'How old fashioned you are, me old Bev,' beamed Mr Fowler. 'Capital isn't money. Capital is resources, energy, the will to create. Money is nothing.'
'Interesting,' Bev beamed back. 'Money is nothing, and yet it's the only thing that the workers care about.'
'Substitute the word consumption,' said Pettigrew, 'and you've said all that has to be said about the Outer Life. Yes, the workers want to consume, they have a right to consume, and the Syndicalist State uses power to fulfil that right. They had little enough chance to consume during those glorious historical epochs you were prevented from stuffing the heads of the kids with, and sulked because you were stopped.'
'Consumption,' said Bev bitterly. 'And what consumption. Colour television and food without taste or nutriment, workers' rags that call themselves newspapers and substitute nudes for news, low comedians in working men's clubs, gimcrack furniture and refrigerators that break down because nobody cares about doing a decent job of work any more. Consumption, consumption and no pride in work, no creative ecstasy, no desire to make, build, improve. No art, no thought, no faith, no patriotism -'
'Me old Bev,' said Mr Fowler, 'you forget a very simple truth. That the techniques of modern manufacture do not allow for pleasure or pride in work. The working day is a purgatory you must be paid well for submitting to, paid well in money and amenity. The true day begins when the working day is over. Work is an evil necessity.'
'It was not that to me,' said Bev. 'I enjoyed my work. My work as a teacher, I mean. My work as a rather better paid dropper of nuts on chocolate creams was a mere nothing, a sequence of simple bodily movements above which my mind soared in speculation, meditation, dream. But to educate young minds, to feed them -'
'To feed them rubbish,' said Pettigrew. 'Force-feed them with innutritious fibre or downright poison. Your chocolate creams were a more honest fodder, Mr Jones. Listen to me, sir.' That sir was like a promise of steel whips. 'You were wrong to enjoy your work. Even the Bible says that work is hell: "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn bread." You are at your old business of confusing two worlds.'
'There's only one world,' cried Bev.
'One world is coming,' nodded Pettigrew, 'but not the one world you mean. Holistic syndicalism, the fulfilment of the ancient battle cry about workers of the world uniting. You mentioned patriotism, which means what it always meant - defending the property of a sector of the international bourgeoisie against an imagined enemy, for the only enemy of the worker was the ruling class that sent him off to fight against other workers. This is old stuff, Mr Jones. The age of war is over, along with the age of the blown-up national leaders. The age of the imposed mystical vision, the madness, the cynicism. Done, finished.'
'And now we have the age of dullness,' said Bev. 'I wonder how long it can last? Because it can't last for ever. There's something in man that craves the great vision, change, uncertainty, pain, excitement, colour. It's in Dante, isn't it? "Consider your origins. You were not made to live like beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge." You've read Dante, I don't doubt. Read him and rejected him because he's nothing to say to the workers. Homo laborans replaces Homo sapiens. Caliban casts out Ariel.'
'Gentlemen,' said Pettigrew to the group, for there were no ladies in it, 'I'm glad you've had this chance to listen to the arguments of one kind of dissident. Conceivably, some of these arguments were once your own. We're coming to the end of this rehabilitation course. Next week, after a four-day break for the staff, the next one starts. During these last few days, I have the task of visiting your discussion groups or syndicates and putting straight questions: how are things with you now? Simple things are required of you before you effect your re-entry into the world of work. First, a choice of job. Our Employment Officer, Miss Lorenz, is at your disposal with a list of vacancies. Second, the issue of a new union card, meaning a reinstatement, a resumed citizenship of Tucland. Third and last, a formal recantation of heresy - chiefly, I may say, for our own propaganda purposes. A whole-hearted acceptance of the closed shop principle and a rejection of the delusion of right to unilateral action.'
'So,' said Bev, 'in effect you ask us to set up a new morality in our hearts. A hospital burns down and the firemen stand by waiting for their PS20 rise. We hear the dying screams and we say: This is right, this is in order, first things first.'
