2020

by Kenneth Steven

  *

  I DON’T FEEL there is much to say. It happened very early in the morning, in a place where we have met before. It is chosen for secrecy. I would say that we are using Sharia law; I would not describe it as a Sharia court. Yes, I have been involved in many such cases before, not only here but in other places, too. Most of them in the north of England.

  Yes, he was given a chance to speak but he chose to say very little. He was kept at the front; I could not see him because I imagine he would have been kneeling and I was at the back. I think he was on trial for the hatred he had stirred up against the Asian community, particularly in Sudburgh but far more widely. No, I do not believe he was being charged with any actual attacks. But he was being held responsible for stirring up a great deal of hatred in white communities; you could say he was being charged with radicalising young people in particular.

  Do I accept that he was being made a scapegoat? Well, I did not think of it like that at the time, and I don’t know if I do so now. It is true there was a lot of anger, a sense that the violence had gone in one direction. More than that there was an anger against the police. We knew there was racism within the police, even though that was not accepted and was never dealt with. We lived with it on a daily basis. For some people, I don’t think there seemed much difference between White Rose and the police. They were both to be feared. I do not say that about all the police. There was an element. And we did not feel enough had been done after the Sudburgh march. That was a terrible day for us. These were attacks by thugs. Look at the numbers of those who were killed and injured. Of course there was a desire for revenge. And now the police were breaking down Asian doors to find out where their racist hero was being kept! They were not breaking down white doors to find the ones who had committed brutal crimes that Saturday afternoon! So tell me, who would not be angry and who would not want revenge?

  You are asking again if I believe he was a scapegoat. Was there a sense of triumph that we had got him and would it have been impossible to release him alive? I was only one of the representatives who were there that day. Yes, I suppose it was a trial. It is not for me to decide if it was fair or unfair. He had given himself to a cause of hatred and that was how he was being judged. Look at the manner in which this country has treated our radical preachers again and again. Consider the hatred that this one man had stirred up against us. No, he did not commit violent crimes himself, but he was more than content for others to carry them out in his name. That was what he wanted. That was his intention. He might have denied it to the end, but I believe it was his objective. He was not cruelly treated during the time he was held; there was no attempt made to get information out of him at any point. So I think this was a just trial. It was conducted in our way and not in yours, that is the problem. Well, you can have me arrested now that you have got me. You can enjoy the superiority of your British criminal justice system! There are reasons that we believe in Sharia law. It is not about being cruel and barbaric, as Eric Semple and White Rose would want to claim. It is about a true sense of justice, a justice for victims. I believe that is something you have lost sight of. I realise it is not the criminal justice system that is on trial today; I realise that in many ways it is me. That is what it feels like, let me tell you.

  As I said at the beginning, I have little to say. I believe that Eric Semple condemned himself. There was no sign of remorse, no hint of guilt for the hatred he had wanted to raise against the Asian community as a whole. That is all I have to say.

  *

  I THINK ONE thing that is forgotten in all this is the sheer division between the north and south of England. And I’m saying that to you as someone who was born and bred in Kent. But I spent many years in the North too; I had the grave misfortune to be born a Catholic and packed off to a boarding school for boys—it had better remain nameless—at the tender age of eight. I thought I had died and gone to hell, except for the fact that hell was made up of moorland and eternally grey skies, and some rather dubious housemasters. But the truth is that a hell of a lot of those who’re in positions of power in the South really know very little about the modus vivendi of the North. They spend a lot of time trying to pretend they do, but I’m afraid I’m pretty cynical about that at the best of times. They don’t actually terribly like the idea of the North, but they think they have a vague notion of what goes on there. I know that sounds straight out of a rather poor and hackneyed comedy, but for a good number, for all too many—it simply is the truth.

  London is an addiction. It just is its own planet, and if you’re on the power ladder you don’t want to leave, and in the end you can’t leave. I think of countless men who’ve succumbed to London. It’s funny, I think of men first and foremost, and I don’t believe I’ve ever properly considered that before.

  But to get back to the start of all this, I do believe a lot of the crisis (and I really do use that word intentionally), was about the sheer divide between North and South. That mess was allowed to grow more toxic by the day in the North, while those in the Westminster Bubble looked on and did nothing. They did nothing at all! Now I emphasise that as far as the panic over Sudburgh was concerned, there was no easy solution. It was somehow too late by then. But the fact is that it was all allowed to fester for so long before there was even talk about what might be done to remedy things. And some of that is purely and simply, believe me, because it was oop north, it was far away. Few things have made me angrier in my parliamentary career—and heaven knows that’s taken a long time and a great number of so-called crises. And have we learned? Well, I suspect we have learned a bit from all this—God help us if we haven’t—but I don’t believe the two halves of England are much better glued together. I’m sorry to sound so old and grumpy on that score, but I think I have good reason to be concerned. England’s a very broken country.

