David Peace - GB84

The Brass surveys the scene. He lowers the binoculars. He bites his lip. He says, ‘What if they succeed? If we can’t keep the place open? Like Saltley?’

The Jew looks at the Brass. He asks, ‘Do you want to be the next Derek Capper?’

The Brass shakes his head.

The Jew gestures at the empty fields. The Jew points at the road. The Jew says, ‘Look at this place. You can open it. You can close it. Your decision. Your discretion –

‘Just make sure you have enough men –

‘The right men, too. Real men. Hard men. Not dilettantes.’

The Brass nods. The Brass says, ‘Thank you.’

‘She is counting on you,’ says the Jew. ‘The nation is.’

The Brass shakes the Jew’s hand. He hands back the binoculars. He leaves.

The Jew watches the white Range Rover through his binoculars. He lowers them. He is smiling. He is laughing. He turns to Neil –

‘Well done,’ says the Jew. ‘Well done indeed, Neil.’

Here. He. Goes —

The Mechanic through the automatic doors. Hits the alarms. Chaos —

Up the supermarket aisles to the office. Through the office door —

The secretary stands up. ‘No! Please God, no —’

Punch to the security guard. He goes down —

Slap for the secretary. Down and she’s out —

Kick to the guard and he stays down –

The Mechanic drags the manager across his desk by his hair —

Puts his face to the safe and shouts, ‘Open it!’

Manager hesitates. Hit with the handle of the pistol. The manager opens it —

The Mechanic kicks his legs from under him. Manager falls flat on his face —

‘Stay that way,’ the Mechanic tells him. ‘And live.’

The Mechanic fills the bag. Just the cash. Takes the money and he runs –

Down supermarket aisles. Through automatic doors. The chaos and he’s gone —

Just. Like. That.

There had been calls all night. There had been talks all night. There had been deals. Concessions. Favours. Kent lifted the picket. The word went out. The talks were back on. Calls were made. Plans. Strategies. Meetings about the meeting. Talks about the talks. Face to faces about the face to face. Everyone was here –

Everyone was going to be there –

The entire National Executive. Their entire staff. Fifty people.

The President addressed his troops. The President laid it out. The President said, ‘Listen to them; let them have their say. Then they will listen to us; let us have our say. But there can be no negotiation. Because there can be no closures. No redundancies –

‘So there is nothing to negotiate. Nothing!’

Everyone cheered. Everyone applauded. Everyone followed the President –

Ten cabs to Hobart House.

Terry paid the drivers, all ten of them.

They pushed through the press. They went inside. Straight upstairs –

The Mausoleum.

Room 16, Hobart House, Victoria:

Bright lights, smoke and mirrors —

The orange anti-terrorist curtains still 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; everyone else down at the bottom –

Seventy people –

Sixty-eight people sat in silence as they listened to the Chairman –

To the Chairman tell them that everyone agreed it was the Board’s job to manage. Tell them that everyone agreed the Union had no plans to interfere in that job. That everyone agreed on how much coal had to be produced. Everyone agreed they could not continue to lose money. Agreed pits had to close for reasons of safety. Had to close for reasons of exhaustion. That everyone agreed pits had closed for reasons other than safety or exhaustion in the past –

That pits always had done. That pits always would.

Sixty-nine people sat in silence as they watched the President take his fingers from his ears and shake his head –

Sixty-nine people listen to the President tell the Chairman that pits had always closed for reasons of safety. That pits had always closed for reasons of exhaustion –

Always had. Always would –

But pits had never closed for reasons other than safety or exhaustion –

Never had. Never would –

Not Polmaise. Not Snowdon. Not Herrington. Not Bullcliffe Wood –

Not Cortonwood. Never –

Ever. Ever. Ever –

‘Does everyone agree on that?’ the President asked the Chairman.

The Chairman stood up. The Chairman said, ‘No comment.’

It is a war of nerves. There have been casualties. Prisoners taken. Hostages to be freed —

The dogs in the garden. The Mechanic opens the door. He goes into the lounge –

He has company.

Neil Fontaine is sat on the sofa in the dark with a brandy. Sade on low –

A Polaroid on the glass table.

Neil lights a cigarette. Inhales. Exhales. Neil holds up two fingers —

‘Fuck you,’ the Mechanic shouts. ‘Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.’

‘Finished?’ asks Neil.

The Mechanic shakes his head. ‘I haven’t got her fucking diary.’

‘You haven’t looked, David,’ says Neil. ‘You haven’t even fucking looked.’

‘I don’t know where to fucking look and neither do you.’

‘Girl could be forgiven for thinking you don’t love her. Not like you say you do —’

‘Fuck you,’ the Mechanic screams. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’

Neil finishes his drink. Neil stubs out his cigarette. Neil stands up.

‘Where are you going?’ the Mechanic says. ‘I want her fucking back!’

