David Peace - GB84

The Brass give his team orders. The Brass open the door. The Brass yawn —

His team leave. The Brass wave –

The Mechanic and his men gone.

Dick was still in Scotland. Everyone else on the top floor. Terry Winters took the stairs. Two at a time. Late again. Terry hung his jacket outside with all the others. He knocked once. He went inside. He mumbled his apologies –

The Tweeds and the Denims stared. The Tweeds and the Denims muttered.

Terry took a seat by the door.

Joan was standing at the front. Joan saying, ‘— thirty-eight arrested at Wivenhoe. Twenty-one at Harworth. Better news from Lancashire. Only two pits there now working. We calculate that a hundred and twenty-one pits are out, forty-nine still producing some coal. President —’

Joan sat down.

The President stood up. He said, ‘Thank you, Comrade. I have agreed to attend next Monday’s May Day rally in Mansfield. However, Monday week, there will also be a Union family rally in the town. The Areas and Panels will be notified today. Coaches will be provided to ensure every branch is represented. Chief Executive —’

The President looked down at Terry. Everybody looked down at Terry –

Terry looked down at his calculator and his files. Terry blushed. Terry looked up. Terry said, ‘That is correct, President.’

The President waited. The President said, ‘And the Local Council, Comrade?’

Terry nodded. Terry said, ‘All the necessary approval has been granted.’

The President waited. The President said, ‘Anything else, Comrade?’

Terry shrugged his shoulders. Terry shook his head. Terry said, ‘No.’

The President said, ‘Thank you, Comrade. The final items on the agenda are the General Secretary’s statement on behalf of the Vice-President on the situation regarding the local agreements with the ISTC and transport unions. No doubt you are all aware that BSC have intensified their use of scab road haulage to maintain deliveries and coal stocks at their plants. The General Secretary will then also make a brief statement of his own in regard to coal stocks at CEGB sites. General Secretary —’

Paul stood up. He was looking at Terry.

Terry looked back down at his calculator. He had pressed 773407734.

He turned the calculator upside down –

Terry smiled. Terry closed his eyes –

Chickens, the lot of them. The Tweeds. The Denims –

Headless chickens, the lot of them.

Terry didn’t panic. He just did it. Terry didn’t read the forms the Council sent him. The small print. He just signed where he had to sign. Signed what he had to sign. Terry didn’t listen to the things the Council asked for on the phone. The guarantees. He just agreed with what they said. Agreed to what they said. Terry didn’t question the terms the coach firms wanted. The prices. He just accepted what they said. Accepted everything. Terry knew the important thing was that the President got what he wanted –

Britain’s biggest ever trade union demonstration —

That he got what he wanted. Next Monday in Mansfield. The biggest –

The phone was ringing. Terry opened his eyes –

He was back downstairs. He was back in his office. Back behind his desk.

Terry picked up the phone. Click-click. He said, ‘Chief Executive speaking.’

‘Bill Reed here,’ said Bill Reed. Bill edited the Miner —

Terry had stopped smiling.

He knows she’s hurting. In the backs of Ford Transits again. No windows. Transit stops. They put bags on their heads again. No eyeholes. He closes his eyes in the dark. He knows she’s hurting. The doors open. They take them out of the Transit. The air is cold. They march them across the tarmac. Up steps. Onto seats. Doors shut. Motors start. Engines. Helicopter engines. Up they go. He closes his eyes. He knows she’s hurting. Down they come. Motors stop. Doors open. Down steps. Across tarmac. The air cold. Keys turn. Doors open. The air old. Down corridors. Doors open. Keys turn. They stop. They take the bagsoff their heads. Heopens his eyes. Heblinks. Stares –

Bare bulbs. Bunk beds. Blankets. Kit bags —

Barracks.

