Sing Like You Know the Words (19 page)

She felt she had to visit the
Law Centre to explain herself to Alice.

Patricia had long ago given up
the volunteer sessions at the local law centre, as her own practice
had become busier. She still tried to keep up her contacts with the
people, especially with Alice and her husband Des, who did most of
the organizing between them. She didn’t visit as often as she would
like. The words that Alice spoke to her when they first met were
still embarrassingly clear in her memory.

-You young people that come down
here to help: you aren’t here forever, dear. You all have you own
life to live and that´s as it should be. We are grateful for the
time you can give. But remember, me and Desmond have got to live
round here for always, even after you don’t come no more. That
makes us see some things a little bit different to you. In any case
you always be welcome here when you see us.

Back then, Patricia had been
certain that Alice had it wrong and she would be the one who always
stayed involved with the good work.

The law centre wasn’t pretty. It
was housed in one of those public buildings that local authorities
make a show of dedicating to community purposes when they run out
of other uses for them. The furniture there was had all the comfort
rubbed off it by hard use. It was the kind of office where offering
a visitor a cup of tea meant finding the least stained and chipped
mug. At least it was an office and it was still open.

Alice was a welcoming spirit.
She did most of the talking for herself and Des. They hadn’t seen
the report, but when Patricia told them that it included no
revelations, they did not seem surprised.

-Don’t talk about it as if
you’ve got something to be ashamed of Pat. You did your best, and
at least that old story got looked into. You didn’t imagine someone
was just going to turn up at your door and tell what really
happened, did you? You know, there’s some people, like my Desmond,
who thinks that it might be better not to know. Stirring up trouble
after all these years for no reason, he would say.

-What do you think Alice?

-For myself, I think that the
truth is always the truth and a lie is always a lie. That’s just
how I was brought up. A lie that’s hidden can sit in the dark like
something bad and wormy eating away the good fruit. Probably
Desmond is right, but I have to see things my own way. Blame it on
being raised with religion. For me, the dead deserve justice as
much as the living. I don’t see how you can have it for the one and
not the other.

Patricia thought for a moment
about her own religion. Desmond made a rare comment.

-What’s true, he said, is that
there is not much justice in this world for the living or the dead
and you better get used to it. You are never going to know for sure
what happened to that poor man and neither is anyone else. One or
two who might have some idea won’t say nothing. Raking over old
times does no good, and might just do some bad. Some things people
just need to forget.

But even if Patricia wasn´t sure
that she agreed, what could she do? The inquiry was finished. They
had read everything and seen everyone who had anything to say.
Well, she thought, everyone except one.

-Something still annoys me Des.
I interviewed the sergeant who was on duty that night. He’s retired
now, but he still had that suspicion of me like all of them. It
makes it so hard to know if they are telling you all they know. He
says that the only person to go into the cell apart from himself
and the doctor was a detective who was there just for a few minutes
to talk about some other investigation. It seems they would have
liked Obuswu to confess to some minor offences that were
outstanding on this detective’s files. If I knew for sure there was
no one else in the cell that night, it would mean that either the
injuries happened earlier, or the officers in the van were
responsible in some way.

-And what does the detective
say?

-He’s the only one we haven’t
interviewed. He wouldn’t talk to us. His name is Derek Moss. He was
sacked not long after the incident for petty theft; dismissed
without a pension. He doesn’t want anything to do with the
police.

Desmond nodded.

-That Derek Moss was a bad man
alright. I remember him. He was a racist too. Everyone knew: they
should have told you that. Was always causing problems for black
kids, for no reason. You ask some of the people round here about
him, they will remember for sure.

There was no time to chase after
Moss, but before the boxes of documents were returned, Patricia was
able to look up the few papers that mentioned him once more,
including the cases he had been dealing with at the time and the
story of his own disciplinary problems, so far as they were
recorded. She copied them down in her private notebook, though she
couldn’t say why she did it. His offences seemed to be minor and
rather pointless and he had never been prosecuted for them. He’d
never been part of the Obuswu investigation and certainly was never
considered a suspect.

That trail, if there had ever
been one, was as cold as all the others: it was over. She put the
notebook in a drawer and tried to forget about it.

David told her, you can’t win
every battle. Move on from your failures and think about what you
are doing in the present; what you can still get right, or you’ll
only sit brooding about the past and be no use to anyone. That was
one of the ways they were so different. As soon as David had
reached a conclusion like that he´d be able to act on it. He
wouldn´t be tormented for years to come about things that could no
longer be changed.

Chapter Four

Matthew almost missed the
afternoon train back from London. By the time he boarded, the
carriages were crowded and most of the seats were taken. He
eventually found a place where he could just about wedge his bag
into the luggage space above and his person into the gap below,
between three burly individuals who more or less filled four seats
grouped round a table. He’d barely settled himself and opened his
book before the train began to pull out of King’s Cross.

From behind his book, he glanced
quickly at his new companions, who seemed to be travelling
together. They looked like men who were working in the capital and
coming home for the weekend. One of them met his glance and gave
him a short nod of acknowledgement. Matthew nodded in reply, but he
preferred to be left alone when travelling. He looked back to his
book and busied himself finding the right page. In any case he had
a lot to think about, mostly about the job.

He’d only applied for it at
Richard’s suggestion. Matthew felt that he’d barely started to
understand how the local paper functioned, and it had seemed
presumptuous to put himself forward for a position at one of the
nationals. He had been certain there would be many other
candidates, well connected probably, who would be better at
presenting themselves, with better experience, real or invented,
than he could offer. Matthew wasn´t prepared to embellish what he
had done, and it sounded trivial indeed to him as he related
it.

