Chapter 20
“Una must be wondering where we are,” remarked Beta as she lay on the bed, my arm around her shoulders and traces of sweat still pasted to her brow. “We must see how she is.”
“Must we?” I asked reluctantly. I’d become very comfortable on the bed, lying so close to Beta’s warm naked body in the bedroom’s luxurious surroundings.
“Yes, we must!” said Beta firmly, snatching herself from my arm and standing up by the side of the four-poster bed. “Get your clothes on, and we’ll go and see her. She’s just down the corridor!”
I did as I was told and followed Beta as she padded along the thick carpeted corridor past the large portraits and paintings to Una’s room. It was opposite a splendid portrait of the King holding a pair of scales and sword, presumably showing him as the source of Justice in his Kingdom. We gingerly eased open the door to see Una very much awake, and chatting idly to the Hen who was still sitting there. She smiled as she saw us enter. Beta rushed to her side, and I sat on a chair just by the bed next to the cot where her baby was sleeping.
“How are you feeling?” Beta asked with some concern. “Better I hope?”
Una nodded. “I feel so battered and torn. As if my entire insides were pulled out of me. Which I suppose they have been. He’s still sleeping isn’t he? The baby, I mean.”
“He looks like nothing could ever wake him up,” I commented, glancing at the small blue huddle, his fists close to his face, breathing softly and slowly.
“It’s so difficult to believe I’m a mother now. What will people in Unity think of me now I wonder? Or Rupert as it’s now been renamed. Perhaps they’ll treat me better. I can just hope.”
“What’s your home town like?” wondered Beta, sitting on the edge of the bed and grasping Una’s hand in her own. “It’s in the Country isn’t it?”
“Yes. Leagues away. It was a long and arduous journey from there to the City. It’s quite an ordinary town, I suppose. Nothing very unusual about it to look at. There’s a town hall, plenty of churches, a cinema, a few supermarkets and a lot of countryside surrounding it. If you visited it, you’d probably not come away with any great impressions, although of course there are some old buildings and a nice cobbled square to remind you of its long glorious history. I believe there’d been some sort of battle fought there, years ago. The Battle of Unity. It was rather important I think in deciding the political structure of the country. But it’s very different from the City, and not just because it’s such a smaller place. It’s a lot less liberal. There’s no homosexuality, no pornography, no alcohol and no football. All those things have been banned in the town as a result of legislation passed absolutely hundreds of years ago, by different complexions of local government. And even though nobody really knows why they were made illegal, nobody’s ever thought of changing it. Or those who have probably just left the town to live somewhere else. So, it’s a quite dull place to live in, but quite peaceful as well. There’s none of the crime and violence you find in the City.”
“Did you enjoy living there?” asked Beta to encourage Una to keep her thoughts off her present predicament.
“No. Not really. I always wanted to leave. Like most people, I suppose. But there are jobs there in local businesses and factories, so I suppose many just stay there for the work. I thought it was really boring. And quite oppressive really. Like most parents in Unity, mine were very strict, and there wasn’t a great deal I was allowed to do. Seeing boys for instance was very much discouraged. My father works in the courts. He’s some kind of solicitor, and well respected in the community. My mother works part-time in a factory where she weighs chickens before sealing them in plastic and then attaching labels. They wanted me to grow up a respectable girl: not the slut they think I’ve become. They had no sympathy at all when I ever suggested I might like to leave Unity and live anywhere else. Like most people in the town they believe that the world beyond is a kind of bedlam of alcoholics, drug takers, prostitutes and criminals. And after having lived in the City for so long, without a home and in the gutter, I can’t say that their fears were wholly unfounded.
“Most people, whether girls or boys, have to serve in the local militia for a year when they leave school. I’ve no idea why. Unity isn’t at risk from invasion from any other town, and most districts of this country don’t find the need for such an obligation. I’ve been fortunate not to have had to do that. All that parading and marching and physical exercise. Standing out in the town square for hours, whatever the weather, and costing the town I don’t know how much to have a disciplined force of adolescents who do nothing more constructive than build irrigation trenches, gather in harvests and guard the town hall from imaginary enemies. As a girl, I wouldn’t even have had the relative fun of learning how to use guns or to fight. I would have been expected to prepare meals, make beds and wash clothes. It was not something I was at all looking forward to: and I’d long ago resolved to leave Unity before I was called up. As I have. But not at all in the way I’d have chosen.
“However, it makes some strange sense in Unity. Everything is so well regulated. Even without the national service, it’s almost a military regime. School was just the same. These horrid tight uniforms I had to wear from the moment I started at primary school. You didn’t wear a school uniform, did you?”
Beta shook her head. “No. I didn’t have to wear anything at school. And neither did the teachers.”
