GB84

by David Peace

  The President sat back down to applause. The President winked at Terry Winters –

  Terry Winters smiled back.

  ‘It’s been a very long night,’ said the Fat Man. ‘But I would like to thank the President of the National Union of Mineworkers for coming here tonight in advance of the Congress. I’d also like to thank him and all the members of his team for their help in finding this agreed form of words. I am certain these proposals will be implemented to the fullest extent after further discussions with the General Council and with the agreement of the unions concerned –’

  No one was listening. The President in a huddle with Paul, Dick and Terry –

  Terry Winters still smiling. Terry Winters on a roll –

  The world his oyster.

  *

  Neil Fontaine lies in the dark with his curtains open in his room at the Royal Victoria. Neil Fontaine thinks about sortilege. He looks at his watch. He taps it –

  It is three in the morning. The telephone rings three times.

  Neil Fontaine goes upstairs. He knocks on the Jew’s door. He knocks again.

  The Jew shouts, ‘I am her eyes and her ears.’

  Neil Fontaine brings the Mercedes round. The Jew waits in his flying-jacket.

  They take the A57 out of Sheffield through Handsworth, Richmond and Hackenthorpe. They turn down the Mansfield Road, then left over the M1 through the village of Wales and into Kiveton Park –

  The slag heap and the colliery black and hard against the dawn and the sky –

  The enormous, empty, endless sky.

  The Jew worries he has lost touch. The Jew wants to be back where the action is –

  ‘I am her eyes and her ears‚’ he says again. ‘Her eyes and her ears, Neil.’

  Neil Fontaine drives down Station Road. He parks at the junction with Hard Lane.

  The Jew gets out. The Jew says, ‘Keep out of trouble, Neil.’

  Neil Fontaine watches the Jew march up Hard Lane across Hard Bridge –

  Two thousand pickets and half the London Met here to meet seven fucking scabs.

  Neil Fontaine drops his cigarette on the ground. He stands on it. Turns his boot.

  The Met have their boiler suits and helmets on. Their horses and dogs out –

  Neil Fontaine watches them charge through the village.

  The Met want the pickets on the other side of the pit. The pickets won’t go –

  Neil Fontaine watches the sticks and the stones rain down –

  The bones that always break and the names that always hurt.

  The Met have attached metal grilles to the fronts of their Transits –

  Neil Fontaine watches them sweep up and down the road.

  Neil Fontaine has lost sight of the Jew again –

  Fuck.

  Neil Fontaine starts up Hard Lane towards Hard Bridge.

  There is a hand on his arm. The voice in his ear, ‘Hello, hello, hello.’

  Fuck. Neil Fontaine turns round –

  Paul Dixon is standing beside a mud-coated new Montego. He’s in an old, dirty anorak, his jeans and size tens in need of a wash and a polish, too.

  ‘Paul‚’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘We really must stop meeting like this.’

  Paul Dixon nods. Paul smiles. He says, ‘People will start talking.’

  ‘They always do.’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘They always do.’

  Paul Dixon opens the door of the Montego. He says, ‘That’s people for you.’

  Neil Fontaine looks back up the road. He shrugs. They both get into the car –

  The Montego smells worse than the Allegro.

  ‘You sleeping in this thing, are you?’ asks Neil Fontaine.

  Paul Dixon shakes his head. He says, ‘Who says I’m sleeping?’

  They watch police horses jump hedges and trample gardens.

  ‘I thought you were NRC liaison,’ says Neil Fontaine.

  Paul Dixon shakes his head again. He says, ‘Pit Squad.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘Fuck did you take that for?’

  ‘Bit rich coming from you,’ says Paul Dixon.

  Neil Fontaine shrugs again. He says, ‘I’m just a driver-cum-dog’s body.’

  ‘Right,’ says Paul Dixon. ‘A dog’s body. If that’s what you say.’

  Neil Fontaine looks at Paul Dixon. He says, ‘That’s what I say.’

  Paul Dixon takes out a photo. He asks, ‘And what would you say to her?’

  Neil Fontaine glances at the photo –

  Long, blonde hair, gaunt.

  Neil Fontaine shakes his head. Fuck. He says, ‘Never seen her before. Sorry.’

  ‘I bet you are,’ says Paul Dixon. ‘I bet you are.’

