by Owen Sheers
Further off I saw Simon my old music teacher from school, coaching some of the choirs. Old Alfie was there too, making a rare appearance from his house on Llewellyn Street. And Maggie as well, trying it on with the men, bold as brass, right in front of their wives sometimes, sniffing after any opportunity she might get to earn a few quid round the back of one of them stalls. Seemed like the whole town was out that day, buzzed up with anticipation. But no sign of the teacher’s mother any more. And no sign of him, either.
Yet.
I was still standing on the steps by the slipway when I saw Uncle Bryn doing the rounds with his wooden staff and his puppet show. Now I remember Uncle Bryn from way back. Regular entertainer he was, bringing his shows to kids parties, dos at the social or sometimes, like today, down on the beach. I hadn’t seen him for ages, but I suppose the Company Man’s arrival had offered the chance for all sorts to put themselves in front of a crowd again and see if they still had it in them.
He was doing his show like he always did, building the whole thing right there – the stage, the little curtain, the piece of velvet he’d kneel behind. A good crowd had gathered round him, and not just kids either. But like I said, Uncle Bryn goes way back, so I’m sure there was more than one parent who’d come for their own memories more than their children’s.
At the same time Uncle Bryn was doing his show another one was underway at the bottom of the slipway. A ‘Pageant of Port Talbot’ it was called, something the Council dreamt up by way of enter-tainment to keep everyone occupied while we waited for the Company Man. It was shit. Bunch of am-dram types cranking through a series of tableaux about the history of the town. Or rather a history of the town, because I don’t remember seeing any scenes about the Passover being built above the rubble of my nan’s house, or the coughing we used to get after playing footie under the towers of the chemical works, or the brown bags of cash that signed this shore away for industry not the resort it could have been. No, this was the official history. All polished up and lovely. At least it was until something happened to it.
The Mayor had stepped up to the microphone again, making another announcement about how he was sure the Company Man would be ‘here any minute, yes any minute now’. He looked terrible, all pale and shaky. Casting his eye over the scene he’d spotted Uncle Bryn below him, right smack in the path of where his honoured visitor was going to walk up from the sea. Still on the microphone he called down to him…
‘Excuse me. You can’t be there. Can you move out of the way please? We have a very important visitor coming. You’re going to have to move. Who are you anyway? Is he one of yours, Simon? Do we know you?’
The Mayor waved over at Sergeant Phillips.
‘Sergeant Phillips, can you…?’
But he got no further. Uncle Bryn had turned round when the Mayor’d called to him then, slowly, he’d lifted his staff to point it at his face. As soon as he did the Mayor froze. Stock bloody still, mouth half open. Sergeant Phillips was still bearing down but as Uncle Bryn started a slow turn, his staff outstretched, he was for it next. Then the next person, and the next. Soon Uncle Bryn had the whole crowd frozen, including me. The whole crowd, that is, except for those am-dram pageant actors who he didn’t so much as have frozen, as had them completely. Like his puppets they were.
I know that sounds weird, frozen, but it’s the only way I can describe it; as if the whole town was asleep but awake, sharing a dream. A dream that became a nightmare as the pageant actors, conducted by Uncle Bryn, played out a vision of pain and fire and voices and ghosts and hammers and doors and nails and gunshots and cheering and weeping and a death and a light and an ending that became a beginning.
You had to be there to understand what I’m saying, and I didn’t even understand any of it then. All I do know is that it all started with Uncle Bryn. If I was my bampa, then this is when I’d be licking my finger and touching my throat again. It was him who was pulling the strings on this vision see – old Uncle Bryn, pulling the strings on all of us. Except it wasn’t. Because just before I froze, I caught a glimpse of him, full on. And you know what? The man with the puppet show and the staff, he wasn’t Uncle Bryn at all. It was the Stranger, that’s who it was, dressed up as Uncle Bryn, grinning away, playing us all.
