by David Peace
‘Let go of me! Let go of me!’ shouts the Jew. ‘Bloody let go of me, man!’
‘No, sir,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘I can’t do that, sir.’
‘Damn you, Neil!’ shrieks the Jew. ‘I should be there! I should be in there!’
Neil clutches the Jew. Neil hugs the Jew. Neil cradles the Jew –
He buries the Jew’s head in his jacket. He strokes the Jew’s hair with his hand –
He kisses the top of the Jew’s head as they watch and they wait –
As an ambulance appears. And another. And another. And another ten arrive –
Their sirens and their lights in the dead silence of the night.
The police put a cordon across the remains of the front of the Grand.
People appear in knots. To stand and to stare. To sob in their knots –
Their eyes are red. Their skin is white. Their veins are blue –
The living and the dead, sat in their dressing-gowns and their pyjamas –
In striped and stained deckchairs, under a bright and bloody moon.
*
The President was back in Paris on business. It was a flying visit to Montreuil in the midst of the NCB–NACODS–NUM negotiations at ACAS. The President thanked the officials from the French and Soviet trade unions for their generous offers of aid. The President had detailed the physical and financial attacks upon his union and its members; the CGT had agreed to send a forty-five-truck convoy of food and the Soviets had smiled favourably on the President’s request for a forty-five-truck convoy of Moscow gold –
It was a good, good day.
Terry Winters and the President moved on. Up the stairs. Down the corridor –
Terry Winters knocked on the door. Mohammed Abdul Divan opened it.
The President and Terry shook hands with Mohammed Divan. They went inside. They sat down across the table from another man.
‘Comrades,’ said Mohammed. ‘This is Salem. The man from Libya.’
Pockets empty. Dogs in the back. His plan in shreds. His master plan –
The Mechanic makes another call. And another. And another –
Nobody knows much. Nobody’s heard much. Nobody says much –
‘But try the next mass picket,’ Phil Taylor tells him.
The Mechanic hangs up. He leaves the phone box. He gets back in the car –
Throws the dogs a couple of bones. Scraps.
The Mechanic switches on the Tandy scanner. He listens to the loose talk –
The dogs fighting in the back over the scraps. The crumbs.
Neil Fontaine carries the Jew out of the Metropole next door and along the Promenade. The Jew has been watching the horror show unfold on breakfast TV with everybody else. The pictures of Norman in pain. The pictures of the Grand in ruins –
The pictures of the Prime Minister safe and sound.
Neil Fontaine helps the Jew out of his soiled, white tuxedo with gold epaulettes. The local branch of Marks & Spencer opened early to clothe the refugees. Neil Fontaine has chosen a plain blue blazer and dark grey trousers for the Jew to wear today.
Neil Fontaine puts the blazer over the shoulders of the Jew –
Neil opens the door of the Mercedes. The Jew gets into the back of the car –
He does not speak for hours. He just sits and stares out of the window –
The pier and the Promenade. The sky and the sea –
The day he was not meant to see.
The Jew does not speak until Neil Fontaine says, ‘It’s time to go, sir.’
‘Thank you, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘Thank you,’
The Jew walks along the Front. The Jew enters the Conference Hall –
There is no Land of Hope and Glory today. There is just the Prime
Minister –
Safe and sound. Alive and kicking –
The Prime Minister. His Prime Minister –
‘The bomb attack on the Grand Hotel was first and foremost an indiscriminate attempt to massacre innocent, unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for this Conservative Conference. Our first thoughts must be for those who died and for those who are now in hospital recovering from their injuries. But the bomb attack clearly signified more than this. It was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our conference; it was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty’s democratically elected government. This is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and dignified, is a sign that this attack has failed and that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail–’
The Jew is on his feet. The Jew applauds. The hall on its feet. The hall applauds –
‘Now,’ says the Prime Minister, ‘it must be business as usual –’
The Prime Minister talks of local government. Defence. Europe. Unemployment –
His Prime Minister speaks of lions and the best of British –
‘– the strike is not of the government’s seeking. Not of the government’s making. The sheer bravery of the men who have kept the mining industry alive is beyond praise. “Scabs”, their former workmates call them –
‘Scabs? They are lions –
‘What a tragedy when a striking miner attacks his workmate. Not only are they members of the same Union, but the working miner is saving both their futures. To face the picket line day after day takes a special kind of courage. It takes as much, even more, for the housewife who stays at home –
‘These people are the best of British –
‘Just as our police – who uphold the law with an independence and restraint, perhaps only to be found in this country – are the admiration of the world.
‘This government did all it could to prevent the strike. Some would say it did too much. We gave the miners their best ever pay offer, the highest ever investment and, for the first time, the promise that no miner would lose his job against his will. This was all done despite the fact that the bill for the losses in the industry was bigger than the annual bill for all the doctors and dentists in all the National Health Service hospitals in our United Kingdom.
‘But this is a dispute about the right to go to work of those who have been denied the right to go to vote. The overwhelming majority of trade unionists, including many striking miners, deeply regret what has been done in the name of trade unionism. When the strike is over, and one day it will be over, we must do everything we can to encourage moderate and responsible trade unionism, so that it can once again take its respected and valuable place in our industrial life.
