by David Peace
No surrender! No surrender! No surrender!
The main event started on the floor of the conference. The Last Fight –
Minutes to go now. Seconds out –
The fight between Yorkshire in the red corner –
‘Out until there’s an amnesty and the five named pits reprieved.’
South Wales in the blue –
‘ A dignified and honourable return.’
Outside the rain fell on the men for six hours as the delegates argued inside –
We’ve given you our hearts –
‘You should have the guts to make a recommendation,’ they argued –
We’ve given you our souls –
‘Or you will have ratted out on this strike,’ they argued –
We’ve given you our blood –
‘Give them leadership and repay the loyalty they have given you,’ they argued –
We’ve given you everything we had –
‘Or sit back with blindfolds on, as the strike collapses around you,’ they argued –
And then you sell us out –
‘We have to live in the world as it is,’ they argued, ‘not as we would like it –’
Tarred and feathered with the rest of the scabby bastards –
The Welsh proposal was carried 98 to 91 –
Total. Fucking. Knock. Out; Total. Fucking. Sell Out –
‘Don’t anyone in this conference lower their eyes,’ the President shouted at them. ‘Don’t be ashamed of what we have done. We have put up the greatest fight in history –’
It was all over –
‘We have not sold our birthrights. We have not prostituted our principles –’
Here –
‘The greatest achievement is the struggle itself –’
Today –
‘We have changed the course of history and inspired the workers of the world –’
Now –
‘Comrades, it is upon such struggles that democracy itself depends!’
Total. Fucking. Silence.
The President walked out of the conference and out of Congress House –
Into the rain. Into their tears. Into the pain. Into their fears –
Into the media and into the police. Into the miners and into their families –
Into the guilt and the shame. Into the anger and the sorrow –
‘This dispute goes on,’ shouted the President above the traffic and the weather –
‘We’re not going back,’ chanted the men. ‘We’re not going back!’
‘We will continue to fight against pit closures or job losses!’
‘You’ve been betrayed!’ the men screamed back at him. ‘You’ve been betrayed!’
‘Make no mistake – do not underestimate this Union’s ability to resist!’
‘Scum! Scum! Scum!’ they wailed. ‘Scab! Scab! Scab!’
Martin
Awake! There are screams all over Pete’s walls. Awake! Blood running into their carpet – It takes a minute to remember. Lifetime to forget – I lie there on his sofa. I watch them crawl away – I was walking back from my Sunday half. Long way round – Rain had stopped. Tim pulls over – Big smile on his face. His chops – He said to us, Great news, isn’t it? What is? I asked him. Strike’s over, he said. Haven’t you heard? I shook my head. Fucking joking, I said. How’s that good news, then? Tim could see I was fucked off. He said, Just be good to get back to work. That’s all I meant – I shook my head again. I turned back. Day 363 – Not over yet. There’s still some picket duty today – Lot more here than usual. Feeling there are scores to settle – Lot of hot talk. But in end it comes to nothing – Harder shove. Louder shout – No one wants to get fucking arrested today. No, thanks – Be like one of them blokes got themselves shot on Armistice Day. Nicked today, sacked tomorrow – No, thank you. Not after twelve fucking months – There’s another meeting in morning. Third or fourth in a week – Lot of bitterness and anger about events at NEC yesterday. News just sinking in – Mixed emotions. Charged emotions – Yorkshire Area want everyone to march back into their pit together. United – Banners and heads high. Brass bands and what-have-you – But what about them that have been sacked? asks Keith. They going to march back in, are they? – Meeting and whole place descends into bedlam. Pandemonium – Lads are shitting themselves now. Don’t know if they’ll get taken back or not – Lads being told one thing. Then being told another – Terrible to see. Horrible – Looks of fear on all these faces. Looks of defeat and despair – Faces you’ve seen on picket line. Faces that have looked into eyes of their horses and their dogs – Their visors. Their shields – Faces that have taken their truncheons and their boots. Battered and