GB84

Martin

Middle of night — We hwisprian. We onscillan — Day 182. There’s no one here. Dead quiet. I walk up from village. Past Hotel. Police Station. Krk-krk. Sports Ground. Pavilion. Up Pit Lane. Green’s on one side. Brickworks on other. I turn right before Villas and there she is — I stop. I stand here. I stare up at headgear and washer — Folk saw me now they’d think I was crackers. Middle of night. No one here — Just her and me. Bloody hell, says Pete. Look what cat’s dragged in — All right, I say. Room for a little one? — Queer one, more like, he says. Fuck you been? I shake my head. I shrug. I say, Just needed to get away, you know? Pete nods. He says, Fair enough. You’re back now. I nod. I say, If you’ll have us. Don’t be daft, he says. In with Keith and me and Chris here. I nod at Big Chris. I say, When did you start coming, then? Monday, he says. I shake my head. I say, Hope they’re paying you bloody double — Are they fuck, says Keith. Less folk to split petrol money with though — Till bleeding Irish Rover returned, laughs Pete. Look, I say. We going to yap all day or we going to go rucking picket? Pete stands up. He says, The Big K here we come. I follow Keith and Chris back out to car park. Rest of lads have already set off. Pete locks up and off we go. Keith’s driving with me and Chris squeezed in back, Pete fiddling with radio: Eighteen patients dead at Stanley Royd Psychiatric Hospital in Wakefield; Coal peace process on verge of collapse; Sterling at record low; Damage Squad arrest fifteen — Usual stuff. Usual day — Can’t you find any bloody music? asks Keith. Pete reaches forward to dial again. He gives it a turn — Agadoo. Pete turns to us in back. He says, Bet you missed all this, didn’t you? I nod. I say, Like a lanced boil. Keith laughs. He points out window. He says, Bet you missed them and all, didn’t you? Krk-krk. I stare out at all police cars and vans parked up on hard shoulders of motorway. I say, No roadblocks, then? Not now it’s on our own bloody doorstep, says Pete. No need. They know us. We know them. Keith takes us off motorway and through Doncaster onto a19 and up over m62 at Eggborough onto A645, back to Knottingley and Kellingley Colliery — The Big K — Right modern super-pit, it is, like them up Selby. But it’s a hardline pit too. Like Sharlston and Acton Hall. It wasn’t a hundred year ago that troops shot dead two miners and wounded sixteen at Featherstone. Lot of Scottish had come down to Kellingley in sixties and all — Hard to credit there’d be scabs round here. But there are — Super-pits breed super-scabs, says Keith. Mega-scabs. Lot of them here and at Gascoigne Wood and at Prince of Wales, they were dead against strike from start, says Pete. No stomach for it. Never on a picket, are they? It’s where their bloody Panel is though, says Chris. Pete nods. Pete says, Not that that means anything. Look at us. Chris turns to me. He says, Hear about Silverwood, did you? I nod. Keith parks up in a field about two mile from pit gates. It’s getting on for half-six now. Pit lane full of cars. It’s a big picket — Horses and dogs are at back. I can smell them. Hear them — You all right? asks Pete. Been a while, I say. But I’m right. He looks at me. He says, What happened to you? Where did you go? I tell him, Sometimes you just don’t want to be with anybody, do you? He nods. He says, How’s Cath? She’s right, I say. Mary said she saw her last week, Pete starts to tell me but then chant goes up — Here we go. Here we go. Here we go — Big push. Shove. Shout — Scab van and police escort fly through pit gates. Hundred mile an hour — Lads go down under weight. Lads out cold — Police hostile. Faces contorted beneath their visors, straps tight under their chins — I turn my back. I walk away — I wait for Pete, Keith and Chris. I see Chris first. White as a fucking sheet. I call out to him. He comes over to where I am. I say, You all right, are you? He just nods. He stands by me. He waits for others. We don’t say anything. Just watch — It’s all over by half-seven. Lads start to make their way back to cars. Police pull few of them out and give them some hammer — Glove. Boot — Half an hour later, Pete and Keith come back and we set off back to Welfare. There’s not much conversation on way. Not much news,

The Twenty-seventh Week

Monday 3 — Sunday 9 September 1984

The best place to nick a car in Yorkshire is outside the Millgarth Police Station in Leeds. Has to be in the morning. Has to be a market day. Has to be a Ford. Has to be light coloured and has to be from the car park between the Kirkgate Market and the bus station. Have to be at least two of you as well –

The Mechanic and Philip Taylor are sitting in Phil’s Ford Fiesta watching a woman lock her yellow Cortina. She checks the door handle. Twice. She walks past the Fiesta. She leaves the car park. She heads up towards Vicar Lane –

‘Here we go,’ says Phil –

Drum roll –

The Mechanic gets out of the Fiesta. He walks over to the yellow Cortina. He puts the key in the lock. He turns the key. The lock gives. He opens the door. He gets into the car. He closes the door. He puts the key in the ignition. Heturns the key. Theengine starts. Hereverses outof the parking space –

Phil pulls out behind him.

The Mechanic goes round the roundabout in the shadow of the Millgarth Police Station, then takes the York Road up through Killingbeck and Seacroft all the waybackto the garage –

Adam Young is waiting. Adam has everything ready –

He closes the garage doors behind them.

Two hours later the Cortina has a new coat of paint and a new set of plates.

Phil and Adam give the Mechanic a lift back to his mother’s house at Wetherby –

The Mechanic says goodbye. See you later. He gets out –

Drum roll –

Here come the dogs. Down the drive. Tongues out and tails up. Fuck, he missed them. Missed his dogs. Back from being the only white face in the place. Back home from weeks and weeks of weed and wonder. Women and wounds. Back home. Where the heart is and all that. Lads in the car must think he’s a bit on the peculiar side. See him here in his mother’s drive with his dogs. But fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck them all. Dog doesn’t stab you in your back.Dogdoesn’t break your heart. Dogjust loves you –

Fucking loves you. So fuck them –

Fuck. Them. All.

The Mechanic waves to Phil and Adam in the Fiesta. He shouts, ‘Stay free.’

And he means it –

Stay. Fucking. Free –

Free of everything and everyone.

The President preferred Scarborough or Blackpool. But he liked the Promenade at Brighton. The President walked from meeting to meeting along the seafront with Len and Terry. The President accepted the accolades and the abuse with the same smile. The people who wanted to shake his hand. The people who wanted to spit in his eye. The people who wanted an autograph for their wives. The people who wanted an apology for the violence. The President talked to them all. The President didn’t hate the man on the street who kicked him up the backside. The woman on the pier who tried to push him into the sea. The President would talk to them all because the President blamed the press. Blamed the press for the letter bombs that came in the post. For the death threats on the phone. The meat pie in his face on the train. The elderly lady with the kitchen knife. The man with the axe at Stoke. The President would talk to them all –

The President would talk to anyone, almost.

The miners and their minders marched from the Curzon along to the Grand where Bill Reed introduced John James. John James wrote for the Daily Mirror –

The Miners’ Mate –

The Daily Mirror which was now owned by Mr Robert Maxwell –

John James introduced Mr Maxwell of the Mirror –

Proprietor and Editor-in-Chief, holding court in his suite at the Grand Hotel.

Mr Maxwell of the Mirror lit a large cigar. He rolled up his sleeves –

Mr Maxwell of the Mirror said, ‘Think of me as a human switchboard.’

The President stood up. He said, ‘Then don’t call us, we’ll call you.’

The President, Paul, Joan and Terry walked out of the suite at the Grand Hotel –

The President had other fish to fry back at the Curzon.

Len called the lift. Bill Reed came running down the corridor –

Bill said, ‘Comrades, Comrades, he only wants to help.’

‘Help his circulation,’ said Joan.

Bill shook his head. He said, ‘You’re wrong and you’ve offended him.’

The President turned to Bill. He said, ‘He isn’t what he seems, Comrade.’

Bill Reed shook his head again. Bill looked at Terry. He said, ‘Terry?’

Terry shrugged his shoulders. He said, ‘I don’t —’

‘You’re all wrong,’ shouted Bill. ‘And you’ve made an enemy of a friend.’

The President turned back to Bill. He said, ‘He was never a friend, Comrade.’

Len held open the lift doors. The President and the rest of them got in –

‘Never a friend,’ said the President again –

Bill Reed watched the doors close. Bill Reed said, ‘But I was.’

*

The Jew likes Brighton. The Jew loves Brighton. The Jew had even lived here at one time; the time the Jew went bankrupt. The Trades Union Congress is a very good reason to be here again. The Jew has a large third-floor suite with a sea view at the Grand Hotel. Neil Fontaine is upstairs in a different room. Room 629. Under a different name. But Neil is never there. The Jew has an ever-open door to an ever-open bar. Here the Jew keeps thieves’ hours with the Big Men from the unions of the New Right. These Big Men with their Bigger Minders who smoke cigars and drink spirits by the pint, who like to stake their subs in the company of loose ladies. The Jew pays these ladies to stroke the thighs of these Big Men. To suck the cocks of these Big Men in the bathroom of the Jew’s third-floor suite with its sea view. To spit their semen into his sink –

The Jew looks away from the bathroom door. He shouts, ‘Neil! Neil!’

Neil Fontaine walks across the suite to the Jew. He bends over to listen –

‘Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘Be a pal and hire the plane for tomorrow again.’

Neil Fontaine nods. He says, ‘Certainly, sir.’

‘Do you know what tomorrow’s slogan on the banner will say, Neil?’

‘No, sir,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘Get stuffed Scargill!’ giggles the Jew. ‘Get stuffed Scargill!’

The Big Men queuing for the bathroom applaud.

There is a loud knock on the door to the suite.

Neil Fontaine goes to the door. He opens it. He smiles at the man in the corridor –

‘Long time, no see,’ says the man in his peaked white cap –

Neil Fontaine smiles. Neil Fontaine nods.

The Jew is standing on the bed. He shouts, ‘Who the fuck is it now, Neil?’

Neil Fontaine turns to the room. He says, ‘It’s Mr Maxwell of the Mirror, sir.’

Mr Maxwell of the Mirror strides into the room. He opens his arms –

‘It’s been too long, Sweet Stephen,’ he bellows. ‘Much too long.’

The Jew jumps off the bed and into the arms of Mr Maxwell of the Mirror –

‘Captain, my Captain,’ squeals the Jew. ‘How long has it been?’

*

Welcome to the New Realism –

The Conference Hall of the 1984 Trades Union Congress, shoulder to shoulder. The Easington Scab might have made legal history with an injunction against the Durham NUM; the Dock Strike might look set to crumble; the steel and power unions might have been booed for their views. But the President had the promises of the General Council; the promise of the total support of their ten million members; the promise to heighten the confrontation; the promise to black all coal, coke and oil –

Promises, promises, promises.

Ray Buckton took the platform. He said, ‘It is all too easy to ignore someone else’s problems. But it is no good in the long run, because solidarity is not something which comes with conditions attached. Solidarity is a simple principle —’

The noise like thunder –

‘— this government has destroyed the dreams and ambitions of a generation. Britain is now a country ruled by fear. The fear of being ill. The fear of losing your job. The fear of not being able to keep up at work. The fear of growing old –

‘But we must not let fear extinguish the ideas of trade unionism —’

Like a bomb had gone off.

The Old Man was next. The Old Man said, ‘This Congress sends a message to this government that it will not let the miners and their families starve –

‘It will not let the miners lose —’

The whole hall shook with it –

‘We will not let them lose!’

Like an explosion.

The President rose. The President walked to the front of the platform. He said, ‘Give that support today and I am confident that in the weeks ahead we shall grow increasingly strong —’

Like thunder. Like a bomb. The whole hall shaking. Exploding –

‘And that we will not lose!’

Delegates clapping their hands and stamping their feet –

Standing shoulder to shoulder.

Terry Winters looked round for the New Realists –

For Bill Sirs. For Frank Chapple. For Eric Hammond. For John Lyons –

They were nowhere to be seen. But Terry could still hear them –

Backstage. Offstage. Whispering.

Terry had had enough. Terry stepped out of the Conference Hall –

Into the sunshine and the sea; the shining badges and sea of banners –

Victory to the Miners! Organize the General Strike! Miners Must Win!

The Revolutionary Communist Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party; the Young Socialists and the Old Communists; the Denims and the Tweeds; NALGO, NUPE and the All Trades Union Alliance –

Four thousand men and women from every branch of the NUM –

Pride of place for the Cortonwood banner and the miners that bore it.

They were all here, down by the sea –

Their arms outstretched to shake Terry’s hand. To pat him on the back –

To have him sign their Morning Star, their News Line –

To make sure it was shoulder to shoulder –

Shoulder to shoulder to Victory –

‘Keep on keeping on,’ they shouted as Terry shook the hands, signed the papers –

Shoulder to shoulder in the sun by the sea. But it was a charade –

Like the small plane in the sky said, Come off it, Arthur!

It was a sham and they knew it –

The President and the Proprietor. The Old Man and the Fat Man –

The Chairman and his Boss –

A dirty fucking lie –

And everyone saw it. Everyone heard it. Everyone smelt it –

Tasted it. Knew it –

Everyone except the men and women out in the minefields.

Late till eight. It is the busiest shopping night of the week at the Morley branch of Morrison’s supermarket. The Mechanic and Adam are in the back of the Ford Cortina. Phil is in the driver’s seat. The Mechanic has the shotgunand the stopwatch. Adam has the handgun and the holdall. Phil turns into the car park. It is two minutes past eight o’clock. The place is almost deserted now. The last shoppers leaving. Phil drives slowly through the car park towards the store. He reverses into a parking space. The Cortina faces the exit, their backs to the supermarket. Phil watches through the rearview mirror, the Mechanic through the wing. Adam looks straight ahead. The Mechanic and Phil see the two security guards and the manager wheel the trolley along the row of cash registers. They fill bags with notes and coins from each till. The two security guards and the manager then push thetrolleyback up the aisles towards the office and the safe. The wages for the week are also in the safe in the office. Phil looks at his watch. The Mechanic looks at his. Phil nods. The Mechanic nods. Adam puts his crash helmet on. The Mechanic puts his on. It is five minutes past eight o’clock. The Mechanic opens the back door on the left side of the car. Adam opens the back door on the driver’s side of the car. The Mechanic and Adam get out. The Mechanic and Adam stand in the car park. The Mechanic and Adam put their visors down. Phil starts the carup. TheMechanic starts the stopwatch –

Here. We. Go –

Through the automatic doors. Hit the fire alarm. Chaos –

Up the aisle to the office. Through the door –

‘What the —’

Punch to the first security guard. He goes down –

Punch to the second. He goes down –

Kick to the first guard. He stays down –

Kick to the second. Down and out –

The Mechanic drags the manager across his desk by his tie –

Puts the manager’s face to the safe and shouts, ‘Open it.’

The manager dithers. The Mechanic turns the manager’s face to the first guard –

Adam puts the handgun to the guard’s temple. He cocks the hammer –

The manager opens the safe.

The Mechanic pushes him away. ‘On your knees. Hands behind your back.’

Handcuffs on. The Mechanic kicks him over.

Adam fills the holdall with wage packets and banknotes.

The Mechanic looks at the stopwatch. ‘One minute thirty —’

Adam nods. Adam keeps filling the holdall. Adam shouts, ‘Done.’

They leave the office. Leave them on the floor –

Down the aisle. Through the automatic doors –

The back doors of the car open –

Jump inside. Phil puts his foot down and they are –

Gone. Just like that –

Eight minutes past eight o’clock –

Just. Like. That.

Martin

either. Just music — Agadoo. Keith pulls into car park. Pete says, Probably be back to Kiveton tomorrow. Keith nods. Chris nods. I nod. Pete gives us three quid each. I say goodbye. I walk over road to Bottom Club. I get in our car. I drive home. I park in drive. I unlock door. I step inside — There’s nothing. No one — My hands are black. My face blue. Theseais cold. Thewindold — Day 189. I wake up at midnight on a pile of clothes on bedroom floor. That’s all that’s left. Clothes and bits of my gear. Nothing else now. Makes place seem massive. Ironic really, Cath had always wanted a bigger place. Makes it smell, though. I walk from room to room. I open up windows. Room to room. Downstairs. Letter from TSB still on floor in hall. Back up stairs. Then down stairs again. End up stood in kitchen. No cooker now. No fridge. No washing-machine. Nothing. Just spaces where they used be. I just stand there looking out on back garden again — It’s black. Pitch black. Pissing it down — Never going to be a patio now. No conservatory here. I light a cigarette — Expensive habit that, she says. I turn round — Nothing. No one — I close my eyes. My heart — You have stolen my language. You have stolen my land— Bloody hell, says Pete. Thought you’d have buggered off and left us again by now. I say, You bloody want me to, do you? He shakes his head. He says, You know I don’t — Then shut up and open that envelope, will you? He laughs. He opens envelope. He takes out paper. He says, Silverwood. Entire room groans. Keith shouts, Lovely. Pete says, Where were you expecting? Las bloody Vegas? How about Doncaster racecourse? says Tim. John Smiths brewery? Tell you what I’ll do, says Pete. I’ll have a word with King Arthur next time he pops round, shall I? You do that, says everyone. You do that. Pete smiles. He says, Now that’s all sorted, let’s have you all up Silverwood then. Day 192. About hundred yards from pit, headlights go on full in our faces. Krk-krk. Bastards. Hands straight up to shield our eyes. Few stones aimed at lights. Hear horses coming then. Dogs. Vans. Everyone off like a shot. Into woods. Off road. Through trees. Best plan. Out of lights. Into fog and mist. Hooves still coming. Dogs barking. Headlights shining through trunks and branches. Throwing shadows left and right. Police boots over deadwood. Truncheons banging on their shields. Lads going down. Falling over stumps and fucking roots of trees. Picked up by snatch squads and beaten badly. No arrests today. Just lot of fist. Mainly older blokes getting it and all — Hear them go down but you can’t see them. Fog and lights in your eyes — I hear voices above me then. Look up and there are blokes hanging from trees — Just swinging there in fog with lights behind them. Dangling like strange fruit off branches — Police and dogs waiting for them underneath. Truncheons out and teeth bared ready for fruit to fall — For dead to drop. It is Yorkshire, 1984 — You have buried my family. You have buried my faith — Day 195. I wake on floor again. I get up off floor. I walk over to window. I look out — There’s a car on road. Passenger door open. There are men in car. Man at gate — There are shadows over man. He stares up at house. He points up at window. His bones white in night — I step back out of sight. Into my own shadows. I stand against wall. I hold my breath — I listen to gate open. I hear footsteps on path — I hear them whisper. I hear them echo — Hear them moan. Hear them scream — It is dark. I swallow. I spit. I swallow again. I hear knock on door. I listen to letterbox rattle — I listen to it whisper. Listen to it echo — Listen to it moan. Listen to it scream — It is dark. I close my eyes. I open my eyes. I close them again. I listen to him try door. I hear him shake it — I hear him whisper. Hear him echo — Hear him moan. Hear him scream, Martin! Get up, you lazy fucking sod. Day 201. Pete comes back from Panel. Pete says, It’s provocation. Pete’s right. Provocation is only word for it — DHSS now said contractors at Maltby are engaged in secondary strike action. Not laid off like they’d said before. DHSS has stopped their dole — Contractors have gone back. Board have fucking stuck them in their back-to-work figures — It’s bloody bollocks.

The Twenty-eighth Week

Monday 10 — Sunday 16 September 1984

Terry Winters was in the bar of the three-star Ellersly Hotel, Murrayfield, Edinburgh. Terry was on the phone home. No one was on the other end. The phone just rang and rang in the empty hall of his empty house in Sheffield. Terry sat at the bar and listened to it ring and watched the ice in his vodka melt. The President was upstairs in a bedroom with the Chairman. Terry didn’t know why they bothered. The President didn’t want to be here. He was only here because the Chairman was here. The Chairman didn’t want to be here, either. He was only here because the power workers were tired of being booed and spat at. The Chairman had even arrived with a bag over his face. The President had said the Chairman needed to seek professional advice. The Chairman had said he was concerned about the effect of the stress on the President’s health. The President said the Chairman obviously needed a break. The Chairman stuck his tongue out. The President stuck his out. The Chairman threw his hands up. The President winked. The Chairman wanted the President to drop his trousers and spread his cheeks for Maggie. The President didn’t want to play Rita. The President wanted to be Peter. The President wanted the Chairman to get on his knees and suck Little Arthur. The President wanted it to be on the front page of every paper in the land. The top story on the Nine O’clock News, the News at Ten and Newsnight –

‘The Chairman sucks the President’s cock.’

Then everyone could go back to Sheffield, Florida, Moscow or wherever.

Instead back they both went before the TV cameras to call each other names. Before the microphones and tape-recorders to worry about each other’s physical and mental well-being.

Terry yawned. Terry played with the last of the ice in his glass –

The phone was still ringing in Sheffield. The barman staring at Terry –

Terry hung up. Terry finished his vodka. Terry went back upstairs.

He knocked on the President’s door. Joan opened it. Terry went inside –

The Chairman had retired for the night. The President was on the phone.

Len had a map out on the President’s bed. Terry said, ‘Where next?’

Len looked up. He looked over at Joan. Joan said, ‘Monk Fryston again.’

‘Closer to home, I suppose,’ said Terry.

Joan nodded. Len looked back down at the map on the bed.

The President had turned his back to the room. He was whispering into the phone.

Paul came into the room with the day’s faxes. He didn’t knock. He never knocked. He just dumped the faxes on the bed. Every single mention of the dispute for the day –

Every single word from every single media.

Terry picked one out of the pile. He said, ‘How about this one?’

Len looked up again. The President turned round –

Terry laughed. Terry said, ‘Official — Chairman sucks President’s cock.’

The President looked at Terry then returned to his call. Len to the map on the bed. Joan stared out of the window into the night. Paul smiled –

‘That’s a real gift you’ve got there, Comrade,’ he said. ‘You’re wasting it on us.’

‘It was just a joke,’ said Terry.

‘No,’ said Paul. ‘A joke is putting a bag over your head as you enter a hotel.’

‘It was a joke,’ said Terry again. ‘I’m sorry.’

Paul shook his head. Paul said, ‘Jokes elicit laughter, not pity.’

Terry Winters blinked. He wished he’d not had that vodka. He said again, ‘Sorry.’

The President finished his call. Click-click. The President glanced at Terry again.

Len got up off the bed. Len said, ‘We should go, Comrade President.’

‘Now?’ said Terry. ‘This very minute?’

Len nodded. Joan nodded –

Paul smiled. Paul said, ‘It’s later than you think, Comrade.’

Terry ignored him. Terry ran to his room. Terry packed in two minutes flat. Terry went downstairs. Terry checked everyone out. Terry settled the bills –

Terry walked out to the car –

The car was full. Everyone had their eyes on the floor of the car, almost –

‘There’s a direct train to York,’ said Paul. ‘Call us when you get in, won’t you?’

Terry nodded. Terry blinked. Terry waved goodbye. Terry watched them leave –

The press and the television on their tail –

In hot pursuit.

Terry went back inside the hotel. Terry went to their public toilets –

He sat in a cubicle and he cried. He cried and he cried.

He took a black marker pen from his jacket pocket. He took the top off. He drew a big, hairy cunt in a heart of swastikas on the back of the cubicle door.

Then Terry dried his eyes. He put the top on the pen. The pen in his pocket.

Terry went into the bar. Terry ordered another vodka. Terry picked up the phone –

Terry called Diane. Click-click. Diane answered. Terry had some things to say –

Diane listened. Then Diane spoke and Terry listened. Terry hung up –

Terry took a taxi to Waverley. Terry Winters boarded the direct train to York.

Phil and Adam stand around the kitchen table to watch the Mechanic count out the cash. The lolly. Fifty for Phil. Fifty for Adam. Fifty for the Mechanic. Fifty for Jen. The Mechanic glances up at Phil and Adam. Phil and Adam want to say something. The Mechanic stares at Phil and Adam. Phil and Adam smile. Phil and Adam look back down at the money. The loot. Fifty for Phil Fifty for Adam. Hundred for the Mechanic. Hundred for Jen. The Mechanic looks back up at Phil and Adam. Phil and Adam want to say something now. The Mechanic stares at Phil and Adam. Phil and Adam are still smiling. Phil and Adam look back down at the money again. The lucre. Phil and Adam won’t say anything –

The Mechanic knows they won’t.

*

The Prime Minister has been at Balmoral. The Jew was not invited. The Jew dreams of the day he will be. The Chairman went to Chequers on her return. The Jew was not invited. The Jew accepts the Prime Minister and the Chairman sometimes need to spend some time alone together. Some time, sometimes. The Chairman has met with the Labour Party too. The Jew was not invited there. The Jew didn’t care. It would have been nice to have been asked, though. The Chairman met with the TUC too. The Jew was not invited there, either. The Jew really didn’t care. The Jew didn’t want that invitation –

The electricians and the engineers want the Board and the Union to talk –

To talk, talk, talk.

The Cabinet and the civil servants are worried too. They are worried about the docks again. They are worried about NACODS. They are worried about the press and the television. They are worried about Mr and Mrs Joe Public –

Cads. Caitiffs. Chickens. Cowards. Craven –

They worry the Prime Minister. Her Cabinet and her public –

‘It’s always the same in times of war,’ says the Jew. ‘Everybody wants to win. Everybody wants the victory. The spoils. But never the price —’

Neil Fontaine nods. Neil knows the Jew is right.

‘If it wasn’t for Norman on the inside and yours truly on the out,’ muses the Jew, ‘the miners would be singing the Red bloody Flag at their victory parties tonight.’

Neil Fontaine nods again. Neil knows the Jew is right again.

‘But over my dead body,’ says the Jew. ‘Over my dead body, Neil.’

Neil Fontaine nods once more. Neil tells the Jew he is right once more –

That is what Neil Fontaine is here for. What Neil Fontaine is good for.

The Chairman and the President appear together, side by side, in Yorkshire –

They appeal for peace. For quiet. For their secret talks to be kept secret.

The Jew calls the Chairman. The Jew tells the Chairman, ‘Forget it. Fuck him –

‘Fuck them all.’

The Jew hangs up. The Jew is disappointed. The Jew is jealous –

The Board and the Union are still on speaking terms –

Still, still, still talking, talking, talking –

The Jew will soon put a stop to that.

