GB84

by David Peace

  ‘And what of Yorkshire?’ asks the Chairman. ‘The Heartland?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ says Piers. ‘After tomorrow there will be no more mass pickets.’

  Neil drops the Chairman and Piers at Hobart House. Neil checks the Jew’s office –

  The office empty. The lights and the heating off. The windows open to winter –

  His maps and his pins. His charts and his tins. In boxes by the door.

  ‘I need to know everything,’ the Jew had told him. ‘Absolutely everything, Neil.’

  Neil switches on the lights. Neil closes the windows. Neil calls the Jew –

  Neil tells the Jew one thousand one hundred and ten men returned this week –

  ‘That’s less than last week,’ screams the Jew. ‘It’s just not good enough, Neil!’

  Neil tells him about the bad weather. Neil doesn’t tell him about the talks –

  ‘The eve of a historic breakthrough,’ the Union were saying –

  ‘Uncork a bottle of my finest,’ says the Jew. ‘I’ll be back for dinner, Neil.’

  ‘And not a moment too soon, sir,’ replies Neil Fontaine before he hangs up –

  Neil is driving the General Secretary of the TUC back to Congress House.

  *

  They asked after his wife. They didn’t wait for his reply. They didn’t really care –

  Nothing mattered now, but Terry knew that (Terry has known that for a time).

  ‘It has to be an honourable settlement,’ Dick was telling the rest of the Executive. ‘The men will not sell their souls now. Not at this stage –’

  Everybody nodded. Everybody knew that –

  Phrases had become empty. Faces become blank. Words empty. Looks blank –

  The Fat Man stood up. The Fat Man distributed photocopies of the agreement –

  ‘This is an honourable settlement,’ said the Fat Man. ‘Honourable –’

  The National Executive flicked through the eight points of the document –

  Reconciliation. The right of the Board to manage, the right of the Union to represent. A return to work and a return to a new Plan for Coal. The modification of the Colliery Review Procedure. The incorporation of an independent reference body into the CRP. The future of all pits to be dealt with by this new CRP, including those collieries with no satisfactory basis for continuing operations. The CRP to provide a further review where agreement could not be reached. But, point eight –

  At the end of this procedure the Board will make its final decision –

  The President put down his photocopy. The President looked up at the Fat Man –

  No more talks. No more alterations. No more discussions. No more negotiations –

  ‘This is the best possible deal,’ said the Fat Man. ‘The best possible deal.’

  ‘So she says,’ smiles the President. ‘And so he says. And now so you say.’

  ‘But what do you say?’ asked the Fat Man. ‘You and your Executive?’

  ‘It’s unacceptable,’ said the President of the NUM. ‘That’s what I say.’

  ‘So what can I do now?’ asked the Fat Man. ‘What more can I do?’

  ‘You can pull out the entire trade union movement in industrial action in support of the National Union of Mineworkers –

  ‘That’s what more you can bloody do!’

  The Fat Man looked up at the President. The Fat Man shook his head –

  ‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘It’s too late and you know it.’

  The President looked down at the Fat Man, and the President shook his head –

  His fingers squeezed his nose. His eyes filled with tears –

  The President looked round the table at the National Executive Committee –

  They shifted in their seats. They picked their pants out of their arses and sighed. The will is there, they said. The wording is not, they argued –

  Is it hell, they shouted. The wording is there, they said. It’s the will that’s not –

  They lit their cigarettes. They drank their teas. They looked to the President –

  The President picked up the points. The President read them through again –

  The President put them down again. The President said again, ‘Unacceptable.’

  No man’s land –

  The President caught again here. The President trapped again –

  Piggy-in-the-middle –

  The TUC and the government. Hand in hand. The government and the Board. The Board and the TUC. The TUC and his own fucking Union. The Left and the Right. The Militants and the Moderates. The Hardcore and the Soft. The Left within the Left. The Right within the Right. The Tweeds and the Denims. The Traditionalists and the Modernists. The Europeans and the Soviets. The wet and the dry –

  The black and the white. The right and the wrong. The good and the bad –

  United we stand. Divided we fall –

  Factions and fractions. Fictions and frictions –

  Never. Fucking. Ending.

  The President shook his head. The Executive did not. The Fat Man nodded –

  Nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded –

  ‘The Minister will help,’ he promised. ‘The Minister wants to end the strike and, where there’s a will, there is always a way.’

  The Fat Man picked up his papers. The Fat Man left for Thames House –

  Left them to their bitter pills. Their factions and their frictions –

  To accept this or reject it. To strike on or return …

  Terry made his excuses. Told them he had to go. They didn’t listen. Didn’t care –

  To return without an agreement or return with an agreement …

  Terry took the train back up to Sheffield. Terry sat in first class –

  An agreement that had no amnesty or an agreement that did …

  The receiver had ended the sequestration. The receiver had sole control –

  An amnesty that included all sacked miners or that only included some …

  Terry had to move fast. Terry had to move by night. Terry had lots to move –

  The suitcases and the biscuit tins. The cardboard boxes and the padded envelopes. The cash and the columns. The additions and the subtractions. The sums and the cost –

  His fractions and his fictions –

  The price –

  Every. Fucking. Thing.

