Listened to Lancashire: ‘There is a monster. It’s now or never.’
Listened to Nottinghamshire: ‘If we’re scabs before we start, we’ll become scabs.’
Listened to Yorkshire: ‘We are on our way.’
For six hours Terry listened and so did the President.
Then the President stopped listening. The President stood up with two letters –
It was their turn to listen to him now.
The request from Yorkshire in one hand, the request from Scotland in the other –
The President talked about the secret December meetings between the Chairman and the Prime Minister. He talked about their secret plans to denationalize the coal industry. Their secret nuclear, electric dreams. Their secret hit lists –
Their open and savage schemes to butcher an industry. Their industry –
For then the President spoke of history and tradition. The history of the Miner. The tradition of the Miner. The legacies of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers –
The birthrights of their children and their children’s children –
The essential battles to come. The war that must be won.
The motion from South Wales was before them –
‘It is now the crunch time,’ said the President. ‘We are agreed we have to fight. We have an overtime ban. It is only the tactics which are in question.’
They listened and then they voted –
They voted twenty-one to three to endorse the striking areas under Rule 41.
It was the only vote. The only vote that mattered –
The vote for war.
The President put a hand on Terry’s shoulder. The President whispered in his ear –
Terry Winters nodded. Terry picked up his files. His calculator.
He went back down to his office. He closed the door.
Terry walked over to the window. He put his forehead against the glass –
He listened to the cheers from the street below. Terry Winters closed his eyes.
*
Neil Fontaine receives the call. He fetches the Mercedes from the underground car park. He drives up to the front of Claridge’s. The doorman opens the back door –
The Jew gets into the car.
Neil Fontaine looks up into the rearview mirror. The Jew strokes his moustache. The Jew smiles. The Jew says, ‘Chequers, if you would please, Neil.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘Zero notice,’ laughs the Jew. ‘So don’t spare the horses.’
Neil Fontaine nods. He puts his foot down.
The Jew picks up the car phone. The Jew starts dialling and chattering –
The Jew wants the world to know where he’s going.
Neil Fontaine watches the Jew in the mirror. The Jew plays with his moustache. The Jew sits forward. The Jew looks out of the windows. The Jew prattles into the phone. The Jew never shuts up until the Mercedes is in sight of the place –
Her place.
Neil Fontaine stops before the gates –
Before the guns.
Neil Fontaine winds down his window –
The car is surrounded.
Neil Fontaine says, ‘Mr Stephen Sweet to see the Prime Minister.’
The officer speaks into his radio.
Neil Fontaine glances up into the mirror. The Jew isn’t stroking his moustache. The Jew isn’t smiling. The Jew isn’t on the car phone –
The Jew is sweating in his pinstripe suit.
The officer steps back from the car. The officer gestures at the gates –
The gates open.
Neil Fontaine starts the car.
‘I told you, Neil,’ laughs the Jew from the backseat. ‘I am expected.’
Neil Fontaine drives slowly up the gravel drive. He parks before the front door.
The Help is waiting. The Help opens the back door of the Mercedes for the Jew. The Help slams the door behind him.
The Prime Minister appears in blue. The Jew gushes. The Prime Minister swoons. They disappear inside, arm in arm.
‘You want a fucking picture?’ asks the Help. ‘Round the back.’
Neil Fontaine starts the car again. He parks in an empty garage. He sits in the car. He can smell exhaust fumes. He can hear peacocks screaming.
*
Terry Winters opened the front door of his three-bedroom home in the suburbs of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. His family were asleep upstairs. The lights off downstairs. Terry quietly closed the door. He stood his briefcase in the hall. He caught his face in the dark mirror: Terry Winters, Executive Officer of the National Union of Mineworkers; Terry Winters, the highest non-elected official in the National Union. Terry applauded himself in the shadows of South Yorkshire, in the suburbs of Sheffield –
In his house with the lights off but everybody home.
