GB84

by David Peace

Lighter to his face, they illuminated tears.

  They blamed his flesh, they cursed his bones –

  They watched him blister, burn and moan.

  In an upstairs room, with the curtains drawn.

  This was the month when the oracles went dumb –

  The unhappy eve, the voice, and the hum.

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

  The skulls sat and stared, with their Soviet dreams –

  In the shadows at the back, the woman schemes –

  Her nipples hard, her milk all gone.

  These things they brought, they made him buy –

  They told him stories, they sold him a lie.

  The room was bare, the curtains torn.

  These were her men by the side of the road –

  Among the living with their language and code –

  Their winter dresses in the summer cried.

  They followed his car, photographed his home –

  They recorded him on reels and tapped his phone.

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

  Half deaf in these rooms he hates –

  In half light, the rebel angel waits.

  Here came the man. Here came the hour. Here came revenge.

  In the small hours, the thieves’ hours, with their knives of Sheffield steel –

  Among the bodies of the animals, the Circle of the Tyrants kneel –

  To hear her beat her bloody wings, in her new and lonely Reich –

  Herr Lucifer! Herr Thatcher!

  Beware! Beware! She will eat you like air –

  Beware! Beware! The pits of despair.

  There is a man who bought his council house and drives an Austin Princess –

  He has a dark room and a very good stereo –

  His wife does knitting jobs. His son is a garage apprentice. Karen still at school –

  The winds will leave seven dead. He is not who he seems –

  Beware! Beware! She will eat you like air –

  Beware! Beware! The pits of despair –

  The temples of doom. The worst weather in weeks –

  These are the terms of endearment. This is the knock on the door –

  This is their man. This is their hour. This their revenge –

  Beware! Beware! The children of a hasty marriage.

  *

  Neil Fontaine picks up the Jew from the Goring and drives him into Soho for the lunch. The Jew is in a great mood. The Jew is sanguine. The Jew believes again –

  The NUM. delegates have rejected the TUC agreement. The final hours nigh –

  ‘Make an enemy of Doubt,’ the Jew reminds Neil. ‘And a friend of Fear.’

  The gang’s all here. The deeds all done –

  Their hatchets buried, the corks pop. The knives sheaved, their glasses raised –

  The end nigh –

  There is a message waiting for Neil at the County Hotel.

  There was a car and its doors were open. There were men and their arms were open –

  There was a passenger and her legs were open, waiting –

  The German car in the black. The drive out to the forest –

  The songs on the radio. The silence in the back –

  The unmarked road. The quiet brakes. The exhaust fumes. The open boot –

  The spade in the dirt. The hole in the ground –

  The soil and the stones over Malcolm’s bones.

  Peter

  through grilles on window of a Coal Board bus. That you, is it, Billy? He looked at us. He said, You know it’s not, Pete. You know I’ll live in shame for rest of my days. Hate myself. But who’s going to look after our lass when I’m gone. I know I’m sick and I know I’ll not pass their medical. I’m going back to work to pick up them redundancy forms so I can give something back to our lass after all she’s given me this past year. Every bloody year of our lives. I’m not going to die of their fucking dust and leave her with nothing. See her out on streets. I’m all she has and this fucking job is all I have. Lose it and we’ve nothing – There was nothing more to say. I left him be – I went back home. I went straight upstairs – Put blankets over my head. Fingers in my ears – I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to hear anyone – Not Martin. Not my father, either – This was worst week. Fucking strangest I’d ever lived – There were meetings and there were rallies. I went to the meetings and I went to the rallies – But it felt like it was all happening to someone else. Not me – The SDC rejecting that final, worthless, fucking document. Last big rally in Trafalgar Square. Nottingham ending OT ban – Then Monday almost four thousand went in. Yorkshire voted to strike on. News that there were over 50 per cent now at work – The endless talk about returns with a settlement. Organized returns without. Returns with an amnesty. Returns without – The Branch meeting. Packed – Us all listening to Arthur. Looking to Arthur – I want to make it clear, he said, that there is no way this Executive Committee will ever be a party to signing a document that would result in the closure of pits. The axing of jobs. The destruction of communities – Felt that it was all happening to someone else. That Arthur was talking about something that was happening to other people. In another place – Not to me. Not to my family. Not to my friends. Not to my pit. Not to my village. Not to my county. My bloody country – That I was just a shell. That this wasn’t me – Not after all these months. After all these weeks. These days – Just a shell. An empty shell – Not this time. Not now – There were so many meetings. There was so much talk – Them that mattered went down to London. Left us here to wait – To wait and watch TV. To watch and wait – It was Sunday again. Day of rest – I was sat there on settee with Mary and our Jackie. Martin had gone off to help Chris try to sell some furniture somewhere – TV was on. Not fire – We’d spent afternoon at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield because Mary’s mother had had a fall and burnt herself with a pan of milk. Had all that and then we’d driven back here in rain – Throwing it down, it was. Bloody miserable day – I was sat there. Cup of tea with no milk again – Middle of Dad’s Army. Newsflash – Miners’ Strike is over – That was it. Just like that – I thought I was going to pass out. Right there and then – I could tell Mary and our Jackie didn’t want to look at me. Didn’t know what to say, did they? But what was there to say? – It was over. Finished. We’d lost. The end – I stood up. Jaw clamped shut. I walked across room. Knocked half a dozen things over as I went – Blinking. Fighting back bloody tears – I walked up stairs and ran into bedroom. I laid down on bed. Face down in pillow and I sobbed. Then onto floor. I bloody sobbed and sobbed. I could hear phone ringing downstairs. I could hear Mary pick it up. Hear her calling my name. Hear her tell them I must have just popped out. Yes, she said. He saw news. He does know. Thank you. Heard her hang up and come up stairs. Heard her open door and come over to bed – She put her arms round me. Her head on my back – I love you, she said. I’m proud of you. Things you’ve done. Things you’ve said these past months. This past year. Just remember that – I wiped my face. I dried my eyes. I turned and I kissed my wife – Kissed her ears. Kissed her eyes. Kissed her mouth. Kissed her hair – I held her and felt her heart beating – Hard. Steady. Strong. True – I felt her heart beating and I closed my eyes – This time it’s me. Here – In the darkness. Under the ground – There’s no light. There’s no exit – Just me. Here – Here on the floor.

