by David Peace
‘– you fucking like it, I know you –’
‘– no, no –’
‘– fucking love it really, you –’
‘– no –’
‘– put it back in, Granny –’
‘–’
Between the bed and the door. Eyes closed. Head to the floor –
Malcolm listened to night march across the Earth. The world become dark again –
Between the bed and the door. The ears in his head. That bled and that bled –
O, how Malcolm wished it was not so.
He opened his eyes. He sat up. He went to his briefcase. He took out his scissors.
Downstairs a couple were fucking. Fucking and then fighting. Fighting and then –
Beds creaked. Headboards banged. Walls shook –
Reunited –
Neil and Jennifer. Jennifer and Neil. Terry and Diane. Diane and Terry –
Malcolm and his scissors. His scissors and his ears.
It was all about the numbers now. Not words. Numbers –
150 back last week; 170 this.
Numbers. Figures.
The President summoned them to the tenth floor. The President sat them down. The President told them what they already knew. What they had seen on TV –
First the bad news:
The latest Labour Party initiative had failed; the Board had said the Union must accept pit closures on grounds other than exhaustion; more scabs had started to work in Yorkshire; police had launched massive attacks on the communities concerned –
Then the good (always the good news last):
The men from NACODS were fuming with the Board; the Board weren’t listening to them but the Union were; steel-workers had unloaded the Ostia, which dockers had blacked at Hunterston; last night TGWU dockers had voted 78 to 11 at their delegate conference to strike in support of the miners; the TUC just around the corner –
‘Along with victory,’ said the President. ‘I am not going to the Congress to plead. I am going to the Congress to demand – as one trade unionist to another – the assistance of my brothers and sisters in the trade union movement because –
‘Comrades!’ he shouted. ‘Together we cannot lose. Together we will not lose!’
The President put down his notes. The President began clapping –
The entire tenth floor got to their feet. The entire tenth floor applauded.
Terry Winters cupped his mouth in his hands. He shouted, ‘Here we go –’
‘Here we go. Here we go,’ echoed the entire tenth floor. ‘Here. We. Go.’
Terry laughed. Terry wanted to dance on the desks of St James’s House.
Diane had shown him the way. The way out of all this –
Now Terry had a much better plan. Now. The best one he had ever had. Ever –
Terry smiled –
He could not lose –
Terry had an erection. Now. The biggest one he had ever had –
Ever.
Peter
door. No answer. Had a look through their letterbox. Lot of post and what-have-you on other side of door. No sign of them, though. Had a bad feeling about it, did their house. Like it was a lovely day and all, but this place was all in shadow. Didn’t know what to do for best. I walked across little front lawn they’d got. Put my hands over my face and stuck my nose to their windows. Looked in their front room. It was bare – Not a stick of furniture. Nothing. No carpet. No curtains – Everything gone. No dead bodies, mind. But it looked like Keith was right. For once – Running and running. Deeper and deeper. Faster and faster – I turn corner. I go down. I wait for horses. Hooves. Batons. I look back – Water. Wall of fucking water bearing down – I run again. Deeper and deeper. Faster and faster – I look back up corridor. Water roaring down. Faster and faster – I see two blokes behind me. Water almost on top of them. Two blokes – One of them Martin. Other one my father – It wasn’t my teeth that woke me. I lay there in dark in bed, Mary beside us. Bloody sweating again, I was. Buckets. Thinking about my father – How he died. How he lived – I always did these days. These nights – Then I heard something. Like voices out back – I got up. Slippers on – Left lamp off. Didn’t want to wake Mary – I walked onto landing. Had a good listen. I went down stairs. I walked down hall towards kitchen. Lights still off. I stood in kitchen. I looked out onto back garden. I could see something by shed – Like shadows out back. Moving about – I took a few steps back out of kitchen. I reached for hall light. Kept my eyes on back window. I switched hall light on. Then back off again – And I saw them run. Three or four blokes