*

The gentlemen from the media had chased them the length and breadth of the country, North to South, East to West. Keystone Kops on the trail of the Chairman’s Daimler and the President’s Rover –

Edinburgh to Selby –

The Chairman and the President had appeared side by side, shoulder to shoulder, on the steps of the Monk Fryston Hotel to plead with the media to leave them alone –

Then it had been back down the back roads in the dead of night –

Selby down to London; London back up to Doncaster –

The offices of British Ropes in Doncaster –

For more warm bottles of water. More cups of tea. More stale ham sandwiches. More margarine stains. Shirtsleeves and stubble. Sweat and bad breath –

So near –

Terry Winters looked at his watch. Half-past one in the morning –

The hour was late. The paper was on the table. The deal there to be done –

So near and yet so –

Under the bright strip lights, the President and the Chairman rubbed their eyes. The heating hummed, Dick and Tommy from the Board’s eyes closed –

Paul and Ted from the Board went out to get more coffees.

‘Perhaps we should all sleep on it?’ said Terry. ‘Meet again on Friday?’

The President and the Chairman looked across the table at each other –

So near and yet so far –

It was agreed to meet again. On Friday. In London.

Terry tapped Dick on the shoulder. Dick wiped the spit from his collar.

Paul and Ted came back with the coffees. Paul said, ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s too late,’ the President told him. ‘Meeting again on Friday.’

Paul slammed down the coffees. Paul looked at Terry –

So near and yet so far; too near and not far enough for some.

*

‘All that is needed for evil to triumph’, announces the Jew for the hundredth time today, ‘is that good men do nothing.’

The Jew has raised five hundred thousand pounds to make sure evil does not triumph –

That good men do something. Those good men like the Jew –

From out of the shadows, the Good Jew steps again.

His themes for this week are the deterioration in a number of coal faces and the acceleration in the number of new faces; 177 this week –

The resistance of the cell versus the rule of the mob; the subtext –

There is work for those who want to work. But for how much longer?

From out of the shadows, Neil drives the Jew again –

The Jew has chosen the Social Democratic Party Conference for this moment –

The Jew has had Neil Fontaine bus them in to the Buxton Pavilion, Derbyshire.

‘Gentlemen of the Fourth Estate,’ says the Jew, ‘may I proudly present to you the one and only National Working Miners’ Committee —’

The Jew applauds alone as the four public faces of the NWMC emerge –

From out of the shadows –

Nervous in their old boots and new suits, shaved and groomed for the cameras, the NWMC might well be four hired taxi-drivers on wedding or funeral duty.

The Jew puts a hand on Fred’s back. The Jew grips Jimmy’s shoulder. He says, ‘These brave men are but a few of the many brave men who are on the front line, fighting for what they believe in. These men need to know they are not alone –

‘These men need to know they have friends. New friends –

‘For their president stands before the trade union movement and claims he is striking for the right to work. Ladies and gentlemen, fifty thousand of his own members are working for the right to work. Working and fighting against that dictator and his stormtroopers, those thugs and those bullies who would attempt to deny ordinary men and their families the right to work through violence and through intimidation –

‘For those who want to work, we salute and support you!’

Neil Fontaine watches from the wings as the hacks in their packs lap it all up –

The Jew in full flight. The Jew says, ‘Fred?’

Fred Wallace stands up. Fred unfolds his piece of damp paper. He reads from it: ‘The National Working Miners’ Committee is a genuinely national committee from Wales, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and Nottingham. The committee is financed by collections at working pits and by contributions from ordinary members of the public sent in response to advertisements placed in the national press. The committee has shunned offers of help from big business and even from Conservative miners.

‘Our legal constitution states that our aims are: a) to ensure that the NUM and its constituent areas are controlled by and for the membership and to protect the democratic processes of the Union; and b) to ensure the legal rights of all members of the Union and their relatives and dependants, and to protect them from or compensate them for any loss arising from the abuse of such rights.’

Fred Wallace folds his piece of damp paper back in two. Fred sits down again.

The Jew back on his feet. The Jew says, ‘Jimmy?’

Jimmy Hearn stands up. Jimmy straightens his brand-new tie. He smiles. He says, ‘My name is James Hearn. I’m from Lea Hall Colliery. Believe it or not, I voted to strike. However, the majority of men at our pit voted to work and I must respect that decision, because that is their wish. I am here today to defend that democratic decision against the bully-boys and the hit squads, the baseball bats and the jackboots of the Yorkshire Mafia that have terrified our children and our wives on the streets of our villages and our towns. I am here today to say to you, and to say to them, enough is enough.’

Jimmy Hearn loosens his tie. Jimmy sits back down.

The Jew applauds. The Jew says, ‘There are thousands of men like Jimmy across this country. There are thousands more desperate to join him. Now they can –

‘The National Working Miners’ Committee will finance any miner who wishes to enforce his right to work and who is in need of help. Call us today –

‘Not tomorrow. Not the day after. Today!’

The Jew puts a hand on Fred again. He grips Jimmy’s shoulder again. He says, ‘The next President of the NUM could very well emerge from the membership of the National Working Miners’ Committee, and it is most unlikely that he will have to wait for the present holder of that office to retire.’

In the shadows, Neil Fontaine watches –

Neil Fontaine waits –

In the shadows, the bloody shadows.

The Mechanic drives the JCB off the road. Up the side of the garage. Through the yard at the back. There is a lot of spare land behind the wrecks and the parts. It is ideal. The Mechanic starts to dig. To set the metal teeth into the ground. To turn the earth. To scoop it out into the digger’s mouth. To pile it up on the side. In mounds. The Mechanic cuts the engine. He jumps down from the seat. He stands at the edge. He looks down into the fresh pit. He smells the dirt. Tastes it. The Mechanic goes back through the yard to the garage. He opens the door of the Cortina. He drives it out of the back of the garage. Through the yard. The Mechanic stops by the pit. He keeps the handbrakeoff. He gets out. He rolls the car forward with one hand on the steering wheel. The front tyres go over the edge. The car rests on its chassis on the edge. The Mechanic gets back into the digger. He uses the machine to nudge the car into the pit. The car tips over the edge. It lands on the bottom. The Mechanic starts to move the mounds of earth –

To bury the Cortina.

Doncaster back to Sheffield; Sheffield back to London –

From British Ropes to the Rubens Hotel, via the NEC meeting in Sheffield.

This time there was room for Terry Winters. The drive down like a dim dream. Service station to service station, Loyal Len stopping at every single services on the M1. The President and Terry straight to the phones –

The men from NACODS had met in their tiny terrace office in Doncaster. Their Deputies’ delegates had voted for a vote. Voted for a vote to strike –

The Day of the Pawns –

The Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers were set to deliver.

NACODS would strike. NACODS would settle. The miners would be saved –

Not their President. Not the Yorkshire Galtieri. The Yorkshire Stalin –

Just the miners; that was the plan. One of the many –

‘Piggies in fucking middle,’ Jimmy had said to Terry. ‘That’s all we bloody are.’

‘Maybe, then,’ Terry had said, ‘it’s time these little piggies went to market.’

‘Going to make chops of us,’ laughed Jimmy. ‘That what you’re saying?’

‘Or maybe you can bring home the bacon for everyone,’ said Terry –

Jimmy had laughed and laughed and then Jimmy had hung up.

The Board stood up in the Rubens. The Board read out the Doncaster agreement:

‘— in the case of a colliery where a report of an examination by the respective NCB and NUM qualified mining engineers establishes that there are no further reserves that can be developed to provide the Board, in line with their responsibilities, with a base for continuing operations there will be an agreement between the Board and the unions that such a colliery shall be deemed exhausted —’

The Union said, ‘— in line with the Plan for Coal —’

The Board said, ‘— in line with our responsibilities —’

The Union pointed their fingers. They said, ‘— in line with the Plan for Coal —’

The Board folded their arms. They said, ‘— in line with our responsibilities —’

The Union shouted, ‘— in line with the Plan for Coal —’

The Board shouted back, ‘— in line with our responsibilities —’

The Union said, ‘— in line with the bloody Plan for Coal —’

The Board said, ‘— in line with our bloody responsibilities —’

The Union said, ‘— in line with the fucking Plan for Coal —’

The Board said, ‘— in line with our fucking responsibilities —’

The Union threw the paper across the table. The Board tore it up –

The Union stood up. The Board waved goodbye –

The Union slammed the door. The Board picked up the red phone –

The time for talking was through.

Martin

Pure fucking provocation — This is same DHSS that refused a family a grant to bury their twelve-year-old handicapped son because dead lad’s dad was on strike. Same DHSS that let families and their kids freeze and starve in dark. That drive young lads out on to slag heaps to sift through spoil for crumbs of black fucking coal that their dads have fucking brung up out of earth in first place. DHSS that would watch them young lads die picking that coal, crushed under weight of a tip that wouldn’t sodding be mere in first place if it weren’t for fact that some young lad’s dad had risked his bloody life every day of that fucking life to keep other folk warm, fed and lit — He was only fourteen, says Keith. Lad from Upton. Fucking fourteen. Everybody shakes their heads. Everybody says, Fourteen. Pete says, Nineteen eighty-bloody-four and a kid dies coal-picking. There’ll be a lot more before she’s through with us and all, says Chris. Everybody nods. Everybody says, Bastards. That’s mood as we set off in dark up to Maltby. Day 202. Press say later that we had bottles. Bricks. Catapults. Air-guns. Fired pellets — Liars. Bloody fucking liars — We’ve got clumps of fucking mud is what we’ve got. Aye, we take down branches to build barricades to stop scabs. Do that, that’s true. Take down some trees from Maltby Wood — But mesh on front of their vans brushes them branches aside like they’re not there — Like nothing is. Don’t stop, either. Keep right at us — Nowhere for us to go. Nowhere for us to run. Nowhere to hide — Two lots of their riot squad coming out of woods. Each side of road. Trap us in a pincer movement or what-have-you — Banging on their shields. Their dogs bloody barking — Frightening. Fucking frightening — Nowhere to go. Nowhere but down — Just like last week at Silverwood. Same game — No more arrests. Just assaults — Duffel coats. Anoraks. Parkas. Hats and scarves. Wellington boots. Docs. Ordinary boots and shoes. That’s all we have — Nothing that can save us. That can save us from them — Lad behind me goes down. Down hard — Perspex shield in back of neck. Truncheon on crown of head. Hear his skull crack — Hear him scream. Hear him moan — Down hard onto ground. Down hard and he stays down — Hear him echo. Hear him whisper, Help me somebody. Help me — Keith and me have got him in our arms. Pick him up between us. Dirt and muck stuck to half his face with his own blood — Blood on our duffel coats. On our anoraks. Our parkas. Over our hats and our scarves. On our Wellington boots. Our Docs. Our ordinary shoes — Keith and me and some other lads knot handkerchiefs together to bandage up his head. I look up. Policemen just standing there, watching us with their shields — He needs an ambulance, I say. They look down at lad on ground in pool of his own blood. They spit on him. They laugh their cocks off at him — Hope cunt fucking dies, they say. Hope he fucking dies — They’ll not say that again, I think. Not to Martin Daly. But then they walk away. Just leave us — To reverse. Regroup. Ready for village — They’re done with us. They’re ready for village now — Done with us. For now. Pete puts lad on backseat of a car with two other blokes — Bloke with a broken arm. Bloke with three broken fingers — Pete says they beat up Kevin Barron and all — He’s MP for Rother Valley. Our MP — Pete sends them all to Badsley Moor Hospital. No one speaks on way home in car. Keith puts on radio. Tory fucking cunt comes on. Represents Police Federation. Tells whole world that police should be free to fire plastic bullets at pickets — His name is Eldon Griffiths. He is a Member of Parliament too, as well as a cunt who’ll burn in hell — Keith puts his foot down on brake. He stops car. He rips radio out. He gets out — He throws radio on ground. He jumps up and down on it in road — His name is Keith Lewis. He is a miner and a father of two — The soil is cold. The wounds old — Telephone wakes me up about two. Day 205. Incoming calls only now. Noise it makes in an empty house — Wake bloody dead, it would. Think it might be Cath. Never know — It’s Keith. Click-click. He says, There’s thousands of police at pit. Fucking thousands. Krk-krk. Thousands? I say. Joking with us? I wish I were, he says.

The Twenty-ninth Week

Monday 17 — Sunday 23 September 1984

The Jew stands at the foot of his bed in his suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. The Jew is still in his silk dressing-gown and slippers. The Jew is practising his golf swing again. The Jew and the Chairman have spent the weekend at Sir Hubert’s house in Wiltshire. The Prime Minister and her husband came for dinner on Saturday night –

Sir Hubert gave the Jew a cheque for £250,000 –

The Jew thanked him on behalf of the National Working Miners’ Committee –

The Chairman thanked him on behalf of the National Coal Board –

The Prime Minister thanked him on behalf of the nation.

The Jew is still excited. He’d draw Neil a picture if he had the time –

‘Denis is as dry as tinder,’ says the Jew. ‘You’d adore him, Neil. Adore him.’

Neil Fontaine smiles. Neil Fontaine nods.

‘There we were discussing our friends in South Yorkshire and the Sheffield Stalin when Denis, who had been quietly practising his golf swing by the fireplace, shouts out that we should intern the lot of them,’ laughs the Jew. ‘Intern the bloody miners!’

Neil Fontaine smiles again. Neil Fontaine nods again.

‘And the Chairman,’ says the Jew, with tears in his eyes, ‘he strokes his chin and looks across the table at the PM and says, “Might not be such a bad idea —”

‘“Might not be such a bad idea!”’ screams the Jew again. ‘Can you imagine it?’

Neil Fontaine doesn’t smile. Neil Fontaine just nods –

Rows and rows of Nissen huts. Rolls and rolls of barbed wire –

Factories and chimneys. Badges and banners –

The yellow Coal Not Dole stickers. The black stench of death.

The Jew takes another swing with his invisible club. He shouts, ‘Fore!’

Brass in pocket. Dogs in the back. The Mechanic has a plan. His master plan –

He makes the calls. The connections. The introductions.

Money. Dogs. Plans packed. The Mechanic drives down to the Cotswolds –

He makes more calls. More connections. Introductions –

Appointments.

The Mechanic parks behind the Avenging Angel in Cirencester. He turns off Jimmy Young and MrsThatcher. Hegoes into the pub–

The Mechanic spots him immediately. In the corner. In a dirty suit and a Paisley waistcoat –

Hand out, the Mechanic asks, ‘Tony?’

Tony Davies nods. He shakes the Mechanic’s hand. Holds it a moment too long –

The Mechanic pulls away. He points at Tony’s drink. ‘Another?’

Tony Davies nods. ‘Thank you. VAT, please.’

The Mechanic orders a brandy and a double vodka and tonic at the bar. He takes them back over to the table in the corner.

‘You’re a gentleman,’ says Tony Davies. ‘Thank you. Cheers.’

The Mechanic smiles. He raises his brandy. ‘Cheers.’

Tony Davies drinks quickly. Down in one. Then asks, ‘How do you know Julius?’

‘The usual places. Faces,’ the Mechanic says. ‘You know?’

Tony Davies nods. ‘Roland said you might know what’s happened to him.’

‘I might,’ the Mechanic says.‘I might.’

Tony Davies leans across the table. ‘He was my friend. How much do you want?’

‘Not money,’ the Mechanic says. ‘Information. I’ll tell you what I know and you tell me what you know.’

Tony Davies smiles. Tony Davies winks. ‘All that I have is yours.’

‘Julius Schaub is dead,’ the Mechanic tells him.

Tony Davies stops smiling. Tony Davies blinks. ‘How can you know that?’

‘I did some work with him,’ the Mechanic says. ‘It got very badly messed up. Julius got blamed.’

Tony Davies sniffs. Nods to himself. Then shrugs. ‘I heard. Shrewsbury.’

‘Then I won’t waste your time any longer,’ the Mechanic says and stands up –

Tony Davies grabs the Mechanic’s arm. ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘Another drink then?’ the Mechanic asks him.

Tony Davies smiles. Tony Davies nods. ‘That would be very kind of you.’

The Mechanic orders another brandy and another vodka and tonic. He takes them back over to the table in the corner.

‘A true gentleman,’ says Tony Davies. ‘Thank you.’

‘John Parish? James Riley? Pete Lucas? Neil Fontaine?’ the Mechanic asks him.

Tony Davies puts his drink down. Tony Davies nods.

The Mechanic smiles. He says, ‘When did you last see him?’

Tony Davies sighs. ‘Last month in London.’

‘To do with Schaub?’

‘Yes,’ says Tony Davies. ‘To do with Julius.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t say anything. Just assaulted me. Followed me home. Threatened me.’

‘You were lucky,’ the Mechanic tells him. ‘He killed your mate Schaub.’

Tony Davies shakes his head. Tony Davies says, ‘How do you know that?’

‘Friend of a friend,’ the Mechanic says. ‘You know?’

Tony Davies looks at the Mechanic. ‘Roland told me you had contacts.’

‘But not the one I need,’ the Mechanic says. ‘How did you find Fontaine?’

Tony Davies finishes his vodka. ‘You must want him pretty bad, cowboy.’

The Mechanic stares at the man in the dirty suit. The Paisley waistcoat –

The flowers and the stains –

He says, ‘Do you want me to show you just how bad?’

Tony Davies shakes his head one last time. He sighs and says, ‘The General.’

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew up to Victoria. The Jew watches the crowds flow –

Back to work with Mr Sweet.

The Jew has promised people the Earth. The Jew has promised people results –

The Jew has delivered neither earth nor results. The Jew has delivered only sky –

Big, grey, empty, English sky.

For all his many working committees. His many legal moves. His many adverts –

His very many promises to very many people –

The Earth has refused to move, the results refused to come.

There has been no mass return to work. No cracks in the coalfields.

People are still waiting; still waiting for the Earth; still waiting for the results –

People who don’t like to be kept waiting –

Important people. Impatient people.

The Jew walks into Hobart House and the doors in the corridors close before him. The Jew does not care. The Jew has enough to worry about –

‘No, no, no,’ the Jew scolds Neil. ‘The whole thing to the right. To the right.’

Neil Fontaine has a mouthful of pins and a handful of map –

Neil Fontaine holds the map up on the wall opposite the Jew’s Hobart House desk. He twists his neck to look back round at the Jew –

The Jew shakes his head again. The Jew says again, ‘To the right, Neil.’

Neil Fontaine moves the map further to the right. He turns back.

The Jew nods. The Jew says, ‘Pin it there, Neil. Pin it there.’

Neil Fontaine takes the pins from his mouth. He puts them in the four corners.

Neil Fontaine steps back –

The huge map of the British coalfields looks crooked. Not straight.

The Jew doesn’t care. He is back in his biscuit tins, sorting out his pins –

The red pins. The yellow pins. The blue pins –

The bullets for his battles. The forces for his fields. The battlefields of the North –

The numbers he needs. To win the war –

The Numbers War.

The Jew has been inspired by the work of the North Derbyshire Area Director. The Jew has met Mr Moses. Mr Moses targeted Shire-brook Colliery in July –

There are now almost a thousand men back at Shirebrook –

The Jew sees no reason why this cannot be replicated across his entire wall map.

He has his biscuit tins. He has his new pins. His demands and his secretary –

Chloe crosses her legs. Chloe takes a note –

The Jew wants a copy of the entire payroll for the National Coal Board. The Jew wants every miner’s name checked against police and county court records –

The Jew wants weaknesses –

Men who have transferred to their pit. Men who live a distance from their pit –

Men who are married. Men divorced. Men who have children. Men who can’t –

Men who have mortgages. Men who have debts –

Men who used to work a lot of overtime. Men who used to have a lot of money –

Men who have weaknesses –

Age. Sex. Drink. Theft. Gambling. Money.

The Jew wants lists –

Area by area. Pit by pit. Shift by shift. Miner by miner –

Picket by picket –

Village by village. Street by street. House by house. Man by man –

Scab by scab.

The Jew wants to see the pins change –

Red to yellow. Yellow to blue –

Back to work with Mr Sweet –

‘The canteen cat comes in from the cold,’ shouts the Jew. ‘It counts.’

*

Paul stood in the doorway. Paul watched Terry Winters walk down the corridor from his office to the lift. Every time Terry left his desk. There was Paul. In the doorway to his office, watching him walk down the corridor to the lift. Terry had stopped the first time. Terry had said, ‘Can I help you?’

‘You’ve done enough already, Comrade,’ Paul had said. ‘You’ve done enough.’

The second time, Terry had asked, ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Just you, Comrade,’ Paul had said. ‘Just you.’

Terry hadn’t stopped the third time. Terry had walked on by –

Paul blamed him. Blamed Terry for everything –

The collapse of the talks. The state of their finances. The fate of the legal actions –

The Derbyshire Three had won their right to work. The Derbyshire NUM was now bound by injunctions guaranteeing no disciplinary hearings against the three men from Bolsover, Markham and Shirebrook –

Paul blamed Terry. Blamed him for everything.

Paul was the least of his worries, though. Terry knew time was running out –

There was a shortage of shotguns and a queue for the President’s skull –

Every day another death threat. Today’s had been to the Independent News Room –

The President would be shot if he came to Stoke tonight.

The Special Branch had demanded the President accept a detail of their best men. The President had laughed in their faces. The President had said, ‘They’re already here.’

The President put down the phone. Click-click. The President’s hands shook –

Terry knew time was running out. Fleeing –

Terry wrote warnings in soap on the mirrors in the bathrooms of St James’s House. Terry wiped them off with paper towels that smelt of schools. The Tweeds and the Denims came in. They washed their hands in the basin next to his. They looked at him as if he were from another planet. Terry walked back down the corridor to his desk –

Paul was there. In the doorway to his office. He grabbed Terry’s arm as he passed. He held his hand. He sniffed his fingers –

‘Someone’s been drawing obscene pictures on the toilet doors,’ he said.

‘I’ve seen them,’ said Terry. ‘There are swastikas shaped in a heart around them.’

‘Very artistic,’ said Paul. ‘Now why do you do it, Winters?’

Terry shook his head. He said, ‘You’ve got the wrong man this time, Comrade.’

‘I’m watching you, Winters,’ said Paul Hargreaves. ‘And I’ll catch you—’

Paul blamed him. Blamed Terry for everything.

Terry didn’t have time to care. Time was running out. Escaping –

Terry needed the President’s ear. Terry walked back down the corridor to the lift. Paul watched him. Terry Winters took the lift up to the tenth floor –

There was a queue for the President’s ear –

Terry waited in line. Behind the bishops and the Members of Parliament; the men from NACODS and ACAS; ASLEF and the TGWU.

Terry looked at his watch. Time was running out. Telephones were ringing –

But Terry had to be a patient man. Diane had said his turn would come.

Diane was not wrong. Terry whispered three words in the President’s ear –

He said, ‘Mohammed Abdul Divan.’

*

Neil Fontaine opens the door. Jennifer pushes straight past him into the hotel room. Jennifer empties her handbag onto the floor. Her pills. Her prescriptions. Her purse. Jennifer kneels among her possessions. She spreads her property out across the carpet. She searches for the newspaper cutting. She holds it up –

‘You fucking liar,’ screams Jennifer Johnson. ‘He’s not dead. He’s back.’

Martin

Know what it fucking means and all, don’t you? Means fucking war, that’s what it means. I tell him, I’m coming down now — Pick up anyone on way you can, he says. Fucking anyone and everyone — I will, I say. I’m coming now. I hang up. I lock up. I get in car — I drive to Geoff’s. Haven’t seen him in donkey’s ages. Don’t matter now — But lights are off when I pull up. Remember he’s got kids. Think better of it — Don’t know anyone else out our way. But I see Chris. I stop for him. He gets in. He says, You heard, then? Aye, I say. Keith called us. He nods. He says, Rang us and all. I thought it were bit strange before like? What were that, then? I ask. Before, he says. This police van were doing circles all round village. Right up by Terrace and Hall. Then back down. Must have passed us five time while I were walking dog. Keith said some of lads had seen it when they come back from Brook-house picket. It were still there at chucking-out time. Up by Barrel — More than one van by sounds of it now, I say. He nods again. He asks, Know who it is, do you? I shake my head. I say, Do you? He shakes his head. He says, Fucking cunt, whoever he is — Dead cunt and all, I say. Then I see roadblock up ahead, just past Rising Deer. I think, Here we go — I stop car. I wind down window — Krk-krk. Met twat in his white shirt sticks in his head. He says, Morning, scum. I can see Chris is nervous. I think, I’m saying nothing here. But Pig says, Come on then, wankers, where you think you going? I work at Thurcroft Colliery, I say. He laughs. He says, No you don’t. You’re on fucking strike, you lying lazy little cunt — It’s my pit, I tell him. I want to picket it. He yawns in my face. He says, Fuck off home. Six pickets, Doris. That’s the law — Bugger it then, I say. I’m going back to bed — That’s a good Doris, he says. Make sure you take Eddie fucking Large with you. I nod — I wind window back up. I reverse down road — Pig in his white shirt turns to his mates. They laugh at us. They wave bye-bye — Chris says, Which way now? Dump car. Go over fields, I say. Head for Welfare, I reckon. Chris nods. Do just that — Ditches. Hedges. Fields. Hedges. Ditches. Fields. Ditches. Hedges. Fields — Roadblocks on every road in. Take a few back gardens on our way — Drop over a couple of walls. Down an alley or two — Find ourselves by school. Cut through playground — Keith up ahead. By Welfare — I start across road to meet him. Chris behind us — Then I see them. Hundreds of them. Fucking hundreds of them. Hundreds of bastards — Fucking army of occupation, that’s what they are. Lined up across foot of Pit Lane — No way anyone is off up there to Hut. I get to where Keith and about ten others are. I say, What’s going on, then? Fuck all, by looks of it, he says. They’re fucking everywhere. Chris says, What about back way? Down Steadfolds Lane, that way? Few of lads are nodding. Keith says, Better than standing round here like lemons. Everyone starts off down Katherine Street towards junction with Sandy Lane — That’s when it starts. For real. Kicks off. Big time — First we know of it these lads are coming down road behind us. Legging it — Pigs! Pigs, they shout. Pigs are coming! I’m up at front. I turn round to see what fuss is — Two police vans are coming full tilt up Katherine Street at us — Fuck! Look, someone says. Fuck — I turn round again to see another vanload coming down Sandy Lane — Shit! Shit, Keith’s saying. Shit! — Two of vans have got their back doors open. Pigs are out with their truncheons — Split up! Split up, someone else says. Split up! — I jump over a hedge into this garden. First few coppers go straight past us — Past us into Keith. Whack — First one’s got his tit-helmet in his hand. Belts Keith with it — Keith goes down like a sack of spuds. Face all cut open by nipple of tit — Hands over his face. Blood through his fingers — He looks up. Looks up straight into this other copper’s boot — Crack! I see his teeth and shit fly out all over place — That’s it for me. Bastards — Fucking bastards. I jump back over hedge and charge them — Four of them laying into him. Keith out cold — I scream, Fucking going to kill him, you bastards. He’s had enough — Cunt with his tit in his hand says, It’s your turn then, is it? — I say, How about just you

The Thirtieth Week

Monday 24 — Sunday 30 September 1984

He has the introduction. The connection. He makes the call. The appointment –

The Mechanic drives North. Far North. Into Scotland –

The dogs in the back.

