad, and salad salad obviously, and this is coronation chicken. There’s a bit of curry in that one.’ In a mock whisper she adds: ‘It’s Mrs Thatcher’s favourite dish, I read somewhere. When I told Mr Niven we nearly had to stop eating it!’
A woman nearby says: ‘Shouldn’t it be vegetarian, Janet, under the circumstances?’ and laughs. Niven’s wife answers: ‘There are limits, Veronica!’
As Tony scoops potato salad on to his plate there is a ringing sound. Niven is by the bookshelves, tapping his glass with a fork. The partygoers stop talking and face him. Niven looks expectant for a moment before he speaks:
‘Well, good evening, everyone, and thank you all for coming — especially those of you who have had to venture so far beyond your usual Chelsington hunting grounds and into the rather less salubrious wilds of Blackheath.’
A little laughter.
‘I’m not intending to make a speech — no, no, really, I’m not! — but I have been asked to mention one or two things. Don’t worry, I know this is a party and not a meeting, but the opportunity presented by having so many of you trapped in one room is far too tempting not to take advantage of.
‘First of all, we have another of our semi-regular film evenings coming up next month. It’s an excellent series and well worth supporting, as I’m sure anybody who attended our recent Birth of a Nation screening will attest. On Saturday the tenth of May we have the nuclear film The War Game, made and then promptly banned by the BBC for its unplanned proximity to truth. I understand it is not a little hard-hitting, but am on the other hand assured it will be gentler on the posterior than Mr Griffith’s epic. Tickets are one pound fifty and available by post from the usual League address, but Douglas, who is standing over there by the drinks cabinet as is his wont, has brought a supply with him, and I’m afraid he is refusing to budge until he has either sold, or passed, out. So spare my whisky and spend a quid to prepare yourselves for the apocalypse.
‘Also next month, James, who is hiding here somewhere, will continue his lecture series with a talk on Racial Elements in Contemporary Art, in which—according to this piece of paper— he will address the current vogue for piles of bricks and the art forms of primitive negroid tribes. It will take place, entirely unofficially of course, inside the Tate Gallery, where James informs me that many of the best works are hidden permanently in the vaults — so perhaps if he inflames us enough we might indulge in a liberating foray. It promises to be a fascinating afternoon and I encourage you all to join us in the foyer of the Tate Gallery on Millbank at 3 p.m. on Saturday the twenty-fourth.
‘Finally, a note for anyone who does not yet subscribe to the League Review: do yourselves a great favour and have a word with Keith. It really is going from strength to strength, and anybody claiming I say so because of my own forthcoming series of articles is guilty of the most appalling slander.
‘Well, I think that concludes the administrative items, and I’m not sure it was necessary to sigh with relief quite so loudly. So all that remains is to adjure you to avail yourselves of Janet’s customarily hearty spread, and as much booze as you can handle while still being able to make it beyond our front door at the end of the evening, after which quite frankly you’re on your own, and before you return to the vastly more interesting gossip from which I have so rudely detained you, to join me, please, in raising your glass to the man in whose honour we are gathered here this evening, and to offer him, wherever he might be, in this world or another, our birthday greetings and, always and for ever, our undying loyalty. Ladies and gentlemen: to the Führer.’
And everybody answers: ‘The Führer.’
‘Tony, I’m so glad you could make it.’ Niven shakes his hand with his usual careful firmness. ‘And this must be the young man we talked about.’
‘Yeah this is Dave. Dave this is Arthur Niven.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ says Dave.
Tony says, ‘I thought Steve might be here.’
‘Steve has many virtues but discretion is not one of them. There’s no reason you should have noticed, but there are some important people here. When I turned my back Steve would be hawking a television off the back of a lorry to a member of the aristocracy. Come through to my study.’
He points out a bronze bust of Hitler on his desk (‘My new indulgence, by the way’) and they inspect it politely. Tony says, ‘How much did that set you back then?’ and Niven answers, ‘Believe me, you don’t want to know. It’s quite genuine and rather rare. The challenge was getting it through customs.’
‘Now that’s very nice,’ says Dave. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘The first thing,’ says Niven when they are seated, ‘is that a certain member of our valued local Sikh community is highly unlikely to be making any further statements to the police.’
Dave glances rapidly at Tony, who smiles. ‘That’s good to hear. In the interests of multi-ethnic relations and all. How do you
know?’
