The Gospel of Us (3 page)

I heard the bomber one last time, as the police
pressed his head down into a squad car. He was shouting again, but at the Teacher this time, not the Company Man.

‘You don’t know what you’ve done!’ he screamed, pushing a gloved hand from his mouth. ‘You’re part of this now! You’re part of this!’

And then he was gone, bundled into the car by a fist of police.

Back on the slipway Sergeant Phillips had collared the Teacher and was questioning him. I moved nearer, wanting to hear those answers myself.

I wanted to step up then, tell them both what I’d seen that morning, about the Stranger, the ducking in the sea, the dance. But it was too late. ICU security were clearing the beach, checking IDs. I felt a shove in my chest, turned to see a gas-masked face.

‘Move on kid, scram!’ it said.

So I did.

When I looked back the beach was already half emptied. The Teacher was gone too, and Joanne. But his mother was back, along with her two sons. She was standing where he’d just been questioned by Sergeant Phillips, looking around her, wild in the eye. One of her sons was trying to pull her away. The
other just looked on, looking sadder than anyone I’d ever seen. I was quite far down the prom now, up by the café, but the wind was blowing her words my way, so I could still hear what she said as she searched around her like a woman looking for something she’d dropped.

‘He was here,’ she was saying. ‘Just now. I saw him. My son. He was here.’

It was evening before the Company Man was ready to address us again. The Mayor had told us where to assemble – in the town centre in the secure area. He’d come to the microphone down on the beach when the echo of the police sirens was still in the air, more sweaty and pale than ever. We’d need our ID cards, he’d told us. There would be checks, barriers, but still, weren’t we the lucky ones the Company Man had agreed to stay?

So like I said, it was evening by the time we gathered to hear his announcement, the light drawing in, the hill behind the town growing black against the sky. They’d set up a big screen so we could all get
nice and close to the Company Man’s steel-slash of a smile. I managed to get in as far as the first barrier, but then no further. Only those with the right credentials were allowed in the next section. The Company’s lackeys, family members of the Council, no one who was going to cause any trouble. ICU obviously weren’t up for taking any more chances. And neither was Old Growler and his security details, the way they shoved us around, patted us down, took anyone who looked suspicious elsewhere.

But still we kept on coming. We wanted to hear the news, didn’t we? It was meant to be about our future after all, that’s what the Mayor had said. And that wasn’t a word often used about our town back then. It might have been in ICU’s slogan, but that was about the only time we ever saw it. We’d used to talk about our past once but even that seemed to have gone now; squeezed out by the roads, the works and the concrete. And how can you talk about a future without a past? Cleverest thing the Company ever did, that’s what my bampa used to say – ‘The cleverest thing. Made us forget where we came from,
so as to make us blind to where we’re going.’

Around seven o’clock they cranked up the lights on the stage so we knew something was going to happen. Then we heard the mics being tested – ‘One, Two, One, Two.’ And then, out of nowhere, mid-sentence, we heard something else – something we weren’t meant to hear.

The voice was unmistakable. That soft-firm father’s tone, knowing and unmoving, so certain of itself. Only this time he wasn’t up on a platform talking to us. He was still backstage and talking to the Mayor.

‘…how it is, I wish it could be different but the decision has been made. We’ve invested too much to back off now.’

‘This isn’t what we agreed.’

‘The Company agreed nothing. Listen. We’ve said all along we’re committed to bringing the best out of this town, and one way or another that’s what we’re going to do.’

‘But you said it would only be the people in the path of the new Passover. Nowhere else.’

‘I’m trying to make this easier for you, Griffiths. The sooner we can get people moving, the better. People are adaptable. Holding on to this place is just going to make it harder for them in the long run. If the Passover story helps get things going – wonderful. If not then my security forces will be more than happy to move things along.’

‘Why can’t you tell them the truth?’

‘Because it won’t help them to know the truth. Look, do you think a man wants to be told he’s worth more dead than alive? Well this town is worth more empty than with people in it. That’s the truth. Do you want to go out there and tell them that? We know there are huge untapped resources beneath this town.
That’s
the truth.’

‘All I am saying is…’

‘Hold on, is this on? Is this…?’

Then the mics went dead. The crowd, though, had both heard enough and wanted to hear more. I felt them shoving from the back, wanting to get closer. Anti-ICU chants started up, ‘ICU – Out For Your Blood!’, sending police officers scuttling from the
front barriers back towards the rear. I heard the thwack of truncheons against bodies, shouts, cries.

Eventually it died down, the whole crowd settling like one restless animal. More lights came up on the stage and finally the Mayor appeared, looking even more shaken than usual. When he spoke to us, it was like he was only halfway there.

‘The Company Man will now make his… announce ment. Please listen very carefully to what he has to say. Thank you, and…’

He trailed off and just stood there, looking out at us all. Then he walked away. Nothing more, just walked away, shaking his head.

When the Company Man appeared, some of the chanting began again but it soon ebbed away. There was something in the way he looked over a crowd that made you want to quieten down, to listen. Like what he said would mean something for everyone – not necessarily in the words he used, but in how the shadows of those words might fall.

‘Thank you. Thank you,’ he said, though no one
was cheering. ‘I am glad to see so many of you here this evening – so many of you undeterred by the unfortunate events of this afternoon. Let us be clear. What we were all witness to was an act of pure cowardice. An act of terrorism. Perpetrated, the criminals will
say
, in your name. But why? Why did these people try to silence us? I will tell you. Because these people, who say they are acting in your name, are afraid. That is why. And what are they afraid of? What can be so terrible that they will murder, maim and kill? They are afraid, my friends, of the very word I was using when we were so rudely interrupted. They are afraid of the future. But I know this town better than that. I know what you are made of, and I know that where they are cowardly you are brave. Where they are cruel you are kind and where they have fear, you have hope!’

