‘So let us set our course for total victory and only total victory,’ shouts the Jew –
The dead hand of Number 10 at the wheel
Neil Fontaine drives up the long drive. Neil Fontaine parks before the front door –
There are corpses in the trees. There are heads upon the posts.
They are all stood on the gravel, waiting. Their mouths all open, laughing –
King. Heseltine. Lawson. Ridley. Havers. Walker. Brittan. Tebbit.
‘You want a fucking picture?’ hisses the Help. ‘Round the fucking back.’
Neil Fontaine starts the car again. He parks in the empty garage. He sits in the car. He stares through the windscreen. He sees the Prime Minister at the kitchen window –
She is eating frozen shepherd’s pie. She is drinking cheap white wine –
The corpses in the trees. The heads upon the posts —
He smells the fumes. The rivers. The mountains.
He hears the screams –
Her blood and her skull.
Peter
home and find us in me socks. Drawing little faces on cornflakes like my Uncle Les — This one a copper. This one a picket. This one a copper. This one a picket — Little faces. Re-enacting Battle of Orgreave on kitchen table — That would be me. Mad Pete — I picked up phone. Click-click — I was going to call Derek. Tom. Johnny. David Rainer. Keith — I put it down again. I went upstairs — I laid down on bed. I closed my eyes — I look back.Wall of fucking water bearing down again — I opened my eyes again. I was thinking about my father — How he lived. How he died — He never had a prayer. I closed my eyes again — Water. Water — I opened them again. Straight off — Heart beating ten to dozen. Never had a fucking chance — I could hear Mary and Jackie downstairs. Hear kettle go on. Telly again. News again — I wanted to get up. I wanted to go down and see them — To say hello. To have a chat and a nice cup of tea — But I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t go down — Not let Mary and our Jackie see us like this. Not let them see me with tears down my face — Thiswall of fucking water bearing down again. I run — Difference a bloody day makes. A new day — Talks about talks were back on. Meeting set for Tuesday. Negotiations between our full Executive and Board. Even possibility that they’d talk about pay and overtime ban. Get it all sorted. Once and for all — Delegate Conference had been called to vote on whatever outcome of talks was. Lot of feeling both down at Welfare and up at Panel that it’d all be over by weekend — War of nerves, said Johnny. Tom laughed. He said, Well, mine can’t talk much bloody more, lad — Mine neither, I said. Dave Rainer nodded. He said, All be glad to hear then that we’re going ahead with Cortonwood tomorrow — Nice one, said Johnny. It’s a good time to show solidarity and strength, said Derek. With talks and everything. Let them know that there’s life in old dog yet — Not bothering with envelopes, said Dave. Just get as many as you can afford to send up there — Everyone nodded. Even me — I hadn’t been for it when it was suggested last week. Now, though, it felt good — Good to be doing something. Take your mind off talks and get you away from TV–I drove back down to Welfare and started to phone around. Click-click. Put teams together for cars. Had a feeling this would be last one. Lot of us did — There were them who weren’t that happy. Few that weren’t that keen on going back, you could see it in their eyes — Not because of any political motive or anything like that. Just didn’t want to go back underground — I knew how they felt. That time down with engineers, I’d shit myself — They’d had a taste of something else and they’d liked it. Liked it a lot — Blokes who’d worked down pit since they left school. Never known anything else — They’d had a taste of sun and air. Taste of a different life — They were coming up to me, asking us what I thought chances were of going back. Then they’d ask us about redundancy — Especially older ones. Blokes who were only months off retiring — I didn’t know what to say to them. Had a feeling there’d be a massive clampdown — Just depended what was said in London. How talks went — I went home. Mary and Jackie were still up. Had a crisp sandwich and a chat with them. Newsnight came on. Hopes still high of a settlement to end-strike by 11 February. Lot of talk now about amnesties for sacked miners. Board saying no way. That wasn’t helping. We all went up to bed none the wiser — I didn’t bother getting into my pyjamas. Had to be up again in three hour — I didn’t want to go to sleep, either. Didn’t want to close my eyes — I run. I run and run. I run again — I woke up. Heart going again. Sweating buckets. Shitting bricks — Mary looking at us. She said, You want a cup of tea, do you? I looked at clock by bed — I best be on my way, I said. I got up. Pulled my trousers over my long-johns. Extra jumper — I leant back over bed and give her a kiss goodbye. I said, I’ll see you later, love — Make sure you do, she said. I nodded — I knew she didn’t want me going to Cortonwood. But she knew why I was going. I kissed her again. I drove down to Welfare — Village dark. Village quiet — But I knew there were eyes watching in dark. Ears listening in quiet — Keith was already down there — I don’t want to miss this
The Forty-eighth Week
Monday 28 January — Sunday 3 February 1985
The Right Honourable Member just could not keep away. Just couldn’t keep out —
Of these shadows at the back, where the lights did not reach.
His mouth moved faster and faster. Finger pointed harder and harder –
He asked more and more questions.
There was blood in Malcolm’s mouth. Blood in Malcolm’s ears —
But Malcolm had more tapes. Many, many more tapes —
From the shadows, where the lights did not.
They would find more and more answers. Hear more and more tapes –
And they would drown here –
Here in the answers and the tapes. The shadows and the blood —
These messages from the Dead. These tocsins for the Living.
They had been pounding on its chest. Tick-tock. Banging on its bones –
Mouth to mouth –
The Labour Party. The TUC. Elements of the government and the Board –
The kiss of life —
The Union were to meet the Board for substantive negotiations. The Union and the Board would agree on an agenda to end the dispute by February 11. The Union would call a Special Delegate Conference. The weekend would bring resolution –
But there were fresh wounds upon the headless torso that lay before them here —
The Union insistent upon an amnesty for miners sacked during the dispute; the Prime Minister still insistent on written guarantees from the Union before talks –
Mortal wounds —
‘It has become a purely political strike,’ Paul Hargreaves was telling them all. ‘And it is clear now that she is very involved in the running of the Coal Board’s business, countermanding an arrangement between a senior director and myself –
‘She has total involvement and is out to destroy this Union.’