It was the flare that brought us round. Fired from one of the Company Man’s RIBs, high and arcing up over the sea, bursting into purple. That was the sign he was on his way and all the Mayor and the Council needed to get them even more worked up than before. As soon as it burst everyone started moving again. I looked around, wanting to know if anyone else had seen what I’d just seen. But they all looked normal, or almost normal, as if maybe a flash of something had grazed their retina, but nothing else. And now I come to think of it, although at the time I knew I’d seen that vision, I also didn’t know I’d seen it. Only later, much later, did I really remember.
The soft thud of a helicopter began to rise over the sea. The Mayor looked out to the water and saw the first of the RIBs cutting over the swell towards us, their snub noses in the air, their edges frilled with security. Clearing his throat he spoke into the microphones again, his voice watery at the edges.
‘Here he comes! Here he comes! Now, I don’t need to tell you again what an important day this is. So please, let’s welcome our guest with open arms and open hearts and open minds, shall we? After all, as the Company’s slogan says, ICU are “Looking Out For Your Future!”
The police tried to get the crowd to meet his last words with a cheer, but the helicopter was in sight by now, so everyone was more interested in that, and the ten RIBs speeding over the water towards the beach. The first ones hit the sand like bullets, skidding up onto the shore, ICU security details jumping out, running through the crowd, planting flags to mark out a path. Others fanned out to secure the perimeter, guns cradled against their bodies. Then came his bodyguards, black suited, speaking into their cuffs, scanning the crowds from behind dark glasses.
I looked towards the edges of the crowd again, saw the Resistance boys putting their hoods up, melting into the people milling around the stalls. As one of them backed away he put his hands to his mouth.
‘Don’t listen to them!’ he shouted. ‘They aren’t interested in this town, only in what’s under it!’
He must have thought he was far enough off to get away with it, but he wasn’t. The crowd around him moved faster than fish from a shark, leaving him suddenly alone in a hole. Before he knew it two of Sergeant Phillips’ police were on him, yanking his arms up his back, cuffing his wrists, putting gloved hands over his mouth. And as ever, in seconds he was gone. Dragged away to where the Company couldn’t see him, his trouble or the punishment he’d get for it.
Back on the slip the bands had started up, and a choir too, singing for all they were worth as the Company Man, flanked by his suits, PAs and security, made his way up towards the Mayor. A right slick one he was. As neat and put together as a file folder, grin like a slash of steel, body tightly packed and well held. Eyes like lasers. Didn’t miss a trick that one. No wonder the Mayor was bricking himself.
As the Company Man reached the slipway the band and choir reached their crescendo, then fell silent. He shook some of their hands as he passed, nodding and thanking them then, giving a neat little nod to the Mayor and Council too, he stepped up to the microphones. And then he waited. Oh he knew how to draw us in alright, just like my bampa down the social. Only there was no licking of fingers or touching of throats with this one, just him, staring out at us, over the town, over everything he controlled.
Now, I don’t know if anyone else saw this, but as he stood there, I could have sworn I saw a flicker in his eye, like just for a second he’d caught something that wasn’t meant to be there, something he perhaps didn’t, after all, control. I followed his gaze up the sands, over the heads of the waiting crowd. And there they were. The two women and the little girl from the dance that morning, standing in a line far up the beach, their white nightdresses catc
hing the sun, staring right back at him.
Never one to let himself be shaken, the Company Man was soon back in charge, clearing his throat, leaning in slightly and speaking in that soft but firm father’s voice of his. Lifting a hand, he acknowledged the smattering of applause.
‘Thank you, thank you. It’s such a pleasure to be here with you again, to be here in our town again, which, although it’s been quite some time since my last visit, I can assure you, is never far from my thoughts. We have much to celebrate today. Five years of working together. Five years of a unique relationship, one of its kind in the entire world, between your town and ICU. Five years of building upon the skills of our separate pasts, so we may look towards our shared future.’
And that was as far as he got.