Martin
make up their own minds. Chadburn and Richardson had a rough time of it yesterday. Chadburn saying Notts will have a secret ballot with a recommendation from him to strike. But we all know what that fucking means. Day 4. Cath wipes her face. Cath dries her eyes. Cath looks at television. Cath says, She hates us. Day 5. Fucking hell. She’s getting on my nerves. She doesn’t want to use Hoover so she’s on her hands and knees with a dustpan and brush in front of television. She’s singing bloody hymns so I can’t hear Weekend World. There’s no Sunday dinner either. Frozen Cornish pasties and baked beans. Same as last night. When adverts come on she makes me switch it off for two minutes. I go out into back garden. It’s pissing down. I have a cigarette. We’d talked about having a patio this summer. A conservatory. I go back inside. Pasties are on table. Cath’s crying again upstairs. Phone’s ringing. I close my eyes — We suffocate. We drown — Day 8. Panel in Silverwood has twinned us with Bentinck, just south of Mansfield. Doesn’t matter what any bleeding High Court judge says. It’s a quid a shift and there’s a coach and some cars. I put my name down for nights. I play darts with Geoff all afternoon. Pete comes in about four o’clock and tells us coach will be out front at six. Geoff says he’s off home for his tea and his duffel coat. I don’t fancy going all way back to Hardwick for another set-to with Cath, so I have a bag of chips and a walk up Pit Lane. It’s quiet. Almost dark. Getting cold and all. I sit across from brickworks and eat my chips, staring up hill at colliery. Folk must think I’m crackers. Chips are wrapped in a photo of Scottish pickets and police at Bilston Glen. I smooth it out and read it. I think about phoning Cath, but what’s use? I stick paper in my pocket and go back down hill. I have a quick pint and a piss in Hotel, then go over Welfare and get on coach for Bentinck. Day 9. Middle of night. Pissing it down. Absolutely fucking freezing. Police won’t let us light brazier. Not local. Not tonight. Last couple of nights they’ve been from Lincoln and Skegness. Even shared a flask of soup with them. Not that they’d put that on television or in papers. Even manager was decent at first — Canteen. Cups of tea. Toilets. Knew that wouldn’t last — Wasn’t for us, they’d all be working. He knows that. We know that. Make me laugh — Quick enough to tell you how they’ll vote, how you can count on them. But you know half of them are heading straight round back to get in under fences on their bellies. How they are round here. Always have been. Even their Branch. Minute you left, they’d be backed up for five mile in their brand-new Fords. There are them that don’t even bother to lie to you. Just drive straight in. Won’t even talk to you. Then there’s them that fancy themselves. They stop. Give you a mouthful. Their cars get a bit of hammer in return. Least you know where you are with them — They’re cunts. But they’re honest cunts — Wish I’d gone back on coach now. Just standing about, taking it in turns to go and sit in cars, waiting for day picket to show up. Freezing to death. Then these lads from Dinnington and Kiveton pull up. They’ve killed one of ours, they say. He’s fucking dead. I say, You what? It’s right, they say. Where? Ollerton. We’re off there now. Hold up, says Geoff. We’ll follow you there — We take A6075 through Sherwood fucking Forest. Get there about half-two. It’s ugly — five hundred police, five hundred of us and counting — CB radios got cars coming in from all over as news spreads. Everyone with a different fucking story — He was hit by car; he was hit by a truncheon; he was hit by a brick — Women and kids from houses are all out in street hollering at us. Pit manager appealing for calm. Blokes from their Branch doing same — No one’s listening like. Then word comes down that colliery is closing for night. That Arthur’s coming. There’s cheering then. Three o’clock and Arthur gets up on roof of a car. He asks for two minutes’ silence — Mark of respect. Police are first off with their helmets — Say that for them. But there’s no cheering now. You took us from the mountains. Only silence. Day 14. I get my head down about five. You took us from the sea. I wake up at one for news. Leon Brittan promising all police in world to make sure anybody who wants to