  Neil Fontaine closes his eyes. Fuck. Fuck. He says, ‘Who is she anyway?’

  Paul Dixon smiles at Neil. He says, ‘Jennifer Johnson?’

  Neil Fontaine opens his eyes. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He shakes his head.

  ‘The lucky lady who married our mutual mate the Mechanic?’

  ‘News to me,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘Anyway, thought you told me Dave retired?’

  Paul Dixon shrugs his shoulders. He says, ‘Maybe permanently. He’s missing.’

  ‘Missing?’ asks Neil Fontaine. ‘Since when?’

  Paul Dixon takes out another photo. He says, ‘Since he met you in this photo?’

  Fuck. Neil Fontaine glances at the photo. Fuck. Fuck. He shakes his head –

  ‘You’re talking to the wrong man,’ says Neil. ‘That’s not me. I haven’t seen him.’

  Paul Dixon looks down at the photo again. He says, ‘The camera does lie, then.’

  ‘Can’t trust anything these days,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘Anything or anyone.’

  Paul Dixon points up the lane. He asks, ‘That go for him and all, does it?’

  The Jew and another man are carrying another bloodied picket down Hard Lane –

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck –

  Neil Fontaine opens the car door –

  Never fucking ends –

  Paul Dixon holds out the photo. ‘Bad pennies, Neil. They always turn up.’

  Neil Fontaine shakes his head. He slams the door on Paul Dixon, Special Branch –

  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK –

  Bad fucking pennies.

  Martin

  Middle of night – We hwisprian. We onscillan – Day 182. There’s no one here. Dead quiet. I walk up from village. Past Hotel. Police Station. Krk-krk. Sports Ground. Pavilion. Up Pit Lane. Green’s on one side. Brickworks on other. I turn right before Villas and there she is – I stop. I stand here. I stare up at headgear and washer – Folk saw me now they’d think I was crackers. Middle of night. No one here – Just her and me. Bloody hell, says Pete. Look what cat’s dragged in – All right, I say. Room for a little one? – Queer one, more like, he says. Fuck you been? I shake my head. I shrug. I say, Just needed to get away, you know? Pete nods. He says, Fair enough. You’re back now. I nod. I say, If you’ll have us. Don’t be daft, he says. In with Keith and me and Chris here. I nod at Big Chris. I say, When did you start coming, then? Monday, he says. I shake my head. I say, Hope they’re paying you bloody double – Are they fuck, says Keith. Less folk to split petrol money with though – Till bleeding Irish Rover returned, laughs Pete. Look, I say. We going to yap all day or we going to go rucking picket? Pete stands up. He says, The Big K here we come. I follow Keith and Chris back out to car park. Rest of lads have already set off. Pete locks up and off we go. Keith’s driving with me and Chris squeezed in back, Pete fiddling with radio: Eighteen patients dead at Stanley Royd Psychiatric Hospital in Wakefield; Coal peace process on verge of collapse; Sterling at record low; Damage Squad arrest fifteen – Usual stuff. Usual day – Can’t you find any bloody music? asks Keith. Pete reaches forward to dial again. He gives it a turn – Agadoo. Pete turns to us in back. He says, Bet you missed all this, didn’t you? I nod. I say, Like a lanced boil. Keith laughs. He points out window. He says, Bet you missed them and all, did
n’t you? Krk-krk. I stare out at all police cars and vans parked up on hard shoulders of motorway. I say, No roadblocks, then? Not now it’s on our own bloody doorstep, says Pete. No need. They know us. We know them. Keith takes us off motorway and through Doncaster onto a19 and up over m62 at Eggborough onto A645, back to Knottingley and Kellingley Colliery – The Big K – Right modern super-pit, it is, like them up Selby. But it’s a hardline pit too. Like Sharlston and Acton Hall. It wasn’t a hundred year ago that troops shot dead two miners and wounded sixteen at Featherstone. Lot of Scottish had come down to Kellingley in sixties and all – Hard to credit there’d be scabs round here. But there are – Super-pits breed super-scabs, says Keith. Mega-scabs. Lot of them here and at Gascoigne Wood and at Prince of Wales, they were dead against strike from start, says Pete. No stomach for it. Never on a picket, are they? It’s where their bloody Panel is though, says Chris. Pete nods. Pete says, Not that that means anything. Look at us. Chris turns to me. He says, Hear about Silverwood, did you? I nod. Keith parks up in a field about two mile from pit gates. It’s getting on for half-six now. Pit lane full of cars. It’s a big picket – Horses and dogs are at back. I can smell them. Hear them – You all right? asks Pete. Been a while, I say. But I’m right. He looks at me. He says, What happened to you? Where did you go? I tell him, Sometimes you just don’t want to be with anybody, do you? He nods. He says, How’s Cath? She’s right, I say. Mary said she saw her last week, Pete starts to tell me but then chant goes up – Here we go. Here we go. Here we go – Big push. Shove. Shout – Scab van and police escort fly through pit gates. Hundred mile an hour – Lads go down under weight. Lads out cold – Police hostile. Faces contorted beneath their visors, straps tight under their chins – I turn my back. I walk away – I wait for Pete, Keith and Chris. I see Chris first. White as a fucking sheet. I call out to him. He comes over to where I am. I say, You all right, are you? He just nods. He stands by me. He waits for others. We don’t say anything. Just watch – It’s all over by half-seven. Lads start to make their way back to cars. Police pull few of them out and give them some hammer – Glove. Boot – Half an hour later, Pete and Keith come back and we set off back to Welfare. There’s not much conversation on way. Not much news,