beaten – Faces that watched their wives and kids go without. Faces that suffered for twelve fucking months – Faces now lost and frightened. Frightened of what future holds – Future none of us can afford. Lot of us stay supping today – Night on tiles. Hurts your face – Blow little we have left. Pray they pay us again – Awake! In my coat on Pete’s sofa. Awake! Mouth tastes of earth and shit – Least I didn’t bloody dream. Them nights over with now – Day 364. Mary’s made a breakfast for us. Packed us some snap and all – Like first day of spring today. Beautiful – I follow Pete down Welfare for half-eight. Nearly whole of village is out – Lot of emotion. Lads that have been sacked are going to push banner – In front of them, Pete and other three branch officials. Rest of us will fall in behind – I’m stood there thinking, Don’t cry and don’t look for Cath. Don’t cry and don’t – But I look about and see Big Chris with his handkerchief out. Soft bastard – Then we’re off and I turn round. I can’t believe how many there are – More than 50 per cent still out. Easy – Makes me feel proud. Makes me feel sad – To see us all here now. Together – Shoulder to shoulder. United – Marching as one. Now it’s too fucking late – Pete and them lot reach gates and call for a minute’s silence for those who have died during dispute. That’s when I see them – Not just the eight hundred stood with me here on our Pit Lane. The support groups and all those that helped us – Not just them. But all the others – From far below. Beneath my feet – They whisper. They echo – They moan. They scream – From beneath the fields. Below the hills – The roads. The motorways – The empty villages. The dirty cities – The abandoned mills. The silent factories – The dead trees. The broken fences – The stinking rivers. The dirty sky – The dirty blue March sky that spits down upon us now – The Dead. The Union of the Dead – From Hartley to Harworth. From Senghenydd to Saltley – From Oaks to Or-greave. From Lofthouse to London – The Dead that carried us from far to near. Through the Villages of the Damned, to stand beside us here – Together. Shoulder to shoulder. United. Marching as one – Under their banners and their badges. In their branches and their bands – Their muffled drums.
The Last Week
Monday 4 – Sunday 10 March 1985
The Jew had hoped to spend the weekend down at Chequers. The Jew was not invited. The Jew has taken to his bed instead. Blankets up to his neck, hands beneath the sheets, he watches her perform –
‘We had to make certain that violence and intimidation and impossible demands could not win. There would have been neither freedom nor order in Great Britain in 1985 if we had given in to violence and intimidation –’
Again and again on the videos he’s made. In the scrapbooks he’s kept –
‘What’s the difference between an egg’, asks the Jew, ‘and our Prime Minister?’
‘You certainly can’t beat our Prime Minister, sir,’ replies Neil Fontaine. Again –
‘Very good, Neil,’ howls the Jew. ‘Very, very good indeed.’
The Chairman is not returning the Jew’s calls. Again. Nor is the Minister –
The Jew’s only friends are working miners and their greedy wives.
The Jew gives Neil the rest of the week off. The Jew needs to be alone. Again –
With his videos and his scrapbooks. Beneath the blankets and the sheets.
<
br /> Neil Fontaine needs to be alone, too. Neil Fontaine needs to make things right –
Neil Fontaine heads North. Again.
The General comes into the barracks. Everyone stands by their bunk –
The General marches towards the Mechanic. The General puts him at his ease. The General hands him the note.
The Mechanic takes it. The Mechanic opens it. The Mechanic reads it –
The time and the place. The job and the price –
‘There really is only one solution‚’ says the General. ‘Will you do it, David?’
The Mechanic looks up at the General. The Mechanic salutes. ‘Yes, sir, I will.’
*
The funeral marches. In vassal thrall. The pipes and the drums –
‘There will be no recriminations. There will be no talk of victory or defeat.’
The last procession. In villein bonds. The banners and the bands –
‘But make no mistake, victory it is.’
Neil Fontaine starts the black car. He drives on to another village –
‘I don’t want any gloating.’
