The Storytellers (30 page)

He walked briskly through Coldfall Wood. The living green had ebbed away from the leaves of the sycamore, ash and oak, leaving behind dead but lovely gold: the alchemy of nature. Some were falling in zigzag loops and he passed children trying to catch them. Away to the left, through the trees, he could see the allotments where women and those too old to fight had dug for victory when Britain needed to cultivate every patch of ground to avoid starvation, and where men now went to escape their wives.

Sylvia had fancied Hampstead Cemetery – “It's a good address,
Harve” – but it was full and so had resigned herself to Islington. Towards the end, she had even been quite enthusiastic when Harvey told her about some of those she would be joining. There was Ludwig Mond, he told her, a German Jew and chemist who had become a successful British industrialist, and his son, Alfred, who had created Imperial Chemical Industries and himself been created the first Baron Melchett. That had bucked her up no end.

She was doubly chuffed when he told her Henry Croft would be there, a working man from the East End who had founded the order of Pearly Kings and Queens and whose pearly-buttoned clothes had been delighting people since 1880.

“You see, Harvey,” she had said, “you don't have to be rich to make your mark on life. You just need to have character.”

She wasn't sure about having Cora Henrietta Crippen as a neighbour. The lady had been murdered by her husband, Dr Hawley Crippen, and he had been hanged in Pentonville Prison for the offence.

“I hope the poor dear has put it all behind her,” she said. “Bitterness can be such an unpleasant companion.”

He had tried to counter Cora's sorry tale by telling her that the famous musician, Sir Eugene Goossens, would also be there. He'd been a violinist in Thomas Beecham's orchestra before going on to conduct the Rochester Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony and Sydney Symphony orchestras.

“Oh dear,” he had found himself saying as he read out the biography to his mother. “It seems he got himself into a spot of bother.”

“Well come on, Harvey, don't just stop there,” she had said. “A spot of bother is often the most interesting thing about a person.”

So Harvey had to recount how Eugene had fallen head-over-heels for Rosaleen Norton, known as the Witch of Kings Cross on account of her interest in the occult and erotica. It appeared that
Joe Morris, a reporter for
The Sydney Sun
, had broken into her flat and retrieved a bundle of letters and photographs depicting their occult activities. Arrested in Sydney and facing the serious charge of scandalous conduct, Goossens pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of pornography, but his career was ruined.

“The only scandalous thing about that, Harvey dear,” she had snapped, “was the behaviour of
The Sun
,” before adding, with what he took to be satisfaction, “But I don't think I'm going to get bored up in Islington.”

He passed the Grecian-styled Mond Mausoleum and away from the leafy walkways surrounding it into the increasingly utilitarian section of the cemetery, which lay just short of the North Circular, part of London's busy inner ring road, where more recent burials were being tightly aligned in regimented allotments of the dead. For a moment he couldn't pinpoint his mother at all and felt that unpleasant giddiness that comes with disorientation.

“You lost someone?” a passer-by enquired.

“My mother,” Harvey answered.

“Easily done,” the stranger acknowledged. “What year did she come here?”

“1982.”

“Then she'll be over there,” he said, pointing.

Harvey thanked him, recovered his bearings and soon found his mother. There wasn't much there. A simple headstone, her name, the years of her birth and death and the words:
A person of character. Much loved. Greatly missed
.

Well, Sylvia, it's Harvey. I'm sorry it has been a while. There's been a lot on. I hope your new friends have been entertaining. I am afraid you are some way from the Monds, but perhaps everyone moves around when no one's looking. You were right about Frances, of course. We are getting on well and seeing a lot of each other but have decided to keep our own homes for the time being. No, we are
not married! The country continues in a mess, I'm afraid, and there has been a lot of suffering. Government policy drove thousands of companies to the wall, I now realize. Your Maggie is still going head-to-head with King Arthur and it's anyone's guess who'll win. She has pretty much beaten off his flying pickets, which is a blessing, so there have been no blackouts. It'll come down to which one can best hold their supporters in the end.

