Iain Rodgers - The Zima Confession

About the Author

Iain M. Rodgers was born in Glasgow. He sometimes has difficulty describing himself as a Glaswegian because for most of his life he has been pinged around like a pinball. The list of places he is associated with includes Glasgow, Manchester, Lagos, London, Sheffield, Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Moscow.

His cover story is that he was a Civil Servant for a while, which got him into I.T. One day he decided to give that up, teach English in Moscow and try to write books. His cover story is a fabrication.

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

Harriet Tubman

A dark orange paper lantern, hanging from an elaborately decorative centre rose of the high Victorian ceiling, provided barely enough light to illuminate the languidly twisting coils of silver smoke that filled the room. The air was thick with the smell of cannabis.

Young men and women, a mixture of long-haired hippies and short-haired punks, were sprawled over the floor smoking joints and drinking from cans. In one corner of the large room, looking either like a witch or a puritan, an earnest young woman in a high-necked maxi-dress was kneeling to roll a joint on a low, half-broken side table. She did it carefully and ritualistically. Several people nearby watched with interest, as though her performance formed part of an important ceremony.

A guy with a guitar was slumped in a beanbag trying to play Leonard Cohen’s famous blue dirge Famous Blue Raincoat, though no one was interested in his depressive mumbling. Eventually, someone decided he’d heard enough. A kid with spiky hair and an imitation leather jacket pierced with hundreds of safety pins and button badges skipped through the bodies strewn on the floor and pushed poor ‘Leonard’ off the beanbag.

“That’s shite by raway pal.” The punk sneered in a rough Glasgow voice. Then he shouted back over his shoulder: “Moira, put ra Pistols oan. Let’s get some life intae ris party.”

◆◆◆

Meanwhile, Stuart and Richard were quietly discussing something in the corner opposite the young woman rolling the joint.

“You’re all just wasting your time you know. All this marching and selling newspapers will never get you anywhere,” Richard stated.

“History, man. History’s on our side.”

“History bollocks. You guys are just kids. You’re just playing at this.”

“Eddie’s totally serious. Mibby worryingly serious.”Stuart spoke with a slight Glasgow accent which, though mild, sometimes influenced Richard to imitate it to some extent. After pausing to think for a moment he added, “I guess ye could say I’m more interested in an academic way myself.”

“I know that, man. See that PhD you’re doing, all that theory shit, ‘German philosophy from Hegel to Marx’, I don’t really get it. I wish I’d done some proper subjects myself; engineering say, instead of this politics and sociology crap.” Richard thought morosely for a few moments before perking up a bit. “Imagine if, years from now, your education finally pays off and you find yourself in a half-decent job. Let’s say no one even knows you’re a commie. What would happen if you could reconnect with all your comrades from the Party and put yourself at their disposal?”

“What could you do then that you can’t do now?”

“Who knows, man? But I bet you could do a damned sight more damage, or good I mean, than a hundred of these silly pot-smoking kids that think they’re being so cool and radical.”

“Mibby you’re right, but you’re not even a Party member. You’re just a guy who tags along; a fellow traveller. You’re not even interested in what the Party wants.”

“You’re right Stuart, I’m not. I’m not interested in all this posturing and posing, but, see if I thought I could do any good I would definitely do whatever it takes.”

“Like fuck ye would.”

“Course I would! And me not being a Party member would help anyway. I’m not on anyone’s radar. I’ve never even had my picture taken on any of your half-assed marches or demos.”

“‘Half-assed marches’? Yeah, right-e-o! How come you’ve never even come on a march or demo, ya bastard?”

“Waste of time man. Take all those stupid asses that demonstrated to save every last job in the shipyards. All it did was make sure that the yards couldn’t compete. Instead of saving jobs they made sure they all went.”

Stuart was eyeing him with suspicion. They had argued on this subject a number of times already and agreed to differ. Richard didn’t bother to bring the same old arguments up yet again but was dismayed that even Stuart didn’t seem to understand him. He was well aware that nobody in the Party took him seriously. For one thing his background was against him. But, more importantly, there was an ideological divide between him and the others. If he had to explain to these Marxists in terms that would be acceptable, it was the difference between Das Kapital and Der Grundrisse. Properly reading either Das Kapital or Der Grundrisse was not something he had bothered to do, but he believed the difference between them explained the difference between himself and the others. Ultimately, he was reluctant to describe himself as a Marxist of any kind. An anarchist called Kropotkin had more attractive ideas. But that was something best not mentioned at all.

“Oh jeezus!” Stuart blurted out.

“What?” Stuart jerked his head to the side in the direction of the door, which was being closed again after opening briefly.

“Line-up-Linda’s just arrived. She’s probably heading straight upstairs to get her legs in the air.”

