Free The Folded Man by Matt Hill

possibly the only in there.
    Shame we don’t have it easy like these.
    Mm, says Brian.
    Course, in winter, deep winter, you wonder if they’ll survive under ice. Haven’t let me down yet though. But what’s interesting, right, is their temperature depends on temperature outside. Clever, that. Right bloody cunning. Means they get through cold months by doing bare minimum.
    Right, says Brian.
    Our country works same way.
    I don’t really –
    Michael, Michael, listen. In these colder months, years, we’re just getting by. But imagine what we could do if we all rubbed up against each other. Got all heated up for a bit of graft.
    Ian puts out his hands, draws an imaginary line from one edge of his land to the other.
    Hard work. That’s what it’s all about.
    Â 
    Back in the container, the electric heater’s on.
    Ian waves his men out and sits back in the Chesterfield, opening a top drawer. He pulls out an envelope – a dirty, dog-eared envelope. He slits its neck and opens it wide. Shakes out the contents: photos in black and white.
    Ian says, Roll yourself a bit closer, will you Michael?
    Soon Ian has spread the photos right across his desk. He takes a moment to neaten the edges so they’re straight and parallel.
    Have a scan of these, he says.
    Brian cops a look. Brian recognises the scenes. Everybody would, and everyone does. The same scenes they burnt into your brain for year on year after the fact.
    Deansgate after the fall. Before the column of light. The way they wanted this to be iconic. A bigger event than the IRA managed in ’96. The ironies and the pratfalls. The government who caused it. A government who decried it.
    This is the day I became nationalist, says Ian. The day forty-seven bastard floors fell onto GMEX were same day I woke up. All of us here like sleeping giants back when.
    Brian nods. Brian gets that. Knows it was the start of something in more ways than many.
    More than Oldham, 2001. Bradford, 2001. Moss Side, 1981.
    More than The National Front. The English Defence League. The Red National Front. The lads on Strangeways roof. Rangers on tour, 2009.
    Here’s a storyboard for the riots. The war in pictures. The end of waiting; the start of acting. The prologue.
    Are you a nationalist, Michael? Ian repeats. Is that why you snuck into my conference? To help our cause?
    Brian shakes his head, then nods. Says, I don’t know. Says, I don’t get what you’re after –
    Just a question, isn’t it?
    Mam said you love this country in spite of this country.
    The walls buckling, tightening, choking.
    What’s that? You’re mumbling.
    I said, Mam said you love this country in spite of this country.
    Well then, goes Ian. She were wise, your mam. Might be on to something. But me, I were there, on Deansgate. There to see. Were standing there with our kid, just seven he were. Me, well, like me now but younger. Outside where Harrod’s used to be. Remember everyone round me, don’t I. Coppers over the road. Bloke rolling a fag. And a bunch of Muzzers – pram with their dad. Twin buggy, two more for the cause or what?
    Lights go off first, black-out right down road. Like a corridor. Whole street shakes. No screams either, not like you’d think. And it went down fast – sand castles in the sea I thought, have thought since. Like sand. And then the dust. Ha! Rolls like a bastard when it’s that hot, son. You felt shockwave, sure, but heat on your face. Deansgate were a tunnel, and all this dust flies at us. For us. Screams now and people running, people running with arms off, grey faces with dripping features. The copper’s fucking screaming that we do one, running himself. The kid with rolling baccy’s on his arse, head in hands.
    But thing was, when that building came down, the noisiest thing you ever heard, I saw something. Every­thing’s gone to shit, right? And yet I saw that paki with kids shout