GB84

Martin

Awake! There are screams all over Pete’s walls. Awake! Blood running into their carpet — It takes a minute to remember. Lifetime to forget — I lie there on his sofa. I watch them crawl away — I was walking back from my Sunday half. Long way round — Rain had stopped. Tim pulls over — Big smile on his face. His chops — He said to us, Great news, isn’t it? What is? I asked him. Strike’s over, he said. Haven’t you heard? I shook my head. Fucking joking, I said. How’s that good news, then? Tim could see I was fucked off. He said, Just be good to get back to work. That’s all I meant — I shook my head again. I turned back. Day 363 — Not over yet. There’s still some picket duty today — Lot more here than usual. Feeling there are scores to settle — Lot of hot talk. But in end it comes to nothing — Harder shove. Louder shout — No one wants to get fucking arrested today. No, thanks — Be like one of them blokes got themselves shot on Armistice Day. Nicked today, sacked tomorrow — No, thank you. Not after twelve fucking months — There’s another meeting in morning. Third or fourth in a week — Lot of bitterness and anger about events at NEC yesterday. News just sinking in — Mixed emotions. Charged emotions — Yorkshire Area want everyone to march back into their pit together. United — Banners and heads high. Brass bands and what-have-you — But what about them that have been sacked? asks Keith. They going to march back in, are they? — Meeting and whole place descends into bedlam. Pandemonium — Lads are shitting themselves now. Don’t know if they’ll get taken back or not — Lads being told one thing. Then being told another — Terrible to see. Horrible — Looks of fear on all these faces. Looks of defeat and despair — Faces you’ve seen on picket line. Faces that have looked into eyes of their horses and their dogs — Their visors. Their shields — Faces that have taken their truncheons and their boots. Battered and beaten — Faces that watched their wives and kids go without. Faces that suffered for twelve fucking months — Faces now lost and frightened. Frightened of what future holds — Future none of us can afford. Lot of us stay supping today — Night on tiles. Hurts your face — Blow little we have left. Pray they pay us again — Awake! In my coat on Pete’s sofa. Awake! Mouth tastes of earth and shit — Least I didn’t bloody dream. Them nights over with now — Day 364. Mary’s made a breakfast for us. Packed us some snap and all — Like first day of spring today. Beautiful — I follow Pete down Welfare for half-eight. Nearly whole of village is out — Lot of emotion. Lads that have been sacked are going to push banner — In front of them, Pete and other three branch officials. Rest of us will fall in behind — I’m stood there thinking, Don’t cry and don’t look for Cath. Don’t cry and don’t — But I look about and see Big Chris with his handkerchief out. Soft bastard — Then we’re off and I turn round. I can’t believe how many there are — More than 50 per cent still out. Easy — Makes me feel proud. Makes me feel sad — To see us all here now. Together — Shoulder to shoulder. United — Marching as one. Now it’s too fucking late — Pete and them lot reach gates and call for a minute’s silence for those who have died during dispute. That’s when I see them — Not just the eight hundred stood with me here on our Pit Lane. The support groups and all those that helped us — Not just them. But all the others — From far below. Beneath my feet — They whisper. They echo — They moan. They scream — From beneath the fields. Below the hills — The roads. The motorways — The empty villages. The dirty cities — The abandoned mills. The silent factories — The dead trees. The broken fences — The stinking rivers. The dirty sky — The dirty blue March sky that spits down upon us now — The Dead. The Union of the Dead — From Hartley to Harworth. From Senghenydd to Saltley — From Oaks to Or-greave. From Lofthouse to London — The Dead that carried us from far to near. Through the Villages of the Damned, to stand beside us here — Together. Shoulder to shoulder. United. Marching as one — Under their banners and their badges. In their branches and their bands — Their muffled drums.

The Last Week

Monday 4 — Sunday 10 March 1985

The Jew had hoped to spend the weekend down at Chequers. The Jew was not invited. The Jew has taken to his bed instead. Blankets up to his neck, hands beneath the sheets, he watches her perform –

‘We had to make certain that violence and intimidation and impossible demands could not win. There would have been neither freedom nor order in Great Britain in 1985 if we had given in to violence and intimidation—’

Again and again on the videos he’s made. In the scrapbooks he’s kept –

‘What’s the difference between an egg’, asks the Jew, ‘and our Prime Minister?’

‘You certainly can’t beat our Prime Minister, sir,’ replies Neil Fontaine. Again –

‘Very good, Neil,’ howls the Jew. ‘Very, very good indeed.’