A woman’s scream, then another. Shouts. A moving knot in the crowd, bodies pressing away from something. A man’s loud voice, booming out of the PA system.
‘Nobody move! Stay back! Back! This isn’t a hoax, I’m warning you! This is real. Everyone stay still!’
ICU security, rifles at their shoulders, red sighting lasers skimming over the heads of the crowd. Then, like a pip spit out by the multitude, a woman, staggering onto the slipway, her body weighed down with packs and packs of explosives strapped about her chest.
Immediately those red lasers came swooping down. Like a starling shoal into a tree they nested in a cluster over her heart.
The man’s voice again, ‘Don’t try anything! Shoot her and I’ll detonate them. I will! I’m warning you! Stay back!’
The ICU security chief steps forward, Old Growler we used to call him, one hand raised high, stalling his shooters.
‘Nobody move!’ the voice shouts again.
And nobody does. For the second time in minutes we’re all frozen, though this time we all know why.
The voice speaks again, a little quieter, but still hard and sharp as flint.
‘A little closer, Joanne. And some more. That’s it.’
He’s talking to the woman. This woman who’s breathing like she’s just run a marathon, her eyes swollen with tears. Following his orders she takes a few more faltering steps towards the Company Man. Close enough for the microphones to pick up the sound of her fear, short breaths, quick like a dying animal.
‘Look at her. You, Company Man. Look at her.’ The voice isn’t shouting now. Just talking, right as if the person it belonged to was standing in front of him.
‘She’s a person. With a name, a life, hopes, memories. A person. Not just a figure in your spreadsheets. Not just a gradient on one of your graphs. She’s an innocent person, like all of us. Like my mother was. Like this town. An innocent person in the hands of someone else, someone with their thumb on the detonator. So look at her, all of you, look at her. What I’m doing is no more than what they do every day. Because you’ve got us by the throats haven’t you? You Company men have got your teeth deep in our throats, bleeding us working men dry. Until the day you choose to let go. And then what happens? We’ll still die from the wounds you’ve left in us, just quicker, that’s all.’
I look at the face of the Company Man. Not a flicker. His eyes are on the woman. I can tell he’s thinking hard but I wasn’t expecting him to do what he did next, to lean into the microphones and try to speak back to the voice.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said, using his calm, older-brother tone. ‘We can talk. Let her…’
‘Shut it! Don’t you dare tell me what I have to do!’ The voice was back to shouting. As if that’s what he’d been waiting for all his life, the chance to close this man down, to tell him what he thought of him, straight to his face.
‘What do you know? What do you really know? Of course I have to do this. What else have we got left? Nothing else will make you listen! Nothing else will make them listen! Someone’s got to make the sacrifice! Because this is all you understand isn’t it? Domination, control, manipulation. ICU? Oh, I see you alright. You and that false council around you. I see you and your stories, your lies.’
The police must have spotted him and were trying to edge in, because the voice changed again. From shouting to threat…
‘I told you, try anything and I’ll do it. I will, I’m warning you I will!’
Other voices now, also shouting from behind. I turned round and saw where he was, up on the balcony of the Surf Lifesaver’s Club. A man all in black, face covered, one arm held high, a pack of police, crouched down, guns raised, shuffling nearer to him.
Then all hell breaks loose and suddenly everyone’s shouting. Old Growler barking orders into his radio, the bomber on the balcony, the police around him. Down on the slip, meanwhile, Joanne’s breaths are become screams. Short, tight screams becoming the words of a woman expecting to die as the crowd around her keeps edging away, expanding a growing circle of alone, just her and the Company Man left at its centre.
BALCONY: I told you! Stay back! Stay back!
SLIPWAY: Oh please. Help me… help me. Please…
POLICE: Put it down! Put the detonator down!
GROWLER: Have you got a clear shot? Have you?
BALCONY: Don’t come any closer! I’ll do it! I will! I’m going to do it! I’m warning you! I am! I am! I am…
And then, from somewhere much further away, another voice. Level, calm, a note of relief.
