GB84

by David Peace

  Then the witch hunts could begin. The witch hunts and the inquisition –

  The torture and confessions. The trials and executions. Burnings and beheadings.

  Today was the day and Terry wasn’t invited. Terry wouldn’t be missed.

  Terry Winters had the house to himself. Terry got out of bed and went to work. Into the loft and the suitcases. Into the pantry and the biscuit tins.

  Terry called the office. He told them he was going to Bath to pick up his family. He said he’d be back in the office tomorrow or the morning after. The weather willing –

  This fucking weather.

  He would have to change routes. He didn’t want to cross the Moors on an A road. He’d have to go up to the M62. He rechecked her plans and reset his watch –

  He could still do it, but he’d have to get his skates on.

  Terry locked up. Terry put the suitcases in the boot. Terry set off –

  Sheffield up to Junction 42. The M62 to Manchester –

  Snow. Sleet. Rain. Sleet. Snow. Sleet. Rain. Sleet. Snow –

  Through Manchester into Liverpool. Terry Winters boarded the fast ferry –

  The last fast ferry to Dublin until the weather improved.

  Terry hated boats. Terry hated the sea. The currents and the depths –

  Terry knew this would be a nightmare.

  But Diane had said the airports were being watched. Terry’s face too well known.

  Terry knew she was right. Terry knew he was a national hero to some people –

  The enemy within to others. Terry knew she was right. It was the price of fame.

  Terry left the suitcases locked in the boot. Terry sat in the bar and drank –

  Puked and puked –

  The crossing rough. The crossing slow. The crossing taking forever.

  Terry had another drink and tried to read the papers –

  The papers full of the Big Freeze. Record demands for power. But no power cuts.

  Terry puked again. Terry drank again. Terry took out his own papers –

  Their own Big Freeze. The eight million pounds still frozen overseas.

  Terry looked at his watch. He was going to arrive too late for the banks –

  For the regular banking hours. But Diane had phoned ahead. Made arrangements.

  Terry disembarked in Dublin and went straight to the bank.

  The bank was waiting for Terry –

  Mr Winters and his suitcases were expected.

  Terry Winters opened the account in the name of Pine Tree Investments –

  It was a name that had come to him when he’d been putting out the kids’ presents –

  Diane liked the name too.

  The President, Paul and Dick were listed as joint trustees with Joan and Mike. However, only Terry could authorize deposits and withdrawals from the account, transactions that could be completed only by the appropriate password –

  The password known only to Terry and Diane. The account known only to them –

  The account containing £250,000 and counting.

  Hats off to Diane. It truly was a master plan –

  If the account was discovered, then Terry was only protecting the Union’s assets. If they tried to make a scapegoat out of Terry, then he had his exit. They both did –

  Terry would divorce his wife. Diane would divorce her husband.

  Terry and Diane would catch the first fast ferry to Dublin –

  Terry and Diane would go to the bank. Terry and Diane would say the word –

  The money would be theirs. The future would be theirs –

  A £250,000 future and counting.

  *

  Malcolm Morris pressed play again. Malcolm played it all back again –

  Again and again. All of it. Over and over –

  More voices from the shadows, where the silences did not quite reach yet –

  ‘– my father took me from my mother. Not to raise me, but to train and cure me. He failed me and I failed him. He took his own life as I took mine. Lincoln College, Oxford, offered me a place out of respect for him and pity for me. I took up their offer of Medieval and Military History, out of pity for him, and paid my last respects with three last little words –

  ‘I hate you –’

  More lies from the light, from which the truth ran and hid. In the shadows –

  ‘– in a dull room in Great Marlborough Street they asked me dull questions and I gave them dull answers. Then they offered me tea laced with whisky and a dull job, which I took with a handshake and a peppermint for the train back to Oxford –’

  This one promise from those shadows, where their threats would not follow –

  ‘– Diane was morbid even then. Drawn to secrets, suicides and sex. She pretended to like my poetry. She pretended to like my personality. She pretended to like the inside of my pants, and I pretended too. It was all good practice. It was all good fun. Then it all went wrong when I said those three last little words –

  ‘I love you –’

  This one truth from the shadows inside, the lies upstairs and down –

  ‘– I got off the tube at Hyde Park Corner and walked up Park Lane and onto Curzon Street and on a grim September day I stepped inside Leconfield House and they put me to work behind a grim desk in a grim, windowless room for the rest of my grim days, laced with whisky and peppermints they all said would help pass the grim time –’

  These whispers from the shadows, where their spirits had all fled and hid –

  ‘– they gave me the Yorkshire branches of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The British Road to Socialism and The Theory and Practice of Communism to read on all those long lunch breaks from which they never returned –’

  Those slim truths from those dark pages, where their fat lies had not yet reached –

  ‘– and I got off the tube at Hyde Park Corner and walked up Park Lane and onto Curzon Street and on a dead August day in 1969 I stepped inside Leconfield House and they gave me a dead letter with Diane’s name crossed out and mine pencilled in, marked Urgent and stamped Ulster –’

  That voice from the shadows at the back. The silence at the gates –

  The scissors in her hands. Hungry.