  The Twenty-seventh Week

  Monday 3 – Sunday 9 September 1984

  The best place to nick a car in Yorkshire is outside the Millgarth Police Station in Leeds. Has to be in the morning. Has to be a market day. Has to be a Ford. Has to be light coloured and has to be from the car park between the Kirkgate Market and the bus station. Have to be at least two of you as well –

  The Mechanic and Philip Taylor are sitting in Phil’s Ford Fiesta watching a woman lock her yellow Cortina. She checks the door handle. Twice. She walks past the Fiesta. She leaves the car park. She heads up towards Vicar Lane –

  ‘Here we go,’ says Phil –

  Drum roll –

  The Mechanic gets out of the Fiesta. He walks over to the yellow Cortina. He puts the key in the lock. He turns the key. The lock gives. He opens the door. He gets into the car. He closes the door. He puts the key in the ignition. He turns the key. The engine starts. He reverses out of the parking space –

  Phil pulls out behind him.

  The Mechanic goes round the roundabout in the shadow of the Millgarth Police Station, then takes the York Road up through Killingbeck and Seacroft all the way back to the garage –

  Adam Young is waiting. Adam has everything ready –

  He closes the garage doors behind them.

  Two hours later the Cortina has a new coat of paint and a new set of plates.

  Phil and Adam give the Mechanic a lift back to his mother’s house at Wetherby –

  The Mechanic says goodbye. See you later. He gets out –

  Drum roll –

  Here come the dogs. Down the drive. Tongues out and tails up. Fuck, he missed them. Missed his dogs. Back from being the only white face in the place. Back home from weeks and weeks of weed and wonder. Women and wounds. Back home. Where the heart is and all that. Lads in the car must think he’s a bit on the peculiar side. See him here in his mother’s drive with his dogs. But fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck them all. Dog doesn’t stab you in your back. Dog doesn’t break your heart. Dog just loves you –

  Fucking loves you. So fuck them –

  Fuck. Them. All.

  The Mechanic waves to Phil and Adam in the Fiesta. He shouts, ‘Stay free.’

  And he means it –

  Stay. Fucking. Free –

  Free of everything and everyone.

  The President preferred Scarborough or Blackpool. But he liked the Promenade at Brighton. The President walked from meeting to meeting along the seafront with Len and Terry. The President accepted the accolades and the abuse with the same smile. The people who wanted to shake his hand. The people who wanted to spit in his eye. The people who wanted an autograph for their wives. The people who wanted an apology for the violence. The President talked to them all. The President didn’t hate the man on the street who kicked him up the backside. The woman on the pier who tried to push him into the sea. The President would talk to them all because the President blamed the press. Blamed the press for the letter bombs that came in the post. For the death threats on the phone. The meat pie in his face on the train. The elderly lady with the kitchen knife. The man with the axe at Stoke. The President would talk to them all –

  The President would talk to anyone, almost.

