The summer city riots had spread to the rural north. The news eventually filtered through to the isolated mining village of Brookover. Its pit had long been closed, a sportswear assembly unit squatting on its corpse. It was the main employer for miles, the owners having brought in scores of Eastern Europeans on the minimum wage to toil there.
The presence of the ‘foreigners’ was a grievance: Polish shops, strange languages in the market square. Their healthy diet marked out the incomers too. They were thin and fit, not paunchy and panting like some locals.
In the model village just below the pit site, one, two, then a rash of the tiny red-bricked terrace houses put St George’s flags in their front window. This is who we are! they seemed to say. The infection spread to the council estate. Soon hundreds of windows were adorned.
Piotr Lancucki looked out of his rented house at the estate’s edge. Those crosses were alienating. He and his wife just wanted to do their jobs at the plant, send money back to relatives, live quietly. But this didn’t look welcoming.
The next evening there was a crowd in the street, some drunk, shouting ‘Inga-land, Inga-land, Inga-land.’ They were setting fire to the car of his neighbour, Olufemi, the only black woman on the estate. ‘White, right, fight!’ they yelled. Later, when it was quiet, he went outside. Olufemi was inspecting her burnt out vehicle.
‘Five mile walk tomorrow to Maternity,’ she said.
He noticed a sheet of handwritten paper fixed on her front door. It said: Fly the flag or well smash yr residense. ‘It’s the cross of England they’re referring to.’
‘I know what it is!’ she said angrily. ‘I’m going to bed. I’ve got babies to deliver in the morning.’
‘Put one in your window. No harm, surely?’
‘No! That won’t change anything.’
‘Flying it doesn’t mean you agree with them.’
She shook her head again and went in.
The next evening when he got home from work, he heard a bang on his window. A gang, some with flags, were throwing stones. For the first time he felt frightened. His wife, his two kids: would they be safe?
‘If you show their flag, maybe they’ll leave you be,’ his wife, Maria, said.
‘What if they make further demands later?’ he said. The family was unnerved. He kept telling himself to stand his ground, not give in to them, be like Olufemi. Another stone hit his window. He went out to the yobs.
‘Give me a flag.’
A tattooed skinhead pushed a red cross poster into his hand. He put it in the front window. There was cheering outside. He sat down, angry with himself. Stones continued to be thrown. They were pelting Olufemi’s window. There was a sound of breaking glass, and an ugly chorus of Fly the flag!
He should do something. But what? He felt useless. That was how they wanted him to feel, wasn’t it? Like them.
