David Peace - GB84

The total cost of the strike ballooning –

A huge red balloon and still rising.

There have been calls from the Great Financier. There have been angry calls. Threatening calls –

For restitution and remuneration. For retribution and retaliation.

The Jew has made promises and pleas. Supplications and solicitations –

But it’s not enough. It’s never enough –

The Jew knows it and the Jew knows why –

Christmas was finished. New Year was finished. Everything was finished –

It was time for each miner to make up his own mind.

But there is talk of talks about talks again. Third parties on the television –

Pressure mounts for peace. Prospects of fresh pit peace talks.

The Jew curses. The Jew fumes. The Jew rages. The Jew roars –

‘They have stayed out for ten whole months,’ the Jew shouts down the telephone. ‘Ten whole fucking months! They’re not going to surrender all that sacrifice and scab if there’s a chance of a settlement, are they? Tell the Minister to call me —’

The Jew slams down the phone. He slumps in his chair. He stares at his guests –

Piers Harris and Dominic Reid look at their nails and their notes –

Don Colby and Derek Williams look at each other and raise their eyebrows.

‘I’m calling off the dogs,’ says the Jew. ‘There’s no sense in any further legal attacks upon the Union, not now it is under the control of the receiver.’

Piers and Dominic nod. Don and Derek scratch themselves.

‘Of course, we’ll continue to pursue personal actions against individual members of their National Executive,’ promises the Jew. ‘And the restraints on mass pickets.’

‘The other actions should be suspended, then?’ asks Piers. ‘Indefinitely?’

The Jew strokes his moustache. The Jew nods. The Jew walks over to his map. ‘The focus now will be upon the return to work and upon our friends in Nottingham.’

‘Nottingham?’ asks Derek. ‘They’re practically all at work anyway.’

‘The men might be at work,’ says the Jew. ‘But their union remains on strike.’

Don and Derek are frowning. Piers and Dominic nodding now.

‘Those men need a new union,’ says the Jew. ‘That will be our next victory.’

The tape had stopped turning. The orchestra had stopped playing —

The restaurant was quiet. Empty now —

The Right Honourable Member of Parliament sat at a table among the shadows at the back, where the lights did not quite reach and the waiters never brought the menuand never took his order –

Malcolm Morris watched him. Malcolm Morris waited for him —

In the silences. In the spaces –

The Right Honourable Member pressed the eject button. He picked up his pen. He turned the pages of the transcript. He underlined. He circled. He scored —

These transcripts of the Dead —

Their comminations.

eager to help them by putting work their way. Didn’t seem as much like charity. Local shops and all — These folk had all given. But there was never any end to it. Never anything to receive in return. Now they’d nothing more to give. They just wanted it to end. We all did — And it got to you. It really bloody did — The moaning and the grumbling. The rumours and the whispers. The ups and the downs — Felt like progress. Then next news momentum had just disappeared — No talks at national level. Nothing — Then talks were back on again. Then they weren’t — Frustrating and it began to take its bloody toll. You’d see it in people’s eyes — The way they sat. The way they approached you over things — Electricity bills. Car repairs. Shoes for the young ones. Anything — People were more agitated. Jumpy. Quick to anger. To blame Union more and more — But it were these peaks and troughs that did it. False dawns. These ups and downs — Lads would see six o’clock news and hear they were still talking. Lads would go to bed thinking they’d be back at work next Monday — Brass would be coming in again. Debts going back down — Wake up to find out talks had failed again. And that were that then for next few weeks or months — Back to picketing or coal-picking. Just waiting — I go down. Down — To break things up a bit we started sending a few cars out to power stations. Relieve boredom — I went over in carto Ferrybridge with Keith and Chris. Martin had done another of his disappearing acts — It was just good to get away from village. Keith stuck radio on — Last Christmas . Least it wasn’t that fucking Band Aid record. Billy in Hotel had been telling us how that was all a government plot to distract public sympathy away from miners. Make miners look greedy next to little brown babies dying of starvation in Africa. That was how BBC had come to film it. How they’d sent those pop stars over there. He went on a bit, did Billy — Rattle off Ridley Plan to you. Tell you how he’d seen his brother’s lad on picket line. His brother’s lad who was in the British Army on the Rhine. His brother’s lad dressed as a copper — Thing is, said Keith, he might be right about that bloody record. People giving to them, they won’t be giving to us. Chris nodded, See his logic — I switched radio off. Wished I’d never opened my mouth now — Got to Ferrybridgeand they gave us a gate and some leaflets. There were a couple of blokes there from SWP. Keith had a laugh with them. Taking piss like always. Fucking freezing though, stood before that thing — That power station. Big clouds of white smoke against that heavy grey Yorkshire sky. Ticking over without a care in world, it was. Like we weren’t even here — Made your eyes smart. Two cars from Frickley came up to relieve us at lunchtime. Bloody glad to see them. Keith dropped us back at Welfareand him and Chris went up to Soup Kitchen for their lunch. Bet you it’s casserole again, said Keith. Don’t care what it is, said Chris. Long as it’s bloody hot. I did without. I didn’t have time. Knew queue would be there and it was. Hardest hit were them that had had babies on way when strike started. Didn’t plan on having a baby and no brass at same time. Emotional period in people’s lives at best of times. Took its toll, you could see. Husbands would be out picketing for their quid or doing a bit of cash in hand and wife was left inhouse with new baby and worry of bills and food and mortgage and what-have-you. These lasses going without meals to make sure baby got what it needed — Lot of these were the ones that were splitting up. Blokes who should have been on top of world looked like bottom had dropped out of it — I could hear babies crying before I even set foot in place. Screaming place down — Where’s my fifteen quid, Pete? shouted Adrian Booker. You got my fifteen quid yet, have you? He said it every fucking week. He wasn’t only one and all. Sixteen quid now government were taking off benefits in lieu of strike pay. Blokes like Adrian Booker would go down DHSS and argue with them. DHSS would send him back here to argue with me. It was their wives that had started it. How Union should give their men strike pay. Thing was, I agreed with them. But what could you do? There wasn’t even enough brass to

Monday 14 — Sunday 20 January 1985

There were never any standing ovations now. There were never autographs for the kids. Never songs in his name. There was just the silence –

The silence of the strike rolling towards the edge of the cliffs –

The petrol gone. The engine off. The brakes broken and the doors locked –