GB84

by David Peace

  The Forty-ninth Week

  Monday 4 – Sunday 10 February 1985

  Much of the country was flooded. The pound had slipped further. There were unreported power cuts. People swinging in the wind. But the Fat Man was back again –

  Fresh from tea at the Savoy with the Minister; dinner at the Ritz with the Board –

  Here to save the day –

  But not Terry’s day –

  The receiver had five million of their pounds. He was on to the Dublin money too. He had paid all their fines. He wanted to end sequestration. He wanted sole control –

  Terry’s days were numbered. The clock ticking down. The President’s too –

  ‘We are not begging and crawling for a resumption of negotiations,’ he shouted. ‘And there appears to be a very real determination to make us accept the principle that pits should close on economic grounds even before getting to the negotiating table –’

  But the Fat Man just nodded his fat head. The Fat Man was not going to give up. The Fat Man persuaded the NEC to stay in the capital another twenty-four hours –

  For a third fucking day.

  ‘I am not walking away from the search for negotiations,’ declared the Fat Man. ‘The problem is too big to leave alone.’

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck –

  Terry had to get out. Had to get away. Had to get home. He had to find a phone –

  Terry made the call. Terry went back inside TUC Headquarters –

  ‘There is no possibility at all of this Union ever accepting conditions of that kind,’ the President was saying again. ‘No union leaders worth their salt would ever be a party to such measures. Never. Not in a month of bloody Sundays would –’

  There was a knock at the door. There was a note passed to the President –

  The President read the note. The President looked up at Terry –

  Terry blinked. Terry smiled. Terry said, ‘What is it, Comrade President?’

  ‘It’s your wife,’ said the President. ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’

  *

  The Jew attends the unveiling of a memorial to Yvonne Fletcher in St James’s Square. The Jew is in a sombre suit and coat, under an umbrella held by Neil –

  ‘– without the police,’ the Prime Minister is reminding the assembled people, ‘there would be no law and there would be no liberty –’

  The Jew nods in his sombre suit and coat, under an umbrella held by Neil –

  His eyes never leave her face; hope never leaves his heart –

  But she leaves without a word. Not even a goodbye. Without a second glance –

  ‘Because of her courage, her resilience,’ the Jew is quick to tell Neil in the car, ‘it’s all too easy to forget that behind the Iron Lady mask is a mother and a woman.’

  Neil Fontaine nods. Neil Fontaine drives the Jew back to Hobart House –

  The National Working Miners’ Committee will be waiting for them.

  ‘There is still so much to be done, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘In public and in private.’

  Neil Fontaine nods again. Neil Fontaine could not agree more –

  He is paying men from the small ads ten quid an hour to stand in doorways.

  Neil Fontaine parks the car. Neil Fontaine follows the Jew upstairs to his office –

  Chloe shows in Fred and Jimmy. Chloe hands the Jew new reports and a coffee –

  ‘Did you arrange a time for the meeting with the Chairman?’ asks the Jew.

  Chloe bites her bottom lip. Chloe says, ‘I’m afraid he’s unavailable today, sir.’

  ‘Unavailable? Unavailable to whom?’ laughs the Jew. ‘Unavailable to me?’

  Fred Wallace brushes the top of his trouser leg. Jimmy Hearn fiddles with his ear.

  Chloe goes over to the phone. Chloe picks it up –

  The Jew strides across the room. The Jew slaps the phone out of her hand –

  ‘Don’t you dare humiliate me again,’ shouts the Jew. ‘Go! You are dismissed!’

  Chloe looks at Neil. Neil nods at Chloe. Chloe looks at the door. Neil nods again.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ laughs the Jew. ‘A reference? A kiss? A banana?’

  Chloe stares at the Jew. Chloe smiles. Chloe leaves the door open on her way out.

  The Jew turns to Fred and Jimmy. The Jew says, ‘Now, where were we?’

  But Fred and Jimmy are staring at the door. Fred and Jimmy staring at Chloe –

  Chloe still standing in the doorway Chloe smiling and pointing at them all –

  ‘There will be a reckoning,’ she says. ‘There will be a figuring.’

  *

  Terry took the stairs two at time. Terry banged on the door –

  There was no answer –

  Terry banged and banged on it. Doors opened up and down the corridor –

  All the wrong doors –

  Terry put his head against the door. Terry whispered, ‘Please –’

  The door opened. Terry fell forward. Into the room. Onto Diane –

  ‘How long have you been stood out there?’ asked Diane

  ‘I thought you’d gone,’ said Terry. ‘I thought you’d left me.’

  ‘I was in the bathroom with the hairdryer on,’ she laughed. ‘Sorry.’

  Terry put his arms inside her dressing-gown. Terry held her by her skin –

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she laughed again.

  ‘I want to see you bleed,’ said Terry. ‘I want to see you’re real.’

  *

  Malcolm got off at Hyde Park Corner and walked up Park Lane onto Curzon Street –

  The streets were quiet, the streets empty. The rain was cold, the wind warm.

