1985 by Anthony Burgess

Author:Anthony Burgess
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2013-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

3 You was on the telly

Like good Muslims, the British millers who produced what Britain called flour – a fine white dust with carcinogens but little nutritive content – struck at sunset, not at dawn. At dawn on Christmas Eve there was no bread, for the bakers locked the doors on their flour-stocks and also went on strike. The confectionery workers went on strike too. Housewives, who were not yet unionized, grew angry when they found no loaves or cakes around and rioted in the High Streets. The Wages Board responded at three in the afternoon by promising favourable consideration of the millers’ demands for triple-time pay for night-work, and the strikes were ended half an hour before the Christmas holidays were due to start for regular day workers, so that all could toast the festive season in the boss’s time. There was still no bread for Christmas.

Bev, shoulders straight, chest out, legs like water, reported for duty as usual at eight in the morning at Penn’s Chocolate Works. There was a picket waiting for him. There were policemen, chewing their straps. The police, though reluctantly, grabbed a man who threw a small stone at Bev, even though he missed.

‘Whose side are you bloody rozzers on?’ went the shout.

‘You know the law as well as what I do,’ said the sergeant unhappily. A van from Thames Television drew up. Bev waited. His act would have no validity unless available for the world to witness. This was the new way. It’s Really Real when it’s Seen on the Screen. Jeff Fairclough got out, hands deep in smart burberry, red hair waving in the breeze. A man with a hand-held camera and a recordist with a Stellavox followed. Fairclough and Bev nodded to each other. He had telephoned Fairclough the previous evening. Fairclough had once been a colleague, a teacher of English until the advent of the new WE syllabus. (‘Usage is the only law. You was is the form used by eighty-five per cent of the British population. You was is therefore correct. The pedantic may reflect that this was the regular form used by pedants like Jonathan Swift in the eighteenth century.’) Bev and the team marched through the open gateway. The strikers put on a great act of snarling and cursing for the camera. The sound recordist didn’t record. They could get the bloodying and buggering from stock. Bev led the way to the executive wing. Young Mr Penn, very nervous, came forth to meet them. The Stellavox man put his headphones on, switched on, gave a thumbs up to Fairclough, who said: ‘Action.’

‘Good morning, Mr Penn. I’m reporting for work as usual.’

‘You can’t, you know it, we’re closed. There’s a strike on.’

‘I’m not striking, Mr Penn. I claim my rights as a free man. I’m here to work.’

‘You can’t. You damn well know you can’t. Be reasonable.’

‘Are you denying me my basic right as a worker?’

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. You know bloody well what the position is.’

‘Are

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