  *

  I REMEMBER IT being a beautiful Sunday morning in Sudburgh. I woke up before six and the sky was just a single pane of blue. I remember crouching at the windowsill looking out. One plane crossed the sky and there was no sound from it and the trail turned this vibrant pure orange. The whole trail fluffed out the way they do, and for the first time in my life I saw an inherent beauty there. I realised I wasn’t going to get back to sleep and I wanted to go out, and then I thought of everything that had happened in recent days. And I felt quite angry. I felt angry that I shouldn’t be able to just go outside and enjoy the morning. I’m not a religious person; I’m not religious in the least. But that was somehow what I felt: that I was being denied the right to go out and experience that morning, just for what it was. And that was why I did go out in the end.

  I don’t even like describing myself as white. When you grow up here that feels like a loaded term, especially now. White feels like a clenched fist; it feels like a statement of defiance. All the labels we have for one another, all the ways we have of defining ourselves. I feel an individual. I’m a person with dreams and doubts and a past and a future, and the amazing thing is that never before has there been someone quite like me, nor will there be again. I know that’s going to sound like quasi-religious bullshit, or something like it. It’s going to sound so narcissistic and I’m fully aware of that. But it matters all the same. To get beyond that place where labels matter.

  I have a garden at the back of this little house. I was looking out over it when I woke up before six and knelt at the window ledge to watch the plane. Somehow that garden and what I feel so deeply about being free are linked, and I can’t for the life of me begin to explain that. The garden is tiny; it’s just a circle of ground surrounded by trees and high walls.

  When I first moved here I had depression. I don’t mean that I was down now and again; I suffered real clinical depression. I can’t remember now how many pills I took every day. Twelve or fourteen, something like that. I rarely went out; I sat at this window and thought of nothing. It was like I was wrapped in cotton wool. I wasn’t even unhappy; I was just numb. I’ve no idea where I saw the pictu
re of the pond. No, that’s not true—it was in an underpass, a concrete underpass. I was walking through and stopped to look at it; it was about the first thing I had paid any attention to in months. It showed a pond with reeds, and there was this dragonfly fluttering up above. It was the colours that stopped me. Everything had been grey for so long and here were these blues and greens and golds. I can’t say what it meant; it’s impossible to convey.

  But I went back and I went straight out to the garden. It was crazy; I started digging with my bare hands in the lawn. It’s just as well no one saw me; they’d have come to take me away. The thing was that the ground was awful; I mean, it was full of builders’ rubbish. There were old bits of wire and glass and brick; even after I got my tools for digging I can remember cutting my hands over and over again. But somehow it didn’t matter. I would keep thinking of what I’d seen painted on the wall of that underpass, those colours that meant more than anything, that stayed in my head.

  And I’ll never forget the day I let the water flow over the lining to fill that pond. I got moss to grow up the sides to hide the ugly edges of the lining; I wanted to make it as real as I could. I used to get up early to go out and work there, long before the rush hour. And I felt better than I had done in years; my heart felt as if it was singing. My hands actually used to shake, but not with fear—with sheer joy and excitement. This was mine; I had made it myself and it was my very own little Eden.

  That’s all I did that morning of the beautiful jet trail. I went down into the garden and I crouched by the side of the pond. It was a Sunday morning and there simply wasn’t a sound in the city. And I was thinking of all that had happened, of all this crazy fighting over the past days and how it was quiet at last. And as I’ve said, I’m not religious; I’m not in the least religious, but I found myself praying it would stay that way, that it would be over. So it somehow wasn’t a selfish happiness, it wasn’t just about having found a place that was beyond labels. It was about more than that. It was about being one of the people, too. And maybe that showed there had been a kind of healing as well, the fact that I wasn’t just curled into myself and content with that. It’s the only time I’ve prayed in my life.

  *

  I USED TO go there from time to time. It was close to the block where I lived, only about ten minutes away, if it was as far as that. There was a way of getting through an old wall that stood between the wasteland and the field on the other side. It was quicker than going by the road—and safer. It’s also something about not being seen by people; when you’re a heroin addict you know what people think of you. You know how they look at you and you feel that.

  I’ve moved from the area now and I’m actually getting treatment; I’ve been off drugs for about three months now. But that summer was bad; I couldn’t sleep properly, partly because of the heat, and I had trouble finding a good supplier. Your whole life is about one thing: guaranteeing the next fix. I was on my own; I’d had a partner for about six years and she was an addict, too. I’m ashamed to say I don’t even know what happened to her. I can’t begin to describe the state of the flat we had in that block. It was just a drug den. Over the weekend there might be ten or twelve people staying there. The floor was covered in bottles, cigarette ends, everything. The place just stank. You didn’t really care who was there and who wasn’t. If they had something you needed or wanted that was all that mattered. Your whole world collapses in on that. You really end up caring about nobody but yourself. It’s as sad as that.