‘You don’t have the diary,’ says Neil. ‘You won’t help me. I can’t help you.’

‘I don’t know anything about the fucking diary!’

‘Just a question of silence, then,’ says Neil. ‘Yours? Or hers?’

The Mechanic picks up his holdall. He puts it on the glass table. Opens it –

‘What’s in there?‘asks Neil. ‘Your heart?’

The Mechanic shakes his head. ‘Twenty-five thousand pounds in cash.’

‘David, David, David,’ says Neil. ‘Would it were so simple —’

‘I love her,’ the Mechanic says. ‘Never say I don’t, Neil. She’s mine now —’

‘It’s not my decision,’ says Neil. ‘Not my choice.’

It is a war of nerves. There have been casualties. There will be reparations. Ransoms to be paid —

A price.

ones. Stones coming over. Lads getting hit. Folk shouting to pack it in with stones. I pull my T-shirt over my head, like that’s going to fucking help. I get swept right down to front. Then carried back again — Like a fucking horrible sea. Helmets flying up. Truncheons. Sticks. Stones. Broken bones. Blokes go down. Boots all over them. Then lorries are in and everyone falls back. I start to walk away. To look for Keith or John. Everyone else making their way off road when — Shit. Fucking horses charge — I head for wood. They won’t follow us in here, I think. They fucking do. Wood’s only about fifty bloody metre wide and all. I come out other side and there’s a wall of a thousand fucking coppers with their truncheons out — Fuck me. I turn back — Horses still coming. I try to get up a tree. They’re swinging with their batons. Hitting anyone they can get. I jump down. Run. Horses still coming. Bastards on foot with shields and truncheons behind them. Batons drawn and ready. I come out other side of long grass. Brambles. I’m at embankment. I jump down. Land badly. My ankle fucking kills. End up on railway. Bloke tearing down line towards us — Shit. Train’s fucking coming — I scramble off line. Look up banking. Hundred fucking coppers banging their shields. Beckoning for us to come back up and have a go — Cunts. Fucking cunts — Train goes past. I cross line. Head up other way. Get to Rotherham Road. Lot of lads here — Split heads. Cracked ribs. Broken limbs. Bloody — Mates nicked. Beaten. Lost. Everyone fucking angry. Fucking furious. Things bastards have done to them. Completely unprovoked. Lads you’ve never met before telling you to get back down there. Give them what they’re fucking asking for. Fucking hiding they’ve got coming — To pick up bricks. Fence poles. Milk bottles. To make a trap — Few blokes get some wire and string it between these telegraph poles. They come up to where I am. Tell us to go down lane. Throw stones at bastard pigs. Then leg it back up here. I go down with about fifty or sixty other blokes I don’t know from Adam. I stand there in front of shields. Truncheons. I throw stones. Ranks break. Out come horses again. Eight of them — We run. Fucking run — Wire gets one of riders. Bang! Down he goes — Hard. Onto road — Everyone turns back. Hundred lads heading down on him — Hundred of their lot coming back up for him. I can see his fucking face beneath his visor — White in terror. Thought of his own death. Here on this road. In this place — And I wish him dead. I do. I wish him and all his kind dead. Every last bloody one of them. Dead — But he gets up. He runs. He gets away. Escapes — I watch him get up. I watch him run. I watch him get away. Escape — Taste of salt in his mouth. Taste of salt in mine — Fear. Fucking fear — I spit. I spit and I spit. My stomach knotted — Lads have got a fucking Portakabin from somewhere now. Put a match to it — Smoke everywhere. Next news they’ve got one of telegraph poles — Running down hill towards police lines with it. Like a fucking battering-ram — Not enough of them though. Thing drops to ground — Starts to roll away. Police go for it — Get hold of it. Rest of them all banging on their fucking shields again — Applauding their mates as all lorries leave again. Loaded — Day 87.Orgreave. Fucking Orgreave. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go — Here I go down. Here I go under. Here I get lost — I get kiss of life and a fractured fucking skull. Day 89.They keep us in for ob-servation. Daft bastard fell off a ladder, that’s what Pete tells doctors. Fell off a ladder and down stairs. They send us home after twenty-four hours. Bag of bandages. Load of pills. Plenty of rest. Doctor’s orders — Rest. Sleep. Rest. Sleep — I lie here in our big bed. In our room. Our house. I lie here and I watch shadows on our ceiling. On our walls. Our bedroom door — It’s been three months. Three fucking months — Lifted. Threatened. Beaten. Hospitalized. Broke in every fucking sense — I lie here and I listen to rain on our windows. To her tears — I turn over. I look at her — Her hopes. Her fears — All our hopes. All our fears — I close my eyes. Tight — Under the ground, we brood. We hwisprian. We onscillan. Under the ground, we scream — I open my eyes. Wide — She’s not finished with us. Not finished with any of us.