Apart from the three million souls still unemployed, most people's lives are good right now. Their general view, I think, is that the hardships being experienced by the striking miners and their families have been self-inflicted. It was one of your sayings that the milk of human kindness was like mother's milk: it didn't flow far. Of course
The Sentinel
has played its part in isolating those on strike. Most, I fear, imagine they are being asked to fight for their livelihoods, when in actual fact they are being used to fight a political war. There will be a lot of bitterness when this is over.

I told you I'd been made deputy editor, didn't I? George Gilder will be back tomorrow, which is a relief. His sister died by the way. I can't remember whether or not I told you she had cancer. It's hard to keep track of what I've already mentioned with you up here.

“So you found her then?”

The voice of the stranger jolted him from his silent monologue.

“Yes. Yes I did.”

“You'll find some wild roses in the hedgerow over there, if you're interested,” the man advised before going on his way.

Only then did Harvey realize he'd forgotten to bring flowers. The wild roses would have to do.

C
HAPTER

T
HE DISCUSSIONS within ACAS were both simple and profound. Ken Sampsey, the president of NACODS, was a union man to the core as was his general secretary, Peter McNestry. Both knew well enough that at the time of the industry's nationalization after the Second World War, its 600,000 miners were the backbone of the Labour Party. But neither was blind to the fact that barely 150,000 men were now employed mining coal and that this trend, driven by cheaper and more easily accessible sources of energy, was likely to continue.

What they wanted, above all, was to bring the strike to an end on terms that would allow mining communities time to adjust to the inevitable. The pay and conditions their members enjoyed were not an issue. Even the redundancy payments being offered to miners whose pits were being closed seemed generous enough. For them the matter was how best to manage an industry in decline. They believed the Coal Board's pit closure programme was harsher than it needed to be and that this was something which could be negotiated.

They had talked these points through with the NUM executive and come up with a formula in which the interests of mining communities
would have to be considered before a pit was closed. However, it had become apparent that the issue for the NUM President, as well as for the Prime Minister, was not how best to manage an industry in decline but whose authority ought to prevail when it came to managing the country. Should it be that of a Prime Minister and her elected government or that of an NUM President and a lukewarm trade union movement which had seen its own authority shredded by an outbreak of stoppages engineered by politically-motivated shop stewards and their Marxist-oriented works councils? It was a simple distinction with profound implications.

* * *

Since his bruising by the Nottinghamshire miners, Jack Pugh had been trying to put the experience behind him. So the tip-off he had just received was doubly unwelcome. John Preston, it seemed, was actively encouraging the formation of a breakaway union.

Barely able to hold back his fury, he told Mona that he needed to go and see John right away. He didn't say why because he knew she was friendly with John's girl, Stacy. However, he was less inscrutable than he realized. While Jack was fizzing his way down the M1, Mona was on the phone to her contact who was soon calling her handler.

* * *

“Betsworth.”

“It's Stacy.”

“Yes, Stacy. What is it?”

“I've just had a call from Mona. I think Jack Pugh may be on to Marx.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He drove from York to go and see him and Mona said he was
furious.”

“When was this?”

“Twenty, thirty minutes ago, I suppose.”

“So we've got an hour to alert Marx,” he calculated. “Why does Mona think Jack Pugh might be onto him?”

“Because he did not tell her what he wanted to see Marx about.”

“Is that so unusual?”

“She thought so,” Stacy told him. “There was something in his manner.”

Peter Betsworth had long ago realized that it was a bad idea to ignore female intuition.

“Can you contact Marx?” he asked. “He's not due to call me for several days.”

“I can try. He's working above ground at the Blidworth Colliery,” she said. “If I can reach him, what do you want me to say?”

Peter Betsworth pondered the question for a moment.

“I think he should play this one with a straight bat.”

“A straight bat, sir? What do you mean?”