‘But we face today an executive of the NUM who know that what they are demanding has never been granted, either for miners or workers in any other industry –
‘So why then demand it? Why ask for what they know cannot be conceded?
‘There can be only one explanation –
‘They do not want a settlement. They want a strike – otherwise they would have balloted on the Coal Board’s offer. Indeed, one-third of the miners did have a ballot and voted overwhelmingly to accept the offer.
‘But what we have seen in this country is the emergence of an organized revolutionary minority who are prepared to exploit industrial disputes, but whose real aim is the breakdown of law and order and the destruction of democratic parliamentary government. We have seen the same sort of thugs and bullies at Grunwick, more recently against Eddie Shah in Stockport, and now we see them organized into flying squads around the country.
‘It seems there are some who are out to destroy any properly elected government. To bring down the framework of the law. This is what has been seen in this strike –
‘But the law they seek to defy is the common law, upheld by fearless judges and passed down across the centuries. It is legislation scrutinized and enacted by the Parliament of a free people. It is British justice and it is renowned across the world.
‘This nation faces what is probably the most testing crisis of our time –
‘The battle between the
extremists and the rest.
‘But we fight as we have always fought, for the weak as well as the strong –
‘For great and good causes –
‘To defend against the power and might of those who rise up to challenge them.
‘This government will not weaken. This nation will meet that challenge –
‘Democracy will prevail!’
It is the speech of her life; the life she almost lost.
The Jew is on his feet with the entire hall. The Jew applauds with the entire hall –
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight –
For eight minutes the hall applauds.
The Jew has tears running down his face, tears streaming over his skin –
Streaming down mountains. Running in rivers –
Rivers of blood. Mountains of skulls.
Martin
cars before it. Ten cop cars after it – Flies past us at eighty mile an hour. Right up Pit Lane and in – That’s that then, I think. Think wrong – Turn round to see this police Transit coming towards us with searchlight on. Fuck-ing wedge of riot coppers with full-length shields behind it – Everyone starts to edge back. Backing away – Knowing what’s fucking coming for us. Knowing what we’re fucking going to get – Few of lasses from Action Group try to send some lads off down ginnels and over gardens. But fucking pigs have them. Either send them back or handcuff them to lamp-posts and gates for later. Then I hear them – Hear hooves. Ten horses behind riot squad and dogs – This other wedge of coppers coming out, too. Foot of lane. I look at my watch – Half-six when whistle goes and horses charge and all bloody hell is let loose on us – Their commander today is a fucking cunt. He says clear as day, Get bastards and do them – Fifty reporters next to him. Fifty cameramen. Not one bastard will report it. Not one bastard will film it. No report of what that cunt said. No fucking film of all chaos that follows – Everybody running. This way. That way – Truncheon for this one. Truncheon for that one. For this one. For that one – Horses and boots pushing us back up towards Barrel and over motorway bridge. Folk running out into traffic and what have you. Then this big cheer goes up. I turn to look back – Lad has chucked a bin lid at that bastard on white horse. Knocked him flying off horse onto ground. Fucking brilliant. To see him lie there in road. That cunt off his white bloody horse. That cunt and his horse that have chased and fucking hit us all over bloody county – Doesn’t last long, mind. Next bin lid misses and it’s back on with running shoes – Past Barrel and over bridge. Lads down on motorway among cars – like fucking Orgreave all over again. Folk doing anything to get out of way – But pigs just keep on coming. Boots up your arse. Truncheon to your hands. Back of their shields into back of your neck. Truncheons to your head – Then, bingo. Fucking bingo – Lads find a pile of bricks and bloody stones. Let fucking fly and all – Pigs have got their shields up but they’re only them short, black, round ones. Have to fucking retreat, don’t they? – Bricks and stones. That’s what it takes to save us. Bricks and bloody stones – I pick up bricks. I pick up bloody stones. I fucking throw them and all – First fucking time. This is what it’s come to for me – To make them leave me be. To save myself. To get away. To be fucking free – Not everyone’s that lucky, though. Lot of blokes get a lot of fucking hammer. They take twelve lads away just for having dirt on their hands. Least it isn’t blood – Not like him. Him – Him that brought them here. Him that’s caused it all – That went back to work. To work? – To scab. To sit on his arse all day up at pit – To play hands of cards with bastard police. Loses his fucking wages to Met, I hear – That sorry scab and his sorry hand. His sorry wages in their greedy paws – Tears in his eyes, they say. Tears in his wife’s eyes. Tears in his kids’ eyes – Him under his hood. Her with a new name. New address – Tears in police eyes and all. Tears of laughter – Laugh at fucking lot of us, they do. Met. MacGregor. Thatcher. The lot of them. The whole bloody fucking lot of them – Laughing at us in our little villages with our little pits. Our little accents and our little clothes – Cunts. Bastards. One day – you’ll see. You’ll see – In the dark lands, I have a candle in my hand. I walk aver heaps. Heaps of fragments. The candle in my hand, in the dark lands – Day 221. I open my eyes on floor under my coat and I remember – Talks collapse. Pits collapse. Strikes collapse. Hotels collapse – But she bloody survives. Lives to tell tale – Fucking lot of them: King. Heseltine. Lawson. Ridley. Havers. Walker. Brittan. Even Tebbit – Iron Bitch without a bloody scratch. Fuck me – If she’d had a shit and not a pee, what a different place this world would be. And to think there’s still them that say there’s a god up there – It’s going to go on for ever, this is. Fucking for ever now – Day 223. It’s total now. Relentless. Total and relentless provocation and aggression against – Every pit. Every village. Every day. Every hour – Kellingley. Maltby. Kiveton Park. Allerton-
The Thirty-third Week
Monday 15 – Sunday 21 October 1984
These are days the Jew was not meant to see. The Jew says so over and over and over. From breakfast to bedtime. Morning, noon and night –
Times have changed. The Jew sees things more than ever in just black and white –
Night and day. Wet and dry. Bad and good –
Them and us –
‘You are either one of them,’ says the Jew again. ‘Or one of us.’