‘I see you.’
I think he came from the sea, from behind the crowd, but I still can’t be sure. All I know is that suddenly he was there. The Teacher from those MIS SING flyers. There on the slipway walking into that empty space towards the Company Man and Joanne.
The whole crowd pressed further away as the red sighting lasers danced over his body.
‘You!’ the bomber’s voice shouted. ‘Stop there. Don’t come any closer!’
But he did. It was like he couldn’t hear him, like he couldn’t hear any of it, everyone screaming at him to stay back, to stop. He just kept on walking towards Joanne, talking to her. And she was talking back to him too, her face changing shape as she did, from fear, to confusion, to sadness and then, and I’m not kidding now, honest, to happiness. By that point he was right up with her, reaching out his hands towards that jacket of explosives, everyone at full pitch telling him to stop.
I didn’t see what happened next. Like everyone else I turned away, ducked down, pressed myself against the sand. I was sure they were going to blow. But when I opened my eyes we were all still there, and when I stood up I saw it was over. The Company Man was being whisked away by Old Growler’s men, the bomber was being dragged off the balcony by the police and Joanne, without her jacket of explosives, was standing on the slipway embracing the Teacher.
I heard the bomber one last time, as the police pressed his head down into a squad car. He was shouting again, but at the Teacher this time, not the Company Man.
‘You don’t know what you’ve done!’ he screamed, pushing a gloved hand from his mouth. ‘You’re part of this now! You’re part of this!’
And then he was gone, bundled into the car by a fist of police.
Back on the slipway Sergeant Phillips had collared the Teacher and was questioning him. I moved nearer, wanting to hear those answers myself.
SERGEANT PHILLIPS: Name?
TEACHER: I… I don’t know.
SERGEANT PHILLIPS: Where do you live? Address?
TEACHER: I don’t know. I don’t know where I live.
SERGEANT PHILLIPS: What do you mean? You homeless?
TEACHER: I don’t know. The last thing I remember was coming onto this beach. Today. That’s all.
SERGEANT PHILLIPS: Hold on. You’re him aren’t you? The teacher. The one who’s been missing.
TEACHER: Am I? I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.
I wanted to step up then, tell them both what I’d seen that morning, about the Stranger, the ducking in the sea, the dance. But it was too late. ICU security were clearing the beach, checking IDs. I felt a shove in my chest, turned to see a gas-masked face.
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‘Move on kid, scram!’ it said.
So I did.
When I looked back the beach was already half emptied. The Teacher was gone too, and Joanne. But his mother was back, along with her two sons. She was standing where he’d just been questioned by Sergeant Phillips, looking around her, wild in the eye. One of her sons was trying to pull her away. The other just looked on, looking sadder than anyone I’d ever seen. I was quite far down the prom now, up by the café, but the wind was blowing her words my way, so I could still hear what she said as she searched around her like a woman looking for something she’d dropped.
‘He was here,’ she was saying. ‘Just now. I saw him. My son. He was here.’
It was evening before the Company Man was ready to address us again. The Mayor had told us where to assemble – in the town centre in the secure area. He’d come to the microphone down on the beach when the echo of the police sirens was still in the air, more sweaty and pale than ever. We’d need our ID cards, he’d told us. There would be checks, barriers, but still, weren’t we the lucky ones the Company Man had agreed to stay?
So like I said, it was evening by the time we gathered to hear his announcement, the light drawing in, the hill behind the town growing black against the sky. They’d set up a big screen so we could all get nice and close to the Company Man’s steel-slash of a smile. I managed to get in as far as the first barrier, but then no further. Only those with the right credentials were allowed in the next section. The Company’s lackeys, family members of the Council, no one who was going to cause any trouble. ICU obviously weren’t up for taking any more chances. And neither was Old Growler and his security details, the way they shoved us around, patted us down, took anyone who looked suspicious elsewhere.
