by Tim Pears
The union waited for management to contact them. After some days they hadn’t heard a word, so the branch secretary made a tentative phone call, to be told that the chairman had nothing to say until the workforce was back at work.
‘Of course he’s not going to give in immediately,’ the Wire declared. ‘We’ve got him by the short and curlies, but it’ll take time to squeeze them.’
After a week the two sides were still standing off.
‘The Government’s behind it,’ the Wire decided. ‘They’ve struck a fucking deal: they want him to break the union here in return for Government contracts when it’s over. Just you wait and see.’
‘Some people can’t afford to wait and see,’ Garfield pointed out. They’d been informed by their National Executive that the strike, being unofficial, couldn’t be subsidized from central coffers. Even on half wages the local branch could only afford three weeks’ strike pay for the workforce. And that would clean them out.
‘People have got kids to feed, mortgages to pay,’ Garfield worried.
‘They shouldn’t have gulped the carrot and bought their council houses!’ the Wire railed. ‘Next thing you’ll be telling me they’re having to cash in their stocks and shares.’
Garfield pondered a moment, as was his habit. ‘That’s true,’ he said.
Garfield wrestled with his conscience – as well as his brain – for a further week of stalemate, during which time worrying rumours circulated among the striking workers: an entirely new workforce was being recruited at that very moment in the mining villages of Yorkshire; the army was about to be brought in to keep the machines rolling; Charles Freeman was unavailable for discussion because he wasn’t even there, he’d already sold the factory to the Japanese.
That Sunday after church Garfield made his way to the house on the hill. His niece, Laura, opened the back door.
‘Get me to Charles’ study without being seen, girl,’ Garfield requested. ‘Tell Charles I’m there. And Laura,’ he added, ‘don’t tell anyone you saw me. I mean anyone.’
‘Garfield!’ Charles cried, after he’d locked the door behind him. ‘Sit down. Have a sherry!’ It was as if the last time they’d seen each other was at the annual works social and the only gap in between was a day lost to a hangover. Fortunately Garfield had expected nothing different. Charles sat down and Garfield slowly and pedantically enumerated a list of proposals that he believed could get them out of the current impasse.
Unlike Garfield, Charles rarely pondered. ‘Excellent!’ he responded. ‘I’m with you. Now let’s sort out how to put these into practice in the proper manner. Otherwise, old man, you’ll really be in the shit.’
At five to one they’d finalized their plan, and it was time for Charles to attend the customary family Sunday lunch. At the door of the study Garfield took Charles’ hand and shook it.
‘You know, Charles,’ he said, ‘I always knew you were a reasonable man. I told them you and I could reason things out.’
‘I know you did,’ Charles told him cheerfully. ‘We had a microphone in the toilets.’
Garfield paled.
‘I’m only joking, old man.’ Charles laughed. ‘I’m just quite sure that you did. I said much the same thing about you.’
‘You know,’ Garfield said, recovering his dignity, ‘it means a lot to me to bring this business to an end. A great deal. Thank you, Charles.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ Charles declared. ‘Thank yourself, if anyone. They’re your ideas, and every one of them makes sound financial sense. It’s a shame, Garfield,’ he observed. ‘You should have been in management. You’ve got an acute grasp of economic reality, which is rare among my so-called executives. We could have done good things together.’
‘I hope we did already,’ Garfield replied.
On Monday morning the union representatives were politely invited to a meeting at which Rupert Sproat reiterated the company’s proposals and the Wire outlined the union’s position.
‘To business, gentlemen,’ Charles declared, and for the next half an hour, to the silent astonishment of those who witnessed it, he and Garfield set about each other in a furious barrage of argument and counter-argument, bargain and counter-bargain, demand and concession and compromise, a verbal ping-pong in which neither appeared to draw breath, never mind leave a moment’s pause for interruption from anyone else.