  The block was mainly made up of Pakistanis; they were mostly all Asian at any rate. I was on the top floor so I’d pass them going up and down. I can’t remember saying very much; if I was going out it was usually because I was on the hunt for something I needed and was desperate. The last thing on my mind was seeing someone on the stairs. And I’ve said I also felt aware of what they’d think of me. I had lost a lot of weight and must have looked terrible; my clothes had burn marks. I just remember one old woman greeting me on the stairs when I met her; I’m sure I often passed her and didn’t even see her properly. But she always smiled and if I cared enough to smile back then I would.

  But over that summer I seem to remember the flat being almost empty. My partner had left and I don’t even remember her leaving. It was more a case of her going and then not actually coming back. I was very sick and I had these terrible dreams. I was frightened of going to sleep because I’d keep waking up with these hellish nightmares. It was a vicious circle because I was exhausted from the night before; I’d try to keep myself awake on the sofa, drift off and wake up in a cold sweat. So I used to go out walking through the night, just anywhere. I felt sick and I’d be shivering, but it was better than those hours on the sofa with this trail of nightmares. The flat was too hot anyway; even through the night it was too hot. I was on the top floor and the place was boiling during the day; you had twelve hours of sunlight, and it was a baking summer. You couldn’t have the windows open through the night because of the risk of people getting in. It wasn’t a good area and people could climb up onto the balcony if they really wanted to. I’m sure my windows were open through the night all the same; I just wouldn’t have cared or remembered. But the place was usually totally airless…

  I’d wake up from one of those nightmares, gasping for breath, and I felt I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I felt I was breathing cotton wool. That was another reason for wanting to get out.

  I had a vague sense that something was wrong in Sudburgh. Yeah, I know it must sound highly amusing and you’re welcome to laugh, but I’m afraid that was as far as it went. If somebody had sat me down and explained the situation I couldn’t have cared less; I’d have shrugged my shoulders. If it had affected my heroin supply I’d have bothered—it’s as simple as that. So the only thing I knew was that I’d gone to this place to sit through the last of the night. It was sort of half-underground; there were steps down and you went inside this kind of concrete shelter. The kids used to go there on Saturday nights, some of the really young ones especially. It was away through this waste ground and on the edge of a field; it was just dark and smelly, but it was a kind of a hide-out. As far as I was concerned it was simply somewhere to sit. I would just crouch there and hug myself, rock backwards and forwards. All I wanted was to keep the nightmares out.

  I have no idea what the time was when I was in there; I just know it would have been the middle of the night. I felt sick but I couldn’t be sick; I was knackered but I was too scared to go to sleep. I was glad to be out of the flat but I felt awful. I think I even knew I couldn’t go down much further. I think I was frightened by that, because I had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have a clue about finding an answer.

  All I remember is that it started to get light. I was sitting right at the back of the place, as far into the shadows as I could get. There was a sort of step in front of me; I’m not sure how to describe it other than that. It was quite high and it was made of solid concrete, like the rest of the place. There was just that greyness you get before dawn; it was nothing like fully light. And I was looking ahead of me at that step, and I realised there was something on it. There was something standing on it; I could see the shape in the half-light.

  It could have been anything; the place was really not much more than a kind of rubbish dump. It could have been a burst football that someone had chucked in; it was about that kind of size. But it wasn’t that and it began to get more and more light. I knew I was going to have to go; I didn’t want to be found there and I staggered to my feet in the end. I was sick and dizzy; I can still remember how terrible I felt. I wanted to die; I wanted nothing more than to die. I was drawn by that thing, that shape, and I sort of swam forward over the ground. It was still too dark to see the concrete below; there was just this greyness about the ledge.

  I got there in the end and I bent right down to see what it was. And I screamed; it was like something from the worst of my nightmares. It was a head, the head of a man. And the eyes were lo
oking at me, open and looking at me, even though they were dead. And I vomited; I was sick until my guts were empty.

  *

  I WON’T FORGET that vigil. I’m housebound and over eighty, and I tend to go to bed about nine. I was just drawing the curtains and I saw them gathering. I live right above the city centre, have a view all the way along the main streets. I knew what this was about right away. I live by the radio and have done for forty years, since the day my wife Janice died. I knew they had found Eric Semple and guessed they would be gathering to remember him. Poor man; may he rest in peace. No one deserves to die like that.

  I was afraid it would spark a riot. I thought we would be back to square one, with hundreds of those White Rose activists marching and setting fire to anything and anyone Asian. That had been a frightening day, the day of the march and what it became. I watched hours of it from here, until I grew too afraid to watch any more. I went to bed and cowered. I didn’t sleep and listened to it for hours through the night. That was a lynch mob. I didn’t ever believe I’d see something like that in England. I was once in the Deep South of America, in the days when Janice was still alive, and you felt the tension—you could cut it like a knife. I didn’t ever think it could be like that here, but I was wrong. It’s easy enough to destroy something; much harder to put it back together. I don’t think that’ll happen in my lifetime.