‘A number of reasons, not least the remarkable disinclination of the colourful entrepreneur who runs Prestige Cabs to suffer any extended investigation of his company’s bookkeeping, particularly in respect of the immigration status of his employees. Our rickshaw-wallah will need a job after his hospital sojourn, after all.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Tony says.
‘As you say. Well, here’s to keeping them on their toes. Chin chin.’
When they have drunk Niven asks: ‘Dave, how long have you been in the Movement?’
‘I signed up nearly a year ago.’
‘And how old are you now?’
‘Eighteen next month.’
‘I assume you’re clean? No silly buggers with drugs?’
‘No nothing like that. I’ll have the odd drink but I never done drugs.’
‘Good. We can’t afford to weaken our youth. And of course the niggers get the profits. Well, I don’t know how much Tony told you about me …’
‘He said you were a big help when he come out of Borstal. And it was you more than Steve got him into the British Movement.’
‘Yes, I’m not as involved with the BM as I used to be. I devote most of my energy to the League these days. But I remain very supportive of the Movement, and I have a particular interest in fostering good working relations between the more useful members of the various organizations. Our enemies are busy multiplying, and we waste our energy on factional disputes. This latest mess with the Front, for example. Not so much washing our dirty linen in public as framing and spotlighting it. Buggery is a revolting hobby, but to publicize it is far more damaging.
‘Dave, Tony’s heard me on this particular soapbox before but I’m afraid I shall mount it again. The movement — I mean the nationalist movement as a whole — needs different people for different tasks. Some of us work best behind the scenes, with typewriters rather than guns.’
Dave says, “‘A typewriter is more important than a pistol.” It says so in this book I’ve been reading.’
‘Exactly. We’re thinkers and writers: developing strategy, producing propaganda. Looking after the big picture, if you will. Others, and I’d include both Tyndall and Webster in this, despite their exhausting and embarrassing catfight, are the public face. They’ll lead marches, talk to the press, rally troops. They have their minions: regional organizers, good party men. They don’t seek personal glory but without them we would have no members. And there are men like Steve, who take our message and make it felt on the street, a different form of struggle but a very important one. If we don’t control the streets we can never win. That’s something the Führer always understood.
‘But street action — say, something like teaching a lesson to an Asian cab driver — is very messy and very public. Not all of our physical work is like that. Some of it, often the most important and the most dangerous, has to be kept secret. And you can’t give that kind of work to someone like Steve — not because he couldn’t do it, but because he wouldn’t be able to resist bragging about it to all and sundry in the pub. That kind of work needs another kind of man. I presume you’ve heard of Column 88.’
Tony watches Dave as this sentence produces its intended effect. Niven goes on: ‘There’s been an awful lot of rubbish written about Column 88. It’s been said to be a hundred different things, none remotely accurate. I can’t say the hysteria has done it any harm. Anyway, all that really needs to be said on the subject is that men with discretion as well as bravery are very important to the movement, and certain activists are always on the look-out for them.’
Dave nods repeatedly and fast. ‘What can I do?’
‘Oh …’ says Niven vaguely, before answering with calculated bathos: ‘Don’t do anything. Carry on just as you have before. Keep playing your part for the BM, which is valuable work. You needn’t even bear in mind that attention may be being paid to how you conduct yourself, because if you’re the kind of person I hope you are you’d conduct yourself properly as a matter of course, and if you’re not no incentive will change that.
‘Only bear in mind that at some time — it may be tomorrow, it may be in many years — you may be asked to do a certain thing, and that thing may place considerable demands on you. You may be required to keep it absolutely secret, even from your girlfriend — or wife, one day; it may put you at serious risk. So bear in mind that such a request may come, and think to yourself, if and when it does, how you might respond.’
‘He’s all right Arthur,’ says Tony later in the kitchen, ‘just a bit …’ and shrugs.
‘Is he really in with Column 88?’
‘Fucked if I know mate. Probably knows someone who knows someone.’
‘So you haven’t been asked to, you know …’
‘It’s been all mouth and no trousers so far.’ Tony digs in the back of the fridge for more beers. He hands Dave a can and cracks open one for himself. ‘That fucking little bronze statue though. Jesus.’
‘How much do you think he paid for it?’
‘However much I bet you he was ripped off. I bet it was made six months ago in some Turkish sweatshop.’
The door opens, briefly unmuffling the noise of singing from the front room, and Niven’s wife enters. ‘I’m sorry,’ she announces, ‘but I draw the line at the Horst Wessel song.’ She slurs the name slightly. She has a tumbler of whisky in one hand and a soda siphon in the other, which she holds up: ‘Needs a new cartridge.’
