. . . . of Hope and Glory

by R. Jay

  "Why not form our own 'neighbourhood watch' type of group? For now. Take it in turns to patrol round Holtingham at night. The first sign of more monkey business from those 'Invaders' prats, send out the alarm and we all pile in, give them a fucking good hiding another night, no witnesses. Would have caught them red-handed wouldn't we? Besides they won't misbehave any more in front of the audience lined up out there tonight."

  "Suits me, bring 'em on." Rick Ryan was looking more cheerful now.

  Chris grinned, his brain working on the hoof as alternatives presented themselves. "So let's get the public on our side rather than be labelled as the bad boys. Shouldn't be that difficult, everybody in this country has had it up to the chin with what's gone on over the last few years.

  "We could stage a protest rally through the town centre this Saturday. 'Police not protecting us', that sort of thing." Nobby offered.

  Ned Ryan who was the Holtingham RC secretary and general dogs-body, pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. "Okay you lot, I declare this bar open. Let's talk about what Chris has said, form a resistance group, then go and break teeth."

  "Resistance group yeah?" Nobby Clark cracked his knuckles looking pleased with himself. "I've got a name for that. How about the 'English Front Line'?"

  "Gaw'd, he'll have us digging trenches next." Somebody at the back muttered.

  They pulled a number of tables and stools into a single unit, sat around the rectangle of varnished wood like a Downing Street Cabinet meeting, only without the subterfuge, lies and cowardice. As Ned ferried pints and packets of unhealthy snacks to them, Chris banged a fifty pound note down on the bar top.

  "There's a float Ned. I'll top it up if necessary"

  Necessary it was. The impromptu meeting stretched on until midnight when Ned, conscious of legal responsibilities declared the bar closed.

  The first decision had not been difficult. With the police swarming all over town praying for anti-social behaviour, vigilante patrols would commence the following evening, Wednesday. Other likely-lads would be recruited and groups of four would rotate in two hour shifts until the early hours every night.

  Chris offered up his Landrover due to be collected in the morning for the EFL's official transport.

  "We do have our own wheels." One dissenter grumbled sucking on an empty glass.

  Chris grimaced, splaying his hands out on the table top in exasperation. "All this talk of war, I thought you'd be happier riding in our own tank. That motor is a monster." He insisted, won the argument.

  The 'War Horse' was officially adopted and Christened as the EFL's mechanised division. It was all a bit of a laugh.

  Volunteers that included all of them there and others as yet unaware, pledged to assist, where possible, repairs of the damage committed on the two churches and the synagogue. Several of their number were builders and tradesmen, the others would be enthusiastic labourers.

  Their own posters were proposed offering a small reward for concerned citizens, or the Muslim community, to identify the perpetrators of these attacks and others preceding them. Chris insisted on putting up the cash, he was flush with his unfortunate inheritance and couldn't think of a more fitting way to put some of it to use. A fleeting memory of their smashed headstone stung his mood.

  All agreed on staging a protest rally with townspeoples' support that coming weekend. A march along the High Street that would culminate at the Town Hall or police station. Somebody in public office had to be prodded into fulfilling their obligations. Secret hopes of a return match with last Sunday's 'blockaders' were savoured in most hearts there.

  As they were ejected out into the car park by Ned Ryan impatient now for his bed, all agreed that a disastrous night had turned good. Bring 'em on!

  ***

  "What, nothing doing? Not a peep from those young toughs putting it about on Sunday? What a fucking wash-out!" Benny Mann was soaring through white fluffy clouds, his whole being buzzing with the fizz of narcotics.

  Angrily he slammed his fist down on the sofa cushion, breaking the empty syringe, the needle jerking up and drawing blood from his middle finger. Could your own kit contaminate you?

  "I don't know why you are so upset." Lucy Lever snapped back testily. "I spent four hours in that lousy restaurant promising Fleet Street's best the biggest firework show since the end of the Olympics. Now all I have to show for it is a sore arse and galloping indigestion from a dodgy curry."

