The Gospel of Us

by Owen Sheers

  But still we kept on coming. We wanted to hear the news, didn’t we? It was meant to be about our future after all, that’s what the Mayor had said. And that wasn’t a word often used about our town back then. It might have been in ICU’s slogan, but that was about the only time we ever saw it. We’d used to talk about our past once but even that seemed to have gone now; squeezed out by the roads, the works and the concrete. And how can you talk about a future without a past? Cleverest thing the Company ever did, that’s what my bampa used to say – ‘The cleverest thing. Made us forget where we came from, so as to make us blind to where we’re going.’

  Around seven o’clock they cranked up the lights on the stage so we knew something was going to happen. Then we heard the mics being tested – ‘One, Two, One, Two.’ And then, out of nowhere, mid-sentence, we heard something else – something we weren’t meant to hear.

  The voice was unmistakable. That soft-firm father’s tone, knowing and unmoving, so certain of itself. Only this time he wasn’t up on a platform talking to us. He was still backstage and talking to the Mayor.

  ‘…how it is, I wish it could be different but the decision has been made. We’ve invested too much to back off now.’

  ‘This isn’t what we agreed.’

  ‘The Company agreed nothing. Listen. We’ve said all along we’re committed to bringing the best out of this town, and one way or another that’s what we’re going to do.’

  ‘But you said it would only be the people in the path of the new Passover. Nowhere else.’

  ‘I’m trying to make this easier for you, Griffiths. The sooner we can get people moving, the better. People are adaptable. Holding on to this place is just going to make it harder for them in the long run. If the Passover story helps get things going – wonderful. If not then my security forces will be more than happy to move things along.’

  ‘Why can’t you tell them the truth?’

  ‘Because it won’t help them to know the truth. Look, do you think a man wants to be told he’s worth more dead than alive? Well this town is worth more empty than with people in it. That’s the truth. Do you want to go out there and tell them that? We know there are huge untapped resources beneath this town. That’s the truth.’

  ‘All I am saying is…’

  ‘Hold on, is this on? Is this…?’

  Then the mics went dead. The crowd, though, had both heard enough and wanted to hear more. I felt them shoving from the back, wanting to get closer. Anti-ICU chants started up, ‘ICU – Out For Your Blood!’, sending police officers scuttling from the front barriers back towards the rear. I heard the thwack of truncheons against bodies, shouts, cries.

  Eventually it died down, the whole crowd settling like one restless animal. More lights came up on the stage and finally the Mayor appeared, looking even more shaken than usual. When he spoke to us, it was like he was only halfway there.

  ‘The Company Man will now make his… announce ment. Please listen very carefully to what he has to say. Thank you, and…’

  He trailed off and just stood there, looking out at us all. Then he walked away. Nothing more, just walked away, shaking his head.

  When the Company Man appeared, some of the chanting began again but it soon ebbed away. There was something in the way he looked over a crowd that made you want to quieten down, to listen. Like what he said would mean something for everyone – not necessarily in the words he used, but in how the shadows of those words might fall.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you,’ he said, though no one was cheering. ‘I am glad to see so many of you here this evening – so many of you undeterred by the unfortunate events of this afternoon. Let us be clear. What we were all witness to was an act of pure cowardice. An act of terrorism. Perpetrated, the criminals will say, in your name. But why? Why did these people try to silence us? I will tell you. Because these people, who say they are acting in your name, are afraid. That is why. And what are they afraid of? What can be so terrible that they will murder, maim and kill? They are afraid, my friends, of the very word I was using when we were so rudely interrupted. They are afraid of the future. But I know this town better than that. I know what you are made of, and I know that where they are cowardly you are brave. Where they are cruel you are kind and where they have fear, you have hope!’

  From somewhere a few cheers. They might have been at the prod of the security’s guns, but maybe not. Because you had to give it to the Company Man, he could speak. Oh yes, he could speak alright. He looked over us again, waited for the cheers to fade, then continued.

  ‘Every age has had its enemies of progress. And in every age, these people have eventually been defeated. So I am here today to assure you that in our age, in our time, in our town, the enemies of progress, the enemies of the future, the enemies of enterprise shall be defeated. What, you may ask, makes me so confident? Because I know this town. This is a town ready for change. This is a town ready to embrace the bold new vision I bring before you today.

  ‘And this is what I really came to speak to you about. Hope. Hope for a better future for all of us. We all know though, that however high we might hoist its sail, Hope will only ever take us so far without the winds of hard work and sacrifice to drive it.

  ‘So this is also what I came to talk to you about today. Sacrifice. You and the generations before you have worked hard for this town. You have delved into the belly of the earth to bring forth steel, you have carved into the mountain’s side to bring forth coal and you have harvested the sea at your doorstep to bring forth fish. Now after all those years of hard work, what I am proposing is that we allow the town to work hard for you instead. How? With the brave new vision of the future we call “The Passover Project”. It is with great pleasure that I can reveal to you today that what we began with the construction of the M4 Passover road, ICU will bring to perfection with a new Passover Project. A great new road leading this town into a glorious future. A road that will increase the speed of transport links in this area by over sixty per cent.

