by Hilary Green
When they had gone I turned on the TV and tried to forget about their visit but I could not rid myself of a sense of unease, as if I was being watched by a critical, unsympathetic eye. I felt cowed and resentful, like I had felt as a child when I had been told off by a teacher. Presently the triviality of the television programmes became irksome rather than comforting and I switched off in order to concentrate on sorting out my feelings. Out of a few moments thought came a sudden burst of anger. What right had those men to intrude on my life and make me feel afraid? Soberly I reminded myself that I must expect this, and much worse, if events continued in their present direction; and out of that thought came a decision.
The next day I telephoned Jane at school and asked her to call on her way home. She came, and I told her about the previous evening.
“I suppose it’s the classic case of the worm turning,” I said, “but I’m not going to have my life run by men like Harrington. So I’ll do what I can. But I’m not brave, Jane, and the boys come before anything. I’d better warn you now. Don’t tell me anything secret. I couldn’t promise to keep it if—well, if there was any trouble. And I won’t do anything involving violence.”
I looked at her, seated at my kitchen table with her feet thrust out and her hands deep in the pockets of her shabby cardigan. She tilted her chair and asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What I said. There’s one thing I want to be sure of, Jane. You’re not anything to do with Workers for Freedom, are you?”
She made a small sound of exasperation. “Can you really see me getting involved with terrorists? Have you ever known me involved with violent groups of any sort?”
I shook my head.
“Well, then!” She relaxed and gave me a grin. “Never mind. Point taken. Now listen. I’m not going to tell you any more than I have to, for the reasons you’ve just given me. Not that there’s very much I could tell you, because I don’t know any more than I have to, either. Oddly enough, you’re not the only person to feel that way. All you need to know is that there are people all over the country who are determined not to sit back and accept what has happened. So ultimately there are going to be protests and demonstrations on a massive scale and no-one knows yet how the Government will react to that. Ultimately it may come to an armed confrontation but only in the last resort. What matters is to mobilize people all over the country at the same moment. We have to be sure that we don’t go off at half-cock. Isolated, small-scale demonstrations just get people arrested and produce nothing. With the clamp down on news no-one outside the immediate area knows that anything has happened. We must co-ordinate with all the other groups who are trying to resist, especially with the strikers —and we must let people know what is happening in other areas. Our immediate aim is to collect information about what is going on round here and to pass that on to the others.”
“Is there some sort of national organization?” I asked.
Jane shook her head. “Not yet. Only various groups like us all over the place, under dozens of different banners. That’s the point. We have to get an organization going.”
I sat down opposite her, feeling suddenly calm and efficient —like I felt when Timmy cut his leg so badly and I knew I had to stop the bleeding.
“Where do I come in?”
“You can be very useful. Obviously Harrington and Co think that you can be brow-beaten into supporting them. No doubt Clare told them that you were political putty that just needed a firm hand to mould it.” She grinned at me and I grinned back, feeling closer to her than I had for years. “Pretend to go along with them. Go to the meetings, and
keep me informed about what goes on.”
I considered the prospect. My common-sense reminded me that when the rush of adrenalin subsided the high-powered, super cool efficiency would collapse into quivering exhaustion. But it was a relief for once to do as well as to suffer.
“What do you want to know?”
She shrugged. “Anything. What are they up to? I know they’re supposed to be a sort of watch-dog, making sure that everyone toes the line and gets on with the job. But do they do anything more than watch? And who, particularly, are they watching? O.K.?”
“O.K. I’ll do my best.”
“Don’t, for God’s sake, try and take notes or anything, will you?”
It was my turn to look exasperated. “Give me some credit! Anyway, I happen to have something very close to total recall, remember?”
“After all the long, rambling tales I’ve had to listen to?” said Jane. “I should forget!”
