“That’s what this is,” says Ian Ventham, as if talking to a child. “This is the consultation meeting. You’re the residents. Consult all you like, for the next twenty minutes.”
Ventham sits at a trestle table at the front of the residents’ lounge. He is teak-tanned and relaxed, with his sunglasses pushed up over his 1980s catalog-model hair. He is wearing an expensive polo shirt and a watch so large it might as well be a clock. He looks like he smells great, but you wouldn’t really want to get close enough to find out for sure.
Ventham is flanked by a woman about fifteen years his junior, and by a tattooed man in an AC/DC T-shirt, scrolling through his phone. The woman is the development architect, and the tattooed man is Tony Curran. Ron has seen Curran around, has heard about him too. Ibrahim is writing down every word that’s said, as Ron continues to jab in Ventham’s direction.
“I’m not falling for that old bull, Ventham. This ain’t a consultation, it’s an ambush.”
Joyce decides to chip in. “You tell him, Ron.”
Ron fully intends to.
“Thanks, Joyce. You’re calling it the Woodlands, even though you’re cutting down all the trees. That’s rich, old son. You’ve got your nice little computer pictures, all done up, sun shining, fluffy clouds, little ducks swimming on ponds. You can prove anything with computers, son; we wanted to see a proper scale model. With model trees and little people.”
This gets a ripple of applause. A lot of people had wanted to see a scale model, but according to Ian Ventham that just wasn’t how things were done these days.
Ron continues. “And you’ve chosen—deliberately chosen—a woman architect, so I won’t be allowed to shout.”
“You are shouting though, Ron,” says Elizabeth, reading a newspaper, two seats away.
“Don’t you tell me when I’m shouting, Elizabeth,” shouts Ron. “This geezer’ll know when I’m shouting. Look at him, dressed up like Tony Blair. Why don’t you bomb the Iraqis while you’re at it, Ventham?”
“Good line,” thinks Ron, as Ibrahim dutifully writes it down for the record.
Back in the days when he was in the papers, they called him Red Ron, though everyone was Red something in those days. Ron’s picture was rarely in the papers without the caption “Talks between the two sides collapsed late last night.” A veteran of picket lines and police cells, of blacklegs, blacklists, and bust-ups, of slow-downs and sit-ins, of wildcat strikes and walkouts, Ron had been there, warming his hands over a brazier, with the old gang at the British Leyland car factory. He had seen firsthand the demise of the dockers. He had picketed the Wapping newspaper plant, as he witnessed the victory of Rupert Murdoch and the collapse of the printers. Ron had led the Kent miners up the A1, and had been arrested at Orgreave Pit as thefinal resistance of the coal industry was crushed. In fact, a man less indefatigable than Ron might have considered himself a jinx. But that’s the fate of the underdog, and Ron simply loved to be the underdog. If he ever found himself in a situation where he wasn’t the underdog, he would twist and turn and shake that situation until he had convinced everyone that he was. But Ron had always practiced what he had preached. He had always quietly helped anyone who had needed a leg up, needed a few extra quid at Christmas, needed a suit or a solicitor for court. Anyone who, for any reason, had needed a champion had always been safe in Ron’s tattooed arms.
The tattoos are fading now, the hands are shaking, but the fire still burns.
“You know where you can shove this lease, don’t you, Ventham?”
“Feel free to enlighten me,” says Ian Ventham.
Ron then starts to make a point about Donald Trump, but loses his thread. Ibrahim places a hand on his elbow. Ron nods the nod of a man whose work here is done, and he sits, knees cracking like gunshots. He’s happy. And he notices his shakes have stopped, just for the moment. Back in the fight. There’s nothing like it.
7.
As Father Matthew Mackie slips in at the back of the lounge, a large man in a West Ham shirt is shouting about Tony Blair. There is a big turnout, as he hoped. That’s useful—plenty of objections to the Woodlands. There had been no buffet service on the train from Bexhill, so he is glad to see there are biscuits.
He grabs a handful when no one is looking, takes a blue plastic seat in the back row, and settles himself in. The man in the tight-fitting soccer shirt is running out of steam now, and as he sits down, other hands go up. He hopes this wasn’t a wasted trip, but it is far better to be safe than sorry. Father Mackie is aware that he is nervous. He adjusts his dog collar, runs a hand through his shock of snowy-white hair, and dips into his pocket for a shortbread finger. If someone doesn’t ask about the cemetery, perhaps he should. Just be brave. Remember he has a job to do.
How peculiar to be in this room. He shivers. Probably just the cold.
8.
The consultation is over, and Ron is sitting with Joyce beside the bowling green, cold beers glinting in the sunshine.
He is currently being distracted by a retired one-armed jeweler from Ruskin Court called Dennis Edmonds.
Dennis, to whom Ron has literally never spoken before, wants to congratulate him on the very salient points he made during the consultation meeting. “Thought-provoking, Ron, thought-provoking, plenty to chew on there.”
Ron thanks Dennis for his kind words and waits for the move that he knows is coming. The move that always comes.
“And this must be your son?” says Dennis, turning toward Jason Ritchie, also cradling a beer. “The champ!”
Jason smiles and nods, polite as always. Dennis extends his arm. “Dennis. I’m a friend of your dad’s.”
Jason shakes the man’s hand. “Jason. How do you do, Dennis.”
Dennis stares for a beat, waiting for Jason to start a conversation, then nods enthusiastically. “Well, a pleasure to meet you. I’m a huge fan, seen all your fights. We’ll see you soon again, I hope?”
