“I’m feeling conflicted, Tel,” says Nige. I already suspected this on account of we are actually sitting at a table, rather than leaning against the bar. The last time he wanted to sit was when West Ham got relegated to the second division in 2011.
“That’s not quite true,” he continues. “I used to be conflicted about this country – loved it as much as I hated it; but now I hate it more.”
“Is this because the Inland Revenue have caught up with you at last?” I say.
It’s Tuesday night and the pub is sparsely populated. Nige has an empty glass but he’s not going to the bar for a refill, mainly because there’s no one behind it. Sue, the barmaid, is on one of her fag breaks out the back. Before that, we had quite a long wait to get served because she was on the phone, chatting to her kids with her customer radar switched off. She’s a pleasant enough woman but like most bar staff she’s paid peanuts and therefore we’re not always her first priority.
“No – why, do you know something?” I shake my head and he relaxes. “It’s because of all this attention on the Establishment. Like the Sun setting up a whistle-blower phone line, where us scallies can anonymously tip them off about Establishment types doing wrong.”
I’ve been thinking about this too. How, with all the current difficulties in setting up the long-overdue enquiry into historical child abuse by powerful people, there seems to be a lot of open criticism about the Establishment. And, while it may be over-optimistic to believe, there is perhaps a growing feeling in the country that at last, there just might be some serious examination of the crimes of the rich and powerful, and their ancient knack of protecting their own from ever facing justice.
“But you hate the Establishment,” I say, “aren’t you pleased there are signs they might be losing.”
He doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, he goes to the bar and buys another two pints, having spotted that Sue’s back. He shares a joke with her and for a moment I think he’s forgotten the subject. But when he sits again, his expression reverts to serious with a shot of melancholy.
“They ain’t losing, Tel. The signs are they’re winning.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The very fact they’re being talked about means they aren’t working very hard to suppress interest, which they’ve always done in the past. And they’d only stop doing that if they’re confident it’s in the bag.”
I think about this while he’s taking a long swallow of lager.
“Because they figure people will grow tired of the subject?” I say. “That all these delays will result in a deflation of public outrage?”
“Yes, but it’s more than that,” he says. “They’ve knocked the spiritual stuffing out of the people. Basically, they broke the country financially but now the rich are actually twice as well off as they were before while everyone else has taken a hit in trying to undo their mess. People are exhausted and subconsciously broken by the fact the bastards always win. Now, they’re so cocky about what they’ve pulled off that they’re waving their sex crimes in our faces knowing we ain’t got the energy to do much about it.”
He really does sound tired. The streaks of paint in his hair from his decorating job make him seem conquered.
“And so,” he says, “I now hate this country more than I love it and because of that I can’t be bothered to work up a rage about putting things right. God save the bleedin’ Queen and all that.”
I begin to think of arguments to rally him round but in fact I think I know what he means.
“Go on, Tel,” he says, “time for your writing analogy.”
“Since you ask . . . the publishing world is obsessed with profits these days,” I say. “But there’s one thing they can’t control.”
“The public’s sporadic and totally unexplainable hunger for stories about elves and fairies and dwarves and spotty kids with wands who never have to work to be a hero, they just are because the author says so?”
“Well, yes, but the only thing they can’t suppress or manage into mediocrity is a writer’s desire to uncover the truth of the deepest, darkest corner of his soul and turn it into a story that resonates with meaning – even if no one else ever buys it.”
“I get that,” he says. “But I’m just a builder/decorator; which means my soul only has itself to look to and these days it can’t get out from under all the bleedin’ equality and unfairness and raping of the people dumped on us from our betters.”
I have no answer to that. He’s right. It does seem as if the country’s spirit has been broken in recent years. There’s a general election coming up but no one is fooled that any candidates are really saying anything they truly believe in.
“Are you thinking of getting out?” I say.
“As a matter of fact, I am. Got a cousin in San Diego who reckons he can get me some work out there.”
“The USA? But you hate all that capitalist cheerleading world-domination crap – to quote.”
“Yeah, but at least they believe it, Tel.”
For some reason, I think about Starbucks and McDonalds and Burger King. Perhaps he’s right: Americans believe in them. Here, we only have them because the Establishment put up everything in the country for sale, to anyone with the cash to buy. Never mind that most of the people didn’t ask for them in the first place.
I feel a story coming on, about how in the future, our genes will be branded, women’s wombs sponsored; babies born with slogans written by nanotechnology across their foreheads. But I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to write it.