I was right about the collapse of resolve. By Friday night I was full of sick foreboding and it took Molly Randall’s air of do-gooding condescension when she came to baby-sit to brace me for the effort of attending the meeting. There were about two hundred people in the village hall. Many of the faces were vaguely familiar. I had never been a joiner and did not know who were the leading lights in the various local organizations, but there were a number of people I knew casually and by chatting to them I began to pick up names and functions —local councillors; committee members of the W.I.; a Guide Commissioner; the Chairman of the Residents Association; members of the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. The village establishment was there in force. “How beastly the bourgeois is” D. H. Lawrence said once. It was true that night. It was like a kind of Walpurgisnacht in which all the long-supressed instinctual urges of the middle-class were allowed to run wild. All the old prejudices and class-hatreds were taken out and given an airing; all the half-forgotten fears and the old bogeys were re-examined and pronounced well-founded. The unions, the communists, the blacks, students, left-wing social workers and long-haired teachers were lined up like Aunt Sallies and duly shot down in a succession of speeches.
The climax came when Harrington, who was chairing the meeting, said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, the time has come when we ask all of you for your co-operation in ensuring that everyone in our community is pulling his weight and doing his —or her—utmost towards National Recovery. If there is anyone whom you know is not doing this, this is the moment for you to tell us about it.”
That was when the denunciations started. In tones of smug self-satisfaction and sincere moral indignation the local worthies pursued long-standing, previously hidden feuds and irritations. The first to speak was a square-faced, harsh-voiced woman whom I had often noticed shouting at her brood of children when she collected them from school. The object of her complaint was a local doctor, as it happened our family G.P. He was, I knew, inclined to be brusque with those whose problems arose largely from their own incompetence but I had found him able and sympathetic when real need arose. Now the harsh voice accused him of giving medical certificates to men who were really on strike. Harrington nodded and murmured to a companion, who made a note.
The second denunciation concerned a local builder who had, it appeared, closed down his yard rather than employ black-leg labour. Once again Harrington and his friend conferred and a note was made. As he spoke Harrington glanced towards the back of the hall. There had been a good deal of noise from this quarter during the meeting in the form of vociferous support for various speakers and, lately, threatening murmurs against those accused. I glanced round and saw that it emanated from a group which seemed to assort oddly with the rest of the meeting, consisting as it did of young men and girls, teenagers many of them, with short cropped hair and red, white and blue KBG T-shirts. Not the type, I thought, who would normally involve themselves in local politics
The meeting was almost over, but before I left I was buttonholed by Harrington’s wife and had to promise to help out with typing and other clerical jobs. Her manner was effusively charming—she might have been asking me to help with the PTA social. There was no alternative but to agree.
On Sunday morning I took the boys for a walk. For the first time since the previous autumn there was some warmth in the sun. The hazel trees on the common were furred with yellow catkins and the first crocuses sh
owed in the gardens we passed. Simon and Tim capered about, shouting and chasing each other, breaking off now and then to climb trees or fish for frog-spawn. It was the first time I had seen them happy since Mike’s death.
On the way home we happened to pass the yard of the builder who had been denounced on Friday evening. My nostrils caught the tang of burnt wood before we rounded the corner. Above the boundary wall we could see the blackened girders which were all that remained of the buildings inside and smoke still rising in wisps and spirals on the quiet air. On the wall someone had painted the words-COMMUNIST SYMPATHISER-YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
When we reached home I telephoned my doctor. His wife offered to give me the number of another GP. Her husband could see nobody at present. His surgery had been burnt to the ground the night before.
When Jane arrived the following evening I could scarcely wait for her to get through the door before I began pouring out the whole story. She listened, sitting on the edge of the kitchen table while I paced around, distractedly putting out the tea cups as I talked.
When I had finished she nodded grimly and said, “And in a few days when the organization gets going for these Civil Militia units those people are going to have guns in their hands.”
The next Friday night followed the same pattern as the previous one. There was only one denunciation which appeared to me to be taken seriously by the men on the platform. A woman complained that a local grocer was selling his stock on the black market. I had shopped there for years and had seen the man only the day before looking worn and anxious as he struggled to make the inadequate supplies go round. No-one was getting their full ration but I was convinced it was not his fault. The next morning I passed the information on to Jane. On Monday she told me that the shop had been broken into by ‘looters’ on Saturday night but, forewarned, the grocer had moved his stock to a secret place. On Monday, in spite of broken windows and smashed fittings, it was business as usual.
