David Peace - GB84

In the shadows (where there was only night, only endless fucking night). Click –

It had been a Friday; Friday 9 March 1984.

*

The Jew is at sea again. Down at Bournemouth with the Young Conservatives to celebrate her first ten, glorious years. Her Great Leap Forward. The Jew bought a card specially –

‘Valentine,’ he’d sung. His hand on his heart. ‘Won’t you be my valentine?’

The Jew has a place in his heart for Neil too. And the Jew’s left him with lots to do –

‘Idle hands,’ he’d said. ‘Know what they say about idle hands, don’t you, Neil?’

Neil Fontaine had nodded. Neil Fontaine had taken out his pen –

‘So much to be done,’ the Jew had said. ‘Minds to be moulded. Hearts to be won.’

To monitor the returns. To assist Piers & co. To chauffeur the Chairman –

Non-stop Neil, that’s Neil now. From A to B and back again –

Hobart House to Eaton Square. Eaton Square to Congress House. Congress House to Eaton Square. Eaton Square to Thames House. Thames House to Eaton Square. Eaton Square to the Ritz. The Ritz to Congress House. Congress House to Eaton Square —

Non-stop Neil with the bodies and the bottles. The people and the papers –

The Minister and the drafts. The TUC and the whisky. The Board and –

The eight points thrashed out between the Chairman and the General Secretary.

Neil fetches and he carries. He takes and he leaves. He waits and he watches –

The tensions. The mistrust. The deceits. The misgivings. The lies. The mistakes –

These plays within plays within plays within plays –

The games and the hunts. The traps and the baits –

The meat rotten. The prey starved. The flies fat —

‘We’ll be watching developments very closely,’ Piers is telling the Chairman in the back of the Jew’s Mercedes. ‘If we find evidence that these orders are not being complied with, if coach firms are still carrying mass pickets to the pits in clear breach of the injunction, then we shall take legal action against them.’

‘And what of Yorkshire?’ asks the Chairman. ‘The Heartland?’

‘Tomorrow,’ says Piers. ‘After tomorrow there will be no more mass pickets.’

Neil drops the Chairman and Piers at Hobart House. Neil checks the Jew’s office –

The office empty. The lights and the heating off. The windows open to winter –

His maps and his pins. His charts and his tins. In boxes by the door.

‘I need to know everything,’ the Jew had told him. ‘Absolutely everything, Neil.’

Neil switches on the lights. Neil closes the windows. Neil calls the Jew –

Neil tells the Jew one thousand one hundred and ten men returned this week –

‘That’s less than last week,’ screams the Jew. ‘It’s just not good enough, Neil!’

Neil tells him about the bad weather. Neil doesn’t tell him about the talks –

‘The eve of a historic breakthrough,’ the Union were saying —

‘Uncork a bottle of my finest,’ says the Jew. ‘I’ll be back for dinner, Neil.’

‘And not a moment too soon, sir,’ replies Neil Fontaine before he hangs up –

Neil is driving the General Secretary of the TUC back to Congress House.

*

They asked after his wife. They didn’t wait for his reply. They didn’t really care –

Nothing mattered now , but Terry knew that (Terry has known that for a time).

‘It has to be an honourable settlement,’ Dick was telling the rest of the Executive. ‘The men will not sell their souls now. Not at this stage —’

Everybody nodded. Everybody knew that –

Phrases had become empty. Faces become blank. Words empty. Looks blank —

The Fat Man stood up. The Fat Man distributed photocopies of the agreement –

‘This is an honourable settlement,’ said the Fat Man. ‘Honourable —’

The National Executive flicked through the eight points of the document –

Reconciliation. The right of the Board to manage, the right of the Union to represent. A return to work and a return to a new Plan for Coal. The modificationof the Colliery Review Procedure. The incorporation of an independent reference body into the CRP. The future of all pits to be dealt with by this new CRP, including those collieries with no satisfactory basis for continuingoperations. The CRP to provide a further review where agreement could not be reached. But,point eight —

At the end of this procedure the Board will make its final decision –

The President put down his photocopy. The President looked up at the Fat Man –

No more talks. No more alterations. No more discussions. No more negotiations—

‘This is the best possible deal,’ said the Fat Man. ‘The best possible deal.’

‘So she says,’ smiles the President. ‘And so he says. And now so you say.’

‘But what do you say?’ asked the Fat Man. ‘You and your Executive?’

‘It’s unacceptable,’ said the President of the NUM. ‘That’s what I say.’

‘So what can I do now?’ asked the Fat Man. ‘What more can I do?’

‘You can pull out the entire trade union movement in industrial action in support of the National Union of Mineworkers –

‘That’s what more you can bloody do!’

The Fat Man looked up at the President. The Fat Man shook his head –

‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘It’s too late and you know it.’

The President looked down at the Fat Man, and the President shook his head –

His fingers squeezed his nose. His eyes filled with tears –

The President looked round the table at the National Executive Committee –

They shifted in their seats. They picked their pants out of their arses and sighed. The will is there, they said. The wording is not, they argued –

Is it hell, they shouted. The wording is there, they said. It’s the will that’s not –

They lit their cigarettes. They drank their teas. They looked to the President –

The President picked up the points. The President read them through again –

The President put them down again. The President said again, ‘Unacceptable.’

No man’s land –

The President caught again here. The President trapped again –

Piggy-in-the-middle –

The TUC and the government. Hand in hand . The government and the Board. The Board and the TUC. The TUC and his own fucking Union. The Left and the Right. The Militants and the Moderates. The Hardcore and the Soft. The Left within the Left. The Right within the Right. The Tweeds and the Denims. The Traditionalists and the Modernists. The Europeans and the Soviets. The wet and the dry –

The black and the white. The right and the wrong. The good and the bad –

United we stand. Divided we fall —

Factions and fractions. Fictions and frictions –

Never. Fucking. Ending.

The President shook his head. The Executive did not. The Fat Man nodded –

Nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded —

‘The Minister will help,’ he promised. ‘The Minister wants to end the strike and, where there’s a will, there is always a way.’

The Fat Man picked up his papers. The Fat Man left for Thames House –

Left them to their bitter pills. Their factions and their frictions –

To accept this or reject it. To strike on or return …

Terry made his excuses. Told them he had to go. They didn’t listen. Didn’t care –

To return without an agreement or return with an agreement …

Terry took the train back up to Sheffield. Terry sat in first class –