  It was now three in the morning, she was sitting in a cold car with a light sheen of ice on the windscreen and the prospect of a long drive home to Peterborough. Her mood was not conciliatory.

  Mann paused a moment, a vision of her arse rotating before his dilated pupils; it was a surreal place that he inhabited from that decrepit sofa in Angel Islington.

  "Khan promised me a right shit-storm tonight, plebs pouring from their front doors all over that grotty little town."

  "Is that so? Well I can promise you Benny that those 'plebs' are all tucked up in bed and asleep - unlike me!" She complained tartly.

  Mann stretched out for a bottle of beer by his feet, knocked it over on the grubby carpet. "Have faith in me babes, you'll get the story you want ... " He slurred, as he passed out.

  ******

  FOURTEEN

  She only did the job because it offered a roof over her head, a modest but guaranteed income, and a life independent of that drunken beast of a husband currently lurching between enforced redundancy and instant dismissal, in an endless curriculum of failed employment.

  "No I don't know where he's been these past couple of days. Not my job to keep track of all their gadding about, just to check that they are still alive and breathing while they are here." She sniffed dismissively. "Not that he should be here anyhow. This is a warden controlled facility for the elderly. Not a seamen's' mission or whatever the equivalent is for soldiers."

  Chris kept his rising distaste in check. "Sydique Sahni is a serving soldier on medical leave."

  "Lot of bleeding good he'll be with only one leg and arm then!" She snarled, turning around and stalking off without so much as a farewell, to hurry through the rest of her rounds, rousing the residents of Squires Court to prove that they were still of this world.

  Chris climbed back into his Landrover to drive back home, a slight unease worming through him at not having seen or heard from his friend for a while. Optimism suggested that he may have returned to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham or Headley Court for the resumption of his rehabilitation, physiotherapy and a programme for re-engaging with mind and body. He hoped so but thought it strange Sid had not let him know.

  Perhaps his concerns were just guilt at his own lapse of responsibility towards a young man, his mate, so independent of mind but so dependant physically on the wider world. If it could be bothered at all. Sid had been hovering at the back of his 'to do' list. But, he thought defensively, the last couple of days had been both tiring and absorbing.

  The EFL had patrolled their home town well into the early hours, eager and expectant at first. Then the dreary cold routine quickly degenerated to a begrudging chore for those with wives, families and jobs to go back to; eyes heavy with sleep deprivation and chilled to the bone, cruising through dark November nights in the draughty, utility interior of the War Horse.

  No further incidents had occurred or seemed likely to. Even during daylight hours the Mosque patrons were conspicuous by their sudden absence, apart from the residual contingent of old men and small boys dragged along to perform noisy prayer rituals knelt shoeless on decrepit pieces of matting.

  No darkly glowering eyes peered down from that broadside of upper windows, no swaggering bands of youths in long granny robes meandering aimlessly through the High Street shoppers, as if waiting for mischief or opportunity.

  The lads of the newly formed English Front Line and a platoon of volunteers had set to on the repairs to damaged houses of prayer, experiencing some measure of purpose and momentum from good works. Yet increasin
gly, as unelected leader, Chris felt like a parody of Captain Mainwaring, marshalling an untrained Home Guard, without uniforms, who looked increasingly unlikely to see battle. 'Zulus - thousands of them!' 'Not around here he thought', strangely disappointed.

  With his mind elsewhere he automatically braked at a light controlled pedestrian crossing three vehicles back, only partially aware of the family group crossing up front. Suddenly he snapped into sharp awareness as they reached the opposite kerb, oblivious to his startled face behind the windscreen just yards away.

  With a thumping heart Chris watched Barry Wells and Alison bickering as they walked together, with discreet anger, she pushing a pram that had seen better days and he firmly gripping the small white hand of the little girl Chris had last seen asking after her daddy. He felt stunned, the dots joining up in a flood of bright insight to create a pixel led picture he never saw coming until now. ' … a wife and two kids to support… '

  Fingers gripping the steering wheel with white knuckled intensity, he stared after them heading off in the opposite direction still locked in a furious, side of mouth altercation, in a stew of indignation, hurt and jealousy. The irate blast of a car horn behind him suggested impolitely that he get a move on as the lights had turned green. Putting the truck into gear he drove slowly forward, attention fixed on the little group now stationary outside the Daisy Tea Rooms.

