The Camp

by Guy N Smith

  ‘How about a drink back at my chalet?’ He finally got it out and there was no mistaking the intensity in his expression.

  She looked down, made sure that her handbag was closed. I’ve cocked it up, ducked out. And now he wants me to go back to his place. It had become more than a casual camp date, a gradual process of erosion, rejecting her job and her lover. All for a self-employed builder whom she hardly knew.

  ‘Fine,’ she nodded, drank the last of her coffee. ‘Just a quick one, I mustn’t be too late tonight. I’m afraid I’ve had a few late nights on the trot lately. Working, of course.’ Which, in a way, was true.

  Jeff had bought in some bottles of wine earlier, hoping that the evening would turn out this way. Most people drank wine and Ann was no exception. He refilled her glass for the second time; she seemed to be enjoying herself.

  ‘How long are you staying at Paradise, Jeff.’ He thought she had asked him that before but perhaps she just wanted to confirm it. He tried not to let his hopes rise too sharply. It could just have been more small talk.

  ‘We … I booked for two weeks and I’m going to have my money’s worth.’ He let his hand stray until his fingers were touching hers, thought that he detected a slight tremble from his companion. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just … wondered,’ she replied.

  ‘I need a break,’ he went on. ‘Mostly I work seven days a week except during the winter when the weather’s bad. Then there’s the hassle, too much work and everybody thinking that their job should be done first. You go and start a big job, an extension or garage or whatever, work at it for three or four days, then you break off to go and fix something smaller which somebody’s been screaming for weeks for you to go and do. You do your best to keep everybody happy. Then there’s the slow payers and those who don’t pay at all unless you turn the screw. More hassle and worry. Once I got taken for five grand and I can tell you that took a bit of making up. My folks don’t approve on top of all that, they think that after a private school education I ought to be in a white collar job. Life isn’t all roses so I’m determined to have a holiday now that I’ve got the chance.’

  ‘You’ve certainly earned it.’ He felt her fingers squeezing his, her face was upturned, a smile on those soft lips, the blue eyes shining.

  And suddenly he kissed her, a kind of swoop like a sparrow hawk dropping on to an unsuspecting vole, half-expecting her to shy away. She didn’t. Their lips met, crushed, and somehow they managed to put their glasses down on the small coffee table without spilling the contents. An embrace, clinging to each other, Ann holding tightly to him as though this was something which might never happen again and she was determined to enjoy every second.

  ‘I shouldn’t have let you kiss me,’ she murmured at length, her face buried in his shirt, aware of her handbag close by and the tiny grey tablet that lay inside it like a miniature time bomb.

  ‘Because there’s somebody else?’ He was aware of his body tautening, despair clouds gathering to dash his hopes.

  ‘There is somebody else,’ she whispered, ‘but nothing serious. Awkward, more like. An affair which I shouldn’t have begun in the first place.’

  ‘I see.’ He didn’t really. Either she wanted to remain with her lover, whoever he was, or else she didn’t. It had to be a clear cut decision, he wasn’t going to be messed around and play second fiddle to some other guy. But at least she was honest about it, he admired her for that, when it would have been all too easy to two-time him on a holiday romance.

  ‘I’m a bit mixed up.’ She was acting like a teenager with the offer of two dates and trying to have her cake and eat it. ‘Oh, God, I like you, Jeff, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘More than your boyfriend?’

  She hesitated a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes, a lot more.’

  ‘So where’s the problem?’

  ‘It isn’t quite as simple as you might think and I can’t explain. Not yet, anyway. But Jeff,’ her eyes were glistening, shining with tears which she was trying to hold back, ‘is the Paradise Camp really your scene? I mean … it’s more of a family holiday place, isn’t it?’

