by David Peace
‘Lads won’t go for it.’
‘Lads always listen to you. Lads will hear you now. Lads will see sense.’
‘Take it, President. Take it now. Take it just for now.’
‘I can’t.’
‘They’ve said they’ll withdraw bloody closure programme –’
‘Verbally.’
‘Verbally, orally, whatever. Them five pits will be kept open. It gives us victory.’
‘Does it heck.’
‘It can be made into one. They’ve backed down. Pits will be kept open.’
‘Not kept open. They said they’ll be subject of further consideration –’
‘Joint consideration –’
‘But for how long? Won’t be like before. Old procedures won’t be there –’
‘President, President, there’ll be time for talk –’
‘And how bloody long will it be before they stop talking and start closing –’
‘But we’d have kept our powder dry, while we still had powder to keep dry.’
‘It’s just one word, President.’
‘It’s one word, aye. It’s retreat. It’s carte-blanche to do what the hell they want. There’s never been a third category before. They’ve set no parameters for exhaustion of reserves. The government is insisting on that word. Because it’s carte-blanche –’
‘But they’ve got that anyway now. Now closed shop’s out the window –’
‘Seam exhaustion, and that’s it. Safety grounds. Geological grounds. That’s it.’
‘It’s time to take what’s on the bloody table, man. Take it to the lads –’
‘Not now! Not bloody likely. Now is the hour –’
The tapes ran. They ran and ran. The wheels turned. Turned and turned again –
The private heartaches of public demons, in private rooms between private walls –
Headphones off. Suitcases packed. Cigarettes. Coffee. Goodbyes –
The drive South again. The wheels in motion (the wheels within wheels) –
Trucks full of troops being deployed. Lorryloads of shaven heads –
‘– there is in no sense a crisis –’
There were curfews in English villages. There were curfews on English estates –
‘– no state of emergency –’
Fitzwilliam. Hemsworth. Grimethorpe. Wombwell. Shirebrook. Warsop.
‘– a touch of midsummer madness –’
York Minster had been struck by lightning. York Minster was burning –
‘– acts of God –’
Malcolm Morris stood among the crowd of ten thousand people at the Durham Miners’ Gala and listened to the speeches –
‘– we will at the end of the day inflict upon Mrs Thatcher the kind of defeat we imposed on Ted Heath in 1972 and 1974 –’
The spectres. Rising from the dread. The rectors. Raising up the dead –
The old ghosts, without and within –
Malcolm Morris spied Neil Fontaine parked in a lay-by in a black Mercedes –
England was a séance, within and without.
*
The SDC had passed the rule change to discipline anyone responsible for actions detrimental to the interests of the Union. The SDC had passed the disciplinary rule change with a two-thirds majority and in defiance of a court injunction.
Terry made the call. Terry used the code. Terry drove up to Hoyland –
Terry was late. Clive Cook was already parked behind the Edmund’s Arms.
Terry walked over to the brand-new Sierra. Terry tapped on the passenger door.
Clive gestured for Terry to get in.
Terry shook his head. Terry walked away.
Clive jumped out of his new Sierra. Clive shouted, ‘Where are you going?’
Terry went back over to stand by his car. Terry waited –
Clive ran after him. Clive grabbed him. Clive said, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I’ve spoken to Bill Reed.’
Clive let go of Terry. Clive sighed. Clive said, ‘What did he want this time?’
‘I know everything.’
Clive blinked. Clive said, ‘Know what? He’s a fucking liar and a drunk.’
Terry pushed Clive against the car. Terry ripped open Clive’s shirt –
Pulled up his vest.
Clive Cook was shaking. Clive Cook was sobbing.
Terry tore the microphone off his chest. The micro-recorder off his back.
Clive Cook slid down the side of the car –
‘They pay me fifty quid a day,’ Clive Cook wept. ‘Fifty quid. Monday to Friday. A grand a month. Tax free. Just to tell them what they already know.’
Terry threw the equipment onto the ground. Terry stamped on it –
Repeatedly.
