by David Peace
Clive opened his eyes. Clive looked up at Terry. Clive said nothing.
‘They’re laying traps,’ said Terry. ‘Setting out the bait. But I’m ready for them.’
Clive stood up now. Clive sighed. Clive said, ‘I really fucking hope you are.’
‘Trust me,’ said Terry Winters, his hand on Clive Cook. ‘Trust me, Comrade.’
Clive shook Terry off. Clive headed back to the office.
Terry watched him go. Terry banged his head against the trunk of a tree –
The stupid things he said.
Go, go, go, go, go –
‘We are on target for more and more conflict.’
Edinburgh down to Sheffield. Sheffield out to Rotherham –
The Clifton Park Hotel, Rotherham –
Cole said, ‘This is the place the press have been using for Orgreave.’
‘Place is tidy, then?‘Malcolm asked him.
Cole flicked through the notes on his lap. He said, ‘Bar the Conference Suite.’
Fuck. Malcolm looked at his watch. He put his foot down –
Go, go, go, go –
Car park.
Go, go, go –
Reception. Register. Key. Twin room for one night.
Go, go –
Lift. Corridor. Door. Key. Door open. Room.
Go –
Bed stripped. Linen in the bath. Cases open. Floor plans out. Headphones on –
Malcolm looked at his watch.
Go. Door. Corridor. Keys out. Inside –
Malcolm looked at his watch.
Plant one. Plant two. Plant three. Plant four –
Grid one in place. Test signal to first receiver. Check –
Malcolm looked at his watch.
Plant five. Plant six. Plant seven. Plant eight –
Grid two in place. Test signal to second receiver. Check –
Malcolm looked at his watch.
Toilet –
Plant nine. Plant ten –
Ante-room –
Plant eleven. Plant twelve –
Grid three in place. Test signal to third receiver. Check –
Malcolm looked at his watch.
Outside. Corridor –
Plant thirteen. Plant fourteen. Plant fifteen. Plant sixteen –
Grid four in place. Test signal to fourth receiver. Check –
Malcolm looked at his watch.
Go out –
Out, out, out –
Past the Board and the Union in the corridor. Room service –
‘I would not trust him if he told me the time of day.’
And Malcolm Morris was gone –
Back to their twin room. Cole with the cases open. Headphones on. Thumb up –
Tapes turning. Static. Recording –
The sounds of bags being unpacked. Chairs scraping. Voices:
‘– just at the outset, that the train leaves at –’
‘– kindly address all your questions to the President –’
Silence. Static –
Malcolm touched his headphones. Watched dials. Checked levels. Equipment –
For ten minutes. Static. Silence. Then:
‘– our membership, we ask for the withdrawal of pit closures and job losses –’
‘– nope.’
Chairs scraped. Bags packed. Doors opened. Slammed shut –
Static. Silence. Tapes ending –
Silence.
Cole looked at Malcolm. Malcolm looked at Cole. They shrugged their shoulders. Took off their headphones. Packed their bags –
Boxed tapes for drop boxes. Cole the cleaner for today. Malcolm off the clock –
He drove home. Radio off. Silence. He put the car in the garage. He went inside –
The house quiet, but not quiet enough.
Malcolm drew the curtains. He sat down on the sofa. He rolled two large pieces of cotton wool into two small balls. Placed them deep inside his ears. He wrapped his head in bandages. He closed his eyes –
Silence. Sleep. Dreamless sleep. Silent sleep –
Dull sleep. Dying sleep. Dying silence. Dull noise –
The telephone ringing –
Malcolm Morris opened his eyes. He unwrapped the bandages. Took out the cotton-wool balls.
He pressed buttons. Picked up the telephone –
‘Late night?’ asked Roger Vaughan.
Malcolm sat up. He double-checked –
The wheels were turning. Wheels within wheels. The tapes recording.
Malcolm said, ‘Aren’t they all?’
‘We’ve got a shopping list for you.’
‘How many?’
‘Watches, not radios,’ said Roger. ‘Two, if you have them?’