“Your village must be a lot more liberal than Unity, I can see that. My uniform was an ankle length skirt and a blouse with a high collar which almost strangled me. And it had to be very hot for us to be allowed to take off our jackets. We had to wear these ugly hats, the same colour as our uniforms, which covered everything but our plaits. The boys had to wear uniforms as well, but theirs weren’t nearly so tight or restrictive as the girls’. We had an hour of assembly every morning, where we had to endure a moral sermon. When I was first at school, this would have been a Church of Unity sermon, but now it would be something to do with Illicitism. No other religions were permitted in the town besides the Church of Unity which had been founded by some really puritanical people hundreds of years ago. Often, the school sermons were nothing more than an excuse to damn all the other religions and faiths. Part of the doctrine was that only people in the true church had any chance of salvation in the day of Judgement, and that God had already decided whether we were to be saved at the moment of our Conception. This meant that the whole process of family planning was horribly complicated and involved the active blessing of a minister from the Church. It was a wonder anyone ever had any children at all.
“There were several hours of physical education every day, much of which took place after hours. I hated that. My Sports Master, a large cockerel with a wooden leg, was quite savage with those he thought were shirking. And that more often than not was me. I’d be slapped with a clout from his heavy wing if he saw me showing less enthusiasm than I ought as I fell over in the mud while playing hockey or girls rugby. He wasn’t the worst by any means. The Moral Standards teacher was particularly fierce and rather sadistic. And the Physics teacher was always scathingly sarcastic if I made a mistake, which I often did. I was really no scientist, and I showed no inclination to ever be one.”
“You seemed to have had a fairly dismal education,” I remarked.
“Wasn’t there anything at school you actually enjoyed?” wondered Beta.
“I enjoyed Art. I was quite a good artist, I think. It was the subject in which I most excelled. And our Art teacher was very sympathetic. She was quite unconventional by Unity standards, though she’d probably seem extremely conservative in the City. She wore pretty silk scarves and let her hair hang loose. Most of the teachers actively disapproved of her, and I imagine the parents did as well. She gave me a lot of encouragement. Even giving up some of her free time to help me in any painting or sculpture I was working at. It was when I was being creative I felt most fulfilled. It allowed a release which was mostl
y suppressed in every other activity.
“The school had very strict rules on the kind of Art we could be exposed to or work on. It had to be one of sculpture, painting or drawing, and it had to be representational. Only people, plants, objects and sceneries were permitted. Abstract expressionism, collage, surrealism, impressionism and the use of other materials were expressly banned. It was also expected to be celebratory of life as it was in Unity, and never even implicitly critical of it. My fairly negative views confronted my teacher with a dilemma. She was obliged to ensure that my portraits displayed expressions of proprietary and dignity appropriate to the status of whoever I was portraying and to suppress any experimentation in content or materials. But when we were alone together she showed me pictures of the more modern art you can find in the City and in the Art Gallery just outside the Suburbs. It was a revelation to me to see sculptures that hinted at physical reality, rather than explicitly expressing it. Paintings that made no attempt to represent photographic reality. Art that used found materials, technology and industrial detritus. And Art that dealt with political and social issues, that showed naked bodies, that depicted aspects of the world in its less salubrious aspects. At first, I was baffled. How could this be Art? I asked myself. But I had somehow opened a door of opportunity and æsthetic expression I’d just never suspected was possible, which seemed somehow much more profound than what I had previously known, and there was no way to close that door. I worked privately on my own pieces, using modern techniques to express myself, but I had to hide them from everyone, including my teacher and most especially my parents.
“They were not keen on my enthusiasm for Art. They considered it a waste of time and effort. Anything of no apparent utility was anathema to them. In fact, they were quite angry when they learnt of my ambition to leave Unity and attend Art School in Lambdeth. This embodied two sins for them, both contemptible: the pursuit of vain worthless endeavour and exposure to the sinful world beyond Unity’s borough boundaries. They didn’t actually forbid me from studying Art at school: its only virtue in their eyes was that it was the sole subject in which I excelled and could help me graduate from school with sufficiently high grades to be a satisfactory marriageable proposition. However, they did coax me to take a more active interest in science and mathematics. These were worthwhile pursuits as they were so evidently to do with the real world.”
“Didn’t you enjoy science?” Beta asked.
“Not at all. Even though I studied them diligently. The way they were taught was so joyless. It was all equations, laws and facts. It was a process of learning how something was meant to be according to a stated axiom, how it was expressed according to a particular equation and then solved by a neat juggling of figures. Specific gravities. Integrals of parabolic curves. Enzymes and subcutaneous fat. It all seemed so dull and boring. It also seemed so remote from the real world, even though that was exactly what it was supposed to be about. All those strange elements with horrible smells in laboratories. All those measurements of what was supposed to happen which were always wrong, however accurate the measurements, if they contradicted the calculated result. I just couldn’t relate to it at all.
