Nineteen Eighty-three

by David Peace

  Screaming, Clare is screaming and screaming –

  Horrible, terrible, miserable screams.

  ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ BJ shouting, shouting and shouting –

  Horrible, terrible, miserable shouts.

  Her eyes white and wide in dark, she tears open her blouse and pulls up her bra, three words there written in blood on her chest:

  Part 2

  We’re already dead

  ‘Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast; – or of one thing exclusively.’

  – Voltaire

  Chapter 13

  It’s 1969 again –

  July 1969:

  All across the UK, they’re staring at the sun, waiting for the moon –

  Ann Jones, Biafra, the Rivers of Blood,

  Brian Jones, Free Wales, the Dock Strikes,

  Marianne Faithfull and Harvey Smith,

  Ulster.

  But here’s the news today, oh boy –

  Memo from Maurice:

  Jeanette Garland, 8, missing Castleford.

  It’s a Sunday –

  Sunday 13 July 1969.

  Leeds –

  Brotherton House, Leeds:

  Lot of bloody suits for one little girl missing just one day; Leeds City doing their County Cousins a huge fucking favour:

  Blame it on Brady, blame it on Hindley –

  Blame it on Stafford and Cannock Chase.

  Walter Heywood, Badger Bill Molloy, Dick Alderman, Jim Prentice, and me:

  Maurice Jobson; Detective Inspector Maurice Jobson –

  Not forgetting Georgie Boy:

  George Oldman; the County Cunt himself.

  A lot of blue suits, a lot more politics, all of it bullshit –

  Georgie Boy getting fat and red, huffing and puffing, about to blow –

  Nobody listening, everybody straining to hear the radio next door:

  Across the city, up in Headingley, England playing the West Indies; trying to regain the initiative after losing Boycott LBW to Sobers.

  ‘Be a press conference tomorrow,’ George is saying, giving a toss –

  No-one else but me.

  ‘Big appeal on telly,’ he says. ‘We’ll find her.’

  ‘Not if GPO have their way,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bloody strike coming, isn’t there?’ nods the Badger.

  ‘Marvellous,’ sighs George. ‘Bloody marvellous.’

  It’s all over his face; fat and red and written as large:

  Personal–

  NO MOORS MURDERS HERE.

  The car out to Castleford –

  No-one speaking, not one bloody word –

  Just the cricket on a tranny, the sky clouding over –

  Bad light.

  Brunt Street, Castleford –

  Out on the pavement in front of the terrace, George nodding at the uniform –

  In through the red door.

  George with the introductions: ‘Mr and Mrs Garland, this is Detective Superintendent Molloy and Detective Inspector Jobson.’

  We both nod at the skinny man with the two lit cigarettes and his blonde wife with the ten bitten nails; the skinny man and his blonde wife sat behind their red front door with the curtains drawn at noon –

  Poor before, poorer now.

  Mrs Garland goes to the window and peeps out between the curtains –

  It’s 1969, the second day.

  Back out on the pavement, staring across the road through the skeletons of half-built semis, the tarpaulin flapping in the breeze, watching the lines of black figures beating their way up the hills through the empty spaces with their big sticks and downward glances, the silent police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, the white ambulance parked at the top of the street, waiting.

  Cigarettes lit, George blowing his nose.

  ‘What now?’ asks Bill.

  ‘Do neighbours again?’ replies George. ‘Get your hands dirty.’

  I shrug, sick in the pit.

  Bill grins across the street at the row of unfinished homes: ‘I’ll do t’other side.’

  ‘Someone ought to,’ I say, pointing at the sign –

  The sign that reads:

  Foster’s Construction.

  ‘Always so cheerful, she was. Always smiling. It’s terrible. Broad daylight and all. There are so many bloody oddballs about these days. Not safe in your own bloody home, are you? I bet you meet all bloody sorts, you lot. I mean, that’s the thing about mongols, isn’t it? Always happy, aren’t they? Never saw her without a smile on her face. Can’t say I envy them much, her mam and her dad. Mustn’t be easy on either of them. They take so much looking after, don’t they? Shocking really. Can I get you another cup? But then they’re so happy. I don’t reckon they know any better, do they? They’re lucky that way. Must be nice to be always smiling. Bet you wish you could say same, don’t you? Makes you wonder what this world is bloody coming to though, doesn’t it? Just popped down road for some bloody sweets, next door said. Broad bloody daylight. Terrible. But you think you’ll find her, don’t you? You think she’s all right, don’t you?’

  ‘Terrible,’ says Mr Dixon, the man in the cornershop. ‘We open at three, rain or shine, and there’s always a queue of them and Jeanette’s always among them, rain or shine. Have to watch her with her money mind, being as she is.’

  ‘But not yesterday, you say?’

  ‘No,’ he shakes his head. ‘Not yesterday.’

  ‘The other kids,’ I ask him. ‘How are they with her, being as she is?’

  ‘Right kind they are,’ he nods to himself. ‘Lived on street since day she was born, Jeanette has.’

  ‘And yourself, you didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious yesterday?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing out the ordinary?’