“Oh, I'm sorry. You're probably not a cricketer. What I meant was he should just tell it as it is. He should admit that he has become disillusioned with the NUM and its objectives.”

“And if Jack has stumbled upon your link with Marx?”

“Denial, of course, but I think it unlikely.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, worried as much about her own position as John Preston's.

The answer she got was opaque in the extreme and she never did understand what her handler meant by it.

“I think it could soon be time to declare the organizer's innings over,” he said.

* * *

By the time Jack made it to Blidworth, some of the steam had left his boiler. But he had nurtured his anger since leaving York by rehearsing everything he intended to say to the turncoat. The man was a pitiful prisoner of false consciousness, a quisling, a traitor to his class, an intellectual pygmy blind to the big picture. He imagined how it would be when the communist state had been established. Men like Preston would simply be taken off and shot or subjected to years of re-education, or both. He rehearsed the prospect with almost erotic zeal.

As he drove into Blidworth, he was struck by its insignificance. How could people in such a place even see, let alone understand, the big picture? Most of the houses in the village had been built for miners in the early part of the century. He'd even heard it said that Robin Hood's friend Will Scarlet was buried in the church grounds of St Mary of the Purification. What a pathetic notion! History was a fable anyway, constructed to justify the present. Soon all that would be airbrushed from people's memory save for its role in bringing about the communist state.

“I'm looking for John Preston,” he announced at the pithead gate.

“You're in jam mate. 'E's jus' this minute come back from Newstead Colliery,” the gateman told him. “I'll give 'e a buttle. 'Oo's I'll say wants 'e?”

“Jack Pugh. NUM organizer.”

“Oh aye,” the man acknowledged, with a marked degree of circumspection.

When John appeared, Jack was reminded that his deputy was better built than him. In a one-to-one contest, brain had no edge over brawn and he suspected John might have a brain in there somewhere as well, if the idiot could work out how to use it.

“We need to talk, John,” he announced with a little less firmness than he'd imagined.

“What about? I am really busy roight noo, Jack. Do you wanna
have a bevy later? We could go over ter the Fox an' 'ounds.”

“No, I don't want a bevy,” Jack replied, anxious to dull any familiarity. “I just want to ask you one question and I've driven all the way from York to ask it.”

“It must be 'un 'ell of a question fer you ter come all this woy ter ask it!” John responded with barely disguised incredulity. “So what's your question then?”

“Are you trying to organize a breakaway union?”

“Yes, that's roight.”

“But you can't!” the organizer exclaimed.

“And why not?”

“Because you work for me, for the NUM.”

The man in the cabin looked on with growing fascination.

“I work fer meself,” John countered, “jus' as the men round 'ere do. We aren't into changing t' world, just getting the best fer ourselves.”

“You bourgeois idiot!” Jack exploded. “Doesn't the dictatorship of the working class mean anything to you?”

“The dictatorship of people like you, more loike,” John Preston snapped back. “Now if you don't mind, I've got work ter do.”

“You are done for!” Jack Pugh ranted. “You do not work for me anymore. You are fired, dismissed, ostracized, finished…”

“I never did work fer you, moy little lovely,” John answered in a tone that was well frozen. “And afore you bugger off back ter headquarters, let me give you an' your NUM colleagues sum free advice: look after your members an' stop trying ter rule t' fuckin' world!”

Jack Pugh stood for several seconds, just staring, open-mouthed, like a boxer fatally winded by his opponent's last punch.

“You're not worth it,” he snarled.

The organizer then turned tail and skulked off like a sorrowful mutt unwilling to defend a losing position.

“There's summat up we 'im,” the gateman chuckled. “He's gorra right bag on, he has! Oh, and by the way, John, I forgot to mention: there's been a posh lass trying to get you. Says its right urgent and can you call her.”