  At the last moment he registered the red flare of brake lights before him, hit the pedal, the tyres biting hard on damp tarmac, squealing into a short skid. The destructive might of his front bumper quivered just inches short of the stationary car in front.

  "Jesus!" He wiped a burst of perspiration from his brow as the aggrieved driver flipped him the finger, gunned his engine to life and took off as if fleeing the War Horse. Chris sat a second or two recovering his nerves, which provoked the tetchy driver behind to a repeat rendition of his car horn. Not wishing to draw further attention to himself Chris moved off with a crunching of gears.

  As the Landrover rumbled on up the High Street, left hand indicator twittering in readiness for the turn into Mafeking Road, Barry Wells' worried eyes followed its progress, as his daughter tugged at his hand demanding an iced cake and orange juice.

  ***

  Chris slouched into the little terraced cottage in a subdued mood. Apart from the shock revelation of a few minutes ago, grandpa was worrying him. He had not fully recovered his strength of purpose and character since being warned that he may face court proceedings for a 'crime' that did not exist in his own rule book. These last few days he had been introvert, shoulders sagging, head drooping as if in shame; had lost the heart of a lion. His skin had drawn taut across his square face, grey and lifeless. A picture of despondency, disappointment, despair.

  Chris paused in the kitchen doorway, grandpa was sat at the small dining table. Spread before him, laid out with military neatness on a white tea cloth, were his numerous campaign medals that gave testament to his services to his country, still shiny and fresh from the Remembrance Day parade.

  He frowned, perplexed. "You off somewhere grandpa?"

  The old man sighed wearily, breath rising through his chest with a rasping sound. "Nope, I'm done with all that 'on parade' lark. Going to send these medals back. The country that gave them to me no longer exists."

  Stinging emotion flooded Chris's eyes. "Don't be daft grandpa. If that is the case then all the more reason that you keep them, remind yourself of just what you once fought for."

  ***

  Lunch was a sombre affair. Chris, sensing his grandfather's delicate frame of mind prepared it himself, could manage tinned tuna sandwiches with a sliced tomato on the side. Grandpa hadn't shown any desire or intention to move from his chair, immobile and immovable like a bull elephant down on its front knees.

  Chris had carefully wrapped up the medals in the tea towel, put them safely away on top of the mantelpiece before he placed the food and a strong mug of tea in front of Henry. He sat opposite to eat his own food.

  " Don't worry grandpa," He murmured soothingly as he chewed, "there are those in this town not prepared to let what's ours be taken away from us. If the police won't protect us, we'll do the job for them."

  A hint of a wan, amused smile floated briefly across Henry's aqueous eyes, the corners of his lips twitched. "Your EFL you mean?"

  Chris grimaced, slightly embarrassed. "We are doing our best. Who can say there would not have been more attacks on the town if we weren't cruising around half of the night getting bored out of our brains? Perhaps we have already proved our worth.

  "Tomorrow we are staging a protest march on the Town Hall. The council have agreed on a Saturday sitting to hear us out and receive a petition. We've got over two thousand signatures in two days. Somebody has to do something in this country."

  The old man nodded. "I'm not taking the piss lad, but I fear that you are only setting yourselves up as an identifiable target for others to aim at."

  "Others? Apart from those ragamuffin radicals strutting about in their grannies' nighties all day, who else do you think will want to attack us?"

  Henry gave him the bent eye. "Shall we make a list boy, how much time do you have? Vested interests, phony political correctness. The time was these people shrieking their condemnation of ordinary folk sticking up for themselves would have been labelled as Quislings, traitors, fifth columnists; banged up in the Tower and hanged. Now they pop up everywhere churning out their pompous shit doing this country and its people down. And nobody dare do anything about it for fear of being labelled with something that always ends with 'ist'."