The Chairman is not returning the Jew’s calls. Again. Nor is the Minister –

The Jew’s only friends are working miners and their greedy wives.

The Jew gives Neil the rest of the week off. The Jew needs to be alone. Again –

With his videos and his scrapbooks. Beneath the blankets and the sheets.

Neil Fontaine needs to be alone, too. Neil Fontaine needs to make things right –

Neil Fontaine heads North. Again.

The General comes into the barracks. Everyone stands by their bunk –

The General marches towards the Mechanic. The General puts him at his ease. The General hands him the note.

The Mechanic takes it. The Mechanic opens it. The Mechanic reads it –

The time and the place. The job and the price –

‘There really is only one solution‚’ says the General. ‘Will you do it, David?’

The Mechanic looks up at the General. The Mechanic salutes. ‘Yes, sir, I will.’

*

The funeral marches. In vassal thrall. The pipes and the drums –

‘There will be no recriminations. There will be no talk of victory or defeat.’

The last procession. In villein bonds. The banners and the bands –

‘But make no mistake, victory it is.’

Neil Fontaine starts the black car. He drives on to another village –

‘I don’t want anygloating.’

And another and another, until he’s seen enough (has seen too much) –

‘No amnesty. No forgiveness.’

The door is open. The ashtray full. The telephone ringing by his hotel bed.

*

The Union was sunk. The President spoke on empty decks as the rats stole the lifeboats –

He spoke of the Bolsheviks in 1905. Mao’s Long March. Castro in his hills.

But the real pain. The real trouble. It all started here. Today –

The morning after the strike before, Terry knew that (he’d always known that).

The safety-nets. The cause juste. The material and practical support –

Just smoke up the chimney now, Terry could see that (he’d always seen that).

They had lost the money. They had lost the men. They had lost the strike –

The witch hunts had begun. The whispers. The fingers. The trials. The burnings —

Diane had said they would and Diane had been right (she was always right).

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

There was no answer —

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

The wrong doors.

Terry put his head against the door. Terry prayed. Terry said, ‘Please —’

The door opened. Terry stepped forward. Into the room –

Terry looked up. Terry said, ‘What —’

Bill Reed was stood in the middle of their hotel room with Len Glover.

Terry said, ‘What’s happened? Where’s Diane?’

‘Who’s Diane?’ asked Len. ‘Who are you talking about?’

Terry looked at Bill. Terry said, ‘She —’

‘Not in them suitcases, is she?’ laughed Bill Reed. ‘In bits and pieces?’

Terry shook his head. Terry said, ‘I —’

Len took the two cases from him. Len opened them on the double bed –

Thousands and thousands of used English banknotes.

‘More mortgage payments for the President?’ asked Bill. ‘That what this is?’

Terry shook his head again. Terry said, ‘I can explain. Let me show you —’

Len took one arm and Bill took the other. Down the corridor. Into the lift –

Through the lobby of Hallam Towers. Down the steps. To their car –

Bill sat in the back with Terry. Bill said, ‘So where we going, Comrade?’

Terry took them from Sheffield into Doncaster. From Doncaster into Bentley –

‘Here,’ Terry told them. ‘Pull up here.’

Len, Bill and Terry got out of Len’s car on the row of old terraced houses.

Terry led them down the street to the little shop on the corner –

Terry opened the door. Len and Bill followed him inside. Terry shook his head.

‘Is Mr Divan about?’ Terry asked the fat white man behind the counter –

‘Who?’ replied the fat white man behind the counter. ‘Who do you want?’

‘Mohammed Abdul Divan,’ said Terry. ‘He owns this shop.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ said the fat white man. ‘Michael Andrew Damson does.’

‘May I speak with him, then?’ asked Terry.

‘You are doing,’ smiled Michael Andrew Damson.

‘You’re the owner of this shop?’ Terry asked Michael Damson. ‘Since when?’

‘Since my father died in 1970,’ he said. ‘Now what the bloody hell is going on?’

Len and Bill shook their heads. Len and Bill took Terry by his arms again –

‘But I came here last year and I met Mohammed Abdul Divan and his family,’ shouted Terry. ‘Right where you’re standing, behind that counter —’

Michael Damson shook his head. He said, ‘You’ve got the wrong shop.’

‘They were from Pakistan,’ protested Terry. ‘They owned this shop.’

‘You’re confused,’ said Michael Damson. ‘There’s that bloody many of them.’

