The Man in the Street

by Martin Howe

  “God, it’s been a long time. I expect it isn’t all as good as this, but this particular pint makes me wish I hadn’t gone away.”

  He laughed quietly to himself, almost, David thought, at some half-forgotten sadness rather than at anything remotely funny.

  “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.”

  “He used to drink a lot you know, your Grandfather, Tony. I don’t know where all this pretentious Anthony stuff came from, beats me. He was always so straightforward as a lad. I tell you it took me a few seconds to figure out who’d died when they called to say Anthony Coxon-Dyet was no more. Honestly, it took everything I had not to burst out laughing on the phone. Just made me realize I never really knew the bastard. Here’s to him anyway, my brother.”

  He raised his glass high into the air.

  “…wherever you are.”

  “Your brother, my Grandad.”

  Their glasses touched briefly.

  “You know, David, I’ve disliked him for so long, hated him even, that it’s good to sit with someone who saw him differently. Your mother told me you were very close, at least when you were younger. At my age I feel it pays to settle old scores rather than let them fester all the way to the grave. Missed my chance with him, but you’re a good substitute. Bet that makes you feel good eh? This sort of thing makes one a happier boy, believe me. If you don’t know that already it won’t be long before you do.”

  He laughed again.

  “Here, drink up, let me get you another. What’s it you ask for, bitter is it? I’m a bit rusty.”

  A faint breeze was rustling the pale silvery-green leaves of the tall willow that cast a wide carpet of speckled shade over half the pub garden. Disconcertingly a cockerel, caged and frustrated, crowed manically every few minutes disturbing David’s sense of equanimity.

  “He’s taking his time,” he thought, “Oh God, hope I haven’t got to go and bail him out of some embarrassing fracas with one of the locals.”

  He was half standing, ducking his head below the leaning umbrella and edging his way between the wooden bench and table when his great uncle appeared, the pub door slamming suddenly shut behind him, beer slopping over his hands and clothes. As he frantically shifted his feet to avoid drenching his shoes he yelled out in a voice tinged with amusement.

  “Bugger, what a waste and what are you grinning at my boy? Think your old uncle isn’t fit to fart his way out of a paper bag? You’d probably be right, but you’d better not say anything in my hearing.”

  “Fighting talk, eh?”

  Brian carefully placed two pints on the uneven weather-worn trestle table, then shook his wet hands violently before sitting down.

  “Dead right, our family knows no other. Not really true, although life wasn’t easy for Mum and Dad, particularly for Dad with his war wounds. He needed careful treatment, you had to make allowances, but Tony knew exactly how to rub him up the wrong way. He was a hard man you know, Tony. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, at least not when he was at school, nobody really realized for a long time, but I suppose as a brother you get an insight into these sort of things earlier than most. Maybe it’s not so much seeing it as feeling it. God, I took some beatings from him.”

  Brian drank deeply, the glass trembling imperceptibly. David sat transfixed his own pint untouched.

  “He got emotionally harder as well as time went by. I suppose on reflection it was largely him growing up, maturing, but joining the Party certainly didn’t help mellow him. He took to it like a duck to water. Mum and Dad were glad at first, it got him out of the house, stopped him moping around all day and you couldn’t really blame him. He’d never had a proper job, just grudging handouts from the family, all temporary, short-term, nothing with any prospects. Not good for the morale of a proud young man like Tony, and they were such a pompous self-satisfied lot, the “Grocery Cox’s” as they were known. Thought they were superior to us lot.”

  “What Party was that?”

  Brian looked bemused for a second, his chain of thought broken. He had to search back, retrace his mental steps. His brow momentarily furrowed.

  “I lost it for a second. Couldn’t remember the name, even though I was in it myself for a while. Old age is bloody awful in many ways. It was “The British Union.”

  David looked at him blankly.

  “What’s that then, a trade union?”

  Brian shook his head and smiled.

  “Oh no, my boy, far from it. Oswald Mosley’s lot. That name ring any bells?”

  David couldn’t believe what he had just heard, it was his turn to frown.

  “THE Oswald Mosley?”

  Brian nodded.

  “I’m ashamed now to say yes.”

  “Grandad was a fascist?”

  “Yes, and so was I for a while.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “You never knew?”

  “No, nobody said a word. Christ.”

  “I’m sorry David, I just assumed you all knew. God. Tony was in so deep I doubt if he ever gave it up, at least in his heart of hearts. He was a true believer. He never said a word to you?”

  David shook his head.

  “That was the difference between us. He was dedicated, committed to the cause. I was in it initially because he was, there were lots of trips, socials, drinking that sort of thing. It was all mates together, plus a few women if you were lucky. They went for the uniform you know, it’s all true. It was a good time. I was less enthused with all the meetings, the selling of the newspapers that sort of thing. I was more happy go lucky, but their ideas were attractive at the time, they seemed to have answers for many of the ills of the day. And Tony, well, when he got going he was a bloody good public speaker. He believed and it came across in everything he said and did and he won people over. It definitely helped him get on in the Party, as performance counted for a lot in those days. Out on the stump all weathers, you had to do it. It was the days before television – all this sound bite politics has changed everything – then you had to argue your case from A to Z, face down the hecklers, win them over with your arguments. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  The two men sat in silence for a moment, holding their pints and gazing at each other.

