GB84

by David Peace

  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. He opens another door. He gets 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 cra
ck 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 fucking soul. Remember, no stamp 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