And another and another, until he’s seen enough (has seen too much) –
‘No amnesty. No forgiveness.’
The door is open. The ashtray full. The telephone ringing by his hotel bed.
*
The Union was sunk. The President spoke on empty decks as the rats stole the lifeboats –
He spoke of the Bolsheviks in 1905. Mao’s Long March. Castro in his hills.
But the real pain. The real trouble. It all started here. Today –
The morning after the strike before, Terry knew that (he’d always known that).
The safety-nets. The cause juste. The material and practical support –
Just smoke up the chimney now, Terry could see that (he’d always seen that).
They had lost the money. They had lost the men. They had lost the strike –
The witch hunts had begun. The whispers. The fingers. The trials. The burnings –
Diane had said they would and Diane had been right (she was always right).
Terry took the stairs two at a time. Terry banged on the hotel door –
There was no answer –
Terry banged and banged on it. Doors opened up and down the corridor –
The wrong doors.
Terry put his head against the door. Terry prayed. Terry said, ‘Please –’
The door opened. Terry stepped forward. Into the room –
Terry looked up. Terry said, ‘What –’
Bill Reed was stood in the middle of their hotel room with Len Glover.
Terry said, ‘What’s happened? Where’s Diane?’
‘Who’s Diane?’ asked Len. ‘Who are you talking about?’
Terry looked at Bill. Terry said, ‘She –’
‘Not in them suitcases, is she?’ laughed Bill Reed. ‘In bits and pieces?’
Terry shook his head. Terry said, ‘I –’
Len took the two cases from him. Len opened them on the double bed –
Thousands and thousands of used English banknotes.
‘More mortgage payments for the President?’ asked Bill. ‘That what this is?’
Terry shook his head again. Terry said, ‘I can explain. Let me show you –’
Len took one arm and Bill took the other. Down the corridor. Into the lift –
Through the lobby of Hallam Towers. Down the steps. To their car –
Bill sat in the back with Terry. Bill said, ‘So where we going, Comrade?’
Terry took them from Sheffield into Doncaster. From Doncaster into Bentley –
‘Here,’ Terry told them. ‘Pull up here.’
Len, Bill and Terry got out of Len’s car on the row of old terraced houses.
Terry led them down the street to the little shop on the corner –
Terry opened the door. Len and Bill followed him inside. Terry shook his head.
‘Is Mr Divan about?’ Terry asked the fat white man behind the counter –
‘Who?’ replied the fat white man behind the counter. ‘Who do you want?’
‘Mohammed Abdul Divan,’ said Terry. ‘He owns this shop.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ said the fat white man. ‘Michael Andrew Damson does.’
‘May I speak with him, then?’ asked Terry.
‘You are doing,’ smiled Michael Andrew Damson.
‘You’re the owner of this shop?’ Terry asked Michael Damson. ‘Since when?’
‘Since my father died in 1970,’ he said. ‘Now what the bloody hell is going on?’
Len and Bill shook their heads. Len and Bill took Terry by his arms again –
‘But I came here last year and I met Mohammed Abdul Divan and his family,’ shouted Terry. ‘Right where you’re standing, behind that counter –’
Michael Damson shook his head. He said, ‘You’ve got the wrong shop.’
‘They were from Pakistan,’ protested Terry. ‘They owned this shop.’
‘You’re confused,’ said Michael Damson. ‘There’s that bloody many of them.’
Terry shook his head. Terry closed his eyes. Terry began to cry –
Len and Bill apologized to Mr Damson. Len and Bill took Terry away.
Bill sat in the back of the car with Terry. Bill said, ‘So what now, Comrade?’
Terry took them back to his house in the suburbs of Sheffield, South Yorkshire –
Len, Bill and Terry got out of Len’s car in front of Terry’s three-bedroom home.
‘Please don’t say anything to Theresa,’ begged Terry. ‘Not in front of the kids.’