  He walked past Leconfield House to the building next to the Lansdowne Club –

  Curzon Street House, a.k.a. the Bunker.

  Malcolm went inside the building. Down the stairs and along the corridors –

  The stairs quiet, the corridors empty. The air old, the smell worse.

  The lights flickered on and off, off and on. The office doors opened and closed –

  Deserted silences. Deserted spaces.

  Malcolm reached his room. Malcolm took out his key –

  They had changed the lock. They had changed the number –

  But it opened all the same (it remembered his name).

  Malcolm sat down behind his wooden desk in his windowless room –

  He reached for his glasses. He took out his files –

  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The Trade Unions. The Morning Star. The Socialist Workers’ Party. The Militant Tendency. Local governments and councils. The Workers’ Revolutionary Party. The National Front. The British National Party. Bulldog. British Movement. Combat 18 –

  Counter-subversion. Left and Right. Right and wrong.

  They wanted some things to succeed. They wanted some things to fail –

  Discrimination and integration. Racism and Socialism –

  The nuclear industry and the coal industry.

  The lights flickered on and off, off and on. The office doors opened and closed –

  Things succeeded. Things failed. Things came together. Things fell apart –

  Societies. Governments. Unions. Marriages. Families. People –

  Their hearts and their minds.

  This was the way the world turned. This was the way the world ended –

  A cigarette. A kiss. A wrong number. A look and then silence –

  Not with a bang, but with a knock on the door.

  *

  ‘Vote with your feet,’ the Board’s Mr Fixit was urging strikers. ‘Vote with your feet.’

  Terry turned into the cul-de-sac. Terry parked the car in front of the house –

  There had been pre-executive meetings all last night; there had been fights; accusation and counter-accusation; honourable settlements versus no settlement at all –

  Fights to the finish or organized returns with heads held high.

  But it will never be enou
gh for them just to lose; they must be seen to have lost –

  Her ministers and her Board on television, boasting about not boasting –

  Bragging about not bragging. Gloating about not gloating –

  Terry switched off the radio. Terry got out of the car. Terry locked the door –

  Terry opened the gate. Terry walked up the drive. Terry rang the doorbell –

  No answer.

  Terry knocked on the door –

  No answer.

  Terry went down the side of the house. Terry went round the back –

  No one.

  Terry looked in through the windows. Terry saw –

  Nothing.

  Terry went back to the front door. Terry banged on it. Terry hammered on it –

  ‘You fucking cunt,’ shouted Terry through the letterbox. ‘You fucking cunt!’

  People came to their curtains. People watched from their windows. People stood on their steps –

  Terry punched the door. Terry screamed. Terry kicked the door. Terry howled –

  ‘Bastard!’ he shouted again. ‘You thieving fucking bastard!’

  Terry stormed back down the drive. Terry saw the sign in the garden –

  For sale –

  The people at their windows. The people on their doorsteps –

  Terry raised two fingers to the former friends and neighbours of Clive Cook –

  ‘Fuck off back to your televisions,’ shouted Terry Winters. ‘Back to your teas.’

  Terry got in his car. Terry turned the key. Terry switched on the car radio –

  ‘Figures don’t lie,’ the President was admitting. ‘But liars can certainly figure.’

  There were 43 per cent of all miners at work now –

  Just 7 per cent to go –

  There would be humiliations. There would be recriminations –

  Heads on plates, goats outside the gates.