“I much preferred going to the cinema or theatre than studying science. There was only one cinema in Unity, and plays were only staged occasionally at the theatre which was mostly used for functions. I know now how very limited was the selection of plays and films permitted in Unity, but they seemed relatively adventurous at the time. They presented a doorway to the world beyond Unity. A doorway most definitely not present on local television and radio. The world beyond seemed so exciting: full of opportunity and promise. And throughout my adolescence that was where I wanted to be. Anywhere in fact than Unity.”
“Did you have any friends at school who shared your views?” Beta wondered.
“I had very few friends. We were supposed to report any antisocial behaviour or persuasions, and so it was very difficult to make friends in the way which is so natural and ordinary here in the City. This was further complicated by all the political changes that were taking place in Unity.”
“Political changes?” I asked.
“Yes. The way the Illicit Party took power in Unity. In fact it’s not even called Unity any more, though I find it really difficult to think of it by its new name of Rupert.”
“Rupert? But I was in a place called Rupert just a few days ago where I saw the President Chairman address a rally. Was that the same place?”
“I suppose it could have been. But then there are so many towns, villages and boroughs called Rupert now, it’s very likely it was somewhere quite different. Was it a very hilly district, surrounded by forestry and an enormous lake?”
“I didn’t see any hills,” I admitted. “It was very flat open countryside.”
“Then it must have been a different Rupert. It seems every place that has adopted an Illicit local government has honoured the President Chairman by naming itself after him. It seems odd to me that anywhere would choose to name itself after a foreign marsupial dictator, but then I never really warmed to Illiberal Socialism. In fact, I just don’t understand it at all. The Illicit Party didn’t take power suddenly. It was originally banned, along with the Red and Green Parties, but a few Blue Party councillors converted to Illicitism, claiming that the policies of their original allegiance didn’t really represent their ideals or those pursued in Unity. Being in the majority group of the council with the White Party, they unbanned the Illicit Party, and exerted pressure to ban the Black Party which represented the local opposition. Then some of the Black Party candidates converted to the Illicit Party, and the White Party councillors found that they were no longer members of the leading group. They became the official opposition, which they remained until they too were banned and physically expelled from the town.
“At first the change of local government made little difference. After all, everyone in Unity was a member of the Church of Unity, and the council’s policies were fairly consistent with that. There were some changes. A Rupert Youth group was formed and a lot of my fellow pupils joined it. They began wearing dark green overalls, Illicit Party armbands and Rupert badges on their breast. Although, it contravened the strict school uniform rules, the authorities found that enforcement of the policy for these individuals was quite impossible, as so many teachers and parents themselves started wearing Rupert suits. And, of course, the fact that the Rupert Youth could wear different clothes encouraged others to join. Pictures of Chairman President Rupert began appearing everywhere, and, bit by bit, more and more streets, buildings and institutions renamed themselves after Rupert and the causes of the Illicit Party.
“The local government instituted all sorts of apparently popular new decrees. The Illicit Party struck a very sympathetic chord in the people of Unity, even though no one ever seemed sure what it really represented. At first, we were told that Illiberal Socialism was merely the political expression of the Church of Unity, but if this was so why did the council close the churches, ban religious assembly and order the burning of all bibles, hymnals and prayer books? The object of morning assembly seamlessly mutated from the affirmation of faith to the promulgation of political propaganda. A Party official, a tall Rooster whom nobody had ever seen before, would strut and rant on the school stage, inciting us to shout our praises of Rupert and his causes. Political education classes became compulsory, where we had to read the Illiberal Socialist Worker Daily and digest long dull and impenetrable articles, which seemed to be full of the most ridiculous contradictions and assertions. Cinema and television now only showed films imported from the Illiberal Socialist Republics which were either very violent and vindictive or horribly dull.
“The other pupils seemed to love all this stuff, and I felt increasingly isolated. I was picked on for my lack of devotion to the Illiberal Socialist cause, and soon, like everyone else, I had to adopt a Rupert suit myself. At first, it was quite liberating to wear these baggy loose-fitting overalls, but it
was just one uniform replacing another, with the difference being that it was unwise to wear anything else even when not at school. The curriculum was modified to reflect the change of government and Art classes were now made even more restrictive. The only acceptable subject was the portrayal of President Chairman Rupert and the only criterion of excellence was how noble, gracious, wise and virtuous the depiction. If you’ve ever tried painting or drawing a koala you’ll know that this isn’t the easiest task in the world. The most popular pose, and the one we were most encouraged to depict, was of Rupert gesturing into the mid-distance, his chin slightly raised, surrounded by admiring followers in standard issue Rupert suits.”
“Didn’t anyone dissent against all this?” Beta asked.
“Yes. Some. Not many. They were either expelled or incarcerated. At the very least they could expect to lose their jobs. Worryingly, the definition of dissent kept changing. At first it meant demonstrations, protests or circulating seditious material. Later it came to include not wearing a Rupert badge; not hanging a portrait of the President Chairman in the house; reading or owning proscribed literature and not remembering the lyrics of In Praise of Rupert and the Truth. Most people were either active in the Illicit Party or were applying for membership: an honour which became more elusive as demand for it grew. Those who were Illicit Party members had all sorts of privileges and responsibilities denied to everyone else, and so everyone wanted to join.