Bill looked at Len. Len looked at Bill –
‘The statements concerning all the money are inside,’ said Terry. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘We’re not worried,’ said Bill. ‘Are we, Leonard?’
Len opened the boot of his car. Len took out a large bouquet of dead flowers –
‘They look a bit past it,’ laughed Terry. ‘Who on earth are they for?’
‘They were for your wife,’ said Bill. ‘But the hospital returned them to me.’
‘That was thoughtful of you, Comrade,’ said Terry, his key in the lock. ‘Thank you.’
Bill and Len followed Terry inside. Through his front door. Into his hall –
Terry switched on the lights. Terry said, ‘Looks like there’s nobody home.’
Len looked at Bill. Bill looked at Len –
They left Terry in front of his hall mirror. They went through his house –
The dead Christmas tree in the front room. The dust-covered presents –
Up the stairs with no carpet. Past the walls with no paint –
The bathtub full of blank sheets of paper. The sink full of brand-new clothes –
Into two empty back bedrooms. The windows broken or open –
The sleeping bags and mucky mags on the floorboards of the front bedroom –
The suitcases full of newspapers. The obscenities on the walls –
Back down the stairs to the kitchen. The radio in the sink. The food on the floor –
The open biscuit tins full of rainwater or piss. The cracked mirror in the hall –
The blank Christmas cards. The empty photo frames in their hands –
Terry stared at Bill and Len in the mirror. Terry opened and closed his mouth –
‘There never was any wife, was there?’ said Len. ‘No kids. Nothing.’
In the shadows of South Yorkshire, in the suburbs of Sheffield –
‘Nothing but bloody lies,’ said Bill. ‘Lies and fucking fantasies.’
In the house with the lights on but nobody home –
Terry Winters had forgotten his lines.
*
Power –
Harsh service station light. Friday 8 March, 1985 –
Diane Morris puts a cigarette to her lips, a lighter to her cigarette.
Her dog dead at her gate –
Neil Fontaine
waits.
Diane inhales, her eyes closed. Diane exhales, her eyes open.
Neil sits and he waits in his car, his soiled black car.
Diane looks at her watch. Diane glances out of the window.
Neil sees her in his mirror, his mud-splattered mirror.
Diane stubs out the cigarette. Diane picks an envelope off the table.
Neil squeezes the steering wheel between his dirty fingers and bloody palms –
Ruin’d and damn’d is her state.
Diane looks at her watch again. Diane stands up.
Neil shuts his eyes until she’s almost gone. The stink still here. Everywhere –
Loss.
The Mechanic turns into the car park. He is early. The place packed with Saturday lunchtime shoppers. He drives slowly through the car park. Turns into a space next to one of the trolley parks. The Capri faces the supermarket –
A mohican rattling a bucket by the automatic doors –
The Mechanic watches for the car through the rearview mirror and the wing –
Fuck –
A panda car turns into the car park. Makes a circle and pulls up at the back of him. A policewoman gets out of the passenger door. Puts on her hat and walks down the side of him. Off to have a word with the mohican and his last of the plastic buckets –
The Mechanic glances over at the passenger seat. Looks up into the rearview –
Fuck –
A policeman is getting out of the driver’s side. The Mechanic boxed in now by an empty police car. The policeman puts on his hat and walks down the passenger side of the Capri. Stops dead. The policeman opens the passenger door. The Mechanic reaches for the passenger seat –
The policeman is first to the shotgun. He puts it to the Mechanic’s stomach –
Fuck –
The Mechanic looks up into the policeman’s eyes –
Just. Like –
Neil pulls the trigger.
Neil Fontaine stands outside the door to the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. He listens to the silence and the shadows inside. He thinks about coincidence of circumstance, meeting of motive and convergence of cause. Neil Fontaine opens the door to the Jew’s suite on the fourth floor of Claridge’s. He thinks about the end of a war and the start of an era. The timing of a meeting and the opening of an envelope –
