Faithless

by Tony Walker

  May 1984, London: John was still officially in F2A but after the start of the coal miners strike there was lots of overtime in F2N. The situation in Britain was politically tense. The Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was setting out to destroy Socialism, which she believed was the enemy of human freedom. Socialists had always organised themselves into unions. Individually they were weak against their bosses, but together they could bring the country to its knees. Thatcher remembered the way the miners had humiliated the previous Conservative Government and she was determined to break them. Thatcher provoked a strike, which she had secretly planned for, so that she could defeat the workers once and for all.

  The head of F2N at that time was Esther Harrington, a middle class woman who was certainly not a die hard Conservative. One morning over the coffee percolator John said, "You look tired."

  "Burning the candle at both ends. I was in until midnight last night. Here at six this morning."

  "You'll make yourself ill," said John.

  "Just can't keep up with the Government's demands for intelligence on the miners' strike. They want Box 500 reports every hour."

  "The Communist penetration angle is just an excuse isn't it?"

  She looked at him shrewdly. "They may want strike plans from the Unions, but all they get from me is intelligence on subversive penetration - the CPGB, Militant, et cetera."

  "That won't satisfy Thatcher. She sees all workers as enemies of freedom. Her freedom anyway."

  Esther sipped her coffee. "I don't think we've been properly introduced. You're in F2A aren't you?"

  He shook her hand. "Normally, just shipped in here to help out. I'm John Gilroy."

  "Well, John. I think they are just fighting to defend their communities, but the Office has lots of people with close connections to the Conservative Party. You should be careful where you voice your opinions. My advice would be to try to do the right thing and don't make a fuss about it."

  John was late finishing again that night. He had worked long hours sifting through intelligence from phone taps, police surveillance and agent reports. He got home about nine o'clock. Karen was sitting in their two bedroom flat in North Finchley with a glass of wine in hand. Their one month old twins were asleep in Moses Baskets on the sofa. She looked up from the television as he walked in.

  "You're late," she said. "Again."

  "I see you've opened the wine."

  "I finished decorating the nursery, then I waited for you, but you didn't arrive so I've eaten and now am having a drink."

  He hung up his coat and went over and kissed her. "Let me look at the nursery."

  He went through and saw how she'd painted the walls and got the two cots ready for when the girls were big enough to move into their own room. On one wall Karen had painted Pan's Neverland. He came back through to the living room. "It's beautiful. My lovely talented wife. "

  "I'm mad at you," she said, "no amount of flattery will get round that."

  He leant over and kissed her hair. "Sorry, it's the job. You know."

  "I know, but you should have rung me."

  "I kept thinking I would get away but more stuff kept coming in. The Home Office wants round the clock reports."

  "Surely there must be other people than you there to write them?"

  "Not as many as you'd think."

  Her face softened. "You look tired."

  He rubbed his eyes. "I am. Is there any food?"

  "I put yours in the bin."

  "There must be some bread and cheese?"

  "Should be. I'll pour you a glass of wine," she said, softening towards him.

  He went through and carved himself a hunk of bread, getting cheese from the fridge and then adding some Branston Pickle to the plate. He came and sat through in the living room. There was a documentary on about unemployment in Liverpool.

  "Have you been watching this?" he asked.

  "Yes, terrible. 3 million unemployed. Whole parts of the country laid to waste."

  "I thought you had no interest in politics."

  "I don't generally. But this is terrible. People hate Thatcher."

  He shook his head. "She is decimating the country for her ideology. She's destroying whole communities because they dare stand up to her. It's not about economics. It's about destroying the "enemy within" as she calls those who don't buy her free market."

  Karen laughed. "Who do you work for again?"

  "I'm serious. There's 8000 police in Nottinghamshire operating like a paramilitary Conservative Party strike force. All the miners want is to be able to live decently. But if they take their slice of the cake then there's less left for profit for the ruling class. And the rich don't like having less."

  "So it's back down to class war?"