“I didn’t like Illicit Party members at all. They were never anyone I liked. In fact, the party consisted mostly of bullies or conformists or just the horribly petty. These are probably the very attributes the party most likes and I was sure that my application for membership was doomed from the very start. In any case, I only applied on my parents’ insistence as they were worried that otherwise I might be denied the benefits of a good education. My father told me bluntly he didn’t want any daughter of his to be thought unworthy of the privilege. So every day after school, I obediently attended these tedious meetings where we were favoured with extra indoctrination, and allocated all the boring messy jobs that those who were already Party members didn’t have to do any more. Putting up posters. Selling copies of The Illiberal Socialist Workers Daily and The Truth. Collecting funds door to door.
“Paul, my mentor, as he was called, was a tall, not unhandsome, boy from the year above me, whose wealthy parents had made their fortunes from the egg retail industry. He seemed rather more pleasant than the other Illicit Party mentors, and I considered myself very lucky in having him rather than the others. He smiled readily and sometimes made jokes about the Illicit Party which were very nearly disloyal. He subscribed enthusiastically to the Illicit Party’s views on Cats, Communists, sexual deviants and modern artists, believing that they should all be strung up and tortured. Indeed, one of his less engaging features was his tendency to detail exactly what horrible torments he would be quite happy to administer himself, if need be, on such reprobates. He relished the power his Illicit Party membership had given him, and was quite immodest regarding his conquests of women.
“I soon very much regretted having him as my mentor as his sexual ambitions became more obvious and he expressed them more forcefully. He told me of the various girls he’d made love to, what they had done and how good it had been. I wasn’t at all interested. I had very definite principles regarding relationships and I didn’t want to be considered just a casual lay. I had been inculcated that any sexual liaison outside of legal matrimony was prima facie wrong and fully justified the rather severe sentences that Unity (and now Rupert) attached to the crime. I also knew that it was always the woman rather than the man who would be regarded as the erring partner. He was very insistent however. He made plain that my likelihood of becoming a Party member was very much contingent on satisfying his desires. He variously accused me of being frigid, sexless and a bitch. He told me that women were devised to serve men’s desires and that my reluctance showed that I had none of the qualities demanded of members of the Illicit Party. I had never read or heard anything relating to Illiberal Socialism that said that women were obliged to have sex with men whenever it was demanded, but he dismissed this. It was obvious, he said, that I hadn’t gained a proper understanding of the spirit of the ideology or mastered its more intricate interpretations.
“After a while, he seemed to lose interest in me, having started a relationship with another Party member also blessed with relatively wealthy parents, and who was also one of the most strict and doctrinaire of the female party members. I sometimes speculated whether she permitted Paul the carnal satisfaction he believed was his right, but if ever anyone gave the impression of being frigid it was she.
“One night, after school, he told me to come with him in his car to an outlying district of the borough where there was a perceived need for more posters. He packed the car with piles of posters with Rupert’s face and single word captions like Justice, Plenty and, strangely, Unity. I had no reason to suspect his motives. I had often been in his car before, as had his other party applicants. He always enjoyed showing off his affluence and hated walking. We were soon out of the town, and up in the hills. I had no idea where this village was, but in a vague way I had been looking forward to the journey, as I had so rarely been out there by car. I was a little worried when, high up the hill and far away from the town or, indeed, any village, he slowed the car and pulled it into a layby. And then, it was there, in the evening air, with the sound of frogs chirruping in a nearby brook, and with no one to hear my screams that he ...”
Una abruptly stopped. A tear was dripping down her cheek, and her eyes stared out in horror.
Beta squeezed Una’s hand and smiled kindly. “You don’t have to go on, you know. Not if you don’t want to.”
Una shook her head, squeezed her eyes tight, but more tears squeezed free. “Paul is my baby’s father. He forced himself on me. He slapped me when I resisted. He pushed himself on top and tore off my clothes. He ripped them into rags. He pushed his way into me. Brutally. Savagely. It was loathsome. It was painful. I hated him. I hated it. I shouted. I struggled. And then it was to no avail. Nothing more could be done. It was over. He got dressed and while I was crying and sobbing, he got back into his car and drove away. Not that I would have contemplated ... ever ... whatever the distance home ... ever getting in that car with him again!”
Una paused as more tears streamed down her cheeks while Beta silently comforted her by squeezing her hands in her own. Beta was clearly appalled by Una’s account, but was unable to say anything which could properly express her feelings.
“It must have been the worst day of your life.”