Doors slam. Keys turn —

The Mechanic closes his eyes again –

He knows Jen is hurting. Knows he is not there for her —

Not yet.

support them — To save them. They get no coke, they got no job. They got no job, we got no job, someone else shouts. Keith turns round. Divide and rule, he shouts. That’s what she bloody wants. Fucking stick together. That’s only way there is — Stick together, someone laughs. Tell that to fucking Nottingham. Tell them your fucking self, snaps John. Never seen you down there. Should do more for them, Pete says. Them that are out down there, they need all help they can get. All help we can give them. Keith nods. We need everyone on picket line, that’s what we need, says Keith. All of you. Room goes up. Big shouts — Fuck off! Shut up! Need to stop yapping about it. Need to start dishing it out — Petrol money isn’t going to get us a new radiator, is it? Pete shakes his head. Pete stands back up. This is getting us nowhere, he says. Bloody nowhere. Day 65.John’s driving. Following Pete’s piece of paper again. What he’s written. Talk is all of gangs and squads — Hit squads. Super squads. Scab squads. Intercept-or squads — Lads getting hidings from gangs of off-duty coppers — Squaddie gangs. Scab gangs — Like after Sheffield. Police had just waded in. Taken anyone in town centre after dark — Beaten fuck out of them. Nicked them — Tried that shit earlier, says Keith. Be no fucking Sheffield left now. There’s rumours that scabs are giving names of blokes on strike in Notts to police. Their addresses. Police giving names to these hit squads. Hired hands. Lads getting ambushed. Wives getting dirty calls when their men are out picketing. Heavy breathing — I’ve told Cath to keep chain on when I’m out — Be Yorkshire next, says Little John. Mark my words. Get through again. Creswell again. Police waiting. Cameras out. Smile. Stick us out of road. Scabs go in — Waving. Smiling — Bastards. We shove. Shout — That’s all we do. All we fucking can do. They’re in and we’re out. That’s it. Head back to cars. Police waving bye-bye — Smiling. Fucking bastards — Wasting our bloody time down here, says Keith. Never going to change their bloody minds. Be better at power stations. Trent wharves. Pay off would come then. You’d soon see. Day 68.Bad dreams again — We lie among corpses. Thousands of them. We are parched. Drowned in blood. Stained armour. Fallen crowns. We lie among corpses. We listen to the field beneath us. Worms coming. Slugs. Rats. Little bloody footprintsacross cold white skin. We lie among corpses. We look up at the sky. Clouds coming.Rain. Crows — Onelands on me. Struts upon my chest. Cocks its head. It goes for my eye — I wake up. Bad dreams are mine — All mine. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go — Day 69.Mansfield rally today. Most of wives have come — Cath too. She wanted to. Lot of blokes have brought their kids and all. We’ve got on coach. Right laugh it is. Lot of songs. Banter. Come to Leisure Centre. We get off coach — What a sight. Must be thirty thousand easy. Banners as far as you can see — From Scotland. Wales. Lancashire. Derbyshire. Kent and Yorkshire — By bus. By van. By car. By foot — Here to their Heartland. Not to intimidate them. Not to bully them — Here to shame them. God smiling on us too. Baking-hot sunshine. We march through town centre behind our banner. Heads held high, lot of us. Heads high with pride. Hand in hand with Cath. Kids sat on front of banner. Ice creams. Local folk out to welcome us. Clapping us. Cheering us from rooftops — Roaring us on. No scabs and their wives. None of Maggie’s Storm-troopers. Not a helmet in sight. Just thirty thousand ordinary, decent men, women and children. Twelve noon we come back to Leisure Centre. Can’t get near platform. But we can hear them. Tony Benn. Dennis Skinner — We can cross frontiers we have never dreamed of. We can not only stop pit closures — we can have Socialism. Fantastic every one of them. Cath clapping. Cheering. Chant goes up for Arthur. Who people want. One name — Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur — I look over at Cath — Clapping. Cheering. Chanting with best of them. And he’s magnificent. Magnificent — You have got a union leadership who are prepared to lead until we win, and win we will — She looks at me. She squeezes my hand. She has tears in her eyes. Tears in mine — Good ones, for a change.