Richard knew Stuart didn’t like Linda MacKerricher. He thought she was a slut. So she was; but Richard didn’t see anything wrong with that. She was a liberated and independent young woman. In fact Richard found her crazily sexy. He cursed his luck in not catching sight of her – probably wearing those kinky wet-look boots and that purple mini-skirt. Liberated and “easy” though she was, Richard could never pluck up the courage to even talk to her, let alone join in one of the orgies she was reputed to take part in.

“So why would a posh cunt like you even want to help?” Stuart continued, snapping Richard out of the reverie that Linda MacKerricher had unknowingly evoked.

“Lots of ‘posh cunts’ are revolutionaries. Most revolutionaries are posh cunts in fact – Marx himself, Lenin, Guevara… you name it.”

“Yeah, sure thing, Guildford boy.”

“Fuck you Mr Kelvinside Academy.” Richard knew that Stuart was as middle class as it was possible to be for a Glaswegian, but still had one over on him when it came to class-related, inverted snobbery. Richard’s parents now lived in Milngavie, having moved up to Scotland from Guildford when he was about three. In the mindset of most Glaswegians, Richard was a toff – almost aristocracy.

“OK Guildford boy. So you like to tag along to the odd meeting. You like to slag off the hardcore members but will we ever see you put your money where your mouth is?”

“If I thought it could do some actual good I would. I mean the way society is just now… there’s lots of things wrong. Systemic things. You know yourself how we’ve discussed it all; over and over again. Things that are wrong. Things that are wrong with the system itself and so can’t be fixed by the system.” He wondered if he was getting a bit drunk. He didn’t usually use Glaswegian expressions like “You know yourself”. He would normally say “As you know” or whatever the correct expression was.

“OK, agreed. So what do ye propose then?”

“Nationalise the banks without compensation. Step one.”

“You can’t just do that though.” Stuart said with the sort of patience usually reserved for small children, “You can only do that after a revolution. Industries can only be nationalised after they’ve failed. Or by force, after revolution.”

“Not true. Labour’s in power now and there are already mutuals, co-operative banks, the National Savings Bank. Why don’t they just expand that sector and take over the banking system step by step?”

Stuart shrugged. “Step by step hasn’t worked. The Left has already tried Parliament. Every time they do something the Tories just reverse it next time they’re in. Plus the Left never stick to their guns when they get into power; they always change. We’ve had Keir Hardie, Aneurin Bevan, Benn. Even Harold-bloody-Wilson was supposedly ‘hard Left’ and look what happened.”

Stuart’s attention was drawn to the door again. Richard looked too, hoping that Linda had come back. He was immediately disappointed. Instead of Linda MacKerricher wearing a mini-skirt and boots, someone wearing a duffle coat and a Partick Thistle hat and scarf was trying to push a bicycle into the room. It seemed that the Thistle fan was intending to ride the bike around the room as an amusing stunt. This was giving rise to a bit of an altercation because several of the punks were trying to prevent him. Their idea of anarchy in the UK did not extend to permitting people to ride bicycles in rooms.

“OK, let’s agree, as usual, that only revolution will really change things. So how do you do it?” said Richard.

“How would you do it?”

“Just what I was trying to say a moment ago. You need something to trigger it, an act that causes significant damage to the existing system so that it’s unable to function properly. Once that happens the socialists will rise up and the system will be unable to defend itself.”

Stuart didn’t say anything but nodded briefly in agreement. Then, remembering there were more important matters to attend to, he stretched his head back and began tipping half a tin of Tennent’s Super Lager down his throat, seemingly oblivious as Richard continued his monologue:

“We’re just kids right now, students. We know nothing. We don’t know anybody who knows anything or has any influence. Even guys like Eddie are half-way to Walter Mitty; they’re kidding themselves. But all this education we’re getting might eventually be good for something. If we could keep in touch with the people we know who really want to change things and make a difference then one day we might be useful.”

Stuart had stopped gulping the lager. His head lurched back down to its default position as he crushed the empty can into his fist. He studied Richard for a long time, as though he was somehow having difficulty recognising him. But finally a glimmer of comprehension flickered to life.

“What exactly would you do?”

“Sabotage. I mean something big. Something fucking big. Remember what I was telling you about Georges Sorel?”

“And you’re volunteering…?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Count me in, man.”

A wall of sound slammed through the room as The Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen blasted out. The punks immediately started pogo-ing in a frenzy, forcing the hippies lazing on the floor to reluctantly create space for them. The guy who had been singing Leonard Cohen songs left the room, meekly cradling his guitar to prevent damage. Stuart had to shout:

“We should go and see Eddie with this idea. He’ll know what to do about it, or he’ll know someone that does.”

“This idea of yours is aw very well but you realise it could put us aw in jail?” Eddie’s mean, feral eyes stared at Richard accusingly through heavy black-rimmed glasses, making him look every inch the wee Glasgow hard-man he aspired to be. Richard had been invited round to his flat to go through the sabotage plan for the third time and it was becoming clear Eddie had little faith in either him or the plan. They sat in the cold kitchen to avoid disturbing Eddie’s dad who was watching TV in the living room.