David Peace: GB84

‘How about our old mate?’ asks Neil Fontaine. ‘The Mechanic still about, is he?’

Paul Dixon shakes his head. ‘Man’s in love. Married. Two dogs. Retired.’

‘That’s a shame,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘Our Dave had his talents.’

Paul Dixon points through the windscreen. ‘How about your new friend?’

Fuck –

There are six men carrying another man back down the lane towards the pub –

The Jew has an arm.

Neil Fontaine opens the car door. He gets out.

Paul Dixon leans over the passenger seat. He says, ‘Stay free.’

Neil Fontaine slams the door.

*

Terry Winters had been home twenty minutes when the phone went. Theresa picked it up. She didn’t speak. She just listened and rolled her eyes. She handed it to Terry –

Click-click.

Terry Winters drove back to St James’s House.

Terry unlocked his office. Terry got out his calculator. Terry went upstairs.

The music was loud. Terry knocked once. The music stopped. Terry waited –

‘Come.’

Terry opened the door. Terry went inside.

The Tweed Jackets were sitting around the table. The President at the window –

His back to the room.

Terry Winters coughed. Terry said, ‘You wanted to see me.’

The President didn’t turn. He said, ‘They’re not moving fast enough, Comrade.’

‘I’ve told them,’ said Terry. ‘I —’

‘They’re in the pub talking about it when they should be on the phone doing it.’

Terry Winters nodded.

The President turned now. He said, ‘Twenty-four hours from now they will have outlawed this Union and every union in the country which believes they still have the right to strike to save their jobs, the right to picket to save their jobs. Every working man and woman in this country will have to rise as one to defeat this government. This Union will be in the vanguard of that battle, as it has been in every struggle, as it has been in every victory.’

Terry nodded.

The President stared at Terry. The President turned back to the window.

One of the Tweeds emptied his pipe into the glass ashtray with three sharp taps. He looked up at Terry. He said, ‘The President is counting on you, Comrade. We all are.’

Terry Winters nodded again.

‘So get rid of the fucking money.’

Terry nodded again.

Someone switched the Shostakovich back on.

Terry Winters went back downstairs. Terry knocked on Mike Sullivan’s door. Terry told him the President wanted them to go out to the Yorkshire Area Headquarters on Huddersfield Road in Barnsley. The President needed Terry and Mike to double-check. The President didn’t trust Yorkshire any more. He never had. Not since he’d left the place. The President didn’t trust anyone any more. The President was paranoid –

They all were.

The Tweeds made Terry and Mike change cars twice. The Denims had them take the long way round. They travelled the ten miles in an hour and in three different cars. They had two empty suitcases in the boot –

Theresa had taken them down from the loft.

Terry and Mike arrived in Barnsley unannounced. Terry and Mike went upstairs. Terry and Mike took over an office. Terry and Mike searched the room for microphones. Terry drew the curtains. Terry sent Mike out on a wild paper-chase. Terry called in the finance officer for the Yorkshire Area. Terry locked the door. Terry frisked Clive Cook. Terry made Clive put the radio on while they talked. Terry taught Clive his latest code. Terry told him to use it in all future contact. Then Terry put the two empty suitcases on the table and asked Clive about the eight million quid.

*

The Jew is in shock. He spent Thursday on the phone in his double bed at the Royal Victoria. He sent Neil out to buy an electric typewriter and every single newspaper he could find.

The Jew had met the dead man. They had both helped carry an injured miner back to the pub. The dead man was a picket, the injured man a scab. The dead man had tended to the cut above the scab’s eye. The dead man had called an ambulance from the pub. Then the dead man had gone back to the front –

The Jew has spots of blood on the lamb’s-wool collar of his leather flying-jacket.

‘Her eyes and her ears, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘I am her eyes and her ears.’

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew back over to Ollerton on Friday morning. The Jew wants to see the place in daylight. The Jew wants to take notes. Take some pictures –

Upturned cars, ripped-up pavements. Uprooted hedges, boarded-up windows.

There are a lot of police vans and a lot of television crews and no pickets –

There is a forty-eight-hour truce while the Nottinghamshire men have their vote.

The Jew puts his arm around a woman in her ruined garden. He tells her how the pogroms drove his family out of Russia. He tells her how his family lost everything. He tells her how they started over again. He tells her how his father worked eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. He tells her how he himself was sent to Eton. He tells her how they bullied him –

He tells her bullies never win –

The Jew promises her that.

Neil Fontaine drives the Jew back to his hotel suite.

The Jew has some fresh orders for Neil Fontaine –

The Jew wants Neil to hire a van. Neil Fontaine hires a van.

The Jew gives Neil a shopping list. Neil Fontaine goes shopping.

The Jew gives Neil an address:

The Proteus Territorial Army Barracks, Ollerton.

Neil Fontaine makes his delivery:

500 bottles of whisky, 500 bottles of vodka, 1000 mixers and 4000 cans of lager.

The Jew should have laid on some ladies –

A thousand Met boys with nothing to do and nowhere to go on a Saturday night in the North of England; two thousand more at the Beckingham Camp in Newark; another thousand at the Prince William Barracks, Grantham –

Three hours from now they’ll be wanking in circles –

‘These men are the backbone of this nation,’ the Jew tells Neil. ‘The backbone.’

The Mechanic is screaming into the phone in a service station, southbound on the M6 –

‘Schaub? Julius fucking Schaub?’ he’s screaming. ‘You think I’d have gone anywhere fucking near this if I’d known that little cunt was going to be in on it?’

‘Relax,’ says the voice on the receiving end. ‘Relax —’

‘Relax?’ the Mechanic shouts. ‘You’re telling me to fucking relax? I got the wife in the fucking car, you fucking wanker. You think I’d have brought her along if I’d known fucking Schaub was going to be there?’

‘Someone dropped out,’ says the voice. ‘We needed —’

‘Wise fucking man.’

‘Let me finish,’ says the voice. ‘Someone dropped out. We needed a body at short notice. We called Vince. Vince called Julius. Julius was available.’

‘Schaub’s always fucking available,’ the Mechanic says. ‘Because no one wants to work with the fucking cunt.’

‘Please,’ sighs the voice. ‘We need you on this one.’

‘You should’ve fucking thought of that before you went and invited that fucking little pervert along then.’

‘We will make it up to you,’ says the voice.

‘I’m listening.’

‘An even four for your troubles.’

‘I should fucking think so,’ the Mechanic says. ‘I should fucking think so.’

‘Have you ever seen anything like this before, Neil?’ shouts the Jew from the backseat.

Neil Fontaine shakes his head. He never has seen anything like this before –

An entire county completely sealed off –

All roads in and out of Mansfield and Nottinghamshire blocked with checkpoints; the motorway down to a single lane in each direction; tracker dogs in every field; helicopters and spotter planes overhead; three thousand police deployed –