  ‘Be careful,’ said the voice from the doorway to his office. ‘Makes you go blind.’

  Terry looked up from his desk. Fuck. Terry said, ‘What does?’

  Bill Reed switched on the lights. He said, ‘Playing with yourself in the dark.’

  ‘What do you want now?’ asked Terry.

  ‘Just wanted to know how your wife was doing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Terry. ‘Recovering very well.’

  Bill smiled. ‘Reassuring to know such things are still possible.’

  ‘Isn’t it just,’ said Terry. ‘Now was there anything else, Comrade?’

  Bill Reed stopped smiling. Bill Reed stared at Terry Winters –

  Terry Winters smiled back. Terry Winters didn’t care –

  Nothing. Fucking. Mattered. Now –

  The clock was ticking down. Tick-tock. The final countdown had commenced –

  These were the last few days.

  *

  The Jew is back from the beach. Fresh from the festivities –

  ‘They’re holding fucking what?’ he is screaming at Neil. ‘When? Where? Who?’

  The Jew has Neil take him straight to Hobart House –

  ‘Monday! Downing Street!’ he shouts into the car phone. ‘The Prime Minister!’

  The Jew thunders up the stairs. The Jew storms into the Chairman’s office –

  The Chairman is at his desk. Pen in hand. The Chairman is at his tether’s end –

  ‘They are politicians,’ he sobs. ‘I am just an industrialist.’

  ‘But this is 1985,’ rants the Jew. ‘What the fuck is going on?�
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  The Chairman nods. The Chairman stiffens his upper lip –

  ‘Have they stormed the barricades?’ raves the Jew. ‘Have they killed the King?’

  The Chairman tears up his letter of resignation –

  ‘What time shall I expect the knock upon my door?’ laughs the Jew –

  The Chairman laughs now. The Chairman reaches out to embrace the Jew –

  ‘Remember,’ whispers the Jew. ‘There’s no politics without industry.’

  Peter

  a slice of toast – So you didn’t get much work, then? I asked him. He shook his head. He said, there must be tenthousand miners down there doing same – I wish they’d stayed bloody put, I said. I wish you had – There were no brass, Pete. And I won’t beg. Never. That’s not me – Least you’re back now, I said. You know there are some that had you down as a scab – I know, he said. I saw what they did to house – I’m sorry, I said. He laughed. He said, Not my house now, is it? I stood up. I said, You still be here in morning, will you? He nodded. He said again, I’m sorry, Pete – Just one bloke. But it’s not Martin – Final push now. Last few days – Board wanted their 50 per cent. Board wanted us beat – Decision was made to go up to Wath. This was against wishes of Area. But no one gave two shits what anyone else said or thought now – It was a very personal matter now and if you were still out it was because of you – Not because someone told you to stay out. Not because you were intimidated – There were still some rallies in offing. But this looked like last away-day, if you like. Right set-to and all – Had police outnumbered at start. They brought in back-up. Krk-krk. Piled out of vans and straight into us. They were local – South bloody fucking Yorkshire. Force we fucking paid for out of our fucking rates – Here to settle scores, I could see that. Bad as anything in whole strike – But I was numb. Fucking numb to it all now – I watched them grab this one lad. I watched them beat him to ground. I watched them jump up and down on him. Big black boots on his chest. Up and down. Up and down. They were animals – Let loose by government. Free to do what the fuck they wanted – They had got away with every single thing they’d tried. There’d be no going back now – No rights for ordinary folk. Not now – Minute we could, we went straight back to car. Legged it – Keith. Martin. Chris. And me. Most folk did – Made our way back from Wath to Welfare. More rumours and trouble waiting to welcome us there – Lot of talk that they’d got four hundred back in at work now. That they didn’t need any more – Be younger scabs who had started it again. Big gobs on them – Last two hundred in would be sacked. Hundred would be finished – Two hundred laid off. Anyone who was on strike for more than a year faced automatic dismissal – No-strike contracts being prepared. Redundancy rights would be denied to strikers – Every man who stayed out over twelve months would have to undergo a medical. That was one that had really put wind up folk – I’m going to lose my job, said Billy. I’ve spent my whole fucking life down there and I know I’d not pass a medical. Not with my chest problems. Problems they gave me. I didn’t stay out all this time to let her and all her cronies take away my job on health grounds. Health they bloody took from me – It’s not right, I told him. It’s just a rumour – That’s what you say, said Billy. But you know as much as we do and I’m sorry, but you’ll be no good to us when we get back in. Not position Union are in now – He was right. There was nothing I could say to him – Nothing to make it all better. Nothing to make it like it had been – This rate, scabs would be in majority. They’d already taken over Unity Club. Put it about that this Hit Squad of theirs would sort out last of strikers – I knew for a fact that they’d bullied a couple of younger lads into going back. Threatening kiddies of other folk – Kind of blokes they were. But they still had to get a mesh bus into work. One time they did try to walk in, they did it with their eyes on floor – Billy, I said, this morning I saw two scabs walking up our street. You know how I know they were scabs? Because one was walking forwards while other walked backwards. That you, is it, Billy? Walking backwards up a dark street because you’re that ashamed of what you’ve done. That frightened of what folk would say or do to you because of what you had done to them – To their pit. Their village – That you, is it, Billy? Or would you join this Hit Squad and go about picking on young lads? Threatening them. Intimidating them. Waving your pay cheque and your scab brass

