1990

by Wilfred Greatorex

  'Beats betting on it,' Kyle responded unsympathetically over his shoulder as he headed for the exit.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Leisure Centre 28 was housed, like many other Leisure Centres, in a large, converted church which had never quite lost its ascetic atmosphere. A few customers queued patiently in the bleak reception area, waiting to push their different coloured entry cards into the slotted machine which operated the doors.

  George, a heavy set man of about fifty, with the souvenirs of knuckles on his face, stood supervising and on the wall behind him were two notices :

  IT IS AN OFFENCE TO USE A BEVERAGE

  CARD FOR ADMISSION ONCE THE

  WEEKLY AMENITY ALLOCATION HAS

  BEEN CONSUMED.

  and

  CITIZENS ARE WARNED THAT BEVERAGE

  CARDS ARE VALID ONLY FOR THE WORK

  STATUS MARKED.

  All Leisure Centres were government-owned and controlled and alcohol was severely rationed.

  George looked bored, nostalgic for the days when he had been a beer-bellied bouncer for a lady publican in Kilburn, paid in comfort, consumption and cash.

  An unimaginative, official effort had been made to introduce a certain liveliness to the interior of the Centre, by pasting up propaganda posters, each of which carried a State message illustrated without subtlety.

  WORK SHARING IS NOW COMPULSORY. IT HELPS THE NATIONAL INTEREST TO HELP YOU showed an intellectual-looking technician and a brawny labourer working together on the same machine.

  P.C.D. STATUS CARDS MUST BE CARRIED AT ALL TIMES. PUBLIC CONTROL IS IN YOUR INTEREST was more like one of the old insurance advertisements, with a PCD card-holding couple beaming out from under the protective shelter of the State umbrella.

  The rectangular room was divided into three colour-coded sections, separated from each other by floor to ceiling wire mesh. Each section contained booths and a bar, over which drink was served according to card classification and work status.

  The white bar served near-beer to essential fringe and unclassified, unskilled workers. The red bar was for skilled workers and served real beer, stout and cider. Blue was more comfortable and furnished accordingly, serving beer, wine and spirits to classified skilled workers, government and local authority employees and trade union officials.

  As drinks in each bar were handed over, barmen collected the money from the customers, together with their allocation cards, which were stamped in a machine at the side of the till. When each card was fully stamped, no more drink was available to that holder that week.

  Dave Brett, expensively and casually dressed, was lounging in a booth in the red section with Agnes Culmore. He poured two solid slugs of brandy from a Finnegan's hip flask in black leather and silver and pushed one across to her, accompanied by an appreciative wink.

  'Oh, Mr. Brett, I shouldn't,' she said, bridling extravagantly. 'As co-ordinator of this Leisure Centre, I'm classified as a Grade 7DQ Civil Servant.' Her easy laugh showed how seriously she took the title.

  A semi-genuine blonde, well-rounded without being blowsy, Agnes in middle age was that combination of sympathy, sex object and maternal figure which makes the ideal barmaid. She laughed again, enjoying Brett's attention, as most women did.

  'At heart you're still the same buxom barmaid who used to slip me drinks when I was under age in Liverpool,' he teased, affectionately, as she sniffed at the brandy fumes happily before taking a first sip.

  'And lent you money to buy Supercham for that married woman,' she reminded him.

  'Charity, Agnes. Her husband was on shifts,' Brett topped up his own glass again. 'Whatever became of Supercham?'

  'It was classified as counterproductive. The factory makes industrial alcohol now.'

  They were the only two in the entire Leisure Centre who looked as though they might be enjoying themselves. Drinking was a serious and gloom-filled business in 1990, which the average customer approached more as a duty than an indulgence. It was done with the minimum of talking and all wore identical weighty expressions.

  Dave Brett let his eyes wander boldly over her ripe bosom. 'It was you I was really after. Two halves of bitter and I wanted to take you away from all this. Tango till dawn.' She wriggled her shoulders and pulled a face as he continued, expansively, 'You with a rose between your teeth and your hair brushing the floor. Then to nibble strawberries and cream from your cleavage.'

  She looked archly pleased, 'Proper Little George Raft.'

  'Whoever he was.'

  'And look at you now. A big-time official spiv. Thanks for the case of brandy, by the way.'

