David Peace - GB84

In for a pound. The Earth turns again.

‘There can be no forgiveness,’ the President had said. ‘No forgiveness.’

The President had been electric. The President had brought the whole place down. He had stood alone on the platform. No trade union support. No Labour Party support. Just the President. But everyone who had heard him had been convinced by him. Everyone would leave Sheffield City Hall more determined than ever. Terry Winters too. The President had shaken his hand as he had left the platform –

The President had even smiled at Terry.

It was late now. Terry didn’t want to go home. Terry didn’t want to go back to work. Terry made his way through the crowd to the exits. Terry saw Bill Reed –

Bill Reed saw Terry.

Terry looked away. Terry pushed through the crowd towards the exits –

Bill Reed was calling his name.

Terry got to the door. Terry went down the steps. Terry broke into a run –

There can be no forgiveness.

Terry escaped. Terry sat in his car with the heater on. Terry was hungry –

Terry drove to a Chinese restaurant in Swinton. Terry sat on his own in a corner. He made notes on his napkin. He put it in his pocket. He asked for the menu. He ordered a pint and prawn crackers. Chop suey and chips. Ice-cream for after.

Terry sat in the corner of the Chinese restaurant and thought about bad things. Debts. Divorce. Death. Then he forgot the bad things and thought about other things. Promises. Promotion. Paradise. But the bad things never forgot Terry. The bad things followed him. Tailed him and taunted him. Hunted him and haunted him –

To recognize and remember them. To love, honour and obey them.

Terry picked up his chopsticks. Terry put them back down again –

‘Not losing your appetite, are we, Comrade?’ asked Bill Reed.

Terry looked up at Bill. Bill winked. Terry looked back down at his plate.

The waiter pulled a chair out for Bill. The waiter handed Bill a menu.

‘What do you recommend, Comrade?’ asked Bill.

‘Suicide,’ said Terry.

‘Now, would that be for me or for you?’ asked Bill again.

‘Both of us,’ said Terry. ‘It could be a pact.’

‘But that would mean you’d have to keep your word, Comrade,’ said Bill Reed. ‘And there’s a few folk out there who might bet against you on that one.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Terry.

Bill Reed put down the menu. He stood up. He said, ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

Terry Winters pushed his food away. He asked for the bill. He paid by credit card. He followed Bill Reed out into the car park.

Bill opened the door of his brand-new Granada. He said, ‘Take mine, shall we?’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Terry.

Bill Reed smiled. He winked again. He said, ‘You’ll see, Comrade.’

Terry got into the Granada. Terry had no choice –

He never did.

The backseat was already covered in papers and briefcases. Files on the floor –

‘Excuse the mess,’ said Bill and started the car. He pulled out fast into the road –

Foot down, he laughed and sang, ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go.’

Thick fog blanketed the county, the land lost under cumbrous cloud –

The roads dark, the roads dead. No sound, no light –

Just Bill and Terry hurtling through the night in a brand-new Ford Granada –

‘Here we go, here we go, here we go —’

Bill taking every corner blind –

‘Here we go, here we go, here we go —’

Every bend faster than the last –

‘This the kind of suicide you wanted, Comrade?’ he shouted.

Terry shook his head. His whole body –

‘Here! We! Go!’ shouted Bill –

Terry screamed, ‘Let me out! Let me out!’

Bill slammed his feet onto the brakes and the Granada screamed to a stop –

Terry flew forward. Hit his head. Down into the dashboard. Up into his seat again.

There was no light. There was no sound. The road dark. The road dead —

Terry turned to Bill. Bill was staring straight ahead. Terry said, ‘Where are we?’

Bill put a finger to his lips, then his ear. Then his eye. Then the windscreen –

Terry Winters peered out through the glass into the fog. Terry listened –

He could hear a deep, low rumble approaching. He wound down his window –

The rumble was getting louder. Terry got out of the car into the night and the fog –

He stood on the wet road. Between the wet hedges. Under the wet trees –

He turned to look behind him. Lights hit him full in the face. Blinded him –

He put his hands over his eyes. But he wanted to see. To see what it was. To see –

Transit after police Transit tear through the fog in a massive metal motorcade –

One, two, three, four, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty –

Fifty police Transits, one straight after another. Eighty, ninety miles an hour –

Then gone again. No light. No sound. The road dark. The road dead again –

Just the smell of exhaust. Between the hedges. Under the trees.

Terry got back in the car. Bill had his eyes closed. Terry grabbed his arm –

‘Where are we?’ said Terry again. ‘What’s going on?’

Bill put a finger to his lips again. His ear and then his eye. ‘Patience, Comrade.’

Terry sat back in the passenger seat and Terry waited. He watched. He listened –

He switched on the radio. Switched it off again. On again. Off again. He listened –

‘There can be no forgiveness.’