After Jane had left I reflected soberly that the KBG looters’ must have realized that the shop-keeper had been warned and wondered how long it would be before they began to suspect the source of the information. I began to feel that I would be wise not to report the next accusations—if my conscience would let me keep silent. In the event, I had other things to think about by the following weekend.
On Thursday Jane came in unexpectedly and I could see that she was excited.
“Nell, listen!” She dropped into a chair and fixed me with her eyes. “I want you to do something for me. Could you have my kids to stay on Friday night and look after them on Saturday?”
“Yes, of course I will,” I answered automatically. I had done it before, often enough. But now I felt a sudden jerk of apprehension in my stomach. “Why?”
“I wouldn’t be telling you this if you hadn’t proved yourself in the last week or two,” she began. In times of excitement Jane’s inner conviction of superior moral toughness came to the surface. I was used to this and still grateful, as in childhood, for her qualified approval. “You remember I told you we were planning for a concerted effort, a really big demonstration to make people realize that there is still massive opposition to Emerson and his government. Well, it’s planned for Saturday.”
“Where?”
“Windsor.”
“Why on earth Windsor?” I exclaimed.
“Oh, use your head, Nell! Where are the Royal Family at the moment?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
“No, I’m not surprised. Haven’t you noticed that since Emerson went to the palace immediately after the election there has been virtually no mention of the Queen or any
other member of the Royal Family, in any of the media? Our information is that they are at Windsor —all of them. The Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Cambridges, the Sussexes, the whole family have been cooped up at Windsor ever since Emerson took over.”
“You don’t mean he’s keeping them prisoners there, do you?” I stared at her, wondering if she and her associates were as sane as I had taken them to be.
“Nobody knows for sure what’s going on,” she replied. “The rumour is that they are opposed to Emerson and one of them —you can guess who—wanted to speak out against him. If that’s true then he obviously couldn’t risk having them going about in public. Of course, the official story is that they are staying at Windsor for their own safety until the State of Emergency is over. But if there’s any truth in the rumours, we may have found the rallying point we want. That’s why Windsor has been chosen.”
“But you’ll never get anywhere near them.”
“No, of course not. But they are bound to know we are there. And what is more important, the soldiers on duty there will know. That’s the key, Nell. Emerson can only keep control as long as the army backs him. If the army can be convinced that he is trying to destroy the constitution, and even keep the Queen a prisoner, that should finish him. We’ve heard rumours of small scale mutinies, here and there, in units which have been ordered to fire on demonstrators, but we have to get at the top brass. What we need is a focus, Nell! Windsor and the Royal Family could provide it.”
“How are you going to get there?” I asked. “What about the twenty mile limit?”
“We’re going to travel by night. That’s why I want you to have the children on Friday evening.” She leaned forward, her eyes bright and her usually sallow face flushed with excitement. “I know it’s risky, with the curfew and everything, but we’re banking on the fact that the army and the police are too over-stretched to cover every lane and minor road. Someone I know has managed to get hold of a tank-full of petrol. We hope to get there just before dawn and just slip into the town. The authorities shouldn’t know that anything is happening until they suddenly find hundreds of people massed outside the castle.”
“But Jane,” I protested. “They can’t miss hundreds of people. As soon as there are more than five they can arrest you.”
“They can’t arrest hundreds,” she pointed out reasonably. “The first few, perhaps. That’s just a risk we have to take.” Her face grew more sober. “I know there are all sorts of problems and dangers, Nell; but if we don’t get some sort of united effort going soon Emerson will have a strangle hold on the whole country. Look, you’ll have to go to the meeting as usual. I’ll bring the kids round afterwards. If anybody asks questions you can tell them I’ve gone off for a dirty weekend.”
“And what am I supposed to do if you get yourself arrested?”
We met each other’s eyes across the table. I thought of Jane’s three children; Edward and Bill, both a year or so older than my boys, and little Elizabeth who had only just started school.
Jane said, “There are people who would help —with money and things. Would you try to cope?”
I nodded and said flatly, “Yes, I’ll cope.” That was what life came down to, these days.
All through Saturday I waited for news, trying to hide my anxiety from the children who were happy and excited all together. It was not until early evening that the radio carried a report that a number of people had been arrested under the emergency regulations after attempting to stage a demonstration outside Windsor Castle.
Just after dark came a hasty, brief knocking on the door. An unknown young man stood outside. Instinctively, as if I had been bred to conspiracy, I stepped back and let him in, closing the door behind him. The children were in the lounge, noisily playing some video game, except for the little girl who was already in bed.
The man said, “You’re Nell Fairing?” I nodded and he went on, “You don’t know me. I teach at the same school as Jane Grant. My name’s Nick Saunders.”
I asked tensely, “Did you go with her today?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here.” He stopped suddenly and looked at me unhappily. “I had to come and tell you.”
“Has Jane been arrested?” I spoke with sudden harshness, gripping the edge of the table.
“Yes.”
“Oh God
!” I sat down quickly and put my hands over my face. For a moment I felt as if my whole self, mind and body, was about to break up under the ever-increasing strain.
He said, “I’m sorry. You’ve got her kids, I know. I’ll help, if I can.”
Even at the moment of greatest stress there is no merciful oblivion for most of us, no abrogation of responsibility in fainting or hysteria. The moment has to be faced and passed. I raised my head.
“And it was all a flop! All this for nothing!”
“No!” He sat down quickly, opposite me. “No! What gave you that idea? It was fantastic. You should have seen it.”
“Tell me about it.” I gripped my hands together and stared at him.
He leaned on the table so that our faces were only a foot or two apart.
“We got there without any trouble. All the back lanes were quite open, not a soldier in sight. A lot of people from the north had problems because they had to cross the Thames and all the bridges were guarded, but some of them commandeered boats and rowed across in the dark and one big group who had come all the way from Birmingham sandbagged the sentries at one bridge and opened it up for a whole lot of others. Everyone came into the town on foot, in twos and threes as we’d been told, and as soon as we were there we found places to hide out until there were other people around. Then we made our way towards the Castle gates. That was the tricky bit. There were police on duty all round, keeping people moving, and of course we couldn’t tell which were our people and which weren’t. We had to walk up and down the hill a couple of times until the dead-line arrived. Then someone suddenly produced a banner saying FREEDOM UNDER THE QUEEN and immediately there was a great roar and hundreds of people rushed towards the castle gates. They were shut, of course. The castle hasn’t been open to the public since the emergency started. Everyone was shouting ‘Down with the Dictators!’ and ‘Give us back our Constitution!’ and ‘Emerson OutI’ and ‘We want the Queen!’ The police couldn’t do anything against that many and you could see that the sentries inside the gates didn’t know what to do. They stood there at attention, like dummies, but you could see their eyes swivelling from side to side. That was when Jane started. We were right at the front of the crowd, quite close to one of them. She got hold of the bars and started shouting to him, telling him that his loyalty should be to the British Constitution and to the Queen, not to a government which was trying to set up a dictatorship, and so on. By that time the rest of the guard had turned out and she started haranguing them, too. A sergeant spotted her and pointed her out to the police. They’d been reinforced, too, by then, but they couldn’t fight their way through the crowd to get at her. Then the troops proper arrived, in armoured cars with water cannon and so on. We hung on as long as we could but no crowd can hold together against water cannon. Then we saw them putting on gas masks. Well, we knew what that meant. It was the tear gas that really broke it all up. You can’t see or breathe properly. I’d seen it on telly, of course, in Syria and even in Paris. I’d never realized how ghastly it is. Six months ago I couldn’t have imagined it being used here, could you? Of course, as soon as the crowd broke up the police charged in. They’d had plenty of opportunity to pick out what looked like the ring-leaders. They got Jane and several others. There wasn’t anything we could do except run for it and hope to get out of the town before they organized a police cordon. We took a risk on driving back in daylight. We nearly ran into a road block in Chobham but there are plenty of back lanes, thank heaven.” He came to a stop, like a clockwork toy running down and sat staring at me.