Within an hour they’d concluded the negotiation. While a mutually agreed wording was drawn up, Garfield’s pre-arranged lines of communication sent word to the workforce to meet at the factory gates at three o’clock that afternoon: men and women were contacted, via spreadeagling word of mouth, and brought in from fishing on the river, decorating the kids’ bedroom, nursing half a pint through the pub lunch hour, gardening, dozing on the settee, taking jewellery to the recently opened pawn shop on Factory Road, and other activities to which they’d resorted in those days of enforced idleness.
The Wire told the crowd it was a stitch-up and a sell-out and advised them to stay out until all their demands were met, every last one, which this pathetic compromise proved was bound to be soon forthcoming because the management were clearly losing their nerve.
‘Let future generations say: this is where the workers made their stand,’ he shouted, ‘and this is where the capitalist exploiters began their final capitulation.’
Then Garfield read out the list of proposals – pausing before each one, as if he were pondering them anew – and then, by a greater majority than had voted to go out on strike, the workforce voted to go back to work. All but a very few of them could see that Garfield Roberts – in a meeting whose drama was soon known to all – had attained undreamed-of concessions from the man-in-charge.
They went gladly back to work, accepting without qualms the £500 in cash per person prepared to sign a special no-strike agreement; the new productivity bonuses that would soon make up for the cuts in basic pay; the voluntary redundancies on offer to men over fifty; the privatization of the company-subsidized canteen; the exchange of overtime rates for annual, profit-related pay-outs; an extra day’s holiday per person per year; the abolition of company cars for executives, who only left them in the car park all day as a sort of provocation (Charles’ Rover being, as everyone knew, his own); and the enforced redundancy of those who’d been working there less than six months and thus hadn’t completed their trial period of employment, a clause that had long been in everyone’s contract but until then had been generally regarded as a formality.
The few who failed to appreciate Garfield Roberts’ concessions were the machinists being retrained in computer skills: their change of job description had necessitated new contracts, and now they fell into the category of those made redundant because of not having fulfilled their trial period. It was one point on which Charles had proved inflexible, because no one could possibly convince him that it made sense to employ men on their old wages of a skilled machinist (made even higher by incremental bonuses reflecting their years of employment) tapping away at a computer keyboard when with a week’s training young female part-timers could do the same job more efficiently.
At first everyone – both those back at work and those let go – accepted the reality of the situation, and the works resumed production with a new mood of determined optimism. There were so many workers made redundant here and there – apprentices at one end and men taking early retirement at the other, and various people in different departments (in their present jobs less than six months) in between – that it was more than a week after they’d collected their cards that it became clear one group was different.
Ten of the transferred machinists – now redundant computer operators – had been working for more than five years. The other twenty or so had accepted their lot, joined the dole queue and looked for other jobs. But the ten, enraged at their situation, came back to the union.
‘All right, Mr Wonderman,’ the Wire asked Garfield, ‘what do you propose we do about these comrades? I say we demand
their reinstatement with the threat of a one-day stoppage in the first instance, and go on from there.’
Garfield thought about it. ‘We won’t do anything, Steven,’ he decided at length. ‘We’ve signed an agreement and now we’re going to honour it.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ the Wire exclaimed. ‘They’ve been shafted. The trade-union movement is under no obligation to honour a dishonourable deal. No way.’
Garfield remained calm. ‘We’ve reached agreement with the management, Steven. Our members voted for it. The dispute is over. That’s that. We could have a whip-round for these men,’ he suggested; ‘we can organize a fund-raising event to help them get started again. But we cannot contemplate further industrial action on their behalf. It’s out of the question.’
The Wire stood up. ‘I don’t know what you and that bastard have cooked up together, but it’s a stitch-up, uncle. Those poor fuckers are the scapegoats of your pact with the devil. I’m having no part of it,’ the Wire proclaimed. He gathered up his things, went off to empty his locker, and walked out of the gates at eleven o’clock in the morning.
The next day the Wire was back, with the ten redundant ex-machinists. They stood outside the gates, a small, unofficial picket line, trying to persuade people arriving for work – by car and bicycle or on foot – to turn back.
