1985 (22 page)

‘Most courageous,' said Bev. ‘Might I have a little of that meat there? I'm starving.'

‘Let him nick his own,' snarled a black man.

‘Charity, charity,' said Reynolds. ‘He will do his share of nicking tomorrow, if he joins our band. Here, sir, this is chuck steak and hard to masticate but nourishing. I think a roasted onion rests somewhere among the bluebleak embers.' He picked for it with an iron rod and rolled it out towards Bev. It was oozing juice through its black overcoat. Bev ate gratefully. Wilfred grudgingly, at Reynolds's ocular urging, lent Bev a bottle of rotgut, a coughing fit in every globule. They talked and ate. A thin man with a cap named Timmy read, to general groans, from a worn pocket copy of the New Testament.

‘Every bleeding night we have this,' said Wilfred.

‘It's to drill it into you,' said Timmy. ‘The bargaining principle is forbidden the workers by the Lord hisself. “Didst thou not agree for a penny?” That's clear enough and it's the word of God, so stick it up your jaxy and keep it there.'

‘If there's to be reading aloud,' said Reynolds, ‘hear the word of Alexander Pope.'

‘We don't want no RC stuff,' whined Wilfred.

‘You see?' said Reynolds. ‘You join the ignorant. Banned in the Ealing Public Library because the Library Committee chairman said some nonsense about the Secular State and if you want Popes go to Rome. But you will listen, my friend.' He read out with evident pleasure:

‘Lo! thy dread Empire,
CHAOS
, is restor'd;

Light dies before thy uncreating word;

Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall And universal Darkness buries All.'

‘
CHAOS
,' said Bev. ‘Consortium for the Hastening of the Annihilation of Organized Society. Pope didn't have to fight society. He gloried in exalting it. The elitist society, of course. Meanwhile the loaf-stealers hanged and the beggars scratched their sores.'

‘Do you mind?' said the religious man. ‘I'm eating.'

Reynolds said: ‘And yet what springs out of universal justice? The universal darkness Pope never knew. Pope knew what the great enemy of life was and is.'

‘Dullness,' said Bev.

‘Ah,' said Reynolds with pleasure. ‘No dullness now. Welcome, Szigeti, welcome, Tertis.' Two men with fiddle cases joined the group. One of them produced a kilo of pork sausages from his overcoat pocket. ‘Prick them first,' said Reynolds. ‘I can't abide burst bangers.'

The newcomers ate and then opened their cases. A violin and a viola. They played a charming duo by Mozart and then a Bach two-part invention. Their standards were high; they were very mature men; they were professionals without union cards. Tertis said;

‘You could see how it was going to go back in 1977. Covent Garden, I was first viola. They stopped the damned opera after the second act. Said it was going on too long. They wouldn't accept overtime, all goes in tax anyway they said. I protested.'

‘That was nothing,' said the violinist. ‘They blew the whistle three bars after the start of the last movement of the Ninth. The singers needn't have come. And the whistle wasn't pitched in the right key, either. Royal Festival Hall, September '79. Jesus help us.'

Don't let them get away with it
. Bev's wife's voice crackled out of the fire. ‘What do we do?' Bev asked.

‘We wait,' said Reynolds. ‘We wait for one of history's little surprises. I propose turning in, gentlemen.' To Bev he said: This factory closed down when it couldn't meet the '79 wage demands. The government didn't find it worth while to take it over. It was a mattress factory. We found plenty of mouldering mattresses in the warehouse. If you sleep here, you will feel very much like the filling of a sandwich. Trevor,' he said sharply to the black, ‘you said something about knocking off some blankets.'

‘Not easy, man.'

‘You must really take our situation more seriously, Trevor.' To Bev: ‘Have you any particular speciality, sir?'

‘In thieving?'

‘We don't like that word. We prefer euphemisms like nicking, knocking off, finding, scrounging. Were you ever in the army?'

‘I was born,' said Bev, ‘at the beginning of the Long Peace.'

‘I see. The army gave me, brief as my service was, a wholesome attitude to property. Well, we'll see. Come, let me find you a place to sleep.' He produced a candle-end and lighted it at the fire.