  *

  Neil Fontaine pours the drinks in the Jew’s Hobart House office. He pours large ones. Stiff ones all round. One thousand two hundred new faces went back in yesterday. Thirty-eight per cent of all miners now working –

  But it’s not enough. Not yet. It’s never enough. Not now.

  The bloody Bank of England has been forced to step in to save the Midland Bank. Two billion pounds pumped into the system overnight. Interest rates going up, up, up –

  The total cost of the strike ballooning –

  A huge red balloon and still rising.

  There have been calls from the Great Financier. There have been angry calls. Threatening calls –

  For restitution and remuneration. For retribution and retaliation.

  The Jew has made promises and pleas. Supplications and solicitations –

  But it’s not enough. It’s never enough –

  The Jew knows it and the Jew knows why –

  Christmas was finished. New Year was finished. Everything was finished –

  It was time for each miner to make up his own mind.

  But there is talk of talks about talks again. Third parties on the television –

  Pressure mounts for peace. Prospects of fresh pit peace talks.

  The Jew curses. The Jew fumes. The Jew rages. The Jew roars –

  ‘They have stayed out for ten whole months,’ the Jew shouts down the telephone. ‘Ten whole fucking months! They’re not going to surrender all that sacrifice and scab if there’s a chance of a settlement, are they? Tell the Minister to call me –’

  The Jew slams down the phone. He slumps in his chair. He stares at his guests –

  Piers Harris and Dominic Reid look at their nails and their notes –

  Don Colby
and Derek Williams look at each other and raise their eyebrows.

  ‘I’m calling off the dogs,’ says the Jew. ‘There’s no sense in any further legal attacks upon the Union, not now it is under the control of the receiver.’

  Piers and Dominic nod. Don and Derek scratch themselves.

  ‘Of course, we’ll continue to pursue personal actions against individual members of their National Executive,’ promises the Jew. ‘And the restraints on mass pickets.’

  ‘The other actions should be suspended, then?’ asks Piers. ‘Indefinitely?’

  The Jew strokes his moustache. The Jew nods. The Jew walks over to his map. ‘The focus now will be upon the return to work and upon our friends in Nottingham.’

  ‘Nottingham?’ asks Derek. ‘They’re practically all at work anyway.’

  ‘The men might be at work,’ says the Jew. ‘But their union remains on strike.’

  Don and Derek are frowning. Piers and Dominic nodding now.

  ‘Those men need a new union,’ says the Jew. ‘That will be our next victory.’

  The tape had stopped turning. The orchestra had stopped playing –

  The restaurant was quiet. Empty now –

  The Right Honourable Member of Parliament sat at a table among the shadows at the back, where the lights did not quite reach and the waiters never brought the menu and never took his order –

  Malcolm Morris watched him. Malcolm Morris waited for him –

  In the silences. In the spaces –

  The Right Honourable Member pressed the eject button. He picked up his pen. He turned the pages of the transcript. He underlined. He circled. He scored –

  These transcripts of the Dead –

  Their comminations.

  Peter

  eager to help them by putting work their way. Didn’t seem as much like charity. Local shops and all – These folk had all given. But there was never any end to it. Never anything to receive in return. Now they’d nothing more to give. They just wanted it to end. We all did – And it got to you. It really bloody did – The moaning and the grumbling. The rumours and the whispers. The ups and the downs – Felt like progress. Then next news momentum had just disappeared – No talks at national level. Nothing – Then talks were back on again. Then they weren’t – Frustrating and it began to take its bloody toll. You’d see it in people’s eyes – The way they sat. The way they approached you over things – Electricity bills. Car repairs. Shoes for the young ones. Anything – People were more agitated. Jumpy. Quick to anger. To blame Union more and more – But it were these peaks and troughs that did it. False dawns. These ups and downs – Lads would see six o’clock news and hear they were still talking. Lads would go to bed thinking they’d be back at work next Monday – Brass would be coming in again. Debts going back down – Wake up to find out talks had failed again. And that were that then for next few weeks or months – Back to picketing or coal-picking. Just waiting – I go down. Down – To break things up a bit we started sending a few cars out to power stations. Relieve boredom – I went over in car to Ferrybridge with Keith and Chris. Martin had done another of his disappearing acts – It was just good to get away from village. Keith stuck radio on – Last Christmas. Least it wasn’t that fucking Band Aid record. Billy in Hotel had been telling us how that was all a government plot to distract public sympathy away from miners. Make miners look greedy next to little brown babies dying of starvation in Africa. That was how BBC had come to film it. How they’d sent those pop stars over there. He went on a bit, did Billy – Rattle off Ridley Plan to you. Tell you how he’d seen his brother’s lad on picket line. His brother’s lad who was in the British Army on the Rhine. His brother’s lad dressed as a copper – Thing is, said Keith, he might be right about that bloody record. People giving to them, they won’t be giving to us. Chris nodded, See his logic – I switched radio off. Wished I’d never opened my mouth now – Got to Ferrybridge and they gave us a gate and some leaflets. There were a couple of blokes there from SWP. Keith had a laugh with them. Taking piss like always. Fucking freezing though, stood before that thing – That power station. Big clouds of white smoke against that heavy grey Yorkshire sky. Ticking over without a care in world, it was. Like we weren’t even here – Made your eyes smart. Two cars from Frickley came up to relieve us at lunchtime. Bloody glad to see them. Keith dropped us back at Welfare and him and Chris went up to Soup Kitchen for their lunch. Bet you it’s casserole again, said Keith. Don’t care what it is, said Chris. Long as it’s bloody hot. I did without. I didn’t have time. Knew queue would be there and it was. Hardest hit were them that had had babies on way when strike started. Didn’t plan on having a baby and no brass at same time. Emotional period in people’s lives at best of times. Took its toll, you could see. Husbands would be out picketing for their quid or doing a bit of cash in hand and wife was left inhouse with new baby and worry of bills and food and mortgage and what-have-you. These lasses going without meals to make sure baby got what it needed – Lot of these were the ones that were splitting up. Blokes who should have been on top of world looked like bottom had dropped out of it – I could hear babies crying before I even set foot in place. Screaming place down – Where’s my fifteen quid, Pete? shouted Adrian Booker. You got my fifteen quid yet, have you? He said it every fucking week. He wasn’t only one and all. Sixteen quid now government were taking off benefits in lieu of strike pay. Blokes like Adrian Booker would go down DHSS and argue with them. DHSS would send him back here to argue with me. It was their wives that had started it. How Union should give their men strike pay. Thing was, I agreed with them. But what could you do? There wasn’t even enough brass to