  "We've been at war since 1917."

  "Who's we?"

  He ignored her and continued. "They talk about freedom. The ruling class want you to be free enough to buy what they sell you and free enough to work for them at rates they dictate and free enough to fire you when they want. The only freedom in this country is theirs."

  "And so I say again. Who do you work for?"

  He said, "I'm not proud of it."

  "Well quit then. Don't offend your morals any longer. Go and teach Russian somewhere."

  "There's a struggle going on Karen. A struggle for our communities. If you don't take sides, you side with the strong."

  "I don't think that's your copyright. Someone clever said it first."

  "If we lose this strike, then our communities will be destroyed for decades. They may never recover. All the wealth will be concentrated in the hands of the super rich living in their penthouses and Chelsea mansions. The working class will become an out of work underclass and be vilified as lazy and undeserving. Whole generations left with no purpose or reason to exist. I hate Thatcher," he spat.

  "Hate's a strong a word."

  "I hate her. If we had a government that took everything away from the rich down here in London and the Home Counties and reduced their communities to poverty living on welfare, then the bankers and stockbrokers would finally understand why we hate her."

  Karen shook her head. "You should be focusing on me and the babies. All I want is to lead a normal life - to have a nice house - to go on holidays maybe - to bring up our kids healthy and happy. That's what you should want."

  He snorted. "Very bourgeois. That's what they want you to do - to suborn you into their system, to be cogs in their machine - to bow down and keep quiet."

  She leaned forward and slapped his face. He was shocked more by the fact she did it than the sting of her hand. He put his hand up to his face in bafflement.

  "So, I'm just a bourgeois, while you are the great noble revolutionary - seeing horizons far beyond my pitiful gaze. Well let me remind you that you work for the very people you so despise. I'd call that hypocrisy, what do you think?"

  He didn't say anything.

  "Well?"

  He still didn't say anything. She was derisive. "I've had enough of your pomposity. I'm going to bed. And you, you should either put up, or shut up."

  London: Monday, 18 June 1984: John was late back from work again. The night after she slapped him, she had hardly spoken to him now expressed her disapproval by retreating into the bedroom to watch Coronation Street on the portable television. The twins were two months old. John fed the babies with bottled milk warmed up by placing the bottles in a jug of boiling water. Eilidh and Morag worked a kind of a shift system whereby one woke and cried for food while the other slept. When the first was burping and warmly dozing, the second would awake and cry. John realised that Karen's nerves were fragile and he did his best to help when he got home but his work days were long and she shouldered most of the burden herself. He sat in the living room in front of the gas fire with sleepy Morag and Eilidh, eating his potnoodle and watching the news.

  The main news was of the so called "Battle of Orgreave" where striking miners attempted to picket a coking plant near Rotherham. T
hey gathered in thousands in t-shirts and jeans on a hot summer day. They waved placards saying, "Coal not Dole" and played football until the police ranks formed up. The TV showed images of riot police attacking miners and clubbing them to the ground. Ranks of mounted men charged and recharged the miners ranks to break them as if they were medieval cavalry - heavily armoured knights crushing lines of dirty and blood stained serfs.

  John knew about the Police operation because he had spent the past few days compiling Box 500 reports drawing on telephone intercepts on the miners' leaders and reports from inside the National Union of Mineworkers. Thatcher's Government was greedy for the information to put into operation a battlefield plan reminiscent of the Normans at Hastings. The Police funnelled the miners into an area where they could be contained. They hid horses and dogs in the woods on either side. Then they emerged in uniformed ranks with vicious purpose. The miners didn't know what was coming. They resisted at first, but then broke under the violence of the Police assault. They routed over a railway line, harried by dogs. Some ran into the village where the Police clubbed them down. They broke arms and legs and dragged men off to jail. The charge was riot, the real crime was standing up to Thatcher.

  As he watched the scenes on TV, John felt emotions he could not contain and tears ran down his face.

  Later, the girls still asleep, he went through to the bedroom where Karen lay still watching TV. She didn't look up.