  The Fifty-first Week

  Monday 18 – Sunday 24 February 1985

  The cigarette. The kiss. The wrong number. The look and then silence –

  Until the knock on the door, and things fell apart –

  Hearts. Minds. People. Marriages. Families. Unions. Governments and societies –

  They always did. They always have. They always would –

  These fragile things. Burdened. These frail things. Broken –

  Promises and plans. Fidelities. Arrangements and agreements. Allegiances –

  Faiths turned rotten. Faiths gone bad –

  Bad Faith, 1969 to 1984 –

  The sounds of the animal kingdom filled the room. The knock on the door again.

  Malcolm walked over to the door. Malcolm touched the Emergency Procedures –

  Malcolm asked, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Room Service.’

  The Fat Man and his seven Fat Friends had met the Prime Minister –

  Little boys on their bellies bare –

  Met her one year to the day since she had rejected the no-strike deal at GCHQ –

  She had picked them up off the floor. She had kissed their bleeding bellies better –

  No beer and sandwiches. Just lots of coffee and biscuits to pass the time –

  Tea and sympathy, and wasn’t it such a shame it had come to this?

  Then the Prime Minister had shown the Fat Man and his Fat Friends the door –

  ‘We have done a good day’s work,’ the Fat Man told the waiting street –

  ‘But for fucking who?’ the President spat at Terry and the TV. ‘For who?’

  The Fat Man went from Downing Street first to the Goring Hotel –

  The National Executive of the Union were kept waiting; waiting and tired –

  From the Goring Hotel back to Congress House –

  The National Executive were kept tired; tired and hungry –

  For the Fat Man and the Chairman to rewrite the eight points as requested –

  The Executive were kept hungry; hungry and desperate –

  To the satisfaction of the government. To the satisfaction of the Board –

  The Executive were kept desperate; desperate to settle –

  To the satisfaction of the TU-fucking-C –

  To settle and return to work.

  The Executive had been sent home. Then the Executive had been recalled –

  Tempers were frayed. Nerves were frayed. Carpets were frayed –

  The fifth floor of Congress House. The General Council Meeting-Room –

  Around the horseshoe table, the National Executive Committee sat and waited –

  Tired, hungry, desperate men gathered in the cold below.

  The Fat Man got to his feet. The Fat Man had another document in his hand –

  ‘When we last met,’ he told the table, ‘the position was fixed. Since then, changes have been made. But the members of the Executive should be aware that it is the clear judgement of the Liaison Committee that no further changes are achievable –

  ‘That is the judgement of us all and we have been told that in writing by the NCB. The changes that have been made have been wrung out of those concerned, after the TUC had made the case at the very highest level –

  ‘There is no higher to go.’

  There was silence around the table. There was anger around the table –

  ‘So the TUC is telling this Union that it can make no changes whatsoever to a document that it has had no hand in negotiating?’ asked Yorkshire. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘There can be clarification,’ said the Fat Man, ‘but no negotiation.’


  ‘And if we don’t like the clarification?’ asked Wales. ‘It’s take it or leave it?’

  ‘This is their final wording,’ said the Fat Man. ‘They are clear on that.’

  ‘So what about the amnesty for sacked miners?’ asked Kent. ‘What about them?’

  ‘There will be no amnesty,’ said the Fat Man. ‘That also was made clear.’

  The table looked at the President. The President looked at the Fat Man –

  ‘I’ll give you gentlemen some time alone,’ said the Fat Man, as he rose to his feet.

  The table waited for the door to close. The table turned back to the President –

  The President pushed the paper away. He said, ‘It is one hundred per cent worse!’

  The table nodded. The table agreed. The table was united –

  ‘A boy sent to do a man’s job,’ said Northumberland. ‘A bloody boy –’

  The table nodded. The table shook. The table was furious –

  ‘The Delegate Conference will bloody tear this up,’ said Paul. ‘Page by page –’

  The President nodded. The President shook. The President stood –

  ‘This dispute goes on,’ the President told them all. ‘This dispute goes on!’

  There was no day. There was no light. There was only shadow. There was only night –

  The dog no longer a pet, black and starved –

  Its master gone, its teeth exposed.

  Here came the men. Here came the hour. Here came revenge.

  They tied Malcolm’s hands and feet to an upturned bed –

  In an upstairs room, they put phones on his head –

  The tapes he’d made on loud in his ears.

  They stripped his clothes, they shaved his hair –

  They scoured him with wires and rubbed him rare.

  They injected him with amphetamines, industrial bleach.

  In the park, they soaked his skin –

  Among the trees, with a petrol tin –