But they had made him the offer
on the spot, more or less. The personnel man had said that he
should expect to hear from them in the next few days; but that the
wait was a formality and he should expect good news. Matthew was so
shocked that he did not know what to say. They’d shown him around
the place everyone had seemed so kind and interested.

He turned the pages of the book
without absorbing much of the text. His head was still spinning.
The three men had been talking more or less continuously all the
while, and gradually their conversation began to percolate through
into his consciousness.

The men were builders, working
on a site in the west of London. They had contracted to work in the
capital because of the slow situation at home, but it seemed that
even though there was plenty of work to be done in London, their
presence was not welcomed by local construction workers. They were
comparing experiences in between complaining about their
“digs”.

Before long, these topics of
discussion were exhausted and the talk moved on to the news of the
day. In spite of himself, Matthew was drawn to listen to their
views. Protected by the book that he looked at blankly from time to
time, he became their audience. It was as grimly fascinating as
watching a current affairs programme on television; the same window
on what others were thinking, the same urge to interrupt and
explain where the speakers had got it wrong.

Even the smallest group will
throw up a leader and in this case his name was Bill. He was the
one who had caught Matthew’s glance earlier; late thirties, big and
balding; with powerful arms bulging out of an undersized short
sleeved T-shirt that defied the unseasonably cold weather.

The older man sitting next to
Bill was Jack; grey haired and not so confident looking. You could
imagine that life had dealt Jack a few hard blows. It seemed that
he had lived for some time in the London area previously.

The third; sitting next to
Matthew, was an innocent looking youth whose name he did not catch.
This one was the same size as Bill, but pinker and fleshier, with a
ready laugh for the comments of the other two. Matthew could not
see so much of him without making his interest in the group
obvious.

They had started to talk about
the unions, unsurprisingly since that was the big topic of the day,
so far as the media were concerned. Matthew noted that Bill had a
crumpled and folded copy of that morning’s “Sun” on the table
before him.

-Well obviously you can’t
believe all the shit you read in this, said Bill, tapping the
paper, but the fact is, the unions has got beyond a joke.
Something’s got to be done about it.

-It might be good if we had a
union though, the young man replied. If it meant we got the same
rates of pay as the London lads.

-It wouldn’t work that way, Bill
responded. They’d want their own union to save the work for
themselves and keep the likes of us out. No lad, the sad truth is
that, trades unions, it’s not the British way. It’s like they say
in the paper. Unions is alien to the British culture.

-They keep telling us that, the
old man noted. Must be they want us to believe it.

-There’s going to be a right old
struggle, Bill nodded.

The prospect seemed to fill him
with satisfaction.

-Anyone can see it coming. All
what’s happened up to now has just been the skirmishing, but the
miners will be next, and then it’s full on war. She hasn’t forgot
that they brought down the Tories last time.

-Who’s she Bill?

-Maggie Thatcher lad. Don’t you
read nothing? She’ll have her revenge on them, whatever it
takes.

-But why are the unions so bad
Bill, that’s what I don’t understand. I keep hearing about this
union they’ve started in Poland, in the shipyards. You know, what
is it called?

-It’s called Solidarity, said
Jack helpfully. Only it´s in Polish; but that´s what it means.

-That’s the one. Well, when I
hear about that union, they seem to be telling us that it’s a good
thing and we have to support all the brave workers, standing up to
the state.

Bill sighed.

-That’s Poland lad. Their
situation is completely different. We’re British. They have an
oppressive communist government. Solidarity is a political union,
but our unions are just looking to grab more money for their
members.

-Maybe our unions should be more
political then, Jack suggested. Bill ignored the comment

-But; the young man continued,
the papers say that our unions are trying to bring down the
government, just like they say about Solidarity. It seems that when
they say that in Poland it’s a good thing, but here it’s a bad
thing.

Bill did not see the problem
with this.

-What you need to understand, he
said, is that our country is more advanced than them. This is where
the industrial revolution started, isn’t it? Back in the old days,
there was a place for the unions. It was a struggle for the rights
of the working man back then, all well and good, but that was in
the past. You’re taking home a pretty good screw this week I
expect?

-I’m not doing too bad, the boy
conceded.

-So there you are, and the
miners are well paid as well. Nowadays anyone who’s not frightened
of work can earn good money. But these modern unions we have now,
they’re just greedy. A lot of the members don’t want to work and
the officials are just in it for themselves, crazy for power or in
it for themselves. Look at that Arthur Scargill: he’s mad, you can
tell just to look at him. Something’s got to be done, because they
are ruining the nation’s productivity.

By now Matthew could see that
the young man was taking a great interest in the conversation.
Being stuck on a train for a couple of hours was probably a rare
opportunity for him to reflect on life. He had another question for
his more experienced workmate.

-But what exactly is
productivity Bill? Everyone talks about it like it’s the most
important thing in the world, only I’m, not really sure what they
are on about.

-It’s … well it’s productivity
isn’t it? Bloody obvious. It’s about turning up to work and
grafting, not just expecting to collect a wage for being there.
It’s like what we do. Proper working.

-It’s a measure of the work done
per employee, if you average out all the work that everyone does,
said Jack.

The young man grunted, but did
not seem much enlightened.

-And it’s bloody important,
added Bill, because if we don’t improve productivity, the bloody
Germans will beat us. They are beating us already. That’s why we
have to put the unions in their place. They are wrecking our
productivity with their strikes.