The 'March for the Alternative' alternative story.

This is the other possible for tomorrow's International Women's Day event, staring a couple of the 'bit part' characters.  It's an edit and slight rework of the first part of this short story…

Jenny Morris woke up when the coach came to a halt.  She had been out seriously late last night.

‘You so don’t want to bother with that stupid Union thing tomorrow!’ Sita Rai had grumbled, as they had staggered back to her flat after Jen’s hen night. 

But Jenny did want to bother, at least for a little while. 

After that, they could go off and buy shoes.

She had joined the union a year ago, shortly before Andy Burrows, a skinny bloke about 7 feet tall, had taken over as Branch Secretary.  He didn’t dawdle about reading through wads of ‘Minutes’ at the start, or get hung up about whether something was a resolution for voting on or just a comment for discussion.  That stuff did Jenny’s head in.  Instead, Andy organised speakers, including a man from the Solent Welfare Rights Project who had talked about how benefit cuts hit vulnerable people, which had made Jen think hard about the work she did.

Andy came through the coach, handing out information sheets about the route of the march, where the coach would pick them up, what time they had to be back to it, and what to do if they got arrested.

The last part had freaked Sita out completely, until Jen reminded her that they were actually going shopping in Oxford Street. 

Jen watched as lanky Andy made his way to the front of the coach.  He took up the microphone. 

‘We’ll all stick together,’ he said.  ‘But if you take a flag each it’ll be easier for me and the other stewards to spot you all.’ 

Jen almost expected him to organise them into pairs and make them hold hands.  As she got off of the coach, Andy passed her a bright yellow flag with the Union’s logo in the middle. 

Sita didn’t take one.  

‘It’ll get in the way going round the shops,’ she said to Jen, once they were out of Andy’s hearing.  ‘And you’ll have to bin yours before we get to Selfridges or they’ll think we’re going to break their windows or whatever.’ 

At the Tube station, the lady waved them through the barrier without any tickets.  When the train ran in, it was already packed with people bearing banners and flags. 

The ticket guy waved them all through at the other end. 

‘Excellent!’ said Sita.  ‘We can use the money for a latte and a blueberry muffin in Starbucks!’

Jen wasn’t really listening because, now they were right out of the station and onto Waterloo Bridge, she could see the huge crowds gathering along the Embankment.  Their group were following a mass of people with blue flags and among those was a massive inflatable bubble with something inside that looked like a big grey fish. 

‘Oh.  My.  God!’ said Sita.

‘That’s us!’ shouted Andy, pointing across the river to a sea of yellow PCS flags and a big yellow balloon.  Jen wasn’t the only one struggling to keep up with his long strides although, once they got among the other demonstrators, Andy had to slow right down.

Jenny looked at the people around them.  She had expected most of them to be students and young activists but there were loads of people as old as her mum, or even older.  Some had lollipop-shaped placards with a row of little stick people and the words ‘Coalition of Resistance’ on them; others had anti-cuts slogans and ‘Socialist Worker’ or ‘Socialist Party’ on, but most people carried Union flags or banners and they were from all sorts of different professions.  The blue flag people turned out to be teachers and the thing Jen had mistaken for a fish was a gigantic inflatable pair of scissors representing education cuts. 

‘Oh my God, Jen!’ Sita suddenly grasped her arm.  ‘Don’t look at them, not so it’s obvious, but there are some of those anarchists over there!  We should go now, before it all kicks off!’

Jenny stole a cautious glance in the direction Sita had indicated. 

‘You are well stupid,’ she said.  ‘Just coz they’re wearing black!  They’re junior doctors dressed as undertakers because the A&E at their hospital is going to be closed.’

‘That’s well bad.’  For a moment, Sita actually sounded as if she cared. ‘But there are still loads of people here, Jen.  Andy won’t notice if we go shopping.’

‘Not yet,’ Jenny said.  She had never been on a demonstration before and thought it might be cool to walk a little bit of the way with the others, at least as far as Big Ben.  She just wished people would stop waving all these bits of paper at her with political stuff on. 

‘Aren’t some of these old banners nice?’ she said to Sita.  ‘There’s one with a lovely painting of a cruise liner on it.  My granddad used to go to sea.’ 

‘What’s that one with the flames on?’ Sita asked, as they came round past the Houses of Parliament.

Jenny couldn’t see which one she meant, for all the people packed around her.

‘It’s the Fire Brigades Union,’ explained Andy, who had come back through his group to hand out little cartons of fruit juice, as if they were on a school trip.

‘No way!’ Sita gasped.  ‘God, Jen!  You didn’t tell me there would be firemen on this march!  I might be staying now!’