  'Think nothing of it. Fell off the back of a diplomatic limousine,' Dave Brett shrugged and then added, in mock reproach, 'And not spiv, Agnes. An import/export agent. A rare breed. With freedom to move because the country needs the money. Patriot, even. It deserves some perks.'

  'You'd see to that,' the woman chuckled. 'And "perks" is banned as a word. It's called fringe and status benefits now.'

  'Sorry. Didn't mean to use bad language.'

  George ambled up to the booth and handed a note to Brett, who read it, snapped on his lighter and burnt it, his face suddenly serious.

  'Friend of mine due in, Agnes. I may need the back room.'

  'No need,' she got up, tugging the skirt of her lurex dress straight and pointing to the wall of the booth. 'George re-circuited the microphone.'

  'What to?' asked the agent.

  'Radio One,' she gave a saucy giggle. 'If the PCD want to play patriotic songs all day, they can listen to them I say.'

  She went off without waiting to finish her drink, giving a quick wave and swing of her hips in Kyle's direction as he walked briskly in.

  His first question came straight to the point and the agent answered, 'Sure, I know Charles Wainwright, from the days when he and my old man were fire-breathing organisers together. He was best man at Mum and Dad's wedding.'

  'Do you still see him?' the journalist asked, and the other hesitated. 'Come on, Dave. It's important.'

  'Who for? You?'

  'Mostly for Wainwright.'

  'O.K. I bring in the odd foreign report and magazine for him. Nothing sinister. Union stuff. It's just that they're banned here.'

  Kyle wondered if a meeting could be arranged between him and the trade union leader, but Brett was dubious. 'It won't be easy. He calls your rag "The Last Gasp." Of reaction, that is.'

  'I've got to see Wainwright. Tonight,' the newsman said, urgently.

  The agent looked incredulous. 'And my next trick will be with loaves and fishes.' He downed his brandy. 'Tonight?'

  George came up again, carrying a cloth and, as he wiped the table, busily, he tapped it three times with the middle finger of his left hand.

  Brett's features sharpened. 'P.C.D.'

  'Blow! Quick!' the journalist rapped.

  The agent reeled out of the booth and disappeared, leaving his distinctive hip-flask on the table.

  In the white bar at the other end of the room, a squad of PCD officers, led by Jack Nichols, began checking the cards of all customers and two of his men had gone behind the bar to verify the accuracy of the registration counters at the sides of the tills.

  As the group marched into the red bar, the Chief Emigration Officer recognised Kyle and spoke to one of the officials, 'Call Miss Lomas. I think one of her cases is here.'

  Minutes later, Delly strode up and leant on the table, registering the hip flask and two glasses first and then the newspaper man, who grinned and said, with assumed innocence, 'Well, if it isn't the PCD's leading lady, delicious Miss Lomas: Delly, for short.'

  'In person. Your friend disappeared in a hurry.'

  'He's shy,' Kyle offered, unconvincingly.

  She sipped at Agnes' unfinished drink and commented, 'He needs to be, if he drinks imported brandy of this quality.'

  'He's a shy connoisseur,' agreed the columnist, pocketing the hip-flask and waving to the empty seat. 'Nice to see you, anyway.'


  She shook her head at the invitation. 'I'm working. And, if that was Faceless, he deserves the name. The Department has its doubts about the clientele here and it looks as if we were right.'

  Kyle disclaimed the connection, maintaining that Leisure Centres were too antiseptic for Faceless. 'I used to like pubs, with sawdust and people laughing and some hammer-fingered pianist playing "Lily of Laguna".'

  She looked at him with disapproval, pointing out that pubs were obsolete and inefficient and adding that she preferred the Centres, where citizens were graded according to their importance to society and could drink accordingly.

  Public duty did not become her, he thought to himself. It took the fluidity out of her movements and gave her a crabbed, unattractive expression. He could see how she was going to look in twenty years' time.

  'Spirits for shop stewards and civil servants only. Beer for essential proles. Wine for local-authority form-pushers,' Kyle indicated each shabby bar as he listed the categories with a sneer. 'And the poor sods without status cards can queue all night at the State pharmacies for their allocation of happy pills.'