from by shed – Heard them knock over dustbin at side of house as they went. Effing and blinding – I ran back up hall to phone. I picked it up – Click-click. I dialled police – Fuck. I hung up – It probably was fucking police. Bastards – Krk-krk. Fucking bastards – I went back down hall into kitchen. Kept light off. I sat down at table. Kept my eyes open. I stared out window. Into night – Into dark. Into shadows – Lot of us had been at Kiveton yesterday. Lot of us wouldn’t forget that in a bloody hurry – Horses charging through old folks’ gardens. That white horse there again – Horse got a scratch and public were up in arms. Felt sorry for it – Just horses. Horses and scabs – Poor blokes on these buses. Their startled faces behind wire cages welded to windows – Drivers with crash helmets. Pigs on back seat. Them sat on aisle side – But I knew them faces. Everybody did – Every pit had faces like theirs. Faces with little eyes that never met yours. Eyes that’d sooner stare at their boots or ground. Faces of a certain type, they were. Type that hated their work. Type that were out sick more often than not. Type that never pulled their weight. Type who always wanted Union to do this, that and other for them. Cowed and broken men before strike even began. Shirkers or gaffers’ narks. Area managers and chief constables had leant on them hard. Broken them in two all over again – It wasn’t pit managers’ bloody idea. Pit managers knew them too well – Knew them of old. Knew what they were worth – Nothing. Fuck all – Just like this scab they’d got going in here at Silverwood. He’d have been fucking sacked years ago, if it wasn’t for us, said Derek. Tom nodded. He said, That’s thing that gets to me and all – But look at cunt now, said Johnny. Bold as fucking brass in his new V-reg – His time will come, I said. There’ll be a reckoning. He knows that, too. Everybody nodded. Everybody said, Day will come all right – How about Monday? asked David Rainer. Arthur wants us all on front line – He would do, I said. He’s addressing bloody TUC, isn’t he? Talk of mass returns again, said Johnny. Look bad if a lot went in – I can’t see it, said Tom. Not Monday. Everybody shook their heads. Everybody said, Not here. Not Monday – All same, said Derek. Best keep your eyes and ears open – Aye, said Johnny. There’s always one – Everybody nodded again. Everybody knew he was right – Knew it was going to get worse. Much, much worse – Not this Monday. Not next – But it would. Had to – Because everybody knew. Knew one.
The Twenty-sixth Week
Monday 27 August – Sunday 2 September 1984
Jennifer puts on her shades. She runs her hands through her blonde hair and ties it back. She scowls at Neil Fontaine. She sticks out her tongue –
She says, ‘You want a fucking picture, do you?’
Neil Fontaine gets up from the edge of the bed. The notebook still in his hand. The years in pieces on the floor. He opens the dawn curtain –
Jennifer slams the hotel door as she leaves –
Neil stood at the window. In the real light and the electric –
The very last moment like this.
The Jew isn’t sleeping nowadays, either. He is too fearful of what the future holds. He doesn’t wait for the doorman or Neil. He opens the back door of the Mercedes himself. He slams it shut –
‘Downing Street,’ he shouts.
‘Certainly, sir.’
The Jew slumps in the backseat. The Prime Minister has cut short her holiday. The Prime Minister has cancelled her trip to the Far East due to the industrial situation. The Jew is embarrassed.
The Jew shakes his head. He wants to hammer nails into coffins. He mumbles on about the danger in the docks. The TUC. The weak sisters of the Board. Bent nails and empty coffins –
‘– I told her go. Leave everything to me. But those lascivious leeches begged to differ. Margaret, Margaret, you can’t leave us. You mustn’t leave us. Sterling is slipping, our shares are sliding, our ship is sinking. That’s all they can ever think about, Neil. Feeding their own fat faces. Saving their own sorry selves. They have no conception, Neil. No conception whatsoever of the Big Picture. The War –’
The Jew is wearing the same clothes he wore yesterday.
‘Two steps forward,’ the Jew says to himself. ‘One step back.’
Neil Fontaine stops at the end of Downing Street –
The Jew sighs.