That picket was the visible legacy of the brief strike and the deal that ended it. And it didn’t go away. Every day through the autumn of 1985 and into the winter the men camped outside the gates. They brought folding chairs and a brazier to keep warm on chilly days, unrolled banners, and put up a big sign beside the road saying, ‘HONK IF YOU SUPPORT US,’ to passing motorists.
The Freeman Ten, as they came to be known, were featured in the local and national media. Pat, the activist in James’ bedsit, made a campaign video that was shown around the country at fund-raising meetings. Supporters shook buckets in the town centre. The Ten caused a great deal of embarrassment: to the trade union, which had to explain why it refused to recognize the dispute; and to erstwhile colleagues who shuffled into work with their heads down, trying to ignore the shouts of ‘Scab’, ‘Blackleg’ and ‘Lackey’ that besieged them. Garfield always cycled to work: he’d done the right thing, he was sure of that. He kept his head up as he cycled through the gates; but he kept his gaze straight ahead because he was unable to look the Wire in the eye. Garfield’s conscience was clear but his ideals were broken.
The only man not at all embarrassed was Charles Freeman. It was a shame about these men, he told the media, but his job was to make the company more efficient and productive. With luck as soon as the recession was over he’d expand, and could even hire them back. But in the meantime, the agreement he’d reached with the official trade-union representatives – and which that troublemaking Trotskyist shouting the most loudly outside had been a signatory to – was vindicated.
It was a time of guilty optimism for the many and acrimony for the few, whose daughters and nieces had indeed taken part-time jobs in their place because someone had to pay the bills. Not only acrimony but also confusion. Picketing men’s daughters passed them on the picket line, while some working men’s wives joined the verbal barricade on principle, to yell ‘Scab,’ at their own husbands. In addition to embarrassment there was private bitterness and tears. But that was all there was.
Alice suffered from morning sickness for two months, having conceived on her honeymoon ‘in the classical manner’, as Harry put it, delighted. Their first child was born in April 1985; her name was Amy Padma.
It would be the same with their next two, Sam and Tom (who were also Taureans, Alice’s fecundity turning out to be of a clockwork nature). Perhaps their English names were some kind of trade-off: Alice had initially taken six months’ maternity leave but when it was over she decided not to return to teaching, and gave up her career without regret. At the same time, following her final pay-cheque, she closed her own bank account and Harry’s became a joint one; she didn’t do more than her fair share of household chores, it’s true, but then neither did Harry, because they employed a cleaning lady five mornings a week; and she didn’t have to do any cooking, either, because there was already a cook in the house, Laura, and it would have been unthinkable not to eat all together. The only change was that once a week, on Saturday evenings, Harry made an Indian meal for everyone.
In fact Alice, of her own accord, tore up their verbal contract; she gave up all her conditions of marriage to Harry Singh, including the last; when she filled in Amy’s baptismal certificate she gave her his name – Amy Singh – and from then on used it for herself as well as her children.
‘I just want you to explain to me, that’s all,’ Natalie demanded. ‘Just explain why it’s not yet another capitulation.’
‘It’s no big deal, Nat,’ Alice assured her. ‘It’s simply avoiding a lot of hassle, for me and for them.’
Natalie was unconvinced. ‘I suppose it’s hormonal,’ she said glumly to herself.
‘No, it’s not, Auntie Nat,’ Alice replied, ‘it’s logical. Anyway, what do you want to get worked up about the name Freeman for? It’s only my father’s name, after all. And his father’s before him.’
‘I suppose so,’ Natalie conceded. ‘Except we’ve got to start somewhere, Alice,’ she rallied. ‘And I wish you wouldn’t call me Auntie. I hate that.’
‘But you are, silly,’ Alice assured her.
It was no wonder everyone wanted to eat Laura’s food. She was a far better cook than Edna had ever been, with a curiosity of mind and palate and an eagerness to experiment. She took off on foreign holidays alone in search of new gastronomic experiences and came home with ingredients and recipes, and the kitchen was turned into a culinary laboratory.
