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The Duke Street site was a mess of grey mud, half-finished scaffolding, and bitter resentment. The wind howled through the exposed timber of the roofless tenements, rattling the corrugated iron fences that cordoned off the work zone.
Tommy Higgins slammed his van door shut, his boots sinking two inches into the sludge. Behind him, Jim Harrison stepped out of his Austin Cambridge, his face set like granite. Word had traveled fast from the sorting office. By the time they arrived, a dozen local bricklayers and joiners had already formed an angry semicircle around the security gates.
"They're inside, Jim," one of the local lads yelled, pointing a gloved finger toward the half-built foundations. "Three of them. Scabs from across the M62, laying brick like they own the place."
Jim didn't answer right away. He adjusted his donkey jacket and walked straight past the shouting men, heading for the site agent’s caravan. Tommy followed closely at his shoulder, his massive frame acting as an unspoken threat.
Inside the caravan, the heating was blasted so high it smelled of scorched dust. The site agent, a nervous man named Henderson with a pencil tucked behind his ear, didn't look up from his blueprints when the door banged open.
"We have an agreement, Henderson," Jim said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Local labor. Union rates. No exceptions."
"The council changed the parameters, Jim," Henderson stammered, finally looking up and wiping a bead of sweat from his upper lip. "The budget was slashed at midnight. If I don't use these lads for the groundwork, the whole project gets mothballed. You want fifty local lads on the dole instead of three out-of-towners getting a bit of cash?"
"Don't give us that rubbish," Tommy barked, leaning over the desk. "You're pocketing the difference on the lump, you sly dog. We know how this works."
"Keep it civil, Tommy," Jim warned, though his eyes never left Henderson. "If those men aren't off this site by midday, I’m calling a full stoppage across every council build from here to Bootle. You think your budget is tight now? Try paying penalties for a dead site for the next six months."
While the old guard dug their heels into the mud of Duke Street, the younger generation was operating on an entirely different currency up at Mount Pleasant.
The university campus was a sea of duffle coats, political badges, and the smell of cheap patchouli oil. Billy Harrison felt entirely out of place in his postman’s uniform as he followed Ste through the concrete courtyard of the Student Union. Students were milling about, arguing over flyers about the miners' strike or Apartheid, completely oblivious to the real-time poverty grinding down the docks just a mile away.
"Watch the leather," Ste muttered, nodding toward a group of students in oversized vintage coats. "The union president is a proper militant. If he catches us trading tickets without paying the student entertainment levy, he’ll have the university security on us."
"I don't like this, Ste," Billy whispered, his knuckles white around his empty mail bag. "My dad’s down the road trying to save jobs, and I’m here scalping tickets for a rave."
"Your dad’s fighting a war that’s already lost, mate," Ste said, spotting his contact—a second-year student named Julian who wore a pastel yellow cardigan. "Alright, Jules? Got the goods."
Julian smiled, reaching into his satchel. "Brilliant. The Manchester crowd are desperate for these. Apparently, the DJ is playing some new import tracks from Chicago. House music, they call it."
Billy watched the exchange of crisp, twenty-pound notes—more money than his dad would take home from a week of grueling union negotiations. It felt dirty, but as he looked at the money, he thought of his mother’s worn slippers and the empty pantry back home. The old rules didn't apply anymore.
Back down at the regional union office on Dale Street, Sandra and Chrissie were sitting on a pair of vinyl chairs that had been patched with brown tape. The receptionist had told them Jim was out on an emergency dispute, leaving them stranded in a corridor that smelled of old tobacco and floor polish.
"We should go," Sandra said, her voice small against the clatter of a typewriter from the adjacent room. "He’s not coming back, Chrissie. Look at the posters on the wall. 'Save Our Services.' 'Fight the Cuts.' They don't care about two girls getting kicked out of number four."
Chrissie gripped Sandra’s hand, tighter this time, ignoring the receptionist who was currently looking anywhere but at them. "We stay, San. If we walk out of here, we’re admitting we don't belong anywhere. And I’m done hiding in the kitchen with the curtains closed."
The door to the main street opened, and a gust of freezing Liverpool air rushed into the hallway, bringing with it the distant sound of a police siren echoing off the river.