  Peter

  hand on his shoulder. I said, It’s not worth it. He nodded again. He opened his eyes. He sighed. He said, Will you have a word with wife for us? I nodded. He said, She’s going to go fucking mental. I nodded again. Be in good company then, I said – Deeper and deep er. Faster and faster – I look back up corridor. Water roaring down – I couldn’t get up. I lay there in bed as depressed and fucking down as I’d ever been in my whole life – There were over three hundred back at pit now. They had them washing coal. Yesterday morning these big lorries had come and picked up supplies for power stations in Trent Valley. Had a mass picket waiting for them. But they got in and out no bother. Just showed how low stocks must be for them, though. To have to be moving stuff from here – Fifteen big giant lorries. They were going to move whole fucking lot. All seven thousand tonnes of it – Oh aye, we’d stand there for rest of week. However long it was going to take them – We’d shout and we’d shove. We’d shove and we’d swear – But, fucking hell, I’d have liked to have seen them try to wash and move that stuff if we’d stayed solid – I knew then we could have won. Knew we could have beaten that bitch and all her fucking boot-boys. Her bullies in DHSS and media. Knew we could have beaten them and won because they would have run out of fucking coal – It was that bloody simple. It was that bloody depressing – I had nightmares every time I closed my eyes. Had nightmares every time I switched on TV. Every time I opened fridge. Every time I set foot in village. Every time I went into Welfare or up to Panel – Least bed was warm. Long as I didn’t let my eyes close. There was a tap on door. It was our Jackie with a cup of tea. It’s gone half-nine, she said. I nodded. I said, I know – What’s wrong with you? she asked. You on strike or something? – Get out of here, you cheeky cow, I said. I’ll get up when I’m good and bloody ready and not a moment before. She came over to bed and she give us a kiss on top of my head. Happy Valentine’s Day, she said. I’m a lucky man, I told her. I don’t deserve you and your mother – You don’t, she said. So you best get up before we kick you out. I went up Panel – High Court injunction against Yorkshire Area NUM now. Forbade picketing at eleven pits and limited all pickets to six men from pit itself – Last bloody straw, said Tom. Last bloody nail in coffin, said Johnny. That’s what it is and branches won’t abide by it – They have to, said David Rainer. They have to. I said, You know what this one lad said to me last week? He said, Pete – I used to hate them fucking scabs in Nottingham with all my heart. But you know what? If it hadn’t been for picketing them, I’d have had no brass. I’d have starved – No picket. No pay. No scabs. No scoff – Fucking starved without them. Listen to us all, said Dave. Like last bloody days of Third fucking Reich. It’s not over yet – But no one said anything. We just got up and went back to our branches to tell them they couldn’t even picket their own pit if there were more than six of them – I see a bloke behind us. Water almost on top of him – He was sat on our doorstep. Soaked through – Like a drowned rat. Shiv-ering, he was – I wanted to punch his fucking lights out. The fucking hell you been? I shouted. Been bloody worried sick about you – I’m sorry, he said. Cath went. House went. I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face anyone – Bastard, I said. I had you dead at bottom of reservoir. Topped yourself – I’m sorry, he said again. I’ve got nowhere else to go – I opened front door. I stuck hall light on. He looked in a right state. I said, Where you bloody been? Doing bricklaying down in London. Bit in Southampton – Why didn’t you say something? I said again. Folk been worried sick about you – I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want pity – Not pity when it’s mates, is it? I put fire on in front room and sat him down. I put kettle on and fetched him some clean clothes. Thank you, he said. Best stay here, I told him. Until you get yourself sorted out – Mary mind, will she? Probably, I said. But she won’t see you on street, will she? I left him to get changed. I made him a cup of tea and

  The Fiftieth Week

  Monday 11 – Sunday 17 February 1985

  Neil Fontaine dreams of her skull. The nightmare interminable. Her skull and his candle. He screams in his room at the County. The light always on. He kneels down by the bed. The notebooks all gone. He picks apart the hours. The days. The months and the years. Their lives and their deaths. He throws the pieces against the wall. He pulls down the curtains. He throws them on the bed. The bed empty. The sheets old and stained –

  They want some things to fail. They want some things to succeed.

  Neil Fontaine stands at the window. The dead light and the electric –

  They let some things succeed. They let some things fail

  There are always moments like this. Only ever moments like this –

  But for how much longer?

  *

  Click-click –

  He had called from out of the shadows (where there was only night) –

  ‘Malcolm,’ he had said, ‘you busy, are you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d like to temporarily borrow your auricles, if they’re available.’

  ‘Anywhere nice?’

  ‘Shrewsbury,’ he had said. ‘If you fancy it.’

  ‘If the price is right.’

  ‘Two and a half, plus expenses.’

  ‘You know where I am.’

  ‘Yes,’ Neil Fontaine had said. ‘I know where you are.’

  In the shadows (where there was only night, only endless fucking night). Click –

  It had been a Friday; Friday 9 March 1984.

  *

  The Jew is at sea again. Down at Bournemouth with the Young Conservatives to celebrate her first ten, glorious years. Her Great Leap Forward. The Jew bought a card specially –

  ‘Valentine,’ he’d sung. His hand on his heart. ‘Won’t you be my valentine?’

  The Jew has a place in his heart for Neil too. And the Jew’s left him with lots to do –

  ‘Idle hands,’ he’d said. ‘Know what they say about idle hands, don’t you, Neil?’

  Neil Fontaine had nodded. Neil Fontaine had taken out his pen –

  ‘So much to be
done,’ the Jew had said. ‘Minds to be moulded. Hearts to be won.’

  To monitor the returns. To assist Piers & co. To chauffeur the Chairman –

  Non-stop Neil, that’s Neil now. From A to B and back again –

  Hobart House to Eaton Square. Eaton Square to Congress House. Congress House to Eaton Square. Eaton Square to Thames House. Thames House to Eaton Square. Eaton Square to the Ritz. The Ritz to Congress House. Congress House to Eaton Square –

  Non-stop Neil with the bodies and the bottles. The people and the papers –

  The Minister and the drafts. The TUC and the whisky. The Board and –

  The eight points thrashed out between the Chairman and the General Secretary.

  Neil fetches and he carries. He takes and he leaves. He waits and he watches –

  The tensions. The mistrust. The deceits. The misgivings. The lies. The mistakes –

  These plays within plays within plays within plays –

  The games and the hunts. The traps and the baits –

  The meat rotten. The prey starved. The flies fat –

  ‘We’ll be watching developments very closely,’ Piers is telling the Chairman in the back of the Jew’s Mercedes. ‘If we find evidence that these orders are not being complied with, if coach firms are still carrying mass pickets to the pits in clear breach of the injunction, then we shall take legal action against them.’