  “Yes, well you had to have the muscle to back your words up if things got out of hand. And, as I said, Tony was a hard man to the core, he wasn’t shy at coming forward. It wasn’t really true at the beginning, when I was in, there wasn’t much need for strong-arm tactics in Blackpool. Worst that happened was a few over enthusiastic drunks would go too far, that sort of thing. Nothing really nasty.”

  Brian sipped at his drink and looked intently at his great nephew over the top of his glass. A car braked heavily in the car park, skidding noisily on the gravel. The cock crowed.

  “You look shocked David, what can I say? I thought you would have known. You have a right to know, after all.”

  For brief seconds he seemed uncertain, to have again lost his way, and he gazed into the distance. David studied him closely. The clear tanned skin, barely a blemish after more than sixty years, the wrinkles around his eyes, the single deep furrow that bisected his brow, his swept back hair, curling around his ears and along his collar. He seemed relaxed and at ease with himself, but his next words betrayed his disquiet.

  “If you want me to shut up just say so and we can talk about Canada. I can bore for hours on the subject of Canada.”

  David shook his head.

  “You let the bloody genie out. Another? To show what a fair man I am, I’ll even drink with a fascist.”

  “Come on, it was a long time ago. I was young.”

  “And only obeying orders.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Never mind, same again?”

  “Aren’t you driving?”

  “Oh, sod that, I need one. I
t’s not everyday you discover a black sheep or two in the family.”

  Brian laughed quietly to himself and then smiled at David.

  “Go on then.”

  He stood in the empty bar. The landlord was in the cellar changing a barrel, he could hear the clattering of a metal cask as it rolled across the stone floor. Smoke billowed into the room from a fire newly laid in the ancient walk-in fireplace, the gaping chimney repelling the choking clouds rather than swallowing them up. David was irritated by the fumes, his lungs always painfully sensitive to the quality of the air he was breathing, but was glad to be alone for a moment to reflect on what he had just learned. Absentmindedly, he jangled the loose change in his trouser pockets. As he stared at the blustering grey-green bands of smoke that were drifting across the bar, he felt a veil lifting. He remembered the last time he had seen his Grandfather. It had been on television, in an item on the local news bulletin, a few weeks before he died. It was the time of all that fuss about his article in the parish magazine. There was nothing much else going on news wise, it was the summer “silly season” in the media, if there had been the story would never have received any coverage. Nobody normally gave a damn about what was written in a parish magazine, even if it was very popular with parishioners – snapped up like hot cakes, his Grandfather always used to joke – but this particular vicar had made a bit of a habit of attracting press attention over the years. This, however, was his relative’s first appearance on television that David could remember.

  The report was about a leading article his Grandfather had written on Europe where he had laid out his dislike, verging on hatred, of the Common Market. Venting his spleen once more against the then Prime Minister, Ted Heath, his one-time hero, in the manner of a lover spurned. The man who at the time was planning to take Britain into Europe was beyond the pale, as far as the Reverend Anthony Coxon-Dyet was concerned, and his parishioners were in no doubt about his views. For a while he had written incessantly on the subject featuring it almost every week in his editorials until people had complained saying enough was enough, but he remained unbowed and on this particular occasion, David inadvertently shuddered at the recollection, he had brought Oswald Mosley into the argument. Saying in no uncertain terms that the disgraced fascist leader had been right in his views on Europe and that Britain would not be in the mess it was in now if the people had listened to him. It had caused a storm.

  St Botolph Thunderer – August 1972

  “Parishioners, I’ve told you many times in these pages that I am a conservative with a small “c” and that I am always open to any well-reasoned argument. The privacy of the ballot box is the cornerstone of our democracy and I have never breached that confidentiality in this or any other illustrious organ. But the observant reader will not have failed to notice that my sympathies lie more with the “true blue” of the Conservatives than with the “red flag” of Labour. So you will all appreciate my torment when I tell you that over the issue of the Common Market my loyalties are reversed. Labour has got it right are not words I utter lightly, but in this case it is true. Our Prime Minister, an honourable man in so many things, has got it so unbelievably wrong on this issue that I am almost at a loss for words. But fear not dear friends, not completely. Mr Heath maintains with a great deal of eloquence, and in French too – Sacre Blue – how Britain’s future lies in Europe. If we are not part of Europe, he tells us, this once great nation will fade into insignificance and became a tiny island state feeding off the scraps falling from the table of our giant neighbour – the United States of Europe. That is the price, apparently, we will pay if we stay outside the Common Market, but what of the price we pay if we go in? Answer that Mr Heath. I almost said Ted, but I’m afraid that will no longer pass muster with me.