He takes the A66 from Scotch Corner to Penrith. The A74 from Carlisle to Glasgow. Thenthe A82 all the waypastGlencoe–

Towards the General. In his castle on Loch Linnhe.

The President had met the Leader of the Labour Party. The President and the Leader had had constructive discussions. The President was to speak at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool next week –

The President would speak, and this time they would listen –

The whole country would listen now.

The Dock Strike might be over. There might be other court actions –

But NACODS had rendered all these things academic.

NACODS were set to strike. Power cuts were but weeks away –

General Winter on the march, and so was his namesake.

Terry picked up the phone on his desk. Click-click. Terry dialled Bath –

‘It’s almost over, love,’ said Terry. ‘Please come home.’

Then Terry hung up. Click-click. Then Terry picked it up again. Click-click.

*

The footsteps in the dark corridor. The knock at the door. The turn of the handle –

The news he dreaded. The news they all dreaded:

The NACODS men at Sutton have voted for strike action by 90 per cent –

‘Ninety per cent!’ screams the Jew. ‘It’s the most moderate pit in the country!’

The Jew blames the Chairman for this. The Jew hates the Chairman for this –

It was the Chairman who had threatened these men with the sack –

The Jew wonders sometimes who really pays the Chairman’s wages –

Moscow or Margaret?

The telephones start to ring. The faxes start to come –

More footsteps in the corridor. More knocks at the door. Turns of the handle –

There will be no safety cover when NACODS strike. There can be no mining without safety cover. There will be no mining, so there can be no working miners. There will be noworking miners, so there can be nocoal –

‘No fucking coal!’ shouts the Jew. ‘No fucking coal!’

The Jew throws his biscuit tins across his office –

The blue pins. The yellow pins.

‘He will have won!’ shrieks the Jew. ‘He will have fucking won!’

The Jew falls to the floor beneath the huge, crooked map of the British coalfield –

The map covered only in red pins.

‘He will have won and we will have lost!’ screams the Jew. ‘Lost!’

The Jew sobs. The Jew weeps –

‘Everything will be ruined,’ whispers the Jew. ‘Ruined.’

His men come for the Mechanic at the Ballachulish Hotel. His men march into the bar in uniform. His men march the Mechanic out. His men put the Mechanic in the backof a Land-Rover. Hismenblindfold the Mechanic. His men drive the Mechanic away from the Ballachulish Hotel. His men stop to open metal gates. His men leave the roads marked on maps. His men speak into radios. His men talk in codes. His men stop to open another metal gate. His men drive uphill. His men slow down. His men come to a dead stop. His men remove the Mechanic’s blindfold. His men open the back of the Land-Rover. His men order the Mechanic out. His men lead the Mechanic through a training camp. His men march the Mechanic into a castle. Through the courtyard. Up the stairs. To stand before his door. His men knock. His men leave –

The door opens.

Today is the day –

The day of the decisions. The decisions that will determine the dispute –

The day the Jew is nowhere to be seen.

Neil Fontaine knocks again on the double-doors of the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. Neil Fontaine unlocks the doors and enters the suite. He walks across the deep carpet. He pulls back the heavy curtains –

The Jew’s bed is bare. The sheets wrenched. The blankets perverted.

Neil Fontaine walks across the deep carpet to the bathroom door –

The deep, damp carpet.

Neil Fontaine stands in the stain outside the bathroom and bangs upon the door –

Neil Fontaine kicks in the door.

The Jew lies naked on the tiles of his bathroom on the fourth floor of Claridge’s.

Neil Fontaine wraps his waxen body in the monogrammed towels and holds him –

The Jew opens his eyes. He looks up at Neil. The Jew asks, ‘Did we win, Neil?’

‘There’s good news and there’s bad,’ says Neil Fontaine.

‘The bad news first, please, Neil.’

‘It did happen,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘NACODS have voted to strike.’

The Jew nods. The Jew wipes the tears from his eyes. The Jew sniffs –

‘And the good news?’ he asks. ‘You did say there was some good news?’

‘Don and Derek are outside with Piers and Dominic,’ says Neil Fontaine.

The Jew sniffs again. The Jew squeezes his nose between his fingers and nods –

‘The show must go on, Neil,’ he says. ‘The show. Must. Go. On!’

Neil Fontaine goes back out into the corridor. He asks the four men to step inside. Tells them the Jew is feeling a little under the weather.

‘Maybe we can cheer him up,’ says Derek Williams.

‘Let’s hope so,’ says Neil Fontaine and opens the door for them.

Piers Harris and Dominic Reid lead the way. Don and Derek follow –

The Jew is sitting on the settee in his dressing-gown. The Jew says, ‘Welcome.’

Neil Fontaine sits the four men down. Neil Fontaine takes their orders –

Two gin and tonics. Two pints of bitter –

‘And a brandy for me,’ says the Jew. ‘A large one, please, Neil.’

The Jew turns to the men. His men. He says, ‘What news from the Inns of Court.’

‘The strike is unlawful in Derbyshire and unofficial in Yorkshire,’ says Piers.

Dominic nods. He says, ‘The judge did not order a ballot, though.’

‘Did the Union attend?’ asks the Jew.

Piers shakes his head. He says, “Their lawyer said they’d overlooked it.’

The Jew looks at Don and Derek. He asks, ‘Will you go to work on Monday?’

Derek looks at Don. Don looks at Derek –

Don and Derek both nod.

The Jew smiles at Don and Derek. The Jew looks at his watch. The Jew says, ‘Let’s see what Arthur Stalin has to say about that, then. Neil, the television, please.’

Neil Fontaine walks over to the TV. He switches on the Channel 4 News–

There he is. Bold as brass. Their president –

The Jew smiles. He picks up the remote control. He presses record on the video –

‘— I’m going to say this quite clearly: any miner in this Union and any official in this Union who urges or crosses a picket line in defiance of our Union’s instructions runs the risk of being disciplined. There is no High Court judge going to take away the democratic right of our Union to deal with internal affairs —’

The Jew presses stop. The Jew claps. The Jew applauds –

The Union would not accept the court’s decision. The Union insisted the strike was official –

Don Colby and Derek Williams would be scabs. Official.

The Jew looks over at Don and Derek again –

Don and Derek sitting on the fourth floor of Claridge’s with their two pints of bitter –

The Jew says, ‘That’s not very nice, is it?’

Don and Derek shake their heads and sip their pints of bitter.

The Jew looks over at Piers and Dominic with their two gin and tonics –

The Jew says, ‘That’s not strictly legal, either, is it?’

Piers and Dominic shake their heads and sip their gin and tonics.

The Jew looks at the four men and their four drinks –

The Jew says, ‘That’s contempt, isn’t it?’

The four men nod their heads.

The Jew laughs. The Jew claps his hands. The Jew shouts, ‘Champagne, Neil.’

Don and Derek smile and drain their two pints of bitter –

Piers and Dominic frown and put down their gin and tonics –

‘Might it not be rather tricky to actually serve a writ on them?’ asks Dominic.

The Jew shakes his head. The Jew winks. The Jew raises his brandy glass –

‘Piers, get me the writ,’ he shouts. ‘Neil, get me the helicopter.’

The Jew buries his brandy in one. The Jew picks up the telephone –

‘Hi-ho. Hi ho,’ sings the Jew. ‘It’s back to work we all go.’

*

Diane picked Terry Winters up after the Executive. Terry watched her legs as she drove. Diane took the A630 to Doncaster. Terry touched her knees as she drove. Diane passed through Rotherham. Terry squeezed her legs as she drove. Diane came to Conisbrough. Terry put his hands up her skirt as she drove. Diane turned left by Warmsworth Primary. Terry put his hands between her legs as she drove. Diane parked in Levitthagg Wood. Terry pulled down her tights and knickers. Diane pulled up her skirt. Terry undid his trousers. Diane undid her blouse. Terry took out his cock. Diane straddled Terry Winters. Terry was going to be late for his meeting with Mohammed Abdul Divan.

The Mechanic had seen him once before. In 1975 —

A recruitment meeting at a Heathrow hotel.

General William Walters doesn’t remember the Mechanic. But the Mechanic remembers him –

The Apprehensive Patriot –

The former NATO Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces, Northern Command. Friend of the late Lord Mountbatten. Templerof Malaya –

The Duke of Edinburgh.

Founder or member of Red Alert/Civil Assistance. Royal Society of St George. The Unison Committee for Action. Great Britain 1975. Aims of Industry. Self-Help. Movement for True Industrial Democracy. National Association for Freedom –

Philip for President.

The General’s man pours the malts. His man serves them. His man leaves them.

The General raises his glass. He says, ‘One of Frank’s boys in Ulster, I hear.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the Mechanic says.‘I was, sir.’

‘Imagine you must have spent some time in the Darklands, then.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the Mechanic says again. ‘Rhodesia, sir.’

‘Bloody mess,’ says the General. ‘Bloody mess. What do you do now?’

‘I rob supermarkets and threaten striking miners, sir.’

The General nods. He gets up slowly. He turns to his window and his local view–

Lock Linnhe. Lismore Island. Kingairloch. The Sound of Mull.

‘Never really cared for her much,’ says the General. ‘Problem was she was always Airey’s girl. Better than Queen Teddy and all those other sausage jockeys. Butstill much toofond of the clipped-cockbrigade for my liking –

‘Poor woman has had bad advice. In love with the sound of her own voice now. Thatcherism. Reaganism. Monetarism. Load of tosh-ism. Forms of Socialism in disguise. End up selling us all down the river for a few votes from the council houses. Not a government, they’re a cabal. Bunch of bloody Jews who can’t keep their filthy hands to themselves. Plain greedy, the lotof them. That’s their problem. Mines should be owned by the government. Gas, water and electricity. Like the army and the police. Privatize this. Privatize that. End up with the whole bloody country owned by foreigners. Crush Communism, trample down trade unionism. By all means. Of course, you do –

‘But you don’t sell the bloody silver to do it –

‘I told her straight, “Lie down with dogs, Hilda, and you’ll get up with fleas —”

‘But you see, the problem with most people is that they think they’re immortal. That life is an inexhaustible well. But, in truth, everything happens only a certain number of times and a very small number really. How many more times will we remember a certain afternoon in our childhood? A former friend we have not seen for many years? How many more times will we watch the full moon rise? Perhaps ten? Maybe not that. Yet it all seems endless. Bloody endless. Butnot to menlike us,David.Not to us–

‘Men who have seen slaughter. Felt fear. Tasted terror —’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Men like us know some things are simply not for sale.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The General watches the Mechanic. The General nods. The General smiles –

The sun sets late and long over Lock Linnhe.

The General pours more malts. The General pats the Mechanic on his back –

The full moon rises before it wanes.

The General says, ‘There really is only one solution to this problem.’

Martin

and me, then? Go on, just you and me? But they just laugh and charge at me. Four of them — Me thinking, Stay on your feet, Martin. Stay on your fucking feet — But I go straight over with first two bloody punches. Fucking hell, I think. It’s hammer time for me — Wham. Bam. Thank you, ma’am — They keep on belting me with fucking truncheons. Battering me, they are. Fucking leathering me — This one saying over and over, Get up and fucking walk, cunt! Get up and fucking walk! Then van must have come and they sling us in back — Keith on one seat. Hands full of teeth and gums — Me on other. Blood everywhere — Pig van sets off, then stops again. Doors open and they only go and sling in Chris — Fucking mess and all. Right proud, they are, all pigs. Chris being big lad he is — Head busted open. They’re still hitting him as van sets off again — You’re fucked, you three, they tell us. Having you for riot — I didn’t bloody do anything, Chris says. I were just stood there — Shut it, Haystacks, they say. Belt him one again — He can’t even get up on seat. Just lies there between their boots — I keep it shut. More worried about Keith. He’s not right, you can tell. He needs a fucking hospital — I look out back. Looks like Laughton Common. Think maybe they’re taking us to Dinnington. But then van turns off. Down a lane onto Common — Fucking hell, I think. No police stations down here. No fucking hospitals, either — Nothing. No one — Begin to think this is it. End of road. Van stops. Doors open — They say, Get out, you fucking scum. Bastards — I get out first. I’ve got Keith by arm. Chris behind us — Middle of fucking nowhere. Just fields and stuff. Light now — Two coppers grab each of us. By us hair. By us throats — Pin us up by some fence posts. Top of this banking — Then Big Cheese gets out of front of van. He walks over to us — I can tell he’s worried about Keith and all. Has a good look in his gob — It’s like fucking Nicaragua, this. They’ll rape us and shoot us and stick us in this fucking ditch — But then Brass turns to me. He says, Open your mouth. I look him in his eyes. I open my mouth. He looks inside. He says, Right, shut it. He goes over to Chris. He says same. He does same. Chris says, I want to go home now. Brass looks at three of us. Brass shakes his head. He says, Go on Queen’s Highway again today and I’ll have fucking lot of you. Then he looks at his lads. He smiles. He gives them nod — Fucking bastards kick us down banking into ditch. Fuck off in their van — Bastards. Bastards. Fucking, fucking bastards — I lie there in that ditch and I want to scream at sky, I do — Fuck me. I wish them dead. I wish her dead. Her and every fucking cunt that ever voted for her — I get up off ground. I look round — Keith face down in ditch. Chris caught on some barbed wire — I turn Keith over. I wipe his face with my hand — Keith, Keith, I say. Come on, lad. Let’s have you up and home. He shakes his head. He’s still got his eyes closed. Come on, I say. We’ve got to get off — But he just shakes his head again. I try to prop him up against side of ditch — Then I go over to get Chris off wire. He’s in a bad way and all — His face and hands all cut. Head split open. Nothing left of his bloody coat — He says, Our Val’s going to kill us — She’s not, I say. Don’t be daft. Takes about five minute to get him free of that barbed wire. Then I say, Give us a hand with Keith, will you? What we going to do? he asks. Where we going to go? Nearer Dinnington now, I say. Go down their Welfare. Use their telephone. Let your Val know where you are. His Margaret. Try to get hold of Pete. Then find someone to give us a lift to a bloody hospital. Chris nods. He walks over to where Keith is. He’s got his eyes open now. I say, Back in land of living, are we? Keith shakes his head. He says, That what you call this place, is it? Come on, I say. Shut up and get up — He just looks at me, though. Into my eyes — He says, Know who fucking scab is, don’t you? Day 210. I still can’t believe it’s him. I know fucking bloke — I like him. I drink with him — He can be tight. He can be moody. He can be a bit of a slack bastard. Bit of a moaner — But he’s not a fucking scab. Not the Geoff Brine I fucking know — Just can’t believe it’s him. I go over there. I want to see him with my own two eyes. I want to talk to him. To ask

The Thirty-first Week

Monday 1 — Sunday 7 October 1984

The President loved Blackpool. The Illuminations. The trams. The Tower. The rock –

The Winter Gardens. The Conference. The Heroes’ Welcome. The full support –

‘— we are witnessing not the Fascism of Hitler or Mussolini, nor the military dictatorship of a Pinochet or Franco, but the creation of a sort of controlled democracy, a sort of top-hatted Fascism, a mixture of Thatcher’s Victorian values and modernistic techniques. An Orwellian Big Sister-ism where the workers are kept as they believe in their proper place — at the bottom of the heap. This is very much the ugly face of Conservatism which tramples on the more responsible values of the one-nation Macmillanites —’

Most of all the President loved to see their leader suffer. The Welsh Windbag. His face as red as his hair. The man who had described the President as the labour movement’s equivalent of a First World War general. The President loved to see him suffer as he listened –

‘— this Conference pays tribute to the historic struggle of the miners in 1984. This Conference deplores the total dishonesty of the Conservative government’s determination to attack the National Union of Mineworkers and the whole trade union movement by repressive legislation and an unprecedented and wholesale operation involving unlawful actions of the police, organized violence against the miners, their picket lines, and their communities by means of an unconstitutional and nationally controlled police force —’

The Conference applauded and cheered. Their leader writhed and squirmed –

The President was in his element.

Personally, Terry Winters preferred the Pleasure Beach. The Gold Mine –

The roller-coasters and the rides. The circus and the hats –

Kiss me quick. Squeeze me slow –

The element of surprise –

The man came down the aisle during the debate on local Labour Party reforms. Terry opened his eyes and there he was. The man was standing over them with a photographer. The man had papers in his hand. The man leant across Terry. The man dropped the papers into the President’s lap. The President looked up. The man told him, ‘These are committal proceedings to put you in Pentonville Prison for contempt.’

*

The Jew bounced back. He always does. That’s the Jew for you. Like a bouncing bomb –

And Blackpool had been a big blast. His finest hour –

Mission impossible –

Death or glory.

The High Court had issued the orders for contempt early on the Monday morning. The orders had to be served on Stalin that day. Had to be served or they’d expire –

Neil Fontaine picked up the process server at dawn in Mansfield –

Don Colby and Derek Williams had packed their snap.

Neil drove the server down to Battersea heliport at ninety miles an hour –

Don and Derek had kissed their wives goodbye.

The Jew was waiting with the writ in his flying-jacket and his goggles –

Two thousand pickets waiting for Don and Derek at the Manton gates.

The Jew flew Neil and the server the two hundred miles to the Winter Gardens –

Two thousand pickets waiting to tell Don and Derek the strike was official.

Neil had forged the passes to the floor. Neil had bribed the stewards on the door –

Two thousand pickets waiting to call Don and Derek scab, scab, scabs.

Their President looked down at the papers in his lap –

The strike was not official Don and Derek were not scabs.

The server had served the writ –

The President was in contempt. Don and Derek were back at work.

It was, without a doubt, the Jew’s finest hour to date –

Mission accomplished –

The impetus regained.

*

The dogs bark and bound along the beach at Brighton. They play among the pebbles. Tails up and tongues out.Theytumble through the tide–

The Earth tilts. The Earth turns.

There are the things you know. The things you don’t.

Then there are the other things. The things in between –

The Earth hungry. The Earth hunts.

The Jew is back on the road again. The Jew has an extra-special guest to guide today –

The Prime Minister to the North Yorkshire Police Divisional Headquarters –

The very centre of the target of the latest back-to-work drive.

The Prime Minister is here to thank the troops. Her boys –

The Prime Minister rallies them on their return. Back from the battle lines –

From Brodsworth. From Denby Grange. From Kellingley. From Rossington –

The Prime Minister is impressed by the job they’ve done –

The length of the land. The breadth of Britain –

From Harworth to Hunterston. From Kiveton Park to Kent, Woolley to Wales –

Everywhere they’ve been –

From Ollerton to Orgreave. From the village streets to the picket lines –

Everything they’ve done –

‘Many, many thanks,’ she says. ‘We are all extremely grateful for what you have done, and so are the overwhelming majority of the British public –

‘Many, many thanks for all you have done.’

The Prime Minister leaves by the rear of the building. Her car is waiting –

The black Mercedes, too.

The Prime Minister sits in the back with the Jew in the car park.

The Prime Minister is here to thank the Jew. Her boy –

The Prime Minister is impressed by the job he’s done –

The length of the land. The breadth of Britain –

From Cortonwood to Claridge’s. From Shirebrook to the Strand, Blackpool to Brighton –

Everywhere he’s been –

From the front lines of the North to the pocket books of the South –

From the coalfields to the courtrooms –

Everything he’s done –

‘Many, many thanks,’ she says again. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

The Jew blushes. The Jew gushes. The Jew presents her with his latest works –

The Miners’ Dispute: A Catalogue of Violence –

‘— the planned attacks and the unplanned violence —’

He details the intimidation of Don Colby and Derek Williams and their families –

‘— paint stripper. Heavy wooden staves. Rivet guns. Death threats. Vehicles driven at speed at these men and their families –

‘— the raw and naked intimidation –

‘— the working miners are in the front line of the fight for freedom. Every working miner, every day, as he leaves his home to go to work, faces the possibility that his wife and his children will be abused, threatened, or even attacked while he is at work. These men are not scabs. These men are lions —’

The Prime Minister agrees. The Prime Minister applauds –

‘The best of British.’

The Prime Minister appreciates everything the Jew has done –

Everything he is doing –

But something is wrong. The Jew can sense it –

The Prime Minister looks out of the window. She shakes her head.

The Jew is on the edge of the backseat. The Jew touches the arm of her suit –

He says, ‘If there is anything more I can do. Anything at all. Please tell me.’

The Prime Minister nods. She turns to the Jew. Unburdens herself –

The Chairman is the cause of her concern. He no longer has her confidence –

The Prime Minister likes men she can set her watch by –

Serious. Steadfast. Strong. Systematic –

‘Men like you,’ she says. ‘Men like you, Sweet Stephen.’

The Prime Minister worries about NACODS; that the Deputies’ day will dawn. The Prime Minister worries the Chairman fails to see the seriousness of the situation –

‘The fate of this government is in his hands.’

‘I will do anything you ask,’ promises the Jew. ‘Anything.’

The Prime Minister suggests the Jew actively involve himself in this problem. The Prime Minister suggests the Jew approach the Great Financier for the best solution. The Prime Minister suggests the Jew ask certain people to name their price –

‘Everybody has one,’ she says. ‘Everybody.’

The Prime Minister suggests the Jew pay the price. The Jew agrees.

Neil Fontaine opens the back door for the Prime Minister –

The Prime Minister gets out of the back of the black Mercedes.

Neil Fontaine has an umbrella waiting. He walks her to her Daimler. The Prime Minister rests her hand upon his arm. She says, ‘Thank you, Neil.’

*

Five writs had been served upon five leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers. Five writs served for contempt of court. Five writs served on the floor of the Labour Party Conference. The process photographed for the front page of the Daily Express –

There were bound to be recriminations. There were recriminations –

There was also anticipation –

Excitement.

The President went from fringe meeting to meeting. From ovation to ovation –

Branches and palms beneath his feet. Straw and clothes spread upon the floor –

The President rode his donkey up and down the Golden Mile –

Here to banish the money-changers. The dealers in doves –

Here to accept his fate. His imprisonment. His crucifixion. His martyrdom –

‘— they have come today for the National Union of Mineworkers. But we are going to resist with all the power we can muster and if that means we have to suffer, either being fined or sent to jail, then that is something we will have to accept. Because I want to make it clear that if the offence I have committed is contempt, I plead guilty. Because the only crime I have committed is to fight for my class and my members –

‘I am not someone who wishes to go to Pentonville Prison, but I want to make it absolutely clear that if the choice facing me is to be committed by the High Court to spend a prison term in Pentonville or any other jail for standing by this trade union and our class or, alternatively, having to live with the imprisonment of one’s own mind for betraying one’s class, then there’s no choice as far as I am concerned –

‘We have come too far and we have suffered too much for there to be any compromise with either the judiciary or the government –

‘I stand by my class and by my union — and if that means prison, so be it.’

The President bowed his head. The President raised his fist –

He was the Resurrection and the Light.

The whole room rose as one. Clapped their hands as one. Stamped their feet –

The President stepped back from the podium. The President left the platform.

The President parted the sea. The President walked on the water –

He worked his way through the crowd –

The shakes of the hand. The pats on the back –

Terry Winters waited by the door for the President. Now was Terry’s chance –

He took his hand out of his pocket. He stepped forward out of the crowd –

‘President,’ said Terry. ‘I’d like to introduce Mohammed Abdul Divan.’

The President looked at Terry. The President looked at Mr Divan.

Mohammed Abdul Divan put his hand out. He said, ‘I am here to help.’

The President took the outstretched hand. The President shook it.