  The Fifty-second Week

  Monday 25 February – Sunday 3 March 1985

  Terry Winters sat at the kitchen table of his three-bedroom home in the suburbs of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. His three children were squabbling again. His wife worrying. Terry ignored them. Breakfast television was showing pictures from the rally in Trafalgar Square yesterday. The final rallies in the final hours. The police put the numbers at less than fifteen thousand. One hundred arrested. Hundreds more batoned. The Union said there were between eighty and one hundred thousand. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Terry
ignored it all. He took an index card from the right-hand pocket of his jacket. He read it. He closed his eyes –

  It was blank –

  Terry Winters opened his eyes. His children had gone to school. His wife to work. Terry looked down at the index card again. He put his hand into his right pocket again. He took out another card, and another, and another –

  They were all blank.

  Terry went back to work. Terry sat at his desk. Terry watched Ceefax all day:

  Four thousand had returned to work today. Highest ever figure for a Monday. Two thousand more returnees and the Board would then have their magical 50 per cent. Meanwhile, the Nottinghamshire Area Council had called off the overtime ban –

  Ten thousand more tonnes a week to the government stockpiles.

  Terry changed channels. Terry waited for the next news:

  The President and Dick on the steps of Congress House, long coats and faces. ‘When history examines this dispute,’ railed the President, ‘there will be a glaring omission – the fact that the trade union movement has been standing on the sidelines while this Union has been battered.’

  Terry switched off the television. Terry waited for the telephone to ring.

  *

  Neil Fontaine leaves the Jew among the popped corks and the empty bottles. The party hats and the streamers. The trophies and the spoils. The winners and the victors –

  Just six hundred bodies short now.

  Neil Fontaine takes a cab to the Special Services Club.

  Jerry finishes his cigar. Jerry pushes away the ashtray. Jerry leans forward –

  ‘There is a price,’ says Jerry.

  Neil Fontaine nods just once. Neil Fontaine says, ‘I know.’

  Jerry lifts up his napkin. Jerry pushes an envelope across the tablecloth –

  Just the one thin, brown envelope.

  Neil Fontaine picks it up. Neil Fontaine stands up –

  ‘Love will always let you down,’ says Jerry. ‘Always has and it always will.’

  Neil Fontaine takes a taxi back to Bloomsbury. He walks down towards Euston. He goes into St Pancras. He sits in the pew. He bows his head. He says a prayer –

  Just one last and final prayer.

  *

  Mardy Colliery, the very last of the Rhondda pits and forever known as Little Moscow, had voted for an orderly return to work –

  The Last Waltz had begun –

  ‘My concern now is with holding the line,’ said Paul. ‘This is not the time to bow our heads. Not the time to go back to work defeated. This is the time to close ranks –

  ‘And urge our members to stand firm, to sustain us through this difficult period. Help us over this last hurdle –’

  Nobody nodded. Nobody was listening –

  ‘There’s no prospect of victory now,’ warned Gareth Thomas from South Wales. ‘Not the kind of victory we were all so sure we could achieve a year ago in March 1984. What we must make sure of now is that we do not abuse the loyalty that has been shown to us by the thousands of miners throughout this country, and that loyalty demands –

  ‘Leadership. Leadership. Leadership! Or there’ll be no Union to lead!’

  The leadership met. Again. For seven hours the Executive met. Again –

  The Executive leadership prepared now to sign the NACODS agreement –

  The leadership desperate to sign the NACODS agreement –

  To sign it here. To sign it today. To sign it now –

  The Executive called Hobart House. Click-click. The Executive called again –

  Again and again and again and again, the leadership called Hobart House –

  Click-click. But no one was answering the telephones down at Hobart House –

  Click-click. No need to answer them. Click-click. Nothing more to say –

  This morning 1114 had gone back. This morning 50.74. per cent of all miners were back.