  ‘What you’re saying is,’ there was a trace of bitterness in his voice now, ‘that you’d like me to pack up and move out. That way it would solve a big problem for you. I’d be out of your life before we got involved and you could carry on with your lover uninterrupted. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes … and no.’ There was a teardrop trickling down her cheek now and she was holding on to him with an urgency that bordered on desperation. ‘Oh, Jeff, I don’t want you to go and it doesn’t have anything to do with my affair. I can’t explain, oh, please believe me. I want you to stay, I want to be with you.’ It sounded crazy, they had only known each other for a few hours. She thought of Tony Morton and hated him; for what he was doing to people, mostly to herself and Jeff Beebee.

  He shook his head, kissed her again. ‘I’m not going to go,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on but I’m sticking around. Can we see each other again?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ She did not keep him waiting, no heart-stopping decision. She wanted him and that was all that mattered. If necessary she would lie and cheat to save him from this abominable experiment. Throw her job in if she had to. There had to be a way; Christ, Morton had a list of human guinea pigs, he could manage without Jeff Beebee.

  ‘Tomorrow night, then?’ He watched her straighten her dress, pick up her handbag and clutch it to her as if she was afraid that somebody might snatch it from her.

  ‘Tomorrow night.’ She was smiling with lips that trembled. ‘Suppose we go out of the camp for a change? I mean, it’s my place of work and I’d like to get away from it for a few hours. And if you want my candid opinion, I don’t think much of the restaurant at all. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and holiday camp restaurants will always be cafeterias for the masses, no matter how they try to dress them up. You’d be better eating from the takeaways, frankly.’

  He stood in the doorway and watched her walk away up the lighted avenue behind the funfair, a lonely figure who had just acquired another problem to add to her existing ones. His logic told him to get out now before he became caught up in whatever was going on.

  His heart told him otherwise and he knew he would stay.

  Chapter Six

  David Dolman had been on the camp a week. His narrow, sharp face with its long, pointed nose had a furtive look about it, grey eyes that were never still, constantly watching those around him. Small and wiry, with short cut grey hair, he was in his fiftieth year, and his faded jeans were in sharp contrast to the dark jacket which had once belonged to a suit during his ‘clerical’ years, as he termed them. Curt of speech, he seldom wasted words, and sarcasm had long become a habit of his which annoyed those with whom he came into contact.

  Dolman referred to his occupation, when asked, as a ‘shop steward’. Five years ago that had been the case, up until the day he had brought two thousand factory workers out on a wildcat strike which contravened industrial legislation. The issue had been over a five-minute reduction in tea breaks, the loss of time being more than compensated in the workers’ pay packets by a productivity bonus. At that mass meeting the power of the spoken word had prevailed over logic, created mass hysteria. Two hours later work had resumed and Dolman had been dismissed by his own union, a bitterness which still festered in his anarchic mind.

  From then onwards he became a lone militant activist, throwing his vocal, and sometimes physical, support behind any cause which might disrupt law and order. Protests, secondary picketing, race and class riots, his voice was to be heard urging on the rioters. Twice arrested by the police, once he had been acquitted due to lack of evidence, the other time he was fined £30 and bound over to keep the peace by lenient magistrates.

  During the quietest period of his life, the last two years, he had occupied his time writing a series of inflammatory articles for a militant newspaper under the by-line of
‘D.D.’. Even the editors were reluctant to publish his name for his reputation was dubious among their readership; he had never really achieved a notable victory and failures were not good publicity.

  Now he felt the urge to be heard again, not read pseudonymously, which was why he had drifted into the Paradise Holiday Camp. This was the fortnight when industry took its summer vacation, the Worker and his wife would be here and there were those who would listen even on holiday. He frequented the bars at the lower end of the camp, singled out his audience with a practised eye. Which was how he came to meet Arthur Smith, the camp’s chief groundsman.

  Arthur was a year younger than Dolman. A shock of unkempt grey hair matching a two-day growth of stubble accentuated the scruffiness of the soiled and crumpled grey overalls. Rubber boots, worn summer and winter, were dragged along the ground with the disconsolate shuffle of one disillusioned with his lot, the permanent scowl a silent protest against the camp’s hierarchy.

  ‘This camp is an insult to the workers.’ Dolman bought his companion a second pint of bitter. ‘You’ve only got to look around you to see that. It’s “them-and-us” under camouflage; the luxury chalets and the hovels, the haves and the have-nots brought together and half this bloody lot are too thick to see through it.’ He waved a deprecating hand towards the packed bar, ‘a deliberate replica of your average public house back home. Pigs to the trough. Just you go up the road and take a peep in the wine bar, mate, and you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘I seen.’ The groundsman supped his beer noisily. ‘Gettin’ pissed every night and laughin’ at the likes o’ you and me. Makes you want to spit!’ He went through the motions. ‘The rich get richer and the poor gets poorer. Still, why worry, there’s nowt you can do about it?’

  ‘Isn’t there?’ Dolman regarded him steadily.

  ‘Course there ain’t. This government looks after its own, mate. Keep the workers down, tread on ’em. Slave labour. D’you know, my take ’ome pay is less now than it was three years ago. Take it or leave it, the boss says, else we’ll run this place on casual labour. They can get as much o’ that as they want, the locals are queuin’ up for it from May to September. Then it’s back on the dole for them and I’m kept on doing odd jobs for a pittance. I don’t ’ave no choice, there’s no work around in this part o’ the country.’

  ‘What’s your union say about it?’ The other’s eyes narrowed, he was giving his companion cue after cue. Put it into words, pal, let me hear it. I’m working you up steadily.

  ‘Union! What union?’

  ‘You mean you don’t have a union!’

  ‘Not in bloody Paradise, you don’t. You sign an agreement when they take you on that you won’t belong to any union.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Feigned surprise and anger. ‘And blokes actually agree to work under those terms!’

  ‘They don’t ’ave a choice.’ Smith drained his glass and Dolman was already reaching out for it.

  ‘Here, let me get you another.’ He walked across to the bar, was aware of the groundsman’s expression of anger without turning round. Arthur was being wound up nicely, the seeds were already being sown. Take your time, there’s no rush. Let him dwell on what you’ve said.

  ‘You think that something could be done?’ Arthur Smith took the proffered pint, sucked the froth off the top. He sensed a possible answer to years of grievances but could not think what this guy could do to help. Still, it was nice to have somebody see your point of view; the team of young gardeners couldn’t give a shit. He had given up trying to get his point over to them. Come the autumn they’d be back on social security and busy moonlighting.

  ‘The blokes who run this place have got to be made to realise that they can’t have it all their own way.’ Dolman leaned across the table, did not want to be overheard.

  ‘If you mean strikin’ then you’d be out on your arse.’ Arthur Smith pursed his frothy lips. ‘Like I said, it’s no bother for them to get replacements.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of striking,’ Dolman continued, ‘not yet, anyway. But life could be made very difficult for the people who exploit you.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Well …’a pause, momentarily closing his eyes as though he was thinking deeply, ‘off the top of my head, suppose the mowers got broken so that the grass couldn’t be cut. Or even a fire in the equipment shed …’

  ‘Holy cow, they’d have the police here!’

  ‘So what! If it was done properly the police couldn’t prove anything. The place could be made real tatty, the luxury apartments, I mean. Show the snobs that they’re no better than the worker in his dingy chalet.’

  ‘Then the toffs would just stop coming here.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Dolman gave one of his rare condescending smiles, knew that he had his man. Stage one; there was still a long way to go. ‘So the posh chalets are filled with workers, chaps like yourself. The company would have to reduce the terms or have an empty camp. You push the middle class out, the camp is back to what it was originally built for. Get it?’

  ‘But ’ow does that ’elp me?’

  ‘Good point. Initially, it won’t, but you won’t be a forelock-touching servant any longer. You mow the grass outside a chalet and the guy’ll come out and chat to you, maybe give you a pint or a fag. You do him a favour and he’ll tip you. You’ll be doing jobs for those who sympathize, understand. You’ll start to get the working class behind you. Each guest is given a slip to fill in and post in the box in reception when he goes home. If you handle ’em right they’ll point out that the groundsmen and the maintenance staff are getting a raw deal. Persuade ’em to write that if the camp continues to employ slave labour they’ll go somewhere else for their holidays. Work it right and the bosses will be afraid of getting an empty camp next year.’

  ‘You think it’d work?’ There was an expression of admiration on the groundsman’s craggy features. The beer had drowned his earlier doubts.

  ‘Of course it will but it’ll take time. First, though, you have to get rid of the rich. It won’t work as long as they’re around, they’ll just piss all over you. “Workers for workers” has to be your motto. You’ll get your union, better pay and conditions, and in a year or two you and your mates will be calling the tune, running the camp. It’s happened elsewhere, so why not here? But shouting your mouth off will get you nowhere, you’ve got to be devious. And at the very least you’ll get your own back on those who’ve been shitting all over you for years.’

  ‘It makes sense.’ Arthur Smith took another long drink and wondered if the conversation might run to another pint.

  ‘You think on it and we’ll have another drink tomorrow.’ Dolman was a verbose gambler, he knew when to duck out of a winning streak. ‘But keep all this under your hat, Arthur, because they aren’t all as shrewd as you. We’ll have to make some more definite plans, map out exactly what we’re going to do. See you tomorrow night, pal.’

  Smith watched the other thread his way out of the crowded bar and wondered to himself why he had not thought of this before.

  David Dolman dined regularly in the restaurant. Not for him the takeaways or the chippies. Even during his shop steward days he had lunched in the office workers’ cafeteria daily. Prestige counted for a lot, you did not win the respect of your followers by familiarity. Whatever their lot, you did not share it with them. He had a little saying which he kept strictly to himself; ‘there will always be haves and have-nots, you have to make sure that you’re not one of the latter.’ And what you had you kept in the background, like a country cottage in the Devon countryside. As far as appearances were concerned, you lived in a council semi in London. It was all part of the strategy.

  It was on the second week of his holiday that Dolman found himself sharing a table with Jeff Beebee. The two glanced at each other apprehensively, a natural embarrassment between two strangers finding themselves thrown together. A holiday meeting between men who were not accustomed to forming casual friendships. A nod,
an intensive study of the menu.

  ‘I’ll have the soup of the day and the roast,’ Dolman spoke to the waitress, glanced again at Jeff. ‘What’s yours, mate? I can recommend the grub here, one thing that is in their favour.’

  ‘Fruit juice and plaice and chips to follow.’ Jeff Beebee watched the waitress thread her way back across the restaurant. He wasn’t sure he liked his table companion; curt, too sure of himself, the kind whose company could become overpowering. That was the price one paid for being alone on holiday. On the other side of the room he spied Ann Stackhouse sitting at a guest’s table. A pang of jealousy; don’t be bloody stupid, that’s her job.

  ‘Dave Dolman’s the name.’ The other didn’t offer a handshake.

  ‘Jeff Beebee.’ He decided that conversation would not be easy.

  ‘What d’you think of the camp then, Jeff?’ A direct question that Beebee sensed was more than small talk. Almost an urgency about it.

  ‘Suits me, I can please myself what I do. One up on the old-type camps, I suppose.’

  ‘Is it?’ Dolman’s thick lips curled into a sneer. ‘At least with the old camps they were made for the working man, gave him everything he wanted. Now they’re taking that away from him, infiltrating middle class chalets and wine bars, pushed the worker into his own ghetto at the far end of the camp. Discreetly hide him, surreptitiously pander to the snobs. Devious, but I can see through it. Can’t you?’

  ‘I can’t say that it bothers me that much who comes to the camp.’ Jeff curbed his annoyance. Christ, he didn’t want to be stuck with this every mealtime. Maybe Ann could fix it to get him moved.

  Dolman lapsed into a sullen silence, and Jeff sipped his fruit juice unconcernedly. This man was looking for a soapbox, don’t give him one.