Clive Cook looked up at Terry Winters. Clive Cook said, ‘I’m sorry, Comrade.’
Terry grabbed him by his hair. Terry spun him across the car park.
Clive Cook fell on the floor. Clive Cook lay on the ground. Clive Cook smiled –
‘I’m the one you’re meant to find,’ he laughed.
Terry spat on him once. Terry got into his car –
Terry went back to work.
Peter
sound now. Hooves. Horses’ hooves. I start running. Running and running – Like a bastard. A bastard – Shitting bricks. Sweating buckets – I stared up at bedroom ceiling. I was thinking about my father – How my father died. How my father lived – Then alarm went off and I jumped. They said talks were going well. They said there was a dock strike in offing – It was a bloody beautiful day and all. Felt like we were winning – Then I got down Welfare and saw queue. Be double if it weren’t for Women’s Action Group and Welfare Rights folk – It was still out door, like. Knew what half of them were going to say before they’d even opened their gobs and all. Arthur Larkin was back about his compensation claim; Paul Garrett’s wife had had another run-in with YEB; John Edwards was still being given runaround by DHSS; and Mrs Kershaw would want to know why Mrs Wilcox had got two cans of beans in her food parcel and she’d only got one and did I know that some had got a bag of potatoes and others hadn’t? And, while she was here, what about all them tins from Poland. How was that fair? I nodded and wrote down what she said. What they all said – I didn’t say I knew her husband was working cash in hand on a building site in Chesterfield and that was why he never went on a picket. Didn’t say I knew he’d be first on mesh bus when they started it here. I just nodded and wrote down what she said. What they all said – Didn’t say there were folk ten times worse off than them. Folk that never came down here. Folk that never asked for anything. Folk that said thank you when you did see them and gave them something. Folk that didn’t tell us what we already knew – That we were unprepared. That we were badly organized. That things were going to get worse – Folk whose bloody addresses we didn’t even have. Faces we couldn’t remember – You’re not even bloody listening, are you? shouted Mrs Kershaw. Typical. Bloody typical. I nodded and I wrote it down – Day of Jitters, they were calling it down in London. Not up here, they weren’t – Not at Sheffield University. The Extraordinary Annual Conference – High Court or no High Court, we were still here – Here to say you cannot break ranks to our collective disadvantage. Here to accept Rule 51 with a two-thirds majority. Here to say sod state interference. Sod pit closures. Sod scabs – And sod her. King Arthur stood up and we all stood up with him – Through the police, the judiciary, the social security system, he said. Whichever way seems possible, the full weight of the state is being brought to bear upon us in an attempt to try to break this strike. On the picket lines, riot police in full battle gear, on horseback and on foot, accompanied by police dogs, have been unleashed in violent attacks upon our members. In our communities and in our villages, we have seen a level of police harassment and intimidation which organized British trade unionists have never before experienced; the prevention of people to move freely from one part of the country, or even county, to an
other; the calculated attacks upon striking miners in streets of their villages; the oppressive conditions of bail under which it is hoped to silence, discourage and defeat us – all these tactics constitute outright violation of people’s basic rights. So to working miners, I say this: Search your conscience – Ours is a supremely noble aim: To defend pits, jobs, communities and the right to work, and we are now entering a crucial phase in our battle. The pendulum is swinging in favour of NUM. Sacrifices and hardships have forged a unique commitment among our members. They will ensure that the NUM wins this most crucial battle in the history of our industry. Comrades, I salute you for your magnificent achievement and for your support – Together, we cannot fail! We will not fail! We were stood with him – Stood by him. Stood for him – Shoulder to shoulder we were all stood. And they must have been able to hear applause and cheering in Downing Street – The new war cry: Here we are – TGWU had voted to extend their strike to all ports. Here we are – Pound had collapsed. Here we are – Billions had been lost in stocks and shares. HERE. WE. ARE – I drove down to Annesley before Panel today. Took
The Twentieth Week
Monday 16 – Sunday 22 July 1984
Neil Fontaine stands outside the door to the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. He listens to the Jew whimper and whine in his dreams. He listens to him weep and wail. Neil Fontaine stands outside the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s and wonders where the angels are tonight. Those better angels, their wings tonight –
The lights out. The shadows long –
The scars across his back.