As she rifles in a drawer, she asks: ‘Are you boys having a good evening?’
‘Yeah very nice,’ says Dave. ‘Thank you.’
‘Got enough to drink?’
Tony holds up his can. ‘We’ve raided your supply.’
‘That’s what it’s there for, my lovely.’
She fills the siphon from the tap. When she unscrews the charger cap it falls and clinks on the floor. ‘Whoops,’ she says, bending over uncertainly.
‘I’ve got it.’
‘Thanks, love.’ She mimes a kiss as she takes it from him, then turns back to the task of inserting the gas cartridge. ‘Bloody thing,’ she says to it. There is a whooshing sound and she shakes it vigorously.
Dave nudges Tony and whispers, ‘Does she spit or swallow?’ This cracks him up.
Niven’s wife spurts soda into her whisky and takes a sip. ‘That’s better.’ She looks at Dave suppressing his laughter and smiles. ‘Am I interrupting a private conversation?’
‘Course not,’ says Tony.
‘Mind if I join you for a minute? I keep getting pounced on by Douglas for my typewriting skills. I’ve told him Mr Niven’s leaflets take up quite enough of my time already.’
Tony says: ‘Oh you type them do you?’
She slips into a mock whisper. ‘Don’t tell anyone but I do a bit of editing as well. He never can get his arguments on two sides himself.’
‘Yeah well,’ says Tony. ‘Cheers.’
‘Your good health.’
There is a silence, and they look vaguely around the room. ‘I tell you what I do enjoy,’ says Niven’s wife: ‘doing the headlines. I can look through that Letraset catalogue for hours. Found a lovely typeface the other day. Like on those old German posters. Blackletter, they call them.’
“‘A reproduction machine is worth as much as a light machine gun.’”
‘Quite right, love. It is Dave, isn’t it? Not something you hear very often, that. Because it’s not women using the machine guns is it?’
‘You’ve got a lovely kitchen,’ says Dave. ‘I like your fridge.’
‘Thank you, sweetheart. I tell you, it’s endless bloody work though. Keeping it clean. Shows up finger marks like nobody’s business.’
‘You keep it lovely. You’ve got a lovely house.’
‘How old are you, love?’
‘Eighteen. Well next month I will be.’
‘Eighteen,’ she repeats. ‘Bugger me.’ She drains her glass and then all of a sudden lunges at the floor. ‘Out!’ she yells, and add
s mournfully, ‘Bloody cat.’ They watch the flap swing in the animal’s wake. ‘So,’ asks Mrs Niven, fixing Tony with a look: ‘what did you think of Mr Niven’s tie?’
‘His tie? Didn’t notice to be honest. Was there something special about it?’
‘Ah!’ She holds her finger to her nose. ‘There’s always something special about Mr Niven’s ties. He’s very particular about the patterns. He has club ties, school ties, every kind of tie.’ She is slurring her words quite badly now.
‘How many has he got?’ Tony asks.
‘Oh, I’ve lost count! I know you men think we ladies have too many clothes, or waste time worrying what to wear, but I pale before Mr Niven and his ties. Honestly, I do. And I’ve given up trying to buy them for him.’ She shakes her head as if someone is disputing it. ‘I used to think they made good presents, but he’s far too particular for me. When I give him one he’s very polite, but you watch, it’ll disappear in a drawer and you’ll never see it again. I tell you, they’re one of the wonders of the world. Mr Niven’s ties.’
Tony says,‘So what did you think?’
‘Oh they’re all right aren’t they?’
‘Wouldn’t want to do it every week. Got any fags left?’
‘Here.’
‘Listen about this training thing. Up in Cumbria.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well it depends how much it is to be honest. I mean it’s five days or whatever and I can’t really afford to go nowhere right now.’
‘Yeah no worries Tony. It was just an idea.’
‘Anyway how much do we need to learn? How to skin a rabbit won’t do us much good. Tell you what, we should start a London survival course. How to glass someone: Hold bottle by neck, smash on table, shove into face. Always execute in one smooth movement for maximum effect. Don’t smash too far down neck, you might do your hand an injury.’
Dave laughs. ‘Milk bottles are a good size for Molotov cocktails but they’ve got wide necks and it’s hard to find a bung that fits.’
‘That’s a point,’ Tony says. ‘What time is it?’