Martin

him what the bloody hell he’s playing at. Fat fucking chance of that though — Police have got his whole bloody street sealed off. Krk-krk. Two cars at end of his drive. Tit-heads at his door. Boards over all his windows. Scab sprayed over all boards — Neighbours say wife and kids have gone into hiding — New names. New addresses — He leaves house on a mor-ning with a hood over his head, they say. I stand there on pavement outside his house. I shake my head. I still can’t fucking believe it. You stupid fucking cunt, I think and shake my head again. But I’m raging inside. Raging. I shout at his house, You know what you’ve fucking started now, don’t you? But it just sits there. Boarded up and blind. But fuck it and fuck him — He’s fucking dead. Dead to me. Dead to us all — I go home. I open door. I put on light — It doesn’t work. They’ve cut us off again — Notice on mat in hall along with another letter from Board and another from TSB. I kick them out of road and walk in. I shut door. I stand in hall — No furniture. No food. No gas. No electricity. No wife. Nothing — Not even a bloody exit. Nothing. No way out. No one — I go up stairs. I lie down on floor. I pull some clothes over us. I close my eyes and I pray. Pray I wake up one day and they’re all dead — Banks. Electricity Board. DHSS. Coppers. MacGregor. King. Heseltine. Lawson. Ridley. Havers. Walker. Brittan. Tebbit. Thatcher — Dead, fucking lot of them. Them or me. Dead — It is dark. There are whispers. There are echoes — Cwithan. Scriccettan. Things fallapart — Day 211. War. That’s what it is now — Pete always said it was civil war. But there’s nothing fucking civil about it — It’s a one-man war. Lads want that one man dead and all. Fucking strung up — Things he’s done. Things he’s caused. Things he’s brought to village. Things pigs have dished out on his behalf — Nippers nicked. Blokes beaten. Folk frightened. Knuckle that Keith, Chris and me got. Boot that others took — Things he’s brought to village. Things he’s caused. Thing he’s done — Shame. Shame. Shame — Every day he works. Shame and fucking siege — Fucking siege. That’s what it is. A fucking siege — For one scab. One bloody fucking scab. No one else. Just him — He’s going to have to pay price for what he’s done. Price is revenge — Revenge. That’s what folk want — Revenge. What everybody wants — Picket. Non-picket. Miner. Non-miner. Man. Woman. Young. Old — Revenge. For what he’s done. Every single person in village wants it — Revenge. They’re going to fucking get it and all. One way or other — Pete has petitioned Panel for a mass picket. Panel are taking their bloody time. Lads are impatient — Few of them were over at Silverwood and ambushed a few coppers. Pigs will want their pound of flesh for that and all. But it made lads feel better. Less fucking helpless at any rate — They won’t wait much longer, though. Pete knows that. Panel do, too — Then yesterday another fucking scab only goes and joins Geoff the Mega Scab. That’s it now. Panel will have to give go-ahead for mass picket — There’s going to be one anyway. Come what may — I get down to Welfare for half-four in morning. Feelings are running high. Folk pat us on back. Folk ask after Keith. Folk ask after Chris. That’s why I’m here. That’s why most folk are here — Ladies from Action Group. Pensioners. Everybody — Pete’s wife is handing out whistles to all lasses. Make some noise, that lot will — Everybody’ll know we are here. Know why we’re here — Pete has his plan. Pete lays it out. Lads listen — Past two days scabs have come in Brampton way. From by me — Few start on again about how scabs are not even from village. Outsiders — Foreigners. Just like me — Pete shuts them up. Pete tells us all where to go. Picket is to be all along Woodhouse Green to junction by post office. By police station — Pigs have had sense to shut place up, though. Not that it stops them getting dogs out for us — And that’s what we get. Dogs barking and usual chorus of Morning, wankers! Least we’re team-handed today — Lads here from Maltby. Dinnington — Thousand of us facing thousand of them. Them and their dogs at six in morning — Then lasses with their whistles start up. Hear them for miles — Means only one thing. Kick-off — Bus on its way. Bertie the Scab Bus — Ten cop

The Thirty-second Week

Monday 8 — Sunday 14 October 1984

It is the last night of the Conference. It has been a good conference, too. The Home Secretary has attacked their president. The Minister has had a good go, too –

They all had. Even ministers the Jew did not care for.

The talk was of police that did not buckle. Governments that did not crack –

Governments that would not let the working miners down –

Of heroes and villains. Last battles and lost causes. Winners and losers.

There had been standing ovations for the Widow Tarns from Shirebrook –

For Bolsover Bill, Creswell Chris and Warsop Wendy –

For Don Colby and Derek Williams. For Fred Wallace and Jimmy Hearn.

Tomorrow the Prime Minister will close the Conference with her own speech. Business will return to London. Normal service resumed. But there is still tonight –

The last night of the Conference is the night the Jew likes best –

The night to boast. The night to gloat –

The Union was fined two hundred thousand pounds for contempt yesterday. Its president one thousand pounds, personally. Its president who had stood on the steps of his Sheffield redoubt and committed further contempt–

The Jew knows they’ll never pay. The Jew knows what this’ll mean –

V.I.C.T.O.R.Y.

So this night belongs to him. It is his night. His night to prance. His night to preen –

The Jew faces the mirror in his suite at the Grand. He fiddles with his bow-tie –

‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the sweetest of them all?’

Neil Fontaine takes the white tuxedo with the gold epaulettes out of the wardrobe. He walks over to the mirror. He helps the Jew into the jacket.

‘How do I look, Neil?’ asks the Jew. ‘Be honest now.’

‘Distinguished, sir.’ replies Neil Fontaine. ‘Very distinguished.’

The Jew smiles. The Jew is happy. The Jew is in love.

Neil Fontaine holds open the doors of the suite for the Jew and then locks them. Tonight Neil Fontaine will watch over the Jew. But from a safe, discreet distance.

So Neil Fontaine waits as the Jew wades down the stairs into the happy hordes –

The boring backbenchers. The courteous constituents. The jaded journalists –

All waiting on a wink or a word from the well connected or the wealthy.

The Jew is straight to the Minister. The Jew shakes his hand. The Jew slaps his back –

The Jew congratulates the Minister on his speeches and his stance. The Jew leaves –

‘I must say the waiters get more forward with each passing year,’ says the Minister.

The Jew doesn’t hear. The Jew is a busy bee. The Jew is already out the door –

Next door. To the Metropole. The Starlight Room.

The Jew alights on Edward du Cann. Sir Robin. The Chief Whip and his wife. The Chairman of the Conservative Party –

The Jew shares sentences with them all –

Heads back. Mouths open. Teeth shining. Tongues pointing. Eyes dead. Cold.

The Jew spots Denis in his evening dress. Denis points at the Jew’s white tuxedo –

‘Anyone order a kebab?’ shouts Denis to the laughter of the Starlight Room –

And the Jew laughs too, long and loud (well, what else would he do?) –

Denis slaps the Jew on the back. Denis digs the Jew in the ribs –

After all, Denis is only pulling the Jew’s leg. Only pulling his leg, you know?

Denis invites the Jew back to the Grand. To drink champers with Lord Mac.

The Jew and Denis leave the Starlight Room arm in arm. Back to the Grand –

The Jew just loves the Grand. The Jew simply adores the Grand –

Between the two piers, the Great and the Good, the Wicked and the Wise –

Home to Napoleon III and the Duke of Windsor; JFK and Ronald Reagan.

The Prime Minister is upstairs working on her speech for tomorrow –

The Jew would love to help. Denis feels the Jew has done quite enough of that –

Now is the time to drink. Denis steers the Jew into Lord Mac’s suite.

Neil Fontaine stands outside the suite on the fifth floor of the Grand Hotel and listens to the corks pop and the glasses chink. More bottles open and more toasts raised. Neil Fontaine stands outside the suite on the fifth floor of the Grand Hotel and waits –

This is what he does. This is what he’s always done –

Neil Fontaine watches and Neil Fontaine waits –

He watches the doors open and close. He waits for the people to come and go –

For Room Service to fetch and carry at the beck and call of the high and mighty –

For the Young Conservatives to stagger and stumble up and down the corridor –

Down their trousers and up their skirts. Up and down the darkening corridor –

He watches and he waits for security to sweep through the floor on the hour –

Every hour. Every floor. Every hour. Every floor. But not this hour. Not this floor –

Neil Fontaine looks at his watch. He taps it. He waits. It is half-past two –

The lights in the corridor flicker. The shadows on the wall lengthen.

Neil Fontaine opens the door to the suite. Neil picks the Jew off the floor –

His bow-tie loose, a bottle in his hand, the Jew asks, ‘Where next then, Neil?’

‘I think a short stroll along the seafront before the sack, sir,’ suggests Neil.

The Jew nods. The Jew tries to focus. The Jew falls against the corridor wall –

Neil Fontaine helps the Jew to his feet and back down the stairs to the lobby –

The Jew hails the heavy drinkers still up in the lobby and the lounges and leaves.

Neil Fontaine guides the Jew across the pavements and onto the Promenade.

The night is not cold. The night is not dark –

The moon is bright upon the beach.

The Jew stares out to sea. The Jew sways. The Jew steadies himself upon the rail –

There are tears in his eyes. Tears upon his cheeks. Upon his fingers –

The Jew wipes his face. The Jew sniffs. The Jew sighs. The Jew turns to Neil –

‘They hate me, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘I know they do. They wish —’

A thunderous noise behind them. A terrible rumble beneath them –

‘What the bloody hell was that?’ asks the Jew. ‘An earthquake?’

Neil Fontaine stares out at the black sea. Neil Fontaine closes his tired eyes –

‘No,’ he whispers. ‘It was a bomb, sir.’

The Mechanic looks at his watch again. He puts the dogs in the back of the Ford. He drives to the phone box. He parks. He gets out of the car. He waits outside the phonebox.Helooks at his watch again –

The phone rings at 3 a.m.

The Mechanic steps into the phone box. He picks up the phone. He listens –

To Irish voices. Drunk and victorious. Grateful but broke –

Fuck.

Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Nothing but fucking talk. Terry Winters locked the front door. Terry went down the drive with his suitcase in his hand just as Theresa and their three children came up the drive with their suitcases in their hands. Terry Winters stopped. Terry put down his suitcase. He opened his mouth. Theresa Winters didn’t stop. Theresa put her key in the lock. She opened the front door –

There were two taxis at the end of their drive.

Christopher, Timothy and Louise stood on the front step and stared at their father. Terry Winters smiled. Terry waved. Christopher, Timothy and Louise waved back. Theresa Winters came back out. Theresa shepherded her children in off the step. She stared at her husband. Terry Winters smiled. Terry waved –

Theresa Winters slammed the front door in his face.

There was only one taxi at the end of the drive now –

The driver put his hand on the horn. The driver held it there.

*

The Jew opens his mouth. The Jew shits his pants. The Jew runs for his life –

Runs back across the road towards the Grand Hotel –

The front of the hotel collapsing before them in an avalanche –

Floor by floor. Room by room. Brick by brick –

In a slow, hesitant avalanche.

Neil catches the Jew. Neil grabs him. Neil holds him –

‘No, sir,’ he shouts. ‘There is nothing you can do.’

The Jew rages at Neil. The Jew howls at the night. The Jew screams at the hotel –

The sound of a fire alarm ringing and ringing and ringing –

The masonry falling floor by floor. Room by room. Brick by brick –

‘Let go of me! Let go of me!’ shouts the Jew. ‘Bloody let go of me, man!’

‘No, sir,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘I can’t do that, sir.’

‘Damn you, Neil!’ shrieks the Jew. ‘I should be there! I should be in there!’

Neil clutches the Jew. Neil hugs the Jew. Neil cradles the Jew –

He buries the Jew’s head in his jacket. He strokes the Jew’s hair with his hand –

He kisses the top of the Jew’s head as they watch and they wait –

As an ambulance appears. And another. And another. And another ten arrive –

Their sirens and their lights in the dead silence of the night.

The police put a cordon across the remains of the front of the Grand.

People appear in knots. To stand and to stare. To sob in their knots –

Their eyes are red. Their skin is white. Their veins are blue –

The living and the dead, sat in their dressing-gowns and their pyjamas –

In striped and stained deckchairs, under a bright and bloody moon.

*

The President was back in Paris on business. It was a flying visit to Montreuil in the midst of the NCB — NACODS — NUM negotiations at ACAS. The President thanked the officials from the French and Soviet trade unions for their generous offers of aid. The President had detailed the physical and financial attacks upon his union and its members; the CGT had agreed to send a forty-five-truck convoy of food and the Soviets had smiled favourably on the President’s request for a forty-five-truck convoy of Moscow gold –

It was a good, good day.

Terry Winters and the President moved on. Up the stairs. Down the corridor –

Terry Winters knocked on the door. Mohammed Abdul Divan opened it.

The President and Terry shook hands with Mohammed Divan. They went inside. They sat down across the table from another man.

‘Comrades,’ said Mohammed. ‘This is Salem. The man from Libya.’

Pockets empty. Dogs in the back. His plan in shreds. His master plan –

The Mechanic makes another call. And another. And another –

Nobody knows much. Nobody’s heard much. Nobody says much –

‘But try the next mass picket,’ Phil Taylor tells him.

The Mechanic hangs up. He leaves the phone box. He gets back in the car –

Throws the dogs a couple of bones. Scraps.

The Mechanic switches on the Tandy scanner. He listens to the loose talk –

The dogs fighting in the back over the scraps. The crumbs.

Neil Fontaine carries the Jew out of the Metropole next door and along the Promenade. The Jew has been watching the horror show unfold on breakfast TV with everybody else. The pictures of Norman in pain. The pictures of the Grand in ruins –

The pictures of the Prime Minister safe and sound.

Neil Fontaine helps the Jew out of his soiled, white tuxedo with gold epaulettes. The local branch of Marks & Spencer opened early to clothe the refugees. Neil Fontaine has chosen a plain blue blazer and dark grey trousers for the Jew to wear today.

Neil Fontaine puts the blazer over the shoulders of the Jew –

Neil opens the door of the Mercedes. The Jew gets into the back of the car –

He does not speak for hours. He just sits and stares out of the window –

The pier and the Promenade. The sky and the sea –

The day he was not meant to see.

The Jew does not speak until Neil Fontaine says, ‘It’s time to go, sir.’

‘Thank you, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘Thank you,’

The Jew walks along the Front. The Jew enters the Conference Hall –

There is no Land of Hope and Glory today. There is just the Prime

Minister –

Safe and sound. Alive and kicking –

The Prime Minister. His Prime Minister –

‘The bomb attack on the Grand Hotel was first and foremost an indiscriminate attempt to massacre innocent, unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for this Conservative Conference. Our first thoughts must be for those who died and for those who are now in hospital recovering from their injuries. But the bomb attack clearly signified more than this. It was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our conference; it was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty’s democratically elected government. This is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and dignified, is a sign that this attack has failed and that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail—’

The Jew is on his feet. The Jew applauds. The hall on its feet. The hall applauds –

‘Now,’ says the Prime Minister, ‘it must be business as usual —’

The Prime Minister talks of local government. Defence. Europe. Unemployment –

His Prime Minister speaks of lions and the best of British –

‘— the strike is not of the government’s seeking. Not of the government’s making. The sheer bravery of the men who have kept the mining industry alive is beyond praise. “Scabs”, their former workmates call them –

‘Scabs? They are lions –

‘What a tragedy when a striking miner attacks his workmate. Not only are they members of the same Union, but the working miner is saving both their futures. To face the picket line day after day takes a special kind of courage. It takes as much, even more, for the housewife who stays at home –

‘These people are the best of British –

‘Just as our police — who uphold the law with an independence and restraint, perhaps only to be found in this country — are the admiration of the world.

‘This government did all it could to prevent the strike. Some would say it did too much. We gave the miners their best ever pay offer, the highest ever investment and, for the first time, the promise that no miner would lose his job against his will. This was all done despite the fact that the bill for the losses in the industry was bigger than the annual bill for all the doctors and dentists in all the National Health Service hospitals in our United Kingdom.

‘But this is a dispute about the right to go to work of those who have been denied the right to go to vote. The overwhelming majority of trade unionists, including many striking miners, deeply regret what has been done in the name of trade unionism. When the strike is over, and one day it will be over, we must do everything we can to encourage moderate and responsible trade unionism, so that it can once again take its respected and valuable place in our industrial life.

‘But we face today an executive of the NUM who know that what they are demanding has never been granted, either for miners or workers in any other industry –

‘So why then demand it? Why ask for what they know cannot be conceded?

‘There can be only one explanation –

‘They do not want a settlement. They want a strike — otherwise they would have balloted on the Coal Board’s offer. Indeed, one-third of the miners did have a ballot and voted overwhelmingly to accept the offer.

‘But what we have seen in this country is the emergence of an organized revolutionary minority who are prepared to exploit industrial disputes, but whose real aim is the breakdown of law and order and the destruction of democratic parliamentary government. We have seen the same sort of thugs and bullies at Grunwick, more recently against Eddie Shah in Stockport, and now we see them organized into flying squads around the country.

‘It seems there are some who are out to destroy any properly elected government. To bring down the framework of the law. This is what has been seen in this strike –

‘But the law they seek to defy is the common law, upheld by fearless judges and passed down across the centuries. It is legislation scrutinized and enacted by the Parliament of a free people. It is British justice and it is renowned across the world.

‘This nation faces what is probably the most testing crisis of our time –

‘The battle between the extremists and the rest.

‘But we fight as we have always fought, for the weak as well as the strong –

‘For great and good causes –

‘To defend against the power and might of those who rise up to challenge them.

‘This government will not weaken. This nation will meet that challenge –

‘Democracy will prevail!’

It is the speech of her life; the life she almost lost.

The Jew is on his feet with the entire hall. The Jew applauds with the entire hall –

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight –

For eight minutes the hall applauds.

The Jew has tears running down his face, tears streaming over his skin –

Streaming down mountains. Running in rivers –

Rivers of blood. Mountains of skulls.

Martin

cars before it. Ten cop cars after it — Flies past us at eighty mile an hour. Right up Pit Lane and in — That’s that then, I think. Think wrong — Turn round to see this police Transit coming towards us with searchlight on. Fuck-ing wedge of riot coppers with full-length shields behind it — Everyone starts to edge back. Backing away — Knowing what’s fucking coming for us. Knowing what we’re fucking going to get — Few of lasses from Action Group try to send some lads off down ginnels and over gardens. But fucking pigs have them. Either send them back or handcuff them to lamp-posts and gates for later. Then I hear them — Hear hooves. Ten horses behind riot squad and dogs — This other wedge of coppers coming out, too. Foot of lane. I look at my watch — Half-six when whistle goes and horses charge and all bloody hell is let loose on us — Their commander today is a fucking cunt. He says clear as day, Get bastards and do them — Fifty reporters next to him. Fifty cameramen. Not one bastard will report it. Not one bastard will film it. No report of what that cunt said. No fucking film of all chaos that follows — Everybody running. This way. That way — Truncheon for this one. Truncheon for that one. For this one. For that one — Horses and boots pushing us back up towards Barrel and over motorway bridge. Folk running out into traffic and what have you. Then this big cheer goes up. I turn to look back — Lad has chucked a bin lid at that bastard on white horse. Knocked him flying off horse onto ground. Fucking brilliant. To see him lie there in road. That cunt off his white bloody horse. That cunt and his horse that have chased and fucking hit us all over bloody county — Doesn’t last long, mind. Next bin lid misses and it’s back on with running shoes — Past Barrel and over bridge. Lads down on motorway among cars — like fucking Orgreave all over again. Folk doing anything to get out of way — But pigs just keep on coming. Boots up your arse. Truncheon to your hands. Back of their shields into back of your neck. Truncheons to your head — Then, bingo. Fucking bingo — Lads find a pile of bricks and bloody stones. Let fucking fly and all — Pigs have got their shields up but they’re only them short, black, round ones. Have to fucking retreat, don’t they? — Bricks and stones. That’s what it takes to save us. Bricks and bloody stones — I pick up bricks. I pick up bloody stones. I fucking throw them and all — First fucking time. This is what it’s come to for me — To make them leave me be. To save myself. To get away. To be fucking free — Not everyone’s that lucky, though. Lot of blokes get a lot of fucking hammer. They take twelve lads away just for having dirt on their hands. Least it isn’t blood — Not like him. Him — Him that brought them here. Him that’s caused it all — That went back to work. To work? — To scab. To sit on his arse all day up at pit — To play hands of cards with bastard police. Loses his fucking wages to Met, I hear — That sorry scab and his sorry hand. His sorry wages in their greedy paws — Tears in his eyes, they say. Tears in his wife’s eyes. Tears in his kids’ eyes — Him under his hood. Her with a new name. New address — Tears in police eyes and all. Tears of laughter — Laugh at fucking lot of us, they do. Met. MacGregor. Thatcher. The lot of them. The whole bloody fucking lot of them — Laughing at us in our little villages with our little pits. Our little accents and our little clothes — Cunts. Bastards. One day — you’ll see. You’ll see — In the dark lands, I have a candle in my hand. I walk aver heaps. Heaps of fragments. The candle in my hand, in the dark lands — Day 221. I open my eyes on floor under my coat and I remember — Talks collapse. Pits collapse. Strikes collapse. Hotels collapse — But she bloody survives. Lives to tell tale — Fucking lot of them: King. Heseltine. Lawson. Ridley. Havers. Walker. Brittan. Even Tebbit — Iron Bitch without a bloody scratch. Fuckme — If she’d had a shit and not a pee, what a different place this world would be. And to think there’s still them that say there’s a god up there — It’s going to go on for ever, this is. Fucking for ever now — Day 223. It’s total now. Relentless. Total and relentless provocation and aggression against — Every pit. Every village. Every day. Every hour — Kellingley. Maltby. Kiveton Park. Allerton-

The Thirty-third Week

Monday 15 — Sunday 21 October 1984

These are days the Jew was not meant to see. The Jew says so over and over and over. From breakfast to bedtime. Morning, noon and night –

Times have changed. The Jew sees things more than ever in just black and white –

Night and day. Wet and dry. Bad and good –

Them and us –

‘You are either one of them,’ says the Jew again. ‘Or one of us.’

The Jew is back in business. Back behind his desk.

There are flowers from the National Working Miners’ Committee –

Telephone calls to be returned. Telegrams to be answered.

The talks between the Board and the Union at the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service collapsed again last night. The sides had met for less than two hours. The Jew is happy the talks failed. The Jew hates ACAS and all it stands for –

Appeasement. Compromise. And. Surrender –

The old days.

It had been created by a Labour government. Designed for a Labour government –

To interfere. To negotiate. To barter and to abdicate.

It stank of Labour. It stank of defeat. It stank of the past –

The bad old days.

The Jew is happy to watch it fail. Happy to watch them all fail –

Their president and the Union have stated their defiance of the High Court fines. The Jew is very happy about that, too. This time the Jew can admit he is happy –

‘The times have changed,’ the Jew tells Neil again. ‘The times have changed.’

Neil Fontaine waits in the corridor outside the Chairman’s office in Hobart House. The men in suits pace up and down. Up and down. Letters of resignation in their hands.

Neil Fontaine looks at his watch again. He taps his watch. It starts again –

Places to be. People to meet. Things he must know.

Neil Fontaine and the men in suits listen to the Jew ranting on the inside –

‘This strike is a political strike, make no mistake. Its outcome is not just the concern of the Board, and it never has been. The very future of this country depends on a total defeat of that man and all that he stands for. So there can be no settlement. There can be no agreement. There can be no compromise. Therefore, there must be no further negotiations. There must be no further promises of no more compulsory redundancies. There must be no amnesty and no jobs for any miners convicted of criminal offences.

‘The times have changed and I can tell you when they did –

‘The times changed at exactly six minutes to three last Friday morning.’

*

Terry Winters had a lot of airport time to kill. Terry read Conrad. Terry read Greene. Terry read Fleming. Terry couldn’t concentrate. Terry picked through the newspapers. Bombs. Terrorists. Failed talks. Court fines. The President’s forfeit paid anonymously. Terry was needed there. There. There. There. Not here –

Frankfurt, fucking Germany.

Terry Winters made more calls to Sheffield. Click-click –

To Diane. Click-click. To Theresa –

But no one answered the phone. No one returned his calls. Told him anything. Mohammed brought Terry another cup of coffee. Mohammed sat down next to him. Mohammed talked about Al-Zulfikar. Politics in Pakistan. Vengeance. Doncaster Rovers. The price of bread. Corner shops –

Terry Winters wished he’d fucking shut up.

Salem returned. Salem shook his head. Salem said, ‘Twenty-four hours.’

Terry rolled his eyes. Terry went back to the airport hotel. Terry checked in again. He lay down on the single bed in his single room. He tried to sleep. He couldn’t sleep. He cut up The Secret Agent to make new codes. He used England Made Me as a football. He threw The Spy Who Loved Me at the wall –

He shouldn’t be here. He should be there. There. There. There –

Terry made calls to Sheffield. Click-click. To Diane. Click-click –

But no one answered the phone. No one returned his calls. Told him anything. Mohammed knocked on Terry’s door. Mohammed asked if Terry was hungry for dinner. Terry told Mohammed he was busy. Terry said he had things to do –

Terry washed his underpants in the small sink in the corner of his room –

He dried them with a hairdryer he had borrowed from reception –

Terry’s hands were red raw. Terry wondered what the fuck he was doing.

*

Neil Fontaine serves two large brandies in the suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s.

The Great Financier nods. The Great One is always willing to help –

‘You know that, Stephen,’ he says. ‘Especially in times such as these.’

The Great Financier lost his Carlton tie in the bomb. It has yet to be replaced.

‘Yes, and I appreciate that,’ says the Jew. ‘She knows it, too. She appreciates it.’

‘But, but, but,’ smiles the Great One, ‘does the Chairman?’

The Jew smiles back. The Jew says, ‘He is beginning to see the light.’

‘The City worries about our American friend,’ says the Great Financier.

‘I read my balance sheets,’ says the Jew. ‘I know how the City worries.’

‘Seven billion lost in just one day yesterday,’ shouts the Great One. ‘One day!’

‘I know,’ says the Jew. ‘I know.’

‘I’m losing money hand over fist here, Stephen,’ he says. ‘Hand over fist.’

‘We all are,’ says the Jew. ‘We all are.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ asks the Great Financier. ‘Is it?’

The Jew closes his eyes. The Jew shakes his head.

‘I know bankruptcy would be nothing new to you and yours,’ says the Great One. ‘But it would be to the rest of us. Remember that —’

‘So you’re pulling up the drawbridge, then?’ asks the Jew. ‘Circling the wagons?’

‘Stephen, Stephen, Stephen,’ says the Good and Great One. ‘Did I say that?’

‘Don’t seem awfully keen, though,’ says the Jew. ‘Not your usual helpful self.’

‘I will help,’ says the Great Financier. ‘But there will have to be stipulations.’

‘There is always a catch,’ says the Jew. ‘The strings that must be attached.’

‘I do have reservations about these legal proceedings,’ says the Great One.

‘What kind of reservations?’

‘I worry you’ll make a martyr of the man,’ he whispers. ‘A Marxist martyr.’

‘He’s Aryan,’ says the Jew. ‘He has his own myths. His models. His messiahs.’

‘So let’s not add to them, shall we, Stephen?’ smiles the Great Financier.

‘The wheels have been set in motion,’ says the Jew. ‘It is out of our hands —’

‘Pay the man’s fine for him,’ says the Wise One. ‘Anonymously.’

‘What?’ squeals the Jew. ‘I will do no such thing.’

‘Bloody will, Stephen,’ he says. ‘Or he’ll go to jail and you’ll lose. We all will.’

The Jew slumps back in his chair. The Jew waves his brandy glass at Neil.

‘Do this, Stephen,’ says the Great Financier, ‘and I will do the rest.’

‘Everything?’ asks the Jew. ‘Everything?’

The Great and Benevolent One takes out his chequebook. He says, ‘Everything.’