From somewhere a few cheers. They might have been at the prod of the security’s guns, but maybe not. Because you had to give it to the Company Man, he could speak. Oh yes, he could speak alright. He looked over us again, waited for the cheers to fade, then continued.

‘Every age has had its enemies of progress. And in every age, these people have eventually been defeated. So I am here today to assure you that in our age, in our time, in our town, the enemies of progress, the enemies of the future, the enemies of enterprise
shall
be defeated. What, you may ask, makes me so confident? Because I know this town. This is a town ready for change. This is a town ready to embrace the bold new vision I bring before you today.

‘And this is what I really came to speak to you about. Hope. Hope for a better future for all of us. We all know though, that however high we might hoist its sail, Hope will only ever take us so far without the winds of hard work and sacrifice to drive it.

‘So this is also what I came to talk to you about today. Sacrifice. You and the generations before you have worked hard for this town. You have delved into the belly of the earth to bring forth steel, you have carved into the mountain’s side to bring forth coal and
you
have harvested the sea at your doorstep to bring forth fish. Now after all those years of hard
work, what I am proposing is that we allow the town to work hard for you instead. How? With the brave new vision of the future we call “The Passover Project”. It is with great pleasure that I can reveal to you today that what we began with the construction of the M4 Passover road, ICU will bring to perfection with a new Passover Project. A great new road leading this town into a glorious future. A road that will increase the speed of transport links in this area by over sixty per cent.

‘This road, like the first Passover, will be built over this town. It will bring work, it will bring jobs and it will bring investment. The promise of this Passover is our hope. So what then is our sacrifice? Only the same sacrifice this town has already borne so nobly in the past. Those living in the path of the Passover will have the opportunity to leave their old homes and move into new dwellings, purpose-built by the Company. This will not affect many of you. It will be a sacrifice borne by only a few, and we must applaud those brave and selfless enough who have already begun, with an eye to this town’s future, to
leave their old homes for pastures new. Some will be returning to their relatives in the countryside. Others will be housed by us, the Company. But all, I assure you, will be catered for.’

The timing was perfect. No sooner had the Company Man said those words than the first families began arriving outside the perimeter fences. Wrap ped in blankets, carrying bags and boxes of belongings. Men and women, children and grandparents, a shuffling chorus of tired and angry faces, their lives in their arms, their worlds in pieces at their feet. Some of them began shouting at the Company Man through the fence.

‘You lying bastard!’

‘They’re taking the doors! They’re taking off the doors!’

‘They came with guns! Told us to leave!’

‘They took our front door, just ripped it off!’

‘They’re doing the whole street, the whole street!’

It didn’t take Old Growler long to have his men over there, the familiar swift tide of black riot gear
followed by silence.

The Company Man, though, took it all in his stride. ‘Please,’ he said, his arms held out to pacify us. ‘Don’t be alarmed. Clearly there’s a certain amount of confusion. Some initial difficulties are only to be expected. I’m sure you understand a project like this is a huge undertaking and the road may be a little bumpy at first. I’ll leave it to your Mayor and Council to distribute the necessary information but I wanted to bring you the good news myself. And to assure you that with this new Passover Project, the Company and I will continue “Looking Out For Your Future”.’

He should have known better than to end with that. Showed how much he really knew us, how he had no idea that line was like a red rag to a bull for the protesters at the back. ‘Don’t believe them!’ they shouted in response. ‘Tell us the truth! The truth, the truth, the truth!’ Then the familiar chant began:

‘ICU – Looking out for themselves!’

‘ICU – Looking out for themselves!’

The Mayor stepped forward and tried to say
something but it was clear no one was going to listen to him, so the Company Man came back to the microphone. This time, though, he looked different. Not so much ruffled, as angry.

‘I want to speak to our enemies now,’ he said, his eyes bright in the arc lights, his finger stabbing out at us. ‘The enemies of this town. I know you’re out there. I see you. Well, hear me now! You’re a cancer on this town. A plague. And I will not rest until you have been driven out of this place, never to return. If anyone here, anyone, has any suspicions about who these enemies may be, where they may be gathering, what they may be plotting, then come forward. I urge you, no matter who you suspect – it could be a neighbour, a friend, even a member of your own family – come forward. You can alert any one of my security forces – here to protect you – and they will be more than willing to assist.’

It was all the crowd needed. His words were like flames to blue touch paper. Together with what we’d heard from backstage, his slick speech, the news of
the Passover Project, the families at the fence, this call to snitch was the final straw. The Resistance boys saw their chance and were soon sliding through the crowd like eels, stoking the fire, starting the chants, stirring it up. The police tried to keep control, but the crowd was too strong for them, so ICU security came in too, which only made it worse. Everyone was surging forward, forward, trying to get closer to where the Company Man stood up on the platform. I saw a woman start climbing the barrier fence in front of us. She was shouting as she climbed.

‘What do you want? What’s under this town? Tell us the truth!’

Her face was twisted in anger, in fear. She was shouting at the Company Man, boring her eyes into him, so she didn’t see Old Growler down below her. Didn’t see him take a pistol off one of his men and start striding towards her; didn’t see him raise that pistol, both arms straight; didn’t see his finger squeeze on the trigger.

I saw the shot before I heard it – a sudden wound of blood and broken bone erupting between her
shoulder blades. And then the echo of it, resounding between the civic buildings, stopping the chants, the shouts dead.

She fell like a bird from a tree.

Slow at first, then a heavyweight descent, tipping backwards into the screams of the crowd. I turned away, expecting to hear the thud of her body hitting the ground. But it never came.