“And so it was. Up until then! I just lay in the grass out of sight of the road for I don’t know how long, numbed and soiled. Eventually, probably because it was getting quite cool, I picked myself up and spent a futile twenty minutes looking for my knickers which Paul had ripped off, but they were nowhere to be found. I had the distressing fantasy that Paul had kept them as a souvenir of his conquest. My clothes were in a terrible state. He’d torn the fabric quite badly, and however hard I tried I couldn’t recover my modesty at all. The front kept falling down. But in a sense I didn’t care. I was so defiled that modesty seemed an unnecessary luxury.
“I walked along the road not knowing where I was going, and with no thought of a destination. It was dark, lit only by the stars and the crescent moon, and only the occasional headlamps of cars illuminated the road. I walked and walked, muttering to myself constantly, cursing Paul, cursing the Illicit Party and cursing myself. I don’t know how long I’d been walking. Hours maybe. Paul had taken me to a very remote part of the countryside. There were fields, hen coops and stretches of road spookily overshadowed by trees.
“I passed several houses, farms and cottages, wondering whether to knock on the door and plea for assistance. I recognised that at some stage I’d have to do this if I were ever going to find my way home. But they were all so forbidding and I was so frightene
d of what they would think of me in my state of distress and immodesty. Eventually I decided to take the chance and approached a small house, isolated in the hills, and one of the few not named after Rupert or one of the Illicit Party icons. I think it might have been called Rose Cottage or something else relatively harmless. There were lights on, shining through the curtains and illuminating the flowerbeds outside. I hesitated on the doorstep for many minutes, and then with a burst of reckless courage I pressed the doorbell and waited for a reply.
“One came fairly soon, from a man in his thirties who I was pleased to see was not wearing a Rupert suit (quite an unusual sight by then). He looked at me with a puzzled expression while I stared at him totally unprepared for what to say. I had somehow imagined that I would know instinctively. It was obvious to him that something was wrong, but he was also not sure how to respond. At last, he asked: ‘How can we help you?’ on which cue I burst into tears and blubbered incoherently.
“‘You better come inside,’ he remarked kindly, opening the door wider and letting me enter. A woman in a loose flowery dress (another rare sight) appeared in the hallway and, after scanning me, asked the man: ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ The two of them started discussing me, as I tried as best I could to cover my breasts with rags of Rupert suit that stubbornly refused to stay in place. At last she announced: ‘Well, she can’t just stay here!’ and I was escorted into their living room and sat down on an old armchair just by the unlit fireplace. I looked blankly around me, just happy to be out of the evening chill and to be with sympathetic people, however unconventionally dressed.
“I gradually became aware of my surroundings. The pictures of landscapes, the photographs of exotic places and a refreshing lack of portraits of Rupert. The couple who owned the cottage sat down on their sofa, and I observed for the first time a third person standing by a book case and looking at the pages of a book which did not have the ubiquitous dark green binding of Illicit Party literature. I’d never seen a woman like her before, though of course she wouldn’t look at all out of place in the City, nor indeed in most of the country. She was a black girl, in itself unusual, with an enormous mass of black curly hair, wearing very tight shorts and a brief singlet which revealed the whole of her navel and the curves of her waist. She was a friend of the couple who owned the cottage, she came from Lambdeth and her name was Anna...”
“Anna!” I exclaimed. “Is it the same Anna? The one I was with two nights ago, Beta?”
My companion frowned. “If it is, she’s certainly changed her appearance.”
“That would be entirely consistent.”
“Do you know her, then?” Una asked, bewildered. “How strange! She was the first person I’d ever met from outside Unity. She was so unconventional and her attitudes so liberating and refreshing. Her language was peppered with expressions I’d never heard before and she had an air of self-confidence women in Unity just never have. She put down the book on Law and the Modern Fowl, and approached me. She asked me questions sympathetically but very bluntly, and very soon pieced together what had happened to me. ‘You poor girl!’ she said again and again. ‘How absolutely jolly horrid it must have been!’
“She managed to steer conversation away from my predicament and talked about life in Lambdeth and how different it was in Unity. It was odd to hear opinions about Unity, and the Illiberal Socialist government, and the way things were done, that were so unashamedly critical and also so much in accordance with my own. I felt a kind of liberation in all my misery. There were other ways of seeing and doing things, and there were places where this was normal. I giggled at her disrespectful comments on President Chairman Rupert and how ridiculous the koala looked with his grandiose gestures, his ankle length overcoats and his broad hat. She made sarcastic comments about Illiberal Socialism: how it never seemed to be sure if it was right, left or centre, but was always authoritarian and dogmatic. The couple nodded in agreement with her, and I became aware that I had somehow stumbled across a house of covert dissidents who I’d always been told were the most abominable and despicable of all people.
“I also noticed that they were sipping a strange clear liquid from curiously delicate glasses and that an open bottle of the substance was sitting on the table. I associated it with the strange smell on Anna’s breath, and felt a frisson of wickedness as I realised that they were partaking in illegal substances: in this case, white wine. I had learnt that alcohol caused people to behave in the most frightful and violent ways, but my hosts seemed nothing but wholly civilised.
