Authors: Owen Sheers
And that, I thought, as I took the steps back up onto the prom, was what the Teacher had been doing here. At least, that’s what I reckoned at the time. He’d arrived on this beach two days ago with no story, no memory. So he’d gone and found some and in doing so he’d showed us to ourselves. Like Danny he’d used his hunger to make us remember. And that’s why, as I walked through Sandfields on my way home, I decided to follow him that day, follow him to the end of whatever he’d come to do here.
The Company Man wanted it all out in the open. That much was clear as soon as I got to the civic centre. No behind-the-doors tribunals. No private courts. Under the contract ICU had signed with the town five years ago any criminal activity threatening Company interests could be decreed an internal matter, subjecting the accused to Company adjudication and disciplinary measures. I can trot that out because I’ve heard it read to me in a windowless room more than once. So I know what those ‘disciplinary measures’ can be; we all do. Now. A lesson in reading the fine print if ever there was one. But, like I said, this time the Company Man had decided to make it a public affair. A public trial. After all, weren’t the media easier to control than rumour?
As I’d come through town I’d seen even more families thrown out of their homes. A big group of them had set up camp opposite the police station. Maybe that’s just where they’d ended up; I don’t know. Or maybe they’d gone there because they’d heard that’s where the Teacher was being held. Either way I couldn’t see it helping his case. Just
more ammunition for ICU, another reason to get rid of him.
But I’d forgotten what a slick operator the Company Man could be. I was being too crude in my thinking. That would have been too easy, predictable; just to charge the Teacher, try him and disappear him. And that wasn’t what this was about anymore. It wasn’t a case of just getting rid of him. No, it was more about proving him wrong, about obliterating not just the man himself, but the idea of him.
There was a massive crowd. The whole civic area was packed. Whether they’d been forced to come or had just come to see the show, I couldn’t tell. What I did know was that, like me, some were there for him. Some were there just to witness him follow this through. What none of us were expecting though was for two hooded prisoners, not one, to be led from the police van when it sirened into the centre of the square and opened its doors.
They made the two of them stand up on the stage in the centre of the area; each facing away from the other, both of them still hooded. And that’s how they
remained as the Company Man’s voice suddenly spoke to us, strong and firm over the tannoy, his face lighting up on the big screen behind us.
‘Good afternoon everyone. It’s good to see you all.’
Then there he was, striding out onto the stage as polished and deadly as ever, his purple tie flicking its tail in the breeze.
‘When I spoke to you here two days ago,’ the Company Man continued, speaking into a lapel mike, leaving his hands free to gesture with reasonableness. ‘I warned you that the enemies of progress were still working among us. Sadly, as we have all witnessed over the last few days, those same enemies have taken advantage of what is a delicate time of transition for this town and used it to try to meet their own selfish ends.’
He paused, standing between the two hooded men. He was in his element. In control once more. Granting us one of his slow gazes over the crowd he was about to continue when something stalled him. I saw it in his eyes; something was out of place,
wrong. It was the same way I’d seen him look on the beach two days ago, and when I followed his eyes, it was for the same reason too. They were back. The two women and the little girl, still wearing their nightclothes, standing in a line at the far edge of the crowd, still watching.
The Company Man cleared his throat, playing for time, adjusted his tie then carried on, fuelling his speech by striding towards the first hooded man.
‘Standing before you today,’ he said as he went. ‘Are two of those selfsame enemies.’
Reaching the man, he pulled off his hood. A gasp travelled through the crowd. It was Barry Absolem. We all knew him. His mam had run one of the clubs before it was closed down. A few months later she’d closed herself down too. It was Barry who’d found her, half out her bed, the bottle of pills empty on the pillow beside her.
‘One,’ the Company Man declared, pointing to Barry. ‘A would-be assassin and terrorist who thinks nothing of killing his own kind to achieve his aims.’
Barry had been the bomber. It was his voice we’d
all heard that day. The Company Man let this sink in for a moment before striding over to the second man.
‘The other,’ he said, removing his hood with a flourish. ‘Is a man who would tear down the very fabric of our society, and who is an affront to everything that we hold dear.’