  "You ok, hen?" he said.

  "Sure."

  "You don't look it."

  "I'm tired."

  "I know. They're asleep now."

  "First time they've slept today. Must be daddy's touch."

  "Come through. We're lonely without you."

  She didn't say anything.

  "I'll make you a cup of tea."

  "She laughed. "You think everything is fixed with tea?"

  "Not everything. Just the serious things."

  She laughed again – longer this time.

  "Fancy a hug?" he said.

  She smiled. "I could be persuaded."

  "C'mon." he held out his hand, which she took. He led her through to the living room.

  "It's too warm in here. It's been hot today and you've still got the fire on."

  "I know. For the babies."

  "You'll give them febrile convulsions. Turn it off."

  He did. "I'll go make that tea. Dr Who's on in a minute. Repeat though."

  "You're too old to be watching Dr Who."

  "It's just because it's escapist."

  "You want to escape?"

  "Not from you." He gestured to the twins, "and not from them."

  She sat down and said "Tea please."

  He laughed. "I was thinking of popping up to Edinburgh. Maybe I could take a day or two off work. We could see your ma and pa."

  "It's a long way."

  "I'll drive. You just relax."

  She shrugged. "Ok. The parents aren't much use with them though you know."

  "But they'd love to see them."

  "Aye, they would."

  He slept fitfully and dreamt of his father. When he woke up the next morning, he was still tired. With a strange sense of calm, he took the Tube down to East Finchley - Mrs Thatcher's Constituency - and walked around the shops looking at the cards in the windows of the newsagents. Eventually he selected a shop that was off the main road and probably did less custom than those on the high streets. He felt furtive as he stood outside looking in the window, and then, as if on impulse darted inside. There was no one in but a Sikh man in a turban he presumed to be the owner. He looked at the rack of magazines - motoring magazines, steam enthusiast magazines, fishing magazines, wargame magazines and of course on the top row the magazines with pictures of smiling topless girls. He guessed the owner thought he was about to buy some pornography. Instead, he grabbed the closest magazine. It was called Carp Monthly and had a picture of a huge carp in the arms of a well satisfied angler on the cover. He went over the to the owner who took the money and offered him the change. Then John said, "I wonder if you could help me out?"

  The Sikh man looked bemused and suspicious. "I will try sir," he said.

  "I wonder would you accept a letter on my behalf?"

  The man shook his head. "I am sorry, I do not understand what you mean. Accept a letter?"

  "I'm expecting a letter but I don't want it to come home. Can I give your address so it comes here and you keep it until I fetch it?"

  The Sikh man smiled and winked. "Ah yes sir. Is it from a lady?" Then he corrected himself. "I am sorry. That is none of my business."

  John said, "It's from a lady."

  "You need tell me no more sir."

  "I'll pay you."

  "Of course sir." He said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  "Is £20 enough?"

  "Of course sir. Most generous. When will it arrive?"

  "I'm not sure. It may never arrive."

  "How will I contact you to let you know if it has?"

  "You needn't contact me. I will call in every now and again."

  June 1984, Edinburgh: They took the long drive up to Edinburgh with the babies in their car seats in the back and John driving. Karen fed him Malteasers and read out snippets from the Guardian as they went up the A1. Eventually, they pulled up in front of the terraced house in Dalkeith and his mother came out to meet them. Shortly after his step-father William followed, unwilling but dutiful. His mother made a fuss of Karen and went delightedly to the babies as they were unstrapped and handed one to John and one to his mother while Karen got the luggage out of the back of the car.

  Karen and John were staying in the small second bedroom with the babies in cots at the foot of the double bed. His mother had insisted on buying pretty little cots, though their trips to Scotland were rare and they would soon outgrow them,

  They sat down in the living room with its wooden mantelpiece and armies of china ornaments. Little pictures of guardsmen flanked the modern coal effect gas fire.