‘Presents, are they?’
‘Birthday.’
‘What colour wrapping-paper do you want?’
‘Green.’
‘For when?’
‘As soon as you can.’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Good man,’ said Roger. ‘Jerry and I will be waiting.’
Malcolm hung up. He stopped the recording. Pressed rewind. Stop. Play –
He listened again. Pressed stop again. Rewind. Stop –
Malcolm took out the tape. He found a case and wrote on the tape and its box –
RVPSN/MM/150684.
He put it somewhere safe.
Malcolm looked at his watch. He looked at the alarm clock. They were both fast –
He washed and shaved. Dressed. Made two cups of instant coffee. He ate cereal. Toast and marmalade. He drank the other cup of coffee. He put on a tie. Picked up his briefcase. His car keys. He locked the house. Backed the car out of the garage. He locked the garage. Drove to work –
Harrogate to Sheffield.
He sat at his desk. He drank instant coffee. He smoked duty-free cigarettes –
And Malcolm Morris listened –
His hands over his ears. His headphones. Eyes closed. Head splitting –
Every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month –
He heard it. Heard it coming. Coming near. Nearer and nearer. Now –
The traffic erupting. The dials turning. The levels rising. Deafening –
Noise.
Something was happening. Happening again. Happening near. Happening now –
The wheels turning. The tapes recording –
Death –
A Kellingley picket crushed to death by a lorry at Ferrybridge power station –
Silence.
The Jew has got his reward. The Jew has an office in Hobart House –
Full steam ahead with the legal actions. Individual legal actions. No more talks –
Except of victory.
Neil Fontaine carries the boxes up from the Mercedes. He sets them down on the office carpet –
Derbyshire. Lancashire. North Wales. Notts.
The Jew’s secretary takes the files from the boxes. She puts them in the cabinets. Chloe is new. Black. Beautiful. She started today.
A man in an overall is unscrewing a name-plate from the door. It is old. Finished.
Men in suits pace the corridors. They scowl. They slam their office doors –
The Jew doesn’t care. The Chairman doesn’t care –
The Chairman is an American. From Glasgow.
The Jew wants to be an American, too. From Suffolk.
They get on like a house on fire, the Chairman and the Jew –
They love Capitalism and Opportunity. They hate Communism and Dependency. The Freedom of Cash versus the Slavery of Coin –
The United States of Free Enterprise.
The Jew spins round in his new leather chair –
A house on fire.
It will be dark when the Jew and Neil Fontaine begin the drive North –
The world asleep.
The Yorkshire Miners’ Demonstration and Gala Day, Thornes Park, Wakefield –
In the Year of the Strike to Save Pits and Jobs.<
br />
Malcolm Morris marched from Wakefield city centre –
Behind the brass bands and the branch banners. The families and their friends. The kids with their stickers. Their mums in their T-shirts –
Women Against Pit Closures.
He followed the miners and the majorettes down to the park –
Sunshine and skin; beer tents and boxing rings; side-shows and singing.
This year’s Coal Queen contest had been cancelled. Just the fancy dress –
First prize to Dusty Bin (for putting scabs in); Maggie got fourth –
‘– Out. Out. Out. Maggie. Maggie. Maggie. Out. Out. Out –’
There must have been a thousand plainclothes police and security personnel here. Everywhere Malcolm looked; wearing wires; talking into their collars and their cuffs –
Just like Malcolm –
Malcolm stood in the marquee. Pressing buttons. Making tapes. Recording –
The speech and the speeches; the speaking and the speakers.
‘– a fight to the finish and it is not going to be a white flag – it is going to be a victory for the White Rose –’
Dennis. Ray. Jack. Hamlet without the Red Prince –
But Arthur would be here tomorrow –
Malcolm too. He moved on. Back to the post –
To sweat in a mobile on some industrial estate. PSUs playing cricket outside. Helmets for wickets. Truncheons for bats. Heads down. Out of sight –
Pit villages burning. Police stations stoned. Sieges and mass arrests in Maltby –
Payback. Playback. Payback. Playback –
Everything felt wrong. Bad –
Thunder. Heat. Static. Death. Noise. Ghosts –
Saltley. Orgreave. Saltley. Orgreave. Saltley. Orgreave. Saltley –
Worse coming –
Vengeance.