* * *

If Jack's mood on the way down had been angry, on the way back it was incandescent. To have been humiliated twice in the Midlands was twice too many. The whole region should be liquidated. The Sheriff of Nottingham had been right after all. These renegades had to be taught a lesson. Arthur would know what to do. He would go to headquarters first thing in the morning. But for now, he'd find some of his fellow travellers, talk about the coming revolution and get ratted. After that, he'd pump the living daylights out of Mona.

* * *

It was near ten when he awoke with a splitting head. Mona was already dressed and he was aware of her opening the curtains.

“I am not doing this again,” she announced.

He tried to remember what he had done, but couldn't.

“I need to go to headquarters,” he mumbled. “Those miners must be disciplined; they have to be. Christ, my head hurts. Make us some coffee, pet.”

Mona said nothing, but went into the kitchenette and boiled the kettle.

“What the hell's that smell?” he asked when he had finally got himself dressed and joined her.

“That, Mr Trotsky, is your puke,” she told him with acid precision. “There, there, all over that rug. You could at least have made it to the toilet. You even managed to wretch over me which is not the kind
of foreplay a girl appreciates. And there wasn't any play. You passed out.”

“We ate pizzas and drank a bit,” Jack confessed like a six-year-old schoolboy caught with a pocket full of partially dissected worms and a belly-full of cheap liquor.

“I know exactly what you ate,” she told him. “Now I'm going downstairs to check on the washing machine. I won't be here when you get back.”

* * *

At headquarters it was pandemonium. As he waited in the anteroom he could hear Arthur shouting.

“It is a shameful sell-out. We had an agreement. What they have agreed to is non-binding. It's worthless.”

Young Frank, one of Arthur's assistants whom Jack often dealt with to get funding and line up flying pickets came out to see him.

“Arthur's furious,” he said, stating what was already obvious. “NACODS have settled and called off their strike.”

“No, surely not; I thought we had them in the bag.”

“And there's been a development, Jack,” Frank told him. “I'm afraid it's not good news for you.”

“What sort of development?” Jack asked, his head still pounding. More aspirin, I must get more aspirin, he thought.

Frank handed him a copy of
The Post
.

“Page five,” Frank instructed, “bottom left.”

Jack's fingers started to shake as he searched for page five. There he saw the headline above a small article:
Is NUM organizer an MI5 plant?
The piece mentioned him by name saying that although he was one of the striking miners' top organizers, a rumour was circulating that he might be an MI5 plant. The article added that a union spokesman had described this rumour as groundless.

“It's disinformation for sure,” Frank offered up by way of encouragement, “but the executive can't take the risk. You can keep your room until the end of the week.”

“But then what? And what about my pay and expenses?” Jack pleaded.

“Well, you won't have any expenses,” Frank reassured him, “so that's a plus.”

“I'm being fired then, just like that, with no payoff?”

“Money's tight, Jack. You know that. I'm sure you'll be able to get food at The Centre.”

“But you just can't do this. I mean, after all I've done. Let me see Arthur. This has to be a mistake.”

“I am sorry, Jack,” Frank commiserated, “but my instructions are to have you escorted from the premises.”

And with that Frank nodded towards two burly men Jack recognized as flying pickets he had once used to try and stop fuel deliveries leaving Hunters.

Back on the street, one of the men attempted to grab his car keys.

“This is my fucking car!” he protested.

“OK, Comrade Trotsky,” the man laughed, releasing his grip on the keys. “No harm done. Now bugger off.”

As he drove back to his lodgings, he couldn't help remembering the real Trotsky's fate. The driving force behind Russia's great Revolution, after Lenin, had been cut loose like him. His head hurt even more now and he felt like a rudderless boat on a stormy sea enveloped by darkness. He had to lie down.

He trudged up the stairs to his room. Inside he found his washed clothes from the previous evening neatly folded on the end of a made-up bed. His spirits lifted. At least there was Mona. But then he noticed that her clothes were no longer in the cupboard and that her things were not on the dresser. She, too, had abandoned him.