Terry shook his head. Terry closed his eyes. Terry began to cry –

Len and Bill apologized to Mr Damson. Len and Bill took Terry away.

Bill sat in the back of the car with Terry. Bill said, ‘So what now, Comrade?’

Terry took them back to his house in the suburbs of Sheffield, South Yorkshire –

Len, Bill and Terry got out of Len’s car in front of Terry’s three-bedroom home.

‘Please don’t say anything to Theresa,’ begged Terry. ‘Not in front of the kids.’

Bill looked at Len. Len looked at Bill –

‘The statements concerning all the money are inside,’ said Terry. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘We’re not worried,’ said Bill. ‘Are we, Leonard?’

Len opened the boot of his car. Len took out a large bouquet of dead flowers –

‘They look a bit past it,’ laughed Terry. ‘Who on earth are they for?’

‘They were for your wife,’ said Bill. ‘But the hospital returned them to me.’

‘That was thoughtful of you, Comrade,’ said Terry, his key in the lock. ‘Thank you.’

Bill and Len followed Terry inside. Through his front door. Into his hall –

Terry switched on the lights. Terry said, ‘Looks like there’s nobody home.’

Len looked at Bill. Bill looked at Len –

They left Terry in front of his hall mirror. They went through his house –

The dead Christmas tree in the front room. The dust-covered presents –

Up the stairs with no carpet. Past the walls with no paint –

The bathtub full of blank sheets of paper. The sink full of brand-new clothes –

Into two empty back bedrooms. The windows broken or open –

The sleeping bags and mucky mags on the floorboards of the front bedroom –

The suitcases full of newspapers. The obscenities on the walls –

Back down the stairs to the kitchen. The radio in the sink. The food on the floor –

The open biscuit tins full of rainwater or piss. The cracked mirror in the hall –

The blank Christmas cards. The empty photo frames in their hands –

Terry stared at Bill and Len in the mirror. Terry opened and closed his mouth –

‘There never was any wife, was there?’ said Len. ‘No kids. Nothing.’

In the shadows of South Yorkshire, in the suburbs of Sheffield –

‘Nothing but bloody lies,’ said Bill. ‘Lies and fucking fantasies.’

In the house with the lights on but nobody home –

Terry Winters had forgotten his lines.

*

Power —

Harsh service station light. Friday 8 March, 1985 –

Diane Morris puts a cigarette to her lips, a lighter to her cigarette.

Her dog dead at her gate —

Neil Fontaine waits.

Diane inhales, her eyes closed. Diane exhales, her eyes open.

Neil sits and he waits in his car, his soiled black car.

Diane looks at her watch. Diane glances out of the window.

Neil sees her in his mirror, his mud-splattered mirror.

Diane stubs out the cigarette. Diane picks an envelope off the table.

Neil squeezes the steering wheel between his dirty fingers and bloody palms –

Ruin’d and damn’d is her state.

Diane looks at her watch again. Diane stands up.

Neil shuts his eyes until she’s almost gone. The stink still here. Everywhere –

Loss.

The Mechanic turns into the car park. He is early. The place packed with Saturday lunchtime shoppers. He drives slowly through the car park. Turns into a space next to one of the trolley parks. The Capri faces the supermarket —

A mohican rattling a bucket by the automatic doors —

The Mechanic watches for the car through the rearview mirror and the wing —

Fuck –

A panda car turns into the car park. Makes a circle and pulls up at the back of him. A policewoman gets out of the passenger door. Puts on her hat and walks down the side of him. Off to have a word with the mohican and his last of the plastic buckets —

The Mechanic glances over at the passenger seat. Looks up into the rearview—

Fuck –

A policeman is getting out of the driver’s side. The Mechanic boxed in now by an empty police car. The policeman puts on his hat and walks down the passenger side of the Capri. Stops dead. The policeman opens the passengerdoor. TheMechanic reaches for the passenger seat —

The policeman is first to the shotgun. He puts it to the Mechanic’s stomach —

Fuck –

The Mechanic looks up into the policeman’s eyes —

Just. Like –

Neil pulls the trigger.

Neil Fontaine stands outside the door to the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. He listens to the silence and the shadows inside. He thinks about coincidence of circumstance, meeting of motive and convergence of cause. Neil Fontaine opens the door to the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. He thinks about the end of a war and the start of an era. The timing of a meeting and the opening of an envelope –

The closing of a pit and the calling of a strike –

The writing on a wall. The knocking on a door –

Neil Fontaine steps inside the Jew’s suite. He closes the door behind him.