Head on his desk. Eyes closed. Headphones off. Fingers in his ears –
But the tapes didn’t stop. Nor the dreams. The echoes –
Miners and their wives. Their kids. Their brass bands and their banners –
Their badges –
Victory to the Miners. Coal not Dole –
Surrounded by spies –
Spies like Malcolm.
Desk. Eyes. Phones. Ears. Tapes. Dreams. Echoes –
A miner and his wife. Their two sons. Their two placards –
I Support My Dad – Me Too.
Surrounded by spies –
Like Malcolm.
Fingers out. Eyes open. He was awake at his desk –
Malcolm stopped the tape. He pressed rewind. Pressed stop. Play –
The sound of sobbing –
Under the ground, the echo.
Peter
them. Riot shields up. Crash helmets on. Right across road and over two whole fields. Three double ranks. Six to seven yard apart. Four deep behind each shield. To left and right there were snatch squads. Further right still they’d got cavalry ready. To left were dogs. Helicopters above us. Reserves stretching back three hundred yard. More vans and buses parked up in lanes. They must have been bloody hot. Boiling. TV was here, too. Fucking couldn’t keep away, could they? – None of us could. Everywhere you looked – You looked and you knew. Knew there was going to be a lot of bloody hurt today – It was now or never. Everyone knew that. Now or never – Lines had been drawn. Lion’s mouth was open – Now or never. Bloke side of me said, Wish I’d wore me boots – Now: half-nine – Lorries coming back out. Loaded up. Police fucking drivers. Royal Corps of Transport. HGV licences still fucking wet – Saluting as they left. Two fingers – Us trapped right in middle of push. Meat in sandwich we were. Bloody truncheon meat – Fucking big push from lads now. T-shirts and skin hard against Perspex and leather – Jumpers round our waists. Faces against their shields – Truncheons coming over top of shields. Ribs and shins struck in the ruck. Ribs and shins – Fuck me. Bricks and sticks over top of us. Bricks and sticks – Fuck. It had started again all right. Fuck me it had – Black. Blue. Bloody. All the colours of war – Then police line gave. Ground moved – Like Doomsday. End of fucking world – Hooves tasted earth. The hooves bit. The hooves chewed. The hooves ate fucking earth – Here they came. Here they came. Here they came – Noise of it all. Boots and stones. Flesh and bones – There we went. There we went. There we went – Smell of it all. Earth and sweat. Grass and shit – Noise. Torn flesh and broken bones – Stink. Piss and puke. Shit – Taste as I hit ground. Salt. Dirt. Blood – I tried to stand. I tried to turn. I did stand. I did turn and CRACK – I saw stars not comets. CRACK – He’d felled me. This copper – Listen to the voice. Ground was hard – The voice saying, Follow me. Sun right warm – Follow me. Lovely on my face – My father used to take us as a lad to many of fields from Roses and Civil Wars: Wake-field. Ferry Bridge. Towton. Seacroft Moor. Adwalton Moor. Marston Moor – Picnics in them fields. Flask of tea in car if weather was against us – Photograph of me somewhere, squinting by Towton memorial on a Palm Sunday. Snow on ground – He was dead now, was my father. Ten year back. I was glad he was, too. Not to see me in this field. Here – Orgreave. South Yorkshire. England. Today – Monday 18 June 1984. Sun on my face. Blood in my hair. Puke down my shirt. Piss on my trousers – I was glad he was dead. I closed my eyes. Forgotten voices. A lost language. A code. Echoes – Like funeral music. Drumming was. They beat them shields like they beat us. Like we were air. Like we weren’t here – Here. Now – I opened my eyes. I tried to stand. To turn my head – Three coppers were carrying this other copper back. He was a young lad this one. Helmet off. His nose too. Looked like he’d stopped a brick. They passed me. They saw me – First one turned back. He swung his truncheon – I ducked down. Hands over my head – But he was gone. I picked myself up. Fast. Didn’t know where I was really. I just started walking away. Through field from where all police were. Fast as I could. Then I heard them again – Them