The Mechanic comes down the A1 towards Doncaster. He turns off onto the Barnsley Road. He drives into the centre of the city. He joins the Bawtry Road bythe racecourse –

He follows it down to Rossington.

There are police all over the place. Everywhere. Not even four in the morning yet. There’s one police car already lying on its roof by the police station. Its wheels in the air.

This is a mistake. The Mechanic knows that. But there are things the Mechanic doesn’t know–

Things he needs to know. Has to know –

Personal things.

He parks away from the pit behind a school He leaves the dogs in the back of the car. He makes his way to where the action is. He has got his hat down and his collar up. His yellow stickers on and his hands in his pockets.

It’s all happening here today. The pickets have trapped the police in the pit yard. The police have called for reinforcements. The convoy of reinforcementsis coming –

Two abreast down the road at ninety miles an hour.

The pickets along the road let fly with the stones from the first vehicle to the last –

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud –

Rock after rock. Brick after brick. Stone after stone –

For each one of the sixty police vehicles.

This one horsebox mounts the pavement. Hits this one lad full on. Bang –

Leaves him for dead in his donkey jacket –

The police laugh. The police cheer. The police beat their shields.

The Mechanic stands outside a pub. He stares into the faces –

Men running in every direction. Police charging about after them.

There are ambulances now. Barricades burning –

Police vans fitted with mesh and grilles driving into the barricades –

The air filled with smoke and screams. The dawn keeping its distance –

Violence. Injuries. Arrests –

This is not what the Mechanic is looking for. Not why he is here.

The Mechanic turns and walks away –

Jen is not here. Jen. His Jen –

The rumours all wrong. The whispers well wide –

Thank. Fucking. Christ.

The Mechanic walks back to the car. The dogs are barking. The Mechanic puts the key in the door –

‘Hello. Hello. Hello’, says the voice behind him. ‘And what have we here?’

The Mechanic doesn’t turn round. There’s no point. He knows who it is.

‘Didn’t realize armed robbers had a union,’ says the voice. ‘TUC affiliated, are you?’

The Mechanic doesn’t move. No point. He keeps his eyes on the dogs in the back.

‘Put your hands on your head,’ says the voice. ‘Do it slowly.’

The Mechanic puts his hands on the top of his hat. He does it slowly.

Handcuffs go on his wrists and the voice says, ‘Now turn around. Slowly.’

The Mechanic puts his hands down. He turns around. Slowly.

‘Hello, Dave,’ says Paul Dixon of the Special Branch. ‘Miss me, did you?’

*

Neil Fontaine helps the Jew dress for the dinner. Neil Fontaine drives him to the dinner –

The AIMS of Industry’s 1984 National Free Enterprise Awards.

The winners are Mr Eddie Shah, Mr Walter Goldsmith and the Prime Minister –

Her speech is also a winner. The theme of her speech –

No Surrender.

It is perfectly timed. Perfectly. For the times have truly changed –

NACODS have called a national strike from Thursday 25 October.

The Cabinet is nervous. The City is nervous. The country is nervous –

The Jew is not. The Jew knows the times have changed –

It is a dangerous game. Expensive, too. But the Jew will win –

The Jew will not drop the ball. The Jew will not sell the pass.

The Jew whispers in the Prime Minister’s ear. The Jew squeezes her arm. The Jew kisses the Prime Minister on both cheeks. The Jew congratulates her –

He congratulates her many, many times on her many, many victories –

Past, present and future.

Martin

Bywater. Yorkshire Main. Woolley. Brodsworth. Denby Grange. Rossington — But it works against them. Works in our favour — Folk can see them for what they are now. Folk can see through media lies — Smile — Makes many more folk support us now. Older blokes. Pensioners — Lot of them that hadn’t had a good word to say about King Arthur and Red Guard two week back. They’ve all changed their bloody minds sharp enough now — Now they’ve seen what police and government are like with their own eyes. Now it’s in front of their faces. Here on their own bloody doorstep — People want to picket now. Pete sets up a roster. Twenty-four-hour cover in six shifts. Both gates. Front and back — Least half of village turn out for afternoon pickets. People like that picket — Scabs can see us all stood there. See our faces proud and plain as day. Theirs hidden in their hoods — Let them see us see them. Let them know we know them — Like it says on wall, We will not always be poor,but they will always be scabs — Day 232. This is worst day yet. By a fucking mile. Everyone just stood there in front of TV. Fucking shell-shocked. Whole of bloody Welfare. It started out bad enough this week. First so-called power-men had voted against supporting us. Them that could even be arsed to bloody vote. Exact fucking opposite of what was said at TUC Rest of week we’ve stood out as usual in all bloody weathers, at all bloody hours. Here and at Brodsworth. Kiveton Park. Rossington. Yorkshire Main. News is full of them two fucking scabs from Manton again. Back at bloody court after our brass. Our fucking brass from our fucking pockets which we’ve given to our bloody Union. Not to two fucking narks like them and some High Court fucking puppet of a judge. Lot of lads don’t think much of it — It’s only brass, let them have it. Render unto Caesar. No bloody strike pay anyway. That’s attitude — But I saw look in Pete’s eye when it first come on news. Told me it was more serious than most folk thought. Pete’s got a good head on him. Knows what’s what. He warned us not to get our hopes up about NACODS. He was fucking right and all. Thing is, no one honestly believed they’d come out for us — Not in their heart of hearts. Not that lot — But you can’t stop yourself bloody dreaming, can you? Hoping against hope — Knowing it would have helped us all. Both them and us — But in end they just want brass without any hassle. Like a fucking holiday for them, this is — Just show your face every morning. Tell manager you’ve been intimidated. Then fuck off back to bed or whatever — They had a golden opportunity to do something fucking decent. But they took their thirty pieces of bloody silver. Left us worse off than before — Mick McGahey spoke for everyone on news. Mick said, I regret very much the atttude taken by NACODS. First in compromising themselves before the NCB. Second in making things much more difficult for the NUM, who are seeking a principled solution to this dispute — Arthur was next. He just said, There’ll be no compromise. It will be a long, hard, bitter battle — Then this morning, just when you think it can get no fucking worse, Board make their big bribe — Four weeks’ holiday money if you’re back in before 19 November — Fuckme. Bribing us back with our own brass now — Know there’ll be some daft enough to take it and all. Been eight month of this now — Eight month. Thirty-four week. Two hundred and thirty-odd fucking days — Pete opens another envelope. Pete reads it. Pete says, Kiveton again. Here we bloody go, someone says — Here we go, I shout back. Here we go — Then whole bloody room joins in, Here we go, here we go, here we go — Here we go, here we go, here we go — Here! We! Go! Day 236. I got no bloody choice. Way I see it — I have to survive. To survive I need brass. To get brass I pick coal. Pick coal to sell — Either that or go back down to Southampton or somewhere. Find another labouring job. Then I’d not be able to picket. Not be able to do anything for strike. Not pull me weight. Don’t fancy that again. Fucking lonely enough as it is — Hate bloody Saturday and Sundays. Hate them. Worst days of week — Least when they came for furniture they left shed alone. Left my barrow and my shovel. Thing I need

The Thirty-fourth Week

Monday 22 — Sunday 28 October 1984

Salem said, ‘Your visas are ready.’

Terry Winters and Mohammed Divan went to the Libyan People’s Bureau in Frankfurt. Terry and Mohammed presented their passports. The Libyan diplomats of the People’s Bureau gave them their visas. There was no Libyan People’s Bureau in London. Not since the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in April. Not since she was shot outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in St James’s Square by Libyan diplomats. Next door to ACAS. Salem had worked at the People’s Bureau in London. Until he’d been deported.

Salem said, ‘Your flights are booked.’

Salem gave Terry Winters and Mohammed Divan their tickets to Tripoli. Terry and Mohammed flew Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Tripoli. The plane left in the evening. The flight took four hours. There was no alcohol on the flight. There was no Coca-Cola. There were no direct flights from London. Not since the death of WPC Fletcher in April. Not since she was shot by Libyan diplomats.

Salem had said, ‘You will be met at the airport.’

Terry Winters and Mohammed Divan landed at Tripoli International Airport at midnight. The head of the Libyan General Producers’ Union and three other officials were there to meet them. Arabic kisses and European handshakes were exchanged. Introductions made. Two taxis were waiting to take Terry and Mohammed the twenty miles from the airport into Tripoli. Terry was escorted to his taxi. One member of the welcoming committee sat in the front seat. Terry sat alone in the back as the taxi sped off through the night. Black prayer beads swung from the rearview mirror. Loud Arabic music blared from the radio. The taxi-driver smoked heavily and flashed his headlights. The member of the welcoming committee turned around occasionally to grin at Terry. Terry Winters stared out of the window at Libya. It was pitch black beyond the lights of the motorway.

Salem had said, ‘Rooms have been reserved for you at the Al-Kabir Hotel.’

The taxi came out of the dark into the city. It sped through the deserted streets; the narrow alleys and the wide boulevards; the Arabic and the European. The driver sounded his horn as he crossed junctions and passed through red lights. Terry bounced up and down on the back seat. The driver held down his horn and kept his foot on the pedal. The member of the welcoming committee turned around to grin at Terry again. Terry thought of Theresa. Terry Winters thought of another taxi in another city on another street on another day in another life –

This taxi pulled up in front of an illuminated hotel.

Salem had said, ‘You will have guides.’

Mohammed Divan was waiting outside the Al-Kabir with three Libyan men. Mohammed introduced Terry to their guides in the empty lobby of the Al-Kabir. Their guides ordered tea for Terry and Mohammed from a boy behind a bar that sold only tea. The boy brought Terry and Mohammed warm Arabic tea in small Pyrex glasses. The three Libyans held their prayer beads in one hand and filterless cigarettes in the other. Terry wanted to go to bed. First Terry was shown his schedule. Terry and Mohammed were to relax for a few days –

To see the sights and the sounds of Tarabulus al-Gharb.

‘For a few days?’ said Terry. ‘I can’t stay here for a few days. I’m needed —’

Mohammed spoke in Arabic with the three Libyans. Mohammed turned to Terry –

Mohammed shrugged his shoulders. The three Libyans nodded –

‘Everything is arranged,’ they said. ‘Salem has arranged everything.’

Dixon stops the car opposite Rotherham police station. He hands the Mechanic his hood. Dixon leaves.

The Mechanic stands outside the police station. He stamps his feet in the last of the night.

There are men parked across the road. Men with notebooks. Men with cameras.

The bus arrives. The doors open.

The Mechanic puts on the hood. He climbs up inside. He doesn’t pay the driver –

He walks down the aisle. He takes a seat halfway up.

The bus is off again. The bus is cold and dark. The bus is damp and stinks –

It stinks of cigarettes and sweat. It stinks of fear. Dread –

Guilt.

The Mechanic stares through the slits in the hood –

There are eight policemen. Two other men in hoods.

The Mechanic stares through the windows and the mesh –

There are now police cars in front and back of them.

The men in hoods bow their heads. The police lower the visors on their helmets –

‘Here we go,’ one of police shouts.

Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety miles an hour –

The bus picks up speed. The bricks hit the bus –

Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety –

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang –

Blue lights and burning barricades:

Welcome to Kiveton Park.

The bus stops inside. The mob bays. The gates close. The mob barks –

The smell of blood. The stink of shit –

The men in hoods run from the bus to the office. The men in hoods hide inside.

There are boards across the office windows. Heaters on. Kettles boiling. Cigarettes lit–

The three men keep their hoods on. Heads bowed.

Police come in and out off the fire escape. Tell them how the battle’s going –

‘They’re letting horses out for a gallop,’ police laugh. ‘Bit of exercise for them.’

‘Who’s that then?’ other police ask. ‘Fucking horses or pickets?’

The three men keep their mouths shut under their hoods. Police don’t like that –

‘Take them hoods off,’ police say. ‘No one can see you in here, can they?’

‘It’s better this way,’ the Mechanic says from under his. ‘Leave us be.’

‘Anyone would think you were fucking ashamed of yourselves,’ police laugh.

‘Afraid of us, are you?‘police ask. ‘Afraid we’ll grass you up to that mob?’

‘Imagine if we did,‘police say. ‘They’d have you swinging from pit head.’

‘There’s no need for that,’ the Mechanic tells them. ‘Pack it in.’

‘Or what?’ police ask. ‘You’ll go home, will you?’

‘Like to fucking see you try that,’ police laugh.

‘Not last ten seconds out there without us,’ police say. ‘So be fucking nice.’

The other two men in their hoods are shaking. Their legs are trembling.

The Mechanic hates the police. Pigs. Fucking hates them. Cunts –

‘You know why they won’t take their hoods off?’ pigs ask each other.

‘They’re afraid one of them will go back on strike and grass other two up.’

‘I’d have stayed out with scum‚’ pigs say. ‘Least scum can hold their heads up.’

‘Just long enough for us to give them a crack,’ pigs laugh.

‘I’ve heard enough,’ the Mechanic tells them. ‘Shut up.’

‘Or what, scab?’ pigs say. ‘What you going to fucking do?’

The Mechanic stands up. He takes off his hood. He stares at the pigs in their white shirts. He says, ‘I’ll walk out that door and out them pit gates, that’s what I’ll fucking do.’

Eldest pig walks over to the door. He opens it. He says, ‘Be my fucking guest.’

The Mechanic stares at the four pigs. The two hooded scabs. The open door –

The noise of the battle outside filling the office. The shouts. The sirens.

‘Fucking got cold feet, have you, hard man?’ another pig says –

The Mechanic stares back at him. He shakes his head. He smiles.

‘Fucking funny, is it?’ pig asks. ‘Thought you were going to walk out that door?’

‘Think I will,’ the Mechanic says. ‘And think I’ll show lads on picket line this —’

He takes out a wad of cash from the pocket of his jeans. He holds it up. Counts –

Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety quid –

‘Fuck is that?’ pigs ask him. ‘Your wages for a year?’

‘No,’ the Mechanic says. It’s what you lot paid me to act as a scab for day. That’s what it is.’

Boss pig slams the door shut. He says, ‘Fuck off. Fuck off.’

The Mechanic shakes his head. ‘No. You fuck off and make your call.’

The two scabs stare up at the Mechanic through the slits in their hoods –

The tears in their eyes.

‘Tell you this,’ the Mechanic says to them. ‘I’d rather be a scab than a pig anydayof fucking week.’

The scabs bow their heads in their hoods. Their hoods heavy –

Their tears on the floor.

Terry Winters opened his eyes. He blinked at the ceiling. He remembered where he was. Terry got out of bed. He opened the window on to the balcony. He stepped outside –

It was warm. It was beautiful.

The balcony opened out on to the Green Square. Terry could see the Red Castle. The mosques and their minarets. The Medina and the markets –

Terry could smell the Mediterranean. Terry was amazed. Terry was excited.

Terry went back inside. Terry took his underpants off the window ledge. Terry dressed. Terry opened his door –

His guide was sitting on a chair in the corridor. His guide smiled. His guide said, ‘Sabah alkheer.’

Terry smiled back. Terry asked, ‘Good morning?’

His guide nodded. His guide smiled again. His guide said again, ‘Sabah alkheer.’

‘Sabah alkheer,’ repeated Terry.

His guide laughed. His guide shook Terry’s hand. His guide said, ‘Breakfast?’

‘Please,’ said Terry. ‘Lead on.’

‘This way,’ said his guide. ‘Mister Mohammed is waiting.’

Terry followed his guide down the corridor and stairs to an elegant dining room. Mohammed was sitting on the terrace with coffee and an Arabic newspaper.

Terry sat down. Terry said, ‘Sabah alkheer.’

Mohammed laughed. Mohammed said, ‘Sabah alkheer.’

Terry looked up at the blue sky. The white buildings. The flowers on the terrace. The guides at the next table. Terry said, ‘This is not what I had imagined.’

The waiter brought over fresh coffee. He served Terry orange juice and croissants.

Mohammed smiled. Mohammed said, ‘What had you imagined, Comrade?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Terry. ‘But not this. Not paradise on Earth.’

Mohammed laughed again. Mohammed spoke to the guides on the next table –

The guides laughed. They raised their Pyrex glasses. They said, ‘To paradise.’

‘You have seen nothing yet, my friend,’ said Mohammed. ‘Just wait.’

Terry Winters couldn’t wait. Terry sensed he had found something special here. He wolfed down his orange juice and croissants. He asked for guidebooks and for maps –

Terry Winters wanted to know everything there was to know about Libya.

Mohammed smiled. He called Salem. Salem joined them for their tour –

The Jamahiriya Museum. The Red Castle. The Marcus Aurelius Arch –

The Al-Nagha Mosque. The Ahmed Pash Mosque. The Medina –

‘If people back home could see me now,’ said Terry every five minutes –

‘Terry Winters — our man in Tripoli,’ he laughed. ‘They’d never believe it.’

Mohammed and Salem nodded. Mohammed and Salem smiled.

They took Terry for lunch near Green Square. The restaurant served spaghetti –

Terry wasn’t interested. Terry wanted what the locals wanted.

Mohammed and Salem took Terry for a local lunch near the Medina.

Terry ate fasoulia. Terry ate kouskesy. Terry ate lahm mashouy.

‘Delicious,’ declared Terry Winters. ‘The best meal I’ve ever eaten.’

Mohammed and Salem laughed. Mohammed and Salem put their thumbs up.

Terry pointed at the big portrait of Muammar al-Gadhafi on the restaurant wall. Terry said to Salem, ‘I’d like to shake your leader by his hand. Congratulate him.’

Salem stopped smiling. Salem shook his head –

Mohammed didn’t. Mohammed nodded. Mohammed put his thumb up –

Mohammed said, ‘Why ever not?’

Salem shrugged. Salem dropped Terry and Mohammed back at the Al-Kabir.

Terry went upstairs for a rest. Terry lay on his bed. Terry closed his eyes.

*

NACODS have called off their strike in return for modifications to the colliery review procedure and an agreement to pay deputies. The High Court has ordered the sequestration of NUM assets after their failure to pay the £200,000 contempt fine –

These are fine days for the Jew; these days he was never meant to see.

Neil Fontaine has been picking up Northern men with Southern tastes at pre-arranged times in pre-arranged places. He has driven these Northern men to West London hotels. He has stood guard outside the locked doors of their hotel rooms as the Jew has opened his briefcase and chequebook for these Northern men with their Southern tastes –

‘Everybody has their price,’ the Jew has repeated all week. ‘Everybody.’

The Jew has held long meetings with the Great Financier and some of his friends. He has met with Piers and Tom Ball. Don Colby and his mate Derek. Even Fred Wallace. Their finances are secure. Their strategies remain solid. Their legal actions will continue. There are even new moves afoot. Fresh friendships to form –

‘Everybody needs a friend,’ the Jew has said more than once. ‘Even me.’

These are very good days for the Jew; good days in a bad and ungrateful place –

The knives still out in Hobart House. Knives as dull as the stains on their suits. The suits in which they whine and scheme against the Jew. The suits in which they plot. The suits in which they run and tell their tales to the Minister of the bad things the Jew has said and done. The Jew is not worried. The Jew does not care –

The Jew is immortal –

The events of the past few weeks have taught the Jew that, if nothing else –

‘— in the boardrooms and the lounges. The executive suites and dining rooms. These are where our battles are now, Neil. These are where the dragons must be slain. Upstairs as well as downstairs —’

Neil switches off. He stares at the silent TV screens. Just the teletext on –

‘— these talking-shop tacticians are as dangerous as any flying Red Guard —’

The telephone rings on the Jew’s desk.

‘— no more talks. An end to talks. The time for talking —’

Neil Fontaine picks up the phone. ‘Mr Sweet’s office. How may we help you?’

Neil Fontaine listens. Neil says, ‘One moment, sir.’

Neil Fontaine puts the call on hold. Neil says, ‘The Minister for you, sir.’

The Jew rolls his eyes. The Jew hates the Minister. Loathes the man –

The Jew knows the Prime Minister does too. Hates him. Loathes him –

But one never knows when one might need a goat in the case of an escape –

The Jew picks up the phone. The Jew says, ‘Peter? What a pleasant surprise —’

Neil Fontaine switches back off. He stares at the silent TV screens again.

The Jew stands up. The Jew opens his mouth. The Jew shrieks, ‘Tripoli?’

The Jew looks across the desk at Neil. He shouts, ‘Get me The Times, Neil!’

Neil Fontaine picks up the other phone. The Hot Line. Neil Fontaine dials –

These good days, these days the Jew was never meant to see, have just got better.

*

Terry Winters dreamed Arabian dreams of sword swallowers and the hand of Fatima. Veiled brides for seven brothers. Black and hairy cunts in hearts of bleeding swastikas. Mint tea and Persian tulips. Minarets and muezzins –

Mohammed was calling him. Mohammed was banging on his door.

Terry opened his eyes. The room was dark. Terry got up and opened the door.

Mohammed said, ‘Are you ready, Comrade?’

‘Ready for what?’ asked Terry.

‘The dinner with the Libyan trade unions,’ said Mohammed. ‘Why you’re here.’

Terry nodded. Terry remembered. Terry washed. Terry dressed.

Mohammed and Terry took a taxi to a large hotel on the seafront.

Terry Winters was the guest of honour. Mohammed Divan was his translator.

Terry and Mohammed were shown into the Banqueting Hall. Terry was welcomed with a white spotlight and loud applause. Terry blinked. Terry bowed. Terry waved. Terry was led through the tables. Terry was seated in the top chair on the top table –

Under the painted eyes of an elevated portrait of the Colonel.

Terry was served grilled seafood and olive salads. Terry asked for extra kouskesy.

The various members of various unions made various speeches as Terry dined. The speeches had been translated into English and typed out for Terry to follow as he feasted. The speeches spoke of solidarity. Shoulder to shoulder. Arab and European. Then it was Terry’s turn. Terry stood up. Terry spoke without notes –

Terry spoke of the strike. The eighteen months since the overtime ban had begun. He spoke of their reasons. The threat to their jobs, their pits and their communities. He spoke of the government. The use of the police and the law. He spoke of the brutality. The arrests. The beatings. The kidnap. The torture. The sieges. He spoke of the suffering. The poverty of his people. The hunger of their children. He asked the trade unions of Libya to support their struggle by any means necessary; by banning the recently increased exports of oil to Britain for use in oil-fired power stations; by boycotting the renewed attempts by a hypocritical British government to better trade links with Libya; by blacking all trade and training with the National Coal Board; by giving the National Union of Mineworkers as much money as they could spare –

‘— so that the Fascism of the present governments of the United States and the United Kingdom may soon be replaced by revolutionary Socialism. That Internationalism may replace Imperialism. That the paradise you have built here may one day be the paradise that all nations may build and hold as dear as you hold this –

‘Friends. Comrades. Brother Arabs. I salute you,’ said Terry. ‘And I thank you.’

There was loud applause again. There was the white spotlight. Terry blinked. Terry bowed. Terry waved goodbye as he was led through the tables to the front door.

Terry and Mohammed stepped out of the hotel. Terry and Mohammed stopped –

Dozens of military vehicles had encircled the front grounds of the seafront hotel. Soldiers stared at Terry and Mohammed. Helicopters flew overhead in the night sky –

Salem jumped down from a jeep. Salem said, ‘You wanted to meet the Leader?’

Terry looked at the jeeps. The personnel carriers. The guns. Terry nodded.

‘Well, the Leader of the Revolution wants to meet you too,’ said Salem. ‘Get in.’

*

Dixon pulls up opposite the pig shop. He opens the passenger door –

The Mechanic crosses the road. He gets into the Montego.

‘Not very fucking smart that, David,’ says Paul Dixon. ‘Not very smart at all.’

‘Put a fucking leash on them, then,’ the Mechanic says. ‘What I do with my dogs.’

‘You’re supposed to do me a favour,’ says Dixon. ‘Then I do you one.’

‘Exactly,’ the Mechanic tells him. ‘So you owe me a favour.’

Dixon turns. He grabs the Mechanic’s face. He pushes it against the side window and says, ‘Fuck you, Johnson. Fuck you. I could nick you like that —’

Dixon clicks his fingers in the Mechanic’s face –

‘Waltz you through the fucking courts. Watch them throw away the key.’

The Mechanic closes his eyes. He nods –

Dixon lets go of him. He sits back behind the wheel and says, ‘Now fuck off.’

‘You what?’ the Mechanic says. ‘You said —’

‘Them shotguns made you fucking deaf, have they?’ says Dixon. ‘Fuck off.’

‘You’ve got a name and address,’ the Mechanic says. ‘I want it. I need it.’ ‘Fuck off,’ repeats Dixon. ‘We’re through. You’re a fucking liability, you are.’

‘You promised me her name and address,’ the Mechanic says.

Dixon turns to the Mechanic. He points a.38 up at him. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

The Mechanic stares down at the gun. The Mechanic nods –

He hates the police. Pigs. Fucking hates them. Cunts –

The Mechanic opens the passenger door. The Mechanic gets out —

The Mechanic slams the door on Paul Dixon, Special Branch.

Terry and Mohammed flew through the Libyan night in the back of Salem’s military jeep. The convoy of vehicles had long left behind the narrow alleys and the wide boulevards of Tripoli for the desert and the dark. Terry had watched Tripoli disappear in the dust and noise of the caravan. Now Terry stared up at the bright stars in the black sky. Terry Winters had never seen so many stars in his whole life. It was incredible. He had never seen any stars in the sky above Sheffield –

‘If people back home saw me here now,’ said Terry. ‘They’d never believe it.’

Mohammed leant forward and spoke first with Salem, then he sat back. Mohammed said, ‘Comrade, Libyan TV would like to film your meeting with the Leader, but Salem thinks it might cause embarrassment for your Union and yourself, if for any reason it was to be shown in the West.’

Terry shook his head. Terry said, ‘Embarrassment? I don’t see why.’

‘Then they can film the meeting?’ asked Mohammed. ‘You’re sure?’

‘I am not ashamed to be here,’ exclaimed Terry Winters. ‘I am honoured.’

Mohammed smiled. Mohammed leant forward and spoke with Salem again. Salem turned round to speak to Terry. Salem said, ‘If that is what you wish, Comrade.’

‘One thing,’ said Terry. ‘Please teach me the correct way to greet the Leader.’

Salem looked at Mohammed. Mohammed grabbed Terry by each shoulder. Mohammed whirled Terry round to face him –

Mohammed kissed Terry once on each cheek. Hard –

‘Now you try,’ said Mohammed.