  If the Prime Minister balks at a reply, rest assured I do not feel so shy. The price is we can wave goodbye to the Great in Great Britain almost immediately and then over a period of years we will wave goodbye to Britain itself. We will disappear into this huge super state, never to be seen or heard of again. The “mother of parliaments” will haemorrhage powers to some faceless bureaucracy in Brussels, your vote will be worthless, you will have very little say over the people who rule you, make the laws you live by and spend your taxes. Is that what you want? Having known many of you for years I know I speak for all of you when I say I think you do not. Any Briton with a sense of history must see the folly of the course now being followed by our government, and a Conservative government to boot.

  I hang my head in shame when I think of the hundreds of pages I have written, the thousands of words I have spoken over the years, in support of these very fellows who are now stabbing us in the back. I feel personally betrayed.

  (In case you all think I am nothing but a windbag of a wordsmith. Let me assure you in black and white, on the record, that my annual turn at the Dumpton Gap Conservative Association Autumn Fete will be cancelled this year and henceforth until the party sees sense on Europe.)

  Briton’s awake, or at least the people of Dumpton Gap should prick up their ears, and listen to me, and many others I should add. (I’ll say it quietly, in a whisper, but many of the most effective voices of dissent are in the Labour Party – there I’ve got it out. Never let it be said that the “St Botolph Thunderer” doesn’t admit its mistakes and tell it as it is.)

  I can assure you and I don’t understand why this isn’t obvious to everyone, but Britain outside Europe can be and will be great. It is not inevitable that we will be reduced to some small insignificant water-bound basket case. What of our Empire? what of the Commonwealth? what of our special relationship with the United States? All this is ignored by the Europhiles, as if looking back at our long history as a major power is somehow wrong, irrelevant, and the most patronizing thing of all, a sign of old-fashioned thinking. People who think as I do, as you do, are not modern, that most serious of crimes, but out of date, mere dinosaurs. More power to large extinct reptiles I say.

  Let me ask you a question – where have the greatest dangers this nation has faced this century come from, and not just the last hundred years either? It doesn’t take much to come up with the answer, does it? Europe. Now, any supporters of the Common Market out there, and I believe there are some, even in this quiet tranquil village of ours, will be saying, “Ah, we have him. That is exactly one of our arguments. To be safe we must join up with Europe, embrace our former enemies, ensure we never go to war with them again.” Sadly, you have not. I can wriggle free with ease. A Common Market may, and I only say may, stop all conflict in the future, but I say the price is too high. The end of Great Britain as we know and love it, almost certain domination by that economic colossus, Germany, that is too much. What I propose and in this I follow in the footsteps of one of the most misunderstood men this country has ever produced, Sir Oswald Mosley, will not compromise our security, far from it. Sir Oswald said many years ago that, “Britain should be less prone to anxious interference in everybody else’s affairs and should concentrate more on the resources of our own country and Empire. Britain”, and this is the critical bit, “should keep out of the tangled skein of European rivalries and animosities.” Hear, hear, I say.

  Not joining the Common Market doesn’t mean we can’t trade with our neighbours, they need us as much as we need them, but we won’t jeopardize our unique and preferential relations with our former colonies. Security should be left to our well-resourced armed forces, we are a nuclear power after all, and our special links with the United States and our membership of NATO. We have nothing to fear staying out of the Common Market, everything to lose going in. Outside Britain will prosper and grow, inside we will die.”

  David and his family had been surprised at the media frenzy that blew up over this article. It in fact brought them briefly closer together. They all relished their relative’s discomfiture, but for different reasons. David’s father enjoyed seeing his father in trouble. “Finally getting his just de
sserts,” as he put it. David was amused at his grandfather’s embarrassment, looking forward to meeting him again and teasing him over it. He foresaw hours of heated conversation as the old man stoutly defended himself against the charges. They were all bemused by the opinion of an elderly woman interviewed by one of the newspapers. She was a parishioner of the Reverend Coxon-Dyet and claimed to know him well.

  “This is so unlike our vicar, he’s such a pleasant man. When you meet him, normally, he wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”

  This was not how his family saw him, but they laughed nonetheless. Throughout the weeks the story was in the news, they didn’t bother to get in touch with him to offer their support or to commiserate, it never occurred to them.

  David ordered the drinks, haunted now by his memory of the look on his Grandfather’s face as he ran the gauntlet of the cameras that final time on television. The man had looked scared, something his grandson had never seen before. At the time, David had put it down to the actions of the reporters, who hounded his Grandfather for days disrupting church services, staking out his flat, and generally making life a misery. He knew the local Bishop would have told him to say nothing, as had happened before, and he would have found this request difficult to go along with. His Grandfather was nothing if not argumentative when his views were challenged. David had attributed his atypical behaviour to his shock at the predatory snooping of the national press and to a lack of understanding of the ways of the modern world. He believed his Grandfather was out of his depth and he’d sympathised with him, even though his views had often made his own blood boil. But now David knew the truth, and he felt ashamed of his own naivety, at the betrayal of his love. His Grandfather was frightened alright, but not at the crude determination of the journalists dogging his every move, but at the threat of his unmasking – the public laying bare of his duplicity and deceit. His exposure as a lying hypocrite.