“I was beginning to relax, when the doorbell rang. The man stood up, quite startled. He anxiously hid the bottle of wine in a cupboard. He and his wife then went into the hallway, closing the door behind them. Anna stayed with me, holding my hands in hers, occasionally stroking them. ‘I wonder who it could be at this time of night? More visitors, perhaps?’ she mused. The door reopened and the woman appeared again, looking rather agitated. ‘It’s the police!’ She whispered firmly. ‘They’d been informed that a partly naked woman had been seen walking the road near here and they’re asking everyone what they know anything about it. But then they saw that Jacob and I aren’t wearing Rupert suits, and don’t have a picture of the koala in the hallway, and now they’re asking all sorts of questions...’
“The door opened again, and the man entered rather sheepishly with three police officers, one of which was a Rooster. The rest was just an unremitting nightmare. They identified me as the woman who’d been immodestly dressed and I was immediately arrested for indecency and, more seriously, disrespect to the Illicit Party for allowing my Rupert suit to get into such disrepair and losing my arm band. The couple owning the house were arrested for being revolutionary seditionaries, alcohol traffickers, possessors of illegal literature, and a whole host of other crimes, - some of which seemed to be based more on idle fantasy than from any evidence that I could see. They were even charged with having encouraged me to dress immodestly. Anna was also arrested, but as she came from Lambdeth even the police decided it was futile to press too many charges, although they were very rude and abusive to her.
“From then on, the nightmare just deepened. Anna was expelled. The couple who owned the cottage were put on trial for a preposterous litany of crimes. And I ... I was totally humiliated. I wasn’t likely to be executed, as seemed quite likely for Jacob and his wife, but the crimes I’d been found guilty of just seemed to pile on me. I was guilty of association with seditionaries, use of alcohol, promiscuity and indecency. Then, while imprisoned in a police cell with a woman accused of adultery, and denying it vehemently, other charges were directed at me. Paul gave evidence of my promiscuity and of my shamelessness in seducing him away from his betrothed for the satisfaction of my base lustful cravings. His fiancée even came into my cell for the sole purpose of spitting in my face. Pupils from my school gave evidence of my anti-social views and my lack of enthusiasm for the cause of Illiberal Socialism. I was supposed to have been stirring dissent amongst my fellows. My paintings, drawings and sculptures were deemed proof of a seditionary and unacceptable disposition. Not only those I had done before the town had converted to Illiberal Socialism, but even those since. I had failed to portray the high standards of propriety and dignity associated with the great President Chairman. The fact that my Art teacher was now serving a jail sentence for distributing illegal literature and corrupting minors became evidence of how far from vindication I was.
“My parents were not at all supportive. My mother even said that she’d always suspected that I wasn’t worthy to be a daughter of her husband. She said some very hurtful things. This became particularly bad when I was not only diagnosed as no longer being a virgin - and therefore guilty of the crime of pre-marital sex - but also pregnant. My father slapped me forcefully on the face, cutting the inside of my cheeks against my teeth and making me spit out blood. My mother declared that my father and she had decided to disown me. ‘A slut like you can never truly be our daughter!’
/> “As a minor, I couldn’t be executed or imprisoned for my crimes. Being pregnant, I couldn’t be caned, lashed or put in the stocks. So at my trial a couple of months after I was arrested, the court reluctantly decided to expel me from the district of Rupert for the rest of my life: a punishment they believed severe enough for me to atone for the severity of my crimes. I stood in the dock, between two police officers, tears running down my cheeks from the humiliation of the horrid things that had been said about me, hardly hearing the actual sentence through a haze of fear and worry. The magistrate sat in his Rupert suit beneath an enormous portrait of the President Chairman, and gave a long and unflattering account of me and how I represented the kind of scum that the district had throughout its history tried to excise, and that my expulsion could only be welcomed by right-thinking townspeople. I gazed up at the idealised portrait of Rupert which depicted him holding a set of scales in which enemies of Illiberal Socialism such as Cats and Anarchists were shown tipping off and falling into what appeared to be the flames of hell. And it was to there that I felt I was now consigned!”
“And so that’s how you came to be in the City when we met you?” I asked. “You had been expelled and you made your way there.”
“Yes. Where else could I go? I thought that here at least I could start a new life. But it wasn’t an easy journey from Unity. Quite a few hundred leagues separate the City from my home town, and I had very little money. In fact, I had nothing but the Rupert suit I was given to wear and some basic possessions: now long since stolen. I travelled by foot, by hitch-hiking and by clambering onto the wagons of freight trains. I lived by begging and very soon even had to sell my body just to have enough to eat. I travelled through many different boroughs: some much more friendly than others. I stayed for a month in Lambdeth, which gave me a foretaste of life in the City, and which compared to Unity seemed quite urban enough.