Terry held Mohammed by his shoulders. Terry kissed Mohammed hard.

Salem clapped. Salem pointed out of the windscreen. Salem said, ‘Almost there.’

Terry strained to see ahead. Terry could see nothing. Nothing but desert and dark. Then the escort of jeeps and personnel carriers swept out of the desert and the dark and through the gates of a hidden fortress cloaked in walls of shadow –

Through the gates past rows of black tents and through another set of gates in another wall of shadows past more rows of black tents and through another set of gates in yet another wall of shadows to the biggest, blackest of the Bedouin tents –

The jeep stopped in the sand.

Salem opened the doors. Terry and Mohammed got out –

Salem went to speak with soldiers dressed in black fatigues.

It was cold out here and Terry wished he had brought his coat.

Salem came back over to the jeep. Salem said, ‘Follow me.’

Terry and Mohammed followed Salem inside the big, black Bedouin tent. Through dim doorways in black walls past bright rooms through more dim doorways in other black walls to a bigger, brighter room –

Salem stopped here. Salem turned to them and said, ‘Please wait.’

Terry and Mohammed waited among the cushions and the carpets. Terry stared at the walls and the floor. The shadows and the light. Terry waited for Salem –

For Salem and Colonel Muammar al-Gadhafi –

The Leader of the Revolution.

Salem came back inside. Men with guns followed him. Men with cameras –

The men stood to either side of the doorway with their guns and cameras –

Their guns and cameras trained on Terry. Pointed at Terry. Rolling –

Three. Two. One and, Action –

Colonel Muammar al-Gadhafi entered the room. He went over to Terry Winters. The Colonel put out his hand. Terry Winters shook the Colonel’s hand –

Terry Winters embraced the Colonel. Terry Winters kissed the Colonel –

The Colonel gestured to the cushions. The Colonel called for mint tea.

Terry sat down beside the Colonel. Terry drank mint tea with the Colonel.

The Colonel smiled at Terry Winters. The Colonel spoke to Terry Winters –

Salem translated. Terry listened. The cameras rolled again –

The Colonel had agreed to meet Terry. The Colonel was pleased to meet Terry. The Colonel was always pleased to meet fellow trade unionists. The Colonel had agreed to listen to Terry. The Colonel was pleased to listen to Terry. The Colonel was always pleased to listen to fellow trade unionists –

The Colonel stopped speaking. Salem stopped translating. Terry started speaking –

Salem started translating again. The Colonel listened –

Terry spoke of the strike. The threat to their jobs. Their pits. Their communities. The use of the police and the law. The brutality. The arrests. The beatings. The kidnap. The torture. The sieges. The suffering. The poverty. The hunger. The struggle –

Terry spoke of the hopes for his visit. That the trade unions of Libya support their struggle by any means necessary. That exports of oil to Britain for use in oil-fired power stations be banned. That attempts to improve British trade links with Libya be boycotted. That all trade and training with the National Coal Board be blacked. That the people of Libya and the Leader of their Revolution support the members of the National Union of Mineworkers and its president in their revolutionary struggle to defeat the Fascism of the Thatcher government. By any means necessary –

Terry Winters stopped speaking. Salem stopped translating.

The Colonel stood up. Terry stood up.

The Colonel gave Terry Winters three copies of his Little Green Book.

Terry thanked the Colonel many times. Terry shook his hand again. Many times.

The Colonel left the room. Terry and Mohammed left the fort with Salem.

The jeep took them back to Tripoli. Through the desert and the end of the night –

The dawn rising out of the desert with the city. Like a mirage, thought Terry –

‘— I fly for refuge unto the Lord of the Daybreak,’ quoted Salem from the Koran. ‘That he may deliver me from those things of mischief which he hath created —’

Terry nodded. He had never seen a dawn like it in his life. It was extraordinary –

The dawn. The stars. The food. The people. Their leader. The whole country –

‘People back home could have seen me with the Colonel,’ said Terry –

‘Terry Winters and Colonel Gadhafi,’ he laughed. ‘They’d never believe it.’

Mohammed and Salem laughed. Mohammed and Salem put their thumbs up.

The jeep came through Green Square. The jeep stopped outside the Al-Kabir.

Terry and Mohammed got out. Salem had places to go. Salem said goodbye –

‘And thank you,’ said Terry Winters. ‘That was the best night of my life.’

Martin

now is a riddle. Lady Luck smiles for once. Next door’s rabbit died and bloke lets me have hutch. Ideal that. Like a bloody riddle kit. Mesh and wood off hutch. Use hacksaw on it. Bang four pieces into a square. Tack mesh onto bottom — That’s my riddle. I’m set — Both good and bad time to start up, though. It’s getting cold so there’s a demand — There’s a demand because there’s no free coal. No concessionary coal — Means there are more folk at it, though. Lot have been doing it since start. That means all best stuff’s gone from yard. No easy pickings — Board are having clampdown on security and all. Because of all vandalism — Big riot in Grimethorpe week before when all South Yorkshire coppers pulled a load of lads who were at it. Pigs are all over place anyway because of Geoff the Scab and his mates — It’s bloody dangerous, too. Not forget that — Lad already died at Upton. Fourteen-year-old — But what you going to do? Live off a quid a picket and hope for a bit from petrol money? — I’ve been going in car with Tim and Gary again this past week or so. I asked them if they fancy coming with me — Make a proper job of it on weekend. Bit of brass for themselves — Jump at chance. Tim says a mate of his was nicked in yard by this copper from Met. Didn’t charge him or anything. But bastard made him tip out what he’d got. Night’s work down drain. Gary says they’ve got Alsatians up there, too. Set them on you — Three of us decide it’s best to stick to spoil. Right up on top of heap is best place, too. Dig a fucking hole up there. Bottom of that is where your bloody nuggets are — Hard fucking work, spoil is. But least with three of us we can rotate jobs a bit, though. First thing is to get to bloody stuff. Have to dig through all dust that’s been pressed and packed down on top. There’s always a good foot or so of that. Then comes softer muck. Load of that. Maybe four foot or more. Best stuff is under that. Then you get riddle out and go to work with sieving. Take it in turns to shovel and sieve. One with shovel and two with riddles. Fucking back-breaking, it is. Not alone up here, either, like bloody Gold Rush on top of here, it is. First day here we realized we needed a bigger riddle. Did well enough, but knew we could do a lot fucking better. Flogged what we had. Brass we made we bought some more wood, more mesh and more bags. Made this six-foot bloody riddle. Huge it is. Today we’re doing a bag every quarter of an hour. Six big shovel loads of stuff on riddle at a time. Fill a bag every fifteen minutes. Do sixty bags over weekend. Eight-hour days, like. Hard fucking days, too. Flog each bag for two quid a pop — That’s forty quid each. Forty fucking quid — Take orders for next week and all. Like a proper fucking business — Daft thing is, I’ve got this forty quid in my pocket. I don’t know what to do with it — I buy twenty Park Drive and a pint. Have a bag of chips on way home — That’s it. Lie down on floor under my coat and I’m straight out — That bloody knackered, hands that bloody raw. Like a light — Fragments come away under my tread. Fragments fall— I wake up under blanket on bedroom floor. Middle of night. I get up. I go down Welfare — Day 239. I get my orders from envelope. I go and do my picket. Kiveton Park again today. I take Tim and Gary and this other young lad. I drive down back roads and side-streets. I park car a good two mile or so from pit gates. I fall in and walk with rest of lads. I take abuse from police on way to front with rest of lads. Krk-krk.I get stopped and searched for fireworks with rest of lads. I get to front with rest of lads. I stand in dark and cold with rest of lads. I squint into their searchlights with rest of lads. I blink with rest of lads. I tell television crews to fuck off home with rest of lads. I hear scab bus coming up lane with rest of lads. I push with rest of lads. I shove with rest of lads. I shout with rest of lads. I call them what they are with rest of lads. I call them scabs with rest of lads. I watch their bus go in with rest of lads. I listen to coppers laugh and chant and bang their shields with rest of lads. I turn and walk away with rest of lads. I take abuse from police on way back to car with rest of lads. I drive Tim and Gary back to Thurcroft with that other young lad. I go in Welfare with most of lads. I get

The Thirty-fifth Week

Monday 29 October — Sunday 4 November 1984

The Board dropped the ball. The President’s man caught in flagrante on film in the arms of the Tyrant of Tripoli. The Union’s begging bowl outstretched to the Terrorist’s Friend. The sponsors of the Irish Republican Army. The assassins of WPC Yvonne Fletcher. Their president with his pants down. His monstrous political agenda finally exposed. National news. International news. Hold-the-front-page fucking news –

But the Suits of the Board had dropped the ball.

The Chairman had been back in Boston for a weekend with his grandchildren. The Jew left here to hold the fort. The Jew issued instructions in the Chairman’s name. The Suits ignored his instructions. The Suits squabbled –

Say this. Don’t say that. Push this agenda. Not that –

The Suits had dropped the ball between them. Dropped it for the last time –

Heads would now roll. Heads for tall poles.

These are the nights of the long knives, and the Jew has the sharpest blade of all –

No more distraction. No more conciliation. No more negotiation –

Much more litigation. Much more retaliation. Much, much more determination –

To win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win and win again.

But the Jew knows they need a better public face. No more plastic bags on heads –

Neil Fontaine carries videotape after videotape up from the office to the Boardroom. The Jew and Tom Ball watch videotape after videotape. The Jew and Tom Ball are searching for Mr Right. A public face. A Mr Fixit to make things right. The Jew and Tom Ball finally find their Mr Fixit –

The parrot who blinked the least. The parrot who smiled the most –

The Jew will dispatch Neil to the North. To fetch their Mr Fixit –

Neil Fontaine jumps at the chance. The chance of a ghost.

*

Terry Winters and Mohammed Divan had changed planes in Frankfurt. Terry and Mohammed had sat in the lounge. The British papers full of reports on the sequestration. The collapse of the latest talks. The intransigence of the President. The persistence of the Chairman. Terry Winters and Mohammed Divan had both agreed the strike was set to run and run. That the Union would need all the cash they could get. Terry Winters and Mohammed Divan had congratulated each other on a job well done. They had boarded their flight to Manchester and home. Shared a taxi from the airport to Victoria Station. Then Mohammed Divan had gone one way and Terry Winters the other. Terry had sat on the train to Sheffield and studied Libyan. Terry would surprise them all with his stories and secrets from Tarabulus al-Gharb. Terry had even thought of going straight to the office. But Terry wanted to see Theresa and the children. Terry had missed Theresa and the children. Terry had wished they had been there with him. Had seen what he had seen. Done what he had done. Terry had taken a taxi direct to his three-bedroom home in the suburbs of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The house had been dark. The curtains not drawn. Terry had paid the driver. Terry had walked up the drive. Had put his key into the lock. His foot in the door, when the two men had stepped out of the shadows of South Yorkshire and said, ‘Care to comment on reports that you have just returned from a meeting with Colonel Gadhafi himself in Libya? That you were sent there on behalf of the President of the National Union of Mineworkers? That you were there to obtain money and guns for your war against the government? Care to comment on such reports, would you, Mr Winters? Care to comment, Mr Winters? Care to comment, Comrade?’

*

Neil Fontaine sits in the pew. He bows his head. He says a prayer –

Just the one –

Bring her back. But back to stay.

Neil Fontaine leaves St Pancras. He drives into the North again –

Unscheduled diversions in the long, dark Northern night –

But no one speaks since the bomb. No one answers their phone.

Now Neil Fontaine must hunt alone in the long, dark Northern night –

The usual haunts. The usual ghosts.

Neil Fontaine listens to them play on Police Radio 1, these orchestras of ghosts –

Waltzes for the wounded. Laments for lost loves. Sad songs of sin.

Neil Fontaine comes off the M18. Neil Fontaine joins the A630 to Armthorpe –

This is where the strike is today. This is where they’ll be today –

Markham Main Colliery. All Saints Day, 1984.

Neil Fontaine parks the Mercedes in the shadows, out of the lights of the strike –

Five hundred pickets. Possibly less. Three hundred police. Possibly more.

Neil Fontaine watches the paperboy ride his bicycle in and out of them –

The milkman make his rounds. The local people walk their dogs.

Neil Fontaine watches the police clear the road of the paperboy and milkman –

Neil Fontaine hears the convoy approach. The shouting and the shoving start.

Neil Fontaine spies the man he wants. His prey for the day. Neil Fontaine smiles –

He moves away from the front line with the milk float as his shield.

He spots the Montego up a side-street. He hides near by. He stakes out the street –

His prey watches pickets disperse. His prey walks backwards up the pavement –

Neil Fontaine pounces. Neil Fontaine pulls his prey over the privet hedge –

Neil Fontaine punches his prey. Punches him twice. Punches his prey hard.

He drags him down the side of the house. He puts Paul Dixon up against the wall.

‘Talk to me‚’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘Tell me the things I don’t know.’

*

‘What the fuck were you doing kissing Colonel bloody Gadhafi on TV?’ shouted Paul.

The Conference Room table was covered with newspapers and their headlines –

Outrageous! Obscene! Odious! Own Goal!

Newspapers and their headlines. Headlines and their photographs –

Terry and Mohammed talking. Terry and Salem eating. Terry and the Colonel –

The Colonel and the Judas. The Judas Kiss. The Kiss of Death.

Terry Winters had his hand up the sleeve of his shirt. Terry scratched his arm. Terry screwed up his face. Terry bit his tongue. Terry closed his eyes –

‘You fucking knew about all this, did you?’ Paul asked the President.

Terry opened his eyes. Terry looked at the President. Terry smiled –

The President stared at Terry. The President shook his head.

Terry dug his fingers into the tops of his legs. Terry tried not to screeeeeeeeeeam –

Paul looked at Terry. Paul shook his head. Dick shook his. They all did –

‘You’re either Special Branch’, said Paul, ‘or the stupidest bloke I’ve ever met.’

Terry had his hands under his thighs now. Terry scratched the backs of his legs.

‘Or both,’ said the President.

Terry put his hands over his face. Terry scratched at his neck and his scalp.

‘I can’t trust him,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t even want to be in the same room as him.’

Paul stood up. Dick stood up. They all stood up –

They all walked out.

Terry Winters looked around the room again. Everything was in cardboard boxes. Boxes of files to go. Boxes of food to stay. The building ringed by miners from Durham. The doors on the eighth floor locked and guarded by the Denims and the Tweeds –

The monastery was under siege. The monks afraid. The abbot –

Terry Winters smiled at the President again. The President looked away –

‘Get out of bloody sight,’ said the President. ‘And stay there.’

Phil Taylor calls. Phil has the flu. Phil can’t make it. Fuck Phil.

The Mechanic calls Adam Young. He tells him, ‘There’s been a change of plan.’

The Mechanic picks Adam up. He drives them into Leeds. To Millgarth –

It’s morning. It’s a market day –

There are two of them.

They pull into the car park between Kirkgate Market and the bus station –

They watch a man lock his yellow M-reg. Cortina. The man walks towards them. The man passes their car and heads up Kirkgate. He has two empty shopping bags–

‘Here we go‚’ says Adam.

Drum roll –

The Mechanic gets out of the Fiesta. He walks over to the yellow Cortina. He puts the key in the door. He turns the key. The lock gives. He opens the door –

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ whispers the voice behind him –

The Mechanic has the.38 out. He has it in his hand. He spins round –

The Mechanic pulls the trigger –

He goes down. This uniformed piece of shit goes down –

It’s not who the Mechanic thought it was. Fuck. Not who he thought it was at all –

The Mechanic looks up. He sees Adam running –

The Mechanic looks down. Fuck, he sees another copper on the deck on his radio.

The Mechanic walks over to him. He stands over him. He stares down at him –

The Mechanic shoots him once and then he runs —

Runs and runs and runs —

Out onto New York Street. Down Kirkgate. Through the graveyard —

There are policemen chasing him. Members of the fucking public —

Guilty feet. Got no rhythm. Guilty feet. Got no rhythm. Guilty feet –

Back out onto Duke Street. Down Brussels Street. Up Marsh Lane –

The Mechanic turns right into the Woodpecker car park –

Jumps the fence onto Shannon Street.

The Mechanic stops a Transit. He shows the driver the gun. ‘Get out! Get out!’

The driver opens the door. The Mechanic pulls him out. Leaves him on the road –

The Mechanic drives off –

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, there’s a helicopter overhead. Sirens –

Up the York Road. Turns right. He takes the hard hat off the passenger seat –

The Mechanic dumps the van. He walks across the York Road. Hard hat on –

Up Nickleby Road. Torre Road. Nippet Lane. Beckett Street. To the hospital –

The Mechanic finds another Ford. He puts the key in another lock. He turns the key. Heopens another door. Hegets in –

Drum roll –

He is a dead man. Maybe not today. Maybe tomorrow –

Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe next week –

Maybe not next week. But the Mechanic is a dead man –

He knows that now. Now it’s too late –

Too late to turn back. Turn back the clock –

The clock ticking. Tick-tock –

It’s November 1984 and England will tear him apart –

Leave him for dead. Tick-tock. Dead –

Just. Like. That.

Martin

my dinner with some of lads. I have a pint in Hotel with a few of lads. I crack jokes about Gadhafi with a couple of lads. I give a lift up Hardwick Farm to this one lad. Then I go back to my blanket on bedroom floor in middle of afternoon and I lie there and I think, Fuck this for a game of soldiers. I get back up from blanket on bedroom floor. I go down stairs and out to shed. I get my barrow and get my shovel. I get my riddle and get some bags. I stick them in back of car and drive down to village. I go back on spoil and back to work. I dig and I sieve. I dig and I sieve. I watch my hands turn red and night come down — I watch pit and pit watches me — I work near kids and I work near mothers. I see folk I know and folk I don’t. I count blokes on their tod and blokes in teams. I fill one big bag and I fill another. I put first bag in barrow and push barrow to boot. I put bag in boot and push barrow back for second. I put second bag in barrow and push barrow back towards where car is — Fuck. Bloody security man is stood there, waiting for us — He says, Bloody going with that? Taking it home, I say. You’re bloody not, he says. That’s theft, that is — How’s it theft? I ask him. I dug it. It’s fucking mine — Is it fuck, he says. You want to dig coal, go back to work, you lazy bastard — I look at him. I look at bag. Took me four fucking hour, I say. That did — Fucking waste of time, then, he says. Takes this Stanley knife out of his little uniform — I’ll give you half of what I get for it, I say. I swear to you — Fuck off, he says. That hard up, I’d just fucking take it off you, wouldn’t I? You might fucking try, I tell him. But that’d be all you’d fucking do — He steps towards us. Listen twat, he says. I could have thee for theft and trespass — I look at him. I nod. You could do, I say. Aye — But I’m not fucking going to, am I? he says. Tell you why, shall I? Go on, I say. Let’s hear you, then — Because I work twelve hour a day out here for a quid-fifty an hour, that’s why — I nod again. Say nothing this time. Just listen — So tip that bag out that barrow, he says. And we’ll say no more about one in boot — Day 245. Pete opens envelope. Pete looks at paper. Pete says, Back to Brodsworth. Everybody nods again. Everybody goes out into rain again. I’m down to drive. Not many cars left. Takes mine a few turns to start. No sign of Gary or Tim this week — Except on top of spoil. Don’t blame them — Miss them, though. Their company — Least Keith’s back. Back with his new teeth — Police State took them out, he laughs. Welfare State put them back in — Fucking country, says other lad in with us. Bloody brilliant — Park down in Adwick village. March up to pit. Find rest of Thurcroft lads. Look out for bus — Push and shove. Shove and shout. Shout and hurl abuse at scabs. Do my fucking picket — Feel like a bloody robot sometimes, though. I walk back ahead of Keith. Jacket over my head. Pissing it down it is now so I start to run — Not looking where I’m going, am I? Run straight into this copper — Bang! Nearly knock him for six. He says something to us. I don’t hear what it is. I just keep going. I get back to car. I get in. I shut door. I look up. I see him coming over to car. That copper. I see his gob opening and shutting like a fucking fish, but I can’t hear him — Next news he’s got his fucking truncheon out. He shatters my bloody windscreen. His mates starting on every other car. Every other fucking car — Bang. Bang. Bang. Smash. Smash. Smash — Every fucking windscreen. Just sat here covered in glass, me — Shards in my hair. Cuts all over my face — Feels like I’ve been stung by a load of fucking bees. I don’t want to bloody cry, like — Not in front of all lads. But I don’t know what else to fucking do — Day 246. I miss her. Miss her all time — Day 247. Letter on hall floor’s not from her. Never is — It’s from him again. Personal touch this time — Dear Mr Daly, How much would you like for your soul? That’s only thing you have left, we have heard. No wife. No wage. Nothing left now. We want to help you avoid aggro and intimidation. So here is a little tear-off slip and a first-class freepost return envelope. Please enclose your fuckingsoul.Remember, nostamp needed — Bribes, blackmail and browbeating. That’s what our leader said — Good King Arthur. He was fucking right and all, our Arthur — Right as bloody usual. Love him or hate him, he’s always

The Thirty-sixth Week

Monday 5 — Sunday 11 November 1984

Terry Winters raged. Terry Winters roared –

‘That bastard has betrayed me for the last time,’ he ranted. ‘The very last time.’

Diane ran a bath for Terry. Diane dabbed warm water on Terry’s arms and legs. His neck and face. She soothed his skin and bones. His brow. His conscience –

‘Think about the money,’ said Diane.

‘They’d be bankrupt already without me,’ said Terry again. ‘They need me.’

‘They need you,’ agreed Diane. ‘But they don’t deserve you.’

The Mechanic stands in the phone box. He takes a breath. He dials her number —

It rings once. She picks it up. She says, ‘David?’

‘Mum,’ says the Mechanic. ‘It’s me.’

‘Oh, love, where are you? Where have you been? Been worried sick —’

‘I can’t tell you.’ says the Mechanic. ‘I can’t stay on here long, either —’

‘Picture’s on front of every paper. Every news. Every time I switch it on —’

‘I know, I know —’

‘But they’ve not said your name,’ she says. ‘Haven’t been here, either. I —’

‘They won’t.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘Why won’t they?’

‘Because they want me dead, Mum. That’s why.’

Poor woman doesn’t speak for a moment. Then she asks him straight. She says, ‘Did you do it, love? Did you kill that policeman, David?’

‘Yes,’ says the Mechanic. ‘I did.’

‘Then you’d best be off then,’ she says and hangs up.

Terry Winters stayed under the sheets until the children had left for school. Theresa for work. No risk of silences on the stairs. Coldness over the cornflakes. Hysterics in the hall. Terry Winters would have stayed in bed all day –

But there was always a chance that Diane might phone.

Terry went down the stairs. Terry ate his cornflakes. Terry stood in the hall –

There was always a chance.

*

The Jew is the boss now. Mr Fixit his face. The newest face among the many new faces. The Suits did not go gracefully. The Suits kicked. The Suits screamed. But the Suits went. The Jew is the boss now. The Jew calls the shots. The tunes. The Jew gives the orders. The area directors meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The directors sit on the phones in the Conference Room. They need the numbers of new faces from their areas. Mr Fixit writes the figures up on the wall. The Jew totals them up –

Eight hundred and two today; two thousand two hundred this week.

Neil opens the biscuit tins. Neil changes the colour of the pins –

From red to yellow. From yellow to blue —

Twenty-eight point five per cent now blue; some blue in all twelve areas –

Nottinghamshire leads the way as ever. But Derbyshire has made the most gains. Yorkshire, the North East, Scotland and South Wales remain very, very red.

The area directors sit around the conference table. Mr Fixit chairs the meeting. Mr Fixit wants to know what works and what doesn’t. The Jew takes the minutes –

‘There is a sense of isolation,’ says Scotland. ‘After NACODS.’

The North East disagrees. The North East says, ‘The business in Libya.’

‘The bonus‚’ say the other areas. ‘That’s the only reason they’re returning.’

The Jew shakes his head and sighs. The Jew puts down his pen and says, ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen. The only reason they are returning is because there is no hope upon their horizon. No hope whatsoever. The strike stretches out before them like an endless sea of suffering. A desert of debt, poverty and pain. And their president can give them nothing to take away their pain. Nothing to ease their suffering –

‘No support from other unions. No money. No prospect of talks –

‘No talks means no hope and no hope means they’ll return and continue to return.’

Mr Fixit nods. The directors nod. The Jew nods –

The Chairman sits in the corner and plays patience with himself.

The directors go back to the areas. To fight the good fight. To win the just war –

Mr Fixit takes the numbers downstairs to show the press they are winning.

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew to Downing Street to tell her they are winning –

The Minister comes out. The Jew goes in.

Neil looks at his watch. He taps it. It starts again. But Neil hasn’t time –

The Jew comes back out. The Minister goes back in.

Neil opens the door for the Jew. The Jew says, ‘Dublin, please, Neil.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ says Neil. He starts the car. He switches on the radio –

Ronnie’s on the radio. Cowboy Number One. Ronnie’s won a second term –

‘This is the start of everything,’ says Ronnie. ‘The start of everything.’

*

Terry Winters drove into Sheffield. Terry parked his car. Terry went back to work. Terry didn’t show his pass. The miners from Durham standing sentry knew Terry Winters –

Everybody knew Terry Winters now –

‘Gadhafi rules OK, eh, Tel?’ they shouted. ‘Ayatollah phoned back, has he?’

Terry Winters smiled. Terry tried to laugh, but their slaps on his back were hard. The digs in his ribs hurt. The hands in his hair rough –

But there was always a chance that Diane might phone again.

Terry went inside the building. Terry got in the lift with the Denims and the Tweeds. Terry pressed the button for his floor. The Denims and the Tweeds stared at him. The Denims whispered to the Tweeds. The Tweeds giggled behind their hands. The Denims sniggered. Terry got out of the lift. Terry walked down the corridor –

No Paul today; Paul was making speeches about comrades who broke ranks –

‘— I can tell you they will be treated like lepers —’

Terry Winters unlocked his office door. Terry went inside. Terry took an aspirin. He sat down under the portrait of the President. His desk was covered in paperwork. There was two weeks’ work piled up. The sequestration. The very many ramifications. The fears over the finances. The trouble with the overseas transfers. The concerns about the currencies. The urgent messages from Luxembourg to read. From Geneva. Dublin. The problems over the properties. The complications with the cars. The worries about the wages. The legal actions for and against. North Derbyshire now. South Wales again. The moves to make the national and area leaders personally liable for the fines and the costs. The injunctions against the use of Union finances to fund illegal picketing in an unlawful strike. The renewed requests for rallies. The requests for resources. For remuneration. The urgent calls from Samantha Green, six times, to return. From Clive Cook, four times. Bill Reed, twice. No urgent calls to return from the President. From Theresa. Diane. Terry Winters took another aspirin. Terry sank down under the portrait of the President and waited for the phone to ring –

There was always a chance.