  ‘This road, like the first Passover, will be built over this town. It will bring work, it will bring jobs and it will bring investment. The promise of this Passover is our hope. So what then is our sacrifice? Only the same sacrifice this town has already borne so nobly in the past. Those living in the path of the Passover will have the opportunity to leave their old homes and move into new dwellings, purpose-built by the Company. This will not affect many of you. It will be a sacrifice borne by only a few, and we must applaud those brave and selfless enough who have already begun, with an eye to this town’s future, to leave their old homes for pastures new. Some will be returning to their relatives in the countryside. Others will be housed by us, the Company. But all, I assure you, will be catered for.’

  The timing was perfect. No sooner had the Company Man said those words than the first families began arriving outside the perimeter fences. Wrap ped in blankets, carrying bags and boxes of belongings. Men and women, children and grandparents, a shuffling chorus of tired and angry faces, their lives in their arms, their worlds in pieces at their feet. Some of them began shouting at the Company Man through the fence.

  ‘You lying bastard!’

  ‘They’re taking the doors! They’re taking off the doors!’

  ‘They came with guns! Told us to leave!’

  ‘They took our front door, just ripped it off!’

  ‘They’re doing the whole street, the whole street!’

  It didn’t take Old Growler long to have his men over there, the familiar swift tide of black riot gear followed by silence.

  The Company Man, though, took it all in his stride. ‘Please,’ he said, his arms held out to pacify us. ‘Don’t be alarmed. Clearly there’s a certain amount of confusion. Some initial difficulties are only to be expected. I’m sure you understand a project like this is a huge undertaking and the road may be a little bumpy at first. I’ll leave it to your Mayor and Council to distribute the necessary information but I wanted to bring you the go
od news myself. And to assure you that with this new Passover Project, the Company and I will continue “Looking Out For Your Future”.’

  He should have known better than to end with that. Showed how much he really knew us, how he had no idea that line was like a red rag to a bull for the protesters at the back. ‘Don’t believe them!’ they shouted in response. ‘Tell us the truth! The truth, the truth, the truth!’ Then the familiar chant began:

  ‘ICU – Looking out for themselves!’

  ‘ICU – Looking out for themselves!’

  The Mayor stepped forward and tried to say something but it was clear no one was going to listen to him, so the Company Man came back to the microphone. This time, though, he looked different. Not so much ruffled, as angry.

  ‘I want to speak to our enemies now,’ he said, his eyes bright in the arc lights, his finger stabbing out at us. ‘The enemies of this town. I know you’re out there. I see you. Well, hear me now! You’re a cancer on this town. A plague. And I will not rest until you have been driven out of this place, never to return. If anyone here, anyone, has any suspicions about who these enemies may be, where they may be gathering, what they may be plotting, then come forward. I urge you, no matter who you suspect – it could be a neighbour, a friend, even a member of your own family – come forward. You can alert any one of my security forces – here to protect you – and they will be more than willing to assist.’

  It was all the crowd needed. His words were like flames to blue touch paper. Together with what we’d heard from backstage, his slick speech, the news of the Passover Project, the families at the fence, this call to snitch was the final straw. The Resistance boys saw their chance and were soon sliding through the crowd like eels, stoking the fire, starting the chants, stirring it up. The police tried to keep control, but the crowd was too strong for them, so ICU security came in too, which only made it worse. Everyone was surging forward, forward, trying to get closer to where the Company Man stood up on the platform. I saw a woman start climbing the barrier fence in front of us. She was shouting as she climbed.

  ‘What do you want? What’s under this town? Tell us the truth!’

  Her face was twisted in anger, in fear. She was shouting at the Company Man, boring her eyes into him, so she didn’t see Old Growler down below her. Didn’t see him take a pistol off one of his men and start striding towards her; didn’t see him raise that pistol, both arms straight; didn’t see his finger squeeze on the trigger.

  I saw the shot before I heard it – a sudden wound of blood and broken bone erupting between her shoulder blades. And then the echo of it, resounding between the civic buildings, stopping the chants, the shouts dead.

  She fell like a bird from a tree.

  Slow at first, then a heavyweight descent, tipping backwards into the screams of the crowd. I turned away, expecting to hear the thud of her body hitting the ground. But it never came.

  When I turned back the crowd had cleared from around her, everyone pressing back in a circle, edging away from her death. Everyone, that is, except for the man who’d caught her.

  Straight away spotlights were on them, and a camera crew, catching her last breath in his arms as he looked down into her face, his own obscured under a blue hoodie. The front of her chest was crimson, as was the ground beneath her, blood pouring from her back. She was shivering, shaking, so the man, still holding her in his lap with one arm, took off his hoodie with the other and laid it over her.

  For a moment nothing else happened. It was like they were painted there, lit in the lights, her head resting against his shoulder, her arms hanging limp, her knuckles resting on the ground. But then he lifted his head, and we all saw it was him.

  The Teacher, clear as daylight, with that camera zooming in close now to shine up his image on the big screen behind us.