  They ate in silence for a while, nothing much more to say without souring the day further, letting the obvious observations rest in peace. Inflamed passion would have been a futile gesture. The England they knew was under sustained attack from within by an alien force, enabled and assisted by powers that be who should know better, intimidated from pursuing moral duty by self interests and couldn't give a flying shit.

  The doorbell cut through the thick silence, its merry ding-dong chimes a welcome mood-breaker. Chris stood abruptly, brushed crumbs off of his front, relieved at the intrusion.

  "I'll get it grandpa. You stay and finish your lunch, I'm about done here."

  Barry Wells stood on the doorstep, mixed expressions of sheepishness and defiance on his round features.

  Chris stared impassively back at him. "Oh look, daddy's home."

  "Just shut it Chris and let me in. It's bloody cold out here."

  They went into the compact lounge, shuffling self consciously around the old, stuffed furniture, sat apart facing one another.

  "I was going to tell you Chris, I really was. Just couldn't find the right moment yet is all."

  "I've been back nearly two weeks. What were you waiting for, a sign from heaven, a burning bush, something like that?"

  Barry looked away for a moment, found something interesting in the fire-grate to study. "When you went inside, you pushed us all away. Refused to let your own friends come and see you. Alison, she was devastated at what had happened, grief stricken that you had rejected her."

  "So it appears."

  "No, hold on a mo'. What you did to her was cruel, wallowing in your self pity and turning your guilty feelings back onto her, on all of us. I was your friend, Alison's friend. I felt it my responsibility to look out for your girl, comfort her."

  "You obviously did that all right!" Chris spat out the retort with more force than he had intended.

  "Look it wasn't something that happened overnight."

  "That's a comfort then, give it a week or two did you?"

  "Don't talk like a prat. We kept in touch for a long while, shared news we had of you. You weren't expected to show back up at any time too soon. Not after your appeal was turned down a second time.

  "Anyhow, it was five years before anything happened like that between us. We got close you know, feelings developed? Then without any great fuss we went and got married. Not the best
thing to do as it happens. I soon realised it was always going to be you she still wanted. There were three of us in that marital bed, me, Alison, and you in the middle.

  "The whole eight years of our marriage had been in steady decline until she finally admitted that I was just a stop-gap."

  "Bloody long 'stop-gap' wasn't it? Managed to produce a couple of kids while you were marking time."

  Barry's stare swivelled sharply back to him. "My kids ain't part of any bad feelings over this okay?"

  Chris's head dipped apologetically. "Sure , sorry. They look a good pair of nippers. I'm really pleased for you, even though … "

  "Yeah, I know. There doesn't seem to be any way back, but we are sensible about it for the kids' sake, almost amicable, well, sometimes. We have 'family days', like today, when we all go out together, do a bit of shopping, have a bite to eat. I still see them on other occasions; school sports, meet the teacher, christening for the baby. That was a nice day." His face darkened. "The vicar did the business in St. Athelstan church. Now we are trying to patch the place up while he recovers from that beating. Bastards!" He floundered to a stop, distress marching across his big-boned features.

  "I've lost my job, my wife and family Chris. I don't want to lose my friend too."

  Chris's hard stare broke, a rueful grin rolled across his face. "No danger of that Barry. I couldn't really expect Alison to still be there for me after fifteen years. No, we're cool."

  The door suddenly opened and grandpa stood there holding two mugs of steaming tea, looking perkier than he had for days. "Then you'd better drink on it you pair of love-birds."

  ***

  Abu Sharif lay on his back staring at the tent's canopy above, raindrops working their way through small tears and bad stitching. He was cold and miserable. It was like being back working those fields picking vegetables. At least there the roof over their heads at night had been solid.

  He had no clue as to where they were. Himself and a dozen others had been packed into an old van in the early hours of Wednesday morning as Holtingham slept. They were the 'Chosen Ones' he'd learnt.

  Already they had dishonoured themselves with the wanton destruction and damage wrought to the town's revered places. To violate holy grounds and edifices, beat a religious man like that was sacrilege. He had taken part with great reluctance, held his hand as much as possible. But still he was as guilty as the others, to his deep shame.