David Peace - GB84

There was only one taxi at the end of the drive now –

The driver put his hand on the horn. The driver held it there.

*

The Jew opens his mouth. The Jew shits his pants. The Jew runs for his life –

Runs back across the road towards the Grand Hotel –

The front of the hotel collapsing before them in an avalanche –

Floor by floor. Room by room. Brick by brick –

In a slow, hesitant avalanche.

Neil catches the Jew. Neil grabs him. Neil holds him –

‘No, sir,’ he shouts. ‘There is nothing you can do.’

The Jew rages at Neil. The Jew howls at the night. The Jew screams at the hotel –

The sound of a fire alarm ringing and ringing and ringing –

The masonry falling floor by floor. Room by room. Brick by brick –

‘Let go of me! Let go of me!’ shouts the Jew. ‘Bloody let go of me, man!’

‘No, sir,’ says Neil Fontaine. ‘I can’t do that, sir.’

‘Damn you, Neil!’ shrieks the Jew. ‘I should be there! I should be in there!’

Neil clutches the Jew. Neil hugs the Jew. Neil cradles the Jew –

He buries the Jew’s head in his jacket. He strokes the Jew’s hair with his hand –

He kisses the top of the Jew’s head as they watch and they wait –

As an ambulance appears. And another. And another. And another ten arrive –

Their sirens and their lights in the dead silence of the night.

The police put a cordon across the remains of the front of the Grand.

People appear in knots. To stand and to stare. To sob in their knots –

Their eyes are red. Their skin is white. Their veins are blue –

The living and the dead, sat in their dressing-gowns and their pyjamas –

In striped and stained deckchairs, under a bright and bloody moon.

*

The President was back in Paris on business. It was a flying visit to Montreuil in the midst of the NCB — NACODS — NUM negotiations at ACAS. The President thanked the officials from the French and Soviet trade unions for their generous offers of aid. The President had detailed the physical and financial attacks upon his union and its members; the CGT had agreed to send a forty-five-truck convoy of food and the Soviets had smiled favourably on the President’s request for a forty-five-truck convoy of Moscow gold –

It was a good, good day.

Terry Winters and the President moved on. Up the stairs. Down the corridor –

Terry Winters knocked on the door. Mohammed Abdul Divan opened it.

The President and Terry shook hands with Mohammed Divan. They went inside. They sat down across the table from another man.

‘Comrades,’ said Mohammed. ‘This is Salem. The man from Libya.’

Pockets empty. Dogs in the back. His plan in shreds. His master plan –

The Mechanic makes another call. And another. And another –

Nobody knows much. Nobody’s heard much. Nobody says much –

‘But try the next mass picket,’ Phil Taylor tells him.

The Mechanic hangs up. He leaves the phone box. He gets back in the car –

Throws the dogs a couple of bones. Scraps.

The Mechanic switches on the Tandy scanner. He listens to the loose talk –

The dogs fighting in the back over the scraps. The crumbs.

Neil Fontaine carries the Jew out of the Metropole next door and along the Promenade. The Jew has been watching the horror show unfold on breakfast TV with everybody else. The pictures of Norman in pain. The pictures of the Grand in ruins –

The pictures of the Prime Minister safe and sound.

Neil Fontaine helps the Jew out of his soiled, white tuxedo with gold epaulettes. The local branch of Marks & Spencer opened early to clothe the refugees. Neil Fontaine has chosen a plain blue blazer and dark grey trousers for the Jew to wear today.

Neil Fontaine puts the blazer over the shoulders of the Jew –

Neil opens the door of the Mercedes. The Jew gets into the back of the car –

He does not speak for hours. He just sits and stares out of the window –

The pier and the Promenade. The sky and the sea –

The day he was not meant to see.

The Jew does not speak until Neil Fontaine says, ‘It’s time to go, sir.’

‘Thank you, Neil,’ says the Jew. ‘Thank you,’

The Jew walks along the Front. The Jew enters the Conference Hall –

There is no Land of Hope and Glory today. There is just the Prime

Minister –

Safe and sound. Alive and kicking –

The Prime Minister. His Prime Minister –

‘The bomb attack on the Grand Hotel was first and foremost an indiscriminate attempt to massacre innocent, unsuspecting men and women staying in Brighton for this Conservative Conference. Our first thoughts must be for those who died and for those who are now in hospital recovering from their injuries. But the bomb attack clearly signified more than this. It was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our conference; it was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty’s democratically elected government. This is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and dignified, is a sign that this attack has failed and that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail—’

The Jew is on his feet. The Jew applauds. The hall on its feet. The hall applauds –

‘Now,’ says the Prime Minister, ‘it must be business as usual —’

The Prime Minister talks of local government. Defence. Europe. Unemployment –

His Prime Minister speaks of lions and the best of British –

‘— the strike is not of the government’s seeking. Not of the government’s making. The sheer bravery of the men who have kept the mining industry alive is beyond praise. “Scabs”, their former workmates call them –

‘Scabs? They are lions –

‘What a tragedy when a striking miner attacks his workmate. Not only are they members of the same Union, but the working miner is saving both their futures. To face the picket line day after day takes a special kind of courage. It takes as much, even more, for the housewife who stays at home –

‘These people are the best of British –

‘Just as our police — who uphold the law with an independence and restraint, perhaps only to be found in this country — are the admiration of the world.

‘This government did all it could to prevent the strike. Some would say it did too much. We gave the miners their best ever pay offer, the highest ever investment and, for the first time, the promise that no miner would lose his job against his will. This was all done despite the fact that the bill for the losses in the industry was bigger than the annual bill for all the doctors and dentists in all the National Health Service hospitals in our United Kingdom.

‘But this is a dispute about the right to go to work of those who have been denied the right to go to vote. The overwhelming majority of trade unionists, including many striking miners, deeply regret what has been done in the name of trade unionism. When the strike is over, and one day it will be over, we must do everything we can to encourage moderate and responsible trade unionism, so that it can once again take its respected and valuable place in our industrial life.

‘But we face today an executive of the NUM who know that what they are demanding has never been granted, either for miners or workers in any other industry –

‘So why then demand it? Why ask for what they know cannot be conceded?

‘There can be only one explanation –

‘They do not want a settlement. They want a strike — otherwise they would have balloted on the Coal Board’s offer. Indeed, one-third of the miners did have a ballot and voted overwhelmingly to accept the offer.