David Peace: GB84

Neil Fontaine stands outside the Jew’s suite. He listens to the toasts — Inside.

*

They had their breakfasts across the road from the County Hotel on Upper Woburn Place, Bloomsbury. Four tables of them. Full English. Terry Winters just drinking sweet tea. Dick after more toast. No one else speaking. Everyone hungover –

Everyone but the President. He was on the early train down from Sheffield.

They mopped their plates with the last of the bread. They put out their cigarettes. Drained their teas. Terry Winters paid the bill. They got four cabs down to Hobart House. Terry paid the drivers. They pushed through the press and the sleet. They went inside.

The President was waiting with Joan, Len and the news from South Yorkshire –

Solid.

They had their last cigarettes. Looked at their watches. They went upstairs –

The Mausoleum –

Room 16, Hobart House, Victoria:

Bright lights, smoke and mirrors –

The orange anti-terrorist curtains always drawn, the matching carpet and the wall-length mirrors, the tables round the edge of the room. In the middle –

No man’s land.

The Board at the top end; BACM and NACODS down the sides –

The National Union of Mineworkers at the foot of the table.

Fifty people here for the Coal Industry National Consultative Committee –

But there was no consultation today. Just provocation –

More provocation. Real provocation –

Fifty people watching the Chairman of the Board let his Deputy get to his feet.

The Mechanic hangs up. He closes up the garage. He picks up the dogs from his mother’s house in Wetherby. He puts the dogs in the back of the car. He takes the A1 down to Leeds.Hepulls into the carpark. Heleaves the dogs in the back.Hewalks across to the transport café –

Paul Dixon is already here. He is sitting at a table facing the door and the car park.

The Mechanic sits down opposite Dixon.

‘Nice tan that, Dave,’ says Dixon. ‘Garage must be doing well.’

The Mechanic says, ‘Look like you could do with a fortnight in the sun yourself. ’

‘Not all as fortunate as you, Dave,’ says Dixon.

The Mechanic shakes his head. He says, ‘I owe it all to you, Sergeant.’

‘I’m glad you appreciate the advantages of our special relationship,’ says Dixon.

The Mechanic smiles. He says, ‘That why they call it Special Branch, is it?’

Paul Dixon laughs. He offers the Mechanic a cigarette.

The Mechanic shakes his head again. He says, ‘Never know when you might have to quit, do you?’

‘How about a nice cup of Yorkshire tea then, Dave?’ asks Dixon.

The Mechanic smiles again. He says, ‘Coffee. Black.’

Paul Dixon goes to the counter. He orders. He pays. He brings over the tray.

The Mechanic has changed seats. He is facing the door. The car park.

‘Expecting company?’ asks Dixon.

The Mechanic shakes his head, ‘Just keeping an eye on the dogs, Sergeant.’

Paul Dixon sits down with his back to the door. The car park. He passes the Mechanic his coffee.

The Mechanic puts in four spoonfuls of sugar. He stirs. He stops. He looks up —

Dixon is watching him. The dogs barking in the car —

They want to go home. Out.

Terry Winters didn’t sleep. None of them did –

It was never dark. It was always light –

The bright lights on the train back North. The TV crews outside St James’s House. The fluorescent lighting in the foyer. In the lift. In the corridors. In the office –

Always light, never dark.

Terry phoned Theresa. Click-click. Told her he didn’t know when he’d be home. Then he got out the files. Got out his address book. His calculator –

He did his sums –

All night, again and again, over and over.

First thing Wednesday morning, Terry Winters was across in the Royal Victoria Hotel with the finance officers from each of the Union’s twenty separate areas and groupings. Terry made them all stand up before the meeting could begin. He made them search the room for hidden microphones and bugs. He made them frisk each other.

Then Terry Winters drew the curtains and locked the doors. Terry made them write down their questions in pencil and seal them in envelopes. He made them pass the envelopes forward.

Terry Winters sat at the head of the table and opened the envelopes one by one. Terry read their questions. He wrote the answers in pencil on the other side of their papers. He put the answers back in the envelopes. He resealed them with Sellotape. He passed them back down the table to the individual authors of each question –

The finance officers read the answers in silence, then returned them to be burnt.

Terry Winters stood up. Terry told them how it was –

The government would come after their money; hunt them through the courts.

He told them what had to be done to cover their tracks –

Nothing on paper; no phone calls; personal visits only, day or night –

He handed out sheets of codes and dates for them to memorize and destroy.

The finance officers thanked him, then returned to their areas.

Terry Winters went straight back to St James’s House. Straight back to work.

He worked all day. They all did –

Each of them in their offices.

People coming and going. Meetings here, meetings there. Deals made, deals done.

Breaking for the Nine o’Clock News, News at Ten, Newsnight –

Notebooks out, videos and cassettes recording:

‘I want to make it clear that we are not dealing with niceties here. Weshall not be constitutionalized out of our jobs. Area by area we will decide and in my opinion it will have a domino effect. ’

Cheers again. Applause –

Domino effect. Essential battles. Savage butchery.

Then it was back to work. All of them. All night –

Files, phones and calculators. Tea, coffee and aspirins –

The Communist Party and the Socialist Workers arguing in the corridors –

Tweeds and Denims at each other’s throats. Their eyes. Their ears –

Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony on loud upstairs in the office of the President –

All night, through the night, until the brakes of dawn.

Terry put his forehead against the window, the city illuminated beneath him.

Never dark —

You couldn’t sleep. You had to work –

Always light.

Head against the window, the sun coming up –

The troops were gathering on the street below him. The Red Guard in good voice:

SCAB, SCAB, SCAB –

The dawn chorus of the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire.

Another cup of coffee. Another aspirin –

Terry Winters picked up his files. His calculator.

Terry locked the office. Terry walked down the corridor to the lift.

Terry went up to the tenth floor. To the Conference Room –

The National Executive Committee of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Terry took his seat at the right hand of the President. Terry listened –

Listened to Lancashire: ‘There is a monster. It’s now or never.’

Listened to Nottinghamshire: ‘If we’re scabs before we start, we’ll become scabs.’

Listened to Yorkshire: ‘We are on our way.’

For six hours Terry listened and so did the President.

Then the President stopped listening. The President stood up with two letters –

It was their turn to listen to him now.

The request from Yorkshire in one hand, the request from Scotland in the other –