The Teacher didn’t flinch. Didn’t catch his eye or anyone else’s. He just stood there, as if alone.
‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ the Company Man continued, turning his back on the Teacher. ‘As you can see, I have decided to make this adjudication public. That is why I have invited you here. That is why I have invited these cameras. Because I want to show you that we at ICU have nothing to hide. I want you to witness. I want you to witness the arguments of these men. This town is rife with rumour. With stories. I understand that such rumours spread fastest and furthest when people feel they are being kept from the truth. So today I want to show you the truth.’
He paused, as if expecting the word to trigger us
again; here, in the same place where just two days earlier a young woman had been shot as she shouted out that same word. But no one shouted now. No one started a chant. He’d caught us all off guard, and he knew it.
Allowing himself the slightest of smiles he moved on again, pacing around the stage.
‘One of these men,’ he said as he walked. ‘Says that over the five years we’ve been working here, we have given the town no choice. The other man says personal choice is all that matters. He wants us to live in a different way. Without families, without work. Without homes. Everything should be shared, nothing owned. Well, today I am going to give
you
a choice. Because at the end of this trial, one of these men shall walk free. And the choice as to which man walks will be yours.’
Spinning on his heel he turned to face Barry. ‘Name?’
Barry’s head had been hung low but he lifted it now, showing us all the black swelling of a bruise shutting one of his eyes.
‘Barry,’ he said. ‘Barry Absolem.’
The Company Man pointed at him. ‘Were you,’ he asked, ‘the bomber behind the assassination attempt on Friday?’
Barry turned to look at him. ‘It wasn’t a…’
‘Answer the question!’
‘Yes,’ Barry said, turning away. ‘Yes I was.’
‘And what is your argument, Barry?’ The Company Man turned to us now, to the crowd, opening his arms. ‘You may speak to the people.’
We all looked at Barry. Was he really giving him a chance? Was there really a possibility ICU would let a bomber go free over a Teacher? A man who’d done nothing but forget, listen and help us remember? Barry obviously didn’t think so. If he had, perhaps he’d have tried to defend his actions. As it was, he just explained them.
‘Well, it’s not right, is it?’ he said looking straight back at the Company Man. ‘You say you’re here to help us, but you don’t. You use us. You deal in mineral prices, share prices, markets. Everything about us, here, is decided elsewhere. It’s all about the Company
men now, not the working men. We’re just a product to you, a product with a sell-by date. And when that date comes, you’ll just get rid of us all together.’
He turned to us now, to the crowd. ‘But we’re not a product, we’re people. And people don’t have a sell-by date.’
The Company Man laughed. Perhaps he didn’t mean to, but he did. ‘I think you’ll find they do, Barry,’ he said. ‘It’s called death.’
But Barry wasn’t going to let a cheap joke take away his point. ‘Not if they’re a town,’ he said, his voice choking in his throat. ‘A town never has to die.’
The Company Man shot him a look. As if he realised he couldn’t play this one by halves. Pointing at him again, he strode back towards him.
‘You strapped an innocent woman with explosives. Then made her walk into a crowd of men, women and children!’
‘But I didn’t detonate them, did I? You will. When the time comes you’ll press the button on this town. You already have! Look at all the people thrown out of their homes!’
The Company Man jumped on that one. ‘They will be given new homes.’
‘But it should be their choice!’
A murmur of approval ran through the crowd. The Company Man sensed it. Knew if he was going to go for the kill, then the time was now.
‘You want to know about choice, Barry?’ he said, narrowing his eyes and getting in close to his face. ‘There are easy choices and hard choices. The fact is that we make the hard choices for this town. The difficult choices people would rather not make for themselves. As for the easy choices, well they seem to like the choices we give them. The subsidised food. The free Xboxes in Company homes. The Company fuel tokens and cars. If they really cared about what you’re saying wouldn’t they speak through the choices they make, Barry? You don’t want to defend their choices, Barry. You just want to defend the past, that’s all.’
Holding the silence after his last word for a second he quickly spun away from him and paced to the other side of the stage. If Barry had an answer to that,
he wasn’t going to hear it. He’d had his chance, slim though it was. And now it was gone.