  The majority of the men were gone. The majority of the money was gone –

  It was all over. Here. Today. Now –

  But Kent and Yorkshire still wanted to stay out to reach a negotiated settlement –

  South Wales, with still the fewest scabs, had other ideas –

  ‘We came out as one,’ they said again. ‘We will go in as one.’

  ‘It is unreasonable on humanitarian grounds’, agreed Durham, ‘to call upon the membership to endure still further pain and still further sacrifice, to themselves and their families, in loyalty to this Union –’

  But there would be further pain and there would be further sacrifice –

  For the men. For their families. For their Union –

  For weeks. For months. For years and years to come –

  ‘For there can be no reconciliation,’ said Scotland, ‘until there is an amnesty.’

  ‘The Coal Board, at the insistence of the government,’ reiterated the President, ‘is not prepared to negotiate. It is a complete war of attrition –

  ‘And we shall have to take a decision in the best interests of our members.’

  Four decisions before them. Four last choices –

  To stay out, or to accept the National Coal Board’s offer –

  To return without an amnesty, or to return with one.

  The Executive called a Special Delegate Conference for Sunday 3 March.

  The Executive left the Conference Room one by one –

  Back to their local areas. Their panels and their branches. Their local TV studios –

  The President sat alone at the table. The President dried his eyes –

  He looked up at the empty chairs. The empty table. The empty room –

  The heavy curtains. The chipped cups. The two-way mirrors. The hidden bugs –

  ‘Are you hardcore?’ he asked Terry. ‘Are you hardcore, Comrade?’

  Terry picked up his files. His notes and his sums. Terry picked up his calculator –

  ‘If I flinch from the flames,’ said the President. ‘Believe not a word I have said.’

  Terry left the table. The room and the building. Terry left the President alone –

  To his dreams of victory in his night of defeat –

  ‘We are but halfway between Dunkirk and D-Day,’ he shouted after them all. ‘But halfway, Comrades. On the greatest march this world has ever seen –’

  Even in winter the days were too long, the nights old and wrong –

  They sat in overheated huts. They stood around unlit braziers –

  They clapped their hands. They stamped their feet. They woke the Dead.

  They had swapped their badges for cigarettes. Their banners for beer –

  There were two teenage brothers. Their bodies black, their faces blue –

  Spoil fell from their mouths when they said, ‘You don’t remember us, do you?’

  Malcolm shook his head. Blood dripped from his holes. From her scissors –

  In the shadows. The ghosts without. In the silence. The ghost within –

  And then Malcolm nodded. For then Malcolm knew –

  This was how it felt to be dead. To be buried –

  Under the ground.

  Terry changed class as the train approached King’s Cross. It would end here, in London –

  Not in Sheffield. Not in Mansfield. Not in Scotland. Not in Wales –

  Terry pushed two suitcases and his briefcase along the platform to the lockers –

  Here in London. Today or tomorrow. Saturday night. Sunday morning –

  Terry put Suitcase 36 into Locker 27. Terry put the key into an envelope –

  There was a meeting of the Left to make decisions for the Executive Committee –

  Terry put the envelope in the concourse letterbox. Terry went out to the taxi rank –

  The Executive meeting to make decisions for Sunday’s Delegate Conference –

  Terry got out. Terry paid the driver. Terry checked in to his room at the County –

  The Special Delegate Conference to make decisions for their member
s –

  Terry spat blood in his handkerchief. Terry took another handful of aspirins –

  Their members standing in the rain. Their members swinging in the wind.

  Terry washed his hands. Again and again. Terry looked at his watch. Tick-tock –

  Days to go now. Hours to go. Minutes to go –

  Terry picked up the phone. Click-click. Terry called Diane as planned –

  They spoke of signals. Tickets and times. They conversed in code –

  Terry hung up. Terry went down the stairs and along to the North Sea Fisheries. Dick and Paul and Len on one table. Joan and Alice and the President on the next –

  They had all finished eating. Tick-tock. They were waiting for Terry to pay –

  Terry paid for the six specials. Terry followed them along to the policy session. Terry kept to his chair in the corner. His mouth shut. His eye on the ball –

  Days to go. Hours to go. Minutes to go –

  They argued and they argued. Back and forth. They argued and they argued –

  Broken words. Broken promises. Broken backs. Broken hearts –

  The President threw tantrums. Broken cups. The President threw fits –

  The Left achieved nothing. Nothing. Ever. The Left never met again –

  Terry paid for twenty breakfasts and followed them to the Executive Committee. Terry kept his chair by the door. Mouth shut. Eye on the ball –

  Hours to go now. Minutes to go –

  They argued and they argued. Back and forth. They argued and they argued –

  The Executive had the choices before them. Decisions to make, courses to take. But the Executive could make no recommendations to the delegates –

  Hours to go. Minutes to go –

  They voted 11–11 not to recommend the South Wales motion for a return to work. They voted 11–11 not to recommend the Yorkshire motion to strike on for an amnesty –

  The President had the casting vote. The President would not cast it –

  It was deadlock. It was stalemate. It was cowardice. It was abdication –

  In the rain, the delegates came to Great Russell Street. In the rain, the hundreds came. In their hundreds to stand outside Congress House. In their hundreds to shout in the rain –