There are bottles on the floor. There are bodies on the bed –

Drunken scabs and their wanton wives, satiated and salacious.

The Jew benumbed and naked upon the bones and the sheets –

Hair matted and moustache stained, his carcass bloated and cock limp.

Neil stands at the foot of the bed, a candle and a knife in his hands –

A white bandage around the blade, six inches of Sheffield steel naked at the point.

He kneels down and rests the candle and the knife on the carpet before him –

He sits cross-legged. His head shaved. A white towel across his knees.

He undoes the buttons of his blazer. He unfastens the collar of his shirt –

He loosens the belt and buttons of his trousers.

He pushes the white towel down between his underwear and skin.

He begins to massage his abdomen with his left hand.

He folds back his left trouser flap to reveal the top of his thigh.

He draws the blade lightly across the skin. Blood runs. The blade is sharp enough.

He looks up at the Jew –

He moves the knife around to his front. He raises himself slightly on his hips –

He leans the upper half of his body over the point of the blade.

He cries out as the knife pierces the left side of his stomach.

He loses consciousness.

The six inches of naked steel have vanished –

The white bandage in his hand pressed against the flesh of his stomach –

He regains consciousness. The blade inside him. His heart pounding –

The enemy within.

The pain is coming –

His fist moist around the bandaged blade. He looks down –

His hand and the bandage are drenched in blood –

The white towel monogrammed a deep and violent red.

Neil looks up at the Jew again –

The pain is here.

He begins to cut sideways across his stomach using only his right hand.

He cannot.

His intestines push out the blade.

He has to use both hands to keep the point of the blade deep in his stomach.

He pulls across. It does not cut easily.

He forces himself to pull again with all his strength.

The blade cuts four inches. He has cut past his navel.

There is blood in the folds of his trousers now. There is blood on the carpet –

Writing on the walls. Darkening the doors. Painting the shadows —

A single spot on the corner of one of the Jew’s white hotel sheets.

But the blade will not cut deeper. It slips out in the blood and grease.

Neil starts to vomit. The pain worse. His intestines spill out into his crotch.

He looks up at the Jew –

His head droops. His shoulders heave. His eyes close. He retches repeatedly.

He sits in his own blood. The tip of the blade exposed. It lies in his hand.

He throws his head back –

The tide of his blood laps at the feet of the bed –

He raises the knife in his right hand. He thrusts the point at his throat –

He misses.

The blade falls. He raises the knife again. He thrusts the point at his throat –

He misses.

The knife falls. He raises the blade. He thrusts the point at his throat again –

The point of the blade touches his throat –

His head falls forward. The blade emerges at the nape of his neck.

He thinks and he thinks and he thinks and he thinks –

The Earth tilts. The Earth turns. The Earth hungry. The Earth hunts —

He thinks and he thinks and he thinks –

This is the way the world works. This is the way —

He thinks and he thinks –

There are the things I know. The things I don’t —

Neil thinks. Neil knows –

For both, there is a price.

Martin

Their muted pipes — That whisper. That echo — Their funeral marches. Their funeral music — That moans. That screams — Again and again. For ever more — As if they are marching their way up out of their graves. Here to mourn the new dead — The country deaf to their laments. Its belly swollen with black corpses and vengeful carrion — Rotting in its furrows. It waits for harvests that never come — The day their weeping will burst open the earth itself and drown us all. In their tears — In their sweat. In their blood — In our guilt and in our shame. Until that Day of Judgement — There will be no spring. There can be no morning — There will be only winter. There can be only night — Lord, please open the eyes and ears of the people of England. But the people of England are blind and deaf — The Armies of the Night. The Armies of the Right — We are here because of you, they say. Here because of you — And they strip us of our language and our lands. Our families and our faith. Our gods and our ways — We are but the matchstick men, with our matchstick hats and clogs — And they shave our heads. Send us to the showers — Put us on their trains. Stick us in their pits — The cage door closes. The cage descends — To cover us with dirt. To leave us underground — In place of strife. In place of fear — Here where she stands at the gates at the head of her tribe and waits — Triumphant on the mountains of our skulls. Up to her hems in the rivers of our blood — A wreath in one hand. The other between her legs — Her two little princes dancing by their necks from her apron strings, and she looks down at the long march of labour halted here before her and says, Awake! Awake! This is England, Your England — and the Year is Zero.