Neil Fontaine opens the back door for the Jew. Neil says, ‘Good luck, sir.’
The Jew stops. He looks at Neil Fontaine. He says, ‘Thank you, Neil.’
Neil Fontaine watches the Jew disappear into Downing Street –
The Total War Cabinet.
He starts the car. He has his own steps to take –
Backwards and forwards.
Roger Vaughan drops three sugar lumps into his cup. He picks up the teaspoon. He stirs his coffee. He takes the spoon out of the cup. He knocks it twice against the rim. He puts the silver spoon down on the saucer. He looks across the table at Neil Fontaine –
Neil Fontaine is waiting.
‘Fortunately,’ says Roger, ‘it would appear all our troubles will soon be over.’
Neil Fontaine is still waiting.
Roger Vaughan lifts up his napkin. He pushes the envelope across the cloth.
Neil Fontaine opens the envelope. He stares at the photo inside –
‘He’s been watching you,’ says Roger. ‘Listening to you. Both of you.’
Neil Fontaine starts to speak. To protest and to lie. To beg and to plead –
‘There’s no need for that,’ says Roger. ‘It’s a blessing in disguise.’
Neil Fontaine looks down at the tablecloth. He closes his eyes –
There are mountains of skulls. Boxes of candles –
‘He’s waiting for you,’ says Roger Vaughan. ‘Expecting you.’
There were bandages upon the floor. Two small balls of cotton wool. Blood upon the blades. Blood upon his fingers. Malcolm opened the box. Two cassettes inside –
He took out the second cassette. Tape 2. He put it in the recorder. Side A –
He pressed fast-forward. Stop. He adjusted the tone. He lowered the volume –
Pressed play and played it all back (one last time) –
‘– no, please, no, please, no, please –’
‘– in here, that what you want –’
‘– please, no, it’s at the cottage at Llanymynech –’
‘– shut up, it’s too late –’
‘– please don’t, it’s at the cottage, please don’t, in the cottage, no –’
‘– too late!’ screamed Julius Schaub. ‘Too late!’
‘–’
Malcolm lay on the floor between the bed and the door. In the spots of blood. Head to the left again. In a pool of blood. His wounds to the floor. In the sea of blood –
These nights across the world. The shadows everywhere.
Malcolm lay on the floor covered in blood. Between the bed and the door –
He wished for day and he wished for light –
Head to the floor. In 1984. The knock upon the door –
Malcolm stood up. Malcolm listened –
The sounds of the animal kingdom filled the room. The knock on the door again.
Malcolm walked over to the door. Malcolm touched the Emergency Procedures –
Malcolm Morris wiped his eyes. Malcolm Morris asked, ‘Who is it?’
‘Room service.’
Between the bed and the door. In the shadows. In the night –
How he wished for day and wished for light.
It is the hour before dawn. Neil Fontaine parks at the junction of Gate House Lane and Mosham Road. To the left is Finningley Airfield (disused). To the right Auckley Common. Doncaster straight ahead. The Jew sits in the back with his army binoculars. He is dressed in combat fatigues. He is wearing his aviator sunglasses.
Neil Fontaine sees the headlights approach. He says, ‘They’re coming, sir.’
The Jew raises his sunglasses. He lifts up his binoculars.
Four sets of headlights come down Gate House Lane from the airfield.
The Jew watches them through his binoculars.
Four trucks turn left and head down the Mosham Road towards Doncaster.
Neil Fontaine starts the car.
‘Most impressive‚’ shouts the Jew from the back. ‘Most impressive indeed, Neil.’
The Mercedes follows the four trucks. Their brake lights in the grey light –
The Mercedes loses sight of the lights in Doncaster. For now –
Neil Fontaine parks close to Rossington Colliery. The Jew with his binoculars. There are no scabs at Rossington. No scabs as yet. Just six pickets and a cardboard sign. Two policemen in their car. Neil Fontaine looks at his watch. He taps it –
Bentley. Hatfield. Armthorpe –
Neil Fontaine turns to the Jew in the back. He says, ‘Any minute now, sir.’