The Earth tilts. In for a penny —

The Mechanic steals a white Ford Fiesta. He drives out to the lock-up at Pickering. He parks near the lock-up. He sits in the Fiesta. He watches the lock-up. He waits. He sees no one around. He approaches the lock-up. He takes out the keys and opens the doors. He looks around. He leaves the Fiesta in the lock-up. He takes the bus to Scarborough. He catches a coach down to Hull. He walks to Hull Royal Infirmary. He sits in Casualty. He waits for visiting to begin. He steals a grey Ford Escort from the car park. He drives back to Pickering. He parks. He sits in the Escort. He watches the lock-up. He waits. He sees no one around. He takes out the keys and opens the doors. He looks around. He waits. He goes to work on the cars. He sprays the Escort black. The Fiesta red. He puts the Fiesta plates on the Escort. The Escort plates on the Fiesta. He waits until it’s dark. He drives to the Dalby Forest in the Escort. He parks. He waits. He walks through the Dolby Forest to the place. He stops. He waits. He digs up the guns. He unwraps them. He takes out the Browning automatic. The twelve bore. He wraps up the .38. He puts the .38 back in the hole. He buries it. He puts the pistol and the shotgun in the bag. He walks back through the forest to the car. He drives back to the lock-up. He parks near the lock-up. He sits in the Escort. He watches the lock-up. He waits. He sees no one around. He unlocks and opens the doors. He looks around. He waits. He makes certain. Bloody certain —

In for a pound. The Earth turns again.

‘There can be no forgiveness,’ the President had said. ‘No forgiveness.’

The President had been electric. The President had brought the whole place down. He had stood alone on the platform. No trade union support. No Labour Party support. Just the President. But everyone who had heard him had been convinced by him. Everyone would leave Sheffield City Hall more determined than ever. Terry Winters too. The President had shaken his hand as he had left the platform –

The President had even smiled at Terry.

It was late now. Terry didn’t want to go home. Terry didn’t want to go back to work. Terry made his way through the crowd to the exits. Terry saw Bill Reed –

Bill Reed saw Terry.

Terry looked away. Terry pushed through the crowd towards the exits –

Bill Reed was calling his name.

Terry got to the door. Terry went down the steps. Terry broke into a run –

There can be no forgiveness.

Terry escaped. Terry sat in his car with the heater on. Terry was hungry –

Terry drove to a Chinese restaurant in Swinton. Terry sat on his own in a corner. He made notes on his napkin. He put it in his pocket. He asked for the menu. He ordered a pint and prawn crackers. Chop suey and chips. Ice-cream for after.

Terry sat in the corner of the Chinese restaurant and thought about bad things. Debts. Divorce. Death. Then he forgot the bad things and thought about other things. Promises. Promotion. Paradise. But the bad things never forgot Terry. The bad things followed him. Tailed him and taunted him. Hunted him and haunted him –

To recognize and remember them. To love, honour and obey them.

Terry picked up his chopsticks. Terry put them back down again –

‘Not losing your appetite, are we, Comrade?’ asked Bill Reed.

Terry looked up at Bill. Bill winked. Terry looked back down at his plate.

The waiter pulled a chair out for Bill. The waiter handed Bill a menu.

‘What do you recommend, Comrade?’ asked Bill.

‘Suicide,’ said Terry.

‘Now, would that be for me or for you?’ asked Bill again.

‘Both of us,’ said Terry. ‘It could be a pact.’

‘But that would mean you’d have to keep your word, Comrade,’ said Bill Reed. ‘And there’s a few folk out there who might bet against you on that one.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Terry.

Bill Reed put down the menu. He stood up. He said, ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

Terry Winters pushed his food away. He asked for the bill. He paid by credit card. He followed Bill Reed out into the car park.

Bill opened the door of his brand-new Granada. He said, ‘Take mine, shall we?’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Terry.

Bill Reed smiled. He winked again. He said, ‘You’ll see, Comrade.’

Terry got into the Granada. Terry had no choice –

He never did.

The backseat was already covered in papers and briefcases. Files on the floor –

‘Excuse the mess,’ said Bill and started the car. He pulled out fast into the road –

Foot down, he laughed and sang, ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go.’

Thick fog blanketed the county, the land lost under cumbrous cloud –

The roads dark, the roads dead. No sound, no light –

Just Bill and Terry hurtling through the night in a brand-new Ford Granada –

‘Here we go, here we go, here we go —’

Bill taking every corner blind –

‘Here we go, here we go, here we go —’

Every bend faster than the last –

‘This the kind of suicide you wanted, Comrade?’ he shouted.

Terry shook his head. His whole body –

‘Here! We! Go!’ shouted Bill –

Terry screamed, ‘Let me out! Let me out!’

Bill slammed his feet onto the brakes and the Granada screamed to a stop –

Terry flew forward. Hit his head. Down into the dashboard. Up into his seat again.

There was no light. There was no sound. The road dark. The road dead —

Terry turned to Bill. Bill was staring straight ahead. Terry said, ‘Where are we?’

Bill put a finger to his lips, then his ear. Then his eye. Then the windscreen –

Terry Winters peered out through the glass into the fog. Terry listened –

He could hear a deep, low rumble approaching. He wound down his window –

The rumble was getting louder. Terry got out of the car into the night and the fog –

He stood on the wet road. Between the wet hedges. Under the wet trees –

He turned to look behind him. Lights hit him full in the face. Blinded him –

He put his hands over his eyes. But he wanted to see. To see what it was. To see –

Transit after police Transit tear through the fog in a massive metal motorcade –

One, two, three, four, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty –

Fifty police Transits, one straight after another. Eighty, ninety miles an hour –

Then gone again. No light. No sound. The road dark. The road dead again –

Just the smell of exhaust. Between the hedges. Under the trees.

Terry got back in the car. Bill had his eyes closed. Terry grabbed his arm –

‘Where are we?’ said Terry again. ‘What’s going on?’

Bill put a finger to his lips again. His ear and then his eye. ‘Patience, Comrade.’

Terry sat back in the passenger seat and Terry waited. He watched. He listened –

He switched on the radio. Switched it off again. On again. Off again. He listened –

‘There can be no forgiveness.’

He listened and he heard whispers. He heard echoes –

‘No forgiveness.’

He sat forward again. Whispers and echoes. Echoes and shouts –

He stared out through the windscreen into the dark. Shouts and screams. Swords –

Swords and shields. Sticks and stones. Horses and dogs. Blood and bones –

The armies of the dead awoken, arisen for one last battle –

The windscreen of the Granada lit by a massive explosion –

The road. The hedges. The trees –

Fire illuminating the night. The fog now smoke. Blue lights and red –

Terry shook Bill’s arm. Shook it and shook it. Bill opened his eyes –

‘Where are we?’ shouted Terry. ‘Where is this place?’

‘The start and the end of it all,’ said Bill. ‘Brampton Bierlow. Cortonwood.’

‘But what’s going on?’ screamed Terry Winters. ‘What’s happening? What is it?’

‘It’s the end of the world,’ laughed Bill Reed. ‘The end of all our worlds.’

Martin

bloody right — I remember when we first come here. Folk had stories about him even then — That Union were building him a mansion with a big electric fence. Pack of dogs to guard him — That he got all his cars as rewards from Czechs or Soviets. For his spying and agitation — Load of lies even then. Even then — Thing I remember most, though, is what they used to call tenners round here: Arthur Scargills — That’s what miners called ten-quid notes in South Yorkshire. Because no bugger had ever bloody seen one till Good King Arthur came along — Day 251. I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes — Petrol bombs. Burnt-out cars and buses. Huts and Portakabins on fire. Blazing barricades. Houses evacuated. Transit vans with armour fitted special to them. Horses and dogs out — Like something you saw on news from Northern Ireland. From Bogside — Never thought I’d live to see anything like it here. Not here in England. Not in South Yorkshire. Not at fucking Cortonwood, of all bloody places — I just can’t believe some of things I saw. Here in my own country, with my own eyes — Lads trapped in playground of Brampton Infants, raining bricks down on coppers as coppers leather anyone they could get their fucking shields and bloody truncheons on. Mothers and their little kiddies trying to make their way inside school for assembly time. Kiddies crying and shitting themselves. Head-teacher out there in playground appealing to both pickets and police to pack it in. No one listening to her — Broke your heart, it did. To see it happen here — Happening everywhere else, though. Happened to us, like — Bloody shock, though, when Pete had opened up envelope and said it was Cortonwood. Someone told him to fuck off. Not to joke about thing like that. Pete said it wasn’t a joke. He wished it bloody were. But it isn’t. It isn’t a joke — It’s war. Fucking war this time. For real — World War bloody Three, that’s what it looked like — Thick fog. Pitch black. Fires and barricades up everywhere — Never seen so many bottles and bricks thrown. Bus shelter going. Lamp-posts going. Methodist chapel wall. Road running with milk from milk float lads have hijacked — Battle of Brampton Bierlow, in shadow of Cortonwood Colliery. That’s what it was — Three thousand of us. Least two thousand of them, easy — All this for just one bloody scab. Just one bloody scab and he’s a fucking foreigner — Transferred him in special, like. Cortonwood lads have hung a stuffed dummy from a gallows above Alamo — This is for scabs, sign said round its neck. That was all last Friday. That was bad enough — Today’s Monday. This is worse — Six of them now. Six fucking scabs back at Cortonwood. Unbelievable — Keith reckons half of them are pigs — Hope they are. But in my heart, I know they’re not. Know they’re fucking scabs. Makes me rage inside. Makes me boil. Does same for everybody — Tension’s immense. Immense — Real fucking fury there is now. But it’s hopeless. Thousands of police. Thousands of them — Horses. Dogs. Vans. Shields — Beat all that lot and there’d still be another thousand more waiting up side-roads. Parked up in a lay-by with their radios on. Thousand more just waiting for bloody word, champing at bit. Just once I’d like us to turn up and it be only us and scabs — Us and ours. Not so we could give them any hammer — Just so we could talk to them. Talk sense back into them — Tell them how they’ve kicked us all in teeth. Stabbed us all in back. Broke our fucking hearts — But it’s hopeless. Fucking hopeless — This is worse than Orgreave. Like a last, final war really has been declared on both sides — No more prisoners. Just us and them — Folk nothing but a number now. Just another bloody body. Fucking cannon fodder. Fight to finish, they keep saying — But there’s no finish. Because it just goes on and on and on — Last man standing job. To victor spoils, winner take all — Right across South Yorkshire: Bentley. Dinnington. Dodworth. Frickley. Hickleton. Maltby — Right across whole area. Breaks your heart, it does — Trampled and truncheoned. Bitten and beaten. Bricked and stoned — Your trampled, truncheoned, bitten, beaten, bricked and stoned bloody heart. Day 255. Two young brothers died coal picking at Goldthorpe. Names were Paul and Darren. Paul was fifteen,

The Thirty-seventh Week

Monday 12 — Sunday 18 November 1984

The Jew and Neil Fontaine are spending a dirty weekend away. The Jew flies first class. Neil Fontaine back in economy. Heathrow to Dublin for the Union’s not-so-secret stash. The money has been traced. Sheffield to the Isle of Man. The money has been tracked. From the Isle of Man to Dublin. The money has been found. The money has been frozen. Three million pounds of the Union’s money. But the Union has appealed to have it freed. The Jew worries about the Irish High Court. The Jew worries the Union might even win. The money escape. The money evaporate. So the Jew flies in to wine the Irish solicitors. To dine the English sequestrates. The Jew has large amounts of donated cash to flash. Neil Fontaine leaves the Jew up to his tricks. Neil Fontaine goes out to make movies. Dirty home movies. He visits the judge at his nice family home in a nice part of town. The judge grants the injunctions against the NUM. The judge swears not to lift them. Neil Fontaine drives back to the Jew’s Dublin hotel. The Jew has retired early upstairs. Downstairs Neil Fontaine doesn’t sleep. He locks the door. Puts a chair against the door, TV and radio on loud. Neil Fontaine dislikes Dublin. Dislikes Ireland. Dislikes the Irish. Both the South and the North. Catholic and Protestant. Two states only. Drunk or hungry. The Taigs in the North the worst. Drunk and hungry. The worst three years of a bad life. These are some of the things he tells himself to stay awake in Ireland. To stop sleep fall. The dirty dreams descend. Neil Fontaine doesn’t sleep in Ireland. Doesn’t close his eyes. He sits up in his chair and watches the coalfields burn on TV.

*

Everyone sat in silence while Terry Winters swept the Conference Room for bugs again. Terry had bought the bug detector out of his own money from a mail-order surveillance catalogue. It had arrived today. Terry planned to sweep the entire building. Every office. He also wanted to do Huddersfield Road. The President was impressed. Not Paul –

‘Had a duster and brush with you,’ he said. ‘Kill two birds with one stone.’

Terry turned round. He tapped his headphones. He put a finger to his lips.

‘Ridiculous,’ said Paul. ‘If there are any bugs, he’s the one who’s planted them.’

Terry switched off the machine. He took off his headphones. He put his thumb up.

‘Thank you, Comrade Chief Executive,’ said the President. ‘The place is clean?’

‘As a whistle,’ said Terry.

‘Then it’s safe for you to make your report now, is it, Comrade?’ asked Paul.

Terry nodded. He put his thumb up again. He handed out photocopies.

‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘the first phase of the operation has been a success.’

Everybody stared down at the photocopied columns of figures.

‘As you can see,’ started Terry again, ‘only eight thousand one hundred and seventy-four pounds has been seized to date.’

‘I can’t read any of this,’ said Paul. ‘Where was it seized from?’

‘From the Midland Bank here,’ said Terry. ‘And the Power Group.’

‘What about Dublin?’ asked Samantha Green. ‘That money?’

Terry nodded. Terry said, ‘It remains subject to the injunction. Frozen.’

Paul squinted at Terry’s sums again. Paul asked, ‘How much exactly?’

‘Two million seven hundred and eighty-five thousand four hundred and ninety-nine pounds,’ said Terry.

‘And the rest?’ asked Paul. ‘The ones that got away?’

‘I cannot reveal the exact location,’ said Terry. ‘Or locations.’

‘Has he told you?’ Paul asked the President. ‘Please tell me he’s told you.’

‘The Chief Executive is the only person who needs to know,’ said the President.

Paul shook his head. Paul said to Terry, ‘Have you any idea what you’re doing?’

Terry Winters smiled at Paul. Terry Winters stuck his thumb up again.

Samantha Green stared at Terry Winters and his thumb. She shook her head now. She said, ‘I do hope the majority of assets are back in Britain, as we discussed.’

Terry lowered his thumb. Terry tapped the side of his nose with his finger.

‘President,’ said Samantha Green, ‘if the sequestrators prove that the Union transferred assets abroad, then they can make a strong case for a breach-of-trust action. The sequestrators could then ask that a receiver be appointed to run the Union.’

The President looked at Terry Winters. He said, ‘Comrade Chief Executive?’

‘They have to find the money first.’ said Terry. ‘And they won’t.’

Paul groaned. Paul shouted, ‘You said same fucking thing about South Wales!’

‘South Wales didn’t follow my instructions,’ said Terry. ‘I warned them.’

‘Well, Comrade, I’m warning you here and now,’ said Paul. ‘Don’t fuck this up.’

Terry Winters smiled. Terry said, ‘Thank you for your advice, Comrade.’

Paul smiled back. Paul stuck his thumb up. Paul ran it across his throat.

Terry turned to the President, then to the room. He said, ‘Thank you, Comrades.’

Everybody nodded. Everybody waited for Terry to leave –

Terry picked up his bug detector and headphones. Terry left the room backwards –

Everybody sat and watched him go in silence –

Terry shut the door. Terry went back downstairs. Terry unlocked his office door. Terry collapsed in his chair under the portrait of the President. Terry took four aspirins –

The men at Abervan had dangled a noose over the Fat Man —

The red light on his phone was flashing.

There was a noose and gallows at Cortonwood —

Terry picked it up. Click-click. Terry said, ‘Chief Executive speaking.’

It was the hour of the lynch mob. The year of the noose —

‘Guess who?’ she said.

Terry swallowed the aspirins. Terry said, ‘Where have you been?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Guess what?’

Terry stood up. Terry said, ‘What?’

‘I’ve got a present waiting for you,’ she said. ‘When do you want it?’

Terry blinked. Terry stuck out his chest. Terry said, ‘All night.’

‘Not that kind, silly,’ she said. ‘This is a different kind of present.’

Terry sat back down under the portrait of the President. Terry said, ‘What kind?’

‘The kind you get from corner shops in Bentley,’ she whispered.

*

Home sweet home for Stephen sweet Stephen in his fourth-floor suite at Claridge’s.

Neil Fontaine helps the Jew dress for the banquet. The Lord Mayor’s Banquet.

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew to the Guildhall. The Jew is excited –

‘These are days we were not meant to see,’ he says. ‘Rare days indeed, Neil.’

Neil Fontaine watches the Jew enter the Guildhall. Neil Fontaine starts the car –

He drives to the river. In the dark. He parks by Traitor’s Gate –

He searches the stations. The signals. He seeks the signs. The symbols. But there is nothing here. Here no one. No one who cares –

Neil Fontaine tries to pull himself together. Put the pieces back his way. He switches on the radio. He listens to the Lady –

‘— we are drawing to the end of a year in which our people have seen violence and intimidation in our midst: the cruelty of the terrorists, the violence of the picket line, the deliberate flouting of the laws of this land. These challengesshall not succeed —

‘We shall weather the tempests of our times.’

He sits by the river. In the dark. Down by Traitor’s Gate –

He whispers her name. He calls her name. He screams her name –

The cruelty. The violence. The laws of this land —

By the river. In the dark. By the gate –

The tempests of our times.

The Earth hungry. The Earth hunts again —

Eyes wide. Mouth open. Nose bloody –

‘The keys,’ the Mechanic says again through the balaclava.

The manager blinks at the Browning. He opens a drawer. Holds up the keys.

‘You do it,’ the Mechanic tells him.

The manager nods. He walks backwards to the safe. Turns and bends down.

‘Faster,’ the Mechanic shouts.

The manager fumbles with the keys. He drops them. Looks up at the Browning.

The Mechanic cocks the gun. He says, ‘Last chance.’

The manager picks up the keys. He opens the safe. Waits.

The Mechanic throws the bag down on the floor. He says, ‘Fill that.’

The manager reaches into the safe. He takes out cash and cheques. Fills the bag.

‘Just the cash,’ the Mechanic says. ‘Just the cash.’

The manager throws cheques to one side. He takes only cash. Puts it in the bag.

‘That’s enough,’ the Mechanic shouts. ‘Pass it here.’

The manager hands him the bag. He looks up the barrel of the gun. Waits again.

‘On your knees,’ the Mechanic tells him.

The manager kneels down. Head bowed. Hands together. He prays —

He prays and the Mechanic runs –

Her eyes wide. Her mouth open. Her nose bloody –

The Mechanic runs from the hungry Earth. The Earth that hunts him.

Neil Fontaine picks the Jew up at Claridge’s. Neil Fontaine drives the Jew to the Carlton Club. The Jew meets the Great Financier at the Club. The Great Financier gives one hundred thousand pounds in cash to the Jew. Neil Fontaine drives the Jew to Hobart House. The Jew meets the National Working Miners’ Committee in their new office. The Jew gives eighty thousand pounds in cash to the National Working Miners’ Committee. Neil Fontaine drives the National Working Miners’ Committee to the Inns of Court. The National Working Miners’ Committee meet their legal representatives. The National Working Miners’ Committee give seventy thousand pounds in cash to their legal representatives. The legal representatives give writs against the twenty-two members of the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Mineworkers and the five trustees of the Yorkshire Area to the National Working Miners’ Committee. The writs make the twenty-two members of the National Executive personally liable for the two-hundred-thousand-pound fine for contempt of court and forbid the use of Union money to fund picketing or strike-related activities in the Yorkshire Area. Neil Fontaine drives the National Working Miners’ Committee back to Hobart House. The National Working Miners’ Committee meet the Jew. The National Working Miners’ Committee give the writs to the Jew. The Jew posts the writs to the twenty-two members of the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Mineworkers and the five trustees of the Yorkshire Area –

This is the way the world works. This small, small world –

The way it tilts and the way it turns –

The way it tilts and turns again.

Martin

Darren fourteen. They were digging to get some pocket money for Christmas presents. Digging it out with their bare hands for two quid a bag. Two pound notes. That was all. Spoil heap fell on them. Crushed them. Buried them. Suffocated them. Killed them. There were no television cameras there to see it happen. No reporters. Just two little lads lying dead under a mountain of muck. Two little lads who wanted to buy their mam and dad a Christmas present — Their father doesn’t have a job. Father doesn’t have any brass — He doesn’t have his lads now. Nothing now — They are fifth and sixth to die coal-picking in Yorkshire. This year. Nineteen eighty-four. Three of dead weren’t even old enough to smoke. Let alone vote — There’s silence in Welfare today. All day. Even in kitchen. No one speaks. No one — The fragments tumble down. The fragments clatter below — Theywhisper and they echo— I wake up. I get bus into Sheffield. Day 261. They’re putting up Christmas lights. Christmas tree. I can’t remember last time I was here. It must have been with our Cath, I suppose. Used to go in twice a month without fail when we first moved here. Window shopping. Looking at all things money could buy — Three-piece suites. Fitted bedrooms. Fridge-freezers. Video-recorders — Cath didn’t like to just look, though. Had to have something. I encouraged her and all. Made her feel better. That would last a day or so. Then catalogues would come back out. Tape measure. Like a drug with her, it was. Buying stuff. Filling up all empty spaces. Needed her fix or there was no talking to her. It was like an addiction. Even had a stone façade stuck on front of house. How much had that cost us? Fuck me, it looked daft. But that’s why I’m here, though. To see if I can see her. But deep down in my heart I know I won’t — I just wander about looking at all them things I can’t have. Then things I’ll never ever have again — Three-piece suites. Fitted bedrooms. Fridge-freezers. Video-recorders — Things I don’t even want again. Things I never wanted — They don’t have one thing I want. You can’t buy thing I want. Not round here. Not any more. Not in Britain today — Thing I want is to go back. Back to my place of work — Not on a bus with mesh over windows. Not in a hood with slits for eyes — I want to drive back up there. Park my car up with all other cars. Go into locker room and have a laugh with lads. Take cage down. Do my shift and have my snap. Do some graft and come back up. Wash up and clock off. Drive straight back home — Back home. Home to wife. My wife. My Cath — That’s what I want. That’s all I want — My wife back. My job back — My life. Life I had — That’s all I want. But I don’t see it. Not here. Not today — Day 264. Sunday again. Fucking Sunday. I can’t stay in house. I go down Hotel. I’ve got just enough for half a pint. Walk there and back will take up most of day. Fresh air helps me sleep. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I really don’t. I know there were them that thought it was best thing that ever happened to them. First few months. Especially some of them with kids — Time in house with them. Helping them with their homework. Doing different stuff. Stuff they’d never had time for before — Swimming. Football. Fishing. Hunting — I wonder how they feel about it all now. After nine months. Nine bloody months — Nine months of toast for their breakfast. Nine months of soup for their dinner. Nine months of spaghetti for their tea. Nine months of their kids without any new gear. Nine months of their kids on hand-outs and other folk’s cast-offs. Nine months of their wives trying to make ends meet. Nine months of their wives trying to hold them together. Nine months of them slowly falling apart. Nine months of them watching every single news programme there was. Nine months of them talking about nothing else. Nine months of them arguing and arguing and arguing and arguing and arguing. Nine months of them going up to the bedroom. Nine months of them lying on their backs. Nine months of them staring up at ceiling. Nine months of them wishing they were fucking dead — Day 267. I stopto rest on the heap.I watch fires light up ahead. This place is old. This stede is niht. This place is cold.

The Thirty-eighth Week

Monday 19 — Sunday 25 November 1984

Terry Winters waited until the children had left for school. Theresa for work. Terry went out onto the landing. He pulled down the ladder to the loft. He climbed up the ladder. Terry looked into the loft. He saw the two suitcases standing in the shadows –

Kiss me.

Terry got up into the loft. He walked across the chipboard. He took down the two suitcases. Terry went down the stairs with them. He left them on the kitchen floor. Terry went out to the garage. He opened the boot of the car. He took out two more suitcases. He carried them back inside. He put them down on the kitchen floor, next to the two suitcases from the loft –

Kiss me in the shadows.

Terry Winters went over to the cupboard under the sink. Terry took out a black dustbin-liner from under the sink. He took the bin-liner into the pantry. Terry emptied cream crackers and digestive biscuits out of their tins. He threw away cakes. Terry filled the bin-liner. He took it outside. He put it in the dustbin. Terry went back inside –

Kiss me, Diane.

Terry laid the four suitcases out on the kitchen floor. Terry opened the suitcases. He stared at the money. The money in the suitcases. Terry put his hands in the suitcases. The suitcases full of money. Terry sat at his kitchen table and counted out the money. The money into piles. Terry put some of the money into the empty biscuit tins. He put some of the money into the cake tins. He put the tins back on the shelves in the pantry Terry split the rest of the money between the four suitcases. He left two of the suitcases up in the loft again. He put the other two suitcases back in the boot of his car –

Kiss me in the shadows.

Terry sat at the wheel of his car. He had followed Diane’s instructions to the letter. The instructions she had written out. The instructions he was to destroy –

Kiss me in the shadows of my heart.

Terry Winters turned the key. Terry Winters was on his way to work –

Revenge. November 1984.