“By the time I’d reached the City I was quite noticeably pregnant, and I had already suffered more than I’d believed possible. I had slept in barns and deserted hen coops, often sharing with other animals usually much better prepared for sleeping rough than me. The only beds I slept in had been those of men who were paying to have sex with me, often quite perversely because I was pregnant, rather than despite it. I had lost and gained clothes and possessions. I was hungry, filthy and ragged. I had expected the City to be big, busy and full of buildings and monuments of splendour and size. I hadn’t expected so much poverty. When I had learnt that even the poorest people in the City earned thousands of guineas a week, I thought that everyone in the City was phenomenally rich, and hoped to gain some of this bounty. But I hadn’t realised just how very expensive the City is, and I soon came to learn that my pregnancy, my vagrancy and my lack of friends discriminated against me in the City just as much as it did everywhere else.
“For the wealthy, the employed and the tourist, there is much to recommend the City. It has none of the petty tyranny of Unity. People can say and do pretty much what they like. For those like me, the City is sheer hell. I soon regretted coming here, but where else was I to go? At least I could beg and uncomfortable though they may be there are places to sleep at night where you risk assault, but are usually just left alone. The parts of the City I spent most of my time were not those that I would ever have chosen to visit as a tourist. I slept in derelict building sites, deserted houses, park benches and railway stations: often just to be evicted by police or by those who reckoned they had better rights to sleep there than me.
“I learnt about aspects of the City no one had ever told me about. The crime and violence. The gang warfare between the different species. Bird against reptile. Rooster against Sparrow. I learnt to identify which districts were effectively out of bounds to humans like me. Districts where it is dangerous to walk at any time of night and day. Districts where there is casual violence and gang warfare. Districts as small as a block or as large as a whole borough. There have been nights where I’ve sheltered behind cars as gangs fought with machetes, submachine guns and flick-knives causing unspeakable harm to each other. I’ve seen people killed. Sometimes suddenly in a blaze of gunfire: often randomly directed at a street full of people presumably in retribution for similar horrors against the perpetrators. Sometimes slowly in horrifying agony: screams echoing around the streets and people walking by not wishing to look too closely in case they too attract attention.
“The violence became worse the closer it came to the General Election. There are many gangs who have adopted political allegiance to one party or another. There are gangs which support the Black Party. They dress in black, often in leather, and direct their hatred against particular species, particularly Cats, and more often other races of the same species. The hatred expressed by spaniels towards terriers, white humans against brown ones, mustangs against ponies: it’s senseless and obscene. There are gangs which support the Red Party, the Blue Party, even the White and Green Parties. I don’t believe the gangs even know or care what the political parties they supposedly support actually represent. They’re just another badge of membership to set themselves apart from other gangs.
“What horrified me most, however, was how so many gangs now seem to support the Illicit Party. And these are the gangs which seem to be the most violent, the most well armed and the best organised. How did that happen? And do any of them have any idea what it would be like for them to actually live in an Illiberal Socialist society? I soon came to fear the Illicit Party gangs more than the others. They were the ones who clung most jealously to their territories, who would be most likely to organise political demonstrations and who soon became most famous for their use of grenades, mortar bombs and semtex. In one case I heard of, but thankfully never saw, an Illicit gang managed to invade a Red Party gang stronghold, and, unlike the usual practise of a symbolic victory marked by a few murders and a quick retreat, they methodically massacred every single member of that gang, apparently using some pretty horrible methods of torture not to gain information but simply to inspire terror and what they call respect.”
“That sounds horrible!” gasped Beta. “Don’t the police do anything to stop it?”
“They’re mostly totally impotent. And they’re pretty corrupt as well: often themselves involved in the organised crime that goes on in the City. I never got involved in gangs at all. I’m a foreigner to the City. Gangs only recruit from amongst those who’re born here. It’s safer for them. But I’ve suffered from the crime. I’ve had everything I’ve had stolen not once but several times. Whenever I have anything, it gets stolen! I’ve been attacked - totally randomly and with no provocation. I’ve been raped several times. My pregnancy has been no defence at all from any kind of abuse. I have lived a life of begging, prostitution and even petty theft. I have been maltreated, abused and threatened. The City is most definitely not paved with gold. I’ve only known the very occasional guinea that gets dropped onto the cracked and shit-covered pavements. The City has not been kind to me, and I cannot be expected to be kind about it!”
“...And then we met you!” smiled Beta with as much reassurance as she could. “But surely we haven’t been the first people who’ve shown you kindness?”
“No. You haven’t. I’ve met many kind people. Not just those who throw me money as I beg: even some of those who have paid for my sexual services haven’t been too ungenerous. There have been people who have extended a helping hand. Given me a hostel bed for the night. Given me money. Just taken the time to speak to me. Helped me after I’ve been beaten or raped. Enough people to remind me that kindness and goodness exists everywhere. But what can they do? They can’t afford to help me for very long. They haven’t the money or resources.”