  Staring through the barrier fence he looked towards the Company Man, still stood at his microphone on the platform. The Company Man returned his gaze. Eventually it was he who spoke first – not to the crowd, but just to the Teacher.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said. The Teacher looked confused, before trying to answer.

  ‘I’m… I am…’

  But he got no further.

  The Company Man filled the silence again.

  ‘If you have something to say, then say it.’

  The Teacher looked blank. He looked down at the woman, dead in his arms, then up at the Company Man once more.

  ‘I have nothing to say,’ he said. ‘I came to listen.’

  Book Two: Saturday

  Before I tell you what happened that Saturday, I should tell you what else happened on the Friday night first. I don’t know why, but a few hours after that woman was shot, I went back to the secure area in the centre of town. It was dark by then, the big arc lights turned off, the civic buildings inking round the square like sleeping giants. ICU security and the police were still there, but unseen, in the shadows. The whole place was like a forgotten memory, as if whatever we did, whoever died, none of it would ever be noticed.

  But not everyone had forgotten. I knew that as soon as I entered the square and saw the candles. I don’t know who’d brought them, but there they were, a huddle of them all different sizes, their wax melting down their sides like tears. They’d been placed right where she’d fallen and right where he’d caught her. I walked closer to them. Their flames lit the ground so I could still see the stain of the woman’s blood, spreading like the map of a country over the paving slabs, cities and towns marked in dark spots of old chewing gum. Like I said, I still don’t know who’d put them there, who’d lit them, but it was enough that they did. Not forgotten, that’s what those flames said. Still burning and not forgotten.

  I knelt down to feel their warmth against my hands. It was a gentle heat, like a breath or human blood. As I crouched there I listened to the nighttime town. It was death-bell quiet – just the usual sighs of cars and lorries over the Passover and somewhere else, streets away, a security alarm complaining. It was like the whole town wasn’t so much sleeping quiet as waiting quiet. Waiting for the morning, for this night to be done and for it all to begin again.

  I stood to go and that’s when I saw the other light. Far away, up on the mountain. Just a lamp probably, hung on a tree, but strong. A low star speaking to those candles at my feet, like a beacon. I knew right away it was him. Up there for the night with his new followers. And I knew, too, that the lamp was only that – a lamp, to help them cook, wash, see. But as I walked away, because of everything else that had happened that day I knew it wasn’t just a lamp either, was it? It was like those candles, that light up there – a memory, a not-forgotten, a sign that somewhere at least things were still burning.

  I slept like a log that night. Slept like I’d never slept before, body sunk right through the mattress type of sleep. So first I knew about the new day was my phone kicking off somewhere under my clothes on the floor. Fumbling around, I found it and looked at its screen. It was my buttie Johnny over on Llewellyn street. I was late for band practice, that’s what he said. ‘Band Practice’. I had to laugh, we weren’t no band, at least not yet, not then. Johnny’d bought some drum kit up the valleys the week before, fifty quid for a mint set, never been used, ‘kept in towels the whole time butt,’ Johnny said. Anyway, as far as he was concerned, that was enough. We’d be a band. Him, me and little Evs Bach. Fair dos, he’d had worse ideas, so I’d said I was up for it. He was still dead keen about the idea and I didn’t want to let him down so I climbed out of bed, threw on my clothes and made my way over to Llewellyn Street.

  At least, that’s where I’d thought I was going. To the same old Llewellyn Street I’d always known – one row of pebbledash, flat-face terraces facing up to the pillars of the Passover. But I wasn’t, was I? The way there might have been the same – same pavements, same streets, same alleyways and underpasses. But the destination, well, that both was and wasn’t the same, like the whole place had been pushed through the looking glass.

/>   I saw the cricket game first. They were playing it in the street, but slow, like their bones were made of lead. Young lads, a few girls and some older men too, bowling and batting right there on the tarmac. Then, as if that wasn’t surprise enough, I saw the other side of the street, the side that, ever since the Passover was built, hasn’t been a side for years. And that, well, that stopped me in my tracks alright. To be honest, I thought I was having a flashback from a bad tab, until I realised that other people could see it too. And what could they see? Well, like I said, the other side of the street, there again, as if the concrete, bulldozers, cranes and trucks of the Passover had never been here at all. All of it was there, but ghosted. No walls as such, or roofs or windows, but the outlines of the houses were still there, along with their families inside them, watching telly, washing up, playing on the floors of their living rooms.

  Imagine if you’d taken an x-ray of a whole street, then coloured it in with bright washing on lines, people’s faces, rugs, carpets and radios. Well, that’s what it was like. A demolished street brought back to life, not with the bricks that had built it, but with the families who’d lived inside them, back home at last.

  I was still staring at that ghosted side of the street when I heard Johnny running up behind me, all panting and blathering.

  ‘It was Alfie, no lie now. It was him who done it. I swear it. You’ve gotta believe me butt.’

  I put my hands out, trying to calm him. ‘Alright, Johnny, alright. Easy now. Now, what you sayin’ ’bout Alfie?’

  ‘It was him. As made the other side of the street.’