*

The nightmare is persistent. Neil Fontaine dreams of her skull. Her beautiful, white skull. Her skull and his candle. Her skull on the table and his candle in the window. He wakes in his room at the County. The light is still on. He sits on the edge of the bed. The notebook in shreds. He picks apart their lives and puts the pieces back together his way. He stands up. He pulls back the dawn curtains. The bed is unused. The sheets cold –

His prayer unanswered.

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

Jennifer scowls and sticks out her tongue.

There are always, always, memories like these –

‘You want a fucking picture, do you?’

These scars across your country. These scars across your heart.

The Mechanic stands in the phone box. He dials the number —

Phil Taylor’s wife picks up the phone. Click-click. She says, ‘Hello?’

‘Is Phil there?’ the Mechanic asks her.

‘He’s at work,’ she says. ‘Who’s this?’

‘He feeling better then, is he?’

‘Who is this?’ she says again.

‘Just tell him Dave called,’ the Mechanic says and hangs up, then picks up again –

Click-click, what a beautiful noise that is; the sound of surveillance; of —

Predictability –

There’s nothing special about Special Branch. They follow people. They watch people. They go through people’s dustbins. They blackmail people. They bully people. They like to dress up and pretend they’re not themselves.Pretend they are other people. Not what they seem. But they’re just perverts —

Dirty old men.

They go through the files. They find someone they like the look of. They study that person. They follow them. They watch them. They wait until that person does something bad. Something illegal. Like an armed robbery or the theft of a car.Thenthey blackmail that bad person. Theybully them —

Intimidate and cajole them.

They make that bad person their slave. They make them do anything they ask. They make them do more bad things. Much worse things. Dirty things. Like burglaries. The theft of documents. Then they blackmail that bad person all over again. Bully them. Groom them for other men. Then they pass them on up the chain —

Like a parcel of meat.

Terry Winters sat under the portrait of the President. Terry took another two aspirins. There were now thirty individual legal actions. Thirty separate requests to examine the books and accounts of the national and individual areas. There was no end in sight now. The President said the strike was solid. The Board said the strike was crumbling. The President said there were one hundred and forty thousand men on strike. The Board said there were sixty thousand men breaking the strike. Terry knew the figures didn’t add up. It didn’t matter either way. The Board said there was nothing to talk about. That there could be no more negotiations. The door now closed. No more secret talks about talks. The door locked. No more words about words. The key upstairs. The ball in their court. Terry picked up the telephone on his desk –

Click-click. He dialled Huddersfield Road. Click-click. He asked for Clive Cook –

But no one had seen Clive. Not this week. They could put him through to Jack.

‘It’s OK,’ said Terry. ‘I’ll call back.’

Terry Winters hung up. Terry took another aspirin. He put his head in his hands.

The telephone buzzed. The light flashed –

Terry picked it up again. Click-click. Terry said, ‘Chief Executive speaking.’

‘It’s Joan,’ said Joan. ‘The President would like you to step upstairs, Comrade.’

‘This very minute?’ asked Terry. ‘I was just —’

‘This very minute,’ said Joan. ‘It’s urgent, Comrade.’

Terry started to speak, but Joan had already hung up. Terry put down the phone. He swallowed another two aspirins. He stood up. He left his office. He locked his door. He walked down the corridor. He didn’t take the lift. He took the stairs, one at a time –

There were no index cards in the right-hand pocket of his jacket.

Terry knocked on the President’s door. Len opened it. Terry stepped inside –

Joan was standing at the President’s shoulder. The President sat behind his desk.

Len closed the door. Len locked it. Len leant against it. Len folded his arms.

‘You wanted to see me, President?’ asked Terry. ‘I was told it was urgent.’

The President put his finger to his lips. The President nodded. Joan nodded too. The President scribbled something on a piece of paper. He handed it to Terry –

Terry read, The Soviets have delivered. We are expected at the Embassy.

Terry looked up. The President put his finger to his lips again. Terry nodded –

Terry pointed to himself. The President nodded again. His finger to his lips.

Len took the piece of paper out of Terry’s hands. Len held it to his lighter. Len burnt the piece of paper in the glass ashtray on the President’s desk.

The President and Joan put on their coats –

Len went with Terry for his.

Phil the Grass lives with his wife and two children in a nice private house on a nice private estate in Selby. Phil has a haulage company that used to be on the brink of bankruptcy. But, thanks to the miners’ strike, Phil will soon be able to afford to live in an even nicer private house on an even nicer private estate —

If Phil lives that long (which he probably will).

The Mechanic knows they intimidated and cajoled Phil Taylor to grass. He knows they bullied him. He knows they blackmailed him. He knows they waited until Phil had done something bad. Something illegal. Like an armed robbery. Heknows they were watching him —

Just as the Mechanic knows they are watching Phil Taylor now. In his nice private house on its nice private estate in Selby. Knows they are sat watchingPhil in their six-month-old Montego. In their sweater and their jeans. Their polished sizetens—

Desperate for a piss behind a nice private tree (if they live that long) —

He has his cock in his hands. Piss on the bark. Piss on his boots.

The Mechanic puts the nose of the gun against the back of his skull and says, ‘Hello. Hello. Hello.’

He doesn’t try to turn round. There’s no point. He knows who it is.

‘Put your hands on your head,’ the Mechanic says. ‘Do it slowly.’

He puts his hands on the top of his head. He does it slowly.

The Mechanic puts handcuffs on his wrists. He says, ‘Now turn round.’

He turns round. Handcuffed hands over his open fly. His dripping cock.

‘Hello, Paul,’ the Mechanic says. ‘Did you miss me?’

Paul Dixon, Special Branch, shakes his head savagely from side to side —

He sees his widowed wife. His fatherless daughter —

‘It was Fontaine,’ sobs Paul Dixon. ‘Neil Fontaine.’

The Jew dances across the rugs and carpet of his suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. The Jew is still in his tails, a late cocktail in his right hand, tomorrow’s Times in the left. The Jew asks Neil Fontaine to turn up the radio –

‘— you could drag me to hell and back, just as long as we’re together —’

Neil Fontaine turns up the radio. Neil Fontaine mixes the Jew one last cocktail. Neil Fontaine hands the Jew the latest photographs with a screwdriver.

The Jew sits down on the sofa. The Jew examines the photographs one by one –

The President speaking in Cardiff. Birmingham. Edinburgh and Newcastle.

The President in his car. His office. His street and his home.

The President meeting the TUC. The Labour Party. The French and the Soviets.

The President talking. Whispering. Grimacing and glowering.

The Jew puts down the photographs. The Jew says, ‘His war is lost.’

Neil Fontaine nods. Neil Fontaine hands the Jew a fresh cocktail to celebrate.

The Jew smiles. The Jew laughs. The Jew thanks Neil and raises his glass.

The Jew’s insistence on intransigence has been vindicated –

No one mentions power cuts any more; no one talks of general strikes –

Man by man. House by house. Street by street. Village by village. Pit by pit –

The Jew is winning his war –

4484 back last week; 4982 this week.

The Jew downs his drink in one and picks up yet more reports from the pile –

The Jew never rests. The Jew loves to dwell here among the details and analyses; to speak of the deterioration of the coal faces and the need for compulsory redundancies; the prospects for privatization, the rebirth of the industry and the creation of wealth –

Remarks here and remarks there; words in this ear and words in that –

Words in her ear; words that win wars.

For the Prime Minister is winning her war; her many, many wars –

The IRA. British Leyland. GCHQ. Cammell Laird. CND. The Belgrano. The GLC.

She never rests. Ever. But she prefers to live among the larger print and syntheses; to talk of the dangers to democracy from the ruthless few; the terrorist gangs at one end of the spectrum and the Hard Left at the other; inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the laws –

These are her words; her words that win wars; her many, many wars.

The Prime Minister and the Jew; together they are winning the war, all her wars. But the Jew knows there is still work to be done. Much more to, come. Much worse –

The sight of strikers in the snow. Their children in the cold –

Northern funerals and famine; local poverty and pain.

The Jew knows there will be those without the stomach, the guts or the balls –

Neither the courage nor the conviction. Not the will to triumph.

The Jew puts down his papers. The Jew raises a last glass before bed –

‘Now is the time to steel ourselves‚’ declares the Jew. ‘The final hours are here. The endgame approaches, Neil.

‘That one last battle nigh.’

*

The four of them caught the five o’clock early evening train from Sheffield to London. The four of them got a table in second class. The other passengers in the coach stared. One man threw a meat pie at the President. An old woman chucked a cup of scalding tea. Loyal Len and the guard tried to calm things down. Joan wiped pie and tea from the President’s suit and tie –

‘This wouldn’t happen if we were sat in first class,’ said Terry.

The President picked pieces of hot pie from his hair. He shook his head. He said, ‘This wouldn’t happen if we abolished first class, Comrade.’

Terry Winters nodded. Terry sponged his newspaper dry with his handkerchief. He looked at his watch –

The train was fifteen minutes late into London. Len went off to get them a cab –

The President, Joan, Terry and Len took the taxi direct to the Embassy.

The President borrowed Terry’s calculator. The President punched numbers. The President wanted cash commensurable to the Soviet support of 1926.

The taxi stopped at the back door to the Embassy. Terry Winters paid the driver.

The Soviet Labour Attaché and diplomatic staff were waiting to welcome them. To take them inside. To offer them tea and biscuits in large and under-heated chambers. To make small talk about composers and goalkeepers –

The living and the dying. The dying and the dead.

Then the Labour Attaché asked to speak with the President in private.

Joan, Terry and Len went outside to wait in the large and under-heated corridor. To sit and stare at the social-realist paintings of the Soviet state. To shiver and snooze.

The President came out fifty minutes later with a smile and a spring to his stride –

The President had got his way. The President had got what he wanted.

The President, Joan, Terry and Len stepped out of the Soviet Embassy –

The flashbulbs exploded. The cameras rolled. The microphones pointed.

Len hailed them a cab to the Barbican. They sat in silence in the back of the taxi. The taxi stopped outside the President’s block of flats. Terry paid the cab driver again. The President and Joan walked on ahead. Len waited for a word with Terry Winters. Terry put away his wallet. Terry smiled at Len. Len punched Terry in the stomach –

‘That was the fucking last time,’ said Len Glover. ‘Last time you betray us.’

Terry knelt on the pavement. Terry held his stomach. Terry coughed.

‘There was just us four that knew about that meeting,’ said Len. ‘Just us four.’

Terry coughed again. Terry clutched his stomach. Terry shook his head.

‘It had to be you that tipped off the press,’ said Len. ‘It had to be you, Winters.’

Terry shook his head again. Terry rubbed his stomach. Terry tried to stand up.

Len pushed him back over. Len kicked him in the stomach. Len spat on him.

Terry tried to stand up again. Terry gripped his stomach. Terry shook his head.

Len pushed him back over onto the ground again. Len walked away. Len shouted, ‘You’re fucking finished, Winters. Fucking finished.’

Terry shook his head again. Terry touched his stomach. Terry tried to stand –

But Terry was laughing. Terry’s sides splitting. Terry howling –

‘Look in the mirror, Len,’ shouted Terry. ‘Look in the mirror, Comrade Len!’

Martin

This stede is dimm. I watch fires die up ahead. I pickup a fragment in my hand — Don’t fly as much as before. Can’t. Problems enough on our own doorstep. Half of cars are knackered and all. Mine’s still out front with black bin-bags for a windscreen. Pete’s asked Barnsley for some brass for it. He’s heard nothing back. They’ve got a van for this morning. Lot of usual lads — Keith. Tom. Chris — No sign of Gary or Tim again. They told me they were going on spoil seven days a week now. I’ve not been for a bit. There are no more blind eyes and back handers on top now — They catch you, they sack you — That was message from pit. Likes of Tim and Gary don’t give shit, though. No choice, way they see it — They catch them, they catch them. They sack them, they sack them — Makes no odds to them. Fucking DHSS are withholding another bloody quid from folk. Them that even fucking get anything in first place — Talk about nails and bloody coffins. Turns of fucking screw. Fuck me — This morning it’s Frickley. More to show willing than anything else — Down Welfare for half-four. Bacon sandwich and a cup of tea and we’re on road for five. Usual arguments about best way versus this way and that way. Head up through Thurnscoe and Clayton. Back way into Frickley and another front line. Keith parks up and out we get. It’s cold and damp. Krk-krk. There are about sixty police. Two hundred pickets, maybe. Scab bus comes up and there’s a big push — Line breaks for a moment. But only for a moment — Bus goes in and that’s that again. People start to walk off. Back to their cars and their vans. Police giving out their usual wit — I catch eye of one of them. Always a fucking mistake — He steps out into road in front of all his mates. He gives us a right boot up my arse. He says, Come on, Doris, pick your fucking feet up. He kicks me again couple of times. I just keep walking — Keeping my head down. Feel fucking daft, though. Two foot tall. Everyone watching him kick us like that — Two foot tall, that’s how I feel. Every fucking day. Two foot fucking tall — Day 269. Keith drops us off. Has a laugh with us about state of our car, then he goes back home. He’s his wife and his kids. Has it hard but he has them — Police can spit on him. Make their comments. Push him about. Kick him up arse. Chase him. Beat fuck out of him. Take out his teeth even — But he’s got his wife and his kids. He’s one of lucky ones — I open door. Nothing. No one — Just another fucking copy of Coal News waiting for us on floor with another fucking letter from Mr Moore at Colliery. That and a letter from TSB in Rotherham and another one from solicitors — They never give up, those kind. Never — Nails and coffins. Turns of screw — Bloody lot of them. Like an army, they are — I shut door. I stand in hall — I look at my watch. It isn’t even twelve o’clock yet — Not even halfway there. Not even close — I walk through into kitchen. Place where kitchen used to be — I look out on back garden. I light a cigarette — Expensive habit that, she says. I turn round — I fly off handle. Shut up! Shut up, I shout. Shut up! I go back into hall — I pick up that letter from Mr Moore. I stand there in hall with it in my hand — I put the fragment to my face — I open it — Itis cold and it is old — I read bloody thing this time — I hold the fragment to firelight — I read his offer — I see it for the first time— To meet me any time I want — I see it and I stare — To meet me any place I want — Istepback — To discuss my future — I look around me at this place — My welfare and my happiness — Thisplace is old. Thisstede is niht— My safety and my security — Thisplace is cold. Thisstedeis dimm — My change of heart and my piece of mind — I see this place for what it is. I see this fragment for what it is — To arrange my return. My return to work — I hold the fragment of a skull in my hand, stood upon a mountain of skulls — I drop letter on pile. Pile of statements and bills. Bills and final demands — The skulls sat in monstrous and measureless heaps. The empty nests of dreams and desires — Demands and threats — Delusionsand deceptions — I close my eyes — I whisper. I echo.I moan.I scream — I open my eyes. I stand in my hall — Under the ground — I moan and I scream.

The Thirty-ninth Week

Monday 26 November — Sunday 2 December 1984

The Mechanic drives to his mother’s house at Wetherby. He has come to say goodbye. Not see you later. Hegets out —

Drum roll –

Here come the dogs. Down the drive. Tongues out and tails up. Fuck, he missed them. Missed his dogs. Dog might not stab you in the back. But dog could still break your heart. He knows that now. The dog loves you, and you love the dog –

Breaks your bloody heart —

The Mechanic knows that now. Now it’s too late.

He looks up from the dogs. He sees his mother in the doorway. He stands up —

She shuts the door. She turns the key. She draws the curtains —

It is midday. Noon. November 1984.

The Mechanic puts the dogs in the back of the Fiesta. He drives up to the Dolby Forest with them. They get out. They walk through the forest to the place —

The Mechanic kisses the dogs. The Mechanic shoots the dogs.

He digs two pits near an old badger sett and buries them next to Dixon —

Their scents confused. Their bones mixed.

Stay. Fucking. Free –

Free of everything and everyone. Their scent and their bones.

Terry Winters had his head against the window. Terry stared down at the streets below. He didn’t know if it was dusk or dawn any more. He’d not been to bed in over two days. He ate only aspirins. He drank only coffee. High Court orders had been served on Paul and Dick as they left Congress House in London last night. The bailiff had thrown the orders into their car. Dick had thrown them back out. Left the papers to scatter into the night. But the orders had been served. The orders effected. Paul and Dick phoned Terry from London. Click-click. Paul and Dick told Terry exactly what they thought of him. Told him again and again. The orders meant their funds had been found in Switzerland and Luxembourg. The orders meant their funds would be frozen –

Five million in Luxembourg. Five hundred thousand in Switzerland –

Everything undone.

Terry had to get to the money. Terry had to get to it as fast as he could. Terry knew he could engineer the release of the money in the Luxembourg courts; that the orders were not valid outside the UK. Terry knew then he could move it –

If he could get there and get there in time.

Terry picked up the phone. Click-click. Terry phoned round airlines and airports. Click-click. Terry phoned the local owners of private aircraft and airstrips. Click-click. Terry chartered a plane. The plane would cost twelve thousand pounds. Terry said yes, he’d pay cash.

Terry phoned Mike Sullivan. Click-click. Terry told him to pack his bags –

To meet him at Leeds-Bradford airport.

Terry drove home fast. Terry had to pack quick. Terry had to pack cash –

The President was on the radio. The President talked of their debts to the dead.

Terry went up his drive. Terry went into his house. Terry went into his pantry. The tins were still there. The tins full of money. Terry emptied all the tins into one big black bin-liner. Terry thought that was enough. Terry left the suitcases alone in the loft. Terry looked at the clock on the wall. Terry piled the empty tins back up in the pantry. Terry walked out of the front door of his house with the big black bin-liner in his hand –

Terry stopped dead in the drive. Terry dropped the bin-liner onto the ground.

The President was standing at the end of the drive with Len.

Terry Winters said, ‘I can explain.’

The President shook his head. The President nodded to Len –

Len walked up the drive. Len picked up the bin-liner. Len opened the bin-liner.

Terry said again, ‘I can explain.’

The President shook his head again. Len took hold of Terry by his arm –

They took Terry with them. They took Terry in –

They tied Terry to a table. Told Terry to take his time. Take this time to think.

Terry sat in his vest and underpants on the tenth floor of the Union Headquarters. The President would talk to Terry only in his vest and pants. He didn’t trust Terry –

Not after what Len had told him. The things Len had told him.

Len leant against the door. Len with his arms folded. Len with his eyes on Terry.

The President had counted out the packets of twenty-pound notes into three piles. Each pile contained one hundred packets. Each packet contained two hundred pounds –

There was sixty thousand pounds in used twenty-pound notes on the table.

The President looked down at the cash. The President looked back up at Terry –

‘It’s from the CGT in Paris,’ said Terry again. ‘I swear.’

‘I don’t care where it’s from,’ said the President. ‘But I care where it was going.’

‘I was bringing it here,’ said Terry. ‘To pay for the plane and the mortgages.’

‘I’d like to believe you,’ said the President. ‘I want to believe you, Comrade.’

‘Mike Sullivan is waiting for me at the airport,’ said Terry. ‘Just ask him.’

The President looked at Terry Winters. Terry Winters in his vest and underpants.

‘I swear,’ said Terry again. ‘What else would I be doing with it?’

There was a knock at the door. Silence. There was another knock at the door –

Len looked at the President. The President nodded. Len opened the door –

‘It’s urgent,’ said Joan. ‘The High Court have appointed a receiver.’

The Earth tilts, the Earth turns. The Earth hungry, the Earth hunts —

The Mechanic drives. He steals another Ford and drives South. He ditches that car and steals another. And drives. He burns this one and steals another, then another –

Her eyes wide. Her mouth open. Her nose bloody —

And drives and drives. He pushes one into the River Avon and sells another one for scrap. Hesteals the next one from a supermarket carpark –

The Earth hunts you, you run. You run, you hide. Hide in the last place –

Bypasses Worcester and Shrewsbury. Takes the A49 to Hereford then Leominster. Ludlowto Wistanstow. Joins the A489 to Church Stoke. The A490straight to Welshpool.Follows the A483 North to Llanymynech and —

The very last place.

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew and the Chairman North to Castleford. Hooded pickets armed with baseball bats attacked and badly beat a working miner in his own home at dawn yesterday morning. The man had returned to work at Fryston Colliery only four days before. He had done so because he had two young children. He had done so because he had a pregnant wife. He had done so because he had debts. He had done so because he had no way to repay his debts. He left his house at half-past four yesterday morning for a pre-arranged rendezvous with a Coal Board van. Twenty pickets were waiting for him outside his home. The pickets warned him not to go to work. The pickets made threats against his pregnant wife and two young children. The man walked back towards his house to telephone the police. The pickets called him a scab. The pickets chased him into his garden. The man ran inside his house. The pickets kicked open his door. The pickets wore combat jackets and balaclavas. The pickets carried baseball bats and pick-axe handles. The man told his pregnant wife and two young children to hide upstairs. The pickets caught the man in his own front room. The pickets set about him with their bats and steel-toe-capped boots. His wife and children listened from inside a bedroom wardrobe to their husband and their father screaming down below. The pickets broke his ankle. The pickets broke his shoulder. The pickets dislocated his elbow. The pickets dislocated his other shoulder. The pickets broke two ribs and bruised the rest. The pickets blackened his eyes. The pickets broke his nose. The Jew had been appalled when Neil had told him this tale. The Jew told Neil they must visit this Richard Clarke in his hospital bed. This lion of a man. The Chairman had been equally appalled when the Jew had told him. The Chairman told the Jew they must visit this hero in his hospital bed –

This lion of a man in his hospital bed –

‘I’ll not let them stop me,’ Richard Clarke tries to tell the Chairman and the Jew. ‘This has just made me more determined.’

The Chairman gives him autographed books about mining, and comforts his wife.

‘When he comes out of hospital he’ll go back to work,’ says pretty, pregnant Mrs Clarke. ‘We are not going to be beaten by these thugs.’

Neil Fontaine shows in Stanley Smith. Stanley also recently returned to work. Last week someone set fire to his £40,000 home in Pontefract.

The Jew steps outside. The Jew shows in the press.

The press take out their pens. The press take their photos –

‘Everyone should get back to work to change Union rules,’ says Richard Clarke. ‘NUM President should have to be re-elected every three years.’

The Jew smiles. The Jew nods. The press write. The press nod.

‘They emphasized that they would kill my two-year-old daughter,’ says Stanley. ‘And the main target in this blaze was her bedroom. That about sums it all up for me. They openly told me they would kill my daughter, and they have tried to do just that.’

The Jew dabs his eyes. The Jew nods. The press write. The press nod.

The Jew picks up a Get Well Soon card from Richard Clarke’s bedside table. The Jew shows it to the press. The Jew reads it aloud:

‘“All the best to a very brave man who deserves a medal and all the miners’ thanks. The rest of us are too scared, but you have shown the way –

‘“From another miner on strike, but not half as brave as you.”’

The Chairman lets go of pretty, pregnant Mrs Clarke. The Chairman has things to say –

‘This was a horrific and brutal attack on an innocent working man in his own home, while his beautiful wife and two children cowered upstairs, petrified and terrified. This is the visible proof of what we have been saying for months now that, but for these IRA tactics of violence and intimidation in the pit villages, many thousands more men would have gone back to work by now and this strike have soon been over.’

The Chairman puts away his piece of paper. The Chairman looks at the Jew –

The Jew looks at Richard Clarke. Richard Clarke nods. Richard Clarke says, ‘This visit was a wonderful surprise and the Chairman has given me lots of reassurance, which I needed. He told me that if I needed to move away from the area, I could do so. But I don’t think I will need to do that. He wished me a speedy recovery and asked after my wife and children. He gave me two signed books on mining, which not many folk can have. I will keep them for ever to pass on to my children, for their children, and their children’s children.’

The Jew claps. The Jew nods. The press write. The press nod –

The Jew reminds the press of the Prime Minister’s ruthless few. The Jew says –

‘They blind police horses. They spike potatoes with nails. Uproot lamp-posts and loot local shops. They use petrol bombs and ballbearings. Bottles and bricks. Air-guns and catapults. They run wires across roads to maim and decapitate police and former friends. But I would like to reassure all working miners, and the many striking miners who wish to return to their jobs, that the Board has begun a comprehensive review of security for all working miners and their families. We are well aware of the Union’s tactic of visiting and intimidating the sick and elderly parents of working miners. We condemn out of hand these attacks against the sick, the old and the lonely. These are the very members of society that the Union is supposedly pledged to defend. Measures are being taken as I speak to ensure that no working miner, or member of his family, is ever again subject to the horrific assault suffered by Mr Clarke in his own home. Thank you.’

Richard Clarke nods. The Chairman nods. The press nod. Everyone nods.

The nurses come to clear the room of the guests and the press.

The Jew steps outside to talk to the police about the progress they’re making.

Neil Fontaine makes calls on hospital phones. Neil Fontaine makes calls to arms –

Neil has drawn up a list of potential recruits for the Jew’s private plan –

The Jew’s private army for Pit Land Security.

Neil spies Grey Fox in the corridor. Grey Fox has things to say to the Jew –

How his wife has left him. Taken his kids. How he’s too sick with worry to work.

Neil Fontaine shakes his head. Neil Fontaine says he’s sorry. Really very sorry.

The former Grey Fox sits in the hospital corridor with his head in his hands.

Neil Fontaine goes out to find the Jew. The Jew is standing alone in the car park –

The light is fading. Night forming. The light failing. Night falling –

The Jew asks aloud, ‘How long will it be before these thugs murder someone?’

The Mechanic parks well away. He waits until it’s dark. Night. He goes to the boot. The trunk. He takes out the rucksack. The spade. He walks through the fields. The streams. He comes to the trees. The branches. He hides in the hedgerow. The bushes. He covers his face in mud. Dirt. He digs a hole. A pit. He gathers branches. Leaves. He gets into the hole. The ground. He pulls the branches over the topof him. Inhis hide–

The Mechanic watches. The Mechanic waits –

For the headlights to come and the Rover to stop. The car door to open and close. For the feet to carry the shopping up the path. The cottage door to open and not close.

The Mechanic pushes away the branches. The leaves. He gets out of the hole.Thepit.Hewalks down to the cottage —

Up the path. To the open door of the very last place you’d think to look.

The Mechanic steps inside. He says, ‘Penny for your thoughts, Jen.’

Jennifer drops her shopping. Jennifer whispers Neil’s name —

She calls out Neil’s name. Shouts out Neil’s name. Screams out Neil’s name for —

The very last time.