The Jew takes off his sunglasses. He sits up. He looks through his binoculars.
Neil Fontaine looks at his watch again. He taps it again.
‘Here they come,’ says the Jew. ‘Here they come, Neil.’
Neil Fontaine watches the pickets stand. The policemen get out of their car –
Neil turns to see the four trucks hurtle up the road and through the gates.
The pickets and the police run towards the trucks, then stop –
Pit managers come out of their offices, then back off –
Everybody staring, staring at the trucks –
The fifty men disembarking at the sound of a whistle –
Fifty men in camouflage jackets, boiler suits and balaclavas –
Fifty men with pick-axe handles, their leader in a baseball cap and sunglasses –
Fifty men setting about the yard at the sound of the leader’s second whistle.
Neil Fontaine looks at his watch. He taps it. He looks at the Jew in the mirror –
The Jew watching through his binoculars from the backseat of the car –
Fifty men taking out the security cameras, the windows of the offices –
The cars and vehicles belonging to the NCB and their staff.
Neil Fontaine looks at his watch. He taps it. He looks up at the two policemen –
They are still hiding behind their car doors, still shouting into their radios.
There is the third sound of the whistle –
The men form columns. The men board the trucks. The first three trucks leave.
The team leader looks around the yard. The leader bangs on the side of the truck –
The last truck starts up. The team leader gets up into the cabin –
The leader takes off the baseball cap –
Long blonde hair blows across her face and shades as the truck accelerates away.
‘Most impressive,’ says the Jew again. ‘Really most impressive, Neil.’
*
The NUM were on their way to Brighton. The fast lane –
‘Comrades,’ Dick had said on the phone. ‘You have got to come tonight.’
The NUM had been summoned to account for themselves. The TUC were losing patience with the NUM and its president. That was what the TV was saying. Repeatedly. That was what the papers would say –
That was what made the President laugh. Made him really, really laugh –
‘They accuse us of setting worker against worker,’ he said. ‘Accuse us!’
Terry and Paul were in the back with the President. Joan in the front with Len –
They all shook their heads.
‘Is it our members who cross picket lines?’ asked the President. ‘Is it?’
Paul Hargreaves coughed. Paul said, ‘It is actually, President.’
The President looked at Paul. The President bit his lip.
‘Not our true members‚’ said Terry. ‘Our true and loyal members, President.’
‘Thank you, Comrade,’ said the President. ‘Thank you very much.’
Paul stared over at Terry. Paul raised his eyebrows. Paul shook his head –
Terry didn’t care. Terry Winters was on a roll –
Terry had a three-point public plan (separate to his two-point secret plan). Terry had sold the President his three-point public plan (as he would later sell the President his two-point secret plan). The President liked Terry’s three-point public plan (as he would later like his two-point secret plan). Terry was convinced of these things –
Two hundred and twenty miles later Terry was even more convinced.
The top men from the TUC were waiting on the steps of the Metropole Hotel –
The President shook their hands. Then the President led the way upstairs.
The meeting began at eight o’clock in the Louis XV Suite –
‘This is a fancy place‚’ said the President. ‘For some plain talk.’
The top men from the TUC smiled. The top men from the TUC waited.
‘I am here for your total support,’ said the President. ‘Nothing less.’
Then the arguments and the accusations began. The spats and the squabbles.
Eight hours later, Terry Winters tore a piece of paper from his notebook –
Terry handed it to the President. The President read it. The President stood up –
‘The National Union of Mineworkers demands Congress support our objectives of saving pits, saving jobs and saving communities‚’ said the President. ‘The National Union of Mineworkers demands Congress campaign to raise money to alleviate the tremendous hardship in the coalfields and to maintain the Union, nationally and locally. Finally, the National Union of Mineworkers demands Congress make this dispute more effective and once and for all call upon all trade unionists to block the movement of coal and coke and the use of oil.’