‘Name?’ the Company Man asked walking up to the Teacher.
‘I don’t know.’ His voice was calm, as if someone had asked him the time.
‘They call you the Teacher.’
‘If you say so.’
The Company Man nodded, as if taking the temperature of his answer, weighting how to play this. ‘You have been charged with leading a revolt against the Council and the Company,’ he said, strolling away from him. ‘And of planning insurrectionist activities. Is this true?’
‘If you say it is.’
Another intake of breath from the crowd. Why did he say that? We all knew it wasn’t true. The Company Man was filling the Teacher with his own fears. He turned to look at the Teacher again, obviously as surprised as us.
‘What is your argument Teacher?’
‘I have no argument.’
Again the Company Man looked wrong-footed. He’d prepared his debate, his points. But how was he meant to execute them if this man wouldn’t defend himself?
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll tell the people your argument.’
Walking to the front of the stage he addressed us, his eyes flicking for just a second to those two women and the little girl in their nightdresses.
‘You believe,’ he said, pointing at the Teacher. ‘In the breakdown of society. In tearing up the social contract. You say that everyone is of the same value, regardless of their contribution. You don’t recognise the family unit, the importance of work, of money, or economic wealth. You say little to your followers, but expect them to give up everything. Is that right?’
The Company Man was good. He didn’t sound as if he was accusing the Teacher, more trying to understand him. But he was clever too. He was framing what the Teacher was and while his words made sense there, up on stage, we knew they bore no relation to what had happened over the last two
days on the streets, in people’s houses, on the mountain.
‘If you say so,’ the Teacher replied again.
‘Why did you come here?’ the Company Man asked. His tone was different. The question was real, instinctive. He really wanted to know. ‘Why did you come back?’
At last, the Teacher turned to face him. ‘To listen to the truth,’ he said.
And there it was. A word he could grasp at, a word he could use to engage his argument. ‘But whose truth?’ he asked. ‘What truth? It’s like what I said to Barry. You’re ignoring the fact that we, the Company, deal with the hard truths. The unpalatable truth. If these people want a certain way of life, then certain compromises have to be reached. You know that. We deal with the truths ordinary people don’t want to even look at!’
He addressed us again. ‘Where is your power going to come from tonight? How will you call your cousin, hundreds of miles away? How will you afford your weekly shop? How will you keep warm
in the winter? It’s the truths of these questions that we deal with, Teacher.’
Extending his arm he pointed directly at his face. ‘Are those the truths you came to hear?’
‘No.’
‘At least he’s fighting to protect something,’ the Company Man continued, gesturing to Barry now. ‘To protect the town he knows. You, you’re more dangerous than that. You’re not protecting anything. You just want to break everything up.’
The revelation in his voice seemed genuine. As if it was only now, standing opposite him, that the Company Man really understood the threat the Teacher posed.
‘But you need him, don’t you?’ the Teacher said. ‘And he needs you.’
The Company Man stared at him, incredulous. ‘Why would I need him?’
‘Because he challenges you, and that justifies what you do.’
‘And you don’t challenge me?’
‘No. I make you unnecessary.’
It was like a punch to his stomach. I swear, I saw the blood drain from his face there and then. He went to answer, but for once he was lost for words.
‘I see you,’ the Teacher said. ‘I know your story.’ Silence. The whole civic centre tensed with anticipation.
‘And what,’ the Company Man said, half swallowing his words. ‘Might that be?’
The Teacher returned his gaze, calm and steady. ‘You are afraid.’
The Company Man looked down at his feet and took a deep breath. Everyone will say different but for me that’s when the dice were rolled. That’s when the choice was made. I saw it in his eyes when he raised his head and looked at the Teacher again.
‘Am I?’ he said. ‘Well, let’s see. Let’s play this by your rules, shall we? I want to give the people of this town a choice today. But not by a vote. Everyone knows a vote can be rigged. And that’s what you’d say, isn’t it? That I loaded the crowd. So how would you do this? Maybe by giving the choice to just one person? One innocent person. Because everyone’s
choice is as valid as anyone else’s, isn’t it?’