Neil Fontaine stands outside the Jew’s suite. Neil Fontaine listens to the summer –
Inside.
‘– at the time of the Falklands conflict, we had to fight the enemy without –’
Malcolm Morris had found Clive Cook first –
He was sitting in the road outside the telephone box in Hoyland.
Clive was a mess. His shirt open. His buttons gone –
He was pissed. Frightened.
‘I’m fucked,’ Clive had kept saying. ‘I’m fucked! Fucked! Fucked! Fucked!’
Malcolm got Cole to take Clive’s car. Malcolm stuck Clive in the back of his. Gave him a lager –
To keep him pissed.
Malcolm drove him down through Mexborough and Doncaster to Finningley –
Eyes in the rearview mirror, ears bleeding.
Malcolm took Clive into the barracks –
Light inside, dark outside. It was night now, and that was good –
Things changed in the night. Things always looked different in the morning.
Clive woke in the room with the mirror. In a change of clothes.
He said, ‘I want to go home now. I want to go back home.’
‘OK,’ said Malcolm. ‘I’ll get the car.’
But before Malcolm reached the door Clive had remembered –
Clive said, ‘No, wait. I don’t –’
‘What?’ said Malcolm.
Clive looked at him. Clive said, ‘I don’t want to go home any more. I’m fucked.’
‘Relax,’ Malcolm told him. ‘She’ll be here any minute. Then everything will be all right.’
Clive nodded. Malcolm nodded, too. Clive smiled. Malcolm smiled back –
Clive said, ‘That’s good. That’s very good. Diane will make things better.’
‘– but the enemy within, much more difficult to fight, is just as dangerous to liberty –’
Neil Fontaine picks up the Jew in the small hours. The Chairman and the Great Financier carry the Jew down the stairs from the flat in Eaton Square and out to the Mercedes. They have been drinking jeroboams again. The Jew demands that Neil pin black cloths over the inside of the windows in the back of the car. He demands that Neil play the elegy from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade in C for String Orchestra, Op. 48. He demands that –
Neil Fontaine does ninety up the M1 with the Jew asleep on the backseat –
Neil Fontaine likes to drive North through the night. To hurtle into the new dawn. To meet the light head on –
The Jew wakes in the black of the back. He is disorientated and has a hangover. He taps on the partition. Neil Fontaine lowers the glass.
The Jew says, ‘Where on earth are you taking me, Neil?’
‘Oxton, sir.’
The Jew struggles to remember why on earth Neil would be taking him to Oxton.
‘Grey Fox, sir.’
The Jew slumps back in his seat. The Jew sighs. The Jew says, ‘Quite.’
Neil Fontaine turns off the Tchaikovsky.
The Jew sits forward again. The Jew says, ‘Can we stop somewhere, Neil?’
Neil Fontaine exits the M1 at the next services –
Leicester Forest East.
Neil Fontaine parks the Mercedes among the lorries and the coaches.
‘Please tell me you’ve brought my flying-jacket, Neil,’ says the Jew.
Neil Fontaine nods. He says, ‘Along with a complete change of clothes, sir.’
‘You’re a national treasure, Neil. A national treasure.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ says Neil Fontaine. He gets out of the car. He opens up the boot. He takes out a small suitcase and the worn leather flying-jacket with the blood-spotted collar. He closes the boot of the car. He opens the back door of the Mercedes.
The Jew steps out into the sunshine. He has found his sunglasses and his panama.
Neil Fontaine points. He says, ‘I believe the toilets are that way, sir.’
‘Very good, Neil,’ says the Jew.
Neil Fontaine hands him the small suitcase.
‘Thank you, Neil,’ says the Jew.
Neil Fontaine watches the Jew cross the car park of the Leicester Forest services. The Jew is wearing a cream tuxedo cut short in the manner of a hussar, with a gold brocade front and matching epaulettes. His jodhpurs are tucked into his riding boots. He takes off his panama as he enters the toilets.