  ‘Nowt much happens round here, Inspector.’

  I nod.

  ‘Not till this.’

  There’s a familiar figure leaning against the Jensen parked outside the shop:

  ‘Jack?’ I say –

  Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter for the Yorkshire Post.

  He offers me his open packet of Everest: ‘Maurice, any news?’

  I take a cigarette. I shake my head: ‘You tell me, you’re the paperboy.’

  Jack lights mine then his.

  The gentle Sunday afternoon wind is tugging at the tails of his raincoat, its fingers through his thin hair.

  He hasn’t shaved and he stinks of whiskey.

  ‘Late night?’ I ask.

  He smiles: ‘Aren’t they all?’

  ‘How’s your Carol these days?’ I ask, just to let him know I know.

  He’s not smiling now: ‘You tell me?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘You’re the copper, aren’t you?’

  I look back across the road through the skeletons of half-built semis, the tarpaulin flapping in the breeze, watching the lines of black figures beating their way up the hills through the empty spaces with their big sticks and downward glances, the silent police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, the white ambulance parked at the top of the street, still waiting, and I say:

  ‘For my sins.’

  Back inside number 11, Brunt Street:

  George, Jack, and me –

  Mr and Mrs Garland –

  Geoff Garland holding the framed school portrait, wiping the tears from the glass with the cuffs of his shirt; Paula Garland wrapping her arms around herself, biting her bottom lip –

  ‘I just don’t understand it,’ she’s saying. ‘Like she just vanished into thin air.’

  Jack, notebook out, softly-softly –

  Writing down her words, softly-softly –

  Repeating her words: ‘Thin air.’

  ‘But she can’t have just vanished, can she?’

  Behind the curtains, there’s the sudden sound of a summer shower, the noise of children’s feet running for home, leaving the park and the swin
gs, the chalk on the pavement, the wickets on the wall –

  Mr and Mrs Garland are staring at the back of their red front door, their mouths half-open on the edge of their seats.

  There’s the sound of coins on the pavement, a child’s voice shouting after the fading feet of her friends:

  ‘Hang on! Wait for us!’

  But the door stays shut, the curtains drawn, their little girl nowhere to be seen, the rain blowing through the skeletons of the half-built semis across the road, the tarpaulin flapping in the night, the lines of black figures beating their way back down the hills through the empty spaces with their big sticks and downward glances, the silent police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, the white ambulance at the top of the street, leaving empty and silent, the little girl never to be seen again, rain or shine, the door shut, the curtains drawn to the sun, open to the moon –

  ‘Wait!’

  – for the Little Girl Who Never Came Home.

  Chapter 14

  She was falling backwards into enormous depths, away from this place, her mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, the animal sound of a mother trapped and forced to watch the slaughter of her young, contorted and screaming and howling, prone upon the linoleum floor, on the white squares and the grey squares, on the marks made by boots and the marks made by chairs, contorted and screaming and howling under the dull and yellow lights blinking on and off, on and off, the faded poster warning against the perils of drinking and driving at Christmas, contorted and screaming and howling, the smell of dirty dogs and overcooked vegetables, contorted and screaming and howling as you took down their names and their numbers, telling them all the things you were going to do to them, all the shit that they were in, how fucked they really were, but they were just stood there silent, waiting for the Brass to come and take you both downstairs, the whole station silent but for her, her mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, one young gun at the back, rocking on his chair, hands behind his head, noisily chewing his gum until you flew through them, tried to reach across and grab him, choke him, but his brother officers were holding you back, telling you all the things they were going to do to you, all the shit you were in, how fucked you truly were, her back on her feet, mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, the sound of her glasses breaking under police boots, and then the Brass came, came to take you downstairs, down to the cells, and at the bottom of the stairs you turned the corner and they opened the door to Room 4 and there he was, his boots still turning as they struggled to cut him down, the stink of piss among the suds, his body attached to the ventilation grille, a belt holding him there by his neck, hanging in a jacket that said Saxon and Angelwitch between a pair of swan’s wings, his tongue swollen and eyes as big as plates, still struggling to cut him down and take him away, to put him in a hole in the ground and make it go away, but it wouldn’t and it never will, not for her, her mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling, crawling up the walls and back up the stairs on her nails and her knees, the smell of overcooked dogs and dirty vegetables, the dull and yellow lights that blinked off and on, off and on, the faded poster promoting the pleasures of drinking and driving at Christmas, the white squares and the grey squares, the marks made by boots and the marks made by chairs, the linoleum, and these men that walked these stairs, these linoleum floors, these policemen in their suits and big size ten boots, and then it was all gone; the walls, the stairs, the smell of dirty dogs and overcooked vegetables, the dull and yellow lights, the faded poster warning against the perils of drinking and driving at Christmas, the white squares and the grey squares, the marks made by boots and the marks made by chairs, the linoleum and policemen in suits and new boots, all gone as you fall backwards on a tiny plastic chair through the enormous depths of time, away from this place, this rotten un-fresh linoleum place, and you are alone, terrified and hysterical and screeching, your mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling –

  Mouth open, contorted and screaming and howling from under the ground –

  Contorted and screaming and howling from under the ground –

  Screaming and howling from under the ground –

  Howling from under the ground –

  Under the ground –

  Under the ground as they murder you –

  Murdered you:

  The Last Man in Yorkshire.