“But Lord Arthur has the resources and power. He helped you,” Beta reminded Una.
“Lord Arthur? The enormous lion? Well, yes, he did help me. He took me away with him on his back out of the park where we met him into the wide streets of the City. That would probably have been fun for me if
I’d have been in a fit state to appreciate it. People and cars just parted like waves to let him pass as he strode carefully along the avenues to the hotel where he was staying. And a very impressive hotel it was too. I’d often passed hotels like this in my wanders. I may even have raided the waste bins of that very one. Towering high above everything: enormous suites and servants everywhere. The furnishings were gilt and sparkling. The carpet was piled high in luxury. As we entered the hotel foyer, we were descended upon by countless minions who attended to Lord Arthur and on his instructions whisked me off with great care and attention to his hotel suite, high above the City. The maids were most solicitous of my health and it seemed they couldn’t do enough to help me and make me as comfortable as they could. I was fed with a very full and appetising meal, which was fortunately not too rich for my weakened state, my body was cleaned and my filthy, fusty clothes were replaced by crisp clean laundry-smelling ones.
“I was laid in a large double poster bed: the most comfortable bed I had ever been in and incredibly welcome after so many months of sleeping on the hard pavement surface. The room was especially large to accommodate the lion. The room was as large as one of those in an art gallery: able to allow Lord Arthur space to pace back and forth in front of the wide windows while talking to himself and barking out instructions to the maids. He promised me so much. He said he would get expert attention to ease my pregnancy. He said he would see that I would have a home to stay in after I had given birth. He said that he would atone for his neglect of the poor and needy by treating me in a way that would compensate for the many millions of lives he had directly or indirectly ruined.
“Most of all, however, he spoke about himself. And most of what he said was rambling, incoherent and quite clearly not said with me as the listener in mind. He cursed the Red Party for coming into power. He cursed the banks for not extending his credit when he needed it most. He cursed his advisers. He cursed himself. As he droned on and on, I dozed off to sleep, occasionally awakened by a growl or a subdued roar. Even in all that opulent splendour, my chief concern was for my baby and the occasional pain it caused me as he struggled inside me.
“I never spoke to the lion again. My afternoon and night alternated between deep and fitful sleep. Sometimes I was awake for long enough to see if it was day or night. The tall buildings of the City surrounding the hotel seemed much less forbidding now that I was elevated so high above the streets. I saw them lit by the high afternoon sun, and then, seemingly not long after, they were looming shadows lit by rectangles of lighted windows. It was then that I realised I was again sharing the room with Lord Arthur who was stretched out on the hotel floor, almost like an enormous kitten and not nearly as formidable as when he was awake. I smiled to myself, content that I was secure, and slept soundly until late this morning.
“However, I was misled. I wasn’t going to become Lord Arthur’s charitable concern. I was woken, not as I’d hoped by the sound of one of the maids in a smart apron and hat carrying a breakfast tray, but by very rough shakes and the unsympathetic: ‘Wake up, you slut! Wake up! It’s time you cleared out of the room!’
“I opened my eyes to look at a stern tall Rooster in a uniform surrounded by some rather threatening uniformed staff. ‘Wassat?’ I asked, not really believing the dramatic change of treatment from the day before. ‘Where’s Lord Arthur?’“
“‘He’s gone! And so’s his credit! He’s not paid for the room and not likely to do so either. You can’t pay for him, can you?’
“I shook my head. I had nothing. I was pushed out of bed and only allowed enough time to get some clothes on before being roughly escorted down the back stairs reserved for servants, and out by the rear entrance into an alleyway of rubbish bins and wastepaper, just between the hotel and some law courts. The staff who escorted me, carrying me off the ground by my shoulders and only just mindful of my pregnancy, showed very little of the respect and courtesy the staff had expressed the previous day. They didn’t disguise any of their contempt for the ‘pathetic old bankrupt’ they considered Lord Arthur to be. I came to realise that they considered me to be some kind of whore that the lion had brought into his room for some perverse sexual activity, and that they had seen enough of this kind of activity not to consider it at all unusual, even if it didn’t soften their disgust for it.
“So, I was back in the streets. My baby was kicking me from inside. And the City was just crowding in on me. All I wanted was somewhere to rest, but wherever I went was wrong. I was always pushed on by someone or something. And I suppose that’s how I came to be in the Ambassadorial district when you met me. I’ve no idea how I got there! I was in such a haze! Everything was so unreal! The only thing I knew was the pain I was in!”
“But you’re here now!” said Beta comfortingly. “You’re safe and sound! All you need now is to go to sleep and rest. Everything will be all right.”
“I hope so!” exclaimed Una, desperate to believe Beta. “I do hope so! I would so like my baby’s first days to be ones of comfort and security.” She raised her head and glanced at her child asleep in a pose of utter abandon. “I hope that after all I have been through there will yet be a happy resolution!”
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