'No,' cried Pettigrew with such force that the word struck the opposed wall and came bouncing back. 'No and again no,' more softly. 'You see the breakdown of a public service and you regret that this should be so. You regret the stupidity of the public employer that has allowed things to get so far, that has refused to listen to the just demands of the workers and has now forced them to use the ultimate terrible weapon. You look beyond your immediate vision to the reality.'
'To a man whose wife has perished in a burning building,' said Bev bitterly, 'such a mystical vision is hard to attain.'
'And yet,' said Pettigrew, 'there have been moments, and very recent moments too, when you have said to yourself: I cannot altogether regret what happened.'
'What do you mean?' Bev felt his heart tumbling into his belly and blood pumping up to his throat.
'You know what I mean.' Pettigrew looked at him steelily. 'We here are entitled to know what inner worlds you enter. After all, you are in our charge.' He turned to the rest of the group. He said: 'Do any of you still have misgivings? If so, speak honestly.' Nobody answered because they were preoccupied with the shock of seeing Bev leap on to the great Mr Pettigrew and belabour him with his fists. Pettigrew's glasses flew off and were heard to tinkle tinily on the floor. He tried to get up from the chair where Bev had him pinned, blinking and gasping. Fowler, not now beaming, was on to Bev's back, disclosing a strength none of the normally beamed at would have suspected. Nobody came to assist Bev. Two men, metalworkers, once very bloody-minded, came to assist Fowler.
'You damned traitors,' breathed Bev, while Pettigrew looked with woe at his broken glasses and Fowler panted, straightening his tie. A metalworker said:
'You're mad, mate. Fucking nutcake case, do you know that?' Pettigrew said:
'Perhaps, Fowler, you'd get me one of my spare pairs. In the left-hand drawer of the desk in the office.' Fowler went. Pettigrew tried blearily to focus on Bev. 'Strangely or not,' he said, 'this will not be held much against you. It's a last spurt of dissidence. I think you're going to find yourself cured. Group, dismiss. I'll see you all sometime tomorrow.'
12 Clenched fist of the worker
Supper that evening was a solid worker's meal of cod deep-fried in batter with chipped potatoes and a choice of bottled sauces, spotted dick and custard to follow. Tea was served, as usual, in half-kilo mugs. Everybody looked strangely at Bev, not knowing whether to approve his belligerence or not, since none really liked Pettigrew though they feared him; some seemed to be fearing the worst for Bev, sucking their teeth thoughtfully at him as they lighted up their penultimate issue fag of the day. Pettigrew was not present at what he facetiously called High Table. Mavis said to Bev, as they entered the cinema together after supper:
'How could he know?' Bev whistled a few bars of I have heard the mavis singing. Mavis was quick. 'Don't be a bloody idiot. I'm not a nark. Do you honestly think I go round telling the staff who I sleep with.'
'How many do you sleep with?'
'That's none of your flaming business, Jones.'
'Sure you're not the Official Whore of Rehabilitation?'
She cracked him a damned flat-handed slap for that and bounced off to sit with some of the girls. Bev, his cheek tingling, sat alone but not neglected. There were many sad or wondering eyes on him before the lights dimmed. The curtains opened to show a wide bloody screen and a turning silver flywheel, with the first two measures of Tucland the Brave stereoing out in hunting-horn harmonies. TUCFILM presented The Fury of the Living. The story was conventional but it was given painful force through the technique developed by Paramount's experimental workshop in the seventies, whereby the minute b
lackness between frames, normally filled in by continuity of vision, had been eliminated, and the images on the screen struck like raw actuality. The subject might have been chosen specially for Bev, since it was about a factory fire service going on strike in order to secure better equipment and working conditions, and the rest of the employees going out in sympathy. The dirty employers, who had planned its demolition anyway in a programme of improvement and expansion, set on fire their own warehouse, making sure first that the pretty young wife of Jack Latham, one of the strikers, was imprisoned in a washroom there. None believed this when told: a filthy employer's trick, no more. The strikers watched the warehouse burn, and then Jack Latham heard his wife screaming: 'Jack, Jack, save me, Jack,' and after that actually saw her arms and hair waving from the flames, but his mates held him back: a filthy trick, don't look, don't listen. So the warehouse burnt out, and the strike remained unbroken, and the workers had won. But in the charred ruins Jack found his wife's asbestos identity-disc and went wild with grief and attacked his own mates. And his mates admitted: yes, they had known. But a calmly wise elder, a veteran of the cause, put him right: the cause needs martyrs, the cause is sanctified by their blood or their black heavenward-soaring flinders. But why the innocent? Why should the innocent. . . .? Jack screeched from the four walls and the ceiling of the cinema. Bev went out.