  "Is this a new suite Elizabeth?" said Karen as she sat with Morag on her knee. John's mother was sitting in her armchair cuddling Eilidh, her knitting put aside. "Yes, do you like it?"

  "It's lovely. Very comfortable."

  "I'll make the tea," said John. "Not that I know where anything is."

  "Your father will show you."

  William Gilroy looked as uncomfortable as John as they walked through to the kitchen. William looked like his life had drained out from him. He went to the Labour Club on a Sunday night for a drink with his cronies and read the racing pages on Sunday. "The tea's in the cupboard," his step father pointed. John got out some mugs and the milk from the fridge.

  "Did you have a good run up?" asked William.

  "Not too bad. Not much traffic."

  "Car running well?"

  "Yes."

  "I hear the 1.5l is underpowered."

  "It does ok on the long roads. Not good at overtaking, especially when you have a full load."

  "No."

  "But it's ok on the A1"

  "Dual carriageway most of the way now."

  "I wish they'd dual it all."

  "Yes."

  Then they stood in silence until the kettle boiled. John made the tea in a teapot. He noticed that the Samovar he had brought back from Russia still stood proudly in a corner of the kitchen – still never used, but fondly thought of. "Our John brought that back from Russia you know," he had heard his mother telling visitors. "Didn't you John?" and then he would have to explain to Mrs McKenzie or Mrs Dimmock why he had been in Russia while they feigned an interest and his mother beamed.

  When the tea was drunk and his father had gone back to his book about British sea power, John left Elizabeth and Karen to talk about babies. He went upstairs and climbed the ladder into the loft. There were boxes full of his old stuff. He found a couple of Michael Moorcock novels and thumbed their yellowed pages for a second before going into the cupboard under the eaves and pulling out
his University Trunk - the one he'd taken to Russia. There were lots of old letters in there from friends – several from Frankton, a couple from Joe in Canada; lots from Karen, some with a Sedgefield postmark from her time in the mental hospital. There was also some old photostatted course material from his degree and there, faded, was the note from Yelena giving her address. He took it out, folded it and put it in his trouser pocket.

  He went downstairs and Karen said, "Where did you disappear to?"

  He shrugged, "I just went upstairs to look through my old stuff."

  His mother smiled. "He's so sentimental Karen. He'll be looking through old love letters from you."

  "I've not brought enough nappies," said Karen.

  "In my day it was the old terry nappies. You have it a lot easier these days. No rows of buckets and pegs and lines of drying nappies. All disposables. I wonder where they'll put them all eventually? Bury them I suppose," said his mother.

  Karen said, "Would you nip to the chemist's and get me some? They come in packs of 24 or 36."

  "Aye sure. Is the chemist where it used to be?"

  "There's a Boots on the High Street," said his mother.

  "Nae bother. I'll be right back."

  He didn't need his coat as it was warm. He walked along the road to the shops were in Dalkeith. He bought the nappies from Boots and then went into W H Smith's where he bought a black pen, some writing paper and envelopes. Then he went and got a coffee in the greasy formica table café he'd known since he was a boy. It still had squeezy tomato containers for ketchup on every table alongside the vinegar bottle and the salt pot. John sat and wrote a letter to Yelena, to her parent's address in Lyubertsty. At the top he wrote the address of the Asian Newsagent's in Finchley without any explanation. He wrote several pages, reminiscing about his time in Moscow and saying a little bit about his life in London – mentioning that he worked for the Government in Whitehall. He hesitated but told her about his daughters and that he was still with Karen. And at the end he enquired about Bebur Gelashvili, wondering whether he were still with the Soviet Foreign Ministry and asking him to get in touch. When he finished the letter he left the café and went to the Post Office. There he asked for a stamp for Russia which caused consternation. The girl at the counter had to look up the price as she couldn't remember anyone ever writing a letter to the Soviet Union. He let her put the stamp on the envelope and post it for him. Then he went outside and put the remaining paper and envelopes in a public rubbish bin on the street. He kept the pen.