The Jew is back in business. Back behind his desk.
There are flowers from the National Working Miners’ Committee –
Telephone calls to be returned. Telegrams to be answered.
The talks between the Board and the Union at the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service collapsed again last night. The sides had met for less than two hours. The Jew is happy the talks failed. The Jew hates ACAS and all it stands for –
Appeasement. Compromise. And. Surrender –
The old days.
It had been created by a Labour government. Designed for a Labour government –
To interfere. To negotiate. To barter and to abdicate.
It stank of Labour. It stank of defeat. It stank of the past –
The bad old days.
The Jew is happy to watch it fail. Happy to watch them all fail –
Their president and the Union have stated their defiance of the High Court fines. The Jew is very happy about that, too. This time the Jew can admit he is happy –
‘The times have changed,’ the Jew tells Neil again. ‘The times have changed.’
Neil Fontaine waits in the corridor outside the Chairman’s office in Hobart House. The men in suits pace up and down. Up and down. Letters of resignation in their hands.
Neil Fontaine looks at his watch again. He taps his watch. It starts again –
Places to be. People to meet. Things he must know.
Neil Fontaine and the men in suits listen to the Jew ranting on the inside –
‘This strike is a political strike, make no mistake. Its outcome is not just the concern of the Board, and it never has been. The very future of this country depends on a total defeat of that man and all that he stands for. So there can be no settlement. There can be no agreement. There can be no compromise. Therefore, there must be no further negotiations. There must be no further promises of no more compulsory redundancies. There must be no amnesty and no jobs for any miners convicted of criminal offences.
‘The times have changed and I can tell you when they did –
‘The times changed at exactly six minutes to three last Friday morning.’
*
Terry Winters had a lot of airport time to kill. Terry read Conrad. Terry read Greene. Terry read Fleming. Terry couldn’t concentrate. Terry picked through the newspapers. Bombs. Terrorists. Failed talks. Court fines. The President’s forfeit paid anonymously. Terry was needed there. There. There. There. Not here –
Frankfurt, fucking Germany.
Terry Winters made more calls to Sheffield. Click-click –
To Diane. Click-click.
To Theresa –
But no one answered the phone. No one returned his calls. Told him anything. Mohammed brought Terry another cup of coffee. Mohammed sat down next to him. Mohammed talked about Al-Zulfikar. Politics in Pakistan. Vengeance. Doncaster Rovers. The price of bread. Corner shops –
Terry Winters wished he’d fucking shut up.
Salem returned. Salem shook his head. Salem said, ‘Twenty-four hours.’
Terry rolled his eyes. Terry went back to the airport hotel. Terry checked in again. He lay down on the single bed in his single room. He tried to sleep. He couldn’t sleep. He cut up The Secret Agent to make new codes. He used England Made Me as a football. He threw The Spy Who Loved Me at the wall –
He shouldn’t be here. He should be there. There. There. There –
Terry made calls to Sheffield. Click-click. To Diane. Click-click –
But no one answered the phone. No one returned his calls. Told him anything. Mohammed knocked on Terry’s door. Mohammed asked if Terry was hungry for dinner. Terry told Mohammed he was busy. Terry said he had things to do –
Terry washed his underpants in the small sink in the corner of his room –
He dried them with a hairdryer he had borrowed from reception –
Terry’s hands were red raw. Terry wondered what the fuck he was doing.
*
Neil Fontaine serves two large brandies in the suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s.
The Great Financier nods. The Great One is always willing to help –
‘You know that, Stephen,’ he says. ‘Especially in times such as these.’
The Great Financier lost his Carlton tie in the bomb. It has yet to be replaced.
‘Yes, and I appreciate that,’ says the Jew. ‘She knows it, too. She appreciates it.’
‘But, but, but,’ smiles the Great One, ‘does the Chairman?’
The Jew smiles back. The Jew says, ‘He is beginning to see the light.’
‘The City worries about our American friend,’ says the Great Financier.
‘I read my balance sheets,’ says the Jew. ‘I know how the City worries.’