Bev went out, a thing not previously known, and encountered two bruisers in official overalls. One of them said:
'Well, mate. Not satisfied with the entertainment provided?'
'I've seen it all before,' said Bev. 'Indeed, I've lived through it.' And he made off towards the dormitory.
'Indeed indeed,' said the other, a man with unusually close-set eyes and no lips, 'indeed.'
'Well, it adds to it,' the first said, barring Bev's way. 'We don't like what you did to Mr Pettigrew earlier on. None of us here does.'
'Who,' asked Bev, 'is us?'
'Mr Pettigrew,' said the second, 'is the boss.'
'There are no bosses any more,' said Bev. 'There are representatives, delegates, secretaries, chairmen. But no bosses.'
'For your type,' said the first, 'there has to be bosses. Boss language is all your type understands. This way.'
Bev was gloomily pleased that the organization was at last showing, as he had always suspected it would, the quiet face of violence. He was elbowed to a lift he had not previously seen used. It went down, as was to be expected. It stopped, and opened directly into a cellar that still held wine bins, though all now empty. There were a plain deal table and three chairs. There was strip-lighting, already on. Another man, not tough looking, was standing thoughtfully under the light, cleaning his nails with a match. 'Ah,' he said, looking up, without enthusiasm. 'This him?'
'Him, Charlie. What they call an educated taff. He's going to do something nice for Mr Pettigrew. It will bring tears of joy to Mr Pettigrew's eyes, it will that.'
'Ah, that,' said Charlie. He tucked his match away in the top pocket of his overalls and, from the broad and deep thigh pocket, brought out a folded piece of foolscap. 'It's here to be read. Then signed. But read first. Sit down, Taffy boy. Read it careful.'
Bev sat and read:
I hereby acknowledge that, after a most useful course of rehabilitation at the Trades Union Congress Education Centre, Crawford Manor, East Sussex, I have been brought to a very clear understanding of the errors I formerly cherished concerning the aims and organization of British Syndicalism. I have no hesitation in recanting those errors herewith and wish it to be known, publicly if need be, that henceforth I will be a co-operative member of my union and an ardent supporter of the principles for which it, with its brother unions, stands.
Date: Signed:
Bev said: 'I'm not too happy about that verb at the end. Mr Pettigrew's work?'
'It's nice and flowery,' said Charlie. 'It's a good piece of writing. Here's a pen here.' He held out a ballpoint. 'All you have to do is shove your moniker down. I'll put the date in.'
'Does this happen to everybody?' asked Bev. 'Does everybody have to come down here to sign? Or am I specially favoured?'
'Some comes here,' said Charlie, 'but not many. It looks like you're the only one on Course 23. It's good reports on the rest, but you seem to be a right bastard.'
'Did Mavis tell you that?' asked Bev.
'No names has to be mentioned. And if you're thinking this is Mr Pettigrew's idea, then you've got another think coming. Mr Pettigrew is above this cellar business. He grieves if anybody leaves here still a bloody-minded bastard, though them wouldn't be his words. He's innocent, Mr Pettigrew is, and has to be protected like from the rough side of life. So now you know what's to be done, Taff, and, if not, what has to happen, so let's get it over, shall we?'
They all nodded sadly as Bev tore up the document. The lipless man said: 'Charlie here has got plenty more of those.'
'Not all that number,' said Charlie. 'You'd better start, lads.'
They started. They were good at their work, which left no marks. Bev lay panting on the floor, trying to draw air in, and the air just wasn't available.
'Come on, lad,' said Charlie. 'All you have to do is sign. You can do what you like when you leave here, but for God's sake, lad, don't be more of a swine to Mr Pettigrew than you've been already.'
Bev found enough breath to say, 'Fuckyou.'
'Dear dear dear,' said Charlie. 'Naughty words. Try again.'