hooves. Them boots – I legged it. Ran for my bloody life. Mouth full of salt. Heart pounding ten to dozen – Thousands running with me. Jumping walls and fences. Like Grand National – That one white horse charging down on us. Bastard with his baton out again. Half lads over embankment. Down banking onto train line – I was lucky. Horses went back down hill. Left us be – I’d managed to get top-side of Highfield Lane. Like half-time up here – Most folk seemed to have headed up this way and on to village. But some had stripped off for sun. Bit of a lie down for a few minutes. Others had other ideas. Taken all bricks off walls ready. All way up road on both sides of lane. Talk was how Arthur had gotten a hiding. They said he’d walked police lines first thing. Told them what he
The Sixteenth Week
Monday 18 – Sunday 24 June 1984
Terry had sat with his office door open all Sunday night. He had watched them stagger back from the Wakefield Gala. A few of them had had to be carried in. They had stuck them in rooms where the President wouldn’t look. He was still in Wakefield –
Rallying the troops.
Terry had kept the office door open all night. He had listened to them making their plans. Listened to them talk about the death of the picket at Ferrybridge. The siege of Maltby. The police reprisals. They were waiting for the President –
Their general.
‘Comrade –’
Terry looked up. The President was stood in the doorway. He was wearing his baseball cap. Len and Joan were standing behind him. They were carrying maps. Plans –
Battle-plans.
‘Comrade,’ said the President, ‘we’re going to need more envelopes.’
Terry nodded. He opened his bottom drawer. He took out the requisition forms. He completed the order. He initialled the forms. He stood up. He walked over to the door. He handed them back to the President.
‘Thank you, Comrade,’ said the President and passed the order to Joan.
Terry watched the President walk away down the corridor –
To his tent and to his dreams.
Terry closed his office door. Terry had his own plans. His
own dreams –
Soon it would be dawn: Monday 18 June 1984.
*
‘Have you ever, ever, seen anything like this before, Neil?’
Neil Fontaine shakes his head. He never, never, has seen anything like this before:
The Third English Civil War.
Neil Fontaine closes his eyes. He never, never, wants to see anything like this again.
‘Thank you, Brixton,’ shouts the Jew. ‘Thank you, Toxteth.’
*
Tell the world that you’re winning –
The morning after the day before:
The miner was cowering. The miner was wearing just a pair of jeans and trainers. The miner had his shirt tied round his waist. His back to the car. His palms up –
The policeman had a shield and a helmet. The policeman had a baton.
The policeman hit the miner with his baton. Hit him –
Again. Again. Again. And again –
The TV showed the policeman hit the miner.
The President watched the TV. The President touched the back of his neck –
The President said, ‘These bastards rushed in and this guy hit me on the back of the head with his shield and I was out.’
The President had spent the night in Rotherham District Hospital.
The police had cheered as he’d been taken to the ambulance.
The nation was outraged –
Not by the assault on the miner. Not by the assault on the President. No –
The TV had lied again. They had cut the film. They had stitched it back together –
Stitched up the Union with it –
Miners threw stones. Miners hurt horses. Miners rioted –
‘– the worst industrial violence since the war –’
Police defended themselves. Police upheld the law. Police contained the riot –
That was it.
The lorries had emptied the place of coke. The miners had lost –
That was it.
Meanwhile, Nottingham had continued to produce coal. The power stations power.
‘The President of the National Union of Mineworkers slipped off the top of the bank and hit his head on a sleeper,’ said the Assistant Chief Constable of South Yorkshire. ‘He was not near a riot shield. The officers with the riot shields were on the road and he was off the road. They did not come within seven or eight yards of him.’