  Your eyes are open and you are staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, listening to the footsteps above, a kettle boiling and a cup breaking, raised voices in an argument about where all the money had gone, the rain falling hard behind the words –

  You lying there –

  Hating this country and all the people that live here –

  Lying there –

  Fat, bald and full of holes –

  The branches tapping against the window pane.

  You get out of bed and walk into the kitchen.

  It is eight o’clock –

  Thursday 26 May 1983:

  You put the kettle and the radio on:

  ‘Healey accuses Thatcher of lying over the jobless; Jenkins brands Thatcher an extremist and the cause of division within the nation; reports on allegations of police corruption linked to the £3.4 million silver bullion robbery in 1980 are to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions; damage to Albany jail is put at £1 million; bookmakers will pay out to punters who correctly select two consecutive dry days …’

  You open the fridge and there’s nothing –

  No milk, no bread –

  The cupboard and there’s nothing –

  You turn the kettle and the radio off.

  D-14.

  *

  The Parthenon, Wood Street, Wakefield –

  Milky coffee with a skin and a toasted teacake inside –

  Rain and umbrellas out.

  The papers, your paper, everybody’s paper –

  Thatcher, Thatcher, Thatcher –

  Fuck ’em all and watch their Rome burn.

  Not one single fucking word about Jimmy Ashworth –

  Not one single word about Hazel Atkins –

  Not one.

  You look at your watch:

  Almost ten, almost time.

  The drive out in the rain –

  The deserted spaces as depressing as the houses and buildings between them –

  Jimmy Young kissing Thatcher’s arse on the radio, the cum drying in his y-fronts as members of the Great British Public call in –

  ‘Wurzel Gummidge?’ repeats Jimmy with a snigger. ‘That’s not very nice, is it?’

  ‘No Jimmy, it’s not,’ you shout alone in your car. ‘And neither are you, you thick and greedy old cunt. But we’ll not forget you and your cruel ways, not when we’re round your house to do the Mussolini.’

  Alone in your car on the way to see another Jimmy –

  A very different Jimmy –

  Jimmy Ashworth –

  Alone in your car on the way to his funeral.

  The funeral of a suicide –

  Your third.

  Second funeral in a fortnight –

  The same smell:

  The flowers that stink of piss, that stink of sweat.

  Wakefield crematorium, Kettlethorpe.

  Sheets of rain battering the crocuses back underground, beheading the daffodils, the petals stuck to the soles of your shoes, with the cigarette ends and the crisp packets.

  You sit near the back, seven other people down the front:

  Mrs Ashworth, her husband, and her other son –

  Two boys in denim jackets, two girls with back-combed hair –

  The vicar says the words and they shed their tears. They set fire to him and shed some more. Then everyone walks away for a cigarette and a piss, a sandwich and a pint.

  There are three coppers at the back by the door, Maurice Jobson one of them.

  There’s a new Rover parked outside –

  The window’s down, the driver looking at himself in the wing mirror –
/>
  A smug cunt looking back at him.

  ‘Give you a lift, can I, John?’ says Clive McGuinness.

  ‘No,’ you say and light a cig.

  ‘Five minutes, John?’ he says. ‘That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Didn’t have five bloody minutes on Monday night, did you?’

  ‘John,’ he sighs. ‘Look, I’m sorry about that.’

  You drop your cigarette into the gutter with the yellow petals and the crisp packets. You walk around the back of the Rover. He has opened the passenger door for you. You get in. He leans across you to close the door –

  ‘Thank you, John,’ says McGuinness.

  You turn to face him –

  The smug cunt as immaculately turned out as ever:

  Head to toe in Austin Reed and Jaeger, he stinks of aftershave.

  The fat man from C&A says: ‘I’m all ears, Clive.’

  ‘There’ll be an inquiry, John.’

  ‘An internal police inquiry.’

  ‘He confessed, John.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘It was too much for him, John.’

  ‘What was? The torture? The beatings? His own fucking solicitor?’

  ‘The guilt, John. The guilt.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘John, John –’

  The back door opens –

  You glance in the rearview mirror:

  Maurice Jobson gets in –

  Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson:

  The Owl.

  ‘Afternoon, gentlemen,’ he says.

  You don’t turn around.

  ‘Do you know the Chief Superintendent, John?’

  You nod.

  ‘Course he bloody does,’ says Jobson. ‘I worked with his father.’

  ‘Your old man was a copper, was he?’ says McGuinness. ‘I didn’t know that, John.’

  ‘Was,’ you say as you open the door. ‘Until he topped himself.’

  You don’t fancy the Inns but you do fancy a drink, so you cut through the back of the Wood Street Nick and into the Jockey.

  It’s two o’clock so you only have an hour –

  It won’t be enough but it’ll be a start, get some take-outs for the rest of the afternoon, find a happy hour later and be unconscious by eight.