The empty hull of the factory was cavernous and rusty. It rang hollow and forlorn. Reynolds lighted a smoking oil lamp with his end of candle. He showed Bev how to sleep – on a mattress with two other mattresses laid over him laterally. Bev felt warm but dirty. ‘Does one wash?' he asked. ‘Surely, successful nicking depends on a decent appearance?'

‘For retail winning, yes. For wholesale, filth does no harm. When a meat truck is unloading, you present a dirty shoulder and receive a side of beef, then you take it into the store or shop in question and leave the back way. Sometimes there are problems. We can give it to you the easy way tomorrow, if you wish. A beard does no harm. A cat lick in cold water. But decent dress is essential for the knocking off of supermarket goods. We have what we call the C and A. Wilfred's little pleasantry – the Coat and At. Kept clean and ready in plastic. No shortage of plastic, plastic everywhere, free and indestructible, like God. Ah, on cue, as they say. Father Parsons, Dr Jones.'

‘Mister, mister,' protested both at the same time. Parsons, who had just walked in, evidently drunk, inclined courteously, a skeletal man well muffled, nearly seven feet high. ‘A very nearly altogether satisfactory evening,' he said. ‘Some of the violent youth of Camden Town stood me whisky in exchange for a swathe of church history. They were sincerely
interested. Very pro-Latin. Very much against the Lord's Supper as mere commemoration. Then the landlord of the pub said no religion in here and no politics neither. One of the youths said what else is there worth discussing, up your pipe mate or some such locution. Trouble, fighting, a timid brace of policemen. It spoilt the evening rather.' He yawned with loud relish: ‘Yarawwwgh.' He fell on his mattress fully clothed and slept. One by one, two by two, the cheerless cavern filled with sleepers. Snores, chokes, groans, odd muttered or screamed words. No life, thought Bev before he too dropped off, no life for anyone.

In the morning black Trevor stole milk and yoghurt from a dairy float for breakfast. Bev washed in an oil drum half-full of rain water, wiped himself on what Reynolds called The Towel. Then he was dressed in the Coat and At – a decent nicked burberry and a pert trilby – and was ready for knocking off a few supplies from a supermarket. ‘Observe the poacher's pockets,' said Reynolds. ‘Win, for the most part, flat things. Here is one pound.' He tendered a note cheery with the boyish smile of King Charles III, merry monarch. ‘You obviously have to buy
something
.'

So Bev, heart beating hard, his first crime ever, entered the nearest Foodmart and stowed dehydrated soups and vegetables, sliced bacon, pressed meats, cheese. The place was full of shopping women. One, in metal curlers and head scarf, was saying to another: ‘There's nothing in the papers anyway, except that I like the cartoons, but it's Coronation Flats on the telly tonight, and I think they ought to have more consideration, the rotten lot.' It appeared that all the communication media had struck. Why? Bev bought a kilo wrapped loaf for £1.00. None remarked on his bulges. He went out elated.

The fire in the factory yard was going nicely. Reynolds knew all about the strike. ‘Tea bags?' he said to Bev. ‘Good, we'll brew up in that filthy kettle. I like the tang of rust. Yes, well, this was warned of. As you know, only card-carrying members of the National Union of Journalists are permitted to write for the newspapers and periodicals. In
The Times
last week there was a review of some work – American, inevitably – on Egyptology. The review was inept, ignorant, illiterate, but its author was an
NUJ
man.
The Times
had the effrontery to publish a very long letter – fifteen hundred words or thereabouts – by some wanderer like ourselves, pointing out the ineptness, ignorance and illiteracy. Frankly, I don't see how it got past the printers. Hence the strike. Hence the shutting down
of radio and television services. There has to be an abject apology. Oh, and also some kind of gratuity to
NUJ
funds to sweeten the sour insult.'

Derek, a fair youth in decent clothes, came to the fire smiling. ‘I've got a job,' he said. ‘Start tonight.'

‘That's not bleeding possible,' said Wilfred.

‘All too bleeding possible,' said Derek. ‘A private press, flat bed, very hush hush. Tosh, you know Tosh, met him just off the Broadway. Gave it me out of the corner of his mouth. A bloke, well-dressed said Tosh, slash speaker, gave him a quid and asked if he knew about printers. Hush hush, like I say. Private residence. On Hooper Avenue. I get met at the corner of the street. Nine tonight.' His hands were already going through the motions of loading a stick with type.