  'Recreation should be directed - as well as work,' Delly Lomas insisted.

  He raised a provocative eyebrow. 'With double the figures for alcoholism and three thousand deaths a year from home-brewed moonshine.'

  She took a step back from him, her body stiffening. 'I take it you have a stamped card for these drinks here.'

  'I use private stock. Like you and Skardon,' Kyle claimed, regarding her with suddenly dull eyes. 'Don't push me, Delly. Not unless you want a large feature on officialdom's leading booze-hounds, with private Customs receipts to back it up. And I still live in hope of access to your cellar.'

  She relaxed again and smiled, 'When you're thirsty enough, Kyle. And in my time.'

  'And, meanwhile, if I had a talking picture of...' he hesitated, significantly, before concluding '...Wainwright.'

  He got to his feet. A large PCD officer materialised behind Delly Lomas and placed a ham-sized hand on his chest. The deputy controller nodded at the official, who withdrew his physical threat reluctantly, allowing the journalist to leave.

  A very worried man, Kyle almost ran to his car, disbelieving her perfectly true reason for being at the Leisure Centre and very nervous about Wainwright.

  The flight from New York had just arrived and the General Secretary of the Metalturners Union had been hurried through Customs and into the waiting limousine by the Chief Emigration Officer. As it pulled away, he asked about his luggage and was given a reassuring reply.

  'It's being searched for political dirty books, you mean,' Charlie Wainwright observed lightly, covering the tenseness and foreboding which, with the disorientation of jet-lag, gave his face a faintly mask-like rigidity.

  He pulled down an arm rest. 'This is civil of the PCD, I must say. What is it? Red carpet or handcuffs?'

  'Mr Skardon made all the arrangements personally, sir,' Nichols answered, carefully.

  'I bet he did.' Wainwright inspected the interior of the vehicle.

  There was a short lull while his escort pondered on the Controller's instructions to be affable. At last he said, 'Did you have a good trip to America?'

  'Your gaffers know what sort of trip I had. Otherwise they wouldn't have sent this mobile broadcasting van for me.' Charles Wainwright leant forward to stare into the button-sized lens, almost concealed above the exclusion window to the chauffeur.

  'Are you there, Herbert?' he said. 'How's the snooper's army these days? How's the draught from all the little keyholes?'

  In the Home Secretary's office, Skardon's reaction was one of tight-lipped annoyance, as the trade union man taunted him from the television screen.

  'He'll find out,' he resolved aloud, from between clenched teeth.

  'Easy now, Skardon,' Dan Mellor settled into his chair, with a foxy smile. 'The gentle approach first and I'll make it.'

  His powerful personality completely dominated this place. It might have been designed specifically for him, as it contained exactly the mixture of ultra-modern gadgetry and traditional accoutrements of status which would appeal to such a man: retrieval systems and streamlined desk furniture, dark panelled walls and heavy velvet drapes framing tall windows, a union lodge banner on one wall and busts of union leaders of old gazing nobly through concealed lighting from a pair of niches. A miner's helmet, complete with safety lamp, hung ostentatiously on the hat-rack, as if to show that Mellor was prepared to descend 300 feet underground at a moment's notice whenever his ministerial open fire needed making up. However, the fire itself burnt logs.

  Skardon left this main office as the limousine carrying their victim turned into Whitehall, and Mellor started the re-run of the American telecast onto a big wall screen as the trade union leader arrived.

  At the end of the speech, Wainwright was seen nodding acknowledgement as applause thundered out. The politician switched it off and allowed the ensuing silence to sink in.

  'Real Nye Bevan stuff, Charlie,' he said, at last, more in sorrow than in anger. 'And most embarrassing for the Government, as you must have known it would be. Not like you, Charlie. GenSec of one of this country's biggest unions. Not on.' He shook his head in apparent bewilderment.

  'I couldn't spout the rubbish the PCD gave me. Not in front of real trade unionists,' Charles Wainwright declared, gazing at his old friend earnestly. 'They deserved the truth. They know it, anyway.'

  'What truth, Charlie?' asked Mellor. 'A standing ovation from a bunch of foreigners?'

  The other waved a hand in dismissive rebuke. 'We were the dissenters once, Jim. The lodge banners at the Durham Miners' Gala, the picket lines, the negotiations, the belief. We were both there.'