Neil Fontaine lights a cigarette. Neil Fontaine waits.
Five minutes later the Jew reappears in his flying-jacket and his chinos. He hands Neil the small suitcase and his panama hat. He puts his aviator sunglasses back on. He caresses his moustache. He stretches. He breathes in deeply through his nose. He slaps Neil on the back. He says, ‘What’s the ETA, Neil?’
Neil Fontaine checks his watch. He taps it. He says, ‘Under an hour, sir.’
‘Let’s press on then, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘Our people are waiting.’
Neil Fontaine says, ‘Certainly, sir.’
The Jew gets in the back of the Mercedes. Neil Fontaine closes the door.
They drive on to Oxton –
The Green Dragon.
Neil Fontaine holds open the door of the pub for the Jew. They go up the stairs to the first floor. There are two men sitting at a table in the corner. One of them has prematurely grey hair. He is wearing sunglasses. Both men stand up as the Jew approaches –
The man from the Mail says, ‘Stephen Sweet meet Grey Fox.’
The Jew shakes hands with the man with the prematurely grey hair. The Jew says, ‘Do I call you Grey or Mr Fox?’
Grey Fox shrugs his shoulders. He says, ‘Whichever you want. It’s just a –’
The Jew holds up his hand. The Jew says, ‘Or how about just plain Hero?’
This Grey Fox has turned a deep red. He takes off his sunglasses.
The Jew sits him down. The Jew says, ‘You are the bravest man I’ve ever met.’
The man from the Mail nods. He says, ‘The bravest man in Britain.’
Grey Fox shakes his head. Grey Fox says, ‘I’m just an ordinary man who –’
The Jew squeezes his hand. The Jew says, ‘You are a far from ordinary man, sir. You are an extraordinary man. Please, I want to know everything. Tell me your story, Grey Fox. The story of the Bravest Man in Britain –’
The Jew and Grey Fox sit side by side at the table in the corner of the upstairs bar of the Green Dragon public house
in Nottinghamshire.
Grey Fox doesn’t drink. The Jew does –
‘Hair of the dog that bit me‚’ he says. ‘Now, please, tell me everything –’
‘There was no one you could turn to,’ says Grey Fox. ‘The branch officials were on strike. You couldn’t go in on the nightshift because they’d brick your house or worse. Richardson – our leader – came down to Welfare and he called us scabs. Told us all to stop scabbing. I thought, What-the-bloody-hell-is-this-world-coming-to when this man who is our elected representative comes down to our Welfare and tells us, the men that pay his wages, tells us that we are scabs? I was offended, Mr Sweet. Offended and afraid because folk didn’t know who to turn to. But I thought there must be hundreds like me –’
The Jew is leaning forward. He hangs on to the words of Grey Fox –
‘The areas were like islands though. Isolated from one another. Some pits were cut off. Rumours were going round, that was all we heard. I wanted to bring people together. Then at Mansfield on May 1, I got the chance. I got the chance to make a difference. I gave my name and number out to people on slips of paper. That night the phone started ringing and it’s never stopped since –’
The Jew nods. His eyes are full of tears –
‘Then again, I’ve always said, and I still say, if fifty per cent were out and it was official, then Grey Fox would be one of them.’
Grey Fox stops speaking.
The Jew is drying his eyes. He is wiping the tears from his cheeks.
Neil Fontaine stares at Grey Fox –
Grey Fox looks back.
Neil Fontaine smiles at him –
Carl Baker, 35-year-old blacksmith and father-of-two from Bevercotes Colliery. Carl Baker, the former small businessman, now of 16 Trent Street, Retford –
Carl Baker smiles back, because he is a nice man –
He is a very nice man, but Carl Baker already has his doubts. And his doubts will become regrets. His regrets will bring blame. Blame will bring bitterness –
Then Carl Baker won’t be a very nice man any more.
‘Will you please excuse me?’ he says. ‘I need to use –’
‘I think it’s downstairs,’ says the man from the Mail.