‘How much?' asked Reynolds.

‘Five quid above union.'

The long day proved not to be as dull as Bev had expected. There were intellectual discussions with Reynolds, Father Parsons, and a new man, an Assyriologist useless to the State, named Thimblerigg. Wilfred nicked or won a small sack of potatoes for roasting in the fire. A clarinettist warmed his instrument by that fire and then played the first movement of the Brahms sonata. Father Parsons, clerical collar on, got altar wine from a religious supplies store on forged credit. Trevor came back from foraging with two plastic-wrapped blankets from a street market. ‘More tomorrow, Trevor,' said Reynolds, fingering the synthetic wool.

The following morning the streets were full of copies of a new newspaper, distributed free. Father Parsons brought it in with the milk. It was called
Free Briton
, and there was a copy for each of the company that sat sipping tea from old cans and toasting bacon and bread on the fire. There were only four pages; the type was of an almost forgotten elegance that went piquantly with the inflammatory contents. It was a newspaper without news, except of the proposed formation of the Army of Free Workers. Reynolds read part of the editorial aloud for Trevor's benefit, Trevor being but a slow reader:

‘“This once great country has suffered enough from the indolence, insouciance and downright obstructiveness of the workers' unions. . . .”'

‘What them big words mean, man?'

‘Never mind, Trevor. Let me summarize. There is a gentleman here who calls himself Colonel Lawrence.' Reynolds mused a moment.
‘Pseudonym? It could be his real name, of course. Still, it suggests – never mind. This gentleman, Trevor, is forming a private army. As His Majesty's Forces are no longer trustworthy, being unionized and ready to go on strike at the first strangulated note of an ill-blown bugle, there is need, says the good colonel, for a trustworthy paramilitary organization that stands outside the law – law, however, which Colonel L. proposes be changed by a great outcry of the people, backed and encouraged by the Free British Army, as it is to be called. This army is already partly officered, but it awaits recruitment to the ranks. The ranks are as follows: private freeman, free two-striper, leader of thirty, company democrat, battalion democrat-major. The commissioned ranks seem orthodox enough – junior captain, senior captain, major and so on. The promotion rate is rapid and depends on ability rather than mere time-serving. The pay rates seem to me unbelievable.'

‘How much, man?'

‘Private freeman gets £150 a week, but pay is geared to inflation levels.' Reynolds was thoughtful again, frowning. ‘The aim of the Free British Army is to maintain essential services when strikes hit this dear dear land, as the colonel calls it. Free soldiers take a solemn oath – to obey their superiors in everything. They vow to serve their country unquestioningly. There is even an army song –
I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above
. Familiar, that. A very fine tune, I seem to remember, by some Swede or other.'

‘Gustav Hoist,' said the violist Tertis. ‘Pure English, despite his name. The tune comes from
The Planets
. The Jupiter movement. E flat, three-four, maestoso.'

‘And where do you sign on, man?'

‘Trevor,' said Reynolds earnestly, ‘I hope you are not thinking of joining a fascist organization. Freedom, Free Briton, private freeman – eyewash. This Lawrence man wants a kind of Hitlerian takeover. I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, keep away from it.'

‘I could use that kind of money, man.'

‘Where is the money coming from?' asked Bev.

‘Obvious, I should have thought,' Reynolds said. ‘Look on Page 4 – at the bottom.' Bev looked and read:

Let us be ever mindful of a truth that the Syndicalist State counsels, nay forces us to neglect. Above our duty to country stands
our duty to God, and the higher duty contains, in a mystical sense, the lower. God made us to fulfil on earth in human action the divine attributes of which our natures partake – to put beauty, truth and goodness above getting and spending. I do not mean the cricket-playing gentlemanly God that the Anglicans have created. I mean the God of the prophets, from Abraham to Mohamed . . .

‘Now,' said Reynolds, ‘do you see where the money's coming from?'

Bev was too ambitious. Young in nicking or knocking off, he was over-encouraged by his little successes in supermarkets. He should not have attempted to win that £15 bottle of Burnett's Silver Satin from the drinkshelf. The telescreen caught him tucking it away. When he joined the pay-line with a 50p half-kilo brown loaf he was himself joined by a hard-faced handsome girl with attractive streak-blonde hair, not unlike poor Bessie's. She said: