State of Emergency Read online

  STATE OF EMERGENCY

  Hilary Green

  © Hilary Green

  Hilary Green has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  Table of Contents

  ONE - PAPERING OVER THE CRACKS

  TWO - DISINTEGRATION

  THREE - STATE OF EMERGENCY

  FOUR - ESCAPE?

  FIVE - IDYLL

  SIX - RECONSTRUCTION

  ONE - PAPERING OVER THE CRACKS

  I had never seen anyone die —not even from natural causes. I suppose that is why the death of that unknown man in a country lane has always seemed for me the point at which it all started. Or do I mean finished? It certainly seemed for a long while more like an end than a beginning.

  I had driven out from our home on the suburban fringes of London hoping to pick up some potatoes and apples to help us through the winter —perhaps even some meat for the freezer. There was no meat to be had, of course, but I found the rest. The farmers were only too happy to get rid of produce which they could no longer afford to pick or transport. It was a perfect day, still and clear, luminous rather than bright with that soft-edged brilliance which only comes in Autumn. The broken land was a patchwork of plough and pasture, small hills and sudden valleys, with clumps of trees just beginning to turn, subtle coloured as an ancient tapestry. I turned for home, with a kind of primitive satisfaction at not going back empty handed.

  “Sorry, luv. You wont get through here in a hurry.”

  He was a small man, in a duffle coat that looked too big for him, with a cloth cap tilted forward over his eyes. The tractor beside which he stood formed the last in a long line of farm vehicles that blocked the lane ahead as far as I could see. I leaned out of the car window and looked up at him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Demonstration,” he said succinctly. Then added grudgingly, “Farmers and agricultural workers, demonstrating for higher prices. Can’t go on feeding everyone out of our own pockets, can we?”

  More cars had followed me down the lane and some of the occupants got out and came up to join us. The small man repeated his explanation.

  “Well, how long are we going to be stuck here?” asked a red-faced man in a camel car-coat. “Why isn’t anyone moving? There’s not much point in demonstrating here, in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Don’t ask me,” responded the small man. “Ask them KBG buggers down there.” He jerked his head towards the front of the line.

  There were half a dozen of us now. Someone asked, “What have the KBG got to do with it?”

  “Want to stop us, don’t they. They’ve blocked the lane down at the junction, trying to stop us getting into the town.”

  “Come on,” said the first man. “Let’s go and see what’s happening. ”

  He set off down the lane. The rest of us hesitated. One woman decided to go back and wait in her car. The rest drifted after him. I locked my door and followed them.

  Further on, the lane was completely blocked by men and machines. We could hear shouting and someone using a loud-hailer. It was impossible to make out the words but the tone was hectoring and the responses of the crowd angry. The lane here ran in a gulley between steep banks so the fields were several feet higher. We scrambled up and climbed through a wire strand fence. From here we could see the place where the lane met another, wider road and it was here that the confrontation was taking place. Several cars had been drawn up to form a barrier and around them stood a crowd about a hundred strong. Many of them were middle-aged and well dressed but there was a large element of younger people, including a phalanx of brawny young men carrying Union Jacks with the initials KBG sewn onto them in white and posters proclaiming ‘KEEP BRITAIN GREAT’, ‘STRIKERS ARE TRAITORS’, ‘DONT WHINE-WORK!’

  “Absolutely right!” the man in the camel coat was saying. “Couldn’t agree more. Just wish they’d let the rest of us get on with our own business.”

  I regarded the men below me as I might have regarded strange and possibly dangerous animals. I had read about the recently formed KBG, of course. At first, like many people, I had been inclined to regard them as a joke, imagining a little band of elderly and apoplectic gentlemen in a London Club. But it had become clear that there were influential people behind the organization and their propaganda was everywhere, castigating strikers, immigrants, social security benefits; the usual right-wing targets. The difference was that more and more ordinary people were voicing similar sentiments.

  “Well, if you ask me,” another man said, “They’re just making things worse. Taking the law into their own hands —never works. Anyway, the farmers have got a case. If we were prepared to pay the market rate for our food perhaps we shouldn’t have so many shortages.”

  “I know I’d sooner pay a bit more than stand in queues for every little thing,” agreed a woman. “When I think how you used to be able to walk into a shop and buy anything you wanted—and look at us now! Even the simplest things are luxuries.”

  “Listen!” said someone.

  Over the shouting I heard the sound of approaching police sirens. Two cars drew up and several men got out and forced their way into the middle of the crowd, where they began to remonstrate vigorously with the leaders of both sides.

  I heard the man with the megaphone shout, “You should be with us! We support the forces of law and order!”

  Eventually the crowd began to give back. One of the cars forming the blockade was moved and the first tractor inched forward.

  “Better get back to our cars,” said our leader. “Be on our way in a minute.”

  We scrambled down the bank and got into our cars. The tractor ahead of me began to move. I slid the car into first gear and followed at less than a walking pace. We reached the junction. The police had cleared a way just wide enough for the single line of traffic. I had no option but to follow. On either side the KBG supporters stood resentfully, shouting slogans and waving their banners.

  I don’t know whether someone on one of the vehicles just ahead responded in some particularly crude or aggressive manner, but suddenly there was a roar of fury from the crowd on one side and they surged forward, sweeping aside the police. In a moment my car was surrounded by struggling bodies. Men kicked and punched, screaming at each other, and then the spanners and the pick-axe handles appeared. My car rocked as bodies thudded against it and someone, thinking I suppose that I was part of the demonstration, began to hammer on the roof with his fists. I found myself shouting incoherently, though no-one could possibly have heard me.

  “Stop it! It’s not my fault! Leave me alone!”

  The tractor in front of me was towing a piece of farm machinery of some sort. I had no idea what it was for but it had long, curving metal spikes. Suddenly the tractor jerked forward and I thankfully pushed the car into gear again, but as I began to nose ahead a knot of struggling figures thrust themselves into the gap. A scream cut through the uproar and the tractor stopped as suddenly as it had started. The crowd momentarily drew back and what I saw still comes back to me in nightmares to this day.

  The young man impaled beneath the vicious tines did not die quickly, but he was dead by the time the ambulance arrived, wailing its approach through the rapidly thinning crowd. I think I would have sat there, motionless, until they had all gone —the police, the ambulance, the angry, silent men with the ashen faces —if a young constable had not tapped on my window and asked me if I was all right.

  By the time I got home Mike was there. He had the two boys in the bath and came to the head of the stairs in his shirt sleeves as I closed the front door.

  “Where the hell have you been? I got home to find Betty on the door-step with the boys,
wondering what on earth had happened. She brought them back after tea at the usual time and you weren’t there. I’ve been worried about you!” His voice was not angry, just strained and rather aggrieved. I started up towards him but half way my legs gave out under me and I crumpled onto the stairs. He ran down and crouched beside me.

  “What’s happened? Have you been in an accident? You haven’t smashed the car up, have you?”

  I reached out to him, shaking my head and he put his arms round me. Simon, our eldest boy, appeared at the head of the stairs stark naked, saying, “What’s happened? What’s the matter with Mummy?”

  “It’s all right, Si.” I said. “I’m all right.”

  “Go back and get dry,” Mike told him firmly. “You’ll hear all about it later.”

  I managed to collect myself enough to tell him the story. He held me tightly and stroked my hair.

  “Poor old Nell! It must have been terrible for you. But try not to take it to heart too much. Horrible accidents do happen. It’s just that we don’t usually see them.”

  “This wasn’t an accident, Mike,” I protested. “Not like a road accident, or something. If those KBG people hadn’t stopped the farmers from having a peaceful demonstration none of it would have happened.”

  He sighed. “Yes, I’m afraid those people are becoming a menace. I suppose something like this was inevitable. There comes a point when people won’t put up with high prices and shortages and lower standards of living any longer and they have to lash out at someone. The workers lash out at management by going on strike, and the middle classes, well some of them, lash out at the strikers. But none of it’s any use.”

  I got up slowly and began to go down stairs.

  “I’ll get some supper.”

  He rose too and gave a little laugh, his mood immediately lightening.

  “No need! We’re going to dinner with Clare and Alan. Remember?”

  “Oh God, I’d forgotten!” I looked at him wearily. “Oh, not to night, Mike. I simply couldn’t. Can’t you ring up and explain?”

  “But why not?” he exclaimed. “It’s just what you need. Something to take your mind off things. And it’s bound to be a good meal. God knows how Clare does it, but she still manages to get hold of food we don’t see from one week’s end to the next.”

  “Trust Clare!” I said curtly.

  “Darling, I really can’t see why you’ve taken such a dislike to her lately.” He sounded injured. “After all, Alan is my oldest friend and we’ve always got on all right with them both —until lately.”

  I looked up at him, standing tousled headed on the stairs with his sleeves rolled up.

  “I’m sorry, love. I know you’re fond of Alan —and so am I, in a way. But you must see that Clare has changed lately. She always was a bit of a bitch, but since she started working for Jocelyn Wentworth she’s been unbearable. I always thought he was a horrid little man when he used to do those current affairs programmes on television, but since he became an M.P. he’s been saying ghastly things, and Clare has developed into a kind of echo. I’m sick to death of hearing ‘Jocelyn says this’ and ‘Jocelyn thinks that’. And I don’t mind betting that the reason Clare is able to provide such fabulous food is because she gets hold of it through Jocelyn on some sort of black market.”

  He came down and put his arms round me again.

  “Nell, darling! I think what happened today is making you take a rather—exaggerated view of things. All right, I admit Clare’s politics are somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan at the moment. But she’s quite harmless, you know. I think being personal assistant to a famous man has gone to her head a bit. That’s all. Now," he gave me a quick kiss, “you go and get yourself all dressed up and I’ll see the kids off to bed. We’ll have a nice, cosy evening chatting to old friends and a few drinks. It’s just what you need to take your mind off what happened this afternoon. Hurry up, or the baby-sitter will be here before you’re ready.”

  I went upstairs and had a hot bath. As Mike had prophesied the act of getting ready made me feel more normal —normal enough anyway to put on a new dress and do my hair and my make up with more than usual care,. Clare was unfailingly and infuriatingly elegant with the sort of long dark hair which could be swept up into a multitude of glamorous styles. Mine went thin and ratty if I tried to grow it so I had to wear it in a short, sleek cap. I was not as tall as she was either and my figure had not been improved by the birth of the two boys. Next to Clare I always felt like the family mongrel beside a pedigree borzoi. Still, I could at least be a well-groomed mongrel!

  It wasn’t a very enjoyable evening, in spite of the lavish entertainment —the steak, the cream, the real coffee. (We had given that up long ago and now even instant was a luxury.) I still felt tense and desperately tired and I had a feeling that Alan and Clare were on edge too. Alan always made me feel rather nervous. He had all the attributes that make a man attractive - good looks, charm and humour and he was extremely clever. He was always the perfect host, but in spite of that I had a nagging feeling that he often wondered how his friend had come to marry a mousy little creature like me.

  I could have hit Mike when he began to explain about what had happened to me that afternoon. Inevitably we were immediately plunged into a discussion of the political implications.

  Clare said, “The KBG are just trying to sort out the shambles the government has got us into. Strikes and protests aren't going to solve the problem. We need someone to see that everyone buckles down and does a decent day’s work for a change.”

  “It doesn’t help for people to take the law into their own hands, Clare,” Mike said.

  “People with a sense of responsibility can’t just sit back and watch while the Marxists and the Trotskyites take over the country,” Clare said sharply. “That’s what they are aiming for. Don’t be fooled, Mike. We must get together and show them we’re not going to have it.”

  “Do you mean by counter demonstrations?” Mike asked. “Look at the results that produced this afternoon.”

  “There are other ways.” Clare seemed to hesitate for a moment, then went on as if the temptation to air her knowledge was too great. “Jocelyn is working on some proposals at the moment. He suggests that every community—town, village, factory, whatever—should set up a committee to encourage everyone to make a special effort for economic recovery. Anyone who was not pulling his weight, or who was trying to cause trouble could be reported to them and—dealt with.”

  “Dealt with? How?” Mike was gazing at Clare. She shrugged.

  “The power of public opinion can make an impression, even on people like that, if it’s expressed forcefully enough.”

  I shivered involuntarily. “I’m sorry, Clare, but I think that’s a terrible thing to suggest. It sounds like 1984 and Big Brother and all that.”

  “Oh don’t exaggerate, Nell,” she said sharply. “Don’t you realize how many people are either actively trying to undermine our society by fomenting strikes and disputes, or else just sponging on the rest of us —taking social security instead of getting a job, deliberately working slowly in order to increase overtime, reporting sick every time they feel like a day off. It’s time people like that were shown pretty sharply that we’re not going to stand for it.”

  “I know there are abuses,” Mike said reasonably, “but surely they are a minority. It's no good having a social security system that's designed to persuade people that it's better to work than claim benefits if there aren't any jobs. With unemployment at this level no-one can be blamed for not having a job. And it’s not just the working classes either. It’s hitting people like us too. Look at all the big houses up for sale and the big cars in the second hand dealers’ yards.”

  There was a moment’s silence and then Alan said very quietly, “You don’t have to tell us, Mike.”

  We stared at him. Clare said sharply, “That’s quite different, Alan. You’re a victim of the mess these people have got us in to, that’s all.”


  Mike said, “You haven’t lost your job, Alan!” He spoke slowly and looked as shaken as if he had just been sacked himself.

  Alan raised his head. The strain was showing plainly now around his eyes and mouth, but his tone was matter-of-fact.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. I’m working out my notice at the moment, actually. One more week and I join the ranks of the unemployed.”

  “But why?” Mike asked.

  Alan shrugged. “Usual story. Recession has hit the engineering industry like everyone else, you know. They had to slim down middle management — I was one of the ones to go. Reckon I trod on a few too many toes in my haste to get to the top.”

  “You mean you made the people above you nervous!” Clare said.

  “Any sign of something else?” Mike asked.

  Alan shook his head. “Not so far, I’m afraid.”

  There was no way of rescuing the rest of the evening. We left early, Mike having made an appointment to have lunch with Alan the next day. Getting ready for bed we went over and over the situation.

  “Surely,” I said, “he won’t be out of work for long. He’s always been regarded as so brilliant.”

  Mike sighed. “That may not be enough. There just aren’t any jobs going. You could be a combination of Henry Ford and Isambard Kingdom Brunel and not get a job in engineering just now.”

  “What will they do?” I asked.

  Mike shrugged. “He may strike lucky, of course. And Clare’s working. Thank God they haven’t got any kids to worry about.”

  “But that house, Mike! They’ve got a huge mortgage and they’re in debt up to their ears for everything in it practically. Clare’s salary won’t cover all that.”

  “Then the house will have to go, I suppose,” he replied.

  “If they can sell it,” I rejoined.

  We were silent for a while. I looked at Mike.

  “You’re not thinking it could happen to you, are you?”

  “It could happen to anyone these days,” he answered; then, with an effort, “No. No, I’m not really worried about that. Accountants are about the only people who can still make money whether the economy is growing or collapsing. No, I was thinking about Alan and Clare. If things get really bad for them, I wonder if there is any way we could help.”