'Did you bring the pliers, Bert?' asked the first tough. 'The dentist's ones? This geezer's got a fair number of pegs in his cakehole.'
'Left them upstairs,' said the one with no lips. 'Shall I get them?' To Bev he said: 'Always used those when I was in the police. Hurts more than just knocking them out and it shows less.'
'Later perhaps,' said the other. 'We'll see how we get on now.'
'Perhaps he'll sign,' said Charlie. 'Come on, Taff, be reasonable.
'Bastardsfuckyou.'
'Oh, all right then, ungrateful little swine.'
I can always recant the recantation, said Bev's brain clearly as he was kicked and thumped. I'll sign, but not just yet. I'll wait till they start the tooth-pulling. I can stand this, I can stand any amount of - The brain itself was astonished as its lights began to go out, having just time to say: 'No need to sign after all.' Then there was nothing.
13 A flaw in the system
Bev had been the only patient in the little sickbay; he had, indeed, been very nearly the only inmate of Crawford Manor. His course had ended, the reformed had gone off to the world of resumed work and consumption and syndicalist loyalty, the staff had taken their four-day break. But Bev had had a male nurse with a doctor's telephone number, and the male nurse had dished him up coarse meals made mostly of corned beef and onions, no invalid diet. But Bev was no longer really an invalid. Tomorrow, when the new course started, he would be free to go. But Mr Pettigrew did not wish him to go, not just yet. Mr Pettigrew did not take breaks. He worked all the time. He and Bev, Bev in an issue dressing-gown, had been together nearly all day for three days, either in the ward or the up-patients' tiny sitting-room. Bev wanted to know about the medical report, Mr Pettigrew wanted Bev to sign the document of recantation.
'I say again, Bev, that you were found in the grounds at night in a condition of syncope. The medical officer diagnosed slight anaemia. Our psychiatric consultant considers that the loss of consciousness might well have been caused by profound psychic tension, a struggle between selves, as it were. I incline to the latter view.'
'I was beaten up. I want that to go on the record.'
'You may have been. I can well understand that some of your er fellow-students might have wished to use violence against you. But to allege that violence might have been administered here, officially, is wholly monstrous. Violence is not a proletarian weapon. It is the monopoly of capitalism and totalitarianism. Besides, there were no marks on your body - except such marks as were obviously occasioned by your falling heavily on to a gravel path.'
/> 'The lack of marks,' said Bev wearily, for the tenth time, 'is a sure sign of professional violence. But how can one man's truth prevail?'
'That is very nearly a sound aphorism,' said Mr Pettigrew. 'How can one man prevail in anything? Truth and virtue and the other values can only rest in the collective. Which brings me again to our unfinished business. I wish you to be manumitted, clean and reformed. Comprehensive School B15, Isle of Dogs, is only too anxious to have you. Your union card is ready. Sign, please please sign.'
'No,' said Bev.
'You know the consequences. The consequences have been presented to you very candidly.'
'I know,' very wearily. 'I'm an unreformed criminal. I can only survive by living the life of a criminal. And if I'm caught next time, there'll be no course of rehabilitation.'
'Next time,' said Mr Pettigrew gravely, 'it could be a matter of indefinite confinement. I'm not saying will be, but I am saying c -'
'I beg your pardon?' Bev interrupted him in large-eyed incredulity. 'You mean if I steal another bottle of gin - or try to; Christ, that's all I did last time: tried to - you mean I get a life sentence? I don't believe it. God, man, that's going back to the eighteenth century.'
'In the eighteenth century you could have been hanged for stealing a loaf, let alone a bottle of -'
'Gin was cheap then,' said Bev in the schoolmaster's way that not even impending death can kill. '"Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, clean straw for nothing."'
'Hanging then was done without regret. We're not in the so-called Age of Enlightenment now.'
'We're certainly not. Universal darkness buries all.'
'You ought to know that the concept of penal servitude has drastically changed in the last ten years. Prison with hard labour is not permitted by the TUC. Labour of any kind entails union representation. We cannot allow prisons to be sweatshops. Very well, there is only one kind of confinement available now.'
1985 Page 20