  The miners and their minders marched from the Curzon along to the Grand where Bill Reed introduced John James. John James wrote for the Daily Mirror –

  The Miners’ Mate –

  The Daily Mirror which was now owned by Mr Robert Maxwell –

  John James introduced Mr Maxwell of the Mirror –

  Proprietor and Editor-in-Chief, holding court in his suite at the Grand Hotel.

  Mr Maxwell of the Mirror lit a large cigar. He rolled up his sleeves –

  Mr Maxwell of the Mirror said, ‘Think of me as a human switchboard.’

  The President stood up. He said, ‘Then don’t call us, we’ll call you.’

  The President, Paul, Joan and Terry walked out of the suite at the Grand Hotel –

  The President had other fish to fry back at the Curzon.

  Len called the lift. Bill Reed came running down the corridor –

  Bill said, ‘Comrades, Comrades, he only wants to help.’

  ‘Help his circulation,’ said Joan.

  Bill shook his head. He said, ‘You’re wrong and you’ve offended him.’

  The President turned to Bill. He said, ‘He isn’t what he seems, Comrade.’

  Bill Reed shook his head again. Bill looked at Terry. He said, ‘Terry?’

  Terry shrugged his shoulders. He said, ‘I don’t –’

  ‘You’re all wrong,’ shouted Bill. ‘And you’ve made an enemy of a friend.’

  The President turned back to Bill. He said, ‘He was never a friend, Comrade.’

  Len held open the lift doors. The President and the rest of them got in –

  ‘Never a friend,’ said the President again –

  Bill Reed watched the doors close. Bill Reed said, ‘But I was.’

  *

  The Jew likes Brighton. The Jew loves Brighton. The Jew had even lived here at one time; the time the Jew went bankrupt. The Trades Union Congress is a very good reason to be here again. The Jew has a large third-floor suite with a sea view at the Grand Hotel. Neil Fontaine is upstairs in a different room. Room 629. Under a different name. But Neil is never there. The Jew has an ever-open door to an ever-open bar. Here the Jew keeps thieves’ hours with the Big Men from the unions of the New Right. These Big Men with their Bigger Minders who smoke cigars and drink spirits by the pint, who like to stake their subs in the company of loose ladies. The Jew pays these ladies to stroke the thighs of these Big Men. To suck the cocks of these Big Men in the bathroom of the Jew’s third-floor suite with its sea view. To spit their seme
n into his sink –

  The Jew looks away from the bathroom door. He shouts, ‘Neil! Neil!’

  Neil Fontaine walks across the suite to the Jew. He bends over to listen –

  ‘Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘Be a pal and hire the plane for tomorrow again.’

  Neil Fontaine nods. He says, ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘Do you know what tomorrow’s slogan on the banner will say, Neil?’

  ‘No, sir,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Get stuffed Scargill!’ giggles the Jew. ‘Get stuffed Scargill!’

  The Big Men queuing for the bathroom applaud.

  There is a loud knock on the door to the suite.

  Neil Fontaine goes to the door. He opens it. He smiles at the man in the corridor –

  ‘Long time, no see,’ says the man in his peaked white cap –

  Neil Fontaine smiles. Neil Fontaine nods.

  The Jew is standing on the bed. He shouts, ‘Who the fuck is it now, Neil?’

  Neil Fontaine turns to the room. He says, ‘It’s Mr Maxwell of the Mirror, sir.’

  Mr Maxwell of the Mirror strides into the room. He opens his arms –

  ‘It’s been too long, Sweet Stephen,’ he bellows. ‘Much too long.’

  The Jew jumps off the bed and into the arms of Mr Maxwell of the Mirror –

  ‘Captain, my Captain,’ squeals the Jew. ‘How long has it been?’

  *

  Welcome to the New Realism –

  The Conference Hall of the 1984 Trades Union Congress, shoulder to shoulder. The Easington Scab might have made legal history with an injunction against the Durham NUM; the Dock Strike might look set to crumble; the steel and power unions might have been booed for their views. But the President had the promises of the General Council; the promise of the total support of their ten million members; the promise to heighten the confrontation; the promise to black all coal, coke and oil –

  Promises, promises, promises.

  Ray Buckton took the platform. He said, ‘It is all too easy to ignore someone else’s problems. But it is no good in the long run, because solidarity is not something which comes with conditions attached. Solidarity is a simple principle –’