He listened and he heard whispers. He heard echoes –

‘No forgiveness.’

He sat forward again. Whispers and echoes. Echoes and shouts –

He stared out through the windscreen into the dark. Shouts and screams. Swords –

Swords and shields. Sticks and stones. Horses and dogs. Blood and bones –

The armies of the dead awoken, arisen for one last battle –

The windscreen of the Granada lit by a massive explosion –

The road. The hedges. The trees –

Fire illuminating the night. The fog now smoke. Blue lights and red –

Terry shook Bill’s arm. Shook it and shook it. Bill opened his eyes –

‘Where are we?’ shouted Terry. ‘Where is this place?’

‘The start and the end of it all,’ said Bill. ‘Brampton Bierlow. Cortonwood.’

‘But what’s going on?’ screamed Terry Winters. ‘What’s happening? What is it?’

‘It’s the end of the world,’ laughed Bill Reed. ‘The end of all our worlds.’

bloody right — I remember when we first come here. Folk had stories about him even then — That Union were building him a mansion with a big electric fence. Pack of dogs to guard him — That he got all his cars as rewards from Czechs or Soviets. For his spying and agitation — Load of lies even then. Even then — Thing I remember most, though, is what they used to call tenners round here: Arthur Scargills — That’s what miners called ten-quid notes in South Yorkshire. Because no bugger had ever bloody seen one till Good King Arthur came along — Day 251. I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes — Petrol bombs. Burnt-out cars and buses. Huts and Portakabins on fire. Blazing barricades. Houses evacuated. Transit vans with armour fitted special to them. Horses and dogs out — Like something you saw on news from Northern Ireland. From Bogside — Never thought I’d live to see anything like it here. Not here in England. Not in South Yorkshire. Not at fucking Cortonwood, of all bloody places — I just can’t believe some of things I saw. Here in my own country, with my own eyes — Lads trapped in playground of Brampton Infants, raining bricks down on coppers as coppers leather anyone they could get their fucking shields and bloody truncheons on. Mothers and their little kiddies trying to make their way inside school for assembly time. Kiddies crying and shitting themselves. Head-teacher out there in playground appealing to both pickets and police to pack it in. No one listening to her — Broke your heart, it did. To see it happen here — Happening everywhere else, though. Happened to us, like — Bloody shock, though, when Pete had opened up envelope and said it was Cortonwood. Someone told him to fuck off. Not to joke about thing like that. Pete said it wasn’t a joke. He wished it bloody were. But it isn’t. It isn’t a joke — It’s war. Fucking war this time. For real — World War bloody Three, that’s what it looked like — Thick fog. Pitch black. Fires and barricades up everywhere — Never seen so many bottles and bricks thrown. Bus shelter going. Lamp-posts going. Methodist chapel wall. Road running with milk from milk float lads have hijacked — Battle of Brampton Bierlow, in shadow of Cortonwood Colliery. That’s what it was — Three thousand of us. Least two thousand of them, easy — All this for just one bloody scab. Just one bloody scab and he’s a fucking foreigner — Transferred him in special, like. Cortonwood lads have hung a stuffed dummy from a gallows above Alamo — This is for scabs, sign said round its neck. That was all last Friday. That was bad enough — Today’s Monday. This is worse — Six of them now. Six fucking scabs back at Cortonwood. Unbelievable — Keith reckons half of them are pigs — Hope they are. But in my heart, I know they’re not. Know they’re fucking scabs. Makes me rage inside. Makes me boil. Does same for everybody — Tension’s immense. Immense — Real fucking fury there is now. But it’s hopeless. Thousands of police. Thousands of them — Horses. Dogs. Vans. Shields — Beat all that lot and there’d still be another thousand more waiting up side-roads. Parked up in a lay-by with their radios on. Thousand more just waiting for bloody word, champing at bit. Just once I’d like us to turn up and it be only us and scabs — Us and ours. Not so we could give them any hammer — Just so we could talk to them. Talk sense back into them — Tell them how they’ve kicked us all in teeth. Stabbed us all in back. Broke our fucking hearts — But it’s hopeless. Fucking hopeless — This is worse than Orgreave. Like a last, final war really has been declared on both sides — No more prisoners. Just us and them — Folk nothing but a number now. Just another bloody body. Fucking cannon fodder. Fight to finish, they keep saying — But there’s no finish. Because it just goes on and on and on — Last man standing job. To victor spoils, winner take all — Right across South Yorkshire: Bentley. Dinnington. Dodworth. Frickley. Hickleton. Maltby — Right across whole area. Breaks your heart, it does — Trampled and truncheoned. Bitten and beaten. Bricked and stoned — Your trampled, truncheoned, bitten, beaten, bricked and stoned bloody heart. Day 255. Two young brothers died coal picking at Goldthorpe. Names were Paul and Darren. Paul was fifteen,