  The Forty-sixth Week

  Monday 14 – Sunday 20 January 1985

  There were never any standing ovations now. There were never autographs for the kids. Never songs in his name. There was just the silence –

  The silence of the strike rolling towards the edge of the cliffs –

  The petrol gone. The engine off. The brakes broken and the doors locked –

  Eighty thousand faces pressed against the windows –

  The cold seas breaking on the rocks below, waiting.

  *

  The Jew has Neil doing this. The Jew has Neil doing that. This for him and that for them. This for the Chairman and that for Tom Ball. This for Piers and that for Dominic. This for Don and Derek and that for Fred and Jimmy –

  Morning, noon and bloody night –

  The Jew has him running here. The Jew has him running there. Here for the Jew and there for them. This article over to The Times and that paper over to the High Court. These reports up to the Chairman and those rulebooks up to Mansfield –

  Mr High and bloody Mighty. His beck and fucking call –

  Neil Fontaine needs to be out on the pavements. To be stood in the doorways –

  Station to station. Place to place –

  Knightsbridge flats and Mayfair clubs. Empty bars and rented rooms –

  Room to room. Service to service –

  To watch their windows and their doors. Their gardens and their car parks –

  Their comings and their goings –

  But Jerry and Roger never come. Jerry and Roger nowhere to be seen –

  Jerry and Roger have gone –

  To ground.

  *

  ‘The dead hand of Number 10,’ the President had said and the President had been right –

  The President and the Chairman had been set to meet at one of the coal industry’s many social and benevolent gatherings. Then the Board abruptly cancelled the gathering –

  ‘Her dirty fingerprints,’ the President had said and bowed his head.

  They were handing out more three-and five-year jail sentences to the Kent miners. They were cutting the Pit Police Force by a third. Restarting production at Kellingley. There were now seventy-three thousand men back at work –

  They were saying it was all but finished –

  All over bar th
e shouting –

  ‘Why on earth do they think we are fighting to defend these stinking jobs in the pitch black? There are no lavatories or lunchbreaks, no lights or scenery –

  ‘We are fighting because our culture and our community depends –’

  Terry switched off the radio. He didn’t want to wake them. Terry had work to do –

  Back among the cake and biscuit tins. The cereal boxes and the Tupperware.

  Dublin had been a success. Diane had been pleased –

  Pine Tree Investments was up and running –

  Her schemes and his dreams –

  Hand in hand.

  The corridors were long, the carpets old and wrong. The lights flickered off and on –

  The lift door opened and closed and opened again and out they fell –

  Diane Morris and Terry Winters were young and drunk.

  She had her hands up his neck and in his hair. His up her legs and at her hairs. They fumbled with their clothes. They fumbled with their key –

  The door opened and closed and opened again and in they fell –

  The room was small, the carpet crawled. The light flickered on and off –

  The bed creaked. The headboard banged. The wall shook –

  They were not as young as they used to be. Not as drunk as they used to be.

  She had her nails in his arse, then his back. His cock in her mouth, then her cunt –

  Malcolm Morris sat in the corner with bloody fingers in his bleeding ears, watching his wife fucking Terry Winters –

  Off and on, on and off. On and off, off and on –

  ‘I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.’

  For the next ten bloody, bleeding, fucking years. Her scissors in his hands.

  The war in heaven raged on. The Militants and the Moderates tearing their wings off. Nottinghamshire were stripping their president and their secretary of their positions. Exiling them to Sheffield. Determined to declare independence. South Derbyshire set to join them. This was all they talked about in the corridors and the canteen. The pubs and the bars around the Headquarters. Not the strike. Not their members stood out in the snow. Not their families –