She served braised skate wings that had so many bones in them they took three hours to eat, and a coffee ice-cream so concentrated that everyone left the table twitching. She produced an exquisite meal of French nouvelle cuisine on large white plates, with five tiny portions on each: Alice fetched a magnifying glass with which to locate them, which Laura didn’t seem to find very funny, so they didn’t tell her that afterwards Charles gathered the others together and went off in his Rover to get some fish and chips on Factory Road.
Another time Laura tried stuffing mushrooms: after two and a half hours she realized she was losing the will to live, threw them away and made a quick pesto in the liquidizer instead, using nothing more than olive oil, parmesan, basil, garlic and salt, that, to her chagrin, became her most requested dish for some months.
It was a time of experimentation, and the kitchen came to resemble Alice’s bedroom when she’d been a schoolgirl chemist. After a trip to Barcelona Laura made a gazpacho soup that was so delicious people didn’t notice how much garlic was in it until after they’d finished, whereupon they watched each other levitate an inch or two from their seats. The next day, on Judith’s advice, Charles cancelled his meetings. Harry attended his meetings, but only by virtue of chewing a mouthful of cardamom seeds throughout the day.
He wasn’t so fortunate, however, the time Laura entered his territory with a meal as might have been eaten by the maharajah of Madras. She warned them about the lime pickle, but Harry said:
‘Nonsense, Laura, I grew up on this food, don’t forget, I’m used to it,’ as he swallowed a few cheerful spoonfuls just to show off, smiling smugly. The next moment he went rigid, stared at a spot a foot from his nose and clutched the table, frozen except that he was weeping profusely, tears pouring down his cheeks. Then he sprang to life, grabbing everybody’s glass of water and emptying them down his throat, followed by the water jug too. He gasped with breathless relief.
‘Wow, Laura, that’s pretty hot stuff,’ Harry sighed. ‘It’s lucky I’m used …’ Harry was unable to finish his sentence, as he realized that drinking water had only made things worse. He broke out in the sweat of some tropical fever, clutched his throat, and promptly ran outside. Everybody else looked at each other and the
n ran after him, just in time to see Harry perform a perfect belly-flop into the garden pond.
Notwithstanding the occasional hiccups of her experiments, Laura had inherited her mother’s ability to provide for whoever turned up at the table, and the house on the hill was filling up again. As well as Alice and Harry and the family they were beginning, Charles invited colleagues and competitors to dinner for the first time since Mary’s death, along with Judith; Simon brought back people from his meditation class to try out Laura’s latest dish; Natalie brought home her girlfriends; and Robert was in the house more now than he’d been since childhood.
Laura’s relationship with Robert was something everyone knew about but skirted around like a guilty secret. Whether it was a legacy of Laura’s abortion and beating over ten years earlier or simply a habit they’d locked into was hard to tell, but Laura was as strangely furtive as Robert was predictably so, as if she were denying to the world a desire she’d rather have denied herself, but was unable to. They never went out in public together and kept clearly apart at social gatherings. But everyone knew that in the middle of the night, when the house was silent, Robert slipped down the dark back stairs. It was the way they both seemed to want it.
In his spare time James took off around town with his camera. Taking photographs for a living hadn’t jaded his appetite. Far from it. He felt naked on the streets without his camera, and what’s more whenever he lacked the means to capture them, he always saw brilliant images, and kicked himself.
James saw the purpose of such activity as twofold: whether his photos ended up in the newspaper or in the exhibition he was beginning to plan towards, he was producing a chronicle of the life of the town and its people; but it was also a personal exercise, his own way of trying to make sense of the world and his place in it. The first was a worthy enterprise, the second was doomed to failure: how could he fill the hollowness inside him by taking pictures of other people? The fact was James was looking for clues. No one else was hollow like him, that was obvious. He had only to look at other people – any of them, big or small, young or old – and he could see they had substance. They moved, acted, spoke, even breathed with purpose. And at some level James hoped that he would capture in his photos the secret of their sense of purpose, their solidity, their right to fill their allotted space on this earth. Maybe that very search, he realized, that may never be fulfilled, was his purpose.