  Mellor hunched largely over his desk. 'And we won. We sit on every company board. We own 40 per cent of Parliament,' he asserted, forcibly. 'I was a trade union M.P. myself.'

  'Won?' Wainwright exclaimed with scorn. 'When everybody does what the PCD tells 'em?'

  'We've got Ombudsman's courts, people's tribunals.'

  'I had a bicycle bell once that made more noise and was a damn' sight more use than that lot put together,' the trade union leader jeered. He stood up and walked over to look seriously at Mellor. 'Dan, don't you remember? When we were in Sweden? '75, was it? Everybody had a number and there was a data terminal in every police car. If they picked you up, a computer could spill your life history for 'em in ten seconds. Every detail. We all said it couldn't happen here. Well, it has.'

  The Home Secretary tutted and returned his gaze with an avuncular smile, 'Progress, Charlie. You'll never change that.'

  'I don't want to. I just want to push it along the right lines,' the other pressed, with deep sincerity.

  'Skardon thought you might ask for political asylum,' Mellor put in the apparently casual jibe.

  'He would. And I was offered it, by four countries,' Wainwright rejected such an idea and stated his faith simply. 'I'll not turn coat, Dan. I'll toe the Party line. But I'll still work for what I believe.'

  The Home Secretary got to his feet and paced down the long room, apparently musing, hand to chin, the brows furrowed. 'I had a job to stop the Cabinet stamping you flat and using you for lino; on a treason charge,' he began, finally. 'I said I'd handle it. This is how. I respect your views - we've known each other long enough, but I want your word that when the American speech leaks out...'

  'If it doesn't get jammed,' the other interrupted, bluntly. 'We've got the most powerful equipment since Stalin.'

  'All right,' said Mellor, quickly. 'If it leaks out - you'll deny it. It was a put-up job. And there won't be any more speeches or statements like it in this country.'

  Wainwright's face closed tight. 'I can't promise that, Dan.'

  'It needn't alter your beliefs. You can still work for them,' argued Mellor, persuasively. 'Here at the top and privately and in rooms like this. Now, I need your word, Charlie.'

  Charles Wainwright hesitated, looking hard into the
other's eyes. Then he extended his hand. 'You've got it.'

  Mellor took the hand firmly and nodded, satisfied, 'That's been good enough for me for thirty-five years.'

  Arm thrown fraternally over the trade union leader's shoulders, he led him to the door and saw him out, smiling and clapping him on the back. Then, standing at the head of the wide staircase, he watched until Wainwright had crossed the entrance hall and been escorted back to the limousine by a commissionaire.

  The Home Secretary returned to his desk and pressed a buzzer. Herbert Skardon and the principal of Mayfield Adult Rehabilitation Centre came into the room from a side door.

  'Well, you heard it,' Dan Mellor looked at Mark Gelbert, who was carrying a clip board. 'What d'you think, doctor? Megalomania?'

  'Oh, no, Home Secretary. Nothing as complex as that. Just common or garden idealism. Quite simple to treat.' He could have been talking about measles and his confidence in the cure had its own menace.

  'You're quite sure that the results of the Mayfield experiments are complete?' the Controller worried.

  Doctor Gelbert eyed him coldly. 'Clinically and statistically, Mr Skardon. My professional reputation does not allow any margin for either guesswork or error. The Jesuits used to say, "Give us a child before it is seven and we will give that child to the Church for life".' His features, fastidiously pinched round obsessed eyes, took on the mould of a Spanish inquisitor. 'Give me a...misguided, yes, that's the word - a misguided person for seven days and I will give him to any creed of my choosing.'

  'Our choosing, doctor,' the Controller corrected, with deadly softness.

  'Yes, of course,' the man replied, hastily. 'I'm sorry.'

  The Home Secretary cut in, 'Right, Herbert. You'd better lift Wainwright and get him down to this mind laundry of Doctor Gelbert's. Nice and quiet. He's still an important man with lots of pull. Thank you, doctor.'

  Mark Delbert glanced from one to the other. A prima donna in his own field, he was suddenly aware that this was the real nerve centre and these men were the true manipulators. It made him uncomfortable to be dismissed with so little ceremony, but he was glad to leave.